THE GOATSTricks of the Shade

(COLUMBIA/RUFFHOUSE)

Album Art, Logo Design, Skits

color pieces are paintings on wood

“…Free of misogyny and white devils, flavored with Black-Italian unity, heavy with hatred for the Amer-iKKKan ruse – is as welcome in hip-hop as the Hendrix-like buzz that flutters throughout “TV Cops.” (Rolling Stone 650)

_____________

Album art I created for Tricks of the Shade, the incendiary first album by The Goats – one of the most critically acclaimed records of ‘92-’93, landing on a fair share of year end top ten lists. The Goats toured with the Beastie Boys, Cypress Hill and Public Enemy. Produced by Joe “The Buther” Nicolo and my brother James (a.k.a. Oatie Kato).

——-

Project Background:

The week my brother James graduated with an MA in Computer Science, having designed hardware that went up on a NASA satellite, he bought a keyboard, hooked it up to his Mac Classic and began sampling and making beats. Both of us, plus whoever walked into the house were on the mic 24-7 doing our best to make each other laugh with our sophomoric rhymes. Before long we came up with a name, The Goats, and called ourselves a rap group. I created a logo of a GOAT eating a bowl of pasta that James had me paint on the hood of his red Subaru. We moved to Philadelphia to be closer to our guitar player, RC Cola, and two Philadelphia based sisters we had met who were talented singers/rhymers (Love & Rucyl Mills).

Even though I performed in the first few live GOAT shows at clubs and house parties my rapping style was completely wack and my rhymes were forced (“We were at a bar/ was about 2-a-cloakey/ we stepped outside because the bar was too smokey…”). When our group expanded to include an insanely talented rapper/performer (Swayzack) who worked a hot dog cart around the corner from our pad I knew it was time to quit the game.

When the new line-up, now including an additional legit rapper, Madd Max, and a live band, was signed by Joe “The Butcher” Nicolo at Ruffhouse Records I hooked back up to redesign the goat logo (less hillbilly, more hip-hop), to do the album art, and to co-write and co-produce with James the 20 minutes of skits that play between the songs.

Excerpts from ROLLING STONE’S 4 STAR review: “They equate Columbus with Hitler, don’t like George Bush any better and think Bill Clinton is just another fascist – the Goats talk politics like N.W.A talks calibers. Rocking old-school cadences with Dan Quayle put-downs, flowing with aqueous rhythms from blunts to Ollie North, they make like Cypress Hill without their hands on the pump or the Beastie Boys with their minds on the state of the nation or even, when their live band opens up airy spaces amidst the funk, Basehead with an ear to the street.

The Goats, an interracial crew from Philadelphia, are the first rappers to name-check Billy Bragg, which should tell you something about their idea of political science. They’re smart, but they like a good slogan more than a coherent program – for one thing, slogans make better rhymes. They encapsulate their Afro-centricity with the line “Apple pie, never; sweet potatoes, better” and generally jump from target to target, linking their jabs at Republicans with jabs at sucker MCs. But when the Goats brag that they’re “here to cut throats,” they never leave any doubt that the suckers they really want to take out make policy, not records. Prolifers pop up throughout as “pipers” (as in “on the”), crimes against Native Americans get major mike time, and the only people who insult Bush and Quayle more are David Letterman’s writers.

Tricks of the Shade, the Goats’ debut, was recorded last year, when Bush-Quayle disses were less of a foregone conclusion. It’s billed as a “hip-hop era,” which means that the songs are linked by skits depicting the travels of Chickenlittle and his brother Hangerhead (his mother has been sent to Prolivin Prison) through Uncle Scam’s Federally Funded Well Fair and Freak Show. Though the conceits are sharp – no one in pop music has ever made a woman’s right to choose as essential to their work as the Goats have on this album – the execution is stiff, reflecting too much Pedro Bell and not enough Firesign Theater. But if you skip directly to the tracks, you’ll find a five-piece band that can shift gears like a DJ cutting records.

Hip-hop fans who munch samples like Fritos may not find the beats explosive enough, which is a shame. Not just because these beats swing, but because the Goats’ outlook – free of misogyny and white devils, flavored with Black-Italian unity, heavy with hatred for the Amer-iKKKan ruse – is as welcome in hip-hop as the Hendrix-like buzz that flutters throughout “TV Cops.” (RS 650)