Time Line
9/10/90 - ICP enters a Detroit record store asking if they would sell the group's
homemade cassette called Basement Cuts. The owner agrees. After selling 19 copies,
an employee of the store, Alex Abbiss, offers to manage ICP and thus begins a life-long
partnership.
9/14/90 - For bus fare home, Violent J steals returnable pop cans (street value 10¢)
from the car wash where he is employed. He is summarily dismissed.
10/1/90 - ICP engages an East Side recording studio, Midi Productions and begins
professionally recording songs. The studio owner Chuck Willer bilks thousand of
dollars from the unsuspecting group as they spend hours and hours just to sample a
snare drum.
10/19/90 - ICP homie, Nate The Mack is arrested and sentenced to five years at the
Ionia Correctional Institution for an altercation with a Southwest Detroit street gang.
12/10/90 - ICP homie, Jump Steady sends $700 dollars home from the Army to help
defer studio costs. This enables the group to record less than half a song at Midi
Productions ("Ghetto Zone").
2/4/91 - ICP finally releases a four song maxi-single on cassette only called Dog Beats
which flops harder than a fat, wet tittie. Other than ICP and their boys, the cassette
reaches approximately 800 paying consumers. It does, however, spawn a cool song
with fat bass called "Wizard of the Hood."
6/12/91 - Shaggy 2 Dope is arrested in Ecorse for breaking and entering a Coney
Island to steal frozen hot dogs. He is sentenced to three months at the Wayne County
Jail and two years probation.
7/28/91 - Violent J gets pizza delivery job but is fired after an altercation with a fat,
stingy guy who refused to tip him (the job lasted four days).
7/29/91 - ICP is contacted by something known as the Dark Carnival. Inexplicably they
head back to Midi Productions to work on their first album now entitled Carnival Of
Carnage. The first in a series of six albums to be called Joker's Cards.
3/6/92 - Chuck Willer yells at ICP's homey Tall Jess for "squeaking in his chair" during
a mix. After nearly snapping Willer's pencil-thin neck, ICP leaves Midi Productions
forever.
4/6/92 - Midi Productions closes its doors and goes out of business forever.
4/10/92 - ICP meets Mike Clark and is completely shocked by Clark's studio
proficiency. Another amazing thing about Mike Clark is the speed at which his beard
can grow. Clark would shave at the beginning of a session and grow a ZZ Top by its
completion.
8/21/92 - ICP completes Carnival Of Carnage. It can now be mastered and released.
10/18/92 - ICP releases Carnival Of Carnage and the record is an underground hit.
Carnival would spawn Detroit's anthems, "Redneck Hoe," "Psychopathic" and "Never
Had It Made."
11/11/92 - Violent J is fired from his job as a gas station attendant when his drawer
comes up short for the third day in a row.
3/3/93 - Carnival Of Carnage has now sold over 15,000 copies and ICP heads back
into the studio to record their follow up EP entitled Beverly Kills 50187.
7/2/93 - At a concert in Detroit, Violent J and Shaggy perform a synchronized dance a
la Hammer. Realizing how wack they look the two begin spraying Faygo soda all over
each other instead. The crowd loves it and thus begins the "Faygo Frenzy."
7/16/93 - ICP drops the Beverly Kills 50187 EP at a concert in Detroit. Beverly went on
to spawn the minor hits "17 Dead" and "The Stalker." The EP sold 4,000 copies in its
first week out.
7/25/93 - Violent J is let go from his bottling job at Meijers after spraying Lysol into the
booth vent of a weaselly, spying security guard. Abbiss informs J his working days are
over.
7/26/93 - Shaggy 2 Dope attempts to get his probation lifted so that ICP can promote
the new record out of state but a pudgy, red faced judge declines his request.
7/28/93 - The Dark Carnival surfaces and informs ICP that the time has come to
unleash the second Joker's Card, tentatively titled Ringmaster. ICP immediately begins
working with Mike Clark and starts pounding out songs faster than Clark's face can
pound out stubbles.
8/11/93 - Violent J attempts to take his Suzuki Sidekick through the carwash where he
once worked to make his old boss clean his rims, but the tires are too fat to fit on the
wash track.
12/01/93 - ICP hands in the completed second Joker's Card to Alex Abbiss and it goes
to press.
12/10/93 - Shaggy 2 Dope buys an '82 Plymouth Duster. The car lasts three weeks
when it breaks down on the freeway near Hamtramck and is stripped over night. It was
mad fuckin' funny.
1/13/94 - ICP releases Ringmaster. This record sells over 9,000 copies in its first week.
Detroit becomes down with the clown. Ringmaster spawns the hits "Wagon Wagon,"
"Murder Go Round," "Southwest Song" and "The Loons," and becomes an ICP cult
favorite.
3/4/94 - ICP launches a mini tour called the "Carnival Clown Show" (despite Shaggy's
probation) and begins to spark a small Midwest interest.
3/14/94 - In Atlanta, Violent J pours Faygo soda directly into the stage monitors after
the club pulled the plug during ICP's show. This incites the crowd and violence breaks
out. Alex Abbiss paid the damages and the charges were dropped. ICP spends a night
in jail and is bailed out by Abbiss in the morning. All three, along with the road crew,
have breakfast at Denny's.
4/6/94 - ICP joins with Mike Clark and begins work on Ringmaster's follow up EP
entitled The Terror Wheel.
4/6/94 - Mike Clark opens his own private studio in Detroit called "The Fun House."
