Episode 72
Beats from the Bay - DJ Design on DJing, Beatmaking, Visual Identity and the origins of Stones Throw
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DJ Design, a pivotal figure in the Bay Area's vibrant music landscape, takes center stage in this compelling discourse, wherein we delve into his formative years and the profound influences that shaped his illustrious career. Having been deeply entrenched in the early days of Stones Throw Records, he shares with us insights into his artistic genesis, elucidating how the unique local scene and his familial ties to music laid the groundwork for his remarkable journey. From his early encounters with renowned artists to the serendipitous moments that led him to collaborate closely with Peanut Butter Wolf, DJ Design's narrative is one of camaraderie and creativity that resonates with the essence of hip-hop culture. We explore the nuances of DJing and music production, touching on the inspirations drawn from iconic figures and the collective spirit of the Bay Area artists who contributed to a rich tapestry of sound. With wit and candor, DJ Design reflects on the challenges and triumphs of his career, offering listeners an authentic glimpse into the world of a true musical innovator.
Transcript
Welcome back to Once A dj, everyone.
Speaker A:I'm happy to have with me today Bay Area legend, DJ producer, DJ design.
Speaker A:How are you doing today, sir?
Speaker B:Doing well.
Speaker B:What's up?
Speaker B:How are you, Adam?
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm not bad.
Speaker A:A little bit hot.
Speaker A:But like I was saying to you before, I don't have the window open for the arguments and other nefarious activities we might hear through the window.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, great.
Speaker A:Really appreciate you making time for me today.
Speaker A:I've done a fair amount of research, but I don't like to do too much because I don't want to end up guiding the conversation.
Speaker A:So as with all the episodes, let's really just start with how you got into music and what your early influences are and where you grew up.
Speaker B:Yeah, sure.
Speaker B:So I grew up in the Bay Area south, like, most of my life.
Speaker B:I'd say I grew up in San Jose, California, Santa Clara.
Speaker B:Like that area right there.
Speaker B:That's where I met Peanut Butter Wolf back in the day.
Speaker B:Charisma Jeff Jank, who is the.
Speaker B:Was the designer for Stone's Throw.
Speaker B:A lot of the Bay Area, like, sort of hip hop, was a really small community, really tiny.
Speaker B:And we kind of all went to the same studio, which was.
Speaker B:What was it called?
Speaker B:A guy named Peter something.
Speaker B:Let me think if I could come up with the name.
Speaker B:I'll let you know.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But we.
Speaker B:We all kind of grew up on the same things, you know, listening to Eric B and Rakim.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like, that era, like, when you're in high school.
Speaker B: hen we were in high school in: Speaker B:And everybody in that era kind of listen to the same thing because there was no such thing as West Coast, east coast, you know, there was none of that.
Speaker B:It was like if a new record came out and it was a, let's say, Steady B.
Speaker B:What's my name?
Speaker B:Steady by Steady B.
Speaker B:That's Philly.
Speaker B:But, you know, coming from Santa Clara, San Jose, it's just good hip hop music.
Speaker B:I don't know any really difference.
Speaker B:I didn't even really know where he was from when he's talking about the Hilltop at the time, you know, but, yeah, so I grew up out there, and everybody I knew listened to the same kind of music as I did, which was hip hop.
Speaker B:But to go even before that, like, and prior to listening to hip hop music.
Speaker B:Now I have.
Speaker B:I'm the youngest of six, and my dad was also a DJ in Korea when he was in the service in Korea.
Speaker B:And so he had a record collection and he djed and he was a huge fan of music.
Speaker B:And I mean, he's still alive, thank goodness.
Speaker B:And he's 85.
Speaker B:And even to this day, he sends me.
Speaker B:Like the other day, for instance, he sent me a.
Speaker B:A song by the Winstons, you know, the Amen Brother break.
Speaker B:He sends.
Speaker B:But he, like, sends it to me sincerely, because he likes the Winstons.
Speaker B:You know, he's not like, oh, check out this break.
Speaker B:He's just like, yeah, check out this Winston song.
Speaker B: album that he gave me in like: Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:And yeah, he still sends me music.
Speaker B:So growing up, I was around, I would say, a musical family that didn't play instruments.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:Just huge rock and roll fans, huge soul fans, huge oldies, blues.
Speaker B:My dad liked to say, like, oh, I've been listening to, you know, music so long that before rock and roll, I was a blues man, you know, so.
Speaker B:And then if you look at pictures of him in the 50s, he had that, like, sort of pompadour hair, real cool looking, very cool suit thin.
Speaker B:You know, he looked like in.
Speaker B:In Britain it'd be like a Teddy Boy, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Yeah, he had that look and he was like, super cool.
Speaker B:He was a dancer, like, you know, he'd go to the bars and clubs and win dance contests and stuff like that.
Speaker B:And that's how he met my mom, apparently.
Speaker B:But, yeah, so I grew up around this kind of music.
Speaker B:So the one of the earliest records that I remember, it probably was the earliest record that I ever thought was like, this is my own Record was a 45 of Smokey Robinson.
Speaker B:And I believe it was like, let me think about it.
Speaker B:It's God now.
Speaker B:I can't even think of it offhand.
Speaker B:Jesus, I can't even think of it right now.
Speaker B:But I remember there's a flip side and I like both songs.
Speaker B:Give me a moment and I'll think of it.
Speaker B:But it was the first record I really loved.
Speaker B:And I loved it so much that I was cleaning it one day on the carpet in our living room and I put too much pressure on it and it cracked.
Speaker B:You know that.
Speaker B:Have you ever done that before?
Speaker B:Well, yeah, I cracked it and I was, you know, just so upset about that, but.
Speaker B:And then the first record I ever bought on my own, with my own money, leaving the house to do it myself was.
Speaker B: France, and that was probably: Speaker B:I would say 84, probably 84 maybe.
Speaker B:And that was the first record because breakdancing was like, you know, all worldwide at that point Point, you know, for the first time.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:Yeah, it was just all over the world.
Speaker B:And that was a big song, at least in the Bay Area.
Speaker B:They used to play it on the radio when you would go to.
Speaker B:To watch people break dance at the movie theater.
Speaker B:People would be break dancing outside of this movie theater called Meridian Quad on Stevens Creek back in the day, right?
Speaker B:And they'd be listening to it with their boom boxes, and everybody would be breaking and stuff like that.
Speaker B:So I like music early.
Speaker B:Early on, you know, since I was a very young person.
Speaker B:And my influences were all my.
Speaker B:My dad and my brothers and sisters.
Speaker B:I wouldn't.
Speaker B:I would say my mom, but she liked Barry Manilow and.
Speaker B:And we had one of those records in the house, and I just was not into it, you know.
Speaker A:Did you have much access then in the Bay Area to, like, the west coast funk stuff?
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, we would.
Speaker B:So I had teenage.
Speaker B:Well, my brothers were about 10 years older than me, so when I was 10, right.
Speaker B:They were about 20.
Speaker B:So they were already listening to.
Speaker B:I would say, like, they already were listening to Flashlight by Parliament.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:They were listening to Confunction.
Speaker B:They were listening to East Bay, Greece.
Speaker B:What is that album called?
Speaker B:Sorry, I'm.
Speaker B:I'm losing my train of thought a lot.
Speaker B:But they were listening to a lot of that.
Speaker B:That west coast funk, right?
Speaker B:But I had, like, brothers that were, like, part of that sort of disco era, right, in that funk era.
Speaker B:And then I had a brother who was like, in a.
Speaker B:He was real young, but he was in a gang, you know, in the late 70s, early 80s, and, you know, little, like, Latino gang.
Speaker B:And they would listen to oldies.
Speaker B:And so I listen a lot of his oldies, basically.
Speaker B:Those.
Speaker B:What are those?
Speaker B:East side.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:East side Story.
Speaker B:Yeah, east side Story volumes, you know, like, listening to a lot of those.
Speaker B:And to this day, whenever I visit him back in the Bay Area and we go.
