00:00:00 Speaker 1: The Quest Left Show is a production of iHeart Radio, brother Me. 00:00:19 Speaker 2: How you doing like that? It's a mighty exhale. 00:00:29 Speaker 3: You know. I think I'm having what they would call first world problems, but problems are still they're not. 00:00:36 Speaker 4: Easy just because their first world don't make them easy. 00:00:39 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's just it's the ongoing be careful for what you ask for Olympics. With me, this is probably the most packed summer I've had in the history of my existence. Like I think, I think an average person has like one or two two major projects to do a year, and you know what happens is oftentimes I'm pitched to do stuff, usually a year and a half in advance. You know, they're people pitching me projects and ideas now for like twenty twenty eight, top of twenty twenty nine, So of course I'm gonna say, of course, no problem. I'll been done by then. And then it turns into, you know, bitch, better have my movie, you know what I mean. 00:01:31 Speaker 5: Like, so, I didn't realize studios talk to you like that, but that's good to know. 00:01:36 Speaker 2: Nah boy. 00:01:37 Speaker 3: They it's the way they remind you the deadline's coming up, so you know, so Meir you know that orchestral project we talked about, you know, for September of twenty twenty six, and I'm like, yeah, you know, how's it going? 00:01:53 Speaker 2: You know what I mean? It's not that specifically, but you get my point. How's your summer? 00:01:59 Speaker 5: It's been a different It's been busy, but a different kind of busy. Like I feel like. 00:02:04 Speaker 2: So everything's different, Like it's not just me. 00:02:07 Speaker 5: Well, I similarly have a bunch of different plates spinning. I feel like the places I have spinning are a little closer to my body though, so I can reach them, you know what I'm. 00:02:15 Speaker 4: Saying, Like I feel like yours. 00:02:17 Speaker 5: You got to stand on all type of ladders and cranes and stuff to keep your plates spinning. So yeah, I don't envy that, but I do understand how quickly these days go by and how these mountains of work pile up when you have a lot you're trying to do. Is this summer going by fast for you quickly? Like it's it's zoom, Like it's the middle of July already. That's nuts. 00:02:38 Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like April yesterday, right, It's nuts. 00:02:41 Speaker 3: Like I definitely put up my Marvin Gaye rest in peace post like, oh my god, back in April and now like I almost feel like we might as well just say it's August. 00:02:53 Speaker 5: Yeah, pretty much, win a second half of July. It's going by, it's almost done. 00:02:56 Speaker 2: We're gonna be in the. 00:02:57 Speaker 1: Foot the fourth of July like a week, like maybe five days ago. 00:03:01 Speaker 4: Thing, it's time no longer exists. 00:03:04 Speaker 2: It no longer exists. You know what, It's funny you say that. I'm I'm still in. 00:03:12 Speaker 3: Post earth wind and fire research syndrome, and I'm still going down the book list of like Maurice White books I should read, and I'm right now in David Evans, and he speaks a lot about like time really doesn't exist. 00:03:31 Speaker 4: It's all relative. 00:03:32 Speaker 2: Time is only slow when shit's fucked up. 00:03:34 Speaker 4: When you can't wait for whatever you're in to be over to be over. 00:03:38 Speaker 3: So, speaking of I guess we're having fun if is moving quick, moving quickly. 00:03:44 Speaker 4: Speaking of time. Note, this is a mini episode. 00:03:47 Speaker 5: So we got a mail bag question that I think could lead to a real cool, quick conversation. It's been submitted by Mario, who asks a question for the mail bag. Heard a minute of an interview with director on Batam of Saturday Night Fever. He was introduced with the comment about the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack being the biggest soundtrack of all time. I've heard the story of how DJ Rick Dee's declined having his novelty hit Disco Duck included on the soundtrack will cost him a lot of money, which makes God, this is making the question or wonder, how does it work to get your song on the soundtrack? Do you get paid to set fee as an artist? And in the old days of pure album sales, do you get a royalty base? So basically asking about the economics of how soundtrack works, especially back in the day, because I feel like I came up in a golden age of movie soundtracks and there were some root songs on some very important best Man High School high. 00:04:48 Speaker 3: Okay, it's funny you say that, because right now I'm I just happened to start binge watching this series on our TV that's gotten like a lot of nominations for the Emmys. I think they have nineteen