WEBVTT - Questlove Supreme: Monica Lynch Pt. 1

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<v Speaker 1>Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

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<v Speaker 2>Ladies and Gentlemen. Another episode of Quest Love Supreme.

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<v Speaker 1>Is upon us.

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<v Speaker 2>Very happy day today here with my family, my Team Supremist.

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<v Speaker 1>How you guys doing? What up? What up? The way

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<v Speaker 1>that we're progressing? Uh in the world.

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<v Speaker 2>It's only a matter of time before we can actually

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<v Speaker 2>take our themes on back.

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<v Speaker 3>Oh something, I I think tonight would have been a

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<v Speaker 3>good night for tales from the Latin Quarter and uh,

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<v Speaker 3>all kinds of things tonight. See our guests, you'll she

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<v Speaker 3>just had some.

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<v Speaker 1>Some or we just might have to insert those things.

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<v Speaker 2>I'm here with Team Supreme. Uh, here with almighty Unpaid Bill.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh hey, I'm pivot. Wait Unpaid Bill? Are you part

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<v Speaker 2>of in conto at all?

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<v Speaker 4>Like?

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<v Speaker 1>Is that any of your music? No? No, I'm friends

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<v Speaker 1>that's hitting Bruno.

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<v Speaker 3>No, I wish I was, honestly, my my my bank

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<v Speaker 3>wishes that I was know something about Bruno. But I

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<v Speaker 3>don't talk about him or anyone I have. No, I

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<v Speaker 3>have nothing to do with Bruno. I wish I did, though, man,

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<v Speaker 3>like ten weeks at number one or some ship, Like

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<v Speaker 3>I wish it's still number one, right?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Like you know liv Manuel is going to mess

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<v Speaker 2>around and and like beat boys to men. M Mariah Carey,

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<v Speaker 2>is that still the longest number one number one song

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<v Speaker 2>sweet Day? I think it is, Okay, I mean I'm

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<v Speaker 2>from the old school sound scan so you know, or whatever.

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<v Speaker 1>Method they use now to.

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<v Speaker 5>Yeah, this new math don't count. Like we come from

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<v Speaker 5>an er when motherfuckers had to lead their house to

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<v Speaker 5>buy ship. Exactly exactly, That's exactly, dude, that was the

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<v Speaker 5>way we did.

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<v Speaker 2>Yes, Okay, I'm sorry because La is you know, she's uh,

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<v Speaker 2>she's how you doing?

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<v Speaker 6>Like, yeah, I am doing amazing except for this man,

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<v Speaker 6>this little gas situation.

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<v Speaker 1>But I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm good. I'm good. What's what's gas looking like in

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<v Speaker 1>LA right now?

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<v Speaker 6>Well, it's funny you asked that my rich friend. Uh,

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<v Speaker 6>currently gas in Los Angeles is six dollars. We are

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<v Speaker 6>at about five ninety something.

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<v Speaker 5>Yeah, we'd like it was like four dollars out here.

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<v Speaker 5>Y'all got iron legend gas prices out there.

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<v Speaker 1>Wait a minute, this is something, fante. Do you drive? Oh?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean this is the question you never I mean,

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<v Speaker 2>spent five years, but I just don't.

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<v Speaker 1>I can't see kind of like, what car? What kind

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<v Speaker 1>of car do you have? I got a Lexus RX

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<v Speaker 1>three fifty. That sounds swanky.

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<v Speaker 5>Yeah, I mean, hey, it's paid for. I ain't buying

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<v Speaker 5>another car, So you write it out.

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<v Speaker 1>All right?

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<v Speaker 3>I want I want FaceTime Fante while he was in

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<v Speaker 3>his car outside of the chicken shop, I believe is

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<v Speaker 3>what happened?

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<v Speaker 2>Do you have like a cigarette hanging out of his

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<v Speaker 2>mouth with just one hand on the wheel. Nah, I

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<v Speaker 2>just had to do it the way back, like like

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<v Speaker 2>Dame Dash and painting for Yeah, I have my black father,

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<v Speaker 2>you know, just get you get home and you pull

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<v Speaker 2>up in the driveway and you just sit there for

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<v Speaker 2>about an indeterminate amount of time.

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<v Speaker 1>Am I the only I don't know if this is

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<v Speaker 1>a tea in my movement?

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<v Speaker 2>Am I the only one that sometimes just has to

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<v Speaker 2>sit in the car for ten minutes just so you

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<v Speaker 2>can brace yourself for whatever is waiting for you.

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<v Speaker 1>You're not alone? So that's universal talk.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, straight up, Okay, I'm still happy with my relationship.

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<v Speaker 2>I was just asking for a friend. So, Steve, how

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<v Speaker 2>you doing, I'm good man. Any anything interesting happening in

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<v Speaker 2>the network or you know, oh gosh, I mean, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>I didn't anticipate you asking me that question.

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<v Speaker 1>So okay, well let me just start again.

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<v Speaker 2>How you doing, Steve, I didn't anticipate you ask me

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<v Speaker 2>that either, so I don't know what.

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<v Speaker 1>Ladies and gentlemen? All right, So and I'm I'm I'm

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<v Speaker 1>winging this.

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<v Speaker 2>So I'm trying to keep it real sustinct because I

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<v Speaker 2>realized that our guest hasn't spoken a word yet because

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<v Speaker 2>I didn't address her or all.

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<v Speaker 1>Right, I know, I know. So look when when cats,

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<v Speaker 1>when when dudes my.

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<v Speaker 2>Age start reminiscing about you know, quote unquote the good

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<v Speaker 2>old days or real hip hop or true school or

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<v Speaker 2>whatever we say, our guest name should ring familiar. I

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<v Speaker 2>think that the thing about well, the thing is is

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<v Speaker 2>that even though I've never read an interview or seen

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<v Speaker 2>a television interview, heard it at radio interview on the radio,

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<v Speaker 2>or even exchange any sort of casual banter with our

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<v Speaker 2>guests or even DM crept my way into a friendship

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<v Speaker 2>or a relationship, which is I know that may I

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<v Speaker 2>made that sound weird, but you know, DM creeping your

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<v Speaker 2>way into free friendships is kind of real.

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<v Speaker 1>Like I can actually say that.

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<v Speaker 2>I'm genuine friends with like Henry Winkler and Working Fairchild

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<v Speaker 2>just from DM Creeping, which kind of weird.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm also friends with Tasty Cake Steve wait wait wait

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<v Speaker 1>wait wait, I like with.

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<v Speaker 2>Friends with with with non human entities on Twitter. But

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<v Speaker 2>Morgan Fairchild, dude, it's so random. She started liking, like

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<v Speaker 2>she started liking a whole bunch of my tweets, and

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<v Speaker 2>then we're actually BFFs, like, like, hey, when you're in town,

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<v Speaker 2>let's go to dinner. I mean, I haven't done it yet,

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<v Speaker 2>but I think I'm down with Morgan Fairchild.

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<v Speaker 1>Yo. Oh my gosh. I know.

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<v Speaker 2>It's like the the eight year Old News kind of

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<v Speaker 2>like happy right now, right, I'm thrilled, thrilled.

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<v Speaker 1>I know, I know, because like house is going to

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<v Speaker 1>relate to me. All right.

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<v Speaker 2>My whole point is that, you know, I don't exactly

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<v Speaker 2>have a relationship with our guest on the show, having

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<v Speaker 2>grown up in the age of hip hop, where you know,

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<v Speaker 2>a transition from twelve inch and singles to LPs, and

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<v Speaker 2>I'm part of the generation that lived for liner notes

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<v Speaker 2>and seeing who did what. Our next guest name should

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<v Speaker 2>ring familiar to hip hop heads. Because she was literally

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<v Speaker 2>president of one of the most powerful labels of the genre.

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<v Speaker 2>And I don't even want to limit it to hip hop,

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<v Speaker 2>because you know, I mean, Tommy Boy had hits from

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<v Speaker 2>club hits to pop music to freestyle to I.

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<v Speaker 1>Could name them all.

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<v Speaker 2>De La Soul, Coolio, Digital Underground for Some D's House

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<v Speaker 2>of Payne, Club, Nouveau K seven, LFO Information Society, Ardi

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<v Speaker 2>by Nature, the Riza back when he was Prince Raquin

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<v Speaker 2>RuPaul Queen Latifa, the original hip hop band Statso Sonic. Y'all,

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<v Speaker 2>y'all really have to understand that the muscle that this

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<v Speaker 2>label operated with, probably the only other rival label that

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<v Speaker 2>can even say that they held that same space was

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<v Speaker 2>probably def jam So Ladies and gentlemen, the very legendary

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<v Speaker 2>president or former president, Tommy Boy, the one and only

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<v Speaker 2>Monica Lynch won Quest left set mere.

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<v Speaker 4>Thank you. I'm doing great, And I really appreciated the

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<v Speaker 4>conversation about gas prices because now that I'm sixty five,

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<v Speaker 4>gas price means a whole different thing. I've never driven,

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<v Speaker 4>I don't drive. I just got a match. You New

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<v Speaker 4>York say, what's the gas situation. I'm like, let me

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<v Speaker 4>look at my medicine cabinet. That's what I'm doing.

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<v Speaker 2>Wait, you're telling me you never had your license or

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<v Speaker 2>you never owned a car.

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<v Speaker 4>We have my license, but I only use it for ID.

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<v Speaker 4>And the only car I ever drove was a gold

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<v Speaker 4>Cadillac with power windows that my father owned back in

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<v Speaker 4>like the early seventies. So the die was cast at

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<v Speaker 4>a young age.

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<v Speaker 2>So this is definitely going to lead to my first question,

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<v Speaker 2>what part, Well, I don't know, were you a natural

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<v Speaker 2>born in New.

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<v Speaker 1>Yorker or Chicago? You could hear it from Chicago?

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<v Speaker 4>Okay, yeah, Chicago. I'm sixty five, I'm from Chicago, grew

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<v Speaker 4>up there. Yeah, well, you know, I grew up there

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<v Speaker 4>and I was, you know, really weaned on Top forty

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<v Speaker 4>radio when it was still a hugely amazing thing in

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<v Speaker 4>the late sixties. Heard all the great great pop songs

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<v Speaker 4>from that era, and back then, you know, blues was

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<v Speaker 4>definitely still a big thing in Chicago, but it was

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<v Speaker 4>mostly I would say a lot of white guys. They

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<v Speaker 4>were checking the blues back in that scene. You know,

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<v Speaker 4>Paul Butterfield Blues.

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<v Speaker 1>Band, the Electric Blues.

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<v Speaker 4>Yeah, right, yep, exactly. And then I start of got

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<v Speaker 4>into the disco scene. I was a big disco dancer,

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<v Speaker 4>hustle contest, was a dancer at the big gay bar

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<v Speaker 4>in Chicago, which is sort of like a It was

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<v Speaker 4>the Studio fifty four of Chicago. Then I was in

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<v Speaker 4>a punk band and we'd work at a punk club

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<v Speaker 4>and did all sorts of things before I came to

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<v Speaker 4>New York in nineteen seventy eight.

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<v Speaker 1>So you got history. What was your first musical memory.

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<v Speaker 4>My first musical memory was listening to my parents' records

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<v Speaker 4>in the basement, and they, of course had the sort

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<v Speaker 4>of records that you would find in the sixties and

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<v Speaker 4>a lot of collections. It was everything from Nicholson May

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<v Speaker 4>to My Fair Lady soundtrack to you know, Herb Albert

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<v Speaker 4>and the Tijuana Brass, that sort of thing. I had

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<v Speaker 4>a big crush on Herb Albert back then. And I

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<v Speaker 4>got my first record player the same year that Rubber

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<v Speaker 4>Saul came out. That was the first record I ever owned.

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<v Speaker 4>Was Rubber Saul.

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<v Speaker 1>That would be sixty five.

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<v Speaker 4>Uh no, I think it was a little earlier. I think, well, yeah,

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<v Speaker 4>maybe sixty four. Sixty five was Rubber Saul.

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<v Speaker 1>I think, yeah, okay, wow, that's cool.

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<v Speaker 2>So would you like Did you have any ambitions or

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<v Speaker 2>goals to be in the music industry or did it

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<v Speaker 2>sort of find you as you became an adult.

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<v Speaker 4>I had no ambitions, no goals. I just loved music.

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<v Speaker 4>I was like I used to buy forty fives all

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<v Speaker 4>the time. I don't know if you remember that there

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<v Speaker 4>was something called the Phonologue, this huge like yellow paperback

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<v Speaker 4>compendium that you could go and do special orders of

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<v Speaker 4>forty fives at record stores back then. Do you remember that?

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<v Speaker 1>Well?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, when I shot at specialty stores. Now they it

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<v Speaker 2>looks like the yellow pages, like it's just a masterless.

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<v Speaker 1>So what was the spot we used to stop at them?

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<v Speaker 1>Philly Steve Val?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, so like you go to Val Shively and

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<v Speaker 2>you know, next to Jerry's Rest in peace, to Jerry's

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<v Speaker 2>who just passed away like a month ago or whatever.

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<v Speaker 2>Like those specialty record stores, like record stores that have

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<v Speaker 2>over one hundred thousand records in.

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<v Speaker 1>Stock, they still have those books there.

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<v Speaker 2>So you didn't work at a record store, So how

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<v Speaker 2>would you get access to those records or how would

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<v Speaker 2>you get access to that book?

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<v Speaker 4>Well? I was always listening to the top forty stations

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<v Speaker 4>in Chicago w LS and W CFL and I would

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<v Speaker 4>go down to the Marina City, those two buildings that

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<v Speaker 4>look like corn cobs in Chicago, and that's where WLS was,

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<v Speaker 4>and I was a kid. I would just take the

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<v Speaker 4>l train down there and you could stand in the

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<v Speaker 4>lobby and watch the DJ on the air, and they

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<v Speaker 4>would have these little surveys that they would give you

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<v Speaker 4>a the top forty records for the week. I know

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<v Speaker 4>this is really kind of going back like a rocker,

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<v Speaker 4>but I figure you probably no.

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<v Speaker 2>Literally, the show is based on long winded rabbit hole.

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<v Speaker 2>The whole point is that get me to not talk

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<v Speaker 2>so good.

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<v Speaker 4>Well, so, anyway, so I started, you know, really saying, oh,

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<v Speaker 4>I want to special order these records because I can't

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<v Speaker 4>find them at EJ. Corvette's or Montgomery Wards or something.

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<v Speaker 4>And so back then, as you know, there were always

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<v Speaker 4>like these great independently owned records stores and you could

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<v Speaker 4>go there and if you struck up a good relationship

0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:38.720
<v Speaker 4>with the owner or a clerk, it was a tremendous

0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:43.680
<v Speaker 4>source of knowledge that was passed along and you could

0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:47.319
<v Speaker 4>special order these things and just basically loiter in the

0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:51.800
<v Speaker 4>store and learn a lot and that in fact, you know,

0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:53.960
<v Speaker 4>we could talk about that in the hip hop era

0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:56.920
<v Speaker 4>as being a big thing here in New York and

0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:59.559
<v Speaker 4>other places. But no, I came here, you know, I

0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:01.440
<v Speaker 4>always say, I came here with you know, on a

0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:04.360
<v Speaker 4>dollar and a dream, no plans except to go to

0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:07.840
<v Speaker 4>Studio fifty four. And I landed in New York during

0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:09.760
<v Speaker 4>the time when it was sort of like the uh,

0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:15.440
<v Speaker 4>the perfect nexus of punk and disco and no way

0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:19.240
<v Speaker 4>was happening, and sort of the downtown arts scene and

0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:23.240
<v Speaker 4>all that stuff that people lieon eye so much. But

0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:24.920
<v Speaker 4>it was a great time to be in New York

0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:30.160
<v Speaker 4>because it really was cheap. And I lived on Saint

0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:33.240
<v Speaker 4>Mark's Place between Second and Third, which was basically like

0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:37.920
<v Speaker 4>the main runway for you know, people would get up

0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:40.440
<v Speaker 4>at two three in the afternoon and then sit out

0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.680
<v Speaker 4>on the stoop to watch so and so, you know,

0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:46.760
<v Speaker 4>Richard Hell come down the street to cop is Dope

0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:48.719
<v Speaker 4>or whatever you know it was.

0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:53.080
<v Speaker 2>And I wouldn't say except it's ginger right now it's

0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:56.720
<v Speaker 2>expensive property, but back then it was cheap.

0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:58.360
<v Speaker 1>It was something to behold.

0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:03.000
<v Speaker 4>And yeah, and there was this woman named Anya Phillips

0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:05.280
<v Speaker 4>who was sort of the one of the co founders

0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:06.960
<v Speaker 4>of the Mud Club and She was really sort of

0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:12.200
<v Speaker 4>a downtown duyenne. She was a girlfriend of James White

0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:15.280
<v Speaker 4>or James Chance, you know, contortions.

0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:16.040
<v Speaker 7>And she.

0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:20.200
<v Speaker 4>Sat me down one day. She's very stern, serving a

0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.080
<v Speaker 4>dominatrix sort of way. He said, you're going to be

0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:25.720
<v Speaker 4>a topless dancer, and I'm going to make g strings

0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.960
<v Speaker 4>for you. Because I had no money, and so I said, okay,

0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:32.480
<v Speaker 4>sounds like a plan. And I went to this place

0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:36.600
<v Speaker 4>called the Go Go Agency. And I've recounted this tale

0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:38.920
<v Speaker 4>many times, but there was a guy there named Johnny

0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:41.800
<v Speaker 4>and it was like a scene out of Broadway Danny Rose.

0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:45.120
<v Speaker 4>And you walk up the stairs in this midtown building

0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:49.200
<v Speaker 4>and there's these big boards and it lists all the

0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:54.240
<v Speaker 4>topless bars and all five burrows. And he would assign you,

0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:58.200
<v Speaker 4>you know, he was an agent. Yeah, And so he

0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.680
<v Speaker 4>would send me out to places and queens like the Carousel,

0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:04.240
<v Speaker 4>or the place up in the Bronx called the Slice,

0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:10.080
<v Speaker 4>or there was a place over in the meatpacking district

0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:13.560
<v Speaker 4>when it was still a meatpacking district that you do

0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:15.800
<v Speaker 4>these and a lot of stuff in Midtown because you

0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:18.000
<v Speaker 4>got a lot had a lot of customers in Midtown

0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:21.600
<v Speaker 4>back then. But but yeah, it was wait.

0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:26.440
<v Speaker 2>I gotta ask, so I you know my era of

0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:31.080
<v Speaker 2>I say, I'm part of the deaf leopard generation where

0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:33.960
<v Speaker 2>there's no time where I've not entered a strip club

0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:36.840
<v Speaker 2>where they forced you to listen to pour some sugar

0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:42.800
<v Speaker 2>on me, except for Atlanta, except for Atlanta. But back then,

0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:46.239
<v Speaker 2>like would you have to feed the forty five jukebox?

0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:49.080
<v Speaker 2>Or was there or was it like it is now

0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:50.480
<v Speaker 2>like welcome to the stage.

0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:54.840
<v Speaker 4>No, no, no, I wish I had an mc welcoming

0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:56.440
<v Speaker 4>to the stage. It wasn't quite that.

0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.120
<v Speaker 2>Grand I was going to ask if you had a

0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:00.360
<v Speaker 2>numb to plume?

0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:03.920
<v Speaker 1>Did you? Did you have a yes? A title? What's

0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:04.320
<v Speaker 1>her name?

0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:12.480
<v Speaker 4>It was mister Smnique. And this was all sort of

0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:15.720
<v Speaker 4>in the late seventies, you know, so the type of

0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:17.680
<v Speaker 4>records that you were hearing, I mean, if I hear

0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:20.600
<v Speaker 4>you know, ring my bell one more time.

0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:22.880
<v Speaker 1>It's that was sort of like that was yours sugar

0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:23.160
<v Speaker 1>on me?

0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:26.400
<v Speaker 4>It was it was the poursome sugar of Me of

0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:32.160
<v Speaker 4>nineteen seventy eight, seventy nine. Yeah, totally, you know, but

0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:34.880
<v Speaker 4>it was disco, you know, because it was certain it

0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:37.080
<v Speaker 4>was sort of like when disco it kind of peaked,

0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:40.880
<v Speaker 4>and it was much more like, uh, these mechanical type

0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:42.880
<v Speaker 4>of records, which not that I'm mad at that, but

0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.160
<v Speaker 4>it was those type of records. Ring my bell seems

0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:47.840
<v Speaker 4>to be the one that always comes back to me

0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:53.560
<v Speaker 4>in my dreams. But I worked at had what I

0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:58.680
<v Speaker 4>call extended residencies at show World, which you might be

0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:02.720
<v Speaker 4>might remember that and peep Land, which was also a

0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:06.920
<v Speaker 4>big player on the on the deuce back then. But yeah,

0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:11.840
<v Speaker 4>it was steady money, good money. I made cleared fifteen

0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:13.440
<v Speaker 4>hundred dollars a week at the peak.

