Speaker 1: Quest Left Show is a production of iHeart Radio. I
Speaker 1: have a general no small talking before the podcast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker 1: That's why I've been.
Speaker 2: Doing a podcast now. You were the first person I
Speaker 2: knew with the podcast, so really yeah, who else was
Speaker 2: doing in the music for Okay? Is it rolling, Bob?
Speaker 2: It's always rolling?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, that's how you got to keep it always in record.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen. This is the Quest Left Show. I
Speaker 1: know there's a lot of this has been a long
Speaker 1: time coming quotes that you hear from me when I
Speaker 1: do the intro of the show, But this is the
Speaker 1: longest of the long timers. Like you know, this should
Speaker 1: have been episode five, episode six instead of episode five thousand.
Speaker 1: I don't even know where we are right now. So
Speaker 1: our guest today is a legendary producer, remixer, arranger, label owner,
Speaker 1: I would say, still DJ, pioneer of what I call
Speaker 1: electro hip hop culture. I'll say that some of the
Speaker 1: earliest experiments with hip hop and R and B comes
Speaker 1: courtesy of our guest today. I believe for most of us,
Speaker 1: the first time we ever heard an eight oweight drum
Speaker 1: machine comes courtesy of our guest today. Definitely one of
Speaker 1: the earlier pioneers of new technology in the studio. More
Speaker 1: than that, I can even say that his innovations have
Speaker 1: probably helped bring forth different genres that we have under
Speaker 1: the hip hop umbrella. For instance, I would hesitate to
Speaker 1: say that hearing his music probably inspired the versioning Miami
Speaker 1: based culture machine, which then of course turned into Atlanta Rap,
Speaker 1: which to this day the eight oit is still their
Speaker 1: weapon of choice. We can even say that freestyle music,
Speaker 1: We're gonna get into all that, but you know, just
Speaker 1: name them. I mean, Africa been bottling the Soul, Sougning Force,
Speaker 1: Planet Patrol, Rockers, Revenge, I Owe you Freeze, New Edition.
Speaker 1: I cannot wait to start talking about sun City, his
Speaker 1: work with Al Green, countless of remixes with Cyndi Laufers, Springsteen,
Speaker 1: halland Notes, Dinah Ross, New Order, Bob Dylan. The list
Speaker 1: goes on and on and on. He's just released his
Speaker 1: memoir called Looking for the Perfect Beat. What can I say,
Speaker 1: We finally, after all this time, have the one and
Speaker 1: only author Baker. The question to me, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you already know. If it's nineteen minutes then.
Speaker 2: Yeah you know, yeah, no, thanks for that, intro man,
Speaker 2: I'm like, who's that guy? He's talking?
Speaker 1: Well, the thing is is that I always wanted you
Speaker 1: on the show because you breathe rare air. Because in
Speaker 1: my opinion, not only do you have your foot in
Speaker 1: hip hops, really laying the foundation in the red carpet
Speaker 1: for just all the ideas and stuff that we do
Speaker 1: now to this day, but you're also you have another
Speaker 1: foot and sort of the I won't say the bygone era,
Speaker 1: but it's sort of a no. But I mean there's
Speaker 1: an era of even before the idea of like what
Speaker 1: we call a remix in my opinion, like remixing. I'll
Speaker 1: give you a great example, So Prince would often do
Speaker 1: this thing where he would remix and reshape his twelve
Speaker 1: inch mixes to be different than that of what the
Speaker 1: album version was. But before remixing, there was edit culture.
Speaker 1: And I'm talking about like you know, shit, beat It, Boom, Cellybean, Benezza.
Speaker 1: That's sort of the Latin rascals. Yeah, yeah, even the
Speaker 1: guys in the seventies, Damon Huso, tom Oltens, tom Olten's
Speaker 1: Like there's edic culture that we don't even talk about,
Speaker 1: like as far as like the earliest stages of disco.
Speaker 1: So I feel like you have your foot in both
Speaker 1: eras and so I think it's this is extremely, extremely,
Speaker 1: extremely important. So I will start with letting you speak
Speaker 1: after nineteen minutes of an intro. What was your first
Speaker 1: creative project?
Speaker 2: It was probably scribbling on walls, but it wasn't graffiti. No,
Speaker 2: in my house I would draw on the walls. I
Speaker 2: just remembered that because that was my first. But then
Speaker 2: in music, I played clarinet and saxophone horrible, but it
Speaker 2: got me into early jazz in my head. You know,
Speaker 2: my dad was a big Nat King Cole fan, so
Speaker 2: at home we were hearing Frank Sinatra and Nat King
Speaker 2: Cole at five six years old, so I did. I
Speaker 2: was exposed to that, which was.
Speaker 1: It's weird because you are so associated with technology as
Speaker 1: the eight oid drum machine. I never once thought to
Speaker 1: even ask myself, is author an actual musician?
Speaker 2: Like in my mind, well I'm not, but I attempted, Yeah.
Speaker 1: But I mean you have some sort of you know
Speaker 1: where cdefg avc is.
Speaker 2: I do write songs, but I know, I mean I
Speaker 2: can write songs without playing them.
Speaker 1: Got it? What was your first musical memory in life?
Speaker 2: Really twofold one was going to Temple on Holy Days
Speaker 2: I'm Jewish and hearing the choir and hearing these songs,
Speaker 2: one of which was Albano Mulcano, which I eventually recorded
Speaker 2: with Mongolai like fifty years after hearing it in Temple
Speaker 2: when I was like five, So I have yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: It was the inspiration behind that.
Speaker 2: Just like thought it was a beautiful song, and I
Speaker 2: thought that they would do a great job in it.
Speaker 2: But I mean, when the first music I heard live
Speaker 2: would be in Temple. The first music I heard on
Speaker 2: the radio was like when I was eight, I remember
Speaker 2: hearing Pretty Woman, Roy Orbison and all the Motown stuff
Speaker 2: and the Beatles. Of course, I was born in fifty five,
Speaker 2: so by the time sixty three sixty four, those were
Speaker 2: the songs I was hearing.
Speaker 1: You know, to you, was it just a natural thing
Speaker 1: like water and bread? Like of course, like you don't
Speaker 1: miss bread until you do like your first anti nor diet.
Speaker 2: No carved diet. Right, I'm notucking with that you're.
Speaker 1: Willing to kill somebody for some bread, But I mean
Speaker 1: I will acknowledge, Like in the summer of eighty eight,
Speaker 1: even at sixteen and I'll say the Summer Idiot is
Speaker 1: probably the onslaught the deluge of classic This is changing
Speaker 1: my life hip hop, like, never heard this before. And
Speaker 1: then two weeks later this comes out, and then a
Speaker 1: month later.
Speaker 2: It was the seven seventy two around then all the
Speaker 2: Philly stuff, all the motown The Papa was a rolling
Speaker 2: Stone Norman Woodfield.
Speaker 1: Would you like look at the radio, like, how the
Speaker 1: hell's this happening? Or did you notice something's different than
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 2: I tell the story in the book, but I was
Speaker 2: driving to school nineteen seventy two. I had a driver's license,
Speaker 2: driving to school. Papa was a rolling Stone, came on
Speaker 2: the base. I just pulled over the side and listened
Speaker 2: to the entire thing because I was like, what is
Speaker 2: this record? You know?
Speaker 1: Between Papa was a rolling Stone and a song like masterpiece. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know the Temptations have spoken on this, Like
Speaker 1: were you wondering at what point are they going to
Speaker 1: sing the song?
Speaker 2: Actually like yeah, well that's why that's why I was waiting. No,
Speaker 2: because it was just a baseline. I'm like, wow, you know,
Speaker 2: because I was a fan of I mean Sly, which
Speaker 2: you're very familiar with. His things were I mean pack
Speaker 2: it all in three minutes. Yeah, they were you know,
Speaker 2: the loco would come in right from the top. And
Speaker 2: this was sort of Norman Whitfield taking what Sly had
Speaker 2: done and sort of stretching it out and adding Philly in.
Speaker 2: I think it was Philly and Sly became that music,
Speaker 2: or even Isaac Hayes. So basically there are all these
Speaker 2: things colliding at that time. You know, obviously you have
Speaker 2: to it all goes back to Sly because he literally
Speaker 2: created what Norman Woodfield heard. And then I think one
Speaker 2: of the Temptations brought the Sly record to Norman Whitfield
Speaker 2: what we need to sound, Yeah, which was I didn't
Speaker 2: know that un till many years later, of course. But no,
Speaker 2: I loved rock music and I loved whatever you wanted
Speaker 2: to call it, R and B. It was going into
Speaker 2: being disco, you know, so disco because of the drums
Speaker 2: and just sort of the the extended versions. I mean
Speaker 2: even before there was a disco twelve Norman Whitfield I
Speaker 2: just played last night when I DJ you You plus
Speaker 2: Me Equal Love and Harmony. That is one of the
Speaker 2: best songs of ever. It's like thirteen minutes long. The
Speaker 2: Solos and that Thennis Coffee. They're all on that record people,
Speaker 2: and you know that was like pre really remixed twelve
Speaker 2: inch records.
Speaker 1: You know that we were Taka Boom.
Speaker 2: Yeah, amazing, amazing workerd all.
Speaker 1: Right, So besides the Tavares brothers and Donna Summer, I'm
Speaker 1: of age where like New Edition were idols. All my
Speaker 1: Boston stories that I know come from black acts, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, even gangst Are, even though Mr So there
Speaker 1: were rock bands. But yeah, I was going to say,
Speaker 1: like Aerosmith, like Arasmith, the Afternoon de Lights.
Speaker 2: Jay Giles, Well listen, check it out. Aerosmith and Jay
Speaker 2: Giles both are rock groups that sort of had beats
Speaker 2: that became hip hop tracks exact, and the thing was
Speaker 2: fast forwarding. But when I first met Bimbada a few
Speaker 2: years later, that's what bonded us because he was playing
Speaker 2: rock beats too, And these were bands I grew up with.
Speaker 2: Aeros Smith and Jay Giles were the two biggest Boston
Speaker 2: bands of the cars in Boston, and you know that, Kim.
Speaker 1: Later, I was going to say, so my camaraderie with
Speaker 1: Little Stephen is I've been on the Rock and Roll
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame committee for a decade and a bucking
Speaker 1: some change and every meeting. You don't know how hard
Speaker 1: Little Stephen is in terms of campaigning for Jay Giles
Speaker 1: to get in the Rock and Roll Hall of fam Peter.
Speaker 2: Peter is a really good friend of his. And they deserve.
Speaker 1: No, he definitely deserves they deserve it.
Speaker 2: I look at it. I have to say, I look
Speaker 2: at some of the bands who aren't in there. Little feet,
Speaker 2: the old feet, come on, man, I mean.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you it's people always ask me all the time,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's it's forty people having whatever, the
Speaker 1: twelve angry men.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen seen the film that.
Speaker 1: That sort of thing it happens. But yeah, shout out
Speaker 1: to Little Stephen. So, I mean, what is your story
Speaker 1: of Boston's music, and like, how did it call you?
Speaker 1: And just like what was your well was your involvement
Speaker 1: and in your localized Boston.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, here's the thing I missed one important fact
Speaker 2: about me and music. My mother's first cousin was a
Speaker 2: guy named sid Raymond, who was a big I mean,
Speaker 2: that's where I get my music from that side of
Speaker 2: the family. He was the arranger for Leonard Bernstein. He
Speaker 2: did West Side Story. He wrote girl Watch his theme song, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Patty Duke and Candid Camera. He wrote those three songs.
Speaker 2: He could have retired after that, but he got So
Speaker 2: that's my second cousin, you know, So there is like, yeah,
Speaker 2: well it's gotta be some some genetic thing, you know,
Speaker 2: that the music thing, because my mother always would sing.
Speaker 2: She she had a really nice voice, and she would
Speaker 2: you know, they played music. Okay, we had I had
Speaker 2: a really good education, but okay, Boston, so Boston. I
Speaker 2: went to college, started DJing in seventy three.
Speaker 1: Where'd you go to college?
Speaker 2: Hampshire College. Okay, Ken Burns he went there. He was
Speaker 2: in my year before me. All right, So basically I
Speaker 2: started DJing in college. I went to Rodina, Brooklyn because
Speaker 2: it was like a couple of hours away. Got a
Speaker 2: Gli mixer with the big knobs. Yeah yeah, and I
Speaker 2: got two turntables, and I was DJing, and I got
Speaker 2: to dig at a club called rash Heads, which was
Speaker 2: an Arabic hookah pipe disco and and amber.
