Arthur Baker

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Speaker 1: Quest Left Show is a production of iHeart Radio. I have a general no small talking before the podcast.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.

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Speaker 1: That's why I've been.

00:00:26
Speaker 2: Doing a podcast now. You were the first person I knew with the podcast, so really yeah, who else was doing in the music for Okay? Is it rolling, Bob? It's always rolling?

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:00:41
Speaker 2: No, that's how you got to keep it always in record.

00:00:44
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen. This is the Quest Left Show. I know there's a lot of this has been a long time coming quotes that you hear from me when I do the intro of the show, But this is the longest of the long timers. Like you know, this should have been episode five, episode six instead of episode five thousand. I don't even know where we are right now. So our guest today is a legendary producer, remixer, arranger, label owner, I would say, still DJ, pioneer of what I call electro hip hop culture. I'll say that some of the earliest experiments with hip hop and R and B comes courtesy of our guest today. I believe for most of us, the first time we ever heard an eight oweight drum machine comes courtesy of our guest today. Definitely one of the earlier pioneers of new technology in the studio. More than that, I can even say that his innovations have probably helped bring forth different genres that we have under the hip hop umbrella. For instance, I would hesitate to say that hearing his music probably inspired the versioning Miami based culture machine, which then of course turned into Atlanta Rap, which to this day the eight oit is still their weapon of choice. We can even say that freestyle music, We're gonna get into all that, but you know, just name them. I mean, Africa been bottling the Soul, Sougning Force, Planet Patrol, Rockers, Revenge, I Owe you Freeze, New Edition. I cannot wait to start talking about sun City, his work with Al Green, countless of remixes with Cyndi Laufers, Springsteen, halland Notes, Dinah Ross, New Order, Bob Dylan. The list goes on and on and on. He's just released his memoir called Looking for the Perfect Beat. What can I say, We finally, after all this time, have the one and only author Baker. The question to me, no, no, no, you already know. If it's nineteen minutes then.

00:02:55
Speaker 2: Yeah you know, yeah, no, thanks for that, intro man, I'm like, who's that guy? He's talking?

00:03:00
Speaker 1: Well, the thing is is that I always wanted you on the show because you breathe rare air. Because in my opinion, not only do you have your foot in hip hops, really laying the foundation in the red carpet for just all the ideas and stuff that we do now to this day, but you're also you have another foot and sort of the I won't say the bygone era, but it's sort of a no. But I mean there's an era of even before the idea of like what we call a remix in my opinion, like remixing. I'll give you a great example, So Prince would often do this thing where he would remix and reshape his twelve inch mixes to be different than that of what the album version was. But before remixing, there was edit culture. And I'm talking about like you know, shit, beat It, Boom, Cellybean, Benezza. That's sort of the Latin rascals. Yeah, yeah, even the guys in the seventies, Damon Huso, tom Oltens, tom Olten's Like there's edic culture that we don't even talk about, like as far as like the earliest stages of disco. So I feel like you have your foot in both eras and so I think it's this is extremely, extremely, extremely important. So I will start with letting you speak after nineteen minutes of an intro. What was your first creative project?

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Speaker 2: It was probably scribbling on walls, but it wasn't graffiti. No, in my house I would draw on the walls. I just remembered that because that was my first. But then in music, I played clarinet and saxophone horrible, but it got me into early jazz in my head. You know, my dad was a big Nat King Cole fan, so at home we were hearing Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole at five six years old, so I did. I was exposed to that, which was.

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Speaker 1: It's weird because you are so associated with technology as the eight oid drum machine. I never once thought to even ask myself, is author an actual musician?

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Speaker 2: Like in my mind, well I'm not, but I attempted, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But I mean you have some sort of you know where cdefg avc is.

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Speaker 2: I do write songs, but I know, I mean I can write songs without playing them.

00:05:27
Speaker 1: Got it? What was your first musical memory in life?

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Speaker 2: Really twofold one was going to Temple on Holy Days I'm Jewish and hearing the choir and hearing these songs, one of which was Albano Mulcano, which I eventually recorded with Mongolai like fifty years after hearing it in Temple when I was like five, So I have yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: It was the inspiration behind that.

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Speaker 2: Just like thought it was a beautiful song, and I thought that they would do a great job in it. But I mean, when the first music I heard live would be in Temple. The first music I heard on the radio was like when I was eight, I remember hearing Pretty Woman, Roy Orbison and all the Motown stuff and the Beatles. Of course, I was born in fifty five, so by the time sixty three sixty four, those were the songs I was hearing.

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Speaker 1: You know, to you, was it just a natural thing like water and bread? Like of course, like you don't miss bread until you do like your first anti nor diet.

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Speaker 2: No carved diet. Right, I'm notucking with that you're.

00:06:35
Speaker 1: Willing to kill somebody for some bread, But I mean I will acknowledge, Like in the summer of eighty eight, even at sixteen and I'll say the Summer Idiot is probably the onslaught the deluge of classic This is changing my life hip hop, like, never heard this before. And then two weeks later this comes out, and then a month later.

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Speaker 2: It was the seven seventy two around then all the Philly stuff, all the motown The Papa was a rolling Stone Norman Woodfield.

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Speaker 1: Would you like look at the radio, like, how the hell's this happening? Or did you notice something's different than I did.

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Speaker 2: I tell the story in the book, but I was driving to school nineteen seventy two. I had a driver's license, driving to school. Papa was a rolling Stone, came on the base. I just pulled over the side and listened to the entire thing because I was like, what is this record? You know?

00:07:31
Speaker 1: Between Papa was a rolling Stone and a song like masterpiece. Yeah, and you know the Temptations have spoken on this, Like were you wondering at what point are they going to sing the song?

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Speaker 2: Actually like yeah, well that's why that's why I was waiting. No, because it was just a baseline. I'm like, wow, you know, because I was a fan of I mean Sly, which you're very familiar with. His things were I mean pack it all in three minutes. Yeah, they were you know, the loco would come in right from the top. And this was sort of Norman Whitfield taking what Sly had done and sort of stretching it out and adding Philly in. I think it was Philly and Sly became that music, or even Isaac Hayes. So basically there are all these things colliding at that time. You know, obviously you have to it all goes back to Sly because he literally created what Norman Woodfield heard. And then I think one of the Temptations brought the Sly record to Norman Whitfield what we need to sound, Yeah, which was I didn't know that un till many years later, of course. But no, I loved rock music and I loved whatever you wanted to call it, R and B. It was going into being disco, you know, so disco because of the drums and just sort of the the extended versions. I mean even before there was a disco twelve Norman Whitfield I just played last night when I DJ you You plus Me Equal Love and Harmony. That is one of the best songs of ever. It's like thirteen minutes long. The Solos and that Thennis Coffee. They're all on that record people, and you know that was like pre really remixed twelve inch records.

