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Twin Cities hip hop
band, Heiruspecs
Heiruspecs (most people say it AYR-yoo-speks) was first
called Live Band Hip Hop when original members Sean (now the
bassist and general manager) and Chris (rapper) started
collaborating in September of 1997. Heiruspecs means high
priests in Latin, but the spelling is not Latin, it's made
up. Sean and Chris first started playing together in the
recording arts program at St. Paul Central High School, and
for the next two years, they performed a lot; before they
were out of high school, they were getting into night clubs
to perform. After that, Sean went out east for college, and
the band was inactive for two years until early 2001, when
they re-grouped with a more consistent lineup, and changed a
lot stylistically. Sean returned
to St. Paul in 2000, Tasha (keyboard, flute, trumpet) and
John (rapper) joined in 2001, and Tim, the drummer, was
relatively new to the band as of early October of 2002. Sean
met Tasha through the Walker West Jazz Ensemble in high
school, Chris knew John from John's rap group Twisted
Linguistics, and Sean met Tim at the Turf Club, at a time
when they had a space for a drummer.
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Heiruspecs in rehearsal, October 2,
2002
Sean's parents' basement, St. Paul |
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The band members
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Sean McPherson,
aka Twinkie Jiggles, bass guitarist, was born in Pittsfield,
Massachusetts in 1981. He lived there until he was in the
10th grade, when he moved to Minnesota. He was one year away
from completing an undergraduate degree in cultural studies
and music at the University of Minnesota when he decided to
take a break from school to pursue music projects of his
own. He hopes to eventually complete his degree at
Pennington College on the east coast. He lives in Minneapolis. |
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Sean
started playing acoustic guitar in 5th grade, took a few
piano lessons before that, and the first music that really
grabbed his attention was grunge, like Seattle bands Pearl Jam and
Nirvana. In the small town of Pittsfield, hip hop was not popular, but in 8th grade, he heard a
rap group called Justice System and the Brutes, which got
him interested in it. He started playing bass "in
earnest" in the 9th grade, and was a member of his brother's
blues band before he moved to Minnesota. Sean feels
blessed to have worked in hip hop, the "semi-most-recent"
American musical genre created by African Americans, and in
the blues, a much earlier African American genre; says Sean:
"I sort of hit the tradition from both sides." |
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Chris,
aka Felix, rapper, was born in 1979 and grew up in St. Paul.
He went to St. Paul Central high school after a brief stint
at St. Paul Academy, and now he is with Heiruspecs as a
full-time project. He is obsessed with cars and rap, and
lives in St. Paul. |
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Chris's history as a musician starts
with his favorite stations on the radio when he was a kid-
980 AM, Z Rocks; before he was interested in rap, he just
listened and sang along to whatever was on the radio, and
when Run DMC and the Beastie Boys were among the first rap
groups to be heard regularly on radio stations, he
sang along to them too. At his high school, St. Paul
Academy, Chris formed his first-ever rap group with
his friend Tony, called Funked Elastic, then the Deep
End. Then he changed
schools and met Sean at St. Paul Central, and Heiruspecs has
been his "biggest chuck of rap history" to this point. Chris
started out freestyling, [rhyming spontaneously] and one of
his first songs was about the lesser-known sides St. Paul,
including the gangster vacation homes where Chicago mobsters
during Prohibition came to get away from the police in
Chicago. |
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John, aka Muad'dib, rapper, was born in 1978 in St.
Paul. He went to St. Paul Central high school, which is the
extent of his academic career, "other than life." In
addition to his work as a
poet, he has been active in theater as an actor. He lives
in St. Paul. John began his music life as a singer in his
church choir from the age of three or four until he was
about fourteen. His first rap experience was part of a
theater performance, and he then joined the theater program
called Rites of Passage. From that theater group, his first
rap group, Twisted Linguistics, was born in about 1996. John
writes songs more often than freestyling, but he doesn't
write as much as he'd like to. |
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Tasha Baron, keyboards, flute, and sometimes trombone player, was born in
St. Paul in 1980. She is currently a senior at the
University of Minnesota, studying music and social change.