0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:17.920
<v Speaker 1>Okay, I gotta ask the question, so is this all right? You?

0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:21.520
<v Speaker 2>You remember how it wasn't Papa, don't preach like open

0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:24.119
<v Speaker 2>your heart. Was it like you sat in a booth

0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.280
<v Speaker 2>and you in started a coin and the thing went up?

0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:32.720
<v Speaker 2>And you does that type of strip club still or

0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:34.040
<v Speaker 2>is that like a thing of the past.

0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:40.000
<v Speaker 1>Now it's called only fans, Yeah, it is it is that. No,

0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:44.240
<v Speaker 1>we need somewhere, oh man, No.

0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:47.960
<v Speaker 4>It was, Hey, these only fans chicks. I think they're

0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:51.240
<v Speaker 4>pretty smart. They're much more entrepreneurial. I mean, back then

0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:54.840
<v Speaker 4>I got hired and well, like to say you, for example,

0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:57.240
<v Speaker 4>the show World, my boss's name was a woman named

0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:00.440
<v Speaker 4>Thunder and she had huge red hair. She was like

0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.919
<v Speaker 4>benson Hurst type of gal. And the place was owned

0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:06.320
<v Speaker 4>by a guy who died recently, but it was all

0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:10.040
<v Speaker 4>mob owned. It was oh who is there was one

0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:13.720
<v Speaker 4>of the big mob characters that Frankie the horse Eyanello.

0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:15.560
<v Speaker 4>There was the guy who ran the whole.

0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:18.040
<v Speaker 1>All that he is named after an animal. Then you

0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:18.680
<v Speaker 1>know that's bad.

0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.439
<v Speaker 4>That's right, that's right. So you know they paid you

0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:25.119
<v Speaker 4>a flat fee, but you made your money. You really

0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:28.280
<v Speaker 4>made your money by getting these guys to keep putting

0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:31.520
<v Speaker 4>the coins in and keep the window going up. So

0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.720
<v Speaker 4>I would sit on one side and then there'd be the curtain,

0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:36.560
<v Speaker 4>the metal curtain, and the guys would be on the

0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:39.439
<v Speaker 4>other side, and a lot of we had a lot

0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:40.800
<v Speaker 4>of Hasidic customers.

0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:43.920
<v Speaker 2>Man.

0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:47.760
<v Speaker 1>Thing is, let's get into it. Let's talk about it a botica.

0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:51.080
<v Speaker 4>But you know it's because it's such a repressed, sexually

0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:54.600
<v Speaker 4>repressed culture. I think you'd get a lot in in

0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:55.600
<v Speaker 4>the peep shows.

0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:57.560
<v Speaker 2>All right, I'm gonna go there, I'm gonna go there,

0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:04.040
<v Speaker 2>go there. What happens on the guy's side of the booth? Though, Like, well,

0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:06.320
<v Speaker 2>is there a clean up afterwards, like.

0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:11.520
<v Speaker 4>Oh, yes, there is mop patrol, isn't isn't this where

0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:15.520
<v Speaker 4>there's like first, that's right. If when you walk into

0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:17.600
<v Speaker 4>the place, you give them cash and they give you

0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:21.360
<v Speaker 4>these tokens, and the tokens are what allows you to

0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:24.280
<v Speaker 4>go to the boost or to watch a Peep movie

0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:27.800
<v Speaker 4>or things like that. There were They also had live

0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:32.080
<v Speaker 4>sex shows at show World. I didn't do that there,

0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:35.840
<v Speaker 4>but they had. But yeah, the idea was to keep

0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:39.439
<v Speaker 4>them putting the money in. So these these were skills

0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:41.840
<v Speaker 4>I was able to apply to the music industry not

0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:43.000
<v Speaker 4>too long afterwards.

0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:46.760
<v Speaker 1>With you said you didn't do the live there? Did

0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:51.920
<v Speaker 1>you do it somewhere else? Leave it alone?

0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:54.239
<v Speaker 4>You have to you'll have to ask me back. As

0:19:54.280 --> 0:20:01.960
<v Speaker 4>I guess to answer the second part of that question, I.

0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:04.840
<v Speaker 2>Hear a long time New York residents like begging for

0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:06.480
<v Speaker 2>the time when Old New York returns.

0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:08.679
<v Speaker 1>Is this what they're talking about?

0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:13.520
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I mean there's a lot of romanticizing about dirty

0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:17.919
<v Speaker 4>New York of the seventies. I mean literally, the summer

0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:20.760
<v Speaker 4>I got there is when they let out a lot

0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:23.719
<v Speaker 4>of people with mental health issues onto the street. They

0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:26.200
<v Speaker 4>just dumped them on the street. There was a huge

0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:30.560
<v Speaker 4>garbage strike. There'd been a big blackout in nineteen seventy seven,

0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:36.399
<v Speaker 4>as the Tramps told us about, and there was you know,

0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:41.280
<v Speaker 4>it was definitely grungy and dirty, and people liked to say, Oh,

0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:44.000
<v Speaker 4>wasn't it great back then because it attracted all these

0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:49.199
<v Speaker 4>you know, creative people and blah blah blah. But I

0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:53.120
<v Speaker 4>don't really get all. I mean, I like to recount

0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:55.199
<v Speaker 4>the stories about that, but I wouldn't want it to

0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:58.119
<v Speaker 4>go back to that necessarily.

0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:02.080
<v Speaker 2>So you liked post ninety four Disney Giuliani era a

0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:02.640
<v Speaker 2>little better?

0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:08.720
<v Speaker 8>No, No, I think I've shared this on the show

0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:12.000
<v Speaker 8>once before, Like the first day that we arrived in

0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:15.520
<v Speaker 8>New York, when the roots like really first came to

0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:17.520
<v Speaker 8>New York to start mixing.

0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:19.040
<v Speaker 1>Do you want more?

0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:22.240
<v Speaker 2>I believe like in December of ninety three was pretty

0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:23.520
<v Speaker 2>much like I think the.

0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:25.760
<v Speaker 1>Day that whatever.

0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:28.960
<v Speaker 2>I Okay, maybe I've been on forty second Street once

0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:30.440
<v Speaker 2>or twice in my life. Like I know we went

0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:32.960
<v Speaker 2>to go see the Whiz, but I don't remember that

0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:36.000
<v Speaker 2>much at the age of seven, but you know, I

0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:40.280
<v Speaker 2>do remember us going on forty second Street near our

0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:44.040
<v Speaker 2>hotel and like Rich, like my manager what not being

0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:49.280
<v Speaker 2>really disappointed that forty second Streets disnified and not the

0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:52.800
<v Speaker 2>CD you know New York that he remembers. And I

0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:56.679
<v Speaker 2>remember like people telling us like that week is when

0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.080
<v Speaker 2>the transformation started and everybody was pissed at it.

0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:03.120
<v Speaker 4>So hey, it's nice to be able to be old

0:22:03.240 --> 0:22:05.840
<v Speaker 4>enough to look back at it and to remember it

0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:10.360
<v Speaker 4>as it was back then. But I'm not getting all

0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:12.320
<v Speaker 4>tears in my beer over you know.

0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:13.760
<v Speaker 1>Hey, that's perfect.

0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:16.800
<v Speaker 4>Wish it was back, you know, so.

0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:19.840
<v Speaker 2>Club wise, you know, I've been trying to get another

0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:26.119
<v Speaker 2>downtown New York diva that made a billion dollar career

0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:29.560
<v Speaker 2>for yourself on this show, but that hasn't happened yet.

0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:34.439
<v Speaker 2>So I guess you are really our first witness to

0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:38.600
<v Speaker 2>that era, can you assuming that by this time you're

0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:42.639
<v Speaker 2>watching hip hop culture creep into downtown? First of all, like,

0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:46.000
<v Speaker 2>did you go north of the Bronx to any of

0:22:46.040 --> 0:22:48.680
<v Speaker 2>the what was known as the classic eras of hip hop,

0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:52.840
<v Speaker 2>like whatever, the Fever or any of those clubs way north?

0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:58.080
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I mean I've been to the Fever course, I

0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:04.280
<v Speaker 4>know sal from back then. Tea connection. Actually, you know,

0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:08.199
<v Speaker 4>a funny thing was I ended up bringing Martin scores

0:23:08.240 --> 0:23:11.960
<v Speaker 4>as to the Tea Connection one night to hear Bambada play,

0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:15.520
<v Speaker 4>and that was sort of an odd set of circumstances.

0:23:15.560 --> 0:23:20.359
<v Speaker 4>But uh, you know, yeah, he knew got describe that.

0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:25.400
<v Speaker 1>They wait, what era of Raging Bull King of comedy?

0:23:25.440 --> 0:23:28.000
<v Speaker 4>What era do you This would have been circa eighty

0:23:28.040 --> 0:23:32.240
<v Speaker 4>two eighty three, so you tell me comedy. Yeah, And

0:23:32.880 --> 0:23:36.320
<v Speaker 4>he was friends with this guy named Jay Cox, who

0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:39.679
<v Speaker 4>was the film at a film critic at Time Magazine

0:23:40.240 --> 0:23:45.040
<v Speaker 4>who was related to Tom Silverman, and somehow there was

0:23:45.080 --> 0:23:47.800
<v Speaker 4>a conversation, Oh, Marty would really love to go up

0:23:47.840 --> 0:23:50.960
<v Speaker 4>and check out this hip hop thing, and bah blah bah,

0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:55.320
<v Speaker 4>and and you know, I was like, hey, be happy

0:23:55.320 --> 0:23:57.240
<v Speaker 4>to show him, and you know, take him up there.

0:23:57.640 --> 0:24:00.520
<v Speaker 4>And so there's a car service, which back then, you know,

0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:03.840
<v Speaker 4>it was a rare thing for maybe have any car

0:24:03.880 --> 0:24:05.959
<v Speaker 4>service or anything. But he went up to Tea Connection.

0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:08.959
<v Speaker 4>He was pretty quiet, you know, I think he was

0:24:09.080 --> 0:24:14.160
<v Speaker 4>just checking it out, observing. And you know, the Time

0:24:14.200 --> 0:24:16.680
<v Speaker 4>magazine ended up doing a big story about sort of

0:24:16.720 --> 0:24:20.600
<v Speaker 4>the emerging hip hop scene back then. But yeah, I

0:24:20.680 --> 0:24:24.040
<v Speaker 4>used to go to some of the places uptown, but

0:24:24.119 --> 0:24:28.879
<v Speaker 4>more frequently I would go to every Friday night, we

0:24:28.960 --> 0:24:31.200
<v Speaker 4>went to Negrill when that was having when cool Lady

0:24:31.240 --> 0:24:35.000
<v Speaker 4>Blue you know, had started doing her nights at Agrill.

0:24:35.720 --> 0:24:40.199
<v Speaker 4>And then I would always go to the Roxy on

0:24:40.280 --> 0:24:43.920
<v Speaker 4>Friday night, and then following the Roxy, I would head

0:24:44.000 --> 0:24:47.919
<v Speaker 4>up a few blocks and go to the Fun House.

0:24:48.640 --> 0:24:51.080
<v Speaker 4>I was very friendly with Jellybean and would hang out

0:24:51.119 --> 0:24:56.080
<v Speaker 4>with him a lot. Yes, So those and then the

0:24:56.240 --> 0:24:59.920
<v Speaker 4>Dance of course, Dance Aterria was a really great play

0:25:00.840 --> 0:25:03.119
<v Speaker 4>to hang out at. And you know before that it

0:25:03.200 --> 0:25:06.000
<v Speaker 4>was like Studio fifty four in the mud Club were

0:25:06.240 --> 0:25:10.199
<v Speaker 4>staples for me. But you know, but yeah, Union Squares

0:25:11.200 --> 0:25:15.760
<v Speaker 4>was a place I went to a lot and Amazon Hotel.

0:25:16.280 --> 0:25:20.159
<v Speaker 4>That was a big place. Patrick Moxy had Payday I

0:25:20.160 --> 0:25:23.399
<v Speaker 4>don't know, okay, yeah, oh yeah, total that was a

0:25:23.400 --> 0:25:28.840
<v Speaker 4>big one. Dala Soul did a big premiere performance there.

0:25:28.960 --> 0:25:33.200
<v Speaker 4>And I didn't really hang out at Latin Quarters that much.

0:25:33.400 --> 0:25:37.440
<v Speaker 4>I left that to Dante. But but yeah, those were

0:25:37.480 --> 0:25:39.280
<v Speaker 4>the those were the big clubs that were sort of

0:25:39.760 --> 0:25:40.679
<v Speaker 4>happening back then.

0:25:41.160 --> 0:25:45.879
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the lure of the or the yeah, the focalore

0:25:45.960 --> 0:25:50.640
<v Speaker 2>of Studio fifty four, like assuming that it really started

0:25:50.640 --> 0:25:53.280
<v Speaker 2>to rise in seventy seven, When when did it peak,

0:25:53.400 --> 0:25:57.080
<v Speaker 2>even though I've heard Studio fifty four stories like in

0:25:57.320 --> 0:25:59.280
<v Speaker 2>eighty one, eighty two, eighty three, eighty four, like in

0:25:59.359 --> 0:26:02.280
<v Speaker 2>the half first half of the eighties, like when did

0:26:02.280 --> 0:26:06.080
<v Speaker 2>the allure of Studio fifty four died down?

0:26:06.200 --> 0:26:08.399
<v Speaker 1>And when did it become? Was it ever uncol to

0:26:08.440 --> 0:26:08.959
<v Speaker 1>go there?

0:26:09.400 --> 0:26:12.960
<v Speaker 4>Yes, it was uncool to go there after it closed

0:26:12.960 --> 0:26:16.040
<v Speaker 4>and then it reopened. I would say it peaked in

0:26:16.119 --> 0:26:20.360
<v Speaker 4>seventy nine. It burned fast and hard, and it's extinguished

0:26:20.359 --> 0:26:23.560
<v Speaker 4>pretty quickly, I think that. But you know, i'd say

0:26:23.600 --> 0:26:25.280
<v Speaker 4>by eighty you know.

0:26:25.520 --> 0:26:26.000
<v Speaker 1>Were you there?

0:26:26.160 --> 0:26:28.679
<v Speaker 2>Have you ever went there at its peak? When like

0:26:28.920 --> 0:26:31.240
<v Speaker 2>oh yeah, yeah, even she couldn't get in even though

0:26:31.240 --> 0:26:32.760
<v Speaker 2>they had like the number one song on the.

0:26:32.760 --> 0:26:36.240
<v Speaker 4>Charts, Like oh yeah no, I literally, you know, laughed

0:26:36.240 --> 0:26:39.439
<v Speaker 4>that I you know that I landed at Laguardi Airport

0:26:39.520 --> 0:26:43.159
<v Speaker 4>and proceeded straight to Studio fifty four. But it's not

0:26:43.960 --> 0:26:47.440
<v Speaker 4>it's an exaggeration, but literally I was like a homing pigeon.

0:26:47.640 --> 0:26:50.160
<v Speaker 4>I have to go to my spiritual home of Studio

0:26:50.240 --> 0:26:53.439
<v Speaker 4>fifty four. And you know, back then, so this is

0:26:53.440 --> 0:26:58.080
<v Speaker 4>in April of seventy eight, and back then, you know,

0:26:58.200 --> 0:27:01.359
<v Speaker 4>you had all the you know hand von Furstenberg and

0:27:01.400 --> 0:27:03.920
<v Speaker 4>Warhol and Liza and all these people, you know, is

0:27:04.040 --> 0:27:09.360
<v Speaker 4>razzle dazzle. But there was always this. They always let

0:27:09.400 --> 0:27:12.919
<v Speaker 4>in a group of young kids that if you were

0:27:13.000 --> 0:27:18.120
<v Speaker 4>dressed interestingly enough and added youthful flavor to the crowd,

0:27:18.480 --> 0:27:21.920
<v Speaker 4>you'd stand outside for a little while. And Mark Bennecky,

0:27:21.960 --> 0:27:24.959
<v Speaker 4>who was the doorman, who would stand on this perch

0:27:25.080 --> 0:27:30.600
<v Speaker 4>in a huge norma kmali red cocoon coat, would you know,

0:27:31.000 --> 0:27:33.560
<v Speaker 4>sort of look around and act like, you know, he'd

0:27:34.119 --> 0:27:38.560
<v Speaker 4>sauce out the crowd. I always had a strategy, though.

0:27:38.760 --> 0:27:43.040
<v Speaker 4>My strategy was to take the subway up to as

0:27:43.040 --> 0:27:45.800
<v Speaker 4>close as a possible to fifty four at eighth and

0:27:45.840 --> 0:27:49.399
<v Speaker 4>then take a cab from the corner to directly in

0:27:49.440 --> 0:27:52.000
<v Speaker 4>front of Studio fifty four, which could take anywhere from

0:27:52.000 --> 0:27:54.159
<v Speaker 4>thirty to forty five minutes because the street was already

0:27:54.480 --> 0:27:59.120
<v Speaker 4>always packed, right. The trick was that split second when

0:27:59.160 --> 0:28:02.560
<v Speaker 4>the cab door all opens. Mark Benecky is always looking

0:28:02.560 --> 0:28:05.040
<v Speaker 4>to see who's getting out of cars because it could

0:28:05.040 --> 0:28:08.960
<v Speaker 4>be Truman, Capodi, you know, so, but he would at

0:28:09.040 --> 0:28:13.320
<v Speaker 4>least register you, so you know, I spend whatever seventy

0:28:13.320 --> 0:28:17.280
<v Speaker 4>five cents on the subway, another maybe four bucks just

0:28:17.480 --> 0:28:19.920
<v Speaker 4>going half a block and a taxi to make sure

0:28:19.960 --> 0:28:20.440
<v Speaker 4>to get in.

0:28:21.359 --> 0:28:25.560
<v Speaker 1>See, now Rogers should have learned that. Listen. Yes he

0:28:25.600 --> 0:28:29.200
<v Speaker 1>should also been white, but you know, oh.

0:28:29.160 --> 0:28:32.760
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, well listen, there is there's no question about that.

0:28:33.080 --> 0:28:36.199
<v Speaker 4>But yeah, no, it was not a democracy. It was

0:28:37.040 --> 0:28:40.680
<v Speaker 4>far from it. So yeah, seventy nine with the peak

0:28:41.680 --> 0:28:42.400
<v Speaker 4>seventy eight.

0:28:42.280 --> 0:28:46.120
<v Speaker 2>Maybe so once that peaks are you would you say

0:28:46.160 --> 0:28:49.280
<v Speaker 2>that Paradise Garage replaced it? Or then what was your

0:28:49.800 --> 0:28:52.560
<v Speaker 2>like what replaced Studio fifty four? As okay, that's not cool,

0:28:52.600 --> 0:28:56.840
<v Speaker 2>no more, let's go to this spot, you know what.

0:28:56.920 --> 0:28:58.600
<v Speaker 4>It wasn't an either or. I mean, there was a

0:28:58.600 --> 0:29:02.520
<v Speaker 4>lot of stuff going on simultaneously. There was a place

0:29:02.560 --> 0:29:06.760
<v Speaker 4>called Hurrahs that was very popular. There was a place

0:29:06.800 --> 0:29:10.200
<v Speaker 4>called the Continental Bath, I mean not the Continental Bands.

0:29:10.360 --> 0:29:14.520
<v Speaker 4>That's another place, the Continental Club. There was dance materia,

0:29:14.960 --> 0:29:18.240
<v Speaker 4>there was a mud club, there's a Cbgbi's was still

0:29:18.520 --> 0:29:21.640
<v Speaker 4>you know, it was very big still back then. And

0:29:21.680 --> 0:29:24.280
<v Speaker 4>then there was a course places like Xenon which was

0:29:24.320 --> 0:29:27.440
<v Speaker 4>sort of like the poor relation to Studio fifty four.

0:29:27.880 --> 0:29:30.040
<v Speaker 4>You know, if you couldn't get into Studio fifty four.

0:29:30.080 --> 0:29:32.600
<v Speaker 4>You would go to Xenon and then there was also

0:29:34.240 --> 0:29:37.920
<v Speaker 4>what's that sex club? Oh, what's a sex club that

0:29:38.000 --> 0:29:41.360
<v Speaker 4>everyone went to? That the Swingers Club. I forget the

0:29:41.400 --> 0:29:42.800
<v Speaker 4>name of it. It was very popular.

