Nik Furious: Sunday Best: Phoenix Bay

Phoenix Bay is a prototype. Recorded in the mid 00s and mixed in 2008, it's a 100% original Nik Furious track. But due to its unfinished nature, I feel it makes a better mixtape beat than a final album cut.

When I first created this song, I thought it was complete. But upon spending some time with it, I decided that it needed more components. And that's how it evolved into Remix the Phoenix, a song from my album Brilliant Shower.

The name Phoenix Bay is inspired by Jean Grey's rebirth. A character from Marvel's X-Men comics, Jean connects with a cosmic entity known as the Phoenix Force in X-Men #100-101. When it happens, the team's Blackbird jet crashes into Jamaica Bay, an inlet of water touching the edge of New York City.

Following a turn as Dark Phoenix, Jean Grey died in X-Men #137 and that was that. Or was it??? A few years later, she was revived in a storyline involving the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. It's been collected in the Phoenix Rising graphic novel.

Turns out that Jean was never dead -- the Phoenix Force took her place while it left her cocooned in Jamaica Bay until some other superheroes came around and pulled her up from the depths.

Ironically, I've never read this storyline. I just know about the events from years of reading other superhero comic books. The basic plot has been recapped over and over so many times that it was pretty damn easy for me to piece things together without reading the original material.

So why'd I tell you all that? Because there isn't much to say about Phoenix Bay. I already detailed its creation in my spotlight on Remix the Phoenix. While I like this track, I think it's more of a blueprint than a fully developed instrumental song.