She's very interested in how the arts can promote social
change for the better. She lives in Minneapolis. Tasha's
music life began in the classical vein; she took lessons on
piano from the 3rd grade until the beginning of high school,
and in the jazz world, she primarily did a lot of practicing
with jazz records and transcribing solos. She started
playing flute in 5th grade, took flute lessons in high
school, and started playing and taking lessons in trombone
in high school. She has only recently begun playing the
trombone again, because she became overwhelmed by the way
that classical music on trombone is very limiting and not
very creative. Her interest in hip hop is relatively recent,
compared to her lifelong love of jazz. |
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Tim Glenn, drummer, was born in 1978 in Salem, New
York, a small town about sixty miles north of New York City.
He moved to Minnesota in the 9th grade and went to Hamline University, where he completed a degree in
anthropology with a focus in ethnomusicology. He plays in
two other bands besides Heiruspecs: Poor Line Condition, a
live drum and bass group, and
Our Mine, which is, in Tim's words, an
"ambient/dub/Latin/soundtracky/electronic kind of band."
He lives in Minneapolis. |
Tim started in a band in the 4th
grade, playing percussion: "it was mainly an attempt to
escape from having to be in the chorus because I didn't want
to sing." His mom bought him a drum set in the summer
between 7th and 8th grade, and that's when he says he really
started, just playing along with the music he was listening
to at the time, on the radio, etc. He played in three bands
throughout high school, and then in college he studied
classical percussion with Rebecca Kite at Hamline. He's also
taken lessons from a handful of drummers around the Twin
Cities, studied percussion in Cuba for two weeks, and also
studied Indian classical music at Macalester College with
local sitar player David Whetstone. Says Tim, "I've just
really loved playing the drums ever since I was thirteen,
and it's pretty much been the biggest thing in my life since
then." |
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Heiruspecs musical influences
Sean
The Roots are a live hip hop band from Philadelphia that
has been sort of a singular force in terms of national
exposure for live hip hop, and their music is really great,
they made a huge impact on me at a young age. I saw them,
and for the first time in 8th grade at Wesleyan
University in ’94 or ’95. Huge records for me have been
D’Angelo's Voodoo, Cannibal Ox's album, The Cold Vein, and Aesop
Rock.
D’Angelo's Voodoo is very experimental rhythmically and
sonically, it’s like live music primarily performed by live
musicians, but it takes a lot of liberties with the levels
of instruments, and it takes a lot of liberties with
traditional r and b rhythm, and it speaks in the same way
that I feel, that there’s a language that you’re trying to
create, that’s aware of the heritage that comes not from
live instruments, and that album does it. A lot of this
stuff that is performed on live drums has a very
non-quantized feel ... so it’s very similar to this
sort of inverting of the heritage that I think we’re going
for.
Chris
The early Run DMC stuff is what influenced me, as a rapper.
Right now I watch more movies probably than I listen to
music. Right now at home in my CD player I have Bizarre Ride
II the Pharcyde, which is a pretty old record by hip hop
standards, and my brother’s got me listening to a lot of
death metal. DJ Shadow- endtroducing- was the biggest
influence on my making beats- the greatest record of all
times, I have a sampler at home, I make beats.
John
As a rapper, I became more of an active listener to hip hop
around ’93-94, which was kind of a movement for hip hop,
Pharcyde, Souls of Mischief, Red Man there is a Dark Side,
Run DMC and LL Cool J when I was younger, it was just
around, like on the radio, Wynton Marsalis, Zeno Species, a
local group that is no longer together.
Tasha
The first music that I really listened to was a lot of jazz
from the '50s and '60s, and I was really in love with people
like [Thelonius] Monk, and [Abdullah] Ibrahim, [Miles]
Davis, [John] Coltane. Then I became really interested in
and loving big orchestral music, chamber music, and
contemporary western art music, and a lot of Russian
composers and Stravinsky. And then I really love music that
integrates a lot of different styles, like I love a band
called Group Collective, they’re influenced by Latin music
and electronic music and acid jazz and all kinds of
different musics. Another artist, Meshell Ndegeocello, who is
somebody that I think is really revolutionary socially as
well as musically in the way that she uses different musics
like Gogo [traditional Tanzanian dance music] and hip hop, she just doesn’t care what anyone
thinks. And I also really love D’Angelo, the same album
that Sean loves. I love Mos Def and Outkaste, and I also
like MCs that are concerned with social issues, like Mos
Def, and Talib Kweli.