Speaker B:We always go golfing together, and he has his phone, and all he's listening to while we're golfing is oldies, you.
Speaker A:Know, so good, though.
Speaker B:Yeah, man, I love oldies.
Speaker B:And he's a huge fan of that stuff.
Speaker B:And he actually turned me on to a.
Speaker B:A song I never heard before.
Speaker B:So I bought the record, but it was some rare, rare.
Speaker B:What is it?
Speaker B:Tommy James and the Shondell song that I never heard before.
Speaker B:I can't even think of the name of it right now.
Speaker B:But he turned me on to this new song because I was a huge fan of Crimson and Clover, Crystal Blue, Persuasion, all that whole record.
Speaker B:But he was listening to this one song, and I was like, oh, my God.
Speaker B:So I went on Discogs and bought that vinyl.
Speaker A:You know, man, it's.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:I'd love to buy more of that sort of old.
Speaker A:Well, I'd love to start buying some of that oldie stuff, but I feel like to get the good stuff, you've just got to invest so much.
Speaker A:And particularly being on this side of the water as well.
Speaker B:Oh, I know.
Speaker B:I bet.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But you guys.
Speaker B:You guys were into that.
Speaker B:What do you call it?
Speaker B:That kind of soul.
Speaker B:Northern soul and stuff.
Speaker A:Northern soul, yeah.
Speaker B:And so you have a lot of probably imports that have come in that we don't have, you know, Philly soul.
Speaker B:Yeah, but just.
Speaker A:Yeah, that oldie stuff, I just.
Speaker A:I think it's.
Speaker A:I think you've got to be seriously kind of spending some cash to get.
Speaker B:Yeah, and that's.
Speaker B:That's the thing.
Speaker B:Like, I don't.
Speaker B:I don't like to do that.
Speaker B:I don't like to spend money on expensive records.
Speaker B:I like finding a deal.
Speaker B:I like finding a deal.
Speaker B:And if I could listen to it on vinyl and it has cracks and pops.
Speaker B:Doesn't bother me one bit.
Speaker B:Like, I enjoy it to sound like that because I know that I'm not listening to Spotify.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I suppose the thing is when.
Speaker A:When you can hear the cracks, you know that that physical piece of vinyl has got a story behind it.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's got a story.
Speaker B:You know, I don't mind that.
Speaker B:In fact, I was.
Speaker B:I was talking to my friend, this guy named Day.
Speaker B:Well, Dave Paul, he's the one who created, yeah, Bombay magazine.
Speaker B:He's a good.
Speaker B:Like, probably one of my closest friends.
Speaker B:And I was like, they need to do a grading system.
Speaker B:It sounds like.
Speaker B:Maybe I was, like, drunk or something, but I was like, they need to do a grading system of the static.
Speaker B:I mean, like, because if you go to, let's say you buy a mint record, right?
Speaker B:Okay, it's mint.
Speaker B:It sounds, you know, almost like a cd, Right.
Speaker B:What's the point of that?
Speaker B:Like, you want there to be a little bit of stat.
Speaker B:Little pop here.
Speaker B:And there a little static because you want it.
Speaker B:And then I was like, they should grade between that.
Speaker B:But they probably already do.
Speaker B:I mean, that's what those gradings are.
Speaker B:But it doesn't really give an accurate description.
Speaker B:You know, there's so many different kinds of hiss and crackle, you know.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:The thing that got me the other day is about a few records from the shop.
Speaker A:And then I got them home and I was like.
Speaker A:Because I'd looked at them, because I'm mindful of looking at them for the statement.
Speaker A:But then I got them home and, like, a couple of them were, like, bold and warping really badly.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:And you know, as a dj, you just like.
Speaker B:Yeah, especially when it's on the.
Speaker A:The.
Speaker B:What do you call it?
Speaker B:The Con Vex side.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's the worst.
Speaker A:So being around those guys and being into hip hop, then.
Speaker A:When did you kind of get the itch for DJing.
Speaker B:In?
Speaker B:Probably in high school.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:A couple things happened.
Speaker B:One, I. I probably heard what is.
Speaker B:What's his name?
Speaker B:Herbie Hancock did the song oh, Rocky.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And seeing that video, right?
Speaker B:And then hearing, you know, run DMC's first record and Jam Master J hearing all that stuff when you're really young, it was just like something you never understood, never heard before.
Speaker B:And it was just fascinating.
Speaker B:And I used to.
Speaker B:I still remember.
Speaker B:I have vague memories of walking to school and while I'm walking to school, because I didn't know how it was done, because when I would try it with our home record players, you know, there's a rubber mat there.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's probably belt drive.
Speaker B:I remember my brother had a Yamaha system at the time, and it was belt drive, you know, one of these, like, rack systems, you know, that they had back in the day.
Speaker B:This was, you know, probably mid, like, 80, 85, 86 or something.
Speaker B:And I just didn't understand.
Speaker B:Every time that I pulled the record back, the whole thing would skip.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:The belt would fly off.
Speaker B:And so I'd walk to school thinking, like, how is this done?
Speaker B:You know, And I remember walking back and forth to school, think, just thinking in my head, how do they do this?
Speaker B:At the same time, Listening to, you know, the latest release from UTFO or something like that, Right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so I was really like, I had to figure this out.
Speaker B:And then luckily I had a friend in high school named Trevin, and his brother was a few years older than him.
Speaker B: tables he had two S technique: Speaker B:And we went over to his house, and it was the first time I got to, like, understand it.
Speaker B:And I was like, oh, my God, I could not believe it.
Speaker B:So I always wanted to go over to his house to go into his brother's room and, you know, and play.
Speaker B:Play with those records.
Speaker B:And he had all that.
Speaker B:You know, he was a Filipino kid, you know, so he had all that sort of.
Speaker B:What do you call it, freestyle music.
Speaker B:But he had a lot of.
Speaker B:A lot of hip hop music.
Speaker B:And we just spent hours in there learning how to scratch.
Speaker B:I mean, that was like, the most interesting thing in my life at that time, you know?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And for me, based on anything I've watched and listened to, the Bay Area, like, is so closely associated with the highest level of turntablism.
Speaker B:I know.
Speaker B:That's another thing, man.
Speaker B:Like.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:What was it like being in that scene?
Speaker B:It was.
Speaker B:It was crazy because everybody was so good at DJing, everybody was so good at scratching, you know, and it was.
Speaker B:You know, there was.
Speaker B: Okay, for instance, around: Speaker B:So I was 24 at the time.
Speaker B:I had.
Speaker B:Was living in Seattle for a couple years, and a few friends of mine and I.
Speaker B:When.
Speaker B:When Showbiz and AG did the.
Speaker B:What is the song called?
Speaker B:The Nighttime Remix.
Speaker B:Sorry.
Speaker B:It was called Next Level Nighttime Remix.
Speaker B:It's a very.
Speaker B:It's showbiz and AG's biggest song, you know, And I flew them out, or we flew them out to do a show in.
Speaker B:In Seattle, and Rock Raider was with them.
Speaker B:It was rock.
Speaker B:It was Rock Raider.
Speaker B:It was party arty 8 and AG and I think Wally.
Speaker B:Wally World.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:There's a long story I could get into, but I won't.
Speaker B:But Showbiz couldn't make it, and because he had, like, been arrested for alleged murder.
Speaker B:So we had, like, change his plane to.
Speaker B:We had to change his plane ticket, which was crazy.
Speaker B:And so, you know, we didn't know what we were getting into.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:It felt, like, so scary, like, oh, my God, these guys who are, like, you know, from the Bronx or coming to see us to do a show, and one of the guys, like, has a murder, like, rap.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:So that was weird.
Speaker B:But what I was gonna say is, when they arrived, it was like, totally the opposite.
Speaker B:What you would think, you know, during that.
Speaker B:Especially during that time, everything was, like, a lot of tension, you know, with rap rappers at that time, you know, and.
Speaker B:And they were the nice sort of.
Speaker A:East versus west beef.
