No Limit Reunion - HEB Center, Cedar Park, Texas (21st May 2022)

I've never been a massive fan of live music - although admittedly it's mainly the venues, other people, and the considerable inconvenience of getting home after which usually bothers me; and No Limit being a rap label, I was aware it probably wouldn't even be live music, technically speaking, thus expanding my customary reservations to encompass the possibility of my watching what amounts to a karaoke performance; but it was the No Limit Reunion, meaning even if the whole thing turned out to be a massive pile of shite, it seemed like a once in a lifetime deal and I would be forever kicking myself should I do the usual thing by staying at home. I've been listening to No Limit since about 1996, picking up more or less everything I could find. If it was on the racks and it was a No Limit release, then it was usually worth hearing. Some of it was labelled gangsta rap, but it was always much more than just that; and if No Limit artists were regarded as low rent and lacking class by those who make it their business to provide such distinctions, they sold a fucking truckload of records and put out a lot of music which didn't really sound like anyone else. Of course, it couldn't last, and No Limit had a nervous breakdown around the turn of the century. Fiend and Mystikal jumped ship - as did the in-house production team, Beats by the Pound - C-Murder was incarcerated and Mia X's career seemed to have stalled. Harsh words were exchanged both on and off the microphone. Master P spent at least some of the 504 Boyz second album congratulating himself on having gotten rid of all those losers, many of whom had turned up on the Most Wanted label's Off the Tank compilation to remind us why they had jumped rather than wait to be pushed. Even from afar, it looked messy and absolutely final.

So in 2019, I almost quacked my pants at the prospect of Fiend and the rest back together on the same stage. It didn't seem like something that could really happen; and then it didn't because of the coronavirus; and now here we are in 2022 cashing in on tickets issued at the end of the previous decade.

I didn't know what to expect, and the opening act - some local Austin thing - were underwhelming. This was probably because I'd put in my ear plugs, being an old, old man and all, which reduced the sound level to something more manageable, unfortunately also allowing me to tell the difference between live vocals and the backing track; and it was almost all backing track, not even karaoke, just four blokes jumping about on stage to one they had recorded earlier, serving as hype men for their own record. JayQ the Legend was next, and not only from New Orleans - the home of No Limit - but a lot more watchable. His music, incorporating rap but keeping it open, had elements of R&B, dancehall, bounce, trap, and doubtless many others I've never heard of, and if there was more autotune than I usually like, he made up for it with dynamic stage presence and a passion which didn't feel like career moves.

Fiend hit the stage like a bomb going off, growling his way through hits from his No Limit albums and - big surprise - Get the Fuck Out My Face from his post-No Limit Headbussaz set; and even if it was just a man rapping along to a sound file, it worked because the sound was immense with the sort of bass that tickles your arsehole, the high end all clear, no distortion and - at the risk of committing hyperbole - one of the greatest rappers of all time right there, just fifteen foot away, giving it his grimiest best in the flesh. I nearly lost my shit when he unleashed the Headbussaz track; and yes, unleashed really was the word here.

Mia X was next, and was formidable, amazing, and all of the other adjectives - as I'd sort of hoped she would be. She was always amongst the more lyrical of the No Limit stable, and but for the lack of a New York zip code would probably enjoy a somewhat more legendary status than is presently the case. Time dictated that tonight would be a run through of hits, but she probably could have got away with all three albums in their entirety without anyone looking at their watch. Again, I was aware of witnessing one of the all-time greats in action. Following Mia, Mystikal took the baton, delivering a characteristically twitchy, yelping performance which really brought home the James Brown influence more so than is apparent from the records.

 

Next was Silk the Shocker, who was mostly great but probably should have been first on the bill; then followed by Master P himself, the guy who started it all. He was never the greatest rapper or the most lyrical, and tonight was mainly hooks and slogans as he sort of jogged back and forth across the stage; but his records work on a combination of balls-out self-belief, not really giving a shit, and raw honesty, and so it was tonight because, even if the man has never been scared to rhyme a word with itself, his charisma radiates from the stage like he's some cartoon superhero.

The mood that had been building all night came to a head with Master P's performance, and as the others came back to drop bars for the posse cuts; and if it wasn't quite religious, there was certainly a gospel element. This was a celebration in every sense, not least that we've all come through - as we're reminded during the slideshow of those lost, Big Ed, Magic, Soulja Slim and too many others; and it really is a we because tonight made it very clear that No Limit is, was, and has always been a family. That's really how it felt at the end of the night, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Method Man - Tical (1994)

I had half a mind to write something about Tical 2000: Judgement Day because it's pretty fucking great, then noticed that, magnificent though it certainly is, the first one is unbeatable; so here we are.

