so what's up in tokyo, hmm...cool spoon's got a limited edition picture disk
of their latest lp out (only 2000 made). "two mohicans", great raw
funk&jazz with a very heavy bottom. japanese jeep jazz. (jonathan, you
want cool spoon or a ufo t-shirt? thanks for the beats, by the way!)
if you see this album, buy it immediately, no questions asked, then
run home and enjoy.
multidirection2 will be out on the 25th. it's a--ite,
probably more than good if you like housey stuff, higher tempo beats.
standout tracks for me personally-the diet music track is dope, lotsa
swirling ethnic percussion and a sweet wood bass. the kruder&dorfmeister
track is nice, should rip up a dancefloor. samples the jungle bros "feel
the vibe, feel the bass, c'mon!". love tko's on some ol'cowboy shit, more
beat-poetry and steel geetars. dj milo's track is a straight up hip hop
track, complete with authentic-american-rapper (tm), but it's nothing
special. imma have to listen to the audio active track s'more, i'm
still confused about it. these are all first impressions, i reserve
the right to reverse any opinion stated here...
matsuura's also got another compilation in the works, more on that
when i hear it.
krush's new album is finished and ready to be shipped, mid-july
on sony here in japan. this'll be the first release on krush's new
sony sub-label. this time he went to new york to record, used pete rock's
studio and enlisted the help of a whole gang of hip hop folks. cl smooth raps
on one track, nice, cuz it's not often you hear cl on a non-pete rock track.
big l from the gangstarr family raps on a track. the usual krush beat tracks
are brilliant, there's a duet with dj shadow, shadow gets crazy on the
drums. krush fans will not be disappointed. the cover art is dope, too.
back in the beginning of may there was a ufo organized mo'wax tour
here, shadow and krush both on stage with 4 turntables between them,
it was a dj's dream lemme tell you. the two of them were slowly joined
by various members of mondo grosso, krush had a brilliant back-n-forth
communication going with okawa on percussion. monday sang a few songs,
james lavelle spun some jungle. matsuura got his hands on a sax somehow,
and sent himself into outerspace for about 15 minutes, sitting in the
corner of the stage with a sax and a mic, going "bweeee! eeeeeaaach!
creeeeeaa" with the sax. you know, that fucked up sound.
visuals were on point too, futura 2000 did a very cool piece on some
huge panels, two space-dj's with funk dripping all over the place.
i got called last minute to do an interview for bar-f-out between
james & shadow & futura, i'll include the un-edited english version here.
this was before the "trip hop debate" was burning here on the list,
but there's a few things they had to say about it, too. sorry if
this is too long, i figger since i only get around to posting once
in a blue moon it'd be ok...
anyone know anything about a group called "akasha"??? any info appreciated.
oh, speaking of self-promotion, the band i've been working with lately,
cub, we're doing a show at roppongi jungle bass, fri. june 30, with
zooco from the escalators, momoko from costra nostra, ellie from love
tamborines, muro from microphone pager, video art from ben list.
bambi thanks for the tape, i've got one ready to send back to you.
sounds like chicago's got a good vibe goin' on.
imma virtually disappear again, here's the bar-f-out interview:
later-rj
may 6, 1995 shinjuku liquid room
"battle royalle"
-----------------------------------------------------------------
s = dj shadow
f = futura 2000
j = james lavelle
r = robert jordan
-----------------------------------------------------------------
[loud cheering sounds from outside the window]
s:matsuura probably just strolled in
f:mighta took his shirt off or somethin
s:oh my god, tho. like in sendai? it was just rediculous.
r:what's up with sendai? the crowd was on?
s:it's like i told james, it was like a new kids on the block concert.
so funny, anytime anybody'd say anything on the mic it was just like
"wooooo!". after a while you're kinda like "yo whassup"...woooo!
yeah, sendai was dope.
r:let's get started then, shadow how old are you now?
s:22
r:you still in school?
s:yeah
r:how do you handle the touring and...
s:i actually do better when i miss a month than when i just stay there.
y'kno i've been touring for like 2 years now and i do better when i'm gone.
it's like, ive been in school for five years and after the first 2 1/2
years you get it, yknowhatimean, and anything after that it's just like
you're repeating the same thing over and over...
r:james i've been hearing talk about sam sever putting some stuff out on
mo'wax...
j:yeah,it's just a kinda semi-instrumental semi-vocal...mixing the idea
of instrumental beat tracks with live vocal, sounding like it's sampled,
should be out in a few weeks.
r:any other new directions mo'wax is headed?
j:yeah, it's build and destroy really, it's just taking shit in new directions
s:let's talk about that concept
r:build and destroy?
s:you build yourself up, or you build up an idea or a concept or a paradigm
that you wanna follow out, and then it's up to you to decide what direction
that goes in and not have a bunch of other people come in and try to take in
a direction you didn't intend to go. so you gotta be the one to destroy
it yourself and start over. it's the phoenix.
