That was my Amazon review btw, and I don't know where that youtube clip originated from but it's definitely NOT from the DVD version I was talking about. That clip actually sounds pretty good - like it COULD actually be mardi gras w/out the bells. The DVD I have uses a track from the Wild Style Breakbeat Album. Not sure of the name, but it was the song with the bells on it. It was edited VERY sloppily into the Flash scene. The youtube clip here does a much better job. Plot thickens.
EDIT:
Also: Biz finally played me the alleged copy of the bell-less mardi gras over the phone. I had him play it over for me a few times while I set up my Radio Shack telephone recorder. So, I have audio proof! Although VERY low and muddled. It still might not satisfy skeptics. I'll see about posting it tomorrow.
Alright eryone, let me put this to rest. Apparently when Bob James wouldnt clear Mardi Gras on the original DVD, someone hooked up some pretty weak stuff to replace it. When Charlie was gearing up for the DVD re-release, Freddie contacted my boy and his production parter to hook up a Mardi-Gras-like joint to dub in. I put him onto to this thread, and he appreciates the kind words. So for the record, this is not Mardi Gras without the bells, its an original joint by the production duo illfonics. He's supposed to send me the mp3 tonight, I'll post it then.
A friend of mine told me about this thread so here I am.
Let me put all of this discussion to rest.
I guess it was 2001 or early 2002. Fab hit me up and said that he and Charlie were having a lot of trouble clearing Mardi Gras and they had to take another route. I was familiar with the VHS version that had been going around where they had "flown in" one of the wild style break beats in place of Mardi Gras, cause it was their only option at the time. He explained that he was really unhappy with the result and that he and Charlie wanted to have a new beat put in that would have the same vibe as mardi gras. He and I met at Nick Quested's production house in the ville and discussed over tea and biscuits (true). At the time I was working with my boy Jedrex, currently of Illfonics and we made the beat in maybe 1 or 2 nights. We got the master audio of that scene from Charlie, put it in a logic session and built the beat to fit in perfectly with flash's performance. You are right that we left the toms in that he uses to cut back and forth, HOWEVER, the beat is COMPLETELY original. It is not Mardi Gras panned this way and that and phase reversed etc. We spent nuff time sliding the drum hits around in time to get a live feel similar to mardi gras. You hear the crowd noise in the backround? I think I got that from some generic sound fx CD (probably called "crowd") and just eqed and processed it to sound like the original.
Jedrex hit me and asked me to find the session which is on DVD back-up somewhere. Once I do I'll post some sounds to show how we put it together. I'm using a completely different rig now, meaning that I don't have the same plug ins I used for that. I think they were mostly Waves.
Our 'deal' with Charlie and Fab was that we would get credit on the DVD. We were just excited to be a part of a movie we had been into for so long. A sure shot classic. I was sad to get the call from Charlie saying that Rhino had already done the menus etc and wasn't putting in any DVD credit. SO, they came to our pad with some signed Wild Style movie posters (from a german release I believe), a stack of DVD's, Wild Style soundtrack CD's and later we got copies of Charlie's book "Yes, Yes, Ya'll."
I haven't thought about that little beat in ages so it was fun to find this thread. Thanks to those that liked it and to those that didn't, well, whatevs. We did the best we could!
Peace, Eli
Oh, this is my first post. Let me use one of these fun little things like..
Thanks for coming here to let us know the real deal, it is appreciated. As one of the dudes who said he was not feelin' the replacement Mardi Gras beat earlier in this thread, let me just clarify that my feelings really weren't about the beat you made... actually it's a pretty nice damn beat. It's just that I am one of those old and bitter hip hop purist dudes who does not like change ... I would not have been happy with ANY beat replacing the original Mardi Gras beat. No reflection at all on you and your work- considering that a change had to be made for legal reasons, whether people like me dig it or not, you did a real good job with it IMO.
Dee, I have no memory but I did do Thursdays with my homie Duane from negroclash for a year or so. The early days of APT! You came with Fever? I think I remember that night, actually.
and I have to say that the FIRST thing I said to Fab was, "there's no way you can clear Mardi Gras??"
Believe me I am a purist as well and wanted to see it presented in it's original form. It came down to money apparently and it was a LOT of money. They just couldn't afford to do it.
