The latest copy of Q Magazine promises to clue me in on
“Every album & track you’ll ever need!” for
my ultimate music collection. Flipping through, I managed to find
something really interesting and informative, but it has nothing to
do with any of their expert picks ““ especially not the
inexplicable choice of 2Pac’s not-very-ultimate “All
Eyez on Me” as the definitive rap album or Madonna’s
“Like A Prayer” (as great as it is) standing alongside
“Revolver” and “The Velvet Underground and
Nico” as one of their five most essential albums of all time.
Instead, it’s one of their fun little Pub Facts ““ oh,
those Brits ““ that catches my eye and helpfully notifies me
that Public Enemy’s oft shouted-out DJ, Terminator X, now
runs an ostrich farm in North Carolina after leaving the group in
1990.
Tangent: Has there ever been a hip-hop group other than Wu-Tang
with more characters and off-the-wall stories than Public Enemy?
Between choreographer Professor Griff (official title in the group:
Minister of Information) getting kicked out after a Washington Post
interview in which he blamed Jews for “the majority of
wickedness that goes on across the globe,” the backup dancers
(official title: Security of the First World) who marched around on
stage with fake Uzis, and Flava Flav’s VH1 reality show
antics, these guys raised more hell than Run-DMC ever hoped to.
(And seriously, an ostrich farm? How do you go from
“Terminator X to the Edge of Panic” to ostriches?
That’s a Psoriasis-level head-scratcher. Googled Pub Fact:
Ostrich eyes are the biggest of all land animals; only whales have
bigger ones.)
With another of life’s mysteries solved for me, I turned
to the Web to unearth the whereabouts of other past musical greats.
At the top of my list, of course, was Warren G. In my brief but
glorious career as a music writer, no question has been asked more
of me than “Whatever happened to Warren G?” And it has
been the great failure of journalists everywhere that there’s
never been a cover story concerning the issue. Most people
don’t know Warren’s last solo record came out in 2001
because it flopped. And he hasn’t done much of anything since
then. Sure, that “super-group” 213 record came out last
year, but he didn’t produce anything on it, which puts his
entire contribution at a verse or two per song. (Pub Fact: 213
isn’t even Long Beach’s area code anymore. Snoop, Nate
Dogg, and Warren G formed the group and broke up over a dozen years
ago, before any of their solo careers took off.)
The best answer the Internet turned up was courtesy of Movie
City News, which reported that our favorite Regulator will be
appearing in “The Strip Game,” Method Man’s
straight-to-DVD directorial debut and “an
up-close-and-personal documentation of the trials, tribulations,
and triumphs of strippers.”
Still, it’s not as sad as the story of Sly Stone, who had
all but disappeared by his 1993 induction into the Rock & Roll
Hall of Fame and was found living in a sheltered housing complex
after the ceremony. He signed a recording contract in 1995, but
nothing came of it, and in 2003 he declined to record a reunion
album with the other original members. The only way to find out
what he’s been up to the last 10 years would be to hit the
streets with an investigative report. Rolling Stone, I’m
looking at you.
It’s easy to take cheap shots at some of the obvious
one-hit wonders of today, not so easy to spot a great musician who
may end up a “whatever happened to.”
My odds-on favorite would be Andre 3000 of OutKast. Now, I love
the guy, OutKast being far-and-away my favorite musical act of the
last decade, but Andre has been walking the fine line between
genius and insanity ever since rocking that turban in the
“ATLiens” video and laying out the whole comic-book
extraterrestrial concept in 1996. Since then, the clothes, the
music, and his behavior have gone more and more out there.
It’s not hard to imagine him a decade from now holed up in
Tibet, saving beetles and taking part in masked dances.
Also, there’s an urban myth that Beck is a Scientologist,
and he at least has some connections through friends and family.
‘Nuff said.
Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips has also been walking that fine
line. He may very well fall off the face of the earth in the years
to come. More likely, he’ll join the cast of Sesame
Street.
Bono. Just kidding. The guy is never, ever going to let us
forget what he’s up to.
So, let’s all appreciate the artists while they’re
still relevant, and before they fall too hard under the spell of
other things ““ be it drugs, cult religions, or large,
flightless birds.
E-mail Lee at alee2@media.ucla.edu.