Bassbin Twins were born in Los Angeles, moved to Belgium, and are now based in San Francisco. Started in 1992 simply because of a "love for the beats", they've recorded for Skint, Belgian Breaks, Southern Fried, and others, as well as their own numerous one off indpendent releases.
A live Bassbin Twins show is a remix of all their favorite music. Their innovative tunes range from breaks to house to drum 'n bass. Anything and everything can get woven into the mix. Eclectic in nature, the connection lies in the unique rub they put on each track.
The future for BBT holds more live shows, new fiercely independent record releases, and more film making projects.
Latin rapper Capone was born and raised in Los Angeles, forming his own label, Latino Jam, in 1998 to issue his debut single, "Kick It 4 la Raza." The full-length Chicano World was released in 1999; both Raza Rolls Deep and Mis Carnales, Vol. 1 appeared the following spring. Second to None was issued in fall 2000; Barrio Dope surfaced in spring 2001. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide (from mp3.com)
Beck Hansen was born on July 8, 1970 in Los Angeles, the son of David Campbell and Bibbe Hansen. When his parents split, he and his younger brother stayed with their mother. Beck Hansen dropped out of school at the age of 14 and drifted around for about a decade, ending up back in Los Angeles. While playing some open mic events, he got noticed by the little local label, Bong Load Custom Records. In 1993, "Loser" was released to the world in a limited pressing of 500 copies and sent out to radio DJs across the U.S. The song became quite popular, and Geffen signed Beck in November of 1993, giving him the freedom to work with independent labels and to make "uncommercial" music.
One of the most inventive and eclectic figures to emerge from the '90s alternative revolution, Beck was the epitome of postmodern chic in an era obsessed with junk culture. Drawing upon a kaleidoscope of influences -- pop, folk, psychedelia, hip-hop, country, blues, R&B, funk, indie rock, noise rock, experimental rock, jazz, lounge, Brazilian music -- Beck created a body of work that was wildly unpredictable, vibrantly messy, and bursting with ideas. He was unquestionably a product of the media age -- a synthesist whose concoctions were pasted together from bits of the past and present, in ways that could only occur to an overexposed pop-culture junkie. His surreal, free-associative lyrics were laced with warped imagery and a sardonic sense of humor that, while typical of the times, only rarely threatened the impact of his adventurous music. Beck appropriated freely from whatever genres he felt like, juxtaposing sounds that would never have co-existed organically (and his habitual irony made clear that he wasn't aiming for authenticity in the first place). If his musical style was impossible to pigeonhole, his true identity lay in that rootless, sprawling diversity, that determination to acknowledge no boundaries or conventions; everything he did bore the stamp of his distinctively skewed viewpoint. Beck caught his big break when the bizarre Delta blues/white-boy-rap pastiche "Loser" spawned a national catch phrase in early 1994. His debut album, Mellow Gold, became a hit, and the official follow-up, the Dust Brothers-produced Odelay, was widely acclaimed as one of the decade's landmark records. Beck followed those touchstones with genre exercises in folk and funk that still managed to dazzle with their variety, solidifying one of the most creatively vital oeuvres in alternative rock -- or all of modern pop music, for that matter.
Beck David Campbell was born July 8, 1970, in Los Angeles, and came from strong creative stock. His father, David Campbell, was a conductor and string arranger (who later worked on his son's records); however, he left the family early on, and Beck adopted the last name of his mother Bibbe Hansen, a regular on Andy Warhol's Factory scene who appeared in the Warhol film Prison. Moreover, his grandfather Al Hansen was an important figure in the Fluxus art movement, best known for launching the career of Yoko Ono. The young Beck Hansen grew up mostly in Los Angeles, also spending some time with both sets of grandparents (Al Hansen in Europe, and his other grandfather -- a Presbyterian minister -- in the Kansas City area). He dropped out of school in tenth grade, and began playing acoustic blues and folk music as a street busker, as well as trying his hand in the poetry-slam scene; in 1988, he produced a cassette of home recordings called The Banjo Story. In 1989, he moved to New York and tried to break into the city's short-lived "anti-folk" scene, a punk-influenced movement of acoustic singer/songwriters that included Roger Manning and Michelle Shocked. Finding the going tough, he returned to Los Angeles after about a year, and attempted to gain exposure at rock clubs by playing a few songs in between the regular sets.