Speaker B:No, it was a little prior to that, but there was just a lot of, like, you know, early sort of east coast gangster rap, you know, like Mob, Deep Black Moon, a lot of these rap, showbiz and ag, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Who were.
Speaker B:Who were, you know, thuggish, but east coast, you know, and Fat Joe.
Speaker B:Anyway, so when they arrived, what I was trying to get to is that's when I met Rock Raider.
Speaker B:And Rock Raider, the first like, sort of thing, when he heard that I was from the Bay Area, asked me was, do you know DJ Flair?
Speaker B:And I was like, yeah, yeah, I know DJ Flair.
Speaker B:I don't know him well, but I definitely know him.
Speaker B:He's like, I want to meet DJ Flair.
Speaker B:And he's like, this guy, you know, does this.
Speaker B:Scratch that.
Speaker B:I just gotta hear it, like, in person.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And I don't know if you've ever met Rock Raider or know him.
Speaker B:He's the most bashful, shyest, like, timid guy in real life that you ever meet yet when he's on those, you know, turntables, he kind of forgets all that.
Speaker B:And he's having so much fun that he's just, like, destroying it, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Just killing it.
Speaker B:And it was so weird.
Speaker B:He like, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like, I'm from the Bay Area.
Speaker B:I have these guys out and they're all like, you know, supposedly this, like, thugged out, you know, entertainment.
Speaker B:And they, you know, I would open the door for Ag, like, to let him into, like, an apartment room, or he'd, like, turn around and go, thanks, thank you.
Speaker B:You know, like, he was just so polite.
Speaker B:Party Arty, who was just known as, you know, a Rah rah, rugged rapper.
Speaker B:Such a polite, nice guy.
Speaker B:There was like, they would, you know, you would say, like, come on in.
Speaker B:They go, oh, should I take off my shoes?
Speaker B:They're like.
Speaker B:They're so polite and respectful.
Speaker B:It was not only a shock, but I had to ask them why and how and all that.
Speaker B:And, you know, and they were like, you know, that's just the way they were raised.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:They grew up that way.
Speaker B:And, you know, their parents were good parents to them, you know.
Speaker B:And so it was.
Speaker B:It was kind of just like, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:You build up this myth in your head about people through the music, but then when you really meet them, they're actually really great people, you know?
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, could you tell us a bit more about Flair?
Speaker A:Because I think he's an interesting one because his contribution, the flair is just.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Unbelievable.
Speaker A:But I don't know if he kind of gets the credit he deserves.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Well, I mean, I don't like.
Speaker B:So I didn't hang out with him much, but I hung out with him during some important times, you know, along with.
Speaker B:Because he used to be like, Hubert's right hand man.
Speaker B: e time, I would say in around: Speaker B:No, he has a cousin who was in only like, eighth grade.
Speaker B:And every Thursday they would have.
Speaker B:At their school in San Francisco, which was close to Qbert's old neighborhood, right?
Speaker B:They would have on Thursdays a DJ class sort of after school, which a teacher sponsored.
Speaker B:And one time I.
Speaker B:Well, my cousin invited me to say, hey, would you come and be like a guest DJ to kind of teach everybody, right?
Speaker B:And I said, sure.
Speaker B:And I was like, oh, shit.
Speaker B:You know, thinking to myself, what am I gonna do?
Speaker B:I have no idea.
Speaker B:So I called Qbert up.
Speaker B:I was like, yo, Rich, can you do me a favor?
Speaker B:Would you kindly.
Speaker B:I'm like, really polite, you know, Would you please join me, you know, and go and see my cousin's class that he belongs to?
Speaker B:And, you know, as soon as I started talking about that, he's, oh, dude, totally.
Speaker B:Let's go, let's go.
Speaker B:Oh, dude.
Speaker B:Dude.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah, dude.
Speaker B:And I was like, okay, cool.
Speaker B:He said, I'm gonna bring flair.
Speaker B:We're gonna do this thing.
Speaker B:And it was this thing that was.
Speaker B:Actually became a.
Speaker B:Like a.
Speaker B:A history lesson that they created, right?
Speaker B:And this was just like the.
Speaker B:The sort of the pre.
Speaker B:You know, what do you.
Speaker B:What would you call it?
Speaker B:Like, the.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:The test before.
Speaker B:They actually brought this out to the world during one of their scratch cons, right?
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:When they go through the development of all the different techniques.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So they were just developing that still.
Speaker B:And so they were really excited to come.
Speaker B:And that could have been one of the reasons.
Speaker B:But another reason is because they're just such, like, really.
Speaker B:They're such good guys.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like, they were willing to do that and come and be nice to all the kids, and so they did that and they did that whole, like, history lesson from the beginning of scratch to the future.
Speaker B:And the future was Qbert and flare's type of cutting, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Doing the flare scratch, doing orbits and doing all the, you know, crabbing crab scratches and stuff.
Speaker B:And they did all that but they started jugga jugga, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:They started with all that stuff.
Speaker B:And watching that, I was al.
Speaker B:Also just as impressed as the kids were, you know what I mean?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But it left a deep impression on those kids.
Speaker B:And, you know, since one of those kids was my cousin, he still, you know, will never forget that day.
Speaker B:I know some of his friends and they all do music and they're like, if it wasn't for that, you know, I mean, I probably would have been a doctor.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:But now I'm just a guy who does music and, you know, is there.
Speaker A:Anyone from those early days?
Speaker A:Because I'm guessing, you know, you had like the beat junkies around there as well, and that was la, right, Sorry.
Speaker B:Yeah, but so that was like back in those days, you know, LA was like thousands of miles away in, you know, even in your head, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like you, you'd get to go there every now and then.
Speaker B:Like we would, there'd be conventions, you know, certain conventions you'd go to and then you would meet up and see some of these people that you had their, their, their mixtapes, like Rip one or, you know, Cut Chemist.
Speaker B:You'd have like a tape, tape or something that somehow you got, you know, at a, at a record store, you know, they used to sell a lot of cassettes like that and, and then everybody, you know, dubbed copies, you know, for each other.
Speaker B:So I would have a bunch of dubbed copies of a lot of these guys and I would see them every now and then at a convention, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:And I would just get to meet him for a few minutes, you know.
Speaker B:But the Bay Area was had, you know, a huge amount of DJs in all various styles.
Speaker B:That was more than enough, do you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like, yeah, but yeah, back then it was, it was very seldom that I'd make it out to la.
Speaker A:Would.
Speaker A:Was there anyone that you saw battling or anything in those early days that really blew your mind that went on to.
Speaker B:Yeah, so my friend Dave Paul, he had the, he had a series of shows, these bomb hip hop shows, showcases that he would have a bunch of rappers come out and from all over the United States.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Some big ones too.
Speaker B:He has more of, he remembers more of that.
Speaker B:Like what.
Speaker B:Who was there exactly, but there were some big people.
Speaker B:I can't remember exactly, but what, what.
Speaker B:Some of the guys that were there.
Speaker B:This is like in the early 90s, like 93.
Speaker B:He had.
Speaker B:What was the name?
Speaker B:Rob Swift.
Speaker B:Yeah, and I think Rob Swift at the time was like, Akanelli's dj, I think.
Speaker B:And so I got to see Rob Swift's DJing, where he was like, cutting up Black Sabbath and stuff like that.
Speaker B:And then FM 2.0 was there, which.
Speaker A:Was, you know, Qbert's Cubert, Mike and Apollo, wasn't it?
Speaker B:Yes, yes.
Speaker B:And so I got to see all that stuff early on.
Speaker B:You know, I was probably like 20, 22, which, you know, I was about either the same age as these guys or even older than them, do you know what I mean?
Speaker B:At 22.
Speaker B:And so when you grow up and later on, you're like, wait a minute, you know, like, those guys were like a couple years younger than me.
Speaker B:You know, they already seem like legends, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like, it was really weird.
Speaker B:But, yeah, I. I got to see all of that stuff first, firsthand, usually, because, you know, since I was friends with Dave Paul and also Peanut Butter and Charisma, who also performed at that show.