nominations, And of course I'm stalling because I just writ. 00:05:14 Speaker 5: So Okay, I was thinking it might be Widows, but I don't know that it got nominated for Emmis because it's so new, but it's a fantastic show. 00:05:22 Speaker 3: I think it has more than yeah, it has one more than plural Us. Plural Us was supposed to be like the Bell of the Ball, but Widow's Bay has nineteen Emmy nominations and one of the most humorous observations I knowed about that show, Yo Man like quality controlled by the Jurassic Five to me, has to be one of the most licensed songs of all time. Okay, so here's the deal. And I was thinking about this question basically, like probably like three days ago. One of the very first records that I received as a gift was a compilation album, Soul Train, and it's like fourth season released like an a. They would have party albums, you know, like now somebody will put a bunch of songs together and streaming and play it at the house party so that the party can keep going. 00:06:19 Speaker 2: Records weren't like that. 00:06:20 Speaker 3: Mostly in the fifties and sixties, people would listen to comedy records like Red Fox Records was known as a party album right at a party, which is weird, like you're like talking, but you're also like listening to Red Fox. And then of course like every DJ that we admire would say that, like they grew up in the sixties and seventies as the record player person, like get a bunch of forty fives, and it's your job to keep the music going. And you know, once in a blue moon, they would make these party records, which is basically just like the first version of Now that's what I call music. 00:06:56 Speaker 2: So Soul Training had the same thing. 00:06:58 Speaker 3: They would have like a twenty song compilation on this album called Soul Trained Super Tracks, and it was like it's literally twenty songs on a single album. 00:07:07 Speaker 2: So already the grooves are like minuscule. 00:07:10 Speaker 3: And you know, they would license these songs, like there are companies that you and I are probably familiar with that maybe they wouldn't know today, like k Tel, Like there would be labeled specifically whose job it was. 00:07:24 Speaker 4: To have these linsing agreements with these. 00:07:27 Speaker 3: Yeah, to license songs, and you know, it was just it was super cheap. Somewhere, I'm trying to figure out when did the tables turn? 00:07:36 Speaker 2: And I almost feel like. 00:07:39 Speaker 3: When I started getting into the game of licensing songs very briefly, when I thought I had a career as a music scorer, for films, and people would hire me to not only score of music but also to like play songs, like around two thousand and eight, two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight. I would say that for the most part, people were honored to be included on a soundtrack, so they wouldn't go all in. They wouldn't say, hey, i'm a list such and such, yeah, I want two million for it. It's almost like, oh, promotion like this in a movie. So like a good example of the last days of that glory period would be like the eight Miles soundtrack. Fomo, of course you want to be on the eminem soundtrack. 00:08:28 Speaker 2: Thing of a jiggot. 00:08:29 Speaker 3: So pretty much, I'll say, like around twenty ten, especially when I started working in terms of like working for television shows in which you know, good side money for me was always like whatever series is on HBO. I don't mean like answer rise. I forget the names of the shows that I was a part of, but I would easily be called in just so that I could share my playlist and hopefully I could recommend something that was cheap. 00:08:59 Speaker 2: So this is what I mean. 00:09:01 Speaker 3: If you are familiar with the film called Made Vince Vince Vaughn and uh, what's his name? 00:09:08 Speaker 2: Yeah, John Favreau. 00:09:09 Speaker 3: Their follow up film, There Were Swingers and There was Me same it's almost like the same movie. And there's a scene where they have to go up to Harlem to meet Diddy at a nightclub. He's like a gangster type, meet him at a nightclub and for one thing, Grandmaster Flashes spinning at this night club. And what does he spend He spends quality controlled by the Jurassic Float. I'm sitting there watching Ditty in the club like in his bottle service glory moment, and I'm like, there's no way in the world you would tell me that Diddy would be in a nightclub listening to the Jurassic Fly all right with Grandmaster Grandmaster Flash spinning. This is pretty much how like I mean, we've licensed the roots, have licensed the f and here I come to at least ten to twenty of those things you come in low in the name of we want to promote. 