The instrumental rockers in DC's Caverns have been nice enough to provide us with MP3's to stream.
And to boot, Jeff the Taper has recordings of a live set at RnR Hotel in DC. Check out the track streams after the jump, or check out Jeff's live recording here at Beatbots A/V Club.
Also, just for kicks, I included some old tracks from a defunct hardcore band called Snapcase (Wiki) whose music I enjoyed immensely. The three tracks are off their album Designs for Automotion (2000). I recommend picking up that and their earlier album Progression Through Unlearning (1997).
Stay tuned for our exclusive interview with Caverns coming up in the next week; stream this music to rock out while you are waiting. Enjoy the weekend, and join some of the AS staff at the sure-to-be-excellent Justice show on Sunday (despite its association with Myspace).
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Saturday, March 8, 2008
Music from DC's Caverns and an old favorite, Snapcase
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Interview w/ Lafayette Gilchrist: Piano man speaks his mind
I recently talked to Baltimore jazz pianist Lafayette Gilchrist over a cup of coffee at a small lunch place on Cathedral Street.
If asked to pick the jazz musician out of a lineup, you'd pick Lafayette. He puts out a vibe of intense creativity on a level that is rare even among artists and musicians, and might not necessarily come across in the transcript.
Going along with that, he also has strong opinions on a broad range of issues, not just jazz music, so the interview is formatted a little bit looser, the questions a little more general on purpose. With that said, even the most mundane opinion can sound like sage wisdom when voiced by a veteran jazz performer of some repute.
Be sure to check out pianist/ academically trained economist and historian/ boxer/ thinker of thoughts Lafayette Gilchrist and his band The New Volcanoes at Joe Squared on March 22.
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Aural States- I recently saw a poster for one of your performances and I thought, “Man, this guy’s name keeps turning up everywhere I look. He’s taking over Baltimore.”
Lafayette Gilchrist- Oh man. I hope that’s not the case, because there are a lot of wonderful and talented musicians here…I mean I hope there is room for all of us. Don’t have to be one cat, just one cat.
AS- You’ve kind of become the piano man of Baltimore, but I was just wondering if you have met Baltimore’s other preeminent pianist, have you met Leon Fleischer?
LG- Yes. I spent an afternoon with Leon Fleischer. John Lewis, who writes for Baltimore Magazine—he does the music articles, the music critic rather for the magazine. He did an article a couple years ago with me and Leon Fleischer actually sitting down and having a conversation. Yea, we did that. He’s a nice man, a very nice man. He lives over there off of…he lives in those nice houses. If I bought a house, I’d buy one in an area like that.
AS- Give a short introduction to what motivates you to make music.
LG- Oh, man. Well what motivates me…I don’t think about it so much these days, but I guess if I had to, I’d still say it’s the sense of adventure, and journey into the unknown that still keeps me motivated. Knowing that each time you play something, you know it’s different from any other time that you played it before, or play it after. Sometimes just that knowledge is stimulation enough. You know, sometimes I can’t wait to wake up, just to play and see what I sound like on that particular day. And I’ve never been disappointed, as everyday it’s a little bit different. I may play the same piece for three weeks in a row, or something, and each time it is a little different. So, I guess to sum it up, music is endless discovery.
You know when you’re on that journey some things are very beautiful, and some things are very painful, and some things fall in between all of that. Ecstasy, agony, you know. Everything between those two extremes is a trip within itself. So music is like life, it’s endless. It transcends human life. It connects you to something else, something else that comes from before the beginning. I don’t know. That’s what it feels like to me anyway.
With art it’s really more about how it feels, than how it is, you know. How it feels has to do with how it’s perceived, how it’s perceived has to do with what angle it is approached from. So if you look at it like that, and you experience it like that, then music is this endless thing that keeps drawing you to it, at least that’s what it is for me.
Like a moth to a flame, that’s how music always drew me, and it still does. I can’t resist it. It calls me. It's like even when you’re exhausted, and you’re just ready to go down. You just had a long night, a long gig, you get in at three or four o’clock in the morning. You just hauled your keyboard up three flights of stairs, but you can’t wait to get that keyboard set backup again. Mine is set up in my bedroom, right next to my bed. I can’t wait to put that thing back together, because no matter how exhausted I am after a gig, I always hear something new, especially if I am playing with the New Volcanoes.
With the Volcanoes I always hear something I hadn’t heard before. Probably something Nate does with the drums, or maybe a figure that Blue might play with the bass, or maybe a snippet of Gabriel Ware’s saxophone solo. I just start playing with it, those little ideas. Those kernels if you will, swimming around. You start chasing them. You get in the water and swim around with them, and before you know it the Sun is up and it’s another day.
That used to be constant. Now that’s not so constant, but it still visits me quit often. Those particular moods still visit me.
AS- Why is it not as constant?
LG- Well I’m starting to travel more, and I’m working more, more material to keep track of…The mundane details of life are starting to crowd in, you know. You can’t practice because you have to be here to do this, or you’ve got to take this person there. You know, just the things of life. It’s more of a fight to keep that at bay, at least long enough were I can create. I guess it’s just a natural process of being a grownup.
But you know artistic people are never trying to be grownups. That’s like the last thing we want to be. We feel defeated when we have to behave like grownups. It’s like “Aw man, I got into this business so I wouldn’t have to do grownup shit. Have someone else do grownup shit for me.” Naw, I’m just kidding.
But still we never really want to be adults totally, because that stuff weighs you down. And when stuff weighs you down, that affects your imagination, you know. That’s just part of being in the world.
Sometimes I think that human lives are like batteries. When you get to a certain point, which is not necessarily a function of age, it’s just a function of living—you know, the pace of it. When you get to a certain point you realize that your batteries may need to be recharged, replaced, or may just run out. Depends on what kind of deal you can work out.
AS- You never played the piano until age 17. What happened in that moment, at age 17, when you first laid fingers on the keys?
LG- It was around ’85 or ’86. It was my freshman year, and I had to take some, what do you call them, buffer classes, or what have you…I had to take some classes over the summer before the fall semester started. So, I got there and registered early. This English class I had to take happened to be in the fine arts building. I happened to wonder into the recital hall one afternoon, where there was a nine-foot Steinway grand piano on the stage.
I started by walking up to it, and approaching it. It seemed like it was just sitting there, waiting on me. So, I sat down to it, and I remember putting my foot on the sustain pedal and just pretending I could play. Then I noticed when I would play something if I laid on the pedal too long the tones started to overlap and mud. So then I learned how to come up off of the pedal, and when to press the pedal and when not to, to make it sound musical, to make it sound full. I was able to figure that out inside of an hour of just sitting down and noodling on the thing.
A friend of mine wanders by, and hears me in there, and says to me “Oh, I didn’t know you played man. You sound good,” and walks back out. I didn’t think nothing of it at the time really. I just came back every day. There was something really therapeutic about the experience. There was a losing of one’s self. It was like I could quit my life for a minute. I could suspend time, and I could suspend having to function socially in a way that felt less than real. So music kind of gave me an escape from all of that.
