Speaker 1: Quest Left Show is a production of iHeartRadio. All right, y'all,
Speaker 1: this is Letters to the Quest Left Show again. If
Speaker 1: you have any letters, slide into our dms. First of all,
Speaker 1: follow QLs on all the socials please and also subscribe
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Speaker 1: If you like these episodes and whatnot. Look it just
Speaker 1: takes a second. Please like it and subscribe. We're trying
Speaker 1: to build a nation of inform music heads here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you. I like doing this. Give me more questions.
Speaker 3: All right, all right, this is a fun one from
Speaker 3: Alan Hey QLs team. I'm a longtime listener and second
Speaker 3: time emailer. Oh we like that. I'm digging the new
Speaker 3: format with the mail bag, especially because I might get
Speaker 3: my question seen. What I want to hear is brother
Speaker 3: quest talk about Phillies the Goats. They were a big
Speaker 3: deal to my group of skateboard punk rock friends when
Speaker 3: Tricks of the Shade came out. They are also massively
Speaker 3: overlooked group, not just in terms of sound, but a
Speaker 3: hardcore political hip hop. I've listened to almost all the
Speaker 3: QLs episodes and what had happened was season It seems
Speaker 3: like a couple of times Amir was about to mention
Speaker 3: the Goats when talking about Philly hip hop history and
Speaker 3: interning at rough House, but I haven't heard anything I
Speaker 3: want to hear from those who know this underappreciated powerhouse.
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, man, when I started that theory
Speaker 1: that I always had where I said that the pioneer
Speaker 1: never gets the credit. It's the person that comes after
Speaker 1: the fact that sort of gets the punitentent the glory.
Speaker 1: This is definitely the case for the Goats. Shouts to Sway,
Speaker 1: Zac and Mad and Odie and all this cats, Chuck
Speaker 1: Trees and everyone that summer of ninety two when the
Speaker 1: Roots first started busking on South Street. Subsequently, I was
Speaker 1: also in turning at Roughouse Records, putting those tricks of
Speaker 1: the Shade and the no Goots, No Glory posters in,
Speaker 1: and those guys taught me so so so much about
Speaker 1: just everything that I needed to know. Like we were
Speaker 1: just we were literally a band that busked every Saturday
Speaker 1: and got some you know, hand me down gigs and
Speaker 1: you know, playing various clubs and whatnot. But those guys
Speaker 1: would often let us pretty much let us open for
Speaker 1: them when.
Speaker 2: They did local Philly gigs.
Speaker 1: Some of those guys are on the original on Organics.
Speaker 1: I forgot who's playing keyboards on Good Music, but yeah,
Speaker 1: even with Common Dust, like yeah.
Speaker 2: They're they're.
Speaker 1: There are many a goat on on that first Organics album.
Speaker 1: You know, it's sad that they never got the kind
Speaker 1: of accolades that Rage Against the Machine had, like all
Speaker 1: those groups that came after them that were sort of
Speaker 1: in that mood but pretty much like Doggy Dog, Cypress Hill,
Speaker 1: all those groups. Man, not much has been said about
Speaker 1: the goats Man, And you know, I absolutely Mark Boyce.
Speaker 1: By the way, Mark Boyce was the keyboard player on
Speaker 1: Good Music. Shout out to Mark Boyce. Shout out to E. J. Simpson. Also,
Speaker 1: oh and Pierce. Also, I can't forget Pierce anyway, but yeah,
Speaker 1: shout out to just that whole There was a point
Speaker 1: in Philly where all those cats like g Love Special Sauce,
Speaker 1: like the Alt Philly hip hop army was in effect.
Speaker 1: But I love those guys. And also shout out to
Speaker 1: Rascill Mills. Also she sang with the goats Love Recill.
Speaker 3: Next question moves to SNL fifty. This is from Alan,
Speaker 3: not to be confused with the Lawn and this is
Speaker 3: all the same person. You are going to great lengths.
Speaker 3: I don't think it is. The fifty years of SNL
Speaker 3: is an amazing show with over two thousand songs performed.
Speaker 3: How did you decide which performances to include for the
Speaker 3: opening six minute montage of mashups? How did you find
Speaker 3: those tracks that work so well together? Was it luck,
Speaker 3: trial and error, or or pure science?
