Thanks to various connections in the NYC pop punk scene, mc chris and John Fewell came to know each other simply by attending the same concerts, mainly that of Dirt Bike Annie, the corner stone of the NYC pop punk diet. mc had heard a song John had done that featuring Green Day intermingled with some drum'n bass. This is exactly what he was after, dance music with a punk sensability. Having rapped as a hobby with his band the Lee Majors (made up of several Dirt Bike Annie members,) mc was looking for a collaborator with a little more time on his hands and a love of hip hop and pop. John had this as was displayed in his band Attention Deficit. Their sound was frenetic, eclectic and electric; all over the place.
At one of the many punk rock get togethers held at the Souse House in Jersey City, New Jersey, John and mc were in agreement that they wanted to make a new kind of hip hop together. Soon after mc received his first burned CD with John's mc specific beats. mc was drawn to one particular song that he likened to Michael Jackson's Billie Jean. Having just experienced Phantom Menace that summer, mc began to fool around with a song completely about star wars' greatest minor character, Boba Fett. After doing a little reserch, mc set to writing. Before long he was recording in John's bedroom: an attic in Hasting on Hudson, an affluent suburb of New York. John's system was state of the art and the lyrics were far more advanced than anything mc had attempted before.
For the next year they got together three more times to record. Robotussin, a song about the follies of DMX addiction with a sample from Nintendo's Gauntlet, was recorded in John's dorm room at Sarah Lawrence College. Fuckin' up my Christmas, a song about lacivious beauty pageant judge with samples from Patsy Cline and Steve Martin, was again recorded in John's bedroom in Hastings. Finally, DQ Blizzard,a remix of an old Lee Majors dittie, featuring the talented Hallie Bullet, a young broadway veteran and punk scene regular, a bevy of samples including Reggie and the Full Effect, Blink 182, The Dead Kennedys, Aphex Twin and Green Day was recorded in Bronxville, New York at the famous Loft recording studio where John was interning. Britney Spears, Christina Aguillera, The Back Street Boys, N'Sync and Mandy Moore had recorded their chart toppers there. You could smell the fame and fortune in the air. There was also a very fat cat that never seemed to get up.
Back in Jersey with the help of Dirt Bike Annie's Adam Rabuck, mc recorded answering machine bits and a parody of an eminem skit. John Bowie, a punk scene veteran and manhattan improvisor (now featured in national TGIF commercials) recorded the answering machine bits. John Gemberling, a Manhattan improvisor from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater (now featured in a national Subway ad, he's the guy holding the pizza) played the part of Tim Chandler, proprietor of Mutant Pop records, a punk label out of Oregon. The bit never made any sense to anyone except those who made it. The label never put out the album as planned. Instead it went up on the Internet as a free downloadable mp3. mc was called down to Atlanta to work for the Cartoon Network.. John finished up school and a new Attention Deficit album. Fett's Vette was featured on one of the cartoons mc worked on and it caught on like wildfire. Soon the song became a cult fave and mc chris fans grew in number. Another album needed to be created and fast. John set to work on a variety of beats, while mc honed his lyrics at spoken word events. Across the nation, everyone from high school students to happily married couples sent mc chris praise via fan mail, coming from as far as Sweden, Australia, England and Stockholm. Fans turned on more fans to the music by burning cd's and pushing the product without any help or encouragement from mc. A grass roots epidemic was slowly but surely finding its way into every state and every college campus. On July 4th, 2002 mc flew up to Bronxville once more to record at the loft with Hallie Bullit and John Gemberling in attendance, as well as Andrew Futral of Attention Deficit. After six months of mixing and retooling, the second album is done and ready for a real release. A third album will soon be in the works and hopefully available in the summer of 2003.