Slowly I began to meet people in the music department, beginning to become interested in taking music classes, but my mother and my stepfather didn’t see it that way at the time. They really opposed it. So I ended up just kind of doing it in secret. It was like I had discovered something.
For about two years I took music classes whenever I could. I would bug by friends, two of which are in my band. That’s where I had first met Freddie Dunn, and Michael Cerri. I met John Dierker a little bit later. I met John about a year or two later after I had met Freddie and Mike.
Freddie and Mike, around the time that I met them I was attempting to write music out. But I was writing it out all wrong. So they would take it and play through it, and I’d be like “Oh is that what I wrote?” And they would say “Well play for us what you had in mind,” and they would help me with correcting the notation and what not. Slowly I began to learn how to write. I got books out of the library. I would have been a good music student, if I had been able to major in music because I was pretty motivated. I went out and got the books myself.
You can learn anything you want with books and apprenticeship really. And that’s how I really learn to play, from getting music books and seeking out people like Carl Grubbs.
I met Carl in the early ‘90s. I started coming to his house and just playing together. He would teach me things, and have me play through things. I was pretty awful in those days.
Another guy that helped me out a lot was Witt Williams. Witt is like a saxophone legend in these parts, all the cats know him. He’s real tight with Jimmy Heath, you know, all the old school Bebop guys. Witt is coming from the Dexter Gordon, Wayne Shorter kind of approach. Carl is coming more from the Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Albert Ayler…those people have a little bit more weight with his thing. So I’ve got a nice section of the best of the music from the 50s and the 60s. And then somewhere along the way I fell in love with Thelonious Monk, and Bud Powell, and Horace Silver…all the great Hard Bop pianists—Bobby Timmons, Cedar Walton. Then later I became interested in McCoy Tyner, and some of the lesser known heroes like Randy Weston, Andrew Hill, Horace Tapscott, Cecil Taylor, Don Pullen, John Hicks, of course David Murray…David is probably the biggest impact on my music at this point, because in the last record I put out, 3, I was really able to expand myself compositionally and also learned how fire and energy can be integral parts of my technique. David’s stuff has been really influential in helping me integrate that into my language. It is rooted in Bebop and Hard Bop, but it’s constantly evolving.
That’s the shame about this music called “jazz” in a way, because a lot of that individual development and refinement is ignored. The jazz press has become just like the general press and the media. They are seeking out what they can make into the most sensationalized and hyped stuff without really investigating the substance there. I don’t know why that is. I guess they are trying to sell magazines, man. That rule of journalism--if it bleeds it ledes, if it thinks, it stinks—applies to the jazz press too, which is bad.
AS- Is this true for you? How do you see yourself in that situation?
LG- Yes, I have been really fortunate in terms of media attention, but I don’t credit that to the institutions themselves, as much as the individuals in the institutions who want to seek something else out. I’ve been very fortunate on that front, but in terms of like a larger media break through, or something like that, I feel I would have to dumb down the music and/or tone down the more militant aspects of what I do. Both of which I refuse to do.
AS- What would be these militant aspects?
LG- The rhythmic structure. I am not interested, not interested at all, in using music as some kind of soapbox from which to preach some set of political ideas from.
The militancy comes through an examination of objective conditions and the natural responses to them, and a refusal to ignore them and sweep them under the rug so the people can have nice pretty music. To me that is empty art. To tell the truth, if it’s ugly, then it is what it is. If it’s beautiful, then it’s both at the same time.
AS- You recently played in Europe. Was there a difference in how your performances were received by European audiences compared to an American audience?
LG- There’s not really a difference man. I mean a handclap is a handclap. The audiences are really not that much more different. It’s just that in Europe you have various governments…support of the arts is an integral part of their governments. It’s budgeted better than it is here. That’s the only thing. And what you spend money on, you have to sell; in terms of selling the fact that it is valued, to your population. Europe has always had a stronger tradition of that than America, because it is older. So the cultural environment is a little different with respect to the arts. But that’s because of the leadership in their government, not because of anything peculiar in the population.
AS- About a month ago I went to a lecture at Peabody on a non-Western, non-classical form of music. The person giving the talk kept trying to make it clear to the students that viewing all music through the lens of classical music is myopic. A lot of the students were adamantly against the speaker’s grouping of jazz with Western art music, almost indignant.
LG- Well that’s a problem. If you talk about that, well the root of that is really racial. Not to call the individuals racist, but that’s the institution’s stance in regard to it. And that’s the thing that impresses the Europeans the least about America. That’s the way they look at America. And I’ll be even more blunt, when I talk to Europeans, that’s the way they look at white Americans. They don’t look at me the way. They look at white Americans as European wannabes from a cultural prospective. They look at black Americans as the only original shit coming out of America. Both of which are probably distortions, but that attitude you witnessed at Peabody doesn’t help.
AS-I got the sense that the guy giving the talk really picked up on that feeling.
LG- That’s rough. That’s a rough crowd…But that’s actually part of the conversation that Leon Fleischer and I had. I said “Leon, classical musicians work less than jazz musicians. What are you setting them up for at Peabody? I mean all they are going to be able to do is teach. Maybe some of them will get jobs with an orchestra.” I mean they can’t go out and get any gigs, because they’ve only learned how to do this one thing. If you’re going to work as a musician, you have to be able to do several things. The language that is spoken in American popular music, whether you talking about rock, folk…I mean I’ve done all kind of gigs. I even did a bluegrass gig once. Most the time the music is communicated on paper through what is called a lead sheet. I remembered I played with these bluegrass guys in Arbutus, and I had never played that music before, but they had lead sheets.
When I sit down with classically trained musicians, a lot of them don’t even know what a chord is. If I say “play me an A flat minor and 7, play me a D flat minor 7," they don’t even know what it is. Which throws them out of the loop right there. They can’t read a lead sheet, they can’t swing, they can’t play no other type of music. They can’t swing, they can’t rock, they can’t funk. They’re left with a very, very small thing.
I get very disappointed with the jazz academia guys, because it’s like “Is that what y’all want for jazz? I mean is that what you want for jazz, pushing this great American art form, is that what y’all want? You want what happened to classical music to happen to jazz? For it to be strangled, held? I mean you can only play this little amount of material for which there is little demand.
What are these kids paying to go to Peabody, 30, 40 grand? I’d be goddamned if I would send any of my kid to a music conservatory and paying 30, 40 g’s and all they can play is some damn Flight of the Bumblebee. I mean how are you going to pay that money back?
Some of them will land a nice job in an orchestra, but the orchestras are cutting back. I mean it not just the Meyerhoff, it’s all the major symphony orchestras in all the major cities are having major problems—they are not putting butts in the seats. People are not coming out to hear that music. Part of the reason is they keep playing music that is three or four hundred years old, and they are not mixing it with any contemporary works. They don’t make room for any modern…I mean they barely play 20th century music in most of these orchestras, and we’re well into the 21st century. Where is the growth there?