Speaker 1: The one time about huka culture was even a thing,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, yeah yeah. See I thought hookah culture was
Speaker 1: only like for like millennials, like nineties culture. No no,
Speaker 1: this was even with we legal now like there's still
Speaker 1: like right now, the new nostalgia is a bunch of
Speaker 1: thirty five to forty year olds that will go to
Speaker 1: hookah parties to listen to, you know, whatever is popping
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one, to like Nelly the Neptunes.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, no, no, no no, no, there were guys.
Speaker 2: But so I did that. Then I moved back to Boston,
Speaker 2: worked in a record shop and took an engineering course
Speaker 2: at a studio called Intermediate Studio, which is where Aerosmith
Speaker 2: cut dream On. I remember getting in the studio. I
Speaker 2: was taking the course and I found rough I wish
Speaker 2: I had him rough mixes of dream On, and we
Speaker 2: were listening to him. And because they were a band,
Speaker 2: like when I was in high school a few years earlier,
Speaker 2: dream On was a hit. So basically they were like did.
Speaker 1: They have a local ass presence there?
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, yeah they were the Them and J
Speaker 2: Giles were the two bands. But so I started taking
Speaker 2: engineering course and then I convinced the owner of the
Speaker 2: studio to give me free studio time to make a
Speaker 2: disco record, because disco was the thing, you know, it
Speaker 2: was seventy six.
Speaker 1: How did you convince the owner?
Speaker 2: I had a gift to gap. You know you need
Speaker 2: that right, you know that? So I got him and
Speaker 2: then he hided in an arranger, this guy John West,
Speaker 2: who was at Berkeley, and we used all Berkeley students.
Speaker 2: Now the group I had, I had been djaying in
Speaker 2: New Bedford and there were these three guys hanging at
Speaker 2: the bar and it turned out they were singers, but
Speaker 2: they were players also, So basically they were like your producer. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I said, I'm a producer. Okay, here's some They put
Speaker 2: down cash and they said we want to make a record.
Speaker 2: And the guy, Chico Walker, he had said he had
Speaker 2: been in a group called Hearts of Stone from Motown.
Speaker 2: I got the record. I looked there was no Chico
Speaker 2: on there, but he said he was the new Hearts
Speaker 2: of Stone. But we went in and we cut the
Speaker 2: record and it was a disco you know, seventy seven,
Speaker 2: I guess that was. And I got a record deal
Speaker 2: in Canada and the same label that had Gino Socio
Speaker 2: came out, got played in New York. Richie Rivera played,
Speaker 2: So that was that was my entry.
Speaker 3: Point, and it was like, did you know what I
Speaker 3: was doing no, yeah, because disco is very specific, I
Speaker 3: would imagine, especially like in watching engineers of my father's era,
Speaker 3: like they were so adamant on like taping this the heads.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well we did all that.
Speaker 1: But how did you did you know? Well, you knew
Speaker 1: the sound you wanted.
Speaker 2: I knew the sound I wanted, and I had really
Speaker 2: cool All the musicians were young. They were all going
Speaker 2: to Berkeley. See that's when you talk about Boston. You
Speaker 2: cannot separate Boston from Berkeley. So they were amazing. Musicians
Speaker 2: from all over the world were at Berkeley even back then,
Speaker 2: so you know, if you wanted to make recording, you
Speaker 2: just you know. I had a friend who was teaching there.
Speaker 2: Or one guy was English guy, Keith Maynard. He was
Speaker 2: doing arrangements, so he did the horn arrangements. It was
Speaker 2: all very uh, it just sort of flowed, you know
Speaker 2: that I met and then you start meeting musicians, and
Speaker 2: I met a bunch of great ones, and I just
Speaker 2: started making records because I the musicians were not thinking,
Speaker 2: let's make a disco record. They were studying the scales.
Speaker 2: They don't have a shit, right, So basically I sort
Speaker 2: of started like an industry a sort of a disco.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be like I was totally out of
Speaker 2: my mind because I had no reason to think I
Speaker 2: could be doing this. I just did it.
Speaker 1: Did you know the general rules like the rules of
Speaker 1: you know, taking the symbols away from your drummer or
Speaker 1: taking the tom toms away from your drummer.
Speaker 2: Well, that record, we wanted the tom toms because it
Speaker 2: was like a Savannah band, you know. But I mean
Speaker 2: we you know, you learn from your engineers and we would,
Speaker 2: and your drummer and drummers are always I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: say you're this way, but very anal and really gotta
Speaker 2: be specific extremely that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So some are also like just all over the
Speaker 1: tes like.
Speaker 2: Keith Moon, I don't think right, so I don't think
Speaker 2: he really cared. But but it was it was more
Speaker 2: like everyone was learning together. But I had some good
Speaker 2: musicians and good singers, and you know, it was just
Speaker 2: sort of I wanted to create a Boston thing. I
Speaker 2: didn't think I was moving to New York anytime soon,
Speaker 2: which I did.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that I discovered, especially now
Speaker 1: in this sort of storytelling phase of my career, where
Speaker 1: like film and all those things. You know, the crazy
Speaker 1: amount of research that I've done in terms of getting
Speaker 1: access to a lot of these sessions. Back then, I
Speaker 1: didn't realize how prominent looping was, and a lot of
Speaker 1: the seventies stuff.
Speaker 2: George Clinton, I know if he had done it yet.
Speaker 1: But no, no, even typical like Slith and Family Stone, like
Speaker 1: I discovered like, oh my god, like you just took
Speaker 1: the best sixteen bars of this particular Like when I'm
Speaker 1: getting these reels and I'm like, oh, this is the
Speaker 1: part I know, and I'm like, oh, I remember this part.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, only to realize and see the notes
Speaker 1: that we have this slice right like the master would
Speaker 1: be left alone. Then they make a dub and then yeah,
Speaker 1: all that stuff. How prominent was editing culture or looping
Speaker 1: for you back then? Or wasn't as you expected your
Speaker 1: band to do a perfect ten?
Speaker 2: We yeah, I mean we don't. We have no time
Speaker 2: in the studio. Sly had all the time he wanted. Typically,
Speaker 2: we had no time. We had like a click track,
Speaker 2: which was what was it called. It was a it
Speaker 2: was just like a white noise generator. And it didn't
Speaker 2: even have a tempo. Oh god, I forget the name.
Speaker 2: Of it, but it was a white noise generation.
Speaker 1: So click tracks were even prominent back seventies.
Speaker 2: Said yeah, but they weren't. You didn't have the tempo.
Speaker 2: You could just you could just I think it was
Speaker 2: part of the move and it would stay consistent. So
Speaker 2: you played to that. But there was no well, I
Speaker 2: mean there were, but we just didn't have access to
Speaker 2: the drum machines that Sly used in sixty nine.
Speaker 1: Right, But was the idea to keep the.
Speaker 2: Guy in tempo?
Speaker 1: Were you thinking the DJ and this needs to be consistentaeh, we're.
Speaker 2: Thinking about yeah, but no one at that point, before Giorgio,
Speaker 2: before euro Disco, then you knew that that was really
Speaker 2: in time. Those records were pretty much in time. Even
Speaker 2: even like Niles Sheath those shits all over the place,
Speaker 2: you know they are, It didn't really happen till after that,
Speaker 2: I'd say, consistently with a click track and drum machines
Speaker 2: obviously once that, So.
Speaker 1: What are the general rules that you're learning in real time?
Speaker 1: Like I know, for like AM radio, transistor radio era
Speaker 1: pop sixties, you know, three minutes and twenty seconds all
Speaker 1: you got to get these ideas out.
Speaker 2: We were totally away from that, we didn't care. We
Speaker 2: were making club disco records. We were making them ten
Speaker 2: to eight minutes long. I mean, we weren't thinking about
Speaker 2: no one was going to play this on the radio.
Speaker 1: We were But in general, for an effective disco record,
Speaker 1: what do you think the rule was? Or are you
Speaker 1: saying to me that because they were so scarce back
Speaker 1: then that they were all welcome, like I e. MTV
Speaker 1: wanting any video in the first.
Speaker 2: Now, there were a lot of records coming out in
Speaker 2: seventy six, you know, seventy seven, that was the explosion
Speaker 2: of disco.
Speaker 1: But you needed six to eight hours to.
Speaker 2: You needed an intro that was like long enough for
Speaker 2: the DJ to set it.
Speaker 1: Up, That's what I'm saying, like, and then there would
Speaker 1: be a break.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was definitely a pattern. You know
Speaker 2: you if you listen to Double Exposure ten percent. That
Speaker 2: was sort of what we were blown away by because
Speaker 2: that was sort of the first twelve inch record and
Speaker 2: Walter Gibbons and I heard him play it at a club.
Speaker 2: It's in the I talk about it in the book,
Speaker 2: and we thought it was him playing two copies. We
Speaker 2: thought he was going back and forth, like what later
Speaker 2: became known as like hip hop right, you know, but
Speaker 2: guys in Boston, John Luongo, who ended up being a
Speaker 2: really big remixer. He'd have two forty five.
Speaker 1: One of those from Boston.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's from I did not and he literally is
Speaker 2: the godfather of disco.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I know he's done more than that
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 2: That was mine, but he did, he was he had
Speaker 2: He had a magazine called Nightfall, which was the Disco
Speaker 2: It was a night life magazine but focused on disco.
Speaker 2: And he had a Disco Awards in Boston the first year,
Speaker 2: Donna Summer, the Tramps, Casey and the Sunshine Band, Baker,
Speaker 2: Harrison Young and the Village people live in Boston. What
Speaker 2: this is.
Speaker 1: He's the first one that saw the vision of form
Speaker 1: and business and being.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he did. And then he moved to New York
Speaker 2: and he became a big remix about but my first
Speaker 2: record that hearts a Stone record. He came in and
Speaker 2: did helped me with the remix. Well he I helped
Speaker 2: him have something a remix you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, so all of my memories of and my father
Speaker 1: wasn't a disco artist at all, you know, I'm for
Speaker 1: because his head was still in the fifties and sixty
Speaker 1: you know, like Motown even still made them do like
Speaker 1: like fifties covers in the seventies or whatever, which is
Speaker 1: good for me to know, like, oh, that's you know,
Speaker 1: Jackie Wilson saw from the sixties or whatever. But I
Speaker 1: do know that engineers were way more annal back then.
Speaker 1: You can't touch that. You can't. You can't Dad. So
Speaker 1: but the thing is is like, how are you do.
Speaker 2: You think I listened to them? No, That's what.
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like, how do you convey to them? Hey,
Speaker 1: I need more the drums got to sound more heavier.
Speaker 2: Well, you'd play you know what you'd play in records?
Speaker 2: You go, I want the drums to sound like that record.
Speaker 2: I mean that's what you know. That is what we did.
Speaker 2: We'd go, I love the drums sound on that. I
Speaker 2: love the horn part in that I played. My arranger,
Speaker 2: I'd say, you see that, can you do something similar
Speaker 2: to that? So it was all I was a DJ.
Speaker 2: So I was I was showing the engineer and the
Speaker 2: arranger the record you want.
Speaker 1: Not a nuisance. And I don't mean a nuisance in
Speaker 1: terms of that being a nuisance. But I've I've heard
Speaker 1: some examples of because again a lot of these masters
Speaker 1: that I go through, I also hear the raw talk
Speaker 1: of it all, and there have been some arguments where
Speaker 1: it's like that doesn't sound loud enough. Last time I
Speaker 1: want you to Well, as I said, we.
Speaker 2: Had like eight hours in the studio, so we didn't
Speaker 2: have time to do that. It's different when you're making
Speaker 2: an album and you know, like.
Speaker 1: So you have to create, you have to format and
Speaker 1: make mixed.
Speaker 2: Well, no, we'd go back, we'd go and we'd record everything,
Speaker 2: and then another session we'd mix. That was it. I mean,
Speaker 2: even with you when we get to Planet Rock, it
Speaker 2: was like that for that.
Speaker 1: Also, I'm almost certain there's a working road for you
Speaker 1: in which you could go the traditional route of just
Speaker 1: being a producer in terms of like finding popacks whatever.
Speaker 1: But when did you realize, like, there's no title for it.
Speaker 1: So I'll just say for now street me, Well, don't
Speaker 1: know what.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be gamble enough, and I wanted to
Speaker 2: make records that you could dance to that said something,
Speaker 2: But I had no reason to think I could do it.
Speaker 1: All your records have edge to it that the average.