Speaker 2: The quickest story of it is.
Speaker 1: Right when we won Sundance the two wards at Sundance
Speaker 1: for Summer of Soul, I came to work on a
Speaker 1: Monday and one of the interns came in and said, Hey,
Speaker 1: Lauren would like to see you on seventeen, And instantly
Speaker 1: the room got silent. And you know, when Lauren wants
Speaker 1: to see you on seventeen, that's the equivalent of going
Speaker 1: to the principal's office and either your life is going
Speaker 1: to change or you're getting fired. And being as though
Speaker 1: I got call to that office twice before, I was like, ah, man,
Speaker 1: there's a three strikes law. Like I try to stall
Speaker 1: it as much as I could, like you know, and
Speaker 1: it's a thing where it's not a jump how high thing,
Speaker 1: but it's like if Lauren wants to see you kind
Speaker 1: of got to go up there in the next three minutes,
Speaker 1: and I was trying to stall it, like uh, okay,
Speaker 1: well I'll be there, and I got rehearsal to due
Speaker 1: right like two pm, four pm, So I tried kicking
Speaker 1: the can down the road, and eventually it's like, well,
Speaker 1: just come after the show taping, I went up to
Speaker 1: seventeen and it's everything that you've ever imagined. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've been on seventeen before, but seventeen is like kind
Speaker 1: of really just the belly of SNL and you know,
Speaker 1: of course there's the popcorn machine and Lauren's world famous
Speaker 1: for you know, his love of popcorn and whatnot. I
Speaker 1: get there and when I enter the office, I'm just like, okay, wait,
Speaker 1: he doesn't seem like I'm overanalyzed in the situation, Like
Speaker 1: he doesn't seem confrontational, like if I were to get fired,
Speaker 1: wouldn't like my manager tell me, like you fucking up
Speaker 1: and he sits me down. He's like, man, I gotta
Speaker 1: tell you. And he says that he and Paul Simon
Speaker 1: watched Summer Sold twice and in my head, first of all,
Speaker 1: it's just collective cigh of relief. But it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know what I do for a living, because I
Speaker 1: kind of had the feeling that Lauren really didn't know
Speaker 1: that the roots meant something unless he's just the best
Speaker 1: poker player ever. So he was like, you know the
Speaker 1: fifty is coming up in twenty twenty five, and you
Speaker 1: know four years from now, I would like to give
Speaker 1: you a shot to do the doc on that, and immediately,
Speaker 1: without asking my manager, I was like, Yes, I'll do it.
Speaker 2: Of course. You know. The prime reason why I wanted
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: It is because I knew that I would finally be
Speaker 1: given access to every last episode on that show. Even
Speaker 1: at the tonight show. There's like a master drive system
Speaker 1: in that building that you can watch any NBC archive
Speaker 1: that you want to old different Stroke shows, Flip Wilson shows,
Speaker 1: anything that's been on NBC. You can go on their computer,
Speaker 1: type it up and then instantly watch it. So I
Speaker 1: spend a lot of lunch hours watching SNL shows, watching
Speaker 1: rehearsal shows. You know they do too they do the
Speaker 1: actual show and they do a dress versal show, so
Speaker 1: you get to see different things like run DMC made
Speaker 1: a mistake on the live show, So I watched the
Speaker 1: dress versal and the record didn't skip, you know, things
Speaker 1: like that. So pretty much I've figured out, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're doing a doc on SNL, you better do
Speaker 1: do it in the rhythm of SNL and SNL what
Speaker 1: is SNL. SNL's a show that I feel most of
Speaker 1: the highlights are music based, even if it's is an
Speaker 1: artist on the show, like you know Wayne's World. They sing,
Speaker 1: Buckwheat sings, you know, all the things that you remember,
Speaker 1: even with Debbie Downer, like the punchline is like, there's.
Speaker 2: Always a musical element.
Speaker 1: So pretty much John McDonald and I John McDonald who
Speaker 1: is an editor there at thirty Rock, who's also a musician,
Speaker 1: we treated it like I was doing a DJ set,
Speaker 1: which is and this is how I do DJ sets.