Speaker B:And Charisma killed it, man.
Speaker B:But, yeah, that was like a. I don't know, I guess I was just lucky, like, to be in those circles early, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:But I was always outside of it because I was never.
Speaker B:I was never a huge, like, scratch dj.
Speaker B:I loved scratching and I wanted to get better at it.
Speaker B:And I.
Speaker B:Like I told you about my early days of wanting to know, how the hell do they even scratch?
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:As soon as I got my first equipment for sampling, which was the ASR 10, that's when I, like, started.
Speaker B:Slowed down on scratching.
Speaker B:I wanted to produce.
Speaker B:I wanted to produce and produce and produce.
Speaker B:So I just kept making beats and then scratching just as an accompaniment to my.
Speaker B:To my beats.
Speaker A:Did you ever play out then and mix live or anything?
Speaker A:Or is it.
Speaker B:No, I.
Speaker B:Most of my days in San Francisco, I was like a DJ for bars and clubs, events like that.
Speaker B: show was in England in, like,: Speaker B:And I remember playing some big club with.
Speaker B:With Wolf.
Speaker B:Me and him were DJing together somewhere in London, big.
Speaker B:And I was like, so nervous.
Speaker B:I would, like.
Speaker B:We had this table and just.
Speaker B:Huge crowd, right?
Speaker B:And I would go down to grab records and I would stay down there long because I did not want to stand back up.
Speaker B:And I was like, he's like, just.
Speaker B:Just come back up here.
Speaker B:Just come back up and.
Speaker B:And do something.
Speaker B:But I was having also this reflection from the sound coming back on me.
Speaker B:And so there Was a.
Speaker B:There was a space between my scratch, so I'd go jugga, and it would, like, juggle, like, you know, a millisecond or so later.
Speaker B:And it was confusing.
Speaker B:I was just so frightened, man.
Speaker B:But I still.
Speaker B:Even now, thinking about it, I'm, like, getting, like, nervous thinking about it, you.
Speaker A:Know, Something I realized a few weeks ago when I was playing somewhere.
Speaker A:I was playing a 40th and playing really commercial stuff, which I don't often do, but I wanted to get in at this venue.
Speaker A:So I.
Speaker A:So I was playing this set and I was getting requests that I wasn't expecting based on.
Speaker A:It's always the way, isn't it?
Speaker A:You get a bit of a.
Speaker A:This is the type of thing we want.
Speaker A:And then someone asks you for something completely different, so you're like, how do I go in between?
Speaker A:And I always kind of, like, I look at people to see what subtle cues I can get.
Speaker A:Is someone tapping their feet?
Speaker A:Are they just.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:You know, if it's not that time of the night where people are going for it, you're just trying to.
Speaker A:Trying to just.
Speaker A:Just get those cues to see if the vibes right.
Speaker A:But then I realized how awkward it is if someone looks back and realizes that you're looking at them.
Speaker A:You just like.
Speaker A:So it is easier, I think, just to stay under the decks and hide.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, no, I know.
Speaker B:I know what you mean.
Speaker B:It is.
Speaker B:It is smart to sort of look at these cues and, you know, sort of take them into consideration of what you should do next.
Speaker B:I do that a lot.
Speaker B:And I always tend to also.
Speaker A:You.
Speaker B:Know, try to get girls out to.
Speaker B:To dance.
Speaker B:Because once you do that, then you could play pretty much anything and people will come, you know, but it's hard.
Speaker B:And, you know, the thing is, like, I don't.
Speaker B:I don't enjoy DJing, really.
Speaker B:Like, I realized, you know, like.
Speaker B:Because I don't like to play anything but music that I really like.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And a lot of times, you know, you're kind of forced to play all this music that.
Speaker B:Or it's just the latest hits, you know, and I'm not a fan of the latest hits.
Speaker B:And the more.
Speaker B:The more I listen to music, the more I'm not interested in commercial music or, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:I like stuff that I could bob my head to, but I don't.
Speaker B:And, like, I don't want to, you know, do like, a breakdown of, you know, hip hop, you know, Cheryl Lynn or, you know, I don't want to be, like, the Guy who knows all the classic hip hop stuff.
Speaker B:I don't feel like that's me, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:I want to be who I am.
Speaker B:And that would be, you know, let's say, playing like a rare Mob deep joint or something like that, you know?
Speaker B:I mean, and then.
Speaker B:And then playing like, shit, I don't know, like a Richard Harris song, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like from the 60s, you know, saying like, I don't.
Speaker B:I don't like DJing because I don't like to play what everybody wishes that they want to hear.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like, I just hate it.
Speaker B:I hate.
Speaker B:I can, like, I'll say it right here.
Speaker B:I just cannot stand DJing, you know?
Speaker B:Like, if people came for.
Speaker B:If people came literally just for me, then you have a lot more.
Speaker B:You know, not just opportunity, but you just.
Speaker B:They're.
Speaker B:They're coming because you're just a tastemaker, right?
Speaker B:And they're like, okay, we trust what he does.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But even then, I mean, I would get us maybe a small crowd, you know, like, because I just don't want to play.
Speaker B:I don't want to get the crowd up.
Speaker B:You don't want to get them all feeling good.
Speaker B:I want to get them feeling, you know, mad, like they want to sock somebody, you know?
Speaker B:That was like the first time, like, I used to listen to my headphones walking down the street with like the Wu Tang's first record.
Speaker B:And like, it makes you just want to clench your fists and punch the shit out of somebody.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:And I love that.
Speaker B:Now people use that for, like, working out, you know.
Speaker B:It's my workout tape, you know, But.
Speaker B:But when you're young, you're a teenager, you got all this angst in you.
Speaker B:That music feels really good, and I love that music.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:That's what I like it for.
Speaker B:I want to feel that way.
Speaker B:I'm not gonna really, like, attack somebody.
Speaker B:Cause I'd probably get killed.
Speaker B:But you feel that way.
Speaker B:You feel that sort of anger when you're listening to these rappers.
Speaker B:And that's good.
Speaker B:Mobb Deep Mop.
Speaker B:Those.
Speaker B:Those kind of guys make you feel good, you know?
Speaker B:And even though it's like.
Speaker B:Even though it's just hard, you know?
Speaker B:And I wish I could just kind of do that, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Give that out all day, you know?
Speaker A:So before you mentioned about charisma and I absolutely love the Charisma Peanut Butter Wolf album.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:The production is so good.
Speaker B:And Chris has been good.
Speaker B:Like, that since the 80s, you know.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So were you, were you guys around?
Speaker A:Because that, because that album, for anyone that doesn't know, and there's always room for me to be wrong about this.
Speaker A:I think they signed to Hollywood Basic on Disney or a Disney owned label and then the album ended up getting shelved, didn't it?
Speaker A:And then, yeah, Charisma died, I think, quite quite tragically, wasn't it?
Speaker B:Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I got the phone call from Chris when he was at Stanford Hospital and Chris was there and was like, told me at night, it was like 10pm he's like, charisma passed away.
Speaker B:I go, you know, like what?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And he's like, I'm at the hospital right now, dude.
Speaker B:It was, it was probably the most traumatic thing that ever happened to me at that age.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:I was, I was probably like 22, 23 and you know, somebody who had so much life and just Handsome guy, everybody loved him.
Speaker B:He was very, he was charismatic, you know, and very fun, super funny.
Speaker B:And for him to just one day, you, you know, you.
Speaker B:You hear that, he's dead.
Speaker B:It was like a shock, you know, it was really sad time, you know.
Speaker A:Were you, were you around those guys when they got signed and when they were making that album and were they the first people in that sort of social group that had got that opportunity?
Speaker B:Yeah, from who I knew.
Speaker B:Yeah, I was, I was there when Chris was still making that record, finishing it, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:He would show me a bunch of songs too and you know, ask me what I think and you know, and I was always like super impressed by what he can do with the eps because you remember the eps is like a.
Speaker B:In Sonic, EPS is a.
