Soundtrack Saturday

The last two soundtrack Saturdays have been post- Clash solo affairs, Big Audio Dynamite with the song Free from the film Flashback in 1990 and Joe Strummer's songs for Sid And Nancy in 1986. Today's soundtrack is Mick Jones in 1993 and a low budget 1993 film Amongst Friends. Directed by Rob Weiss the film tells the story of three childhood friends who get involved in low level drug dealing, nightclubs and local mobsters, shot on location around the Five Towns of Nassau County (Long Island and Queens). 

The soundtrack is a very 1993 blend of hip hop and alt- rock, with The Lemonheads, The Pharcyde, Bettie Serveert, Tone Loc and MC Lyte all rubbing shoulders, Mott The Hoople jammed in and three Mick Jones tracks not available anywhere else plus Big Audio Dynamite's Innocent Child. This one can be considered something of a lost Mick Jones solo gem, just Mick and a porta- studio, drum machine, understated electronics, softly sung and rather sweet.

Long Island

No Ennio is a soundtrack incidental music, some echo pedal guitar with synth and drum machine

No Ennio

BAD's Innocent Child is from the post- first line up years, Mick recruiting a new B.A.D., calling them Big Audio Dynamite II and carrying on. Innocent Child featured on the new BAD's 1990 album Kool Aid and then again on the reworked The Globe a year alter. Innocent Child is a heartfelt Jones song.

Innocent Child

It would be remiss of me to finish this post without The Pharcyde's Passin' Me By, one of 90s hip hop's best tracks- one of the best 90s tracks in any genre actually- and one that in 1993 I played to death. It samples Jimi Hendrix, Quincy Jones and Weather Report but the self- deprecating, unlucky in love lyrics and verbal flow are entirely the work of the four Pharcyders. If you don't play Passin' Me By at least five times today I will have failed. 

Passin' Me By

Damn I Wish I Wasn't Such A Wimp

I've posted this song before, once in 2010 and once again in 2016, so I thought I might as well go for a five to six year cycle and repost it. The Pharcyde formed in South Central Los Angeles in 1989 and in 1992 released their first album. Passin' Me By was a single, built around samples from Jimi Hendrix (Are You Experienced?), Weather Report (125th Street Congress) and Quincy Jones (Summer In The City). In contrast to what some other rappers were rhyming about in the early 90s, the four MCs- Imani, Slimkid 3, Booty Borwn and Fatlip- poked fun at themselves, self deprecating lines about being in love with girls at school who are out of your league, the one who 'keeps on passin' me by'. The casual flow and laugh out loud humour, coupled with the laid back beats and samples and that pumping bass sample, are a total joy. 

Passin' Me By

Fun fact: on the two previous occasions I've posted this song no one has commented. I will keep posting it until someone does. 

Now In My Younger Days

I've posted this song before, way back in 2010 when this blog was still in short trousers and had a mucky face, and I'll go as far (phar?) as to say that it's my favourite hip hop single of the 1990s. I think. The Pharcyde were from South Central Los Angeles and on this 1993 single all four MCs take a verse each to bemoan their lack of success with schoolboy crushes. We've all been there. The crackle of vinyl, the samples from Quincy Jones, Weather Report and Jimi Hendrix, the self deprecating humour and the flow of the words, all add up to what is much more than the sum of its parts.

Passin' Me By

I Guess A Twinkle In Her Eye Is Just A Twinkle In Her Eye

In a deft step to the side, Bagging Area presents some hip hop from 1993- The Pharcyde's Passing Me By. 1993 was fairly close to when I stopped listening to hip hop. The Pharcyde, a Californian four piece, using self-deprecating humour, rapping about wishing they weren't such a wimp, and sampling Quincy Jones, Weather Report and Jimi Hendrix on this single, with vinyl crackle all over the start. As people say at the moment, what's not to like? The four mc's take it in turns to describe school day crushes on unattainable girls, and contains one of my favourite rhymes- 'now there she goes again, the dopest Ethiopian'. If you don't normally listen to this kind of thing, you should make an exception here.

It's also to the best of my knowledge the only rap song to use the word nincompoop as an insult.

The Pharcyde - Passing Me By.mp3