by Dan O

10/24/2023 Monday of The Minds live show diary

Castro was right.

At the Holiday Inn by the Bay I sit with my State of The Game co-host K as he finishes up his chicken fingers. We’re talking about half decisions v. full moves. Half decisions are easier to make, the fall is less precipitous but the reward isn’t there.  As he pays the bill and we walk to the venue I explain to him that folding FME Attention Undivided interview series (where I interviewed guests solo) and sending all guests to State of The Game was a full move. I was competing against myself for diminishing returns and needed to have faith in K to handle any guest. My wife was in my ear “K is dope. Send ‘em to State of The Game.” Going over the moments we’ve shared over these years. How many of those would we have lost if I kept hedging?

We are going to see ShrapKnel, a group consisting of Curly Castro and PremRock, touring  with Rich Jones.  Show is at Flask Lounge during a bi-monthly event called Monday of The Minds put on by Rizing in Life Entertainment. The group has been active. Not just the 2 Mondays a month hosted by Jacobsen but events in the park, merchandise, special shows. They’ve become a place for Pink Navel, Brzowski, and all forms of interesting underground hip hop voices on tour through Portland Maine to sell merch and look their fans eye to eye.

This is where I admit that while I support the group, and go to shows when I can, I can’t come out regularly. I’m rusty. Shows I go to but open mics died for me when I had a child. My memories of old hip hop nights aren’t all great either. White guys with the same facial hair in tight semi-circles making off-the-dome sex jokes at each other got old. Sometimes I add up the time I spent watching it all and shake my head.

I go outside while a warmup cypher happens starring a smattering of local emcees. Curly Castro is smoking. Calm and reflective he tells me that events like this are what made us. We needed places like this, to have and perform for. I tell him Maine is a throwback in that way, community hip hop events centered around freestyling and battling while most rap is made in someone’s living room and they don’t perform in front of a crowd until their first festival gets booked…or never actually do. We talk about Anti-Con, Alias, Sole and the New England hip hop legacy.

Myles Bullen is front and center smiling and singing along as ShrapKnel takes the reigns. K is sitting on a bench head nodding as I float around the perimeter of the performance from all  angles. They perform a new song produced by Controller 7 that really wows us. Castro does Dreadlocks Falling and we both agree he should play it more. It’s a song that forces you to instantly understand him if you don’t know him. Shaking his dreads, spitting bold, loud, and brilliant. Take it or leave it. The crowd always takes it. Listening to the gentle pained strain of the horn in Mescalito a voice in my head says IRON LUNG is their HELL HATH NO FURY. It’s deeper in every lyrical way, full of broody cold nuanced sonics. An experience filled to the brim with texture. “The vines turn to veins, don’t get me started on the wind.” Prem ends it. A Tribe Called Stressed is fabulous live. Castro comes alive during that song. At one point during the set he hooks a shirt over his face and raps through the shirt as Prem wears a wry smile and tries not to chuckle. The second best rap group in the world have a lot of fun.

Rich Jones performs from behind the boards not center stage. It gives him command of all eyes and control of the sound. Like PremRock Rich has been releasing great work for so long that he can throw a set that will really floor you. It’s Over from Blue Beach goes crazy. I can see K’s eyebrows furrow, his posture change. He’s seen ShrapKnel before but he’s never heard someone rap as dexterously and sing with pristine aptitude the way Jones does. Rich is loose and funny, telling a story about performing Clicksonmyphone for 20 thousand people at Soldiers Field in Chicago. Singing about ayahuasca for thousands and thousands. K asks if Rich produced these songs. I explain Montana Macks did Clicksonmyphone and Iceberg Theory did Chilly. These songs sound so good because Rich has an incredible ear for what he wants. As talented as he is singing and rapping he’s just as gifted a curator. As Rich is wrapping up someone walks behind me. I lean into K and say “Hey, that guy used to be in the rap group Sandbag, he’s awesome.” I should be whispering this but I’m terrible at whispering so he definitely hears me.

