5 Questions with Rags #77 - Deuce Eclipse (Bang Data)

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If you're plugged into the West Coast hip-hop scene, there's a good chance you've seen or heard the man known as Deuce Eclipse, whether you know it or not. See, about 16 years ago, I went to my first proper live hip-hop show, a couple of weeks after I turned legal drinking age up here in British Columbia. It was a Quannum Projects tour featuring Lyrics Born and friends. Among those friends was powerful Zion-I. At that time, Zion-I was three people and one of those people was singer/rapper/generally amazing human being, Deuce Eclipse. It wasn't until the summer of last year (2019) - when Garden City Grooves festival here in my hometown announced they were bringing Bay Area groove-monster BANG DATA as part of the years festivities – that I realized that not only had I encountered Deuce Eclipse's captivating talents more than a decade and half before, but he has been (and still is!) putting out ridiculously groovy, thoughtful, passionate music with the powerhouse that is Bang Data.

Paired up with the multi-talented Caipo, Eclipse formed Bang Data and the duo hasn't stopped creating since, carving out a special place in the west coast music scene. “I was working on a solo album and I was working with Amp Live, from Zion-I, at the time. We kind of hit a wall. I was trying to do more singing in more Spanish, so he took it upon himself to reach out to other people and put them in touch with me. That's how I met Caipo,” Eclipse says, speaking to me from home in the Bay. “At the beginning, Amp Live was actually part of Bang Data. He was still in Zion-I and it was taking off, so he had to be there more, so Bang Data ended up being me and Caipo. At the end, we're the ones who stuck it out, stayed in the studio and started creating. Caipo thought he was basically kind of done playing live, but I think the music inspired him in a way that he wanted to start playing again. We started recording and coming up with all kinds of different music, then we ended up staying together as a group.”
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1. When's the last time you did something for the first time?

I don't know why this is coming up, but when I water-skied, a long time ago. This was years and years ago, somewhere in California on a camping trip. My friend's dad had a boat with skies. I don't know why but the first time I snow-skied as well, I did it the first time. I don't know how I did it the first time but I did. I got up water skiing for the first time with no problem. I think it was for Boy Scouts. That's one of the first times I did something that stands out in my mind. But I've never done it since.

2. If you could spend the day with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and what would you do?

It would be my dad. I would spend the day with him and we would probably catch a Giants game, drink some beer and just talk.

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5 Questions with Rags #76 - Keysha Freshh

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2019 has been an incredible year for hip-hop and one of the best rap releases of the year belongs to Toronto MC Keysha Freshh. If you've been paying attention, it's not really a surprise that Freshh is releasing such on-point hip-hop right now. With a slew of other releases and her incredible work with The Sorority, Freshh is a proven veteran. Field Trip is a deep blast of bangers, perfect in the car or on in your room with those good headphones. Talking to me shortly before heading out west to BC for the final tour with her comrades in The Sorority, Freshh explained the genesis of this chapter in her career. “Field Trip was basically inspired by me wanting to tell a story that I felt was necessary to tell about my life at the time and where I was. It also felt like I was going on a journey at that part of my life. Basically writing the music, putting it all together and working on the album and every part of the album really was a special moment for me and that’s what made the whole process important.” The importance of her moment is evident in music. Field Trip sounds vital, important and aware. The sound on the album is a luscious balance of warm and heavy. Freshh's MCing, the main event, is unimpeachable. Check out the bars on “Hero,” one of the most alarmingly honest tracks of the year. Or the relentless battle rap of “Blah Blah.” Even if you haven't heard anything else she's done, a couple of listens through Field Trip and you'd be convinced that Keysha Freshh on the mic is hella serious business. If there's one thing we support over here at Rags Music, it's top-shelf hip-hop. So I was more than a little bit excited when Freshh was able to throw some of her time to answer the latest round of 5 Questions with Rags.

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1. Do you remember the first album you bought with your own money?

The first album that I had was Mecca and the Soul Brother (Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth). The first album that I bought with my own money was Beware of Dogs by Bow Wow, that was on a CD. First vinyl I owned was Boogie Down Productions Criminal Minded. It was given to me by my cousin.