Part of the problem is that the only people who support classical music are these narrow-minded aficionados that really think they know something, but they know nothing, hardly. They’ve got their own little set of people that they like, and the same thing goes on in jazz radio. The same bullshit goes on in jazz radio. You get this group of elite aficionados that have their favorites, and they have their corporate play list that is submitted to them. And very often what gets on this play list is what is seen as reliable product. And it’s usually some big name that goes along with this reliable product, some big name artist, who watered his shit down 20 years ago. You know everyone loves him or her.
One of the problems with the European scene is that because they had more of an appreciation historically, they were the first to recognize jazz. They recognized its value way before the Americans did. So because of that they feel entitled to comment and weigh in on American jazz and society and how it’s going. They make a lot of good points, but I’m not really sure they know what the hell they are talking about.
When you’re coming from a place like Europe, you’re that much further away from the source, because the source of the so called jazz music…then you’re talking about black Americans as a group from the turn of the 19th century on up to present. Then your talking about a people and a culture with another, almost held captive within a larger people and culture. I don’t want to say it’s a subculture, because that is a bit of a loaded term. I don’t use that term. But it was a really specific culture that existed, and it’s a real inside thing, especially when you get into jazz.
That was a really, really high achievement for blacks. When you think about what black Americans had to go through in this country around in turn of the century, in the 1920’s, in the 1940’s, through the 50s and the 60s, the music was not thought of in the way it is thought of today. When I talk to older people, like my family, like my grandmother…she would go hear Count Basie or Duke Ellington and she said “Oh yea, because that made life bearable. It made us freer, inside.”
And that energy just doesn’t stay inside, it moves. Now it’s different, we’re in a different period. It’s not a segregated society anymore. My generation, and the generation after me, we never knew the outward things of segregation. We came up in a different era were stuff is a lot more out in the open, especially with this election year. Stuff is starting to push out into the open, and I’m sure it will push out more if Barak or even Hillary gets the nomination.
I like Obama. I think that he has tapped into something that I’ve been looking for awhile. For a while I’ve been looking to see who could do it, who could pick up on the energy that’s out there. When I listen to him and Hillary talk about their campaigns, to me that’s the biggest difference between the two of them.
The biggest difference is their campaigns, and the nature of them and how they are run. Hillary sounds in the 20th century, Barak sounds in the 21st century. I mean forget about the race and gender shit, that’s just fodder for people to write about—“Hehehehe…This is historical!” It’s not historical motherfucker; it’s about damn time! I mean what the fuck is so unreasonable about having a woman or any person of color as president…we’ve been having that for over 200 years.
We’ve had great presidents, but my contentions is that you can only pull from one part of the gene pool for so much, before you come up empty and have to give someone else a chance. They might have some answers that you haven’t thought about, some perspectives to add to the thing. And we’re starting to see it like that. I’d like to think, and we’ll see, that a lot of whites are starting to see it like that. Like “Wait a minute, let’s spread it around a little bit.” I mean it can’t be the same guys election after election after election.
If Hillary gets it, it will be disappointing for me man, not because I’m against her or nothing. I think she is excellent, I think she is great. But it’s like we’ve had the papa Bush, the baby Bush, the husband Clinton, and the wife Clinton. No man, we’re in the new century. We need a clean break. Let Obama make his mistakes, he’s going to make mistakes…even Kennedy made mistakes. But the important thing is that the mantle has to be passed.
Even the old Civil Rights guard, who were the hardest guys to get because they were all pro Hillary and didn’t really like Obama that much. But I saw in the news the other day that John Lewis, the representative from Georgia, says, like “I love the Clintons, but my district man, its all Obama. What can I do?” He’s got to come out and endorse Obama at this point.
AS- In addition to touring heavily, and recording new material, you also teach. How does that factor in to the situation?
LG- The thing I’ve having the most fun doing is teaching the children, my kid students. I started teaching students about three or four years ago. I found that the kids, because they ask the simple questions, they really make you think. It caused me to do two things. To take the way I approach music apart and really analyze it and look at it, because I had to.
There I have to communicate this to another person. You can’t say, “Oh man, c’mon you know what I’m saying.” You can’t say that to a seven-year-old kid, because he doesn’t know. So that challenges you to really understand what you are doing from a different perspective, a different angle. Something like as simple as fingering a major scale, I know that. But how do I show a kid to do that, who has never used those muscles to make sounds. You have to start from scratch.
But the biggest thing that you have to communicate to kids is that you love music. To me that is the single message I have to get through to those kids. If kids know that you love music then you’re like the pied piper, you got them. They’re there because they want to know what it’s about anyway. So the challenge is to explain music in a way that is fun, and get them doing things that they didn’t think that they could do. Things that looked so amazing to them when I did it. And they come in not believing that they can do it, and to be able to show them that they can do it, that is a big rush. I love that. I feel that not only am I learning, but I am contributing something really concrete to society.
When you sit up in front of somebody’s kid that’s no joke. They are bringing their most important thing to you. Like “here’s my child, spend half and hour with him once a week.” That’s nothing to play with, that’s serious. So that’s what I’ve been able to do.
--Bez
Carl Grubbs with Lafayette Gilchrist: Exploring the Jazz Traditions
Supported by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, Carl Grubbs (saxophones, far left) and Lafayette Gilchrist (piano, left) explore oral tradition in jazz, live at An Die Musik.
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Carl Grubbs comes from the John Coltrane school of bebop saxophone. By that I mean that he literally studied under Coltrane. They were so close, in fact, that Coltrane later married Grubbs' cousin, Naima, who would later be immortalized on Giant Steps. You can hear Coltrane's influence in Grubb's composition and playing; he makes frequent use of the Coltrane matrix of descending major thirds and uses sheets of sound techniques for texture. On this date, Carl led the duo with his angry sounding sax while Lafayette was more reserved on keys.
At 8:20 pm, they opened things up with a blues to get the juices flowing. Grubbs' alto sound is reedy and very aggressive at times, but can also be dynamic in the style of Stan Getz. After several choruses, Grubbs handed the tune over to Gilchrist for solo piano. My first impressions of Gilchrist's playing are that he is a very precise player with a style all his own. Some of his pet licks are beginning to develop into a very signature style.
Next the trio played Body and Soul, as arranged by John Coltrane and Joy Spring with the addition of min IV, maj III progression (the theme of the night). It was at this point when sweat was beginning to form on Carl Grubb's brow that I began to get more of a feel for Lafayette's style. Taking the second solo and having some harmonic freedom, he made noteworthy use of building and releasing musical tension in a conversational way. Some of this voice leading on this tune reminded me of the style of Keith Jarrett without all the flash.
On the whole it was a great show that really represented what jazz oral tradition was about. I'm excited to hear Lafayette continue to grow as a musician and as a creative mind. Now that he's back in the U.S.A., I look forward to seeing him in a trio setting in and around Baltimore. Watch for him!
Show Review: Say Hi/Caverns @ the Black Cat, DC
There isn't much more to be said about Say Hi. Eric Elbogen is an excellent songsmith. You will never find anything too technically complex or musically challenging to listen to. What you will find, is carefully crafted and enjoyable indie-pop.
