Exclusive: The Best in Mutek Mischief

Exclusive: The Best in Mutek Mischief, Including Photos!

12:13 pm Friday Jun 12, 2009

by Sara Jayne Crow

Mutek 2009 marked the electronic-orientated new media and music festival’s tenth consecutive year with too many multi-sensory delights for brain synapses to process in quick succession. Highlights included performances by Nortec Collective’s Bostitch and Fussible, GAS (Wolfgang Voigt, founder of Kompakt), Moderat (a collaboration between Modeselektor and Apparat, founder of Shitkatapult), The Orb’s Thomas Fehlmann, and a host of others.

While it can all be a bit overwhelming, turning even the most hardcore clubber into an over-stimulated and joyful zombie, Flavorpill’s Sara Jayne Crow was there in force, cataloging every blip, break, and minimal backbeat. After the jump, her observations and a series of PHOTO HIGHLIGHTS from the festival.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE MUTEK 2009 PHOTOSET ON FLAVORWIRE>>

Robert Henke (Monolake) and Christopher Bauder

The illustrious Robert Henke (Monolake) joined Christopher Bauder for “ATOM,” an installation of “compositions played on a matrix of 64 illuminated helium balloons.” Although conceptually divine, the performance was a bit underwhelming for those who had seen Henke’s Mutek performances in past years — especially 2003’s unreal Narod Niki nine-man clusterfunk with Ricardo Villalobos, Ritchie Hawtin, Dimbiman, Akufen, Dandy Jack, Daniel Bell, Cabanne and Luciano. In 2005’s “Studies for Thunder,” Henke replicated thunder through digitalia sequenced in a realtime, multi-channel framework, creating a cyclone of sound so storm-ish that the aural sensation sprung a nearly tactile phantom plop of raindrops.

Thomas Fehlmann

The Orb’s Thomas Fehlmann is still doing it after four decades of twiddling knobs and arranging chords. He sauntered onstage at Piknic èlectronik — an epic event situated on the Île Notre Dame with Montreal’s skyline as backdrop — wearing, appropriately, a blue gingham baseball cap that created the jolly appearance of a picnic on his head. Fehlmann electrified, mastering his characteristic slow, rollicking builds, voluminous arrangements, Orblivion-esque capers and space-age potluck shenanigans while doing the occasional hula dance.

Ryoji Ikeda and Carsten Nicolai

As Cyclo, for the Mutek A\VISIONS audio/visual series, Raster-Noton luminaries Ryoji Ikeda and Carsten Nicolai delivered with their usual attention to detail. The duo sampled and interwove strains of feedback together as found sound with corresponding sonic waves morphing on the screen behind them in stark black and white contrast. The performance began with controlled frenetecism and found resolution in gradual percolation of basslines anchoring the mire.

dOP

French “Cabaret house” trio dOP slid into a prime (if a wee bit early) time slot at the gorgeous Métropolis venue. The staging-staggered white placards foregrounding LED lights cascading from the ceiling and rising from the floor set an appropos surrounding for the glitzy trinity of Jonathan Illel, Clement Zemtsov and Damien Vandesande. In appearance, they’re kind of like ’80s technicolor meets the “scene” bars of The Bastille. Sunglasses as accessories (we’re talking form over function, as the club was dark) were plentiful. One of the fellows had a scarf wrapped around his forehead and knotted off to the side into a dramatic sash which yo-yo’d, nearly falling into his laptop keys and getting tossed over his shoulder as he swigged Absolut vodka out of the bottle. The singer wore a T-Shirt in this grass green color proclaiming in big white block letters, “WAIT IT GETS BIGGER,” which he eventually stripped off before inviting girls onstage. The two fellows navigating the laptops sort of sashayed the crowd into a frenzy, building their set with layered arrangements, staggered percussion, and off-kilter measures.

Ricardo Villalobos and Zip (Thomas ‘Dimbiman’ Franzmann)

Ricardo Villalobos and Zip (aka Thomas Franzmann, alter-ego Dimbiman) paired off at Piknic èlectronik for a slick seven-hour set. I arrived during the final hour of their outdoor performance as the sun set on a blustery, rainy day. Seagulls wheeled around in the wind, their bellies underlit by stadium lights below glowing clouds no longer pregnant with rain. The wind velocity matched the visceral measures of the spacious, synth-laden tracks Villalobos dropped. It had been a long, cold day, and only those built for endurance in Gore-Tex and weatherproof garb remained in the park. All present were dancing. I ignored the wind on my bare hands as Villalobos sashayed into an epic finale with a spare pendulum swinging Metronome type track. In a 2009 interview on Mutek’s site, Villalobos says he wants to make a perfect club track, but that’s doing a disservice to his music. His music is all tension, torsion and release; it’s about a spareness of sound, about what his tracks don’t say. It’s about how music unifies, once again.

[PHOTOS BY Matthew Cheetham]

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Don't Shoot, We're Devo: Pt. 3

Scrunchies. Jazzercise. The Gremlin car, in all its hatchback deformity. Cone-shaped bras. Jell-o fruit salad. Members Only jackets. Hammer pants. Over the course of a decade, countless trends have lit the pop-culture landscape and receded into obsolescence. What is it, then, that endures about Devo? Why does their 1978 album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo, still sound timely nearly 40 years later? Why do their energy-dome hats still look awesome? We met with Devo’s Jerry Casale to find out. In this, the third installment of our exclusive Devo interview series, Sara Jayne Crow delves into the origins of “energy-dome” hats, explores the the recent McDonald’s pending lawsuit, and encounters ghosts of lawsuits past.

