TRIUMVIRATE

september brought this tiny island country a bevy of typhoons and earthquakes, but it also heralded the creation of DA HEADNODDAZ, breakin' atoms and invading a pair of stereo speakers near you!!!



"Q"
the lyrical one.
Q is the rhyme animal,
the one who flows across eight-bars
with efervescent ease.

Q is a gifted storyteller,
weaving tales of personal tragedy
and triumph, along with the
occasional comedic jab to the mid-section.

hailing from the motor city,
Q loves his fam,
his quest for life,
and his detroit pistons.




K-RATE
the creative one.
making both London and Kobe
his home,
K-RATE will also be known as
the first BRIT ever to play
professional baseball in japan.
(just kidding)

a rabid hanshin tigers fan,
K-RATE is beat extraordinaire,
creator of PaRLaY records,
master of both turntables
and the mic.

always can be spotted in a club drinking his favorite liquid refreshment,
AKA the yellow, bubbly stuff.

aside from the love he has for BIZ, newest addition to the crew,
K-RATE wishes to give props to his heavy influences:
Derek n Clive, David Brent, Mark B, Rodney P,
Kanemoto, DJ Premier, Jay-Dee,
Pete Rock, Roots Manuva, and
"of course, my people around me."
Holla!!!

ZIG-NINE
the multi-faceted one.
hailing from the bay area, california,
Zig-Nine has made kobe, japan his home away from home
for the last 6 years.

like the mustard and mayo
that holds a turkey club sandwich together,
Zig-Nine adds additional zest and flavor
to DA HEADNODDAZ' tunes by inserting
samples that bring it all into harmony.

always can be spotted in a club sippin' on a gin & tonic
or a glass of shochu...

an avid basketballer who doesn't spend enough time in the gym,
Zig-Nine is co-author of "Famous Japanese NBA All-Stars, Vol. 2"

WELCOME TO THE MACHINE

it's been said that the first NINTENDO gaming system had much more computing capabilities than the APOLLO spacecraft.

pretty crazy thought, considering that we made it to the moon and back in what was essentially a bucket of bolts and wiring!

to celebrate this food-for-thought-of-the-day, i bring to you classic old skool shoot-em-up madness. enjoy, and make sure that your boss doesn't catch you slacking off.

and while we're askew on this mad tangent, one of my co-workers informed me rather solemnly that aliens have established a base on the dark side of the moon and have been watching us ever since. better yet, they were around to see neil armstrong and buzz aldrin establish their footprints on the lunar surface...

someone's been hitting the crack-pipe a little too hard!!!

NO SLEEP 'TIL...



typhoons...tsunami's...and tectonic activity.
whatever the reason, there have been quite a few natural disasters taking place on this tiny island nation.



not to be slowed down by any of this, Mark from Cause 4 Concern and E.N.O. from PaRLaY records made a two-week stopover in japan, headlining in osaka, tokyo, and hiroshima.
i had a chance to catch up with both of them, and they seemed to have enjoyed their brief but action-packed stay out here.






Mark from Cause 4 Concern

beverage of choice: whiskey and coke.
can clean off an entire bottle in the course of one night.

weapon of choice: Final Scratch.
a revolutionary turntable program which enables you to use any song you download off the internet and feed it onto two 12" vinyl records...

vinyl of choice: bad-ass photek tune featuring king tubby. release date TBA.

being the nice guy that he is, Mark heeded his lady friend's request back home to stock up on hello kitty. without any choice, the four of us (Mark, E.N.O., K-Rate, Zig-Nine) ventured down to the nearest sanrio store and ripped the store apart.
quite an embarrassing scene...




E.N.O. from PaRLaY records

this was E.N.O.'s second tour of duty in japan, and he knew the ropes this time around. rumor has it that he was spotted in a karaoke bar down in hiroshima belting out coolio's "gangsta's paradise." i smell a grammy!

E.N.O. is also the other half of PaRLaY records out in the U.K., playing at the big drum'n'bass venues in Edinburgh, London, and Manchester.

avid football (the FIFA kind) fans, the entire crew (Biostepperz, KSK, K-Rate, Zig-Nine, Mark, E.N.O.) stayed up until the wee hours of the morning on saturday watching England square off against Austria.





perhaps the biggest dilemma Mark and E.N.O. faced was choosing which Gundam robots to take back to London with them. after scouring downtown kobe for several hours looking for the meanest gun-toting mobile suit around, i realized two things.

1. DJ's are closet robot-freaks.
remember Q-Bert in the film "Scratch" with his assorted robot collection? it's a universal hobby amongst DJ's. so freaky it's almost like a religious sect.

2. you can never buy only ONE.
eventually, it turns into a shopping spree of sorts. because Mark and E.N.O. had a 7-hour stopover waiting for them in dubai on the way back to heathrow, it made sense to load up on 3 or 4 robots each to work on.

all in all, their stay was an experience enjoyed by everyone.



NOBODY BEATS THE BIZ...


no, not the one who picks boogers.

last week also heralded the arrival of BIZ the wonderdog,
daughter of proud parents K-Rate and Bella Rockwell.

a little over 4 months old, i had the privilege (?) of baby-sitting this pup for an evening.

after proceeding to run around the PaRLaY studio over the course of several hours, she promptly fell asleep.









now, the thing about pug's is that they have huge goldfish eyes, plus a serious underbite.
seeing BIZ snoring away was a cross between FIDO from Looney Tunes and the zombies from "Night of the Living Dead."

cute regardless, though!

MONKEY FUN

One time I hired a monkey to take notes for me in class.
I would just sit there with my mind a complete blank while the monkey scribbled on little pieces of paper.
At the end of the week the teacher said, "Class, I want you to write a paper using your notes."
So I wrote a paper that said "Hello, my name is Bingo. I like to climb on things. Can I have a banana? Eek eek."

I got an F.

When I told my Mom about it she said "I told you never trust a monkey!"

The end.
yeah...never trust those mischievous monkeys...