The value of his live show, other than the promise of another live member or two to fill out the band, is that he adds another dimension to the music and provides a heightened sense of immediacy to every song. So much so that each song feels like a musical kamikaze-run that starts with often timid beginnings, crescendoing over the course of the song into near-explosive whirls of Eric's guitar hook of choice, loaded with tension. Highlights of the night included a soaring performance of "Snowcones and Puppies," "Toil and Trouble," and the endearing, set-closing rally-cry for the shy kid in all of us "Let's Talk About Spaceships."
But the best part of the night for me was the discovery of DC's Caverns. Now I must preface this with some disclosure: I have an affinity for progressive metal, post-hardcore, hardcore, metalcore, all those sub-genres with oft-screaming vocalists and blistering instrumental work. Damn if I don't love a good breakdown. Too bad that more often than not, talented and creative musicians are undercut by a vocalist with a cookie-monster scream/growl that just ruins everything.
Caverns seemed to read my mind on that point, forgoing vocals and just steaming straight ahead with instrumental breakdown tracks. Drummer, shred-and-chug math-guitarist, electronics guy and pianist. Guitar work trudges all around the hard rock gamut, at times having the chug of metalcore, then switching over to prog/math mode with runs that melt your face. Their balance places the piano to the fore giving their sound a more dramatic, operatic feel.
Most direct influences seem to be Converge (a few tracks probably could have fit right on a Converge album) and Dillinger Escape Plan, or basically any math-core band. I'm pretty sure I heard a re-tuned Deftones riff in there somewhere and I'd like to think King Diamond and Dream Theater informed their sound a bit too.
More to come on them in the future...they play Lo-Fi on March 21 with Imperial China. Not to be missed.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
LO MOdA Live @ Creative Alliance
Part 2 of our exclusive recordings from the Wye Oak/LO MOdA show at Creative Alliance this past Saturday (courtesy of Jeff the Baltimore Taper). LO MOdA opened for Wye Oak with a fantastic set.
Their music is like the sinister and brooding lovechild of Fugazi, Q and Not U, Talking Heads, !!!. Kinetic bass, angular guitar work and definition-of-urgency vocals all laid atop a lush, exotic foundation poured by the drums and viola.
And at the Patterson, this provided the perfect soundtrack to the spliced clips from Turkish Star Wars projected onto the back wall.
Stream the set after the jump or download the MP3 or FLAC files. Thanks again to Jeff for excellent work.
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LO MOdA - The Plagiarist, Live @ C.A.
BSO 2008-09 schedule: yawn.
When Marin Alsop took over from Yuri Temirkanov as music director of the BSO this past season, there was a huge ruckus. She was bringing in huge names in modern classical like John Adams, Tan Dun, and fairly renowned fiddler/composer Mark O'Connor (who delivered a hell of a performance for the America program a few weeks ago).
It seemed like Alsop had a very clear vision for programming which has been lauded in some circles, and vilified in others. They played some titans of the genre like Mahler's Symphony No. 10, and Beethoven's Fifth while also embracing more modern classics like the Americana classic Copland's Appalachian Spring. Nonetheless, I had faith in her strategy. But with the 2008-2009 season, I wonder if the Alsop engine has lost some of its steam.
In my opinion, classical has reached a critical stage. Overall, aging audiences call for canon while younger listeners yearn for wider exposure to modern works; but you gotta go where the money is, and that's in canon. There is a stifling pall of stagnation that hangs over the genre, and the schism between the two camps of listeners is huge. Classical needs to reassert its relevance and vitality. The perfect way to do this is to pair works of past giants with those of modern composers, showcasing both classical's impressive past and its vibrant present/future.
The press release for the 2008-09 season hit my inbox, I was giddy. Then I started reading. Yo-yo Ma. OK, big name, opening weekend, I get it even if I don't like it. Holst's Planets. Quality, nothing edgy, but good stuff. Mahler's Titan follows. Not my favorite by far, but Mahler is Mahler...
Mozart Violin Conc. No. 11 and Schubert No. 4...OK. Maybe an off week.
Bernstein's Mass...ummm...OK, I love Bernstein as a conductor, but compositions not so much. Then a pattern emerges. Unfortunately, it is one of predictability.
The season degenerates into a sea of many less notable compositions from standard names: Dukas, Dvorak, Mozart, Mahler, Tchaikovsky and Brahms. Compared to her inaugural season, the upcoming one is a let-down, with few, if any, modern names represented. In fact, with the appearance of multiple Mahler pieces, the Copland Americana focus and multiple Messiahs on the calendar, things feel really similar to the current season.
Don't get me wrong...there are some interesting spots such as the return of Yuri Temirkanov, Leonard Slatkin's guest conducting for a weekend and the relative rarity in current times of a professional brass ensemble performance (from the Canadian Brass). But this season lacks any punch for my classical palate.
And now, I wonder, what exactly is Alsop aiming for? Or if there are other influences impacting the season's direction. Hopefully, we'll be getting some time to sit down and talk about next season's programming. In the meantime, view the season here.
Pitchfork Media announces online music channel, attmept to takeover indie world...even more.
Whoa whoa whoa. WHOA. Seriously? Pitchfork is launching an online TV channel. I approach this project with great anticipation and trepidation. This could either be the new sliced bread, or make it a hell of a lot harder to pass go and collect $200 without the stamp of 'Fork approval. Or maybe both.
Check the official release here.
Snippet from P4K:
So today, we're proud to announce the April 7 beta launch of Pitchfork.tv, the first-ever music video channel dedicated to documenting independent music as it happens. As a visual extension of the music coverage Pitchfork has provided for more than a decade, and a means of updating and advancing the music television format, the online channel will bring you closer to the artists you love, through original mini-documentaries, secret rooftop and basement sessions, full concerts, exclusive interviews, and the most carefully curated selection of music videos online.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Show Review: Henry Rollins 'Provoked' Spoken-Word Tour
Motivational speaker, comedian, manic street-preaching poet, all of the above?
The outspoken Henry Rollins stops off in Brooklyn, New York to deliver "Provoked" before heading to the mid-west to finish up his spoken-word tour.
Why pay $30 to hear someone talk about themselves for three hours? I’ve been doing it since I first saw Henry Rollins perform his spoken-word shtick in 2001, and like clockwork, I’m always back for more. The charming and oh-so outspoken raconteur is at it again with "Provoked: An Evening of Quintessentially American Opinionated Editorializing and Storytelling,” the title of his new spoken-word performance.
