The first seeds of Psycho Realm were sown in the tough downtown Pico-Union neighborhood, right across the street from Doheny Park. First-generation Americans and the eldest two of the four Gonzalez boys, Jack and Gustavo, a.k.a. "Duke," grew up in the contentious neighborhood in the mid- and late-1980s.
"Our side of town is the 'Sick Side' of town. They have the South Side, North Side, East Side, whatever. Our side is the Sick Side," Jack explains over a lunch of Argentine Lomo and Mimosas on Hollywood's Melrose Avenue one recent Sunday, fresh off a series of concert dates in Italy.
The patriarch of the Gonzalez family came to the U.S. from Mexico at the age of 15 and supported his family by painting cars. Their house was filled with music: classic oldies, which surface prominently in Psycho Realm's tracks, along with regional Mexican music and giants of the 1960s and '70s like Creedence Clearwater Revival, Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix.
Immersed in hip-hop as a middle-school student, Jack's neighborhood friend, Yonjo, got ahold of a record featuring a guy out of Miami rapping in Spanish. They threw it on the turntable and, inspired by what they heard, the boys wrote a Spanglish rap about all of the friends they grew up with and the growing specter of neighborhood gang warfare that would crest just a few years later in the early 1990s.
Older brother Duke was attending Cal State Northridge (CSUN) at the time, and Jack and Yonjo made the trip out one weekend to see Latin hip-hoppers A Lighter Shade of Brown play the on-campus pub. When the following act was late to the stage, a deejay friend of Duke's threw on an instrumental beat and persuaded Jack and Yonjo to get on stage. Their song about the neighborhood characters got the crowd going crazier than the headlining act, and Jack was hooked.
Eventually, Yonjo dropped out to work for his family's business, Duke got in on the act, and his days at CSUN soon came to an end as well. "I think he went with the intention of doing something, but didn't know what he wanted to do," says Jack. According to his little brother, Duke spent most of those two years with his '79 Regal backed up to the door of his dorm room, juicing up the batteries on his hydraulics with free electricity, courtesy of the Cal State University system. When the party was over, he left.
By now Jack was attending the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies' (LACES) magnet high school Mid-City. Always a talented writer, he once won an essay contest for an opportunity to travel to the Soviet Union, but those plans were derailed by the ill-timed collapse of communism. Jack also played first-chair trumpet in the band and rubbed elbows in Miss Cox's music class with Lucas MacFadden (a.k.a. DJ Cut Chemist of Jurassic 5, Ozomatli and the Brainfreeze projects with DJ Shadow), and a certain actor you may have heard of named Leonardo DiCaprio.
Jack admits that he and his boys used to give Leo a hard time, but when they ran into each other years later at a Playboy magazine party, there were no hard feelings. "He was like, 'Hey, your music's tight.' I was like, 'You're acting's dope,'" Jack remembers.
After graduating from LACES, Jack also took a stab at higher education, attending Santa Monica College on scholarship, taking random courses for credit like weight training. "My dad always wanted us to do the college thing," he says. "Get a good job, make eighty-, a hundred-thousand-dollars a year. Live the good life, you know?" But with an infant daughter to support (he's now the proud father of five girls) and a waning interest in academics, Jack decided that his energy was better spent working and nurturing Psycho Realm's music.
About that time, Psycho Realm caught what could be considered the band's big break. It was 1993 and they were playing a free "End Barrio Warfare" show at the Olvera Street Plaza downtown, which happened to be attended by B-Real of Cypress Hill. B liked what he heard, met with Jack and Duke after the show, and eventually signed Psycho Realm to his production company and the Ruffhouse/Columbia/Sony label, mentoring the fledgling duo. "He was a good mentor," says Jack. "He helped us structure our songs more.
Live shows, he taught us how to work the crowd."
B-Real was so impressed with Psycho Realm that he actually wanted to join the group and make it a trio, but Jack and Duke were reluctant to let anyone else in the fold. "We had the mentality of the old rock bands: If you can't do an album on your own, you ain't shit," says Jack. The brothers told B-Real they would pass, but he was persistent. "We told him if you're going to be in the group, you've got to do all the promotional stuff, too. You don't get superstar status. And he was down with it, so we were like, 'Let's do the whole album.' And we did the whole first album with him."
