WEBVTT - Arthur Baker 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:14.760 Quest Left Show is a production of iHeart Radio. I 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:19.799 have a general no small talking before the podcast. 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:22.520 Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:26.440 That's why I've been. 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:28.320 Doing a podcast now. You were the first person I 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:31.720 knew with the podcast, so really yeah, who else was 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:37.440 doing in the music for Okay? Is it rolling, Bob? 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:40.320 It's always rolling? 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:41.400 Yeah. 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:44.200 No, that's how you got to keep it always in record. 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:47.720 Ladies and gentlemen. This is the Quest Left Show. I 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:49.840 know there's a lot of this has been a long 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:52.120 time coming quotes that you hear from me when I 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:54.480 do the intro of the show, But this is the 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.920 longest of the long timers. Like you know, this should 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:03.040 have been episode five, episode six instead of episode five thousand. 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:05.560 I don't even know where we are right now. So 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:14.160 our guest today is a legendary producer, remixer, arranger, label owner, 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:20.800 I would say, still DJ, pioneer of what I call 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.160 electro hip hop culture. I'll say that some of the 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:29.600 earliest experiments with hip hop and R and B comes 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:33.040 courtesy of our guest today. I believe for most of us, 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:35.600 the first time we ever heard an eight oweight drum 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:39.480 machine comes courtesy of our guest today. Definitely one of 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.840 the earlier pioneers of new technology in the studio. More 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.160 than that, I can even say that his innovations have 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:52.560 probably helped bring forth different genres that we have under 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:55.920 the hip hop umbrella. For instance, I would hesitate to 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:59.760 say that hearing his music probably inspired the versioning Miami 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:03.600 based culture machine, which then of course turned into Atlanta Rap, 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:06.480 which to this day the eight oit is still their 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:10.840 weapon of choice. We can even say that freestyle music, 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:13.040 We're gonna get into all that, but you know, just 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:16.160 name them. I mean, Africa been bottling the Soul, Sougning Force, 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:21.679 Planet Patrol, Rockers, Revenge, I Owe you Freeze, New Edition. 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:25.400 I cannot wait to start talking about sun City, his 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:30.480 work with Al Green, countless of remixes with Cyndi Laufers, Springsteen, 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:35.560 halland Notes, Dinah Ross, New Order, Bob Dylan. The list 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:39.280 goes on and on and on. He's just released his 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:43.400 memoir called Looking for the Perfect Beat. What can I say, 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:47.280 We finally, after all this time, have the one and 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:52.400 only author Baker. The question to me, no, no, no, 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:55.200 you already know. If it's nineteen minutes then. 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:57.839 Yeah you know, yeah, no, thanks for that, intro man, 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:00.480 I'm like, who's that guy? He's talking? 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:03.880 Well, the thing is is that I always wanted you 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:11.360 on the show because you breathe rare air. Because in 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:16.160 my opinion, not only do you have your foot in 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:20.160 hip hops, really laying the foundation in the red carpet 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:23.240 for just all the ideas and stuff that we do 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:27.760 now to this day, but you're also you have another 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:31.920 foot and sort of the I won't say the bygone era, 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:34.760 but it's sort of a no. But I mean there's 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:39.600 an era of even before the idea of like what 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:45.040 we call a remix in my opinion, like remixing. I'll 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:47.680 give you a great example, So Prince would often do 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:52.440 this thing where he would remix and reshape his twelve 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:55.000 inch mixes to be different than that of what the 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:58.560 album version was. But before remixing, there was edit culture. 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:03.120 And I'm talking about like you know, shit, beat It, Boom, Cellybean, Benezza. 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:06.320 That's sort of the Latin rascals. Yeah, yeah, even the 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:10.120 guys in the seventies, Damon Huso, tom Oltens, tom Olten's 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:13.360 Like there's edic culture that we don't even talk about, 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:15.600 like as far as like the earliest stages of disco. 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:19.000 So I feel like you have your foot in both 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:23.039 eras and so I think it's this is extremely, extremely, 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:26.880 extremely important. So I will start with letting you speak 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.600 after nineteen minutes of an intro. What was your first 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:30.400 creative project? 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:35.000 It was probably scribbling on walls, but it wasn't graffiti. No, 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:37.440 in my house I would draw on the walls. I 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:40.200 just remembered that because that was my first. But then 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:44.240 in music, I played clarinet and saxophone horrible, but it 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:47.880 got me into early jazz in my head. You know, 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:50.440 my dad was a big Nat King Cole fan, so 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:53.520 at home we were hearing Frank Sinatra and Nat King 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:57.880 Cole at five six years old, so I did. I 0:04:58.000 --> 0:04:59.520 was exposed to that, which was. 