Speaker 2: That's because I wouldn't that's good. I wasn't good at
Speaker 2: trying to make the same thing as someone else. I'd
Speaker 2: add like, I'm not going to say funk. I'd add
Speaker 2: an edge just because I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 1: Maybe, you know, is it not one they say in
Speaker 1: your life, like oh dog, like there's too aggressive sounding.
Speaker 1: This is too No.
Speaker 2: It's funny because I was just with Nelson George the
Speaker 2: other day and I used to bring him my early
Speaker 2: twelve inch records in like eighty eighty one when he
Speaker 2: was working at Record World, and he remembered, I mean,
Speaker 2: he remembers this kid coming in with these records and
Speaker 2: they were always okay, there was just something different, weird
Speaker 2: or whatever. And then when I brought him plan he
Speaker 2: was like, oh yeah, okay, now I get it. But no,
Speaker 2: I was attempting to make records like the one I
Speaker 2: had heard, but for some reason, they never came out
Speaker 2: like that. And I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because
Speaker 2: I only had a certain amount of time to do them.
Speaker 2: I don't know, right, but you know I was. I
Speaker 2: was happy because I was making records that got played.
Speaker 2: Before I moved to New York, I had records that
Speaker 2: Happy Days North and Frankie Krocker killed that record. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was a big record here. I don't need no
Speaker 2: music TJM. Larry Levan. So, you know, out of Boston,
Speaker 2: I was making these disco records that were getting played
Speaker 2: in New York and to me that was like, Wow,
Speaker 2: I've actually done something that no one else had done.
Speaker 2: And I was like a horrible DJ, which I don't
Speaker 2: know if we've ever discussed it. I'm really I'm a
Speaker 2: horrible DJ because I have no patience. Really, I'm horrible
Speaker 2: still to this day.
Speaker 1: I don't like playing full songs.
Speaker 2: No no, but you're you cut between them. I just
Speaker 2: lose patience with the whole process, you know. I know,
Speaker 2: I'm big, honest, you know, Yeah, I get bored. No,
Speaker 2: I get I bore myself. So no matter what whatever
Speaker 2: I play, I mean, I know they're good, but I'm
Speaker 2: just like, I don't know what I want to play,
Speaker 2: and I'm not prepared. I know you are probably the
Speaker 2: most prepared DJ.
Speaker 1: You want to know in the world.
Speaker 2: I think from what I've seen.
Speaker 1: When we've got I was antal retentive. I would plan.
Speaker 1: I remember, yeah, I was mix this a year ahead
Speaker 1: of time, like three songs a day I would add
Speaker 1: to that long thing. Actually, I'll say as of this recording,
Speaker 1: this is probably week twelve. I decided that I wanted
Speaker 1: to try. I've been taking hole in the wall gigs.
Speaker 1: The agreement is like, you can't advertise me. Yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to practice a non prepared gig, just play
Speaker 1: a record and see what I feel that And this
Speaker 1: is more of my therapeutic thing, like no, what do
Speaker 1: I feel inside? Not like what a I prepare inside.
Speaker 1: So and this is also the same with maybe twice
Speaker 1: a year I'll do like a real jazz gig where
Speaker 1: like Glassper, one of those guys will be like, go on,
Speaker 1: let's do a gig together at the Blue Note or
Speaker 1: whatever I think. Like yesterday Chris Dave came up with
Speaker 1: a night He's like, look, I want to do five
Speaker 1: drummers like you, me, Kareem, Briggins, Stro Elliott and maybe
Speaker 1: Jazzy Jeff spinning drum solos, just drums and no instruments.
Speaker 1: And that to me is the most intimidating thing ever.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna allow myself, well I'm not gonna do it,
Speaker 1: but I also I'm so calculated in curating and being
Speaker 1: the band leader. I want to know what's next and
Speaker 1: what my emergencies are that I'm actually allowing myself to
Speaker 1: not I want to become a sloppier DJ.
Speaker 2: So well watch me, you'll learn really quickly about what
Speaker 2: you feel. Yeah, the djying thing. But I had the
Speaker 2: mind of a DJ. That's where I wanted to go.
Speaker 2: So I knew what things were meant to be. And
Speaker 2: all these great DJs in Boston they thought they're never
Speaker 2: going to get to be a record producer. They're just
Speaker 2: going to I mean, back in the day that was
Speaker 2: sort of the process. But when I moved to New York,
Speaker 2: I'd never dj' in New York.
Speaker 1: What year did you move to New York?
Speaker 2: Eighty one? Okay, but I never dj' in New York. Ever,
Speaker 2: you know, I was DJing and not in Boston. Really.
Speaker 2: I was in like Braintree. I was in like the suburbs,
Speaker 2: playing like the mafia. The supper club. There was a
Speaker 2: place called Sadies Supper Club in Braintree. And you know what,
Speaker 2: maybe your dad I was going to say, they did
Speaker 2: have bands.
Speaker 1: He was going to say, I believe that Sades was
Speaker 1: also one of the normal if it's if it's in
Speaker 1: the northeast, if.
Speaker 2: It's New England, they had a bunch of sades. They
Speaker 2: had a bunch.
Speaker 1: Oh we we lived, I'm sure you like I remember
Speaker 1: Boston when the whatever your highways were not fixed, the
Speaker 1: traffic nightmare. Yeah, it's fixed now, and I'm not used
Speaker 1: to it. I'm so not used to it. Okay. So
Speaker 1: in terms of edit culture just in general, and I
Speaker 1: know you do have a story of lu long ago,
Speaker 1: but is it Ron Hardy or Tom Wulton one of
Speaker 1: those guys.
Speaker 2: He written me off?
Speaker 1: He okay, So what is the Tom Moulton story? Well
Speaker 1: to the seventies, who who are the go to.
Speaker 2: Tom Moulton was? He worked with Florence Greenberg et Sceptor
Speaker 2: Mel Sharon. He would do remixes and re edits of
Speaker 2: early scepter stuff, scepter.
Speaker 1: Stuff like BT Express eracept. Were they labeled before then or.
Speaker 2: The Sceptor she had labels before that. I know they
Speaker 2: were all Sceptor. It was Sceptor. He had a BT Express,
Speaker 2: Bobby Moore call me or anything. Man, I don't you
Speaker 2: know that record? He was doing all that. He he
Speaker 2: made tapes. He wasn't he didn't play records. He would
Speaker 2: make these tapes and they got played with Fire Island.
Speaker 2: I mean it's like a big. It was like sort
Speaker 2: of a big.
Speaker 1: He was part of the Together mixtape and then they
Speaker 1: would play that.
Speaker 2: And then everyone would go nuts. Yeah, so he became
Speaker 2: the guy. Either he was from Boston or his brother
Speaker 2: was at the studio when I was working on my
Speaker 2: big project, which was in seventy eight. I was making
Speaker 2: my own disco album, so I cut twelve songs totally
Speaker 2: over my budget, had no money to finish it, and
Speaker 2: this guy, Jerry Moulton, Tom's brother, came to the studio
Speaker 2: and said, I think my brother's going to love this stuff.
Speaker 2: So he played it for Tom and they said to me, well, listen,
Speaker 2: we want to take it. We want to re record everything.
Speaker 2: How you've recorded it isn't good, but we want the tapes.
Speaker 2: So they took all the multi tracks.
Speaker 1: Now, in your mind, what do you think you think
Speaker 1: they're going to stick to their word?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would think it was seventy I was twenty three,
Speaker 2: and I don't.
Speaker 1: Know who tomt Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why it was a big. It was a big. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was like a big thing that I was getting
Speaker 2: the record would come out. He said, well, listen, we'll
Speaker 2: use the songs, you'll get some publishing, which I got
Speaker 2: like a third of the publishing, and but we're not
Speaker 2: going to use your recording. We're going to just listen
Speaker 2: to your recording so we could redo it. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: then the then the record comes out and literally it
Speaker 2: is my recording.
Speaker 1: And so he just re engineered it.
Speaker 2: He just he you know what he did do He
Speaker 2: took off the guy who was a falsetto singer Bobby
Speaker 2: Howard from the Ambitions from another See Boston had their
Speaker 2: vocal groups Energetics the Ambitions that they had to quite
Speaker 2: a breakaway the Italian guys. Uh So, basically I hear
Speaker 2: it and the only thing that's different is he's added
Speaker 2: a few strings and he has a different lead singer,
Speaker 2: Ron Tyson, who later became he was one of the
Speaker 2: guys in the later Eddie Kendrick guy. He was like,
Speaker 2: so he's singing on it, right, but Larry Wedgeworth, who
Speaker 2: was a singer online, he's the lead singer. No credit
Speaker 2: for Larry. And then I'm like, you know, what the
Speaker 2: hell you know? And I and literally there was nothing.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there was something I could do, but I
Speaker 2: never did anything about it, and uh so for years
Speaker 2: me and me and Tom.
Speaker 1: He won't know whatever.
Speaker 2: But I have the rough mixes I did that I
Speaker 2: sent him and they literally everything's it's all there. So
Speaker 2: but I mean it got But the thing was a
Speaker 2: good thing was Larry Levan played a song called put
Speaker 2: Yourself in My Place, which Alfie Davison or had written,
Speaker 2: and I don't need no music, and people go, oh,
Speaker 2: is that your wait? Is that your record? Your name's not.
Speaker 2: I mean it was on as a writer and a ranger,
Speaker 2: but it got played at the garage and that opened
Speaker 2: it up, and then you know, it was sort of
Speaker 2: a big entree, but also the first total screwing I got,
Speaker 2: and that that was unbelievable. When I think about it now,
Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, well we're gonna just listen to the tapes.
Speaker 2: We don't really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're proof that every Maverick that entered is
Speaker 1: this injury has a trial by fire. I got ripped
Speaker 1: off first. That was your first lesson that I.
Speaker 2: Have many more. Is Moulton still he's still live, He's
Speaker 2: still is the active. He just does remixes for he
Speaker 2: has all his no he actually is active, and he
Speaker 2: has all these multi tracks. He got a lot of
Speaker 2: the Sigma ones. Got it because he did all the
Speaker 2: Sigma stuff. He did all the things you probably love
Speaker 2: the Love is the Message, all the all the Philly
Speaker 2: International comps. He did all that stuff. I'll always say
Speaker 2: the guy's the best remixer ever, but he's an asshole.
Speaker 1: Could you give me North of Harlem a Bronx era
Speaker 1: hip hop story? Like venturing up there?
Speaker 2: I have my best story, Well, let me hear it. Okay,
Speaker 2: my best story is I'm working on another disco album
Speaker 2: with Joe Batan. So Howard Smiley, who had been a TK,
Speaker 2: he was a friend. He got me and Joe together
Speaker 2: to make an album. I was going to do one side,
Speaker 2: Joe the other, but we'd collaborate on each other's tracks.
Speaker 2: And Joe called me up. I was living in Brooklyn
Speaker 2: with Tina, my wife at the time, and I get
Speaker 2: a call from him and he goes, you got to
Speaker 2: come up here. You got to hear this. And I
Speaker 2: go here. What he goes, there's guys talking over records.
Speaker 2: You know, they're playing tracks on a boom box and
Speaker 2: they're talking over records.
Speaker 1: And I'm like they're playing tracks on the boombox.
Speaker 2: Well, they were playing like to Be Real or whatever.
Speaker 2: They were playing No on a tape. Yeah, so they're
Speaker 2: playing No. They're playing tracks in the park and they're
Speaker 2: wrapping over them live, you know, just sort of hanging
Speaker 2: out doing that. So I'm like, it was in the
Speaker 2: summer and I'm in Brooklyn. I don't really want to
Speaker 2: make them move, right, But he said, you know, you
Speaker 2: gotta come, you gotta come. And I went and there
Speaker 2: he is sitting on a park bench and uh one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty fifth or you know, around.
Speaker 1: There it looked Dystopian as we imagined the movies and stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was seventy nine. This was before I moved.
Speaker 2: This is when I'm just here for the summer. And
Speaker 2: there he is, and he's what I loved about Joe Batan,
Speaker 2: and I sort of followed that as a fashion thing.
Speaker 2: He was always ready to play basketball. He always had
Speaker 2: sneakers and shorts on, no matter what. He'd go to
Speaker 2: a meeting. So he was sitting in the park dressed
Speaker 2: like that, and he goes he pointed to the and
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, he said, someone's gonna make a million
Speaker 2: dollars on that. I remember thinking.
