In 1998, I was fresh out of high school and barely had any money. I worked part-time as a tour guide at a children's museum. With my list of responsibilities still relatively small, buying records usually rose to the top of the priority list. In those days, Tuesdays were new release days and I made it a point to hit up my local record stores, whether it was for a specific new release or to discover something unknown from the display rack. My favorite store at the time was Rapsutin's in Campbell, CA (where I would later work). The hip hop buyer was a guy named Ken Hamilton. Ken was also known as Spiderman, the host of a local community college radio show called The Monday Beatdown. When you frequent a record store every week, you end up getting to know the people that work at the shop. Eventually, I knew that if Ken put something out on the display rack that Tuesday, it was something I'd buy. I would spend about $60 each week, often taking chances on things I'd never even heard of. In 1998, $60 wasn't anything to sneeze at, because pretty much every 12 inch single was $5.99 and full-lengths were more in the $12-15 range.
One of those Tuesdays, I stumbled across a plain-sleeved 12 inch called "The Wildlife" by someone named Buck 65. I am pretty sure the display just had a post-it note that said "recommended." As I said, if Ken put it on the display then I was in. When I got home and listened to it, the menacing bassline of "Wildlife 1" got me. Then the vocals came in, kinda weird, but in the best way. The lyrics were even weirder, which definitely appealed to me. The label said lyrics were by someone named Stinkin Rich, cuts were by someone named DJ Critical, and the beats were by someone named Buck 65. I didn't know who the hell any of them were, but I liked it. In retrospect, this is still one of my favorite things Buck has done and there's one line that jumped out at me back then and still hits me the same. Towards the end of "Wildlife 2," after detailing a game of basketball at a creepy camp, the narrator says:
"A message written on a piece of paper...from a notebook, saying "put this on," with a tuxedo on the coat hook in my locker was there."
I can't hear that line without wondering how it came to be. It's bizarrely Yoda-like. The sentence structure is so odd, but sticks in your brain like glue. Back then, I wondered who the hell this guy was, but I also knew it was something special. I taped the record onto a cassette full of recent purchases, along with others like the Sixtoo/Moka Only split record on Hand Solo and the Of Mexican Descent "Exitos Y Mas Exitos EP." I ended up listening to it a lot.
1998 was also the year that I started recording my own music and the year I put out my first two releases. One of those tapes ended up in the hands of P-Minus, who ran the ATAK Mail Order Catalog. ATAK was THE place to go for underground rap. You could find more polished stuff like Atmosphere, but also some of the backpackiest of all backpacker raps from artists who were often named after a comic book character and were so underground that they were chillin' at the Earth's core. Tapes were still the dominant format for indie artists and the most likely format found in a car. Just as my home-dubbed cassettes ended up at ATAK, so did a rapper from Maine named Tim Holland, aka Sole. Tim knew P-Minus through tape trading and he was crashing at his place when he first made it to California. Long story short, Sole heard my tape and called me. Why am I veering off on this tangent? I eventually ended up driving to Oakland and Sole and his friends (Moodswing9, pedestrian, and Matth) welcomed me as a new friend and collaborator. One of the greatest things about that time period was the excitement and energy surrounding music. There were so many ideas bubbling and lots of great music was being exchanged. One day, pedestrian gave me a dub of a 90 minute tape called Vertex.
I honestly don't know if I immediately made the connection to the Wildlife 12 inch, but the tape was shared with high praise and it immediately hit the tape deck in my Toyota Corolla. In reality, that tape hardly left the deck and I ran it so many times that it eventually snapped. I hadn't ever heard anything like it. It had all the elements that I liked, but it was also such an intriguing approach. The minimal SP1200 beats were never stale and they crept in and out before overstaying their welcome. The dialog samples were so unique and became things I would randomly mutter. There were the amazing baseball songs, the dj cuts, and the song about his knowledge of drum breaks. I would go record shopping with Moodswing9 and Matth frequently and we'd exchange stories about Buck. He took on a larger-than-life persona with things like:
"did you hear he was on Sesame Street?"
"he was scouted by the majors..."
"Christy Turlington hit on him at the airport"
His knowledge of drum breaks became legendary (to me at least). I had a 30+ page printout of breaks that supposedly originated from him and Mr Dibbs, but I had to keep it secret that I had it (this will be the first time he hears of this). It never actually proved too fruitful in my searches, but it definitely helped add to his mystique. From the songs on Vertex to the tales that we told, he seemed highly principled in this area and we all came up with bizarre rules about what was acceptable and what was a "sucker" move. In this pre-discogs world, the depth of his drum break collection was something that really fascinated me. I was still very green and the tales surrounding him actually made me a bit afraid of him. He lived in Canada and I lived in California, so I never anticipated meeting him, but we crossed paths at Scribble Jam in 2000.
I've always been on the more quiet, reserved side, so I usually keep to myself. If I really admire someone, I'm less likely to talk to them. I know I talked to Buck at Scribble Jam, maybe at a noisy show at Top Cats. I took a photo of him at the main event center while he was wearing his "Mount Uniacke" baseball jersey (we will come back to that). I also took a picture of him demonstrating "The Gear Shifter" with my Lomo Action Sampler Camera. As you can see in the photo, The Gear Shifter was a dance simulating shifting gears in a car/truck.