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Tim
All through high school I was really into metal and punk,
started getting into jazz in college, it was very influenced
by the avant garde, free jazz, Ornette Coleman, stuff like
that. I got into electronic music a few years ago, Autechre
[British experimental electronic/IDM duo], Photek, [a
british drum 'n bass artist] and also
[Scottish independent electronic music duo] Boards of Canada. Hip hop was just
always around growing up, I listened to the Roots, I really
like Cannibal Ox. I went to Cuba for two weeks in the
summer of 2000. I’m very interested in non-western music and
music that relates to cultural events, particularly
spirituality in non-western cultures. I really like field
recordings of Indonesian and African, Caribbean music, I try
to bring that influence into what I do, mainly in terms of a
head space I come out of, if not in a real musical sense.
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The Twin Cities hip hop scene
The band members all named First Avenue Main Room as
their favorite venue, and shared some of their other
favorite places to play.
Sean
There's a feeling of arriving to play on [First Avenue's] stage that's
pretty hard to beat, even though the sound is a lot harder
in a venue of that size. There's something about being at
the Main Room that just gasses me headwise. After that I
really draw a blank, there are places that sound great but
aren’t great fun to play, as far as the vibe, Bryant Lake
Bowl has a really good theatre vibe, 7th Street
entry has a great punk rock vibe ... And usually you’re on a
great show, because you can’t put on a b.s. show at First
Ave more than once, 'cause they’ll never have you back. So
usually you’re on a good bill with well though-out openers.
Chris
Some of my favorite places aren't around anymore: Bon
Appetit, Sirsumcorda. Right now, the most fun I’m having on
stage is at First Avenue, but I also like the small, kind of
dirty feel of the Dinkytowner. I really like how that feels
too.
John
I have to agree with First Ave., Conrad [stage manager] is
the coolest. Loring Pasta bar is a nice place, I just wish
their stage was bigger, I like playing parks, like playing
outside in the summer.
Tasha
I
love First Ave, and I love the Bryant Lake Bowl, it’s
intimate, and like Sean said it’s theaterish.
Tim
I also like First Ave a lot, because I like the feeling of
swimming in the sound of the band that you get there, which
is not possible without a p.a. of the size that they have
there. And I also like the Clown Lounge, which is in the
basement of the Turf Club, they have a jazz night on
Mondays, and they will have a live electronic music Sunday
evening which I will be curating. It’s a very, very intimate
little basement room that’s decorated with a lot of clown
memorabilia, it’s also really fun to play.
How the Twin Cities hip hop music scene
compares nationally
Chris
Before traveling out of town, to see what everybody else
has got, I would’ve said we were small fish in the ocean.
Especially in underground hip hop right now, the most easily
recognized large hip hop hubs are probably New York City,
obviously, and the Bay Area of California, pretty much that
whole area right now is just packed with pretty amazing rap
stuff ... After going on tour and seeing what other cities
have, I’d say that we’re doing a lot better than I thought
we were, I think that overall the caliber of artists here,
both large and small, is very high, I’d say we’re doing
good.
I think in a lot of places, especially
places where rap has been more mainstream for a while, and
underground culture has been there for a longer time, there
maybe has been a sense that anybody can do it and it’s
really easy, whereas here ... the people who pioneered the
Twin Cities hip hop scene are still active in it, and it’s
not like they’ve already gone by ... just because we are a
younger scene than many, we still have that original hustle
in us, we have to really push to make ourselves better to
get noticed, we don’t have an easy ride.
