Zero Progress: hated but not forgotten

I went to see this Mexican hardcore band from Los Angeles called Rotting Out at Rock Band University (possibly the stupidest name for a venue ever) in Davis, and I was immediately surprised how hardcore shows hadn’t really changed much since their heyday in the mid-to-late-‘80s—short haircuts, tattoos, pimples, tons of white people, etc. After being bored by a couple opening bands, a group took to the stage that carried a different energy than the others. They were sort of clean cut (a la youth-crew-era bands of the ‘80s and ‘90s), but the singer, a skinny kid in a Fred Perry shirt, wore Xs on his hands and sported a fat, menacing Junkyard Dog-style chain around his neck, swinging it around the stage like he was some sort of vengeful straight-edge crack addict.

He called himself The Champ, and he kept saying how his band, Zero Progress, was the best hardcore band in the world. I couldn’t really argue. They sounded as if G.B.H. and Chain of Strength had a bratty love child. Plus, their energy, power and egos were all immediately convincing. And refreshing.

While The Champ prowled around the stage, yelling, seemingly in his own world of fame and glamour, the band churned out some of the most brutal, moshy tunes with whiffs of Minor Threat and Bad Brains. In between songs, The Champ poked at the crowd. “You see these sunglasses?” he yelled. “They cost more than your entire house!” And then he stomped on them while the band broke into the next song.

The crowd ate it up, moshing around the venue, some swinging thick chains of their own, nearly cracking each others’ skulls in two. It was like a punk rock version of Lord of the Flies, scary as all fuck. But also hilarious. And interesting. And intriguing, which is something hardcore hasn’t been in quite a long time.

So I decided finally to meet up with Zero Progress at a house occupied by brothers Matt (who I will refer to as The Champ because a band of brothers is confusing as shit to write about) and Ed Saincome (vocals and bass, respectively), in the heart of Pacifica, Calif., a sleepy town on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. When I arrived, the entire band—The Champ and Ed alongside the other set of brothers Josh (drums) and Collin Jacobs (guitar)—on a crusty old couch, talking about their sound (a mix of street punk and hardcore), their love of Sacramento bands, their fans and detractors, and most importantly their mission: to never fall through the cracks of underground music.

“We don’t want to be like any other punk band,” said The Champ, explaining that Zero Progress takes showmanship seriously in a way that most hardcore bands seem to dismiss. Zero Progress is an interactive band and The Champ constantly jeers the crowd, which is part of the show. In fact, when I went with my wife to watch the band in Davis, she nudged me in the ribs halfway through their set and whispered, “Hey, that guy’s a fucking douchebag.”

But not only does The Champ understand my wife’s comment, he applauds her keen observation. And embraces it.

“You know when you go to a hardcore show and the singer does stuff that you know exactly what he’s going to do even before he does it? In between songs it’s this basic-ass hardcore frontman,” he said. “And we just didn’t want to do that anymore. So we just decided to get really outlandish with it. And weird. And mean. Just do shit that’s different. So, yeah, people think I’m a dick or whatever. But that’s fine.”

Zero Progress takes the same approach to performance as, say, GWAR, but instead of dressing up like monsters and spraying cum on the crowd, The Champ pokes fun at the audience, swings chains and makes a general nuisance of himself.

“People pay money to see you,” said Ed. “You should do something that’s interesting.”

And danger is inherently interesting.

According to brothers Collin and Josh, it’s the spirit of danger that keeps crowds coming back. They remember going to a show at 924 Gilman where a band incited a near riot. The audience threw metal chairs and traffic cones around the venue.

“There was a fight for five seconds, there was trash everywhere and the bouncer was so pissed. It was a great show and I’ll never forget it,” Josh said. “Only 20 kids were there and it was the best show ever.”

That’s because hardcore music isn’t about success. In fact, it’s pretty much the opposite. It’s about failure and that feeling of being a complete fuckup. So the best thing to do when you get a bunch of fuckups in a room is to make some noise. And a scene. It’s where Zero Progress excels. Their love of mischief is legendary; their blatant disregard for social mores is epic and obnoxious, which, when you think about it, seems like a cocktail for people in the audience wanting to punch them in the face.