Speaker 1: Really really so it was just like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: But that Then about a couple of weeks later, he
Speaker 2: was in the studio and I came in because we
Speaker 2: were working on the record together a friend of mine
Speaker 2: from Boston, guitarist and Andre Career. He was playing guitar
Speaker 2: on it, and was when I met Jocelyn Brown, and
Speaker 2: it was Rapoclapo. He was recording Rapo Clappo, which was
Speaker 2: two weeks after he had seen the guy in the
Speaker 2: park right, and he did Rapoclappo because he wanted to
Speaker 2: be the first guy to record a rap record because
Speaker 2: there was no rap records. I didn't want to even
Speaker 2: know if it was called rap. This is like pre rappers, Delight,
Speaker 2: pre anything. And we're in there and he's got this
Speaker 2: guy Marty Scheller doing the arranging and it was you know,
Speaker 2: and I met Jostin she was probably eighteen year nineteen whatever,
Speaker 2: Wow is seventy eight and yeah, I was like, oh
Speaker 2: it sounds cool, but you know, I was doubting still.
Speaker 2: And then London Records US went Busto closed, so we
Speaker 2: each got our own tracks back. So he ended up
Speaker 2: putting that out as Mestizo that album and he had
Speaker 2: Rappo Clappo on it, and that became a hit in Europe,
Speaker 2: not over here.
Speaker 1: But you know, I want to know about New York,
Speaker 1: or not even New York, just of the era indie
Speaker 1: label culture. And I'm talking about like Western Records or
Speaker 1: emergency records like Sasol or Prelude, these labels that I'm
Speaker 1: seeing prominently getting a seat at the table, but they're
Speaker 1: indie labeled. But I'll tell you there's Are you going
Speaker 1: to say Mars Levy.
Speaker 2: No, no, I'll save that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mars Leavey story.
Speaker 2: Dude, he was my partner for a year.
Speaker 1: Motherfucker. Stop give me Mars Levy story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can tell. I tell them all. Man, he's dead,
Speaker 2: you know, because there is a rumor he's in Australia.
Speaker 2: Though when it.
Speaker 1: Shot to you at all, if he's still your.
Speaker 2: Well he'd be really old. Now I don't think you
Speaker 2: know he did get can Yeah, yeah, I don't want
Speaker 2: to kid about him, you know, but basically.
Speaker 1: You would seem like the type.
Speaker 2: But but this, this is going to connect to what
Speaker 2: you just asked me, Okay, And I will tell you
Speaker 2: a Morrise Levy story. But the labels were either run
Speaker 2: by old industry guys like Prelude, Marty God, what's his
Speaker 2: name he was? He had been in the industry, mel
Speaker 2: Sharon had been at west End. West End was mel Sharon,
Speaker 2: who had been at Sceptor working at Sceptor.
Speaker 1: So those wait, wait, so you're trying to tell me no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: Half of them were run by the old cats, and
Speaker 2: half of them were run by the new cats like
Speaker 2: Profile young guys, Comedy Boy, young guys, street Wise, young guys.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: There were the older guys who had started before us,
Speaker 2: like Prelude and west End were like an even Emergency
Speaker 2: was an Italian guy, Sergio Kosa, who had been a
Speaker 2: little a little older than us. So there were that,
Speaker 2: and then when hip hop started, all the new labels started.
Speaker 2: That's what started all these young kids doing labels Tommy
Speaker 2: Boy and Prelude and street Wise. So basically there were
Speaker 2: two roots, the Prelude Disco, the more disco e west
Speaker 2: End Prelude those were old not old times. Yeah, they
Speaker 2: were older than us. They were fifteen twenty years older,
Speaker 2: so they were like more established, and then the upstarts
Speaker 2: were the ones that ended up becoming sort of more
Speaker 2: the hip hop influence.
Speaker 1: You started street Wise label. Okay, so walk me through it.
Speaker 1: You're like, I'm going to start a label. What is
Speaker 1: the first thing you need? I guess capital's money.
Speaker 2: No, But what happened was because Tom had Tom started
Speaker 2: his label. I knew Tom from these Billboard Disco conventions,
Speaker 2: which you know, and that was earlier, like in the
Speaker 2: late seventies. So when I moved to New York, Tom
Speaker 2: said I was the only record producer he knew. Literally
Speaker 2: he did know, well, he didn't really know what he produces.
Speaker 2: So he said, I've got this guy Bimbada, He's got
Speaker 2: these rap acts. Do you want to produce the record?
Speaker 2: I go, sure. You know, no one was offering I mean,
Speaker 2: a producer without someone willing to pay to get you
Speaker 2: in the studio is you can't. Back then, you couldn't
Speaker 2: produce anything without being in the studio and being able
Speaker 2: to hire musicians.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So Tom the first record with Jazzy Sensation, and we
Speaker 2: went in with a live band.
Speaker 1: You yeah, yeah, yeah, See in my mind, you just
Speaker 1: came from the future with this thing. Who's the house
Speaker 1: band for that?
Speaker 2: That was Andre Booth and yeah, Andre Booth and Charlie
Speaker 2: Street the guitarist and the guys who did bbcsn.
Speaker 1: A was Pumpkin on drums or.
Speaker 2: Who No, no, it was this guy t Funk who
Speaker 2: would played with James Brown at some point. Are so
Speaker 2: he claimed, But they did Vicky d this speed his mind. Okay,
Speaker 2: they had produced that. I met them through T Scott
Speaker 2: who was a DJ and remixer who had remixed and
Speaker 2: helped me finish Happy Days, and he brought these young
Speaker 2: kids from Queens. They were all eighteen nineteen years old.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, what you how did I meet?
Speaker 1: What do you?
Speaker 2: Finally, well, I met musicians through T Scotty. He brought
Speaker 2: them in to do some overdubs and then so we
Speaker 2: did Happy Days. And then when I wanted to go
Speaker 2: in to cut this rap record for Jazzy five, I
Speaker 2: called the guys I had met on that session, which
Speaker 2: was Andre, and we became really good friends. So Andre
Speaker 2: brought the band and we went into Galactic Studio and
Speaker 2: we decided to cut Bunky Sensation and you know, did
Speaker 2: her redo of it, because back then all rap records
Speaker 2: were covers obviously, and and there was this one kid
Speaker 2: who was always in the studio with him who didn't
Speaker 2: say anything, and I didn't know till years later actually
Speaker 2: that it was Marlee Marl. So Marlee Marl was he
Speaker 2: saw me as sort of a mentor because he was
Speaker 2: in all my sessions and I didn't really even know
Speaker 2: at the time, but he was in a lot of
Speaker 2: the sessions. Yeah. But basically, so starting a label. I
Speaker 2: had a hit with Jazzy Sensation and then Planet Rock,
Speaker 2: and I bumped into a friend of mine from college
Speaker 2: on a train on the f train and he said, well,
Speaker 2: you had Planet Rock. Don't you want to do a
Speaker 2: record label? And I go yeah, but he goes, I
Speaker 2: got a guy from Boston who's a banker and he
Speaker 2: has a lot of money and wants to start a label,
Speaker 2: Bob Alexander, Paul mccraven. And that's how I started. Without
Speaker 2: the money, there's no way I would have ever started
Speaker 2: a label and the infrastructure.
Speaker 1: Okay, so walk me through. I'm so glad I'm asking
Speaker 1: you all these questions, okay, because oftentimes we'll watch a
Speaker 1: movie or TV show and they get a hit and
Speaker 1: then as the viewer, you're like, oh my god, life.
Speaker 2: Is just yeah, yeah, it wasn't like okay, so you
Speaker 2: get a hit. I get a hit with Planet Rock.
Speaker 1: What does that mean? When does your bank account? No, well,
Speaker 1: we got a hit. When is it like, hey, let's
Speaker 1: eat at this fancy restaurant instead of you.
Speaker 2: Know, I think it was more like taking a cab
Speaker 2: instead of taking the subway.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, so yeah, but.
Speaker 2: The how quick I mean that one? I mean that
Speaker 2: hit really quick?
Speaker 1: Well, but I did shouldn't count because Planet Rocks like thriller, like.
Speaker 2: We really I wish money didn't come through that quick.
Speaker 2: But the thing was, I have to say Tom was
Speaker 2: always good at paying royalties and he so basically it
Speaker 2: would have come you know, he would have given me
Speaker 2: an advance or something. But you know, soon after I
Speaker 2: opened up a recording I mean recording studio Beach Street.
Speaker 2: All this shit happened within two years. Okay, so I
Speaker 2: don't even know how I did it. I gotta say,
Speaker 2: I don't know how the money, you know, how it
Speaker 2: came about. But the label came about because a friend said,
Speaker 2: you want to open a label.
Speaker 1: Well, now, with technology, I mean, technically I can record
Speaker 1: an album on this Yeah, you couldn't back right, and
Speaker 1: I can release it and have the same effect, you know, whatever,
Speaker 1: but you.
Speaker 2: Would have been great because you're so organized. I was
Speaker 2: so unorganized.
Speaker 1: Now I think I'm wise enough to have a circle
Speaker 1: of people who are organized.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I got to be creative and I don't want to
Speaker 1: miss lead everyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I never had my circle.
Speaker 1: There's nineteen people right now like rolling their eyes like yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I never had my circle.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: So when you start a label, how much money do
Speaker 1: you need to We got to say that New Diition
Speaker 1: was your first label act or did you have another
Speaker 1: act on street Wise? Hugh? Yeah, who's your first street
Speaker 1: Wise act?
Speaker 2: Well? The first act that I actually discovered and put
Speaker 2: out a record that actually did something was Rockets Revenge
Speaker 2: because that was big that sold a lot of records. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the first few. I had a Pee Wee Ford bass
Speaker 2: player from U, B, B and Q. Okay, he did
Speaker 2: a yeah, but he did a record for me called
Speaker 2: Be My Girl with James Robinson singing lead on it,
Speaker 2: like from change, you know. And then I did Touchdown
Speaker 2: a group from the UK Easier Mind, which I did
Speaker 2: a remix on with Lenny Underwood played keyboards on, and
Speaker 2: then Walking on Sunshine was three. Then it was like
Speaker 2: the New Edition thing happened before that. To start a label,
Speaker 2: I had bankers who had money. They got an office
Speaker 2: immediately and we were street label street wise in our
Speaker 2: office Madison Avenue. So we had an office in Madison Avenue,
Speaker 2: but like a one room it was not a big office.
Speaker 1: But when you're starting label, is it like single first?
Speaker 1: And if that's good then.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we weren't doing albums. We were doing twelve inch
Speaker 2: I mean it's all. We were a twelve inch label.
Speaker 2: That's what did you make a living office? Well, when
Speaker 2: Walking on Sunshine sold three hundred thousand, I guess you know,
Speaker 2: you don't really think of about that. You just back
Speaker 2: then I had someone who was financing a label, and
Speaker 2: they would letting me decide what came on the label.
Speaker 1: What was your home studio or your studio of choice?
Speaker 2: Well at that point it had been Intergalactic, but then
Speaker 2: they shut So then I started using a unique, unique
Speaker 2: studio in blank blank tapes, Bob Blank.
Speaker 1: You need a bunch of the record?
Speaker 2: Ye make money? You needed to pay a manufactured in
Speaker 2: advance for the act. I mean you need so.
Speaker 1: You have a twelve inch Yeah, who's the first domino
Speaker 1: that has to fall? So that you know, you have
Speaker 1: a chance to have a hit clubs and what's the
Speaker 1: club you're going to go to.
Speaker 2: Well, funhouse, Paradise Garage.
Speaker 1: And uh is Paradise Garage? Really? Is it more about
Speaker 1: the revisionist folklore? The true if you had what I
Speaker 1: feel like for every Jordan, there's ten guys that could
Speaker 1: have wonted Charles Barkley, it was was he could.
Speaker 2: He could have, but he wasn't.
Speaker 1: Like what else besides I'm gonna tell you.
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you there.
Speaker 1: Was And what are we judging on sonics? No?
Speaker 2: You you're judging on record sales. The next day Larry
Speaker 2: Leman would play a record and then uh, then you know,
Speaker 2: you'd what was in vinyl Mania? People would go to
Speaker 2: vinyl to well, it was in the village. They'd go
Speaker 2: there lined up after hearing a record at Paradise Garage.
Speaker 1: But without Suzanna or whatever, how is it working?
Speaker 2: They would go and they go Larry played a record
Speaker 2: who went like Doom Doom, Doom, Doom Doom, and they
Speaker 2: I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: The Peach Boys.
