July 10, 2023 • 113 mins
Pioneering DJ and record label owner Gilles Peterson talks about the politics of early pirate radio, how he broke artists like Jamiroquai, Brand New Heavies and even The Roots, and his passion for helping the right music find the right audience.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of Course Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This
classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
What up, y'all is Liaiah and Welcome to another QLs classic.
This episode is all about a pioneering DJ and record
label owner named Giles Peterson. He talks about the politics
of early pirate radio, how he broke artists like Jamarkua,
Brand New.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Heavies, and even the Roots, and his passion for helping
the right music find the right audience. He is so dope.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
This episode was actually taped Brut's Picnic weekend June twenty
eighth and twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
This is episode thirty eight in June.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Supremo s s Supremo.
Speaker 5 (00:49):
Roll called Suprema, Su su Supremo, roll call Suprima su Supremo,
roll call Suprima.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
So sure I want y'all to know. Yeah, I'm being sincere.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Without Josh Peterson, Yeah, I would not be here.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
That was nice. Supremo.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
My name is Fante, Yeah, I say it proud. One
of my favorite labels was talking loud.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Supremo call Supremo.
Speaker 6 (01:31):
Sure, my name is Sugar. Yeah, I got that style,
I got that smile.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
What's up Giant Supremo. Yeah, y'all don't know me. Yeah.
We in Philly.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah, he.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Upremo role bass bell present.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
On this call of roll Yeah, quest Love Supreme Yeah,
will make you whole.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
Braver Rod Supreme Supremo Rome.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
It's like, yeah and I'm feeling right. Yeah, goddamn Jil Peterson. Yeah,
whoa whoa.
Speaker 5 (02:29):
Supreme Suprema Roll Supremo, Suprema Rome.
Speaker 7 (02:37):
My name is Chiles Gill Peterson. Yeah, but I come from.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Suprema Rome, Suprema So Supreme roudrem Son.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
So.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Dog biling.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Let's all admit that we didn't think that none of
our roll call moments were going to be hot, but
there was some bust.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Of rhymes stealing moments in this rob We have at
least three of them.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
First time smile whatever.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Course
Love Supreme, only on Pandora and our special guest today.
I have to say, uh, he exemplifies the role of
my favorite person in music, and that's the music that's
the taste maker. The taste maker would be the guy
(03:46):
that was in the know of what you didn't know
about music. And it would spread. Sort of like what's
what's a good term for virus?
Speaker 4 (03:56):
The virus?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (03:58):
Is there a positive virus outrection these medical terms because
they're like.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
They're like negative connotations, like it's influence spread like a
virus trend.
Speaker 5 (04:13):
Yeah, because they even use the term like viral now,
like viral marketing.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
So yesus Giles is my favorite virus virus virus of
all time.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
I have to say that if it weren't for Jiles
Peterson taking our organic CD and playing it in clubs
in London way before, you know, back when it was
just a demo that really started the buzz on on
the roots being here today and us wanting to move
(04:46):
to London and kind of bringing us to where we
are now. So uh, one of my favorite people ever,
literally this is Giles Peterson.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Last welcome. Thank you very much. Yeah, Giles, now you're
on my radio show. Yeah you know that you named
my show. Yeah, thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Well, thank you, well, thank thank you for oh god,
this is going to be a whole bunch of things.
So okay, so what I'll say is that, okay, as
of what makes this day really truly special even though
we're not specifically getting on dates and time period, but
as of this recording, this specific day that we're on.
(05:30):
This was the Saturday twenty five years ago that when
Tarika and I were watching Soul Train and saw that
Spike lead commercial of the Bucket Drummer Chocolate playing that
Levi's commercial.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
We looked at each other and like, Yo, why do
we do that?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
So today, as we speak is the twenty fifth anniversary
of the Roots as you know it. Not the oh
we formed in high school and did some talent shows,
but like when we got buckets, went to South Street
and us start busting, Yeah, and we were square Roots,
and you know, I'll say that in I guess I'll
(06:13):
say in twelve or thirteen weeks later, this is when
we started the process of recording the Organic's demo, which
then really material around material material virus materialized into a
CD so that we could go to Europe and sell
(06:35):
it on some festivals that we were invited to, and
somehow it made its way to Giles, who we were
told with play it in nightclubs, which was like really
weird for us because I thought the nightclub was the
last place that the Roots whatever wind.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Up dance session. I was thirteen minutes.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
No, I was like, see I played over here and
it clears the floor instantly. But you know, I mean
Giles's position. I'll say that he was my generation's John Peel.
John Peel was the cat in London who you know,
he took a chance on unknown groups. He lets you
(07:19):
know who this unknown name Elvis Costello was or or
who the clash was, and Steve frickd up Steve now
writes for Elvis Costello. So basically I mean that that
was the role. And then when we met, we we
thought that we were going to sign to Giles's parent label,
(07:41):
Talking Loud, Talking Loud. Well, we signed to Talking Loud,
but we were going to sign to PolyGram, and then
by a strange twist of fate, it became Geffen. But
we still maintained the relationship with Giles Peterson to release
our very first EP, like well widely distributed.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
EP, which was from the ground up on his label.
And you know we lived over there. So wait, what
I want.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
What I want to ask about is what you showed
us in London during that time, Perio that the roots
quote unquote exiled to London. Was there was such a
scene going on, and we basically took that scene and
reproduced it in America. We took everything that we saw
you do and did it over here. So the idea
(08:31):
of like clubs having multiple rooms of different DJs playing,
you know, the jam band on the top floor and
the disco floor was the third floor, and the you know,
the techno music was on the second floor, and the
soul music was on the first floor. Like, is that
still prevalent now in London as it once was? Is
(08:54):
this still a scene or you like the one of
the last Mohicans still holding up?
Speaker 7 (08:59):
I think bigger than ever? Really really yeah, in.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
A way, some people like it's not the scene anymore
as used. I think it's like, I think it's just
a bit more DIY.
Speaker 7 (09:08):
I think that sort of the superclubs came along and
people sort of sort to make something out of it
bigger and people reacted to that. And I think that nowadays,
if you go anywhere from Leeds to Manchester, Bristol, London
on a Saturday night, there's a lot of stuff going on,
a lot of big raves parties with alternative music being
played in different rooms. And also there's actually a return
(09:30):
to a live element which did go away for a
little while, and I think that certainly at the moment
in London and the South of England there's a very
strong live in pro jazz scene.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
We can come back home now, mate.
Speaker 7 (09:42):
Honestly, it's really it's very interesting at the moment, you know,
I think that maybe maybe it's more towards the jazz
side of things with what Camasi did and the fact
that that sort of energy has kind of come over.
And then from the UK point of view, a huge
set of musicians, groups like Sons of Kemet and groups
like you know, artists like New Baio, Moses Boy does.
(10:03):
A lot of musicians going on, and there's a really
good community which there hasn't been for a while. So
the club culture has always been there. That's really where
I come from. I'm sort of a DJ club culture,
acid house, acid jazz raves Germany, France, residencies all over
the place, playing this kind of slightly alternative view of
dance music because you know, when I grew up that
(10:25):
I'd go to I used to go when I was
seventeen sixteen, I'd go to sort of weekenders in horrible
holiday resorts which were empty in winter and four or
five thousand people would come from all over the country
to listen to groups like Roye's Come Over or the
Fat Back Band or or you know Clear or you
know artists like Leroy Burgess would come to the UK
(10:45):
and they would and we would celebrate that music and
they'd be and they'd be a main room and they'd
be playing sort of you know, all these big tunes
from summer madness by calling the gang to I found
Loving by the Fat Bat Band, and then there'd be
another room at the back where you'd be hearing DJ's.
I mean, that's the first time I heard John Coltrane
Impressions wasn't in a jazz club. It was basically in
(11:08):
the back of some sort of restaurant in some depleted
holiday resort near Norwich on the North Sea right, and
there's a DJ called Bob Jones playing Impressions or maybe
Giant Steps by John Coltrane at full volume, with twenty
people dancing to it, backling like like bee boys like
you know so that and when I saw that, I
(11:29):
was like, this is what I want.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
I love this music.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
I was going to say, didn't you once tell me
the fante that the the most the most daring thing
you ever saw was a DJ you'll played Return to
Forever in a nightclub.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
It was was it in London or it.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
Wasn't in London, It was in Chicago, and it was
a guy. It was Detroit guy, the Parish deal.
Speaker 6 (11:53):
Parish.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Okay, it's Perish because I was going to say that
the first time that I saw at Ceni, someone went
back and forth on like the first sixteen bars of
Love Supreme where they're really grooving, and that was one
of my open, my eye opening moments, like, oh, like anything,
(12:17):
if it's groovable, you can play it, because I would
never think like it has a groove, But I didn't
think it was danceable and I wasn't ever going to
try that take that risk here in the United States.
I mean we had like you know, King Britain and
Dazi and those guys had a little scene in Philadelphia.
But even then there was no place for me to
(12:39):
really test it out to see if it were work.
But once I started going to Iceni and all those
like those soul kitchen clubs over there, Yeah, and seeing
you guys do that, that was that's what told me, like, oh,
anything is playable if you play the right part and
if you.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Do it at the right time.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So for you, when you were observing anything and going
to these clubs, were you was this in the revival
stage or was it in the first round, like when
you were first going to clubs, Like how what year
was it.
Speaker 7 (13:13):
We're talking nineteen eighty, We're talking cameo, you know, so you.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Were in the first draft, not in the revival draft
of like eighty nine to ninety, because by that point.
Speaker 7 (13:25):
You eighty eighty one eighty two. I mean, there were
some British groups as well. There was a very interesting
jazz funk scene in the UK. So there was groups
like Light of the World, High Tension, Incognito. These are
the groups that kind of precursed groups like Loose Ends
and Soul to Soul, which came about seven or eight
years later. So there was a really strong Level forty two.
I was a huge Level forty two fan. I used
(13:45):
to go and see them everywhere. I used to love Marking,
who I met recently for the first time, the bass
player and uh yeah, wonderful guy, wonderful and what underrated vocal,
underrated voice, And I used to love that. So for me,
there was the kind of one hand, there was this
sort of fan of the band thing, and I'd go
around like you know, you follow your favorite band. It
was also a time of punk as well. It was
(14:07):
just post punk, you know, so there was that thing
where you kind of were you a punk or were
you a soul boy? And I'd had to make my
decision about what I wore and how I dressed. I
was one of only three soul boys in my school
the rest of the people and like being an outcast,
outcast for real.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
The only reason I was only for black people and
that yeah, it was.
Speaker 7 (14:26):
Kind of all working class in a London people, you know,
like the urban urban people would be into it. And
so for me, I had an Indian friend at school
and a black African friend at school.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
We were the three soul boys.
Speaker 7 (14:38):
And the only reason I didn't get beaten up was
because I was in the rugby team and by being
a sporting guy in the school, it kind of gave
me certain status and swagger.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
So who was when you were listening to radio? And
I know that pirate radio, yeah, was a big thing.
When did the idea of pirate radios start in London?
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Well? Was that always a thing, like even in.
Speaker 7 (15:11):
The fifties and no in the in the sixties, it
came from the boats, so they used to and it
was on medium wave. A movie about a movie about it, yeah,
And that was basically they'd go out and they'd sort
of go in neutral waters in the North Sea where
they wouldn't get busted, and they'd broadcast on medium wave
and they basically that was what Radio Luxembourg was and
that radio station kind of gave the birth.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
Was the reaction to that by the BBC was to
set up.
Speaker 7 (15:34):
Radio one and that was how Radio one became a
non sort of talk station because up until that point
the BBC was controlling radio and it was very classical opera,
old school you know.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Open I was about to ask you is to rest
your radio different over there than here because by now
you know differences the commercial.
Speaker 7 (15:50):
Radio, well, FM radio started kicking off in the seventies
because all these radio stations in the beginning were like
on medium wave, and that's where the pirate stations that
really interested me, they were on FM. There was only
a few stations locally, so like he'll have I don't
know maybe in Philly, how many would there be twenty.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Well like urban sta like we have BR and B
and hip hop stater.
Speaker 7 (16:07):
So let's say we have two, okay, but if you
include all the other types of denominations like twenty stations.
So in London they'd have been back in the seventies,
there'd have been maybe two commercial radio stations on FM
and so maybe three with BBC we're playing a little bit.
Maybe we'd be sort of doubling up on FM and
on medium wave. The point was there was a need
(16:27):
for music to be heard and so they weren't giving
licenses out. So these people at a time when CB
radio was quite popular, remember that that was kind of
it was illegal in the UKCB radio wasn't over here
because of your long distance lorry drivers, but over there
is the illegal and you'd get You see, if you
knew a bloker could build you a CB rig, they
could also build you an FM rig. And so what
(16:48):
happened was we started finding out that these guys could
build us FM transmitters and then the station started popping
up in the seventies, of which there was one soul
jazz funk station called Radio and Victim ninety two point four.
They used to broadcast every Sunday from midday until six.
Is that where two seven nine started or DJ's seven nine. No, No,
(17:09):
this is way before that. Okay, this is way before that.
And that was the first station that I would listen to.
I would listen to it in the in the bathroom
of my house because that was the only place in
the house that I could pick up the signal. And
sometimes it would go on, and suddenly at fourth thirt
in the afternoon, it would get busted and it would
be off, and it would be off for two weeks,
and you'd be waiting every week for it to come
back on because it was the only place you could
hear jazz funk music. The other place was there was
(17:30):
a disco show on a Friday night called the Best
Disco in Town, presented by Greg Edwards Life from the Lyceum.
And then the other show was on a Saturday afternoon
from midday to two presented by Robbie Vincent who did
a probe. And the section that I loved from his
show was the jazz Funk forty and he used to
play Japanese jazz funk records and he'd play things like
you know, open and Fire, but That's when I thought
(17:55):
the first time I ever heard the Jones Girls Nights
over Egypt was on Robbie Vincent and it was Christmas whatever,
nineteen eighty two or three, whatever that were you. I'll
never forget it. And he played it twice on the
same show. It was that good a gun and I'll
never forget. In fact, when I played at the Roots
Picnic the other day when I was over here, I
played that track as a memory to him, the connection
(18:16):
between Philly and my pirate radio routes. But anyway, basically
at that time it was just literally FM radio stations,
of which some were pirates, and you would get busted
every every couple of weeks.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
So two questions, how much would it cost you to
start a pirate radio station? Well, I started my own
pirate radio station. Oh, I was just that. The was
that easy.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Need a boat?
Speaker 7 (18:40):
No, no, this is FM, because by then it's FM.
Sorry I didn't explain that. So but in the when
it was mediumwave, it was on a boat. And then
in the seventies, all you needed was you needed an
aerial a transmitter, a car battery, a cassette player and
a high point. Right and if you were if you
were smart in London, you had the keys. There was
four keys that opened up every council for block right
(19:01):
every like block in London, right for you cheap accommodation
block in London. So any high spot, if you had
those four keys, you could get on every rooftop.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
So I had the four keys, really right the key.
I had the keys.
Speaker 7 (19:16):
So that's how I got to know London. That's how
I got to know London because I started off by
I finally got my show myself because I sat at
my little pirate station.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Cost me with fifty pounds to get a rig.
Speaker 7 (19:26):
My dad used to take me up the road to
episode where they have the horse racing, which is a
high point in South London, and he basically helped me
put the aerial up on a tree, connect the aerial
to the transmitter, transmitter to the car battery, car battery
and transmitter also to a cassette player that would play
a C ninety and the forty five minutes a Saturday
was my show which I recorded in my garden shed
(19:47):
and I wanted to be a guy called Robbi Vincent
who I mentioned before. And the other forty five was
my next door neighbor called Ross Tinsley but otherwise known
as Ross Travone. That was his radio name, and he
wanted to be John Peel. And basically that was the
hour and a half that we'd broadcast from a tree
and then we'd leave a phone number on the cassette
of the recording, which was the phone box by the tree,
and so we'd go we'd press play go off in
(20:08):
the phone box, all three of us with my dad,
and and then.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
We'd and we'd get one phone call. That was the request.
One phone but that was enough. That was enough to
carry a pre record your show. But yeah, and they
go to the Okay, did our priority pre recorder shows?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Well?
Speaker 7 (20:24):
No, then if unless you're on Radio and Victor, because
Radiar and Victor was one of the well known ones
and the only sole station, the one that inspired me
to get my rig. And they got busted one week
by the home office.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Now that was my second question, how do you get busted?
Speaker 7 (20:37):
Well, they used to go around with a little team
of guys with special equipment and they'd literally find the studio,
they'd find the aerial and they'd come up there, you know,
and they sort of you know, imagine sort of you
know sixties looking policeman, you know, working for the DTI.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
The you know, the the.
Speaker 7 (20:52):
Government was the punishment. You'd get what you get, you
get fined, and no one got a cent to prison.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
See you next week.
Speaker 7 (20:59):
Yeah, it was a small but you know, they didn't
have a lot of budget for the DTI for this
particular sort of department. So there's only one guy who's
called Eric. Eric Gotts was the main guy because he
got he became legendary. This is the guy who busted
all the station, especially as pirate radio became bigger and bigger.
Because this is kind of the early day of the
late seventies. It was still quite naive and sweet and lovely.
(21:20):
But then by the mid eighties it started becoming a
little bit cleverer, and people started becoming twenty four hours,
and advertisers started coming into it, and then you were
more likely to get busted by another pirate than by Eric,
because of.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
Course they wanted. That's when I got out of the game,
right because it got to carry stuff.
Speaker 7 (21:41):
Yeah, it got a little bit dangerous at that point,
but it was quite an interesting time and very exciting
time for me. But initially I got onto radio and
Victor because they got busted and they and the guy
built my equipment built their equipment. So I said to
my guy, they can have my equipment as long as
they give me a show. And they said, we'll give
you a show, but first of all, you go spend
the next six months putting airs.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Up for us.
Speaker 7 (22:02):
So that's how I kind of went up the pirate
radio status list.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
And you know that was not.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
So compared to what we have now in the United States, Yeah,
which is total corporate radio. And I mean even being
or Pandora, it's kind of my version of the middle
finger of pirate radio thing where we get to determine
the type of music we want to play in the
guests we have. You know, since nineteen ninety seven, business
(22:34):
corporations have totally taken over.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Radio.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
But I look at how London is operated and now
you're legit, you're or BBC a government station? Is it
still half a dozen six eggs and half a dozen
and the other.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
Like to you? What is I know? I totally yeah,
we need cliche for cliche busters. Well what I'm saying
is for government radio.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Like I look at you guys over the pond and
I'm like, well, government control radio is better because you know,
it's required that you play a variety of things. You know,
the idea of one artist getting uh forty spends a
day like corporate radio, Uh, it doesn't exist.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Everyone gets their fair share. But look at that. But
then if you get our government, you really kind of
negates everything. So said.
Speaker 7 (23:45):
Like do you that's the bucy of the BBC in
a way, And and and the fact that the BBC
is always having to struggle to be a kind of
neutral yet creative body at a time when they have
to give equal.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
Fairness to commercial stations.
Speaker 7 (24:02):
So the beautiful thing about about the UK, I think
in terms of broadcasting and the BBC is that you know,
you can get the RT left field, really creative, weird
shit on the BBC, but the BBC also has its
kind of commercial end so because it knows it has
to compete with the commercial stations. I don't know if
I'm making myself particularly clear, but that balance between the
(24:26):
BBC maintaining a presence yet also constantly being progressive with
the art of radio, and for me one of the
people that was an incredible inspiration to me. As you
mentioned earlier. On of course, was John Peel. And John
Peele changed the way radio was because he was on
the BBC, and up until that point it was still
(24:46):
very old fashioned guys on the radio broadcasting in that
kind of way that you could imagine, you know, you
had to wear a suit, Winston Churchill, kind.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
Of the war type stuff.
Speaker 7 (24:54):
And up until then it was still you know, even
up until the Beatles, it was still kind of very conservative.
But when John Peel came along, because there's been a
few people before him, and some pirates and stuff on
the on the boat stations, but basically John Peel was
he broke He changed the rules of broadcasting and he said,
you can play you know, television, this new group from
New York next to Slide the Family Stone, next to
(25:17):
a punk record that someone just sent me.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 7 (25:20):
He basically and the way he presented radio. He basically said,
you don't have to do it that way. You can
do it a different way. And he had a huge
influence which made which remains an important part of why
the BBC has a certain standard that he that he
said needs to be kept up.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Did commercial radio take he because I know you said
in the beginning it was only four, you know, But
now present day have they taken he from the BBC?
Speaker 3 (25:45):
And what is it like now? Like is there a
few soul stations on the commercial radio.
Speaker 7 (25:49):
Size dance stations, okay, And if you want to go
more specialist, really specialist, I mean there's you know, there's
the jazz station that's quite conservative, straight up not bad,
you know, but I mean there's nothing if you want
any think edgy, anything that really the kids are into.
The commercial station is never going to be able to
react to trend fast enough. So that's why the pirates
are always coming along, because there's always going to be
(26:09):
a new type of music or culture to represent because
the main the mainstream stations try and keep up.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
You know.
Speaker 7 (26:17):
I mean, the BBC has its own R and B
network called One Extra. I'm on a station called BBC
six Music, which is kind of for the over thirty
year olds, which.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
Is kind of cool in a way.
Speaker 7 (26:28):
Yeah, But in a way I was quite likely to
be to find myself on there because it's a cross
between sort of what I'm about and what someone like
John Peel's about, so they kind of it's quite a progressive, experimental,
interesting music, experimental it's.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
Just like it's the most out there. It's where you
could hear.
Speaker 7 (26:46):
The roots records being played every day, you know, more
likely than on a pop station or in a commercial station.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
So for you, is it more important to be the
first to bring you Kenchick Lamar, the first to bring
you a new singer from America Lauren Hill? Or is
it like, what are your goals because of that? Well,
I know, I got I can't like I.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
Want you exclusives come in, I know. But a guy
like Fresh of the Week, Fresh of the Week, what
their funk master Flex? Oh?
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Now, I know Westwood has his sets on being the
funk Master Flex, which.
Speaker 7 (27:31):
Is nostalgia though put people like Westwood of no style
nostalgia I know in the now.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Well that's crazy, you know, let's see, that's weird because
the Westward I'm referring to was the nineteen ninety six,
ninety seven. Okay, I know I'm hearing myself speaking known
that's twenty years ago. But back then he was the
you know, playing the news, the today hip hop, the
street hip hop, and kinda taking a different stance on
(28:02):
underground or stuff that he would deem too old school,
even though he came up in that era. But my
whole point was that I saw him more as a
fump master flex guy who you know, where he's the celebrity.
He you know, it's about him, Whereas I see you
(28:23):
as wanting to still be a taste maker and put
people onto stuff that they don't know about, Like you know,
I think when you first played a I think I
heard you on the air when you first introduced UFO
on on, you know, when they first debuted like this
is back in late night Japanese. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And
(28:46):
so it's like to me, I feel that I'm asking
do you feel better as a taste maker or do
you feel you'll get more done if you were the
celebrity DJ.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
It's interesting.
Speaker 7 (28:58):
It's a bit of a combination of elements in a way.
I mean, my role is to on one hand, fundamentally
excite myself. You know, I don't really care about my
audience in that sense. I mean in the sense that
I do care about it, prepare for a fifteen, but
(29:25):
if it feels right, do it.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
You know.
Speaker 7 (29:27):
The thing is for me is it's it's always interesting
because I think that people get off on your energy,
and your energy is your authentic feeling, and as a broadcaster,
I buzz on new music. I buzz on discovering old
music that I've never heard before where there's an incredible story.
(29:48):
I buzz on playing some classics because I like a
bit of nostalgia. But fundamentally it's that mixture of all
those elements with entertainment as part of it. So someone
like Westwood, incredible broadcaster, changed the generation. People grew up
on him and his radio show, and he brought a
certain esthetic of hip hop to a UK audience, and
(30:09):
he did it incredibly well. On the other hand, you
could say, well, where's your legacy, what did you break?
What did you do for UK hip hop? Why were
you so influenced by American music? Why has it taken
twenty years for grime to finally come through and for
UK hip hop fundamentally to actually finally have its name
out there and to be doing something because friendship hop
was way ahead, different language.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
I mean, as you know, you know, it took a
long time, so I think there.
Speaker 7 (30:34):
Was certain powers that held it back, and I think
that's a shame and my viewpoint as somebody who's also
been very much part of the music industry, as you know,
because we worked together and all that sort of stuff.
I feel that, you know, Britain has a lot to
shout about. Musically, the UK is a unique place, you know,
from going back to the Rolling Stones and led Zeppelin,
(30:56):
through punk music, through all the different elements of dance music,
from step to drum and bass to broken beat, and
I think that it's this unique mixture of people and
the club culture that make sure the music is constantly
reinventing itself and there's always something new coming up. And
(31:17):
that's why for me being on the radio, it's easy.