Flavorpill: Let’s talk about the beginnings of Devo, back when people lobbed beer bottles onstage while you performed. Before Saturday Night Live, before Warner Brothers records, before the lawsuits…

Jerry Casale: In a slightly different scenario, it could’ve been that the real beginning of Devo was also the end. It could’ve been over, and nothing else would have happened. We would never have had a body of work, or a history. And that’s how narrow the difference is. It’s like the whole story of Tesla.

FP: I love that you brought up Tesla right now.

JC: Why?

FP: It’s just poetic.

JC: That’s a great story. He was an amazing artist, and his legacy was besmirched. He was erased from history. Except for people like us, who know about him. That’s how it can go. That’s the difference… just that much.

FP: That’s sort of the human condition, isn’t it?

JC: That’s right. There are plenty of people today in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like the massive rape in Africa, and the People’s Democratic Republic of the Congo, or whatever the fuck it is. It’s horrifying. Where’s the great United States justice there?

FP: America is normally so obtrusive in foreign affairs. But in the case of the Congo, it’s not financially solvent, and the pain and suffering continues.

JC: The pain and suffering is unbelievable.

FP: So where do you think this is all going? All the pain, suffering, strife, pollution, devolution?

JC: There’s just going to be more and more of it. There aren’t enough powerful, good people in the world to stop the freight train of history into the black hole. There are too many evil people and subhuman victims that aren’t equipped to resist any more. The saddest thing of all is in American politics, where blue-collar people are the worst in terms of being affected by heinous policies of the Federal government that penalizes them and drives them further and further into the dirt. They are the most tricked by the very people that perpetrate their victimization. These are the people that voted twice for Bush and probably voted for McCain and Palin.

FP: Time for another tea party? Back to the beginnings of Devo question… let’s talk about something devoid of politics and pain. How about where the idea for the “energy dome” hats come about?

JC: The idea originally came from a comic book about a cancellator helmet. The character in the comic book wore the helmet so she couldn’t hear, and it made her happy because it blocked out babble from the outside world. It looked a little bit like a ceiling fixture I used to fixate on in my [Catholic] grade school. Because I hated the nuns so much, I would stare at the ceiling so I wouldn’t have to look at them. If you could imagine the energy domes turned upside down in white milk glass, they looked exactly the same. I used to love the design. And I thought, “We should make a vacuum-formed plastic hat that looks like that for Devo.” And so I set about trying to make it.

At some point, a worker in the production factory we were using asked if we were making flower pots, and I spontaneously said we were making energy domes because he pissed me off. If we gave interviews, we talked about Wilhelm Reich’s orgone box, and added that to the story after the fact. To begin with, it was more about visual design and a ridiculous idea for a hat.

FP: So what’s up with the Devo lawsuit with McDonald’s over the “New Wave Nigel” happy meal toy whose hat looks mysteriously like those hats?

JC: You know, it’s very funny. You know… McDonald’s is so frightening with the legal process that I realized how power works, true power, all over again. Even I was surprised by how avaricious it was. I’m not allowed to tell you a thing about this, or they can sue me. But there was no lawsuit.

FP: Can you at least talk about why you filed the suit?

JC: They had a promotion for Happy Meals where each decade of was represented by different characters, the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and now. Oddly enough, the ’80s character, which was the “New Wave Nigel” doll, did appear to us to be Devo. I can’t talk about it. I like how the victim becomes the victim, again.

FP: That’s been a theme, hasn’t it?

JC: Absolutely. It never stops. Whatever happened with McDonald’s… McDonald’s is a powerful corporation, and it creates reality, like Karl Rove. What they say goes. Even though we felt we were the victims, we were being treated like perpetrators and troublemakers. The fact that we’re not allowed to talk about it… you needn’t say more than that. By saying what I’m saying, I’m talking about it. That’s the problem.

It’s like the first time we were ever sued. We were sued less than every band, I think. The biggest and most furious one was where former friend and associate at Kent [State University], Bob Lewis, trumped up a suit about Devo about theft of intellectual property, which was ludicrous. Really, it was about a kid from Akron University’s college paper who tricked Mark into saying Bob Lewis was our manager, which was totally not true. Two years later, when we were getting ready to tour, and had a real manager — Elliot Roberts, who managed Neil Young, The Cars, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. This guy pulls out this tape and tries to injunct our tour, so we were forced to settle. He tried to claim that was proof his case of theft of intellectual property was real, which was totally ridiculous. It would make a great movie in and of itself, because then everyone starts arguing about the reference points for de-evolution and where it came from…

FP: Isn’t that the most devolved argument you can have?

JC: I know! Did it come from the comic book, did it come from The Island of Lost Souls, who said what first, and we were all acknowledging that we got this idea from pre-existing sources: even the song title “Jocko Homo” came from a religious pamphlet. The point is that these are influences of artistic people, and the ideas don’t belong to anyone, on that level. What may be Devo is the fact that Mark and I wrote songs with certain lyrics and played songs a certain way. That’s what made Devo, Devo. Not who read what book first.

FP: In some ways, the “New Wave Nigel” character, McDonald’s was homage to Devo.

JC: They were using a copyrighted icon that I created without asking permission. The point is, we don’t approve of what McDonald’s represents. If we had, maybe the homage would have been a compliment to us.