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:06.000 It's weird because you are so associated with technology as 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:09.680 the eight oid drum machine. I never once thought to 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:14.000 even ask myself, is author an actual musician? 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:18.719 Like in my mind, well I'm not, but I attempted, Yeah. 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:19.920 But I mean you have some sort of you know 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:21.760 where cdefg avc is. 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:25.359 I do write songs, but I know, I mean I 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:27.600 can write songs without playing them. 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:30.960 Got it? What was your first musical memory in life? 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:36.200 Really twofold one was going to Temple on Holy Days 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:40.400 I'm Jewish and hearing the choir and hearing these songs, 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:45.040 one of which was Albano Mulcano, which I eventually recorded 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:48.840 with Mongolai like fifty years after hearing it in Temple 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:52.240 when I was like five, So I have yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:54.000 It was the inspiration behind that. 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:56.159 Just like thought it was a beautiful song, and I 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:57.800 thought that they would do a great job in it. 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:00.320 But I mean, when the first music I heard live 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.280 would be in Temple. The first music I heard on 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.080 the radio was like when I was eight, I remember 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:10.679 hearing Pretty Woman, Roy Orbison and all the Motown stuff 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:14.440 and the Beatles. Of course, I was born in fifty five, 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:18.160 so by the time sixty three sixty four, those were 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:19.200 the songs I was hearing. 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:23.560 You know, to you, was it just a natural thing 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:27.360 like water and bread? Like of course, like you don't 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:33.640 miss bread until you do like your first anti nor diet. 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:36.040 No carved diet. Right, I'm notucking with that you're. 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:39.120 Willing to kill somebody for some bread, But I mean 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:41.800 I will acknowledge, Like in the summer of eighty eight, 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:46.640 even at sixteen and I'll say the Summer Idiot is 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:54.160 probably the onslaught the deluge of classic This is changing 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:57.880 my life hip hop, like, never heard this before. And 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:00.120 then two weeks later this comes out, and then a 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:00.800 month later. 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:04.120 It was the seven seventy two around then all the 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:07.680 Philly stuff, all the motown The Papa was a rolling 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:08.960 Stone Norman Woodfield. 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:11.080 Would you like look at the radio, like, how the 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:14.160 hell's this happening? Or did you notice something's different than 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:14.520 I did. 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:16.760 I tell the story in the book, but I was 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:20.120 driving to school nineteen seventy two. I had a driver's license, 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.920 driving to school. Papa was a rolling Stone, came on 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:27.440 the base. I just pulled over the side and listened 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:30.080 to the entire thing because I was like, what is 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:31.040 this record? You know? 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:35.760 Between Papa was a rolling Stone and a song like masterpiece. Yeah, 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:39.200 and you know the Temptations have spoken on this, Like 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:42.400 were you wondering at what point are they going to 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:43.080 sing the song? 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:47.760 Actually like yeah, well that's why that's why I was waiting. No, 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:50.680 because it was just a baseline. I'm like, wow, you know, 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:53.280 because I was a fan of I mean Sly, which 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:57.640 you're very familiar with. His things were I mean pack 0:07:57.680 --> 0:07:59.600 it all in three minutes. Yeah, they were you know, 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.160 the loco would come in right from the top. And 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:05.600 this was sort of Norman Whitfield taking what Sly had 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:09.320 done and sort of stretching it out and adding Philly in. 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:13.400 I think it was Philly and Sly became that music, 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:17.000 or even Isaac Hayes. So basically there are all these 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:19.680 things colliding at that time. You know, obviously you have 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:23.480 to it all goes back to Sly because he literally 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:27.600 created what Norman Woodfield heard. And then I think one 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:31.360 of the Temptations brought the Sly record to Norman Whitfield 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:34.680 what we need to sound, Yeah, which was I didn't 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:37.240 know that un till many years later, of course. But no, 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:40.600 I loved rock music and I loved whatever you wanted 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:43.280 to call it, R and B. It was going into 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:47.000 being disco, you know, so disco because of the drums 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:50.319 and just sort of the the extended versions. I mean 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:54.080 even before there was a disco twelve Norman Whitfield I 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.040 just played last night when I DJ you You plus 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.320 Me Equal Love and Harmony. That is one of the 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:03.000 best songs of ever. It's like thirteen minutes long. The 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:07.440 Solos and that Thennis Coffee. They're all on that record people, 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:12.040 and you know that was like pre really remixed twelve 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:12.959 inch records. 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:15.439 You know that we were Taka Boom. 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:18.760 Yeah, amazing, amazing workerd all. 