The Big Debut
When it came time to put out their self-titled debut album in 1997, Jack and Duke were adamant that it was credited only to Psycho Realm, minting them as their own brand. Sony didn't go for it. "On everything, every sticker, it said, 'Featuring B-Real of Cypress Hill,' " recalls Jack. "You can't really blame them because they're sinking so many dollars into it. They're going to go for the marketing aspect." It wasn't all bad news, though. Even now, when Cypress Hill comes up, Psycho Realm usually gets a mention, and vice-versa.
Timing was not on their side, however. Simultaneously, Cypress Hill, Nas, and the Fugees were all on the Ruffhouse label, and they all had big radio hits. Not being a radio-friendly group, Psycho Realm fell into a no-man's land, and consequently fell through the cracks. "They didn't know what to do with us," laments Jack. "Two Mexican guys from L.A. rapping. They were just like, 'What is this? How can we market this?' "
Psycho Realm eventually decided it was best to part ways with Sony. "Sony did give us a worldwide promotional campaign, so we're known all over the world now," says Jack. "We can go to Europe and have promoters pay us to do shows. And we have fans that are coming to the shows all over the world – Mexico, South and Central America, Europe, Australia."
With a DIY work ethic, the Gonzalez brothers have also cultivated a vast network of independent distributors around the globe, keeping their music, their fans – and their profits – close to their chests. Jack breaks it down: "Instead of making eighty cents a record, we're making six or seven dollars a record. It's more of a direct contact with the streets, too, because on a day-to-day basis I'm going around to stores dropping off product. People at the shows buy it, people see me on the streets. I'm out there every day. It's being accessible. I think a lot of people can relate to us and the fact that we're in everybody's face, we're standing next to everybody, it makes it that much more real."
The ugly face of Los Angeles street violence got a little too real for Psycho Realm in late January 1999, just a month before their second album, "A War Story, Book 1," was scheduled for release on their own Sick Symphonies label. After a Delinquent Habits show at the El Rey theatre, Duke and a few friends went in search of late-night nourishment, ending up at Tommy's burger stand at Beverly and Rampart. Following an altercation in the parking lot, Duke was shot in the neck, severing an artery, with the bullet ending up right between the "L" and the "O" of his "Los Angeles" tattoo.
War Story II
By the time Jack made it to the scene, Duke was already on his way to County-USC Medical Center, and only his jacket remained in the street, ringed by yellow police tape. He caught up with Duke in the hospital hallway, barely alive and disfigured by swelling, bandages and clamps. Duke survived, and the police arrested the shooter, but his injuries left him a quadriplegic at 28.
Jack calls the months after Duke's misfortune "The Dark Ages." "I wasn't really doing much," he says. "Not really making music, just cruising the streets." Duke eventually convinced Jack to get back to making music, and he hooked up with dedicated foot soldiers of the Psycho Realm promotion machine and fellow Angelenos, Street Platoon. Together they recorded "The Steel Storm," released in 2001. Dad went to nursing school so he could care for Duke full time and Psycho Realm eventually got back on track.
Now, along with his musical contributions, Duke runs Psycho Realm's cyber-domain, maintaining the Web site and mailing list. And L.A. hip-hop's favorite sons released their long-awaited third album, "A War Story, Book 2," in November 2003. On one of the 15 new tracks, "Poison Rituals," MTV News' Kurt Loder even recounts the night Psycho Realm's lives changed forever at the burger stand. Standout and single-worthy tracks also include head-bobbing party track "Good Times" and street anthem "The Killing Fields."
By all appearances, Psycho Realm barely missed a step. When they threw a record-release party at the El Rey, the same theater where they attended the Delinquent Habits show that fateful night in 1999, Sick Soldiers lined up around the block, and the 600-plus fans that were turned away incited a near-riot. The L.A.P.D. even showed up, decked out in riot gear, though the situation eventually ended peacefully.
"We do it all ourselves," says Jack. "For two guys [Street Platoon], me and my brother, who's quadriplegic, we're not doing too bad."
ONLINE:
For a list of independent retailers carrying Psycho Realm's catalogue, tour dates, news, and merchandise, visit www.psychorealmonline.com.