Rollins has been telling stories for a large part of his life, publishing numerous books of poetry and vignettes beginning with his days on the road with West Coast hardcore punk band Black Flag, and starting his own publishing and record company 2.13.61. Even throughout his time with the Rollins Band beginning in the late 80’s, Rollins continued to publish books, release numerous spoken-word CD’s like the jazz-backed Everything, tour, host his own radio show (Harmony in My Head), appear in various TV programs for major networks, and host and star in The Henry Rollins Show on the IFC. He’s also made appearances in various films, such as
Catch him before he splits:
4 - Rochester, NY - Harro East
5 - Pittsburgh, PA - Rex Theater
6 - Indianapolis, IN - Egyptian Room
8 - Memphis, TN - New Daisy Theatre
11 - Tulsa, OK - Cains Ballroom
12 - Lincoln, NE - Rococo
13 - Des Moines, IA - Val Air Ballroom
14 - Sioux Falls, SD - Orpheum Theatre
15 - Fargo, ND - The Venue
Born Ruffians + Cadence Weapon
This Wednesday at the Ottobar: Canadians Born Ruffians and Cadence Weapon as well as one of Bmore's sweetest, most keyboard-heavy indie-poppers Karmella's Game.
To get you excited for the show, here are a couple tracks off each artist's upcoming album (both to be released tomorrow). Check them out after the jump.
Poster from Monozine.
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from Red Yellow Blue
In search of the Youth Crew - Cadence Weapon
from Afterparty Babies
Wye Oak Interview (w/ Andy Stack, Jenn Wasner)
We here in Baltimore are fucking spoiled. I thought it couldn't get better than the Beach House release...but hell if Wye Oak didn't give an equally intense show for their final hometown show before SXSW and their return for If Children's Merge re-release party at the G-Spot.
Baltimore-based duo Wye Oak (formerly Monarch) played a spectacular live show at the Creative Alliance by Patterson Park this past Saturday. If you weren't there, fear not! Thanks to our newest friend the Baltimore Taper, we here at Aural States are hooking you up big time with an exclusive on a live recording of the show.
Stream Wye Oak's entire set below. Click song titles to download MP3s.
Wye Oak - Intro.mp3
Wye Oak - Please Concrete
Wye Oak - Warning
Wye Oak - Magic Johnson
Wye Oak - I Don't Feel Young
Wye Oak - Family Glue
Wye Oak - Mary Is Mary
Wye Oak - Half A Double Man
Wye Oak - Untitled
Wye Oak - I Want For Nothing
Wye Oak - Obituary
And to round things out, Andy and Jenn sat down, then moved around alot, with me before Lo Moda's set for part 1 of a 2-part interview. Read it after the jump. Read Part 2 here.
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Aural States- OK guys, let's start out with a little bio.
Jenn Wasner- We both grew up around Baltimore. Started playing music together in high school...just kind of in different bands. It wasn't until I guess a couple years ago...
Andy Stack- We went away for college, then came back.
JW- And then a couple years ago...we found ourselves both in Baltimore and decided to start a band. It started out two of us playing together, actively searching for other bandmates. But eventually realized it wasn't going to happen..but also we could do it our own way, just the two of us. With a little bit of work and effort. So, we've been playing as a 2-piece with drums, keyboard, bass, guitar. It seems to be going pretty well I guess. I dunno...what else as far as bio...We both live in Baltimore, Hampden now.
Aural States- Baltimore born-and-raised?
ASt/JW- Pretty much, in the suburbs earlier, but close enough.
AS- What's your musical background?
ASt- We both studied music at school. Like extracurricular kind of things, but nothing special.
JW- I took piano lessons for a long time.
ASt- I went to music college for a while...
AS- Where?
ASt- Berklee up in Boston. Lived there for a while, and now I'm finishing up at UMBC. Jenn was an English major.
JW- Yeah, I was kind of like...I took piano lessons but other than that I'm pretty much self-taught. I discovered myself.
AS- So you stated that you started as a duo, but were looking for others. Are you still looking to expand?
ASt- I don't think we're uniformly opposed to the idea. We work really well together (most of the time), we have a system in terms of the live sound now. In terms of recording the duo element isn't really limiting because we can track everything again.
JW- I think generally, for us right now, we really prefer to keep it small. As far as our schedules, it's already hard enough to find time to rehearse, practice, write and play when we're living in Hampden and there's just 2 people's schedules to coordinate. I can't imagine trying to incorporate a third person.
ASt- We've been in larger bands before, but it's just...pretty convenient at this point. We can tour on the cheap...
JW- and we both really know what kind of sound each other is going for, and how to ask for it. What each other is capable of. It works out being pretty easy to communicate where it's just the two of us.
AS- How much of that decision is connected to your romantic involvement?
JW- As far as playing together with others? I don't think it'd be really that hard...
ASt- We definitely play in groups with other people so it's not like that doesn't work. It's not like our personalities or personal lives clash with that...
JW- I think it's always gonna kinda be our songs. We have bands with other people, we play with them, but it's other people's songs. I think the only thing that qualifies this band as Wye Oak is that it's our music, our songs. I don't think if other people play with us that would really change that at all. But it was, from the get-go, just the two of us. And I think it will stay that way for a while.
AS- Is there any stylistic change for you when other people are added?
ASt- Definitely, but I think it depends more on the group. Our other main band we play in, Noble Lake, is a completely different sound. It's this psychedelic Americana stuff...pretty much all acoustic instrumentation.
JW- And it's great to have an opportunity to do something like that, to get time and have a hand in a lot of different sounds and styles. It really opens your perspective up to create things that, in your own music, you wouldn't necessarily do. And it's just fun! Like our set list tonight...some songs go one way stylistically, then there are others that go the opposite way.
AS- Tonight is mostly off If Children?
JW- Probably like half and half. If Children's been kicking around with us for a while so...
ASt- Even some of the new material doesn't feel new. We've been playing it for 5 or 6 months.
AS- So the Merge deal. Let's talk about how that happened. (Congrats by the way)
ASt- Thanks! It was a huge stroke of good luck. It was actually originally through the blogging community. We self-released some stuff and I did my best to sort of work some PR. Sent out a lot of emails that were extremely...
JW- You just did like a press machine gun...
ASt- Yeah, and I just tried to be as nice as I could, to try and make friends where it counted. We got written up by some really nice people and I guess Merge saw it and contacted us. They just kinda sat on it for a while and we never expected anything to happen. There were other possibilities were had planned out, other labels that were interested...
AS- But then...right after New Years...
JW- Pretty much out of nowhere, they sent us an email that was just like "We're still listening to the record an awful lot...how would you be interested in..."
AS- An email?!
JW- Yeah, just completely out of the blue. Literally that's how it happened.
ASt- And it's the kind of label that...it's the perfect place for us to be right now, obviously.
AS- They are based in NC right?
ASt- Yeah, in like Durham. But it seemed shocking to us...that a label...would just up and ask us over email. Without asking for like, nude pictures or something like that or wanting to know our police record.
AS- Or thinking..."oh man, someone's account got hacked."
JW- Yeah, like what is going on.
ASt- But they just did...
JW- It just goes to show how down to earth and cool they are.
ASt- Exactly, it's not a major label. Obviously they have financial interests and extremely successful bands, but they also are not running such an enormous corporate enterprise that they can't take chances on people like us. So we just got lucky with that.
JW- I feel like that's how it should be. If you like a band enough...but sometimes these days it doesn't really work that way. It's more about how many Myspace friends you have or how many hits your webpage gets. But they never really asked any of that stuff. They just said "We like your music." It's weird, it's fantastic, unexpected and really heartening. That alone made me feel very very comfortable with going into the agreement.