Speaker B:It's a mono sampler.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And he was doing all this panning left to right and you know, things were like going in and left and right where it just felt like stereo.
Speaker B:And they used it also like as like, like call and response and you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like Charisma, get ready on the left.
Speaker A:Get ready on the right.
Speaker B:Yeah, he was just really, really, really clever.
Speaker B:But yeah, that was.
Speaker B:And in fact it was, it was called Apogee Studio Apogee.
Speaker B:That's where Charisma and Peanut Butter Wolf went.
Speaker B:And that's where my group, Foreign Legion, Zach Prozac and me would go also.
Speaker B:We just weren't nearly as good as they were, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:But we went to the same studio, Charisma.
Speaker B:You know, I used to go to the coffee shop with him.
Speaker B:And Wolf together.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And at that time, Jeff, Jake, and we'd all go and do our little, like, you know, we were real young, early 20s, and Chris was probably, like, 19 or something.
Speaker B:And we'd go to coffee shops back in those days because it was, like, where all the cool kids hung out in a suburb.
Speaker B:In a suburb, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like, it was like the.
Speaker B:Back then, you call them mods mod, you know, mods.
Speaker B:And everybody would dress, you know, a little like, you know, some Depeche Mode look, you know, like, it was.
Speaker B:It was good times, you know, and charisma was cool enough in those days, like, to go to these places and enjoy himself, you know, at the coffee shop.
Speaker B:Yeah, everybody's just looking at, you know, girls, you know, at that time.
Speaker B:And back then, it was like there was very.
Speaker B:A lot of social segregation.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Like, you.
Speaker B:If you were a mod, you weren't a skinhead.
Speaker B:If you were a skinhead, you weren't a guy into hip hop.
Speaker B:If you're a guy into hip hop, you weren't into, you know, metal.
Speaker B:And if you were into metal, you weren't into disco.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:It was, like, very socially, musically segregated.
Speaker B:And so for Charisma to be, like, totally into hip hop and then come with us out to, like, these cute little mod girls hanging out, you know, with their short hair and their black clothes, it was really, you know, he was, like, standing out, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Yeah, he was, like, willing to hang out like that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So a couple of things, just one point to add on about Charisma's About Peanut Butter Wolf's production.
Speaker A:Something I found really interesting, that with that album, it'd be interesting to get your take on it because you understand the samplers and things is the drums.
Speaker A:A lot of the drums sound like he's sampling them from Malimal and there it's.
Speaker A:Or if it's the same drum machine that Marley Marley uses for that Marley scratch and stuff like that.
Speaker A:But the way.
Speaker A:And they're like really hard sort of drum machine drums, a lot of them on the album.
Speaker A:But then they're kind of contrasted with some quite sweet, uplifting, happy song samples as well.
Speaker B:I think I know what you're talking about.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Like, even back then, Chris was, like, already looking at that Marley morrow era of 88, 89, as, like, a nostalgia.
Speaker B:Do you know what I mean?
Speaker B:He was looking at it nostalgically even, because, remember, he did a song called the Chronicles, and that was on Dave.
Speaker B:Dave Paul's Record label for the.
Speaker B:What is it called?
Speaker B:The Return of the dj.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And so even back then and when he made the Chronicles, which was around 93, he was already looking at it, like, nostalgically, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:And so when he did those songs, Keep On Rocking It, I think you may be talking about, on that.
Speaker B:On that Big Shots record.
Speaker B:And it's.
Speaker B:He's using these, like, old samples, right, that were on, you know, or either either early Marley Marle records or like, you know, even before.
Speaker B:Before that, like, you know, Funky four plus One and, you know, stuff like that.
Speaker B:He was finding these drums from records that he already owned because he was a huge collector even back.
Speaker B:And his.
Speaker B:His local record shop was Star Records.
Speaker B:And Star Records had a lot of hip hop from back then.
Speaker B:But so all those were mainly samples, not literal drum machine stuff, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Samples into the samples, into the eps from records that were using those early drum machines.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So what was the process for you guys getting into the drum machines and learning them?
Speaker A:Because now, like, a lot of it's.
Speaker A:You go on YouTube or with the NPCs, you've got the guys that have made NPC Bible.
Speaker A:Like, what.
Speaker A:What was the learning curve?
Speaker B:Well, it was tough, but thank goodness, like, when I bought my ASR 10, it was right when they came out in like 93 or something.
Speaker B:And peanut butter had the EPS.
Speaker B:But when I bought the ASR, I wasn't buying it thinking, oh, Chris has the EPS.
Speaker B:I just kind of bought it because that was what was available at Guitar center at the.
Speaker B:And, you know, that was it.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:You could buy that.
Speaker B:And that was, I think, the only sampler they had, you know, and it was very expensive.
Speaker B:It was like $2,600 back then in 93 money.
Speaker B:That's like you could buy a car, a good.
Speaker B:A good used car, you know, and then what?
Speaker B:Lucky enough I had Chris there to go, oh, you have a SR10.
Speaker B:I could come by and show you how to use this, you know, and so, you know, you have this machine or, you know, back then, it was like this.
Speaker B:For me, it was like this complicated thing.
Speaker B:It's got a keyboard, there's all these buttons on top, you know, and you're like, I, what is a sequencer?
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:What is what?
Speaker B:You know, when you hear a metronome and you think before you're thinking of a sequencer and stuff, you're thinking a metronome.
Speaker B:Like, you know, playing a piano and learning like, timing, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:It's just a metronome.
Speaker B:You're not thinking, oh, this is where you place sounds on, like, you really.
Speaker B:Before there was, like, videos of this or, you know, YouTube or anything.
Speaker B:You just don't even know what the hell is going on, you know.
Speaker B:Oh, it says press record.
Speaker B:Record what?
Speaker B:Like, it was that.
Speaker B:It was that confusing.
Speaker B:So when Chris came by and showed me, he showed me all these basics that he knew how to make beats.
Speaker B:And then from there on anything else, you just got to figure it out.
Speaker B:And so for the longest time, I just used the ASR from the sort of lesson that he taught me.
Speaker B:And I even had like, these discs that said, like, Peanut Butter Wolf lesson.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, for the longest time, I would load that same disc just to listen to it and figure out what was done.
Speaker B:You know, it's very tough, but, you know, once you kind of figure that out, then you want to teach other people.
Speaker B:And I ended up meeting this guy named.
Speaker B:Well, his real name's Rob, but his producer name was Fanatic.
Speaker B:And Fanatic is known for producing Rascoe's first big single, which was called the Unassisted.
Speaker B:Now, the Unassisted was like.
Speaker B:It blew up in the Bay Area and it blew up worldwide.
Speaker B:I mean, people in Europe knew it.
Speaker B:He toured a lot because of that record.
Speaker B:And I actually taught Fnatic how to use the EPS.
Speaker B:I mean, he had the 16 plus, the EPS, 16 plus.
Speaker B:But I taught him how to use that because Wolf taught me how to use the ASR.
Speaker B:And we became such good friends that we moved in together and became roommates in a studio, like a small apartment studio, where it just had two beds on either side of the.
Speaker B:On either side of the room.
Speaker B:Then our.
Speaker B:Our keyboards, so our own records.
Speaker B:Do you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like, our own turntable.
Speaker B:And then sharing the bathroom.
Speaker B:And then he ends up moving in with Peanut Butter.
Speaker B:When Peanut Butter finally moved out of his parents place, his mom's place, and they got a place together, downtown San Jose.
Speaker B:Downtown San Jose was like, wow, you're living in downtown big time.
Speaker B:Because we're all in the suburbs.
Speaker B:But even downtown San Jose is just a tiny little suburban neighborhood, you know, with a few coffee shops, a movie theater, you know.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I think you mentioned before we recorded this was kind of the area that is Silicon Valley now.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So was it affordable back then?
Speaker B:Well, I mean, no, not really.
Speaker B:Never.
Speaker B:I don't think it ever really was.
Speaker B:It was, you know, like we lived In a place that was my brother's.