00:09:13
Speaker 1: You know that we were Taka Boom.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, amazing, amazing workerd all.

00:09:18
Speaker 1: Right, So besides the Tavares brothers and Donna Summer, I'm of age where like New Edition were idols. All my Boston stories that I know come from black acts, right, I mean, even gangst Are, even though Mr So there were rock bands. But yeah, I was going to say, like Aerosmith, like Arasmith, the Afternoon de Lights.

00:09:39
Speaker 2: Jay Giles, Well listen, check it out. Aerosmith and Jay Giles both are rock groups that sort of had beats that became hip hop tracks exact, and the thing was fast forwarding. But when I first met Bimbada a few years later, that's what bonded us because he was playing rock beats too, And these were bands I grew up with. Aeros Smith and Jay Giles were the two biggest Boston bands of the cars in Boston, and you know that, Kim.

00:10:05
Speaker 1: Later, I was going to say, so my camaraderie with Little Stephen is I've been on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame committee for a decade and a bucking some change and every meeting. You don't know how hard Little Stephen is in terms of campaigning for Jay Giles to get in the Rock and Roll Hall of fam Peter.

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Speaker 2: Peter is a really good friend of his. And they deserve.

00:10:34
Speaker 1: No, he definitely deserves they deserve it.

00:10:36
Speaker 2: I look at it. I have to say, I look at some of the bands who aren't in there. Little feet, the old feet, come on, man, I mean.

00:10:43
Speaker 1: I'm telling you it's people always ask me all the time, and it's just it's it's forty people having whatever, the twelve angry men.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen seen the film that.

00:10:56
Speaker 1: That sort of thing it happens. But yeah, shout out to Little Stephen. So, I mean, what is your story of Boston's music, and like, how did it call you? And just like what was your well was your involvement and in your localized Boston.

00:11:12
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, here's the thing I missed one important fact about me and music. My mother's first cousin was a guy named sid Raymond, who was a big I mean, that's where I get my music from that side of the family. He was the arranger for Leonard Bernstein. He did West Side Story. He wrote girl Watch his theme song, Yeah, Patty Duke and Candid Camera. He wrote those three songs. He could have retired after that, but he got So that's my second cousin, you know, So there is like, yeah, well it's gotta be some some genetic thing, you know, that the music thing, because my mother always would sing. She she had a really nice voice, and she would you know, they played music. Okay, we had I had a really good education, but okay, Boston, so Boston. I went to college, started DJing in seventy three.

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Speaker 1: Where'd you go to college?

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Speaker 2: Hampshire College. Okay, Ken Burns he went there. He was in my year before me. All right, So basically I started DJing in college. I went to Rodina, Brooklyn because it was like a couple of hours away. Got a Gli mixer with the big knobs. Yeah yeah, and I got two turntables, and I was DJing, and I got to dig at a club called rash Heads, which was an Arabic hookah pipe disco and and amber.

00:12:31
Speaker 1: The one time about huka culture was even a thing, yeah yeah, yeah yeah. See I thought hookah culture was only like for like millennials, like nineties culture. No no, this was even with we legal now like there's still like right now, the new nostalgia is a bunch of thirty five to forty year olds that will go to hookah parties to listen to, you know, whatever is popping in two thousand and one, to like Nelly the Neptunes.

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Speaker 2: Yeah no, no, no, no no, no, there were guys. But so I did that. Then I moved back to Boston, worked in a record shop and took an engineering course at a studio called Intermediate Studio, which is where Aerosmith cut dream On. I remember getting in the studio. I was taking the course and I found rough I wish I had him rough mixes of dream On, and we were listening to him. And because they were a band, like when I was in high school a few years earlier, dream On was a hit. So basically they were like did.

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Speaker 1: They have a local ass presence there?

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Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, yeah they were the Them and J Giles were the two bands. But so I started taking engineering course and then I convinced the owner of the studio to give me free studio time to make a disco record, because disco was the thing, you know, it was seventy six.

00:13:45
Speaker 1: How did you convince the owner?

00:13:46
Speaker 2: I had a gift to gap. You know you need that right, you know that? So I got him and then he hided in an arranger, this guy John West, who was at Berkeley, and we used all Berkeley students. Now the group I had, I had been djaying in New Bedford and there were these three guys hanging at the bar and it turned out they were singers, but they were players also, So basically they were like your producer. Yeah, I said, I'm a producer. Okay, here's some They put down cash and they said we want to make a record. And the guy, Chico Walker, he had said he had been in a group called Hearts of Stone from Motown. I got the record. I looked there was no Chico on there, but he said he was the new Hearts of Stone. But we went in and we cut the record and it was a disco you know, seventy seven, I guess that was. And I got a record deal in Canada and the same label that had Gino Socio came out, got played in New York. Richie Rivera played, So that was that was my entry.

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Speaker 3: Point, and it was like, did you know what I was doing no, yeah, because disco is very specific, I would imagine, especially like in watching engineers of my father's era, like they were so adamant on like taping this the heads.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well we did all that.

00:15:00
Speaker 1: But how did you did you know? Well, you knew the sound you wanted.

00:15:04
Speaker 2: I knew the sound I wanted, and I had really cool All the musicians were young. They were all going to Berkeley. See that's when you talk about Boston. You cannot separate Boston from Berkeley. So they were amazing. Musicians from all over the world were at Berkeley even back then, so you know, if you wanted to make recording, you just you know. I had a friend who was teaching there. Or one guy was English guy, Keith Maynard. He was doing arrangements, so he did the horn arrangements. It was all very uh, it just sort of flowed, you know that I met and then you start meeting musicians, and I met a bunch of great ones, and I just started making records because I the musicians were not thinking, let's make a disco record. They were studying the scales. They don't have a shit, right, So basically I sort of started like an industry a sort of a disco.

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Speaker 1: You know.

00:16:01
Speaker 2: I wanted to be like I was totally out of my mind because I had no reason to think I could be doing this. I just did it.