AS- How has it been? How has it influenced you? I read somewhere that you were nervous about them not having seen the live show, and it being too different from the record.
ASt- It scared the shit out of us. They hadn't seen the live show. We toured down through the South for the first time in January. We played for all them. They really liked it and now we're gonna do their SXSW show.
AS- Yeah, with Destroyer I saw that.
JW- It's...terrifying.
ASt- Yeah. So I mean, trepidation about the label has passed. Now it's just trepidation about being artists, continuing to make art that we can live with.
JW- I mean, I don't feel like they're putting us in directions that we don't want to go.
AS- The re-release of If Children, is that something you wanted?
ASt- That's what we wanted. They gave us that option...
JW- They asked us if we were even interested in doing that at all, and although its been around for a while and the songs are kind of old for us...we put so much time and so much of ourselves into making that record. And now, I want as many people to hear it as possible. I think it deserves to be heard and I couldn't turn that down. I couldn't say no to that. I'm thrilled that they were interested in it enough to put it out. It's great.
AS- Are you excited about SXSW?
JW/ASt- Yeah it's great!
JW- I've never really been to Austin, I've heard it's really cool. We were thinking about going last year, but...
ASt- It's expensive and if you don't have some name recognition...it's hard to get any shows.
JW- It's gonna be cool. They told us they are gonna take us to get really really good barbecue. It's absolutely mandatory. Looking forward to that.
AS- Great. So, let's talk a little bit about your process. "Where are the songs born?"
ASt- Very individually.
JW- Pretty isolated.
AS- For you, is it an actual process or is it something more spontaneous?
JW- The process is pretty separate. I've never really understood the idea of writing songs collectively. I've tried to do it before and it's never really worked.
ASt- It's too...I dunno...emotionally charged. It's like there's a vulnerability that goes along with writing...
JW- ...that you just don't feel comfortable exposing.
ASt- As close as you can be with somebody, I don't think either of us has ever felt that comfortable.
JW- We pretty much write em then bring em to...the group *laughs* and work out the arrangements together.
AS- Music or lyrics first?
JW- Depends. But I've found that since we started playing with this setup I've kind of started writing songs with the setup in mind. The idea of how we're gonna have to play it is always in the back of my mind. It changes the way the notes come out. If you try and do it one way, and you think that way works, then it's not gonna work. As soon as you start thinking too hard about it, the whole thing just goes completely out the window. You've got to be on the line of being serious about it but also somewhat relaxed, otherwise you can scare away the creative process if you're too uptight.
AS- How long did it take you to assemble the tracks for If Children?
JW- Maybe like a year.
ASt- Noooo. It took maybe 5 months.
JW- Felt like a year!
ASt- It was on and off. It was like October '05 to January '06.
AS- That's not bad at all.
ASt- Yeah, and that's with all the mixing. I did a little bit of remixing for the Merge release. Not every song, but a couple songs. Little sections of songs that we were so distraught about for the original release. Every last mistake...
JW- ...we hear a thousand times.
AS- What else is different on the Merge release?
ASt- "I don't feel young" is the biggest. But the average listener won't really hear any difference.
JW- It's pretty much the same. The art is the same, the name is different.
ASt- It's remastered but that's about it. And you know, they were into that.
JW- With the idea behind the re-release being to expand the audience.
AS- I think it's going to be received pretty well. For one, I feel like Pitchfork has almost adopted Baltimore as kind of this redheaded musical stepchild it wants to spotlight.
JW- I think you're right about that. A lot of sites have adopted Baltimore.
ASt- They definitely have, but there's just so many unknowables in a CD release you can't really be sure...
JW- I'm just thrilled to be associated with Merge so I'm not sweatin it. I'm excited and we haven't even started recording yet. Having this out gives us more time to work and record the new record.
ASt- I hope that it does well enough where the label feels justified in putting it out and...
AS- ...letting you guys do your stuff.
ASt- Yeah, we wanna keep it moving. We already have almost a record's worth of material.
AS- How is it stylistically compared to the old record?
JW- You'll hear some of it tonight! It's kind of all over the place. I feel like the last record was by no means every song that I've written in the last five years. For this new one, since we have more time to work with it, I feel like we can write songs, play them around, see how they fall. And if they're not up to snuff, we can pick and choose our favorite songs for the record. It takes a lot of pressure off. I don't have to be like "write an album...now!"
ASt- When we recorded If Children, a lot of the arrangements that ended up on the record came together through the recording process. We didn't go in with a final goal of where we wanted the song to go. I think we were expecting it to go the other direction for the new record. We've been playing with the duo setup for a while, we have a live show we are getting more comfortable with arrangements.
But as it turned out, we already did one recording session, and we ended up scrapping most of the material because we ended up coming back to the idea that even though we have the duo setup, we don't necessarily want that to transfer over to the record.
We want to rely on the studio for arranging and multitracking. To let different instruments come in. Instruments that you'd never see in the live show. Piano, upright bass. Instruments like that will definitely still come into the recordings but not the live show. It's just not practical.
AS- That actually hits on the last big thing I wanted to go through with you tonight. The difference between how you approach the live arrangements versus the recorded arrangements. Like you said, you have so many other voices/instruments in the studio...
ASt- In the studio we both play a bunch of instruments that don't work live. Like piano, upright, sax...maybe someday we'll have like 5 tour buses and we can fill up the music. I don't think we allow ourselves to think that way. It's so impractical to think of us...super huge band. We want to be able to be economical. We like having the smaller feel.
Maybe someday...but we don't feel like we're cutting ourselves short with just the two of us. If anything, it's a nice challenge to look at all the different ways you can expand the sound of the group without adding different members. It's also exhausting.
AS- Yeah, like when you are doing double duty on stage...
ASt- We played in some bigger groups with 5 or 6 different people at times. I loved it, I loved being able to focus on one thing. It lets you enjoy it more. When you both have a lot of variables to keep under control between songs, within songs, it's like a real mentally taxing thing to do.
AS- Do you think it brings you closer to the music in performance? It obviously changes your experience of playing the music.
ASt- Yeah. I mean, it's just different. The thing that probably brings us more into the music is that its our music, our songs. I mean mostly it's Jenn's songs, at least when we play live. We're both so connected to the songs we ultimately begin to be a mouthpiece for the music. All of the instrumentation, the way the million different amps and keyboards on-stage are all just to be able to get to the song. Which worries us. I think at first we thought there might be a little too much gimmick, like with what I do.
AS- Almost like people would shutdown and think "oh they're just showing off."
ASt- Yeah, and that's not the impression we want.
AS- How do you approach the live arrangements? How is the live experience different than the recorded?
ASt- Everything is more raw, everything is more immediate. You have the visual component of people playing it. It would take 10 people to re-create the album and we just don't have that. So we do double duty where we can, we try to do guitar stuff to make it sound fuller than it normally would be...