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:23.200 Right, So besides the Tavares brothers and Donna Summer, I'm 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.600 of age where like New Edition were idols. All my 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:30.840 Boston stories that I know come from black acts, right, 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:34.280 I mean, even gangst Are, even though Mr So there 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:36.320 were rock bands. But yeah, I was going to say, 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.439 like Aerosmith, like Arasmith, the Afternoon de Lights. 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:42.440 Jay Giles, Well listen, check it out. Aerosmith and Jay 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:46.280 Giles both are rock groups that sort of had beats 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:49.760 that became hip hop tracks exact, and the thing was 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.760 fast forwarding. But when I first met Bimbada a few 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:56.480 years later, that's what bonded us because he was playing 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:59.240 rock beats too, And these were bands I grew up with. 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.720 Aeros Smith and Jay Giles were the two biggest Boston 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:05.559 bands of the cars in Boston, and you know that, Kim. 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:09.960 Later, I was going to say, so my camaraderie with 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:14.520 Little Stephen is I've been on the Rock and Roll 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:17.520 Hall of Fame committee for a decade and a bucking 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:23.319 some change and every meeting. You don't know how hard 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:28.600 Little Stephen is in terms of campaigning for Jay Giles 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:30.360 to get in the Rock and Roll Hall of fam Peter. 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:33.880 Peter is a really good friend of his. And they deserve. 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:36.480 No, he definitely deserves they deserve it. 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:38.079 I look at it. I have to say, I look 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:40.280 at some of the bands who aren't in there. Little feet, 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:43.199 the old feet, come on, man, I mean. 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:45.680 I'm telling you it's people always ask me all the time, 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:50.679 and it's just it's it's forty people having whatever, the 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:51.880 twelve angry men. 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:56.439 Yeah, I've seen seen the film that. 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:58.160 That sort of thing it happens. But yeah, shout out 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.040 to Little Stephen. So, I mean, what is your story 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:06.240 of Boston's music, and like, how did it call you? 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.520 And just like what was your well was your involvement 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:12.400 and in your localized Boston. 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:15.680 Okay, Well, here's the thing I missed one important fact 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:19.320 about me and music. My mother's first cousin was a 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.360 guy named sid Raymond, who was a big I mean, 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:24.160 that's where I get my music from that side of 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:27.040 the family. He was the arranger for Leonard Bernstein. He 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:31.600 did West Side Story. He wrote girl Watch his theme song, Yeah, 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:35.400 Patty Duke and Candid Camera. He wrote those three songs. 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:37.840 He could have retired after that, but he got So 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:43.120 that's my second cousin, you know, So there is like, yeah, 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:46.520 well it's gotta be some some genetic thing, you know, 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:49.760 that the music thing, because my mother always would sing. 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:52.319 She she had a really nice voice, and she would 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:55.679 you know, they played music. Okay, we had I had 0:11:55.679 --> 0:12:00.440 a really good education, but okay, Boston, so Boston. I 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:03.240 went to college, started DJing in seventy three. 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:04.480 Where'd you go to college? 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:08.640 Hampshire College. Okay, Ken Burns he went there. He was 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:12.080 in my year before me. All right, So basically I 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:16.959 started DJing in college. I went to Rodina, Brooklyn because 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:18.800 it was like a couple of hours away. Got a 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:22.920 Gli mixer with the big knobs. Yeah yeah, and I 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:25.600 got two turntables, and I was DJing, and I got 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:28.080 to dig at a club called rash Heads, which was 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:31.560 an Arabic hookah pipe disco and and amber. 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:33.720 The one time about huka culture was even a thing, 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:36.760 yeah yeah, yeah yeah. See I thought hookah culture was 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:41.200 only like for like millennials, like nineties culture. No no, 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:44.720 this was even with we legal now like there's still 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:48.200 like right now, the new nostalgia is a bunch of 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:50.920 thirty five to forty year olds that will go to 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.320 hookah parties to listen to, you know, whatever is popping 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:57.079 in two thousand and one, to like Nelly the Neptunes. 0:12:57.160 --> 0:12:59.959 Yeah no, no, no, no no, no, there were guys. 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:03.079 But so I did that. Then I moved back to Boston, 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:06.440 worked in a record shop and took an engineering course 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:10.319 at a studio called Intermediate Studio, which is where Aerosmith 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:13.679 cut dream On. I remember getting in the studio. I 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.880 was taking the course and I found rough I wish 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:18.920 I had him rough mixes of dream On, and we 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:21.280 were listening to him. And because they were a band, 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:23.760 like when I was in high school a few years earlier, 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:27.320 dream On was a hit. So basically they were like did. 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:28.559 They have a local ass presence there? 