In the summer of 1991, Beck was discovered separately by Bong Load label owners Tom Rothrock (at one of his club performances) and Rob Schnapf (at the Sunset Junction street fair). The two approached him about cutting some folk songs backed with hip-hop beats, and Beck agreed. Gathering in the kitchen of up-and-coming hip-hop producer Karl Stephenson, Beck recorded "Loser" and a selection of other tracks. In 1992, Beck traveled to Olympia, WA, to record for Calvin Johnson's K label, and also inked a publishing deal with BMG. At the beginning of 1993, Beck finally saw his first official releases: the single "MTV Makes Me Want to Smoke Crack" on Flipside, and the full-length, cassette-only Golden Feelings on Sonic Enemy. In September, Bong Load finally released "Loser" as a 12" single, and it became an instant smash on L.A.'s independent radio stations, so much so that Bong Load had trouble pressing enough copies to keep up with the demand. Combining a funky drum-machine track and Beck's nonsense raps with bluesy slide guitar and a sample of Dr. John's "I Walk on Gilded Splinters," "Loser" sounded like nothing else. Word spread quickly, helped out by Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, who raved about Beck after seeing him perform at a backyard party. A major-label bidding war ensued, and Beck signed an innovative contract with Geffen that allowed him to continue releasing uncommercial material on smaller independent labels. In the meantime, another indie album, the 10" record A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight, was released in January 1994 by Fingerpaint.
Beck's major-label debut, Mellow Gold, was released in March 1994, and Geffen also reissued "Loser" on a national level. Instantly labeled an anthem for the so-called slacker generation, the song was a sensation, climbing into the Top Ten and hitting number one on Billboard's modern rock chart. Mellow Gold was a hit, climbing into the Top 20 and eventually going platinum. Initial reviews were somewhat mixed; many critics raved over the album, but others were reluctant to lavish praise on an artist they weren't sure would ever be anything more than a one-hit novelty. Meanwhile, Beck immediately took advantage of his Geffen deal to release two more indie albums in 1994. Stereopathetic Soul Manure, issued on Flipside, consisted of lo-fi noise rock, while One Foot in the Grave -- which included the material from Beck's 1992 session for K Records, fleshed out with new recordings -- was a bare-bones acoustic folk collection. Later that year, Bong Load released another indie single, "Steve Threw Up." Beck's low-budget body of work, especially his indie recordings, seemed to place him as part of the emerging lo-fi aesthetic, whose other adherents included Pavement, Sebadoh, and Liz Phair.
In the summer of 1995, Beck undertook his first major promotional tour, appearing as part of the fifth edition of Lollapalooza. For his second major-label album, he entered the studio with producers the Dust Brothers, who'd been a significant force behind the Beastie Boys' groundbreaking masterpiece Paul's Boutique. Odelay was released in June 1996 to massive acclaim, and wound up topping many year-end critics' polls; it was commercially successful as well, reaching the Top 20, selling over two million copies, and spinning off a string of MTV hits that included "Where It's At," "Devil's Haircut," "Jack-Ass," and "The New Pollution." "Where It's At" went on to win a Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal, and Odelay also won for Best Alternative Music Performance. Late in 1997, Beck contributed the single "Deadweight" to the soundtrack of the film A Life Less Ordinary, which starred Ewan McGregor and Cameron Diaz. In the spring of 1998, Beck's artwork was featured in a joint show with that of his late grandfather.
Also in 1998, Beck began work on a new, folk-styled album -- in the vein of One Foot in the Grave -- that was originally slated for release on Bong Load. However, excited by the results and the presence of Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, Geffen stepped in and released the album themselves that November. Titled Mutations, the record's quiet, gently trippy tone and relatively straightforward approach made it an unlikely progression from Odelay, and indeed both Beck and Geffen made it clear that the record was never intended as the official follow-up. Although everything about Mutations was low-key, it still became Beck's third straight Top 20 major-label album. In early 1999, lawsuits between Geffen, Bong Load, and Beck began to fly over the abrupt release change of Mutations, but were eventually worked out in friendly fashion. That summer, Beck recorded a duet with Emmylou Harris on "Sin City," a track featured on the Gram Parsons tribute album Return of the Grievous Angel.