Speaker 2: No, he'd play it so often the word would get out,
Speaker 2: I mean I was there. I'm telling you it's not folklore.
Speaker 2: It's actually reality. He played Walking on Sunshine. Okay, all right,
Speaker 2: plays Walking on Sunshine, Frankie, here it Crocker. He's writing
Speaker 2: down what the songs are. Obviously he goes people hear
Speaker 2: the song before he even starts playing it. They hear
Speaker 2: it at the garage because Larry would play songs numerous
Speaker 2: times in the night. I mean the first time.
Speaker 1: I'm there for the night where he tortured them and
Speaker 1: said I'm gonna play ANBC over and over again to
Speaker 1: you guys, no heartbeat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was. I was there for that. But the
Speaker 2: bigger one was Rappers Delight. I was there when he
Speaker 2: first That's the first time I heard Rappers Delight was
Speaker 2: a Paradise garage and he played it.
Speaker 1: What was that like to hear it on loud ass speakers?
Speaker 2: Unbelievable. And the thing was in the beginning, you think,
Speaker 2: because in the beginning of it, there's a there's a
Speaker 2: bit from here comes that sound again, right, So I
Speaker 2: thought it was that. So I'm like, here comes that why?
Speaker 2: And then it's good times and I'm like, what the
Speaker 2: fuck is this? And then boom they're rapping. So he
Speaker 2: but he played that like a couple of times he
Speaker 2: would do that. I'm telling you, I was there.
Speaker 1: That was just normal. I'm not that I hate repetition culture.
Speaker 1: And the thing is, I'm not I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: like grandfather. You like, so Granddad tell me what it
Speaker 1: was like like as a five year old in these
Speaker 1: night clubs. So I understand, like, yeah, play that record again,
Speaker 1: play that record again.
Speaker 2: Play yeah, But no one did that. He did that.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like everyone else did that. He was doing
Speaker 2: it because he was stubborn and he would make people
Speaker 2: listen to that record. And Heartbeat was another famous one.
Speaker 2: So slow, such a slow track.
Speaker 1: He would bring force boogie onto people. Don't make me wait.
Speaker 2: He was playing that for a year before it came out.
Speaker 1: People were resisting it.
Speaker 2: Well in the beginning, and then it would be like
Speaker 2: you know, when it came on, people would go nuts.
Speaker 1: I mean, but listen, it's so it's actually true Stockholm syndrome.
Speaker 1: Some people wouldn't he's liking you.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't think. I think, I think.
Speaker 2: But the whole idea of him playing it and then
Speaker 2: people going to Vinyl Mania the next day, the next
Speaker 2: morning looking for record, I mean that's how people were.
Speaker 2: The only way they'd hear a lot of this was
Speaker 2: at the club, so you know, and then Frankie would
Speaker 2: play it, and then you knew you had to hit.
Speaker 2: I mean, in my dock that I've done above Rocker's Revenge,
Speaker 2: I tell that story, and it's literally it happened that way,
Speaker 2: and we Frankie would come on and we'd all be listening,
Speaker 2: and my distributor was Sunshine Distributor. Strangely and basically we
Speaker 2: heard Frankie play it and then it was just like
Speaker 2: they ordered thirty thousand cars. I mean it would be.
Speaker 1: So Frankie Crocker is the bridge in between the street
Speaker 1: clubs and everything and radio and if you hear something
Speaker 1: and the crowd responds to it, he played on radio
Speaker 1: the next day. He get the credit for like, look
Speaker 1: what I introduced.
Speaker 2: To You don't know. He was open about going to
Speaker 2: Paradise Garage. He was always there.
Speaker 1: I wish I could do a study on how revisionist
Speaker 1: history starts where it's just like, I mean, people swear
Speaker 1: to God that the best sound system of their lives
Speaker 1: was at the Paradise Groul. Like what else was there
Speaker 1: besides just music? You never heard before, and and people
Speaker 1: were open to a song they didn't know before. It
Speaker 1: was I can't imagine that today.
Speaker 2: It was it was that. It was that, but it
Speaker 2: had like these great wooden floor I mean it just
Speaker 2: was like wooden floors, like a basketball court, the really
Speaker 2: beautiful wooden floors. And it had the tweeter you know,
Speaker 2: the tweeters. I mean, it was just he knew how
Speaker 2: to play the system. And I'm not a tech guy
Speaker 2: at all, you know, so I'm like going, well, you're
Speaker 2: a producer, yeah, but I'm not like, you know, a
Speaker 2: tech nerd. I would go there and it would just
Speaker 2: sound amazing, and the low end it was just a
Speaker 2: clean and just you.
Speaker 1: Know, okay. In order for me to get the satisfaction
Speaker 1: of playing an unheard, untested song, I mean it could
Speaker 1: be from an established artist. I've played like new outcasts
Speaker 1: before that no one's ever heard. But it's almost like
Speaker 1: I got to play you and then I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: that one song in the middle that you never heard before,
Speaker 1: an M tape off a little bit or if if
Speaker 1: if it's paral or something, it's like, oh, there's obviously
Speaker 1: some new Neptune shit. I've never heard before.
Speaker 2: But no, I do that. But I'm not playing you know,
Speaker 2: I don't care. I'm not saying you have to care,
Speaker 2: but you know, it's a different you have a bigger
Speaker 2: crowd or whatever. But I always play shit i'm working
Speaker 2: on because that's what I always did, you know, And
Speaker 2: that was the only way I knew it when something
Speaker 2: was finished. I mean, we played Walking on Sunshine, a
Speaker 2: Confusion or I owe you any of those records. We
Speaker 2: played at the Funhouse for months and before the record
Speaker 2: was out, it was like a hit there nowhere else,
Speaker 2: you know. But but we use that as our testing pad.
Speaker 2: Now that you're saying that, I find it strange that
Speaker 2: DJ's like I know, a lot of you know, big
Speaker 2: EDM DJs and not playing what they're working on because
Speaker 2: of just what you said, you.
Speaker 1: Know, um culture, A lot of them don't only playing
Speaker 1: what they're working on. Like I can't just zam half
Speaker 1: the MD when I go to Vegas. Yeh, I'll go in.
Speaker 1: I'll watch uh okay, maybe maybe the seventh figure DJ
Speaker 1: the same figure and they're really they're doing a show.
Speaker 1: They're playing the best of them. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: have my music isn't conducive of like five hours of dance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you clean your house on a Sunday, I'll be
Speaker 1: the perfect guy to make you a mixtape. But if
Speaker 1: I gun to your head, like the best New York
Speaker 1: nightclub experience for you was always what.
Speaker 2: It's hard.
Speaker 4: I mean Studio fifty four, even though is that the
Speaker 4: legend that's yeah, that's bull really well, well it's celebrity hangover.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: I wasn't a celebrity, so I was n I I
Speaker 2: wasn't a celebrity. I didn't even get to go in.
Speaker 2: I mean as this music was, Yeah, it's no No.
Speaker 2: He wrote the song in response to no No, but
Speaker 2: yet they were playing.
Speaker 1: There was one time when everybody dancers playing It's like,
Speaker 1: that's literally me, you really not getting it.
Speaker 2: I had three clubs. I had better Days, well actually
Speaker 2: four clubs. Better Days Danceteria, which you would have loved
Speaker 2: Danceteria because it just it was totally very eclectic and
Speaker 2: played every everything got played there, and there different floors
Speaker 2: and the people who are hanging out. It was just
Speaker 2: like a really cool.
Speaker 1: So okay, this is my humble break. Madge tells me
Speaker 1: a story when she first this before she signed to sire.
Speaker 1: How she has a cassette in her hand and she
Speaker 1: gives it to the DJ, Mark Cammans even then, like
Speaker 1: I can't imagine. I'm so The reason why I'm glad of.
Speaker 2: That was how it was, like, I mean, she was cute.
Speaker 2: He put it on. What why do we being real? Yeah,
Speaker 2: he'd listen to it and play it.
Speaker 1: So DJs weren't ego like for me, different made me
Speaker 1: look bad.
Speaker 2: It was different then, but what if the song is bad,
Speaker 2: well then you know what he plays? Another one man?
Speaker 2: It was different. No one knew what anyone was playing.
Speaker 2: Do you understand they were playing things that no one
Speaker 2: it had a beat, No one knew what the records were. Okay,
Speaker 2: think about that record period. Every record played was something
Speaker 2: people didn't know until they knew it, until they knew it.
Speaker 2: But the first time, it wasn't like they were playing
Speaker 2: records from the radio. They were playing you know, Mark especially,
Speaker 2: he was very forward thinking. He was playing everything. Mark Caymans,
Speaker 2: I mean he was most eclectic. No, but I'm just
Speaker 2: saying Larry Levan would not play anyone's track, you know,
Speaker 2: he would play He knew me, he had played my
Speaker 2: records I gave Walking on Sunshine. He didn't play it
Speaker 2: right away, and then right when I left, because this
Speaker 2: was this is how he was. He saw I was
Speaker 2: in the booth, I left, and then a friend of
Speaker 2: mine said, as soon as you left, he played it.
Speaker 1: Explain to me a typical DJ setup in a nightclub
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one eighties.
Speaker 2: Everyone everyone, everyone had a two inch or just a
Speaker 2: quarter just a quarter inch. Everyone had quarterings.
Speaker 1: So we're not concerned about like, uh.
Speaker 2: They're not and now they are, but they're not. I mean,
Speaker 2: it wasn't a common occurrence that he would play it
Speaker 2: all the time, but he would play my quarter inch tapes.
Speaker 2: You know, it's in the confusion video. That's real.
Speaker 1: What was your best response to an untested record in
Speaker 1: here and.
Speaker 2: Play at your own risk? Well, of course because you
Speaker 2: playing it right, I know, But you asked me, man.
Speaker 1: It's like I made all the wall thriller.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, but okay, uh what else? Yeah no. I
Speaker 2: would say that I Owe You is big at the funhouse.
Speaker 1: I like that song is helped a lot of us
Speaker 1: elementary school kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know you my daughter, My daughter learned.
Speaker 1: The AE I Owe You And sometimes why can you
Speaker 1: tell me the first time that you heard craft Works
Speaker 1: music in a nightclub setting, what is the crowd acting like?
Speaker 2: When I heard Trans Europe Express in Boston, Chan Luwanga
Speaker 2: would play it, Okay, I was in the record pool.
Speaker 2: We got the twelve inch of Trans Europe Express, so
Speaker 2: Trans Europe Express, and I'd hear that. Before Planet Rock.
Speaker 2: I would hear Trans Europe Express in the projects, you know,
Speaker 2: in Queens, I've worked in Long Island City. I'd hear
Speaker 2: it coming out of someone's radio, you know, it'd be
Speaker 2: and it'd be Black Radio stadium. Yeah, it was great.
Speaker 2: So basically when we went in to do this record
Speaker 2: that became Planet Rock, Bimbada had said, I want to
Speaker 2: use Trans Europics. That was definitely his idea, not mine.
Speaker 2: But then him and Tom Silverman did a demo which
Speaker 2: I didn't really really.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: It doesn't sound much like Planet Rock, but it's got
Speaker 2: the base line from do you like it? Uh? So, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it did work, but it wouldn't have been I'm playing
Speaker 2: a rock was And then I was a music factory
Speaker 2: in Brooklyn with the guys who would later become Rockets Revenge.
Speaker 2: They were behind the and they had two Decks and
Speaker 2: they were DJ at the shop, which was amazing, and
Speaker 2: and Dwight put on this track which just went WHOA
Speaker 2: what is that? And it was Numbers. So I said, oh, man,
Speaker 2: if I use that beat with the melody and no baseline,
Speaker 2: no baseline, that gets in the way because Numbers had
Speaker 2: no baseline. So basically we went in and then when
Speaker 2: we went in, the rappers were looking at me like
Speaker 2: they wanted jazzy sensation. They wanted that, they wanted the
Speaker 2: live beat and slow. And then when they heard that
Speaker 2: Bimbada loved it, the rappers they were like, what is that?
Speaker 2: We're never going to get another chance to make a
Speaker 2: record if we do this.
Speaker 1: So okay, this is what I gotta know, all right.
Speaker 1: So I was wondering what your role truly is in
Speaker 1: hip hop culture. Now. A lot has been made of
Speaker 1: the mythology of producer Paul C. And when you talk
Speaker 1: to the large Professor about producer Paul C, our inside
Speaker 1: joke is okay, Yeah, Paul C was the first guy
Speaker 1: to read the SB twelve hundreds instruction.
Speaker 2: Man, wow, he needs an award for that, right, just.