As it happens, that first clutch of solo albums in the wake of Enter the Wu-Tang can't really be faulted with RZA at the wheel and the other fifty-six members hanging around in the studio for most of them; but this might be the greatest of the bunch even if it's a close run race. Method Man was never my favourite member of the team, although listening now I'm not sure why and have revised my opinion accordingly. The slurping noises used to put me off but I guess you can get used to anything, and he packs more raw personality into a couple of lines than the majority of microphone botherers manage in a lifetime. Being who I am, I assumed the title was a pseudo-mystical reference to Tikal, the Mayan ruins in Guatemala, but of course Meth being Meth, it's yet another term for a certain quantity of those marijuanas you always hear about*. I've personally never been a fan of the space fags, while Meth clearly loves his weed more than almost anyone else in the universe, despite which this somehow speaks to me, regardless. You've got to admire a man who really knows what he likes this much.

It isn't just the seemingly effortless, often genuinely surreal stream of warped consciousness, but rather it's the marriage of the same to the beats which may even have been RZA's greatest assemblage on a single disc. Sonically speaking, these are moods rather than songs in the traditional sense, radically breaking away from the turntable roots into what may as well be organised noise facilitated by sampler. Aside from a few dusty horn sections or shoplifted vocal hooks, there isn't much here which sounds composed in conventional terms - more like loop the fuck out of whatever's laying around and wait until it sounds like music. So there's that relentless beat, dirty as the underside of a used car with bits of piano bolted to the chassis, or snippets of sound, elements which only become musical with repetition; and a three note bass which sounds like vehicle transmission interfering with your stereo, just a deep boom as though there's something wrong down in the foundations. For something which couldn't have existed without the technology, Tical sounds organic and granular to the point of resembling musique concrète. I'm not sure anything has sounded quite like this record since, even though Tical 2000 took a good shot at it.

*: A man on the internet reckons it's an acronym for taking into consideration all lives, but I'm not convinced.
 

Zeke Manyika - Mastercrime (1989)

I assume my finger must have been well and truly off the musical pulse by the end of the eighties, which - admittedly - I recall as being mostly about who was drawing the X-Men comics at the time. I wasn't actually aware of this ever having existed until about a year ago, and it's only during the last hour that I've discovered it wasn't even his first. Obviously I remember Zeke from Orange Juice, The The, and some sort of vague association with Foetus, and Mastercrime reveals him to be very much a musical force in his own right, or at least it did thirty years ago back when I was busily agonising over whether the refugee X-Men would ever return to their School for Gifted Youngsters in Westchester County.

First impression, which I suppose I may as well go with because why not, is that you can hear how he was such a good fit for The The, and particularly Soul Mining, although I may actually be hearing Manyika's aural footprint on Johnson's record, for what it's worth. The gospel element is more pronounced with an added afropop sensibility which reminds me of Young Fathers, most likely due to my extensive ignorance of the form, and it inhabits the same cinematic Savannah of the soul as The The - if you'll pardon the sheer ballsache of such a cliched description, which in all fairness you probably shouldn't. I knew what I was doing.

I have a vague idea that Some Bizarre had taken a lower profile by this point - unless it really was the case that I missed everything - but it seems a great shame that Mastercrime should seemingly represent some kind of half forgotten afterthought given that it's at least as good as any of the label's other top tier releases.

I probably need to track down a copy of that first album now.

Iron Maiden - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (1988)

First a little context - where many English children growing up in the seventies attended C of E schools, mine was apparently NW of BHM which, as all former Sounds readers will recall, stood for New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Unfortunately for myself and maybe six other kids, I wasn't massively keen on the form, meaning I was essentially gay 'n' stuff, preferring the rampantly homosexual music of Joy Division, the Ruts, Devo, and a load of other funny haircut bands, as the genre was known at our school. I didn't even like Queen or Judas Priest, for Ozzy's sake! What a massive bender I was!