FP: Wasn’t there a band you were in called 15-60-75?

JC: Yes, I played both bass and drums at different times in that band.

FP: You were quoted at one point as saying that you wanted to write McDonald’s jingles with the band, because that’s what was familiar to people and was part of the mental landscape of the general populous whether they knew it or not.

JC: We were inspired by early McDonald’s advertising, because we were so horrified by it. We wanted to subvert what people liked. We wanted to take it and misappropriate it, or be transgressive about it. In our early videos, we would watch McDonald’s commercials and see what they did-we learned how to do our shot selection and edit from McDonald’s commercials. But then we mixed it with German expressionism and horrific twists to screw with people. It’s like in the “Beautiful World” video, where we show some really ridiculous, humorous image and then a starving child in Africa right after it.

FP: It’s taking the familiar editing precepts and making it into something subversive and appealing via shock, which has far more of an impact.

JC: It’s alienation by the familiar.

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Don’t Shoot, We’re Devo: Pt. 2

Even today, some 30 years after the band’s debut, there are legions of Devo-tees. Perhaps it’s due to the philosophy of De-evolution and the precocious employ of musical, visual and philosophical elements before it was in vogue. Perhaps it’s an inevitable outcome of years spent releasing daring records bound to off-the-wall antics, to court popularity and success while simultaneously shunning it. Perhaps it’s just the magnetism of the yellow-jumpsuit-”energy-dome” combination.

Whatever the allure, for every fan of the MTV-happy “Whip It” there’s another cataloging Devo t-shirts in cellophane wrap organized by concert year and sub-categorized by month and color. Earplug’s Sara Jayne Crow met with Jerry Casale of Devo over the course of several months. The following is the second installment (you can find the first here and below) in a series covering the De-evolution philosophy, Brian Eno’s “Oblique Strategies,” and the “rogue’s gallery” of Devo history.

Earplug: How’s Los Angeles?

Jerry Casale: Everybody’s doing meaningless shit, and they just do it in this endless procession of consumption. It’s like taking a shit. Out here [in LA], it’s just sadistic. The girls are really entitled, aggressive and mean. They’ve turned into the ways guys used to be… callow and womanizing. The girls are laughing at the guys who care about them. It’s just mind-boggling.

EP: Isn’t that just in keeping with the patterns of history, though? The pendulum swings?

JC: Yeah, but none of it’s good.

EP: Has it ever been?

JC: Maybe not. I guess I’ve never seen the volume of bad be so high and up-front, that’s all. I’ve never seen so many stupid people.

EP: De-evolution at work?

JC: Yes. So many stupid people who are kind of proud of being stupid. Shameless. They don’t even feel stupid at all. It’s like how we got to a point in America where you can be put down as a politician if you were able to speak as if you knew more than the crowd you were talking to.

EP: Let’s talk about the beginnings of Devo and philosophy, which was couched in the concept of de-evolution. You have spoken of the band forming as a reaction to the brute military force at the Kent State University antiwar protest in 1970 in an older Vermont Review interview.

JC: Yes. I think I was kind of a hippie until that point. I believed naively that there was justice, that good deeds mattered, and that there really was a democracy enforcing the Constitution, and that bigotry and segregation were aberrations, not the norm. And I was wrong. The evil far outweighs the good, and you would have to be a constant warrior vigilante, day and night, to make a dent in it. One of the things I could do was to have an artistic aesthetic that was a sort of gun in your face, giving some back to ‘em, but in a way that you’re allowed to operate. Because if I’d done what I really felt like doing, I’d be in jail for homicide.

EP: What did you really feel like doing, or who did you really feel should be killed?

JC: Oh, there were so many people that should have died.

EP: Nixon?

JC: Sure, sure absolutely. There were so many, locally and nationally. But it’s like the Medusa. It seems to work when the right wing kills off a visionary leader because somebody trying to give people hope and a sense of direction and lift them up really is important. But there is always another evil guy. There’s an endless supply of those guys. Evil is easy; it’s based on fear and hopelessness. But the opposite isn’t easy. You change history by killing a visionary. The evil goes from the top to the bottom and right down from the largest kind of implications for masses of people on a political level to interpersonal relationships, love and business relationships. I have not been able to put what I know into practice, in terms of me becoming cynical enough to act differently. I always act as if things could turn out well, or as if what you put into something matters.

EP: So what are you working on right now, aside from the new album?

JC: I’m working on a first draft of the early days of Devo movie with Matt Diehl, a writer for Rolling Stone. It’s about Devo in the sad, sad Akron days beginning in 1974. It shows the truth, which is stranger than fiction, where, against all odds, and totally whacked-out, this art band goes from being this hopeless joke everyone laughs.. to synching up with the new wave and punk movements… It goes all the way through to where we get signed and try to start our first tour and get the deal to go on Saturday Night Live. The movie ends there, although there’s a coda or postscript that takes place in 1980 when “Whip It” is a hit, and everyone wants us to write another hit and meet with producers. There’s also a prequel including the killings at Kent State. It’s the probable journey and struggle to success, but the success is a question mark.

EP: How did you choose that particular time period?

JC: Because that’s where the important formation of the whole concept turning into a productive reality took place, against all odds and with a lot of conflict and dark humor, and where all the revolutionary aesthetic that we had got created, including our first 10-minute film, The Truth About De-evolution. You’re seeing this rogue’s gallery of people, the record company executives and New York promoters, and Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Brian Eno, Dean Stockwell, Neil Young and Toni Basil, Richard Branson, Ron Blakely… and it’s insane, how it all works.