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:31.839 But yeah, yeah, yeah they were the Them and J 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:36.120 Giles were the two bands. But so I started taking 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:38.680 engineering course and then I convinced the owner of the 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:41.920 studio to give me free studio time to make a 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.079 disco record, because disco was the thing, you know, it 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:44.960 was seventy six. 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:46.240 How did you convince the owner? 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:48.840 I had a gift to gap. You know you need 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:52.400 that right, you know that? So I got him and 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:55.280 then he hided in an arranger, this guy John West, 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:58.440 who was at Berkeley, and we used all Berkeley students. 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:01.559 Now the group I had, I had been djaying in 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:04.400 New Bedford and there were these three guys hanging at 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:06.920 the bar and it turned out they were singers, but 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:11.319 they were players also, So basically they were like your producer. Yeah, 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:14.160 I said, I'm a producer. Okay, here's some They put 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:16.600 down cash and they said we want to make a record. 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:19.680 And the guy, Chico Walker, he had said he had 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.240 been in a group called Hearts of Stone from Motown. 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:24.440 I got the record. I looked there was no Chico 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:26.880 on there, but he said he was the new Hearts 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:28.680 of Stone. But we went in and we cut the 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:32.320 record and it was a disco you know, seventy seven, 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:34.800 I guess that was. And I got a record deal 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:37.880 in Canada and the same label that had Gino Socio 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:41.480 came out, got played in New York. Richie Rivera played, 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.160 So that was that was my entry. 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:46.560 Point, and it was like, did you know what I 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:50.240 was doing no, yeah, because disco is very specific, I 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:55.320 would imagine, especially like in watching engineers of my father's era, 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:58.760 like they were so adamant on like taping this the heads. 0:14:58.840 --> 0:14:59.560 Yeah, well we did all that. 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:03.760 But how did you did you know? Well, you knew 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:04.640 the sound you wanted. 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.640 I knew the sound I wanted, and I had really 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.600 cool All the musicians were young. They were all going 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:13.800 to Berkeley. See that's when you talk about Boston. You 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:19.280 cannot separate Boston from Berkeley. So they were amazing. Musicians 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:21.920 from all over the world were at Berkeley even back then, 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:25.800 so you know, if you wanted to make recording, you 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:28.640 just you know. I had a friend who was teaching there. 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:32.240 Or one guy was English guy, Keith Maynard. He was 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.080 doing arrangements, so he did the horn arrangements. It was 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:38.840 all very uh, it just sort of flowed, you know 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:41.440 that I met and then you start meeting musicians, and 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:44.560 I met a bunch of great ones, and I just 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:48.920 started making records because I the musicians were not thinking, 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:52.760 let's make a disco record. They were studying the scales. 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:56.600 They don't have a shit, right, So basically I sort 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:59.800 of started like an industry a sort of a disco. 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:01.040 You know. 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:04.240 I wanted to be like I was totally out of 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:07.240 my mind because I had no reason to think I 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:09.440 could be doing this. I just did it. 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:12.400 Did you know the general rules like the rules of 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:16.680 you know, taking the symbols away from your drummer or 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:19.120 taking the tom toms away from your drummer. 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:22.040 Well, that record, we wanted the tom toms because it 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.560 was like a Savannah band, you know. But I mean 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:29.360 we you know, you learn from your engineers and we would, 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:33.400 and your drummer and drummers are always I'm not gonna 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:37.800 say you're this way, but very anal and really gotta 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:39.520 be specific extremely that. 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:42.320 Yeah. So some are also like just all over the 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:43.560 tes like. 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:46.400 Keith Moon, I don't think right, so I don't think 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:48.680 he really cared. But but it was it was more 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.760 like everyone was learning together. But I had some good 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:54.320 musicians and good singers, and you know, it was just 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:56.960 sort of I wanted to create a Boston thing. I 0:16:57.000 --> 0:16:59.320 didn't think I was moving to New York anytime soon, 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:00.720 which I did. 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.119 So one of the things that I discovered, especially now 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:20.400 in this sort of storytelling phase of my career, where 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.159 like film and all those things. You know, the crazy 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:26.800 amount of research that I've done in terms of getting 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:30.879 access to a lot of these sessions. Back then, I 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:36.439 didn't realize how prominent looping was, and a lot of 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:37.680 the seventies stuff. 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:40.680 George Clinton, I know if he had done it yet. 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:43.840 But no, no, even typical like Slith and Family Stone, like 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:46.640 I discovered like, oh my god, like you just took 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:50.840 the best sixteen bars of this particular Like when I'm 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.399 getting these reels and I'm like, oh, this is the 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:55.360 part I know, and I'm like, oh, I remember this part. 