4/12/94 - Shaggy 2 Dope's probation is finally lifted. Shaggy claims it was because he
fucked his probation officer Mrs. Willis, but nobody believes him because she's too fat
and ugly even for Shaggy.
7/28/94 - ICP releases The Terror Wheel EP which would later spawn the Detroit hit
"Skitsofrantic" and the underground hit "I Stuck Her With My Wang." The Terror Wheel
flies out of record stores faster than any previous ICP release. A happy Alex moves into
a riverside penthouse.
10/29/94 - ICP holds the first annual "Hollowicked Clown Show" in Detroit at the
Majestic Theater. A new Halloween tradition is born.
3/10/95 - Alex Abbiss signs ICP to a six album record deal with New York rap label Jive
Records. ICP seems to care less about the business side of shit and buys arcade
games with the money.
4/1/95 - The Dark Carnival emerges and gives the nod for the third Joker's Card to be
constructed; working title, Riddle Box. ICP and Mike Clark quickly begin constructing
the album.
8/16/95 - ICP hands in the completed Riddle Box album to be mastered and released.
9/4/95 - ICP launches the "Pie In Your Fxckin' Face Tour" and plays small houses
coast to coast.
10/10/95 - ICP releases Riddle Box. The record rides Billboard's charts for weeks.
Riddle Box would spawn the hits "3 Rings," "Chicken Huntin'," "Cemetary Girl" and "I'm
Coming Home." These hits make Riddle Box out-sell all other ICP albums by three fold.
10/30/95 - ICP launches another national tour with two "Hollowicked Clown Shows" in
Detroit. Halloween and Devil's Night shows are sold out at the Royal Oak Music
Theater. ICP later stated that after watching the venue's security beat people for no
reason, ICP would never play that hall again and that the club owner can "suck these
testes."
12/4/95 - ICP sets out again this time with Onyx and Das Efx on the "Howell From
Beyond Tour." ICP starts the tour by being booed off stage after chanting "Detroit" at a
club in New York City.
12/17/95 - On Midwest tour dates ICP finally receives a warm welcome. Despite the
small riots that ICP caused in Montreal and New London, the rest of the tour went
smooooooth.....
12/25/95 - ICP enjoys Christmas Day in a tour bus eating Doritoes and drinking Faygo
while singing along with old '80s rock songs from a tape that Billy Bill bought at a gas
station.
2/1/96 - Taking a break from touring, ICP reunites with Mike Clark to record the special
theme EP entitled Tunnel Of Love.
3/14/96 - Alex Abbiss calls ICP in for a big meeting. He informs them that for months he
has been secretly negotiating with Hollywood Records in L.A. Together they are going
to buy ICP's contract from Jive and sign ICP to Hollywood for the rest of the Joker's
Cards. After explaining his breakthrough negotiations to ICP, Abbiss notices that both
Shaggy and J are asleep.
3/21/96 - ICP flies to L.A. to chase G-string freaks on Venice Beach, get tattoos,
bounce through Compton and oh yeah, sign some papers. ICP buys a warehouse, a
wrestling ring and more arcade games with the money. "You're a bunch of fuckin' idiots"
laments Abbiss.
6/11/96 - ICP releases the Tunnel Of Love EP. Some ICP fans diss the record because
there's so much love shit on it, yet chicks dig it. This spawns the hits "Super Balls" and
"Cotton Candy." ICP decides to leave the "love shit" up to Jodeci and stick with their
tried and true mass-killing-serial-murder style of rap.
6/18/96 - ICP is each visited separately at 2:45 a.m. by The Dark Carnival. ICP heads
to The Fun House in the morning, pulling Clark's ass out of bed and the fourth Joker's
Card begins to take form.
10/6/96 - Nate the Mack is finally released after five years in prison and immediately
rejoins the ICP road crew in Dallas. This was the first show of their 1996 Annual
Hallowicked Clown Tour.
10/7/96 - Nate the Mack enjoys his freedom with a nice young female in Wichita
Kansas.
10/20/96 - ICP's Halloween Tour is cut short in Toledo when Violent J attempts a
"moonsault flip" from the 20 foot speaker stack. On his sixth jump his noggin met the
concrete floor and the two really hit it off. J suffered some broken shoulder bones and a
concussion but more importantly he cried like a lil' bitch.
10/31/96 - Detroit's third annual Hallowicked Clown Show had to be postponed
resulting in a quiet night in Detroit (except for the 1,400 burning buildings and the mass
wave of violence).
11/11/96 - Shaggy 2 Dope finishes Crash Bandicoot on the Sony Play Station but
nobody cares.
12/5/96 - ICP sets out to finish the delayed tour they started in October. The shows are
just as insane as when the tour started. The Cleveland and Kalamazoo clubs caught
fi... forget it.
12/14/96 - ICP ends the tour in their hometown of Detroit and introduces the 2,000 fans
to their old homie Nate The Mack. Detroit welcomes him home with a can of Faygo
upside his face.
2/7/97 - ICP hands in the completed fourth Joker's Card, The Great Milenko to Alex
Abbiss and Hollywood Records to be mastered and released, then heads to L.A. to
shoot vidoeszzz.
4/1/97 - Psychopathic Records drops a "greatest hits" right quick before the new record
comes out so that people got something to bump while they're waiting.
After that, the Great Milenko gets pulled by Hollywood records because of "Explicit
Content". Longstanding hatred of Disney and affiliates is created in ICP and their fans.
It is later re-released by Island records in it's entirety.