MC 900 Foot Jesus: Classic or dud?

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Don't think this one's been done before, so:

I've only got One Step Ahead of the Spider, tracks one to five and nine of which scream '900 FOOT CLASSIC' at me, the remainder meanwhile being kinda dud. The only other stuff I've heard was 'Too Bad You Gotta Die Now' and 'UFOs are real (many years ago on John Peelback when they first came out) which I found to be great, and 'Killer Inside Me', which is all very nice, but was rendered ultimately unsettling by hearing it constantly coming through my floor by my downstairs neighbour at university!

So: classic or dud?

― M Carty (mj_c), Tuesday, 15 April 2003 11:53 (twenty-one years ago) link

Classic. The City Sleeps is magical.

― sander, Tuesday, 15 April 2003 12:19 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yep.
see also this

― willem (willem), Tuesday, 15 April 2003 12:32 (twenty-one years ago) link

Is the City Sleeps an album or a track? What other albums were there apart from One Step Ahead of the Spider, and which are worth getting?

Is he still recording nowadays?

― M Carty (mj_c), Tuesday, 15 April 2003 12:32 (twenty-one years ago) link

I have lived my life by "If I Only Had A Brain" for about seven years. I never get tired of that track.

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Tuesday, 15 April 2003 13:20 (twenty-one years ago) link

That one certainly rules, Lynskey (see also the Beavis and Butthead thread)

― M Carty (mj_c), Tuesday, 15 April 2003 13:22 (twenty-one years ago) link

Classic, if for no other reason than "Killer Inside Me."

― maria b (maria b), Tuesday, 15 April 2003 20:12 (twenty-one years ago) link

"The City Sleeps" is a track on... _Welcome To My Dream_? Someone help my sleep-fogged brain out.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 15 April 2003 23:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

'the city sleeps' and about half of one step ahead = classic. by the way, where's jesus these days?

― j.a.e., Wednesday, 16 April 2003 01:09 (twenty-one years ago) link

According to href="http://www.earpollution.com/vol3/oct01/profiles/mc900ftjesus/mc900ftjesus.htm">this interview, he's working on a new album, but that's from October 2001.

AMG has reissues for Welcome To My Dream and Hell With The Lid off listed, for May 6, 2003. Woo.

Oh, and yeah, "The City Sleeps" is from Welcome to my Dream.

I'm not sure "If I Only Had a Brain" has ever left my playlist, except for when I'm only listening to recently-picked-up stuff, etc.

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 16 April 2003 01:20 (twenty-one years ago) link

Well, I fucked that link up, but so here it is again if you don't want to cut and paste.

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 16 April 2003 01:21 (twenty-one years ago) link

I could go on and on about how MC 900 foot Jesus is the only thing that has kept me going nuts for not being able to find anything by the one band/group/whatever he reminds me of, Cheap Dialogue, but I'm not sure anyone would have any idea what I was talking about.

So, Classic.

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 16 April 2003 01:28 (twenty-one years ago) link

has anyone else here mentally filed MC 900 FT Jesus next to G Love and Special Sauce?
Actually, I filed him between TMBG and MC Paul Barman, but thats just me.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Wednesday, 16 April 2003 12:15 (twenty-one years ago) link

DUD! Perhaps it's due to my years in college radio, fielding so many requests for "If Only I Had a Brain". I'd really like to dig that man a 900 ft. grave, and at least toss that record in it.

― Kate Silver (Kate Silver), Wednesday, 16 April 2003 16:01 (twenty-one years ago) link

If these numbnuts had the prescense of mind to request "Truth is Out of Style" instead, I'm sure your opinion of them would be different.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Wednesday, 16 April 2003 17:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

I look them a great deal -- but i what 10 more years of aging will do to their sound.

― christoff (christoff), Wednesday, 16 April 2003 18:04 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'm not familiar with his/their? music whatsoever even in the slightest bit, but I know that, the first time my band played out, the first thing anybody said about us was "dude, you guys are like Suicidal Tendencies meets MC 900 Ft. Jesus". To this day I'm still not sure if that's a compliment or not.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 16 April 2003 18:07 (twenty-one years ago) link

This is a wicked amazing supersonic compliment.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 16 April 2003 19:50 (twenty-one years ago) link

Never heard him. I think he's cool based on his name alone.

― William R Henderson (Cabin Essence), Wednesday, 16 April 2003 23:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

People, have you gone mad? He is a dud, a dud, a dud! And you should've seen him live. He belongs with MC Tunes in the 'early white rappers we thought were good at the time' bin.

― Colin S Barrow, Thursday, 17 April 2003 03:31 (twenty-one years ago) link

Vanilla Ice < Snow < MC 900 Foot Jesus < 3rd Bass

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Thursday, 17 April 2003 11:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

"Straight to Heaven" on Hell with the Lid Off shits all over you, Colin -- you thankless hater of fun.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 17 April 2003 13:32 (twenty-one years ago) link

I asked my band's guitarist about him, and he says he's got a track with VERNON REID on it! Can anybody identify this track?

