Track of the Week: The Beverly Hills Contingent Joins Soul Assassins
There’s some cool history and trivia behind this lost track, but let’s not overcomplicate it, all I really want to sell you is this feeling:
The Whooliganz, who sound like they’re about 10 here, were Scott Caan, son of famous actor James Caan, and Alan Maman, who later becomes the production legend known as The Alchemist.
These two guys met on the mean streets of Beverly Hills and got around enough to eventually get the attention of B-Real of Cypress Hill, who added them to the Soul Assassins crew, which also included House of Pain and Funkdoobiest.
B-Real shows up on the last verse here to give the track, and these two youngsters, the official Soul Assassins seal of approval. It’s a short appearance, but I still love the snap and construction of the line, “Oh, what a natural feeling/’Cause I’m the one with gun doin’ all the cap peeling.”
I think it was 1994 when the whole Soul Assassins caravan came to the Boulder Field House. I went with my roommate, Pogo.
I couldn’t roll joints, so I had one of those wooden dugouts on me with the ceramic one-hitter that looked like a filtered cigarette and popped up via a spring when you slid the top back.
While waiting in line I got super paranoid about the pat-down at the door. Fortunately, I was wearing sneakers that were so busted, the stitching had completely given on the entire left heel. I jammed it under my foot and limped through the entrance without incident.
We puffed the one-hitter and drank beer and got to see The Whooliganz, Funkboobiest, House of Pain and Cypress Hill in their glory.
There were tons of skinny skater-type kids there. B-Real’s crowd engagement trick for the night was challenging everybody to get two mosh pits going. The second pit was interesting. There was a big dude standing at the edge of it, built like a redshirt linebacker for the Buffs.
His version of moshing was waiting until one of the stoner kids came within reach, then grabbing them by the shoulders and hurling them. He was like a golden retriever in front of an automatic stick-throwing machine, bouncing back and forth on his feet, eyes sparkling, while he scanned for the next kid.
For the encore, all four acts came on stage. They did House of Pain’s “Back from the Dead,” Everlast rapping with the diminutive Son Doobie on his shoulders, all of them riding together that first big swell of label success in the purple-white stage lights.