0:29:43.440 --> 0:29:48.560
<v Speaker 2>Hey, son, you know it's in my mind right now, Like, yeah, then.

0:29:50.400 --> 0:29:52.840
<v Speaker 1>You eluded him. This is why we have guests on

0:29:52.880 --> 0:29:56.040
<v Speaker 1>the show. I'm trying to you know.

0:29:56.600 --> 0:29:58.600
<v Speaker 2>I was going up there, but at this rate I

0:29:58.720 --> 0:30:01.880
<v Speaker 2>was doing Oldie. It was like, I didn't see this

0:30:01.920 --> 0:30:02.520
<v Speaker 2>part of New York.

0:30:03.000 --> 0:30:09.680
<v Speaker 4>Well, you know, amir, you certainly have Vinceletti's Disco Files book.

0:30:10.160 --> 0:30:11.080
<v Speaker 1>Yes, I think the.

0:30:11.080 --> 0:30:16.760
<v Speaker 4>Disco Files Book is a really great lay of the land. Okay,

0:30:16.800 --> 0:30:19.600
<v Speaker 4>the clubs that were happening and when they were happening,

0:30:20.040 --> 0:30:22.400
<v Speaker 4>because it didn't just like jump from Studio fifty four

0:30:22.440 --> 0:30:24.600
<v Speaker 4>to say, Paradise Grash and Paradise Garage was such a

0:30:24.600 --> 0:30:26.960
<v Speaker 4>different There might have been some overlap, but it was

0:30:27.000 --> 0:30:30.520
<v Speaker 4>a very different vibe, very different crowd. I was not

0:30:30.600 --> 0:30:34.200
<v Speaker 4>a member of Paradise Crash. I did go there on

0:30:34.400 --> 0:30:37.959
<v Speaker 4>many occasions, but you had to it was had to

0:30:38.000 --> 0:30:41.160
<v Speaker 4>reach out to the guy. Was it Richard Brody I

0:30:41.200 --> 0:30:42.640
<v Speaker 4>think was the name of the guy that owned the

0:30:42.640 --> 0:30:46.080
<v Speaker 4>club and get on the guest list for the night

0:30:46.280 --> 0:30:46.520
<v Speaker 4>and all.

0:30:46.680 --> 0:30:47.600
<v Speaker 1>It was too hard to get it.

0:30:47.640 --> 0:30:50.320
<v Speaker 4>Okay, well you had to be a you know, as

0:30:50.360 --> 0:30:51.280
<v Speaker 4>a membership club.

0:30:52.080 --> 0:30:57.720
<v Speaker 2>Question before your record label days, were you seeing any

0:30:58.280 --> 0:31:03.080
<v Speaker 2>bands or artists like forming clubs or were you strictly

0:31:03.160 --> 0:31:07.160
<v Speaker 2>just like a club kid listening to DJs?

0:31:07.440 --> 0:31:11.000
<v Speaker 4>You know, I was actually more interested in the DJs,

0:31:11.040 --> 0:31:17.120
<v Speaker 4>to tell you, and I still am the I mean, yeah,

0:31:17.120 --> 0:31:19.800
<v Speaker 4>I see these shows and everything, but I didn't have

0:31:19.960 --> 0:31:24.480
<v Speaker 4>I never had the same fervor about seeing live concerts

0:31:24.560 --> 0:31:28.560
<v Speaker 4>except for Roxy Music and I'm a rough, total Roxy

0:31:28.680 --> 0:31:32.080
<v Speaker 4>music geek fan. Love Brian Ferry, like going back to

0:31:32.120 --> 0:31:36.320
<v Speaker 4>the mid seventies. But so that was Oh and I

0:31:36.360 --> 0:31:40.640
<v Speaker 4>was also loved to go see Bowie and LaBelle. LaBelle

0:31:40.680 --> 0:31:44.040
<v Speaker 4>was a definitely appointment, you know, that was like a

0:31:44.040 --> 0:31:47.080
<v Speaker 4>big deal to go to Labelle's shows back in the seventies.

0:31:47.320 --> 0:31:51.360
<v Speaker 2>But were you there for their infamous where I think

0:31:51.400 --> 0:31:53.800
<v Speaker 2>they did something at the Lincoln Center where everyone had

0:31:53.840 --> 0:31:54.720
<v Speaker 2>to wear something silver?

0:31:56.560 --> 0:32:02.760
<v Speaker 4>Oh yeah, no, no, no, yes, that was the Chameleon Tour,

0:32:03.520 --> 0:32:07.080
<v Speaker 4>I believe, yes, with all the costumes that were by

0:32:07.480 --> 0:32:12.760
<v Speaker 4>Larry Lagaspi, the Lake Larry Lagaspi, who's being there's a

0:32:12.800 --> 0:32:18.320
<v Speaker 4>big book that Rick Owens is doing a tribute to

0:32:18.440 --> 0:32:22.280
<v Speaker 4>Larry Lagaspy. But this was in I believe seventy six,

0:32:22.480 --> 0:32:25.120
<v Speaker 4>because I think after the Chameleon tour they kind of

0:32:25.120 --> 0:32:29.440
<v Speaker 4>broke up, if I'm yeah, But I was in Chicago

0:32:29.520 --> 0:32:31.680
<v Speaker 4>and me and all my friends, I was hanging out

0:32:31.720 --> 0:32:36.320
<v Speaker 4>with this huge, gay, glamy crowd and we all dressed

0:32:36.520 --> 0:32:42.440
<v Speaker 4>as reptiles to go to the LaBelle concert. And I

0:32:42.560 --> 0:32:47.720
<v Speaker 4>dressed in this green sequined lizard outfit that I put together,

0:32:48.480 --> 0:32:51.880
<v Speaker 4>and actually and all my friends did. I still have

0:32:51.880 --> 0:32:53.880
<v Speaker 4>photos of it, and I was invited to go up

0:32:53.920 --> 0:33:00.360
<v Speaker 4>on stage and dance with Nonah and Sarah, and I

0:33:00.400 --> 0:33:03.720
<v Speaker 4>have the photos of it to I have the receipts.

0:33:03.880 --> 0:33:06.840
<v Speaker 4>But it was it was incredible. I mean this, this

0:33:06.880 --> 0:33:09.520
<v Speaker 4>is when the audience was really at one with the

0:33:09.800 --> 0:33:13.920
<v Speaker 4>LaBelle and you know, people felt that way too about

0:33:13.920 --> 0:33:17.680
<v Speaker 4>going to Bowie and Roxy music. Everyone wanted to dress

0:33:17.720 --> 0:33:23.520
<v Speaker 4>as glamorously as Brian Ferry, you know. So. But but

0:33:23.560 --> 0:33:25.320
<v Speaker 4>I'm not going to be that. I'm not that personally

0:33:25.320 --> 0:33:27.320
<v Speaker 4>to say, oh, yeah, I was at such and such

0:33:27.560 --> 0:33:30.480
<v Speaker 4>you know concert or anything like that.

0:33:31.080 --> 0:33:35.520
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so for you, did you know an immediate sonic

0:33:35.560 --> 0:33:40.640
<v Speaker 2>difference when you were frequenting clubs that were more hip

0:33:40.680 --> 0:33:43.720
<v Speaker 2>hop based and and I mean way before there were

0:33:43.800 --> 0:33:46.680
<v Speaker 2>rap labels or even before your time at your tenure

0:33:46.680 --> 0:33:52.280
<v Speaker 2>at a Tommy Boy. Like if you're seeing like, do

0:33:52.360 --> 0:33:56.880
<v Speaker 2>you remember your first rap club experience pre your record

0:33:56.920 --> 0:33:58.320
<v Speaker 2>label days?

0:33:58.720 --> 0:34:04.120
<v Speaker 4>Hmmm, No, oh I don't, because I think I started.

0:34:04.840 --> 0:34:07.920
<v Speaker 4>I think probably the first club that I recall going

0:34:08.080 --> 0:34:12.480
<v Speaker 4>to was probably Negrill. So it's not like I was,

0:34:12.920 --> 0:34:16.480
<v Speaker 4>oh yeah, I was at Harlem World in seventy nine

0:34:16.600 --> 0:34:18.480
<v Speaker 4>and blah blah. No, it wasn't like that.

0:34:19.680 --> 0:34:23.040
<v Speaker 1>I was is this the Negrill that's on twenty third Street?

0:34:24.520 --> 0:34:29.319
<v Speaker 4>Negrill I think was down on like Second Avenue around

0:34:29.360 --> 0:34:35.400
<v Speaker 4>maybe fourth sixth Street. Lady Blue Freddy was very involved

0:34:35.480 --> 0:34:40.640
<v Speaker 4>in sort of helping, you know, coalesce the uptown downtown

0:34:40.920 --> 0:34:46.759
<v Speaker 4>scenes together. You know, Bam was djaying there and I

0:34:46.800 --> 0:34:49.640
<v Speaker 4>think I think rack Steady performed there. Is it was

0:34:49.760 --> 0:34:52.640
<v Speaker 4>like a small, sort of cramped basement space. It was

0:34:52.680 --> 0:34:55.440
<v Speaker 4>really you know, not.

0:34:56.960 --> 0:35:00.480
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, okay, I get it now when people mentioned the Grill.

0:35:01.520 --> 0:35:05.040
<v Speaker 2>Of course, me being an entry in the nineties, I'm

0:35:05.040 --> 0:35:09.520
<v Speaker 2>thinking of the upscale Jamaican restaurant. Yeah, thinking that maybe

0:35:10.000 --> 0:35:12.040
<v Speaker 2>it was once a hip hop club like in the

0:35:12.080 --> 0:35:15.680
<v Speaker 2>eighties or whatever. But I'm realizing that I got fooled.

0:35:16.320 --> 0:35:19.400
<v Speaker 2>So can you tell me how you got pulled into

0:35:19.520 --> 0:35:20.640
<v Speaker 2>the record industry.

0:35:22.160 --> 0:35:26.080
<v Speaker 4>Well, I was waiting take I left my thriving career

0:35:26.440 --> 0:35:29.840
<v Speaker 4>at show World and people in and you know, I

0:35:30.000 --> 0:35:34.800
<v Speaker 4>made this, you know, incredibly brilliant determination that the people

0:35:34.880 --> 0:35:36.919
<v Speaker 4>who I was, you know, the people I was working with,

0:35:36.960 --> 0:35:39.560
<v Speaker 4>the people I was working for and the customers were

0:35:39.880 --> 0:35:43.960
<v Speaker 4>all pretty much a dead end. And I wasn't and

0:35:44.000 --> 0:35:47.760
<v Speaker 4>I wasn't getting any younger. So I started waiting tables,

0:35:47.920 --> 0:35:52.880
<v Speaker 4>ended up working graveyard at a place called the Empire Diner.

0:35:55.000 --> 0:35:58.719
<v Speaker 4>I was living in the Chelsea Hotel. So there's like

0:35:58.800 --> 0:36:02.160
<v Speaker 4>all the bona fides for like, yeah, she checks all

0:36:02.160 --> 0:36:08.239
<v Speaker 4>the boxers late seventies, early eighties. But because I had

0:36:08.280 --> 0:36:11.759
<v Speaker 4>always been such a music fan and I was always like,

0:36:11.840 --> 0:36:13.560
<v Speaker 4>what's that you're playing? What's that you're playing? You know,

0:36:13.600 --> 0:36:17.560
<v Speaker 4>but you know, I loved it, I decided to go

0:36:17.640 --> 0:36:20.880
<v Speaker 4>to this. I heard about something called the New Music Seminar,

0:36:21.080 --> 0:36:26.120
<v Speaker 4>and it was the first conference that Tom Silverman put

0:36:26.160 --> 0:36:31.880
<v Speaker 4>together with his two partners, Mark Josephson and I'm not

0:36:31.920 --> 0:36:34.240
<v Speaker 4>even sure Joel Weber was part of it at that point,

0:36:34.440 --> 0:36:36.680
<v Speaker 4>but it was in a small It was in recording

0:36:36.800 --> 0:36:42.840
<v Speaker 4>studio up in Yorkville. And this was probably nineteen eighty

0:36:43.200 --> 0:36:47.760
<v Speaker 4>or eighty one. So and I, you know, met Tom

0:36:47.960 --> 0:36:50.319
<v Speaker 4>at a pizza place during a break. I said, hey,

0:36:50.360 --> 0:36:55.399
<v Speaker 4>I'm Monica, you know, okay, whatever. And then a guy

0:36:55.440 --> 0:36:59.280
<v Speaker 4>named Bob Pittman was speaking at this conference and he started.

0:36:59.280 --> 0:37:02.360
<v Speaker 4>He announced that there was a new new thing that

0:37:02.640 --> 0:37:06.040
<v Speaker 4>they were about to launch called MTV, and I approached

0:37:06.120 --> 0:37:08.759
<v Speaker 4>him afterwards. I said, oh, man, this sounds great. I

0:37:08.800 --> 0:37:11.560
<v Speaker 4>would love to work for you. He you know, completely

0:37:11.680 --> 0:37:14.879
<v Speaker 4>ignored me. And about a year so I just kept

0:37:14.960 --> 0:37:17.120
<v Speaker 4>waiting tables. And then about a year later I saw

0:37:17.160 --> 0:37:20.160
<v Speaker 4>an ad for a guy, Gal Friday in the Village Voice.

0:37:20.520 --> 0:37:23.479
<v Speaker 4>This is back when people where there were no there

0:37:23.560 --> 0:37:24.480
<v Speaker 4>was no LinkedIn.

0:37:25.200 --> 0:37:27.600
<v Speaker 1>Uh, you had to buy a Village Voice to get

0:37:27.600 --> 0:37:27.919
<v Speaker 1>a job.

0:37:28.239 --> 0:37:29.799
<v Speaker 4>You had to buy the Village Rights or the New

0:37:29.880 --> 0:37:32.440
<v Speaker 4>York Times, you know, and you on the Sunday New

0:37:32.520 --> 0:37:35.080
<v Speaker 4>York Times, you know, and go through all these little,

0:37:35.360 --> 0:37:38.600
<v Speaker 4>you know, mouse type listings, and I saw an ad

0:37:38.680 --> 0:37:43.719
<v Speaker 4>for a guy, Gal Friday for a dance music I

0:37:43.719 --> 0:37:47.440
<v Speaker 4>think it was a dance music publication slash record company.

0:37:47.640 --> 0:37:49.520
<v Speaker 4>I still have the ad. I still have it on

0:37:50.840 --> 0:37:53.080
<v Speaker 4>Oh yeah, a little yellow piece of paper that I

0:37:53.160 --> 0:37:57.360
<v Speaker 4>cut out. I have it in an envelope. And I

0:37:57.440 --> 0:38:00.279
<v Speaker 4>called the number and it was tom and he didn't

0:38:00.280 --> 0:38:04.239
<v Speaker 4>remember me, but I remembered him, and he told me, yeah,

0:38:04.560 --> 0:38:07.840
<v Speaker 4>you know dance music. I have dance music report. I

0:38:07.920 --> 0:38:10.840
<v Speaker 4>just started this label called Tommy Boy. And you know

0:38:11.040 --> 0:38:13.480
<v Speaker 4>this would be to be like my right hand person.

0:38:13.800 --> 0:38:17.360
<v Speaker 4>Blah blah blah, and there were At this point, I

0:38:17.440 --> 0:38:21.160
<v Speaker 4>was actually living in servants quarters up on Upper West Side.

0:38:21.239 --> 0:38:23.760
<v Speaker 4>I was bouncing around a lot of places.

0:38:24.160 --> 0:38:28.719
<v Speaker 2>That's always the top floor of a that's right. I

0:38:28.840 --> 0:38:33.560
<v Speaker 2>was second. I was second. I was seconds away from

0:38:33.600 --> 0:38:38.240
<v Speaker 2>buying a five story house in Harlem in the Heights

0:38:38.360 --> 0:38:43.080
<v Speaker 2>before after Hamilton. Then them prices really jacked up. It

0:38:43.160 --> 0:38:47.319
<v Speaker 2>was like Hamilton's Row and it looked as large as

0:38:47.320 --> 0:38:50.200
<v Speaker 2>like the Huxtables crib in Brooklyn. But you know, the

0:38:50.239 --> 0:38:53.440
<v Speaker 2>basement was tricked out. The first floor, then they had

0:38:53.440 --> 0:38:56.239
<v Speaker 2>the second, fourth, third, fourth, fourth floor, and then on

0:38:56.320 --> 0:38:59.960
<v Speaker 2>the fifth floor that's usually where the maid or the nanny.

0:39:00.960 --> 0:39:04.160
<v Speaker 2>You know, these houses are also hundreds of years old. You

0:39:04.160 --> 0:39:08.600
<v Speaker 2>imagine that's where Yeah, the help, So that kept your legs,

0:39:08.600 --> 0:39:11.879
<v Speaker 2>That at least kept your legs in shafe because you'd

0:39:11.960 --> 0:39:13.520
<v Speaker 2>have to go up five flights of stairs.

0:39:14.000 --> 0:39:17.799
<v Speaker 4>Yes, for these tiny little rooms. It wasn't you know,

0:39:17.960 --> 0:39:19.000
<v Speaker 4>shared bathrooms.

0:39:19.040 --> 0:39:19.320
<v Speaker 6>Whatever.

0:39:19.640 --> 0:39:21.759
<v Speaker 4>It was fine. It was like maybe fifty seventy five

0:39:21.760 --> 0:39:24.960
<v Speaker 4>bucks a week or something. But I had these numerous

0:39:24.960 --> 0:39:27.799
<v Speaker 4>phone calls with Tom trying to convince some way he

0:39:27.800 --> 0:39:30.400
<v Speaker 4>should hire me because I didn't have a college education.

0:39:30.680 --> 0:39:32.920
<v Speaker 4>He did. He's like, well where you know, what have

0:39:32.960 --> 0:39:35.800
<v Speaker 4>you done before? And like, well, you know, I worked

0:39:35.800 --> 0:39:40.040
<v Speaker 4>at peep Land and this was you know, you know,

0:39:40.560 --> 0:39:46.680
<v Speaker 4>And he wasn't thoroughly convinced. But then once he said, well, okay, listen, tomorrow,

0:39:46.719 --> 0:39:50.000
<v Speaker 4>I'm going out to pick up the twelve inches of

0:39:50.040 --> 0:39:52.440
<v Speaker 4>the new Tommy Boy release and you can come. You

0:39:52.480 --> 0:39:55.360
<v Speaker 4>can ride along with me. So I'm like, okay, cool,

0:39:55.480 --> 0:39:59.279
<v Speaker 4>this is my shot. And so I meet up with him.

0:39:59.320 --> 0:40:03.440
<v Speaker 4>He lives in this uh, two bedroom apartment over in Yorkville,

0:40:04.400 --> 0:40:11.200
<v Speaker 4>Let's face it, the heart of exactly the Upper East Side.

0:40:11.320 --> 0:40:13.560
<v Speaker 4>On the fire, he said you know where the mayor's home.

0:40:13.440 --> 0:40:17.080
<v Speaker 1>Is, where York Street starts, Yes.

0:40:17.040 --> 0:40:22.200
<v Speaker 4>York Avenue, right exactly. It's you know. So we drive

0:40:22.239 --> 0:40:25.640
<v Speaker 4>out to Long Island City and his hatchback. I don't

0:40:25.640 --> 0:40:28.360
<v Speaker 4>know if that's a thing, if they even make hatchbacks anymore,

0:40:28.360 --> 0:40:30.120
<v Speaker 4>but it was. We drove out there in his hatchback

0:40:30.400 --> 0:40:35.040
<v Speaker 4>to this uh pressing plant called Apexton, and it was

0:40:35.080 --> 0:40:40.960
<v Speaker 4>owned by these two Polish brothers. And so what they

0:40:41.040 --> 0:40:43.480
<v Speaker 4>do is, when you know, when Tom had ordered a

0:40:43.520 --> 0:40:46.400
<v Speaker 4>pressing if I don't know, a thousand or whatever of

0:40:46.520 --> 0:40:50.279
<v Speaker 4>this record, they wheel them out to the curb in

0:40:50.360 --> 0:40:54.920
<v Speaker 4>fifty count boxes, and you know, Tom opens up the

0:40:54.920 --> 0:40:57.120
<v Speaker 4>back of the hatchback and I started slinging in these

0:40:57.200 --> 0:41:00.160
<v Speaker 4>fifty count boxes. And I'm a girl from Chicago. Man,

0:41:00.600 --> 0:41:04.319
<v Speaker 4>It's like, I'm a big girl from Chicago. I have

0:41:04.520 --> 0:41:07.560
<v Speaker 4>no problem lifting up heavy shit and slinging it. So

0:41:07.800 --> 0:41:10.080
<v Speaker 4>he was like, oh, she got some muscle on her,

0:41:10.160 --> 0:41:15.120
<v Speaker 4>all right, you got the job. So that's how I started.