EP: How did you treat the Brian Eno part?

JC: Just truthfully. It was pretty strange. Brian Eno and Devo were on two different dimensional planes that kind of intersected, but not really.

EP: Did you talk about the “Oblique Strategies” [Eno's approach to finding a new formula for the Devo sound]?

JC: Oh, yeah.

EP: What did you make of that?

JC: Devo being the smartass intellectuals that we were, we thought the Oblique Strategies were pretty wanky. They were too Zen for us. We thought that precious, pseudo-mystical, elliptical stuff was too groovy. We were into brute, nasty realism and industrial-strength sounds and beats. We didn’t want pretty. Brian was trying to add beauty to our music.

EP: He probably wanted something spontaneous for your sound.

JC: We knew so much what we wanted. What his ideas were usually were antithetical to what we needed to do. The songs we brought into that studio we had played and played and played. We were married to what they were. We were driven by anger.

EP: Yes, and that anger seems to have drove you through three decades. What you were doing thirty years ago is more timely now than it ever has been.

JC: Yeah, but we knew then we were doing something that had nothing to do with trends. We were just trying to perfect what we did, and people made fun of us, saying, “Why the fuck are you doing this? Who wants to hear this, and why are you trying so hard?” It was because we had an idea. And now our music sounds contemporary.

EP: Now people are trying to re-make that punk, retro synth sound Devo mastered.

JC: There was a generation of kids that never heard us and finally found us and got inspired. And they don’t want grunge. They don’t want to hear about some whining bastard’s personal pain. They want something that unifies a group of people, inspires them, and lifts them up. And that is exactly what is new about new wave. That’s exactly what new wave did. When you heard God Save the Queen, and you were me at my age, and you heard The Clash’s London Calling, it was incredible. It made you feel like you could move, like you could go forward. It brought people together, and lifted them up. I think people need that now.

Photo credit: Moishe Brakha

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Rolling Stone stuffs

Peloton Musique: Bicycles are Your Friends

The whir of spokes slicing air, crank and shaft rotation, the sprickity-sprock as chain catches teeth, torque coupling — who says bicycles aren't sexy? For its inaugural release, rough-riding Seattleite Peloton Musique invited producers to use samples of spoke plucks, bicycle-pump valves, brake compression, and hissing sprockets. Artful production shenanigans, chin-scratching time signatures, and Kompakt-like romps abound on selections from heavyweights Markus Nikolai, Lusine, Jeff Samuel, Let's Go Outside, and Twerk. Misha's "Knickabocka" is awash in sunshine, with uplifting pads and rhythmic clicks propelling the track forward; Nordic Soul's "BMX Love Machine" evokes a BMX wet dream with minimal torsion, laser sounds, and polished vocoder lyrics. The bonus CD ventures into experimental work, including a dubbed-out cover by Monsieur Leisure. Ultimately, Peloton's nod to cycling and community produces a kinetic energy that promises to replenish even the most wary bike believers.

See this review in issue #132 of Earplug.

Jerry Abstract

When the stars cosmically align to provide Jerry Abstract with an amalgamation of techno, perfectly balanced sound levels, shenanigans and head-butting, he is sure to stick his head in a bass bin. It’s an apt metaphor for his penchant to be consumed by rhythm—the Detroit-bred and Seattle-based producer is a conduit for the sonic cosmos. His particular brand of genius has garnered him legions of fans, accolades of critical praise, and throngs of drooling females. Jerry maintains a hectic DJ schedule while writing tracks for labels like Shitkatapult, Semisexual, Peloton Musique, Detroit Underground, Fourthcity and Memex. He’s played DEMF, Berlin’s Tresor, NYC’s Tonic and previous incarnations of Decibel Festival. He has played alongside the likes of Richie Hawtin, Derrick May, Ellen Allien, Apparat, T.Raumschmiere, Bruno Pronsato, [a]pendics.shuffle and Green Velvet. Abstract is also an established designer, serving as Creative Director for Decibel and heading up his own Fixeplix design studio.

This bio written for the 2008 Decibel Festival.

Jeff Samuel

Jeff Samuel is one of the rare producers whose initial tinkering with music production afforded him instant notoriety. A track from his initial demo was released on Germany’s Lo-Fi Stereo label in the late ‘90s and remixed by none other than Michael Mayer, and other cuts from the demo were subsequently released on Daniel Bell’s 7th City label. Following that success, Jeff sequestered himself in his Seattle studio to perfect tracks that were eventually released on respected electronic music labels like Poker Flat Recordings, Ghostly International, Persona Records, Warp Records and NovaMute. He currently lives in Berlin while jet-setting about the world, performing alongside the likes of Richie Hawtin, Sven Vath, Ricardo Villalobos, Francois K, Steve Bug and Akufen while producing music and creating sound effects for video games.

This bio written for the 2008 Decibel Festival.

Waajeed & Platinum Pied Pipers

Sailing mad voyages of hip-hop piracy among a sea of less able producers, Waajeed and his group Platinum Pied Pipers are taking the hip-hop world like bandits. The pirate theme is well deserved: New York’s legendary Tiombe Lockhart has called Waajeed “Pirate King” and “the swashbuckler of funk.” The New York producer’s been plundering and pillaging hip-hop as we know it to arrive at pure, unprecedented treasure.