You know, it's easy because at the end of the
day there'll be there'll be a James Blakey'll be you know,
James Blake will come along, or a Mount Kimby or
come along.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
There'll always be something happening.
Speaker 7 (31:27):
You're not you know, there's never a time when you're
like going, oh God, there's not been anything interesting for
two or three years. So for me as a taste maker,
that makes it easy for me to be a taste
maker because there's so much great stuff to be able
to shout about.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
So do you feel okay?
Speaker 1 (31:46):
I'm thinking of like Benji, like, who do you feel
if you were to start right now, and I don't
mean morbidly like death or whatever, if you just said
I've had enough, I've done it, my work is done.
How many does rifles of yours? Do you fully trust
will carry on the tradition that you have and in
(32:07):
spreading Tomorrow's music, supporting Britain scene, keeping us educated on
the past, because you've got to do like three to
four different things to keep the train running. Do you
feel as though there are enough people that have the
education and the will and the drive to be the
(32:31):
person that that meets you at the gate, the greet
the taste maker, Like, I think there's they're all my
children in the UK for sure, in the sense that you.
Speaker 5 (32:40):
Know Digs, I listened to him. He reminds me a
loud of you in La Yeah, yeah, yeah, No.
Speaker 7 (32:46):
I mean I think Solection do some really great stuff.
I think Deviation do really great stuff. I think boiler Room,
you know again, the guy who sat out Boilerroom, Tristian,
he was working with me, you know, for eight years,
and then he was like, oh, I'm going to go
and film us doing a gig down the road in Dawston.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
And that was boiler Room.
Speaker 7 (33:02):
I think NTS another really interesting digital radio station. Again
it was very much so if you ask me who's
coming through, there's a whole load of people with that
certain attitude where on one hand they'll be playing an
Omar Sulliman record or some abstract sort of record from
the Congo released on Analog Africa, and on the other
hand they're going to be releasing playing some sort of
(33:22):
you know, crazy Mickey Miller, you know which I heard
you chatting about last week. So that that way of
approach to music I think is really normal now. I
think that when there was a time when you played
of this music in a mix, it was a little
bit abnormal. Today it's almost expected. If you look at
(33:43):
even you know, you read Pitchfork or or Resonant Advisor,
all these really important influential websites and new school writers
of the culture. It's about the eclecticism, you know, it's
about having Rufus Harley on a roots record. I mean,
you were doing this years ago, you know, and throwing
it all together. And for me, my big thing now
(34:05):
at the age of fifty two, is it's about heritage
and it's about the people that really took us here,
it's about Philip Coran in Chicago. It's about Sun Rah,
It's about Jimmy Merritt here in Philadelphia, the bass player
who wrote Nomo and played with Max Roach. For me,
it's about putting a light on these people, because without
(34:26):
those guys, we wouldn't be here. And they put in
so much work and some of them are still alive,
you know, and of course people like Royez still around.
I mean, my god, those guys, they did so many
gigs and we're kind of I don't know, for me personally,
it's kind of like it's payback time to those guys,
(34:47):
and we've got to make sure that we use the
power that we have and the means of influence that
we have to shine a light on those people. Three
people that I met when I was twenty two years old.
I've just been picked up by to London because I
was a young guy and I was playing jazz records
in clubs and I met three people in the space
of one week or two weeks, Wayne Shorter, Jalal from
(35:08):
The Last Poets, and the jazz singer mart Murphy, and
those three guys in the space of two weeks. They
taught a young boy from South London who didn't know
much about American culture. They taught me about the different
elements of music within jazz, whether it was spirituality, whether
it was more of a bohemian attitude, whether it was
the civil rights. I got lessons from these three people
(35:31):
in a very early at a very early age, and
that had a huge impact on me. And I want
to be able to do the same thing for another
generation of people, to bring them closer to the roots
of the music and away from the superficiality of big
commercial corporations.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
Do you remember the first record you ever brought, the
very first record you purchased.
Speaker 7 (35:55):
I purchased, Yeah, I remember picking up a record cards.
I remember buying Blondie d Knee by Blondie.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
I love that.
Speaker 7 (36:06):
That was Electric Light Orchestra, mister Blue Sky. I was
a bit prog rocky at around twelve thirteen, you know,
Caravan in the Land of Graham Pink, brilliant record, first
sort of record I bought. I mean, I was very
thankful for my library in London where I lived in Sutton.
(36:26):
They just had a new library and that's where you
could sort of take home records. I don't know if
they did that here in the States where you could
borrow records. You still do that for those Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
Myself. That was sorry, that was a good place anyway.
Speaker 7 (36:42):
So that's where I kind of heard a lot of
you know, I bought Herbie Hancock, you know, really important
records to me. Actually, Herbie Hancock Mister Hands nineteen eighteen,
huge record, huge record.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Way. So wait, who was I mean?
Speaker 1 (37:04):
I know, I say, if John Peel, and I'm using
American sports terms, you know, for every Michael Jordan, there's Piven.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Oh yeah, there's.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Definitely ten or fifteen unsung heroes that will never get
their props that were just as important or vital to
the movement. But I mean, who was your John Peel
when you were coming up, Like, who's the person that
truly introduced.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
You to music?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Was it a school friend or whatever? Who started your
obsession with collecting records? Yeah, because you have, Like, what's
your collection up to now? I don't I don't count
you stop counting. It's three houses, yeah, yeah, oh.
Speaker 7 (37:49):
Three properties. Yeah yeah, I keep getting pushed out by
my wife, but yeah, no, for me, it was uh,
it was my friend Andrew Crossley's sister fourteen years old.
I went to his house and she had a copy
of Mays Live in New Orleans. She had a copy
of Bobby called Well What You Won't Do For Love?
(38:10):
The album That's when when I first heart left, when
the fire. All in all, I think it was around
then that I'd hear Brazilian rhyme and fantasy, all those songs.
I mean that blew my mind. I hadn't heard that
on the RATO in the UK. The most amazing music ever.
Mays was big for me. I remember going to see
Mays all the time. They used to come to London
play at the Hammersmith Odio. Yeah, who would come to
(38:30):
Who from the States would come? The bands when you
were when you were I never forget seeing Cameo. Cameo
disappointingly because they were doing their rock thing at the time,
and I really wanted them to do this sort of
slat bass thing at that time.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
But still, I mean, yeah, they were all coming.
Speaker 7 (38:45):
A lot of those groups were coming, and you know,
a lot of the jazz funk bands, you know, people
like Lonely Listen Smith would come, you know, this sort
of slightly offbeat less. There was a motown scene for
the more traditional stuff. That wasn't really what I was into.
I was more into the jazz funk thing.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
You weren't into the North. What do you explained to
me Northern soul? Gosh, Northern Soul is okay, well, I
mean they like they break, they break, yeah, tune.
Speaker 7 (39:11):
Wise, I mean it's really sort of The UK was
very into motown and soul. You know, all of that
Marvin Gaye, Smoky Robinson, the sixties stuff that was big,
and that was big, and that was that got playing
the way down there were clubs and you know, there
was there was the stuff going on and they come
over to the UK. The DJ club scene started happening
(39:32):
in the sixties and seventies in the North as well
as it was in the South, but in the North
of England they basically had a slightly different taste and
they didn't want to play the obvious Motown records, so
they went and found the records that sounded like Motown
records but were hard to find. And that's really what
Northern soul was. And it's a certain tempo, it's quite
high tempo. There's some amazing songs. It's basically, you know,
(39:56):
it's it's Discog's forty years go. You know, they were
pulling out the rarest local songs. They there's guys who'd
come and they'd realize that the music from America was local,
you know. So there's there were the major labels that
would release all the big records, but if you went
to Saint Louis, or you went to Dallas, or and
you just went to the local record shops, they'd hear
(40:18):
local music where there was mightbe a thousand copies ever
pressed just for the local market. And that's really what
Northern Soul kind of was. It was about going in
like New Mirror Group for example, labels like that. It's
just going in that much deeper. And some of the music,
of course, there's so much music. That's the other thing
that just to answer you from earlier on about what
drives me how much music is that? I thought ten
(40:40):
years ago, I was like, yeah, I've got most of it.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
Even now as you speak, there is stuff that you
still I'm spending people.
Speaker 7 (40:50):
To make much music on records at the moment, not
because I'm earning more, you know, but because I'm just
I'm excited, and there's so many more record shops and
really great experts. Now you can go anywhere in the
world and you'll find a place which is where there's
going to be someone who's going to invite you to
their house. Maybe it's not in a shop anymore now
(41:11):
it's a more bespoke record dealer that exists right.
Speaker 4 (41:14):
Where you go to the crib. And yeah, there's a
lot of those cats.
Speaker 7 (41:18):
But they're good man, because they do all the work
for you. I mean, I don't have me coming like well,
I know they're overcharging me for some you know, you've
got to accept that it's going to be twenty five
percent over for you. But you will get some good stories.
And those guys for their role as as great bespoke
records sort of finders, they if they're really good at
their job, they'll tell you the story. For example, recently
(41:39):
there's a guy called Victor Kiswell in Paris. I think
you might well have been to his house and he
gave me a record the other day and it was
in Russian, right, And it was all in Russian, and
it was from the Ukraine from the seventies, and it
was a Ukrainian big band version of a Fella Kootie
song right right, Shakara right right exactly, and.
Speaker 4 (41:59):
You out.
Speaker 7 (42:03):
Right and uh and and he had gone to the
to the point of translating Russian to find out more
about the record than you realized.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
It was fella cootie and stuff.
Speaker 7 (42:13):
And then he kind of listened to the track and
halfway through this little riff that comes in and it's
Raka by Ukrainian big band in the mid seventies. Wow,
that's what we want. Wow, that's what we need. That's
what you need. That's your food, that's your foods.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
It is it is. See yo right in this room.
Speaker 6 (42:32):
Used to that guy used to come up here. Yeah,
he was like yeah, he was like a fucking drug deal.
Speaker 8 (42:38):
He sent me down. Let this dude in the front
door go down there. I'm like a Mirea's gonna buy
some drugs talking about Jean Brown. So you would come
up here and go back there and whispering. Guys are
showing them all different kinds, like if you had different
kinds of weed. You know, these records from here. This
one's twenty five, this one's thirty.
Speaker 4 (42:58):
I'll take it.
Speaker 6 (42:58):
I'll take you real.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
The best thing is they do the records and the drugs.
Now to this day, Jean Brown is my professional shopper.
Speaker 4 (43:10):
See that.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Okay, that's the thing. It's like, I still feel like
you're actively getting your hands dirty. You're using elbow grease
to search for the song that you don't got. You
still actively dig. Like I almost feel even as I'm
asking you about the comparisons between a Westwood and Appeal,
(43:31):
I almost feel like I have to make myself personally
a corporation or a Westwood so that I can have
peel moments, like in order for this show to even happen,
Like I have to be quest love, like I have
to have a corporate day job life. That's the total
(43:53):
opposite of not what I stand for. But it's just like,
you know, twenty five years ago, do you think I
would be like.
Speaker 4 (44:02):
On late night? Yeah, on late night.
Speaker 5 (44:04):
If I's you went from busking on the corners at
late night, that's pretty bad.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
I mean, that's that's my point.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Like I feel I almost have to robin Hood my
way to keep culture alive. I mean, if I really
had the monetary, rolling in the money, rolling into to
do even bigger things quote for the culture, I mean
I would, but it's.
Speaker 4 (44:29):
Like slow coming. But it's it's like I feel that
you still.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
You know, you'll you'll you'll dig on websites and look
up playlists like how active are you still? I mean
there's a point where before Boss Bill was my ears,
like he would search for records for me and meds
because there's not enough hours.
Speaker 7 (44:50):
In there, you know, for you your drummer, So your
chops is like you know, you're playing, you're practicing.
Speaker 4 (44:55):
You're a musician, right, you're going out the right.
Speaker 7 (44:58):
I'm a DJ, but I'm ninety and other things too.
So that's that's your prime your your prime role and
and and I mean, you just got to do your
thing the way you do. You do such an amazing
job of bringing culture to people to a new generation.
I mean, you're the Quincy Jones of this generation.
Speaker 4 (45:19):
Don't say that the way you are because I think
that you're the you are, because I think you probably
have a comfortable role index so many ways. You got
to do your back on the black Man. You got
to do that. Saying that is super snarky.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
You got.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
No I you know, I think at the end of
the day, people listen to you.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
At the end of the day, I saw what you
did in London and said by any means which even
the roots picnic is still an extension of like those
places that we used to play in a h.
Speaker 4 (46:08):
Outside of London Brighton right. Thank you for saying that
to me. That's that's the important thing.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Like I don't know why I think that way either,
like okay, instead of like living the moment, I'm trying
to think of what mark I can leave here when
I die.
Speaker 4 (46:30):
So besides Djan, I mean, you developed.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Probably one of the most important dance labels ever, which
was Talking Loud. Could you talk about your like, when
did you develop it and what means you want to Well?
Speaker 7 (46:48):
I first started off as a pirate DJ in a
club DJ from the age of seventeen eighteen by doing
compilation albums. So my first thing was like the mixtape,
but I used to do license tracks and compile them.
So the first series I did was Jazz Juice, and
I think I am the world record holder of compilation
official compilation You were Silver. So I always wanted to
be like close to our Blake keeper from a DJ
(47:09):
point of view and releases, so I managed to do that,
and then I set up a pirate a pirate station.
I stayed upper my first record label, which was label
called Acid Jazz, and that label was Brand New Heavies, Galliano,
Jamiroquai and all of that stuff, whoever they are. Yeah,
that was that was the beginning then. But who got
to remember at that time everyone used to go work.
(47:29):
You know, it was like it wasn't you know, there
was no scene. There was no business really, I mean
there was a scene, but there was no way of
monetizing it. And this music was super underground and you know,
you'd sell a few hundred, couple of thousand records, so
all the artists were basically, you know, going to work
during the week and you know, as you were doing
the other days of the roots and.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
You see him at JK of Jamiquire once had a
d job. No, he never had a day job.
Speaker 7 (47:56):
But all the Brand New Heavies did, you know, and
all of Galliano did, and those early groups. And from
my point of view where I was at being the
champion of this new scene going on in the UK,
I got I knew that I needed to take it
to another level and I couldn't do it independently. So
I got an offer from Funogram Records, which was PolyGram
which is now universal, and they said to me, Charles,
(48:16):
why don't you do this little thing that you're doing
with acid jazz and do it for us. So that's
when I said I'm Talking Loud. Because at that time,
there were no bootique record labels. You know, I didn't
have anybody to go, oh, yeah, let's do you know,
what did you do? What kind of deal did you do?
So I ended up just being brought in by them
as an A and R guy with my own label.
And that's why I set up Talking Out because I
knew that Talking Loud needed to happen to break the bands,
(48:38):
to be able to break the movement, so I needed
a major label. So that's when I set up Talking Loud.
And so the beginning of talking about it was groups
like Incognito and Galiano and Omar and the Young Disciples,
which is the best record I think we ever put out.
I put out, anyway, a very underrated soul hip hop
record which had Master Race on it. It had Johnny
Light all the Vibes player on it. And then that
(49:01):
was that time, and that was the sort of period
of louse of salt to soul and that kind of
London sound happening. But I wanted Talking Out to be
more than just a soul, funk, acid azz label. I
wanted it to represent UK club culture and all the
elements directions was going in, from the massive attack to
what became the drum and bass, and all those groups
(49:22):
of people like four Hero, people like Ronnie Size represent
They were natural artists to come through the label. Carl Craig,
we did him, who was off s course, the Detroit Sad.
The best record I think I put out apart from
your EP, was the new Reconsult Records with and that
(49:43):
was a full on A and R experience because they'd
released a little twelve inch called the Nervous Track on
Nervous Records, and I was playing that at Baumba my
Monday night session, and they heard about it, and I
was a fan of Louis and Kenny and I said
to the guys, I called him up, I says this,
and guys, you know, this is a really big record
for me. Because the house hit kids weren't by playing
that record because they were house producers, but they weren't
(50:03):
on it because it was a little bit offbeat. But
it was perfect for people like me. So I then
said to Louis, let's let's develop this into an album project.
So that's when the new Reconsole thing happened. And now
and then it just opened up because Louie's got his
his nephews, it's uncle's Hector Lavo, so the whole of
Latin music was was in it. Then Kenny had the
(50:24):
connections with Jazzy Jeff and roy Es, and then we
had George Benson on it, and then Tito he turned up.
That was the best ever launched album launched Supper Club
New Reconsole by.
Speaker 4 (50:35):
They were all there. The pictures from the inside game from.
Speaker 7 (50:39):
A very bad quality day of it, which is up
on such a shame because it's like that they were
all the La India.
Speaker 4 (50:46):
They were all there. So that was my official most
fantastic kind of experience.
Speaker 5 (50:52):
The turn back the term about the song but in
Needlember is it about that club?
Speaker 7 (50:59):
Yes come the nation of a tribute to Luis Essa,
who's the Brazilian composer who wrote a song called Baromba
and bar Rumba because Blue used to come down every Monday,
remember so, and I introduced him to the music of
the Tamba Trio for whom luis Essa wrote, So that
was kind.
Speaker 4 (51:16):
Of a very nice you know that.
Speaker 9 (51:20):
You know.
Speaker 7 (51:21):
The maddest thing for me was when because when I
ran Talking Ad Records, of course it was a UK
and European thing, but I was trying to break this
music in the States. So you're talking about FM radio
here and stuff. So I had to the first time
I came to America with music in my hand to
sell to the A and R guys of the department
at Mercury Records. It was Ed eg Stein and Lisa
(51:42):
Cortez who were running it there, and and I went
in there with my young disciples and my oma and
they were like, we love this music, this is amazing.
We're going to try and you know, make it for you,
make it happen. But it was so hard to get
that music on the radio over here. But it was
very interesting sort of learning process for me to kind
of see how the industry worked here and working with
(52:06):
those people.
Speaker 4 (52:07):
What was it? What was it like for you?
Speaker 5 (52:08):
Because one of the moments that I saw as kind
of a breakoup month for Talking Loud was when for
a Hero two Pages got the Lee review and Vibe.
It was the first review of the I don't even
if you remember this, but.
Speaker 4 (52:24):
Remember it.
Speaker 5 (52:25):
But yeah, that record got the first It got the
Lee review and I actually went and checked it out
on the stream for that that made me like a
lifetime Me and Mark we've done you know work. But
but man, that was what was How did.
Speaker 4 (52:37):
You and fo a hero? We four? Hero? Was it?
Speaker 7 (52:41):
I mean remarkable because they are Mark and Diego. They're
another kind of super combination like Louis Viger and Kenny
Dope and two very different characters and personalities who make
magical music based from a community in West London, and
they really just developed their sound which is a combination
of kind of stringy jazzy stuff with you know, UK
under ground bass music and drum and bassed music. So
(53:02):
to work with them was unique and fantastic. But the
break record, the one that really broke talking loud in America.
This is a mad experience for me. Was I suddenly
got called that Deep Waters buy Incognito featuring Masonleink was
a big record in Detroit, and Blue said, yeah, come
over and see us playing in Detroit, And I literally
got on a fly it went to Detroit and they
were playing in the stadium and it was a completely
(53:24):
black audience, and it was and that's when I started realizing,
you know the power of a city or a few
radio stations, how they can break an artist. And thankfully
they broke Incognito because they kind of went a bit
bigger from there, sold me a million records which went
back into my coffers, which allowed me to record four
Hero and Ronnie Size and all the other groups, MJ
(53:48):
Cole and people like that. So can you speak about
the Drum and Beast movement because the British underground history,
the Frosten Night, I.
Speaker 4 (53:59):
Still feel like it is yet to find its moment,
it's true moment. And I feel like.
Speaker 1 (54:09):
Now that now that tempos are sort of slowing down
at least from where it was. I'll say, like the
tempo of two thousand and six to two thousand and
thirteen was just straight up boots and cats, gots like
straight one thirty one. So now that stuff is slowing
down a little bit down. Tempo, well still, I'm one
(54:33):
point sixteen is fast. I mean, if you're a public enemy,
that's vastest shit for hip hop, but for dance music
it's rather slow, but it's slow enough for drum and
bass to really find a lane now And the first
night you ever took us to bar Rumba, speaking of
Monday night, watching you spend this is like our first
(54:56):
our first week in London.
Speaker 4 (54:59):
And and the guy on whoever was spending before you,
his last record.
Speaker 1 (55:07):
Was Anita Baker's Sweet Love, and I was like me
and TERI started looking at it like the fun So
the intro to Sweet Love well in a bad way.
I'm like, wait, why are they playing a slow song
at a London nightclub? And when the intro came on,
big the whole audience are losing his mind right, And
(55:30):
we just looked at each other like, oh god, this
is gonna be our life in London. Because you gotta understand,
we exiled, like we straight up took our budget and left.
Speaker 4 (55:39):
All right, we love y'all.
Speaker 1 (55:40):
We out, So we're here and so the first verse
comes on, We're throwing hot and on it and people
are just like preparing like some riots about to happen.
The second the chorus came in and it went to
double time and then we just like we'd never seen
madness marshing like that in our lives. Wow, And.
Speaker 4 (56:05):
I just remember I asked you. I was like, what
the hell is that?
Speaker 1 (56:08):
And you was like strum and bass, And you know,
eventually I met Digo and those guys and knew what
it was. But the religious power that music had that
I saw that night and subsequent nights and months and whatever,
I feel like it really didn't cross over to the
(56:33):
world as it should, but it's still waiting.
Speaker 4 (56:35):
For its moment. Like what do you feel about that
whole movement? Because you signed Arnie Size.
Speaker 7 (56:40):
And I think that movement was interesting. I mean we
won the Mercury Prize for Bonnie Size. Yeah, you know,
the movement is pretty big then and at the time
ninety six ninety seven and before, I thought the movement
had some good some good leaders. I thought people like
Gold the lt J Booker, Ronnie Side, because any movement
(57:03):
needs a quest love, it needs somebody who can basically,
you know, plant the flag and shout about it right.
And I thought that Drumm and Bass had a good movement.
I think the Broken Beat had a bad so it
had a bad leaders. They didn't have leadership because for me,
the music it was ig culture, ag culture and Dego
really were the leaders. And that music form still resonates today.
(57:26):
You play broken beats now and they're big to the kids.
That's the music I think is going to be coming
through more than druma based, because I think drummer bass
is already in. It's in our DNA, it's there, and
it's just morphing into different things.
Speaker 1 (57:39):
Well, certainly in Europe it is, but I feel like
it should have made it more of an impact in
the State.
Speaker 4 (57:46):
But time. But what you got.
Speaker 2 (57:52):
Why is why is America slow? That's what I was
thinking this whole time, like, why does America feel like
it's so slow?
Speaker 4 (57:57):
Especially I think arrogant? That might be it.
Speaker 3 (58:02):
Are we just too damn picky.
Speaker 4 (58:05):
I don't think it's I don't think it's picking. It's
I think it's arrogance.
Speaker 1 (58:07):
Really, it's just outsiders, because there's something about the way
that I feel this generation will.
Speaker 4 (58:15):
Pick I don't know. I mean that generation will pick
up on it now, Yeah, yeah, I think.
Speaker 9 (58:19):
But previous generations I think it was a problem because
people just too arrogant, like this is an American music,
they don't sound like me.
Speaker 7 (58:25):
I think it's the question we're talking about it a little. Definitely,
it's the d M thing as well, it's like, in
a way EDM was a good thing. I mean, I
don't like the music particularly right, but what EDM did
is it kind of put dance music into the head
of radio programmers, into the head of people who might
want to be produced or remixed by David Getter, major
major artists, and it slowly was the doorway into a
(58:50):
sound that America wasn't used to. And eventually the drips
will get you to drum and bass. It's kind of
the doorwards.
Speaker 4 (59:00):
The doorway is there.
Speaker 7 (59:01):
And because up until then dance music and everything that
came out of dance music, it was a little bit,
you know, it was like is it gay?
Speaker 4 (59:08):
Is it you know? You know, is it right?
Speaker 7 (59:10):
You know, so you'd have to go to Miami Winter
Music Conference and that was like where we'd all meet.
But it was underground in America a little bit. In fact,
in a way, it's probably twenty or thirty years behind
when I was going to my weekends when I was sixteen.
It was almost like going to Miami Winter Music Conference
thirty years later. And you know, yeah, that's probably. But
(59:32):
I think it's getting their radio is changing. I think
that people are slipping it in and producers are more
prepared to cross reference.
Speaker 4 (59:39):
I don't know.
Speaker 7 (59:39):
I mean, like the new Drake record. You know there's
that song which is kind of a house record, there's.
