-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- @O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O Suburban Terrorism Online Rap and Roll Preservationists @O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O0@O This Issue: Snow in the spotlight OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO EDITOR'S NOTE All of the other articles I have read about Snow had stupid titles like "Snow Falls" "Snow settles in" "Snow in the forecast" and "Snow storm". I would just like to say that all of the people who came up with these titles are fucking idiots and I hope they get persecuted by the rest of society for being so fucking dumb and patronizing and I hate them. -*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+- Snow's 2001 Saskatoon Concert Reviewed by BMC -*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+- In honesty, I don't know where to begin this story. A few weeks ago I saw some posters hanging up around the U of S campus declaring that Snow was going to be performing at Louis', the campus pub, on St. Valentines Day (February 14th for those of you who are unfamiliar with the dates of Christian holidays). My first reaction to these posters was, "AhHahahhAhHAhHA!" I must admit that I got a kick out of the fact that he was coming here and aside from knowing that he appeared on Maestro Fresh Wes's last album I hadn't heard anything he had done since the smash hit "Informer" (featuring the assembly line beat, a cool cameo by washed-up juice crew rapper MC Shan, and some hard lyrics that made the song the best selling reggae song of all time). I remembered that he also did a song called "Girl I've been Hurt," a song that didn't have the same feel as "Informer" and didn't succeed very well in the charts. I get a kick out of this stuff though, B-Movies, B-Music, everything, and I figured that Valentines Day may be the day when my cup overflowed with it. "I'm going to that," I said to my girlfriend, who was confused because I had never expressed interest in Snow or even mentioned him or his music before. Why did I suddenly decide to go? Perhaps that will forever remain a mystery. The next day the clock radio woke me up and what song was playing? Snow's new hit, "Everybody Wants to be Like You." I didn't like the song very much. On his new album (which I discovered to actually be his fourth album) he has put the rap beats aside and done more with guitars and other non-turntable instruments. I read in an interview that he likes to call his new style "soda," because "pop" is full of negative connotations and though he wants his music to become popular he is not interested in having the artificial status that the pop world creates. Fair enough. In the week before the concert I became Snow-frenzied. I pulled out my Snow CD and refused to let my girlfriend remove it from the car stereo, threatening suicide if she did. I went to some snow websites (not snow.com though, that is a skiing site or something like that), I read a dozen interviews and reviews of Snow, learning that he dropped out of school in grade 8, loved to drink and fight, got in a lot of trouble and picked up his singing style from some Jamaican friends who lived in his neighbourhood. They began to call him D-Snow (D for Darren, his first name). I assume that he must have changed it to Snow for marketability, but when he autographed my poster he signed it as D-Snow, so maybe it is like that old and forgotten group Bush-X, whose group name was simply pronounced "Bush." Though the media knows him as Snow, he's still old D-Snow when signing a stolen poster. But I digress. Back in the history of Snow's life, he was hanging out on the street corner and being bad all the time and MC Shan came through the neighbourhood (Snow told me Shan was looking around for drugs - note: on "The Bridge," Shan disses people who use drugs, stating mockingly that instead of trying to reach their goals they spend all of their time getting high... I'm going to have to mention this in a future Droppin Ignorance article) ...he met Snow and heard him sing and after getting his bag of dope from wherever he said, "Damn this guy needs a record deal." So if Big daddy Kane ever said "How you get a record deal?" This is the answer Snow would give. I wanted to ask Snow if he considered himself to be an honourary member of the Juice Crew, but I didn't want him to kick my ass so I just shut the fuck up about that. Anyway, Snow had some problems in his past, getting charged (and acquitted) on two charges of murder and going to jail for 6 months (reduced from 12 months) for getting into a bar brawl and putting some guys in the hospital. After the show I overheard him telling some guys about how he saw the video for "Informer" for the first time while in jail. Apparently some friends called him up and said, "Hey! We saw your video." Snow said the first thing he thought was, "They better not be confusing a Vanilla Ice video for me or I'm going to be pissed off!" In one interview Snow said that the money he made from his first album was great because it allowed him to drink more. Snow blames his drinking and irresponsible attitude for the plunge in popularity and for the trouble he got into. Then Snow recorded two albums that were only released in Japan and from what I have heard, his new album "Mind on the Moon" is his first release here in Canada since "12 Inches of Snow" (which was a clever double entendre). There are some changes from the Snow we saw back in 1993. On stage, Snow said to some old friends he spotted in the crowd, "No, I