The official follow-up to Odelay took an exhausting total of 14 months to record. Released in November 1999, Midnite Vultures was designed as a party record, running the gamut of variations on funk and allowing Beck to play the roles of R&B loverman and horny Prince disciple. Reviews ranged from glowing to indifferent, and Midnite Vultures didn't sell quite as well as its predecessors. Mutations won Beck another Grammy for Best Alternative Music Performance in early 2000, and he embarked on an extensive international tour in support of Midnite Vultures. In 2001, Beck recorded a cover of David Bowie's "Diamond Dogs" with cutting-edge hip-hop producer Timbaland, and also contributed to French electronic popsters Air's 10,000 Hz Legend album. His next project was another folk-styled album titled Sea Change, again recorded with Mutations producer Nigel Godrich and released by Geffen in September 2002. Beck promoted Sea Change with a brief acoustic tour beforehand, then announced that he had hired the Flaming Lips as his backing band for the more extensive official tour following its release. For the follow-up to Sea Change, Beck reenlisted the Dust Brothers as producers; the resulting album, titled Guero, was released in March 2005. Guero spawned hits like "E-Pro" and "Hell Yes" and was seen as a conscious return to the sound and feel of Beck's Odelay days. Guerolito, a remixed version of the album, appeared in December 2005. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide (from mp3.com)
The Stranglers formed as the Guildford Stranglers in the southern England village of Chiddington (near Guildford) in 1974, plowing a heavily Doors-influenced furrow through the local pub rock scene -- such as it was. Of the four founding members, only bassist Hugh Cornwall had any kind of recognizable historical pedigree, having played alongside Richard Thompson in the schoolboy band Emil & the Detectives. According to Thompson, their repertoire stretched from "Smokestack Lightning" and the blues, through to "old Kiki Dee B-sides," while their gigging was largely confined to the Hornsey School of Art, where Thompson's sister was Social Secretary.
The Guildford Stranglers were confined to a similar circuit. It was 1975 before they ventured into even the London suburbs, although once there -- and having shortened their name to the less parochial Stranglers -- things began moving quickly. The established pub rock scene was dying and promoters were willing to give any unknown band a break, simply to try and establish a new hierarchy. Thus it was that as the first stirrings of punk began to make their own presence felt on the same circuit, the Stranglers were on board the bandwagon from the beginning.
Their early songs, too, radiated the same ugly alienation that was the proto-punk movement's strongest calling card. Material like "Peasant in the Big Shitty," "I Feel Like a Wog," "Down in the Sewer," and "Ugly" itself were harsh, uncompromising, and grotesque; a muddy blurge of sound cut through with Dave Greenfield's hypnotically Doors-like keyboards, that was possessed of as much attitude as it was detectable musical competence. One uses the word guardedly, but "highlights" of this period were included on the 1992 archive release The Early Years: 74-75-76 Rare Live and Unreleased.
By mid-1976, the Stranglers already had enough force behind them to be booked as opening act at the Ramones' first London show, and Mark P., editor of the newly launched punk fanzine Sniffin' Glue, conferred further punk approval on the band when he wrote, "their sound is 1976...the Stranglers are a pleasure to boogie to -- sometimes they sound like the Doors, other times like Television, but they've got an ID of their own." Further prestige accompanied the band's opening slot for Patti Smith in October -- and that despite most of the audience walking out, long before the band left the stage; by the time the band set out on their own first U.K. tour, they had signed with UA (A&M in America) and were preparing to record their debut album with producer Martin Rushent.
