Tales from Cosmo Baker

(Cosmo and friends, South Philly 1979)

I'm thinking Cosmo Baker should write a book, the stories he has are incredible. Case in point:

"So I was downstairs the at The Latest Dish on a Sunday night and I got this call from Josh Wink and he says to me "Cos, Goldie has been on tour opening for Jane's Addiction and they're playing Philly tomorrow night. The show is over relatively early, but Goldie wants to play a nightclub afterwards. Can he come by The Remedy and get down?" I was thinking that it was kind of odd cause I pretty much spun hip-hop/funk/breaks and the crowd that would come out on Mondays would be kind of like "What the fuck" to D&B. Plus this was 1997 (I think, maybe 1998) and Jungle hadn't really caught on yet. But I was like fuck it and told Josh to bring the dudes down. So the next day I just went to every record store in the city and put up little last minute poster and shit, and I called everyone I know to come down and check it out.

Goldie showed up a little later and the crowd had already been grooving to me just doing my thing, but there were A LOT of people in there early and I was like whoa. So then Goldie went on around 11:30 or so and started playing all the CRAZY fucking dubs, everything on acetate and just KILLING it. I grabbed the mic and I was really drunk and so I started MCing like a madman, and then I started beat boxing over Goldie playing his dubs and people fucking lost it.

Sounds crazy but this is all fact. But it gets crazier cause Perry Farrell was dancing up on one of the risers and people were like going off to him. I walked over to the bar and Dave Navarro was leaning agains the bar at Fluid, no shirt on, two girls on each side of him, and he was pouring tequila down his chest and girls were sucking it right off his chest. Later on I noticed Val Kilmer dancing in the middle of the floor, sunglasses on, no shirt on as well. He was dancing like in this weird motion, and was sipping out of this little flask. I later found out it was absinthe, that he ended up sharing with half the party.

Later on, after Goldie was done, I playes Cocoa Brothers "Won On Won" on 45 and somehow mixed it into Gary Numan "Cars" and the room exploded.

This explains why Fluid and Cosmo Baker are both incredible Philadelphians. See also the MF Doom story. Check out Cosmo Baker and the Remedy for a special 10 year anniversary on June 4th.
CosmoBaker.com