Speaker 1 (59:44):
This Are you shocked at how I'm glad he did
it because for me, like I didn't think that quote
real house. The first president I thought about was like
King brit I thought about, you know, because if anyone,
he's been trying to hold this tradition up in Philadelphia
(01:00:06):
for so long that it dwindled a little bit where
you know, it's falling on deafiar's only certain people would
would would gravitate towards it. And it's almost to the
point where like we've now throw Sunday afternoon parties, so
instead of Thursday nights, you know, from nine till three
in the morning, now it's like Sunday afternoon in the
(01:00:28):
park at one pm with you and your kids and
your grandkids, and it's it's it's that's the moment. But
now that Drake has has you know, leaned heavily on
the South African house culture and really opened the door. Uh,
do you feel as though that's a good thing or
(01:00:50):
a bad thing.
Speaker 7 (01:00:51):
That's a good thing, I mean, there's nothing wrong with
any of that, especially that he's got Moody Man on
his record.
Speaker 4 (01:00:56):
Yeah, I'm so jealousy. That's I love it. I used
to just play that sample alone with.
Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
The Strake song you're talking about.
Speaker 4 (01:01:05):
Superman is the one he did the Coffee but I
can't remember the name of that song.
Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
With the Guys record on again, he's like talking, there's
a recording of a guy, Moody Man.
Speaker 5 (01:01:18):
Who's this It's a recording of him DJ. Yeah, No,
I know the I know the Moody Man reg I
didn't know the Drink record which one he I didn't.
Speaker 7 (01:01:25):
Yeah, it's on the album. I can't remember what it's called.
I'll look it up, but it's quite interesting. It's interesting
that that's happening. But I think it's you know, you
know all of it. It's just it's just in you know.
And at the moment the music that I'm finding really
brilliant and I love it as the sort of subculture
is all that stuff from Chicago, all the footwork stuff.
For me, the one sixty bpm stuff is really exciting.
(01:01:48):
And I dropped that wherever I dropped that. That's like
my biggest music if I'm sort of, you know, at
a festival, the moment I need to kind of bring
them all in.
Speaker 4 (01:01:55):
I'll play some footwork, so.
Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
Another level of Chicago House. Sorry just asking another level Chicago.
Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
And stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, it's super fast. They'll
take like the pac Man.
Speaker 3 (01:02:06):
Theme comusic because that sounds like Baltimore House.
Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
It's Baltimore House on steroids. It is like move jump
jack your body. Now play that on forty five, but
dance to it on thirteen. It's kids, Kids Today. So Jiles,
(01:02:37):
You've seen a lot of historical magic moments in your career,
throwing shows, having people come by to record on your show.
Half of the show that we did with Pharrell at
the Roots Picnic last month was based on the performance
(01:02:59):
that any art he did on the worldwide show. So
that was like that was inspiration, like taking off his
music and then filtering it. I can't wait, it's it's
it's it's it's awesome.
Speaker 4 (01:03:10):
It was amazing. Thank you, So, like what what.
Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
What were some of the magic moments that you saw?
Like some of the first I mean talking to is
not that said Jazz Caffeice talking to Pharrell.
Speaker 7 (01:03:31):
Actually there was a week and Winter Music Conference. There
was a week before Winter Music Conference where I got
the d demos from from from the demos with Rise
were too too high on it to fly on it
and all that stuff. And the same week as that
I got the n r D album, the first one,
the one before they went because they the digital version,
(01:03:54):
which is always better.
Speaker 4 (01:03:56):
Shut up? Can I get? Can I get?
Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
For years we were arguing that in rehearsal, like to
stick true to the synthetic an e r D or
the live an e r D. Spot Man, I realized
it was my band, so I got the last say.
But why do you feel Neptune's an e r D
first record is because that's.
Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
What it was. It was.
Speaker 5 (01:04:30):
It was when they tried to when they redid it
and did it with the live iss it felt to
me like they were trying to make it go to
a bigger audience, quote unquote, But it was never going
to be that record. It was always the Neptunes anesthetic
was always to that point, always just sounds The.
Speaker 9 (01:04:46):
Digital version just sounds anemic after hearing the live version.
But that's how all the stuff sounded though. But that
was the I think the songs benefit better from the
live arrangements.
Speaker 5 (01:04:55):
I don't think the song.
Speaker 4 (01:04:56):
I think the song.
Speaker 5 (01:04:57):
The songs were like kind of not cheesy songs, but
they were like cheap and plastic, like the production like brain.
I mean, I really need to call in a fucking
band to sing about getting some head like Nigga really,
I mean he had choice.
Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
I give Fante's point that I feel like the the
wonder that is Pharrell is sort of like when you're
singing in the bathroom mirror with a brush. It's it's cheap,
plastic sounding music that's made legit.
Speaker 5 (01:05:29):
Yeah, because it's a boat and it nails the performance
and it makes you feel inclusive because it's like, oh,
I can do this too. It's not like super intellectual,
but then it's intellectual.
Speaker 4 (01:05:41):
I could do this too.
Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
You'll make it sound so easiest for real.
Speaker 4 (01:05:44):
But what is farrel singing have to do with the instrumentation?
Speaker 5 (01:05:46):
I mean, just in terms of the songs, I mean
just the songs when I'm when I said, just his lyrics, So.
Speaker 4 (01:05:52):
His lyrics also compliment his musical level.
Speaker 3 (01:05:57):
Of music Snobberies on an all time high.
Speaker 4 (01:05:59):
I like disparity, though the expedition of the opposites.
Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
Juvenile lyrics and why you just think for was cute
and let's just go with that, we go down rabbit hole.
Speaker 3 (01:06:11):
No, no, I'm a fan of the music.
Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
I just don't have those words. And I just say
again that the album was dope and I don't need it.
Speaker 4 (01:06:18):
You don't know why when you like to know why
it works and why it doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
It worked for me as a listener, though, what.
Speaker 4 (01:06:24):
Worked about it for you? What was it about the record?
Talk talk about run to the Sun? About it? Talk
about the song? What is it? What is it in
the song that I was moved?
Speaker 2 (01:06:34):
Like for me, I'm a listener, so I'm not a musician,
so I won't go you know, the streams weren't right
here his people about I was moved like run to
the Sun with something I never that whole is something
that the lyrics that yeah, and then once you realize
about his Grandmam and everybody else has a moment.
Speaker 4 (01:06:49):
Of like it's it's spoke to you on that level.
Speaker 3 (01:06:52):
I'm a listener. I don't make it. I listened to it,
and I get I.
Speaker 4 (01:06:54):
Don't make it either. I think stuff too.
Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
You don't try and act like you're just a common
the comp you've been if anyone of all of us,
you've been on commercial radio more than anything, you're you're
you're the system, right I am I have because you're
the system, Like you're not the listener on you were
the radio, right.
Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
And I was the one that was saying, and it's funny,
that's why I was speaking about the differences between Excepting
music and Europe and and and here is we had
to tell people to listen to n E r D.
Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
We couldn't play it. So I had to constantly be like,
this is the ship, y'all need to listen.
Speaker 4 (01:07:28):
You have to tell your program department people like no,
I told my listeners.
Speaker 9 (01:07:32):
Oh, like you guys weren't playing the records. You were
just but you were still telling them to go check
it out.
Speaker 4 (01:07:36):
Wow yeah yeah an THERD Yeah, that's stuff didn't get
no no play like that.
Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
I mean, there were some commercial records that we had
to say, like, why aren't you we playing video India
Area Advance was.
Speaker 4 (01:07:45):
Getting played on on BT and cut Yes, yes, I
forgot about that.
Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
That was it and all the Girls, That's a whole
another album, Standing in the Line with a Bathroom was so.
Speaker 4 (01:08:00):
Come signing me on the Electronic Nerd album Full Validated.
I feel like.
Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
I feel like people that co signed the first any
r D record are also the same people that say, like, well,
I like Off the Wall better than Thriller because you're
supposed to.
Speaker 3 (01:08:17):
Nah.
Speaker 9 (01:08:19):
I mean, I'm not with you then, because I think
I like Off the Wall better than Thriller, but not
for that reason.
Speaker 7 (01:08:25):
Off the Wall, especially as you get older too, like
always thrill thrill, Thriller was more consistent because I still
don't you don't see it as equally as great.
Speaker 5 (01:08:34):
Well, because I don't listen to I skip She's out
of my life and I skip it's the falling in
love and Thriller, like I skip beat it every time
I play Thriller.
Speaker 4 (01:08:44):
Half a Thriller. I can't listen to.
Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
We don't listen to Thriller because Thriller is not a record.
It's not a record, so it's not an album. So anyway,
y'all beside what.
Speaker 4 (01:09:09):
Wow, great moments.
Speaker 7 (01:09:11):
The moment that one of the early great moments that
I remember very clearly right now was was a weekend
of that I organized and I remember we put on
Tribe Call Quest in the UK first show ever, and
it was in one of those holiday resorts in the
middle of nowhere again because they were we could hire
these places for cheap. And it was Tribe Coal Quest,
(01:09:33):
Pharaoh Sonders on the same bill, Brand New Heavies, Galiano,
Jimmy Rokui. So it was like that acid jazz meets
America meets the sort of spiritual jazz godfathers.
Speaker 4 (01:09:47):
So that was that. That was that was a big one.
That's amazing, remember that very well.
Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
It was a great night, good night America would never
get that.
Speaker 1 (01:09:55):
Okay, can I say, now, are your listeners still your
list from twenty years before or are do you have
a generation of listeners that are open to new music?
Because I'll say, the one thing that I find kind
of unpenetrable, uh in DJing now as opposed to back then,
(01:10:17):
is the boldness of playing the unknown without repercussions. It's like,
I borderline have to trick them to listening to something
dope because I had to disguise it with you know,
three songs that they know. Then I'm gonna hit you
with you know the shit that I like, and then
(01:10:38):
right before the dance war clears, I'll you know, it's
like a system that you have to have. Do you
find it harder now? Uh, facing audiences of unknown music, I.
Speaker 4 (01:10:51):
Just need them before. I need more time.
Speaker 7 (01:10:53):
So if people book me now, I say five six hours,
you need me to play that long.
Speaker 4 (01:10:58):
Because the problem you redeem yourself in cases.
Speaker 7 (01:11:00):
That's the generations I've got, you know, I've got the
people who come and listen to me and they're like, Oh,
I really like that record you made in Cuba, or
I love the Brazilian stuff you do, or I love
that kind of new bass music you're playing from South London.
So at the end of the day, all these different
people are coming for different.
Speaker 4 (01:11:14):
Bits of me.
Speaker 7 (01:11:15):
So I need to say, look, I'll do the whole thing,
the full journey, but I need five to six hours
on a great sound system. That's why I love playing
at output all places like you know, like that way
you can, but it's more work. But that's the only
way I can kind of give them. I feel better
at the end of the night. There's nothing worse.
Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
You're literally the only person I know besides myself. I
love marathon gigs and love them. You're the only person like, Uh,
next week I'm going to do an eight hour gig,
it's and promoters are always scratched. Head scratching because most DJs, Wow,
(01:11:52):
that's the normal.
Speaker 3 (01:11:53):
I said, Wow, that's long.
Speaker 1 (01:11:54):
Oh oh no, that's normal. I mean you think I
get long winded answers to see my DJs?
Speaker 4 (01:12:05):
That one.
Speaker 9 (01:12:06):
Those ten to four am gigs were my favorite. Yeah,
I'm just saying that it's not you've got to have.
Speaker 4 (01:12:11):
I mean, the thing is on.
Speaker 7 (01:12:12):
When I played Output the other day in Brooklyn, I
played the full sixteen minute version at peak time off,
I thought it was you, but I hope you direct
Japanese version, right, that one? That one right, which is
the best version of I thought it was you all
sixteen minutes. I think it's sixty enough minutes long, right,
But if I hadn't been playing for five hours, I
(01:12:32):
wouldn't if that would have been a quarter of my
one hour set, you know. So the fact, but to
be able to play that and for people to because
then people get because at the beginning, people are looking
at you, especially when you come to America. For me,
they come and they're looking at you, going give me
a show. I'm like, no, I'm a DJ. Right dance
and let me get into my zone because I'm not
a performer in that way.
Speaker 5 (01:12:51):
Yeah, I want to ask because every time, like when
I go out, I see people like now, DJ culture
is the it, and it's like you're doing it wrong,
Like how did how have you adapted to that? Like
how does the audience adapt to you being a pure
DJ in that way?
Speaker 7 (01:13:05):
Well, you just have to keep doing it, I think that,
and you've got to accept that. You know, there'll be
people taking five and that even though they're not dancing,
they are into it because I think initially I was like,
oh no, they don't like it, but they hadn't but
they haven't left.
Speaker 3 (01:13:20):
That's when you came here, right, you hadn't experienced then
a little bit of that.
Speaker 7 (01:13:23):
I mean the first time I ever went to Japan,
I remember thinking my god.
Speaker 4 (01:13:28):
No, no, yeah, you think you're bombing. But after the shi, yeah,
they love it.
Speaker 7 (01:13:33):
They give you an uncle. But it's kind of it's
that's a weird thing. But no, I think it's it's good.
I think people are getting down, people are beginning to
understand the etiquette of going out to hear a DJ.
Speaker 3 (01:13:42):
Now.
Speaker 7 (01:13:42):
I think a few years ago it was like there
was especially in the States because they was like unless
you were going to the proper real clubs and.
Speaker 4 (01:13:49):
You're going to like a festival.
Speaker 7 (01:13:51):
I remember playing at Coachella and six years ago and
I was like, am I really this is terrible, you know,
but it was just the way because there was no
you know, there was no festival culture for DJs like me.
You know, there was festival culture for techno DJs like
you know, cult, but for people like me who went.
Speaker 4 (01:14:09):
Through it, it was a little bit odd. But it's
getting there here in peace. Since I love By the way, I.
Speaker 5 (01:14:17):
Asked you about the time you came to Philly and
went to James Poorser's dad's church.
Speaker 4 (01:14:23):
Oh wow, Yeah, that's right, that's right. Why it's what
we live in Philly. Yeah. Oh.
Speaker 7 (01:14:34):
I have to say, the first person I really fell
in love with apart from Erica bad whilst interviewing her,
was and probably in fact more so than Erica, was
Jill Scott. I remember interviewing her when she just released
her first record.
Speaker 4 (01:14:49):
Who Is Jill Scott?
Speaker 7 (01:14:50):
And I was so in like when I met her,
I just absolutely fell apart and and and really really
really liked her a lot.
Speaker 4 (01:14:56):
And obviously that's what it was, but but it made
me want to come to Philly. We all haven't called.
Speaker 6 (01:15:08):
It's actually a segment on the show.
Speaker 3 (01:15:10):
We haven't been all kinds of ways, even when she's
not trying.
Speaker 6 (01:15:13):
You never fell in love with James Poyser though, right.
Speaker 4 (01:15:18):
Was waiting for James. He the Yep, it's Amir Thompson.
I know, yes, and about uh seven.
Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
You remember I used to always call you during my
radio show when someone mentions your name. Yes, okay, So
I have Jiles Peterson here and he just wanted to
let you know that you're really really cool.
Speaker 4 (01:15:45):
Baby. How you do? How you doing? We're kind of
janky with the communication here.
Speaker 9 (01:15:50):
So now I know you're not gonna hug Jiles for me,
but try.
Speaker 4 (01:15:56):
I will hug Giles just you.
Speaker 3 (01:15:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have it with Jill.
Speaker 4 (01:16:04):
Are you in Atlanta right now?
Speaker 1 (01:16:07):
I am How do you know everything?
Speaker 4 (01:16:09):
I know everything you do? Jill Scott, I do you
know everything?
Speaker 3 (01:16:13):
It's weird.
Speaker 6 (01:16:14):
He's got jps start.
Speaker 4 (01:16:21):
Your position. I ask about you often, Jill.
Speaker 3 (01:16:27):
Oh, you can always just call me Sucker.
Speaker 1 (01:16:31):
Anyway next time your name on the radio. So thank you,
love you, baby, bye bye. So I had I had
a question about celebrity DJs. Is that a thing in
Europe as much as it is here?
Speaker 7 (01:16:46):
Well, it is the thing because DJ culture is just
so normalized now in a way, so you're going to
get that side of it. But on the other hand,
you're still going to get you know. The funny thing
is in the UK at the moment, if you were
like a celebrity DJ and you were to me, you'll
probably you know, play to big audiences and stuff. But
people like full TETs, who's a sort of left field
(01:17:08):
techno DJ. They're the guys who are getting the biggest
numbers and the biggest audiences. It's not the kind of
celebrity DJs in that sense, or maybe that is happening,
but the left field, more progressive underground that's what the
kids are really looking for.
Speaker 4 (01:17:25):
I don't know if that's answering the question, but no
one from like take that or a rabbie like We've
got Yeah that was like a couple of years away.
Who is he opened? Yeah, I forgot. I used to
do a few gigs with them. But that's.
Speaker 7 (01:17:44):
Like a musicians saying it's a bit like I don't know,
it's like a bit like I mean, I think Woody
Allen takes his music seriously, but I see it as
like it's like, you know, they're like amateur musicians, you know,
but they're not the real thing.
Speaker 4 (01:17:57):
I mean, a real DJ.
Speaker 7 (01:17:58):
And I really believe in DJ culture and the awe
of djaying and the heritage of djaying, you know. I
thank you David Mankuzo and all the guys who set
it up for us. But there's an ought to it,
and that celebrity scene is just a little bit of
you know, bubblegum somewhere.
Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
But there's there's a word that I'm looking for. I
think it might be integrity. Okay, that's what you guys
have that we don't have no more in the United States.
Speaker 4 (01:18:26):
So from the White House all it's different, like the
fact that you would still.
Speaker 1 (01:18:35):
What you said was correct, but because I'm immersed and
living in this new alternative reality that we're in right
now where you're competing with like the Paris Hiltans and yeah,
where you know, I've there's a few DJ gigs where
I mean I I have an agent that has a
(01:18:56):
few actors or whoever, and their money. It's like crazy,
It's like three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand dollars, Like,
and I'm just mind blown.
Speaker 4 (01:19:07):
But that's just.
Speaker 1 (01:19:09):
I mean, you're just like, that's just how it is. Yeah,
I mean you either accept it or you fight it.
And I guess maybe in my older age, I'm not
trying to fight it. Like there's other fights I can.
Speaker 4 (01:19:21):
Have out there.
Speaker 1 (01:19:21):
Besides, why is this DJ giving four hundred thousand dollars
and not me? You know that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (01:19:26):
Wow, Yeah, DJ culture is becoming how do I do it?
Speaker 1 (01:19:35):
See if you were to move to the States. Here's
the here's the funny thing. What's what's weird about American
culture is that we are so obsessed with getting in
the king's throne, like with hip hop, with DJing, with anything,
like everyone wants to be the top person and they're
fighting for it. No, no, no other scraps will do that.
(01:19:58):
There's a whole middle level that's absolutely empty. And thus
I've made a home in the middle level, Like I
would never want to fight for jay Z's throne or
Drake's throne or I'm in the DJ world right now.
Pretty lights makes the most. Calvin Harris, who shockingly in
(01:20:20):
my conversations with him, is almost like talking to you
like he thinks like you, an aesthetically has you and
probably Fonte and Bill's education and knowledge of music, but
he knows where.
Speaker 4 (01:20:37):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:20:37):
So it's like everyone's fighting for that position. So they'll
scoff at like a cat. Like Diplo would laugh at
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you know, Christmas party
carper DJ gig for Viacom. They would laugh at that
shit because they're now playing Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 4 (01:21:00):
For two three million dollars.
Speaker 1 (01:21:03):
So it's like there's a middle ground that you know,
underground is like you're you're you're fighting with everyone else
to get underground gigs. But if you managed to make
a name like a person like you could come to
the States right now and do these middle ground gigs
and hitching like that's where it is. And I absolutely
(01:21:23):
just gave uk get everyone. Everyone unheard what you what.
Speaker 4 (01:21:32):
I just said to you? Man? So what not? Like
what's the future for Jalles Peterson? Like is this to you?
Speaker 2 (01:21:41):
Is this?
Speaker 4 (01:21:44):
Is this a good end game for you? Is this
what you always wanted? Yeah? This is the best I'm
having the best fund of my life.
Speaker 7 (01:21:49):
I really am. I've been DJing for thirty years. I
travel around the world. I'm still passionate about music. I
connect with people, I communicate for the music. My mental
artists bring it through. I don't think there's a better game. Really,
there's more there isn't you know. I mean, I keep
saying I'm going to give up DJing. I was going
to give up at forty. It didn't happen, you know,
(01:22:11):
And I'm actually, I'm actually.
Speaker 4 (01:22:12):
What made you want to give it up? Well? I
just thought you had a bad DJ?
Speaker 7 (01:22:16):
Yeah, loads, But the thing is you have to have
your bad gigs to enjoy the good ones, obviously. But
but the thing is with I thought forty was too
old to be a DJ, you know, when I was thirty,
I thought, yeah, old DJ. Yeah, But actually no, I mean,
the funny thing is, I'm I'm better. I'm the best
I've ever been. So I want people to hear me
(01:22:37):
being more experienced thirty years, to be able to mix
two house records together, so.
Speaker 4 (01:22:45):
You know, yeah, I want it.
Speaker 5 (01:22:47):
Which your browns with bubbles cups that you do? How
much of those are you actually hand pick all those songs?
Speaker 4 (01:22:53):
Yeah? That's still you going through all let.
Speaker 7 (01:22:55):
Yeah, yeah, because I mean in a way the radio
show that I do every week on the BBC, and
I do or digital radio station called WDFM. But the
BBC show that I do, which is three hours every week,
that's it's like my that's my homework. So every week
that's my dark that's like my painting. So that is
the build up of listening to five hundred songs that
week and building a show.
Speaker 4 (01:23:16):
So that's I have to listen to all that music.
Speaker 5 (01:23:18):
Yeah, I was glad to see you use a Good
Night by Philippo on that incredible track.
Speaker 4 (01:23:24):
God, I'm still waiting for that album to drop. It
never came out. Nope, Oh damn. How long has it been?
That's four years? Easy.
Speaker 1 (01:23:33):
What is the process of you auditioning songs that you
feel are worthy to be on your radio show?
Speaker 4 (01:23:42):
What is it?
Speaker 1 (01:23:43):
But I know you have to take in a lot
of music and a lot of blogs and a lot
of recommendations, so just personally you're not overloaded like I'm
personally overloaded and not quite numb yet.
Speaker 4 (01:24:00):
But it's a process. Like I doose Sundays as the
days to.
Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
Keep a certain station on, you know, listen five to
six hours and then she's saying what I like, mark
down what I like, and then maybe I'll have seventeen
songs I never heard of now in my vocabulary. But
what's their process for you?
Speaker 7 (01:24:25):
I mean, I never forced myself to listen to music,
So I just come to it. If there's a week
that I'm not like in the mood to feel like
I need to do all this research for A and
R reasons, for record company reasons, I just go through
my old records and I'll put on a classic record
to remind me. And maybe on the radio, I'll just
(01:24:45):
play a lot of old music for example. Right, if ever,
I get to the point where I'm a little bit
sort of just like not really inspired. But to be
honest with you, with the amount of music that I
listened to, whether it's the sort of new DJ music,
whether it's of hip hop, I mean there's a new track,
that Buddy track, you know. I mean, all this stuff
(01:25:07):
that's been coming out of LA has been incredible, right,
I mean, you know, from sort of all that Kendrick
Lamar and Beyond stuff, all the stuff that Flying Lotus
is responsible for Thundercat, I mean, my god, there's just
so much good stuff and for example, when I played
I don't know like when Take the Box was sent
to me. I mean Take the Box by Amy Winehouse.
It's a good example of a tune that my friend
(01:25:28):
was trying to sign it Max Desarder Atlantic Warners at
the time before it went to Island, and he just
sent me the dam He said, what do you think
of this, Charls? And I was like, immediately take the
Box And I started playing it as a demo on
the radio then, because it just had those little things,
just like when you're talking about any rd run to
the Sun you hear that, and it's just an immediate tune,
(01:25:48):
right or good Night by Philip o Wusu these songs,
and that's what I'm searching for. But I'm also searching
for raw dance music that I've never heard before. The
way they've arranged the bass in this, you can tell
because it's a bit like we're chefs, you know, we're
tasting those ingredients all the time. So when there's a
certain type of onion that comes in, that's it's got
(01:26:10):
the right edge.
Speaker 4 (01:26:11):
We know it.
Speaker 7 (01:26:12):
We've got you know, I'm rubbish at wine, I'm rubby.
I've got a terrible palette, but when it comes to music.
But when it comes to music, I'm not even very
good at music. But because I've just constantly listened to it,
I've got a good memory of music. So when something
fresh does come, I know it's new. I can feel
it quicker than others.
