QLS Classic: Bob Power

Legendary producer, mixer and engineer Bob Power talks about what it was like to make some of the most iconic hip hop albums of our time.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of Course, Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Yo,
Yo Yo, what's up? This is Fonte Fontagelo tapping in
with another q LS classic. This week, We're gonna take
it back. We'll take it all the way back. This
is almost our first episode. This is episode number two
from September four, Team six Team with none other than

(00:22):
the legendary producer, engineer, and musician Bob Power. Bob talks
about working with stats, a sonic, the Angelo a tribe
called Quest and none other than our fearless cult leader
and sweet tea drink Quest Love along with the Roots,
travel back to one of the episodes that started it
all on QLs. It's Fontagelo. Yeah. Here we are call

(00:59):
so Prema something something suprema road called suprema so some
subprima road call subprima so some Suprema road. All. My
name is Questo. Yeah, I am yeah my show. Yeah,
I love Suprema Phil come Prima something Suprema road called

(01:22):
Subprima something something Suprema road. Call I am Montega yeah,
can't you tell? Yeah, go order some food. Yeah, because
I'm hungry, as he cam Suprema some something suprema road
called suprema some suprema road call. Uh yeah, uh Steve, Yeah,

(01:46):
Chicken palm, roll call Suprema son something, suprema road all
Suprema something Suprema road bill. Yeah, I was the first guest. Yeah,
and now I'm on the show. Yeah with Quest Suprema.

(02:08):
Some suprema road call so Prema some something suprema road
call mem is bill Yeah yeah, some Alamonama demon Ama,
some of them roll call Prema. Some suprema road called
sub prima something, some some frema rogue call. My name

(02:30):
is Bob, Yeah, I ain't no junkie. Yeah, my name
is Bob. Yeah, I sure. Some road call sou Prima son,
So Suprema road called so Prima son Suprema roll call
so Prema So su Prima road called so Prima son,

(02:55):
So Frema road called so Prima so so so Premo
roll roll roll call. Ladies and gentlemen, Ladies and gentlemen,
this is Quest Love, and this is Quest Love Supreme.

(03:17):
Welcome to our show. How did I get here? I
do not know, but they asked me, and I'm here
and I'm here for you. Aught a few friends with
me to help me explore art, culture, music, food. So
my my co host with the co most uh is
sir Fine Tiggelo. What's going on? Of course? Uh, formerly

(03:42):
of Little Brother, currently of The Foreign Exchange. One of
my favorite cats ever, Like more than any book, Your
your your Instagram or your Instagram, and your your your Twitter,
uh musings and and your wisdom is some of the
best reading toilet reading I've ever got. Hey, bro, Hey,

(04:07):
I gotta keep it real instead of a good book.
Maybe back in the nineties it was Blacktail, but now
it's font and my I g I would think about
that when I'm crafting my next tweet. I'm like, good question,
should I maybe my tweets? I'm on it to be here.

(04:31):
Man Fonte is like one of my favorite thinking cats
of of of of all time, so I'm extremely honored
that he's here. Uh. Next to Fonte is UH Steve
a k A sugar Steve. How are you doing, Bro,
I'm not feeling well, but hello, Steve. I've known for

(04:57):
about near twenty years. Uh. Steve was an assistant engineer
at Electric Lady Studios UH and has worked on practically
every record that I did in that building. Voodoo by
D'Angelo like water for Chocolate Common Mom's gonna with Eric
about doo uh oh and the diabetes the anthology. So

(05:26):
I stole the legends that I stole Steve from Electric
Lady Studios to be my full time engineer, and so
when he moved to Philadelphia, he kind of that my
diet um. And at the time, three times a day.
There was a church that had Sunday dinners for sale
all throughout the weekday. It's called the House come On

(05:50):
in North Carolina. What because the House of Prayer like
the House of Prayer that the prayer that they grew up,
the house of the House of you know what I'm saying.
You get So the House of Prayer, it was on
Market Street. It was on on the corner market in Deadley.
And the leader of that House of Prayer was Daddy Grace. Yeah,
that Grace. So you could go to the House of

(06:13):
Prayer on On you know, they tell plates and you
could get like some other pork chop, yams and macon
cheese like us. So the lesson the legend is about
I did about three weeks straight like this. This is
when I was working. What's the first thing we did

(06:34):
together in Philly, like the Farrell record. We work on
Farrell and the yes Sterdad. So every break we head
to the church bust of grub by two crubs, so
we have a midnight snack too. So we doubled down
on those grubs getting hot in here. And then like
two months later, Steve's like, Yo, man, Bill Sermon a

(07:04):
k A. Willie White, William White. Bill is my boss
at Sesame? Wait? Do I still work at Sesame? He
only wrote like one song? We can change that anyway.
Bill Bill is the new Joe Proposo. Who's Joe Proposal?
Joe Proposo is the god of children's songs. He wrote

(07:27):
many a classic at Sesame Street. Bills now at Sesame Street.
But we met because he's one of the seven UH
producers for the Hamilton's Cast Out. You also are a
Grammy Award, Anatoni Award winner for In the Heights. You're
a producer of many UH acts. He's a real big

(07:51):
shot deal. Do not have this white corner? You don't
have the sugars, right, I don't have the sugar yet
we hang out up. Yeah, Okay, I'm honored to be
here last, but not least are our boss man, our

(08:11):
producer Bill, DJ Brainchild? Am I allowed to call you
by your government anymore? I guess, okay, I'll call you
DJ brainchout or I guess are you gonna edit this part?
I'm leaving it all right? Did you just call the podcast?
I'm gonna edit that out on this radio show, Ladies

(08:33):
and gentlemen, I am not sport. I'm not supposed to
call this is not a podcast. This is a radio show.
A mirrors me five dollars every time he calls the
show a podcast. Should we just have a podcast? Jar? Right? Yeah,
I'm wow. I'm gonna be rich by yea. Man, I
thought about you all the other day, Man, I thought

(08:55):
about Steve. I thought about you all day talking about
like the Dibees and stuff. I heard probably the most sad, hilarious,
most like tragic ship ever. And this is a real story.
I won't name the guy's name. I can't, don't, but
it's a friend of a friend of mine. This really
happened in real life. This is recent homeboy in mind
when he's not my homeboy, but my a friend of mine,

(09:15):
it's her homeboy, right play cousnant ship, Homie like needed
a kidney, right, He's like he was fucked up and
I guess he had like diabetes or something he needed
he needed a kidney. No, no, bullshit, need a kidney.
And he was touring at one point with like a
major artist, okay, And so this major artist got behind

(09:37):
him and was like, Yo, we need to get my
man a kidney, like started to go fund me and
all this ship you know what I'm saying, got him
on the go fund me. People gave all this money.
So Homie gets on the donor list for the kidney. Like,
he gets on the list. So now all of a sudden,
like you know, he's like praising God and everything. So

(09:58):
then all of a sudden, we just his like Facebook
post change and it's like, oh man, the devil trying
to steal my joy? Uh? They the devil is a
liar like all this, you know, all like the ship
that gospel nigga say when they're mad. So it's like
so we're like, what the funk happened? They took him
off the donor list. So then we're like, okay, well

(10:18):
why so we go to his Instagram. Check what I
have for dinner tonight? White bread fried fish and it's
like days and days funk shit and like, and so
they determined like, look, we're not gonna you're not living
a lifestyle that is whatever. So I just thought that
was amazing. I've never heard I've heard. I've never heard of, motherfucker.

(10:44):
I g and yourself off the donor list, Like, how
the fun you tweeted yourself out the goddamn donor list, dude,
and like and then if you look at this, I
g all the meals like it's it's all bad, Like
it's all like white bread or frying sugars fried this.
So the hospital was following him. Hey brother, it's a
new game. That was a really great story. Oh man, Yeah,

(11:08):
he like his Instagram took him off the donor list.
That is almost hi man, I like a quest of
Instagram rounds where like you think it's going to be
like a paragraph and then you're like, whoa, how did know? You? Who?
You had some time? Which is rare. Ship. The reason

(11:29):
why he doesn't have time because he was writing something.
I mean like like, that's a lot of little ship happening.
Impressed by you the Tom Sam like I try to
keep my emails that I right on my phone like
five words, yeah, toilet stoole musing, so it's Fante's tweets
and then like really long and right right as soon
as you stand up, Oh man, ain't that ship? The

(11:51):
words like you stand up, ship be sleep you gotta
shake it out. But the part that sleeps in the
shape of whatever, right right right, and ain't the worst
ship ever. Like when you go to like because because
I have a thing, it's like when you go to
like a real clean I went to my dealership. They
just work on my car, and they had a it's

(12:13):
a new dealership and they got built a new men's bathroom.
And the ship is gorgeous. It has its own little
like private a pristine joint if you're going to handicap
Jordan handicap and like not in the airport, but like
in the dealership. It was so nice. I was like, man,
I'm gonna go wrong this. So I was like, I
need to put the seat down. I was like, man,
I'm gonna you know what I mean, it's like you fear,

(12:34):
It's like how you yeah, whatever, you live your way
in the handicap, that little private room in the handicap
in the airport, like just in case, like right right right,
you live and then you get down. But the worst feeling, though,
it is like when you sit down and it's a
warm toilet seat. Oh my god, that ship is like

(12:56):
God is terrible. I like the cold on the cold
toilet seat on on the on the bottom heated toilet
seat in my house. Yeah. When I moved into this house,
it was the one number one reason. Not only was
is it heated, but it has his panel over here
all right, that like does all kinds of crazy ship

(13:16):
like it'll yeah, yeah, it'll water up that. Have you
been in Japan Obilla, I've been. It's been years ago.
Have you game changer? So I keep hearing about that, dude,
I'll tell you what I'm moving, and I'm pistol. Can
I say I thought I was side of the thing.

(13:38):
I was like, I'm gonna have to get I was like,
oh no, I was taking the ship Amazon. And how
much the toilet seat ship? Cause to that when I moved,
I could buy one, and you expensive, it's like three
grand for like the thing, man, But I will tell
you what it is worth. You can, but that's not

(13:58):
the same thing, producer Bill. I'll tell you that maybe
sixty or seventy of all the exchanges between Rich and
I or Momenta stool exchanges. Matter of fact, all my lists,
all my thank yous, oh all the roots, thank you,

(14:19):
Like I have a desk. Wait, that's too much, let's
wait for So we are very honored to have uh,
the great Bob Power in the studio. Give it up.
Thank you, thank you. My my mother has been chilling

(14:41):
well for me, and she talked you into this. I know,
you know, just like she gave for all twenty bucks
to say that thing about me. Okay, so she's running
out of dough though I might trouble. Yeah, I gave
you the money. Um so, I you know you are

(15:03):
for those that don't know Bob Power's role and music,
especially in the realm of classic hip hop. Uh, I'll
say that you are up there with all of the
great creators, um beyond engineer. I mean, I consider you
the the fourth beatle in a tribal quest and in

(15:26):
day Las Soul, and then Vindeo called me the den mother.
I thought that was real. Qu you were definitely well,
you know, I'd like to get stuff done and everybody's
just hanging out. It's like, okay, what are we doing now?
So you know, I'm not saying that I'm the most
disciplined human beyond earth. Actually I'm the least disciplined human
being on earth. But probably the the one thing that

(15:50):
I learned in studio mixing with songs is the absolute
concentration that the engineer needs UH to to complete such
a task. And you never let me live that down either.
I know all those little things under credit used to Bob.
Could you guys please go in the back power? I

(16:11):
mean on and on and yeah. So I mean to
run off your resume. Um, if you are a classic
hip hop fan, this this this man has has pretty
much engineered and steered UH mighty ship of of classic
records from UH three. Well you did on Fire by
a stets of sonic? Did you do him full gear? No?

