Sunday at Night Flight
Night Flight Studio, Fort Washington, MD


Mike, Adia and Donnell confer. Tracy sits to the left. (Note: sound absorbing surface is actually black, not gray as it appears).


Donnell looking at the monitors


Mike in the vocal recording booth


Scotty Beats, BJ and Donnell listening to Mike's session
All pictures taken by and Copyright - Jordan Rich (Note: Pictures artificially brightened by flash, it was darker than it appears.)

Familiar Faces
Familiar Faces spent thirteen hours in the studio today - from noon to 1 AM working on recording vocals from Mike and Adia to overdub on tracks for their upcoming album, Evolution.

When I first arrived, only Scotty Beats was there. Shortly afterwards, Donnell arrived. He went over the second half of the live recording with Scotty. Familiar Faces has their own external 40 Gig hard drive. Scotty deleted certain items to free up space on the hard drive. We were in the Platinum Room again. Donnell went over the editing for the three live tracks to be included on the album: Marvin Gaye's I Want You, Anthony Hamilton's Since I Seen't You and The Roots' You Got Me. Scotty cut a lot to make them shorter. In listening to it Scotty said, "You give Godfather a lot of freedom." Donnell said, "He's like Michael Vick, he can do whatever he wants. When he's not leading, Godfather really has excellent feel."

Maryland basketball came up - Donnell and I both went to Maryland. I said that Walt Williams is my favorite player of all time; he asked "how could it not be Len Bias?" I pointed out that I had never seen Bias play. But in addition, as talented as Walt Williams was, it was his loyalty to the program that I most admire.

A girl named Tracy came by in order to buy tickets to next Saturday's boat ride- she ended up staying for a while.

Donnell talked about last night, he said if he had thought about it, he would have introduced me to Tee Bone himself and Reo. Reo was in charge of the filming and Tee Bone now works with him. He said that Trouble Funk had a real machine back in the day and that Reo and Max Kidd had split the management, Reo was in charge musically and Kidd did the promoting and they even had an eighteen wheeler. He said that he was surprised to see Reo; he doesn't go out that often anymore. He also said that Reo would have a lot of stories to tell.

Tracy, Donnell and I watched the Lumberjack World Championships: during the speed climbing event, Donnell talked about he had to know how to do gaffing - climbing telephone poles with shoes with metal spikes - Donnell is a Verizon serviceman. He told a story about another Verizon employee who had his ankle broken all the way and has an artificial foot as a result.

Then later Adia arrived (after Donnell and Scotty had finished with two of the tracks) - she wanted to hear the edited version of the first half, which Donnell had on CD in his car. Adia and I sat in and listened to it through his car stereo. She said that "Donnell doesn't let us hear much of the recordings." She listened to it not in entirety and was very critical of her own performance. She pronounced it (what she heard) as "tolerable." I asked her how she joined FF, she said me Donnell through a mutual friend, she had an audition, but nothing happened. Six months later, he ran into her and hired her. I heard the other side on this later; Scotty asked Donnell how she joined. He said the same as above - where he finally hired her was at a party she performed at; he realized she just had tremendous personality. We joked about driving to New York in Donnell's Jaguar.

Adia and Mike, who showed up shortly thereafter, were there to replace Tony Sharpe's vocals - these tracks were recorded over the last two years. Tony Sharpe left the band a while ago and is now a member of Whop-N-Em. Adia was up first, but after warming up, a joint decision was made for Mike to go first - recording so shortly after performing had affected her voice, so she wanted more time to let her voice rest.

They discussed EU's failure to properly capitalize on "Da Butt" from School Daze. They had an unusual situation of Gregory "Sugar Bear" Elliott being the front man, but not the creative force. Ivan Goff and William "JuJu" House wrote most of the songs (and Marcus Miller wrote Da Butt). I told them that Marcus Miller also wrote for Miles Davis a song that FF performs, Tutu. Miles had a large advance from Warner but they gained control over his publishing of any songs he wrote, so he had others write all of his songs. Donnell said that they and their manager took too long shopping for a record deal (they ended up signing with Virgin) and didn't properly capitalize on Da Butt. I said that the album Livin' Large is overproduced like Trouble Funk's major label (Island) album, Trouble Over Here, Trouble Over There despite being produced by Bootsy Collins was also over-produced and neither was really GoGo. Donnell said that if that's my definition of over-produced, than Evolution will be over-produced, it is not raw GoGo as it is intended to the larger market, not just DC.