Lifestyle
The Psycho Realm Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
(J.Gonzalez)
(Jacken)
W do it dirty, like our girls young and pretty
If the ball it makes it more worthy
If I make it to see past thirty
I'll still be drinking and burning
Living it daily, failing piss tests that my P.O. gave me
Don't look for reasons dog there's no explaining
It may osund crazy but iy'ss routine
Daily with new team
Sicksiders who bring the streets and how we do things
No nine to five, stricktly hustle's how we survive
Corner hot spot nickle and dimers keep you supplied
We smoke LA just to get by keep a dry eye
Fuck it why lie I toke up just to get high
We right if the avenue's ours, if not
Spark heaters lapped, dogs bark sick and lick shots
End up in a box six feet but life don't stop
We still do it 'til the wheels falls of or 'tll we drop
I don't go by what no one is doing
I make my own rules
Don't follow yours, stand on my own two
I got my own thing, so you got to deal with it
(Jacken)
We stay hungry, the streets love me
Trust me
They taughtme things no one could take from me
There's nothing funny when it's business and money dummy
Catch yourself running out of time
I'm feeling one coming
Always stunning wether it's in the deuce or foot loose
Shoes always clean deusched up and walk with l lean
Talk with a gleam my eyes seen and done everything
We seem to do these broads right
We got'em stalking the tean
Hawking the cream but they only get it if they act right
If last night wasn't tight you get no cash prize
If it smells real funky like it's flashlight
Throw her in the shower make her scrub the cat right
We don't up iwth none of this drama
I'm 'a tell you right now we're all about the goodtimes
Don't push mine 'cause kush minds
Are planning out these 'hood crimes
A crook lies deep beneath these rarely understood minds
I don't go by what no one is doing
I make my own rules
Don't follow yours, stand on my own two
I got my own thing, so you got to deal with it
(Jacken)
We see bad times but who doesn't
Good time lovin'
We're ghetto folk but got class cousin
Glass, dust and snort, smoke, dip or just guzzling
Got us buzing everyday dog it ain't nothing
Streets bubbling gossip stay floating can't trust it
All my homeboys doing dirt just keep getting busted
Bussed in the goose to country then dressed in the blues
Yes we could choose but for what we're expected to lose
Breaking the rules
Some of us decked in the jewels
I prefer to be D.L. perfecting my moves
Around here it's kind of hard homie step in my shoes
Trying to do it right without disrespecting these fools
still
This is my lifestyle I'll tell you right now
Do what I do homie only 'cause it's my style
Don't think it's nice now just 'cause I might smile
This is my life and I'm a live it 'til it's lights out
I don't go by what no one is doing
I make my own rules
Don't follow yours, stand on my own two
I got my own thing, so you got to deal with it
The Psycho Realm's song "Lifestyle" is a commentary on the gritty reality of life and survival on the streets. The opening line "We do it dirty, like our girls young and pretty" paints a picture of the lawless attitude of the Sicksiders, the group the song is about. The Sicksiders are known for their rough and dangerous behavior, constantly failing drug tests given by their probation officers and indulging in a lifestyle built on the corner hot spot nickle and dimers that keep them supplied.
The chorus "I don't go by what no one is doing, I make my own rules. Don't follow yours, stand on my own two. I got my own thing, so you got to deal with it" reinforces the Sicksiders’ rebellious spirit and unwillingness to conform to society's rules. They hold on to their own set of values and principles rather than following others. The song describes how they continue to hustle and live by the street code, even when the consequences include being locked up or even death. The gritty lyrics paint the harsh reality of their lifestyle, including drug use and violence.
Line by Line Meaning
W do it dirty, like our girls young and pretty
We engage in immoral or illegal activities just like we go for young and attractive girls.
If the ball it makes it more worthy
If there's risk involved, it makes the reward more valuable.
If I make it to see past thirty
If I live long enough to reach that age.
I'll still be drinking and burning
I'll continue to consume alcohol and drugs.
Fucking it up homie we ain't learning
We keep making mistakes but don't learn from them.
Living it daily, failing piss tests that my P.O. gave me
I live this lifestyle every day and fail the urine tests my parole officer administers.
Don't look for reasons dog there's no explaining
Don't try to understand or find reasons for our behavior, there's no explanation.
It may osund crazy but iy'ss routine
It may seem insane but it's our habitual way of life.
Daily with new team
Every day with a different group of people who share our lifestyle.
Sicksiders who bring the streets and how we do things
People from our gang who are part of the streets and follow our lifestyle.
No nine to five, stricktly hustle's how we survive
We don't have regular jobs, we solely rely on hustling to make ends meet.
Corner hot spot nickle and dimers keep you supplied
Drug dealers on the corner sell small amounts to keep up with the demand.
We smoke LA just to get by keep a dry eye
We smoke marijuana to cope with life's struggles and try to remain unaffected.
Fuck it why lie I toke up just to get high
I smoke weed just to get high and don't bother lying about it.
We right if the avenue's ours, if not
We're in control of the situation if the area belongs to our gang, if not, we're in danger.