0:41:15.280 --> 0:41:17.239
<v Speaker 4>But I had to keep waiting on tables when I

0:41:17.239 --> 0:41:20.680
<v Speaker 4>started because I couldn't afford you know, the pay wasn't

0:41:20.719 --> 0:41:23.279
<v Speaker 4>a whole lot. So I was working tables at night

0:41:23.320 --> 0:41:24.360
<v Speaker 4>and working for tom.

0:41:24.280 --> 0:41:29.319
<v Speaker 1>During the day. Was this is this after Planet Rock

0:41:29.480 --> 0:41:31.160
<v Speaker 1>or like what years? No? No?

0:41:31.280 --> 0:41:35.600
<v Speaker 4>Before December of eighty one, I was the first employee.

0:41:36.360 --> 0:41:39.680
<v Speaker 3>Your memory is incredible, Monica inch, I can't even your memories.

0:41:39.680 --> 0:41:41.520
<v Speaker 1>I believed. I love this. This tells me that you

0:41:41.520 --> 0:41:43.560
<v Speaker 1>didn't do much drugs in the eighties, because.

0:41:43.480 --> 0:41:44.399
<v Speaker 4>Oh no, that's not true.

0:41:45.040 --> 0:41:47.840
<v Speaker 1>Do you take me never mind? Usually our guests are like,

0:41:47.880 --> 0:41:51.960
<v Speaker 1>hey man, I don't remember selective member. What you know

0:41:52.080 --> 0:41:52.360
<v Speaker 1>it is?

0:41:52.400 --> 0:41:54.919
<v Speaker 4>You have selective memory about certain things. If you asked

0:41:54.960 --> 0:41:58.279
<v Speaker 4>me other things, I say, I can't remember. But this

0:41:58.320 --> 0:41:59.320
<v Speaker 4>stuff I do remember.

0:42:00.239 --> 0:42:05.399
<v Speaker 2>Was this the jazzy j like funky Sensation era of yes?

0:42:06.080 --> 0:42:07.319
<v Speaker 1>Okay, in fact, it was.

0:42:08.200 --> 0:42:11.239
<v Speaker 4>That's right, That's what it was like exactly. That was

0:42:11.640 --> 0:42:17.000
<v Speaker 4>when I started in December of nineteen eighty one. Tommy

0:42:17.040 --> 0:42:19.960
<v Speaker 4>actually about a week after I started, went away for

0:42:20.000 --> 0:42:24.400
<v Speaker 4>a couple of weeks to Jamaica for an extended vacation

0:42:24.520 --> 0:42:30.120
<v Speaker 4>with his girlfriend, and Jazzy Sensation had just come out, right,

0:42:30.480 --> 0:42:34.879
<v Speaker 4>and so you know, my duties were split between Tommy Boy,

0:42:35.000 --> 0:42:38.960
<v Speaker 4>this fledgling label, Tommy Boy, and Dance Music Report, which

0:42:39.040 --> 0:42:44.200
<v Speaker 4>was which was a disco DJ tip sheet, which I

0:42:44.200 --> 0:42:46.520
<v Speaker 4>don't know if you remember that, but it was an

0:42:46.560 --> 0:42:51.080
<v Speaker 4>important publication in its time. So he went on vacation

0:42:51.239 --> 0:42:55.440
<v Speaker 4>and left me with, you know, my sort of semi

0:42:55.840 --> 0:42:59.080
<v Speaker 4>defined duties, and one of them was, you know, to

0:42:59.200 --> 0:43:04.400
<v Speaker 4>make sure to you know, take the orders for Jesz Sensation,

0:43:04.880 --> 0:43:07.600
<v Speaker 4>and you know, make sure the pressing plant has got

0:43:07.600 --> 0:43:10.760
<v Speaker 4>the records going and all this other stuff. Well, sure enough,

0:43:11.239 --> 0:43:14.799
<v Speaker 4>I took an order from a one stop. I don't

0:43:14.840 --> 0:43:18.480
<v Speaker 4>know if you know what a one stop is. Yes,

0:43:18.600 --> 0:43:23.839
<v Speaker 4>there's a sub category of an independent distributor. And it

0:43:23.880 --> 0:43:27.879
<v Speaker 4>was an account that we didn't weren't open with, and

0:43:27.920 --> 0:43:30.120
<v Speaker 4>so I took an order and then come to find

0:43:30.160 --> 0:43:34.080
<v Speaker 4>out that it was some guy who was a gonif

0:43:35.280 --> 0:43:39.080
<v Speaker 4>and wasn't going to be paying us. And Tom totally

0:43:39.120 --> 0:43:40.360
<v Speaker 4>liked reamed me about that.

0:43:40.640 --> 0:43:45.520
<v Speaker 1>But when you say you mean like some friends of ours.

0:43:44.640 --> 0:43:47.920
<v Speaker 4>Some friends of ours, well, I just bought a hardcover

0:43:48.120 --> 0:43:50.359
<v Speaker 4>copy of The Joys of Yiddish for a friend of

0:43:50.360 --> 0:43:53.000
<v Speaker 4>mine today. Because when you say because I said, I

0:43:53.080 --> 0:43:55.480
<v Speaker 4>said to her, I said, oh, you know this person, bubbah,

0:43:55.480 --> 0:43:57.560
<v Speaker 4>they're great, but they have no rookmonnas. And she said,

0:43:57.760 --> 0:44:01.320
<v Speaker 4>what's rock Munas. I'm like, you've never worked in the

0:44:01.400 --> 0:44:05.080
<v Speaker 4>music industry. You don't know what Ghani or Rochmunnis is

0:44:05.280 --> 0:44:09.239
<v Speaker 4>or you know, oh yeah, so yeah, I mean it

0:44:09.280 --> 0:44:11.239
<v Speaker 4>basically meant the guy wasn't who serve of a thief,

0:44:11.320 --> 0:44:12.680
<v Speaker 4>wasn't planning on paying us.

0:44:13.200 --> 0:44:17.759
<v Speaker 2>In my mind, the difference between Tommy Boy and well,

0:44:17.800 --> 0:44:19.480
<v Speaker 2>I'm saying the hip hop labels that came before it,

0:44:19.480 --> 0:44:23.160
<v Speaker 2>because really we're talking sugar Hill is what I feel

0:44:23.200 --> 0:44:25.520
<v Speaker 2>is notable about those two labels is that you know,

0:44:25.560 --> 0:44:28.799
<v Speaker 2>with enjoy in sugar Hill, I definitely know that, you know,

0:44:28.840 --> 0:44:34.320
<v Speaker 2>Mars Levy had his hands or quote Mars Levy types

0:44:35.320 --> 0:44:39.919
<v Speaker 2>more gangster run era of the music industry.

0:44:40.080 --> 0:44:43.359
<v Speaker 1>How is one able to start.

0:44:43.200 --> 0:44:49.200
<v Speaker 2>A label, an independent label in the early eighties without

0:44:49.239 --> 0:44:53.279
<v Speaker 2>someone trying to muscle you for a piece? Now, even

0:44:53.320 --> 0:44:57.960
<v Speaker 2>though okay, so Jazz's instation wasn't exactly Planet Rock, but

0:44:58.480 --> 0:45:01.480
<v Speaker 2>for our listeners that are are peep in Jesse Sensation

0:45:01.680 --> 0:45:07.280
<v Speaker 2>is a hip hop rendition of gwymccree's sort of timeless

0:45:07.320 --> 0:45:07.960
<v Speaker 2>Can you feel it?

0:45:08.000 --> 0:45:11.600
<v Speaker 1>Can you feel it? Our sensation or jazz sensation?

0:45:11.680 --> 0:45:12.080
<v Speaker 4>Yeah?

0:45:12.239 --> 0:45:18.879
<v Speaker 1>Right? So, like, are you aware of the strong arm of.

0:45:20.680 --> 0:45:24.160
<v Speaker 2>The connective folks that sugar Hill and Enjoy Records definitely were.

0:45:25.280 --> 0:45:30.440
<v Speaker 4>Uh, you know, that's a good question. Sugar Hill was

0:45:30.520 --> 0:45:34.560
<v Speaker 4>definitely you know, Joe and Sylvia. And there was a

0:45:34.560 --> 0:45:36.640
<v Speaker 4>guy named Maldon who was sort of the other co

0:45:36.719 --> 0:45:41.880
<v Speaker 4>founder of Sugarte Michael No, no, not Michael moll. I

0:45:41.920 --> 0:45:45.960
<v Speaker 4>was like, okay, now this guy was Yugoslavian. He was

0:45:46.840 --> 0:45:51.000
<v Speaker 4>sort of put in thereby Morris Levy to you know,

0:45:51.160 --> 0:45:53.839
<v Speaker 4>make sure the money situation was whatever it was going

0:45:53.920 --> 0:45:58.000
<v Speaker 4>to be. And uh, but but I would say that

0:45:58.040 --> 0:46:03.520
<v Speaker 4>there it was a very much a entrepreneurial cottage industry

0:46:03.560 --> 0:46:06.520
<v Speaker 4>at that point, you know. And I think Enjoy Records

0:46:06.560 --> 0:46:10.440
<v Speaker 4>Bobby Robinson's label is more in that vein. But you

0:46:10.600 --> 0:46:13.799
<v Speaker 4>what you also had. And I just have to give

0:46:13.800 --> 0:46:18.839
<v Speaker 4>a shout out to Corey Robbins because Corey, yes, co

0:46:18.960 --> 0:46:23.840
<v Speaker 4>founder of Profile Records. Corey actually came to the office

0:46:23.920 --> 0:46:25.960
<v Speaker 4>when Tom was away and he just knocked down the

0:46:25.960 --> 0:46:28.640
<v Speaker 4>door and said, hey, I'm Corey. You know I have

0:46:28.680 --> 0:46:32.080
<v Speaker 4>Profile Records. If any if you need anything, if anything

0:46:32.120 --> 0:46:34.520
<v Speaker 4>goes wrong, you have any questions, please feel free to

0:46:35.000 --> 0:46:36.759
<v Speaker 4>get in touch with me. And it's like, wow, thank you,

0:46:36.800 --> 0:46:38.840
<v Speaker 4>I appreciate it because I didn't have a lot of questions.

0:46:39.200 --> 0:46:43.320
<v Speaker 4>But there was this There were labels that were really

0:46:44.080 --> 0:46:48.680
<v Speaker 4>the the you know dance, the post disco dance labels

0:46:48.719 --> 0:46:54.400
<v Speaker 4>like west End and Prelude. Who there. It wasn't so

0:46:54.560 --> 0:46:57.759
<v Speaker 4>much about some sort of cultural bubbling up. It was

0:46:57.840 --> 0:47:02.640
<v Speaker 4>more about what was selling. Okay, cell Cell's over or

0:47:02.800 --> 0:47:08.120
<v Speaker 4>peaked or whatever. So maybe it's you know, Tanya Gardner

0:47:08.440 --> 0:47:14.240
<v Speaker 4>or you know something right exactly things that are bubbling

0:47:14.320 --> 0:47:17.600
<v Speaker 4>up that are more from the street and including hip hop,

0:47:18.760 --> 0:47:22.680
<v Speaker 4>but it was more of a commercial imperative, I think,

0:47:22.719 --> 0:47:27.560
<v Speaker 4>than an artistic decision or a cultural reflection so much.

0:47:27.760 --> 0:47:30.080
<v Speaker 4>And I think the same thing is absolutely true with

0:47:30.160 --> 0:47:32.799
<v Speaker 4>sugar Hill and Enjoy. I mean, you've got you know,

0:47:32.920 --> 0:47:35.319
<v Speaker 4>Bobby Robinson and Joe and Sylvia. I mean look at

0:47:35.320 --> 0:47:38.319
<v Speaker 4>their histories with the labels that they had, so I

0:47:38.360 --> 0:47:43.280
<v Speaker 4>think that they were all these were independent labels owned

0:47:43.280 --> 0:47:46.160
<v Speaker 4>by people who were looking around the landscape and saying

0:47:46.600 --> 0:47:51.120
<v Speaker 4>where can I make money next?

0:47:53.760 --> 0:47:57.840
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so if you're doing jazzy Sensation, assuming that you

0:47:57.840 --> 0:48:01.000
<v Speaker 2>were there for its very first order, how many pieces

0:48:01.560 --> 0:48:04.520
<v Speaker 2>are you ordering and how many like just walk me

0:48:04.600 --> 0:48:08.719
<v Speaker 2>through how does one spread it? So how many go

0:48:08.800 --> 0:48:12.360
<v Speaker 2>to DJs so they can get played? Are you hoping

0:48:12.400 --> 0:48:15.800
<v Speaker 2>that Frankie Crocker plays it so that it might go national?

0:48:16.040 --> 0:48:18.840
<v Speaker 2>And then if it does well? In other words, the

0:48:19.239 --> 0:48:22.160
<v Speaker 2>problem that was presented in Crust Groove, which I forget

0:48:22.200 --> 0:48:23.960
<v Speaker 2>what single it was like they had a single so

0:48:24.000 --> 0:48:27.600
<v Speaker 2>successful that they didn't have enough money to print it.

0:48:27.960 --> 0:48:32.840
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, then yes, yeah, the worst thing that could happen

0:48:32.880 --> 0:48:34.480
<v Speaker 4>to you is a hit like the producers.

0:48:34.840 --> 0:48:38.759
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, okay, so let's even though I want you to lead

0:48:38.800 --> 0:48:41.400
<v Speaker 2>up to Planet Rock, I'm certain that that was a

0:48:41.440 --> 0:48:45.480
<v Speaker 2>problem for you guys, because that was a worldwide smash.

0:48:45.960 --> 0:48:49.239
<v Speaker 2>So how do you operate and service the world? And

0:48:49.280 --> 0:48:50.800
<v Speaker 2>how do you know what the world wants? How do

0:48:50.840 --> 0:48:54.080
<v Speaker 2>you know what a local record store in Germany wants?

0:48:54.120 --> 0:48:57.319
<v Speaker 2>How do you know if Doctor Dre or Uncle Jam

0:48:57.400 --> 0:48:59.719
<v Speaker 2>is playing it in la Like?

0:48:59.760 --> 0:49:01.239
<v Speaker 1>How how do you spread the word?

0:49:01.320 --> 0:49:03.160
<v Speaker 2>Like who's the person that you're trying to get this

0:49:03.200 --> 0:49:05.799
<v Speaker 2>record to hoping that it will become a thing.

0:49:06.360 --> 0:49:10.239
<v Speaker 4>Well, listen, back then, it was a very small network.

0:49:11.080 --> 0:49:15.800
<v Speaker 4>And when Jazz Sensation was out, I mean I always

0:49:15.840 --> 0:49:19.200
<v Speaker 4>tell people, you know, Jazz Sensation really was what I

0:49:19.200 --> 0:49:23.120
<v Speaker 4>would call a regional record It was popular in the

0:49:23.120 --> 0:49:28.440
<v Speaker 4>mid Atlantic area. Tommy Boyce certainly didn't have the we

0:49:28.640 --> 0:49:31.879
<v Speaker 4>had not set up sort of a national network, which

0:49:31.920 --> 0:49:35.480
<v Speaker 4>may or may not have even been you know, might

0:49:35.480 --> 0:49:37.160
<v Speaker 4>have made a difference, I don't know. But the thing

0:49:37.239 --> 0:49:39.920
<v Speaker 4>is is that back then there was such a small

0:49:40.000 --> 0:49:44.400
<v Speaker 4>number of people to even go to. You know, we

0:49:44.400 --> 0:49:47.520
<v Speaker 4>were dealing directly with Magic when he was still on

0:49:47.760 --> 0:49:54.640
<v Speaker 4>HBI Wow, you know, Islam Head, Zulu Beats, Supreme Team,

0:49:55.320 --> 0:49:58.520
<v Speaker 4>there was I mean, this is before Red was on Kiss.

0:49:58.560 --> 0:50:00.360
<v Speaker 4>I mean there was you know, a a lot of

0:50:00.360 --> 0:50:06.520
<v Speaker 4>this was through club DJs and to some degree these

0:50:06.560 --> 0:50:09.640
<v Speaker 4>sort of specialty mix shows that were starting to merge,

0:50:10.120 --> 0:50:14.080
<v Speaker 4>some of them on college, college and university stations. But

0:50:14.920 --> 0:50:17.839
<v Speaker 4>at that point, I know you were talking nineteen eighty two,

0:50:18.280 --> 0:50:21.600
<v Speaker 4>it was it's a short window really between Jazzy Sensation

0:50:21.680 --> 0:50:24.200
<v Speaker 4>and Planet Rock. As Planet Rock came out, I think

0:50:24.200 --> 0:50:28.000
<v Speaker 4>it was April of eighty two, so it's a really

0:50:28.040 --> 0:50:35.120
<v Speaker 4>big difference. So you had the independent record stores who

0:50:35.280 --> 0:50:37.720
<v Speaker 4>by the way, you know, I have had a recent

0:50:37.760 --> 0:50:41.120
<v Speaker 4>conversation with someone about this that if there was ever

0:50:41.160 --> 0:50:44.640
<v Speaker 4>a documentary that someone was going to consider doing. I

0:50:44.640 --> 0:50:48.680
<v Speaker 4>think the history of independent record stores, Black independent record

0:50:48.719 --> 0:50:53.240
<v Speaker 4>stores and their role in hip hop and dance music

0:50:53.560 --> 0:50:56.239
<v Speaker 4>as an untold story, But I would say the record

0:50:56.320 --> 0:50:59.719
<v Speaker 4>stores played a big role in spreading the word and

0:50:59.760 --> 0:51:03.279
<v Speaker 4>play the records. The club DJs were more important at

0:51:03.280 --> 0:51:08.520
<v Speaker 4>that point servicing record pools. I mean, I still have.

0:51:08.480 --> 0:51:09.880
<v Speaker 1>About record pools.

0:51:10.280 --> 0:51:13.799
<v Speaker 4>Yes, I still have lists of the record pools and

0:51:13.840 --> 0:51:17.120
<v Speaker 4>the record pool directors and we would keep a running,

0:51:17.440 --> 0:51:19.799
<v Speaker 4>you know, running list of how many members do you

0:51:19.960 --> 0:51:23.720
<v Speaker 4>have and who do you service and blah blah blah,

0:51:23.840 --> 0:51:24.320
<v Speaker 4>So how.

0:51:24.160 --> 0:51:26.479
<v Speaker 2>Many counts do you have to service? How many counts

0:51:26.520 --> 0:51:27.919
<v Speaker 2>do you have to service for a record pool?

0:51:31.120 --> 0:51:34.040
<v Speaker 4>You know, some of these record pools might have like

0:51:34.480 --> 0:51:36.640
<v Speaker 4>the Shore record pool that was run by a guy

0:51:36.719 --> 0:51:39.719
<v Speaker 4>named Bobby Davis up in the Bronx. He'd say, oh,

0:51:39.760 --> 0:51:42.320
<v Speaker 4>you know, one hundred and fifty members, two hundred members,

0:51:42.440 --> 0:51:45.879
<v Speaker 4>or you know, you'd have maybe a Rickets Records out

0:51:45.880 --> 0:51:48.600
<v Speaker 4>in New Jersey and they might have seventy five members,

0:51:48.719 --> 0:51:51.880
<v Speaker 4>or some record pool out on Long Island or you know,

0:51:51.920 --> 0:51:54.759
<v Speaker 4>whatever it was. But you know the thing with the

0:51:54.800 --> 0:51:59.439
<v Speaker 4>record pool directors is that they sort of were had more,

0:52:00.080 --> 0:52:02.960
<v Speaker 4>uh more power than that they did in the in

0:52:03.040 --> 0:52:06.200
<v Speaker 4>the years to come, and then well you have to

0:52:06.200 --> 0:52:09.440
<v Speaker 4>give us full service or nothing, even though.

0:52:09.840 --> 0:52:10.840
<v Speaker 1>I know it's about to happen.

0:52:11.440 --> 0:52:14.160
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, a lot of their members would never touch a wrap.

0:52:14.000 --> 0:52:16.680
<v Speaker 1>Record, okay, so they would just sell it.

0:52:17.880 --> 0:52:20.520
<v Speaker 4>So they would sell it or you know, or it

0:52:20.560 --> 0:52:23.640
<v Speaker 4>would just be like, you know, go into the uh

0:52:24.040 --> 0:52:26.400
<v Speaker 4>you know, the vinyl dump or whatever. But it was

0:52:26.760 --> 0:52:27.239
<v Speaker 4>you know, so.