There was a long discussion over movies: Donnell said that Scotty usually had really good opinions on movies, but had recently steered him wrong. He talked about movies featuring rappers as actors - the one he talked about was one that they just "Threw a rapper in there." Mike said that some rapper movies are good, such as 8 Mile. Mike mentioned LL Cool J. Donnell laughed and said, "He's still making bad movies." They talked about Deliver Us from Eva, but Donnell said that's where he realized that Gabrielle Union could really act. Donnell said, "What about Schindler's List?" Mike said, "Now you want to try to be intellectual..."

Donnell talked about making money from Vinnie D's $55 Motel, which was released on Donnell's label Colossus. Scotty talked about meeting Vinnie later (Vinnie D also uses the stage name Vintertainment), through a female friend. He said he was at his place and saw the framed record up on the wall - he said he was very talented.

Adia said she was the same age as Pooh (24).

Mike would listen to the lyrics, write down his parts and then go over aspects of the singing, such as enunciation, pitch and timing with Donnell, Scotty and BJ who arrived shortly after Mike started. Some of the vocals on the album were BJ's. Given the conversations about his not singing live, I directly asked BJ about it. He said that prefers not to sing live, singing in the studio allows you to correct your mistakes. Donnell said of one of the tracks, that it was Tony Sharpe's best song ever, but with Mike it was just another song on the album. I asked him why if it was so good, why is he not retaining Tony Sharpe's vocals? Donnell said that he's not Tony's manager and that there's no real benefit for FF. He also said that with noticeable mixed personnel, it becomes a compilation album, which he doesn't want. I asked him when the songs from the album would be part of FF's playlist. He said he planned to add them all eventually, but due to changes in personnel it hasn't happened yet. He did later say that they had played some of these songs live earlier with previous personnel (it was in the context of Mike doing his last song for this session - he hadn't written down the lyrics set, so they went phrase by phrase.

Mike said that James Funk looks like Beetlejuice from the Howard Stern show. He also said that Funk looks like Bojack, and Bojack's brother looks like Sugar Bear.

Donnell said "Mike has done really well, considering Tony had performed this song live with 911 a number of times before recording it".

At one point, Donnell talked about Y2k (of whom he said he always intentionally messes up their name) moving from Safari Steakhouse to La Fontaine Bleu on Mondays. He said it was a mistake, at Safari they had crowds of 250, 200 of them girls who got in free. At Fontaine Bleu, you have to pay a rental fee; he didn't see how they would make money. He addressed why their owned planned Mondays at Fontaine Bleu fell through - the promoter was the boxer Sean Mays (spelling?), but he had to leave to train.

Donnell and Mike discussed Saturday night's performance, particularly the second set. Donnell criticized Mike for not singing in the same key as everyone else in the performance of Sly & the Family Stone's Family Affair. Sugar Bear had started it. Mike said, "They were all off-key, I was in the right key. I couldn't find the key they were singing in."

At various times, Donnell would want Scotty to have his finger on or off the button for the studio intercom. It allows a person in the recording booth to hear what is said in the studio. At one point, Scotty did not have it pressed and we all laughed at something and Mike could tell, he said, "What are you laughing about?" At other times, Donnell would tell Scotty, "Press the f*cking button!"

Donnell talked about Eddie Vann, this was a welcome home because he had gotten out of prison (actually 6 months prior). Donnell told a story about Eddie Vann - Rare Essence needed $12,000 to put out the album Live at Breeze's Metro Club in 1986. RE had $6,000 and they went to Eddie for the other six and they split the profits. Donnell talked about how with any album the initial royalties were real high, and then it tapered off over time. While some years later, they got a $50,000 royalty check. Donnell went to give Eddie the $25,000 check - he looked at it, pocketed it and said, "How's the family?" "That's Eddie Vann for you."

Later Kato and Teago came in to interview FF about the album for the the upcoming print edition of Take Me Out To The GoGo Magazine (Note: the cover has been made, it features FF prominently). I filmed the entire interview. They asked how FF compares to other bands in the mature market. They asked Mike if he would return for to Rare Essence for a reunion - he saidn "Only if it was a really big set of shows, for serious money (I won't print the amount)." Kato gave Adia a new nickname "Adiva". After a while, Kato and Teago left.

Also Mike left for a while to take his son somewhere, and then he returned. Jauhar came in with his son and his business partner, David. Mike announced their presence by saying, "Here comes the bearded bald-headed clan" (both Jauhar and David fit that). Donnell asked Jauhar's son if he had gotten rid of his Michael Jordan jersey yet - he smirked and said no. Donnell then asked him if his dad still cheats at basketball. Jauhar and Donnell had a back and forth argument about dating younger women and Jauhar razzed Donnell about Kobe Bryant as well. They too, left after a while.

Cheryl, Mike's ex-wife, visited for a short time. Donnell teased Mike in front of her, but she wasn't buying. After she left, Adia asked Mike how many kids he has - three, his eldest son by another woman and twins - one daughter and one son by Cheryl. I asked Mike if Muse was his real last name, he said yes, and was curious why I would think otherwise. I said that muse is a musical term, it would be appropriate for a stage name. Mike said he and Cheryl were together for a while, but only married for four years - they still are friends, but it didn't work out. Donnell said, "It was a Barbie meets Ken story." Donnell asked Mike if Cheryl was on Rearview2.com, he said no. He said the heroin problem in Baltimore is really evident - he filmed one of his videos from a parade and there weren't too many worthy candidates in the parade. Mike said Cheryl is related to Markie (I assume he means Biz Markie), that Markie is a genius. Donnell said "No, he's very talented, but not a genius. Marc Cary (a DC Jazz musician) has a friend who can listen to an entire show, then play it back, note-for-note. At Ellington, there was a genius there Jamie Kowalski, you could just put both arms on a piano and he could tell you every note. They had to bring in special teachers for Jamie because he was so advanced."

Mike asked what Boolah had talked with Donnell about on Wednesday; Donnell said he likes to conduct exit interviews. He went on to discuss how he values professionalism and reliability over talent. He said that "Doc may not be the best bass player in the game, but he is a solid citizen."

Mike asked at one point, "Whatever happened to BT Express?" I said that "Disco died." Actually, BT Express was going to perform at an East Coast Convention the following weekend.

I later asked Donnell what he thought about Y2K, which he hadn't talked about in the interview with Kato. I asked because a lot of people have said good things about them. He said that "Scuba Steve" Covington from Y2K was one of the guest rappers at Safari Steakhouse on Friday.

Donnell said he doesn't like to deal with musicians who are all about the money, when he fired Blue and looked for a replacement drummer, he talked to a few people. The first asked for a specific amount up front, so he didn't get a call back. The second, Chuck Brown's drummer had a long conversation with Donnell and money didn't even come up.

He said L!ssen's success is catching up with them - they didn't work up their way to success it just came suddenly and now they are dealing with problems. He said the ultimate example of fast success was Maiesha (Rashad) with their covers - they were drawing four thousan people a week. Donnell went on to say that he doesn't believe in equal pay - people who draw more people in the audience deserve to make more - he went on to say that at the Market Lounge, Sugar Bear would take home more than half of EU's pay. He said Sugar Bear is the biggest Bama in the history of GoGo, still playing songs like "Shake it Like a White Girl", but he still draws crowds. Rah is probably good for another 50 people and X 20, Funk 120.

Mike had a nickname for everyone - he called Scotty "Dennis Miller", BJ "Vince Carter", and Donnell "Geoffrey Holder". Scotty said of himself, "I also moonlight as Ghostface".

Adia left as soon as she finished. When Mike finished, we all left.