00:10:09 Speaker 2: I mean, it's a fair cash cow. 00:10:14 Speaker 3: I would say, now low balling would be anywhere between ten and fifteen thousand dollars to license. But then on the other hand, if you want to license, say a song, that's been iconic, like Crazy in Love or Umbrella. You know, especially if you watch a show like Maya Rudolph's her television show, which. 00:10:36 Speaker 2: Is notory, like they at least. 00:10:40 Speaker 3: Use ten to twenty songs. Those shits are expensive, you know what I mean? And it just depends even shit even with my own movies, Like do you know how weird it is to be asked by a company to do a documentary about their artists so that they could sell records, and they're still charging me for using their music. 00:11:03 Speaker 2: Yes see, Like. 00:11:04 Speaker 5: I get it, but that's that's almost disappointing to hear. 00:11:08 Speaker 4: Even though I get it. 00:11:09 Speaker 3: The amount of letters I had to write to say, look, it's really crucial that we include this song. Like normally, when you start with a project, they give you just enough money to maybe clear twenty songs and hopefully you're working now. In the case of Earth when in Fire, a big part of the reason why I was able to get twenty five to thirty songs cleared is because they wrote a majority of their. 00:11:34 Speaker 4: Songs, so they have more control. 00:11:36 Speaker 2: Yeah, somewhat. 00:11:49 Speaker 3: One of the snags I had was there's scene where when he starts working for Chess Records. I use Marlena Shaw's California Soul because I wanted hip hop heads rather familiar with gangster right. However, that wasn't my first choice. My first choice was the drum break that we would know as leader of the New School's case of the PTA. It's like a famous drum break that Maurice White did. However, that song is a mighty Quinn, which is written by Bob Dylan. Now, if you remember, during the pandemic, Bob Dylan's people made an announcement that he sold his entire catalog. 00:12:33 Speaker 2: So that's what's happening now. 00:12:34 Speaker 3: He sold his entire catalog to this company for three hundred million dollars. So they're not in the benevolent for History's sake business. 00:12:46 Speaker 2: They're in the fuck you pay me bit. 00:12:48 Speaker 4: Better money we got, we gotta get this three hundred mil back, right. 00:12:52 Speaker 3: And I'm basically like, look, I just want to use the drum break thirteen seconds? 00:12:56 Speaker 2: Do you mind cut me a break? 00:12:58 Speaker 3: And you know, I even went to the point as far as saying, like my future films, I'll use more more music from your acquirements if you want me to. But they want it full rate for it, and it wasn't worth four times the price, Like they're trying to recoup their three hundred million back. So that's kind of what's happening now now in the case of I think in the case of Rick D's and Saturday Night Fever, which you know, Saturday Night Fever, in my opinion, is the gold standard of the mega record, Like that's the album that Michael Jackson was watching when he said I want to sell more records than matter of Fact. 00:13:39 Speaker 2: Matter of Fact. On the demo of Shake your Body Down to. 00:13:42 Speaker 3: The Ground, you literally hear Randy and Michael working on the song that's before shake your Body Down to the Ground, which is Things I Do for You on their Destiny album, And towards the end of it, Randy changes the key and Mike's like, oh, what's that and they're doing what we will eventually known as shake you right down to the ground. 00:14:01 Speaker 2: So they're just like riffing and stuff. 00:14:03 Speaker 3: And at the very end of that riff, for like a minute, you're Jackie Jackson say, man, I can't. 00:14:11 Speaker 2: Wait for the begs to hear this. So that goes to show you how. 00:14:19 Speaker 3: Major that soundtrack was, you know, that could move me and in one album of the year. So as a result, you know, cooling, the gang was almost on the way out, and yet that was enough to say them for a little two years before they got to their eighties phase. 00:14:35 Speaker 2: I don't know why. 00:14:37 Speaker 3: I'm actually glad it didn't make the soundtrack, even though I had that forty five when I was in first grade. 00:14:44 Speaker 2: But I think it would have. That was a credible disco album. 