j:you know, the label's all about different styles, linked in a sense
that it's all good music, it's all progressive and it's got a feel to it
as a label, as a musical thing. we got money mark comin out, the keyboard
player from the beastie boys, we're doin stuff with carl craig, we got
this singer who's gunna be working with alot of different people, techno
and hip hop people, linking it as a vocal project. it's a more commercial
project, in a sense that it's a vocal project, which makes it more
commercially viable in most people's eyes. we're gunna be starting a magazine
at the end of the summer, kindofa mo'wax equilivent to grand royale type
thing. it won't be like "mo'wax, the magazine", it'll just be like sponsored
by mo'wax and we'll have different shit from anyone we're friends with.
also we've got the u.n.k.l.e. album we're working on with mario c. [beastie
co-producer], which is me, kudo and a guy called dj-tim.
y'kno just different stuff
r:more blackalicious stuff comin out?
s:yah, they'be been in the studio alot lately, i'm engineering it again,
gunna produce a couple songs too.
r:asia born gunna produce too?
s:yeah "lyrics" born as he's now known, he's got his own album comin
out. he's got the album artwork done, i'll say that. as far as the music
he's still working on it.
r:are you gunna continue putting stuff out on solesides?
s:yeah we put it out on solesides and then whoever gets it....we've
only ever put out 3 records in three years, but it's like, it's cool,
we're just all just kinda kickin' it realy, it's cool. everybody on solesides
is on tour all over the place right now, blackalicious is in like norway
switzerland, everybody in solesids is representing all over the world, it's
all good.
r:dope...james, when you started up mo'wax, as a teenager...you have any
idea shit would get this big?
j:nah you never know, you only ever kinda dream, i didn't go in with that
kinda ambition...but y'kno, you sell 10,000 records,then you wanna sell 15,000.
y'kno, i wanna sell a million records...of the type of music that we're
making now. or the type we'll be making in 10 years time. when it get's
bigger and bigger it's fine cuz you know you're changing the way
people think about things, hopefully, in whatever way, wheter it be music
art, lifestyle. i think it's the way you contribute to a scene, which
is how mo'wax started out, contributing to a scene that i knew very well,
which was y'kno the british kinda acid-jazz, well, jazz scene. then there
comes a point where you wanna create your own scene your own directions,
and you wanna be your own boss. i think that's the exciting thing with
mo'wax now is that it's created it's own scene at home, it's become a leader.
if it fell apart tomorrow it's alright cuz at least it created something,
something new, and i think that's what's most important.
r:there's a spiritual undercurrent to alot of the mo'wax releases, expecially
some of the more recent stuff. talking about changing the way people think,
is this part of that?
j:yah i think it's just the way all of us are, most of the people in the
label have in one way or another have got a certain set of values about
things, y'kno, but i don't really like "preaching" about stuff.
s:i think it's just that alot of people involved in mo'wax that really really
care about music, y'kno. we're all in it trying to give something back in a way,
to the music that raised us. for james it was a combination of hip hop and
techno and jazz, for me it more just hip hop. i had something that i felt
like i wanted to give back, it's just like respect.
r:futura, you were telling me last week about finally tryin' to get a
collection of your works out--a book or a cd-rom. it's about time, huh.
f:yeah, if i think of the artists from my movement, y'kno keith, jean-michael,
alot of time has been taken in documenting what they did. but in a sense
people from my particular background, my school of art--subway art, if you
will, no one's really gotten their just due in terms of anything real.
well, you got _subway_art_ and _spraycan_art_ those two books are pictorial
bibles of the movement, plus a book called _the_faith_of_graffiti_ [by
norman mailer]. when that came out, that was really the first wave of the
movement back in the 70s back when i'd just started writing. but now,
just the fact that i'm here with james, doin' this ongoing project with
visuals and whatever, it's fantastic for me, that someone's that interested
in my work to wanna take it to that level. when the time comes to actually
put it all together...
j:there's a few interesting ideas being tossed around, me and 3d from
massive attack have been talking about puting together a really good
graffiti art collection in the form of an interactive, um...
f:an interactive game, a cd-rom, and not only that...for me computing
and cyberspace is the new medium of choice, it really exciting cuz
you can do a visual thing, have individuals interacting with it,
it's just really open. i look to that particular medium as the medium
of the future, i mean i'm already late in developing something, but
at the same time, i've been able to look at what's out there now and
see what _not_ to do.
r:that's a long jump from paiting subway cars to talking about being
late catching on to the digital revolution...
f:yeah, oddly enough, i can reminice about the days when we just went out
and painted from the heart, when there wasn't any cash reward involved,
and now, things...
j:i think things just progressed, tho. the reason i got involved with
futura was i didn't just want the same ol' wild style again. things just
move on, just cuz he wants to progress doesn't mean he's still not down
for doing graffiti or bombing or whatever.
r:you've been doing this for what, 20-25 years now right?
f:yeah, it's kinda cool to look back, and look ahead as well. my whole
story, i've always been looking ahead. that's why i called myself
futura 2000 back in '70, i was projecting something that i thought
was gunna be very wonderful. now, technology's there and communication's
so immediate, we've been talking about setting up a web site for mo'wax
on the net, i mean that's the shit right there, a kid in melbourne,
somebody in karachi, a gal in oslo, a homeboy in the bronx could all hook
up--i think those are avenues that need to be explored.
