D. Shiggy Brings Bass to the Fly Boys Club, and Elsewhere, Too

Some students at Jamesville-DeWitt High School might know senior Dominick Scicchitano for his talents on percussion, but few are aware of his connections with the local hip hop scene. In a studio set up in his own basement, Scicchitano has taken his rhythmic talents to a new realm, working with hip hop artists such as Sean Mags, Jalen Jenkins, Eli Green, and Shawn E. Bravo to produce songs, remixes and soon, a mixtape. Together, these artists are the Fly Boys Club. With help from his stepbrother and videographer Sean Horan, a 2010 J-DHS graduate, Scicchitano is taking the scene by storm, with help from sites like Facebook and Youtube.

Scicchitano’s music experience began early, with drumming. “I started when I was, I think, 3 years old,” he says. “Just playing in my basement on a crappy drum set from Wal-Mart.” He played drum set in bands throughout middle school, and he is no stranger to performances on percussion. However, it wasn’t until high school that Scicchitano, also known as “D. Shiggy,” became familiarized with the local hip hop scene. After meeting Horan in middle school, Scicchitano became more involved in the scene thanks to Horan’s friend, Brandon Strouse, a 2009 Christian Brothers Academy graduate.

Horan tells the story of how he met Strouse with a chuckle. “We were snowboarding up at Toggenburg, and we met really randomly,” Horan says. “[Strouse] just came up to me and screamed something in my face... and then I screamed back in his face, with no fear.” Strouse laughs, remembering the moment. Since then, Strouse and Horan have become close friends.

Scicchitano credits Horan with introducing him to Strouse and many of the other hip hop artists in the area. “From then on, it just kind of clicked together,” says Scicchitano. Horan wanted Scicchitano and Strouse to collaborate on something, since he knew about Strouse’s freestyle rapping and Scicchitano’s drumming. After some research, Scicchitano discovered that he could buy the right drum pads and equipment to make electronic beats for Strouse to rap over. Since then, Scicchitano has been spending four or five hours every day getting to know the technology and experimenting with beats. Horan is in awe of Scicchitano’s dedication to learning his equipment: “He’s just progressing way too fast.”

Strouse has been rapping since about seventh grade, but he “never really took it seriously” until his senior year of high school. “I remember at Senior Ball, everyone’s like, ‘Freestyle, freestyle!’ and after that, a bunch of people said I was good at it, and so... I just decided to start writing music and that’s kind of how it progressed.”

When producing a song, it begins with Scicchitano. “It starts with me making a beat,” says Scicchitano. “Then I send it to [Strouse]. He tells me if he likes it or not.” Then, Strouse writes over Scicchitano’s beat. “When he writes, he really gets into it, like, he really spends time on what he wants to say, so it usually takes him a decent amount of time to get something together and rap over it. I mix it, master it, and you’ve got the product,” says Scicchitano. “And I hang out and record the process,” adds Horan. “All that is documented by me.”

Horan takes the footage from the recording and editing sessions and turns them into short episodes in a series called “The Freezer,” referring to the group’s basement recording studio. The name comes from the temperature: “It’s always really cold down there,” Scicchitano says. Over the summer, even with temperatures over 90 degrees outside, they found themselves needing sweatshirts and sweatpants while working. Despite the frigid atmosphere, it seems to work for these three. “It’s relaxing,” says Strouse.

Horan and Scicchitano have been trying to make the basement space more like a studio by adding couches and posters. One area of the basement is sectioned off as a recording booth. Also included in the set up? A MIDI pad which allows Scicchitano to produce beats while directly connected to his computer. “It’s pretty fun to work with, pretty complex,” he says. “You can always find something to do with it.”

Horan records all the footage on his digital SLR camera, a Canon 7D. “I bought that instead of buying my first car, so it obviously cost a lot, but it was definitely worth it based on how things are turning out,” he says. “Whenever it comes time for Christmas or birthdays, we’re always asking for new equipment that will help us out.”

While all three have busy schedules with college and jobs (Scicchitano works at Moe’s Southwest Grill), they try to devote at least four or five hours each week to filming for “The Freezer” series. “There’s always something to edit, there’s always something to be done,” says Horan.

