Discography

D Smoke - 'Producer of the Year'

The year is 2004, 15 years prior to winning Netflix's first Rhythm + Flow competition and 17 years before D Smoke earns two Grammy nominations for his album Black Habits. In partnership with his brothers, "Sir" Darryl Farris and Davion Farris, as well as their cousin, Tiffany Gouché, the Inglewood rapper founded the WoodWorks label and songwriting group.

Building a studio in their parent's garage, they set to work. “We did it with our bare hands,” Davion told Rated R&B. Despite being a student with his tuition, room and board paid for, D Smoke told BET that he personally took out the loan to renovate the space. They equiped the studio with gear and instruments given to them by their uncle Andrew Gouché, who played bass for the likes of Prince, Chaka Khan, and Mary Mary. ^[1]

D Smoke's debut album, Producer of the Year, was one of the group's first releases. It was released on May 9, 2006 digitally with a limited physical release on CD. It was their hustle following this release that garnered attention from Jason "JC" Ricks who signed them to a publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music. ^[2]

While Darryl, Davion, and Tiffany were writing songs for The Pussycat Dolls, Ginuwine, Jill Scott, Tyrese Gibson, Mary J. Blige, Lloyd, and Stevie Wonder, D Smoke finished his degree at UCLA and became a Spanish and Music Theory teacher at Inglewood High. ^[3]

Davion later took a break from music to study acting for 4 years and to teach for another year after that. After two independent releases in 2017, he signed with Hillman Grad Records / Def Jam to release a major label debut in 2021.

SiR began releasing solo work in 2012 and was featured on Anderson .Paak's album Venice in 2014. After releasing his official "debut" Seven Sundays in 2015, he was signed by Dave Free to Top Dawg Entertainment.

Tiffany has released several studio albums. She's worked with artists like Ty Dolla $ign, Solange, Anderson .Paak, Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliot, Iggy Azalea, Usher, and more.

D Smoke returned to music through a number of features and the occasional single until his Rhythm + Flow win and his comeback EP Inglewood High.

After 5 years of searching, I found a digital copy of the record. It's been uploaded to YouTube in its entirety.

Producer of the Year

Label: WoodWorks Music
Date: 05-09-2006
Media: CD, Digital

YouTube

Tracklist:

Intro 01:51
Prodigal Son 03:57
Where's She From 04:05
Somethin' You Can Feel 04:12
Lesson 1 01:02
The Only One 03:49
Same Song 03:42
Stacy 03:56
Lesson 2 01:26
Be Alright 03:35
Outro 03:03
Here With Me 05:24

The Farris / Gouché clan is very musical. The Farris brother's late mother Jackie Gouché sang background for Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and Anita Baker. ↩︎
This was not the Farris brothers' first deal. They were previously signed to DreamWorks Records as N3D, and R&B trio, by Jheryl Busby who previously signed Boyz II Men to Motown Records. ↩︎
D Smoke is credited for co-writing "Never" by Jahiem. ↩︎

Disc Two, Track One: Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year

This blog hasn't seen a lot of action in a few years. I built it on Squarespace in 2019 to fill the time between classes and continued to use it as a writing outlet during Covid-19 quarantine. Then, once I was able to get back out in the world and go to shows, the posts dried up.

So, where have I been?

Well... I got a new job, bought a home, and continued gathering up material to write about on this blog. I've written some things too—most of which is in nearly finished states. It's been sitting in my drafts folder.

I've also been building out the infrastructure to make my goals for this website more attainable. I've developed a library of scripts to help in preparing files for sharing and built a brand new platform to blog to live on. Farewell Squarespace, hello Eleventy.

I'm a big proponent of loving where you publish. The old site was fine, but had its limitations and costs. Part of my inability to publish came from the shame of letting my billing cycle complete for 4 years straight while the plans for a replatforming swirled in my head. $200/y for a business page is fine. That cost cannot be justified for a music blog, not when alternatives exist.

The new site is hosted for free on GitHub pages and I've built out a bunch of custom snippets that will let me format tracklists and other media embeds how I want them. There's more metadata on each post, including mirrored or archived links where I find that old links have died. The site is also static with minimal client-side Javascript, so it's very fast! I hope you like it.

For the geeks who care: I've kept the old urls as they were, but will switch to a /YYYY/MM/title format going forward.

While I don't have search on this version of the site, I've fleshed out the tag archives to make them easier to search. I plan to build a complete archive page with article titles that will be ctrl+F'able. More plans available on the roadmap.