Heiruspecs message
Chris
Lyrically, I guess really we’re down the same lines as a lot
of other hip hop, but it’s just like, we have a live band,
which is generally speaking a lot more flexible than a
sampler or a turntable, so we’re allowed to work with
the music rather than on top of it, which has its advantages
and its disadvantages, but we’re here to stress its
advantages. There are things you can do with a band that you
really don’t do with a sample, such as odd time signatures,
like Small Steps [downloadable sample,
below] is in nine, whereas most hip hoppers record in
four. If I sample something, it’s gonna sound the same every
single time, I can’t make it more or less intense, but the
band can repeat something over and over again, it can play
it more intensely or more calmly, and it will have a
different tone. Also, there’s more control live with a band
live than you’ll probably ever have with a sampler. A DJ,
behind a turntable, backing up an MC, has only really two or
three methods of responding to what a crowd is doing or what
the MC is doing, and that is cutting the fader, turning down
the volume, or changing the record. A band can do pretty
much anything you can imagine on an instrument. There’s a
lot more versatility live for sure.
John
As far as what we’re trying to contribute lyrically ...
basically what we feel and how we say it, I consider myself
a big hip hop fan, I understand what it is I like about hip
hop, I like when people get into the poetry of words, when
they get into the timing of how the words relate, and the
meaning on top of them, that’s my favorite, personally.
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Tasha
I think that’s pretty much why hip hop started in the
first place, is that people wanted to have a voice ... you
focus on the words a lot more, because they’re spoken and
because they’re so intense rhythmically, and that’s really
different from most other western music.
Chris
Even like a KRS-1 or a Public Enemy, [early hip hop
bands from New York] they said a lot of things that have
changed the climate of urban culture in general around the
country, and now it’s even showing up around the world, and
I think that that trend is not going to stop, maybe ever.
They thought that rap was a trend back in the '80s, and it’s
now twenty years later and still pushing harder than ever.
Sean
There’s basically a real importance in rap, and actually in
a lot of historically African American music, that it's not
necessarily what you say, but rather how you say it. I think
focusing on the importance of euphony- just using words for
the sound of the words- finding the fact that the different
syllables you say and anything you do, even if it’s just
your speaking voice, has a pitch value. And being acutely
aware of that without exaggerating it, is to me usually, the
difference between a great MC and a poor MC, is like being
able to ascribe vaguely musical values to something that in
a lot of ways is purely poetic. Hip hop has a lot of
dualities about it, it’s both musical, but it also
communicates itself strictly on a page better than most
other musics. In that way, I still think its full expression
can really only happen with music and the
vocals. Because of that, I think that I get into it because
it really does have the most poetic material of any work if
you judge it by quantity, and I know that you can’t always
do that, but the length of the hip hop song blew open the
amount of words you actually could say in three minutes,
compared to any rock song.
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Heiruspecs songs
Small Steps
RealMedia Download (985
KB)
MP3 Download (2.14 MB)
Drop (this was recorded in rehearsal in Sean's
parents' basement in St. Paul on October 2, 2002; see an excerpt
of the lyrics for this song, below)
RealMedia Download (647
KB)
MP3 Download (1.40 MB)
Drop
Bring it back like an afro, or faded jeans
Everybody's game is tight, but you can find the seams.
Get as big as a statue, but behind the scenes,
Magic fades away, like in Field of Dreams.
Roll with full steam, you get what you get,
I'm like Puffy or Hammer, I just won't quit,
Run around on a track, so you know that I'm fit,
You're like a Milli Vanilli record, the fans feel gypped.
Now everywhere I go, I go unrecognized,
I'm not a pop rapper, dollar signs in my eyes.
But I'm driven like a VH1 documentary,
and even your mama pays compliments to me.
Great shades of Elvis,
Head, heart, and pelvis,
The three wise guys' hive mind came to tell kids,
They don't always agree,
That's OK with me,
Maybe a lady can debate and persuade the peace.
Chorus:
Hey, Mr. DJ, drop the beat,
We want to show everybody we got the heat,
Boys and girls, go and get ready,
Get on your feet and rock it steady.
Hey, Mr. DJ, drop the beat,
We want to show everybody we got the heat.
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