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5 Questions with Rags #75 - Alexis Tucci

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A couple of years ago, in the middle of that lull between Christmas and New Years, I saw Alexis Tucci lay down a ridiculous set of disco/house goodness at Lucky Bar here in my hometown Victoria. I knew nothing about her when I got there, but was instantly elated with her DJ ing, her very shiny jacket and, most of all, the very obvious joy she was taking from playing for the sweaty mass in front of her. Since then I've found that she's basically a legend in St. Louis. (And if you want to dispute the use of the term 'legend', you don't make a 30 year career in music, playing or promoting it, without being some kind of legend.) It's taken a couple of years but she's finally back in Victoria (Unless I just missed her some other time in between...) except this time she's here for Halloween instead of Christmas. “I love Halloween. I love the celebration. Everybody gets to act like somebody other than themselves, let loose and be weird,” says Tucci, from her hometown St. Louis. “I wish it was like that every day. But it's the one holiday that really puts the exclamation point on it.”

Usually at this point in the 5 questions I'd present some more thoughts, feelings and/or facts about the answerer. When I talked with Tucci she told me an incredible story about building community through music, that I think really encapsulates what makes the work she's doing, in DJ ing and in promoting, something very special.

“I went to AfrikaBurn, was brought in through a group of South Africans that had met me at Burning Man months prior. I had known since Burning Man that I had this invitation to go to AfrikaBurn to play for this brand new camp. They'd never built a sound camp and were building this camp for my arrival. But I couldn't fully confirm because my father was very ill and he ended up passing two weeks before Africa Burn was supposed to happen. So I decided to pack my bags after his passing and head out there. The people who actually brought me out I had never met before and they had never me but obviously we were connected through music. The camp they had set up for us – the soundsystem, the way that it was laid out – was so perfectly crafted and hand built, small and intimate, very much the way I would have done it myself. Out in Africa. It was just perfect.
After the first night of dropping my first track, the place exploded. And everything that we've been building in St. Louis, I felt reflected by all of these strangers from all over the world in front of me. Because I was basically the only DJ for the sound camp – there were a couple other people they knew of, but in general I held down all the hours. Anywhere from 4-6 hours a night. The last night I played 10 hours back-to-back with this South African DJ. Every night from the second the first record dropped to the second the last record played, I had a totally packed crowd in the middle of the desert, with the wind blowing in this tent. The relationship with these people was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before and it was the best DJing I've executed, ever. Completely free of trepidation, fear or self-consciousness or anything. It was so comfortable.”

1.What's the first album you bought with your own money?
That's a really tough answer. I really can't remember so I'm going to give you a different answer. Thievery Corporation and Dub Syndicate, because those were the records I started buying. I did buy a ton of disco and funk. Disco has been the foreshadowing tone of my entire 30-year career. It makes me laugh, every once in awhile I'll remember another something that happened eons ago when disco music was a priority for me, and I forgotten about it, and here I am making a career out of it. Frankie Knuckles “The Whistle Song” was the very first track that I was really able to identify with and geek out. Once I was going to parties – you know once you get past the point where it sounds like one long song and you really can start differentiating between DJing, what you're listening to – that song was the one. Frankie Knuckles is the godfather of House. He's the man. If you listen to the song now it sounds so dated, but those are the foundations, when disco switched over to house music.

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5 Questions with Rags #74 - Lance Loiselle of LowDown Brass Band

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This past summer I had the privilege of finally getting to see Chicago's mightly LowDown Brass Band live, in the flesh, for the first – and I sincerely hope not the last – time. The powerful band dazzled me instantly when I stumbled across their cover of the ska classic “Ghost Town” sometime in early 2018. As soon as the sweet sounds hit my ear drums, I knew this was a band that I HAD to witness live.
And as if I had willed it into existence, this past summer (2019) they touched down in my hometown, Victoria, British Columbia, for the first time. Part of the landmark 20th Anniversary Victoria Ska & Reggae Festival, LowDown left a huge impression on the crowd – with many people, including the Festival Director, telling me that LowDown was the surprise/new discovery of the festival. One of the most engaging stage shows I've seen in a long time, the interplay both between the band and the audience, and the members of the band with each other, was next level and made it genuinely impossible to dislike anything they were laying down. Deft players and personable dudes, LowDown Brass Band is a band you need to see if you like big brass sounds, hip-hop, funk or really, if you just like getting so LowDown. Go out of your way to see this band before they blow up in the stratosphere (Which is happening incredibly quickly right now it seems). Shortly before they landed here in Victoria, we got ahold of sousaphone player Lance Loiselle in amongst the chaos of relentless touring, for a little instalment of the 5 Questions in which we cover daredevil kayaking, the importance of practice and a theoretical days with a pair of musical legends.