Speaker 4 (01:26:32):
I think.
Speaker 1 (01:26:33):
Well, what I mean is that I feel like there's
an expectation for you to always have that shit I
never heard before, or this version of that song I
never heard before, or that sort of thing. So I
know that you have to put a lot of research,
Like what keeps you from repetition like okay you go
(01:26:56):
to Okay, I'm always going to play level brings back
together by Roy Ears, Like what keeps you from saying
stuck in those saying fifty songs that you know work
like gamebusters every time, and what like You're still going
to have to discover tomorrow's music first before the next
younger guy gets to it.
Speaker 4 (01:27:17):
So that's what I meant, like as far as your
research process, like what do you do?
Speaker 7 (01:27:23):
Good network, great people who know what I like, lots
of exchanges. I'm over all of the music, from the
new electronics stuff to the hip hop to the jazz,
to the old staff, to some new soul that might
be coming out, to the rock and the alternatives. There's
some great music coming out of that area as well
as we all know, and I'm just listening to all
(01:27:43):
of it. And within all of that music, I mean
a lot of it. And you know, obviously there's millions
of songs being made every week. But amongst my network
of friends who know, we know each other's taste, we're
coming from different parts of the world, we are able
to satisfy with music, and then I take that onto
(01:28:05):
the radio, and to be honest with you, I don't
even think about it that much. I've never really felt
like I was thinking the other day, I didn't listen
to the whole Solange record properly.
Speaker 4 (01:28:15):
Things like that.
Speaker 7 (01:28:15):
That's those sort of things bother me a little bit.
I'm like, oh, yeah, I just went through it, and
something else happened the week after, and I liked, you know, yeah, yeah,
but I listened to it this week. Then it hit
you leader yeah, and I was like, I need to
listen to that record, because that's a different way of listening.
Because I listened to music as in a curative way,
and sometimes I want to listen to music in an
entertainment for myself way, emotional way. So sometimes I make
(01:28:37):
sure that I just hide myself at home and put
a record on from the beginning to the end. Very
important to find the time for that. I bought a
good sound system specifically.
Speaker 4 (01:28:45):
For that is an American dad.
Speaker 7 (01:28:48):
No, okay, no, but you know, I bought a vintage
thing and all the stuff, and it just makes music
sound remarkable about as it should be. So I don't know,
I don't overthink it.
Speaker 2 (01:29:00):
Just to never get overwhelmed by the abundance of music
on the daily, never even in my.
Speaker 4 (01:29:06):
Record room, like I'm pretty sure only listen to that's.
Speaker 7 (01:29:10):
For your retirement, I mean my record collection. That's the
way I look at it. That's true when I'm retiring.
Speaker 2 (01:29:15):
Do you know most people, I feel like most people
who listen feel like y'all have listened to every single
record in your record collection, because a mirror I would
have guessed that your record room you've listened to all.
Speaker 1 (01:29:22):
Those The thing is is that I've absorbed it. So
it's a it's a thing of it's a thing of
you know, I'll skim through it. And because I'm in
hip hop, it's about samples more than anything. So, I mean,
there's two ways to listen to records. You either you
(01:29:42):
go a record digging and then you Q records and
then you know it doesn't hit you, you put it away.
But I'm going to sit and actually listen to it.
That's what I do on Sundays. I don't skim through it.
Speaker 4 (01:29:56):
I listen to it.
Speaker 3 (01:29:57):
So, seriously, that's ten percent in your record room right now,
those records that you had a chance to do this.
Speaker 4 (01:30:02):
I mean it's physically impossible. And that's just my record room.
I have hard drives, and I mean, right, I just
had to buy I had to acquire a new spot.
I'm trying to say it.
Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
So I'm not going you know, I'm a rich judge.
I'm a judger, but I ain't gonna judge you for
your next statement, I ain't gonna do.
Speaker 4 (01:30:24):
Well, okay, would you like me to take care of
the things that I acquired, I do.
Speaker 3 (01:30:28):
I would like that.
Speaker 4 (01:30:29):
Okay. Well, then there's about.
Speaker 1 (01:30:33):
Maybe one hundred thousand other records that could get damaged
in the current state that they're in in my storage unit.
So I had to purchase a building with cool with
the right air and all that stuff I had. You
had to like the thing is.
Speaker 4 (01:30:52):
Is that a New Yorker Philly? Because I need a
temporary storage spot. I'm I'm gonna tell you what I did.
Speaker 1 (01:30:59):
I'm gonna tell you what I I had to let
go to houses because again I'm I'm I'm a sentimental
pat wreck, and you know, in my mind, I'm thinking,
I'm gonna give these close to you know, to the
Smithsonian Museum, to Timothy Inn or something, you know, like
I saw my you got me closed in case.
Speaker 3 (01:31:22):
You know from the video. Yeah, it was a black
T shirt, wasn't it?
Speaker 4 (01:31:28):
What is it? Goals?
Speaker 1 (01:31:30):
It's like, you want to get back down to that size.
I want to get back that I was. Man, I
was like, yeah, you got me. I never want to
go back there. Yeah, Jesus Christ, he scared the ship out. No,
I'm just saying that.
Speaker 4 (01:31:49):
I got judging. There's a picture. You don't even say. Look,
there's some things that happened on this show. Put it away.
Speaker 3 (01:32:07):
We're in a mere studio, you guys, personal studio.
Speaker 1 (01:32:10):
We're in my phillips. This this person triggering. Yeah, not
only records, records and other stuff too. I'm just saying
that can I have this A track?
Speaker 4 (01:32:25):
Steve? Yes, it's yours, Steve.
Speaker 6 (01:32:28):
You can have my c T I A t PA
with another Freddy Hubberne.
Speaker 1 (01:32:34):
Take all the CD I A tracks. Shouldn't you be
here on the microphone Steve? Steve is like going through
my records right now?
Speaker 3 (01:32:40):
Wait, Jos, do you have homes for your albums as well?
Speaker 2 (01:32:45):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (01:32:46):
Can people? Are y'all really saying like a person live
in this place with your records?
Speaker 4 (01:32:50):
Is it just it's just for here's the deal. This
is a weird.
Speaker 1 (01:32:57):
Kind of name drop techy thing about you. But you
always got preface the tacky ship. Okay, so wait, can
I just deal John Trump yet?
Speaker 4 (01:33:10):
Come on man? Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:33:12):
Initially, when I first moved to New York, there was
there was a there was a chance that I was
going to acquire or at least couch crash the Destiny's
Child apartment that Beyonce had. I guess that was their
crash spot whenever they were I didn't have a house
where the one by Bloomingdale's. Uh, they have a lot
(01:33:36):
of property. There's a lot of their property, one of them.
Speaker 4 (01:33:43):
Wait, why did you know? I just feels poorer and poorer.
Speaker 2 (01:33:49):
I know this.
Speaker 1 (01:33:49):
Yeah, I used to work in the Nose Empire. That's right,
you did Music World. What damn, I'm interviewing you next
week on Quest. Anyway, My point was that she was
trying to make the decision on whether or not she
was gonna let me have the spot or not, because
she hasn't been in that apartment forever. But she realized
(01:34:14):
that a lot of her clothes were getting damaged in
the storage units that they had, so she.
Speaker 4 (01:34:20):
Decided that it's probably better off instead of.
Speaker 1 (01:34:23):
A month after month after month for storage unit, to
just buy a house and put your stuff in there
and care for it there. So the Destiny style apartment
now houses all of Beyonce's shoes that she's ever had
and doesn't wear any wow.
Speaker 4 (01:34:40):
Wow wow damn. Anyway, Yeah, so there's houses.
Speaker 1 (01:34:44):
So the spot that I have in Philly, I made
sure it was outside of Philly sort of, and that's
where my records and I also have like.
Speaker 4 (01:34:55):
Sixty one drum set. Jesus, it's like.
Speaker 3 (01:34:58):
A battle j I said. He has one hundred thousand records,
which you got.
Speaker 4 (01:35:02):
He has way more than that. I do not think
I've got that. You and Claude of Claude from Manto
Jazz Knobs. Yeah, you guys have the largest Where does
Craig Common fit in that? One hundred thousands a lot?
Though Craig doesn't count.
Speaker 7 (01:35:20):
You're counting forty five's in that.
Speaker 4 (01:35:24):
That is a record, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (01:35:25):
Yeah, I'm counting. I don't even count my forty fives.
I have a lot now, But you got one hundred
thousand physical pieces of I have one hundred thousand physical
pieces of vinyl. Probably have maybe one twenty now, okay,
But I mean as far as the forty like right now,
there's a lot of people down south that don't know
that forty five culture is coming back. So what I'm
(01:35:49):
running into is there's a lot of widows of say,
like one stop shop juke boxes.
Speaker 4 (01:35:55):
Juke Boxes used to be a thing in those liquor
houses and everything.
Speaker 1 (01:36:00):
So once people stop using juke boxes in their nightclubs
and their bars or whatever, especially down south, they had
to go somewhere.
Speaker 4 (01:36:09):
So you have a lot of widows or a lot
of daughters that have haired stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:36:12):
I don't know what to do with this stuff, all
these records, And so that's where Geene Brown comes in
and he'll just say, all right, I got a collection
of you want them, Okay, I'll take them, and then
I'll take them and they don't listen to them.
Speaker 4 (01:36:29):
Like right now, in that room, I.
Speaker 1 (01:36:31):
Have Levi Stubbs's record collections, and in it is just
a lot of white label motown stuff that will never
see the light of day. Like just so, there's a
lot that I haven't listened to. So yes, to get
back to the beginning ten percent, someone's going to all right,
(01:36:53):
Elia's judging me, But let me just tell you that
when you get in my field of business, you got
to get into something. So I rather this than cocaine
about saying yeah, really something. Yeah, you're going to get
into something. You're going to inject it, listen to it,
sniff it, taste it, or it's going to kill you.
Speaker 4 (01:37:16):
Like you gotta get into something.
Speaker 5 (01:37:17):
You have more physical records in your collection than I sold.
Speaker 1 (01:37:30):
We're getting ahead of our tradition. First of all, listening
John Speter worldwide.
Speaker 4 (01:37:38):
So before we end, Bill paid Bill, Yeah, what did
you learn to day man? Man?
Speaker 10 (01:37:44):
Taste makers? I like the idea of people being tastemakers.
I think he's right. I think you're a taste maker,
and I like the idea of people listen to you.
I strug off titles. Man, I know you don't like titles.
You don't like people talking about you.
Speaker 4 (01:37:56):
You're not good at that. But that's fine.
Speaker 10 (01:37:58):
This is all therapy here on this. I just like
the fact that the idea that people listen, and I
think that you have the platform to do that until
you open up people. But open up those minds that
that wouldn't necessarily listen.
Speaker 4 (01:38:11):
To the music. I'm gonna taste and trade of Joels.
I'm gonna taste test Steve. Besides my records you just stole.
What else would you learn today?
Speaker 6 (01:38:21):
Uh uh? I want to see Giles record collection, go
through the jazz section.
Speaker 4 (01:38:28):
He's going to steal all your CTI records.
Speaker 6 (01:38:29):
You take care of your stuff, like unlike others.
Speaker 4 (01:38:34):
Supposed to take care of this ship.
Speaker 3 (01:38:37):
In a year.
Speaker 4 (01:38:38):
More than that, like nine ship, I haven't been.
Speaker 1 (01:38:41):
In I've probably only been in this room maybe nine
times in the last seven years.
Speaker 6 (01:38:48):
Anyway, suld I have a job.
Speaker 4 (01:38:52):
Charles Peters, No, yeah.
Speaker 11 (01:38:55):
Sounds like sounds like you got a nice collection, I
would assume. But I also think thriller is better than
Off the Wall. God, Well it's not a fair question.
Off the Walls better. But but Thriller is not an.
Speaker 4 (01:39:09):
Album to me.
Speaker 6 (01:39:10):
Well, it's an album to me, it was an album.
It was nice to meet you though, really.
Speaker 5 (01:39:20):
Man, Yeah, it's good to finally meet jobs. We did
your show a little brother in forunate change really just show.
Like god, this is oh five six something and uh,
but I think you weren't there. I think you were
out sick or something. Something happened. I can't remember.
Speaker 4 (01:39:32):
But we taped it anyway, Yeah you did.
Speaker 5 (01:39:35):
No, No, it was you just tape your just taped
a live It was just a live in session joint
we did okay. But but nah, man, it's good to
finally reconnect, well to meet you finally in person, and
just you know, say thanks for the music that you've
brought forth and just continuing to shine a light on
those catstead of coming up. You know, we were certainly
one of the groups that benefited from you know, you
(01:39:55):
showing us love and everything, and yeah, just thank you
for all you've done.
Speaker 9 (01:39:58):
Man, built what did you learn to David? Pirate radio
stuff was quite interesting. I've always been very you know
intrigued by the whole concept. Like one of my favorite
movies is A Kid Was a Christian Body. It was
basically about a kid that had a pirate radio station
in his basement.
Speaker 6 (01:40:14):
So Phillips is good to check out that movie.
Speaker 4 (01:40:20):
To learn about you know, good to get some good insight.
Also a question that I wanted to ask, I just
add to good.
Speaker 9 (01:40:30):
As someone who has been like a lifelong fan of music,
I've in recent years I've had a very hard time
staying passionate about new music. How do you How are
you able to do it.
Speaker 4 (01:40:44):
Well?
Speaker 7 (01:40:44):
I think probably because it's my role two to get
people I don't know. I think the fact that I'm
sort of.
Speaker 4 (01:40:56):
On a mission probably more so than you are. You
have more of an audience. Certainly.
Speaker 7 (01:41:05):
I get a lot of pleasure out of seeing out
of seeing small acorns grow and seeing the journey of
the artists, From receiving a cassette tape by Jose James
of him doing versions of John Coltrane songs, to him
signing to BLUEO. Those things give me a lot of pleasure.
(01:41:27):
And and there's enough music for me to be to
be passionate about. I've never felt more passionate about music
of all sides in all countries. It's never been more worldwide.
Speaker 4 (01:41:38):
There's less. No, it's true, there's never been. There are less.
Speaker 9 (01:41:41):
Have there been any movements that you've just kind of
been very unsure about that that they took off anyway
and you just kind of had to play catch.
Speaker 4 (01:41:47):
Up or idiom No, No, not not really. Yeah, so
you're a better man.
Speaker 6 (01:41:55):
The name right, we knew that guy.
Speaker 4 (01:41:57):
Now you know what I learned to that?
Speaker 7 (01:42:01):
I learned the grave Washington j that comes from Philadelphia.
Speaker 6 (01:42:10):
That wow, the.
Speaker 3 (01:42:17):
First time.
Speaker 4 (01:42:19):
I'm taking this Washington.
Speaker 6 (01:42:23):
Washington Jr.
Speaker 4 (01:42:24):
No, I don't. I don't look like Washington, Okay? And
whytt net? Can you play? Can you play high draft
from that from the album? Yes we will, we don't
play it on the show. Let's play? Yeah, what did
you learn today?
Speaker 3 (01:42:37):
I learned a lot.
Speaker 2 (01:42:38):
I want to thank you first because when I was
sitting at my desk at RKO Discs for eight hours
and going to my commercial radio job hip hop and
R and B, I used you to learn my new
music because I didn't want my brain to be clouded
bout what I was about to do. So I want
to thank you for that, and I just learned your
journey and I always been a big fan, and I
think much like Bill, sometimes you fight with America. I
(01:42:59):
just take America different in their acceptance of music, especially
of soul music. So I'm just gonna open my mind
and damage some more jazz pewterising because there's always some
to find, you know.
Speaker 7 (01:43:07):
One of things that I love about America because I
love about playing here. When people go out in America,
they make the most of it. They make the most
of it, and I feel that sometimes in Europe people
are a little bit spoilt and they're a little bit.
Speaker 4 (01:43:26):
Here. Really, I do.
Speaker 7 (01:43:28):
When they go out, I honestly feel when you come out,
it's like when it's like Japan. People go out, if
they've paid their money to go into that club, they're
going to have a good time. In Europe they might
be hating quicker.
Speaker 2 (01:43:39):
Really, I think so, thanks Philly, Really, yeah, Philly's a
snooty town because they're used to so much dope town.
Speaker 4 (01:43:46):
Why.
Speaker 1 (01:43:46):
I just thought you guys were polite. So when they
weren't clapping, they weren't satisfied. We got to change ourselves.
Speaker 3 (01:43:55):
When they weren't clapping.
Speaker 1 (01:43:58):
Now, we're actually coming back. You'll you'll be happy to
hear this, Giles. Initially there was supposed to be a
Tribe Roots summer tour. Believe it or not. We want
to play two arena. We had four two arena dates setup,
but Tribe Tribe anyway, so what was this? This is
(01:44:23):
like this It was going to be the summer of
twenty seventeen. Wow, we had a three weeks with a
Tribe doing stadiums. But for the since we booked a
lot of other stuff with the Usher project that we're doing,
where we decided to instead of taking days off in London,
(01:44:46):
we are going to go back to the task Cafe wall.
Speaker 5 (01:44:49):
For seeing us a very small so jazz. Yeah, it's
going to be as big as this room. It's like
three hundred I mean if that and I'm to DJ
like I we just we just want to go back
to the scene in the crime.
Speaker 3 (01:45:05):
And you're gonna go back to South Street.
Speaker 4 (01:45:06):
I was gonna too.
Speaker 1 (01:45:10):
There's plans for that too anyway, So Giles, before now,
we normally don't ask the guests what did they learn
from themselves? But there is there is a game I
want to play. No, No, we're not playing that game. Okay, damn,
we should have played that game.
Speaker 4 (01:45:27):
We should have played that game. But what I want
to know is, if you were.
Speaker 1 (01:45:32):
In solitary confinement, I don't know what crime that you
would commit that would actually have you put away in
a room. Pirate radio Okay, yeah, let's say you finally
you get a judge over there. Well, you guys are
brexited anyway, so anything can happen over there. So if
you're in solitary confinement, realistically, let's say three years, so
(01:45:54):
that means no outside world for nine hundred plus days,
but you are allowed five albums to keep you seen.
So this isn't for the rest of your life, just
for three years.
Speaker 11 (01:46:07):
Like the Black version of Desert Island Discs, you're in
solitary confinement.
Speaker 2 (01:46:15):
We.
Speaker 4 (01:46:17):
Wind up in an exact island. We in jail anyway, So.
Speaker 7 (01:46:26):
What well, if I'm going to be there for that
for that long, I think I have thought about this
sort of question before, and I've thought that I don't
know if I could handle vocals. One of the beautiful
things about jazz and instrumental music is that you can
kind of go different places within it. So I think
that to hear Our Green or Smokey Robinson. It would
all Stevie Wonder and I think, I think, yeah, I
(01:46:50):
think that I'd go crazy. So I go probably more
avant gardes because that's where I think free jazz and
sort of in pro music will make the most sense
because it will always say different. You'll find something different
within it at most times.
Speaker 4 (01:47:04):
Interesting. You're my guy, I would see.
Speaker 1 (01:47:07):
I wouldn't choose my favorite records because it would drive
you crazy.
Speaker 4 (01:47:11):
After you hit them your twelve listen and after.
Speaker 9 (01:47:15):
The three years was up, every time you would listen
to it, you would automatically taken right.
Speaker 4 (01:47:18):
Yeah, you would think of it, so you would choose.
So what are those five records?
Speaker 7 (01:47:22):
Well, I'd probably go for the the History of Sun
Raw is it?
Speaker 4 (01:47:29):
Can it? Can it be one record? Or is it?
Speaker 7 (01:47:31):
Can it be it can be the greatest hits? It
can't be Okay, I mean, I'd probably go for a Well,
if there was one vocal record, I'd go with Terry
Callier's What Colors album with Charles Stepney strings. That's that's it.
(01:47:51):
That's that's a great record. I don't think I get
tired of that.
Speaker 4 (01:47:55):
I'd go for some.
Speaker 7 (01:47:58):
Which cold Trane, I mean, maybe it off supreme. Maybe
that would drive me mad. It probably will, actually, because
I've heard that too many times already.
Speaker 4 (01:48:09):
Wow, that's hard.
Speaker 7 (01:48:10):
Man do one each? I so I've done Terry and
then you do one? So wow, yeah, because that's not
so we all get one, all right?
Speaker 4 (01:48:19):
Yeah? Mine would be no one each, so we do five.
But you do want to do one?
Speaker 1 (01:48:24):
Well, well, if I were to take a Coultran record,
actually I would have chose Pharis Sanders Train of Thought
record or one of my favorite dealer records are on there,
which is escaping me right now. Ah, but there's a
(01:48:49):
Phara Sanders Train of Thought record I like. My favorite
culture in that I'd never tire of ever is Coultrane
plays the Blues, which is actually one of his more
normal straight ahead records, and have to complete it.
Speaker 4 (01:49:12):
See Miles's never TD record.
Speaker 1 (01:49:16):
To him that was his middle finger record to the
label Brass and him not taking solos on it, just
repeating the same line over and over again. But I
don't know, it's just the most hilarious comical jazz record ever,
even though it's absolutely a work of art, but just
the fact that he's that mad to repeat the same
(01:49:37):
line over and over and over and over again for
without soloing. I think that's a stroke of genius. So
I'd add three of those records.
Speaker 4 (01:49:49):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (01:49:52):
So you lost the game because y'all said, he do one,
you do one. But I want to tell you.
Speaker 4 (01:50:00):
You did three. You did for you once and left
you with one more. Pick the final record.
Speaker 7 (01:50:13):
Jol, let's give it to I want to go something new.
I think let's just give it to Camassi. And it's
three three years. That's a good one. I haven't yet
listened to it from beginning to end, so I've got
time to do that. As much as I love it,
it's epic, it's epic, it is epic.
Speaker 9 (01:50:32):
My last question, yes, as a man who owns a
ship ton of records, what's your holy grail that you
haven't been able to find.
Speaker 7 (01:50:40):
That I haven't been able to find? Actually, well, it's
little obscure ones. I got this record on eBay last week.
Actually I don't do eBay very much, but there's someone
said to me, there's this record I'm looking for. It's
from I think it's from Kansas, and it's a seven
inch by a group called Kalima and it's basically a
record that Elie A l I m A and there
(01:51:02):
was a group called Klima in Manchester, but this is
the different one. And this song I heard a DJ
called Motor City Drum Ensemble play on a mixtape a
couple of years ago, and it sounds like the ultimate
Royez ballad that Royers never wrote at his peak time
of when he was working with people like ethel Bt
and d D Bridgewater, that kind of yeah, searching type
(01:51:22):
of period. And it's by Google Khalima and I put
a bid in for it, and I've never gone very
very I've never gone more than two hundred quid two
hundred pounds sterling and and it unfortunately went for like
one thousand, five hundred.
Speaker 4 (01:51:37):
Dollars last minute, some bloke fine. I don't know. It
just really annoyed me because no one knows this record,
but two hundreds of most you've ever paid for.
Speaker 7 (01:51:44):
I've paid two thousand records for pounds for Brazilian records
by Jose prattis called called Tam Tam Tam, which is
a it's the it's the basis to George Ben's Mashkenada
record that we all Know and Love and every one
thought that that Georgia Ben wrote it, practice wrote it,
(01:52:05):
but but Georgia Ben got the benefit.
Speaker 4 (01:52:08):
Damn.
Speaker 6 (01:52:10):
I have a question, so boring? No I sound boring?
Speaker 4 (01:52:19):
Right? No?
Speaker 6 (01:52:22):
Do you have stone bowing the stone? The ct I?
It was a Japanese only it's like the hardest ct
I recordified.
Speaker 4 (01:52:29):
It's J. J.
Speaker 6 (01:52:30):
Johns.
Speaker 4 (01:52:30):
That's what he really wanted to ask you at the beginning.
That sounds amazing though.
Speaker 6 (01:52:34):
It's J. J. Johnson and Kai Winding. Uh you know,
Jane k Is there string.
Speaker 7 (01:52:39):
And stuff or was it quite straightforward recording?
Speaker 6 (01:52:42):
I don't know.
Speaker 11 (01:52:43):
It's from nineteen seventy. I don't can't hear it online?
Speaker 7 (01:52:47):
Ct Ire Taylor need to get him on here.
Speaker 6 (01:52:50):
Yeah, but he's like in his nineties there, so.
Speaker 4 (01:52:53):
Yeah, Mike, Yeah, wait, I have one request. This has
been the longest, you know, Chiles, I thank you very
much for coming on the show.
Speaker 1 (01:53:11):
All right, so on behalf of Quest Love Supreme with
Laya and Boss Bill and un Paid Bill and fon
Tickeolo and Sugar Steve and on Paid Bill, which I
said already, h this is Quest Love and Charles Peterson.