00:16:09
Speaker 1: Did you know the general rules like the rules of you know, taking the symbols away from your drummer or taking the tom toms away from your drummer.

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Speaker 2: Well, that record, we wanted the tom toms because it was like a Savannah band, you know. But I mean we you know, you learn from your engineers and we would, and your drummer and drummers are always I'm not gonna say you're this way, but very anal and really gotta be specific extremely that.

00:16:39
Speaker 1: Yeah. So some are also like just all over the tes like.

00:16:43
Speaker 2: Keith Moon, I don't think right, so I don't think he really cared. But but it was it was more like everyone was learning together. But I had some good musicians and good singers, and you know, it was just sort of I wanted to create a Boston thing. I didn't think I was moving to New York anytime soon, which I did.

00:17:12
Speaker 1: So one of the things that I discovered, especially now in this sort of storytelling phase of my career, where like film and all those things. You know, the crazy amount of research that I've done in terms of getting access to a lot of these sessions. Back then, I didn't realize how prominent looping was, and a lot of the seventies stuff.

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Speaker 2: George Clinton, I know if he had done it yet.

00:17:40
Speaker 1: But no, no, even typical like Slith and Family Stone, like I discovered like, oh my god, like you just took the best sixteen bars of this particular Like when I'm getting these reels and I'm like, oh, this is the part I know, and I'm like, oh, I remember this part. Wait a minute, only to realize and see the notes that we have this slice right like the master would be left alone. Then they make a dub and then yeah, all that stuff. How prominent was editing culture or looping for you back then? Or wasn't as you expected your band to do a perfect ten?

00:18:14
Speaker 2: We yeah, I mean we don't. We have no time in the studio. Sly had all the time he wanted. Typically, we had no time. We had like a click track, which was what was it called. It was a it was just like a white noise generator. And it didn't even have a tempo. Oh god, I forget the name. Of it, but it was a white noise generation.

00:18:35
Speaker 1: So click tracks were even prominent back seventies.

00:18:37
Speaker 2: Said yeah, but they weren't. You didn't have the tempo. You could just you could just I think it was part of the move and it would stay consistent. So you played to that. But there was no well, I mean there were, but we just didn't have access to the drum machines that Sly used in sixty nine.

00:18:55
Speaker 1: Right, But was the idea to keep the.

00:18:58
Speaker 2: Guy in tempo?

00:18:59
Speaker 1: Were you thinking the DJ and this needs to be consistentaeh, we're.

00:19:02
Speaker 2: Thinking about yeah, but no one at that point, before Giorgio, before euro Disco, then you knew that that was really in time. Those records were pretty much in time. Even even like Niles Sheath those shits all over the place, you know they are, It didn't really happen till after that, I'd say, consistently with a click track and drum machines obviously once that, So.

00:19:26
Speaker 1: What are the general rules that you're learning in real time? Like I know, for like AM radio, transistor radio era pop sixties, you know, three minutes and twenty seconds all you got to get these ideas out.

00:19:41
Speaker 2: We were totally away from that, we didn't care. We were making club disco records. We were making them ten to eight minutes long. I mean, we weren't thinking about no one was going to play this on the radio.

00:19:52
Speaker 1: We were But in general, for an effective disco record, what do you think the rule was? Or are you saying to me that because they were so scarce back then that they were all welcome, like I e. MTV wanting any video in the first.

00:20:11
Speaker 2: Now, there were a lot of records coming out in seventy six, you know, seventy seven, that was the explosion of disco.

00:20:17
Speaker 1: But you needed six to eight hours to.

00:20:20
Speaker 2: You needed an intro that was like long enough for the DJ to set it.

00:20:25
Speaker 1: Up, That's what I'm saying, like, and then there would be a break.

00:20:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was definitely a pattern. You know you if you listen to Double Exposure ten percent. That was sort of what we were blown away by because that was sort of the first twelve inch record and Walter Gibbons and I heard him play it at a club. It's in the I talk about it in the book, and we thought it was him playing two copies. We thought he was going back and forth, like what later became known as like hip hop right, you know, but guys in Boston, John Luongo, who ended up being a really big remixer. He'd have two forty five.

00:21:00
Speaker 1: One of those from Boston.

00:21:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's from I did not and he literally is the godfather of disco.

00:21:07
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I know he's done more than that for me.

00:21:09
Speaker 2: That was mine, but he did, he was he had He had a magazine called Nightfall, which was the Disco It was a night life magazine but focused on disco. And he had a Disco Awards in Boston the first year, Donna Summer, the Tramps, Casey and the Sunshine Band, Baker, Harrison Young and the Village people live in Boston. What this is.

00:21:33
Speaker 1: He's the first one that saw the vision of form and business and being.

00:21:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, he did. And then he moved to New York and he became a big remix about but my first record that hearts a Stone record. He came in and did helped me with the remix. Well he I helped him have something a remix you know.

00:21:52
Speaker 1: Okay, so all of my memories of and my father wasn't a disco artist at all, you know, I'm for because his head was still in the fifties and sixty you know, like Motown even still made them do like like fifties covers in the seventies or whatever, which is good for me to know, like, oh, that's you know, Jackie Wilson saw from the sixties or whatever. But I do know that engineers were way more annal back then. You can't touch that. You can't. You can't Dad. So but the thing is is like, how are you do.

00:22:26
Speaker 2: You think I listened to them? No, That's what.

00:22:30
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like, how do you convey to them? Hey, I need more the drums got to sound more heavier.

00:22:36
Speaker 2: Well, you'd play you know what you'd play in records? You go, I want the drums to sound like that record. I mean that's what you know. That is what we did. We'd go, I love the drums sound on that. I love the horn part in that I played. My arranger, I'd say, you see that, can you do something similar to that? So it was all I was a DJ. So I was I was showing the engineer and the arranger the record you want.

00:22:59
Speaker 1: Not a nuisance. And I don't mean a nuisance in terms of that being a nuisance. But I've I've heard some examples of because again a lot of these masters that I go through, I also hear the raw talk of it all, and there have been some arguments where it's like that doesn't sound loud enough. Last time I want you to Well, as I said, we.

00:23:19
Speaker 2: Had like eight hours in the studio, so we didn't have time to do that. It's different when you're making an album and you know, like.

00:23:26
Speaker 1: So you have to create, you have to format and make mixed.