“Yeah,” The Champ said, laughing. “I used to brag about how I’ve never been punched in the face. That ended recently.”

At a recent show (not a Zero Progress show, mind you), the crowd somehow turned on The Champ, getting rowdy, throwing broken glass and culminating in a woman punching him in the face.

“I didn’t hit her back because my mom raised me to not hit women or whatever,” The Champ said. “But Ed hit her husband.”

During the course of our interview it became clear that Zero Progress is a band with something to say. The Champ, the mouthpiece, is a witty troublemaker and arguably the perfect frontman. He has a strange, off-kilter idea about everything—from his ‘zine Punks! Punks! Punks! (“It’s just packed, page-to-page of me singing the praises of people who have now either physically assaulted me or tried to blacklist me) to the concept of unity (“It’s weird because we try to come at music with an open mind and be like: It’s OK that you’re 40 years old with a huge dreadlock and a beard and you smell like shit and you smoke meth and you’re a crust punk and you got a studded black denim vest. It’s OK, man. We can be friends. Do you want to come play a show with us? And then when that person turns to you and says, “You’re a fuckin’ piece of shit, Matt.” And you’re like, “No, you’re the piece of shit”). The Champ even offers concise thoughts on the state of the Bay Area (“The Bay Area is fucked, dude”).

In truth, one could write a full-length biography and not even begin to capture the wild essence of Zero Progress. But know this: The Champ is so misunderstood that even as a budding journalist he manages to alienate himself from his friends. For example, his story about the iconic venue 924 Gilman (that appeared last year in SF Weekly and then in The Huffington Post) created a tidal wave that ripped through the punk community, solely because it posed the question, “Has Gilman lost sight of its original purpose?” Apparently, even asking such a question is akin to tipping a sacred cow. And punks get butthurt. Asked how that article has affected his life, The Champ replied honestly, “Well, I just don’t have, like, any friends.”

Which basically sums up the entire existence of Zero Progress—a loud, hardcore punk band that speaks its mind even at the risk of its own exile. The band doesn’t take any shit, but when you think about it they take a whole lot of shit. Yet, it’s all in good fun. And none of it matters anyways. So fuck it. Go to a show. Get rowdy. $wing Chainz.

Watch Zero Progress live at the One Voice Fest on Saturday, Oct. 5, 2013. Plainfield Station, 23944 Country Road 98, Woodland, Calif. One and two-day passes available at Corpitus.com/onevoicefest.
Find Zero Progress online at Zeroprogress.bandcamp.com and at Piledriverecords.bigcartel.com

Sacramento’s hip-hop provocateur lives a family life in the burbs, but maintains his hunger

Although it was several years ago, it seems like just yesterday that rapper, producer, MC and B-boy Mahtie Bush founded the highly charged Sac Hates Hip-Hop movement—a knee-jerk reaction to Sacramento clubs and radio stations that had almost overnight turned their backs on rap music. And just as quickly, Bush showed up in every local paper, spewing his dissatisfied version of a “state of the city” address.

Well times sure do change. Don’t get me wrong, Bush is still just as hungry as he ever was, but these days his tactics are drastically different. No longer does the MC strive to be the city’s poster child for raising hell; he simply wants to flex his healthy work ethic and, of course, his music. Take Bush’s latest mixtape, Hate is Love Part II, for example. The body of work displays an MC who hasn’t let up. The beats bang with struggle, the lyrics resonate with purpose and it doesn’t hurt that the mixtape is hosted by the notorious DJ G.I. Joe (Immortal Technique), who leads the listener through a 13-track tape filled with hardcore bangers, crafted strictly for rap purists.

From troublemaker to workaholic, it’s been fascinating to track the progression of Mahtie Bush, whose only constant seems to be his unpredictability. In fact, the only thing we can be sure of is that Bush won’t go away.

