Claude Young - As You Like It!

If you know Claude Young, you know you should check out this mixtape. I wouldn't say it's as good as Dexit, but it's still pretty great. Thanks to Sheldon for shipping it out to me to post.

Grab

Unknown Souljah - Fat Mix #3

I'm not sure if the state university in my home town attracted them or what, but there were always some interesting characters around. I didn't know him well, but Jeremy Kadinger seemed like one of those characters (though I believe he was a local). He was a few years older than me and my group of friends and our paths never really crossed in high school. But when I started going to school at Stout (the aforementioned state university), he opened a record store. I can't even remember what it was called. But it was at his store that I discovered that he was a deejay. And, to my surprise, he was a hip hop deejay.

Ack and I went in there a couple of times, and I have a couple of memories. I remember Jeremy having turntables in the store and flipping doubles of Steve Miller Band's "Fly Like an Eagle" (at least, that's how I remember it -- could have been another song, I guess). I remember (for a fact) having Jeremy order me double copies of The Fab Five's "Leflaur Leflah Eshkoshka" 12 inch when it came out. And Ack somehow got this tape (not sure if it was at the store, or somewhere else). Anyways, Jeremy went by the name "Unknown Souljah" at some point, and he had a series of mixtapes called "Fat Mix". Fat Mix #3 won't blow your mind any more than the title will, but it does have some quality 90s cuts on it. Plus, it just takes me back to that time. It's interesting to think that there were multiple kids in my small town doing this in the middle of Wisconsin in the early/mid 90s.

I recently looked Jeremy up on Google, and it looks like he still lives in that part of the state, but now he's a Christian DJ and plays music on a religious radio station. Oh well.

Thanks to Ack for delivering this one.

"Fat And" side

"All Dat" side

Mista Sinista

I can't remember where I got this tape. It might
have been at Fat Beats (or Footwork?) or maybe
even at Nice Musique.

I'm not sure what the name of this tape is, but it
has some pretty great moments. A lot of those
classic routines that you probably saw Sinista do
on battle tapes are on here. When I hear those
routines, I can see those funny ass facial expressions
he always makes during routines (and him doing that
hoof lick thing he always does when he goes back
and forth between records). I mean, it's normal for
djs to lick their finger tips to get a grip on the record,
but dude has a very specific way of doing it, and
he did it a lot. It always makes me laugh.

The following video serves two purposes: 1) it's raw
and 2) it shows some of Joey Crack's facial expressions
and finger-licking techniques:


Anyways, enough talk about licking fingers.

Vinroc - Recon-Struction

This is a great tape.

(Expired)

Chuck $ and J. Diggs - Hiss Magnet

Chuck $ and J. Diggs are two great fellas that
I met in Madison in the late 90s. When I first
saw and met them, they were deejaying a weekly
night at a place called La Provenzale on State
Street. There records were always good. They
rolled with another guy named Weej (whose Soul
Tape 1 was featured on SHELDIACK back in April
2006). Together, they were known as the Dust
Collective. Chuck and J. Diggs lived in this nice,
crusty little spot on the near east side of Madison.

When they weren't playing records, they were pretty
serious about collecting them. I'm talking record
shelves in the living room, kitchen, bathroom- all
that shit. Tons of soul/R&B/funk/rock and hip hop
records. This tape is full of a bunch of acapellas
placed over beats they'd composed over the years.
Not really a mixtape, but still an artifact worth
posting on here.

J. Diggs is a laid back guy who can cut and mix
like a mother. Chuck $ is a hilarious mf with wild
hair and ridiculous creativity. He also helped create
and write Breaking Rocks magazine (along with
John Rockwell). Both Chuck and J. can really rip
at one of those Super NES hockey games (I can't
remember specifically which one; maybe NHL 94
or something).

I think J. Diggs eventually moved to Chicago to
study violin. Chuck is still in Madison- I'm pretty
sure he plays at least one weekly night at Genna's
(on the square). Go check him out, and pour a
drink over his head and punch him in the nuts
for me. In the meanwhile, bang this tape. Oh yeah,
I'm pretty sure the majority of these tracks were
done on an ASR 10.
(expired)

DJ X-Caliber

I don't know much about this tape. In fact, I can't
even remember when or where I got it. My guess
is that it was sometime toward the end of the 90s.
Maybe my Mpls/St. Paul friends can let me know
more about X-Caliber; I think that's where he's from.
(expired)

dieselboy - supreme 95

dj shel - 03/98

Our final offering from DJ Shel is this tape that he put
out March of 1998. Yet more classic mid/late
90s techno. I'd like to thank Sheldon for making
these tapes, and for providing them (as well as some
of the photos) for download. (expired)

dj shel - 01/98

Part III in the DJ Shel archives. This mix is from January
1998. More Detroit-esque stuff, mostly on the mellow side.