00:23:30
Speaker 2: Well, no, we'd go back, we'd go and we'd record everything, and then another session we'd mix. That was it. I mean, even with you when we get to Planet Rock, it was like that for that.

00:23:41
Speaker 1: Also, I'm almost certain there's a working road for you in which you could go the traditional route of just being a producer in terms of like finding popacks whatever. But when did you realize, like, there's no title for it. So I'll just say for now street me, Well, don't know what.

00:24:01
Speaker 2: I wanted to be gamble enough, and I wanted to make records that you could dance to that said something, But I had no reason to think I could do it.

00:24:10
Speaker 1: All your records have edge to it that the average.

00:24:13
Speaker 2: That's because I wouldn't that's good. I wasn't good at trying to make the same thing as someone else. I'd add like, I'm not going to say funk. I'd add an edge just because I didn't know what I was doing.

00:24:24
Speaker 1: Maybe, you know, is it not one they say in your life, like oh dog, like there's too aggressive sounding. This is too No.

00:24:32
Speaker 2: It's funny because I was just with Nelson George the other day and I used to bring him my early twelve inch records in like eighty eighty one when he was working at Record World, and he remembered, I mean, he remembers this kid coming in with these records and they were always okay, there was just something different, weird or whatever. And then when I brought him plan he was like, oh yeah, okay, now I get it. But no, I was attempting to make records like the one I had heard, but for some reason, they never came out like that. And I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I only had a certain amount of time to do them. I don't know, right, but you know I was. I was happy because I was making records that got played. Before I moved to New York, I had records that Happy Days North and Frankie Krocker killed that record. I mean, it was a big record here. I don't need no music TJM. Larry Levan. So, you know, out of Boston, I was making these disco records that were getting played in New York and to me that was like, Wow, I've actually done something that no one else had done. And I was like a horrible DJ, which I don't know if we've ever discussed it. I'm really I'm a horrible DJ because I have no patience. Really, I'm horrible still to this day.

00:25:47
Speaker 1: I don't like playing full songs.

00:25:50
Speaker 2: No no, but you're you cut between them. I just lose patience with the whole process, you know. I know, I'm big, honest, you know, Yeah, I get bored. No, I get I bore myself. So no matter what whatever I play, I mean, I know they're good, but I'm just like, I don't know what I want to play, and I'm not prepared. I know you are probably the most prepared DJ.

00:26:12
Speaker 1: You want to know in the world.

00:26:13
Speaker 2: I think from what I've seen.

00:26:14
Speaker 1: When we've got I was antal retentive. I would plan. I remember, yeah, I was mix this a year ahead of time, like three songs a day I would add to that long thing. Actually, I'll say as of this recording, this is probably week twelve. I decided that I wanted to try. I've been taking hole in the wall gigs. The agreement is like, you can't advertise me. Yeah, oh yeah, I want to practice a non prepared gig, just play a record and see what I feel that And this is more of my therapeutic thing, like no, what do I feel inside? Not like what a I prepare inside. So and this is also the same with maybe twice a year I'll do like a real jazz gig where like Glassper, one of those guys will be like, go on, let's do a gig together at the Blue Note or whatever I think. Like yesterday Chris Dave came up with a night He's like, look, I want to do five drummers like you, me, Kareem, Briggins, Stro Elliott and maybe Jazzy Jeff spinning drum solos, just drums and no instruments. And that to me is the most intimidating thing ever. But I'm gonna allow myself, well I'm not gonna do it, but I also I'm so calculated in curating and being the band leader. I want to know what's next and what my emergencies are that I'm actually allowing myself to not I want to become a sloppier DJ.

00:27:39
Speaker 2: So well watch me, you'll learn really quickly about what you feel. Yeah, the djying thing. But I had the mind of a DJ. That's where I wanted to go. So I knew what things were meant to be. And all these great DJs in Boston they thought they're never going to get to be a record producer. They're just going to I mean, back in the day that was sort of the process. But when I moved to New York, I'd never dj' in New York.

00:28:04
Speaker 1: What year did you move to New York?

00:28:05
Speaker 2: Eighty one? Okay, but I never dj' in New York. Ever, you know, I was DJing and not in Boston. Really. I was in like Braintree. I was in like the suburbs, playing like the mafia. The supper club. There was a place called Sadies Supper Club in Braintree. And you know what, maybe your dad I was going to say, they did have bands.

00:28:28
Speaker 1: He was going to say, I believe that Sades was also one of the normal if it's if it's in the northeast, if.

00:28:35
Speaker 2: It's New England, they had a bunch of sades. They had a bunch.

00:28:39
Speaker 1: Oh we we lived, I'm sure you like I remember Boston when the whatever your highways were not fixed, the traffic nightmare. Yeah, it's fixed now, and I'm not used to it. I'm so not used to it. Okay. So in terms of edit culture just in general, and I know you do have a story of lu long ago, but is it Ron Hardy or Tom Wulton one of those guys.

00:29:05
Speaker 2: He written me off?

00:29:06
Speaker 1: He okay, So what is the Tom Moulton story? Well to the seventies, who who are the go to.

00:29:13
Speaker 2: Tom Moulton was? He worked with Florence Greenberg et Sceptor Mel Sharon. He would do remixes and re edits of early scepter stuff, scepter.

00:29:23
Speaker 1: Stuff like BT Express eracept. Were they labeled before then or.

00:29:28
Speaker 2: The Sceptor she had labels before that. I know they were all Sceptor. It was Sceptor. He had a BT Express, Bobby Moore call me or anything. Man, I don't you know that record? He was doing all that. He he made tapes. He wasn't he didn't play records. He would make these tapes and they got played with Fire Island. I mean it's like a big. It was like sort of a big.

00:29:49
Speaker 1: He was part of the Together mixtape and then they would play that.

00:29:53
Speaker 2: And then everyone would go nuts. Yeah, so he became the guy. Either he was from Boston or his brother was at the studio when I was working on my big project, which was in seventy eight. I was making my own disco album, so I cut twelve songs totally over my budget, had no money to finish it, and this guy, Jerry Moulton, Tom's brother, came to the studio and said, I think my brother's going to love this stuff. So he played it for Tom and they said to me, well, listen, we want to take it. We want to re record everything. How you've recorded it isn't good, but we want the tapes. So they took all the multi tracks.