Waajeed is something of an ingénue in the hip-hop world. He only began producing in 2000, but his beats for Platinum Pied Pipers have the ring of classic producers such as Pete Rock. Hailed as an instant classic sound by Flavorpill, The Platinum Pied Pipers’ Triple P garnered instant fanfare—a rare feat for a fledgling release on Waajeed’s underground label, Bling 47. Waajeed’s history with music is long, though: he began DJing at just 14, mining his parent’s massive vinyl collection for new gold. He met Jay Dee (J. Dilla, RIP) in Detroit around the same time, and was privy to the burgeoning hip-hop scene of the ‘80s. He won a scholarship to art school for painting, but quit school to tour through Europe as a DJ for Slum Village. Upon his return to the United States, he decided to put down his brushes for another set of tools—production equipment.

Platinum Pied Pipers’ Triple P is Waajeed and Saadiq, and boasts cameo appearances by Jay Dee, MC Ta-Raach, UK-based Spacek and SA-RA Creative Partners. It’s pure buried treasure that’s been unearthed by the group’s new approach to soul. Waajeed and I caught up to discuss the radness of the raw, how a painting is like a track, and what really put the funky in Funkadelic.

Tell me about how you guys met. You’re both from Detroit, right?

Yeah, we met sixteen, maybe seventeen years ago. At the time, we had just entered high school, and I was getting into music. There was this kid in my art class who was like, “my brother’s a producer, and he’s really talented. You should come by and grab some beats from him.” The next day he brought me his cassette tape. We made some beats together… with only turntables, a little drum machine, and cassette tapes.

You had a pretty spare setup there. But sometimes that can be for the best. The less software and fancy equipment used, the better.

Absolutely.

So what about Detroit? You are originally from there, but now live in New York. You have a big following in New York, but in an interview I read with you, you were saying a Detroit record shop only ordered eight of your records, and you sold 125 copies at one show in New York. What’s up with Detroit?

I think it’s… I don’t know. I think the grass is always greener on the other side. Wherever you’re not from, that’s where motherfuckers get into you. Like if I was born in New York, people here wouldn’t give a fuck about me. Yeah, that Detroit thing… in interviews I’m always get asked, ‘explain your Detroit sound. You have a Detroit sound, Detroit this, Detroit that.’ It really pisses me off.

I think people equate you with Detroit because you have a raw sound. I don’t think you sound ‘Detroit’ in any way. I think people tend to pigeonhole, which sucks. It’s a really unchallenged way of looking at music.

It’s the easiest way. It sums it up. To name a sound for a city is silly. And if I had a ‘Detroit’ sound, maybe there’d be more records of mine for sale there… the ‘Detroit’ sound is just ghetto tech.

Your sound isn’t very booty bass. So let’s talk about your paintings… tell me more about that. Is there somewhere online where you sell your stuff?

Not really. I wish there was more time in the day.

I’m sure you’re busy, DJing, producing, owning a record label, getting married…

The DJ thing is crazy. I’ve been DJing more than I’ve been producing lately. There’s so much to do and so little time. I wish I had more time to paint, or even draw. I miss it, but making a track is, to some degree, the same thing. With painting, you lay a foundation, and build on it. Add a few things and take a few things away. It’s the same process.

Yeah, it’s just a layering of textures to arrive at overall meaning and balance. Production is all about balance, too.

I agree. That’s part of what’s wrong with popular music these days, especially hip-hop. Because it’s so keyboard-based and doesn’t have any texture to it… every piece of art has to have some sort of texture to it in order to gel. I was just in Dubai, and got back a couple days ago. The whole scene was fresh, but there was no texture to it. That’s part of why I don’t like lots of hip-hop. There’s no texture to it.

I’m always pissed that these silly rappers are so successful. I don’t understand that at all. Lots of mass-popular hip-hop doesn’t say anything, besides ‘booty is great.’

I know. It’s like, what is anyone going to take away from this situation, besides seeing lots of T and A all damn day.

So let’s talk about your history a little bit. Let me get this straight—you got a scholarship for art school, and then quit to go on tour. After your return, you dropped painting and started making beats. Right?

Yeah, I was so into the music, I had to devote my time. I had always been involved with music, and DJing…

How old were you when you started DJing?

I was about 14. I started with my parent’s record collection—they were really into music in the ‘70s, and big party freaks. They had tons and tons of vinyl.

What kind of music were they into?

My dad was into jazz, and heavily into funk… Funkadelic and all sorts of stuff. I really didn’t get Funkadelic until the last ten years…

It’s kind of an acquired taste.

Yeah. You really have to understand what the fuck they’re talking about to even care. So I inherited my parent’s record collection. I have so many… right now I’m trying to alphabetize them. It’s hard to keep track of all this music.

So I’ve read in articles before about how production came pretty easily to you, because it’s a form of expression, kind of like painting. You learn to operate whatever vehicle of expression, and the rest comes easily. Do you agree?

Absolutely. Music gives you another approach. I was hanging out with DJ Spinna a couple days ago, and he’s one of these record, record, record guys. Like he will know the name, producer, cover art…

The label, what year it came out, what pressing it is…

Yeah. Aw, man, he’s one of these record genius guys. He was explaining that your ear is so unique to you. Everyone hears a record differently… I hear a record in a completely different way than anyone else. That’s your benefit; you can approach it differently; chop it up, think about music in a nontraditional way because of being trained as an artist.