"(Get A) Grip (On Yourself)," the Stranglers' debut single, made the lower reaches of the Top 50; Rattus Norvegicus, their first album, confirmed the group as one of the fastest developing groups on the entire scene -- even as the scene itself still puzzled over whether the Stranglers even belonged on board. "Old hairy misogynists" was a common accusation to fling in their direction, and it was one which the Stranglers themselves delighted in encouraging. In a more PC climate, their first U.K. Top Ten hit, summer 1977's "Peaches," would never even have been written, let alone recorded, while the bandmembers' reputation as sexual bad boys was only exacerbated by other songs in their repertoire -- "London Lady," "Bring on the Nubiles," "Choosy Susie."
The fact that much of their lyrical prowess was built around the darkest hued of black humors never entered many people's minds at the time, but listen again to their finest moments -- "Hangin' Around," "Down in the Sewer," the mindless boogie of "Go Buddy Go" and the sheer vile joys of "Ugly" -- and try to keep an even halfway straight face.
Unfortunately, though the Stranglers themselves reveled in an almost Monty Python-esque grasp of absurdity (and, in particular, the absurdities of modern "men's talk"), there was an undercurrent of violence which not only permeated their music, it also, inevitably, spilled into their live shows. Their fall 1977 British tour was marred by some very ugly scenes, while a trip to Sweden brought them into violent confrontation with the Raggere, that country's equivalent of Britain's punk-hating Teddy Boys. Hugh Cornwall's choice of T-shirts (a Ford logo reworked to read F***) brought the band into conflict with London's local council, while the group's decision to line their stage with topless dancing girls when they played a concert in that city's Battersea Park brought women's groups screaming down on them, too.
Yet despite so much controversy, the Stranglers' grip on the British chart seemed unbreakable. "Peaches" was followed by "Something Better Change" and might easily have been joined by a passionate cover of "Mony Mony," had the band not opted to hide behind the pseudonym of the Mutations, accompanying singer Celia Gollin on the number. (A second Celia & the Mutations single, "You Better Believe Me," followed late in 1977.) "No More Heroes," the driving title-track to the Stranglers' second album, was another huge hit, although the album itself was a disappointment -- recorded in a hurry, with little time to write new material, it was largely comprised of older songs which had been passed over for Rattus. Within months, a new Stranglers album was on the streets, and this time they got everything right. Black and White was previewed by the hits "Five Minutes" and "Nice'n'Sleazy" (self-mythology in a nutshell), and was swiftly followed by one of the band's finest moments, a murderously slowed-down version of Bacharach/David's "Walk on By."
More importantly, Black and White was the last Stranglers album to even flirt with the socio-sexual shock troop imagery which fired their first records; with the live X-Cert album (their first for IRS in America) rounding off 1978 with a final flurry of gruffness, the band was now free to experiment beyond even the most indulgent fan's wildest imaginings.
1979's The Raven saw them moving toward both psychedelia and radio-friendly pop -- "The Duchess," Top 20 that summer, was a classic tune by anybody's standards and, while a flurry of solo activity from Jean Jacques Burnel (The Euroman Cometh) and Hugh Cornwell (Nosferatu) raised rumors that the band was reaching the end of its lifespan, in fact it was their non-musical activities that came closest to bursting the bubble, after Cornwall was sentenced to three months imprisonment for drug possession in January 1980.
The band regrouped following his release and banged out two albums in a year, the concept Men in Black, and the extraordinarily ambitious La Folie -- home of their biggest hit single yet, "Golden Brown." It reached number two in Britain, although two other singles from the same album, "Let Me Introduce You to the Family" and "La Folie" itself, contrarily proved among their least successful so far.
"Strange Little Girl," specially recorded for the hits compilation The Collection 1977-1982, returned the band to the Top Ten the following summer and, having moved from UA to Epic, the Stranglers rounded out 1982 with the "European Female" single and Feline album, defiantly pop-heavy albums flavored by the group's own special take on the then-prevalent synthesizer sounds. This phase of the band's development reached a nadir of sorts with 1984's Aural Sculpture, the least engaging of their albums to date, and the least successful -- it faltered at number 14, with the exquisite "Skin Deep" single drawn up one place lower.