1. Do you remember the first album you bought with your own money?

Probably Off the Wall or Purple Rain.

Both classics. If you had to take one to listen to right now, which one you going for?

Probably Michael Jackson. Prince was one of my favourites, but so was Michael Jackson. All that Quincy Jones stuff is classic. Quincy's from Chicago too. He brings that Chicago horn sound to every single thing he touched for Michael Jackson.

2. When's the last time you did something for the first time?

It had to be last summer. I went kayaking in glacial waters. It wasn't that easy.

Had you been kayaking in non-glacial waters?

Glacial waters are like 30 or 40 degrees. You fall in and you're instantly numb. You're gonna fall in. Someone will go in. The river we were on was called Wrong Way.

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5 Questions with Rags #73 - Tom McGuire (Tom McGuire & The Brassholes)

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Sometime in the last couple of months of 2018, the great YouTube algorithm smiled upon me and sent me a downright infectious tune called “Ric Flair,” by Tom McGuire & The Brassholes, a band I had definitely never heard of before. Instantly enamoured with the incredibly catchy single, the song quickly found its way into my daily listening diet. You know that feeling where you find a band but then there's only a few songs/videos to help satiate that sonic lust? Well, that's the feeling I was engulfed with when I started digging a bit more but thankfully for myself, and the rest of the unsuspecting world, Tom McGuire & The Brassholes were mere months away from releasing their self-titled debut album. “We started the record through a crowdfunding campaign last December (2017), which was ultimately successful. We recorded over January and February, and a bit of March too. It's been ready since then and we've been dying to have people have access to it. Nobody knew who were though so we had to kind of build it up to get the point where there would be interest in the album. It's been around about a year we've been waiting to show this to the world,” McGuire says, speaking to me from his home in Glasgow, as he prepares vinyl copies of the album to send to those ahead-of-the-curve listeners who preordered the album. And finally the time has come.

Released into the world January 18, Tom McGuire & The Brassholes is already starting to dazzle listeners with its scope, intimacy, storytelling and straight-ahead musical force. While the album is deep and rich, brimming flourishes and fresh ideas – a clearly thought-out and dense peice of sonic art – “Ric Flair,” that first single that hooked me and apparently a whole gaggle of other people, was created in nearly complete spontaneity. “Me and some of the guys in the band used to host jam sessions in town. Where there would be no one to play I would sometimes just make up songs on the spot to keep myself on my toes. One night I asked 'What's the next song gonna be?' And someone piped out 'Ric Flair!' Ooookay, here we go and I just spat out the chorus line and we spontaneously played the song and it was pretty sick. I held onto it...thankfully I remembered it. I went home and wrote it more fully and I'm very glad I did because it's the reason so many people are caring, having an idea of who we are.” He's right. Because as more people find that song and the album, more people are going to bring Tom McGuire & The Brassholes into their lives. And that means more people dancing, more people experiencing the sonic joy that this incredible band can deliver. And that can only be a good thing. Rags Music is proud to have Tom McGuire as a guest for this instalment of 5 Questions with Rags, as The Brassholes set off on what is sure to be a massive year for this phenomenal band.

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1. Do you remember the first album you bought with your own money?

First album I bought with my own money was...I used to be into punk rock. I still am actually, I love punk rock. My first record I got was a compilation from Nitro Records called Deep Thoughts and it was a killer. And I got Green Day Dookie on cassette tape. That's my roots. I remember that well. My first CD was punk rock and not some shite pop.

Yeah, I've asked that question a lot and there are some pretty regrettable answers.

I'm proud of me. There's nothing to be ashamed of for me.

2. When's the last time you did something for the first time?

Right now there's a lot of firsts happening for me. Being on national radio was a pretty big deal. We were on BBC Scotland when 'Ric Flair' was coming out. We went on BBC Scotland and played a session.

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