00:30:35
Speaker 1: Now, in your mind, what do you think you think they're going to stick to their word?

00:30:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would think it was seventy I was twenty three, and I don't.

00:30:44
Speaker 1: Know who tomt Yeah.

00:30:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why it was a big. It was a big. Yeah. It was like a big thing that I was getting the record would come out. He said, well, listen, we'll use the songs, you'll get some publishing, which I got like a third of the publishing, and but we're not going to use your recording. We're going to just listen to your recording so we could redo it. Yeah, and then the then the record comes out and literally it is my recording.

00:31:12
Speaker 1: And so he just re engineered it.

00:31:13
Speaker 2: He just he you know what he did do He took off the guy who was a falsetto singer Bobby Howard from the Ambitions from another See Boston had their vocal groups Energetics the Ambitions that they had to quite a breakaway the Italian guys. Uh So, basically I hear it and the only thing that's different is he's added a few strings and he has a different lead singer, Ron Tyson, who later became he was one of the guys in the later Eddie Kendrick guy. He was like, so he's singing on it, right, but Larry Wedgeworth, who was a singer online, he's the lead singer. No credit for Larry. And then I'm like, you know, what the hell you know? And I and literally there was nothing. I'm sure there was something I could do, but I never did anything about it, and uh so for years me and me and Tom.

00:32:12
Speaker 1: He won't know whatever.

00:32:14
Speaker 2: But I have the rough mixes I did that I sent him and they literally everything's it's all there. So but I mean it got But the thing was a good thing was Larry Levan played a song called put Yourself in My Place, which Alfie Davison or had written, and I don't need no music, and people go, oh, is that your wait? Is that your record? Your name's not. I mean it was on as a writer and a ranger, but it got played at the garage and that opened it up, and then you know, it was sort of a big entree, but also the first total screwing I got, and that that was unbelievable. When I think about it now, it's like, yeah, well we're gonna just listen to the tapes. We don't really.

00:32:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're proof that every Maverick that entered is this injury has a trial by fire. I got ripped off first. That was your first lesson that I.

00:33:08
Speaker 2: Have many more. Is Moulton still he's still live, He's still is the active. He just does remixes for he has all his no he actually is active, and he has all these multi tracks. He got a lot of the Sigma ones. Got it because he did all the Sigma stuff. He did all the things you probably love the Love is the Message, all the all the Philly International comps. He did all that stuff. I'll always say the guy's the best remixer ever, but he's an asshole.

00:33:50
Speaker 1: Could you give me North of Harlem a Bronx era hip hop story? Like venturing up there?

00:34:00
Speaker 2: I have my best story, Well, let me hear it. Okay, my best story is I'm working on another disco album with Joe Batan. So Howard Smiley, who had been a TK, he was a friend. He got me and Joe together to make an album. I was going to do one side, Joe the other, but we'd collaborate on each other's tracks. And Joe called me up. I was living in Brooklyn with Tina, my wife at the time, and I get a call from him and he goes, you got to come up here. You got to hear this. And I go here. What he goes, there's guys talking over records. You know, they're playing tracks on a boom box and they're talking over records.

00:34:39
Speaker 1: And I'm like they're playing tracks on the boombox.

00:34:41
Speaker 2: Well, they were playing like to Be Real or whatever. They were playing No on a tape. Yeah, so they're playing No. They're playing tracks in the park and they're wrapping over them live, you know, just sort of hanging out doing that. So I'm like, it was in the summer and I'm in Brooklyn. I don't really want to make them move, right, But he said, you know, you gotta come, you gotta come. And I went and there he is sitting on a park bench and uh one hundred and twenty fifth or you know, around.

00:35:11
Speaker 1: There it looked Dystopian as we imagined the movies and stuff.

00:35:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was seventy nine. This was before I moved. This is when I'm just here for the summer. And there he is, and he's what I loved about Joe Batan, and I sort of followed that as a fashion thing. He was always ready to play basketball. He always had sneakers and shorts on, no matter what. He'd go to a meeting. So he was sitting in the park dressed like that, and he goes he pointed to the and I'm like, oh, he said, someone's gonna make a million dollars on that. I remember thinking.

00:35:43
Speaker 1: Really really so it was just like yeah, yeah.

00:35:47
Speaker 2: But that Then about a couple of weeks later, he was in the studio and I came in because we were working on the record together a friend of mine from Boston, guitarist and Andre Career. He was playing guitar on it, and was when I met Jocelyn Brown, and it was Rapoclapo. He was recording Rapo Clappo, which was two weeks after he had seen the guy in the park right, and he did Rapoclappo because he wanted to be the first guy to record a rap record because there was no rap records. I didn't want to even know if it was called rap. This is like pre rappers, Delight, pre anything. And we're in there and he's got this guy Marty Scheller doing the arranging and it was you know, and I met Jostin she was probably eighteen year nineteen whatever, Wow is seventy eight and yeah, I was like, oh it sounds cool, but you know, I was doubting still. And then London Records US went Busto closed, so we each got our own tracks back. So he ended up putting that out as Mestizo that album and he had Rappo Clappo on it, and that became a hit in Europe, not over here.

00:36:58
Speaker 1: But you know, I want to know about New York, or not even New York, just of the era indie label culture. And I'm talking about like Western Records or emergency records like Sasol or Prelude, these labels that I'm seeing prominently getting a seat at the table, but they're indie labeled. But I'll tell you there's Are you going to say Mars Levy.

00:37:27
Speaker 2: No, no, I'll save that.

00:37:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mars Leavey story.

00:37:31
Speaker 2: Dude, he was my partner for a year.

00:37:33
Speaker 1: Motherfucker. Stop give me Mars Levy story.

00:37:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can tell. I tell them all. Man, he's dead, you know, because there is a rumor he's in Australia. Though when it.

00:37:50
Speaker 1: Shot to you at all, if he's still your.

00:37:52
Speaker 2: Well he'd be really old. Now I don't think you know he did get can Yeah, yeah, I don't want to kid about him, you know, but basically.

00:38:00
Speaker 1: You would seem like the type.

00:38:01
Speaker 2: But but this, this is going to connect to what you just asked me, Okay, And I will tell you a Morrise Levy story. But the labels were either run by old industry guys like Prelude, Marty God, what's his name he was? He had been in the industry, mel Sharon had been at west End. West End was mel Sharon, who had been at Sceptor working at Sceptor.