(16:34):
That was my first big thing. Yeah, on fire, on fire, Yeah,
to hear it, to hear a Q Tip describe when
he first heard UH got in a nightclub. He said,
that was that was That was a moment for him
where he stopped in his tracks and it was amazed
at how clear the drum sounded, and said, this is

(16:55):
what I want to sound like. So are you serious.
I never heard that, man, yeah, because I asked like,
how did you how did Bob enter the Spirit? And
He's like, ill was at the club and I was
like shocked, and I was like he worked on that.
But then I figured, like all the all the Calliope
Foster people had to have been from Tommy Boyd. You know, yeah,

(17:16):
there was. I believe that Shane Favor went away for
two weeks on vacation and I filled in and we
got along. You know, Shane never should have left, man,
So after that then you sort of used in and
it wasn't my own doing. I had nothing to do
with it. They said show up. I said, okay. So
when Shane came back and everybody wanted to roll with
you and Stead, well not really. I mean, Shane and

(17:38):
I split that first record and it's funny. I just
remastered that for the twenty five anniversary release last year. Man,
I had no idea what I was doing back then.
It was scarity here that stuff, but it was funny.
So you cringe when you an or only stuff from
that far back. I actually sometimes I catch myself. I'll
hear a song and I said, you know, that sounds

(17:59):
pretty good, right, Wow, that's cool, and then it's like, wow,
I mixed that. Oh man, don't you forget tracks that
you've done? Um, Like I have, I have a I
have a cardinal rule to not uh. I will obsessively
listen to whatever record I'm working on for maybe three
months after it comes out, and then I never ever

(18:23):
go back. Right. But like I'm in a clothes store
or something, I'm like, wow, I know that song. Oh yeah,
I mixed that. That happens. That happened yesterday. I heard
a song that I was on and I just ammed
it and I was disappointed when I found out that
I didn't know that you on it. I was on that.
I was on that song anyway, So you did h

(18:43):
on Fire by a stetch of Sonic. Uh. That was
the first that Sonic song I ever heard, honestly on
Fire because I was I bought it. This was God.
I was like, seven, did you buy it? Yeah? I
didn't steal last week while we was talking about like
months ago, right on the last episode. I don't think

(19:03):
I did that whole record. Um, But if I remember
on Fire, then I did that song. No, I had
that one that was on I remember that one because
that was on Ktail Records compilation and I bought from
k Mart and like straight up and that was the
last song on side so that that was the three
cent royalty check I got a couple of months ago.

(19:24):
It might have been it was it was a Ktail
because it also said Tangerine Records. Then I really would
have just walked down like I was cool. It was
it was Ktail and that was the last song on
side one. And uh, it also had I don't know
if you remember Missed the X and mr Z drink
O Goal. Yeah, it was. That was on there too.
That it was the name of the compilation though like

(19:47):
rap Hits or some ship. It was something like corny
like and he was like I gotta have this. Yeah
it was. That was all I could affoord because it
was in like the bargain box, so it might have
been like three yeah. Yeah, it was like three dollars tapes.
I know those tapes, very cream colored tapes, like the
cream you know what I mean, Like if it was
like the white take the cream color, you knew it
was a bullshit. Actually you know something, um my first

(20:10):
Bob Power cassette I stole. Okay, that's appropriate. Apriate. The
reason why I was hesitating to say I wanted to
make sure that the grace period had passed before Sam
Goodie presses charges I have some good news for you.
Sam Goody is no more. So I beat the man. Now.

(20:31):
I used to uh work at Sam Goodies after school,
and when I had that that moment when I heard
three the same way that I felt when I heard
Nation of Millions, I was like, Yo, these guys are
talking directly to me. So I stole the the only

(20:52):
copy in the store, and I think, yeah, I got fired,
but not a week that right. I think I think
they knew I stool it. They were throwing your ass
in jail man, Come on, that would just be fired. Well, no,
I got fired obviously. You know. I'd like to think
it was, you know, the Christmas rush was over and
they didn't need me in January. But I think they

(21:16):
I think they knew that I did that. Um So, anyway,
three ft and rising uh days souls dead lowin theory.
You did people's instincts of travels. You did the first
tried record half of it. Yeah, I did not do
uh three ft high? WHOA A couple other people there
did that I did a session or two, but I
wasn't not I did not go so dead Yeah, okay

(21:40):
and blue mine state, Oh yeah, steaks. I don't think so,
I don't think so. You know, I got really busy
as a producer. And then when I said people yeah
and people said, got really pissed. You know, of course
they were territorial. Got really pissed. But it's okay, we're
over now. He was territorial. Let's drop that one. You know, man,

(22:04):
why are you giving up? I love the man and
I really do as you do. You know, come on, man, Yeah,
because my first week in working with you, I think
I maybe that's why you you had the quiet rule,
because I think I asked you more about tribe mixes
than I was concerned about my own mixes. So I

(22:28):
thank god that's part of the twenty year period. It's
a big blur to me because I don't remember a thing. Well,
I wouldn't know. That's what we were going to ask you,
So I guess I should ask you. Did you Did
you come into this saying I'm gonna be a pioneering
engineer or was it light? No? No, no, no? What
were your beginnings like? What what were you? You know,

(22:49):
and you're totally back to into engineering. I you really
want to start at the beginning. Okay. I played trombone
in fourth grade because it was cool because I could
hit the kid in the back of the head in
front of me with the slide. That's exactly why I
picked it up. They also told me my lips were
too big to play trumpet, and I was like, okay,
thank you. That's really nice to tell a kid, you know. Anyway,

(23:13):
um uh played bad rock guitar by year in high school.
Went away to college and a place, Webster University. They
had a conservatory and I didn't know enough to be scared.
It was a classical conservatory. I had no background in
it became a classical theory and composition major. They never

(23:33):
would have let me in. I don't know how they
let me in, but they did. What So during the
four years that I was there and studying classical theory
and composition, I was playing a sort of chiplan serving
in Saint Louis and I played an R and B
bands and cover song oh yeah, yeah, You're my favorite
pussy you know, yeah yeah, and uh Temptations stuff. You know.

(24:00):
I killed Papa was a rolling stone man, you know
those little ridges on the rubber on the wild wah
pedals and keep your foot there. My ship is worn out. Yeah.
Um and left St. Louis and seventy five. Did some
recording there with different people. I mean, what were your
aspirations in the seventies. I wouldn't be a rock star, man.

(24:22):
Come on, I guess what you are? Rockstar? Come on? Anyway,
moved to San Francisco and seventy five and this is weird.
I ended up getting my masters in jazz. But it's
a long story that I really can't tell on the air. Um.
It's a sort of checkered story the reason that I
got into graduate school. But we'll leave it at that. UM.

(24:43):
I had to. I had, let's just say, I had
to be on my best behavior for a while and
got into TV scoring. While I was there, my dad
was a television producer and he hooked me up with
some people. So I scored TV like three or four
months out of the year for seven years and subsidized
my jazz career. What shows did you There was a

(25:06):
show on PBS called over Easy. I did a bunch
of stuff for Disney. Um, a couple other things, a
couple of specials for PBS. And it was cool. You know.
That was the day's pre Minty where you had to
like score stuff out on staff on score paper and
go into the session, laid down the charts and it
had to be right. You know. There was no you know,
because payroll runs when you have a lot of people

(25:27):
on the floor. There were union dates. Um, so it
was cool. It was a lot of fun. Um. I
wouldn't have made it in the seventies it you know,
that was pre MINTI, so things were way way different
than um. So anyway, Uh, I wanted to be Bobby
Broom or somebody, you know, great jazz guitar player. Was

(25:48):
just okay. Uh now we're going to get calls people
say he was terrible. He wasn't just okay. Um And
did you come close to a a career in being
like I was? I was journeyman weather report or no
no no no, no, no no no. I was playing

(26:09):
weddings in bar Metzva. Uh at best I I haven't
gotten to the part about the mafia weddings in Flatbush
for for seventy five dollars, but I'll get there. Um.
And in nineteen eighty two. You know, I had a

(26:31):
nice life there. My cash flow was okay because of
the scoring work. But I knew I had to have
moved to l A in New York, so all my
friends were here. UM had some people and some friends
in advertising and corporate communications. So came back started You
really want to hear this? Yes, okay, No, I'm not
that's the problem. Um. I came back to New York,

(26:54):
took every gig playing I could. I got really good
at sixteenth note octaves because I played on a lot
of bad dance records. Records. Oh man, I don't remember.
I really don't. That's the twenty year. I don't remember.
They weren't Union. I have no idea. You know, I
got paid in cash. I left UH and was doing

(27:16):
every kind of weird club date gig I could, Like
I said, Mafia weddings out in Flatbush, taking the subway
home in a tuxedo with my guitar, my amp at
two thirty in the morning from the junction. You guys
know what. This was late eighties. It got stolen what
I was waiting for the no no, no, no no. Um.

(27:37):
But Uh, I was producing stuff overnight at Calliope because
it was the cheapest hours. Uh. And I was doing
industrials for my friends, you know, big corporate communications shows,
and the money was great and you got to do
really big productions and stuff just started getting into jingles.
And I was working overnight at Calliope and Chris you

(27:59):
remember Chris Irwin wanted fell asleep at the console. So
I finished up and he woke up. He said, oh,
Bob Coulter, the guy who engineered for me all the time,
he is going away for two weeks, would you like
to fill in? And I was like, uhh yeah, yeah,
I know how to do that. I knew how to

(28:21):
press record on the table sheet. You know. I had
always asked a lot of questions. I was fascinated by engineering.
So this is about eighty five and it was Calliope,
So you know what happened there. Um At the same
time that I got a following as an engineer there, Uh,
I got real successful doing jingles. So I was trying
to do You remember, I was trying to do jingles
during the day and records at night, and it was

(28:43):
killing me. And I got a lot of good stuff
I was doing, like the postal service chef Boyer D
you know a lot of BMW Mercedes. Um, they didn't
give me a car. Uh. And then so about I
think it was or nine two, I said, you know,
I was dying and I just realized that I had

(29:05):
to give one up. So I said, okay, I gotta
make as much money in the record business as I
was doing in jingles, which is great money when you
when you get finals. Really oh yeah, Um, the writing
fees are decent. Plus they're all Union dates, so you know,
you know, kids, stuff runs for years. I did a
thing for chef Board D sharks, you know, a little
pasta shape like sharks. That ship ran for like three

(29:28):
or four years, so I was getting checks that whole time.
It was great. Can I ask my producer, are we
allowed to play that song? No? No, uh no, we
could sing it. In fact, I think you're gonna But
it was you know, it was cool. We had to
do everything. I did the music. I did the engineering,
I did a lot of the playing. And it was

(29:49):
just about when they expected the music houses to do
sound design as well, so I had to make the
sound of the shark. Um. It was animated of the
shark fin cutting back and forth through the water. So
this was the really early days of sampling, and samplers
didn't have a lot of memory. So I think I
did a I got a circular sof and ripped a

(30:11):
piece of bell crow and did a zipper like a
zip and then put them all together, and I thought,
you know, that was really cool, man. Really sounds like
the shark is cutting up the water. And the agency
says that's much too scary. We can't use that. So anyway,
uh So, by the early nineties, I was just doing records.