Speaker 1: I hear a song, okay, you know, Hungry like the
Speaker 1: Wolf by Duran Durant.
Speaker 2: All right, that's an E minor. But the bridges in C.
Speaker 1: And but the end Hungry like the Wolf, and it
Speaker 1: goes to D. So we literally spent a year crafting
Speaker 1: a CSI FBI database breaking down of songs and literally
Speaker 1: the songs primarily in the key of Da Da Da Da.
Speaker 2: But there's a bridge that helps you escape that.
Speaker 1: So that helps with things like like John knew that
Speaker 1: shares last word of since you've been going ends and
Speaker 1: d which we'll leave right to Queen doing.
Speaker 2: So it's you gotta think. That's how I DJ.
Speaker 1: I think in terms of like rhythmic function way and
Speaker 1: key function way. A year in two it we gathered
Speaker 1: about four hundred songs. And while this is happening, my
Speaker 1: producers are like, hey, we'd rather just work on the
Speaker 1: storylines because you know you're not going to clear all
Speaker 1: this stuff. And I was like, over my dead body,
Speaker 1: I spent a whole year doing this, I'm gonna do it,
Speaker 1: so kind of against their wishes, I said, look, let
Speaker 1: me just make it first, and I promise you I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make this happen. And the hard part was it
Speaker 1: was done and people were so over excited. Then their
Speaker 1: attitude chain was basically, okay, let's clear it. I had
Speaker 1: about three weeks to go hat in hand to my
Speaker 1: entire phone.
Speaker 2: Like anybody I ever met in the last.
Speaker 1: Thirty five years of my career, yesterday's intern is now
Speaker 1: today CEO, So thank God for that. So that's really
Speaker 1: how when Wendy Goldstein told me whenever you meet an intern,
Speaker 1: you treat them like a celebrity. Treat them like a star,
Speaker 1: because in fifteen years they're gonna remember. Man Questlove was
Speaker 1: really nice to me, signed my drum sticks, he gave
Speaker 1: my mom a poster, he gave us free tickets. That's
Speaker 1: the you know. So when it came to clearing it,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the hardest things I had to do,
Speaker 1: Like some of my friends are on the Eminem's management team,
Speaker 1: some of my you know, well I'm friends with the Carters,
Speaker 1: so you know, so basically I cleared everything. There's one
Speaker 1: magic moment I had to take out, and there was
Speaker 1: a I wanted a kind of a diva moment, you know,
Speaker 1: Mariah Carrey's ending of a Vision of Love where she
Speaker 1: sings the last word oh, and I wanted to oh
Speaker 1: off when you Houston, Mariah carry Pavarotti, Aretha Franklin, Like,
Speaker 1: I had a just a crazy song ending thing. And
Speaker 1: because I couldn't It's not that I couldn't clear Pavarotti,
Speaker 1: but I physically would have had the gotten on a
Speaker 1: plane go to Italy. Showed them the clip for them
Speaker 1: to be like, and it's just a three second clip
Speaker 1: it wasn't worth it, so I had to take the
Speaker 1: Pavarotti part out, but to get you know, the roots,
Speaker 1: Buster Rhymes and Bobby McFerrin and TLC in a mix
Speaker 1: that was like that made up for it. So when
Speaker 1: you see that, just know that initially that's what I
Speaker 1: want it there. But yeah, it was the time of
Speaker 1: my life. Like for me, it was just a visit
Speaker 1: through my childhood and three weeks, wow, three weeks to
Speaker 1: clear everything. Yes, Jay wants to know.
Speaker 3: I know you're a huge Jackson's fan, so i'd love
Speaker 3: your take on the Jacksons This Place Hotel. It's such
Speaker 3: an incredible track, but it feels totally slept on. I
Speaker 3: want to hear with somebody with your musical expertise break
Speaker 3: down how genius it is.
Speaker 2: I've asked this. I believe on the Randy Jackson episode.
