Plug One

Lucas “Cut Chemist” McFadden initially emerged during two celebrated yet misunderstood periods in music history — the all-too-brief flourishing of underground hip-hop in the late Nineties, and the equally short turntablism craze.

As a member of the Los Angeles group Unity Committee, he authored “Lesson 4: The Radio,” a homage to Double Dee and Steinski’s legendary quick mix EP Lessons 1-3. He expertly sliced through dozens of esoteric samples, from 50s instructional records to rappers like Spoonie Gee, to create the track. First released on Unity Committee’s “Unified Rebelution” single in 1993, it found greater fame two years later as part of the classic Return of the DJ, a compilation that Spin magazine later named one of the best releases of the decade.

In 1994, Unity Committee merged with another L.A. group, Rebels of Rhythm, to form the Jurassic 5. The group was unapologetically positive minded, incorporated routines modeled after Bronx acts like the Funky Four +1 More and Cold Crush Brothers, and promoted a purist, true-school vision of hip-hop culture. Cut Chemist (who shared production and DJ duties with Nu-Mark) produced many of their underground hits, including “Jayou” and “Concrete Schoolyard” (on 1997Â’s Jurassic 5 EP) and “Quality Control” (on the 2000 album Quality Control). As Jurassic 5 grew in popularity and became one of the premier West Coast hip-hop groups, Cut Chemist continued to push forward with his turntable experiments, including the brilliant “Lesson 6: The Lecture” and the Future Primitive Soundsession mix CD with DJ Shortkut.

In addition to his work for Jurassic 5, Cut Chemist involved himself in a variety of projects. He produced and remixed tracks for Incubus, DJ Shadow, Blackalicious, Teriyaki Boyz and many others. He took part in Keepintime, a multimedia project helmed by photographer B+ that paired new-school producers like himself, Madlib and DJ Babu (Dilated Peoples) with veteran funk drummers like Roy Porter and Earl Palmer.

Most famously, he teamed up with DJ Shadow to create Brainfreeze. Initially a 1999 one-off concert in San Francisco, it found the two creating a DJ set solely from rare 45-inch singles. Thanks in part to the subsequent limited-edition CD commemorating the show (which was widely bootlegged), the concert series — repeated in 2001 as the Product Placement tour — turned into a watershed moment for crate-digging as worldwide hobby, encouraging thousands of fans worldwide to dig for rare “deep funk” breaks.

Nearly a decade after releasing “Lesson 6: The Lecture,” it may seem as if Cut Chemist’s time has passed. In 2007, Serato “mashup” prodigies like Girl Talk are the new hotness, and jocked for the ability to collate MP3 pop sounds like a latter-day version of Stars on 45. But Cut Chemist continues to release quality work: his solo debut from last year, The Audience’s Listening, was arguably one of the best albums of 2006. Trendy or not, he demands your attention. (The lead single, “Listen,” was used in an Apple iPod commercial.)

On June 23, Cut Chemist and DJ Shadow revive their vaunted 45s series with a concert at the Hollywood Bowl, followed by a tour of Europe and Japan. When I spoke with Cut Chemist several weeks beforehand, the new edition was called Brain Placement; it has since been titled The Hard Sell. After the Hollywood Bowl event, there will be a tour of Europe and Japan, and a second U.S. performance on September 15 during the Treasure Island Music Festival in the Bay Area. More dates will likely be scheduled.

Other Cut Chemist projects to look out for include Lost and Found, a compilation of rockabilly, jump and blues curated with Keb Darge for BBE Records. And by the way, he doesn’t know why Jurassic 5 quietly broke up this spring. He left the group last year.

Photo by B+ .

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