When I caught up with him, Bush had just gotten home from work and was sprawled out with his wife in the luxury of their new, suburban Natomas home. Yup, it’s some American Dream type shit; some I wear a silk robe when I get home from work, so fuck you kind of stuff; an I buy organic kale now, fool, what now?! type scenario; an—ah, you get the point. Whatever Bush is now is a far cry from that poor-ass, frustrated, jumpy Mahtie Bush I came to know seven years ago. But he still has a lot to say, plus he’s got some sort of super important, hushed, top-secret project on the way.

What are you doing right now?
Right now I’m looking at dogs with my wife online.

You guys are dog shopping?
Yeah, I want a pit—a bully. A small one.

Ha! That’s some seriously stereotypical rap shit.
I ain’t going to put no chain on it or nothing. I ain’t going to be no Michael Vick about it.

Settling down, getting married, looking for a dog…does that change the way you rhyme?
It doesn’t really change the way I rhyme. I feel more at ease now. I don’t know what everybody else’s definition of success is or what their definition of making it is, but for me, it was having a house, having a car, having a yard, having a wife… I don’t have to go to a one-bedroom apartment anymore and feel like I’m boxed in. I’m like, “Fool, I got a house!” I’m on some grown man shit now. I got a mortgage payment. I look at rap totally different now.

You’re not going to start wearing sweater vests and singing smooth love ballads now, are you?
No. I did “Is She Out There?” and that’s as far as it goes.

Tell me about your Hate is Love Part II mixtape.
The first one I just did because it was after the whole Sac Hates Hip-Hop thing. I was still networking with Chino XL at the time and so I asked him if he’d host it… This second one, I wanted to revisit it because I really like how DJ G.I. Joe scratches. He’s a dope ass DJ.
So I wanted to revisit it and wanted to do more personal stuff. I wanted to talk about my family life and the streets I grew up on.

Has anything changed since the Sac Hates Hip-Hop movement?
No. Shit is still the same. Name a radio station out here that’s playing any locals besides 98 Rock. I think it’s worse now because we took radio for granted by having The Future Flava show and 103.5, but now we don’t have none of them and it sucks. I don’t give a fuck. What’s worse is that I’m older…and I don’t care.

That whole Sac Hates movement was fun though, right?
It was fun to a point, man. Some of it was annoying. Some of it was cool. I wouldn’t change anything but maybe who I associated with at the time. I had people spray painting doors, like, “FUCK BUSH.”

That’s cool, though. I love that kind of stuff. Do you still get haters?
Every once and a while I’ll have somebody poppin’ off. I don’t even sweat it. At this point, a lot of people will say something… I don’t really care. I’ll take a picture of it and be like, “This is dope.” It cracks me up. It’s like, I know you’re probably struggling—you wish you were on a show you didn’t have to pay to play for, you probably wish you didn’t have to sell tickets, you wish you didn’t have to buy YouTube views…and I couldn’t really care less because I got my feet up watching Breaking Bad.

Rap is so shitty right now. I hate it. What the fuck is wrong with rap?
I think it’s so bad that when you have somebody mediocre, you just attach yourself to him, like, “Yeah, this dude is the shit.”

That’s what I’m saying. Exactly.
I don’t really listen to everybody. I do like Kendrick Lamar. I wish Jay Electronica would have came out. I don’t know what happened with him. I like Odd Future at times.

Yeah, when they have a good song it’s really good, but they have a million bad songs.
There’s this dude and I can’t think of his name right now—a fat white guy from Queens.

Action Bronson?
He’s so dope to me. Action Bronson just shitted on people, yo. Everybody’s giving hype to this other kid from New York, but I think Chuuwee is killing him. I think he actually bit Chuuwee to be honest.

Joey Bada$$?
Everybody loves Joey Bada$$. He’s alright. Chuuwee will smoke that fool. That’s it, though. I like Tech N9ne. I like Immortal Technique. I like grimy-ass hip-hop—the “fuck you” hip-hop. Chino XL is my favorite rapper, so it is what it is.

Do you ever worry about growing old in hip-hop?
I don’t care about that shit. I feel like my reason for getting into hip-hop wasn’t because I wanted to be young. This is a young man’s sport, I get it, but…you can be an artist until you’re however old you want to be. Do what you want to make yourself feel happy.

