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This section of the site will provide some background information about myself and the friendly folks I record music with. Now let me think for a minute...How did this all begin? Hummmm......  
While attending the University of Iowa as a junior college transfer, the NCAA declared me ineligible to play basketball. It was a crushing blow, but 8 years of struggling to earn a scholarship had burnt me out mentally and physically. And besides, I kind'a liked Iowa City. So I closed the book on the hoop dreams and opened a new chapter. Producing hip-hop music. 
I pawned off a bunch of valuables, closed my savings account, and purchased some good starter equipment...a used 4-track and a sampler to loop beats. When I returned to my apartment, the metamorphosis began. I became a total hermit, (free of negative influences like a girlfriend or employment) figuring out a sound jigsaw puzzle. I pieced together snippets of beats, breakdowns, and isolated instruments from a variety of musical sources into 90 minutes worth of instrumentals. 3 months later, I started to dub the works on demonstration tapes for feedback.
My next objective was to get on-line. I knew the world wide web was going to be an excellent tool to promote the music, however, there was one slight problem...I didn't know a damn thing about it! The countless hours of pick-up ball, shooting practice, and weight training had made me internet illiterate. So, for the next 6 months I would pack my book bag, walk to campus and log in. I quickly discovered that the underground "do it yourself" movement was alive and kicking. Plus, many on-line hip-hop headz shared similar, more sophisticated tastes in music.
With the help of studio engineer Bob Hall, the tedious process of dumping tracks and cleaning up all the analog hiss began. Several weeks after that, I brought in some jazz musicians to dub over the basic mixes. DJ Earl-e brought in his decks and added little bits and pieces, then vocals were combined soon after. I personally thought the combined styles and skill levels fit the whole vibe of the project. Mixing down all the takes was a learning experience. The music wasn't just listened too...it was broken down into every frequency range. The process was madd time consuming, but rewarding when everything sounded level.
 When the recording was finished, we had a total of 25 tracks scattered over 3 DAT tapes. It was now my job to edit and only keep the best songs. From that point I selected the best "sense of order" or tracks that blended nicely back-to-back, then a single compact disk was mastered and pressed. Assembling the artwork was another little task, but it was handled swiftly, I'd been laying out the whole "Yen & Slang" concept for over a year with artists Andy Abbey (a.k.a.Toad) and Nan Schwartz. Peep the Cover below!
10 different artists put in various levels of contributions to complete this CD. It was a collaborative effort from the start. However...like most collaborations projects...they reach a peak and decline, basically having rather short life spans, and with this particular effort, it wasn't going to be any different. The CD dropped in February of 1998 without a whisper because all funds for the project were tied into manufacturing. In order to make up for the bonehead miscalculation, I had to aggressively take it to the streets with a shameless barrage of promotion, marketing, and hard sell tactics that would have made any used car salesman proud. Two months later I started to get local airplay and reviews started to trickle in from all sorts of magazines (print and e-zines) remotely down with the underground sound. 
As time went by, I noticed on a "behind the scenes" level, I had made some important contacts in the general area. Solid relationships were built with most of the area DJ's spinning house and techno, and there wasn't a shortage of local lyricists to fill the void of MC. A small fan base did come out to see our shows, and the local press halfway noticed what was going on. A few months later, I was back at it again with a grip of new MC's, and a revolving door of beatjunkies & loop gurus in the production arena. The story continues!
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January 1998
And as the world turns...so did the cast of characters involved.