NOTES ON TRACKS 1. The Jailbreak We wanted to start the album with a frenetic, uptempo joint to set the tone and this hits it right on. Super-fast, almost hyper and (of course) funky. This joint was actually improvised by Pooky, Vic Damone and Sweet Toof - when we sat down to record, all of the songs were written except this one and Message Number 103. The writing process went like this - JO JO: Okay, we need a song to start the album. POOKY: What are you thinking? JO JO: Something real fast and frene- (They play the Jailbreak) 2. Scottie Pimpin The idea for this song title came from a friend of ours who was sitting in a restaurant and saw an NBA player (this player was not Scottie Pippen, incidentally). This NBA player was decked out in a loud sky blue suit, so our boy walks up to him and says 'Hey man, you're Scottie Pimpin'! Not Scottie Pippen, the guy from the Bulls, but scottie PEEEIMPIN'. The NBA player then cracked up and they chilled for a bit. As soon as we heard that story, we knew we had a song title. The song itself is really two parts - Part one being the slower, funky joint with almost all the lyrics, then Part Two - the 70's style rock guitars with solos. They were written initially as two songs, but we later decided to combine the two into one. So in a way, this is our song with a Part one and Part Two, which a lot of bands did back in the day. 3. Slow Mo Show Our songs used to be split about 80/20 between hip-hop lyrics and sung lyrics, now it's more like 50/50. This is one of the hip-hop lyrics tracks, initially written as 'KRO is on the Mix Tonight II'. When the idea came for the chorus, we knew 'Slow Mo Show' was the title to stick. The chorus itself refers to John Woo ('you need John woo for me to start to make sense', as John Woo is noted for his slow motion gunplay scenes in his pre-America movies such as 'The Killer') and Bruce Lee ('Slow me down like Bruce Lee on the move', as Bruce Lee moved so fast during filming of his karate scenes that the camera film had to be slowed down later on to catch all of his moves). And oh yeah, don't F**k with the Buddha Palm (a deadly weapon of the Emperor in 'Iron Monkey'). 4. Uptown On a previous album (Pimps in Space), we wrote a song to a porn movie that didn't exist ('Wrench'), and on a similar note we wrote a song to a blaxploitation movie that didn't exist with this song. Well okay, there may be a movie called 'Uptown', but we haven't seen it. We picture this joint playing during the opening credits, a la 'Across 110th Street', as the camera pans around Uptown with various shots. We hope you do, too! The music is pretty bare-funky soul, with the vocal harmony parts thrown all over the place (like the band War used to do). 5. We Funk it 'Man, what is that song they're playing while Jo Jo Shorty is rappin', it sounds so familiar but I can't place it! It's driving me crazy!' Well, stress no more - it's from the classic 80s cartoon The Transformers! Every time we play this song live, at least one person in the audience will scream out 'OH MY GOD, THAT'S THE TRANSFORMERS' when we end it. Yeah, buddy! All the band members are big Transformers fans and are still just a tad pissed that Optimus Prime kicked the bucket in 'Transformers: the movie'. But we digress. If you listen closely, there are a few lyrical references to the Transformers in here as well. There's another one or two thrown across the rest of the album, such as 'Fat tapes fly from my mouth like Soundwave's / from the chest...' (from Slow mo Show). We've been wanting to use this theme for a while, and one day after practice we listened to some old funk records, realized the type of beat that would work with it, and finally laid it down. 6. Message Number 103 It's an instrumental. What the hell do you want? 7. Dollar Major One day we walked into practice and Pooky said 'I got this great idea for a song, it's called Dollar Major'. A few hours later the entire track was done after the band jammed on it. This is another track with the blaxploitation vibe, this one with a harder, more aggressive funk appeal to it. Something we dig about the song it that it definitely builds by starting slow and then getting crazier and more hectic, climaxing at the end. This follows the Dave Mustaine theory of songwriting to a tee! (Dave Mustaine is the leader of the heavy metal / thrash band 'Megadeth', who once described the perfect songwriting model as 'like sex'). And there you go. By it being the title track, we knew it had to sum up Big Pimp Jones well, and it incorporates the funk and rock aspects of the band nicely, resulting in a super-dirty rock/funk jam. 8. Funky Cops This song keeps on the same vibe that one George Clinton put out there ('If Anybody Gets Funked Up, It's Gonna Be You'), the illegality of funking. And yes, this is meant to be a fun song - we know there is a low probability of a nightmarish future world without funk (especially with all those keeping the funk alive)! Yeah, funk may never be illegal, but when you think about it, a lot of funk-type things sure are. You can rock a party and have it jumping for a while, but what if the Funky Cops come shut you down? You can go to your job, but how well would things go if you were blaring the funk? The NFL definitely has the funky cops policing all those having fun. Plenty of people we know seem to fall out of favor at their workplaces for -gasp- smiling! And appearing to have fun! Come on, funky cops! The part of the jam that definitely keeps us going is the horns in the chorus - we dig, we dig and you will too! 9. (Let Me Get) Naked For you Do we really need to say anything about this one? Is there anything to say? Nah, we didn't think so - we get the feeling you get it. For the track, we went for a playful, mellow mood perfect for Stella getting some groove back. And those of you down from day one might catch the reference to an old track of ours with the line 'take it easy'. Holla at your boys if you know! 10. Ribs for $3.99 Another little instrumental, perfect to cruise along in the ride to. We know joints are good for driving when Pooky hears it and then leans to the side, mimicking driving a car with the gangsta lean, and this song passes that test. The song title comes from something one of the band members said every time ANYONE ever said 'Wow, look at that!' or 'would you look at that?' In his mind, the perfect thing to say after something like that is 'yeah, ribs for $3.99'. Don't ask us - we don't know why. 11. Vinyl Killer This track is actually a redo of a song about four years old by us. 'Vinyl Killer' in its original form was available on mp3.com and this site for while, as well as being one of the five hidden tracks on the 'Pimps in Space' CD, depending on which version of the CD you purchased. Some how, some way we decided to start playing this live with the band providing a slinky rock track behind the already-established vocals and have been doing it now for a few years. So we figured, why not the new and improved version to tape and release it as a track instead of just a hidden song or internet-only track? For the lyrics, we did something a little different - be sure to check out this link for 'The Annotated Vinyl Killer', where we footnote every lyrical reference in the song. 12. Watching You Holy crap, a cover song. After Jo Jo Shorty (a funk record collector) spent the better part of a year searching for this exact song after hearing it on a beat tape, (**LINK TO THE STORY OF WATCHING YOU COMING SOON, it's a doozy!****) he came to practice one day and said, 'check this song out! I definitely want us to do something like this for Big Pimp Jones.' From the second everyone else listened to it, they were hooked too, and after one listen to the song, we immediately changed our idea from 'doing a song like this' to 'why don't we just cover the song instead of using it as an influence'. And there you go! This joint was initially done by the Southside Movement in 1975 and is an absolute monster. We encourage you to seek out the original, which isn't as rocked-out as the Big Pimp Jones version, but is still quite nastay and rock-tinged.