00:38:29
Speaker 1: So those wait, wait, so you're trying to tell me no, no, no, no.

00:38:35
Speaker 2: Half of them were run by the old cats, and half of them were run by the new cats like Profile young guys, Comedy Boy, young guys, street Wise, young guys.

00:38:45
Speaker 1: You know.

00:38:45
Speaker 2: There were the older guys who had started before us, like Prelude and west End were like an even Emergency was an Italian guy, Sergio Kosa, who had been a little a little older than us. So there were that, and then when hip hop started, all the new labels started. That's what started all these young kids doing labels Tommy Boy and Prelude and street Wise. So basically there were two roots, the Prelude Disco, the more disco e west End Prelude those were old not old times. Yeah, they were older than us. They were fifteen twenty years older, so they were like more established, and then the upstarts were the ones that ended up becoming sort of more the hip hop influence.

00:39:30
Speaker 1: You started street Wise label. Okay, so walk me through it. You're like, I'm going to start a label. What is the first thing you need? I guess capital's money.

00:39:42
Speaker 2: No, But what happened was because Tom had Tom started his label. I knew Tom from these Billboard Disco conventions, which you know, and that was earlier, like in the late seventies. So when I moved to New York, Tom said I was the only record producer he knew. Literally he did know, well, he didn't really know what he produces. So he said, I've got this guy Bimbada, He's got these rap acts. Do you want to produce the record? I go, sure. You know, no one was offering I mean, a producer without someone willing to pay to get you in the studio is you can't. Back then, you couldn't produce anything without being in the studio and being able to hire musicians.

00:40:20
Speaker 1: Right.

00:40:21
Speaker 2: So Tom the first record with Jazzy Sensation, and we went in with a live band.

00:40:25
Speaker 1: You yeah, yeah, yeah, See in my mind, you just came from the future with this thing. Who's the house band for that?

00:40:35
Speaker 2: That was Andre Booth and yeah, Andre Booth and Charlie Street the guitarist and the guys who did bbcsn.

00:40:43
Speaker 1: A was Pumpkin on drums or.

00:40:46
Speaker 2: Who No, no, it was this guy t Funk who would played with James Brown at some point. Are so he claimed, But they did Vicky d this speed his mind. Okay, they had produced that. I met them through T Scott who was a DJ and remixer who had remixed and helped me finish Happy Days, and he brought these young kids from Queens. They were all eighteen nineteen years old. I was gonna say, what you how did I meet?

00:41:11
Speaker 1: What do you?

00:41:12
Speaker 2: Finally, well, I met musicians through T Scotty. He brought them in to do some overdubs and then so we did Happy Days. And then when I wanted to go in to cut this rap record for Jazzy five, I called the guys I had met on that session, which was Andre, and we became really good friends. So Andre brought the band and we went into Galactic Studio and we decided to cut Bunky Sensation and you know, did her redo of it, because back then all rap records were covers obviously, and and there was this one kid who was always in the studio with him who didn't say anything, and I didn't know till years later actually that it was Marlee Marl. So Marlee Marl was he saw me as sort of a mentor because he was in all my sessions and I didn't really even know at the time, but he was in a lot of the sessions. Yeah. But basically, so starting a label. I had a hit with Jazzy Sensation and then Planet Rock, and I bumped into a friend of mine from college on a train on the f train and he said, well, you had Planet Rock. Don't you want to do a record label? And I go yeah, but he goes, I got a guy from Boston who's a banker and he has a lot of money and wants to start a label, Bob Alexander, Paul mccraven. And that's how I started. Without the money, there's no way I would have ever started a label and the infrastructure.

00:42:35
Speaker 1: Okay, so walk me through. I'm so glad I'm asking you all these questions, okay, because oftentimes we'll watch a movie or TV show and they get a hit and then as the viewer, you're like, oh my god, life.

00:42:50
Speaker 2: Is just yeah, yeah, it wasn't like okay, so you get a hit. I get a hit with Planet Rock.

00:42:57
Speaker 1: What does that mean? When does your bank account? No, well, we got a hit. When is it like, hey, let's eat at this fancy restaurant instead of you.

00:43:10
Speaker 2: Know, I think it was more like taking a cab instead of taking the subway.

00:43:13
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, so yeah, but.

00:43:15
Speaker 2: The how quick I mean that one? I mean that hit really quick?

00:43:20
Speaker 1: Well, but I did shouldn't count because Planet Rocks like thriller, like.

00:43:23
Speaker 2: We really I wish money didn't come through that quick. But the thing was, I have to say Tom was always good at paying royalties and he so basically it would have come you know, he would have given me an advance or something. But you know, soon after I opened up a recording I mean recording studio Beach Street. All this shit happened within two years. Okay, so I don't even know how I did it. I gotta say, I don't know how the money, you know, how it came about. But the label came about because a friend said, you want to open a label.

00:43:58
Speaker 1: Well, now, with technology, I mean, technically I can record an album on this Yeah, you couldn't back right, and I can release it and have the same effect, you know, whatever, but you.

00:44:09
Speaker 2: Would have been great because you're so organized. I was so unorganized.

00:44:13
Speaker 1: Now I think I'm wise enough to have a circle of people who are organized.

00:44:19
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:44:19
Speaker 1: I got to be creative and I don't want to miss lead everyone.

00:44:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I never had my circle.

00:44:24
Speaker 1: There's nineteen people right now like rolling their eyes like yeah, okay.

00:44:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I never had my circle.

00:44:29
Speaker 3: You know.

00:44:30
Speaker 1: So when you start a label, how much money do you need to We got to say that New Diition was your first label act or did you have another act on street Wise? Hugh? Yeah, who's your first street Wise act?

00:44:42
Speaker 2: Well? The first act that I actually discovered and put out a record that actually did something was Rockets Revenge because that was big that sold a lot of records. Yeah, the first few. I had a Pee Wee Ford bass player from U, B, B and Q. Okay, he did a yeah, but he did a record for me called Be My Girl with James Robinson singing lead on it, like from change, you know. And then I did Touchdown a group from the UK Easier Mind, which I did a remix on with Lenny Underwood played keyboards on, and then Walking on Sunshine was three. Then it was like the New Edition thing happened before that. To start a label, I had bankers who had money. They got an office immediately and we were street label street wise in our office Madison Avenue. So we had an office in Madison Avenue, but like a one room it was not a big office.