Speaker 4 (01:53:24):
We thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:53:26):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more
podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Of Course Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This
classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
What up, y'all is Liaiah and Welcome to another QLs classic.
This episode is all about a pioneering DJ and record
label owner named Giles Peterson. He talks about the politics
of early pirate radio, how he broke artists like Jamarkua,
Brand New.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Heavies, and even the Roots, and his passion for helping
the right music find the right audience. He is so dope.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
This episode was actually taped Brut's Picnic weekend June twenty
eighth and twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
This is episode thirty eight in June.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Supremo s s Supremo.
Speaker 5 (00:49):
Roll called Suprema, Su su Supremo, roll call Suprima su Supremo,
roll call Suprima.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
So sure I want y'all to know. Yeah, I'm being sincere.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Without Josh Peterson, Yeah, I would not be here.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
That was nice. Supremo.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
My name is Fante, Yeah, I say it proud. One
of my favorite labels was talking loud.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Supremo call Supremo.
Speaker 6 (01:31):
Sure, my name is Sugar. Yeah, I got that style,
I got that smile.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
What's up Giant Supremo. Yeah, y'all don't know me. Yeah.
We in Philly.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah, he.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Upremo role bass bell present.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
On this call of roll Yeah, quest Love Supreme Yeah,
will make you whole.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
Braver Rod Supreme Supremo Rome.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
It's like, yeah and I'm feeling right. Yeah, goddamn Jil Peterson. Yeah,
whoa whoa.
Speaker 5 (02:29):
Supreme Suprema Roll Supremo, Suprema Rome.
Speaker 7 (02:37):
My name is Chiles Gill Peterson. Yeah, but I come from.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Suprema Rome, Suprema So Supreme roudrem Son.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
So.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Dog biling.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Let's all admit that we didn't think that none of
our roll call moments were going to be hot, but
there was some bust.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Of rhymes stealing moments in this rob We have at
least three of them.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
First time smile whatever.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Course
Love Supreme, only on Pandora and our special guest today.
I have to say, uh, he exemplifies the role of
my favorite person in music, and that's the music that's
the taste maker. The taste maker would be the guy
(03:46):
that was in the know of what you didn't know
about music. And it would spread. Sort of like what's
what's a good term for virus?
Speaker 4 (03:56):
The virus?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (03:58):
Is there a positive virus outrection these medical terms because
they're like.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
They're like negative connotations, like it's influence spread like a
virus trend.
Speaker 5 (04:13):
Yeah, because they even use the term like viral now,
like viral marketing.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
So yesus Giles is my favorite virus virus virus of
all time.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
I have to say that if it weren't for Jiles
Peterson taking our organic CD and playing it in clubs
in London way before, you know, back when it was
just a demo that really started the buzz on on
the roots being here today and us wanting to move
(04:46):
to London and kind of bringing us to where we
are now. So uh, one of my favorite people ever,
literally this is Giles Peterson.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Last welcome. Thank you very much. Yeah, Giles, now you're
on my radio show. Yeah you know that you named
my show. Yeah, thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Well, thank you, well, thank thank you for oh god,
this is going to be a whole bunch of things.
So okay, so what I'll say is that, okay, as
of what makes this day really truly special even though
we're not specifically getting on dates and time period, but
as of this recording, this specific day that we're on.
(05:30):
This was the Saturday twenty five years ago that when
Tarika and I were watching Soul Train and saw that
Spike lead commercial of the Bucket Drummer Chocolate playing that
Levi's commercial.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
We looked at each other and like, Yo, why do
we do that?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
So today, as we speak is the twenty fifth anniversary
of the Roots as you know it. Not the oh
we formed in high school and did some talent shows,
but like when we got buckets, went to South Street
and us start busting, Yeah, and we were square Roots,
and you know, I'll say that in I guess I'll
(06:13):
say in twelve or thirteen weeks later, this is when
we started the process of recording the Organic's demo, which
then really material around material material virus materialized into a
CD so that we could go to Europe and sell
(06:35):
it on some festivals that we were invited to, and
somehow it made its way to Giles, who we were
told with play it in nightclubs, which was like really
weird for us because I thought the nightclub was the
last place that the Roots whatever wind.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Up dance session. I was thirteen minutes.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
No, I was like, see I played over here and
it clears the floor instantly. But you know, I mean
Giles's position. I'll say that he was my generation's John Peel.
John Peel was the cat in London who you know,
he took a chance on unknown groups. He lets you
(07:19):
know who this unknown name Elvis Costello was or or
who the clash was, and Steve frickd up Steve now
writes for Elvis Costello. So basically I mean that that
was the role. And then when we met, we we
thought that we were going to sign to Giles's parent label,
(07:41):
Talking Loud, Talking Loud. Well, we signed to Talking Loud,
but we were going to sign to PolyGram, and then
by a strange twist of fate, it became Geffen. But
we still maintained the relationship with Giles Peterson to release
our very first EP, like well widely distributed.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
EP, which was from the ground up on his label.
And you know we lived over there. So wait, what
I want.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
What I want to ask about is what you showed
us in London during that time, Perio that the roots
quote unquote exiled to London. Was there was such a
scene going on, and we basically took that scene and
reproduced it in America. We took everything that we saw
you do and did it over here. So the idea
(08:31):
of like clubs having multiple rooms of different DJs playing,
you know, the jam band on the top floor and
the disco floor was the third floor, and the you know,
the techno music was on the second floor, and the
soul music was on the first floor. Like, is that
still prevalent now in London as it once was? Is
(08:54):
this still a scene or you like the one of
the last Mohicans still holding up?
Speaker 7 (08:59):
I think bigger than ever? Really really yeah, in.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
A way, some people like it's not the scene anymore
as used. I think it's like, I think it's just
a bit more DIY.
Speaker 7 (09:08):
I think that sort of the superclubs came along and
people sort of sort to make something out of it
bigger and people reacted to that. And I think that nowadays,
if you go anywhere from Leeds to Manchester, Bristol, London
on a Saturday night, there's a lot of stuff going on,
a lot of big raves parties with alternative music being
played in different rooms. And also there's actually a return
(09:30):
to a live element which did go away for a
little while, and I think that certainly at the moment
in London and the South of England there's a very
strong live in pro jazz scene.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
We can come back home now, mate.
Speaker 7 (09:42):
Honestly, it's really it's very interesting at the moment, you know,
I think that maybe maybe it's more towards the jazz
side of things with what Camasi did and the fact
that that sort of energy has kind of come over.
And then from the UK point of view, a huge
set of musicians, groups like Sons of Kemet and groups
like you know, artists like New Baio, Moses Boy does.
(10:03):
A lot of musicians going on, and there's a really
good community which there hasn't been for a while. So
the club culture has always been there. That's really where
I come from. I'm sort of a DJ club culture,
acid house, acid jazz raves Germany, France, residencies all over
the place, playing this kind of slightly alternative view of
dance music because you know, when I grew up that
(10:25):
I'd go to I used to go when I was
seventeen sixteen, I'd go to sort of weekenders in horrible
holiday resorts which were empty in winter and four or
five thousand people would come from all over the country
to listen to groups like Roye's Come Over or the
Fat Back Band or or you know Clear or you
know artists like Leroy Burgess would come to the UK
(10:45):
and they would and we would celebrate that music and
they'd be and they'd be a main room and they'd
be playing sort of you know, all these big tunes
from summer madness by calling the gang to I found
Loving by the Fat Bat Band, and then there'd be
another room at the back where you'd be hearing DJ's.
I mean, that's the first time I heard John Coltrane
Impressions wasn't in a jazz club. It was basically in
(11:08):
the back of some sort of restaurant in some depleted
holiday resort near Norwich on the North Sea right, and
there's a DJ called Bob Jones playing Impressions or maybe
Giant Steps by John Coltrane at full volume, with twenty
people dancing to it, backling like like bee boys like
you know so that and when I saw that, I
(11:29):
was like, this is what I want.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
I love this music.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
I was going to say, didn't you once tell me
the fante that the the most the most daring thing
you ever saw was a DJ you'll played Return to
Forever in a nightclub.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
It was was it in London or it.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
Wasn't in London, It was in Chicago, and it was
a guy. It was Detroit guy, the Parish deal.
Speaker 6 (11:53):
Parish.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Okay, it's Perish because I was going to say that
the first time that I saw at Ceni, someone went
back and forth on like the first sixteen bars of
Love Supreme where they're really grooving, and that was one
of my open, my eye opening moments, like, oh, like anything,
(12:17):
if it's groovable, you can play it, because I would
never think like it has a groove, But I didn't
think it was danceable and I wasn't ever going to
try that take that risk here in the United States.
I mean we had like you know, King Britain and
Dazi and those guys had a little scene in Philadelphia.
But even then there was no place for me to
(12:39):
really test it out to see if it were work.
But once I started going to Iceni and all those
like those soul kitchen clubs over there, Yeah, and seeing
you guys do that, that was that's what told me, like, oh,
anything is playable if you play the right part and
if you.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Do it at the right time.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So for you, when you were observing anything and going
to these clubs, were you was this in the revival
stage or was it in the first round, like when
you were first going to clubs, Like how what year
was it.
Speaker 7 (13:13):
We're talking nineteen eighty, We're talking cameo, you know, so you.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Were in the first draft, not in the revival draft
of like eighty nine to ninety, because by that point.
Speaker 7 (13:25):
You eighty eighty one eighty two. I mean, there were
some British groups as well. There was a very interesting
jazz funk scene in the UK. So there was groups
like Light of the World, High Tension, Incognito. These are
the groups that kind of precursed groups like Loose Ends
and Soul to Soul, which came about seven or eight
years later. So there was a really strong Level forty two.
I was a huge Level forty two fan. I used
(13:45):
to go and see them everywhere. I used to love Marking,
who I met recently for the first time, the bass
player and uh yeah, wonderful guy, wonderful and what underrated vocal,
underrated voice, And I used to love that. So for me,
there was the kind of one hand, there was this
sort of fan of the band thing, and I'd go
around like you know, you follow your favorite band. It
was also a time of punk as well. It was
(14:07):
just post punk, you know, so there was that thing
where you kind of were you a punk or were
you a soul boy? And I'd had to make my
decision about what I wore and how I dressed. I
was one of only three soul boys in my school
the rest of the people and like being an outcast,
outcast for real.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
The only reason I was only for black people and
that yeah, it was.
Speaker 7 (14:26):
Kind of all working class in a London people, you know,
like the urban urban people would be into it. And
so for me, I had an Indian friend at school
and a black African friend at school.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
We were the three soul boys.
Speaker 7 (14:38):
And the only reason I didn't get beaten up was
because I was in the rugby team and by being
a sporting guy in the school, it kind of gave
me certain status and swagger.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
So who was when you were listening to radio? And
I know that pirate radio, yeah, was a big thing.
When did the idea of pirate radios start in London?
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Well? Was that always a thing, like even in.
Speaker 7 (15:11):
The fifties and no in the in the sixties, it
came from the boats, so they used to and it
was on medium wave. A movie about a movie about it, yeah,
And that was basically they'd go out and they'd sort
of go in neutral waters in the North Sea where
they wouldn't get busted, and they'd broadcast on medium wave
and they basically that was what Radio Luxembourg was and
that radio station kind of gave the birth.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
Was the reaction to that by the BBC was to
set up.
Speaker 7 (15:34):
Radio one and that was how Radio one became a
non sort of talk station because up until that point
the BBC was controlling radio and it was very classical opera,
old school you know.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Open I was about to ask you is to rest
your radio different over there than here because by now
you know differences the commercial.
Speaker 7 (15:50):
Radio, well, FM radio started kicking off in the seventies
because all these radio stations in the beginning were like
on medium wave, and that's where the pirate stations that
really interested me, they were on FM. There was only
a few stations locally, so like he'll have I don't
know maybe in Philly, how many would there be twenty.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Well like urban sta like we have BR and B
and hip hop stater.
Speaker 7 (16:07):
So let's say we have two, okay, but if you
include all the other types of denominations like twenty stations.
So in London they'd have been back in the seventies,
there'd have been maybe two commercial radio stations on FM
and so maybe three with BBC we're playing a little bit.
Maybe we'd be sort of doubling up on FM and
on medium wave. The point was there was a need
(16:27):
for music to be heard and so they weren't giving
licenses out. So these people at a time when CB
radio was quite popular, remember that that was kind of
it was illegal in the UKCB radio wasn't over here
because of your long distance lorry drivers, but over there
is the illegal and you'd get You see, if you
knew a bloker could build you a CB rig, they
could also build you an FM rig. And so what
(16:48):
happened was we started finding out that these guys could
build us FM transmitters and then the station started popping
up in the seventies, of which there was one soul
jazz funk station called Radio and Victim ninety two point four.
They used to broadcast every Sunday from midday until six.
Is that where two seven nine started or DJ's seven nine. No, No,
(17:09):
this is way before that. Okay, this is way before that.
And that was the first station that I would listen to.
I would listen to it in the in the bathroom
of my house because that was the only place in
the house that I could pick up the signal. And
sometimes it would go on, and suddenly at fourth thirt
in the afternoon, it would get busted and it would
be off, and it would be off for two weeks,
and you'd be waiting every week for it to come
back on because it was the only place you could
hear jazz funk music. The other place was there was
(17:30):
a disco show on a Friday night called the Best
Disco in Town, presented by Greg Edwards Life from the Lyceum.
And then the other show was on a Saturday afternoon
from midday to two presented by Robbie Vincent who did
a probe. And the section that I loved from his
show was the jazz Funk forty and he used to
play Japanese jazz funk records and he'd play things like
you know, open and Fire, but That's when I thought
(17:55):
the first time I ever heard the Jones Girls Nights
over Egypt was on Robbie Vincent and it was Christmas whatever,
nineteen eighty two or three, whatever that were you. I'll
never forget it. And he played it twice on the
same show. It was that good a gun and I'll
never forget. In fact, when I played at the Roots
Picnic the other day when I was over here, I
played that track as a memory to him, the connection
(18:16):
between Philly and my pirate radio routes. But anyway, basically
at that time it was just literally FM radio stations,
of which some were pirates, and you would get busted
every every couple of weeks.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
So two questions, how much would it cost you to
start a pirate radio station? Well, I started my own
pirate radio station. Oh, I was just that. The was
that easy.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Need a boat?
Speaker 7 (18:40):
No, no, this is FM, because by then it's FM.
Sorry I didn't explain that. So but in the when
it was mediumwave, it was on a boat. And then
in the seventies, all you needed was you needed an
aerial a transmitter, a car battery, a cassette player and
a high point. Right and if you were if you
were smart in London, you had the keys. There was
four keys that opened up every council for block right
(19:01):
every like block in London, right for you cheap accommodation
block in London. So any high spot, if you had
those four keys, you could get on every rooftop.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
So I had the four keys, really right the key.
I had the keys.
Speaker 7 (19:16):
So that's how I got to know London. That's how
I got to know London because I started off by
I finally got my show myself because I sat at
my little pirate station.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Cost me with fifty pounds to get a rig.
Speaker 7 (19:26):
My dad used to take me up the road to
episode where they have the horse racing, which is a
high point in South London, and he basically helped me
put the aerial up on a tree, connect the aerial
to the transmitter, transmitter to the car battery, car battery
and transmitter also to a cassette player that would play
a C ninety and the forty five minutes a Saturday
was my show which I recorded in my garden shed
(19:47):
and I wanted to be a guy called Robbi Vincent
who I mentioned before. And the other forty five was
my next door neighbor called Ross Tinsley but otherwise known
as Ross Travone. That was his radio name, and he
wanted to be John Peel. And basically that was the
hour and a half that we'd broadcast from a tree
and then we'd leave a phone number on the cassette
of the recording, which was the phone box by the tree,
and so we'd go we'd press play go off in
(20:08):
the phone box, all three of us with my dad,
and and then.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
We'd and we'd get one phone call. That was the request.
One phone but that was enough. That was enough to
carry a pre record your show. But yeah, and they
go to the Okay, did our priority pre recorder shows?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Well?
Speaker 7 (20:24):
No, then if unless you're on Radio and Victor, because
Radiar and Victor was one of the well known ones
and the only sole station, the one that inspired me
to get my rig. And they got busted one week
by the home office.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Now that was my second question, how do you get busted?
Speaker 7 (20:37):
Well, they used to go around with a little team
of guys with special equipment and they'd literally find the studio,
they'd find the aerial and they'd come up there, you know,
and they sort of you know, imagine sort of you
know sixties looking policeman, you know, working for the DTI.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
The you know, the the.
Speaker 7 (20:52):
Government was the punishment. You'd get what you get, you
get fined, and no one got a cent to prison.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
See you next week.
Speaker 7 (20:59):
Yeah, it was a small but you know, they didn't
have a lot of budget for the DTI for this
particular sort of department. So there's only one guy who's
called Eric. Eric Gotts was the main guy because he
got he became legendary. This is the guy who busted
all the station, especially as pirate radio became bigger and bigger.
Because this is kind of the early day of the
late seventies. It was still quite naive and sweet and lovely.
(21:20):
But then by the mid eighties it started becoming a
little bit cleverer, and people started becoming twenty four hours,
and advertisers started coming into it, and then you were
more likely to get busted by another pirate than by Eric,
because of.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
Course they wanted. That's when I got out of the game,
right because it got to carry stuff.
Speaker 7 (21:41):
Yeah, it got a little bit dangerous at that point,
but it was quite an interesting time and very exciting
time for me. But initially I got onto radio and
Victor because they got busted and they and the guy
built my equipment built their equipment. So I said to
my guy, they can have my equipment as long as
they give me a show. And they said, we'll give
you a show, but first of all, you go spend
the next six months putting airs.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Up for us.
Speaker 7 (22:02):
So that's how I kind of went up the pirate
radio status list.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
And you know that was not.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
So compared to what we have now in the United States, Yeah,
which is total corporate radio. And I mean even being
or Pandora, it's kind of my version of the middle
finger of pirate radio thing where we get to determine
the type of music we want to play in the
guests we have. You know, since nineteen ninety seven, business
(22:34):
corporations have totally taken over.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Radio.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
But I look at how London is operated and now
you're legit, you're or BBC a government station? Is it
still half a dozen six eggs and half a dozen
and the other.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
Like to you? What is I know? I totally yeah,
we need cliche for cliche busters. Well what I'm saying
is for government radio.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Like I look at you guys over the pond and
I'm like, well, government control radio is better because you know,
it's required that you play a variety of things. You know,
the idea of one artist getting uh forty spends a
day like corporate radio, Uh, it doesn't exist.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Everyone gets their fair share. But look at that. But
then if you get our government, you really kind of
negates everything. So said.
Speaker 7 (23:45):
Like do you that's the bucy of the BBC in
a way, And and and the fact that the BBC
is always having to struggle to be a kind of
neutral yet creative body at a time when they have
to give equal.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
Fairness to commercial stations.
Speaker 7 (24:02):
So the beautiful thing about about the UK, I think
in terms of broadcasting and the BBC is that you know,
you can get the RT left field, really creative, weird
shit on the BBC, but the BBC also has its
kind of commercial end so because it knows it has
to compete with the commercial stations. I don't know if
I'm making myself particularly clear, but that balance between the
(24:26):
BBC maintaining a presence yet also constantly being progressive with
the art of radio, and for me one of the
people that was an incredible inspiration to me. As you
mentioned earlier. On of course, was John Peel. And John
Peele changed the way radio was because he was on
the BBC, and up until that point it was still
(24:46):
very old fashioned guys on the radio broadcasting in that
kind of way that you could imagine, you know, you
had to wear a suit, Winston Churchill, kind.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
Of the war type stuff.
Speaker 7 (24:54):
And up until then it was still you know, even
up until the Beatles, it was still kind of very conservative.
But when John Peel came along, because there's been a
few people before him, and some pirates and stuff on
the on the boat stations, but basically John Peel was
he broke He changed the rules of broadcasting and he said,
you can play you know, television, this new group from
New York next to Slide the Family Stone, next to
(25:17):
a punk record that someone just sent me.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 7 (25:20):
He basically and the way he presented radio. He basically said,
you don't have to do it that way. You can
do it a different way. And he had a huge
influence which made which remains an important part of why
the BBC has a certain standard that he that he
said needs to be kept up.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Did commercial radio take he because I know you said
in the beginning it was only four, you know, But
now present day have they taken he from the BBC?
Speaker 3 (25:45):
And what is it like now? Like is there a
few soul stations on the commercial radio.
Speaker 7 (25:49):
Size dance stations, okay, And if you want to go
more specialist, really specialist, I mean there's you know, there's
the jazz station that's quite conservative, straight up not bad,
you know, but I mean there's nothing if you want
any think edgy, anything that really the kids are into.
The commercial station is never going to be able to
react to trend fast enough. So that's why the pirates
are always coming along, because there's always going to be
(26:09):
a new type of music or culture to represent because
the main the mainstream stations try and keep up.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
You know.
Speaker 7 (26:17):
I mean, the BBC has its own R and B
network called One Extra. I'm on a station called BBC
six Music, which is kind of for the over thirty
year olds, which.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
Is kind of cool in a way.
Speaker 7 (26:28):
Yeah, But in a way I was quite likely to
be to find myself on there because it's a cross
between sort of what I'm about and what someone like
John Peel's about, so they kind of it's quite a progressive, experimental,
interesting music, experimental it's.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
Just like it's the most out there. It's where you
could hear.
Speaker 7 (26:46):
The roots records being played every day, you know, more
likely than on a pop station or in a commercial station.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
So for you, is it more important to be the
first to bring you Kenchick Lamar, the first to bring
you a new singer from America Lauren Hill? Or is
it like, what are your goals because of that? Well,
I know, I got I can't like I.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
Want you exclusives come in, I know. But a guy
like Fresh of the Week, Fresh of the Week, what
their funk master Flex? Oh?
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Now, I know Westwood has his sets on being the
funk Master Flex, which.
Speaker 7 (27:31):
Is nostalgia though put people like Westwood of no style
nostalgia I know in the now.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Well that's crazy, you know, let's see, that's weird because
the Westward I'm referring to was the nineteen ninety six,
ninety seven. Okay, I know I'm hearing myself speaking known
that's twenty years ago. But back then he was the
you know, playing the news, the today hip hop, the
street hip hop, and kinda taking a different stance on
(28:02):
underground or stuff that he would deem too old school,
even though he came up in that era. But my
whole point was that I saw him more as a
fump master flex guy who you know, where he's the celebrity.
He you know, it's about him, Whereas I see you
(28:23):
as wanting to still be a taste maker and put
people onto stuff that they don't know about, Like you know,
I think when you first played a I think I
heard you on the air when you first introduced UFO
on on, you know, when they first debuted like this
is back in late night Japanese. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And
(28:46):
so it's like to me, I feel that I'm asking
do you feel better as a taste maker or do
you feel you'll get more done if you were the
celebrity DJ.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
It's interesting.
Speaker 7 (28:58):
It's a bit of a combination of elements in a way.
I mean, my role is to on one hand, fundamentally
excite myself. You know, I don't really care about my
audience in that sense. I mean in the sense that
I do care about it, prepare for a fifteen, but
(29:25):
if it feels right, do it.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
You know.
Speaker 7 (29:27):
The thing is for me is it's it's always interesting
because I think that people get off on your energy,
and your energy is your authentic feeling, and as a broadcaster,
I buzz on new music. I buzz on discovering old
music that I've never heard before where there's an incredible story.
(29:48):
I buzz on playing some classics because I like a
bit of nostalgia. But fundamentally it's that mixture of all
those elements with entertainment as part of it. So someone
like Westwood, incredible broadcaster, changed the generation. People grew up
on him and his radio show, and he brought a
certain esthetic of hip hop to a UK audience, and
(30:09):
he did it incredibly well. On the other hand, you
could say, well, where's your legacy, what did you break?
What did you do for UK hip hop? Why were
you so influenced by American music? Why has it taken
twenty years for grime to finally come through and for
UK hip hop fundamentally to actually finally have its name
out there and to be doing something because friendship hop
was way ahead, different language.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
I mean, as you know, you know, it took a
long time, so I think there.
Speaker 7 (30:34):
Was certain powers that held it back, and I think
that's a shame and my viewpoint as somebody who's also
been very much part of the music industry, as you know,
because we worked together and all that sort of stuff.
I feel that, you know, Britain has a lot to
shout about. Musically, the UK is a unique place, you know,
from going back to the Rolling Stones and led Zeppelin,
(30:56):
through punk music, through all the different elements of dance music,
from step to drum and bass to broken beat, and
I think that it's this unique mixture of people and
the club culture that make sure the music is constantly
reinventing itself and there's always something new coming up. And
(31:17):
that's why for me being on the radio, it's easy.