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:59.320 Wait a minute, only to realize and see the notes 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:02.000 that we have this slice right like the master would 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:04.320 be left alone. Then they make a dub and then yeah, 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:09.240 all that stuff. How prominent was editing culture or looping 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:11.560 for you back then? Or wasn't as you expected your 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:14.320 band to do a perfect ten? 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:17.080 We yeah, I mean we don't. We have no time 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:21.640 in the studio. Sly had all the time he wanted. Typically, 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:23.680 we had no time. We had like a click track, 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:26.199 which was what was it called. It was a it 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:28.840 was just like a white noise generator. And it didn't 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:33.200 even have a tempo. Oh god, I forget the name. 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:35.320 Of it, but it was a white noise generation. 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:37.880 So click tracks were even prominent back seventies. 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.119 Said yeah, but they weren't. You didn't have the tempo. 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:42.440 You could just you could just I think it was 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:46.280 part of the move and it would stay consistent. So 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:48.960 you played to that. But there was no well, I 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:51.560 mean there were, but we just didn't have access to 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:55.520 the drum machines that Sly used in sixty nine. 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.160 Right, But was the idea to keep the. 0:18:58.040 --> 0:18:58.879 Guy in tempo? 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:02.960 Were you thinking the DJ and this needs to be consistentaeh, we're. 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:06.400 Thinking about yeah, but no one at that point, before Giorgio, 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:10.600 before euro Disco, then you knew that that was really 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:13.320 in time. Those records were pretty much in time. Even 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:16.919 even like Niles Sheath those shits all over the place, 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:19.959 you know they are, It didn't really happen till after that, 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:23.959 I'd say, consistently with a click track and drum machines 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:26.040 obviously once that, So. 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:29.920 What are the general rules that you're learning in real time? 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:34.320 Like I know, for like AM radio, transistor radio era 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:39.479 pop sixties, you know, three minutes and twenty seconds all 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:40.760 you got to get these ideas out. 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:43.640 We were totally away from that, we didn't care. We 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:47.680 were making club disco records. We were making them ten 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:50.439 to eight minutes long. I mean, we weren't thinking about 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:52.800 no one was going to play this on the radio. 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:57.040 We were But in general, for an effective disco record, 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:02.480 what do you think the rule was? Or are you 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.320 saying to me that because they were so scarce back 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:09.320 then that they were all welcome, like I e. MTV 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:11.520 wanting any video in the first. 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:13.280 Now, there were a lot of records coming out in 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:16.879 seventy six, you know, seventy seven, that was the explosion 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:17.399 of disco. 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:20.040 But you needed six to eight hours to. 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:23.919 You needed an intro that was like long enough for 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:25.480 the DJ to set it. 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:27.200 Up, That's what I'm saying, like, and then there would 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:27.640 be a break. 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:30.800 Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was definitely a pattern. You know 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:34.639 you if you listen to Double Exposure ten percent. That 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:37.679 was sort of what we were blown away by because 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:40.359 that was sort of the first twelve inch record and 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:43.160 Walter Gibbons and I heard him play it at a club. 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:44.879 It's in the I talk about it in the book, 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.600 and we thought it was him playing two copies. We 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:51.520 thought he was going back and forth, like what later 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:54.040 became known as like hip hop right, you know, but 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:57.399 guys in Boston, John Luongo, who ended up being a 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:00.000 really big remixer. He'd have two forty five. 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:01.000 One of those from Boston. 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.320 Yeah, he's from I did not and he literally is 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:06.360 the godfather of disco. 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:08.520 Well, I mean, I know he's done more than that 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:09.080 for me. 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:10.959 That was mine, but he did, he was he had 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:14.400 He had a magazine called Nightfall, which was the Disco 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:18.200 It was a night life magazine but focused on disco. 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:21.960 And he had a Disco Awards in Boston the first year, 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:27.080 Donna Summer, the Tramps, Casey and the Sunshine Band, Baker, 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:32.119 Harrison Young and the Village people live in Boston. What 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:32.840 this is. 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:35.680 He's the first one that saw the vision of form 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:36.840 and business and being. 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:39.320 Yeah, he did. And then he moved to New York 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:42.600 and he became a big remix about but my first 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:45.840 record that hearts a Stone record. He came in and 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:48.720 did helped me with the remix. Well he I helped 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:51.679