That’s the special thing about it… it’s a unique experience. Everyone hears music differently, and the way you create beats is only yours, because only you can hear music that way, and have that particular thing to say.

Yeah. Everyone who’s a great producer has preserved an experience… they’re bringing something unique.

Check Waajeed at Bling 47.

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Ohmega Watts

I call Ohmega Watts (Milton Campbell) in the late evening. There’s something in the immediacy of talking on the phone that you can’t bring about in email. Milton’s forthrightness is apparent from the outset. He talks to me as if we’re old friends, saying, “Hold on, I have to tell ‘em to hold this record while I talk to you.” A muffled conversation with the record shop worker ensues, and I ask him, “So what were you listening to?” meaning at the record shop, but he misunderstands my question as “What do you listen to” in general, and sounds a little baffled as he struggles to say, “You know… soul, hip-hop…” When I tell him I was only asking what record he had held, he reels off fine selects: he’s purchased the Morcheeba LP “Antidote” and put David Clayton-Thomas and an ATCO Beegees album on hold for later listening. During our conversation, I grow to understand that Milton truly understands rhythm without pretension. Despite the relative briefness of our talk, I come away with an idea of Milton’s absolute rarity.

Rare bird. He’s an affable hip-hop guru who doesn’t seem to be all-consumed in tits, ass, or vanity. He’s god-fearing. He’s got great taste in production equipment. He’s funny and without pretension. He’s a graphic designer who’s done work for Lollapalooza. He’s a producer and a photographer. He’s been MCing since 1993. He’s done work with fellow Portland heads and Quannum artists The Lifesavas. He’s both released albums on and designed for a label known for gourmet curation, Ubiquity.

Milton’s productions themselves are timeless. His records are reserved for the precious crates of longevity; those crates that include thick plastic slipcover-ed People Under the Stairs, Pete Rock, Rick James, the rare Cymande, and De La Soul. The crates reserved for records that withstand trends and dust.

Why do you think Shock G / Humpty-Hump wore those horn-rimmed glasses with the beak nose and furry moustache?

It was part of his guise. He appeared to be Humpty, this bugged-out cat, but was actually an alter-ego. Creative marketing... ha ha.

What do you make of people comparing you to Digital Underground?

I never thought about Digital Underground anywhere in the equation, but I guess it's cool and everyone's opinion is subjective to the individual a lot of the time. Some are good speculations, where others are way off target. I don't think this is way off… I just never thought of it, personally.

In some of your interviews I've read, you mention your strong spirituality. Can you comment about how this is pretty uncommon in hip-hop musicians?

Well, in the general market of hip-hop, there aren't many people honestly professing their faith and talking it out at the same time. There's a lot of contradiction in hip-hop, as people can be contradictory oftentimes as well. I personally came to a point of really getting my spiritual life on track, after trying so many other things and just living, but not having a solid direction. I prayed and sought out something concrete, but it ended up coming and finding me when I least expected it.

You've claimed that you don't really listen to much music that's popular today. Do you feel your beats are fresh because your musical palette isn't informed by other common trends? Do you find it trite that most interviewers ask musicians who their influences are?

Yes to the first answer. At the same time, I do listen to a good amount of new music, but stuff like Quantic, Breakestra, Morcheeba, Coldplay and Stereolab. And then my record collection of Brazillian, funk, soul, rock and jazz. I do find it kind of repetitive, concerning your second question, but for a newcomer it's good to get that out the way, I suppose.

What equipment and software do you use? Have you ever thought about producing live in front of an audience with your laptop and mic?

I use an Akai MPC 2000, Roland VS-840EX Digital 8-track Recorder (just for effects), a Motif 6 keyboard, and a MicroKorg analog synth. I use Pro-tools LE on my computer to do the final sequencing of my live editions of sounds and keys to the sequences of drums and samples I run out of my MPC. I have thought about something live, and actually implemented a little something into my set for when a DJ is with me. For now, it's just going to be me MCing and a little MPC vs. my DJ's table battle.

Let's say Atlantic wanted you to collaborate on a Pretty Ricky record called "T&A: Tubetops and ASSets." Would you do it?

Probably not, and no amount of money can change that. I never even heard Pretty Ricky before. I've heard the name, but I'm out of the loop.

Tell me about your first time MCing.

Well, I wrote a rap, and me and my boy would battle in the hallways in high school around 10th grade, I think it was. We would just write a quick rhyme in a class and come out, battle more and more, and then freestyle battle. It was fun but amateur... I kind of always had a style once I figured out how to rhyme to a beat. I never had much trouble staying on beat and I rapped my favorite MC's verses for a long time, so it was easy when I started writing.

What's the best thing you've designed?

Hmm... gotta think about that. I dig the idea I came up with for my crew Lightheaded's “Never Square” 12" cover. Other than that, I did a design for the Adidas-sponsored Lollapalooza this year and the graphics were used and printed in a whole slew of mediums.

Ohmega Watts Myspace
Ohmega Watts on Ubiquity Records

Greyboy: Museum Quality

The road wends and weaves through the Naples neighborhood of Long Beach, California as I approach Greyboy’s Edward Killingsworth- designed monument of a home. I pass the obligatory Lexus SUVs, Jaguars and expansively landscaped lawns of this somewhat yuppified, “cancel- the- Friday- afternoon- patient- appointments-‘cause-I-gotta-play-golf” neighborhood. I’m trying to reconcile the vague preconceptions I have of Greyboy / Andreas Stevens—a playboy of sorts, a sunshine blonde California good ole boy who probably calls his guy friends ‘braw’ instead of ‘bro’ and happens to make really slick beats between surfing sessions—with a new idea I have of a Greyboy who would live withdrawn from the sluts and the clubs in a relatively quiet California city.

