(ENDE334) MC Nevar (CNA) - No Logo Displayed

This is a complete (or as complete a collection as I am aware of) collection of recordings made by Perth hip hop MC and scene promoter/contributor MC Nevar aka Murray Hoffman.

MC Nevar sadly passed away in early December 2016. A day I can't forget as I was busy arguing with my then housemate in Doon Doon in The Northern Rivers of NSW when I got the news...which not only killed the argument but sank my heart pretty quickly.

I met Murray "Muz" Hoffman in my kitchen in my old house in Karrinyup in Perth Western Australia. It was sometime around 1993 or so. Muz and my brother Ryan (EEKS/Uda) were then close friends and were frequently getting intro trouble together from about the age of 10 or 11 at school. By the time they got to high school which was just after I left the same one - Scarborough High. They were becoming adolescents and doing adolescent shit while I was in reality getting into more adult like adolescent shit with my friends my age. Those kids became like brothers and sisters to me and my friends. Murray's first concert was in fact chaperoned by myself and my best friend of the time. A trip to Fremantle to see Rollins Band and The Mark Of Cain.

My Mum's house in Karrinyup was the scene of where Perth graffiti crew CNA first came together and frequently hung out somewhere around 1995. More aptly the description of "scene" would be "our shed in the backyard".

With only 5 years difference, I spent a lot of time hanging around them all. Some I became quite close to but none I developed a lifelong friendship with like I did with Murray.

From about the mid 90s on, Murray and I had both discovered noise rock. Particularly the labels Touch n Go and Amphetamine Reptile Records.

At the age of 15 and me at 20. Muz was getting more and more into hip hop and becoming quite obsessive about it but the both of us were by then devotees of the "Bogan Drivetime" radio show on RTRFM and mad about the work of Steve Albini and the 80s and 90s noise rock scene. Murray would later become the only guy I knew who could rap over Shellac and Unsane perfectly. Murray was also big into similar films and literature as I was. I can remember him and I driving people crazy with repeated viewings of Man Bites Dog.

By the early 2000s. We were a little more grown up (if you could call it that) and Murray had progressed a little further than just pulling bongs, listening to vinyl and tagging shit.

In the early 2000s while I was helping to birth the Perth breakcore scene. Muz was becoming heavily involved in the local hip hop scene. In 2001 and 2002 he was running an MC night at The Rosemount. I think it started the same time I started VOID there. Murray knew almost everyone in the Perth hip hop scene and introduced me to many of them. As I was running shows in one scene, he was running them in the other and so while we heard stories of other "Scabs" (refugees from Scarborough High) going to jail or getting married. We were both getting further and further involved into local music scenes and our own music production.

As life does. We needed to spread our wings a little more than what Perth could offer us. So in 2003 and 2004 two Scabs flew to the Eastern States to try and live a more productive and involved life. Both of us also tired of being surrounded by death and destruction, the kind you see growing up in in 6019 and 6018 in the 1990s and 2000s.

There was a brief period there where I found myself living in his sister's house in the North Shore of Sydney, with the two of us both working in a call centre in North Sydney in the old "Onetel building"

Much more hanging out, drinking, partying, waxing lyrical about music dreams and hopes and making plans for world domination when not belting out a drunken full volume rendition of Shellac's "Prayer to God" while stumbling down George St. after a boozy weeknight at Bar Broadway.

A recurring injoke between us was how we were "definitely too poor to even be lookin at these fuckin houses let alone walk past em" when we were wandering down a street in suburban Palm Beach.

By early 2005, Murray and I found ourselves in Melbourne. He was wanting to get involved in promoting hip hop there and was mostly enjoying the rich treasures that Melbourne's record stores could offer him. There was an attempt to get him on one of my shows but it fell through.

Muz and I lived together again briefly and then hung out with each other a lot. Many times over pints at The Exford we lamented the irony of how we got here. Two Scabs in big bad Melbourne, enjoying it's music scene.

By the end of the 2000s into the early 2010s. I lost contact with him. We both had our demons and they eventually became two big for our friendship. But we reconnected somewhere around early 2015.

For just over two years, after finding each other on social media. We started chatting again and making more plans. I was now staring down turning 40 and he was creeping into his mid 30s. He started making old man jokes. We talked about this and that and laughed at the ridiculousness of social media, shared a love of writing and music as usual.

the last conversation I ever had with him was planning to come up to Doon Doon and stay for a bit.

I knew about the record he'd done "The Bad Influence" but not that it was pressed to vinyl. I should've guessed since Muz was a total vinyl obsessive.

Here for the first time (digitally) is his only EP a 12" "The Bad Influence" which I believe is pretty much sold out.

Also included is his first ever pro recorded appearance with Tazza from 2003.

NOTE FOR TAZZA: You can email me thisistheende@gmail.com if you have anything to add to these notes. I'd appreciate it :)

Last is a laptop mic recorded freestyle session from May 2005 with MC Nevar and MC Strafe plus the finished track I made out of it and a battle beat version I made.

So sit back and enjoy the brief but memorable legacy of one of Perth's enduring and passionate contributors to the hip hop scene. MC Nevar.

Lots of love Muz. We were the only two who made it out of Scarborough but at least we did make it out.

Boris Otterdam

November 28th 2021 

credits

released November 28, 2021

All credits to the original artists. 6-9 recorded by Boris Otterdam at Cardigan St. Carlton Melbourne May 2005. Thanks to MC Nevar and MC Strafe. 1-4 originally released on "The Bad Influence" 12' EP. produced by Nevar CNA. Mixed by Shystie B. Cuts by DJ P. "Six Oh One Nine" produced by Wisdom 2th. "Building A Rep" produced by Nevar CNA and mixed by Shystie B. Originally released by Green and Gold Records Perth.

Thanks to Melinda and the Hoffman family. All of these recordings are now permanently available for anyone to download and stream and enjoy forever.

Anyone involved in the original "The Bad Influence" 12" single and the Tazza recording of "Lounging" is welcome to contact me as is MC Strafe.

thisistheende@gmail.com

Cover photo of Murray's musical influences and interests alongside a "no logo displayed" hoodie by Boris Otterdam.