Thanksgiving Brown. A name of recollection, for those, dedicated to the art of movin' butts.
The story is there is no story, you be the judge. Recorded in a tree-stump-coverted house w/ studio (early works in an A-Frame on the same property) in a Redwood forest section of Arcata, California. 4 or 5 albums were produced and recorded from 2002-2004. All production by DJ CJ Stewart with weird computer programs. All songs completely off of the top from Thanksgiving Brown (unless otherwise anoted). "The Ultimate Ego Trip" was our first album, which featured the hit songs "Why You Talkin' Shit?" (*My first song, but there was one before a DJ cut for a Placebo comp, I rapped on the intro), "Red Balloon", "I'm Sensitive", "Chinatown" and many more. "Behind Closed Doors" was the 2nd album, and my personal favorite. That featured crowd-favorites "You Gotta Dance To This", the explosive "Rolling The Dice", "Exiled Imparsario" (about me doing too much in the rap industry and being exiled to a remote island - which was also released as an EP), "I Shoulda Wrote My Raps" and tons more! The 3rd album, and the most difficult/challenging to record was "Black Scorpio Vertigo" - a complex, introspective, paranoid, booze-soaked rage, ranting, raving, debacle.
Thanksgiving Brown's Peter Agoston was hospitalized only days after this album was recorded for severe strep throat, exhuastion, and mono. No joke! It was not a good scene! So by my 4th album I had no other choice but to go into the ole' studio without booze. So we just got high as hell and did whatever we could to create another album. It was liberating and frustrating at the same time. A Kafka-esque Metamorphasis. It should be noted most all of the albums were created in one session or two. I tried to get up to 20 songs, per album. All freestyle. All drunk. All right baby!! Which ultimately lead to a break from the bottle during production time. So our 4th album was entitled "Monday Morning/Untitled" because that's all I could freeking come up with when I titled the CD-R. I was that uninspired. But the album's material is strong, on point and energized. I did more cuts on album (although I did some on all the albums). We did weird skits. And some wild songs (including topics about urination, robbery, alocholism, the club. I need to find that album, its the least distributed of them all. My 5th album, was a Best Of style compilation released on Matt Kennedy's Monosyliabik Records label, now de-funct, then-Arcata based imprint (Kennedy now resides in Portland, OR - ironically the city that created the name and subsequent character that is ..... Thanksgiving Brown. That comp was titled "$cene" - which is an old Mike Zoot song produced by DJ Spinna that I loved so much I homaged the title with the title of my album. Forest Stearns did an awesome drawing (he was not credited in the liner-notes, which I've always been sorry about) I also owe Forest money so he's mad at me (ahh! i'm sorry). Anyways. After '$cene' (my only truly distributed album - pretty much thru cdbaby.com -- yuck) I stopped recording. I performed more. And dreamt of my own DJing-only album, entitled "On The Other Hand". I have a ton of "unreleased" stuff I did (that didn't make the CD-R albums I'd press abou 10-20 up of). I'd like to put out an album of unreleased material simply called "Unreleased Shit" and have a photo of an x-ray of a person with a piece of feces still in their intestines. But lay it out in a cool way. See, the stuff that made the albums was pretty bad, the unreleased shit is mostly horrible unusable songs. A lot were posse cuts and collabos with drunk A-HOLES (aka my friends) that I'd bring up to the studio w/ me. They are usually blathering self-agandizing and I the same, attempting to record like professionals. I also recorded a collaborative EP of material with my man Z-MAN from San Fran, producd by CJ. The songs are crazy. I can't finish whole verses, I'm cracking up and keeping all the takes. Z does his best to keep up with my non-sensical ramblings in the booth. He's a fucking Genius anyway so it was fun for him! Big up to him major influence and friend in the game. Props to Gametightelectro who inspired me through their music to rhyme. Props to P$C from the Legends for dissing me on record and fueling my fire to express myself as an emcee. From emotional trama that it caused me. Jerry Blue our engineer, how we met, I do not know, but I loved working with you you old stoney hippy! Love your St. Bernard too, he was the illest to have around. To the random people that came up to the studio with us and got totally blasted listening to me talk shit and love it - hey I paid for that studio time - I was not going to let it go to waste! I've performed live as a rapper opening up for Sir Mix A Lot once, and I went on tour DJing for Awol One, Z-Man and Brycon (DJ for 3 sets in a row!) and I rapped in the finale/encore posse-cut every night. It was a fucking blast!! I kicked the same rhyme every single night, its the only rhyme of mine I can ever remember (since all my shit was off the top!!) it goes like this .... "I walk into a party, lookin' for a body, trying to get naughty, I'm all wound up". You've heard it from me a million times. If you want any of my albums, email me, $5 each plus shipping and handling. $5 extra for a PERSONALIZED mix-CD for you (1 of a kind - what!!!).
Many of you know me, as DJ Thanksgiving Brown. My DJ persona. I've DJed all over the world, sharing stages and DJ boothes with the likes of Damien & Julian Marley (Ghetto Youth), Brand Nubian (tour DJ), De La Soul, Sizzla, Cypress Hill (as their DJ!), Pete Rock, DJ Premiere, DJ Spinna, Anticon, Project Blowed, Hieroglyphics, ?uestlove, Equpito, Numbers, Town & Country, Pleaseesaur, DJ Andy Smith, Greg Nice of Nice & Smooth (tour DJ), The Shapeshifters, Prince Paul, Saul Williams, DJ Spooky, Rodey O. & Joe Cooley, Atmosphere, People Under The Stairs, Sage Francis, and a million more and then some. I've been a DJ, MC, host, cultural icon and trendsetter - as Thanksgiving Brown.
I run Female Fun Records and Culturama as well. It should be noted, that during this time frame and slightly before I was also the "lead singer" in a noise band I started called 'High School'. I sang covers and "played the guitar" with a rotating cast of people I lived with at the time and other "musicians" in Eureka and Arcata, Calif. Our key cover was "Elenor Rigby" which I usually opened and closed our sets with. I also sang covers of "Hotel California" "Black Hole Sun" "Shock The Monkey" and a couple others I forgot. We would also change instruments during songs, so that I could plays drums and guitar and sing all in one song. The effect was both aggravating and excruciating. I was often booed, tackled and envyed by many people.