I mean, Krs-One is pushing…what, a 100 years old?
He’s still touring and selling out shows. And people are still scared of him. I dare you to battle Krs-One.

So what other projects do you have coming out?
I’ve got a project with my group Alumni finally about to drop, most likely in the summertime. Even before that I have an EP that I’m doing. The EP is, um, can I tell you off the record?

Mahtie Bush will perform with Century Got Bars on April 26, 2013 at All Stars Sports Bar in Woodland (102 Main St, Woodland, Calif.) and then again on April 27, 2013 at the Sactown Underground/Freestyle Session Nor Cal B-boy jam, which will take place at the Old Sugar Mill (35265 Willow Avenue, in Clarksburg, Calif.) The event gets underway at 3 p.m. and tickets are $10 pre-sale/$15 at the door. Tickets can be purchased through Freshandflyproductions.com. Download the Hate is Love Part II mixtape at Mahtiebush916.bandcamp.com or check with Thisizbush.com for more info.

MC Ruby Ibarra cut her teeth rocking shows in Davis, but has since taken the Internet by storm

Ruby Ibarra has grown. Not physically, of course. She’s still small as a tree stump, but with a wide-reaching Internet presence and a new mixtape, Lost in Translation (hosted by DJ Kay Slay), under her belt, the 5-foot MC has expanded in the hip-hop sense of the word.

Ibarra can rap her ass off. When she first started rocking shows several years ago in Davis (where she attended college), crowds couldn’t help but to take notice. She was a spectacle to behold. Not only did Ibarra move around the stage with finesse and precision, it was clear that the petite rapper had an innate talent for language. Her word choice, diction and annunciation—even the way the syllables moved from her mouth into the atmosphere—brought new excitement to the medium of MCing. Steadily, Ibarra has found her footing and she has started to climb.

Not long after she graduated, Ibarra began making music videos and posting them on YouTube, a couple of them making their way to the depths of Internet’s World Star Hip Hop (aka Red Light District), known for its obsessive attention to hood brawl videos and clips of naked crackheads twerking in the streets. While WSHH may very well be the sign of a rapidly declining civilization, there’s a certain prestige that comes with having one of your music videos displayed there, if not simply for the amount of Web traffic that the site generates on a day-to-day basis (perhaps the same rationale personal injury lawyers use when they advertise on bus stop benches). Anyhow, when Ibarra realized her video posted on WSHH, she was ecstatic, if not a little clueless.

“I didn’t know that it was up online until I opened up my Facebook and I had like 100 friend requests,” she explains. “I’m like, ‘Oh shit! Something must have happened.’ [But] I knew if it was featured on there that it would allow me to reach out to a bigger audience and get my views up.”

To date, almost a quarter-million people have viewed the miraculous video of Ibarra spitting that nasty freestyle over a classic Channel Live beat where for two minutes she stands in front of a microphone, weaving her voice in and out of the drums, speeding up and slowing down to create textured tones and patterns. Impressive, indeed. Even the comments on the video (which on WSHH can be some of the most foul and ignorant examples of the English language to ever grace the Internet) remained unusually generous: “Dope!” exclaimed Tommy Yang; “cuz is cold,” said mr.cer913kc (who might win an award for the worst screen name ever). Even Cincothakid had enthusiastic praise: “She got tha stupid dope moves, respect.” But with the good always comes the, well, strangely racist: “Chink bitch is type nice hopefully she signs with somebody can actually advance her career and not just anybody.”

Perhaps it’s the thought that counts.

Ibarra recalls encountering these less-than-kind comments: “It’s funny because I told my mom that the video was featured on that website and she went to go check it out,” she says. “And I didn’t know she was going to go and read all the comments. She’s like, ‘Man, there’s a lot of haters on that website.’”

Haters aside, Ibarra has pushed through negativity and kept her eyes on the mic, even garnering odd comparisons to more established rappers, such as Kreayshawn and Raekwon.

