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Archeologists unearth evidence of live music from 1998

February 25th, 2010 · 3 Comments

Back in the late nineties (holy shit! That was more than 10 years ago!!!) I was living with Ran Pink, my childhood friend, soul mate, and only the second guy I knew who had all his tracks on vinyl. On the couch lived Herwig Maurer, one of the sweetest, nicest, most productive humans in this solar system, and the first guy I knew who had all his tracks on vinyl.

These two gnarly bros left Berkley Music School and moved to LA to start a production company. In the process they came up with a concept band called Mankind Liberation Front (LaLa). MLF quickly signed a contract with one of those archaic companies (ie: a record label) and were soon making music videos and appearances.

I was working in a design firm at the time, but I spent the majority of my spare time hanging out in the studio with them, working on their website (1999), smoking weed, then smoking Ran’s weed, and helping out. When the guys started practicing a live show they recruited me to be the backup keyboardist. Mostly because I was free, eager, did not require the limelight, and followed directions well.

The rest of the details are pretty hazy.

MLF’s sound combined rock music with electronic beats. At the time the record label didn’t really know what to do with them. I wonder how they would have fared now in the age of online marketing and self-promotion. I imagine they could have gained a pretty large following of young fans.

Soon thereafter Ran’s younger brother, Tal (creator of Dopetracks.com), came on board and added another layer of vocals to the mix.

You probably never heard of MLF, but if you heard them today what would you think?

3 responses so far ↓

  • I don’t believe in this “live music thing.” The next thing you’ll be telling me is that we all evolved from single-cell organisms.

  • Yes, Jackson… people used to use laptop-like hand-held instruments that only had the ability to perform one function. It was weird. They actually had to keep playing them or the sound would stop.

  • Sababa said on Feb 28, 2010 at 6:56 am

    Seems like yesterday.

What do you think?