You know, it's easy because at the end of the
day there'll be there'll be a James Blakey'll be you know,
James Blake will come along, or a Mount Kimby or
come along.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
There'll always be something happening.
Speaker 7 (31:27):
You're not you know, there's never a time when you're
like going, oh God, there's not been anything interesting for
two or three years. So for me as a taste maker,
that makes it easy for me to be a taste
maker because there's so much great stuff to be able
to shout about.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
So do you feel okay?
Speaker 1 (31:46):
I'm thinking of like Benji, like, who do you feel
if you were to start right now, and I don't
mean morbidly like death or whatever, if you just said
I've had enough, I've done it, my work is done.
How many does rifles of yours? Do you fully trust
will carry on the tradition that you have and in
(32:07):
spreading Tomorrow's music, supporting Britain scene, keeping us educated on
the past, because you've got to do like three to
four different things to keep the train running. Do you
feel as though there are enough people that have the
education and the will and the drive to be the
(32:31):
person that that meets you at the gate, the greet
the taste maker, Like, I think there's they're all my
children in the UK for sure, in the sense that you.
Speaker 5 (32:40):
Know Digs, I listened to him. He reminds me a
loud of you in La Yeah, yeah, yeah, No.
Speaker 7 (32:46):
I mean I think Solection do some really great stuff.
I think Deviation do really great stuff. I think boiler Room,
you know again, the guy who sat out Boilerroom, Tristian,
he was working with me, you know, for eight years,
and then he was like, oh, I'm going to go
and film us doing a gig down the road in Dawston.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
And that was boiler Room.
Speaker 7 (33:02):
I think NTS another really interesting digital radio station. Again
it was very much so if you ask me who's
coming through, there's a whole load of people with that
certain attitude where on one hand they'll be playing an
Omar Sulliman record or some abstract sort of record from
the Congo released on Analog Africa, and on the other
hand they're going to be releasing playing some sort of
(33:22):
you know, crazy Mickey Miller, you know which I heard
you chatting about last week. So that that way of
approach to music I think is really normal now. I
think that when there was a time when you played
of this music in a mix, it was a little
bit abnormal. Today it's almost expected. If you look at
(33:43):
even you know, you read Pitchfork or or Resonant Advisor,
all these really important influential websites and new school writers
of the culture. It's about the eclecticism, you know, it's
about having Rufus Harley on a roots record. I mean,
you were doing this years ago, you know, and throwing
it all together. And for me, my big thing now
(34:05):
at the age of fifty two, is it's about heritage
and it's about the people that really took us here,
it's about Philip Coran in Chicago. It's about Sun Rah,
It's about Jimmy Merritt here in Philadelphia, the bass player
who wrote Nomo and played with Max Roach. For me,
it's about putting a light on these people, because without
(34:26):
those guys, we wouldn't be here. And they put in
so much work and some of them are still alive,
you know, and of course people like Royez still around.
I mean, my god, those guys, they did so many
gigs and we're kind of I don't know, for me personally,
it's kind of like it's payback time to those guys,
(34:47):
and we've got to make sure that we use the
power that we have and the means of influence that
we have to shine a light on those people. Three
people that I met when I was twenty two years old.
I've just been picked up by to London because I
was a young guy and I was playing jazz records
in clubs and I met three people in the space
of one week or two weeks, Wayne Shorter, Jalal from
(35:08):
The Last Poets, and the jazz singer mart Murphy, and
those three guys in the space of two weeks. They
taught a young boy from South London who didn't know
much about American culture. They taught me about the different
elements of music within jazz, whether it was spirituality, whether
it was more of a bohemian attitude, whether it was
the civil rights. I got lessons from these three people
(35:31):
in a very early at a very early age, and
that had a huge impact on me. And I want
to be able to do the same thing for another
generation of people, to bring them closer to the roots
of the music and away from the superficiality of big
commercial corporations.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
Do you remember the first record you ever brought, the
very first record you purchased.
Speaker 7 (35:55):
I purchased, Yeah, I remember picking up a record cards.
I remember buying Blondie d Knee by Blondie.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
I love that.
Speaker 7 (36:06):
That was Electric Light Orchestra, mister Blue Sky. I was
a bit prog rocky at around twelve thirteen, you know,
Caravan in the Land of Graham Pink, brilliant record, first
sort of record I bought. I mean, I was very
thankful for my library in London where I lived in Sutton.
(36:26):
They just had a new library and that's where you
could sort of take home records. I don't know if
they did that here in the States where you could
borrow records. You still do that for those Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
Myself. That was sorry, that was a good place anyway.
Speaker 7 (36:42):
So that's where I kind of heard a lot of
you know, I bought Herbie Hancock, you know, really important
records to me. Actually, Herbie Hancock Mister Hands nineteen eighteen,
huge record, huge record.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Way. So wait, who was I mean?
Speaker 1 (37:04):
I know, I say, if John Peel, and I'm using
American sports terms, you know, for every Michael Jordan, there's Piven.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Oh yeah, there's.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Definitely ten or fifteen unsung heroes that will never get
their props that were just as important or vital to
the movement. But I mean, who was your John Peel
when you were coming up, Like, who's the person that
truly introduced.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
You to music?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Was it a school friend or whatever? Who started your
obsession with collecting records? Yeah, because you have, Like, what's
your collection up to now? I don't I don't count
you stop counting. It's three houses, yeah, yeah, oh.
Speaker 7 (37:49):
Three properties. Yeah yeah, I keep getting pushed out by
my wife, but yeah, no, for me, it was uh,
it was my friend Andrew Crossley's sister fourteen years old.
I went to his house and she had a copy
of Mays Live in New Orleans. She had a copy
of Bobby called Well What You Won't Do For Love?
(38:10):
The album That's when when I first heart left, when
the fire. All in all, I think it was around
then that I'd hear Brazilian rhyme and fantasy, all those songs.
I mean that blew my mind. I hadn't heard that
on the RATO in the UK. The most amazing music ever.
Mays was big for me. I remember going to see
Mays all the time. They used to come to London
play at the Hammersmith Odio. Yeah, who would come to
(38:30):
Who from the States would come? The bands when you
were when you were I never forget seeing Cameo. Cameo
disappointingly because they were doing their rock thing at the time,
and I really wanted them to do this sort of
slat bass thing at that time.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
But still, I mean, yeah, they were all coming.
Speaker 7 (38:45):
A lot of those groups were coming, and you know,
a lot of the jazz funk bands, you know, people
like Lonely Listen Smith would come, you know, this sort
of slightly offbeat less. There was a motown scene for
the more traditional stuff. That wasn't really what I was into.
I was more into the jazz funk thing.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
You weren't into the North. What do you explained to
me Northern soul? Gosh, Northern Soul is okay, well, I
mean they like they break, they break, yeah, tune.
Speaker 7 (39:11):
Wise, I mean it's really sort of The UK was
very into motown and soul. You know, all of that
Marvin Gaye, Smoky Robinson, the sixties stuff that was big,
and that was big, and that was that got playing
the way down there were clubs and you know, there
was there was the stuff going on and they come
over to the UK. The DJ club scene started happening
(39:32):
in the sixties and seventies in the North as well
as it was in the South, but in the North
of England they basically had a slightly different taste and
they didn't want to play the obvious Motown records, so
they went and found the records that sounded like Motown
records but were hard to find. And that's really what
Northern soul was. And it's a certain tempo, it's quite
high tempo. There's some amazing songs. It's basically, you know,
(39:56):
it's it's Discog's forty years go. You know, they were
pulling out the rarest local songs. They there's guys who'd
come and they'd realize that the music from America was local,
you know. So there's there were the major labels that
would release all the big records, but if you went
to Saint Louis, or you went to Dallas, or and
you just went to the local record shops, they'd hear
(40:18):
local music where there was mightbe a thousand copies ever
pressed just for the local market. And that's really what
Northern Soul kind of was. It was about going in
like New Mirror Group for example, labels like that. It's
just going in that much deeper. And some of the music,
of course, there's so much music. That's the other thing
that just to answer you from earlier on about what
drives me how much music is that? I thought ten
(40:40):
years ago, I was like, yeah, I've got most of it.
Speaker 4 (40:45):
Even now as you speak, there is stuff that you
still I'm spending people.
Speaker 7 (40:50):
To make much music on records at the moment, not
because I'm earning more, you know, but because I'm just
I'm excited, and there's so many more record shops and
really great experts. Now you can go anywhere in the
world and you'll find a place which is where there's
going to be someone who's going to invite you to
their house. Maybe it's not in a shop anymore now
(41:11):
it's a more bespoke record dealer that exists right.
Speaker 4 (41:14):
Where you go to the crib. And yeah, there's a
lot of those cats.
Speaker 7 (41:18):
But they're good man, because they do all the work
for you. I mean, I don't have me coming like well,
I know they're overcharging me for some you know, you've
got to accept that it's going to be twenty five
percent over for you. But you will get some good stories.
And those guys for their role as as great bespoke
records sort of finders, they if they're really good at
their job, they'll tell you the story. For example, recently
(41:39):
there's a guy called Victor Kiswell in Paris. I think
you might well have been to his house and he
gave me a record the other day and it was
in Russian, right, And it was all in Russian, and
it was from the Ukraine from the seventies, and it
was a Ukrainian big band version of a Fella Kootie
song right right, Shakara right right exactly, and.
Speaker 4 (41:59):
You out.
Speaker 7 (42:03):
Right and uh and and he had gone to the
to the point of translating Russian to find out more
about the record than you realized.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
It was fella cootie and stuff.
Speaker 7 (42:13):
And then he kind of listened to the track and
halfway through this little riff that comes in and it's
Raka by Ukrainian big band in the mid seventies. Wow,
that's what we want. Wow, that's what we need. That's
what you need. That's your food, that's your foods.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
It is it is. See yo right in this room.
Speaker 6 (42:32):
Used to that guy used to come up here. Yeah,
he was like yeah, he was like a fucking drug deal.
Speaker 8 (42:38):
He sent me down. Let this dude in the front
door go down there. I'm like a Mirea's gonna buy
some drugs talking about Jean Brown. So you would come
up here and go back there and whispering. Guys are
showing them all different kinds, like if you had different
kinds of weed. You know, these records from here. This
one's twenty five, this one's thirty.
Speaker 4 (42:58):
I'll take it.
Speaker 6 (42:58):
I'll take you real.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
The best thing is they do the records and the drugs.
Now to this day, Jean Brown is my professional shopper.
Speaker 4 (43:10):
See that.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Okay, that's the thing. It's like, I still feel like
you're actively getting your hands dirty. You're using elbow grease
to search for the song that you don't got. You
still actively dig. Like I almost feel even as I'm
asking you about the comparisons between a Westwood and Appeal,
(43:31):
I almost feel like I have to make myself personally
a corporation or a Westwood so that I can have
peel moments, like in order for this show to even happen,
Like I have to be quest love, like I have
to have a corporate day job life. That's the total
(43:53):
opposite of not what I stand for. But it's just like,
you know, twenty five years ago, do you think I
would be like.
Speaker 4 (44:02):
On late night? Yeah, on late night.
Speaker 5 (44:04):
If I's you went from busking on the corners at
late night, that's pretty bad.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
I mean, that's that's my point.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Like I feel I almost have to robin Hood my
way to keep culture alive. I mean, if I really
had the monetary, rolling in the money, rolling into to
do even bigger things quote for the culture, I mean
I would, but it's.
Speaker 4 (44:29):
Like slow coming. But it's it's like I feel that
you still.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
You know, you'll you'll you'll dig on websites and look
up playlists like how active are you still? I mean
there's a point where before Boss Bill was my ears,
like he would search for records for me and meds
because there's not enough hours.
Speaker 7 (44:50):
In there, you know, for you your drummer, So your
chops is like you know, you're playing, you're practicing.
Speaker 4 (44:55):
You're a musician, right, you're going out the right.
Speaker 7 (44:58):
I'm a DJ, but I'm ninety and other things too.
So that's that's your prime your your prime role and
and and I mean, you just got to do your
thing the way you do. You do such an amazing
job of bringing culture to people to a new generation.
I mean, you're the Quincy Jones of this generation.
Speaker 4 (45:19):
Don't say that the way you are because I think
that you're the you are, because I think you probably
have a comfortable role index so many ways. You got
to do your back on the black Man. You got
to do that. Saying that is super snarky.
Speaker 3 (45:37):
You got.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
No I you know, I think at the end of
the day, people listen to you.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
At the end of the day, I saw what you
did in London and said by any means which even
the roots picnic is still an extension of like those
places that we used to play in a h.
Speaker 4 (46:08):
Outside of London Brighton right. Thank you for saying that
to me. That's that's the important thing.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Like I don't know why I think that way either,
like okay, instead of like living the moment, I'm trying
to think of what mark I can leave here when
I die.
Speaker 4 (46:30):
So besides Djan, I mean, you developed.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Probably one of the most important dance labels ever, which
was Talking Loud. Could you talk about your like, when
did you develop it and what means you want to Well?
Speaker 7 (46:48):
I first started off as a pirate DJ in a
club DJ from the age of seventeen eighteen by doing
compilation albums. So my first thing was like the mixtape,
but I used to do license tracks and compile them.
So the first series I did was Jazz Juice, and
I think I am the world record holder of compilation
official compilation You were Silver. So I always wanted to
be like close to our Blake keeper from a DJ
(47:09):
point of view and releases, so I managed to do that,
and then I set up a pirate a pirate station.
I stayed upper my first record label, which was label
called Acid Jazz, and that label was Brand New Heavies, Galliano,
Jamiroquai and all of that stuff, whoever they are. Yeah,
that was that was the beginning then. But who got
to remember at that time everyone used to go work.
(47:29):
You know, it was like it wasn't you know, there
was no scene. There was no business really, I mean
there was a scene, but there was no way of
monetizing it. And this music was super underground and you know,
you'd sell a few hundred, couple of thousand records, so
all the artists were basically, you know, going to work
during the week and you know, as you were doing
the other days of the roots and.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
You see him at JK of Jamiquire once had a
d job. No, he never had a day job.
Speaker 7 (47:56):
But all the Brand New Heavies did, you know, and
all of Galliano did, and those early groups. And from
my point of view where I was at being the
champion of this new scene going on in the UK,
I got I knew that I needed to take it
to another level and I couldn't do it independently. So
I got an offer from Funogram Records, which was PolyGram
which is now universal, and they said to me, Charles,
(48:16):
why don't you do this little thing that you're doing
with acid jazz and do it for us. So that's
when I said I'm Talking Loud. Because at that time,
there were no bootique record labels. You know, I didn't
have anybody to go, oh, yeah, let's do you know,
what did you do? What kind of deal did you do?
So I ended up just being brought in by them
as an A and R guy with my own label.
And that's why I set up Talking Out because I
knew that Talking Loud needed to happen to break the bands,
(48:38):
to be able to break the movement, so I needed
a major label. So that's when I set up Talking Loud.
And so the beginning of talking about it was groups
like Incognito and Galiano and Omar and the Young Disciples,
which is the best record I think we ever put out.
I put out, anyway, a very underrated soul hip hop
record which had Master Race on it. It had Johnny
Light all the Vibes player on it. And then that
(49:01):
was that time, and that was the sort of period
of louse of salt to soul and that kind of
London sound happening. But I wanted Talking Out to be
more than just a soul, funk, acid azz label. I
wanted it to represent UK club culture and all the
elements directions was going in, from the massive attack to
what became the drum and bass, and all those groups
(49:22):
of people like four Hero, people like Ronnie Size represent
They were natural artists to come through the label. Carl Craig,
we did him, who was off s course, the Detroit Sad.
The best record I think I put out apart from
your EP, was the new Reconsult Records with and that
(49:43):
was a full on A and R experience because they'd
released a little twelve inch called the Nervous Track on
Nervous Records, and I was playing that at Baumba my
Monday night session, and they heard about it, and I
was a fan of Louis and Kenny and I said
to the guys, I called him up, I says this,
and guys, you know, this is a really big record
for me. Because the house hit kids weren't by playing
that record because they were house producers, but they weren't
(50:03):
on it because it was a little bit offbeat. But
it was perfect for people like me. So I then
said to Louis, let's let's develop this into an album project.
So that's when the new Reconsole thing happened. And now
and then it just opened up because Louie's got his
his nephews, it's uncle's Hector Lavo, so the whole of
Latin music was was in it. Then Kenny had the
(50:24):
connections with Jazzy Jeff and roy Es, and then we
had George Benson on it, and then Tito he turned up.
That was the best ever launched album launched Supper Club
New Reconsole by.
Speaker 4 (50:35):
They were all there. The pictures from the inside game from.
Speaker 7 (50:39):
A very bad quality day of it, which is up
on such a shame because it's like that they were
all the La India.
Speaker 4 (50:46):
They were all there. So that was my official most
fantastic kind of experience.
Speaker 5 (50:52):
The turn back the term about the song but in
Needlember is it about that club?
Speaker 7 (50:59):
Yes come the nation of a tribute to Luis Essa,
who's the Brazilian composer who wrote a song called Baromba
and bar Rumba because Blue used to come down every Monday,
remember so, and I introduced him to the music of
the Tamba Trio for whom luis Essa wrote, So that
was kind.
Speaker 4 (51:16):
Of a very nice you know that.
Speaker 9 (51:20):
You know.
Speaker 7 (51:21):
The maddest thing for me was when because when I
ran Talking Ad Records, of course it was a UK
and European thing, but I was trying to break this
music in the States. So you're talking about FM radio
here and stuff. So I had to the first time
I came to America with music in my hand to
sell to the A and R guys of the department
at Mercury Records. It was Ed eg Stein and Lisa
(51:42):
Cortez who were running it there, and and I went
in there with my young disciples and my oma and
they were like, we love this music, this is amazing.
We're going to try and you know, make it for you,
make it happen. But it was so hard to get
that music on the radio over here. But it was
very interesting sort of learning process for me to kind
of see how the industry worked here and working with
(52:06):
those people.
Speaker 4 (52:07):
What was it? What was it like for you?
Speaker 5 (52:08):
Because one of the moments that I saw as kind
of a breakoup month for Talking Loud was when for
a Hero two Pages got the Lee review and Vibe.
It was the first review of the I don't even
if you remember this, but.
Speaker 4 (52:24):
Remember it.
Speaker 5 (52:25):
But yeah, that record got the first It got the
Lee review and I actually went and checked it out
on the stream for that that made me like a
lifetime Me and Mark we've done you know work. But
but man, that was what was How did.
Speaker 4 (52:37):
You and fo a hero? We four? Hero? Was it?
Speaker 7 (52:41):
I mean remarkable because they are Mark and Diego. They're
another kind of super combination like Louis Viger and Kenny
Dope and two very different characters and personalities who make
magical music based from a community in West London, and
they really just developed their sound which is a combination
of kind of stringy jazzy stuff with you know, UK
under ground bass music and drum and bassed music. So
(53:02):
to work with them was unique and fantastic. But the
break record, the one that really broke talking loud in America.
This is a mad experience for me. Was I suddenly
got called that Deep Waters buy Incognito featuring Masonleink was
a big record in Detroit, and Blue said, yeah, come
over and see us playing in Detroit, And I literally
got on a fly it went to Detroit and they
were playing in the stadium and it was a completely
(53:24):
black audience, and it was and that's when I started realizing,
you know the power of a city or a few
radio stations, how they can break an artist. And thankfully
they broke Incognito because they kind of went a bit
bigger from there, sold me a million records which went
back into my coffers, which allowed me to record four
Hero and Ronnie Size and all the other groups, MJ
(53:48):
Cole and people like that. So can you speak about
the Drum and Beast movement because the British underground history,
the Frosten Night, I.
Speaker 4 (53:59):
Still feel like it is yet to find its moment,
it's true moment. And I feel like.
Speaker 1 (54:09):
Now that now that tempos are sort of slowing down
at least from where it was. I'll say, like the
tempo of two thousand and six to two thousand and
thirteen was just straight up boots and cats, gots like
straight one thirty one. So now that stuff is slowing
down a little bit down. Tempo, well still, I'm one
(54:33):
point sixteen is fast. I mean, if you're a public enemy,
that's vastest shit for hip hop, but for dance music
it's rather slow, but it's slow enough for drum and
bass to really find a lane now And the first
night you ever took us to bar Rumba, speaking of
Monday night, watching you spend this is like our first
(54:56):
our first week in London.
Speaker 4 (54:59):
And and the guy on whoever was spending before you,
his last record.
Speaker 1 (55:07):
Was Anita Baker's Sweet Love, and I was like me
and TERI started looking at it like the fun So
the intro to Sweet Love well in a bad way.
I'm like, wait, why are they playing a slow song
at a London nightclub? And when the intro came on,
big the whole audience are losing his mind right, And
(55:30):
we just looked at each other like, oh god, this
is gonna be our life in London. Because you gotta understand,
we exiled, like we straight up took our budget and left.
Speaker 4 (55:39):
All right, we love y'all.
Speaker 1 (55:40):
We out, So we're here and so the first verse
comes on, We're throwing hot and on it and people
are just like preparing like some riots about to happen.
The second the chorus came in and it went to
double time and then we just like we'd never seen
madness marshing like that in our lives. Wow, And.
Speaker 4 (56:05):
I just remember I asked you. I was like, what
the hell is that?
Speaker 1 (56:08):
And you was like strum and bass, And you know,
eventually I met Digo and those guys and knew what
it was. But the religious power that music had that
I saw that night and subsequent nights and months and whatever,
I feel like it really didn't cross over to the
(56:33):
world as it should, but it's still waiting.
Speaker 4 (56:35):
For its moment. Like what do you feel about that
whole movement? Because you signed Arnie Size.
Speaker 7 (56:40):
And I think that movement was interesting. I mean we
won the Mercury Prize for Bonnie Size. Yeah, you know,
the movement is pretty big then and at the time
ninety six ninety seven and before, I thought the movement
had some good some good leaders. I thought people like
Gold the lt J Booker, Ronnie Side, because any movement
(57:03):
needs a quest love, it needs somebody who can basically,
you know, plant the flag and shout about it right.
And I thought that Drumm and Bass had a good movement.
I think the Broken Beat had a bad so it
had a bad leaders. They didn't have leadership because for me,
the music it was ig culture, ag culture and Dego
really were the leaders. And that music form still resonates today.
(57:26):
You play broken beats now and they're big to the kids.
That's the music I think is going to be coming
through more than druma based, because I think drummer bass
is already in. It's in our DNA, it's there, and
it's just morphing into different things.
Speaker 1 (57:39):
Well, certainly in Europe it is, but I feel like
it should have made it more of an impact in
the State.
Speaker 4 (57:46):
But time. But what you got.
Speaker 2 (57:52):
Why is why is America slow? That's what I was
thinking this whole time, like, why does America feel like
it's so slow?
Speaker 4 (57:57):
Especially I think arrogant? That might be it.
Speaker 3 (58:02):
Are we just too damn picky.
Speaker 4 (58:05):
I don't think it's I don't think it's picking. It's
I think it's arrogance.
Speaker 1 (58:07):
Really, it's just outsiders, because there's something about the way
that I feel this generation will.
Speaker 4 (58:15):
Pick I don't know. I mean that generation will pick
up on it now, Yeah, yeah, I think.
Speaker 9 (58:19):
But previous generations I think it was a problem because
people just too arrogant, like this is an American music,
they don't sound like me.
Speaker 7 (58:25):
I think it's the question we're talking about it a little. Definitely,
it's the d M thing as well, it's like, in
a way EDM was a good thing. I mean, I
don't like the music particularly right, but what EDM did
is it kind of put dance music into the head
of radio programmers, into the head of people who might
want to be produced or remixed by David Getter, major
major artists, and it slowly was the doorway into a
(58:50):
sound that America wasn't used to. And eventually the drips
will get you to drum and bass. It's kind of
the doorwards.
Speaker 4 (59:00):
The doorway is there.
Speaker 7 (59:01):
And because up until then dance music and everything that
came out of dance music, it was a little bit,
you know, it was like is it gay?
Speaker 4 (59:08):
Is it you know? You know, is it right?
Speaker 7 (59:10):
You know, so you'd have to go to Miami Winter
Music Conference and that was like where we'd all meet.
But it was underground in America a little bit. In fact,
in a way, it's probably twenty or thirty years behind
when I was going to my weekends when I was sixteen.
It was almost like going to Miami Winter Music Conference
thirty years later. And you know, yeah, that's probably. But
(59:32):
I think it's getting their radio is changing. I think
that people are slipping it in and producers are more
prepared to cross reference.
Speaker 4 (59:39):
I don't know.
Speaker 7 (59:39):
I mean, like the new Drake record. You know there's
that song which is kind of a house record, there's.