JW- You know, I've realized that it's important to remember that a song is a song. No matter how you play it, it should be able to be enjoyed. Whether its unplugged on an acoustic guitar or on stage with 10 people, it should still be the same song. We don't feel like we need to recreate the album live. We already captured that completely independent moment in time. And the live show is another thing in and of itself.
Continue to Part 2...
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Baltimore Club Interview (w/ Scottie B, Shawn Ceasar)
On March 9 Baltimore goes French with Justice at Sonar. But to make up for the slight Gallic lapse Baltimore club icon Scottie B will step up behind the decks after the Justice set to rep the home team. Aural States recently sat down to talk to Scottie B and Shawn Caesar, legendary DJs, owners of Unruly Records and pivotal figures in forming the genre known as Baltimore club.
If you need a Baltimore club primer check out Andrew Devereaux's essay "What Chew Know About Down the Hill?": Baltimore Club Music, Subgenre Crossover, and the New Subculture Capital of Race and Space at the Journal of Popular Music Studies. I originally learned of the article through Al Shipley's Government Names website.
Or you can opt for the less academic approach and listen to the Scottie B tracks after the jump.
Be on the lookout for the new Scottie B mix album From Bmore With Love soon.
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Aural States- How long have you been DJing?
Scottie B- Since ‘81, in clubs since ‘87
AS- What was your first exposure to DJing, or DJ culture?
SB- It was Grand Master Flash’s Adventures on the Wheels of Steel. I didn’t know what he was doing…I just knew he was doing something with the record. As a little kid, there was this Russian kid that had turntables, and he told us “Dudes from New York have mixing contests.” We tried it, and it was a mess.
AS-What were your early days as a DJ like and how did you eventually get exposure?
SB- I used to throw rec center parties. I used to beg to do them, and I got them. I used to bring my father’s turntables, you know, whatever sound would come out of. I went to North Western. I wasn’t in the talent shows, but they would always have rap groups and DJ. The DJ was always terrible, so I would always get on at the audition. I used to DJ at the Rhythm Skate. North Western ran it…one of the teachers owned it.
AS-What was Rhythm Skate?
SB- It was a skating rink by Northern Parkway and Reisterstown Road. It’s been a church for many years now. A lot of NBA jackets exchanged hands in front of that place.
AS-How long have you two known each other?
SB- Since ’89, I think. You know how he saw me first? For the longest time I played in only black clubs, until recently. He walked in and was like “Who’s the white guy DJing?”
Shawn Caesar- I remember walking into Godfrey’s and not only looking at him as the only white dude in the club, but he was rocking it. I had never seen him or heard him. I was in my own little world.
SB- I was more into street stuff, I was already out of school. Shawn’s stuff was a little safer.
AS-How are things different now?
SC- The audience is different.
SB- Obviously I don’t have to bring the turntables anymore. If I’m playing somewhere I figure everyone knows who I am, in a humble kind of way. The audience is mostly white now.
SC- The music is more accepted by a broader audience than ever before
SB- It's more of an event atmosphere, not like “This is Saturday night at this or that club.”
AS-How did Unruly come about?
SB- Me and him were already good friends. Our minds were already the same. His focus was a little to the side of mine, but basically the same.
SC- It really started with us trying to outsell each other. Both of us put out independent projects on our own. Scottie put out I Got the Rhythm, and I had put out Yo Yo Where the Hoes At? We both worked at record stores, so we took it upon ourselves to see who would sell more.
AS-What record store was this?
SC- I was at DJ Outlet in Oldtown Mall. Scottie was at Inner City downtown.
We were both doing it individually, but we were always in the same circle.
SB- There was inevitability to it all
SC- We combined and formed the Underground Track Team in the early ‘90s
AS- And Unruly just started out as a label?
SC- That’s all it was. Everything else grew out of the record company.
AS- How has the Baltimore club scene grown?
SC- The biggest thing I’ve seen is that it’s accepted. And once it became accepted you got other influences on the music, by people that ten years ago didn’t care about it.
SB- But some of them were too young. They weren’t DJs. But some of them were, and club is just hot now for them. That includes some people from Baltimore, but you know, it’s cool. We used to get ridiculed, but I don’t know if it was because it wasn’t what they were doing, or because they were hot and we were just hood, some ghetto shit.
AS-Who were “they”? DJs from other cities?
SB- No people from Baltimore too. I mean I don’t even really want get into it because they’re cool with us, you know what I mean…they’re real cool with us now. We always looked up to them anyway, but we just wanted to be successful doing our music. It isn’t any beef thing, nothing negative…it’s just they were doing what they wanted. They had their time, and we’re trying to have ours. I can tell you this, their time was a whole lot more lucrative than our time...there wasn’t no MP3. When house music was big, there was no other dance music, but house. That was it.
AS- Going forward where do you see club music in Baltimore?
SC- You know I think we’re past the point of it being a fad, but its still strong. I think the reason it’s still strong is the different influences…It's different parts to the music now. I see it keep evolving. I see dance music, as a whole genre, becoming a much larger influence again, especially stateside.
SB- We started out as hip-hop and house DJs, so basically we’re going to always have that classic Baltimore sound. Anything these guys do now, and none of them are doing anything new…it’s all an offshoot of something that’s already been done, but we did it when it was real, original. Wherever they want to take it, we’re already there. Like those guys from overseas…that fidget house stuff, that Switch kind of stuff. Its house, house done in a real Baltimore sort of way. We’re real cool with them. Those guys respect us.
AS- What do you think of all the attention Baltimore Club has been getting?
SC- For me, I guess I was a little upset, a little bitter to a degree because we have worked for the past 15 years on this, you know what I mean. You do something for so long and it’s not happening…like Scottie said we were ridiculed for it, and laughed at, and tried to get it to New York. Then out of nowhere it’s just the coolest thing ever
SB- You know in a way though, it was parallel to so much other stuff that has hit. Baltimore was before UK rave stuff hit the states. Their influences were our influences. Our stuff sounded better than theirs really. Their stuff was real cookie cutter breaks.
SC- Even more so the Miami bass influence. That shit blew up, went away, you know what I mean. A lot of that Miami bass ended up being played in a Baltimore club set. It was so similar. So like I was saying, a little bitterness, but ultimately very happy that that shit finally got its recognition.
SB- You know of course we wanted it to hit Hot 97 before it hit these hipster scenes, but it didn’t. And now it is.
AS- How do you feel about spinning for the hipster crowd, like this past New Year’s Eve Taxlo party? Do you feel that it was outside of your audience profile?
SB- Well it was…But to Cullen’s credit, when Taxlo first started booking Baltimore club he was like “Why are you booking people that play club that ain’t even from Baltimore, or really not from that scene.” Cullen was really the one that started booking Rod Lee, Scottie B, Technics. It’s real funny, in a way, that the hipster scene in Baltimore ignores us more as we get more credit outside the city. It’s real weird.
SC- Baltimore club in Baltimore, they’re used to that. This is the only place in the country that has two Baltimore club crowds; one hipster crowd, and one young urban crowd. It might be like that in Philly too. But by us being here for so long, and being associated with the younger black crowd, then that other part, the hipster crowd, doesn’t even recognize it anymore.