(30:31):
I was just engineering and then producing records. So that's
about what. So you're saying that your your side hustle,
You're you're you know, I'll make some engineers engineer, like
that was just an afterthought to you. But you're like
changing lives. Yeah, but you know, ship works funny, man,

(30:53):
But I don't think you realize you were changing lives
as you were doing You know what, man, I wasn't
changing lives the artist I was working with, we're changing lives.
I was helping them do their thing. I really believe
in that. But you know that's important to me, honestly,
as a as an engineer or producer. It's really important
because it is all about the artist and people whose

(31:13):
sight of that, especially engineers, you know, guys who get
in and say, oh no, no, no, that wasn't right.
We have to set that up again. I used to
do that. Oh you you were that sort of stupid.
Yeah uh, and then I really, you know, it's really
about the artists. The artist when you're making a record,
you know this, man, you've got to just go there

(31:36):
with the artist because that's what makes them special. And
if they don't have anything the special to say, you
shouldn't be there. But it seems to me that a
lot of us and a lot of people, I mean,
especially in the music industry, they wind up in their
glory period kind of by accident and it's never by design.
Like I never like people. People stop me all the

(31:57):
time like oh my god, like you're the parents Doc Severson.
It's like, I never like you. Of all people know that.
I never was like, you know, but I really want
to be late. He had good hot shops. Man, No, No,
I love Doc. I played with him, funny ties. He
really played with him. Yeah, he said in Docta in

(32:18):
Los Angeles. That's great. Yeah, he got down with us.
But I'm just saying that, you know, I kind of
this wasn't planned at all and it was never by design.
And to hear you say it like engineering was just
like it was another gig. But in hindsight, you do

(32:38):
recognize that it was historically important that you did this stuff, right.
You know, did you guys see Zella the Woody Allen
movie where he kind of shows up in all these
historical yes, yes, which are you asking because this quarter
says yeah, yeah, so, um, you know, I was just there.
It's a weird car, was a car as we did

(33:00):
see it. Uh, that's you know, that's one of my
favorite records. Oh my god, wa wa Watson. That's everything
is him on that Um. But you know, things happen
in strange ways. Man. Well, and I am passionate about
what I do. You know, I'm I'm waving my head

(33:22):
up and down, but I have I'm not sure if
I missed. Why Why did you choose making records over advertising? Advertising?
More much cooler? That's what I wanted to do since
I was a kid. You know, I used to sit
in my room and early on when headphones first came around,
like sixty four or I got a headphone at sixty four.
I used to sit and listen to these records and
I look on the back of the records and said producer,

(33:44):
and they called mixers remixers at that point, and uh,
you know, I said, I had no idea what it was,
but I said, oh, that looks really cool because I
really liked this record. So that's that's where I got started. Really,
I had it almost a exact similar situation. I was
interning when I first started. I was interning at J

(34:06):
s M. Yeah, like, and it was beautiful and you've
been in there, Like, the facilities were great, everything. Everybody
dressed nice and smelled good and made a lot of money.
And and I was also interning at Electrically at the
same exact time, was doing two to totally. You know,
there must have been killing you man. Well not really,
I mean it was it was more. Eventually they both

(34:28):
wanted to hire me. I had to literally decide the
same decision like advertising or Jingles versus rock and roll essentially,
and you know, the I was like, it's it's sort
of a When I was doing the pros and cons
of it, you know, everything said Jingles, you know, hours,
the money that could have the money, the money, the money,

(34:49):
and and all the opportunity to write as well. You know,
so um, but then you know, I just chose electrically
because I wanted to make records. It's all the same stuff.
The problem with doing and goes after a while it is,
I mean, everybody thinks, so it must really rob your soul.
When I used to say, you know, I'm a professional,
I just do this ship. I'm really crazy about it.
When I'm doing it, I love it. I put into it.

(35:12):
But after a while I realized it did start to
rob my soul because they just put all this stuff
out there and people send it back and say, oh
no it's too green, you know, come on, or we
really needed by Thursday afternoon. We gotta have it by
Thursday afternoon. It's really important, So you stay up all night. Man,
you're really dying for it. So you wait till Monday
just to be cool, and you calling me and say, hey, Bill,

(35:34):
did everything work on okay with the track? Oh it's
not my desk here somewhere. Let me get to it
and I'll call you back. Oh all the time, man,
you know that. Yeah, that happens to us right even now,
as we speak, but I have to I have to
say that you're, as you say, the token white guy stick.

(35:55):
It was always like one of my favorite moments whenever
you would do these little skits with day La and
Tribe and everything. Um, first of all, I mean, would
they would you volunteer these services that they just say
go in the studio there? I even think the token
white guy was me. I must have been out of
my mind. You know, we were everybody was doing bad

(36:16):
stuff back then. Uh. I think that they did a
whole bunch of fake radio ideas or something like that.
So I said, oh, let me go in, Let me
go in and do it, never thinking that would really
see the light of day. When you were making that stuff, um,
you know, I guess like a record like Balloom and
just even the tripe stuff, did you have any idea

(36:37):
of where it would go? I read an interview this
was a couple of days ago on wax Weddics. They
interviewed Cecil and Margaret if they were going all the
Stevie stuff and everything, and they were talking about how
after they did the Stevie stuff, they got hired to
do Osley Brothers and it was just you know, regular
gig or whatever, and he said they were just doing
just doing what they did, and they didn't think anything.

(36:58):
They had no idea. The songs wet Plate forty years
later A right, did you have moments? No? No, no, no.
I think most normal people when they're working on a record,
you love what's in front of you. It's I don't
take this the wrong way. That's why you get paid with.
What I mean is that's why you're there, whether you're
the artist or engineer or mixing. Um, it's the coolest

(37:21):
thing in the world for the time that you're working
on it. It has to be you gotta love it
to death. So uh number one, that's the prime directive.
Like star trek Um and uh No. I get asked
that a lot people say, did you know you were
making a classic? It said, like, no, we were having fun,
trying to finish. Here's the thing, though, I think in

(37:42):
order for you to uh produce the results that you
did produce, I feel as though one has to submit
to I guess the ongoing battle or conflict with a
lot of people, especially that early in the game between

(38:05):
it was actually admitting that hip hop was an art
form and not just an extra check and that sort
of thing. You know, Man, it took the record business.
When the record business really got on board was when
they said, holy sh it, there's a lot of money
in this. I mean, you know, come on, I'm not
dissing anybody. That's just the way. And my thing was,

(38:26):
I like to make great music with great people. I
don't care what form that takes. I like big band,
you know, there's a lot of things I like. I
make jazz records. Uh, and I really liked the people
I was working with. So um, there was I don't
know if you ran into this, but there was some
pushback in the engineering in the studio community in New

(38:47):
York because until hip hop came along, the studios were
fairly integrated, but it was a jazz scene, and because
hip hop was a completely new cultural thing coming up
in the streets within a different way of talking, different
way of dressing, different way of walking, different way of
making music. That uh, even people who were used to

(39:08):
working in integrated situations in the studio. The studio establishment
back then and still is to a certain degree of
white male boys club. I mean that's just the people
that drift into it. Uh, not by design, but um,
so there were a lot of people who just sort
of saw a bunch of eighteen year old kids coming
in the door with dress like they've never seen people

(39:31):
dressed before and having fun because they're eighteen year old kids,
and they got freaked. I think, that's what I think.
And I was like, hey, guys, what do you want
to do? Because I was learning at the same time,
so it was like, wow, this is really fascinating. I
like this. Yeah, Well, since you brought it up, is
there a client that you had to say no to
that you kind of regret that? Damn? Maybe I should

(39:53):
have did that for historical purpose. Oh man, you have
no idea the stuff I've had to turn down, um
and all because I'm I was like, really busy. It
wasn't because I, like, I don't work. Can I really talk?
I usually don't like to talk about that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, Prince, Wait, okay,

(40:14):
this is a good one. Guys. So, so I got
married in ninety four, and you know, I was working
all the time, and I was burned out. That's one
of the reasons that Richard got mad at me at
a certain point because I was so burned out. I
had a vacation plan for like months and months a
lot of money into a European vacation and I said, no,
I'm going on vacation. Richard flipped, um, but that's okay,

(40:36):
that's Richard and uh so, uh, I was really burned out.
I was working like ninety hour weeks a lot. I
had one Friday night home with my new wife, and
uh we cooked dinner. I love to cook. I cooked dinner.
I had a bottle of Kyant. I'm in my robe
on a Friday night. I had to do it. And yeah,

(40:59):
that was afterwards. Man was bad that that's what we're
here for. Alight, let it fly. You guys married, married,
so we can get worse. So I'm home. I'm down
for the count after some wine, probably smoking along, you know.

(41:20):
So the phone ring said it's battery. And I worked
a lot with and I still do work a lot
with Michelle and Danie Ochella, who's a lovely person and
a dear friend, and the phone rings and Bob, this
is battery. The studio, I said, yeah, they go listen,
Prince is coming in with Michelle tonight and they want
you to do the session. So I was like, I

(41:43):
was so excited, and I kind of called myself and
I said, UM, let me call you back. And I
hung up, and I was like, you know, I'm a
little loaded. I'm really fucking tired. I just got out
of the shower. Do I want to go in and
work all night with some guy that won't talk directly
to me? You know, it wasn't guys, It wasn't that literal.
I was burned out. It could have been anybody. It

(42:04):
could have been the Beatles, and I would have said
the same thing. So I said, no, Wow, Yeah, do
you know what day that? I know a day that
that that session took place? Are you sorr? Yeah? It
comes come out literally it was. It was almost literally
twenty years ago today today. How do you know it was?
I looked at up? What's song was it? What's his email?

(42:25):
From the Emancipation album? Oh? She was supposed to be
on that. Yeah, they recorded an instrumental. The recorded an
instrumental that night. Uh and uh, like I think he
went back and re rerecorded. Yeah, so that's one. Uh,
there's some others I can't can we at this moment?
Prince Dork he this is why each guys calmed out,

(42:50):
each person in this room has has a weird super
uh kind of ability to recall stuff like that anyway,
So Prince Yeah. And there's another one I'm not gonna
I can't name names because it's bad. There's the people
are still around. A really huge star of the last

(43:12):
fifteen years, I mean really really huge and uh the
A and R person who had known for a long time,
who's real big cheese now really big cheese, called me
and said, you know, we have blah blah blah, we
want you to mix the first record. And I listened
to it and I called him back and I said,

(43:33):
uh blank, because I'm not going to say his name
was No, I'm not gonna say it right well, memy
me um me. So I said, you know, do you
really think this record is ready? Because it didn't sound

(43:54):
ready to me. It sounded like you know, demos with
the drum machine and stuff, and it was like huge, huge,
huge career that goes on to these days this day
and you know that. I mean, can I talk about
an active career? Oh? Extremely, the top of the heap,
top of the heap, and you're not talking about Mike.