Speaker 1 (59:44):
This Are you shocked at how I'm glad he did
it because for me, like I didn't think that quote
real house. The first president I thought about was like
King brit I thought about, you know, because if anyone,
he's been trying to hold this tradition up in Philadelphia
(01:00:06):
for so long that it dwindled a little bit where
you know, it's falling on deafiar's only certain people would
would would gravitate towards it. And it's almost to the
point where like we've now throw Sunday afternoon parties, so
instead of Thursday nights, you know, from nine till three
in the morning, now it's like Sunday afternoon in the
(01:00:28):
park at one pm with you and your kids and
your grandkids, and it's it's it's that's the moment. But
now that Drake has has you know, leaned heavily on
the South African house culture and really opened the door. Uh,
do you feel as though that's a good thing or
(01:00:50):
a bad thing.
Speaker 7 (01:00:51):
That's a good thing, I mean, there's nothing wrong with
any of that, especially that he's got Moody Man on
his record.
Speaker 4 (01:00:56):
Yeah, I'm so jealousy. That's I love it. I used
to just play that sample alone with.
Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
The Strake song you're talking about.
Speaker 4 (01:01:05):
Superman is the one he did the Coffee but I
can't remember the name of that song.
Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
With the Guys record on again, he's like talking, there's
a recording of a guy, Moody Man.
Speaker 5 (01:01:18):
Who's this It's a recording of him DJ. Yeah, No,
I know the I know the Moody Man reg I
didn't know the Drink record which one he I didn't.
Speaker 7 (01:01:25):
Yeah, it's on the album. I can't remember what it's called.
I'll look it up, but it's quite interesting. It's interesting
that that's happening. But I think it's you know, you
know all of it. It's just it's just in you know.
And at the moment the music that I'm finding really
brilliant and I love it as the sort of subculture
is all that stuff from Chicago, all the footwork stuff.
For me, the one sixty bpm stuff is really exciting.
(01:01:48):
And I dropped that wherever I dropped that. That's like
my biggest music if I'm sort of, you know, at
a festival, the moment I need to kind of bring
them all in.
Speaker 4 (01:01:55):
I'll play some footwork, so.
Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
Another level of Chicago House. Sorry just asking another level Chicago.
Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
And stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, it's super fast. They'll
take like the pac Man.
Speaker 3 (01:02:06):
Theme comusic because that sounds like Baltimore House.
Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
It's Baltimore House on steroids. It is like move jump
jack your body. Now play that on forty five, but
dance to it on thirteen. It's kids, Kids Today. So Jiles,
(01:02:37):
You've seen a lot of historical magic moments in your career,
throwing shows, having people come by to record on your show.
Half of the show that we did with Pharrell at
the Roots Picnic last month was based on the performance
(01:02:59):
that any art he did on the worldwide show. So
that was like that was inspiration, like taking off his
music and then filtering it. I can't wait, it's it's
it's it's it's awesome.
Speaker 4 (01:03:10):
It was amazing. Thank you, So, like what what.
Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
What were some of the magic moments that you saw?
Like some of the first I mean talking to is
not that said Jazz Caffeice talking to Pharrell.
Speaker 7 (01:03:31):
Actually there was a week and Winter Music Conference. There
was a week before Winter Music Conference where I got
the d demos from from from the demos with Rise
were too too high on it to fly on it
and all that stuff. And the same week as that
I got the n r D album, the first one,
the one before they went because they the digital version,
(01:03:54):
which is always better.
Speaker 4 (01:03:56):
Shut up? Can I get? Can I get?
Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
For years we were arguing that in rehearsal, like to
stick true to the synthetic an e r D or
the live an e r D. Spot Man, I realized
it was my band, so I got the last say.
But why do you feel Neptune's an e r D
first record is because that's.
Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
What it was. It was.
Speaker 5 (01:04:30):
It was when they tried to when they redid it
and did it with the live iss it felt to
me like they were trying to make it go to
a bigger audience, quote unquote, But it was never going
to be that record. It was always the Neptunes anesthetic
was always to that point, always just sounds The.
Speaker 9 (01:04:46):
Digital version just sounds anemic after hearing the live version.
But that's how all the stuff sounded though. But that
was the I think the songs benefit better from the
live arrangements.
Speaker 5 (01:04:55):
I don't think the song.
Speaker 4 (01:04:56):
I think the song.
Speaker 5 (01:04:57):
The songs were like kind of not cheesy songs, but
they were like cheap and plastic, like the production like brain.
I mean, I really need to call in a fucking
band to sing about getting some head like Nigga really,
I mean he had choice.
Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
I give Fante's point that I feel like the the
wonder that is Pharrell is sort of like when you're
singing in the bathroom mirror with a brush. It's it's cheap,
plastic sounding music that's made legit.
Speaker 5 (01:05:29):
Yeah, because it's a boat and it nails the performance
and it makes you feel inclusive because it's like, oh,
I can do this too. It's not like super intellectual,
but then it's intellectual.
Speaker 4 (01:05:41):
I could do this too.
Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
You'll make it sound so easiest for real.
Speaker 4 (01:05:44):
But what is farrel singing have to do with the instrumentation?
Speaker 5 (01:05:46):
I mean, just in terms of the songs, I mean
just the songs when I'm when I said, just his lyrics, So.
Speaker 4 (01:05:52):
His lyrics also compliment his musical level.
Speaker 3 (01:05:57):
Of music Snobberies on an all time high.
Speaker 4 (01:05:59):
I like disparity, though the expedition of the opposites.
Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
Juvenile lyrics and why you just think for was cute
and let's just go with that, we go down rabbit hole.
Speaker 3 (01:06:11):
No, no, I'm a fan of the music.
Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
I just don't have those words. And I just say
again that the album was dope and I don't need it.
Speaker 4 (01:06:18):
You don't know why when you like to know why
it works and why it doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
It worked for me as a listener, though, what.
Speaker 4 (01:06:24):
Worked about it for you? What was it about the record?
Talk talk about run to the Sun? About it? Talk
about the song? What is it? What is it in
the song that I was moved?
Speaker 2 (01:06:34):
Like for me, I'm a listener, so I'm not a musician,
so I won't go you know, the streams weren't right
here his people about I was moved like run to
the Sun with something I never that whole is something
that the lyrics that yeah, and then once you realize
about his Grandmam and everybody else has a moment.
Speaker 4 (01:06:49):
Of like it's it's spoke to you on that level.
Speaker 3 (01:06:52):
I'm a listener. I don't make it. I listened to it,
and I get I.
Speaker 4 (01:06:54):
Don't make it either. I think stuff too.
Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
You don't try and act like you're just a common
the comp you've been if anyone of all of us,
you've been on commercial radio more than anything, you're you're
you're the system, right I am I have because you're
the system, Like you're not the listener on you were
the radio, right.
Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
And I was the one that was saying, and it's funny,
that's why I was speaking about the differences between Excepting
music and Europe and and and here is we had
to tell people to listen to n E r D.
Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
We couldn't play it. So I had to constantly be like,
this is the ship, y'all need to listen.
Speaker 4 (01:07:28):
You have to tell your program department people like no,
I told my listeners.
Speaker 9 (01:07:32):
Oh, like you guys weren't playing the records. You were
just but you were still telling them to go check
it out.
Speaker 4 (01:07:36):
Wow yeah yeah an THERD Yeah, that's stuff didn't get
no no play like that.
Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
I mean, there were some commercial records that we had
to say, like, why aren't you we playing video India
Area Advance was.
Speaker 4 (01:07:45):
Getting played on on BT and cut Yes, yes, I
forgot about that.
Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
That was it and all the Girls, That's a whole
another album, Standing in the Line with a Bathroom was so.
Speaker 4 (01:08:00):
Come signing me on the Electronic Nerd album Full Validated.
I feel like.
Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
I feel like people that co signed the first any
r D record are also the same people that say, like, well,
I like Off the Wall better than Thriller because you're
supposed to.
Speaker 3 (01:08:17):
Nah.
Speaker 9 (01:08:19):
I mean, I'm not with you then, because I think
I like Off the Wall better than Thriller, but not
for that reason.
Speaker 7 (01:08:25):
Off the Wall, especially as you get older too, like
always thrill thrill, Thriller was more consistent because I still
don't you don't see it as equally as great.
Speaker 5 (01:08:34):
Well, because I don't listen to I skip She's out
of my life and I skip it's the falling in
love and Thriller, like I skip beat it every time
I play Thriller.
Speaker 4 (01:08:44):
Half a Thriller. I can't listen to.
Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
We don't listen to Thriller because Thriller is not a record.
It's not a record, so it's not an album. So anyway,
y'all beside what.
Speaker 4 (01:09:09):
Wow, great moments.
Speaker 7 (01:09:11):
The moment that one of the early great moments that
I remember very clearly right now was was a weekend
of that I organized and I remember we put on
Tribe Call Quest in the UK first show ever, and
it was in one of those holiday resorts in the
middle of nowhere again because they were we could hire
these places for cheap. And it was Tribe Coal Quest,
(01:09:33):
Pharaoh Sonders on the same bill, Brand New Heavies, Galiano,
Jimmy Rokui. So it was like that acid jazz meets
America meets the sort of spiritual jazz godfathers.
Speaker 4 (01:09:47):
So that was that. That was that was a big one.
That's amazing, remember that very well.
Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
It was a great night, good night America would never
get that.
Speaker 1 (01:09:55):
Okay, can I say, now, are your listeners still your
list from twenty years before or are do you have
a generation of listeners that are open to new music?
Because I'll say, the one thing that I find kind
of unpenetrable, uh in DJing now as opposed to back then,
(01:10:17):
is the boldness of playing the unknown without repercussions. It's like,
I borderline have to trick them to listening to something
dope because I had to disguise it with you know,
three songs that they know. Then I'm gonna hit you
with you know the shit that I like, and then
(01:10:38):
right before the dance war clears, I'll you know, it's
like a system that you have to have. Do you
find it harder now? Uh, facing audiences of unknown music, I.
Speaker 4 (01:10:51):
Just need them before. I need more time.
Speaker 7 (01:10:53):
So if people book me now, I say five six hours,
you need me to play that long.
Speaker 4 (01:10:58):
Because the problem you redeem yourself in cases.
Speaker 7 (01:11:00):
That's the generations I've got, you know, I've got the
people who come and listen to me and they're like, Oh,
I really like that record you made in Cuba, or
I love the Brazilian stuff you do, or I love
that kind of new bass music you're playing from South London.
So at the end of the day, all these different
people are coming for different.
Speaker 4 (01:11:14):
Bits of me.
Speaker 7 (01:11:15):
So I need to say, look, I'll do the whole thing,
the full journey, but I need five to six hours
on a great sound system. That's why I love playing
at output all places like you know, like that way
you can, but it's more work. But that's the only
way I can kind of give them. I feel better
at the end of the night. There's nothing worse.
Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
You're literally the only person I know besides myself. I
love marathon gigs and love them. You're the only person like, Uh,
next week I'm going to do an eight hour gig,
it's and promoters are always scratched. Head scratching because most DJs, Wow,
(01:11:52):
that's the normal.
Speaker 3 (01:11:53):
I said, Wow, that's long.
Speaker 1 (01:11:54):
Oh oh no, that's normal. I mean you think I
get long winded answers to see my DJs?
Speaker 4 (01:12:05):
That one.
Speaker 9 (01:12:06):
Those ten to four am gigs were my favorite. Yeah,
I'm just saying that it's not you've got to have.
Speaker 4 (01:12:11):
I mean, the thing is on.
Speaker 7 (01:12:12):
When I played Output the other day in Brooklyn, I
played the full sixteen minute version at peak time off,
I thought it was you, but I hope you direct
Japanese version, right, that one? That one right, which is
the best version of I thought it was you all
sixteen minutes. I think it's sixty enough minutes long, right,
But if I hadn't been playing for five hours, I
(01:12:32):
wouldn't if that would have been a quarter of my
one hour set, you know. So the fact, but to
be able to play that and for people to because
then people get because at the beginning, people are looking
at you, especially when you come to America. For me,
they come and they're looking at you, going give me
a show. I'm like, no, I'm a DJ. Right dance
and let me get into my zone because I'm not
a performer in that way.
Speaker 5 (01:12:51):
Yeah, I want to ask because every time, like when
I go out, I see people like now, DJ culture
is the it, and it's like you're doing it wrong,
Like how did how have you adapted to that? Like
how does the audience adapt to you being a pure
DJ in that way?
Speaker 7 (01:13:05):
Well, you just have to keep doing it, I think that,
and you've got to accept that. You know, there'll be
people taking five and that even though they're not dancing,
they are into it because I think initially I was like,
oh no, they don't like it, but they hadn't but
they haven't left.
Speaker 3 (01:13:20):
That's when you came here, right, you hadn't experienced then
a little bit of that.
Speaker 7 (01:13:23):
I mean the first time I ever went to Japan,
I remember thinking my god.
Speaker 4 (01:13:28):
No, no, yeah, you think you're bombing. But after the shi, yeah,
they love it.
Speaker 7 (01:13:33):
They give you an uncle. But it's kind of it's
that's a weird thing. But no, I think it's it's good.
I think people are getting down, people are beginning to
understand the etiquette of going out to hear a DJ.
Speaker 3 (01:13:42):
Now.
Speaker 7 (01:13:42):
I think a few years ago it was like there
was especially in the States because they was like unless
you were going to the proper real clubs and.
Speaker 4 (01:13:49):
You're going to like a festival.
Speaker 7 (01:13:51):
I remember playing at Coachella and six years ago and
I was like, am I really this is terrible, you know,
but it was just the way because there was no
you know, there was no festival culture for DJs like me.
You know, there was festival culture for techno DJs like
you know, cult, but for people like me who went.
Speaker 4 (01:14:09):
Through it, it was a little bit odd. But it's
getting there here in peace. Since I love By the way, I.
Speaker 5 (01:14:17):
Asked you about the time you came to Philly and
went to James Poorser's dad's church.
Speaker 4 (01:14:23):
Oh wow, Yeah, that's right, that's right. Why it's what
we live in Philly. Yeah. Oh.
Speaker 7 (01:14:34):
I have to say, the first person I really fell
in love with apart from Erica bad whilst interviewing her,
was and probably in fact more so than Erica, was
Jill Scott. I remember interviewing her when she just released
her first record.
Speaker 4 (01:14:49):
Who Is Jill Scott?
Speaker 7 (01:14:50):
And I was so in like when I met her,
I just absolutely fell apart and and and really really
really liked her a lot.
Speaker 4 (01:14:56):
And obviously that's what it was, but but it made
me want to come to Philly. We all haven't called.
Speaker 6 (01:15:08):
It's actually a segment on the show.
Speaker 3 (01:15:10):
We haven't been all kinds of ways, even when she's
not trying.
Speaker 6 (01:15:13):
You never fell in love with James Poyser though, right.
Speaker 4 (01:15:18):
Was waiting for James. He the Yep, it's Amir Thompson.
I know, yes, and about uh seven.
Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
You remember I used to always call you during my
radio show when someone mentions your name. Yes, okay, So
I have Jiles Peterson here and he just wanted to
let you know that you're really really cool.
Speaker 4 (01:15:45):
Baby. How you do? How you doing? We're kind of
janky with the communication here.
Speaker 9 (01:15:50):
So now I know you're not gonna hug Jiles for me,
but try.
Speaker 4 (01:15:56):
I will hug Giles just you.
Speaker 3 (01:15:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have it with Jill.
Speaker 4 (01:16:04):
Are you in Atlanta right now?
Speaker 1 (01:16:07):
I am How do you know everything?
Speaker 4 (01:16:09):
I know everything you do? Jill Scott, I do you
know everything?
Speaker 3 (01:16:13):
It's weird.
Speaker 6 (01:16:14):
He's got jps start.
Speaker 4 (01:16:21):
Your position. I ask about you often, Jill.
Speaker 3 (01:16:27):
Oh, you can always just call me Sucker.
Speaker 1 (01:16:31):
Anyway next time your name on the radio. So thank you,
love you, baby, bye bye. So I had I had
a question about celebrity DJs. Is that a thing in
Europe as much as it is here?
Speaker 7 (01:16:46):
Well, it is the thing because DJ culture is just
so normalized now in a way, so you're going to
get that side of it. But on the other hand,
you're still going to get you know. The funny thing
is in the UK at the moment, if you were
like a celebrity DJ and you were to me, you'll
probably you know, play to big audiences and stuff. But
people like full TETs, who's a sort of left field
(01:17:08):
techno DJ. They're the guys who are getting the biggest
numbers and the biggest audiences. It's not the kind of
celebrity DJs in that sense, or maybe that is happening,
but the left field, more progressive underground that's what the
kids are really looking for.
Speaker 4 (01:17:25):
I don't know if that's answering the question, but no
one from like take that or a rabbie like We've
got Yeah that was like a couple of years away.
Who is he opened? Yeah, I forgot. I used to
do a few gigs with them. But that's.
Speaker 7 (01:17:44):
Like a musicians saying it's a bit like I don't know,
it's like a bit like I mean, I think Woody
Allen takes his music seriously, but I see it as
like it's like, you know, they're like amateur musicians, you know,
but they're not the real thing.
Speaker 4 (01:17:57):
I mean, a real DJ.
Speaker 7 (01:17:58):
And I really believe in DJ culture and the awe
of djaying and the heritage of djaying, you know. I
thank you David Mankuzo and all the guys who set
it up for us. But there's an ought to it,
and that celebrity scene is just a little bit of
you know, bubblegum somewhere.
Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
But there's there's a word that I'm looking for. I
think it might be integrity. Okay, that's what you guys
have that we don't have no more in the United States.
Speaker 4 (01:18:26):
So from the White House all it's different, like the
fact that you would still.
Speaker 1 (01:18:35):
What you said was correct, but because I'm immersed and
living in this new alternative reality that we're in right
now where you're competing with like the Paris Hiltans and yeah,
where you know, I've there's a few DJ gigs where
I mean I I have an agent that has a
(01:18:56):
few actors or whoever, and their money. It's like crazy,
It's like three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand dollars, Like,
and I'm just mind blown.
Speaker 4 (01:19:07):
But that's just.
Speaker 1 (01:19:09):
I mean, you're just like, that's just how it is. Yeah,
I mean you either accept it or you fight it.
And I guess maybe in my older age, I'm not
trying to fight it. Like there's other fights I can.
Speaker 4 (01:19:21):
Have out there.
Speaker 1 (01:19:21):
Besides, why is this DJ giving four hundred thousand dollars
and not me? You know that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (01:19:26):
Wow, Yeah, DJ culture is becoming how do I do it?
Speaker 1 (01:19:35):
See if you were to move to the States. Here's
the here's the funny thing. What's what's weird about American
culture is that we are so obsessed with getting in
the king's throne, like with hip hop, with DJing, with anything,
like everyone wants to be the top person and they're
fighting for it. No, no, no other scraps will do that.
(01:19:58):
There's a whole middle level that's absolutely empty. And thus
I've made a home in the middle level, Like I
would never want to fight for jay Z's throne or
Drake's throne or I'm in the DJ world right now.
Pretty lights makes the most. Calvin Harris, who shockingly in
(01:20:20):
my conversations with him, is almost like talking to you
like he thinks like you, an aesthetically has you and
probably Fonte and Bill's education and knowledge of music, but
he knows where.
Speaker 4 (01:20:37):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:20:37):
So it's like everyone's fighting for that position. So they'll
scoff at like a cat. Like Diplo would laugh at
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you know, Christmas party
carper DJ gig for Viacom. They would laugh at that
shit because they're now playing Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 4 (01:21:00):
For two three million dollars.
Speaker 1 (01:21:03):
So it's like there's a middle ground that you know,
underground is like you're you're you're fighting with everyone else
to get underground gigs. But if you managed to make
a name like a person like you could come to
the States right now and do these middle ground gigs
and hitching like that's where it is. And I absolutely
(01:21:23):
just gave uk get everyone. Everyone unheard what you what.
Speaker 4 (01:21:32):
I just said to you? Man? So what not? Like
what's the future for Jalles Peterson? Like is this to you?
Speaker 2 (01:21:41):
Is this?
Speaker 4 (01:21:44):
Is this a good end game for you? Is this
what you always wanted? Yeah? This is the best I'm
having the best fund of my life.
Speaker 7 (01:21:49):
I really am. I've been DJing for thirty years. I
travel around the world. I'm still passionate about music. I
connect with people, I communicate for the music. My mental
artists bring it through. I don't think there's a better game. Really,
there's more there isn't you know. I mean, I keep
saying I'm going to give up DJing. I was going
to give up at forty. It didn't happen, you know,
(01:22:11):
And I'm actually, I'm actually.
Speaker 4 (01:22:12):
What made you want to give it up? Well? I
just thought you had a bad DJ?
Speaker 7 (01:22:16):
Yeah, loads, But the thing is you have to have
your bad gigs to enjoy the good ones, obviously. But
but the thing is with I thought forty was too
old to be a DJ, you know, when I was thirty,
I thought, yeah, old DJ. Yeah, But actually no, I mean,
the funny thing is, I'm I'm better. I'm the best
I've ever been. So I want people to hear me
(01:22:37):
being more experienced thirty years, to be able to mix
two house records together, so.
Speaker 4 (01:22:45):
You know, yeah, I want it.
Speaker 5 (01:22:47):
Which your browns with bubbles cups that you do? How
much of those are you actually hand pick all those songs?
Speaker 4 (01:22:53):
Yeah? That's still you going through all let.
Speaker 7 (01:22:55):
Yeah, yeah, because I mean in a way the radio
show that I do every week on the BBC, and
I do or digital radio station called WDFM. But the
BBC show that I do, which is three hours every week,
that's it's like my that's my homework. So every week
that's my dark that's like my painting. So that is
the build up of listening to five hundred songs that
week and building a show.
Speaker 4 (01:23:16):
So that's I have to listen to all that music.
Speaker 5 (01:23:18):
Yeah, I was glad to see you use a Good
Night by Philippo on that incredible track.
Speaker 4 (01:23:24):
God, I'm still waiting for that album to drop. It
never came out. Nope, Oh damn. How long has it been?
That's four years? Easy.
Speaker 1 (01:23:33):
What is the process of you auditioning songs that you
feel are worthy to be on your radio show?
Speaker 4 (01:23:42):
What is it?
Speaker 1 (01:23:43):
But I know you have to take in a lot
of music and a lot of blogs and a lot
of recommendations, so just personally you're not overloaded like I'm
personally overloaded and not quite numb yet.
Speaker 4 (01:24:00):
But it's a process. Like I doose Sundays as the
days to.
Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
Keep a certain station on, you know, listen five to
six hours and then she's saying what I like, mark
down what I like, and then maybe I'll have seventeen
songs I never heard of now in my vocabulary. But
what's their process for you?
Speaker 7 (01:24:25):
I mean, I never forced myself to listen to music,
So I just come to it. If there's a week
that I'm not like in the mood to feel like
I need to do all this research for A and
R reasons, for record company reasons, I just go through
my old records and I'll put on a classic record
to remind me. And maybe on the radio, I'll just
(01:24:45):
play a lot of old music for example. Right, if ever,
I get to the point where I'm a little bit
sort of just like not really inspired. But to be
honest with you, with the amount of music that I
listened to, whether it's the sort of new DJ music,
whether it's of hip hop, I mean there's a new track,
that Buddy track, you know. I mean, all this stuff
(01:25:07):
that's been coming out of LA has been incredible, right,
I mean, you know, from sort of all that Kendrick
Lamar and Beyond stuff, all the stuff that Flying Lotus
is responsible for Thundercat, I mean, my god, there's just
so much good stuff and for example, when I played
I don't know like when Take the Box was sent
to me. I mean Take the Box by Amy Winehouse.
It's a good example of a tune that my friend
(01:25:28):
was trying to sign it Max Desarder Atlantic Warners at
the time before it went to Island, and he just
sent me the dam He said, what do you think
of this, Charls? And I was like, immediately take the
Box And I started playing it as a demo on
the radio then, because it just had those little things,
just like when you're talking about any rd run to
the Sun you hear that, and it's just an immediate tune,
(01:25:48):
right or good Night by Philip o Wusu these songs,
and that's what I'm searching for. But I'm also searching
for raw dance music that I've never heard before. The
way they've arranged the bass in this, you can tell
because it's a bit like we're chefs, you know, we're
tasting those ingredients all the time. So when there's a
certain type of onion that comes in, that's it's got
(01:26:10):
the right edge.
Speaker 4 (01:26:11):
We know it.
Speaker 7 (01:26:12):
We've got you know, I'm rubbish at wine, I'm rubby.
I've got a terrible palette, but when it comes to music.
But when it comes to music, I'm not even very
good at music. But because I've just constantly listened to it,
I've got a good memory of music. So when something
fresh does come, I know it's new. I can feel
it quicker than others.
Speaker 4 (01:26:32):
I think.
