PETE: I’m actually the one who said the line about Hammer in the song, but Serch took the brunt of it. SERCH: There was a lot of drama with MC Hammer that resulted from that song. The gas face was when girls would suck their teeth and just walk away. SERCH: When a girl would diss us, Doom started saying, “She just gave me the gas face.” Which meant that we just spent our gas money to get to the mall, only to get dissed. “The Gas Face” (featuring Zev Love X of KMD) Bill Stephney, Russell and Lyor would tell us all kinds of stuff, and we thought they were just blowing smoke up our asses. That was an actual meeting we had with him. I did that with all of our meetings, just to hear all the bullshit they would say. PETE: I used to secretly record the guys at Def Jam. I didn’t know any of them before I met Mike that day. So that’s where all the Beasties’ disses on “Sons of 3rd Bass” came from. Two months later there was a piece in Spin and the writer asked them what they thought of 3rd Bass, and Mike D said how he threw shit at me and shooed me out. I was leaving his apartment and all of a sudden he started throwing shit at me, like foam balls and stuff lying around his apartment. They had gotten out of their Def Jam deal, and he gave me really good insight about Russell. One day I saw Mike D on the street and I ended up talking to him in his apartment, because I needed some advice. SERCH: The Beastie Boys were huge at the time. In this excerpt from the forthcoming book Check the Technique: Volume 2, Serch and Pete share the unexpectededly sensational stories behind a half-dozen classic Cactus tracks. The Cactus Album, produced by Sever, Prince Paul and the Bomb Squad, and featuring DJ Daddy Rich (born Richard Lawson), came out in October 1989 and went gold within six months. We’re still $150,000 away from being recouped.” “We used three or four samples per song, so those clearances ate up all our royalties. “Our advance was $5,000 each,” Serch says. That’s how it all began.”ĭespite signing to one of the hottest labels in hip-hop, the group’s deal wasn’t exactly a dream payday. Says Pete, “The old story that Russell and Lyor put me and Serch together is the furthest thing from what actually happened.” In fact, “I was at Chung King Studios and had laid down the original version of ‘Wordz of Wizdom.’ Sam liked the track and played it for Serch. That white kid from Queens was Pete Nice. I think you guys should work together.’ “ Serch recalls, “One day Sam called me and said, ‘Def Jam signed another white kid from Queens. Listen to samples used in the making of the album on WhoSampled.Simmons’ right-hand man, Lyor Cohen, set up Serch with a producer named Sam Sever (real name Sam Citrin). The track ‘Brooklyn Queens’ appears on our 1989 Rap Megamix. The track ‘Brooklyn Queens’ appears on our Classic Material 1989 mixtape. The singles ‘The Gas Face’ and ‘Steppin to the AM’ come in at #16 and #23 respectively on Ego Trip’s Top 40 Rap Singles of 1989. The album comes in at #7 on Ego Trip’s Top 25 Rap Albums of 1989. A decade later, Rhapsody included The Cactus Album in its list of “The 10 Best Albums By White Rappers”.” In 1998, the album was selected as one of The Source’s 100 Best Rap Albums. It was certified gold by the RIAA on April 24, 1990, the same day as Biz Markie’s The Biz Never Sleeps, which was released two weeks prior to The Cactus Album.The Cactus Album peaked at #5 on Billboard’s Top Hip Hop/R&B Albums chart and at #55 on the Billboard 200 chart.
The album received positive reviews from the hip hop press. “The Cactus Al/Bum (also known as The Cactus Cee/D and The Cactus Cas/Ette depending on release format) is the debut album by hip hop trio 3rd Bass, released on Def Jam Recordings on November 14, 1989. Producers: Pete Nice, MC Serch, Sam Sever, Prince Paul, The Bomb Squad 3rd Bass ‘The Cactus Album’ 30th Anniversary