As I find his address, I’m taken aback from the simple extravagance of my surroundings. A perfectly restored Dodge in that pukish ‘70s mustard color foregrounds the utter mid-century modern perfection of his house. A walkway of stone steps dotting a reflecting pool leads to a glass-walled entranceway. The adjacent patio’s furniture lines augment the smooth transitions and blocky yet airy style of the dwelling, which was not surprisingly the recipient of the Grand Prix Award in 1967 (the first award ever to be given for residential design by the American Institute of Architects).

Throughout our interview, my ability to reconcile the Andreas that is presented to me with the one I expected is thoroughly depleted. Which is a good thing—it’s not good to categorize people, or have certain expectations—you’re almost always wrong. But Andreas is an enigma. He’s got a museum quality house with every well-dusted period collectible presented in perfect display; it’s as if he’s house sitting for his grandparents. Then he’s got these rather boyish qualities—checkered navy old skool Vans, a fleet of sterling, pimped-out and rare BMX bikes. And then there’s his anti-babe-magnet qualities—his Myspace profile doesn’t boast the inevitable Cleavage Shot Girls peppering his page with comments like, “You are SO talented I LOVE your EYES you are SOooooooo hot. Cum meet me in LA tonight! XXX!!!!!!” So, he’s got the quiet settled atmosphere of a retired person, but the passion of youth. He’s got taste, right down to his diamond-studded DC Shoes pinky ring. He’s not the type to catalog Maxims and Playboys in his bathroom reading material stash. And he’s most certainly not your usual hip-hop impresario who’s been churning out good beats for nearly a decade and a half.

Andreas’s 1994 breakthrough, Freestylin’, was Ubiquity’s first release. 1994 was a ripe year for hip-hop’s renaissance: Pete Rock, Goodie Mob, Outkast, and even the Beastie Boys were moved. But if anyone had tried to marry hip-hop with avant acid jazz prior to Greyboy, they were nowhere near as successful. Many producers of that era were limited by their inability to see rhythm beyond simple categories—jazz, soul, hip-hop, pop. Greyboy, however, married all of them with polyamorous grace and ease. Freestylin’ remained a relic of that movement, later inspiring DJs like Mark Farina in his popular Mushroom Jazz series.

His next success in Greyboy Allstars drew crowds from all walks—Public Radio bespectacled types, hip-hop low-slung pants types, frat boys, and an overwhelming bevy of dreadlocked hippies. Andreas’s talent had come full circle—he had broken down the categorical pigeonholing of genres that usually drew separate crowds, and everyone from everywhere seemed to like it. From a marketing perspective (which is a wholly ironic viewpoint for hip-hop), this ability to appeal to a broad audience versus hip-hop’s usual “sector market appeal” did him well. Andreas went on to surf the first MTV-fueled hip-hop wave that tsunami-ed the remaining part of the century, doing music for everything from the movies Celtic Pride and Get Shorty to a Kelly Slater video game and Budweiser commercials. His next albums, Mastered the Art and Soul Mosaic, also met with raucous fanfare.

After my interview with Andreas, I debated what to say about him for a long while—I couldn’t reach any firm conclusions on him that would anchor a “slant” for an article. Any conclusions, that is, other than these: Greyboy is full of polarities, a truly rare breed, and he’s Mastered the Art. So I’ll let him speak for himself.

I can’t get over your house, and these furnishings. You’re pretty into design, right? Someone told me that you had a store selling furniture at some point?

I had an unofficial sort of business on the side where I dealt art and furniture from this specific period, museum-quality things to private collectors. I have a friend who owns [California Living] gallery in LA, and I sell things there and at some auction houses in the United States. It's a really cool gallery that only sells stuff specifically from mid-'50s to very early '60s, like '55 to '62. I furnish my house with everything from that span of time.

So what do you do to find this stuff... dumpster dive, go to thrift stores?

No. The stuff we're talking about here is really scarce, so usually you'd find stuff from an original estate or collector. It has to do with how long you've been in the game, and how many connections you have. All this stuff's on the expensive side, and you have to have enough money to buy it in the first place. It's just another interest, like architecture—it’s all sort of the same art. [Retrieves laboriously compiled thick black binder stuffed with page-protected photographs, certificates, and articles]. Here's some information about this house. These are articles and things beginning from when the house was finished in '57. That will give you an idea of the scope.... I bought it from this drunk woman who was the fourth owner. After I came back four times, she decided to sell the house to me.
I wanted to preserve the house exactly the way it was when it was finished, even down to the furnishings. In older pictures, you'll see that some of these furnishings were part of the original interior, but they weren't here when I got the house.

You've gone and searched out all the original house furnishings?

Yeah, that stovetop control set wasn't here [gesturing toward kitchen]. I did a lot of searching on eBay, sometimes Craigslist, sometimes other places. It took me 13 months of searching every day to find that stovetop set.

You're pretty devoted.

Totally. For me, if I was going to restore the house, it only made sense to really do it all the way.

Go for it, huh?

I guess it was sorta personal... you know, somewhat selfish, too. I wanted to live in this house I dreamed about.

Let's talk about music stuff. Soul Mosaic is pretty groovy, but it's a real departure from Mastered the Art, which is flow-y and melodic. Soul Mosaic is angry.