0:52:29.840 --> 0:52:32.879
<v Speaker 2>Is that why sometimes when I get records then they

0:52:32.880 --> 0:52:36.359
<v Speaker 2>have that little uh cut open hole on the top

0:52:36.440 --> 0:52:39.760
<v Speaker 2>left corner. Is that to differentiate a promotional record?

0:52:40.280 --> 0:52:42.080
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? I always wanted to know what that was for.

0:52:42.960 --> 0:52:44.920
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, that's yeah, they were.

0:52:44.560 --> 0:52:46.319
<v Speaker 1>They were notched a punch hole.

0:52:46.400 --> 0:52:49.319
<v Speaker 4>Okay, like a neutered cat, you know. You know, it's

0:52:49.320 --> 0:52:54.840
<v Speaker 4>a promo, you know, but that didn't necessarily prevent something

0:52:54.880 --> 0:52:57.120
<v Speaker 4>being resold. But you know, it only would resell if

0:52:57.160 --> 0:52:59.120
<v Speaker 4>it was a hit. Who fucking cares if it's not

0:52:59.200 --> 0:53:03.680
<v Speaker 4>a hit record, you know out so you know anyway,

0:53:03.719 --> 0:53:06.400
<v Speaker 4>but it was a small world, you know in New York.

0:53:07.239 --> 0:53:09.959
<v Speaker 4>Uh you know, yeah, you'd want to make sure Chef

0:53:10.000 --> 0:53:14.200
<v Speaker 4>Petty Bone or Sergio Munzubai or the Latin Rascals on

0:53:14.480 --> 0:53:19.200
<v Speaker 4>w k T you or DJ Jose Animal Diaz. You know,

0:53:19.239 --> 0:53:23.520
<v Speaker 4>you had Carlos DeJesus on w K t U Rest

0:53:23.560 --> 0:53:28.960
<v Speaker 4>in Peace. You had Barry Mayo and Tony Humphries over

0:53:29.080 --> 0:53:35.080
<v Speaker 4>Kiss Wow. Barry Mayo still friend, really fantastic guy.

0:53:35.920 --> 0:53:38.480
<v Speaker 2>Very all these guys were DJs first before I got

0:53:38.520 --> 0:53:41.720
<v Speaker 2>to know them as remixers and editors, because you're mentioning

0:53:41.880 --> 0:53:44.880
<v Speaker 2>Tony Humphries and the Latin Rascals and they were actual

0:53:44.960 --> 0:53:46.040
<v Speaker 2>DJs first before.

0:53:47.520 --> 0:53:52.200
<v Speaker 4>Oh yeah, Tony, Yeah. And Chef Pettybone was very important

0:53:52.520 --> 0:53:56.799
<v Speaker 4>the master mix on Kiss FM, you know so, and yeah,

0:53:56.800 --> 0:53:59.360
<v Speaker 4>of course Frankie. He was always at the top of

0:53:59.400 --> 0:54:02.600
<v Speaker 4>the you know, top of the food chain, you know,

0:54:03.040 --> 0:54:05.240
<v Speaker 4>like if you could get Frankie to play a record,

0:54:05.719 --> 0:54:09.279
<v Speaker 4>you know. And Frankie was someone who I mean I

0:54:09.320 --> 0:54:12.919
<v Speaker 4>knew him and counted him as a friend, as many did.

0:54:14.440 --> 0:54:19.319
<v Speaker 4>But uh, and he was always very interested in what

0:54:19.480 --> 0:54:21.440
<v Speaker 4>was coming up from the street. You see all these

0:54:21.480 --> 0:54:24.200
<v Speaker 4>photos of him hanging in the booth at Paradise Garage

0:54:24.280 --> 0:54:28.480
<v Speaker 4>or whatever. He didn't want to be left behind on

0:54:28.600 --> 0:54:29.480
<v Speaker 4>any of this stuff.

0:54:29.520 --> 0:54:32.240
<v Speaker 2>But it was, uh, you know, one of the original

0:54:32.280 --> 0:54:35.560
<v Speaker 2>human shizan looking over his shoulders trying to copy what

0:54:35.760 --> 0:54:37.760
<v Speaker 2>was he wanted.

0:54:38.040 --> 0:54:41.200
<v Speaker 4>He was very savvy about knowing what was coming up.

0:54:41.320 --> 0:54:43.400
<v Speaker 4>He that was he had to do that, and he

0:54:43.440 --> 0:54:47.960
<v Speaker 4>did it so successfully for so many years. But you know,

0:54:48.400 --> 0:54:52.080
<v Speaker 4>Frankie was Frankie and he was very uh, you know,

0:54:52.520 --> 0:54:54.520
<v Speaker 4>you had to deal with Frankie like, you know, he

0:54:54.600 --> 0:54:57.600
<v Speaker 4>was royalty. He was radio royalty. You know.

0:54:58.280 --> 0:55:02.440
<v Speaker 2>So in order to are you allowed to speak of

0:55:03.560 --> 0:55:06.080
<v Speaker 2>the methods of how you were able to get a

0:55:06.160 --> 0:55:09.279
<v Speaker 2>record played? I would like to think, I mean, I

0:55:09.320 --> 0:55:11.879
<v Speaker 2>would like to think that a song like Planet Rock

0:55:12.000 --> 0:55:15.000
<v Speaker 2>was so futuristic that DJs would naturally be like ya,

0:55:15.040 --> 0:55:18.399
<v Speaker 2>I gotta play this shit. But for an album like that,

0:55:18.560 --> 0:55:24.959
<v Speaker 2>did you have to ensure ways? Like how were rap

0:55:25.000 --> 0:55:29.600
<v Speaker 2>records broken in markets that were unpenatable but you managed

0:55:29.640 --> 0:55:30.640
<v Speaker 2>to get them on anyway?

0:55:31.360 --> 0:55:35.839
<v Speaker 4>Well, that's that's another good question. The answer is, yes,

0:55:35.880 --> 0:55:39.239
<v Speaker 4>we had to take care of business. And I want

0:55:39.280 --> 0:55:42.279
<v Speaker 4>to mention, by the way, since Philly looms so large here,

0:55:42.320 --> 0:55:46.080
<v Speaker 4>that there was a really great remembrance of a guy

0:55:46.120 --> 0:55:51.239
<v Speaker 4>named Snooky Jones in Philadelphia who passed away recently. He

0:55:51.280 --> 0:55:54.040
<v Speaker 4>was a record promoter and there was a there was

0:55:54.080 --> 0:55:58.440
<v Speaker 4>a great remembrance of the scene in the WDAS parking

0:55:58.480 --> 0:56:03.880
<v Speaker 4>lot where Butterball tamp Buro of course reins Supreme, and

0:56:03.920 --> 0:56:06.600
<v Speaker 4>how all the promo guys would pull up on I

0:56:06.680 --> 0:56:08.680
<v Speaker 4>forget what record day was there. I don't know what

0:56:08.719 --> 0:56:11.919
<v Speaker 4>record day was. H let's say it was Monday, doesn't matter.

0:56:12.200 --> 0:56:14.719
<v Speaker 4>They you know, they all be there in the parking lot,

0:56:14.800 --> 0:56:18.279
<v Speaker 4>jammed up waiting for butter to you know, a light

0:56:18.640 --> 0:56:22.920
<v Speaker 4>from his car and get at him about whatever their

0:56:22.960 --> 0:56:25.920
<v Speaker 4>releases were. But the answer, the short answer is yes,

0:56:26.000 --> 0:56:29.520
<v Speaker 4>it doesn't listen. If it was a hit, you definitely

0:56:29.560 --> 0:56:32.880
<v Speaker 4>had to pay, and if it wasn't a hit, you

0:56:32.920 --> 0:56:35.239
<v Speaker 4>could waste a lot of money. But and people were

0:56:35.280 --> 0:56:37.480
<v Speaker 4>happy to take your money. But that doesn't mean you're

0:56:37.480 --> 0:56:38.520
<v Speaker 4>going to get any airplay.

0:56:38.840 --> 0:56:39.560
<v Speaker 1>So what turned out?

0:56:39.600 --> 0:56:41.640
<v Speaker 2>You mean, if it was a hit, as in, if

0:56:41.640 --> 0:56:44.360
<v Speaker 2>it sounded good and you felt it deserved to be

0:56:44.440 --> 0:56:47.520
<v Speaker 2>on the radio, then you determined this is going to

0:56:47.520 --> 0:56:47.960
<v Speaker 2>be a hit.

0:56:48.480 --> 0:56:51.799
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, sure, there's there's there's things that deserve a lot

0:56:51.840 --> 0:56:54.600
<v Speaker 4>of things, but there's but you still had to pay

0:56:54.600 --> 0:56:56.680
<v Speaker 4>to play if you want to. There's one thing to

0:56:56.719 --> 0:56:59.920
<v Speaker 4>get play on a mixed show, or even play or

0:57:00.120 --> 0:57:03.280
<v Speaker 4>as they used to say Daytime, you know, like fact,

0:57:03.440 --> 0:57:06.440
<v Speaker 4>it was like yeah, but you didn't get Daytime, you know,

0:57:07.520 --> 0:57:11.640
<v Speaker 4>But if you wanted that official ad that's getting reported

0:57:11.680 --> 0:57:15.719
<v Speaker 4>to Billboard and R and R and whatever the other

0:57:16.400 --> 0:57:18.920
<v Speaker 4>bibles were at that point, you had to take care

0:57:18.960 --> 0:57:20.720
<v Speaker 4>of business, and we did.

0:57:21.320 --> 0:57:24.560
<v Speaker 1>How Nightmares was the Planet Right experience.

0:57:25.240 --> 0:57:26.959
<v Speaker 4>Well, I would say.

0:57:27.200 --> 0:57:30.680
<v Speaker 1>It was less in terms of demand. In terms of demand, well,

0:57:30.720 --> 0:57:31.160
<v Speaker 1>it was.

0:57:31.720 --> 0:57:36.800
<v Speaker 4>An immediate hit, and it was something that you know,

0:57:36.920 --> 0:57:40.760
<v Speaker 4>of course we weren't necessarily prepared for, but you do

0:57:40.960 --> 0:57:45.440
<v Speaker 4>everything you can. And what we would do is essentially

0:57:46.720 --> 0:57:51.959
<v Speaker 4>get try and get advance payments from distributors in exchange

0:57:52.320 --> 0:57:57.720
<v Speaker 4>for a discounted rate on the units, you know what

0:57:57.720 --> 0:58:01.960
<v Speaker 4>I'm saying. So somebody said, yeah, we'll pay you whatever,

0:58:02.160 --> 0:58:05.360
<v Speaker 4>say twenty five thousand dollars or you know whatever. You know,

0:58:05.400 --> 0:58:07.920
<v Speaker 4>if we pay you up front, can you give us

0:58:08.000 --> 0:58:10.640
<v Speaker 4>this many units at this price as opposed to what

0:58:10.720 --> 0:58:14.920
<v Speaker 4>the regular price was. So those are the type of

0:58:14.960 --> 0:58:17.440
<v Speaker 4>things we had to do to make sure that we

0:58:17.560 --> 0:58:20.840
<v Speaker 4>kept the pressing plant. You know, we were able to

0:58:20.880 --> 0:58:25.960
<v Speaker 4>pay for the pressing and all the other you know, jackets, labels,

0:58:26.280 --> 0:58:28.880
<v Speaker 4>all the other stuff, shipping, you know, all that stuff.

0:58:29.240 --> 0:58:31.400
<v Speaker 2>Well, hopefully by this point, you guys ramped up to

0:58:31.480 --> 0:58:34.200
<v Speaker 2>more than just a two person operation, correct.

0:58:34.840 --> 0:58:38.480
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, well that record allowed Tommy Boy to ramp up

0:58:38.520 --> 0:58:41.400
<v Speaker 4>to more than a two person operation. You know, it

0:58:41.480 --> 0:58:46.960
<v Speaker 4>literally exploded. It created opportunities and marketplaces that we didn't

0:58:47.040 --> 0:58:49.600
<v Speaker 4>have at that point because it was because this record

0:58:49.680 --> 0:58:53.240
<v Speaker 4>did go national and it went global, and it was

0:58:53.280 --> 0:58:56.760
<v Speaker 4>the type of record. It's been recounted many times, of course,

0:58:56.800 --> 0:59:00.240
<v Speaker 4>but it was the type of record that really traveled exceptionally. Well, well,

0:59:00.520 --> 0:59:03.439
<v Speaker 4>it was a car record, you know, had that percolating

0:59:03.520 --> 0:59:12.480
<v Speaker 4>melodic sound so automatically you know, California, Florida, Texas, Detroit, Detroit,

0:59:13.080 --> 0:59:18.120
<v Speaker 4>you know, all these places that were not necessarily hip

0:59:18.160 --> 0:59:23.880
<v Speaker 4>hop markets yet that really cracked the code. You know

0:59:24.600 --> 0:59:28.320
<v Speaker 4>in a lot of those places that electro sound. Tommy

0:59:28.360 --> 0:59:33.160
<v Speaker 4>Boys early days, the first wave of success that Tommy

0:59:33.200 --> 0:59:37.040
<v Speaker 4>Boy had was definitely with electro records. It was the

0:59:37.840 --> 0:59:43.320
<v Speaker 4>Arthur Baker John Roby productions with So Soonic Force, Planet Patrol,

0:59:43.600 --> 0:59:46.120
<v Speaker 4>and then of course we got Johnson Crew with Michael

0:59:46.200 --> 0:59:51.320
<v Speaker 4>Johnson and you know, uh, there were that had some

0:59:52.520 --> 0:59:57.200
<v Speaker 4>like Space Pelic was huge, like in Houston, that.

0:59:57.200 --> 0:59:58.360
<v Speaker 1>Was big in LA.

0:59:58.680 --> 1:00:03.400
<v Speaker 2>When I visited family in Pasadena and summer of eighty three,

1:00:04.000 --> 1:00:06.800
<v Speaker 2>they were only playing the Space Cowboy and it was like,

1:00:07.040 --> 1:00:10.200
<v Speaker 2>that's when I realized things were regional because I never

1:00:10.280 --> 1:00:10.960
<v Speaker 2>heard of Space Game.

1:00:11.040 --> 1:00:12.520
<v Speaker 4>It wasn't an East Coast record.

1:00:13.120 --> 1:00:15.520
<v Speaker 2>Well, I knew about Pac Jam, but I definitely didn't

1:00:15.520 --> 1:00:16.640
<v Speaker 2>know about Space Cowboy.

1:00:16.920 --> 1:00:21.240
<v Speaker 4>That's right. That's right, that's right. Because we were like, well,

1:00:21.240 --> 1:00:24.320
<v Speaker 4>why is it big in Houston? And it was like, oh,

1:00:24.400 --> 1:00:27.200
<v Speaker 4>because there's like a big I guess Nasaurs, you know,

1:00:27.280 --> 1:00:29.520
<v Speaker 4>whatever was going on down there. There's a huge space

1:00:30.280 --> 1:00:33.040
<v Speaker 4>thing in Houston. Oh okay, So there was so yeah,

1:00:33.080 --> 1:00:36.080
<v Speaker 4>and some of these things were like that slower sound

1:00:36.880 --> 1:00:40.000
<v Speaker 4>was sort of also, you know, like in the South

1:00:40.240 --> 1:00:43.920
<v Speaker 4>and some places there were just these different vibes and

1:00:44.000 --> 1:00:50.200
<v Speaker 4>cultural geographical differences that you know, you could see with

1:00:50.360 --> 1:00:53.840
<v Speaker 4>some the records. But we had also Globe and whiz

1:00:54.000 --> 1:00:57.360
<v Speaker 4>Kid play that beat, and you know, and with the

1:00:57.960 --> 1:01:02.760
<v Speaker 4>Double Dance Ninsky remix. And I'm probably overlooking some things,

1:01:02.800 --> 1:01:05.840
<v Speaker 4>but there was there was this brief window between say

1:01:06.200 --> 1:01:09.560
<v Speaker 4>late eighty one into maybe eighty four where we had

1:01:09.600 --> 1:01:13.560
<v Speaker 4>this really dominant electro sound and then I think once

1:01:13.600 --> 1:01:16.320
<v Speaker 4>I heard, you know, it's like, oh shit. As soon

1:01:16.360 --> 1:01:20.160
<v Speaker 4>as I heard deaf you know, run DMC, I'm like, okay,

1:01:20.360 --> 1:01:23.520
<v Speaker 4>sea change. And you know Keith LeBlanc, who I'm sure

1:01:23.520 --> 1:01:26.280
<v Speaker 4>you know who he is because it's a fellow drummer.

1:01:26.800 --> 1:01:29.640
<v Speaker 4>You know. He told me a story recently about how

1:01:30.000 --> 1:01:33.520
<v Speaker 4>as part of the sugar Hill Band he remembered traveling

1:01:33.760 --> 1:01:36.480
<v Speaker 4>with sugar Hill Gang and you know, working in the

1:01:36.520 --> 1:01:38.680
<v Speaker 4>studio there on all these records and all this stuff,

1:01:38.880 --> 1:01:42.320
<v Speaker 4>and he said, yeah, you know, I remember one day

1:01:42.320 --> 1:01:45.320
<v Speaker 4>waking up and hearing Planet Rock and saying, I think

1:01:45.320 --> 1:01:47.360
<v Speaker 4>there's a sea change going on here, guys.

1:01:47.880 --> 1:01:54.000
<v Speaker 2>Oh because theyd Scorpio that's right, yup, that's right, you

1:01:54.360 --> 1:01:56.680
<v Speaker 2>grandmassive flats and the few yars five did well?

1:01:56.680 --> 1:01:58.680
<v Speaker 1>Really Keith a plank and.

1:01:58.640 --> 1:02:03.320
<v Speaker 2>Uh uh skip Yeah yeah, Doug, Doug wim bust and

1:02:03.320 --> 1:02:05.480
<v Speaker 2>skip did scorpio?

1:02:05.720 --> 1:02:06.240
<v Speaker 1>I get it?

1:02:06.760 --> 1:02:10.320
<v Speaker 4>Yeah. So from the live thing into like this electro

1:02:10.480 --> 1:02:13.320
<v Speaker 4>thing was a different thing. Yeah.

1:02:13.360 --> 1:02:18.800
<v Speaker 2>I mean, obviously you maintained the trust of Tom. Did

1:02:18.840 --> 1:02:23.120
<v Speaker 2>you get immediately Helm president or were you head of

1:02:23.160 --> 1:02:25.480
<v Speaker 2>A and R first, or I mean was the position

1:02:25.600 --> 1:02:29.120
<v Speaker 2>real or it was this a title for paper only?

1:02:30.360 --> 1:02:32.520
<v Speaker 4>Look I work my fucking ass off. I did a

1:02:32.560 --> 1:02:33.520
<v Speaker 4>lot of different.

1:02:33.160 --> 1:02:36.160
<v Speaker 2>Things right, And no, no, no, I don't mean in

1:02:36.200 --> 1:02:38.440
<v Speaker 2>a dismissive way, but I mean, like, you guys have

1:02:38.520 --> 1:02:43.680
<v Speaker 2>a real office in a receptionists and oh I.

1:02:43.600 --> 1:02:46.520
<v Speaker 4>Know, well, you know, back then it was like it

1:02:46.560 --> 1:02:50.000
<v Speaker 4>was all these all the labels were just scrappy operations.

1:02:50.040 --> 1:02:52.880
<v Speaker 4>I mean, we didn't have like any fanciness or nothing. Really.

1:02:53.360 --> 1:02:55.640
<v Speaker 4>I tell you, we worked in the second bedroom out

1:02:55.640 --> 1:02:58.520
<v Speaker 4>of Tom's apartment, and then we moved into two different

1:02:58.560 --> 1:03:02.440
<v Speaker 4>basement offices and your and then we moved in above

1:03:02.560 --> 1:03:06.040
<v Speaker 4>the soccer store on First Day Avenue in New Yorkville

1:03:06.080 --> 1:03:08.000
<v Speaker 4>and sort of built it out there, but it was

1:03:08.080 --> 1:03:09.080
<v Speaker 4>never fancy.

1:03:09.240 --> 1:03:12.000
<v Speaker 2>Four some D's made their entry in eighty five, and

1:03:12.040 --> 1:03:14.680
<v Speaker 2>four some D's, I think at the time was way

1:03:14.720 --> 1:03:19.080
<v Speaker 2>different than what you guys were normally associated with. And

1:03:19.280 --> 1:03:23.200
<v Speaker 2>I know Tom's love and history of old school do

1:03:23.320 --> 1:03:27.320
<v Speaker 2>wop music and you know, so basically, you know what boys,

1:03:27.360 --> 1:03:31.560
<v Speaker 2>the men really pulled off successfully in ninety one. I

1:03:31.600 --> 1:03:35.360
<v Speaker 2>mean four some D's was that in terms of the.