The photo above was taken at "the church" in Menomonie,
Wis. In retrospect, that was a pretty tight venue- an
old church turned into an apartment. I heard that it was
converted back to a church years later. Oh well. Shel, was
that a 19" MTX mixer (yours, as seen in the picture above)?
Wow, what an antique.
(expired)

dj shel - 12/97

Sheldon just sent me one of his tapes from back in
December 1997, fittingly titled "12-97." Another
classic; plenty of Detroit shit. Sometimes at parties,
Sheldon would do something like have a Regis
session, where he'd play a block of Regis tracks
back-to-back. Super banging, noisy shit (he might
throw a little Surgeon in for good measure), and we'd
just be dying laughing. He used to play this one Neil
Landstrumm record (Brown by August?) that I would
joke sounded like chainsaw techno or something.
Ahhh, the memories.
(expired)

dj shel - 01/00

Who likes that Detroit techno shit? I sure do. And I'm
happy to say that Sheldon has always rocked the shit
right, especially back during the music's heyday. When
we weren't driving 8 hours to see Jeff Mills, Shel was
putting a tape together. I'm going to encode some of
those old tapes, but for now, here's a mix of his from
January 2000.
(expired)

Shortkut - Rekonstrukted Elements

One of my all-time favorite hip hop mixtapes.
Can't front on Shortkut.

Sure Shot

This is some jungle from the mid-late 90s. I wonder
what ever happened to Sure Shot. I liked this side
of the tape more than the other side.

Claude Young - Dexit

Nuff said.

Anomaly

Not exactly a mix tape, but more like a beat
tape from Jason Heinrichs (aka Anomaly).
While I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as his
album "Howle's Book" (also featuring artwork
by Abuse), it's still a good listen. One thing
that I never understood was his insistance
on using South Park samples. It always seemed
out of place to me.

DJ Weej - Soul Tape 1

Way back, when DJ Rockwell and I were
deejaying together in Madison, there was this
other group of hip hop deejays in town. We never
really talked with them, so we thought there
was beef. Years later, I would find out that those
guys were actually nice, and the beef we perceived
was just in our heads.

Anyways, Weej was one of those dudes.
I remember he lived in a really tight spot on E.
Johnson. I think he lives out west somewhere
now. Back in Madison, he rolled with Chuck Money
and J. Diggs. They always did this hip hop night at a
little bar called La Provenzale or something on State
Street. I'll post some Chuck $/J. Diggs shit next time.
Man, J. Diggs can cut. Enjoy this good tape from
the late 90s. Oh, by the way, I looked at
www.steelorecords.com out of curiousity earlier
today- pretty sure it's not the same fellas.

Mixtape Hunt

UPDATE (22Oct2011): After a 15 years, the search is over. As suspected, this was a Rip One tape. It's called "Turntable Expressions", and I stumbled onto it while tagging some other Rip One rips (no pun intended) on my computer this morning. I ended up looking on YouTube, and there it was. As if that wasn't good enough, I did a quick Google search, and found someone who not only posted rips of both sides of the tape, but in ultra-high quality. Like some of the nicest sounding mixtape rips I've ever heard. Head over to somanyshrimp to grab your own copy. I'd like to say thank you to whoever runs that site for doing an amazing job.

I snagged this mixtape from a record shop in Madison,WI back in 95-96. The place is gone now, but I think it was called Plush (on State Street). I didn't buy too many records from there, but one I distinctly remember grabbing was the Lateef "The Quickening/The Wreckoning/Latyrx" 12". Great record. Anyways, back to the mixtape. I lost it at some point, but luckily my brother had a dub. Then his tape deck ate it. I remember listening to this a lot and would love to track it down, but I can't because I don't remember who the dj was. For some reason, the name Rip One sticks in my mind, but I've had no luck finding any tapes by him that have the songs I remember. This tape was really some of my first exposure to indepedent hip hop as it was toward the middle and end of the 90s. Plus, this dude liked to scratch (wasn't half bad either). I have no idea what this
cover is, or who Alex D is/was. If anyone has any ideas (besides trying to talk to Fat Beats), I'd love to hear them.

DJ Eli - Underground Hip Hop

I got this mixtape on my first trip to NYC. I remember
I hunted down Bobbito's Footwork store and bought
a Scienz of Life t-shirt and this cassette. I like to clown
on some of the spelling mistakes (Bratnuts?), and it's
certainly not impressive technically, but I can't deny
that I still like this tape.

J Rocc - Turntable Language

The Strictly Business remix on here is oh shit.

J Slim - Your Props Are In The Mail

Milwaukee's finest, J Slim. This mixtape is all done live,
one-take style. Pictured below with the one and only
Chuck $ of Breaking Rocks.