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 17 April 2003 14:22 (twenty-one years ago) link

Hahaha! "You thankless hater of fun"! Best insult ever, Alex. I know an Alex i NYC. You wouldn't be a keen surfer from Australia by any chance?

"Truth is Out of Style". Nasal, whiny, too obvious to be true irony, attempts radical statement but is musically conservative. Almost a joke rap. In spite of the radical posture, a conscious stab at the pop charts.

Epsilon's assessment is pretty good I think: on the cred stakes MC 900 Ft lies somewhere between Snow and 3rd Bass. Ouch!

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Sunday, 20 April 2003 16:16 (twenty-one years ago) link

"cred" [/jess]

― bnw (bnw), Sunday, 20 April 2003 17:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

All cred has been overdrawn and refused.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 20 April 2003 17:07 (twenty-one years ago) link

"Truth Is Out Of Style" has absolutely nothing to do with why I like MC 900 Ft Jesus. I strongly urge you to check out his second album (which is much, MUCH darker and introspective and plain old fucked-up).

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Sunday, 20 April 2003 20:10 (twenty-one years ago) link

why is not shocking at all that custos loves mc 900 foot jesus?

― jess (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 20 April 2003 20:11 (twenty-one years ago) link

I don't know, man. I just know it's totally uncool.

― Adam A. (Keiko), Sunday, 20 April 2003 21:07 (twenty-one years ago) link

You wouldn't be a keen surfer from Australia by any chance?

Nay, sadly.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 21 April 2003 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

>People, have you gone mad? He is a dud, a dud, a dud! And you should've seen him live. He belongs with MC Tunes in the 'early white rappers we
>thought were good at the time' bin.

Did anyone at any time think Stakka Bo was good?

― fletrejet, Monday, 21 April 2003 10:23 (twenty-one years ago) link

All cred has been overdrawn and refused.
Well...how does one "deposit" more cred into the "believability bank"?

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Monday, 21 April 2003 12:19 (twenty-one years ago) link

>People, have you gone mad? He is a dud, a dud, a dud! And you should've seen him live. He belongs with MC Tunes in the 'early white rappers we
>thought were good at the time' bin.
Did anyone at any time think Stakka Bo was good?

Er, yeah, Fletrejet, I did. I couldn't help myself. It was so catchy.

Hmm. Maybe I'm really not the one to be judging other white rap artists after all.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 01:23 (twenty-one years ago) link

Should have joined this thread earlier but have been stuck arguing with Geir for what feel s like an eternity. Anyway, as I'm sure y'll know, MC 900ft Jesus had some fabbo record sleeves, too, and there's a great article on designer Steven R Gilmore in this month's XLR8R magazine (full disclosure, I write fot it a lot, but the piece is good all the same.)

http://www.xlr8r.com/article.php?uid=8C716CED3F1699F5B00B440C683CEA09

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 16:04 (twenty-one years ago) link

coalescence.

My previous car met an untimely end about 4 years ago. The CD in the stereo at the time was One Step Ahead... That CD has been in the player which is sitting on a shelf in my closet under the stairs since then. I do miss it.

Last week the chef at the restaurant where I work and I traded some MP3 discs. That album was on it. I'd say 1/2 of it is definite classic. I still could listen to tracks 2, 3, and 4 quite often.

And, to further cement my own dudness in some minds, last week, I also got a free copy of stakka bo. I haven't heard that record in 10 years. I was in Turkey at the time, and while I recognized it wasn't "good" music, I did enjoy it. "Temple of Consumption" has rattled around in my brain for the last decade. Having finally heard it again---man is it dated! And it's still not "good" music...but I'll listen to it once or twice more.

― nick ring (nick ring), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 02:09 (twenty-one years ago) link

nine years pass...

All cred has been overdrawn and refused.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, April 20, 2003 5:07 PM (9 years ago)

wrong.

having just spent the evening ripping the cds into the archive i have to say that mc 900 ft jesus has me totally hooked in.

the love of noir atmoshperes,
the love of 70s funk,
the old school loops-n-rhyme,
the random jazz explorations of the .. spider .. album ...
the fucked up, out there vocal declarations ..
etc

of course, this is all easy to dismiss, but i would say that no-one in 2013 and beyond will be given such artistic freedom by a major from hereon ..

hence making the mc. 900 ft jesus trilogy a bit of a sought after classic in years to come ...

if i am proved to be wrong : i care not.

i love this stuff ...

― mark e, Friday, 8 February 2013 00:14 (eleven years ago) link

seven years pass...

I asked my band's guitarist about him, and he says he's got a track with VERNON REID on it! Can anybody identify this track?
― nickalicious (nickalicious),

until half an hour ago, i had no idea about this.
but the guitarist was correct.

https://www.discogs.com/MC-900-Ft-Jesus-One-Step-Ahead-Of-The-Spider/release/29856

― mark e, Saturday, 23 January 2021 19:04 (three years ago) link

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