00:14:51 Speaker 5: Yeah, it was, you know what I mean, It was the only one I have personally. I know, you know, not to not to be dismissive of the era at all, but that to me was like, oh, this is no. 00:15:01 Speaker 3: It was actually a credible disco album. I got it in second grade as a gift. Listen to it over, you know what I mean, Like it was required in every household. As matter of fact, I've never seen the movie. Until I see the movie. I seen the movie, dude, the most depressing movie ever. 00:15:21 Speaker 5: Wouldn't expect that based on that soundtrack. You wouldn't expect it. 00:15:24 Speaker 3: No, Like it's you know what, you know, it's weird. So I think I seen that movie. I've definitely seen it. When I started working at the Tonight Show. It must have been one of them times when like John Travolta came on the show and I realized, Yo, I've seen Greece, I've seen paulp Fiction, I've seen get I've seen all John Travolta's films except for the one film that made him a star. And I watched it and I was like, wait a minute, this soundtrack would lead you to believe that this was like. 00:15:53 Speaker 2: NonStop party and amaze, right, and it wasn't. 00:15:56 Speaker 3: And that's when I realized that as much as we like love and reminisce about the seventies and the eighties and even in the nineties, those are the worst of times. It's just at the sound the music soundtrack was our escapism for such a harsh Sperioit that's mine. 00:16:16 Speaker 5: So so as we, you know, bring this particular conversation to a close, I did want to focus on one of these soundtracks that I heard Roots, like Root's music on. 00:16:28 Speaker 2: High School. 00:16:29 Speaker 5: High School has specifically I hate you man, why you gotta be cut? Gotta be deep cut Smurphy. I mean, look, I'm telling you to me right, this is a deep cut because this is like, it's not a movie people think about at all, but like in the height of my gotta have it all going to the record store every week. 00:16:48 Speaker 4: This is a soundtrack I bought and like, I was. 00:16:51 Speaker 5: Just endlessly entertained by the music on this soundtrack. 00:16:56 Speaker 2: It was parapacked. Yeah, I mean it was parapacked. Angelo and Erica Baidu. 00:17:01 Speaker 4: On here wool Wear the garment Renaissance. Yeah, Alas, can't call it so much. 00:17:09 Speaker 5: I mean I think tribes on there, I think, yeah, yeah, peace of prosperity of paper. 00:17:14 Speaker 4: Dude, Like, what do you remember about this? Like this putting this together? 00:17:18 Speaker 3: Okay, So I told you the story of how I met D'Angelo at the House of Blues show and in Los Angeles. I thought his date had a very unusual head wrap on our head, only to find out he's Erica Badud. And I'm also meeting them on March thirtieth, and they're telling me that they're going to what we will know as Marvin's Room. H damn, rest in peace. I forgot Marvin's room burnt down in the in the Palis States fire. No more Marvin Gaye's studio. But they want to Arvin gay Studio, which was famous for kind of being in a time portal that never moved the way that he had that studio in nineteen seventy eight when he last used it for Here My Dear is the same condition that it's been in until that Palisade fire. 00:18:17 Speaker 2: They never changed the thing, not the interior, nothing. 00:18:20 Speaker 3: So they recorded a Marvin Gaye Tammy Terell song at Marvin Gay's studio the next day after I met them at the House of Blues, which essentially is like the summit meeting of all of us meeting he just met Erica eight hours before, and I'm meeting him and Erica eight hours later as they come to see the Roots and the fujis and goodie mob at the House of Blues, and it just so happens that Kadar Massenberg was within earshot. 00:18:51 Speaker 2: So then he comes and says, Hey, she wants to work with y'all next. 00:18:55 Speaker 3: And so we will eventually start working on the other side of the game and stuff and stuff with Erica in about a month. And then he introduces us to I forget who the sound. I think I think maybe Reef, somebody that used to work at the Source that then got an an r gig was sort of spearheading the sound of the High School High soundtrack. We did that song at Dallas Austin Studio on a day off. The fujis were next door working on what I believe was going to I believe they were working on what will eventually become. 00:19:33 Speaker 2: The sweetest thing. 00:19:35 Speaker 3: And we were working on that High School Highest soundtrack song in Dallas Austin studio. And the guy that does all the the reggae chanting thing that was like it was like Proswell's cousin or something like. 00:19:47 Speaker 2: He he like hanging with us. 00:19:49 Speaker 3: I don't know if it's for the weed or whatever like, but you know, it was like a kind of a happy summit meeting between the roots and the fujis at the Dallas Austin Studio in Atlanta, Georgia. 00:20:02 Speaker 2: So that's pretty much what I remember well. 00:20:05 Speaker 5: As always, our conversations can unfold a hundred different ways and we can talk for hours. So I mean, I look forward to maybe picking that up sometime in the future too, Yes, sir, But good to connect on this one and talk to you again, surely. 00:20:33 Speaker 2: Of course. 00:20:33 Speaker 1: Love Show is a production of iHeart Radio