Two years of near silence followed, punctuated only by a succession of under-performing British 45s -- American releases were even rarer. "Nice in Nice," a commentary on a six-year-old misadventure in the French city of that name, "Always the Sun," "Big in America," and "Shakin' Like a Leaf," drawn from the 1986 album Dreamtime ensured the band remained very much a sideshow into the late '80s, but 1988 finally brought a massive turnaround in their fortunes. That January, a wildly churning cover of the Kinks' "All Day and All of the Night" powered the Stranglers back into the Top Ten, to be followed by a new live album of the same name.
Another long silence followed but, sticking with covers, the Stranglers were back to their best with ? & the Mysterians' "96 Tears" in early 1990, a taster for the album 10. A second hits collection, The Stranglers Greatest Hits, stuffed stockings across Europe that Christmas, but any serious attempt at a lasting revival was stymied by the departure of Cornwall for a solo career. He was replaced by John Ellis, a former member of fellow pub-to-punk graduates the Vibrators and Sniff'n the Tears frontman Paul Ellis and the new look Stranglers re-emerged on the China indie in early 1992.
A new album, Stranglers in the Night, appeared that fall, together with the minor hit "Heaven or Hell"; by year's end, however, drummer Jet Black, too, had departed. He was replaced by Tikabe Tobe and, in this form, the group recorded yet another live album, Saturday Night Sunday Morning, before Black returned for 1995's About Time. The group's studio set, Coup de Grace, was issued in 1998, but the relative lack of action on the new releases front has been more than remedied by some sterling assaults on the Stranglers' archive.
Each of their UA/Epic albums has been reissued with generous helpings of bonus tracks, while 1992 saw the release of a classic 1977 live show, Live at the Hope & Anchor, together with a collection of the band's (surprisingly inventive) 12" singles and a fabulous box set drawn from the 1976-1982 period, The Old Testament. Further live albums have since appeared, as has a remarkable document of the band's three BBC sessions, from 1977 and 1982.
That it is those earliest years which remain the Stranglers' most popular is not surprising -- from bad-mannered yobs to purveyors of supreme pop delicacies, the group was responsible for music which may have been ugly and might have been crude -- but it was never, ever boring. That people are still offended by it only adds to its delight -- if rock & roll (especially punk rock & roll) was meant to be pleasant, it would never have changed the world, after all. The fact that much of the Stranglers' message was actually hysterically funny -- as they themselves intended it to be -- only adds to their modern appeal. And the fact that their fans are still called upon to defend them only proves what humorless zeroes their foes really were. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide (from mp3.com)
Petter was not the first Swedish MC. Neither was he the one that made Swedish an accepted language on the domestic hip-hop scene, that honor goes to the Latin Kings. But Petter was the first Swedish hip-hop artist breaking through to a mass audience, making the genre marketable and, by that, making way for a great number of younger MCs. Growing up in S�dermalm, Stockholm, he was a member of the bands Vanguards and Blacktop Dandelions, still rapping in English. But it was not until he started writing lyrics in Swedish he managed to get a contract on BMG.
In August 1998, he released his first album, Mitt Sj�tte Sinne, with help from Ayo, PeeWee, and Sleepy, among others, parts of a loosely held together collective called Natural Bond. The album got mixed reviews but sold well, if not exceptional. But the coming year, Petter's star rose when he began receiving immense attention from media and better gigs than any other MC in Sweden. When the second album, Bananrepubliken, was released in 1999, Petter was already a big star. This album was more up-tempo, sold better than any other Swedish hip-hop album before, and got good press. While being heavily influenced by American prototypes, Petter managed to put the lyrics in an understandable Swedish context, thus distinguishing him from many of his contemporaries. The songs also had a good down-to-earth and sing- (or rather rap-) along quality.
From the position he held after the second album, he was able to get backing from BMG to start his own label, Bananrepubliken, where he signed a mix of old friends and new discoveries like Eye-N-I, Feven, and Ayo. Though by 2001, Petter was not unique in doing what he did anymore, he was still by far the biggest star of hip-hop in Sweden, and the one person who had done the most to make it a mainstream genre. ~ Lars Lov�n, All Music Guide (from mp3.com)