I arrived at Scribble Jam with a fresh batch of Left Handed Straw CDs. This was my first "big" release. It was essentially a mixtape of beats that I had made for people, soundscapes I had recorded on a handheld recorder, and some little interludes I pieced together. Although I wouldn't say LHS is in the same league as Vertex, I think they are from the same lineage. On both releases, there's essentially no silence, with every song bleeding into the next one. I'd been doing that same style since my first two tapes, but it would be foolish to say that Vertex didn't have an influence on how LHS came out. I had been listening to it endlessly for months. So, here I am at Scribble Jam with this new project I made and I get a chance to give a copy to one of my favorites. I don't remember much else about that interaction, probably because it was loud and I was anxious about it.
A few weeks or months later, I got a phone call at my studio apartment in Berkeley, CA. "Hi, this is Buck 65's management. He was wondering if it would be okay if he called you." I am not sure if I actually laughed at the person on the phone, but I definitely chuckled to myself. I knew that we had already spoken and I am definitely not someone you need to get permission to talk to, so it struck me as kind of odd. It was exciting and humorous regardless. As I type this, I don't even know if we ever did talk or if I just relayed this info to someone else, but I know that he was really drawn to something I sampled on Left Handed Straw. There was an interlude with some dialog that says "my mother wanted me to play Mozart. I liked baseball" and he wanted to ask me about it. That was in the year 2000.
In April of 2001, there was a release party at a hybrid streaming/in-person venue called iMusicast in Oakland. The show was a dual release party for the Anticon Gigasingle compilation and for Buck 65's "Man Overboard" album. I did a set, accompanied by some old videos that my friend and I had made (you can watch it here). That night, I happened to wear the Mount Uniacke baseball jersey that said Buck 65 on the back. I was also wearing a fake mustache. Although it was a Man Overboard release party, Buck was not in attendance. It didn't occur to me at the time, but perhaps my fake mustache and Buck 65 jersey was a little confusing. Someone came up to me and was legitimately mad at me because I was not Buck 65. Okay, sorry.
A few years go by and I had not spoken to Buck since that phone call in 2000. I also had that unsuccessful moment as an unintentional Buck 65 impersonator. In short, we really didn't know each other that well, but I'd spent a lot of time getting to know this mysterious character through his music. My only other contact point came on April 8th, 2004. Buck was doing a show with DJ Signify at Cafe Du Nord in San Francisco, which happened to be right down the street from where I lived. I had recently put out an EP of instrumental songs on the Canadian label Bully. I was happy to bring a copy for each of them and to hang out with them before the show. We chatted for a bit outside. It was a typically cold SF night, so we went inside. Before I really knew what was going on, Signify ushered me in a different direction and Buck mysteriously disappeared. The mysterious legend grew. What the hell just happened? He put on a great show, cutting up doubles of records while rhyming at the same time. He also did a hilarious Mick Jagger routine that explained Mick's dance moves (Mick opens the curtains, looks to see who is outside...).
April 8th, 2004, that was the last time I spoke to him. From buying that Wildlife 12 inch in 1998 up until that night in 2004, we'd only interacted about 2-3 times, but I'd spent so much time with his words running through my head. On Vertex, there is a little vignette where he says "The older I get, the more life starts to make sense, and the less I care." I have run that phrase through my mind countless times. The more I thought about it, the more I appreciated it. Economy of words at its best.
My life changed in a lot of ways. I lost contact with a bunch of people. I didn't really make or release music for almost 10 years. Buck kept his run rolling much longer than I did, but I saw that he had also stepped away from music. Even though I wasn't putting anything out, that curiosity and interest in combining sounds never really goes away. Sometimes you just run low on your energy reserves and become more of an observer than a participant. Around 2017, my kids were a bit older and I was a bit less tired. I slowly inched my way back from observer to participant again. In 2019, a friend told me that Buck was on Instagram with a private account under a randomly generated name. I put in the follow request, unsure if it would be approved. Within a day or so, it was. Was this really Rich? He was posting about rare drum breaks, so the odds were good. It had been so long since I'd talked to him and the internet is so incredibly weird that I honestly had no idea if this was really him.
On May 3rd, 2019 (I just went back and looked), I sent a DM saying it was me and that I was getting back into music and wanted to see if he'd want to contribute anything. Again, not knowing if this was really him, I expected it to either be ignored or even to possibly be met with a "kick rocks, kid." This is not to say that I ever thought poorly of Rich or expected him to be mean, moreso that I hadn't spoken to him in 15 years and I knew he'd stopped releasing music. As I mentioned before, that desire to combine sounds never goes away, so I had this hope that I could convince him to do something, even a line or two. To my surprise, he was in. Basically, no questions asked, let's do it. I had wanted to do a song with this guy for years and I never thought it would happen, but it turns out that all I had to do was ask.