Speaker B:What we call his side house.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:He had.
Speaker B:He had a home.
Speaker B:And then next to his home, like this.
Speaker B:Add on, that was just like a one bedroom or.
Speaker B:Yeah, one room studio.
Speaker B:And we both shared rent in that.
Speaker B:And we probably paid like $300, you know, for that back then.
Speaker B:Yeah, it wasn't about that much, but that was like money back then, you.
Speaker A:Know what I mean?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that's in what, in the 90s then.
Speaker B:Yeah, this is like 93, you know.
Speaker B:Then Fnatic moved in with Wolf, and I think he.
Speaker B:They lived with a couple other producers.
Speaker B:I can't remember who, but it was Fnatic, Wolf, maybe Andreas.
Speaker A:So was that around the same time Stone's Throw was forming?
Speaker A:And when did Foreign Legion.
Speaker B:How.
Speaker A:But was Foreign Legion before or after?
Speaker B:It was kind of during.
Speaker B:So I knew the rapper in Foreign Legion since I was maybe 13 years old.
Speaker B:We were in the same junior high school and so we always were into rap music together.
Speaker B: g around, you know, in around: Speaker B:We, you know, save some money.
Speaker B:I remember studio time was about 15 doll dollars an hour back then to go to like a professional studio, which was somebody's garage, basically convert converted, you know.
Speaker B:And it's usually some like metal head, you know, like who has gear, you know, but it was expensive.
Speaker B:But we, we started doing that around 88, but we never knew what to do with it, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:And then Wolf, you know, I knew him concurrently.
Speaker B:And they were getting really serious when, you know, getting signed to Hollywood Basic and Chris started talking about starting a label, right?
Speaker B:And I remember he used to call me up and ask me, like, can you think of some names?
Speaker B:What are some names you could think of?
Speaker B:And I thought of Worldwide, call it Worldwide Records, because that just sounds cool.
Speaker B:And it was also at the time Pete Rock and C.L.
Speaker B:smooth's record came out, Main ingredient, right?
Speaker B:And there was that song Worldwide.
Speaker B:And I was like, name it Worldwide.
Speaker B:That'd be so dope.
Speaker B:But he ended up naming it Stone's Throw.
Speaker B:And that was sort of ties in more with Charisma and him.
Speaker B:They're sort of joking all the time because apparently the mom would say, you know, your dreams are just a stone's throw away.
Speaker B:You know, like, she used to say cute things like that.
Speaker B:And they used to always laugh at her, the mom, you know, thinking she's, you know, so old or, you know, the way she acted so old.
Speaker B:World, you know, and.
Speaker B:But, you know, that was a really good tie in calling it Stone's Throw, you know, it really was sort of like Peanut Butter honoring Charisma and the.
Speaker B:And the joke that they had with them.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And you.
Speaker A:You did some of the design work early on, as I understand it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, so I used to hang out with Chris like, every single day.
Speaker B:It was like, you know, we wake up and it's like, Chris will call, pick me up in his car, and we just hang out all day, you know, doing music, record shopping, furniture shopping, because he just got a place in San Francisco.
Speaker B:So he's always taking me furniture shopping and, you know, hanging out in the car, listening to beats, listening to his beats, listening to, you know, records that we liked and stuff.
Speaker B:And so we just like intensely hung out all the time.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:It was just like from beginning of the.
Speaker B:The day to the end of the day, just always like hanging out side by side for a long time.
Speaker B:And so during that, those are formative years of Stone's Throw.
Speaker B:And Peanut Butter Wolf got a job at trc, which is the local music distributor in South Santa.
Speaker B:South San Francisco.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And I got a job at like, Esprit.
Speaker B:It was like a women's clothing store.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:And so, you know, he was.
Speaker B:He was good where he figured out, I'm going to work for a distribution company and that's going to help him to get closer to his goals, you know.
Speaker B:And there was a couple people there that were willing to invest in putting his music out, especially after Charisma passed away.
Speaker A:So how did you end up doing the design?
Speaker A:Had you studied design at college or anything like that?
Speaker B:No, no, I just.
Speaker B:I was like, at the time, the way I met Peanut Butter Wolf and Charisma was literally, it was, you know, of course we had this thing in common.
Speaker B:We both went to the same studio, but we didn't know it because we booked different times, obviously.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But it was this.
Speaker B:It was because at this, this period of time in like maybe 89, I. I worked at Macy's and I, you know, was selling clothes and stuff like that.
Speaker B:And this girl was working there.
Speaker B:Her name was Teresa Castro.
Speaker B:And Teresa Castro was.
Speaker B:Was talking about being the designer and photographer for this rap group named Charisma, Peanut Butter Wolf.
Speaker B:And I was like, oh, wow, that's pretty cool.
Speaker B:I, you know, I love hip hop music.
Speaker B:I do hip hop music too, you know, and this is a long time ago.
Speaker B:So it's like, what Did I really do?
Speaker B:You know, just practicing, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:But so she was, like, telling me about all this, and I was like, oh, wow.
Speaker B:I. I have this silkscreen company with a friend of mine that we were starting at the same time as I was working, and I was like, I could print their T shirts if you come up with, you know, the artwork and stuff.
Speaker B:And so that's kind of how it all went down.
Speaker B:I ended up meeting Peanut Butter and Charisma.
Speaker B:And then we were started talking about, you know, talking to each other about what are we gonna do to create a logo and create a design?
Speaker B:And then about a week later, Wolf comes to me with Jeff, and Jeff created the Charisma and Peanut Butter Wolf logo, which was like this inky, like, you know, like, ink spilled sort of design.
Speaker B:It looked kind of like a misfits logo or some punk rock logo, you know?
Speaker B:And I looked at it, and I was like, you know, huh.
Speaker B:Okay, cool.
Speaker B:And then I called up Chris later, and I was like, chris, you gotta.
Speaker B:You can't just have this as the logo.
Speaker B:You have to have, like, a circle around it.
Speaker B:Or it's got to be encapsulated in something because it's just these loose letters that don't really have, like, a structure to.
Speaker B:And he told that to Jeff, and Jeff.
Speaker B:Jeff gets, like, pissed off easily.
Speaker B:And Jeff instantly hated me for that.
Speaker B:And they brought it back, and there was this really thick circle for the logo.
Speaker B:I was like, okay, that works.
Speaker B:Let's do that.
Speaker B:And so we printed shirts with that logo as the first thing, and that's how we all became friends.
Speaker B:And then a few months later, Jeff reaches out to me on the phone and was like, hey, man, do you want to be in a band with me?
Speaker B:I was like, all right.
Speaker B:I don't play anything, but sure.
Speaker B:He's like, you don't have to learn know how to play anything.
Speaker B:I have a bass I could bring over, and you could do the bass, and I'll play the guitar.
Speaker B:I was like, okay, cool.
Speaker B:And I go, and I have the ASR10.
Speaker B:We could, like, loop drums and then make songs like that.
Speaker B:And then we talked.
Speaker B:He goes, the reason why I wanted you in the band.
Speaker B:He's like, because you look like Sid Vicious.
Speaker B:Because back then, I like, you know, I probably weighed about 118, 118 pounds.
Speaker B:I don't know what that converts to, but really, really emaciated, right?
Speaker B:And real skinny and, you know, dressed more like punk rock than I would dress hip.
Speaker B:I never dressed hip hop.
Speaker B:I hated that look, you know, I just.
Speaker B:I like dressing more like a.
Speaker B:Like a mod or punk than.
Speaker B:Than looking hip hop because it just not only did it not fit who I am, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:That's a lot of times why people back in those days, they would, like, trip out that I was even hanging out with all these people, right?
Speaker B:In fact, Rascoe, not too long ago, I was talking to Rascoe and he's like, dude, he goes, one time, Peanut Butter told me that you had all these dope beats and that you're a dope producer.
Speaker B:And he's like, Keith.
Speaker B:You know, like that.
Speaker B:He's like.
Speaker B:He's like, Keith.