(44:14):
What didn't it sound what constitutes because I believe this
was your feeling towards Brown Sugar as well. When you
heard the demos. Oh no, no, these demos were killing.
We chase the demos on that we chased. We chased
the demos on that we chased the demos on on
on Michelle's first record. They were ferocious. Chase the demos
on Erica's record. Um, but it didn't quite sound like

(44:35):
a record, you know, And I think that at that point,
you know, now, because of certain big figures I'm not
going to name names, you know, kind of scratching and
thin and small sounding is kind of okay again, but
at that point people I didn't think people wanted that,
you know. So so yeah, Um, anyway, there's a bunch

(44:57):
of stuff, you know. I had to turn down that
thing recently because of school, and it really the H word.
It hurt me more than anything. I've actually had to
say no to it. But I teach you don't want
you now. So it turns out that your crunch week
was the first week of school, and uh, the children
they signed me first, so well, I mean, we can

(45:19):
we can talk about it. I so wanted to do that.
I begged kind of take the load off Tim Latheram
because Tim was also engineered the Hamilton's record, and Bob
and Tim worked on I mean, they were in my mind,
you guys were like great tag team partners, freaking fract Yeah,
you guys did try together in the roots together. It

(45:40):
was the Jewish Irish comedy to him, and Tim is
a funny guy. Yes, yes, yes, I took over the
jew part of that, I think. All right, man, thank
you for the represent all right, so let's let's lie
back to the beginning. Because I know that um q
tip and in his citement over the Ghosteza record, that

(46:03):
was a moment for him. Um and I have to admit, like,
those are four six Those were some loudass drums, which
I have a problem. What's that problem that? Man? You know,
I mixed stuff and then I listened to it two
weeks later when it's too late to change, and I'm like,

(46:24):
oh my god, what did I do? And I just
somehow I hear the drums being real loud your first record, man,
when I listened to it after it came out, and
I said, oh my god, I really sucked U up.
I can't believe I did that. No, I don't know.
I mean, if if I listened, like, if I listened

(46:46):
like a listener, it's like, wow, that's really rocking. But
if I listened like a mixer, I'm like, what did
you do? But that's yeah, that was the best I
remember hearing you and like, right, would you just founded
like nothing else that I still do exactly the same
thing as you, And two weeks after I still say,
oh my god, what did I do? But yeah, But

(47:08):
the thing is is that, um, especially with before we
started working with you on on the Organics records, like
whenever we'll do these rough mixes and I would have
the drums up ungodly loud, you know, band members and
everybody just think like, oh you're ego mania. You just
want to hear your drums loud and turn everything else down.
And so I kind of felt relieved that you were

(47:30):
enforcing and saw a world in which the music could
be just as loud as you know, the vocals. There
was one time when Prince actually came to a session
I was working on with Common and he said, Yo,
turn all the music down and just turn the vocals up,
like in his world. And I guess modern pop, the

(47:52):
voice has to be the loudest thing in the forefront,
and the music is the kind of the afterthought. The
voice is the center of the Everything you do on
a record should be there to support the vocal. But
still you can have the drums loud and if you
know no, I'm serious, if you know what you're doing,
you can make room for everything at the same time.
So yeah, I mean, it's just it's one of those things.

(48:13):
David Gampson, who's a producer and writer out in l
as a real good friend of mine, and we have
this thing because we've done a bunch of records together
that once you put the drums up to a certain level,
even if they're too loud, if you pull them down,
everything kind of falls apart and it gets really limp,
so you gotta put them back up again. You're right
about that, Yeah, you're still right. So I mean, not

(48:33):
like it was a scientific thing, but he said it
changed his life and basically like this guy has to
engineer our stuff. So I mean, what, whether can you
go into the early days of working with Tribe and um,
you know, you have to remember the technology was really
primitive then. And wait before you start, and did you

(48:58):
track these records or did you try did you track
an engineer or did you just engineer? No? Both both.
I I tracked and mixed a lot of stuff. Now,
the stories I hear from most engineers that I that
I asked these questions, um, they often say, like, you know,
maybe like Eric Sandler publicanmy They would always praise him
for going past page six and the samplers manual, whereas

(49:22):
everyone just be like, how do you turn around? How
do you sample? Or just give it to the the
side engineer and he'll loop everything up for you, like
well that was that was Actually that's really interesting because
back in those days, the quickest way to move ahead
was if you really had you been MIDI shipped together.
But those people who don't know Middy is the computer
languages that computers and synthesizers used to speak to each other,

(49:44):
and no one it was the wild West. Number one
ship didn't work the way it was supposed to number two.
Nobody knew how to use this stuff. So if you
knew how to use the stuff, especially assistance, you could
move up really quickly. The sp X A D I mean,
oh my god, what a nightmare sink bok so yeah,
and I you know I've always been sort of a
tech gee. I really fascinated looking under the hood on stuff.

(50:06):
So it helped, you know, problems when they walk in
like these records like all right, pop loop this up. Yeah. Yeah,
And but you know, both Hip and Ali early on
sort of started figuring it out, and um, the large
professor Hip tip to the sp twelve I'll leave is
one of the first person people I know to carry
around a little uh mac you know, the all and
one things with a little tiny screen uh. And he

(50:28):
used op code, And so they would come in after
a while, they would come in pretty prepared. Sometimes I
would take the stuff in the other room in logic
in the back, yeah, and kind of just slipping around
a little bit and hopefully not take the punk out
of it. But in the beginning it was so primitive.

(50:48):
I mean, samplers didn't have a lot of sampling time.
So if you had twenty four track on tape, and
you had one track two tracks taken up by the
sinc tone and the guide band guard band. Uh, if
you wanted to lay down like a complete sort of
two bar phrase, you had to do it in really
tiny little pieces, don't. Okay, let's take the next pass.

(51:09):
So you listen to Don't and you record Don't and
you put them together. What Yeah, I'm serious, man, you
had to You had to do the beat little tiny
pieces at a time. You know, technology and a recent
trip record. You had to know no early on Okay, Yeah,
did you do any hip hop before Stets the Sonic?

(51:33):
Maybe at Calliope? I don't know, I don't know. Maybe Okay.
So I would hear of these primitive sampling techniques, especially
like with the Death Champ people are chunking where they
would what's the process where you take the tape and
get a pencil when you loop? Yeah, you'd make a
tape loop. Can you describe that process? Because what you

(51:56):
do is to record your two bars that you like Don't,
and you cut it and you you splice it together
and make a tape loop. Now, obviously that loop is
going to be about twelve ft long, much too big
to fit on the tape machine. So you stand back
with pencils, uh emulating tape guys, and you hold them
so you have the proper tension on it. And you're

(52:17):
standing like twelve and fifteen feet away from the machine
with like two pencils that are acting like rollers or
tape guys, and yeah, yeah it was primitive, man, But
you know that was sort of you had people before that,
you had eight away drum machines like Stats. A Sonic
was the end. And I'm not a hip hop historian,
but I just know the stuff I've worked on. But
Stets was the end of the eight away that that

(52:42):
you either had that or you had amazing DJ's cutting
back and forth between two records and going for four
minutes in perfect tempo. The first time I saw that,
man completely, I said, uh, you want to do what?
I said, Okay, well I'll set it up, and I'm like,
they're never gonna be able to do this, and they
did it perfectly. God, let's kill it. Let's kill it. Um.

(53:03):
So yeah. At first, when sampling happened right after that
first wave of hip hop, when we first started hearing
samples on records, the sampling time was like a second
and a half maybe on the s P one or no.
The Akai six twelve was actually the first one we used,
and it had these little quick discs of proprietary sort

(53:23):
of mini floppy format that you saved the stuff on.
I think it had seven to nine tenths of a
second sampling, So you basically you lay down the kick
drum by itself, then you lay down the snare drum
by itself. Chris said, Calliope used to use an electro
Harmonics one shot and when you unplugged it, that was gone.
Forever you would sample something, you got it on the tape.

(53:45):
There was no way of saying saving it. You unplugged
it and you just did something else. So you're saying, okay,
so you're saying, now, when we did Mello my Man,
the first time we worked together, and we um engineer
Mello my Man, that pro says took. I know that
we started at twelve in the afternoon and you were
very disciplined. You you were out of there like seven

(54:06):
seven pm. So um, maybe you started tending the morning.
I probably had another session. Now I don't know it
was Christmas. It was Christmas Eve, but like home getting
his robe. But but but I do remember that, Okay.

(54:27):
So I was told by other people that, you know,
you can mix two songs in a day, So I
was like, wow, what mixing one song a day? And
he's very meticulous on you know, each track, like each
track he spends a good twenty to maybe forty five
minutes like yeah, and that's so wrong. I don't do

(54:47):
that anymore. But go ahead, Well, because you know, we
have technology now that speeds up the process like we
did fornology. I know what I'm doing. Oh yeah, I'm serious, man.
I was like, okay, I really got to get this right.
So you're jet on mind tricking me? Yeah, okay, see,
I thought you were just as mad genius that I
believe a micro wave mixing and you wanted to sue

(55:09):
I was. I was really into it. I work in
concentric circles now. I I don't like to get bogged
down on any one thing. I'll go through everything on
a real cursory level and then go back and spend
a little more time. But I don't work in a
linear fashion where the kick drums gotta be perfect, the
snare drums gotta be perfect, because you lose the context.
You know that? What? Yeah, okay, Well it sounds a

(55:30):
little revisionous to me because no concentric circles. Man, you
were the most disciplined engineer I've ever knew. I was
out of my mind, man, what can I say? Okay, Well,
I think you're doing false honesty. I don't think this CD. Baby.
My whole point was that if you were tracking on
primitive stuff and it had to sound perfect, then that

(55:50):
took a lot of times. So you now you can't
do that man. You know when you set up possession,
my thing, I tell my students, you get it sounding
pretty good, really fast, you know, because the energy of
the people sitting on the floor is the most important thing.
This is what I want to know. The special things

(56:11):
about the Native Tongue records, the uh, the tribe, the
day Lie Jungle Brothers. Did you do okay? You did
this straight up before some of the early stuff, and
then one really bad one. Yeah, I just want to
say he took an Alan Smithie one of the last
you were Robert Powers to Allan Smithee uh JB's with them.

(56:39):
You know something, though, I went back to that record,
it wasn't as bad as it maybe seventeen eighteen years later,
and it was it was kind of resish like it was.
It could have worked in the right year. I just
don't it could have been an okay record in the

(57:01):
right year, because apparently that was the one that that
wasn't even the record they wanted to put out. Apparently
it was crazy, but I feel like you put the
record out that you want to put out. It's like,
uh yeah, if you're if you're big cheese, you know.
The other than that, the record company says, no, that's
not good enough. We don't hear anything. So the record
company just took the record and said this isn't what

(57:23):
it is. I don't know exactly what happened on that. Yeah,
I mean they did remixes to what they did videos,
so I didn't see any committed Yeah, and you made
the record, yeah that she didn't make it. So yeah,
that's that's going to be an interesting I have a
lot of questions about Mike actually lived not too far
from me though. Mike's a good guy post good guys. Yeah.

(57:44):
I I talked to Africa once every ten or twelve years.
It seems like somehow, I don't know, I don't well.
The the one thing that people rarely mentioned about these
records is, um how I mean, they're really three dimensional?
And you know, because hip hop is so full of caricatures, um,

(58:08):
you rarely get to see the flesh and blood of
of people. And I felt with the skits that were
on these records. It kind of disarmed the listener because
it really showed that these guys had goofy sense of humor.
But um, I always wanted to know because it always
sounded so spontaneous and so fun and so of the moment.