The trio and their pack of artists have had some interesting performance experiences recently, with stories ranging from wild to just plain awkward. The three remember their first performance as a group, in Utica. “We were all excited. [Strouse] made a little five-track mixtape the night before to sell at the performance, and we got there... we ended up only performing for, like, nine people, and they were all, like, 11-year-olds,” says Scicchitano.

“The kid who we were opening for, it was his hometown, so a lot of his family was there too, so 40-year-olds were in the audience,” says Strouse. “And it was in a movie theater, too, so everyone was sitting down. So I ran out there and I was like, ‘Oh!’” The three laugh. “It was kind of like a wake-up call,” says Scicchitano. “We also realized that we aren’t going to start out with just two songs and become something great, you know? It’s going to take some work. So at that point, we started dedicating a lot more time [to promoting],” says Horan.

The better-known story is the “Summer Is Ours” concert hosted by the Fly Boys Club at the Westcott Theater. “The show went pretty well, but me and two other kids ended up stagediving, security guards didn’t agree with it, and they basically tried kicking us all out of the theater, but at the same time, we were performing, like, we were the performers. So by doing that, they were shutting down the show,” says Scicchitano. “Then a fight broke out and from then on they shut down the whole show, called the cops... but at the same time, it made a cool video.” (Horan got footage of the performance, and also of the fight, which he has posted on his own YouTube channel.)

“That show was really fun, though, too,” says Strouse. “Well unfortunately, we had like 300 people, which was great, and it kind of paid off in a sense,” says Horan. “But again, we realized that it wasn’t going to be a free ride from that [show], that we still had to keep working and stay motivated even though we had a great time. That was really fun.”

Since that concert, the three have been focused on finishing Strouse’s first mixtape, set to drop Oct. 16. “We’re gonna try to get as many people to download it and buy it as possible,” says Scicchitano. In the meantime, Strouse, Horan and Scicchitano work the local scene by attending events and parties, spreading the word. Sometimes, Strouse freestyles for small groups at these parties just to drum up some interest and excitement around what they do. They also have some ties to local businesses such as Royalty Nine Apparel and East Coast District, a locally-run skateboarding brand. East Coast District promotes local artists such as Sean Mags on its website, eastcoastdistrict.com.

The future is open-ended for Horan, Scicchitano and Strouse, but they’re proud of what they’ve accomplished already. “Our goal was to make [the basement] into a studio, where anyone who was into the scene would come to us to record, and I think eventually, by the beginning of August, from then on, it came true,” says Scicchitano. Horan estimates that he and Scicchitano spend over 90 percent of their time at home in the basement studio. “The only time we’re not in there is when we’re sleeping, and even then, we’ve slept in ‘The Freezer’ a countless number of times, when you just work until you pass out, basically in your computer chair, and then wake up and do the same thing while eating breakfast over your keyboard,” Horan laughs. “We slept in ‘The Freezer’ for two weeks straight,” says Scicchitano. “It’s gone from ‘Dom and Sean’s basement’ to ‘The Freezer,’ which is known throughout the community,” explains Horan.

So where is this endeavor headed in the future? “Upwards,” says Strouse. “We’re all schooling and doing our different things, but when it comes down to it, our free time is mostly occupied by music, photography, video, making beats.” All the members of the Fly Boys Club, including Strouse, Horan and Scicchitano, are planning on staying fairly close to Syracuse in the next few years.

Scicchitano wants to see the group become even more Internet-famous. “There’s people on the Internet watching our stuff, not just from Syracuse. We’ve always got, like, one [YouTube] viewer from Alaska,” he laughs.

Is this the gateway to more success? The land of moose and Sarah Palin? “If you’re in Alaska reading this,” says Horan, “Inbox us.”

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Sean Horan can be found online through his YouTube page (http://www.youtube.com/seanhhoran) or his Twitter page (http://twitter.com/#!/seanhhoran).

Brandon Strouse can be found online through his Facebook fan page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brandon/227966927233094) or his Twitter page (http://twitter.com/#!/brandonstrouse).

Dominick Scicchitano can be found online through his YouTube page (http://www.youtube.com/domscicchitano).

Here is a link to the latest in “The Freezer” series: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7H7a0MXUss

Here is a link to the Fly Boys Club Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/FlyBoysClub