Speaker 1: For that, because anyone else that I talked to, including
Speaker 1: the Bomb squad include anyone who's Marley himself. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was just like you know, just you know the basic
Speaker 1: bits and it's trial and eror.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Were you the pulse of the pioneering hip hop stage? Where?
Speaker 1: How do you even know what an eight is? How
Speaker 1: do you know how to operate it? Because you're doing different?
Speaker 2: No? Okay, the story with that is very simple. We
Speaker 2: were looking for a drum machine, for sure, Monica Monica
Speaker 2: looking through the Village Voice and we find men men
Speaker 2: with drum machine. We call him up. What drum machine
Speaker 2: do you have?
Speaker 1: He would just have an ad Yeah, drum machine.
Speaker 2: Well, you find drummers in the Village Voice, right, you
Speaker 2: would find anything there, you would.
Speaker 1: How did you know that machine technology? No?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, But here's the thing, he said, eight
Speaker 2: oh eight. So I went to Manny's and heard it.
Speaker 2: I went and heard the drum machine, the eight oh eight.
Speaker 2: They had it at Manny's, right, So I got in.
Speaker 2: They showed me what it sounded like.
Speaker 1: Wait, because I'm gonna ask you so many minutes, minuscule details. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you have a vision in your head of how
Speaker 1: you want Planet Rock to sound, but you know that
Speaker 1: a live band can do this.
Speaker 2: No way, it's drum machine.
Speaker 1: Right. So when was the first time that you heard
Speaker 1: that a non doctor rhythm sly Stone, how they in
Speaker 1: a like a real like that there's a machine that can.
Speaker 2: I was looking for a drum machine. It could have
Speaker 2: been any drum machine.
Speaker 1: But how did you know they existed?
Speaker 2: Come on? I knew that you existed from Sly Come on,
Speaker 2: you knew that?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, and halland Oates had used one and no
Speaker 2: can do I mean they were drum machines. I mean
Speaker 2: it was a thing.
Speaker 1: I was unaware of that, Okay.
Speaker 2: So that's the there was a thing called the drum machine, right.
Speaker 1: And that you were aware that existed.
Speaker 2: I was aware that the drum machine existed, Okay, I
Speaker 2: didn't know anything about them because I never used one
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 1: But do you acknowledge that, yes, there's sly dude, I
Speaker 1: did an old bible.
Speaker 2: Just lie, but I didn't know that really in real time.
Speaker 1: You're the first time that we ever knew a drummer
Speaker 1: scene two existed. I'll say, right before Planet Rock came
Speaker 1: out Rock and Soul Magazine. Steven Ivory, I think happened
Speaker 1: to be this back when the Jacksons were accessible, and
Speaker 1: Michael's inviting Steven Ivory to a demo session which will
Speaker 1: eventually become thriller. And this is like March of eighty
Speaker 1: one and they're unpacking these boxes and if I find
Speaker 1: this article, literally they're pulling out Len drum or whatever
Speaker 1: was before the Lenn Drum, and the whole entire article
Speaker 1: is forty five years before AI comes, because they go
Speaker 1: from well, first Michael's like, well, your day's are number.
Speaker 1: He's talking to like some drummer in the room. Your
Speaker 1: day's a number because we could just do this, and
Speaker 1: then drummer's like yeah, but won't have the same feel
Speaker 1: and da da da da da, And then they went
Speaker 1: from that He's like and the engineer says, well, don't
Speaker 1: worry one day. They don't have computers that will just
Speaker 1: mimic a voice and da da da da da, and
Speaker 1: Michael's like, well, it won't have the emotion like if
Speaker 1: she's out, Like.
Speaker 2: Literally, wow, I'd love to see that.
Speaker 1: They're predicting. So that's how I knew that a future
Speaker 1: was coming, because literally the entire article was Michael Jackson
Speaker 1: pulling out keyboards and all this stuff, but hearing it.
Speaker 1: When I heard your thing, then I was like, this
Speaker 1: is what they're talking about that Michael Jackson article, like
Speaker 1: futuristic spacey shit.
Speaker 2: But it did sound futuristic. That was the thing the
Speaker 2: DMX and Lynn really didn't.
Speaker 1: So you knew there was a machine that existed, and I.
Speaker 2: Knew there were machines that existed. And then when I
Speaker 2: was told it was an eight oh eight, I went
Speaker 2: and listened to it.
Speaker 1: And where did you go to listen to it?
Speaker 2: I think, Manny's a sam ash, you know, one of
Speaker 2: the They were right next to one another. How much
Speaker 2: were they back then? Probably three grand or something?
Speaker 1: Okay, so it was out of the question for you.
Speaker 2: No, I wasn't gonna buy it.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: We were gonna rent. We rented the machine and the
Speaker 2: guy for twenty five dollars.
Speaker 1: Does that guy know that that machine is.
Speaker 2: The guessed he would have at the time, you know,
Speaker 2: did you let me hear the end result? Like this
Speaker 2: is the craziest thing. He basically wanted cash and not
Speaker 2: a check. So we didn't have his name. We didn't
Speaker 2: have his full name. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. Wait,
Speaker 2: really his name was Joe, but we never got his
Speaker 2: last name. Can you believe that? That's how much?
Speaker 1: Did he want? Cast?
Speaker 2: Twenty five instead of the check he was afraid Tom
Speaker 2: would bounce to check on him.
Speaker 1: Twenty five dollars, Oh dollars?
Speaker 2: Man, wait twenty five bucks?
Speaker 1: Yeah, motherfucker, I could just give my like here, are
Speaker 1: you serious?
Speaker 2: I'm totally serious? Yeah, crazy. And here's the thing. So
Speaker 2: he came men and we had the basic beat, you know,
Speaker 2: boom boom. You know, we had the beat, and we
Speaker 2: gave him that and he programmed it and then bam said.
Speaker 1: You told him what to do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. But then but then he
Speaker 2: showed me how to do it. So I programmed some
Speaker 2: other stuff the cop.
Speaker 1: What about that switch up that man with the beat switches?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that was supersperm. We had two different beats. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's that's where yea, that is super sperm. So that
Speaker 2: was bam. You know, he wanted super sperm for the change.
Speaker 2: But all the percussion I did the percussion. He showed
Speaker 2: me the cow bells, the high hats. He showed me
Speaker 2: out of you know, play it, play it with that
Speaker 2: one key that you could play it live and then
Speaker 2: it would you know. So he made the track first,
Speaker 2: we made the beat first, right, okay, right, and then
Speaker 2: John Ruby who played the keys. Then he came in
Speaker 2: and he played keys on top live.
Speaker 1: That's all live.
Speaker 2: That's all live. There's no no sequencing at Planet Rock
Speaker 2: at all. Even the ding ding ding ding, that's like
Speaker 2: with the delay, right, all that stuff. There's no there's
Speaker 2: no sequencing in that at all.
Speaker 1: Okay, So how are you formatting?
Speaker 2: Well, we had A and B you know, you just
Speaker 2: we just sort of you know, there was a switch
Speaker 2: that you have the A section and the B section.
Speaker 1: But you realize that Planet Rock is taken from the
Speaker 1: all right. So George Clinton had a theory which is
Speaker 1: like every song should have miniature songs in them, not
Speaker 1: just needing deep. It's a great example. There's really eight
Speaker 1: songs inside of that fifteen minute song, whereas with this
Speaker 1: song there's not a chorus, but there's there's least seven seven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what a lot of hooks.
Speaker 1: So are you saying, okay, give me something for eight
Speaker 1: bars which you got?
Speaker 2: No? No. I actually was where's the leader? Like, well,
Speaker 2: rock rock the Planet Rock?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: That was me?
Speaker 1: And what device is that?
Speaker 2: That was just a microphone going through a PCM. No,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying it. I'm saying I gave them that
Speaker 2: hook because do you know the record Body Music by
Speaker 2: the Strikers.
Speaker 1: You finally struck me for a song.
Speaker 2: I don't If you don't know, I'm gonna send it
Speaker 2: to you. It is my probably my favorite record of
Speaker 2: that time. And they have a thing in that rock rock,
Speaker 2: the disco, rock, don't stop, and I made it rock
Speaker 2: rock the planet rock.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, so you have to hear that. I played
Speaker 2: it last night and it still rocks and it will
Speaker 2: become one of your favorite I can't believe you don't
Speaker 2: know it. Probably don't know, No, you would, okay. So
Speaker 2: there was that hook and then the rock and note stop.
Speaker 2: It was. That was one of the things Soul Sonic.
Speaker 1: Would do their routine.
Speaker 2: That was one of their routines party people. That was
Speaker 2: you know bambada. So literally it's each bit is someone else.
Speaker 1: Came up proud like I'm thinking you guys are doing this.
Speaker 2: There's some kids, they're friends. Everyone went in.
Speaker 1: It was a swell people's sound.
Speaker 2: Well, we put the we put the PC forty one
Speaker 2: to give it that electronic sound, and Jay Burnett did
Speaker 2: the uh.
Speaker 1: Oh and singing the hook like those were kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah really yeah, they were young girls or ah wow yeah.
Speaker 2: But then and then Jay Burnett, who was the engineer,
Speaker 2: did the like Brooklyn Rocks to the Planet Rock don't stop.
Speaker 2: So he did it through the mic with the slap
Speaker 2: back on the PCM forty one, so literally. And then
Speaker 2: Tom he was going through the fair light, which was
Speaker 2: a sampling which you couldn't really use to sample in well.
Speaker 2: Fair light was expensive as ship. Yeah, but they had
Speaker 2: one at the studio. How much were fair lights back then,
Speaker 2: like one hundred grand or something. They didn't pay it
Speaker 2: was on lease or whatever, you know. But he was
Speaker 2: going through the sounds and then he went boom, boom, whimp,
Speaker 2: and we were like, we gotta keep it. The Orchestra
Speaker 2: hit and that is after that record that created the
Speaker 2: Orchestra hit and and uh and dance records. You know,
Speaker 2: so many things in Planet Rock, that beat game staple.
Speaker 1: Day before yesterday of this interview in my Instagram feed,
Speaker 1: someone finally breaks down, I don't know what the Stravinsky
Speaker 1: song is that that hit comes from. Yeah, but they
Speaker 1: were explained that when the guys invented the fair light,
Speaker 1: they were like, wait a minute, we better give them
Speaker 1: some source sounds.
Speaker 2: Just the show was to deal with.
Speaker 1: And the first thing they just happen to have that
Speaker 1: Stravinsky record and the first hit was.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, wow, that is Tom Silverman hitting. He
Speaker 2: was going through different things and then what and were
Speaker 2: We all went like that. It was one of those
Speaker 2: moments and we got to use that.
Speaker 1: You know, probably the most innovative idea of that song
Speaker 1: that never gets discussed is that's also the first twelve
Speaker 1: inch in which there's instrumentals, there's bonus beats, there's different mixes.
Speaker 2: Bonus beat, the name Tom. That was the marketing thing.
Speaker 1: Bonus speed got it.
Speaker 2: He said, we should you know, the acapella stuff that
Speaker 2: you know Larry Levan with Don't Make Me Wait. That
Speaker 2: was like the first record that had acapella. Then I
Speaker 2: used Walking on Well, Walking on Sunshine was after so yeah.
Speaker 1: When do you immediately know? Holy shit, I invented fire.
Speaker 2: I played it at a record pool party and everyone just,
Speaker 2: you know, I think it was Judy Weinstein's I'm not sure,
Speaker 2: but I remember playing at a record pool party and
Speaker 2: people were just you know, when what the you know,
Speaker 2: it was one of the when you first heard it,
Speaker 2: What the fuck was that?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: And that was even with just the instrumental because a
Speaker 2: lot of people in the beginning played the instrumental side.
Speaker 1: They weren't afro futurist. Then, they weren't dressing up in
Speaker 1: those spacy costumes and none that like the song forced.
Speaker 2: Them to be that, that forced them to be that.
Speaker 2: They were not like that. They were wearing snorkel coat.
Speaker 1: You know, they were like, at what point did they
Speaker 1: realize like, did they ever so a need gratitude? They?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well they after that they trusted me, and you
Speaker 2: know because when we did Perfect Beat, that was very different.
Speaker 1: Speaking of John and keyboards, there's no way you're not
Speaker 1: going to tell me that that Perfect Beat opening line?
Speaker 1: Was it perfect? Could you loop back? Then?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: That was?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was sequenced.
Speaker 1: Okay, So talk about sequence culture in nineteen eighty two, because.