SB- You know what the hipster crowd is 23, 25, they’re not exactly teens. When they were young they knew who Scottie B and Shawn Caesar were from playing that stuff, and I think they went away from it. Then they came back because a DJ they were familiar with was playing.
AS- What are some tracks you rely on in a mix to set the crowd off?
SB- Niggas Fightin’ is now 12 years old, but it’s gotten real big. Tear the Club Up, a classic. The Call Me Al record I did with King Tutt. He was named producer of the year by a local publication. I don’t want name it by name.
AS- I want to know, from people who were there from the beginning, how Baltimore club developed.
SB- Let’s see. Start with Shawn Caesar, Scottie B, Technics to a degree, Equalizer, DJ Precise, DJ Patrick…that’s it for the originals. Basically Baltimore’s hip-hop parties were house music parties, and some hip-hop. It went over to all house gradually. Hip house was real popular because it was the middle ground. The UK had its version of hip house. We all worked in the record store, so we heard it. What we liked, we made it popular. If we didn’t like it, it didn’t get popular. I don’t think we missed on a lot because Shawn always had an ear for stuff. Sometimes I was a little closed-eared, but he wasn’t.
SC- A lot of that came more-so from what made us work as a partnership. My crowd was different from his crowd. I was more of house and Baltimore club; he was more hip-hop and Baltimore club. So the shit I was listening for was different.
SB- Anyway the records from the UK were coming. They were hip house, and we were playing the instrumentals. Eventually we started making records just like the instrumentals. Those were the tablets for what we ended up doing. We mostly used different samples, but they used the Lynn Collins too. They relied on sampling notes from famous records, and we sampled words from hip-hop records. Instead of making the track a minute long and then crazy, which is what they started doing, we made the whole three or four minutes work for what we needed.
SC- It’s exactly the same way hip hop started, when you take into consideration we were playing the breaks of these imported records. It was only hot for about 20 seconds, but that drum pattern in that particular break is what started the whole thing. It was all about the drums. These UK records would start with drums, and that would be hot to us. Then is would get into the rave part, which was the shit that didn’t work for us. All those hoover sythns.
SB- In fact, we used to take Hoovers and Spray Cans and only play the drums in the beginning.
SC- House came out of Chicago, and hip house was right there. Tyree, Fast Eddie, Mike Dunn.
SB- Mike Dunn was hot.
SC- He was the fucking man. Damn.
SB- Mike Dunn was like the street hip house guy. He didn’t get the recognition that others got. I would have loved to see his records played in Chicago with Fast Eddie’s, but he stayed on his small labels. Mike Dunn was the shit.
AS- How has Baltimore club grown internationally?
SB- It is growing. It’s hitting certain places already, and certain places it’s bubbling, and in certain places it’s kind of their marquee sound, I mean because it’s getting pushed by certain people. Like in Scandinavia it’s big everywhere, Sweden, and Norway, and Finland. In those places Baltimore is big. They’ve got their own labels. When they make stuff you couldn’t tell that it’s not from Baltimore. I mean their stuff is really on point. They got their crowd, and they got their radio shows.
SC- It’s no different than where we were 15 years ago. It’s just happening now over there. You’ve got a DJ that introduces it, and everyone else wants to be down. It’s pretty much the same form as us, just happening 15 to 20 years later in a different part of the world.
SB- On some level there is almost a need for them to be down with it, because it is exposed. Some of their crowd is already built in, just because of the Internet and that type of thing. When they first play it, everyone in there is not blind to it now. I mean they kind of know about it.
AS- How have advances in production technology changed Baltimore club?
SB- Well it makes everyone able to do it.
SC- I think technology is helping broaden the appeal of it. But it hurts it in some ways. It waters it down, but the cream will still rise.
SB- The good stuff is still there, you know what I mean? Since it is still there, people have something to compare the water to. People just don’t accept everything. Everyone is doing it, but the crowd doesn’t accept everything.
AS- What were some shows, parties, or performances you have done that really stick out?
SC- Fabric.
SB- Or the first time that You Can Call Me Al got played. Diplo was in the room, Sinden was in the room.
SC- I’m going to take it back. I’m going to go with the Sound Factory, the House for All party. That was the first time when our records were played outside of Baltimore. We were in the Sound Factory in New York.
AS- What year would that have been?
SB- ‘92. How about the first time you made a song and you heard it from a car passing by? That type of shit will always stick with you.
SC- That’s major. I remember the first time hearing it on the radio. Frank Ski was playing my shit.
SB- I was with you. It was in your house remember?
SC- We were playing Tecmo Bowl. How fucking old is that? Was it Tecmo Bowl?
SB- Yea it was…I couldn’t play it.
SC- That’s how old that shit was. Fucking Tecmo Bowl.
SB- Somebody called in and said “Play Just Throw Them in the Hoe Tank,” remember?
SC- What about when, not just the first Fabric, but…
SB- How about the first time I played in New York, and I mean played it. Because everyone was into Baltimore after that, and into every song, even if they didn’t know them. I remember I called Shawn at like 4 or 5 in the morning saying “Yo, we’re there!”
SC- I can’t wait for the Chavy Boys of London stuff to come out. That’s what we’re in the middle of right now. That’s the side project of Scottie and me. We’re setting ourselves up to be able to go back 20 years.
SB- And have some fun. A lot of times when you’d see Masters at Work, they’d put out stuff as Swing Kids, Ball Fusion, or Soul Fusion…whatever. They had a hundred names. Why would they do that? I wanted to get to a point were I could use a different name every time for fun, and people would know that was our stuff anyway. I think we’ve finally got that now.
AS- What other names will you use?
SB- Chavy Boys of London.
AS- “Chavy” as in white trash?
SB- How the fuck do you know that?
SC- You’re the first person in Baltimore that knows what it means.
SB- At Fabric I was wearing a jacket and a hat, and Shawn was wearing whatever. But it was nonstop all night—“You got any pills, mate? You got any charlie, mate?” After closing, and everyone is just standing around talking, Sinden was there. Me and him are really tight, and start talking. This is guy comes in the room, I don’t even know how he got in there. He came up to me and was like “Yo Scottie B…You got any coke?” I said “Sinden, what is this shit? This is crazy.” He says “Well, you look chavy.” They said it was like the white-drug dealing-trashy kind of thing.
SC- We couldn’t figure it out all night, because the accent was so heavy. I could barely understand that those kids were asking me for drugs. So that became our joke, the Chavy Boys of London, because they said we dressed chavy. But we were just dressed normal.
SB- These guys took us to East London. At first I was looking at the buildings and I was like, some of these buildings are projects and some aren’t, but I can’t differentiate. I was told they did that on purpose. Then I saw a white guy that looked real chavey, and he was standing off to the side. Then there was a sketchy looking white kid next to a dope fiend. So I was like “Oh, he’s the boss, he’s the dumb flunky, and he’s the dope fiend.” So when I saw that, the whole chavy thing came together.
AS- That’s good for now. I look forward to hearing new tracks from you chavs.
SB- Hahahaha…yea.
--Bez
