Rolling from p 22 billing with the talent. This was way before Serato [DJ software and laptops] so the DJs had all these crates of records. You’d be painting and trip over the crates while getting your supplies. McVay: As the Blunt Club evolved and all of the entities [representing] all the elements of hip-hop, we decided to go ahead and flip it and make it a hip-hop spot. The moniker became, “It’s for the writers, the breakers, the DJs, the MCs, and to up your knowledge of hip-hop.” The Blunt Club started blowing up after Dumper featuring touring hip-hop artists on the regular. Dumper: I started booking [hip-hop] acts during our second or third year. I brought out were Z-Man, DJ Qwest, and Sacred Hoop for one of our first shows. The second one was Grupo Fantasma plus the funk group Brownout, which was a big show for us at the time. Hyder: Grupo Fantasma gave the Blunt a whole new vibe. And a whole bunch of new people came to check out the music. Rok Knowledge, MC with The Society of Invisibles: If you were a local hip-hop head, The Blunt Club was where you wanted to be. Ill Al, local MC: I remember being at Blunt Club during the P.I. days. I’d formed [local hip-hop collective] Avenue of the Arts and we’d go see shows by Drunken Immortals, Morse Code, or different Valley hip-hop groups back then. What sticks out the most was getting to connect with like- minded people and artists. There were always a lot of b-boy circles happening at Blunt Club. Magana: At a lot of more regular [night- clubs], you were getting kicked out for breaking or they’d stop you. So Blunt Club became a home for breakers, b-boys, poppers, and lockers. They’ve always made space on the floor for cyphers by breakers and dancers. It’s something that’s been embedded into the programming of Blunt Club. Dumper: We started having shows all the time and I brought on Doug Quick around that time as a partner. Doug Quick, former Blunt Club booker: Dumper wanted more DJs and rappers in there and asked me to help with booking and marketing. I was Drunken Immortals’ manager at the time and doing booking on the side. Dumper: Doug and I knew bands who were touring through Arizona, and as we started bringing those guys out, word started traveling. Next thing you know, we’re getting hit up all the time by DJs and hip-hop groups that were heading our way. 24 Hooray for Hollywood Alley In early 2005, The Blunt Club left Priceless Inn after the bar underwent a change in ownership. There were other factors involved in their decision to move the night, Quick says. Left: A dance circle during a Blunt Club at Yucca Tap Room. Below: Chuck D. during Public Enemy’s Blunt Club show at Hollywood Alley in Mesa in 2006. Right: Longtime Blunt Club DJ Pickster One (left) and co-founder Adam Dumper (right). Benjamin Leatherman Quick: At some point, we showed up one night and found out Priceless Inn had been sold. The new owners replaced a lot of the staff and it changed the vibe really fast. After two or three weeks it got weird, so and me and Dumper decided to move. We wanted to go to Hollywood Alley just across the [Loop 101] freeway, but had to wait for their calendar to open up so we’d have Thursdays. Dumper: Priceless Inn wasn’t the biggest place and we needed a larger venue. We ended up doing Blunt Club at Rio Salado Brewing Company on Mill [Avenue] for a couple months because we didn’t have anywhere else to go until we landed at Hollywood Alley. Rob “Fun Bobby” Birmingham, former Hollywood Alley booker and bartender: Blunt Club became our Thursdays for years. They were all respectful to everyone, from Dumper and his crew to the crowds, and never gave us trouble. They were more into breakdancing than breaking urinals. Dumper: [Hollywood Alley co-owner Ross Wincek] is an awesome guy. We had some of my favorite times there. It was good food, good people, and had an “anything goes” kinda thing going on. Quick: Hollywood Alley was more of a venue than Priceless Inn and had more of a legit stage and sound system. And once we got there, we went crazy with the booking and things kept blossoming. Dumper: Our first couple of weeks at Hollywood Alley, I tried bringing in the weirdest shit imaginable. I had a wushu kung-fu team come in with swords, staffs, knives, and nunchucks. They did a whole show in the middle of Hollywood Alley where dudes were kicking the ceiling and flinging these friggin’ [guandao] staffs with blades on the ends. It was the coolest shit I’ve ever seen. We were kinda worried about having the right insurance. Ross loved it and was laughing the entire time. Quick: We started booking shows with [local hip-hop promoter] Universatile Music after we got to Hollywood Alley and if [UM co-owner Michael Horowitz] needed a Thursday date for a group, he’d come to me and see if we could turn it into a Blunt Club night. Dumper: Black Sheep was a really cool one to bring in, even though only Dres wound up coming. It was this legendary New York artist who all our DJs had been playing for years. Quick: Aloe Blacc would come out from L.A. before he was gigantic. Dumper had connections with some L.A. hip-hop heads and that worked out. We also had Gift of Gab, Blackalicious, and Souls of Mischief. We were all fans and grew up listening to them and wanted to book them. Birmingham: Even when Dumper didn’t have some sort of big marquee name every week, the big crowds were still consistent. Just all the regular DJs, b-boys, b-girls, and hip-hop fans. It was solid every fucking week. Quick: The crowds were so varied. People from south Phoenix and down- town. Tattooed kids and rockers. EDM DJs and college kids. I used to just walk around during the Hollywood Alley days, and see every race and kind of person. We weren’t doing the kind of nights you’d see in Scottsdale clubs. By that time, Blunt Club was at Hollywood Alley, its roster of local DJs had also gotten bigger as turntablists like Element, Tricky T, and Pickster One were performing on the regular. Quick: Public Enemy had a comic book out at the time and had an in-store signing [at Atomic Comics at Metrocenter] and they were also performing in the parking lot. Pickster: Their concert at the Marquee [Theatre] that night wound up being canceled, but they were still doing this signing. Dumper: We offered them what we imagined we could pull out of our ass that night, a couple thousand [dollars] maybe. We’re like, “You wanna play instead of driving to the next city?” So they do their Pickster: Each resident DJ always brought something different. Hyder is the dude that always surprises you. He’s never played the typical hip-hop classics and always pulled something out of nowhere. You’d be like, “Where the fuck did you get this?” Dumper: Pickster brings a lot of variety of music to the table, but he’s still playing stuff that’s the core of our night. He can play from reggae to dancehall to hip-hop to b-boy stuff to funk or whatever and mix it all together and it’s like the perfect ride. Pickster: Element’s one of the best scratch DJs in Arizona. Him and M2, those dudes are the cleanest scratchers around. We had D-Styles, one of the best turntab- lists in the world, and he saw Element and was like “Woah!” Tricky is one of my favor- ites to watch because he has these crazy transitions and a really unorthodox way of mixing. We were lucky to have DJ Radar as a resident and he was awesome. The Night Public Enemy Came By In December 2006, Dumper and Quick pulled off a coup by talking legendary rap group Public Enemy into performing at The Blunt Club. MAY 19TH– MAY 25TH, 2022 PHOENIX NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | NEWS | OPINION | FEEDBACK | CONTENTS | phoenixnewtimes.com Benjamin Leatherman Eddie Mose