Speaker B:You know, because people used to call me Keith.
Speaker B:Like, them.
Speaker B:No one else just did that circle.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:The Peanut Butter used to call me Keithy Sweets and his sister used to call me Keithy Sweets.
Speaker B:And I hated it, but I didn't care.
Speaker B:But because of that Rascal used to call me Keith.
Speaker B:And he was like, yeah, dude.
Speaker B:He goes.
Speaker B:And I look at.
Speaker B:Looking at you like that guy.
Speaker B:Why would this dude make beats, right?
Speaker B:And he goes, and then I heard your beats.
Speaker B:And then we ended up doing the song what It's all about together.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:And then a few years back from now, like, just only like three or four years ago, he hit me up and was like, dude, I want you to do a whole album for me.
Speaker B:He's like, because you have the most special ear, you know, and said all these compliments, basically.
Speaker B:But then he got too busy because he's, you know, a grown up and he has a, you know, kids and a day job that he has a career with, you know, but we ended up.
Speaker B:We're doing three songs and we have an EP coming out soon, so.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:Yeah, awesome.
Speaker A:You'll have to send over the info when it comes out.
Speaker B:It's crazy, right?
Speaker B: did a song with them is like,: Speaker A:So first question then to come on, from what we've said, did DJ Design become the moniker because of your eye for design or was that.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Because when I.
Speaker A:Because when I was doing the research, I was like, all right, yeah, dj.
Speaker A:DJ Design.
Speaker A:It makes so much sense.
Speaker A:Of course.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So at the time, Wolf needed a lot of help wherever he can get it, right?
Speaker B:And so, you know, I always am someone with a. I'd say, like, I talk a lot.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:I talk and I.
Speaker B:All I Was I studied art on my own.
Speaker B:Like, I didn't go to college, but I studied all kinds of books on modern art and, you know, more like ancient art and stuff.
Speaker B:And I was really fascinated with that stuff.
Speaker B:Like.
Speaker B:Like, that's all.
Speaker B:I mean, this is, again, before computers, right?
Speaker B:So I was always at the library checking out books and learning about painting and learning about, you know, learning what my favorite things in art was to where, you know, it ended up reducing, at that time down to, like, Dadaism, you know, like, I really was fascinated with Dadaism.
Speaker B:And it just, you know, looking at the images, reading the whole background of how it was, like, this reaction to World War I and the atrocities that happened then, like, all this stuff impacted me because I like.
Speaker B:I liked art that had, like, a real struggle or a real, like, yeah, I'm anti war.
Speaker B:I. I hate war.
Speaker B:And people making art that is sort of a reaction to atrocity sounded good to me.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:And when I saw, for instance, like, Picasso's Guernica, you know, like, that stuff was, like, brilliant.
Speaker B:And it said something.
Speaker B:It made sense.
Speaker B:It still was beautiful, but it, like, came from a passion of.
Speaker B:Of, you know, being like, somebody who wants peace and doesn't want, you know, there to be atrocities and war and how, you know, we're all being controlled by, you know, a few elite, basically.
Speaker B:So I was really into that stuff.
Speaker B:And then, so when I would hang out with Chris and stuff, I would say, like, let me do it.
Speaker B:I'll do it.
Speaker B:I could do it.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like, better than what you're gonna get from these guys.
Speaker B:Because he was at the time using people like fanatics.
Speaker B:Brother had a design company in Palo Alto, which is, like, dead center of, like, the tech world, and he had, like, a big company, you know, worth millions of dollars and stuff.
Speaker B:And they would do album covers for Chris, and they did.
Speaker B:They actually did my album cover with Rascoe called what It's All About.
Speaker B:And it was awful, in my opinion.
Speaker B:It was.
Speaker B:You could see, like, when you're using Photoshop, you're using the Blur tool, You know, you could see the blur on the side where you could tell it's not done correctly.
Speaker B:There's still blur and there's, like, errors in the text.
Speaker B:Like, my last name was spelled wrong, and I'm like.
Speaker B:And this guy's like, the million dollar company, and you're getting this done.
Speaker B:And of course, you know, Wolf's gonna go, like, let's use them, because they're a professional Million Dollar Company.
Speaker B:They're gonna do good, obviously.
Speaker B:And it looks like, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:And then so I'm there going, this is up.
Speaker B:My last name spelled wrong.
Speaker B:There's this Blur shit, you know.
Speaker B:And so he's like, okay.
Speaker B:Know what I mean?
Speaker B:And so then I started doing stuff with them.
Speaker B:And it started out small, like doing flyers.
Speaker B:When he did some.
Speaker B:What do you call, slip mats.
Speaker B:The, you know, like slip mats would come in a bag, right?
Speaker B:Two slip mats.
Speaker B:There's a bag and then there's a little.
Speaker B:Yeah, like little cardboard on top that hangs on to something.
Speaker B:And I would do like the design of that.
Speaker B:You know, like these little things, right?
Speaker B:And then, remember I had that silkscreen company, I did their T shirts and then I could do all kinds of stuff with that, right?
Speaker B:And so I ended up doing a few of the covers.
Speaker B:And one was my vinyl weighs a ton and the other was microphone Mathematics for Quasimodo.
Speaker B:And that's where like the, you know, the Quasimodo character came from.
Speaker B:And that's how it all went down.
Speaker B:And it's funny because.
Speaker A:So you did the character.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, here's the thing.
Speaker B:You have to break it into two pieces.
Speaker B:Before there was the image that I created, there was Quasimodo the Mick, the.
Speaker B:Sorry, the.
Speaker B:The tape, right?
Speaker B:That was just a tape that Mad Lib did for fun.
Speaker B:He showed it to Wolf.
Speaker B:Wolf had it in the car.
Speaker B:And like, I used to drive around with Wolf all the time and listen to it.
Speaker B:Even though it never came out.
Speaker B:It never was even intended to come out.
Speaker B:It was just, oh, me and my friends just messing around.
Speaker B:I was just high on mushrooms.
Speaker B:Just around.
Speaker B:Who cares?
Speaker B:Whatever, whatever.
Speaker B:I do a million tapes a day.
Speaker B:It's no big deal.
Speaker B:Which, you know, Mad Lib probably really does about.
Speaker B:He could probably do like a few albums a day, which is insane.
Speaker B:Think about.
Speaker B:Because I can't even finish a beat in a day.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:Anyway, so at first it was just a voice, a high pitched voice and cool music, right?
Speaker B:But somebody needed to come up with something for it.
Speaker B:And the first time I heard it, when I was like driving around in the car, Wolf was like, it sounds like a cute little monster.
Speaker B:Like, that's what I thought.
Speaker B:It sounds like a little monster.
Speaker B:And so when I was tasked to do the episode, I had to draw a monster.
Speaker B:You know, I mean, for myself.
Speaker B:Like, they didn't tell me we needed you to draw a monster.
Speaker B:They're just like, yeah, do this album cover.
Speaker B:I can't Wait to see it.
Speaker B:And in my mind I'm like, this is going to be a monster.
Speaker B:It's got to be like this monster of this weird.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And so I started trying to draw monsters and going, a monster doesn't look like.
Speaker B:In my head, how do you think of drawing a monster's face Face, Right.
Speaker B:It can't just be like a human face and it can't be just a normal flatter face.
Speaker B:It's got to look crazy, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:And so that's why I kind of drew it in a big snout, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like, I wanted it to look like something that's not human, you know what I mean?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So at what point did Gather Round happen and had you thought so for anyone that doesn't know it's your album and did you.
Speaker A:Had you been thinking about putting out an album like that or did they come to you and.
Speaker A:And no.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker B:So I was, you know, I was friends with Chris and so I was like, chris, let's put, you know, one of my records out.
Speaker B:Like, I wasn't.
Speaker B:It was never like, if you would do this or would you please do this?
Speaker B:It was like it would just seemed like I would do that.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like, yeah, when my, When I get done with a bunch of songs, I want to put my record out.
Speaker B:And I.