(58:32):
I mean, we're there, just live mics everywhere, and we're
tapes and cassettes constantly running in case an idea came
up and no, but there were mics open because we're
doing rhymes and stuff, and you know, somebody says, I
want to get onto Mike you pressed record. You know,
it's it's just always felt like a reality show where like,
you know, that's good artists at work. Seriously, seriously, So

(58:57):
how do you I guess as a with two questions. One,
where does the line? Where is the line for you
between producing engineer? Uh? If I'm engineering, I'm just there
to make it sound really good and help the momentum
of the session move forward. That's the line. I don't
offer artistic uh ideas, That's not why I'm there. And

(59:23):
then when you're producing, it's you know, man, it's producing.
Every artist is different. You know a lot of some artists,
some artists who you guys, know me for working with
you try to set the table right and get the
funk out of the way and let them do their
thing because they're so incredibly dope, and you try to
corral it a little bit so it sounds like a record. Uh,

(59:43):
and then other people you know, you gotta uh build
the car from the wheels up. You know, it's just
always different. So with the corralling, because that was mine,
that was as my next question. I mean, a regular
day lass Ola did that? I mean, I love that.
I mean a lot of people love my favorite record.
That's my favorite day live record too. But like something
like Johnny's did, which is fucking hilarious, you know what

(01:00:06):
I mean, But something like that could never happen on
the hip hop LP now, you know. I mean, so like,
how do you need to come back? You know? That
was Paul and pass and and Dave also, um that
was them. Uh. What I'm saying like, how do moments
like that get captured where it's not like, okay, guys

(01:00:26):
recording and roll in the same way that when you
do it, take it doesn't sound like you're playing to
a clip. You know, it's just what they do. Man.
So it just happened to be. Also, that was a
much more innocent time, which is why people got away
with those skits, is because the whole gun thing, the
whole violence thing, hadn't really gotten big. Yeah, it was

(01:00:49):
a much more innocent time. People were just out of
high school. Man. You also worked, Um, the unique thing
about your work is that you worked with groups. I mean,
now we're in a system which you know, the solo
artist is celebrated. Yeah, and and so how about that? Man?

(01:01:11):
That's right? So I know hip hop groups anymore barely?
So how did you no? Right? Right singers? I mean
there's hardly any I mean his personalities, but how music
has no groups? Now? But all that said, earth Wind

(01:01:32):
and Fire Lips No, how how how these I mean
who would know where their place was and who would
be the alpha? And who would well you know that.
And I'm certain that you've had conflicts of especially when

(01:01:52):
you're a group, when there's multiple producers and well that's
when I say, you know, does someone sneak up with
you and say yo, turn that. I can't do that, man,
I gotta be honest with everybody, so I don't do that.
So I have you had situations which someone comes up
to you. It's like, yo, man, I'd say, we need

(01:02:14):
to talk about this with everybody, and I haven't, or
does it come with you from you first? And sort
of an anonymous like no, Well, if it needs you
have to play dr Phil. You've seen me in the sessions,
you know sometimes stop and say, guys, listen, you know
we're talking about maybe turning the high hat up on
this part or whatever, or losing it riding there. What
do you guys think? And then I get stand back

(01:02:36):
and get out of the way. You know, that's not
That's not what I'm there for. I just try to
keep things moving forward. You know. It comes from paying
for studio time myself and not having enough money. You know,
you learned to keep things moving forward in the studio.
In retrospect, the forward motion of a session is like everything.

(01:02:57):
It's nine of whether stuff comes out of good or
not is the momentum of the session. I think, okay,
so the low end theory which I'm gonna get something
out of this, I'm gonna get some blood out of
this stone, damnit. Um. I mean, what was the typical
session like, like what songs take a day or um?

(01:03:19):
Like for me, it's like, okay, we jam on something,
jam and something. Oh, here's an idea, and then we
track it. Like, I mean, how were records me back then?
Like they come in pre production and say this is
what I want to do. By then, typically we're doing
programming on their own. So Tip had an SP twelve
and only had his computer and S nine, so they

(01:03:40):
would come in with stuff. Uh, the technology still wasn't
that great that we didn't have to mess with it
just a little bit. Um. You couldn't slip tracks at
that point, you know, move tracks back and forth in time.
So if you sampled something and it wasn't quite the
field you wanted, you had to do a few tricks
to get that to happen. Um. You taught me that

(01:04:00):
sometimes you put it through a delay. Well at the
time thing and you know, now you can say to
the snare, I want the snare to be you know,
thirty milliseconds back rightever. Um, back then we used to
fake it. And again this was Chris Irwin who was brilliant. Um,
you would synchronize to Simpty on the tape to time code.
Can I guess the lynxes? No? Almost, But you'd say

(01:04:24):
you'd synchronized. No, you'd synchronize the SP twelve to simpty
because the SP twelves was one of the first things
to read it and spit out mid o'clock, and you'd
feed the simpty through a fifty millisecond delay, So everything
that got printed on the record, if it was printed zero,
was actually fifty milliseconds behind the Simpty. And then if

(01:04:45):
you were printing, say a snare, and you say I
want to pull this up in the field, you just
lower the delay time on the delay and the snare
would move a little bit forward in the field. But
with me a few times, yeah, very soon thereafter you
could slip the slip tracks in the computer. You know.
That's everything now, that's that's yeah, I see move you

(01:05:05):
know for people who don't know move tracks backward and
forward in time. So it's funky. When did when did it?
When did it turn? Like? When did the technology? Early nineties?
I think, yeah, you remember the first record that you
did completely in the bucks? Oh man, um see, because
I use microphones, I can't, you know, get with that

(01:05:27):
in the box. And I still mix even though I'm
mostly in the box, I still have a two bus chain.
The stereo mix comes out through some really nice stuff.
But the technology is there. I can mix in all
in the box and to be fine. The technology is
absolutely there now and uh yeah, you just gotta use it. So,

(01:05:49):
uh would you say that brown Sugar was your first
foray into first of all, when you were approached sanity,
welcome to good Um was when you were approached? Uh?
I I assuming that Kadar came to you to do

(01:06:10):
Brown Sugar? Did he just want you to engineer it first? No? No,
did you say I want to produce this? You know
the truth? I don't remember. I don't remember, but uh yeah,
I really don't remember. Um, But as you know, with
D you played you the music first, and yeah, of
course moving stuff along is half the battle. I still

(01:06:31):
have the four track Cassetts his demos, That's what I
was gonna ask. Do you don't Do you have those
the demos from Brown Sugar? I think Bill does. I
had a fire and most of the stuff got destroyed,
but I may still have those. I'm not sure. Fire
my home, my home in New York was destroyed by
a fire about six years ago. Yeah, listen, no, it's good.

(01:06:51):
If it had been my studio with all my gear.
I would have jumped off the roof. But I the
worst thing that happened. I mean it was bad. It
was a couple of years fighting with insurance company, but um,
no one was hurt. And I lost a sixty five
Telly Sunburst with white binding, one of the original ones. Um,
but then you use that on I might be I
I don't know. I used to use it a lot.

(01:07:12):
Yeah that's your I might be guitar. Yeah yeah. Um.
So you know, Dea is one of those artists, and
I was learning as I went along. But as you know,
DEAs an artist where you gotta let him do his
thing because that's where the good stuff happens. Um, it's
getting him to do his thing. You said it, I

(01:07:32):
didn't know. Well, I mean compared to the other two records.
I mean, you made Brown Sugar record time you started with. Yeah,
but I also made half that record, and I just, oh,
you know how to say this? Um, the world knows suation.
I do loved the same way you do. Um, but
I just couldn't wait around anymore. And I also know

(01:07:54):
that he wanted to do it himself, you know, so
uh so explain chasing the demo for those chasing. The
demo is when someone makes a demonstration recording of the
song which is not a full on version of the
song because they don't have the resources. But it's just
an outline for the song. But when the demos like
really incredibly cool, you end up making the real thing.

(01:08:17):
But then it's too good and it doesn't sound the
demo but the demo itself, and then people say, well,
why don't you just use the demo for a record,
because it's too messed up. It's just you can't quite
do it. But actually, with him and with Michelle and
her first record, I would pull stuff off the demos.
If there were multi tracks and there were parts that
were really really cool, I pulled them off the demos.

(01:08:38):
How would you line them up? It was hard, It
was really hard. Wait, by this point you have tools, though, right.
I had a roll in d M a D. And
the pro tool sounded horrible at the beginning and it
really didn't work out a role in hard disrecorder. There
was also enough sampling time. I could fly ship and
you know, from one tape machine to another and kind
of keep punching in and get it right. You know,

(01:09:00):
just gotta work, Yeah, I'll say that dreaming eyes of
mine definitely. I remember calling you when he came out
and asking, like I thought there was just a discrepancy
glitch in the drum programming. That's so funny you say that, man,
because because everything you know, listen, musicians talk about people's

(01:09:24):
feel and you know, to get things to sit comfortably,
you always want to keep the back beat sort of
behind the beat, and you want your rhymes to be
behind the beat. And jazz playing is behind the beat.
D is in last week. You know he's so behind
the beat, it's two weeks ago. So it's funny. When
I was flying the vocals with my rolland hard disc recorder,

(01:09:46):
you do it by a temple map, so it's you know,
it's gonna be correct when you put it in the
second verse. It's gonna be in exactly the same place
it wasn't the first verse, And it was his background
vocals were so back in that I was sure that
the gear was sucking up because they were so behind
the beat and stuff. Um, you know that's me on
guitar in that song too. Dream. Yeah, when you're approached,

(01:10:10):
let's say, like for Michelle's record, which wasn't a out
of the box platinum album. Um, but an artistic achievement,
that's my favorite. Michelle. Yeah, well, I don't know, well, yeah,
both of them. Yeah, like that one and then I
like Bitter too bit it was really dope. But do
you take when you take these projects on how many

(01:10:30):
of her albums you did? The first three, I've mixed
almost everything. I produced two or three cuts on the
first one and then mixed a lot of other stuff.
David Gamson did most of that stuff, and Michelle did it.
You know. Um, there's not a lot of people. I
know a lot of great musicians. I don't know a
lot of artists. Michelle is one of the deepest artists
I know. In what way? Come on, man, do I

(01:10:52):
have to explain that? Yes, she is one of those
people that just does things really differently from other people
and it always comes out really pretty dope. Provision is
way different than other people's way way different. Um, I
mean plantation, lallablies, like the way that record is constructed,
in the way that record sounds and the parts. It

(01:11:15):
was sort of like hip hop from Mars meets R
and B meets Anger. You know, it was cool, it
was cool. You did better as well. No, that was
damn yeah pretty much. You know I mixed a comfort

(01:11:38):
Woman too, guys, great record. It's a great sounding record too.
We did that down at Um run King. Um. It's
a really good sounding record too. And I've done a
couple with her since then. Halo is probably my favorite. Yeah, yeah,
it's crazy, Yeah, okay, I got all of them creating

(01:11:59):
sometimes dope. Um So when you when you make these records,
what's your grand achievement, especially when you're not dealing with
an artist that I'm certain that Maverick would love her
to have had one foot and platinum status and the
other foot and artistic achievement. Um, so I'm pretty sure

(01:12:21):
you've had it, y'arful from the A and R people,
not back then, not back then. You know, I only
did a couple of cuts on the first record, so
not back then. They had two lonely hearts are no,
Um what was this sexy one? Uh? Cross your Door? Yeah,
dlocks dreadlocks you know, but that was also I mean,

(01:12:41):
did you do All to Night? No, that don't exist.
That was a top ten. There's a disconnect between Michelle
and the pop music juggernaut, you know, she's definitely in
ours that deserves to be out there, and everybody needs

(01:13:02):
to hear her, and resources have to be put behind her.
She is not necessarily the artists that you expect to play,
you know, on hot. You know I'm gonna keep it
that way too. No, no, make it hot. That's a

(01:13:23):
great middle finger. Okay, a hot keeping it um, But no,
you know that it's like record companies. If there was
an economy of scale, which there is now, that allowed

(01:13:46):
artists to make records, and that the company didn't need
to sell millions of records to recoup or keep their
doors open, it'll be cool. But there's not a lot
of places like that. They need to keep the scale
that they run those panties on. They need mega hits.
You know, I'm not telling you anything. You don't know.
So did you ever have a client which, like, you know,
once the mixes went home, then suddenly yes, And I've

(01:14:10):
heard and our people say to artists after you know,
kissing their ass up and down for two years, sending
the limits for them, Champagne, go into the office, I
don't hear any hits. Go back and write me some hits,
which is like the most crippling thing you could ever
say to anybody you're not good enough, go back and
make yourself good enough. Oh that's helpful, you know Jesus.

