In 2012 I started a short-lived project called Second Hand Suitcase. The premise was a hand-me-down suitcase from my Great Grandfather filled with second hand battery powered musical instruments that I would use to make and play live beats from. Unfortunately the last and most expensive piece of equipment I acquired for the project -a Yamaha SU200 Sampler for $140 from Craigslist- just didn’t work how I hoped, and I lost interest after only two or three performances. Luckily, not long after losing interest I stumbled onto a used MPC2000xl at a local pawn shop. I bought it a few months later and started developing a new stage show. The sounds and samples on this track are actually the first bunch that I arranged and deemed worthy of my new stage show, and I now use this as an opener for every live set I do. The majority of vocal samples came from a vintage WMT record called “The Voice of Iowa for 40 Years.” There are also vocal samples from a really weird business dictation record where a guy just reads text in monotone for like two hours, and the “say who” sample is from a random children’s record. Honestly, I can’t remember exactly what record the main chops I used for the melody came from, nor can I recall where I gathered the drums, but they might have been from a record too. Either way, I’m sure I’ll stumble back onto them in the future and put them in the pile of records I’ve sampled. Lastly there’s some spacey synth sounds layered throughout; these were made with a Korg Kaoscillator which is the only piece of equipment that remains from the original Second Hand Suitcase project besides a tiny mixer and the suitcase, which to my delight is just the right size for the MPC, so I still use it….
*Note
-I’d be lying if I said this track wasn’t inspired by Jel of Anticon.
-this studio version of this beat is conformed to a metronomic sequence.
-in concert this beat is played in its entirety with no metronome or looping.