Speaker B:And I showed Chris my songs and he liked him, so he was like, let's do it, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:And I did the album cover for that, but actually shared the illustration work with a couple friends of mine.
Speaker B:So if you ever looked at that album covers, there's three guys, like, you know, three main pairs of shoes and legs.
Speaker B:And I had two of my friends draw, so everybody drew one set of like shoes and one set of legs, you know.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's such a good.
Speaker B:It's a collaborative effort with that one.
Speaker A:Yeah, they.
Speaker A:They feel like they've got a real sort of homage to them.
Speaker B:Yeah, there's like a.
Speaker B:Also like a organic feel, I believe, to them, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like, you feel like comfort looking at these covers, I think.
Speaker B:And I think that is one of the things I really like about it and one of the things why I think it works so well with hip hop music.
Speaker B:Hip hop music I think in general is like, like a warm feeling, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:As opposed to, let's say if we're listening to a bunch of alternative music, that stuff feels cold, in my opinion.
Speaker B:And I think like the warmth of these covers Kind of add to that.
Speaker B:That the sort of the feel of the records, you know?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I think some of it has to do with that.
Speaker B:That cut and paste.
Speaker B:Ethics or ethos.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:The sort of sampling.
Speaker B:You're chopping up a bunch of records, they have static on them.
Speaker B:And then my stuff that I did, album cover wise, kind of is collage looking, you know?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I suppose it's almost like a bit anti hip hop at that time.
Speaker B:No, certainly.
Speaker B:I mean, if you look at real, like major label covers at that time versus what I was doing, they are Night and Day.
Speaker B:You know what I.
Speaker B:What a lot of covers at the time were.
Speaker B:Is there.
Speaker B:I can't remember the company, but there was like a.
Speaker B:Besides like pen and pixel graphics, you know, like gangster.
Speaker B:Those were.
Speaker B:People love those covers.
Speaker B:But I honestly never liked them.
Speaker B:And I'm not gonna, like, say, oh, yeah, in hindsight, I like them because I think they're.
Speaker B:And I. I don't.
Speaker B:I just think it's like, almost like insulting for people to like, say, like, oh, no, those are great covers.
Speaker B:I think they just.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:I'm not a fan of that stuff.
Speaker B:I think it's like a.
Speaker B:Like it created like a cycle, Right.
Speaker B:It's like somebody created these covers, then everybody started making these covers and they kind of look like.
Speaker B:Like.
Speaker B:Kind of like a joke now, right?
Speaker B:They look like a.
Speaker B:A joke of what a gangster cover would be.
Speaker B:Do you know what I mean?
Speaker B:It's not.
Speaker B:It doesn't seem.
Speaker B:Yeah, it is.
Speaker B:I mean, it's like literally like.
Speaker B:It's like.
Speaker B:It's like making fun of, you know, And I don't like that feeling, you know, it's sin.
Speaker B:It's cynical, in my opinion.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I suppose at the time, maybe it was a.
Speaker A:Everything was kind of like a bit unfinished and raw and certainly that kind of almost like gaudy.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But do you know, like.
Speaker B:Like comedians like Chris Rock would use it, you know, for his cover.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And then.
Speaker B:And then besides him, I mean, you could think of like a thousand other sort of comedians and people who are like, think it's just a joke.
Speaker B:Do you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Would do that.
Speaker B:And so that's why I just could not get behind that stuff.
Speaker B:Now, besides that, that gangster look, there was a lot of album covers that were sort of, you know, they would use like a font that looks like real exciting, you know, or it could be like.
Speaker B:It could just be like a Helvetica, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:But there'd Be like, a few of them staggered on top of each other, and it would have, like, you know, Busta Rhymes screaming or something.
Speaker B:Like, there was a lot of that kind of stuff.
Speaker B:But I think, like, the covers that we were doing back then, we.
Speaker B:I wanted to do what Chris wanted at the time, which was he wanted a.
Speaker B: A very: Speaker B:Yeah cover.
Speaker B:And that's why I used orange and magenta together for his logo.
Speaker B:And that's why it looks all 60s.
Speaker B:That sort of, I would say, cadet concept look, you know?
Speaker B:And then the COVID I took photos using a prism effect on a real camera lens, just trying to make it look like it was done a long time ago, you know?
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:Yeah, I think it really works.
Speaker A:So I'll try and word this right.
Speaker A:So when the album was starting out, was there sort of between you guys a conversation about a manifesto of, okay, you know, we're gonna do rap, but we're gonna just.
Speaker A:You know.
Speaker A:The idea is we go far beyond that, because if you look at the type of output that the label puts out now, it's kind of here, there, and everywhere and has been.
Speaker A:Yeah, over a time.
Speaker A:Was that something that.
Speaker A:That was a consideration in that, you know, we don't want to do art that makes it just look like every other rap album.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah, Chris.
Speaker B:Chris was really good, where he not only wants people to, you know, sort of foster their own creativity, you know, like, without being told to do something differently.
Speaker B:He was also into weird.
Speaker B:A lot of weird shit, you know, like, he was into strange artwork, outsider art.
Speaker B:He was into outsider music.
Speaker B:And so he appreciated everything that came out that was, you know.
Speaker B:What's the word?
Speaker B:Unorthodox, you know, for lack of a better word.
Speaker B:He was kind of, like, appreciative of that stuff, you know, of, like, whatever you do, let's see what it comes out like.
Speaker B:And if I like it, I like it.
Speaker B:That's it, you know?
Speaker B:Like, I. I could say I like it, but that's about it.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:And so that was really cool.
Speaker B:And it made it easy to do stuff.
Speaker B:In fact, I mean, that microphone Mathematics cover, he gave me, like, two months to do it, maybe three.
Speaker B:And when it was like, seriously, like, the weekend of, I think he said he was gonna come by Monday to pick it up, and it was the weekend of, and I was like, oh, shit.
Speaker B:So I had to, like, grab a bunch of stuff in my bedroom, throw it out in front of me, grab some pens, grab some ink, grab some scissors, and I just kind of threw it together really, really quickly.
Speaker B:And then when I showed him, he's like, I like it.
Speaker B:We'll see what mad Lib says.
Speaker B:And then Mad lib said, he looks at it and he goes, that's exactly what I was thinking, you know?
Speaker B:And I was like, okay, cool.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:Like, I wasn't expecting it to be so easy, but it was, you know, and with.
Speaker B:With.
Speaker B:With.
Speaker B:My vinyl weighs a ton.
Speaker B:It was.
Speaker B:It was me and Chris.
Speaker B:Chris and I driving around for months to different locations in San Francisco, just coming up with ideas on what to do.
Speaker B:I have, like, hundreds and hundreds of photos of Peanut Butter Wolf from that time of just him in different positions, different images inside of tiny little cars on a.
Speaker B:On, like, a scooter standing in front of various speakers, just, you know, at a flea market.
Speaker B:Like, all these photos.
Speaker B:I have hundreds of photos of Wolf, you know, trying to do this album cover for my vinyl is a ton, you know.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So we've done well over an hour there.
Speaker A:I honestly thought we'd done about 20 minutes.
Speaker B:I did, too.
Speaker B:It really's been over an hour.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, We've been recording for an hour and 20.
Speaker B:I told you.
Speaker B:I, I, I, I go on tangents, like, just keep talking, you know?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So we're gonna have to definitely come back for around two, so we'll get that penciled in in a couple of weeks, because there's even questions just on.
Speaker A:There's.
Speaker A:We could probably get into, like, another 20 minutes now quite easily based on the things that we've talked about.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So let's leave it there, and we'll come back in for another session pretty soon.
Speaker B:Yeah, sounds good to me.
Speaker B:I mean, I'm.
Speaker B:I'm available, you know, so just hit me up anytime.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:Well, yeah, I just got to say then we'll get this out as soon as we can, and thanks for your time, and let's get one in soon.
Speaker B:Anytime, Adam.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:Cheers, man.
Speaker A:All the best.
Speaker B:Come on.
Speaker B:Oh, that was nice.