My unreservedly heterosexual pal Crispin attempted conversion therapy by forcing me to borrow the first two Iron Maiden albums, and to my surprise I found that I actually sort of liked them. It was like the heavy metal I heard blasting from every bedroom window in town, from every garage and milking shed, and yet it had a punky edge which appealed to me; and thus were my ears jimmied at least a little way open. The Number of the Beast followed and I was grudgingly forced to admit that it too was not without merit, even with the addition of a more traditionally hairy rock vocalist who did that wobbly scream thing with his voice and sounded as though he might be wearing silver trousers.

Years passed and I lost touch with anyone who might expect me to borrow further Iron Maiden albums, and so life became much easier in terms of my musical palate. Then one day, probably late nineties, I happened to pass a junk shop when I noticed a box of records outside perched on a table - actually just seven records, the first seven Iron Maiden albums - excluding the live one - for a quid each and in what looked like good condition. The tidiness of the transaction was hard to resist, and even if the four I'd never heard turned out to be rubbish I'd still be able to look at the covers and follow the story of Eddie as he has a lobotomy, reincarnates as an ancient Egyptian God, becomes a futuristic cyborg, and so on and so forth.

The first three sounded even better than I remembered, Piece of Mind, Powerslave and Somewhere in Time all sounded good, and this one sounded fucking amazing beyond all expectation and accordingly glued itself to my turntable for the duration of the next few months.

I appreciate that we're all way too sophisticated for this sort of thing, and that the otherwise mighty Rollins regards Maiden as the most ridiculous band to ever stick their tongues out on a stage; and I know there's a thin line between Maiden and Spinal Tap, but fuck it.

This one was inspired by an Orson Scott Card novel, and accordingly invokes all of usual horror tropes picked up from Dennis Wheatley and Tomb of Dracula comic books, all delivered as Dickinson pulls an operatically scary face to the soundtrack of a million widdly-widdly guitar solos; but even the notion that so melodramatic and populist a take on the occult might be ridiculous is itself ridiculous, unless you somehow think David Tibet has a direct line to the real stuff; and if that's so, let me know when he's recorded anything half as powerful as Moonchild or even Can I Play with Madness.

I still don't understand how Iron Maiden succeed with the same formula as all those other leather studded wankers who made my school years so fucking depressing, apart from that they get it right and don't sound like a bunch of disgruntled farmhands showing off their 50cc motorbikes to each other in the town square on a windy Tuesday evening. They gurn and wail and scream and go right over the top somehow without trying too hard, and they only ever sound like Iron Maiden even on an album such as this with all of its convoluted song structures and funny time signatures; and whilst there are virtuoso moments, nothing ever distracts from the whole; so all of the pieces fit together in an almost symphonic sense. I'm not even sure Seventh Son of a Seventh Son is metal, or that it matters given that most metal is shite.

All I know is that this is an amazing record.

New Order - The Peel Sessions (1986)

I bought this recently, having somehow spent the last thirty or so years failing to notice that I didn't actually own a copy - which was fucking weird when I realised. This was New Order's Peel session from June 1982, something which loomed quite large in my own personal mythology. Myself and my little group of pals - or the other two if you need an actual head count - had been fairly keen on Joy Division and took to scrutinising New Order's subsequent development with obsessive intensity. We bought Ceremony on the day of release, and Movement too. I bought two copies of the Ceremony 12" even though I'm fairly certain they're exactly the same record but for variant covers. We stayed up late to tape Peel, or Graham did, and each time I hear the music on this record I can still see the gold and black of the BASF blank cassette on which Graham recorded it from the radio. I think it was BASF.

These four tracks are therefore embedded in my consciousness like nothing New Order have recorded since. Movement had been an astonishing record, and this was apparently where they were headed. The reggae number, Turn the Heater On somehow made perfect sense, and the rest built on Movement and even Closer with greater emphasis on the electronics - still sombre, but somehow lighter as though acknowledging the necessity of life carrying on. The green shoots were beginning to show, and my little gang could hardly contain our anticipation of what was to come.

Then Power, Corruption and Lies emerged and I never got around to buying a copy for reasons I no longer recall. More recently I noticed that actually I had bought a copy at some point, and yet was unable to remember doing so. I listened, the disc came to the end of side two, leaving me unable to recall anything of what I'd just heard beyond that it had been dull. I still don't know what happened to this bunch, how the band which had recorded Movement turned into something with which to soundtrack a slightly zappy automotive commercial, and not least because both 5-8-6 and We All Stand were re-recorded for the offending second album. They sound incredible here on the Peel session, and so I guess this was the last truly good thing, depending upon how you feel about Blue Monday.

Such a waste.