In his response, he said "I haven't recorded anything in at least five years." He seemed enthusiastically interested, but I was realistic in my expectations and kinda didn't think it would happen. In reality, I still wasn't 100% sure that this was THE Stinkin' Rich and wasn't just some internet troll catfishing me. We exchanged occasional messages on IG and I secretly pieced together a whole album's worth of material. I figured if it was going to happen, let's shoot for the moon. Worst case, he picks one beat and we do one song. I was really stuck on him saying that he hadn't recorded in 5 years. I also mentioned that I wanted to do something like the Vertex days, because that album was really important to me. I knew he'd sampled a line from Buffalo 66 on Man Overboard and that he was a big fan. That movie came out in that period of our initial encounters. As you can hear in the iMusicast video above, I had also sampled a line from the movie. I felt like it was a shared interest and an anchor for the time period I was hoping to channel. There's a scene in the movie where Ben Gazzara says "I like to sing to them...I hope I can still get up there" and I thought that summarized our situation and what we were diving into.
In December of 2019, I sent Buck my demo and some ideas. He asked if we could talk on the phone and go through things. I was prepping for the worst, thinking it would be a list of changes that needed to be made, beats that weren't going to make the cut, etc. Instead, it was one of the nicest conversations I've ever had and he was so complimentary of everything. Here I was, talking to a real human who sure sounded like Rich, but I couldn't believe what I was hearing and I honestly wouldn't have been surprised if Ashton Kutcher popped out and said "you've been Punk'd!" Fast forward a year from that first DM and not only was it really Buck, but we were now good friends. We surprise-dropped our album "Tommy and Richie present...Billy" on May 1st, 2020. The album was well-received and people were happy to hear that familiar voice again. (the long awaited vinyl preorders recently went up at https://shop.handsmade.xyz).
"Billy" was a good project for both of us. There were no expectations, so it gave us freedom to do whatever we wanted. I learned a lot from working on it and I think it inspired both of us to keep pushing ahead. I ended up making two instrumental albums in the year following "Billy." Buck and I stayed in touch and we discussed working on another record. He kept mentioning he'd have more time after he finished a little project he was working on. He hinted at this a few times and then, maybe a year later, the clues started to get more focused and specific. Then he asked if I thought D-Styles would be willing to do some cuts on a song. I assured Rich that D will most likely be down and is great to work with. Buck texts me a day later "Dave got back to me with a part already and he KILLED it!" Buck tells me he has vocals on about 8 of 20 parts. I still have no idea what he's working on.
3 weeks later, he asks me if I have a cassette deck. He wants to send me this new project on a cassette. This kind of makes me laugh, but is also flattering. Sure, I will take a hand dubbed tape of some secretive new Buck 65 project. Then he's asking me about mastering and I line him up with Deeskee, who mastered "Billy." Before I know it, a soundcloud link hits my inbox and...
Holy moly.
First song..."woah, dang, he went off on this one." Next one comes in and "oh shit, this one too." Then "wow, he's stylin on this one."I'm texting him stuff like "this Zulu chant distorted digiridoo beat is bananas."
Before I had heard any of it, he'd mentioned doing something like 25 copies on cassette. We were brainstorming ideas of how he could maybe press up 50 copies of the album on vinyl. I humored his modesty and understood. Sometimes all we really want to do is make the music and get the ideas out. The second part, releasing it and dealing with the logistics, can be both rewarding and also a total drag. But now that I'm listening to it I basically have to virtually (by text) grab him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. This record is incredible and modesty needs a swift kick to the face. It's a rap nerd's wet dream. Without counting, I'd guess there are more samples than Paul's Boutique and possibly more samples than any album, period. There are more rap references and inside jokes than you can shake a stick at. It's a highly enjoyable, fun listen. There are literal LOL moments. It's also one of the most impressive collages of drum breaks I've ever heard. He named the album "King of Drums" and it is confidently fitting. The title made me think back to those early days when I only knew of him as the mysterious urban legend, major league potential, super model airport charmer who was highly principled in his search for drums. I recently remembered him telling me that he was close to securing an elusive break from a 1970s cult, with his fingers crossed as he heard the woman had consulted with the cult leader for permission to sell the record. In a time when sampling YouTube rips is common practice, the King of Drums is corresponding with cult members to secure his fix.
After running the album a few times, I helped him work out a few ideas and connected him with a label. Next thing I know, we've got Zack from Handsmade Records in the thread and suddenly I'm workshopping some ideas for cover art (see video above).
Looking back at all of this, it feels a bit surreal to me. I was a teenager when I randomly bought a record by some guy named Buck 65. A year later, we had some mutual friends, A year after that, we crossed paths in a few humorously mysterious encounters. When we split paths that night in 2004, I never would have guessed that I would end up doing an album with this guy in 2020 and that in 2022 I'd be doing the art for what is, without a doubt, one of his best albums. It's been a really cool experience to see him tap back into that motivation. When we released "Billy," quite a few people messaged me and said they were so happy to hear Rich rapping again and that it was something they'd hoped for, but didn't think they'd ever get. While "Billy" is its own special thing and we are both proud of it, some people understandably wanted the whole package, with the renaissance man back on beats, cuts, and vocals.
Stay tuned, because you're in for a treat.
- Tommy (Controller 7)
May 20, 2022
Follow Controller 7 on Substack here.