Spark heaters lapped, dogs bark sick and lick shots
We fire guns, including automatic ones, while dogs bark and signal danger.
End up in a box six feet but life don't stop
We might end up dead and buried, but life carries on for those who remain.
We still do it 'til the wheels falls of or 'tll we drop
We keep living this lifestyle until we can't do it anymore or die trying.
We stay hungry, the streets love me
We always strive to accomplish more, and people in the streets admire us.
Trust me
Believe me, I know what I'm talking about.
They taughtme things no one could take from me
The streets taught me valuable life lessons that no one can diminish.
There's nothing funny when it's business and money dummy
There's nothing amusing when it comes to conducting business and earning money, don't be naive.
Catch yourself running out of time
You're running out of time to make something of yourself.
I'm feeling one coming
I sense an opportunity is about to present itself.
Always stunning wether it's in the deuce or foot loose
We always look good, no matter if we're in a car or dancing.
Shoes always clean deusched up and walk with l lean
Our footwear is constantly spotless and we walk with a confident attitude.
Talk with a gleam my eyes seen and done everything
My words reflect my accomplished experience, and my eyes reveal that I've been through it all.
We seem to do these broads right
We treat women well, according to their desires.
We got'em stalking the tean
They're obsessed with us and want to be in our group.
Hawking the cream but they only get it if they act right
They can only get our drugs if they behave appropriately.
If last night wasn't tight you get no cash prize
If you didn't perform well, you won't receive any money.
If it smells real funky like it's flashlight
If something doesn't seem right or suspicious, like a package from a flashlight.
Throw her in the shower make her scrub the cat right
Make her take a shower and clean herself properly.
We don't up iwth none of this drama
We don't tolerate any unnecessary conflicts.
I'm 'a tell you right now we're all about the goodtimes
I'm going to inform you that we solely exist to have a good time.
Don't push mine 'cause kush minds
Don't bother me because I'm smoking marijuana.
Are planning out these 'hood crimes
We're scheming to commit crimes in our neighborhood.
A crook lies deep beneath these rarely understood minds
We're all criminals at heart and have complex, misunderstood minds.
We see bad times but who doesn't
We're all experiencing hardships, that's nothing rare.
Good time lovin'
We're all about enjoying ourselves and having a good time.
We're ghetto folk but got class cousin
We come from a poor neighborhood but still maintain our dignity and demeanor.
Glass, dust and snort, smoke, dip or just guzzling
We consume various drugs in different ways, including snorting and smoking.
Got us buzing everyday dog it ain't nothing
We're always under the influence and it's nothing out of the ordinary.
Streets bubbling gossip stay floating can't trust it
There's always rumors and gossip in the streets that are unreliable and shouldn't be trusted.
All my homeboys doing dirt just keep getting busted
All my friends who are committing crimes keep getting caught by the authorities.
Bussed in the goose to country then dressed in the blues
Transported in a corrections bus to a specific facility and then dressed in prison attire.
Yes we could choose but for what we're expected to lose
We have the option to choose a different path, but we perceive that it would result in losing something significant.
Breaking the rules
We're constantly breaking laws and risking getting caught.
Some of us decked in the jewels
Some of us wear expensive jewelry as a status symbol.
I prefer to be D.L. perfecting my moves
I prefer to keep a low profile and improve my criminal skills secretly.
Around here it's kind of hard homie step in my shoes
It's difficult to understand my life and experiences, so don't judge me.
Trying to do it right without disrespecting these fools
I'm attempting to do things the correct way without offending anyone who is part of my criminal lifestyle.
This is my lifestyle I'll tell you right now
This is who I am and how I live my life, and I'm not ashamed of it.
Do what I do homie only 'cause it's my style
Follow my example, because it's the way I choose to live.
Don't think it's nice now just 'cause I might smile
Don't assume I'm a good person just because I appear friendly and cheerful.
This is my life and I'm a live it 'til it's lights out
This is my existence and I'm going to continue living it until I die.
I don't go by what no one is doing
I don't follow anyone else's example or conform to societal expectations.
I make my own rules
I create my own guidelines to live by.
Don't follow yours, stand on my own two
I don't want to follow your rules, I prefer to rely on my own intuition and judgment.
I got my own thing, so you got to deal with it
I have my own way of life, and you have to accept and respect it.
Writer(s): Jack Gonzalez Copyright: Music Of The Mask
Contributed by Maria D. Suggest a correction in the comments below.