r:evolution, taking things to the next level, that's what it's all about,
right. shadow you too, in the 2 or 3 years you've been puttin' records out,
you've been stretching the boundaries of hip hop too.
f:that's why me and shadow are boys, yo.
s:yeah, it's like, why we're all 3 sitting here together now, we all had
visions that we just needed to manifest and right now the way for
us to do that is to help each other out as we climb up. we all have a
respect for the power of communication, futch is visual, with me i
communicate with music. i always loved subway art and spraycan art, cuz
it's just something you sit there and trip off of, you get the same
feeling of realness that you get listening to real old school hip hop.
r:lets talk about what we call "trip hop". i don't know a single person
who ... well, how do you feel about the name being applied to your music?
s:yeah, me and james sat around back when we were getting started together,
and said "you know someone's gunna come up with a stupid little name for
this shit" and sure enough, a couple of months later the name trip hop
started to catch on. it certainly means nothing to us, it's just another
convenient way for the public to find, like if they want something with
a hip hop feel without the gangster lyrics, they can look for trip hop.
personally...well, we were in a record store in shibuya today and i
look at the trip hop section--all the music in there, i've never heard
of it, and i don't see the connection to hip hop. it's not something i'd
buy, from the cover art to the song titles, i'm just not interested. i've
always maintained that my view is just hip hop, but i'm selecting a certain
combination of influences with maybe a little more emphasis on the deep,
cerebral, but that's not even a conscious thing, it's just the influences
i've chosen over the years.
j:you have to realize the power of the media, and to keep everything alive
you have to sell records. at the end of the day it all boils down to
economics, and the label "trip hop" is just another way to sell records.
i think this year will be interesting, tho, because not everthing we do this
year on mo'wax is going to be what people are expecting. we're gunna be
pushing artists, not labels. that's why i wanted to bring shadow to
japan, i'm tired of just promoting me, time to see more of the other people
involved get theirs.
f:this labeling thing, from my own experience, when i first started
painting, when the movement first kinda surfaced, around '80 we
decided we'd blown up the underground and it was time to let people know
about us. so one particular artist "crash" had the idea to
do an exhibition at this funky spot called "fashion moda", we painted
on whatever we could find, wood and found objects, none of us had any
idea how to stretch a canvas or anything like that. so people showed
up and one of my painting sold, and someone wrote a critique of the
exhibition and made reference to kendenski, about _my_ work. at that time
i was like who the fuck is kendenski? i had to go ask my boy downtown,
about bauhaus, russian constructivism, whatever...the point is, whatever
you do, it's out of your control what label they're gunna apply to it.
there's this assumption that i've gone out and copied this artist and
i've never even fucking heard of the guy. the same thing's happening
all the time with music and art, we need to have a reference to something.
but why can't you be seen as your own thing, why can't you have created
something new? but no, it's always gotta be referenced to something that's
already happened, it's rediculous.
the "graffiti" label today, too, it's the ball and chain that's on my
leg, a paradox i have to come to terms with. i mean today i don't want
to be considered a "graffiti" artist all the time, i think my potential's
much higher than that...
r:you've taken it to the next level...
f:and sometimes people wanna dis you for that, it's like you're a sellout.
but how true can you stay to a movement without growing? let me do what i do,
what i might do next might be a total departure from what i've done
previously. music falls victim to the same sorta circumstance sometime,
it's really a problem. it's back to the question of money and marketing,
you can't be too new cuz you'll scare people. i think if you're really
creative it's fucking frustrating sometimes, cuz you wanna bust outta the
molds. fortunately, the graffiti community in new york is very small, there's
no bullshit about it--there was only a capsulated moment when it happened and
either you were there or not, it's a very pure family.
r:shadow, how's the reaction been from the hip hop community to your taking
shit to the next level?
s:well, i started out thru very normal hip hop channels, i hooked up
with funkenklien in 88, mailed a tape off to the source when i was 19 and
they put it in "unsigned hype". i wouldn't be sitting here now if i hadn't
mailed that tape. i used to really pursue that, i'd mail records to red
alert personally, y'kno talk on the phone, be very "hip hop". but i kinda
got bored. the first record i did was straight up b-boy shit, but then i
was like what would i wanna hear as a listener, and i wanted to hear
something different, so that's why i did the "zimbabwe legit" single,
and that's the one james liked, and that's why i'm here now. but
touring now, walking around the record stores in countries i've never
been to before, and seeing my record in the window wherever we go,
it's a good feeling...the press has been good, the tour with krush
was dope, it's nice, it's like alot of things have been coming together.
f:if i hadn't met this man in berlin _i_ wouldn't be here now.
r:berlin?
f:i was in berlin for this international bicycle messenger race, i had
my tight racing bmx pants representing america over there, and james
was djing...
j:some kid got stabbed in the club, two records into my set, they closed the
place down immediately, police sirens all over the place,it was hell. i was
standing there with two crates of records, like "take me home!",
and then i met futura.
f:it was all good after that.
r:more futura 2000 cover art on the way?
f:mad covers, stupid covers.
r:cool...a'ite then, thanks for the time...