Yeah. My albums are sort of a product of where I'm at, at the time.

You been angry lately?

Yeah... you know, yeah. Totally [laughs]. I wasn't really angry when that record came out; I was more moody at the time. I was finishing that album while I was doing this, when I first moved to Long Beach and was neck-deep in restoring the house. It was a weird time. I do a lot of collaborating, so the albums are a product of who I collaborate with.

You collaborated with a lot of old jazz guys on Soul Mosaic...

Singers, rappers, musicians... it just depends. The only common thread with my records is that they're all going to have that hip-hop influenced sound. The beats are going to always be funky, and there will always be a lot of sampling involved. It will never be that overproduced. I'm working on my new album now, which will probably be released in fall. It's delayed because I just got out of the studio producing the new Greyboy Allstars album...

Your old band, right? I thought you guys broke up in '96.

Yeah. It was a really weird, big deal where the band decided to get back together to record another album. There was a lot of strife in the band... just people being stupid and thinking that they were the reason the band was cool, and having resentment towards me. The band dissolved and everyone went their separate ways, and then it came full circle, to the point that all the guys in the band were like, "We're sorry we messed everything up."

Sometimes success can mess with people's heads. I know Greyboy Allstars were successful.

Yeah. It's a really common thing that happens to bands when they get right on the verge of something really, really big happening. It just derails the whole program.

Didn't you guys have some sort of hippie following?

Yeah, hippies. It was unexplainable. They have a wide appreciation for music. The band is almost all instrumental, and hippies are into instrumental music. I used to do a lot of work doing movie soundtracks for snowboard companies and stuff, and so we'd go to the mountain towns to play these gigs, and a lot of 'em would be out in those areas. But if you like the music, I don't really care what you look like. Every once in a while, someone would make a smartass comment about having a hippie following, but to me, it's like, "Dude, I dare you to make a record that anyone wants to buy.” It's like a miracle. If anyone actually goes to the store to pay money for anything that I made, that's a huge deal. You just can't take that lightly.

Well, there's so much image in music. People who listen to drum 'n' bass dress a certain way and people who listen to hip-hop dress another way. Same goes for Phish lovers. Music that appeals to not only hippies, but also yuppies, is really rare.

Older people loved it. It wasn't some gimmick that was aimed at some specific generation or age group. There was nothing but good that came out of that. Except when the band broke up, and that sucked. But now we're doing it again, and everything is working out. And I'm loving being in Long Beach, because LA vanity bums me out. It stands for all the things I don't like in the music industry. Even if you're really smart, you can start to lose it if you live there. I get a bad energy from LA. I like nice things too, but that's all that counts there. I like living away from it all, and I have enough interests for a couple people, so I'm never bored. I usually don't ever want to leave, to be honest with you.

You used to play out more...?

Well, yeah, but I'm 36. I don't want to be on the road. I'm not as into being in a nightclub any more. When you're 26 you're all about it, and it's exciting and new.

Later, my friend and LA photographer savant, Marc Goldstein, snaps photos of Andreas on his spine-slatted stairwell as the Westward afternoon light streams in. Marc arbitrarily asks him, “Andreas, if you could live in anyone else’s body for six months, whose would it be?” To which he replies, after long deliberation, “Kinda like, just, me.” I laugh and mock in a self-satisfied tone, “Yeah, I’d just be myself.”

He says, “I have it pretty easy, so… I just like looking at people from the outside. I don’t really want to be anyone else.” I query, “Wouldn’t you want to be a girl? Like Pamela Anderson or something?” He laughs, “No… it’s scary. I have a twin sister…. No, maybe I would want to be a girl sometime, just to check it out.” I say, “Wouldn’t you want to know what it’s like having sex as a girl?” He laughs, “Nooooo… I like just knowing what I know.”

Check Greyboy's Myspace or the Ubiquity Records site for more on Greyboy.

Layout designed by CRO.

This article originally posted in TheBlacklistMag.com, which is sadly no longer in the cyber-realm.

Steve Spacek

Steve Spacek, along with Edmund Cavill and MC Morgan Zarate, formed the triumvirate of the group Spacek. Throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s, Spacek was known for its subtle departure from the rhythm and blues genre, a departure that aimed for dreamy trip-hop territories. Appropriately spacey in nature, Steve’s vocals were a transport for the evocative architecture of the Spacek sound. Though the group has worked primarily in London, Steve relocated to Los Angeles to work on a solo album, “Space Shift,” with J-Dilla and Leon Ware.

This bio was written for Seattle's Red Bull Music Academy.

DJ Red Alert

There are precious few witnesses to the birth of hip-hop DJ culture in 1980s New York, and even fewer steel wheelers who are still alive and well within the scene. Yet 25 years later, DJ Red Alert (Grant Smith) is active in the world of hip-hop. Grant got his start with hale Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation, and after establishing himself as a master of the tables, went on to work with Boogie Down Productions, Queen Latifah, Black Sheep, A Tribe Called Quest, the Jungle Brothers, and Run DMC. He’s been honored with every type of award imaginable for a hip-hop impresario: Rolling Stone deemed him one of the 50 most influential musicians, he’s (perhaps oddly) a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-r, and an honorary ambassador to the UN, to boot. Throughout the years, Grant has proved wholly testament to the phrase “Hip-hop don’t stop.”

This bio was written for Seattle's Red Bull Music Academy.