(01:14:33):
Yeah you've heard that, man, Come on. So but I
think the same thing could be I remember you said
one time the Z that obviously can be true. Like
when y'all signed with their JAM and j was like,
don't make it. I was like, oh god, no, we
gotta get it eight and pitched for it. No. But

(01:14:54):
that's a good situation when they know who you are
and sign you because of who you are. UM, but
I don't want them to use that as an excuse
to not to want to promote us, you know what
I mean. So it's like this is that that's a
kind of reverse bizarre paradigm at work. Yeah, don't make
any hits with her away in obscurity. I'm the champion.

(01:15:16):
You're so successful, all right? So um yeah, well your
your production and chasing demos and seeing the product through
UM and Erica as well, we're doing badoism. I mean,
did you the way the way you sold me to
d I have to men and I always tell this story,

(01:15:37):
did I do that? Well? You wanted me to play
on ship Damn motherfucker, and this before Ron Carter had
a Change your Heart and Ron was gonna play and
he had no change your heart. He closed the door
really fast than that one, Like, what's the song called? No,
I'm not doing it? Yeah. I called him and Brown
is actually a good guy. He's you know, he's prickly,

(01:15:58):
but he's a good guy. And he's a musician. And
I called him and I told him all about this stuff,
and I said, blah blah blah blah blah. He's a
really great artist, really unusual round by the way. Um. Uh,
you have to let me explain, and I will explain
after I tell you. But the title of the song
is ship Damn motherfucker. Nope, you just had to do that,

(01:16:21):
didn't Uh. And No, I didn't want to mess with him,
you know, and have him come in for that. And
I tried to explain, I don't know what he is,
but he said, in nobody's book is that a good
phrase to me? Motherfucker? So no, um, and I tried
to explain to him. I mean, it's it's sort of
a woe is Me thing. It's somebody with their head
in their hands. Saying, oh no, how did this happen

(01:16:41):
to me? He's not calling anybody else that, but it
didn't matter. He's on Smooth though, right. Uh no, Larry
Grenna dear, he's fantastic. Is unsmoothed? M yeah, okay, yeah, okay,
I love that song. Nobody you know people sleep on
that song. I love smooth. Oh yeah, that song on
that record. No it's not, it's not, it's great. I uh,

(01:17:04):
I shouldn't tell how wait told gets here to tell
the when we get by story, then I reveal that
on the board. Hold on hold. If we're gonna get
dal in here, it's going to be like already booked
him a three years ago. Let's show up next month. No, sorry,

(01:17:26):
we love you D. What were you saying, Steve so
who ended up playing bass on ship damn um dot?
I just thought of that. I didn't actually have a question. Uh.
It might have been Lara Grennadier might have been D's
sample base because he was really good at that. I mean,
the stuff he got out of the EPs sixteen was

(01:17:47):
really good. It sounded great, you know something, but still
has the same fixes it you know we we we
did a show, still has the same floppy discs. He
has such a technophone man, Not really, I mean he
has new stuff, especially like you're talking about SR tent

(01:18:13):
What did what did you say? Ep EPs sixteen? It
was a precursor, but but the architecture is the same. Yeah,
so that was before the he has it. He has
the same brown sugar stuff in his apartment right now,
like the same. Because that's the mark of a great artist.
You know, they can sing Mary had a little lamb

(01:18:34):
and you go, oh my god. You know, it doesn't
matter what they have. There's such they have such a
strong stamp as an artist that they could use the
most prevalentive thing in the world and you, oh my god,
that's so cool. It's like all those times I used
to say, you know, listen to Luther Andro sing the
Telephone book. You know, where did the road sound come from?
It on that it sounds like it's underwater. It was
mostly out of his EPs. We can we cause the

(01:18:57):
flying jet patch we uh, we use we use some
we use some live roads. And also if you put
the roads and they used to be called a pan scan,
it was actually an analog piece of gear that pants
something back and forth really fast. You can do it
in the box now too. And it gives a road
kind of like a ran watery kind of sound. Yeah,
still has it. Yeah, it's like a dripping water sound. Yeah.

(01:19:21):
He calls it flying v okay. Um, he calls it
his flying V like guitar flying V. I don't know,
but it's it's always and he's flying. You know. So
did he create that patch himself or is that a
sound in the bolt? He did a lot of editing

(01:19:43):
the stock sounds. Yeah. But again, I mean he could
take anything. He could take the most primitive, silly sounding
thing and do something incredibly cool. Yeah, I'm my witness
to that. Wait, wait, while on this subj I got.
I got a phone call last week. Uh that was

(01:20:05):
painful to get, which was yet another illustrious New York
City studio is shutting down, and yeah, I keep moving
my equipment from studio to studio, studio to studio. Um,

(01:20:27):
and even where do we do at Hamilton's. I was
at Avatar and heard about mr and the Avatar is
shutting down. To Avatar, they're waiting to find a person
who has enough money to keep it a studio. You know,
the footprint of the building is worth, you know, fifty
times as much as it is as a building now
in the studio. Wow, well my question is you know

(01:20:52):
now that studios are are becoming a relic of yesteryear.
I mean, to work with you is to you know,
to see you send these massive cases to the studio,
like working on commons, like word for chocolate record, like
you'd send these giants property property of Bob Power, Like

(01:21:17):
like my cartage was five bucks just to get the
stuff there. You know, yeah, I mean you you were
carrying a lot of outboard here. But I guess in
in the middle of the decade, did you eventually just
start doing pro tools and pro tools only or No.
I made a commitment to becoming a better in the

(01:21:39):
box mixer about eight or nine years ago, and not
because of commerce, because that was actually that's why I
should have done it, because I saw what was going on. Um,
I just saw what technology was becoming and realized that
did I want to be in staff with technology or not?
And I love technology, so so you have to learn

(01:21:59):
all over? No? No, no, um, I just said you
can be. I've been mixing on consoles for years. I
did that, Okay, I said I could be a better
in the box mixer. So I just started and I
love it. I wouldn't look back. I'm in my own
room all the time. I almost never see my clients
like a mirror. Fantastic. Where's your room? You have a room?

(01:22:20):
Oh yeah yeah. Steve a Dabo Shelter Island Sound has
a medium sized room on street. I have the other
side of the floor. We found the floor together. He
did a lot of early Suzanne Baga and Sean Colvent
and stuff. Um. So I have my own room and
anything I record with one microphone. I got a great
microphone collection. I got great Mike Breeze. We put up

(01:22:42):
the microphone in the room going headphones. Uh. And I'm
really really happy or as a practitioner now than I've
ever been. I if I never set foot in a
big studio again, it's fine. I know it sounds weird.
You don't miss it at all? No, not the fruit plates.
And you know what's funny, I always made jokes about
that when I first got really comfortable my own place.

(01:23:03):
I the first thing I would say to people, I said,
you know what I thought I'd missed the fruit fruit basket? Yeah,
but um, do you know what it means that, I mean,
the fruit basket is but he can bring in his
own fruit to his room. But it's almost like it's
it's like an amen from a hotel. Yeah, exactly, it's
like somebody else's clean towels. It's really nice. Um. But

(01:23:25):
my mixing situation, my speakers and I sit in exactly
the same position every day. You know, I don't have
to move from studio to studio. I love it. My results,
my work is better than ever man. And I I
still use an analog chain on my stereo mix but
all the individual things, no inserts, just pro tools. Okay,

(01:23:45):
so how did you decide to, you know, bring teaching
into like uh n y U approached me about eight
or nine years ago, and I started out as an
ad jong, teaching a class here and there, and again
my mother gets around. They must have talked to my mother. No,
not like that, man, No, not like that. I knew

(01:24:09):
you were going to go there. I just feel like
your mom should be the next guest. She's a shill.
She's a shill for me. But um, they made me
professor a couple of years ago, and you know, I'm
still working on the outside of about thirty of my
work is still mixing. Now what are you teaching that? Everything? Production?
I consider myself a utility infielder, Like if they need

(01:24:30):
me a third base, I can do it. I teach
the sophomore production class with my associate and boss, Nick Senzano,
who's great. He's been doing he worked, Yeah, yeah, he's
my and uh it's really great. I mean, imagine after
a lifetime in the record business to be in a
position where the only reason you're there is to help people,

(01:24:51):
that's all, you know. Uh, you don't get paid more
if you do better, you know, it's or if you
have a hit. Uh so it's great. Um, but are
they interested in the level of production that you are?
Is your forte the the non microwave production the Yeah,

(01:25:11):
well because now kids are just using like fruity loops
and and and able to. But yeah, that's right, guys,
the same principles whole true. It doesn't matter how you
get how you get, you know. I teach, they have
me in positions teaching the things that I know how
to do, analog recording, all things recording, um, mixing. I
teach an arranging class that I developed, which is fantastic

(01:25:34):
because as you know the biggest problem in most people's
records is bad arranging chops. So it's great, it's great.
I need to enter this class. Well, you know, guys
as a groups are great, but you know, as a mixer,
you know, the records well arranged, it's great to mix
if it's badly arranged. You're just fighting that the whole time.