1:03:35.240 --> 1:03:37.600
<v Speaker 4>Blueprint for that. You know. The thing is is that

1:03:37.640 --> 1:03:40.360
<v Speaker 4>the four m D's came to us actually through mister Magic.

1:03:40.640 --> 1:03:42.280
<v Speaker 4>The four some D's had been on the scene for

1:03:42.320 --> 1:03:44.200
<v Speaker 4>some time, which I didn't even realize at.

1:03:44.080 --> 1:03:45.280
<v Speaker 1>That as the four Cs.

1:03:45.360 --> 1:03:49.640
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, as a four MCS and Tom loved do wop

1:03:49.680 --> 1:03:53.360
<v Speaker 4>and he starts saw this hip hop do wop group

1:03:53.520 --> 1:03:57.240
<v Speaker 4>in the four MDS. And the woman who was his

1:03:57.760 --> 1:04:01.680
<v Speaker 4>first wife, her name was Robin Halpin and she's very

1:04:01.760 --> 1:04:07.680
<v Speaker 4>very talented jazz musician and she actually uh co wrote

1:04:07.680 --> 1:04:11.040
<v Speaker 4>and produced a lot of those early four MDS records.

1:04:11.440 --> 1:04:16.000
<v Speaker 4>You know, let Me Love Kitchen for a scratch, you know,

1:04:16.360 --> 1:04:19.200
<v Speaker 4>let's not forget they were in that first movie, was

1:04:19.240 --> 1:04:27.080
<v Speaker 4>it Happin? Yeah, they did the record with the Fat Boys. Yeah, uh,

1:04:27.360 --> 1:04:30.520
<v Speaker 4>here I go again, all these really beautiful records. But

1:04:30.560 --> 1:04:32.960
<v Speaker 4>they were the thing with the four m DS. They

1:04:32.960 --> 1:04:38.520
<v Speaker 4>were always pitted against New Edition, and New Edition was

1:04:38.600 --> 1:04:42.240
<v Speaker 4>the group at that point that had the more of

1:04:42.320 --> 1:04:45.560
<v Speaker 4>the female audience that was really sort of going crazy

1:04:45.600 --> 1:04:47.520
<v Speaker 4>for them. But it was always the four m DS

1:04:47.560 --> 1:04:49.480
<v Speaker 4>and New Edition that were sort of going head to

1:04:49.520 --> 1:04:54.320
<v Speaker 4>head in that early sort of boy group uh vocal

1:04:54.680 --> 1:04:57.000
<v Speaker 4>hip hop you know ar you know, R and B thing.

1:04:57.480 --> 1:05:00.520
<v Speaker 4>But the thing, the big turning point for or the

1:05:00.560 --> 1:05:03.080
<v Speaker 4>four MDS and This is a story that I was

1:05:03.200 --> 1:05:07.080
<v Speaker 4>very involved with. Was when Crush Groove was being made.

1:05:08.320 --> 1:05:11.000
<v Speaker 4>One of the producers was my boyfriend at the time.

1:05:11.080 --> 1:05:14.240
<v Speaker 4>His name is Doug McHenry n.

1:05:15.000 --> 1:05:16.640
<v Speaker 1>Yes, Yes, oh word.

1:05:16.400 --> 1:05:20.400
<v Speaker 4>Okay, Yes, and Dog, and I was staying with Dog

1:05:20.440 --> 1:05:23.280
<v Speaker 4>at the Mayflower Hotel while they were doing the film,

1:05:23.360 --> 1:05:27.000
<v Speaker 4>him and his late partner George Jackson.

1:05:27.120 --> 1:05:31.240
<v Speaker 2>George Jackson, George Wait, slight, wait, I can I insert

1:05:31.280 --> 1:05:32.560
<v Speaker 2>one story only mere style.

1:05:34.120 --> 1:05:34.680
<v Speaker 1>You remember the.

1:05:34.640 --> 1:05:38.720
<v Speaker 2>Boom, the internet boom of the early aughts, when everyone

1:05:38.760 --> 1:05:41.280
<v Speaker 2>thought the Internet was going to be like this gold

1:05:41.320 --> 1:05:43.960
<v Speaker 2>mine of a thing, same way that bitcoin is now.

1:05:44.600 --> 1:05:49.760
<v Speaker 2>And we struck a deal to sell Okay player in Yeah,

1:05:50.040 --> 1:05:54.000
<v Speaker 2>nineteen ninety nine, and I believe we broke her to

1:05:54.040 --> 1:05:57.160
<v Speaker 2>deal with George Jackson and the way that I was

1:05:57.440 --> 1:06:01.960
<v Speaker 2>metaphorically burning cigars with one hundred dollar bills like all

1:06:02.000 --> 1:06:03.680
<v Speaker 2>of y'all kiss my ass like I'm about to do

1:06:04.040 --> 1:06:08.840
<v Speaker 2>rich rich rich and Monday. Richard calls me and says,

1:06:09.640 --> 1:06:12.280
<v Speaker 2>deals off. I'm like, what happened? And He's like, George

1:06:12.320 --> 1:06:16.440
<v Speaker 2>Jackson died anyway, I'm sorry Yes with George Jackson.

1:06:16.600 --> 1:06:19.760
<v Speaker 4>Interjection is obviously the art of the of the game here.

1:06:19.920 --> 1:06:24.360
<v Speaker 4>So but anyway, so I was so, I thought, you know,

1:06:24.440 --> 1:06:27.120
<v Speaker 4>here I am, I'm with Doug. I'm dating Doug. It's like,

1:06:27.560 --> 1:06:29.360
<v Speaker 4>you know. And he's like telling me, Yeah, we're doing

1:06:29.360 --> 1:06:33.000
<v Speaker 4>the soundtrack on Warner Brothers for Crush Coove and blah

1:06:33.000 --> 1:06:35.280
<v Speaker 4>blah blah. And I'm like, awesome, let me get a

1:06:35.320 --> 1:06:38.120
<v Speaker 4>slot on there for the four c mgs. You know,

1:06:38.160 --> 1:06:46.120
<v Speaker 4>he says, you know. But New Addition like, ah, sorry,

1:06:46.280 --> 1:06:51.440
<v Speaker 4>you know, you're everything. So I'm like, so, I'm like, really.

1:06:51.480 --> 1:06:54.040
<v Speaker 1>My secret. They did my secret in the movie.

1:06:54.200 --> 1:06:59.280
<v Speaker 4>It was so but here's what happens. So the Crush

1:06:59.320 --> 1:07:03.480
<v Speaker 4>Groove sound track, the movie's getting wrapped up the soundtrack

1:07:03.520 --> 1:07:06.000
<v Speaker 4>because you know, lead times were crazy back then. They

1:07:06.040 --> 1:07:09.920
<v Speaker 4>had to master the soundtrack all this. The deadlines were crazy.

1:07:10.400 --> 1:07:12.840
<v Speaker 4>And then I get this call from Doug and he's like,

1:07:13.440 --> 1:07:15.800
<v Speaker 4>there was supposed to be this big ballad slot on

1:07:15.840 --> 1:07:19.560
<v Speaker 4>the album and it was dedicated to New Edition and

1:07:19.760 --> 1:07:22.800
<v Speaker 4>Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis. When they produced this song

1:07:22.840 --> 1:07:27.000
<v Speaker 4>with New Edition, I'm like, fucking man. And then he

1:07:27.040 --> 1:07:29.280
<v Speaker 4>calls me, he goes, you're not going to believe it.

1:07:29.720 --> 1:07:33.280
<v Speaker 4>New Adition had to pull out because some sort of

1:07:33.280 --> 1:07:35.360
<v Speaker 4>crazy legal issues. They had a lot of problems back

1:07:35.400 --> 1:07:38.360
<v Speaker 4>then New Edition with their management and lawsuits. All this

1:07:38.400 --> 1:07:40.880
<v Speaker 4>shit was going on. So he goes, can you get

1:07:40.920 --> 1:07:45.800
<v Speaker 4>Force mds up to Minneapolis tomorrow? And I'm like, yeah,

1:07:45.880 --> 1:07:47.280
<v Speaker 4>what do we gonna do? You know, bla blah blah

1:07:47.280 --> 1:07:49.680
<v Speaker 4>blah blah. Of course it was not exactly the next day,

1:07:49.720 --> 1:07:52.800
<v Speaker 4>but it was within a matter of two or three days,

1:07:52.840 --> 1:07:55.480
<v Speaker 4>and it was like involved calls with Ron Sweeney and

1:07:55.560 --> 1:07:58.520
<v Speaker 4>Jimmy and Terry and all this other stuff, And of

1:07:58.560 --> 1:08:01.920
<v Speaker 4>course the Force mds in there and the father who

1:08:01.960 --> 1:08:05.200
<v Speaker 4>is a manager of Bob Lundi. They get up there,

1:08:05.640 --> 1:08:10.640
<v Speaker 4>they record this record called Tender Love, and it goes

1:08:10.680 --> 1:08:14.040
<v Speaker 4>on the soundtrack at the very last minute, and guess what.

1:08:14.440 --> 1:08:17.800
<v Speaker 4>It's the first top ten pop hit for Jimmy and

1:08:17.880 --> 1:08:22.040
<v Speaker 4>Terry and it was the big lead. It was the

1:08:22.320 --> 1:08:25.400
<v Speaker 4>big smash hit of the album. And it was through

1:08:25.520 --> 1:08:30.120
<v Speaker 4>that that Warner Brothers got interested in doing a deal

1:08:30.160 --> 1:08:31.240
<v Speaker 4>with Tommy Boy.

1:08:35.560 --> 1:08:36.240
<v Speaker 1>At this place.

1:08:36.280 --> 1:08:40.439
<v Speaker 2>Are you shocked that, even though you know, Sylvia Robinson

1:08:40.479 --> 1:08:44.360
<v Speaker 2>was running sugar Able Records or whatnot, were women in

1:08:44.840 --> 1:08:48.400
<v Speaker 2>executive positions.

1:08:46.920 --> 1:08:48.479
<v Speaker 1>Really not a thing?

1:08:49.680 --> 1:08:52.160
<v Speaker 2>And I'm taking it out of hip hop just general

1:08:52.280 --> 1:08:55.559
<v Speaker 2>at labels, Like I know about Sylvia Ron at least her,

1:08:55.720 --> 1:08:59.760
<v Speaker 2>you know, coming up at Atlantic and starting East West,

1:08:59.800 --> 1:09:02.599
<v Speaker 2>and maybe I mean was more.

1:09:03.160 --> 1:09:04.720
<v Speaker 4>At Casablanca before then?

1:09:06.360 --> 1:09:08.840
<v Speaker 2>Well okay, well I knew about Neil Bookgart, but who

1:09:08.880 --> 1:09:10.640
<v Speaker 2>was running who was at Casablanca?

1:09:10.760 --> 1:09:13.600
<v Speaker 4>Well, I believe Sylvia had started that.

1:09:13.720 --> 1:09:16.880
<v Speaker 1>I did not know. Oh wow, all right, we give

1:09:16.920 --> 1:09:17.479
<v Speaker 1>fact check it.

1:09:17.960 --> 1:09:20.920
<v Speaker 4>This is a great, great subject matter, and I'm really

1:09:21.000 --> 1:09:24.640
<v Speaker 4>happy you brought this up because you know, there's a

1:09:24.680 --> 1:09:29.360
<v Speaker 4>lot of women from that early eighties period who didn't

1:09:29.439 --> 1:09:32.880
<v Speaker 4>necessarily get their shine or necessarily get titles. I was.

1:09:32.920 --> 1:09:35.840
<v Speaker 4>I think I was made president in eighty five. I

1:09:35.920 --> 1:09:37.880
<v Speaker 4>still have the press release. And why do I have

1:09:37.960 --> 1:09:39.600
<v Speaker 4>it because I had to write it.

1:09:39.680 --> 1:09:43.439
<v Speaker 1>The It's like writing your own Wikipedia entry.

1:09:43.960 --> 1:09:46.400
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, like, yeah, your president. Now, could you go write

1:09:46.439 --> 1:09:52.200
<v Speaker 4>this up? Yes, okay, fine, so, but yeah, before in

1:09:52.240 --> 1:09:55.120
<v Speaker 4>that early eighties period, I would say that the people

1:09:55.200 --> 1:09:57.920
<v Speaker 4>that really come to my mind is like women who

1:09:57.960 --> 1:10:00.960
<v Speaker 4>were doing a lot in the early hip hop labels

1:10:01.120 --> 1:10:05.519
<v Speaker 4>would be Ann Carly at Jive Records. You know who.

1:10:05.520 --> 1:10:07.800
<v Speaker 4>I actually knew Anne when she was working in the

1:10:07.800 --> 1:10:09.880
<v Speaker 4>New York Office of e G Records. I used to

1:10:09.880 --> 1:10:13.320
<v Speaker 4>harass her for rocks and music tour tickets and that.

1:10:14.880 --> 1:10:15.120
<v Speaker 7>Uh.

1:10:15.160 --> 1:10:20.639
<v Speaker 4>There was Jeanine Leclair who was at Next Plateau Records

1:10:20.680 --> 1:10:26.000
<v Speaker 4>that worked with Eddie o'lachlin. There was d D. Joseph

1:10:26.120 --> 1:10:31.320
<v Speaker 4>who worked with at Prism Records, which became you know,

1:10:31.720 --> 1:10:39.000
<v Speaker 4>which began Jill. Of course, there was Sylvia and there

1:10:39.000 --> 1:10:42.080
<v Speaker 4>were others. And I'm really sorry because I should have

1:10:42.160 --> 1:10:44.559
<v Speaker 4>prepared a list for this because it is important and

1:10:44.600 --> 1:10:47.120
<v Speaker 4>there's a lot of people who you know, it was

1:10:47.439 --> 1:10:51.160
<v Speaker 4>a bit later in the eighties when there were more

1:10:51.240 --> 1:10:54.000
<v Speaker 4>women who were getting into the business, but there were

1:10:54.000 --> 1:10:55.679
<v Speaker 4>a lot of women who were in the business then

1:10:56.080 --> 1:10:58.960
<v Speaker 4>and they just didn't necessarily get as much recognition. They

1:10:59.040 --> 1:11:02.960
<v Speaker 4>might have started as eceptionist and became press or promo.

1:11:03.840 --> 1:11:05.800
<v Speaker 4>So there's there's this whole wave of women that were

1:11:05.840 --> 1:11:09.480
<v Speaker 4>part of the even like late seventies and early eighties,

1:11:09.800 --> 1:11:13.880
<v Speaker 4>whose whose names just don't tend to come up as much.

1:11:14.760 --> 1:11:17.040
<v Speaker 4>So much in hip hop has been told and told

1:11:17.080 --> 1:11:20.000
<v Speaker 4>again through books and documentaries and everything, but there's still

1:11:20.040 --> 1:11:23.320
<v Speaker 4>a lot of terrain that hasn't been touched really, So.

1:11:24.000 --> 1:11:27.120
<v Speaker 2>What's the difficulty level of you, like really as far

1:11:27.200 --> 1:11:32.400
<v Speaker 2>as like pounding the desk and demanding that respect, like

1:11:32.439 --> 1:11:35.599
<v Speaker 2>do you have to be tough as nails?

1:11:35.800 --> 1:11:38.960
<v Speaker 1>It was what's old girl from uh who ran book?

1:11:39.080 --> 1:11:41.360
<v Speaker 1>And uh winter? Right?

1:11:41.439 --> 1:11:42.760
<v Speaker 2>And when we have to come do you have to

1:11:42.960 --> 1:11:47.040
<v Speaker 2>run it in a winter style? And you know, no, no,

1:11:48.760 --> 1:11:49.200
<v Speaker 2>well I don't.

1:11:50.520 --> 1:11:52.160
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, no, I know what you're saying. I know what

1:11:52.160 --> 1:11:54.760
<v Speaker 4>you're saying. You know. I get asked a lot over

1:11:54.760 --> 1:11:57.879
<v Speaker 4>the years people said, well, what was it like being

1:11:58.320 --> 1:12:00.439
<v Speaker 4>a woman in the hip hop world? Or what was

1:12:00.439 --> 1:12:03.120
<v Speaker 4>it like being a white woman in the hip hop world?

1:12:03.200 --> 1:12:06.960
<v Speaker 4>And I'm like, my response is usually like, you know what,

1:12:07.080 --> 1:12:11.200
<v Speaker 4>there were so many opportunities for women in the fledgling

1:12:11.360 --> 1:12:14.639
<v Speaker 4>hip hop industry. Again, it was so small back then.

1:12:16.040 --> 1:12:20.120
<v Speaker 4>If I had gone to say, oh, you know Columbia

1:12:20.200 --> 1:12:25.080
<v Speaker 4>Records or Mercury or PolyGram or whatever Warner Brothers, you know,

1:12:25.240 --> 1:12:27.320
<v Speaker 4>and said, hey, you know, I'm looking for a job,

1:12:27.479 --> 1:12:31.120
<v Speaker 4>I would have been lucky to get, you know, be

1:12:31.320 --> 1:12:36.439
<v Speaker 4>the coffee runner for some guy doing mid Atlantic radio promotion. Okay,

1:12:37.000 --> 1:12:39.639
<v Speaker 4>so in hip hop because it was just a small

1:12:39.680 --> 1:12:42.120
<v Speaker 4>little industry and no one was really checking, you know,

1:12:42.280 --> 1:12:45.120
<v Speaker 4>like a lot of women were able to sort of

1:12:45.160 --> 1:12:48.320
<v Speaker 4>get ahead in this business because there wasn't like a precedent.

1:12:48.720 --> 1:12:53.920
<v Speaker 4>It wasn't an old boys network, you know. So it

1:12:54.040 --> 1:12:56.920
<v Speaker 4>was still being It was still being the story was

1:12:56.960 --> 1:13:00.160
<v Speaker 4>being written, and you know, there was a lot of

1:13:00.160 --> 1:13:02.080
<v Speaker 4>of opportunities. Although I will say when I went to

1:13:02.120 --> 1:13:05.920
<v Speaker 4>the first Jack the Rapper Convention, a lot of people

1:13:05.920 --> 1:13:10.680
<v Speaker 4>thought I was hired help for another reason. So, you know,

1:13:11.320 --> 1:13:13.560
<v Speaker 4>the Rapper Convention. That's another documentary.

1:13:13.600 --> 1:13:18.959
<v Speaker 3>Somebody should too, Ah boy tails from the Rap Convention.

1:13:19.960 --> 1:13:24.000
<v Speaker 1>So okay, when when? Okay?

1:13:24.040 --> 1:13:28.600
<v Speaker 2>So in eighty six, when Club Nouveau starts hitting, you know,

1:13:28.760 --> 1:13:30.760
<v Speaker 2>lean on me and jealousy and all that stuff was

1:13:31.160 --> 1:13:34.559
<v Speaker 2>highly it was unescapable. Like by that point, you guys

1:13:34.600 --> 1:13:38.360
<v Speaker 2>are just you know, a force. Was there ever a

1:13:38.439 --> 1:13:44.360
<v Speaker 2>temptation to say leave Tommy Boy? And maybe and I

1:13:44.360 --> 1:13:47.719
<v Speaker 2>don't want to discredit hip hop's you know force or whatnot,

1:13:48.120 --> 1:13:50.920
<v Speaker 2>but in the mind state of eighty seven, did you

1:13:50.960 --> 1:13:55.000
<v Speaker 2>ever have the temptation or did someone from RCA or

1:13:55.160 --> 1:13:59.479
<v Speaker 2>Warner Brothers or quote a legit major label try to

1:14:00.080 --> 1:14:02.680
<v Speaker 2>hold you away and say come work for us.

1:14:03.320 --> 1:14:08.640
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, there was a label A and M actually and

1:14:09.000 --> 1:14:11.559
<v Speaker 4>and a and M was a real class operation, you know,

1:14:11.680 --> 1:14:15.040
<v Speaker 4>it was. I mean, there was like and they even

1:14:15.040 --> 1:14:17.240
<v Speaker 4>bought me a plane ticket and put me in a hotel.