don't drink anymore. Talk to me after the show, you'll see... I'm different now." Snow is on a comeback mission, not just in the charts but in being responsible and honest to himself and others. The reason for this? As one girl approached the stage and told Snow she was his biggest fan and completely in love with him, he told her that he is married and had a little girl and that though he appreciated her offer of sex he would have to decline. Apparently, Snow is settling down, taking care of his family, and making changes that will allow him to lead what he considers to be a better and fuller life. This was one of the things that he made the audience aware of, and the end of my biographical tangent brings us to the beginning of my review of his concert. From what I could tell, about 60-70 people showed up at the pub, and though I wasn't sure if this is the size of crowd I would like to see from the stage if I was Snow, he was amused by it and seemed to genuinely enjoy the comfortable and relaxed feeling. He made sure to make the audience feel at ease about the size by letting us know that he likes doing a small show as he does about doing a big one (for some reason this paragraph reminds me of my sex life). Even though because of the low number of fans there was not much happening on the dance floor, Snow accepted this, saying, "If you guys are all going to sit down then I'm going to sit down too." After he said this, which everyone considered to be an idle threat, he actually grabbed a chair and sat down in the middle of the stage. And wouldn't you know? This chair was a wobbly piece of crap that looked like it would fall apart at any second. Snow got a kick out of this too, saying, "If this chair breaks and I fall on my ass then you'll see a REAL fucking show". Then something happened that I'd never seen before. Snow looked at us and asked us if we had any questions we would like to ask him. One person asked about his flu. Apparently Snow spent a few days in the hospital with some serious illness, and throughout his show from time to time he would pull out some sort of spray and spray it all over his face. One guy asked, "what the fuck is that thing?" but Snow never heard that question. I'm still curious about that. Anyone who practices medicine, let me know. Then came the shouts for requests. Someone yelled "Lady in the Red Dress!" (a song from his first album) Snow said, "I don't have the music for that." Someone yelled, "Ease Up!" Wait, that someone was me. "Ease Up" is easily Snows worst song ever. It's from his first album (which I have listened to a hundred times in the past 2 weeks) and it is his message to a girl whose life has gone astray. "Ease up, slow down, girl you've got to change your life around," and, "At the top of the swim team but now you're drowning" are my two favourite quotes from this one. If you've never heard it, think of LL Cool J's "I Need Love" or Candyman's "Playin on Me" (or just download it). Snow ignored my request for "Ease Up" completely, but the requests for "Lady in the Red Dress" kept geting shouted, and one person yelled "Do it a cappella!" so he did. He played some more songs like "Jimmy Hat" and "Joke thing," both of which I considered to be strangely misogynistic, leaving me not knowing whether to clap or not afterward, and between each song he would pull the chair out again and sit there and talk to the crowd. At one point he asked if we would mind if he just sat and talked for the rest of the night. I didn't think that would be a great idea, but otherwise I found his chattiness to be quite entertaining. He commented again on the lack of people dancing and jokingly threatened not to play "Informer" unless he saw more people on the dance floor. So yeah, people got out there including the girl who confessed to being in love with Snow earlier in the night. Her boyfriend did not look very happy. Between songs Snow said something about the guy and asked if he was her boyfriend or husband or what. The girl said "Well he's a boy and he's my friend," as though top imply that the guy was not a real man like she believed Snow was. It was a great moment and gave everyone in the pub a mixed feeling of discomfort and evil delight. After about an hour of music and conversation Snow wrapped it up and then came back to do an encore song (this happened to be "Lonely Monday Morning," my favourite song by Snow. Download it right now). And that was it. Everyone was drunk and ready to go home and go to bed for school the next day. On the way out I ripped a Snow poster down from the wall and went to the back room to talk to Snow a bit and get him to sign my poster. It was fun and I realized that when I downloaded all of Snows mp3s a few days before and memorized all the lyrics to every song I made a good descision. I recognized most of the songs and they all sounded good live. The only problems were that some of the backing vocals in some of the songs were pre-recorded and the guy who did the rap on "Informer" (yes Snow did actually end up playing it) wasn't as good of a rapper as MC Shan. I never thought I would ever say that anyone was not as good of a rapper as MC Shan. That is profound. :( My girlfriend liked the show too, but she made me take the Snow CD out of the car stereo on the way back home. The moral of the story is that Snow's show was good and you should see him perform if you ever get the chance. The End. -*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+-*-+- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Issue #17 February 15th, 2001