I remember when Jed and I saw that post on Amazon about "horrible results" etc. We just kind of laughed and were like "Well, you can't please everybody!"
BTW I have to give total credit on the feel of the drums to JEDREX. He is the ghost note master. His new team "Illfonics" will certainly be blowing up in the near future.
And where's Paul Nice with that Biz telephone proof of the bell-less Mardi Gras?
we dont believe you biz..
seriously, of all the collectors in the world that we know of both personally and not at all...how is it biz is the only guy with this 45 ?
There is an edit on 45, I think it was promo-only and I KNOW I'm not the only one who has it... I can't remember if it was panned to the one side on the intro or if it was just 'more pannable' but its STILL not just the drums...
Its a 12" thats purported to be owned by the one Biz in question... and yeah, other folks would have come across it by now. THE SUITCASE IS REAL THOUGH>
And where's Paul Nice with that Biz telephone proof of the bell-less Mardi Gras?
we dont believe you biz..
seriously, of all the collectors in the world that we know of both personally and not at all...how is it biz is the only guy with this 45 ?
There is an edit on 45, I think it was promo-only and I KNOW I'm not the only one who has it... I can't remember if it was panned to the one side on the intro or if it was just 'more pannable' but its STILL not just the drums...
Its a 12" thats purported to be owned by the one Biz in question... and yeah, other folks would have come across it by now. THE SUITCASE IS REAL THOUGH>
until paul can actually vouch, i will say this...i know a cat who worked directly with creed taylor for cti. all of this had benn gone over waaay back then, and still no version of mardi gras with JUST the drums had turned up. im still waiting.
There is an early '80's re-issue of Bob James 2 that has a different mix of "Mardi Grass" (as well as other mixes of the other tunes). It's channels are more 'seperated' . You'll hear the bells (with the beat in the background) on one channel & the beat ( with the bells really quiet ) on the other channel. That's the closest you can get !!! It's that issue on Tappan Zee / Columbia (AL 36836) records without the gatefold sleeve (CTI logo is taken off the sleeve!!!). I also have that Italian 45 picture sleeve release of which a notorious seller on E-bay claimed it has a different mix. This is false information...
There is an early '80's re-issue of Bob James 2 that has a different mix of "Mardi Grass" (as well as other mixes of the other tunes). It's channels are more 'seperated' . You'll hear the bells (with the beat in the background) on one channel & the beat ( with the bells really quiet ) on the other channel. That's the closest you can get !!! It's that issue on Tappan Zee / Columbia (AL 36836) records without the gatefold sleeve (CTI logo is taken off the sleeve!!!). I also have that Italian 45 picture sleeve release of which a notorious seller on E-bay claimed it has a different mix. This is false information...
i have both the columbia and the columbia tappan zee non gatefold repress' and they both have bells..
Comments
nosy question but I love to hear an anecdote about tea and biscuits with the biz.
If someone would post more stories about biz I would make a blog out of it. I could read that shit all day long.
here we go
thats fucking awesome. Someone needs to make a shirt of this now.
I'll have an L on a yellow shirt please
I got the vector file so making a screen would be easy if someone has the shit to do it.
I'll take a XXL, please.
Alright eryone, let me put this to rest. Apparently when Bob James wouldnt clear Mardi Gras on the original DVD, someone hooked up some pretty weak stuff to replace it. When Charlie was gearing up for the DVD re-release, Freddie contacted my boy and his production parter to hook up a Mardi-Gras-like joint to dub in. I put him onto to this thread, and he appreciates the kind words. So for the record, this is not Mardi Gras without the bells, its an original joint by the production duo illfonics. He's supposed to send me the mp3 tonight, I'll post it then.
good.
A friend of mine told me about this thread so here I am.
Let me put all of this discussion to rest.
I guess it was 2001 or early 2002. Fab hit me up and said that he and Charlie were having a lot of trouble clearing Mardi Gras and they had to take another route.
I was familiar with the VHS version that had been going around where they had "flown in" one of the wild style break beats in place of Mardi Gras, cause it was their only option at the time. He explained that he was really unhappy with the result and that he and Charlie wanted to have a new beat put in that would have the same vibe as mardi gras.
He and I met at Nick Quested's production house in the ville and discussed over tea and biscuits (true).