Speaker 1 (01:26:33):
Well, what I mean is that I feel like there's
an expectation for you to always have that shit I
never heard before, or this version of that song I
never heard before, or that sort of thing. So I
know that you have to put a lot of research,
Like what keeps you from repetition like okay you go
(01:26:56):
to Okay, I'm always going to play level brings back
together by Roy Ears, Like what keeps you from saying
stuck in those saying fifty songs that you know work
like gamebusters every time, and what like You're still going
to have to discover tomorrow's music first before the next
younger guy gets to it.
Speaker 4 (01:27:17):
So that's what I meant, like as far as your
research process, like what do you do?
Speaker 7 (01:27:23):
Good network, great people who know what I like, lots
of exchanges. I'm over all of the music, from the
new electronics stuff to the hip hop to the jazz,
to the old staff, to some new soul that might
be coming out, to the rock and the alternatives. There's
some great music coming out of that area as well
as we all know, and I'm just listening to all
(01:27:43):
of it. And within all of that music, I mean
a lot of it. And you know, obviously there's millions
of songs being made every week. But amongst my network
of friends who know, we know each other's taste, we're
coming from different parts of the world, we are able
to satisfy with music, and then I take that onto
(01:28:05):
the radio, and to be honest with you, I don't
even think about it that much. I've never really felt
like I was thinking the other day, I didn't listen
to the whole Solange record properly.
Speaker 4 (01:28:15):
Things like that.
Speaker 7 (01:28:15):
That's those sort of things bother me a little bit.
I'm like, oh, yeah, I just went through it, and
something else happened the week after, and I liked, you know, yeah, yeah,
but I listened to it this week. Then it hit
you leader yeah, and I was like, I need to
listen to that record, because that's a different way of listening.
Because I listened to music as in a curative way,
and sometimes I want to listen to music in an
entertainment for myself way, emotional way. So sometimes I make
(01:28:37):
sure that I just hide myself at home and put
a record on from the beginning to the end. Very
important to find the time for that. I bought a
good sound system specifically.
Speaker 4 (01:28:45):
For that is an American dad.
Speaker 7 (01:28:48):
No, okay, no, but you know, I bought a vintage
thing and all the stuff, and it just makes music
sound remarkable about as it should be. So I don't know,
I don't overthink it.
Speaker 2 (01:29:00):
Just to never get overwhelmed by the abundance of music
on the daily, never even in my.
Speaker 4 (01:29:06):
Record room, like I'm pretty sure only listen to that's.
Speaker 7 (01:29:10):
For your retirement, I mean my record collection. That's the
way I look at it. That's true when I'm retiring.
Speaker 2 (01:29:15):
Do you know most people, I feel like most people
who listen feel like y'all have listened to every single
record in your record collection, because a mirror I would
have guessed that your record room you've listened to all.
Speaker 1 (01:29:22):
Those The thing is is that I've absorbed it. So
it's a it's a thing of it's a thing of
you know, I'll skim through it. And because I'm in
hip hop, it's about samples more than anything. So, I mean,
there's two ways to listen to records. You either you
(01:29:42):
go a record digging and then you Q records and
then you know it doesn't hit you, you put it away.
But I'm going to sit and actually listen to it.
That's what I do on Sundays. I don't skim through it.
Speaker 4 (01:29:56):
I listen to it.
Speaker 3 (01:29:57):
So, seriously, that's ten percent in your record room right now,
those records that you had a chance to do this.
Speaker 4 (01:30:02):
I mean it's physically impossible. And that's just my record room.
I have hard drives, and I mean, right, I just
had to buy I had to acquire a new spot.
I'm trying to say it.
Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
So I'm not going you know, I'm a rich judge.
I'm a judger, but I ain't gonna judge you for
your next statement, I ain't gonna do.
Speaker 4 (01:30:24):
Well, okay, would you like me to take care of
the things that I acquired, I do.
Speaker 3 (01:30:28):
I would like that.
Speaker 4 (01:30:29):
Okay. Well, then there's about.
Speaker 1 (01:30:33):
Maybe one hundred thousand other records that could get damaged
in the current state that they're in in my storage unit.
So I had to purchase a building with cool with
the right air and all that stuff I had. You
had to like the thing is.
Speaker 4 (01:30:52):
Is that a New Yorker Philly? Because I need a
temporary storage spot. I'm I'm gonna tell you what I did.
Speaker 1 (01:30:59):
I'm gonna tell you what I I had to let
go to houses because again I'm I'm I'm a sentimental
pat wreck, and you know, in my mind, I'm thinking,
I'm gonna give these close to you know, to the
Smithsonian Museum, to Timothy Inn or something, you know, like
I saw my you got me closed in case.
Speaker 3 (01:31:22):
You know from the video. Yeah, it was a black
T shirt, wasn't it?
Speaker 4 (01:31:28):
What is it? Goals?
Speaker 1 (01:31:30):
It's like, you want to get back down to that size.
I want to get back that I was. Man, I
was like, yeah, you got me. I never want to
go back there. Yeah, Jesus Christ, he scared the ship out. No,
I'm just saying that.
Speaker 4 (01:31:49):
I got judging. There's a picture. You don't even say. Look,
there's some things that happened on this show. Put it away.
Speaker 3 (01:32:07):
We're in a mere studio, you guys, personal studio.
Speaker 1 (01:32:10):
We're in my phillips. This this person triggering. Yeah, not
only records, records and other stuff too. I'm just saying
that can I have this A track?
Speaker 4 (01:32:25):
Steve? Yes, it's yours, Steve.
Speaker 6 (01:32:28):
You can have my c T I A t PA
with another Freddy Hubberne.
Speaker 1 (01:32:34):
Take all the CD I A tracks. Shouldn't you be
here on the microphone Steve? Steve is like going through
my records right now?
Speaker 3 (01:32:40):
Wait, Jos, do you have homes for your albums as well?
Speaker 2 (01:32:45):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (01:32:46):
Can people? Are y'all really saying like a person live
in this place with your records?
Speaker 4 (01:32:50):
Is it just it's just for here's the deal. This
is a weird.
Speaker 1 (01:32:57):
Kind of name drop techy thing about you. But you
always got preface the tacky ship. Okay, so wait, can
I just deal John Trump yet?
Speaker 4 (01:33:10):
Come on man? Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:33:12):
Initially, when I first moved to New York, there was
there was a there was a chance that I was
going to acquire or at least couch crash the Destiny's
Child apartment that Beyonce had. I guess that was their
crash spot whenever they were I didn't have a house
where the one by Bloomingdale's. Uh, they have a lot
(01:33:36):
of property. There's a lot of their property, one of them.
Speaker 4 (01:33:43):
Wait, why did you know? I just feels poorer and poorer.
Speaker 2 (01:33:49):
I know this.
Speaker 1 (01:33:49):
Yeah, I used to work in the Nose Empire. That's right,
you did Music World. What damn, I'm interviewing you next
week on Quest. Anyway, My point was that she was
trying to make the decision on whether or not she
was gonna let me have the spot or not, because
she hasn't been in that apartment forever. But she realized
(01:34:14):
that a lot of her clothes were getting damaged in
the storage units that they had, so she.
Speaker 4 (01:34:20):
Decided that it's probably better off instead of.
Speaker 1 (01:34:23):
A month after month after month for storage unit, to
just buy a house and put your stuff in there
and care for it there. So the Destiny style apartment
now houses all of Beyonce's shoes that she's ever had
and doesn't wear any wow.
Speaker 4 (01:34:40):
Wow wow damn. Anyway, Yeah, so there's houses.
Speaker 1 (01:34:44):
So the spot that I have in Philly, I made
sure it was outside of Philly sort of, and that's
where my records and I also have like.
Speaker 4 (01:34:55):
Sixty one drum set. Jesus, it's like.
Speaker 3 (01:34:58):
A battle j I said. He has one hundred thousand records,
which you got.
Speaker 4 (01:35:02):
He has way more than that. I do not think
I've got that. You and Claude of Claude from Manto
Jazz Knobs. Yeah, you guys have the largest Where does
Craig Common fit in that? One hundred thousands a lot?
Though Craig doesn't count.
Speaker 7 (01:35:20):
You're counting forty five's in that.
Speaker 4 (01:35:24):
That is a record, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (01:35:25):
Yeah, I'm counting. I don't even count my forty fives.
I have a lot now, But you got one hundred
thousand physical pieces of I have one hundred thousand physical
pieces of vinyl. Probably have maybe one twenty now, okay,
But I mean as far as the forty like right now,
there's a lot of people down south that don't know
that forty five culture is coming back. So what I'm
(01:35:49):
running into is there's a lot of widows of say,
like one stop shop juke boxes.
Speaker 4 (01:35:55):
Juke Boxes used to be a thing in those liquor
houses and everything.
Speaker 1 (01:36:00):
So once people stop using juke boxes in their nightclubs
and their bars or whatever, especially down south, they had
to go somewhere.
Speaker 4 (01:36:09):
So you have a lot of widows or a lot
of daughters that have haired stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:36:12):
I don't know what to do with this stuff, all
these records, And so that's where Geene Brown comes in
and he'll just say, all right, I got a collection
of you want them, Okay, I'll take them, and then
I'll take them and they don't listen to them.
Speaker 4 (01:36:29):
Like right now, in that room, I.
Speaker 1 (01:36:31):
Have Levi Stubbs's record collections, and in it is just
a lot of white label motown stuff that will never
see the light of day. Like just so, there's a
lot that I haven't listened to. So yes, to get
back to the beginning ten percent, someone's going to all right,
(01:36:53):
Elia's judging me, But let me just tell you that
when you get in my field of business, you got
to get into something. So I rather this than cocaine
about saying yeah, really something. Yeah, you're going to get
into something. You're going to inject it, listen to it,
sniff it, taste it, or it's going to kill you.
Speaker 4 (01:37:16):
Like you gotta get into something.
Speaker 5 (01:37:17):
You have more physical records in your collection than I sold.
Speaker 1 (01:37:30):
We're getting ahead of our tradition. First of all, listening
John Speter worldwide.
Speaker 4 (01:37:38):
So before we end, Bill paid Bill, Yeah, what did
you learn to day man? Man?
Speaker 10 (01:37:44):
Taste makers? I like the idea of people being tastemakers.
I think he's right. I think you're a taste maker,
and I like the idea of people listen to you.
I strug off titles. Man, I know you don't like titles.
You don't like people talking about you.
Speaker 4 (01:37:56):
You're not good at that. But that's fine.
Speaker 10 (01:37:58):
This is all therapy here on this. I just like
the fact that the idea that people listen, and I
think that you have the platform to do that until
you open up people. But open up those minds that
that wouldn't necessarily listen.
Speaker 4 (01:38:11):
To the music. I'm gonna taste and trade of Joels.
I'm gonna taste test Steve. Besides my records you just stole.
What else would you learn today?
Speaker 6 (01:38:21):
Uh uh? I want to see Giles record collection, go
through the jazz section.
Speaker 4 (01:38:28):
He's going to steal all your CTI records.
Speaker 6 (01:38:29):
You take care of your stuff, like unlike others.
Speaker 4 (01:38:34):
Supposed to take care of this ship.
Speaker 3 (01:38:37):
In a year.
Speaker 4 (01:38:38):
More than that, like nine ship, I haven't been.
Speaker 1 (01:38:41):
In I've probably only been in this room maybe nine
times in the last seven years.
Speaker 6 (01:38:48):
Anyway, suld I have a job.
Speaker 4 (01:38:52):
Charles Peters, No, yeah.
Speaker 11 (01:38:55):
Sounds like sounds like you got a nice collection, I
would assume. But I also think thriller is better than
Off the Wall. God, Well it's not a fair question.
Off the Walls better. But but Thriller is not an.
Speaker 4 (01:39:09):
Album to me.
Speaker 6 (01:39:10):
Well, it's an album to me, it was an album.
It was nice to meet you though, really.
Speaker 5 (01:39:20):
Man, Yeah, it's good to finally meet jobs. We did
your show a little brother in forunate change really just show.
Like god, this is oh five six something and uh,
but I think you weren't there. I think you were
out sick or something. Something happened. I can't remember.
Speaker 4 (01:39:32):
But we taped it anyway, Yeah you did.
Speaker 5 (01:39:35):
No, No, it was you just tape your just taped
a live It was just a live in session joint
we did okay. But but nah, man, it's good to
finally reconnect, well to meet you finally in person, and
just you know, say thanks for the music that you've
brought forth and just continuing to shine a light on
those catstead of coming up. You know, we were certainly
one of the groups that benefited from you know, you
(01:39:55):
showing us love and everything, and yeah, just thank you
for all you've done.
Speaker 9 (01:39:58):
Man, built what did you learn to David? Pirate radio
stuff was quite interesting. I've always been very you know
intrigued by the whole concept. Like one of my favorite
movies is A Kid Was a Christian Body. It was
basically about a kid that had a pirate radio station
in his basement.
Speaker 6 (01:40:14):
So Phillips is good to check out that movie.
Speaker 4 (01:40:20):
To learn about you know, good to get some good insight.
Also a question that I wanted to ask, I just
add to good.
Speaker 9 (01:40:30):
As someone who has been like a lifelong fan of music,
I've in recent years I've had a very hard time
staying passionate about new music. How do you How are
you able to do it.
Speaker 4 (01:40:44):
Well?
Speaker 7 (01:40:44):
I think probably because it's my role two to get
people I don't know. I think the fact that I'm
sort of.
Speaker 4 (01:40:56):
On a mission probably more so than you are. You
have more of an audience. Certainly.
Speaker 7 (01:41:05):
I get a lot of pleasure out of seeing out
of seeing small acorns grow and seeing the journey of
the artists, From receiving a cassette tape by Jose James
of him doing versions of John Coltrane songs, to him
signing to BLUEO. Those things give me a lot of pleasure.
(01:41:27):
And and there's enough music for me to be to
be passionate about. I've never felt more passionate about music
of all sides in all countries. It's never been more worldwide.
Speaker 4 (01:41:38):
There's less. No, it's true, there's never been. There are less.
Speaker 9 (01:41:41):
Have there been any movements that you've just kind of
been very unsure about that that they took off anyway
and you just kind of had to play catch.
Speaker 4 (01:41:47):
Up or idiom No, No, not not really. Yeah, so
you're a better man.
Speaker 6 (01:41:55):
The name right, we knew that guy.
Speaker 4 (01:41:57):
Now you know what I learned to that?
Speaker 7 (01:42:01):
I learned the grave Washington j that comes from Philadelphia.
Speaker 6 (01:42:10):
That wow, the.
Speaker 3 (01:42:17):
First time.
Speaker 4 (01:42:19):
I'm taking this Washington.
Speaker 6 (01:42:23):
Washington Jr.
Speaker 4 (01:42:24):
No, I don't. I don't look like Washington, Okay? And
whytt net? Can you play? Can you play high draft
from that from the album? Yes we will, we don't
play it on the show. Let's play? Yeah, what did
you learn today?
Speaker 3 (01:42:37):
I learned a lot.
Speaker 2 (01:42:38):
I want to thank you first because when I was
sitting at my desk at RKO Discs for eight hours
and going to my commercial radio job hip hop and
R and B, I used you to learn my new
music because I didn't want my brain to be clouded
bout what I was about to do. So I want
to thank you for that, and I just learned your
journey and I always been a big fan, and I
think much like Bill, sometimes you fight with America. I
(01:42:59):
just take America different in their acceptance of music, especially
of soul music. So I'm just gonna open my mind
and damage some more jazz pewterising because there's always some
to find, you know.
Speaker 7 (01:43:07):
One of things that I love about America because I
love about playing here. When people go out in America,
they make the most of it. They make the most
of it, and I feel that sometimes in Europe people
are a little bit spoilt and they're a little bit.
Speaker 4 (01:43:26):
Here. Really, I do.
Speaker 7 (01:43:28):
When they go out, I honestly feel when you come out,
it's like when it's like Japan. People go out, if
they've paid their money to go into that club, they're
going to have a good time. In Europe they might
be hating quicker.
Speaker 2 (01:43:39):
Really, I think so, thanks Philly, Really, yeah, Philly's a
snooty town because they're used to so much dope town.
Speaker 4 (01:43:46):
Why.
Speaker 1 (01:43:46):
I just thought you guys were polite. So when they
weren't clapping, they weren't satisfied. We got to change ourselves.
Speaker 3 (01:43:55):
When they weren't clapping.
Speaker 1 (01:43:58):
Now, we're actually coming back. You'll you'll be happy to
hear this, Giles. Initially there was supposed to be a
Tribe Roots summer tour. Believe it or not. We want
to play two arena. We had four two arena dates setup,
but Tribe Tribe anyway, so what was this? This is
(01:44:23):
like this It was going to be the summer of
twenty seventeen. Wow, we had a three weeks with a
Tribe doing stadiums. But for the since we booked a
lot of other stuff with the Usher project that we're doing,
where we decided to instead of taking days off in London,
(01:44:46):
we are going to go back to the task Cafe wall.
Speaker 5 (01:44:49):
For seeing us a very small so jazz. Yeah, it's
going to be as big as this room. It's like
three hundred I mean if that and I'm to DJ
like I we just we just want to go back
to the scene in the crime.
Speaker 3 (01:45:05):
And you're gonna go back to South Street.
Speaker 4 (01:45:06):
I was gonna too.
Speaker 1 (01:45:10):
There's plans for that too anyway, So Giles, before now,
we normally don't ask the guests what did they learn
from themselves? But there is there is a game I
want to play. No, No, we're not playing that game. Okay, damn,
we should have played that game.
Speaker 4 (01:45:27):
We should have played that game. But what I want
to know is, if you were.
Speaker 1 (01:45:32):
In solitary confinement, I don't know what crime that you
would commit that would actually have you put away in
a room. Pirate radio Okay, yeah, let's say you finally
you get a judge over there. Well, you guys are
brexited anyway, so anything can happen over there. So if
you're in solitary confinement, realistically, let's say three years, so
(01:45:54):
that means no outside world for nine hundred plus days,
but you are allowed five albums to keep you seen.
So this isn't for the rest of your life, just
for three years.
Speaker 11 (01:46:07):
Like the Black version of Desert Island Discs, you're in
solitary confinement.
Speaker 2 (01:46:15):
We.
Speaker 4 (01:46:17):
Wind up in an exact island. We in jail anyway, So.
Speaker 7 (01:46:26):
What well, if I'm going to be there for that
for that long, I think I have thought about this
sort of question before, and I've thought that I don't
know if I could handle vocals. One of the beautiful
things about jazz and instrumental music is that you can
kind of go different places within it. So I think
that to hear Our Green or Smokey Robinson. It would
all Stevie Wonder and I think, I think, yeah, I
(01:46:50):
think that I'd go crazy. So I go probably more
avant gardes because that's where I think free jazz and
sort of in pro music will make the most sense
because it will always say different. You'll find something different
within it at most times.
Speaker 4 (01:47:04):
Interesting. You're my guy, I would see.
Speaker 1 (01:47:07):
I wouldn't choose my favorite records because it would drive
you crazy.
Speaker 4 (01:47:11):
After you hit them your twelve listen and after.
Speaker 9 (01:47:15):
The three years was up, every time you would listen
to it, you would automatically taken right.
Speaker 4 (01:47:18):
Yeah, you would think of it, so you would choose.
So what are those five records?
Speaker 7 (01:47:22):
Well, I'd probably go for the the History of Sun
Raw is it?
Speaker 4 (01:47:29):
Can it? Can it be one record? Or is it?
Speaker 7 (01:47:31):
Can it be it can be the greatest hits? It
can't be Okay, I mean, I'd probably go for a Well,
if there was one vocal record, I'd go with Terry
Callier's What Colors album with Charles Stepney strings. That's that's it.
(01:47:51):
That's that's a great record. I don't think I get
tired of that.
Speaker 4 (01:47:55):
I'd go for some.
Speaker 7 (01:47:58):
Which cold Trane, I mean, maybe it off supreme. Maybe
that would drive me mad. It probably will, actually, because
I've heard that too many times already.
Speaker 4 (01:48:09):
Wow, that's hard.
Speaker 7 (01:48:10):
Man do one each? I so I've done Terry and
then you do one? So wow, yeah, because that's not
so we all get one, all right?
Speaker 4 (01:48:19):
Yeah? Mine would be no one each, so we do five.
But you do want to do one?
Speaker 1 (01:48:24):
Well, well, if I were to take a Coultran record,
actually I would have chose Pharis Sanders Train of Thought
record or one of my favorite dealer records are on there,
which is escaping me right now. Ah, but there's a
(01:48:49):
Phara Sanders Train of Thought record I like. My favorite
culture in that I'd never tire of ever is Coultrane
plays the Blues, which is actually one of his more
normal straight ahead records, and have to complete it.
Speaker 4 (01:49:12):
See Miles's never TD record.
Speaker 1 (01:49:16):
To him that was his middle finger record to the
label Brass and him not taking solos on it, just
repeating the same line over and over again. But I
don't know, it's just the most hilarious comical jazz record ever,
even though it's absolutely a work of art, but just
the fact that he's that mad to repeat the same
(01:49:37):
line over and over and over and over again for
without soloing. I think that's a stroke of genius. So
I'd add three of those records.
Speaker 4 (01:49:49):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (01:49:52):
So you lost the game because y'all said, he do one,
you do one. But I want to tell you.
Speaker 4 (01:50:00):
You did three. You did for you once and left
you with one more. Pick the final record.
Speaker 7 (01:50:13):
Jol, let's give it to I want to go something new.
I think let's just give it to Camassi. And it's
three three years. That's a good one. I haven't yet
listened to it from beginning to end, so I've got
time to do that. As much as I love it,
it's epic, it's epic, it is epic.
Speaker 9 (01:50:32):
My last question, yes, as a man who owns a
ship ton of records, what's your holy grail that you
haven't been able to find.
Speaker 7 (01:50:40):
That I haven't been able to find? Actually, well, it's
little obscure ones. I got this record on eBay last week.
Actually I don't do eBay very much, but there's someone
said to me, there's this record I'm looking for. It's
from I think it's from Kansas, and it's a seven
inch by a group called Kalima and it's basically a
record that Elie A l I m A and there
(01:51:02):
was a group called Klima in Manchester, but this is
the different one. And this song I heard a DJ
called Motor City Drum Ensemble play on a mixtape a
couple of years ago, and it sounds like the ultimate
Royez ballad that Royers never wrote at his peak time
of when he was working with people like ethel Bt
and d D Bridgewater, that kind of yeah, searching type
(01:51:22):
of period. And it's by Google Khalima and I put
a bid in for it, and I've never gone very
very I've never gone more than two hundred quid two
hundred pounds sterling and and it unfortunately went for like
one thousand, five hundred.
Speaker 4 (01:51:37):
Dollars last minute, some bloke fine. I don't know. It
just really annoyed me because no one knows this record,
but two hundreds of most you've ever paid for.
Speaker 7 (01:51:44):
I've paid two thousand records for pounds for Brazilian records
by Jose prattis called called Tam Tam Tam, which is
a it's the it's the basis to George Ben's Mashkenada
record that we all Know and Love and every one
thought that that Georgia Ben wrote it, practice wrote it,
(01:52:05):
but but Georgia Ben got the benefit.
Speaker 4 (01:52:08):
Damn.
Speaker 6 (01:52:10):
I have a question, so boring? No I sound boring?
Speaker 4 (01:52:19):
Right? No?
Speaker 6 (01:52:22):
Do you have stone bowing the stone? The ct I?
It was a Japanese only it's like the hardest ct
I recordified.
Speaker 4 (01:52:29):
It's J. J.
Speaker 6 (01:52:30):
Johns.
Speaker 4 (01:52:30):
That's what he really wanted to ask you at the beginning.
That sounds amazing though.
Speaker 6 (01:52:34):
It's J. J. Johnson and Kai Winding. Uh you know,
Jane k Is there string.
Speaker 7 (01:52:39):
And stuff or was it quite straightforward recording?
Speaker 6 (01:52:42):
I don't know.
Speaker 11 (01:52:43):
It's from nineteen seventy. I don't can't hear it online?
Speaker 7 (01:52:47):
Ct Ire Taylor need to get him on here.
Speaker 6 (01:52:50):
Yeah, but he's like in his nineties there, so.
Speaker 4 (01:52:53):
Yeah, Mike, Yeah, wait, I have one request. This has
been the longest, you know, Chiles, I thank you very
much for coming on the show.
Speaker 1 (01:53:11):
All right, so on behalf of Quest Love Supreme with
Laya and Boss Bill and un Paid Bill and fon
Tickeolo and Sugar Steve and on Paid Bill, which I
said already, h this is Quest Love and Charles Peterson.
Speaker 4 (01:53:24):
We thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:53:26):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more
podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Laiya St. Clair
Questlove
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