Speaker 5: That was eighty three eight, Tell well there was about
Speaker 5: srequence back then. Technology, Yeah, it changed, it changed, you know,
Speaker 5: step sequencing. You'd do a note and you know it
Speaker 5: was step sequencing. You'd press a button, do a note
Speaker 5: and it could either be sixteenth to eight, so you know,
Speaker 5: it was really.
Speaker 1: And you can speed as fast as one and slow as.
Speaker 2: It would sink to the drum machine.
Speaker 1: I mean I was going to say, how did sink
Speaker 1: to the drum machine and the keyboard?
Speaker 2: And it had you know, so the earliest MIDI midi
Speaker 2: a MIDI clock.
Speaker 1: So was Mady and eighties think or was Mady even
Speaker 1: the seventies it.
Speaker 2: Was eighties thing. Okay, the guy who did mister K
Speaker 2: from Roll and this other guy David, who I think
Speaker 2: was either from Lynn or one of the other drum machines.
Speaker 2: They created Minty together to link all these machines up
Speaker 2: because nothing was sinking. I mean, Oberheim did the system
Speaker 2: made famous by the Group of Systems, which was a
Speaker 2: drum machine, a sequencer, and the O B eight. So
Speaker 2: that was made. You didn't need another box. You could
Speaker 2: just sink that up together. The box was and he
Speaker 2: was the.
Speaker 1: Nerd that was going to do all though the engineers.
Speaker 2: Would have to learn that shit, you know. Excuse me? Yeah, no,
Speaker 2: I had known part of that. John Roby was good
Speaker 2: with the with the rolling stuff and sequencing. But yeah,
Speaker 2: looking for the perfect beat.
Speaker 1: We give all our love the planet rock. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: also like I mean, we can't sleep on looking for
Speaker 1: the perfect beat, which I you know, can they do
Speaker 1: it again? And as a resounding yes. So was there
Speaker 1: a pressure to like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now the group were on the road. There on
Speaker 2: the road, they're like.
Speaker 1: But what's their reference?
Speaker 2: I guess when they just have a seven minute ago
Speaker 2: play at Rock and Bam, had they had had some
Speaker 2: other you know, they had their stuff that they would do,
Speaker 2: and you know, before Planet Rocks.
Speaker 1: I'm going for Springsteen levels. The roots have to have
Speaker 1: a two and a half hour show and surprise, back
Speaker 1: when we had one hour ount we have four hour shows.
Speaker 1: So in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, do a cover song,
Speaker 1: a bunch of solos. But back then, would you just
Speaker 1: have to have a fifteen minute show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they'd go out with the DJ. You know, they
Speaker 2: would go up with Jazzy J I think, and he'd
Speaker 2: play a set and then they'd come out and do
Speaker 2: call and response, audience participation, favorite g. Yeah, they do
Speaker 2: other stuff and then they they do uh, then they
Speaker 2: do Planet Rock.
Speaker 1: Was there any question or how do we do this live?
Speaker 2: Like? No, they'd play the they say the track and
Speaker 2: rap over it. I mean it was it was like
Speaker 2: a TV track or whatever.
Speaker 1: They never no point was like you might have to
Speaker 1: get a keyboard player or a drum machine programmer or not.
Speaker 2: At that point. No, No, at some point, at some
Speaker 2: point I think they may have. Well, Flash had he
Speaker 2: had a drum machine, right, so he did he played
Speaker 2: the beat box. That was like he did do that.
Speaker 1: Speaking of which, okay, so what were your general thoughts? Oh,
Speaker 1: this is a great example. I always said on the
Speaker 1: show that it's never the pioneer that gets the credits,
Speaker 1: the person that comes right after. So of course Numbers
Speaker 1: is the spark and Planet Rocks the twelve alarm fire.
Speaker 1: So what are your feelings in eighty three when you're
Speaker 1: hearing like Scorpio by Graham, Aster Flash and Furies five
Speaker 1: or you're hearing not Fish, It's time or basically so,
Speaker 1: I'm a Philadelphian and Grove in Juniors from Philadelphia and
Speaker 1: mister Magic was Mammoth. But of course DC's like, we'll
Speaker 1: take that, And even to this day I argue with
Speaker 1: DC people, I'm like, yo, dog, Okay, granted, you guys
Speaker 1: have go go, but you should acknowledge that you got
Speaker 1: it from a Philadelphia artist and y'all took it, you know,
Speaker 1: as far as the city's concerned. Like I could pinpoint
Speaker 1: you were there. You were doing this type of music
Speaker 1: over singing, but we weren't calling it new Jack swing.
Speaker 1: You know, Miami will take that record and make a
Speaker 1: trillion records out of it. The Latin Italian culture will
Speaker 1: take it and call it freestyle. Detroit will take it
Speaker 1: and call it techno. So for you, what is your
Speaker 1: feeling come eighty three eighty four when now like you
Speaker 1: basically help heilm the blues like you can't copyright one
Speaker 1: four five chords.
Speaker 2: But you know I didn't. I had no problem with it.
Speaker 2: I just didn't want to repeat myself. Everyone else was
Speaker 2: repeating it. I didn't want to do it to the
Speaker 2: extent that when Michael Johnson brought me Pack Jam to
Speaker 2: put out on my label, I said, nah, that's give it.
Speaker 2: I gave it to Tommy boy which was Pack Jam. Well,
Speaker 2: I just said, you know that's a Tommy BOYD record.
Speaker 1: Tell me about Michael Johnson and all right. So when
Speaker 1: we first heard Candy Girl, like, we ran with that
Speaker 1: lie so quick. We just thought it was Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson, Michael produced this.
Speaker 2: You heard Michael Jackson. Michael was Michael Johnson.
Speaker 1: So tell me about Michael Johnson's role in Boston Folkalore and.
Speaker 2: Well, Michael and Maurice, so they were.
Speaker 1: Was he always dressing like a captain? No, okay, that
Speaker 1: that became.
Speaker 2: That became he wanted to be like Colonel Tom Parker, right. No,
Speaker 2: I mean I met their brother Sonny Donnie Johnson at
Speaker 2: the studio at in the Media, and then I met
Speaker 2: those guys and I started using them on my records,
Speaker 2: Michael and Maurice, and they the two of them the
Speaker 2: most talented people I had ever met, because they could
Speaker 2: play everything. Michael could play sacks, drums, guitar, they played
Speaker 2: literally everything. And I try to get them a record
Speaker 2: deal with Howard Smiley from t K and we saw
Speaker 2: them and it was just like it was too close
Speaker 2: to the Jackson's. It was like the Johnson brothers, but
Speaker 2: they were really talented, and they were but they weren't original.
Speaker 2: They could write things that sounded like they have tracks
Speaker 2: that they've done that I have the demos sounds like
Speaker 2: the beg's but they're like hits, but they sound literally
Speaker 2: just like yes, sounded like something else. Yeah. Well, Bark's
Speaker 2: second generation first generation Soul's finger come on, those were
Speaker 2: pretty creative.
Speaker 1: Right, but also yeah, okay, Soul figure, I'll give them.
Speaker 1: But literally all.
Speaker 2: The other cameo. It could have been earth wind and
Speaker 2: fire and could.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But the thing is also like when you're and
Speaker 1: I get it, Like my dad explained to me that,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of these guys are bar bands,
Speaker 1: house bands. You have to learn.
Speaker 2: All that covers. Yeah, exactly everything.
Speaker 1: I think now there's at least seven thousand songs in
Speaker 1: our cannon since I've been at the tonight show. Wow. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean back then we were like, oh god, like
Speaker 1: like fifteen no. No, literally, I would just put a
Speaker 1: song on shuffle whoever it is, and I'll play for
Speaker 1: ten seconds, stop it right, and be like all right,
Speaker 1: let's go three notes under, and I will code to
Speaker 1: the member of the roots that is not too strong
Speaker 1: in dictation, like if you tell me, I'll say better
Speaker 1: about you go to my keyboard, play right, I'll and
Speaker 1: he'll do.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: I purposely go to him that might not pay attention
Speaker 1: and he'll come up with something else and then that's
Speaker 1: where we build the foundation. And so but I understand that,
Speaker 1: but wow, I would love to hear the demos.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I meet them, and basically I moved to New
Speaker 2: York and we're still friends and they're playing on my records, right,
Speaker 2: and then Maurice comes. Here's where I guess Michael actually
Speaker 2: brought me the Johnson Crew pac Man. It was called
Speaker 2: it first, and he brought it to.
Speaker 1: Me to sort of capitalize off a video game called
Speaker 1: Course Yeah damn.
Speaker 2: Okay he and then he claimed he didn't know about
Speaker 2: the video game. I mean really yeah, but it wasn't true.
Speaker 1: Okay. So there was also a tribute song, yeah, called
Speaker 1: pac Man Fever that came out that was like a
Speaker 1: massive hit.
Speaker 2: But so he brings it to me and I'm like,
Speaker 2: let Tom hear it. So Tom signed it. I also
Speaker 2: gave Tom the four mds too. We went to Bronx
Speaker 2: River Center, me and Tom bringing and girl the Acetate
Speaker 2: and test pressing for Bambada and Jazzy Jay, and they
Speaker 2: played it and obviously everyone went mental, right, and then
Speaker 2: for some they were called the Four Seas. Then they
Speaker 2: come out and do a set and we're both going, wow,
Speaker 2: they're really good, and I go, yeah, but I have
Speaker 2: new additions, so Tom you can have them. I mean, wow, yeah, you.
Speaker 1: Did him a solid Yeah, how long does it take
Speaker 1: for you? Like, how do you coach kids?
Speaker 2: How do I coach him? I have Maurice coach them.
Speaker 2: So basically, they're coming to New York and Michael gave
Speaker 2: me pack jam. I came it to Tom and then
Speaker 2: Maurice is like staying at my I'm living in Cobble
Speaker 2: Hill in Brooklyn, rented an apartment from mel Sharon west
Speaker 2: End records his apartment and Maurice one night he's staying
Speaker 2: over and he comes back and he's really sad and
Speaker 2: like Maurice is always just like he's a real hype man,
Speaker 2: you know, he's like always, And I go, what's wrong?
Speaker 2: He said, Oh, I got this song and I brought
Speaker 2: it to Sylvia Robinson and she turned me down. And
Speaker 2: I brought it to Sylvia Roane and she turned me down.
Speaker 2: And I said, well, I got a label. Man, let
Speaker 2: me hear it. And he put on the cassette and
Speaker 2: it was Candy Girl. I was like, you got a
Speaker 2: record deal. And my partner flew back to Boston with
Speaker 2: them and we signed the deal.
Speaker 1: How fast did this session take?
Speaker 2: We went right to the album because they yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you did all that we did a whole album. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean he had, he had demos, but I said,
Speaker 2: let's get an album. We went right to the album.
Speaker 1: Did you instantly feel like you're going to strike hole? Yeah?
Speaker 2: You were a kid, you already you thought it was
Speaker 2: a hit.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, no, no, no, we knew, we knew.
Speaker 2: I mean I couldn't believe that Sylvia Robinson turned it down.
Speaker 2: I mean, think about that. That's can you imagine New
Speaker 2: Edition on? Well, actually New Edition sort of did end
Speaker 2: up with them when Morrise Levey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so why didn't they stick with you once they
Speaker 1: signed the mc A.
Speaker 2: No, No, the thing this is I'll give you like
Speaker 2: this is like this is a real deal. Okay, we
Speaker 2: didn't sign the group. We signed a production deal with Maurice.
Speaker 2: Maurice had them signed and we signed a deal with him,
Speaker 2: which was common back then. That was the way it
Speaker 2: was done. He came to us and said I'd have
Speaker 2: this group. We didn't think it through far enough to
Speaker 2: know that we should have got lawyers and made but
Speaker 2: we signed a deal with him, which was really common.
Speaker 2: If if I was a producer when I was doing
Speaker 2: a record and there was a singer, I'd give the
Speaker 2: singer the deal, I'd own the record, I'd own the production,
Speaker 2: and the record label would pay me, and I was
Speaker 2: meant to pay the group. Now. The only thing that
Speaker 2: went wrong with this was they were kids, and in
Speaker 2: Massachusetts the laws were that. Literally they signed the contract
Speaker 2: before they were they were now in New York. Fast
Speaker 2: forward if you years when he did New Kids on
Speaker 2: the Block, he came to New York recorded at my
Speaker 2: studio and he was able to sign them under New
Speaker 2: York law, which was, yeah, you could you could have.