At the time I was working with my boy Jedrex, currently of Illfonics and we made the beat in maybe 1 or 2 nights. We got the master audio of that scene from Charlie, put it in a logic session and built the beat to fit in perfectly with flash's performance. You are right that we left the toms in that he uses to cut back and forth, HOWEVER, the beat is COMPLETELY original. It is not Mardi Gras panned this way and that and phase reversed etc. We spent nuff time sliding the drum hits around in time to get a live feel similar to mardi gras. You hear the crowd noise in the backround? I think I got that from some generic sound fx CD (probably called "crowd") and just eqed and processed it to sound like the original.
Jedrex hit me and asked me to find the session which is on DVD back-up somewhere. Once I do I'll post some sounds to show how we put it together. I'm using a completely different rig now, meaning that I don't have the same plug ins I used for that. I think they were mostly Waves.
Our 'deal' with Charlie and Fab was that we would get credit on the DVD. We were just excited to be a part of a movie we had been into for so long. A sure shot classic. I was sad to get the call from Charlie saying that Rhino had already done the menus etc and wasn't putting in any DVD credit. SO, they came to our pad with some signed Wild Style movie posters (from a german release I believe), a stack of DVD's, Wild Style soundtrack CD's and later we got copies of Charlie's book "Yes, Yes, Ya'll."
I haven't thought about that little beat in ages so it was fun to find this thread.
Thanks to those that liked it and to those that didn't, well, whatevs.
We did the best we could!
Peace,
Eli
Oh, this is my first post. Let me use one of these fun little things like..
not yet ...
oh yeah, you can feel it coming ...
Thanks for coming here to let us know the real deal, it is appreciated. As one of the dudes who said he was not feelin' the replacement Mardi Gras beat earlier in this thread, let me just clarify that my feelings really weren't about the beat you made... actually it's a pretty nice damn beat.
Dee, I have no memory but I did do Thursdays with my homie Duane from negroclash for a year or so. The early days of APT! You came with Fever? I think I remember that night, actually.
and I have to say that the FIRST thing I said to Fab was, "there's no way you can clear Mardi Gras??"
Believe me I am a purist as well and wanted to see it presented in it's original form. It came down to money apparently and it was a LOT of money. They just couldn't afford to do it.
I remember when Jed and I saw that post on Amazon about "horrible results" etc.
We just kind of laughed and were like "Well, you can't please everybody!"
BTW I have to give total credit on the feel of the drums to JEDREX. He is the ghost note master. His new team "Illfonics" will certainly be blowing up in the near future.
Peace to all.
and of course:
BTW, I'm glad I found this site. This shit rocks.
Can you shed some light on who was the actual killjoy? Bob James or Paul Simon?
And where's Paul Nice with that Biz telephone proof of the bell-less Mardi Gras?
I do remember something about Paul Simon. I think that was the source of the obscenely high license fee (around 20K if I remember correctly)
we dont believe you biz..
seriously, of all the collectors in the world that we know of both personally and not at all...how is it biz is the only guy with this 45 ?
If any of the collectors in the world that we know both personally and not at all...Biz would be the buy to have it!
There is an edit on 45, I think it was promo-only and I KNOW I'm not the only one who has it... I can't remember if it was panned to the one side on the intro or if it was just 'more pannable' but its STILL not just the drums...
Its a 12" thats purported to be owned by the one Biz in question... and yeah, other folks would have come across it by now. THE SUITCASE IS REAL THOUGH>
until paul can actually vouch, i will say this...i know a cat who worked directly with creed taylor for cti. all of this had benn gone over waaay back then, and still no version of mardi gras with JUST the drums had turned up. im still waiting.
I'd be really surprised if he was the kill joy.
I think he already said that Bob James wasn't aware of such a version.
has a different mix of "Mardi Grass" (as well as other mixes of the other tunes). It's channels are more 'seperated' . You'll hear the bells (with the beat in the background)
on one channel & the beat ( with the bells really quiet ) on the other channel. That's the closest you can get !!! It's that issue on Tappan Zee / Columbia (AL 36836) records without the gatefold sleeve (CTI logo is taken off the sleeve!!!). I also have that Italian 45 picture sleeve release of which a notorious seller on E-bay claimed it
has a different mix. This is false information...
i have both the columbia and the columbia tappan zee non gatefold repress' and they both have bells..