Had to use a mic stand and a pencil to keep tension on the loop while I dubbed it onto a cassette. Add some bass, trippy analog electronic beeping and rap vocals and you have my first studio track in 1994, The Man with the Actual Dope. It had a sample of a TV news reporter saying "the man with the actual dope" and the vocals actually had to be finished at my apartment because the music lab class was over. The "b side" to this was Baam! that had beat samples from Stanford Prison Experiment, The Accused, and Led Zeppelin, (same exact beat and tempo, exactly as sampled . . . conspiracy!) I dubbed a bass line and the lyrics included "Here we go in '94."

There was also a reference to smashing my hand in the reel to reel. Don't try to slow the rewind by sticking your fingers in the spinning reel. It is painful and bloody.

I was in a couple of punk bands and I used to record garage practice sessions with a boom box. I would try to set it in the middle of everyone's amps and the drum kit and put the tiny vocal PA right next to it for best recording mix under the circumstance.

In 12 months we had 5 different drummers and never quite got our sh*** together. One day before practice the guitar player was showing me his roomate's gun by pointing it at me and accidentally shot through the wall, killing the bathtub in the next room. At least the bullet was lodged in the bathtub and not me.

Painful and bloody: I made some true beat loops at the music lab at Cal State by recording a Tribe Called Quest sample onto reel to reel. Rock the reels over the playback head to find the beat break beginning and end, mark and cut with a razor, then use splice tape to loop it. Had to use a mic stand and a pencil to keep tension on the loop while I dubbed it onto a cassette. Add some bass, trippy analog electronic beeping and rap vocals and you have my first studio track in 1994, The Man with the Actual Dope. It had a sample of a TV news reporter saying "the man with the actual dope" and the vocals actually had to be finished at my apartment because the music lab class was over. The "b side" to this was <

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