(01:25:54):
And in the modern world, the arrangement is as much
your choice of instrument in the timber that instrument as
it is departure playing. I mean, it's not two anymore.
We do things really differently. There was a girl I
was watching the thing you did. Uh. We brought frelli
and had them into Maggie Rogers student that Okaye, one

(01:26:18):
of my star students. Yeah, she's great, she's sucking dope. Um.
You know, the world has completely flipped for Maggie. I mean,
the hits are off the chart. There's a feeding frenzy
uh going on right now trying to get her signed. Um.
And Maggie's has a real good head on her shoulders
and she won't be swayed by all that stupid ship

(01:26:39):
that comes her way. She's uh. And you know what
I have to say that there's any number of students
that are just as cool as that. We have people
doing just the coolest thing. There's something that people heard
in Maggie's voice. Uh you know, she almost sounds like
Joni Mitchell singing over electronica. But yeah, and it just
sounded like her. I really like what for real said

(01:27:01):
and since that it was singular, like he couldn't even
give notes on it because it didn't sound like anything else.
It was really her whole world. But I have to
say a lot of students there are doing incredibly cool stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
This is the first year in which I felt atimidated

(01:27:22):
by some of my students, Like, Okay, I need to
learn from you, Like I'm taking this job so you
can teach me stuff that I don't know. Listen, that's
part of Do they do that to you? Sometimes it's no,
they don't test me. I mean, do they know about
your history and that stuff? Yeah? Yeah, And and the
classroom to me, and I'm really serious about this is
a three and sixty degree thing. Um it. The information

(01:27:46):
flows both ways, and if both parties aren't super engaged
while we're in there, what a waste of time? You know,
not just a waste of my time, waste of their time. Um.
So it's great. The students are great, the people I
work with are fantastic. Uh first real job I've ever had,
the first time I've ever gotten to pay regular paycheck
from any company other than my own. Um and uh, yeah,

(01:28:08):
I still get to work. And they actually tissed the
arts division at and why you want you to stay
active in the field. So I I need to work
and I still enjoy working. But just because at school
and in theory, I'm full time there, that's my first responsibility.
Do they make you turn in a mass of syllabus

(01:28:29):
at the top of the year. I've petillabi and the
plural and it's the weirdest word in the world to say,
you feel like, yeah, okay, I thought that was just
like me to make sure that I knew I knew
it when I was doing no not real My health
teacher in uh In college used it. That was first

(01:28:50):
place I heard it. It was right after he was
discussing gone to read it was my human health and
wait a minutemute, my ship is it's and I think syphilishized.
So what is your goal when you what what is

(01:29:11):
your mission to when you do teach this class, because
the thing I I enjoyed about teaching is the enlightening
part of things, and it's the small things that enlighten
them the most and really engage them. But you know,
I hate the whole idea of like I have to
quiz them on this and that's bullshit. And I said

(01:29:34):
the first day, look, you know, I don't believe in grades,
but this is n y U. So we got to
do some things a certain way. If you're not here
because you really want to engage with this material, you're
spending a lot of money. And you know, I mean,
I don't diss people or anything or blow them up,
but that's I I believe, really, and that we're all

(01:29:54):
discovering this stuff together. It sounds, I know, it sounds
like I was just from the sixties, and I am.
But you know, I love the process I'm saying, you know,
discovering things with them. You know, Yeah, I believe the
same thing. But you still have to give grades. Yeah,
and that's I'm not even gonna get into that. I

(01:30:17):
try to be really objective about it. I try to
take what I like and don't like out of the equation.
So I have this big spreadsheet that's just based really
on you know, whether they show up, whether they participate,
whether they finished the assignments, whether they did this, did that,
And it's totally by the numbers. What I was gonna
ask you, what, so, what is the difference between you know,

(01:30:38):
someone like a Maggie that like shines and then just
those kids that kind of flame out? Like what what
do you see? There is no difference. You know, some
people the most, almost all of the students that are
there or do something that's really really cool, as you know,
having the perseverance to stick it out for the long run.

(01:30:59):
Um gets sidetracked. You know, Are you aware of the
effect that you have on them as like a mentor
because I find that I have. I don't know how
you feel about this, but like I had teachers, two
of them, particularly when I was in high school, that
were totally instrumental in my life. And I feel like teaching,
once it gets down to it, is one of the
most important things people like guys can do. I mean, yeah,

(01:31:20):
I tend to sort of not think too much of myself,
so I try to keep that thing out of it.
But no, listen, if there's one thing. If there's one thing,
if there's two things I can teach him is be
a decent human being and uh engage engaged with what
you do. I won't say be serious. I say, if
you're here and you're doing it engaged. It's like playing music.

(01:31:42):
You know, you're not sitting there playing the chart like this.
You gotta engaged with the music. Um so that those
are the things that about the decent human being parts?
Can that be optional? Do you really want to be
in this class? Do you tell them and encourage them
to mix very quietly, because I believe it or not,

(01:32:06):
I do that now. I tell them to mix at
reasonable volumes. You know, your ears do really funky things
when you listen to a lot of music for a
long time and they lie to you. So if you
can mix at volumes, I turn it up every once
in a while to check ship. I gotta sob I
checked the bottom. I'm mastering now, so I've got to
um if you can, uh, you master your own stuff.

(01:32:29):
Isn't that dangerous though? Sometimes? But most of the time
it's good. I've gotten really good. You don't think you
need fresh ears to Sometimes I do, But but you
know people want to deal to get her name cut.
I cut it all that. Did you think it's Bill?
Also is the Joe Reposo of of Sesame Street So

(01:32:51):
and I always put you up Joe proposos name so
film a schoolmaker. It was who I was refreshing was
brilliant guy us. Yeah. Um, but I encourage them to
mix that volumes sort of like you're talking to somebody
from two ft away. That's where you're speakers are going
to be the most facturate. And the biggest part of

(01:33:12):
it is you obviate the negative effects of the room.
If the speakers aren't fairly loud, the back of the
room is not gonna be bouncing around at you. So
that's a big deal. So what Bob and are explaining
to you, of course love supremers that are like scratching
head right now is um uh. If if you look
on discogs uh dot com and you turn up look
up Bob Powers name, you'll see a lot of variations

(01:33:38):
of nicknames that I've given them on various roots albums,
such as Mixed by Bob Guys. I really can't hear
the mix, guys, Bob Guys, I really really need to
hear this guy's and Bob, it's bad enough that it's
now six am. I do do I have to put
off with the talking guys power anyway, My point is

(01:33:58):
that left out to shut the funk up on UM.
Bob taught me that the best mixes um if if
if your mix sounds awesome on shitty speakers. I mean,
that's why studios speakers like Genelicks or or Theyamaha in

(01:34:20):
a tense um, they're there to give you. Even Thriller
was last minute mixed on like a clock radio speakers.
Billy Jean was done like on the cheapest speaker that
Bruce Fadin could could get, because if it sounds great
on bad speakers, they don't sound awesome once you have
it on great speakers. One of the early engineers I

(01:34:42):
worked with when I was scoring TV, we always talked
about what's a good mix, what's a good mix? And
he's now a nuclear physicist, by the way, he got smart,
but he said he said the best thing I've ever
heard anybody say. It said, a good mix is something
that doesn't sound too terrible anywhere. Right, You're right, Well,
there's a generation now, UM. I mean, I I won't

(01:35:05):
throw him under the bus. But I've I've had a
few conversations with with with Kanye's people, um about their
engineering tactics, which, you know, I feel like his music.
I feel like his music is made for no. This
is my point. When I saw the Jesus show at
MSG and I happened to be within twenty ft of

(01:35:28):
the speakers, then I realized, Oh, all these songs were
created with this being the the endgame the concert. The
near colonic level of how the low end was rumbling
my stomach, and I got it. And I also imagined

(01:35:49):
so you know, I would ask him like, when you
guys mix this stuff, do you mean you know, the
guys will stick their heads like you won't imagine the
level of loudness that he makes the speakers when he's
engineering in the studios. And I was like, well, always
thought you were supposed to make it quiet, And especially
because most of us consume our music now on MacBook
pros and these, you know, tiny computer speakers, you would

(01:36:10):
think that whenever I listened to you know, his stuff
on iPods or my computer, I'm indifferent to the music
and it affects how I perceived that record. But then
when I hear it on big gas speakers, then I'm like,
oh damn, I might like this. Listen. Just about anything
sounds good when you crank it, didn't you just say

(01:36:30):
that love musical, Your ears will lie to you. Your
pears lied to you. And also, you know, a really
good mix should hold up at a bunch of different
volume levels. The musical balances, internal balances should stay so
much the same. For looking at it like they want
to shoot, they all say in their hands like you sucker,

(01:36:55):
And I'm just saying, you know, if if, if when
you play music loud and your ears start playing tricks
on you kind of explains the last fifteen years of clippings. Well, yeah,
I assume that nowadays people just mix it loud and
don't give in regard to it's just gonna get played
in the club inferior, which you would think that most

(01:37:16):
people would mix for their uh iPhones. They're cheap car systems. Yeah,
but also if somebody says to me, I really want
this to to pop on the radio, I'll go a
certain direction with it. You know, it's just but again,
in a perfect world, you want something that sounds pretty
good everywhere, And yeah, do you still not hardpan your base.

(01:37:38):
That's another lesson you taught me. You said that the
groove and the record will stip. Yeah, that's an old
record thing. You'd never put anything with a lot of
bottom on one side because when the needle has to
make the big excursion, it'll pop over into the next group.
That's an old school thing. Um, same thing with sibilants.
You know, the biggest issue, one of the biggest issue
in modern records to me mixing is people don't d

(01:38:00):
s enough. The fucking s is on the vocals will
take the enamel off your teeth. Um, Yeah, stuff like that.
You know, whatever is any one thing of the Tom
Hanks right now? Is there a plug in in? There's
a gazillion of them, and the cool thing is you
can make them do anything you want. I love the

(01:38:22):
digital world, man. I you know, people say you missed
the way things used to be. I said, yeah, I
missed the budgets, that's all. I missed everything. You can
get so much closer to what you want to hear now,
uh am. I allowed to ask you what was your moment? Like,
what was your Oh, how much my biggest payday? Like,

(01:38:43):
I don't mean the exact amount, but like, what was
your we really want you to do this record, Bob
out um? You know I have management for all that
time and he was just making my deals. So um.
But you know, as a producer, you know, and this
is one of the things I teach my students is
that you don't get paid a cent. I mean, you
get paid advances, but until the record company makes their

(01:39:04):
money back, you don't get paid your royalties. But say
they make their money back after they sell a hundred
and fifty records, Well, one of the things you want
your contractor is that you get paid from record one.
You know, you don't want to get paid from record
a hundred, so the first check is always bad. M Oh,
come on, man, you know what Bob the reason why

(01:39:27):
I have something He never touches his own money. He says,
I never look at my own money. I have people
around me to do that for me. Well, yes, and
I know, seriously, I never touched my record money because
it's it's not it's like paper money. I mean, we

(01:39:47):
sell respectively. But I don't know if it's a good
thing that DJ quest Love is monetarily more valuable than
Quest Love has ever been as a studio musician or
a producer or a drummer, you know, but I don't.
I don't mean culturally speaking. I'm just saying that I

(01:40:09):
kind of live in life now where like my value is,
my monetary value is in places other than where you thought,
which is kind of a mind fun which is made
me the the equivalent of Bob Power engineer. That's like
the story for everybody. Man. Yeah, that's that's not a

(01:40:30):
lot of times. It's not the thing that you think
or that you may even thought it was gonna be.
But do you resistant or do you embrace it? No,
wanting to make a lot of money is not a
reasonable objective, I think. Uh No, Honestly, being able to
live distantly and decently and do what you love with
people you really like, that's payoff. That's real. Well, you
just turn it back to Kumbayan movement. Hey, man, the sixties.

