Friday, October 24, 1997
New band is anything but ‘Marginal’
MUSIC: ‘Prophets’ predict a show of new, different melodic
proportions
By Vanessa VanderZanden
Daily Bruin Staff
Their album cover has the pair cartooned on a street corner,
panhandling for spare change. "Will Rap For Food," one animated
sign proclaims. "Spare Beats?" the other asks. With such a creative
play on words, it comes as no shock that these struggling hip-hop
artists call themselves "The Marginal Prophets."
"In one sense, it refers to the fact that we’re barely making
any money at this, like marginal profits," explains Jeff Kramer,
one of the band’s two rappers. "Then, on the other, we sort of see
ourselves as these sort of soothsayers outside of society’s normal
boundaries, sort of marginal prophets."
Always sharp to turn a pun or play off a double entendre, the
duo works within its musical genre to create an old-school sound,
reminiscent of Run DMC, mixed with a vast array of samples and
intelligent lyrics. Bouncing around clips from ZZ Top to Glenn
Miller, the Prophets swirl together an odd mixture of
instrumentation on their debut album, "Twist the Nob," which first
hit stores last October. This Friday, the hip hop sensation will be
playing pieces from this selection at UCLA’s BruinFest.
"We’re going to groove the audience," Kramer promises. "But we
still need to take care of the basics first, to figure out if
there’s enough equipment there so people can hear us, because we do
like to play loud. We do like to have the bass turned up so that
it’s very thumpy and you can’t help but move to it."
With this in mind, it makes sense that the Prophets’ last show,
at the North by Northwest festival in Portland, went extremely
well. The event only allows parties to play after reviewing many
demos and albums from a variety of different bands.
Even though Kramer heads the entire business aspect of the group
on his own, dealing with booking and the like, the small-time
Prophets managed to receive big-time treatment.
"We had one of the best venues of the whole place," Kramer
believes. "There were a lot of bands that are a lot more well known
than we are that were playing a lot worse clubs than what we got to
play. We were actually sandwiched between the groups Consolidated
and Five Fingers of Funk, which are a really big rock bands up in
Portland."
One reason for the cozy placing may have to do with the
promotional cartooning of Keith Knight, or K2, who runs a comic
strip in several newspapers entitled, "The K Chronicles."
In the strip, aspects of the Marginal Prophets’ band life
sometimes emerges. However, Knight has also devoted an entire
mini-magazine to the duo’s musical affairs. In it are outlined
humorous ways to get an M.P. sticker and comical caricatures of the
pair, but the fun doesn’t stop there.
"Just today I sent off some story boards to an attorney in Los
Angeles who’s going to be meeting with this animation dude,"
explains Kramer. "We’re trying to present the Marginal Prophets as
a sort of cartoon concept. That would be the ultimate dream for me,
to be sort of like a Josie and the Pussycats, only hip hop for the
’90s."
Citing Warner Brothers animation as a creative driving force
behind the music, the two hope to keep their band fun. This
includes Kramer going by the name of Noble Def G, a spin on his
real name of Jeff D. Kramer. Also, it sometimes involves black
leather and light bondage.
"I got tied up and spanked on stage by this woman, Mistress
Jet," Kramer reveals of the time the Prophets played their song,
"Mistress," at San Francisco’s annual sadomasochist event, the
Folsom Street Fair. "We haven’t done that song at any other venue.
But I have heard that there’s a stripper in Houston who’s using it
in her act. We’re totally supportive of that. It just makes it all
worthwhile."
However, most evenings of musical creation fail to boast such
excitement. While Kramer and Knight share lyric-writing
responsibilities, the two include producer Jamie Lemoine in mixing
up the background beats. Yet, the three enjoy tinkering around with
Lemoine’s slick digital-music toys.
"We just make music from the ground up," Kramer relates. "We all
just sort of sit down and collaborate. It takes a long time. It’s
… a lot of fun, but it’s like three guys hanging out in a studio
with a whole lot of machines and computers and stuff, chopping
things up and adding to it and taking away from it and seeing what
we can come up with."
When performing live, a guitarist, bass player, drummer and DAT
machine are added into the shuffle to attempt to reproduce a
similar sound. It remains this version of the Prophets that will
enter Westwood Plaza tonight.
Yet, the band, having played to Los Angeles crowds before,
expresses a bit of trepidation for the upcoming event.
"Usually when we play, someone will come up after from a local
radio station or local fanzine and that’s cool, but I think in L.A.
everyone is somehow connected to the entertainment business so
they’ve got a reason to not have to buy the album, or so they
think," claims Kramer of crowds attempting to score free CDs. "I
think it’s the only place we experience it in that abundance. The
universal 100 percent, all the participants were like that."
But does that mean Kramer dreads his upcoming performance?
"They’ve been telling us it’s going to be a big deal," he
excitedly recounts. "We’re ready to go in and rock the crowd, which
hopefully we will."