I've also been sharing material to YouTube. I haven't promoted it much, but this project does have a channel that I've been populating with rarities that are hard to find elsewhere. Recent uploads include:

Bacon Ray's 1994 self-titled cassette (reupload)
Two releases from Nate Ruess (The Format, Fun.) and Sam Means' (The Format) first band This Past Year / Nevergonnascore
Stacy Clark's debut EP (the first time this has ever been shared online)
Some demos from By A Thread
A higher-resolution copy of The Panic Division's "Versus" music video
A rare punk / ska compilation
Some '90s Christian Hardcore from PA
Fall Out Boy TTTYG Director's Cut Q&A clips
Some high-def live footage from some gigs I've been to (Including The Beths, The Hotelier, and Milk Carton Kids)

In terms of written content, I have some of that too!

I got ahold of a bootleg DVD of a Copeland show in 2006 that was barred from sale by the band's label. The label's owner has since sold it to me. 🤫

I've published a long-in-progress discography of Christopher Browder (Mansions), which dates back to the very beginning of his musical career. I did this to prove out a format I intend to use for other bands and musicians. I'm working on a sessionography as well, which will document all the live session recordings the band has done and make the audio available to download.

The site's about page has been expanded with information on how to contribute (please contribute!) and there's now a blogroll-style list of other archiving endeavors that relate to what I'm doing here.

That's it for now. More to come. Thanks for reading.

Copeland - 'Ace's Basement'

On Friday, March 5th, 2003, Copeland played third of four at Ace’s basement in Greensboro, NC. Ahead of them on the bill was Mae, with supporting acts The Working Title and Slow Coming Day warming up the crowd.

In an article on the venue and its impression on the Greensboro scene which flourished from 2003 to 2005, Jordan Green writes for the Triad City Beat:

[Ace’s Basement] was in the subterranean level of a crack hotel. The Coliseum Inn, a hive of prostitution and addiction across the street from the Greensboro Coliseum, has long since been demolished, taking the briefly illustrious Ace’s Basement down with it.

Show promoter Joe Ferguson was pivotal in this scene, propping up local pop-punk acts and pulling in touring staples in the genre to headline gigs. On top of that, he recorded the shows he put on, creating a video record of the venue’s impact.

“My specialty was on-the-fly, multi-track editing,” Ferguson recalled to Green. “After the show I was able to hand a DVD to the band before they could even get the sweat off of them.”

Closely associated with the venue were bands like The Necesssary/House of Fools, Alli with an I, Kudzu Wish, Sullivan, Farewell, and Far-Less. Thanks to Ace’s Basement, many more bands would make tour stops in NC, including Lovedrug, The Format, Armor For Sleep, Hot Water Music, Codeseven, Bear vs Shark, A Static Lullaby, The Lawrence Arms, Bayside, Between The Buried And Me, Stretch Arm Strong, Underoath, Glasseater, Halifax, Silverstein, Alexisonfire, Hawthorne Heights, Emery, Demon Hunter, Haste The Day, Dead Poetic, Piebald, The Chariot, Gatsbys American Dream, Circa Survive, Alesana, and Lucero.

Did I mention the venue was only open for two years?

Mae, Copeland, The Working Title, Slow Coming Day show flyer — Show flyer found on Headfirst Record’s Punks On Paper archive.

Short-lived as it was, the recordings live on. Some of which were produced into unauthorized DVDs. The Militia Group founder Chad Pearson brought to my attention one such DVD produced for Copeland’s set that night in March of ‘03. He said that that he was “pretty sure only a few copies exist.” The band’s singer, Aaron Marsh, recalled Pearson sending a cease and desist over it. That I have not been able to confirm.

Now that I know about Joe and Ace’s Basement, I’m hoping to track down more footage. If you have any, reach out. In the meantime, I’ve uploaded a rip of this DVD to YouTube. You can watch the set below.

Discography: Never Gonna Score / This Past Year

The other day I found a track from a band called Never Gonna Score on a little-known compilation from Arizona. Turns out, that's the first band Nate Ruess and Sam Means (The Format, Fun.) formed together.

From what I've been able to learn thus far, the band didn't last longer than a few years. This is one of few known recordings from the short-lived punk group from Glendale, AZ. They produced one record called The Byron Sessions, an EP, and a handful of demos I've found loose around the web.

If you have more from Never Gonna Score / This Past Year, please reach out.