00:45:41
Speaker 1: But when you're starting label, is it like single first? And if that's good then.

00:45:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, we weren't doing albums. We were doing twelve inch I mean it's all. We were a twelve inch label. That's what did you make a living office? Well, when Walking on Sunshine sold three hundred thousand, I guess you know, you don't really think of about that. You just back then I had someone who was financing a label, and they would letting me decide what came on the label.

00:46:08
Speaker 1: What was your home studio or your studio of choice?

00:46:10
Speaker 2: Well at that point it had been Intergalactic, but then they shut So then I started using a unique, unique studio in blank blank tapes, Bob Blank.

00:46:21
Speaker 1: You need a bunch of the record?

00:46:22
Speaker 2: Ye make money? You needed to pay a manufactured in advance for the act. I mean you need so.

00:46:28
Speaker 1: You have a twelve inch Yeah, who's the first domino that has to fall? So that you know, you have a chance to have a hit clubs and what's the club you're going to go to.

00:46:41
Speaker 2: Well, funhouse, Paradise Garage.

00:46:43
Speaker 1: And uh is Paradise Garage? Really? Is it more about the revisionist folklore? The true if you had what I feel like for every Jordan, there's ten guys that could have wonted Charles Barkley, it was was he could.

00:47:02
Speaker 2: He could have, but he wasn't.

00:47:04
Speaker 1: Like what else besides I'm gonna tell you.

00:47:07
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you there.

00:47:08
Speaker 1: Was And what are we judging on sonics? No?

00:47:12
Speaker 2: You you're judging on record sales. The next day Larry Leman would play a record and then uh, then you know, you'd what was in vinyl Mania? People would go to vinyl to well, it was in the village. They'd go there lined up after hearing a record at Paradise Garage.

00:47:33
Speaker 1: But without Suzanna or whatever, how is it working?

00:47:35
Speaker 2: They would go and they go Larry played a record who went like Doom Doom, Doom, Doom Doom, and they I'm telling you.

00:47:43
Speaker 1: The Peach Boys.

00:47:43
Speaker 2: No, he'd play it so often the word would get out, I mean I was there. I'm telling you it's not folklore. It's actually reality. He played Walking on Sunshine. Okay, all right, plays Walking on Sunshine, Frankie, here it Crocker. He's writing down what the songs are. Obviously he goes people hear the song before he even starts playing it. They hear it at the garage because Larry would play songs numerous times in the night. I mean the first time.

00:48:16
Speaker 1: I'm there for the night where he tortured them and said I'm gonna play ANBC over and over again to you guys, no heartbeat.

00:48:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was. I was there for that. But the bigger one was Rappers Delight. I was there when he first That's the first time I heard Rappers Delight was a Paradise garage and he played it.

00:48:34
Speaker 1: What was that like to hear it on loud ass speakers?

00:48:36
Speaker 2: Unbelievable. And the thing was in the beginning, you think, because in the beginning of it, there's a there's a bit from here comes that sound again, right, So I thought it was that. So I'm like, here comes that why? And then it's good times and I'm like, what the fuck is this? And then boom they're rapping. So he but he played that like a couple of times he would do that. I'm telling you, I was there.

00:49:01
Speaker 1: That was just normal. I'm not that I hate repetition culture. And the thing is, I'm not I'm not trying to like grandfather. You like, so Granddad tell me what it was like like as a five year old in these night clubs. So I understand, like, yeah, play that record again, play that record again.

00:49:15
Speaker 2: Play yeah, But no one did that. He did that. It wasn't like everyone else did that. He was doing it because he was stubborn and he would make people listen to that record. And Heartbeat was another famous one. So slow, such a slow track.

00:49:30
Speaker 1: He would bring force boogie onto people. Don't make me wait.

00:49:35
Speaker 2: He was playing that for a year before it came out.

00:49:39
Speaker 1: People were resisting it.

00:49:41
Speaker 2: Well in the beginning, and then it would be like you know, when it came on, people would go nuts.

00:49:45
Speaker 1: I mean, but listen, it's so it's actually true Stockholm syndrome. Some people wouldn't he's liking you.

00:49:52
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't think. I think, I think. But the whole idea of him playing it and then people going to Vinyl Mania the next day, the next morning looking for record, I mean that's how people were. The only way they'd hear a lot of this was at the club, so you know, and then Frankie would play it, and then you knew you had to hit. I mean, in my dock that I've done above Rocker's Revenge, I tell that story, and it's literally it happened that way, and we Frankie would come on and we'd all be listening, and my distributor was Sunshine Distributor. Strangely and basically we heard Frankie play it and then it was just like they ordered thirty thousand cars. I mean it would be.

00:50:31
Speaker 1: So Frankie Crocker is the bridge in between the street clubs and everything and radio and if you hear something and the crowd responds to it, he played on radio the next day. He get the credit for like, look what I introduced.

00:50:43
Speaker 2: To You don't know. He was open about going to Paradise Garage. He was always there.

00:50:49
Speaker 1: I wish I could do a study on how revisionist history starts where it's just like, I mean, people swear to God that the best sound system of their lives was at the Paradise Groul. Like what else was there besides just music? You never heard before, and and people were open to a song they didn't know before. It was I can't imagine that today.

00:51:13
Speaker 2: It was it was that. It was that, but it had like these great wooden floor I mean it just was like wooden floors, like a basketball court, the really beautiful wooden floors. And it had the tweeter you know, the tweeters. I mean, it was just he knew how to play the system. And I'm not a tech guy at all, you know, so I'm like going, well, you're a producer, yeah, but I'm not like, you know, a tech nerd. I would go there and it would just sound amazing, and the low end it was just a clean and just you.

00:51:43
Speaker 1: Know, okay. In order for me to get the satisfaction of playing an unheard, untested song, I mean it could be from an established artist. I've played like new outcasts before that no one's ever heard. But it's almost like I got to play you and then I'm gonna get that one song in the middle that you never heard before, an M tape off a little bit or if if if it's paral or something, it's like, oh, there's obviously some new Neptune shit. I've never heard before.

00:52:11
Speaker 2: But no, I do that. But I'm not playing you know, I don't care. I'm not saying you have to care, but you know, it's a different you have a bigger crowd or whatever. But I always play shit i'm working on because that's what I always did, you know, And that was the only way I knew it when something was finished. I mean, we played Walking on Sunshine, a Confusion or I owe you any of those records. We played at the Funhouse for months and before the record was out, it was like a hit there nowhere else, you know. But but we use that as our testing pad. Now that you're saying that, I find it strange that DJ's like I know, a lot of you know, big EDM DJs and not playing what they're working on because of just what you said, you.

