Bug Powder Dust
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| “Bug Powder Dust” | ||
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| Single by Bomb The Bass from the album 'Clear' |
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| B-side | "Bug Powder Dust (remix)" | |
| Released | 1994 | |
| Genre | Dance, Breakbeat | |
| Label | Island | |
| Writer(s) | Tim Simenon, Justin Warfield | |
| Producer | Tim Simenon | |
"Bug Powder Dust" was the 8th single by Bomb The Bass. It was released in 1994 as the first single from the Clear album. Featuring Justin Warfield on vocals, the track is primarily Dance music blended with Rap and Breakbeat.
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[edit] About the song
Lyrically, Bug Powder Dust is essentially a homage to the author William Burroughs. Crowded with seemingly random images and 'in' references from trashy pop culture, Justin Warfield's lyric seeks to adopt a Burroughs type view of the world.
However, through its use of Burroughs imagery - both fictional and biographic - as well as pulp science fiction iconography from the period, Bug Powder Dust also mimics the author's mashing up of fact and fiction by becoming simultaneously about, and of, Burroughs
[edit] Lyrical stylings
Burroughs' most famous work, The Naked Lunch, made famous his cut-up style of composition, which, alongside the subject matter of his novels, sought to question reality, mimic the brutality of sensory overload in modern life, and reproduce the confusion of inner-logic smashed by drugs.
In Bug Powder Dust, Justin Warfield adopts Burrough's hallucinatory perspective, but plays it off against the bragaddocio of Hip-hop. Where a traditional rapper would compare themselves to the endurance, strength or impact of a famous object, person or quality, Warfield beams in seemingly cryptic, but no less impressive, pulp images instead. The initial effect is one of insanity, but through repeated hearings, these references seemingly spurious visions begin to make sense.
The effect is of a narrator - like Burroughs - who apparently possesses a perspective on life that cannot recognise the difference between fact and fiction, sanity and madness.
Warfield takes matters one step further, framing his lyrics in a traditional Rap format. By doing so, the vocalist successfully grafts literature to Hip-hop, seeking to reinvent - or make fresh sense - of the forms lyrical potential, by side-stepping the listener's expectation of stereotypical visuals, and cliched statements.
As a consequence, Bug Powder Dust was accepted by the British Hip-hop community as being a successful appropriation of what had up until then, been a wholly American - and Americanised - artform. A fact reflected by the songs repeated appearance in many rundowns of 'classic' British Hip-hop and Rap tracks.
[edit] Musical style
The track incorporates a bass-line by Alphonso Johnson, as performed on the title track of Flora Purim's album, Open Your Eyes, You Can Fly. Johnson is probably best known as having been with the jazz-fusion group Weather Report.
[edit] Lyrical references
[edit] Lyrics
Check it, yo! I always hit the tape with the rough road styles You heard the psychdelic and ya came from miles Keep my rhymes thick like a Guinness brew So you could call me black and tan when I'm a wreckin' a crew I'm like Bill Lee writing when he's in Tangiers And now I'm on a soul safari with my Beatnik peers Analog reel and a little distortion Smokin' on somethin' s'you could say I'm scorchin' (Smokin' on suckers... ?) I never been the type to brag but beware I'll make a man burn his draft card like it was Hair Send ya up the river like you lookin' for Kurtz I got the mugwump jism up in every verse
I always hit the apple when I'm going to shoot So you can call me William Tell or Agent Cooper to boot Mr. Mojo Risin' on the case again So tell your mother and your sister and your sister's friends Like an exterminator running low on dust I'm bug powder itchin' and it can't be trussed Interzone trippin' and I'm off to Annexia I gotta get a typewriter that's a tight bite of dyslexia My name is Justin and that's all that's it And I'll be spittin' rhymes wicked like it ain't for this s**t Houses of the Holy like Jimmy Page But the song remains the same so I'm stuck in a rage Just like Jane when she's going to Spain I think I'm going away tomorrow, just a fool in the rain Light up the candles and bless the room I'm paranoid, snow blind, just a black meat fool
Bug powder dust an' mugwump jism And the wild boys runnin' 'round Interzone trippin' Letter to control about the Big Brother Try like hard to not blow my cover
Never been a fake and I'm never phony I got more flavour than the packet in macaroni Rock drippin' from my every vowel I've got the soul of the sixties like Ginsberg's Howl Shootin' mad ball and I'm always jukin' Take you to the hole and I'm surely hoopin' Top of the pops like the Lulu's show I'll take a walk on Abbey Road with my shoes off, so... I got a splinter though, damn, you know man it hurt I got a Vegemite sandwich from Men at Work I keep minds in line, but time sublimes, So when you search you find something like a gold mine A psychadelic meanderings in the poem I got a patter, patter anyplace that I roam Waiting for the sun on a Spanish caravan Solar eclipse and I'm feeling like starin' man
Who's that man in the windowpane Got somethin' on his tongue and it's startin' to stain Sho' nuff equip so wop n'get down Step up on my ladder and you'll get beat down Hash bar style so I'm singin' day glow Wakin' up the dead like Serpent and the Rainbow Jeff Spicoli roll me another hay The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh with Dr. J Shockin' your ass like a faulty vibrator Hear me now, but you'll probably get the vibe later Who knows where the wicked wind blows Que sera sera just leave it alone Great Space Coaster toast up the town ????? Makin' midgets with my man Dr. Shrinker Pass the hookah, throw down the pillows Cloth on the ceiling, blow rings that billow Kick off the shoes and relax your feet Now roll up your sleeves for this lyrical treat
I think it's time for you boys to share my last taste of the true black meat; the flesh of the giant, aquatic, Brazilian centipede.
[edit] Commercial Versions
Bug Powder Dust (Radio mix) 4:20
Bug Powder Dust (Dust Brothers remix) 5:35
Bug Powder Dust (Bug Powder Drums remix) 5:38
Bug Powder Dust (Chemical Brothers Mix) 7:02
Bug Powder Dust (Sound Furnace Edit) (UK Album Version) (3:49)
Bug Powder Dust (La Funk Mob Mix) (5:43)
Bug Powder Dust (Kruder & Dorfmeister Session) (7:24)
