http://venuszine.com/stories/music_reviews/4492Going for gold
ESG never was able to achieve its goal of big-time success, but after its final Chicago show, the legendary sister act will be remembered as a major influencer of hip-hop beats
by Katie Heath
September 21, 2007, at Chicago’s Abbey Pub — Before anyone could indulge their feet to a long-awaited night of dancing with Estrojam Festival’s headliner, ESG, vocalist Renee Scroggins issued a modest request: Cleaning the pool of water and beer off the stage. It was a fair request, considering this was the last performance of the legendary band, who’ve been performing together since the late ’70s. Following an evening of hip-hop femme fatales Bahamadia, Rita J, Yo Majesty, and Psalm One, the quartet waltzed onstage in an all-knowing, nonchalant fashion. Once the stage was dry, of course.
Marie, Renee, and Valerie Scroggins, the original members of the band, started playing together as teenagers in the Bronx. Their mother, a choir teacher, believed that having a creative outlet was important and had the potential to be life-saving (the South Bronx was no picket-fence community. Despite the Scroggins family’s limited income, she bought all her daughters musical instruments, and her generosity led to talent shows, notoriety, and eventually opening gigs for acts like the Clash and Grandmaster Flash.
Today ESG is certified as one of the most sampled artists around, so much so that in 1993 they playfully wrote a track called “Sample Credits Don’t Pay Our Bills” (the culprits in reference included acts like TLC, Wu-Tang Clan, Beastie Boys, Miles Davis, Unrest, and Liars, who all earned income from ESG beats).
ESG’S SIGNATURE SOUND
“ESG” is an acronym for the following precious materials: "E" is emerald (Valerie Scroggins’ birthstone); "S" is sapphire (Renee's birthstone); and “G” is for the gold records the original members — sisters Maria (congas, vocals), Renee (guitar, vocals), Valerie (drums), and Deborah Scroggins (bass, vocals), with friend Leroy Glover on bass — had set upon creating. The group was discovered by Ed Bahlman of 99 Records, and in 1981 released a self-titled three-song EP with the now-classic tracks "You're No Good," "UFO," and "Moody," all recorded with legendary Joy Division producer Martin Hannett.
ESG and 99 Records, a label that has sisterly relations with U.K. companies Rough Trade and Factory Records, will be remembered as agents of the New York ’80s movement known as “no wave.” One of the major tenets of no wave was to strip down production and forgo the overworked musical stylings that were ubiquitous in the ’80s. However, any ESG fan could tell you that these girls innately possessed the sound, whereas many no wave bands sought to manufacture that same sound. They became well known for their simplistic structure, spacey beats, catchy guitar, and an unpolished sound, a much coveted cocktail that more bands talked about than actually achieved.
Between the 1980s and the ’90s, the Scroggins sisters experimented with new beats while holding down respectable day jobs. It wasn’t until the 2000 release of A South Bronx Story (a best-of compilation of their late ’70s hits) that ESG found itself in the public eye again with a new and younger generation of musicians looking up to them (and probably scheming up sample plans). In 2006, the band released Keep on Moving, a collection of new material in its trademark style of stripped-down sounds and unfussy lyrics. Only this time around, Renee, Maria, and Valerie would be joined by Renee’s daughter Nicole and Valerie’s daughter Christelle.
THE FINAL PERFORMANCE: A FAMILY AFFAIR
Renee’s signature yelping vocals were joined at Estrojam by the group’s younger generation, Nicole on bass, and Christelle playing bongos and guitar to make up the final family lineup. My first impression of the group (after the initial thought of “Holy shit, it’s actually them!”) was that they looked like easygoing people. Even though they are recognized as “Madonnas” in house, funk, punk, and hip-hop, ESG doesn’t need to wear fashionable bells and whistles to prove this. Offstage, you might recognize the Scroggins sisters as your own relatives. Renee wore a plain baseball cap, some well-loved Levis, a baggy cotton shirt, and white sneakers. The audience, on the other hand, was already sweaty, smeared, and sort of drunk from a long day of Estro-jamming. Most of us couldn’t keep nearly as cool as the members of ESG, but then again, most of us don’t typically witness history on our weekends out socializing in Chicago.
Renee laid out her tambourine, cowbell, and claves neatly on a towel (clearly with the maturity of a woman who never quite got the “destroy-the-stage” attitude), and then without cue the drummer dropped the seductive beats that make up ESG’s polyrhythmic token sound. ESG’s original drummer, Valerie Scroggins, who works as a New York City bus driver, was not in attendance. (Side note: she found herself in a bit of legal trouble after receiving more than $13,000 worth of workers’ compensation from NYC’s Metropolitan Transit Authority. She was indicted in May of 2007 when a fellow MTA worker taped her drumming at a show in Europe for more than an hour, using a shoulder that was supposed to be non-functional. Her lawyer claims the tape proves her injured arm was actually lame, and it is arguable that the MTA spent more money investigating this case than Ms. Scroggins received in workers comp.)
To start the show, Renee took the microphone and in classic this-is-the-last-and-final-show-we’re-gonna-play-all-the-hits demeanor, began by crooning, “You’re No Good,” a track from their original trilogy of dancehall classics. No doubt it was a good thing that Mamma Scroggins gave these girls instruments growing up to keep them out of trouble; if the bewitching, enigmatic Christelle is any indication of what the ESG women were like as teenagers. The group wiggled and beamed, headlong into a nearly 50-minute set complete with hits like “Moody” and “You Make No Sense,” a personal party favorite that guarantees a packed dance floor.
As the clock ticked past the Abbey Pub’s curfew, ESG returned with a second and final encore by inviting that night’s Estrojam artists on stage to perform “Come Away.” The juxtaposition of it all was remarkable. Yo Majesty (humorously clutching individual bags of Chipotle chips) looked completely dumbfounded, caught off guard, or at least in awe of Christelle, who by the swan song of the night had perfected her booty drop (mind you earlier she had demanded that “Chicago get physical”). Having said little more than a few words to us all evening, a single “Thank You” sufficed, though clearly the audience was the more grateful party. ESG retired, literally and figuratively, to the backstage to enjoy their much earned rest.
Read a level-headed take on the Valerie Scroggins saga here at the Pagan Science Monitor.
Just in from Soul Jazz Records: 
According to the Boomkat website, Come Away with ESG will be, or already is, reissued by Soul Jazz. The funny thing is there is no news about it on the actual Soul Jazz site...hmm...click the link below to see...