“That’s a pretty broad spectrum,” she laughs, slightly entertained by the incongruous pairing. “So I guess I fall somewhere in the middle.”

But with an increasing show of technique and bravado, Ibarra managed to by pass most comparisons and solidify her own, unique style—a barrage of well-crafted lyrics with a slight Filipina lisp. She began making a name for herself, and with that name came a tiny (but growing) digital empire.

“I decided to focus on releasing videos online,” she says. “I noticed that a lot of the media today is Internet-based, and a YouTube video is this generation’s demo tape. I’ve tried to release videos on a monthly basis.”

It worked. Ibarra got a message one day from Hieroglyphics producer Domino, who she was able to meet and record a few tracks with in the studio. And soon enough, she met DJ Kay Slay and eventually set out to record a collection of her own songs, an undertaking that ultimately became Lost in Translation, a mixtape that manages to combine the MC’s powerful command of language with her penchant for ‘90s-era beats.

“The idea has been around for me for three years now,” Ibarra says. “I always wanted to put out a solo project just because people have been asking me if I had a full body of work.”

Lost in Translation is certainly a full body of work, as it culls from a diverse well of the hip-hop canon. The track “Boom Bip” utilizes a choice A Tribe Called Quest sample to recreate a genuine golden era vibe. In “Set it Off,” Ibarra guns her vocals full-force over RZA’s “Protect Ya Neck (The Jump Off)” beat. And one of Ibarra’s favorite tracks, “Guess Who,” is a serious and heart-wrenching tale of a woman’s search for identity and self-worth.

“That one stands out for me because it has a positive message and I guess people are used to me doing that type of lyrical, underground east coast sounding hip-hop,” she says. “That one’s a bit different and actually had more meaning.”

And there’s even some unintentional comedy on the Lost in Translation mixtape, where the host, New York’s DJ Kay Slay, manages to severely and loudly mispronounce Ibarra’s last name in between almost every song (“My home girl, Ruby eye-BEAR-AH!”). It’s a blunder that Ibarra laughs off like a pro.

“When I got his audio files, it was basically the week of me releasing the mixtape, so it was kind of too late to have him go back in the studio again,” she says. “We were like, ‘Fuck it. Let’s keep it on there. People always sabotage my name anyways.’”

In the end, the mixtape, heavily laden with punch lines and odes to old school rap, is both nostalgic and new. For every retro-boom-bap beat, there’s the MC, whose complex language catapults listeners from the past into the not-so-near future, all in the space of one track. And as a rapper, she’s fearless, never shying away from topics like personal struggle, culture and triumph. On “LIT,” the mixtape’s concluding track, Ibarra touches on the core of who she is, as a woman, a rapper and as a Filipina. Over a murky, guitar-laden beat, she rhymes:

I devour all these nouns, but I can’t tower over vowels.
I confess sometimes the accent got me feelin’ far from proud.
And so I tried to translate, hyphenate the culture gap,
Never realizing hiding that was putting culture back
And words are powerful when kids be memorizing raps,
Spitting it verbatim, this is where the higher learning’s at.
I gotta write verses to better understand self,
But sometimes be sayin’ words don’t understand myself.
It’s more than verbal language just to reach communication;
I got so much to say, but I’m lost in translation …

Ruby Ibarra’s Lost in Translation mixtape release party—with performances by Rasar (formerly Random Abiladeze), Task1ne, Bwan and Kiwi with Bandung55—will be hosted by Christian Bustos with DJ Rated R on the 1s and 2s. The show takes place Thursday, Feb. 28 at Sol Collective (2574 21st Street, Sacramento). Doors open at 8:30. Cover is $7 ($8 after 10 p.m.). All-ages! Download Lost in Translation for free at Rubyibarra.com.

Spare Parts and Dismemberment

Josh Fernandez wears a lot of hats. As a writer, he’s worked as a journalist for Spin, the Sacramento News & Review and once even in these pages. He’s also garnered acclaim as a poet. So it would hold true that the poetry in his new collection, Spare Parts and Dismemberment, come from a variety of different places. Here, his work speaks of drug addiction, life as a Latino in America, love, marriage and family. The result is a vivid–sometimes brutal–picture of a life lived.