1:14:17.280 --> 1:14:18.960
<v Speaker 4>I was like, oh my god, you know, this is

1:14:19.000 --> 1:14:25.760
<v Speaker 4>pretty great, but it didn't happen. I really sort of

1:14:25.840 --> 1:14:28.920
<v Speaker 4>sense that I was better where it was, and it

1:14:29.000 --> 1:14:32.640
<v Speaker 4>turned out to be true, you know, because it was

1:14:32.720 --> 1:14:36.479
<v Speaker 4>towards you know, it was made president I guess eighty five,

1:14:36.520 --> 1:14:39.479
<v Speaker 4>eighty six, I can't remember exactly, but you know, it

1:14:39.560 --> 1:14:43.360
<v Speaker 4>was towards the end, you know, towards the late eighties

1:14:43.400 --> 1:14:46.400
<v Speaker 4>where I really oversaw A and R and the creative

1:14:46.439 --> 1:14:49.479
<v Speaker 4>direction for the label. I was already doing quite a

1:14:49.520 --> 1:14:53.920
<v Speaker 4>bit already in both of those areas. And and also

1:14:54.080 --> 1:14:57.120
<v Speaker 4>you know, in the early days, whether it was collecting

1:14:57.160 --> 1:15:01.200
<v Speaker 4>money from distributors, or putting in pressers with the pressing plant,

1:15:01.360 --> 1:15:04.360
<v Speaker 4>or getting the label copy typed off, or sitting with

1:15:04.439 --> 1:15:07.360
<v Speaker 4>Bambada while he wrote out of special thanks, or creating

1:15:07.360 --> 1:15:12.400
<v Speaker 4>a press list and writing press releases, talking to you

1:15:12.479 --> 1:15:14.160
<v Speaker 4>name it. It's like you got to do a lot of

1:15:14.200 --> 1:15:17.920
<v Speaker 4>different things. But it was, you know, in the late

1:15:17.960 --> 1:15:20.680
<v Speaker 4>eighties where I sort of really I think that was

1:15:20.720 --> 1:15:23.439
<v Speaker 4>a really golden era for Tommy Boy in the late

1:15:23.439 --> 1:15:24.960
<v Speaker 4>eighties and the early nineties.

1:15:25.920 --> 1:15:29.679
<v Speaker 2>In nineteen eighty eight, you know, for me, at least

1:15:29.680 --> 1:15:33.920
<v Speaker 2>in my life, one of the greatest paradigm shifts that

1:15:34.080 --> 1:15:36.479
<v Speaker 2>really affected. I mean, eighty eight was such a banner year.

1:15:36.520 --> 1:15:40.400
<v Speaker 2>But you sign a group that literally changes the course.

1:15:40.160 --> 1:15:40.880
<v Speaker 1>Of my life.

1:15:41.439 --> 1:15:47.879
<v Speaker 2>And we've had various people involved with day Las Soul projects,

1:15:47.920 --> 1:15:49.360
<v Speaker 2>so we you know, you don't have to go through

1:15:49.640 --> 1:15:52.120
<v Speaker 2>the every day. But what I do want to know

1:15:53.479 --> 1:15:59.400
<v Speaker 2>is who was responsible for the genius marketing of day

1:15:59.479 --> 1:16:03.160
<v Speaker 2>La Soul Because from the from the press photos to

1:16:03.200 --> 1:16:06.599
<v Speaker 2>the fonts to the stickers. You know, for only time

1:16:06.640 --> 1:16:08.679
<v Speaker 2>on life I ever got sent to the principal's office

1:16:08.760 --> 1:16:11.559
<v Speaker 2>was because I put day Lost Soul stickers all over

1:16:11.600 --> 1:16:12.200
<v Speaker 2>my high school.

1:16:12.520 --> 1:16:15.880
<v Speaker 1>Like, so, who was responsible?

1:16:15.960 --> 1:16:21.599
<v Speaker 2>Like what was the brainchild operation of we could make

1:16:21.640 --> 1:16:23.880
<v Speaker 2>these guys bigger than hip hop?

1:16:24.280 --> 1:16:26.240
<v Speaker 1>And I read that hip hop for hippies. Wasn't that

1:16:26.439 --> 1:16:26.840
<v Speaker 1>your ship?

1:16:27.080 --> 1:16:31.040
<v Speaker 4>Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I was very involved in all of that,

1:16:31.160 --> 1:16:35.200
<v Speaker 4>but it was also there's a lot of people at

1:16:35.280 --> 1:16:38.799
<v Speaker 4>Tommy Boy that I would credit for being a huge

1:16:38.880 --> 1:16:41.960
<v Speaker 4>part of this campaign. I think that it was a

1:16:42.080 --> 1:16:48.120
<v Speaker 4>very critical decision to have the Gray Organization, do the

1:16:48.800 --> 1:16:52.880
<v Speaker 4>all the you know, all of the daisy, the imagery

1:16:53.280 --> 1:16:56.519
<v Speaker 4>for the for the album cover. That was so that

1:16:56.760 --> 1:17:01.080
<v Speaker 4>was I would say such a radical move at that

1:17:01.320 --> 1:17:06.160
<v Speaker 4>point because they basically sort of threw down a gauntlet

1:17:07.280 --> 1:17:12.400
<v Speaker 4>to what the prevailing visual aesthetic was of hip hop.

1:17:12.760 --> 1:17:15.479
<v Speaker 4>And I think it was the type of thing that

1:17:15.960 --> 1:17:19.320
<v Speaker 4>a lot of people were like, what is this? But

1:17:19.439 --> 1:17:22.519
<v Speaker 4>you know, but the thing is before the album, before

1:17:22.560 --> 1:17:25.240
<v Speaker 4>the album, and you saw all those visuals, you know,

1:17:25.520 --> 1:17:32.280
<v Speaker 4>plug TuneIn was a radical record. And I still have

1:17:32.800 --> 1:17:34.920
<v Speaker 4>I still have the demo tape and I still have

1:17:35.000 --> 1:17:38.879
<v Speaker 4>the write up that I did after my meeting with Daddyo,

1:17:39.680 --> 1:17:41.880
<v Speaker 4>And I want to make sure to credit Daddyo because

1:17:41.920 --> 1:17:46.920
<v Speaker 4>it was Daddyo from Stetso Sonic who called me and said, Hey,

1:17:46.960 --> 1:17:49.640
<v Speaker 4>I've got these groups I'm shopping. Can we set up

1:17:49.640 --> 1:17:51.400
<v Speaker 4>a meeting. I'm like, yeah, da, da da, And you

1:17:51.439 --> 1:17:53.760
<v Speaker 4>sat on the phone. There were three groups. Two of

1:17:53.840 --> 1:17:57.559
<v Speaker 4>them were like sort of these more mainstream like Rene

1:17:57.560 --> 1:18:01.599
<v Speaker 4>and angela type of groups or something, and he mentioned, uh,

1:18:01.760 --> 1:18:03.960
<v Speaker 4>Dala Saul. He said, oh, and there's this group that

1:18:04.080 --> 1:18:08.080
<v Speaker 4>Paul's working with called Dela Saul. And I do remember

1:18:08.160 --> 1:18:11.120
<v Speaker 4>thinking that's a really intriguing name. You know what is

1:18:11.200 --> 1:18:14.040
<v Speaker 4>that it didn't sound like a hip hop group, and

1:18:15.240 --> 1:18:17.840
<v Speaker 4>so I met with him and that's in that demo

1:18:17.920 --> 1:18:22.640
<v Speaker 4>tape of Plug Tuning and Freedom, Freedom of Speak. I

1:18:22.680 --> 1:18:27.760
<v Speaker 4>think uh was on the Freedom, yeah, but it was

1:18:27.760 --> 1:18:30.240
<v Speaker 4>the two tracks on the on the one cassette, and

1:18:30.240 --> 1:18:33.519
<v Speaker 4>it was like you immediately knew that it was either

1:18:33.640 --> 1:18:36.559
<v Speaker 4>going to be big or nothing. And that's where I

1:18:36.600 --> 1:18:41.559
<v Speaker 4>think Tommy Boys legacy largely lies with signings that were

1:18:41.600 --> 1:18:44.880
<v Speaker 4>sort of in that category you're gonna love it or

1:18:44.880 --> 1:18:46.719
<v Speaker 4>you're not gonna hate it, but it wasn't in the middle.

1:18:47.760 --> 1:18:52.519
<v Speaker 4>And Dala Soul I think personifies that. And you know,

1:18:52.640 --> 1:18:56.000
<v Speaker 4>the the demo of Plug Tuning sounds pretty much I'm

1:18:56.000 --> 1:18:58.479
<v Speaker 4>pretty sure. I don't think that it was even even mixed,

1:18:59.080 --> 1:19:01.400
<v Speaker 4>you know. I think was an eight track that Paul

1:19:01.479 --> 1:19:04.320
<v Speaker 4>did and I don't think it even went beyond that.

1:19:04.520 --> 1:19:05.960
<v Speaker 4>By the time it was mastered. I think it was

1:19:06.000 --> 1:19:09.280
<v Speaker 4>still like this eight trick demo sounding thing. And we

1:19:09.320 --> 1:19:12.280
<v Speaker 4>had this we did this ad campaign where we got

1:19:12.280 --> 1:19:15.559
<v Speaker 4>all these different people to say, you know, you know

1:19:15.600 --> 1:19:17.400
<v Speaker 4>how it is, you know, like when.

1:19:17.280 --> 1:19:19.840
<v Speaker 1>You know L's mom she was part of it.

1:19:20.600 --> 1:19:23.800
<v Speaker 4>Latifa's mom, the lake Rita Owens. We did we did

1:19:23.840 --> 1:19:27.160
<v Speaker 4>a campaign that I came in for Dala Soul. I

1:19:27.200 --> 1:19:30.160
<v Speaker 4>came in for Patty LaBelle. I came out with Dala Saul.

1:19:31.840 --> 1:19:34.200
<v Speaker 4>We had this one with like some goofy, you know,

1:19:34.320 --> 1:19:36.600
<v Speaker 4>sort of straight looking white guy like you know, I

1:19:36.680 --> 1:19:40.840
<v Speaker 4>came in for I forget it wasn't steely dandy.

1:19:40.960 --> 1:19:43.280
<v Speaker 1>We hung that up in Sam Goodies. I worked at

1:19:43.320 --> 1:19:44.240
<v Speaker 1>Sam Goodies at the time.

1:19:44.320 --> 1:19:49.240
<v Speaker 4>Oh man, well then you know, so this part that

1:19:49.439 --> 1:19:53.559
<v Speaker 4>imaging campaign I think was fantastic. We had a great

1:19:53.680 --> 1:19:56.880
<v Speaker 4>full page ad and billboard that said Dala Gold when

1:19:56.880 --> 1:20:00.120
<v Speaker 4>it went gold. But you know, I think it a

1:20:00.160 --> 1:20:05.320
<v Speaker 4>lot of it sprung from the group itself, because you know,

1:20:05.320 --> 1:20:08.679
<v Speaker 4>I still have and I shared this with Pass actually

1:20:08.760 --> 1:20:12.960
<v Speaker 4>just last week. He sat down in the office and

1:20:13.120 --> 1:20:17.679
<v Speaker 4>with this he has a very distinctive style of cursive

1:20:18.520 --> 1:20:21.679
<v Speaker 4>and he was writing down the history of Dla Soul

1:20:21.840 --> 1:20:26.639
<v Speaker 4>on this notebook paper set, describing who each group member was,

1:20:26.920 --> 1:20:30.519
<v Speaker 4>and he was writing it in day last speak. And

1:20:30.560 --> 1:20:34.280
<v Speaker 4>that was another thing too, because like nobody knew what

1:20:34.280 --> 1:20:37.920
<v Speaker 4>the fuck they were talking about. They had their own language,

1:20:38.720 --> 1:20:40.439
<v Speaker 4>like what are they talk? What what do you mean

1:20:40.479 --> 1:20:43.519
<v Speaker 4>plug tune? And what's that you know? And what is true?

1:20:43.600 --> 1:20:46.040
<v Speaker 4>Guy the dove? You know? What is all this stuff?

1:20:47.360 --> 1:20:50.120
<v Speaker 4>But they but they had a different look, they had

1:20:50.120 --> 1:20:54.080
<v Speaker 4>a different sensibility. So there was a lot there to

1:20:54.200 --> 1:20:57.360
<v Speaker 4>already work with and to sort of get inspired to

1:20:57.439 --> 1:21:02.280
<v Speaker 4>do interesting and creative marketing and motion. Uh, you really

1:21:02.320 --> 1:21:06.880
<v Speaker 4>can't do something unless the something that the project and

1:21:06.920 --> 1:21:09.120
<v Speaker 4>the recordings and the artists that you're working with are

1:21:09.120 --> 1:21:12.240
<v Speaker 4>interesting in and of themselves. You can blow it up

1:21:12.240 --> 1:21:14.200
<v Speaker 4>and magnify it. But if they're not, if it's not

1:21:14.880 --> 1:21:18.439
<v Speaker 4>inherently interesting and great, you can't really do anything. So

1:21:19.600 --> 1:21:23.080
<v Speaker 4>so they really they were like, wow, this group pretty interesting.

1:21:23.240 --> 1:21:25.800
<v Speaker 4>There a lot of people played role. I don't know

1:21:25.840 --> 1:21:28.040
<v Speaker 4>if you know Rod Houston because he's also from from

1:21:28.200 --> 1:21:32.440
<v Speaker 4>from Philadelphia. He's now one of the biggest voice.

1:21:31.120 --> 1:21:33.759
<v Speaker 1>He's huge.

1:21:33.920 --> 1:21:37.840
<v Speaker 4>He's huge, and Rod I still have the copy that

1:21:37.920 --> 1:21:41.360
<v Speaker 4>he wrote up because we did this contest to name

1:21:41.400 --> 1:21:42.560
<v Speaker 4>the sample.

1:21:42.320 --> 1:21:45.320
<v Speaker 1>And yeah, yeah, did you.

1:21:45.560 --> 1:21:47.479
<v Speaker 4>Did you enter? I didn't.

1:21:47.520 --> 1:21:50.200
<v Speaker 2>I didn't know the LIBERACEI or any Yeah I didn't

1:21:50.240 --> 1:21:51.679
<v Speaker 2>know that.

1:21:52.040 --> 1:21:54.400
<v Speaker 4>Yeah we got I still have a lot of the

1:21:54.600 --> 1:21:57.560
<v Speaker 4>entries from the contest that I kept. A lot of

1:21:57.560 --> 1:22:01.000
<v Speaker 4>people thought it was Bobby Bloom and the only person

1:22:01.040 --> 1:22:04.400
<v Speaker 4>who got the who the only person who got it

1:22:04.520 --> 1:22:07.879
<v Speaker 4>right was Joel Weber, as I mentioned to him earlier

1:22:08.160 --> 1:22:11.240
<v Speaker 4>with the Partners in the New Music Seminar, And he's

1:22:11.240 --> 1:22:12.960
<v Speaker 4>the guy who put out He was an A and

1:22:13.080 --> 1:22:15.400
<v Speaker 4>R guy at Fourth and Broadway in Island. He put

1:22:15.400 --> 1:22:19.040
<v Speaker 4>out The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight. And he was the only

1:22:19.080 --> 1:22:23.200
<v Speaker 4>one who identified the invitations right. It's written on the

1:22:23.200 --> 1:22:27.160
<v Speaker 4>wall is the sample right record? So they So there

1:22:27.240 --> 1:22:29.479
<v Speaker 4>was a lot of really great things that sort of

1:22:29.479 --> 1:22:32.000
<v Speaker 4>sprung from the fact that the group themselves were so

1:22:32.200 --> 1:22:35.320
<v Speaker 4>different and so interesting. And I think that that whole

1:22:35.439 --> 1:22:39.519
<v Speaker 4>Daisy age imagery, you know, was certainly a blessing and

1:22:39.560 --> 1:22:42.120
<v Speaker 4>a curse for the group because then they didn't really

1:22:42.160 --> 1:22:45.640
<v Speaker 4>like being named the hippies of hip hop, and you know,

1:22:45.880 --> 1:22:49.880
<v Speaker 4>pushed back against it, you know. But that was that

1:22:50.080 --> 1:22:53.200
<v Speaker 4>album Three Feet High in Rising, you know. And that

1:22:53.360 --> 1:22:56.600
<v Speaker 4>was actually the first project I assigned to Dante. I

1:22:56.720 --> 1:22:59.519
<v Speaker 4>know that the Dante make sure you get to this,

1:23:00.640 --> 1:23:03.400
<v Speaker 4>get the clearances for so and so and so and so,

1:23:03.479 --> 1:23:05.519
<v Speaker 4>But it was the first project that he worked on,

1:23:05.600 --> 1:23:09.280
<v Speaker 4>which was fantastic. He did an amazing job. And Paul,

1:23:09.400 --> 1:23:19.240
<v Speaker 4>of course, you know, yeah from one to ten.

1:23:19.400 --> 1:23:22.120
<v Speaker 2>How much of a headache was the the Flow and

1:23:22.280 --> 1:23:26.880
<v Speaker 2>Eddy situation because of course, uh, Flow and Eddie of

1:23:26.920 --> 1:23:31.800
<v Speaker 2>the Turtles sort of you know, recognizes their sample and

1:23:31.840 --> 1:23:35.360
<v Speaker 2>then you know, we're taught that that was the that

1:23:35.479 --> 1:23:39.479
<v Speaker 2>was the gauntlet moment of rappers clearing samples for you know,

1:23:39.560 --> 1:23:41.360
<v Speaker 2>was it a quick one and done, Oh my bad,

1:23:41.400 --> 1:23:45.320
<v Speaker 2>here's forty thousand bucks, or were they like we wanted

1:23:45.600 --> 1:23:48.479
<v Speaker 2>a billion dollars and you know, this is.

1:23:48.600 --> 1:23:52.639
<v Speaker 4>That's you know, that's another great topic because the Dala

1:23:52.760 --> 1:23:55.120
<v Speaker 4>Saw three feet High and Rising really did become the

1:23:55.160 --> 1:23:59.040
<v Speaker 4>litmus test for a lot of sampling issues, and it

1:23:59.200 --> 1:24:02.720
<v Speaker 4>became the postage for everything that could go wrong is

1:24:02.760 --> 1:24:06.920
<v Speaker 4>all here on one album. And you know, so it

1:24:06.960 --> 1:24:09.280
<v Speaker 4>wasn't just flowin Eddie. You know, I still have the

1:24:10.160 --> 1:24:15.200
<v Speaker 4>letter from MCA Publishing about Steely Dan or by the way,

1:24:15.240 --> 1:24:18.360
<v Speaker 4>they misspelled Donald Faken's name. But it became sort of

1:24:18.360 --> 1:24:20.960
<v Speaker 4>a blessing and a curse. It was, well, I should

1:24:21.040 --> 1:24:24.040
<v Speaker 4>say maybe more of a curse because look at everything

1:24:24.080 --> 1:24:26.679
<v Speaker 4>that the group has had to go through all these years.

1:24:26.960 --> 1:24:29.800
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, here's problematic now trying to clear these samples again.

1:24:29.960 --> 1:24:35.799
<v Speaker 4>Still yeah. So, but it also became it was certainly

1:24:35.800 --> 1:24:39.439
<v Speaker 4>a news story. I mean, as you Kurt Loder, you know,

1:24:39.560 --> 1:24:43.680
<v Speaker 4>and there was all these like news stories about sampling.

1:24:43.800 --> 1:24:46.280
<v Speaker 4>It became a big thing, you know. And of course,

1:24:46.400 --> 1:24:51.960
<v Speaker 4>you know, uh Danny O Stessisnic addressed this very brilliantly

1:24:52.080 --> 1:24:56.080
<v Speaker 4>and talking all that as one of the best records

1:24:56.080 --> 1:25:03.120
<v Speaker 4>over and but yeah, it was certainly costly. It was

1:25:03.160 --> 1:25:05.680
<v Speaker 4>a distraction. And the thing about it is this, this

1:25:05.760 --> 1:25:08.439
<v Speaker 4>is my takeaway from it, is that at that point

1:25:08.640 --> 1:25:12.599
<v Speaker 4>in nineteen eighty nine, a lot of these rock guys

1:25:13.680 --> 1:25:18.680
<v Speaker 4>were really of the mindset of like they're stealing my

1:25:18.880 --> 1:25:23.000
<v Speaker 4>fucking art, and they weren't down with the hip hop,

1:25:23.680 --> 1:25:26.759
<v Speaker 4>they weren't down with the sampling. They had very closed

1:25:26.880 --> 1:25:31.920
<v Speaker 4>minds about this. There was not a it had not

1:25:32.080 --> 1:25:36.679
<v Speaker 4>been established as a path like oh yeah, okay, we'll

1:25:36.680 --> 1:25:39.760
<v Speaker 4>just get this sample clear like today. I mean, now,

1:25:39.880 --> 1:25:41.519
<v Speaker 4>you know, I think a lot of people maybe avoid

1:25:41.600 --> 1:25:44.479
<v Speaker 4>sampling to a large degree for all the problems and

1:25:44.520 --> 1:25:45.880
<v Speaker 4>costs associated with it.