Maya Williams performs a full spoken word set with a book to sell along with it. She’s funny, earnest, sexual in a very organic and conversational way. Her poems aren’t heavy with the work put in. They come out easy and relatable with the work it took to get there hidden underneath. I’m a recovering spoken word guy so I step outside part way through. She’s so good its making the pieces I have in my phone burn a hole in pocket. So I go outside and tell stories to local emcees about me holding back chuckles during open mic poetry performances whenever things got too sexual. One asks me “Were you on a lot of drugs?” Shaking my head I respond “I’ve never done any drugs. I’m just a very silly person.”

The tall man I pegged as a vital member of Sandbag comes up to me. He thanks me. It’s important to him that I still remember him as Pensivv in a group with Ill By Instinct (who is currently throwing Hip Hop Night in Da Nang). Ill was the lead emcee of the group but Pensivv is who made Sandbag special. His diction was perfect, his flow slid wherever it found space. The group talked about whatever they wanted, housing crisis, gas prices, wack rappers. Their 2011 album Rappers Are Emotional was the absolute pinnacle. I can’t find it on DSP’s or on Bandcamp. Sandbag is just gone. The gravestone marker is a facebook page that hasn’t been updated since 2017. His voice shakes as he thanks me. I don’t know what else to say but “ALWAYS”. I will always remember you.

I catch some more of Maya Williams and the crowd participation takes some fun turns as we aren’t always sure when her stanza is over and they should chime in. She laughs and enjoys it and the crowd follows suit. At the bar afterward I thank her for her set, while The Taste of Vomit performs. I buy one of her books and give her my schtick about how I used to help run this local spoken word organization. She gives a light chuckle and explains that she now runs that organization. They are doing a lot more Zoom work with young poets and invites me back to Tuesday nights. It takes me a while to grasp this (I blame beer) but once I do I warn her. Don’t let running it derail the progress of your personal work. Guard that.

I love Tim Jones bucket hat and his production choices fascinate me. The beats he rides I picture Mausberg or Hi-C spitting on but its this slender man with an admirable beard talking about meditation and mental health. I joke with Rich Jones that this generation is a lot nicer than ours. Gza was rapping about punching Trans people who said Hi to him. Rich acknowledges “That sh*t’s dark.” It really was.

The end of the night at these events is always a cypher. Anybody can join who wants to join. All the emcees who warmed us up are back and comfortable. From the bar I notice that Pensivv went from ferocious head nod to inside the cypher. His head is down, eyes closed. Letting the beat fill him up. When he pulls his head up he pulls the microphone with it and spits. It’s not easy, not comfortable but everyone can tell it’s a valuable talent getting back on the horse. Most of the people in that cypher don’t know the significance of who he is but that’s what’s great about hip hop. It doesn’t matter. He’s still dope and that’s what matters.

When you have reached the levels of excellence that Jones, Castro and PremRock have it can become difficult to cypher with folks at very different levels of growth/skill. I’m speaking a lot for myself. I listen to excellent rapping all day so cyphers can become cringe, I’m prone to crack wise quietly in the corner. PremRock whipped his head around and jumped into the cypher. An emcee T’d him up nicely “I’m about done PremRock take this song…” and it was utter destruction. The same guy who had been telling me all night, he didn’t really freestyle except under certain buzzed circumstances came through and went off the top as fluidly as most peoples best verse. I was yelling “BODIES!!!” a few seconds in. The whole place had eyes on him and when he finished our host (Jacobsen) wisely said that’s where we should end it. Another great thing about hip hop culture is that we know a special moment when we experience it. That was the end.

Outside the venue, people are buzzing. A beautiful woman who has been locked in on every performer all night has her arm wrapped around Pensivv love shouting to the cypher boys that he hadn’t rapped anywhere in public in something like five years and he was f*#$ing on tonight! In 2009-2011 you are trendsetting locally, you can see the breakout coming and then you become a ghost. A former rapper. Only to come back on a Monday night and around midnight realize the microphone never fell out of love with you. Castro was right. Events like this are what made us and sustain us.

For Sandbag:

For Rich Jones:

https://richjonesmusic.bandcamp.com/album/smoke-detector

https://richjonesmusic.bandcamp.com/album/blue-beach

https://richjonesmusic.bandcamp.com/album/how-do-you-sleep-at-night

For ShrapKnel

https://shrapknel.bandcamp.com/

https://griffscorcese.bandcamp.com/album/dreadlocs-falling

For Maya Williams

https://www.smallharborpublishing.com/books/refused-a-second-date