• DOWNLOAD | CONSOLE “Starpower” Mono, 2006

ONE

“Hey, it’s nice to meet you,” she said.

“But I know you,” I replied. We were standing outside in the sun, backstage at the Warped Tour when we met.

“I don’t think you do.”

I asked her if she had ever lived in New York. She said she didn’t, but that she spent a lot of time there. I asked her if she had ever lived in Chicago or San Francisco. I’ve lived there, too.

“No and no,” she said, staring at me curiously.

And then it hit me. “You used to date Pete from Sick of it All, right?”

She looked at me as if to say, Please stop. So I did.

My friend Toby walked up as she slid back into the catering tent. “You really don’t know who that was?” he asked. He wore a mischievous look.

“No idea.”

“Juliette Lewis!” he screamed.

I thought Toby was going to explode with the kind of gotcha–satisfaction that only really makes sense on tour. He proceeded to run off a list of at least a half-dozen films — Cape Fear! Natural Born Killers! What’s Eating Gilbert Grape! — none of which I’d ever seen.

“If you ask me,” I shrugged, “she still looks like Pete’s ex.”

TWO

We were both having a moment when we left the studio that day. Zack was in New York to record a song with the legendary KRS-One, and by some twist of extraordinary good luck, he invited me to come along. I’d never been behind the scenes for a proper hip-hop recording session before, and for the most part, I felt pretty isolated from the whole thing. Everyone was nodding their heads with quantized precision and yelling, “Aw yeah!” at precisely the right times; if you had told me the scene had been choreographed, I might have believed you.

When KRS-One arrived, it was as if Jesus himself walked into the studio. We all stood up to greet him, and he appeared in front of each and everyone of us — shaking hands, making eye contact, firmly establishing his presence. I remember thinking that his hand was twice the size of mine, and that he had to be, like, twelve feet tall. I also remember thinking that the man’s voice was so encompassing it seemed almost pointless to give him a microphone.

KRS-One did all of his tracks in one take. Neither artist really knew what the other was doing, so we were all hearing KRS-One’s chorus for the first time: “You claim I’m sellin’ crack, but you be doin’ that / The Last Emperor, KRS-One, and Big Zack!”

“Aw yeah!” everyone screamed.

So when we left the studio that day, Zack and I were having a moment. We walked south on Broadway, almost speechless. Our verbal communication, for several minutes, consisted of little more than giggles, sighs, or the occasional Fuck until, finally, Zack broke the silence.

“Seriously,” he said. “How do you go about telling KRS-One that you don’t want to be called Big Zack?”

Photo: Danielle Scott