The first line of the collection is telling. “Here’s a fucking poem,” Fernandez writes in “After Watching Maya Angelou on the Oprah Winfrey Show.” “Mike is on the couch, dope-sick/and the shower/is ankle deep/with piss/and tar-sludge,” he continues. The poem concludes, “And it’s not going/to get better./Ever./Got it?” Clearly, this won’t be an easy journey. His words can be blunt and often harsh, but not without an air of lyricism. The following poem, “The Scream,” an unsettling piece about rape, he writes, “You know, there is a thin sheet/of difference/between fright and pleasure./Sometimes the paper breaks/when erased too hard.” There’s no timidity in his verse. Often employing very few syllables per line–sometimes just a single word–Fernandez’s writing is swift and confident.

Things do get better, though. Later in the collection, “The Wedding” is a wonderful recount of a happy day. Shirking from simple sentimentality, Fernandez includes minutiae like rolled-up socks on a bedroom floor, yawning and loosened braids. The poem ends with a beautifully unadorned sentiment, “We started/this thing/happy.”

These personal experiences are put into a grander social context when Fernandez dissects the immigrant experience in poems such as “Swimmigrant,” “Freya Pulls Me by the Leash to a Tea Party…” and “The Assimilation.” These three pieces offer biting commentary, with the latter featuring the lines, “They tore pages from Webster’s/and filled his throat/with words like ‘gazebo’/and ‘ceremonious.’” Works such as these are set against more humanistic offerings like “Broken Stories from an East L.A. Kitchen” in which a grandmother tells the poet to “Remember the good,/God knows/the bad” as the two roll dough and share tortillas.

Fernandez’s clever turns of phrase seem to get the better of him at times. “The Stranger in the Liquor Store Who Told Me Not to Blaspheme” opens with the tongue-in-cheek couplet “Fuck your God/until he comes.” And “On Receiving My Own Portrait,” a very short piece in which the poet writes that he spent “two-and-a-half hours trying to find a place to hang himself” is rim-shot worthy. However, Fernandez’s wit is sharp for the most part, as poems like “The Grocery Store Clerk,” a genuinely funny take on the reactions of others when you tell them you’re a writer, would attest.

Overall, Spare Parts and Dismemberment is a compelling and fast-moving collection of poems. Sincere and rich with life experience–the good, bad and ugly–the works herein create a complete and most likely unfinished picture of a life. In “Absense,” Fernandez writes, “When I have children/I will never teach them everything I know.” Given the depth of emotion and skill displayed in this collection of poetry, I’d say that would be a shame.

Indie MC Eligh battles back from the depths of addiction

If you hadn’t heard from Eligh in a while, it’s because he was on the verge of death. Dramatic? Yeah, but it’s true. Eligh was unwittingly killing himself.

By the time he reached his early 20s, Eligh (born Eli Nachowitz) was already a world-renowned MC, rocking shows across the globe. But he slowly began to slip into the shadows of his crew, the Living Legends, the group of likeminded artists that he eventually came to know as family. At shows, he slurred his words and wouldn’t make eye contact with the crowd. As his crewmembers, such as Grouch and Luckyiam, began to experience a certain Zen derived from independent hip-hop success, Eligh took to wandering the streets of Los Angeles in search of booze, weed, pills and, eventually, heroin.

Eligh, once a fiend for the hip-hop life and culture, deteriorated into a straight-up junkie, set to end his existence like Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley–talented, sick, destitute and alone.

But unlike many who find themselves walking the cracked path of heroin addiction, Eligh searched within himself to find a way out. He found safety in Narcotics Anonymous meetings, and with a sturdy dedication to recovery, Eligh in November released Grey Crow–his first solo album since 2003. The album, full of Eligh’s mindful production (which strays from hip-hop to new wave, ska and rock), has climbed steadily up the iTunes hip-hop charts. With his trademark rhymes (that sped-up baritone flow), a cast of Legends crewmates, plus help from other artists (K-Flay, Pigeon John, Brother Ali and Marty James), Grey Crow has become more than just an album. It’s Eligh’s welcome back, his rebirth and his awakening.