Speaker 1: Did you work on New Kids on the Block.
Speaker 2: No, he just worked in my studio.
Speaker 1: Damn it.
Speaker 2: Did a remix. I did the right stuff. I did
Speaker 2: a few remixes for him.
Speaker 1: But even with him, did I think New Kids on
Speaker 1: the Block did you think like you?
Speaker 2: Well, I never doubted him at that point. I didn't
Speaker 2: doubt him, you know, you know I mean, but I'm
Speaker 2: just saying, so that's why would the kids always say
Speaker 2: when when new editions say, oh, they gave us VHS players,
Speaker 2: We gave them VHS machine so they could watch their
Speaker 2: videos because they didn't have them. I mean, it's just
Speaker 2: the whole stories. And and literally we signed the deal
Speaker 2: with Maurice and Michael. We didn't sign it with them,
Speaker 2: so any of their anger and shit should have gone
Speaker 2: to them, got it, And you know that never gets really.
Speaker 1: All the time. We signed a production deal in that
Speaker 1: directly to the and that was the you know by
Speaker 1: this point, by eighty three, eighty four, Yeah, I know
Speaker 1: you got at least have five good, could have had him,
Speaker 1: could have got away. Who well, I just told you
Speaker 1: to give me three biz Marky, how did you come into.
Speaker 2: Mister Magic brought him to shakedown? Mister Magic was sort
Speaker 2: of repping him, he was his manager at the time,
Speaker 2: and h we went in the studio to do a demo. Okay,
Speaker 2: this is probably eighty five, you know, it was not
Speaker 2: eighty three. This was after Beach Street. Well, Beach Street.
Speaker 2: Dougie Fresh he was in Beach Street and we try
Speaker 2: to sign him, and then someone else, David lu Casey,
Speaker 2: who was like our promo guy, ended up signing.
Speaker 1: Him to Reality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and damn you could have I missed him.
Speaker 2: I missed biz Marcky.
Speaker 1: At the time. Did you think, like I know what
Speaker 1: to do with this guy.
Speaker 2: Or no, I was not. I was on drugs, Okay
Speaker 2: that I was cocaine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was not that part.
Speaker 2: Of the Yeah, I was not. I was not too
Speaker 2: clear minded. But we he came in the studio and
Speaker 2: Keith LeBlanc happened to be there, and Keith made beats
Speaker 2: to give him a click track. So he's rapping and recently,
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel sort of bad how this turned out,
Speaker 2: but now it's actually I've turned it around. I auctioned
Speaker 2: that tape off with what was on that tape, the
Speaker 2: biz Marcky tape. Okay, but here's the thing. His wife
Speaker 2: won the auction, so I felt really bad that I
Speaker 2: took her money, but you know, I had to pay
Speaker 2: for my documentary, so auctioning things. But now we're friends
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to help her get that out as
Speaker 2: a as a record as something.
Speaker 1: So it's a complete song Laurence, well.
Speaker 2: It's five or six different it's a lot of his
Speaker 2: things that became songs later on. But he does a
Speaker 2: rap thing about New York. I mean, it's good. There's
Speaker 2: some stuff on that.
Speaker 1: I got to hear this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to hear that, but I missed that.
Speaker 2: And then obviously famously now is Mariah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, so at the time did you.
Speaker 2: I thought she was going to be the biggest star
Speaker 2: in the world.
Speaker 1: Okay, so this is what I'm saying now that we're
Speaker 1: in such an era, and I'm not saying that there's
Speaker 1: a lack of talent, you know, but it's just so
Speaker 1: much information fat show.
Speaker 2: Also, really I missed on that. I sent that to
Speaker 2: Monica because I didn't have a label at the time.
Speaker 2: It wasn't you know. He came to my apartment in
Speaker 2: the Upper West Side, was sitting on the floor playing cassette.
Speaker 2: He probably doesn't even remember, but him also and what stories.
Speaker 1: He'll remember for me, Like right now, with this new
Speaker 1: year about to come up, like twenty twenty six, I
Speaker 1: will say that maybe I have expectations to hear maybe
Speaker 1: three songs I like, which coming from a person.
Speaker 2: Three songs you like all year are this year.
Speaker 1: I don't know if the bandwidin me has slowed down,
Speaker 1: Like I'll hear three songs in which is like word
Speaker 1: or sad enough. Maybe there'll be two artists that are
Speaker 1: really good. The song might not hit me, but in
Speaker 1: my mind I'll imagine, like, yeah, they came out eighty five,
Speaker 1: this would have changed my life for that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: And I'm trying not to get to that. You know
Speaker 1: that that grumpy I'm my dad thing. But I mean,
Speaker 1: back then everyone had mind blowing talent, So like, how
Speaker 1: do you know that this person, Mariah Carey might just
Speaker 1: be a step above.
Speaker 2: She was writing her own songs first of all, and
Speaker 2: that was just unheard of back then. Well, I've gotten
Speaker 2: slagged off of this, but I said she when I
Speaker 2: heard her, she sounded like Whitney and she wrote songs
Speaker 2: like Madonna. That's what I thought in my mind, that.
Speaker 1: She has a pop gift.
Speaker 2: When I heard that, that's what I thought. I thought, literally,
Speaker 2: voice like Whitney, writing songs like Madonna.
Speaker 1: I totally get what you's And I was like, oh my.
Speaker 2: God, Tommy Matola got the tape too.
Speaker 1: You know, where would you have taken her?
Speaker 2: Well, I was trying to take her to Warners, I
Speaker 2: was trying to take her to MCA. I mean, I
Speaker 2: did attempt to it, but Tommy was so you know,
Speaker 2: he had a lot more power.
Speaker 1: You know, got it.
Speaker 2: But I knew, I knew it isn't like you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't go home to my wife at the time,
Speaker 2: another my second wife, and say this girl's uh, I knew.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's no way you If you hear this
Speaker 2: tape and you put yourself back in time, you'll go,
Speaker 2: oh shit, because they all I mean, they all sound
Speaker 2: like and the production was great too. You know, it
Speaker 2: was just really it was there, the mut it was there.
Speaker 1: Okay, So look, obviously this is going to go to
Speaker 1: Jimmy jam levels where the six could be seven hours.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna have to do a part two. Okay
Speaker 1: for you, you're gonna have to stop at two hours. However, Yeah, inclosing,
Speaker 1: can you give me a marsh Leavey story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, more what you can't teach you. He teached me,
Speaker 2: don't get into partnership with the mafia. That's what he
Speaker 2: taught me. Here's the thing, Tommy Mottola, this is before Mariah.
Speaker 2: This is like when I'm working with Holland. Okay, Tommy
Speaker 2: is my manager also, so he's my manager during that era,
Speaker 2: and through him, I would meet you know, we'd go
Speaker 2: down to the Feast and Little Italy and we'd go
Speaker 2: to places. You know, I was like hanging out with
Speaker 2: him and the priests and the you know, some friends. Yeah,
Speaker 2: our friends. And when street Wise was about to go bust.
Speaker 2: We got because we had given so much credit out
Speaker 2: for the new edition album right that basically people were
Speaker 2: going under with our money. So like you give someone
Speaker 2: one hundred grands worth of credit because they're going to buy,
Speaker 2: you know, twenty thousand new edition albums.
Speaker 1: So you're saying that even having a successful record could
Speaker 1: also be a.
Speaker 2: Curse, Well, it could you out of business if you
Speaker 2: if you're not smart enough. Yeah, I know, you're so successful,
Speaker 2: and then you go out of business and you can't
Speaker 2: pay You can't pay the artists. The only people are
Speaker 2: making the money of the of the distributor who's gone
Speaker 2: out of business and kept all the cash. That's what
Speaker 2: would happen. Okay, But basically we're going under. And then
Speaker 2: somehow I'm connected with Morris Levy about he wants to
Speaker 2: buy into the label, obviously him thinking new addition, I'm
Speaker 2: sure I was off my face on cocaine, so you know,
Speaker 2: and Tommy said, no, man. The one piece of advice
Speaker 2: Matola gave me that I should have listened to that
Speaker 2: I didn't was don't go into partnership with him. Well,
Speaker 2: not not that it really not that anything bad happened
Speaker 2: other than I lost everything, you know, and.
Speaker 1: He a strong arm, but not no, not with me.
Speaker 2: No, no, he would have just rip you off. Well no,
Speaker 2: I mean his technique would charming guy to me. I'd
Speaker 2: go in and he would know, he had to know
Speaker 2: I was coked out, you know. And basically I'd go
Speaker 2: into his office and there'd be all these guys and
Speaker 2: with the gold and it was the Sopranos. Literally they
Speaker 2: were there. They were all in his office and he'd
Speaker 2: be telling stories. And he told me one story about
Speaker 2: Tommy James. Now, Tommy James was a junkie, but Tommy
Speaker 2: James was on Roulette and making all these great hit records.
Speaker 1: Tommy James, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, come on, those are multimillion selling records. So he
Speaker 2: wanted to get them clean up because he wanted them
Speaker 2: to keep producing for the company, right, So he had
Speaker 2: him go up to the farm, his horse farm, like
Speaker 2: Hish had. He did have a horse farm. I went
Speaker 2: to the horse farm. He had them go up and
Speaker 2: he went cold turkey and he's like yeah, and we
Speaker 2: cleaned them up and then he never had another fucking hit.
Speaker 2: And that was the story. And I was like, oh shit,
Speaker 2: is this aimed at me? And then and then we
Speaker 2: had a blind bid for the label and he said,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't want to be partners anymore, and
Speaker 2: he outbid me. And it was I lost the whole
Speaker 2: thing and the new addition, you know, it was that's
Speaker 2: my main The worst thing in my business life was
Speaker 2: that situation.
Speaker 1: All Right, I'm gonna tell you it's not a connected story.
Speaker 1: But there's a friend of mine who saw the slide
Speaker 1: doc and you know, instantly I was, I mean, it
Speaker 1: wasn't like I was expecting across the board's accolades, like
Speaker 1: so what'd you think? What do you think? Sometimes you'll
Speaker 1: ask what do you think? Knowing that yeah, you're gonna
Speaker 1: get praised or whatever. And they kind of shot me
Speaker 1: with something that stuck with me. They were like, I
Speaker 1: don't agree with, you know, the moralizing stance about like
Speaker 1: that drugs destroyed SLY And I was like, no, I've
Speaker 1: done the recent I think they destroyed SLY. And they
Speaker 1: left me with a gym that I can't get out
Speaker 1: of my head. And they basically said, well, according to
Speaker 1: your movie, if we remove all psychedelics music.
Speaker 2: The music would suck, you know, maybe.
Speaker 1: And then I walked away and now I can't, honey,
Speaker 1: I can't hear.
Speaker 2: Well, those drugs, I mean, those drugs back then, the
Speaker 2: psychedelics come on. That definitely made you think outside the box, right, sure, exactly.
Speaker 2: Cocaine didn't though. Cocaine. There's nothing positive about the cocaine experience.
Speaker 1: It didn't give you. Listen, I'm not asking this as
Speaker 1: a as an advocate like no, I would.
Speaker 2: I would answer you honestly. What it did do is
Speaker 2: keep you up all night now.
Speaker 1: Being just where I stay up anyway. Yeah, but that's you, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It is possible to stand up, and I did afterwards.
Speaker 2: I didn't stop producing after I stopped cocaine at eighty seven,
Speaker 2: So it isn't like I did it through the nineties
Speaker 2: or whatever. I'm just saying, wow, that literally it didn't
Speaker 2: you know. And what it did do is make your
Speaker 2: records brighter because everything was dull on cocaine, so you
Speaker 2: had to push all the high end.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why looking for the Perfect beat has not
Speaker 2: a lot of low end and it's really bright. Go
Speaker 2: back and listen to the guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, I'm gonna take away from this. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: of course, we didn't touch to we never make it right.
Speaker 2: Street.
Speaker 1: We are definitely doing a party, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: end it with at least of marsh Levs and I'm
Speaker 1: a man of my word. I always wanted to have
Speaker 1: you on the show because I got a trillion questions
Speaker 1: and thank you for everything that you've done. I promise
Speaker 1: a return on the Quest Left Show from the God himself,
Speaker 1: Arthur Baker. Thank you. We will see you on the
Speaker 1: very around.
Speaker 2: It's been great man, Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Quest Love Show is hosted by Me Amir
Speaker 1: quest Love Thompson. The executive producers are Sean g Brian
Speaker 1: Calhoun and Me. Produced by Britney Benjamin and Jake Payne.
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