Speaker 1: That why didn't you guys lead with Heartbreak Hotel? See
Speaker 1: I'm old enough to remember when it was initially called
Speaker 1: Heartbreak Hotel and then I guess some five six years later,
Speaker 1: Michael's publisher convinced him to change it to This Place
Speaker 1: Hotel because of the sort of what I call lazy
Speaker 1: paperwork administration mixed up between the two songs, like it's
Speaker 1: easy to get the mixed and you know, maybe Elvis
Speaker 1: would get Michael's money, or maybe Michael would get Elvis's money,
Speaker 1: So give it a new title. It's such an unimaginative title,
Speaker 1: this place Hotel that you know, I just I try
Speaker 1: to ignore that part and not let it taint me.
Speaker 1: But really, there's a weird obsession I have with Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson really being the beginning of gangster rap. I know
Speaker 1: this is going to be a wild, wild take, but
Speaker 1: I would almost say that seventy percent of Michael's output.
Speaker 2: With songs are always with about women.
Speaker 1: That he doesn't trust or that break his heart or
Speaker 1: that it has n't working day and night, or try
Speaker 1: to trapping him to paternity, or his gossiping about him,
Speaker 1: or might leave him for the next guy, or cop
Speaker 1: like if you break down thriller like nine songs, none
Speaker 1: of the most depressing songs ever like literally song one, betrayal, gossip,
Speaker 1: song two, relationship abandonment. Song three is a cop blocking song.
Speaker 1: Song four, Monster is Gonna Fuck You Up? Song five,
Speaker 1: Gangsters are Gonna Fuck You Up? Song six, That Ain't
Speaker 1: My Baby? Song seven could sort of be seen as existentialism.
Speaker 2: You know, does God exist or whatever?
Speaker 1: And eight and nine are also songs in which he's
Speaker 1: begging for love. I remember when Heartbreak Hotel came out
Speaker 1: when I was nine. I used to watch the clock radio,
Speaker 1: like you know, you have a clock radio to get
Speaker 1: up and go to school, and it was such a scary, Like, no,
Speaker 1: thriller is campy and scary, but Heartbreak Hotel was really
Speaker 1: so scary to me because it wasn't over the top
Speaker 1: like Thriller is camp.
Speaker 2: But Heartbreak Hotel. Just as a nine year old, it
Speaker 2: sounded depressing to me.
Speaker 1: And I guess the story that Randy said was that
Speaker 1: Sony didn't believe in the song. Probably the funniest thing
Speaker 1: that I've found in my research of and watching Soul
Speaker 1: Train is, you know, Don Cornelius is a very colorful
Speaker 1: way of introducing songs, and the week that this album
Speaker 1: comes out, he starts by saying, well, you know, cameraman
Speaker 1: Tony has been begging me and begging me to play
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile you hear the.
Speaker 1: Like the intro is like long as hell, and so
Speaker 1: Don just tells a story about like after days and
Speaker 1: days and weeks of beg Me. We are finally going
Speaker 1: to grant cameraman three Tony's favorite song. This is the
Speaker 1: Jackson's Heartbreak, like literally like it's one of the funniest,
Speaker 1: funniest stories on Soul Train. But yeah, very depressing song. However,
Speaker 1: as an album, there's this whole clickbait thing on Instagram
Speaker 1: right now where this guy's posting that Triumph is a
Speaker 1: better album than Off the Wall.
Speaker 2: I believe it's the best Jackson's album.
Speaker 1: I don't believe it's better than Off the Wall, only
Speaker 1: because I do not like the engineering on Triumph. So
Speaker 1: for my forty fifth birthday, someone was gracious enough to
Speaker 1: send me all the stems the entire Triumph album, and
Speaker 1: I've done a way better mix with louder drums and
Speaker 1: way better and extra songs. You guys should actually hear it.
Speaker 1: Well again, more humble bragging. The title cut, which didn't
Speaker 1: make the record, sounds like the People's Court. No, literally,
Speaker 1: it sounds like the People Wait, so wait, I just
Speaker 1: gotta play the People Court.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Intro of this song it sounds like earth Wind and
Speaker 1: Fire sing a song, but the beginning sounds like the
Speaker 1: People's Court. Listen, Michael Joseph Jackson from Gary, Indiana, wanted
Speaker 1: for shoplifting. Bubble Gum Questlam Show is a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio