Scapegoat Wax
Okeeblow (2001)

review by: Jason Thornberry
Date: 7/9/01

Straight Outta Chico (Calif.) comes Marty James, and his album is on my short list for the best of 2001. While his little-bit-of-this/that style of blending the formats and adopting personas may have you him mistaking for a Beck Mk. 66, I must say that I love Beck. But I think the very best stuff off of even Odelay can’t hold a melted candle to this album. James is a "singer-songwriter", but even makes the so-called "greats" (many of whom are overrated douchebags anyway—Bob Dylan please die already) look sad.

Just a quick listen to "Aisle 10 (Hello Allison)", one of this album’s many standout tracks will give you a clue. There are the absolute best, most explicitly out of tune, fingernails-on-a-chalk-board wavering guitar scrapes holding up the song since Gaz Jennings provided his own (by accident I assume) to Picture of Beauty and Innocence as the intro to Cathedral’s Forest of Equilibrium album in 1991.

There’s plenty of Old skool Bootsy Collins bass, Commodores vocals, and weird samples too. "Freeway" uses a blurb from "The Nutty Professor" that sits low enough in the mix to have gone over my head the first time I heard it.

"Women be shoppin'!"

Marty James is lucky he has a voice that can handle the kind of singing the tunes on "Okeeblow" require. Not that his vocals are masturbatory, full of Michael Bolton pyrotechnics or overblown at all, but I could envision Marvin Gaye, Eddie Holman, Ike Willis or anybody who could really, really sing doing them, and it’s to James' credit that he can handle (like it’s nothing) what others look like their straining their vocal chords over, or maybe acquiring fresh nodules before each take is in the can.

This is, without a doubt, one of the best albums I’ve heard in eons. And goes on my list as one of the most fully realized, and catchy like the plague debuts ever put down. A-fucking-plus!

Jason Thornberry and I really don't see eye-to-eye when it comes to musical preferences. Maybe it's a generation thing, or maybe it's an East Coast/West Coast thing. Regardless of our musical differences, I read all of Jason's reviews, finding them insightful, entertaining, sometimes confusing, but always sincere.

I'm not sure what prompted me to seek out this particular CD that Jason wrote highly of. Perhaps it was the comparison to Beck, or maybe it was the reasonable price on Ebay. Nevertheless, I purchased it.

My review: Money well spent. In fact, I would recommend this CD at it's full retail price.

I believe this falls under the broad umbrella known as urban hip-hop. And truthfully, I'm not a fan of urban hip-hop. But this is different.

Scapegoat Wax seems to be bridging urban hip-hop with the sounds of ska and soul. Or perhaps Marty James is just confused as to where he wants to be in the musical spectrum. In one moment he's rapping and scratching like the best (or worst) of today's urban rappers. The next moment, he's putting down harmonious melodies like some of the best vocalizers in mainstream pop.

If this CD was exclusively one way or the other, I probably wouldn't like it. But because of the mix from one sound to another, it keeps it fresh and makes it interesting.

I'm still not a fan of straight-up rap. But Scapegoat, using techniques and sounds pioneered by Beck, writing lyrics and telling stories like Sublime, and singing and rapping like an inner-city choir boy, makes "urban hip-hop" enjoyable for a non-fan.