Let’s talk about your addiction to heroin. What was the extent?
I drank and smoked weed when I was a teenager, did all the hallucinogenic mushrooms, acid–all that shit. And then I started fucking with ecstasy. I think I was like 20. And then it just went downhill from there. [When I discovered] Vicodin, I found the one for me. Opiates were my downfall. I went from Vicodin to China White within a year.

What did that do to your relationships?
My family–my mom in particular–knew something was wrong. They knew I was fucked up, but they didn’t know that I moved to heroin. I didn’t tell anybody. But they could tell that something was very wrong with me. When I was going to see my mom in Arizona she would tell me I was jaundiced. My skin was yellow. I was skinny as fuck. I was dying.

My mom has serious back and neck issues, and she takes Vicodin as prescribed. She would come visit, and I would literally empty her bottle and fill it up with Excedrin and send her home.

And she caught me. She was so upset–a mixture of being worried and disbelief. That was like the last time my mom yelled at me like I was 7. And I was 23 at the time.

When you’re in your active addiction, I was thinking, “I’m not hurting anyone but me. I’m the one doing this to myself. What are you fucking worried about?”
That’s the self-centered thinking we have when we get caught up. Needless to say, when I got clean, people were just so happy and proud. Now, it’s not just a personal thing. I feel like I have more purpose than ever, especially considering the age of people listening to me. A lot of them have no idea about recovery. It’s an amazing thing.

I’ve been sober for about as long as you. But my drug was crystal.
Oh, really? So we’re on the opposite spectrum, but on the same level.

Yup, a similar, horrible, realm. I imagine you’re more creative now.
Creatively, getting clean just opened me up–took the fog away. I could really see what I was doing when I’m doing it–and doing shit when I’m high and going, “Ah, that’s tight,” and the next day when I wake up I’m like, “What the fuck was I thinking?”

But at the same time, when I listen to my old stuff, I remember exactly where I was, exactly what I felt, and it still makes sense, because it’s still me. I just had a mask over my face.

You must hold your breath a little bit when an album comes out, huh?
Oh, hell yeah. I’ve never been more anxious than this one, because this one’s very personal. It’s like that with every project. I’m standing on the tip of my toes waiting to hear what people think. But on this one it was extra. I wasn’t nervous. I was anxious. Since it was literally me and one other guy, officially, how well it does is up to everybody else. I don’t have a machine working behind me.

So what about Living Legends?
Those are all my brothers. We’ve known each other for 15 years. We lived together for a couple years, all of us, in one warehouse. Those types of experiences don’t ever go away. Everybody has grown up more. Everybody lives in different places–a few of us in Los Angeles; Grouch, in Maui; Murs, back in Arizona; Aesop, in Fresno; and Bicasso, up in the Bay.

Living Legends have always been a crew of guys who have their own personal careers and own solo endeavors. The hardest thing is getting us all together in one place to do an album. And that’s all in the back of our heads. All of us want to get together to make that happen. Is that going to happen? I don’t know. I’m going out with Grouch in December, and I’ll be doing a solo set for the first time without a hype man. It will be a whole new fear that I’ll be working through.

I was going to ask you about that.
Yeah, dude, I had planned to bring somebody with me, but Grouch said as far as room in the van, you probably shouldn’t bring anybody else. And I’m like, fuck it. I have a 30-minute set. I’m going to do this shit by myself.

You know, 10 years ago, when I was on some crazy drugs, I went to a Living Legends show, and you came off the stage and said, “What’s up,” to me. It sounds small, but when you recognized me as human–even though I didn’t feel that way–it helped me out.

Thank you, man. That’s awesome. I was probably in a fucked up state, too.

Yes, we were probably both high as shit.
Yup.

How the Grouch Stole Christmas Tour, featured The Grouch, Brother Ali, Eligh and Los Rakas in Sacramento on Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2010 at Tropicana (1696 Arden Way).