1:25:46.439 --> 1:25:50.000
<v Speaker 2>But it's ironic to me being as those same guys

1:25:51.280 --> 1:25:54.559
<v Speaker 2>sample old Blues records to create their songs.

1:25:55.400 --> 1:26:01.240
<v Speaker 4>Oh yeah, who had these guys who were older rock

1:26:01.360 --> 1:26:03.840
<v Speaker 4>guys with big you know, they had egos and they

1:26:03.920 --> 1:26:09.759
<v Speaker 4>just had they were their mindset was completely divorced from

1:26:10.040 --> 1:26:13.080
<v Speaker 4>hip hop being a cool, interesting thing and oh wow,

1:26:13.520 --> 1:26:17.000
<v Speaker 4>they're taking something I made and doing something cool and

1:26:17.040 --> 1:26:19.639
<v Speaker 4>flipping it. A lot of these guys did not see

1:26:19.680 --> 1:26:21.400
<v Speaker 4>it that way at all.

1:26:21.920 --> 1:26:25.360
<v Speaker 2>Well, now, I know that George Clinton was extremely He

1:26:25.439 --> 1:26:29.080
<v Speaker 2>had gratitude for me, myself and I at least because

1:26:29.960 --> 1:26:34.120
<v Speaker 2>you know, he instantly saw that, okay, this is bringing

1:26:34.160 --> 1:26:36.000
<v Speaker 2>me back clearly to a new audience.

1:26:36.040 --> 1:26:40.480
<v Speaker 4>So well yeah, well yeah, and you also had Westbound

1:26:41.040 --> 1:26:45.760
<v Speaker 4>Records armand Baladian, thank you very much.

1:26:45.880 --> 1:26:46.599
<v Speaker 1>Oh jesus.

1:26:47.360 --> 1:26:51.800
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, So Armond Baladian was was definitely playing ball. I mean,

1:26:51.840 --> 1:26:54.400
<v Speaker 4>you know, he saw that there was money to be

1:26:54.520 --> 1:26:57.040
<v Speaker 4>made in doing sample clearances. So you know what was

1:26:57.080 --> 1:27:00.760
<v Speaker 4>Digital Underground or daylor or whoever it was. He's you know,

1:27:01.160 --> 1:27:06.000
<v Speaker 4>he owned a lot of this stuff, and so he

1:27:06.160 --> 1:27:09.920
<v Speaker 4>wasn't reluctant in the way that a lot of the

1:27:10.160 --> 1:27:14.920
<v Speaker 4>rock guys were about, you know, violating their art. You know,

1:27:15.720 --> 1:27:17.800
<v Speaker 4>it was just it was a different Again, you have

1:27:17.920 --> 1:27:21.599
<v Speaker 4>commerce on the one side, and you've got these guys

1:27:21.640 --> 1:27:25.080
<v Speaker 4>who were like, man, that's you know, don't touch my

1:27:25.200 --> 1:27:25.840
<v Speaker 4>ship man.

1:27:26.600 --> 1:27:29.240
<v Speaker 5>You know, so right, I was gonna ask Monica, what

1:27:29.479 --> 1:27:34.280
<v Speaker 5>is your involvement, if any, with the current Daylight situation

1:27:34.360 --> 1:27:36.120
<v Speaker 5>with trying to get their catalog on to streaming.

1:27:37.640 --> 1:27:41.000
<v Speaker 4>None is my I don't have any involvement in that

1:27:41.200 --> 1:27:46.000
<v Speaker 4>except to be supportive of the group. And you know, uh,

1:27:46.920 --> 1:27:49.960
<v Speaker 4>you know, I occasionally have back and forth with with

1:27:50.160 --> 1:27:53.080
<v Speaker 4>PAS and you know, I have a lot of love

1:27:53.120 --> 1:27:56.400
<v Speaker 4>for those guys, and I hope that you know, they've

1:27:56.439 --> 1:27:59.040
<v Speaker 4>been through a lot. They've been through a lot, so

1:27:59.160 --> 1:28:02.040
<v Speaker 4>but I don't I haven't had any sort of dealings

1:28:02.040 --> 1:28:04.280
<v Speaker 4>with their business.

1:28:05.040 --> 1:28:07.599
<v Speaker 2>I believe our good friend Faith Newman is now at

1:28:07.640 --> 1:28:12.160
<v Speaker 2>the helm of that project and trying to re clear

1:28:12.240 --> 1:28:13.920
<v Speaker 2>the samples and all that stuff.

1:28:14.800 --> 1:28:17.000
<v Speaker 4>I hope for Jail's sake that that comes through.

1:28:18.360 --> 1:28:18.519
<v Speaker 1>Well.

1:28:18.560 --> 1:28:20.679
<v Speaker 2>I mean, they have it, but you know, now it's

1:28:20.720 --> 1:28:23.720
<v Speaker 2>like they got to do the work and you know,

1:28:23.880 --> 1:28:27.080
<v Speaker 2>find somebody to fund. You know, they're they're doing it,

1:28:27.120 --> 1:28:30.080
<v Speaker 2>but it's just a very slow process, song by song,

1:28:30.360 --> 1:28:32.160
<v Speaker 2>and they want it as they do.

1:28:32.360 --> 1:28:32.559
<v Speaker 1>You know.

1:28:32.640 --> 1:28:36.240
<v Speaker 2>Thank God, I'm so relieved that they're not doing you

1:28:36.240 --> 1:28:38.400
<v Speaker 2>know the sit now where people like redoing their sits

1:28:38.479 --> 1:28:41.960
<v Speaker 2>on iTunes and gagging you with like these kind of

1:28:42.000 --> 1:28:43.880
<v Speaker 2>subpar versions of their so.

1:28:44.160 --> 1:28:46.800
<v Speaker 1>Re records or whatever. I hate that.

1:28:48.560 --> 1:28:51.280
<v Speaker 2>Wait, okay, well I want to give a shout out

1:28:51.280 --> 1:28:55.160
<v Speaker 2>to Dart Adams, who a surefire way to make him

1:28:55.200 --> 1:28:58.280
<v Speaker 2>angry is to acknowledge that Three Feet High and Rising

1:28:58.360 --> 1:29:01.200
<v Speaker 2>came out March third, nineteen eighty nine.

1:29:01.520 --> 1:29:06.320
<v Speaker 1>Dart Adams, I never.

1:29:06.160 --> 1:29:09.360
<v Speaker 2>Met a person more angrier when he's like, it wasn't

1:29:09.439 --> 1:29:11.240
<v Speaker 2>March third, it was February seventh.

1:29:11.680 --> 1:29:15.000
<v Speaker 4>Yes, oh really, see he's thinking of the promo.

1:29:15.960 --> 1:29:16.840
<v Speaker 1>The promoh he.

1:29:16.880 --> 1:29:20.439
<v Speaker 2>Oh my god, you just you're about to set Dark

1:29:20.600 --> 1:29:23.680
<v Speaker 2>Eyed using opinions of Monica Lynch are not like.

1:29:24.600 --> 1:29:30.200
<v Speaker 4>No, listen, I say, I have a lot of Tommy

1:29:30.240 --> 1:29:32.559
<v Speaker 4>Boy archival materials. I could probably.

1:29:33.080 --> 1:29:35.960
<v Speaker 2>I'm not saying you can officially tell us when the

1:29:35.960 --> 1:29:38.320
<v Speaker 2>release date was, because I swear to God he makes

1:29:38.360 --> 1:29:41.559
<v Speaker 2>this every March third. He gets mad as shit when

1:29:41.600 --> 1:29:44.519
<v Speaker 2>Pass or any member of Daylight Soul gets the date wrong,

1:29:45.320 --> 1:29:49.960
<v Speaker 2>but he swears to God that like March third. He's like,

1:29:49.960 --> 1:29:53.920
<v Speaker 2>like Wikipedia is wrong, everything's wrong, Like he knows listen.

1:29:54.200 --> 1:29:56.439
<v Speaker 4>I'll just say this. At some point I'll go through

1:29:56.520 --> 1:30:02.040
<v Speaker 4>all go all is if I find anything that might

1:30:02.280 --> 1:30:09.400
<v Speaker 4>have led to his belief photo. The only thing I

1:30:09.439 --> 1:30:12.800
<v Speaker 4>could possibly think is that maybe you know, because again,

1:30:12.960 --> 1:30:18.160
<v Speaker 4>lead times for things like press were significant back then,

1:30:19.760 --> 1:30:23.360
<v Speaker 4>so maybe just maybe there was an advance copy. But

1:30:23.520 --> 1:30:26.640
<v Speaker 4>I don't want to you know, that's not official.

1:30:26.880 --> 1:30:30.920
<v Speaker 2>So I have one quick question about Cessy Sonic now,

1:30:30.960 --> 1:30:32.920
<v Speaker 2>the way that you guys, the way that you guys

1:30:32.920 --> 1:30:37.200
<v Speaker 2>pushed for some ds to be you know, the do

1:30:37.320 --> 1:30:40.479
<v Speaker 2>wop you know hip hop thing in daylight where the

1:30:40.560 --> 1:30:44.280
<v Speaker 2>hippies of hip hop the exception of a brief write

1:30:44.320 --> 1:30:46.920
<v Speaker 2>up and spin like, I felt like not enough was

1:30:47.200 --> 1:30:51.200
<v Speaker 2>done to really drive home, at least of marketing that

1:30:51.320 --> 1:30:53.120
<v Speaker 2>this is a hip hop band.

1:30:54.200 --> 1:30:56.280
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, it wasn't an easy sound.

1:30:56.360 --> 1:30:57.360
<v Speaker 1>And I've never seen them.

1:30:57.479 --> 1:31:02.280
<v Speaker 2>I've never heard stets of Sonic live ever, Like even

1:31:02.320 --> 1:31:06.320
<v Speaker 2>when you re YouTube, no, there's no there's no footage

1:31:06.320 --> 1:31:08.040
<v Speaker 2>of them on YouTube or anything.

1:31:08.200 --> 1:31:10.120
<v Speaker 1>Like I'm taking you guys's word for it.

1:31:11.000 --> 1:31:14.000
<v Speaker 2>That's that's a Sonic live in concert is a band,

1:31:14.320 --> 1:31:18.080
<v Speaker 2>but there's there's no I mean, you know on in

1:31:18.160 --> 1:31:22.120
<v Speaker 2>on Wax, you know besides Bobby Simmons playing drums on stuff,

1:31:22.120 --> 1:31:23.960
<v Speaker 2>and you know, I know they did live stuff on keys,

1:31:24.000 --> 1:31:30.920
<v Speaker 2>but I've just never seen that's a Sonic on stage.

1:31:31.280 --> 1:31:33.160
<v Speaker 2>And there's no footage of them, and they're almost like

1:31:33.200 --> 1:31:35.400
<v Speaker 2>the Harlem Cultural Festival, Like I don't believe it.

1:31:35.760 --> 1:31:40.360
<v Speaker 4>That's that's pretty interesting. I had never really thought about that.

1:31:40.479 --> 1:31:43.120
<v Speaker 4>I didn't go to look, but I mean I'd seen

1:31:43.160 --> 1:31:47.080
<v Speaker 4>them perform live and they were really, you know, fantastic.

1:31:47.560 --> 1:31:52.960
<v Speaker 4>I think the man it was very frustrating because they,

1:31:53.520 --> 1:31:56.240
<v Speaker 4>you know, sets a Sonic as a group, they really

1:31:56.320 --> 1:32:00.360
<v Speaker 4>worked hard and and you know, it was frustrate rating.

1:32:00.720 --> 1:32:05.439
<v Speaker 4>I mean, everyone wants to have big hits, and they

1:32:05.520 --> 1:32:09.680
<v Speaker 4>had some hits, but they weren't on the level that

1:32:10.439 --> 1:32:12.960
<v Speaker 4>is going to push you into a certain territory.

1:32:13.400 --> 1:32:13.600
<v Speaker 6>You know.

1:32:13.680 --> 1:32:17.559
<v Speaker 4>I think talking all that jazz was like a really

1:32:18.240 --> 1:32:20.200
<v Speaker 4>you know, when you look back at the catalog, I

1:32:20.240 --> 1:32:23.840
<v Speaker 4>think that one to me is like and they had,

1:32:24.360 --> 1:32:27.840
<v Speaker 4>you know, Sally was like a record that did really

1:32:27.840 --> 1:32:32.920
<v Speaker 4>well in Florida and other markets. Oh and you know

1:32:33.640 --> 1:32:39.439
<v Speaker 4>Ghostats of Brooklyn, Go Brooklyn. You can't even soon did

1:32:39.479 --> 1:32:42.080
<v Speaker 4>you put Somebody has told me recently said you put

1:32:42.080 --> 1:32:45.960
<v Speaker 4>that record at the Union Square, and that was a

1:32:46.000 --> 1:32:49.439
<v Speaker 4>signal for stick up kids to like get there, get

1:32:49.479 --> 1:32:52.519
<v Speaker 4>the loot, you know, Like that's why I always stood

1:32:52.520 --> 1:32:54.080
<v Speaker 4>near the door at that place. I was like.

1:32:56.439 --> 1:33:00.000
<v Speaker 1>Traumatizing, Yeah, totally.

1:33:00.439 --> 1:33:07.320
<v Speaker 4>So they always got huge respect and they had great records,

1:33:07.479 --> 1:33:11.200
<v Speaker 4>but they they just you know, and it's it's it's

1:33:11.360 --> 1:33:14.120
<v Speaker 4>a frustration even to this day, you know that we

1:33:14.120 --> 1:33:16.840
<v Speaker 4>weren't able to break them out in a Huger way.

1:33:17.880 --> 1:33:18.439
<v Speaker 4>It happens.

1:33:18.840 --> 1:33:24.120
<v Speaker 5>And I was going to ask you, Monica about Shock G.

1:33:24.840 --> 1:33:26.960
<v Speaker 5>I just hate He's someone that we had on our

1:33:27.000 --> 1:33:30.640
<v Speaker 5>list for a long time, but you know, we you know, sadly.

1:33:30.360 --> 1:33:31.960
<v Speaker 1>Didn't get an interview before he passed.

1:33:32.400 --> 1:33:34.719
<v Speaker 5>What was he like just as an artist, as a producer,

1:33:34.720 --> 1:33:35.800
<v Speaker 5>what was it like working with him?

1:33:35.920 --> 1:33:40.320
<v Speaker 4>You know, I've actually just had a long conversation with

1:33:40.439 --> 1:33:44.960
<v Speaker 4>his former manager Atron last night. We stayed lunch. Yeah

1:33:45.560 --> 1:33:49.080
<v Speaker 4>and Shock we used to talk on the phone and

1:33:49.200 --> 1:33:56.479
<v Speaker 4>he Shock was He was incredibly intelligent, so smart, so funny,

1:33:56.560 --> 1:34:02.040
<v Speaker 4>He was very charming. He had an enormous gift as

1:34:02.080 --> 1:34:05.240
<v Speaker 4>a visual artist. You know, I had a lot of

1:34:05.400 --> 1:34:07.679
<v Speaker 4>dealing you know, he was We had a great relationship.

1:34:07.720 --> 1:34:12.720
<v Speaker 4>He would always be very very specific about artwork. I

1:34:13.080 --> 1:34:15.559
<v Speaker 4>have some like layouts that he would send me, these

1:34:15.640 --> 1:34:19.080
<v Speaker 4>rough layouts. You know, this needs to go exactly here.

1:34:19.200 --> 1:34:22.040
<v Speaker 4>This goes exactly here. Because he did all the artwork

1:34:22.520 --> 1:34:25.720
<v Speaker 4>for all the digital Underground releases and even starting with

1:34:26.760 --> 1:34:31.679
<v Speaker 4>the early version of Underwater Rhymes and Life's of Cartoon,

1:34:32.240 --> 1:34:35.680
<v Speaker 4>that the twelve ings that they had before mccola before

1:34:35.960 --> 1:34:39.640
<v Speaker 4>they came to Tommy Boy, but the well T and

1:34:39.720 --> 1:34:45.719
<v Speaker 4>T recordings, the But he was someone who was very deep.

1:34:46.920 --> 1:34:50.120
<v Speaker 4>I spoke with Latifa recently about him too, well, shortly

1:34:50.120 --> 1:34:53.360
<v Speaker 4>after he passed. We spoke about it because she talked

1:34:53.360 --> 1:34:55.680
<v Speaker 4>about how she went on tour with him and they

1:34:55.680 --> 1:34:59.760
<v Speaker 4>would just go to the hotel lobby and he would

1:34:59.720 --> 1:35:03.080
<v Speaker 4>stare just noodling on the piano. He's a great jazz

1:35:03.920 --> 1:35:07.840
<v Speaker 4>musician and she loved jazz and they had a strong

1:35:07.880 --> 1:35:13.519
<v Speaker 4>connection there. He was just he was an artist with

1:35:13.560 --> 1:35:18.480
<v Speaker 4>a capital A, you know, and and you know, obviously

1:35:18.560 --> 1:35:22.640
<v Speaker 4>he brought Tupac. You know, it was largely responsible for

1:35:22.680 --> 1:35:28.440
<v Speaker 4>bringing Tupac into the world as an artist. And yeah,

1:35:28.800 --> 1:35:32.920
<v Speaker 4>really really special guy. I've never met any you know,

1:35:33.000 --> 1:35:37.080
<v Speaker 4>like especially these days where everything marketing beefs seemed to

1:35:37.080 --> 1:35:40.800
<v Speaker 4>be a marketing tool, and there were beefs back then.

1:35:40.960 --> 1:35:43.519
<v Speaker 4>You know, you could look at karras one or you know,

1:35:43.920 --> 1:35:46.240
<v Speaker 4>whatever was going on. There's always some sort of beefs

1:35:46.280 --> 1:35:50.840
<v Speaker 4>going on. But no, with Shock, he was everyone loved him.

1:35:51.200 --> 1:35:53.960
<v Speaker 4>You know, I was tuking to Pete Nice when he

1:35:54.080 --> 1:35:58.639
<v Speaker 4>was traveled with the Third Base with them, and he

1:35:58.720 --> 1:36:01.240
<v Speaker 4>had huge love for him. I don't know, I don't

1:36:01.240 --> 1:36:03.439
<v Speaker 4>know what I can say about shaq g other than

1:36:03.479 --> 1:36:06.760
<v Speaker 4>he was just We'd have late night phone calls with

1:36:06.880 --> 1:36:11.720
<v Speaker 4>him and he could just expound on just about he

1:36:11.880 --> 1:36:14.880
<v Speaker 4>was a guy. He was very cosmic. He was very cosmic.

1:36:15.760 --> 1:36:19.120
<v Speaker 2>So okay, ladies and gentlemen, I have to tell you

1:36:19.160 --> 1:36:22.800
<v Speaker 2>guys that we will have a part two with Monica Lynch,

1:36:23.240 --> 1:36:25.759
<v Speaker 2>the legendary Monica Lynch on Quest Loft Supreme.

1:36:27.040 --> 1:36:29.519
<v Speaker 1>This incredible conversation. Uh.

1:36:29.560 --> 1:36:32.040
<v Speaker 2>We will be back in a later episode to talk

1:36:32.080 --> 1:36:36.639
<v Speaker 2>about basically the nineties with Coolio, with k seven LFO,

1:36:37.200 --> 1:36:38.120
<v Speaker 2>with the Rizza.

1:36:38.760 --> 1:36:38.920
<v Speaker 1>Yo.

1:36:39.080 --> 1:36:42.840
<v Speaker 2>There's so much more that that will happen on the

1:36:42.840 --> 1:36:44.759
<v Speaker 2>next episode of Quest lof Supreme.

1:36:45.120 --> 1:36:47.880
<v Speaker 1>Uh. And you will promise to come back with this Monica.

1:36:47.560 --> 1:36:51.000
<v Speaker 4>Correct, absolutely thank you beautiful.

1:36:51.160 --> 1:36:54.080
<v Speaker 2>All right, So in Biabo Sugar Steve and unpaid Bill

1:36:54.160 --> 1:36:58.240
<v Speaker 2>and fon Digelo and layah, this is questo and shout

1:36:58.240 --> 1:37:01.240
<v Speaker 2>out to cousin Jake holding us down on the leads

1:37:01.720 --> 1:37:03.559
<v Speaker 2>and uh you know we will see you on the

1:37:03.560 --> 1:37:04.080
<v Speaker 2>next ground.

1:37:04.120 --> 1:37:17.000
<v Speaker 7>Thank you very much, Happy with Mom.

1:37:17.120 --> 1:37:23.479
<v Speaker 1>What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For

1:37:23.600 --> 1:37:27.840
<v Speaker 1>more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1:37:28.240 --> 1:37:30.280
<v Speaker 1>or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.