(01:40:54):
You know what is what is your favorite funk out
of Kumbaya? Man? I played the monkey? Yes, Kumbaya? You
have ever Komba? What's your thinking? Which you've seen that
Jackie Wilson thing when he's live on television? You guys
ever seen live clips at Jackie Wilson. Oh my god,

(01:41:15):
because he's saying stuff that's kind of like Kumbaya, but
he is so incredible, not like Kumbaya, but um, I
will now look at your love keeps lifting me. You
gotta see this clip. You're doing it live on television.
You could have made a record out of it. It
would have been great. I'm on it. I will look.
I gotta know what is your your own personal desert

(01:41:38):
island disc? Like, if when all said and done, what
is your artistic crowning achievement? I'm by power and I
did it wouldn't been one of my own records. Man,
it wouldn't be one of my own records. It would
It would be Louis Armstrong and Elephants, Gerald Duets. No, no, no, no.

(01:42:00):
I mean as far as your achievement, your achievement is concerned,
like what are you most proud of having done the
last day of whatever session? It was proud of being
a decent human being and doing decent work. I always
just got there positively. What's really going on? You know,
he's really dead, but he's trying to save it. Now,

(01:42:21):
he's trying to save it. But what a dick here?
I don't want the bad stories. But I'm just saying, like,
you know, a crowning achievement, like, okay, I did that. Uh,
there's a lot of Man, every record I ever worked
with I love worked on I love. I'm serious. It's
like your favorite the Roots, every roots record, Dude, I

(01:42:41):
wasn't even hinting. I forgot you worked on the routes. Man,
I'm thinking, like what Midnight Maraunors? No, no, I honest
to god, I love every record ive ever. What's the record? Okay,
maybe what's the record? I'm just to know what's the record? That?
And hell, maybe all of them go all on in
this category, like something that you finished that maybe you

(01:43:03):
didn't think you're like something that the process was really
say that, sugar. Can we move on now? Okay? Maybe
maybe maybe this might clear up as question better. Um,
if you had to listen to one song that you
worked on right now, which song would you choose? Like
gun to your head? You have to play one of

(01:43:26):
your songs right The song from comfort Woman that Chris
Dave plays on Love song Number Worry is at it
um where the drums start out really far away and
then it comes towards you. It's like an up tempo
reggae thing. Okay, the opening song really kind of really
reggae flavor. Yeah, I know, I can't think of the

(01:43:46):
name because the name is on It's love song number one. Yeah,
that's I'm trying to get so your your Michelle work
is your No, I'm serious, man, I like the things
I do with everybody. You know, was there you work

(01:44:07):
on that that got deep six and should have came out.
I can't name names, Prince. I've had records that people
have redone, which is no. You know, anybody's a producer
knows that. Sometimes you make a record, sometimes people don't
like it and they redo it. You gotta live with it.
It's like being a musician. But I've had records that
have been redone where the redone one was really bad.

(01:44:30):
Not a remix, but no, no, just you mean one
of those tun gag records. No, like like a playover,
like oh my god, yeah, like you'll go to heat
Wave and then like, oh it's like they rerecorded this.
I felt for Black like Black Ivory. They did you

(01:44:51):
and I did and it's hard, but I bought the album. Yeah,
I brought the bad version was spinning in concerts like,
how come tips person don't sound like this? It sounds
like that that's not the version that he redid it?
Like I fell for that ship. Let's talk about real
Desert Island any records. I wanted to Earth Wind and
Fire's greatest hits in the Superfly soundtrack. It does not

(01:45:12):
get any better than I'm not complaining with that. Freddie's
Dad is like possibly one of the pinnacles of music.
That scares me um having heard Freddie's Day when I
was too When the modulation goes to the horn thing, yeah,
well yeah scares I can't. I want to. I want

(01:45:37):
to see the mission statement that says I'm now I'll
just sing on my own goddamn radio show that a
mission statement as opposed to act bill be coming off
like the principle and back to the future like the slacker.
No uh. When I was a kid that that modulation

(01:45:58):
used to always scariest of modulations. Always give notes, right,
what about what's going on? They go like to a
try tone away if it if it modulated and not
Golden Lady by Stevie, but like and and that's the

(01:46:19):
one thing they cut out of my Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame speech when I inducted Hall of Notes,
was you know the ind of CRY's going where it
stays in this note and then it goes here that
the blankets like that's some Hollywood ship right there. You
know that's the cheap shot. You know, go up a
half staff each time in the outcourse. That's like a

(01:46:40):
harp glist going into a new sections. What I call
the super punch of orchestration. Hold turn whenever whenever she's
going came on. When I was a kid, I turned
on all the lights. I never thought that. Oh that
I wasn't allowed to touch my dad's radio. So you
know that I don't knew that modulations, You know what

(01:47:04):
all scares me? And I know Bill Steve wants me
to tell the story. You ever watched tick Tech Dough
take that go a long time? I remember there's a
game show there's in Vinci Call Television. There's a game
show called Tik Tech Dough. Do remember that show? Okay, speaking, well,
whenever you picked the center square, they give you a

(01:47:24):
two part question and then sort of scary jeoffardy music
to give you thirty seconds to think it over. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
scared them Jesus, I remember that. I remember that, guys.
I got to tell you about this building. My dad
was a television producer in the fifties and sixties and

(01:47:45):
we moved from Chicago when I was four in like
fifty three or four and fifty five, and I was
in one of the studios here because he did Mr Wizard.
You guys don't remember, yeah, Mr wi how do you
know Mr Wizard? But I remember Mr Willie Martin Dale.

(01:48:08):
I remember, not this what it was, just the Mr
Wizards that was on what you caller, right, we were
there well, and you know the villains from What's Happening,
but you don't know. I probably know about ship last
remember Mr Wizard because like Mr wizzar, I would watch
it and he would do experiments and stuff and it
was just like well, and I would try to do it,
but I never had none of this ship that you need. Anyway.

(01:48:29):
I was in this building in the studio when I
was five years old, and I got kicked out because
I had a cold and I kept coughing. My mother
had to take me out of the studio. So this
is my triumphant return in reading your wiki page, Bob,

(01:48:50):
just the things like studied classical composition and uh master's
degree in jazz. Now when when you started working, that
was awesome. Eat a Chinese peanut or something. So like this,

(01:49:15):
this knowledge of classical music and jazz and then and
then suddenly you're in the world of samplers and tribe
called Quests and day La soul. And so now I'm
I watched I watched Quest sampling a lot, and and
he's tuning his samples. So now did you bring a
lot of that stuff to hip hop? Yes? And no
making sampling more musical, Yes, when we had to, But no,

(01:49:38):
because I also realized that the ethic was often contrary
to that, and I didn't want to suck it up.
But the low end theory, I mean, we spent a lot,
a lot of time on stuff like that, like tuning
and timing and things like that. My my more general
question though, is like how did you apply your real
world classical and jazz experience to those projects. There's different gigs. Man,

(01:50:01):
if you're on a jazz kig, you play jazz. If
if you're on uh polka gig, you play the polka.
So you didn't, So you know, I wanted to help
the people realize the vision. It was not about me.
I guess I'm asking if you apply that stuff to
the world of sam you I think everybody, every practitioner
in the world, applies everything they've ever ever seen to

(01:50:22):
everything they do. You know, there was no direct line,
There wasn't any straight lines. But of course, yeah, yeah,
I think so, because they were using a lot of
jazz samples. Yeah, I mean, it's musical sensibilities, that's all um,
which is why the drums are always so a loud.
But they were then the stuff they were bringing to you,
that they were bringing to the sessions that they had
done prior. Did you find that that stuff was already

(01:50:45):
the way they wanted it? Sometimes, so if something we
had to work, you know, early on, especially before technology
caught up, we had to tweak things a lot. Yeah,
so a mirror like the in a lot of hip hop,
there's this intentional clashing going on and then and then
there's this whole idea of tuning the samples so that

(01:51:06):
they make more musical sense. So where is that that was?
I believe that's Bob's entry now with um uh Nick
sus Santa, who works with Bob Yu being the works
he's my boss. Okay, what a prick, Nick, I love

(01:51:28):
you guy. I was like, clean that up now. Uh yeah.
So Nick sus Santo's uh you know, his his is
the beauty and his work was it was like throw
everything on the wall and see what happens. And you know,
Nick did practically every Bomb Squad associated album, from Nation

(01:51:52):
the Millions to Fear of a Black Planet to America.
Yes he disign a berserk and Black Teenagers and a
side note um. Nick said that they would presequence all
their things like they didn't no fading and no cuts,
nothing was automated. So everything was pre programmed. And I

(01:52:15):
got to see the note production note cheese from Nation
of Millions and like, I mean they were literally like
at four minutes and thirty two point five seconds, here
comes the one two, three, five six kick it from
bass Heads to like they pre programmed everything so as

(01:52:36):
you heard it, that's how it was. Like. So that's
why Eric Sadler gets a lot of a lot of
praise there. But yeah, I mean your entry was basically
to strip it down and to bring it forth, and
it made it louder. I guess the less elements you
have now, Nick's mixes are crowded and noisier, but everything

(01:52:57):
is compressed and small, you know. Like, guys, what I
do is exactly like being a musician. And you play
the gig. You don't play your chops. You play the gig.
You get there, you stuss up what the music is playing,
and you play the music. You don't play your own ship.
You know. So you never had scratch once, Like when
you first say a lot, I'll let you relaxations like

(01:53:17):
where's the fourth bar? A lot? A lot? But you
know that's part of learning. Man. You said, it's incumbent
upon one as a practitioner to kind of understand the
ethic of music that's going on. You don't make it
come to you. You have to go to hear such
a wise man. Okay, another thing, Bob, Bob, um, do

(01:53:40):
you have the cane out there? Did I leave my cane?
It's next to your walker? No, Bob, when you worked
on lowin theory, that was awesome. Okay, Bob you could.
I could keep you for another twelve hours, but um,
let's come back and do it again. Yeah, let's save

(01:54:02):
something for three years from now. Bob. I want to
thank you very much. Uh I appreciate everything that you've
done for music, for me and for the culture hashtag
for the culture. I can say exactly the same about you.
Thank you, Manael, I appreciate it alright. Uh. I always

(01:54:23):
feel the need to end these shows with lessons? What
do we learn from Bob Power? We learned that we
will never hear any conflict stories of none of his arms.
Never never. If you work with Bob Power, I think
your reputation is safe. Well, he won't allow you to
do anything uh selescious in his studio sessions anyway. So

(01:54:44):
you know, I was hoping to get like one, you know,
leaders of the new School tribe fight story or something,
but that that wasn't happening class act class act class
and is my mom mom as well? Uh yeah, so
shout out to Uh. I've learned that Bob Power uh

(01:55:04):
protects all of his clients uh and loves them very
very much. Um what else do we learn? He also
gives them mostly all the credit for all the work.
You know, really kept emphasizing that, Yeah, he kind of
made me feel important when I knew good and will
that you know, Bob was making on like Bob would

(01:55:25):
never let you touch a button, like you would have
to present a case, get a lawyer, just to add
a little just to add a little reverb to a song.
It was like, I don't know if it calls for
that are anyway, This is a quest, love of quest,
Love Supream. Be safe, ladies and gentlemen. I hope to

(01:55:45):
see you. What's Love Supreme is the production of my
Heart Radio. This classic episode was produced by the team
at Pandora. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit

(01:56:08):
the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
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