Our showcase at SXSW kept us on a high for a few months after. We dedicated much of that summer doing more shows, and finally getting our own bills in Austin and Dallas. By the fall of 1994 we decided to start working on new material as a follow up to the “Yellow Tape” demo, and began prepping a 2-song single for release on Newstyle Records. The A-side was called “Check Da Verbal”, and the B-side was titled “Another Frame of Mind”. We later added a second B-side cut, “Press Ya Luck”. The label head sent the masters to the record plant, and shortly thereafter we received the white label pressings, which were used as sample pieces before they pressed up an entire run. If memory serves me correctly, there were only 4 or 8 copies ever made. For reasons that escape me, we never got the records pressed up.
But- that was our first time getting our music on vinyl. That was considered a HUGE step back then, since most indie artists were still rocking over cassettes or DATs. Around the same time, our relationship with Newstyle dissolved. Again, I can’t remember the particulars around this.
We went back to recording at The Are’s crib, who had moved closer to civilization. He was going by the name Roc Smoov. Mic was going by Mic Da Madman. I had the distinction of calling myself Dooky Love, a name that I may have stolen from my friend Anthony in high school.
{judgment break}
With our confidence building, we reached a new level of creativity and started coming up with songs that put our previous ones to shame. This takes us into early 1995. We’d begun tossing around the idea of recording and self-financing our own project. Without exaggeration, we probably recorded over 100 songs in less than a year, but we hadn’t stumbled on the one song that made us feel like we were making album-worthy tracks.
Then one evening, while Mic was at work I met up with Russel at his apartment while he was working on some tracks. And on that night, “Falling Behind” was created.