00:52:52
Speaker 1: Know, um culture, A lot of them don't only playing what they're working on. Like I can't just zam half the MD when I go to Vegas. Yeh, I'll go in. I'll watch uh okay, maybe maybe the seventh figure DJ the same figure and they're really they're doing a show. They're playing the best of them. I don't I don't have my music isn't conducive of like five hours of dance. Yeah, if you clean your house on a Sunday, I'll be the perfect guy to make you a mixtape. But if I gun to your head, like the best New York nightclub experience for you was always what.

00:53:33
Speaker 2: It's hard.

00:53:33
Speaker 4: I mean Studio fifty four, even though is that the legend that's yeah, that's bull really well, well it's celebrity hangover.

00:53:45
Speaker 1: Man.

00:53:45
Speaker 2: I wasn't a celebrity, so I was n I I wasn't a celebrity. I didn't even get to go in. I mean as this music was, Yeah, it's no No. He wrote the song in response to no No, but yet they were playing.

00:53:58
Speaker 1: There was one time when everybody dancers playing It's like, that's literally me, you really not getting it.

00:54:05
Speaker 2: I had three clubs. I had better Days, well actually four clubs. Better Days Danceteria, which you would have loved Danceteria because it just it was totally very eclectic and played every everything got played there, and there different floors and the people who are hanging out. It was just like a really cool.

00:54:24
Speaker 1: So okay, this is my humble break. Madge tells me a story when she first this before she signed to sire. How she has a cassette in her hand and she gives it to the DJ, Mark Cammans even then, like I can't imagine. I'm so The reason why I'm glad of.

00:54:42
Speaker 2: That was how it was, like, I mean, she was cute. He put it on. What why do we being real? Yeah, he'd listen to it and play it.

00:54:53
Speaker 1: So DJs weren't ego like for me, different made me look bad.

00:54:58
Speaker 2: It was different then, but what if the song is bad, well then you know what he plays? Another one man? It was different. No one knew what anyone was playing. Do you understand they were playing things that no one it had a beat, No one knew what the records were. Okay, think about that record period. Every record played was something people didn't know until they knew it, until they knew it. But the first time, it wasn't like they were playing records from the radio. They were playing you know, Mark especially, he was very forward thinking. He was playing everything. Mark Caymans, I mean he was most eclectic. No, but I'm just saying Larry Levan would not play anyone's track, you know, he would play He knew me, he had played my records I gave Walking on Sunshine. He didn't play it right away, and then right when I left, because this was this is how he was. He saw I was in the booth, I left, and then a friend of mine said, as soon as you left, he played it.

00:56:14
Speaker 1: Explain to me a typical DJ setup in a nightclub in nineteen eighty one eighties.

00:56:19
Speaker 2: Everyone everyone, everyone had a two inch or just a quarter just a quarter inch. Everyone had quarterings.

00:56:25
Speaker 1: So we're not concerned about like, uh.

00:56:29
Speaker 2: They're not and now they are, but they're not. I mean, it wasn't a common occurrence that he would play it all the time, but he would play my quarter inch tapes. You know, it's in the confusion video. That's real.

00:56:42
Speaker 1: What was your best response to an untested record in here and.

00:56:47
Speaker 2: Play at your own risk? Well, of course because you playing it right, I know, But you asked me, man.

00:56:52
Speaker 1: It's like I made all the wall thriller.

00:56:55
Speaker 2: Yeah no, but okay, uh what else? Yeah no. I would say that I Owe You is big at the funhouse.

00:57:03
Speaker 1: I like that song is helped a lot of us elementary school kids.

00:57:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know you my daughter, My daughter learned.

00:57:11
Speaker 1: The AE I Owe You And sometimes why can you tell me the first time that you heard craft Works music in a nightclub setting, what is the crowd acting like?

00:57:22
Speaker 2: When I heard Trans Europe Express in Boston, Chan Luwanga would play it, Okay, I was in the record pool. We got the twelve inch of Trans Europe Express, so Trans Europe Express, and I'd hear that. Before Planet Rock. I would hear Trans Europe Express in the projects, you know, in Queens, I've worked in Long Island City. I'd hear it coming out of someone's radio, you know, it'd be and it'd be Black Radio stadium. Yeah, it was great. So basically when we went in to do this record that became Planet Rock, Bimbada had said, I want to use Trans Europics. That was definitely his idea, not mine. But then him and Tom Silverman did a demo which I didn't really really.

00:58:11
Speaker 1: Well.

00:58:11
Speaker 2: It doesn't sound much like Planet Rock, but it's got the base line from do you like it? Uh? So, Yeah, it did work, but it wouldn't have been I'm playing a rock was And then I was a music factory in Brooklyn with the guys who would later become Rockets Revenge. They were behind the and they had two Decks and they were DJ at the shop, which was amazing, and and Dwight put on this track which just went WHOA what is that? And it was Numbers. So I said, oh, man, if I use that beat with the melody and no baseline, no baseline, that gets in the way because Numbers had no baseline. So basically we went in and then when we went in, the rappers were looking at me like they wanted jazzy sensation. They wanted that, they wanted the live beat and slow. And then when they heard that Bimbada loved it, the rappers they were like, what is that? We're never going to get another chance to make a record if we do this.

00:59:18
Speaker 1: So okay, this is what I gotta know, all right. So I was wondering what your role truly is in hip hop culture. Now. A lot has been made of the mythology of producer Paul C. And when you talk to the large Professor about producer Paul C, our inside joke is okay, Yeah, Paul C was the first guy to read the SB twelve hundreds instruction.

00:59:48
Speaker 2: Man, wow, he needs an award for that, right, just.

00:59:52
Speaker 1: For that, because anyone else that I talked to, including the Bomb squad include anyone who's Marley himself. Yeah, it was just like you know, just you know the basic bits and it's trial and eror.

01:00:04
Speaker 2: Yeah.

01:00:05
Speaker 1: Were you the pulse of the pioneering hip hop stage? Where? How do you even know what an eight is? How do you know how to operate it? Because you're doing different?

01:00:17
Speaker 2: No? Okay, the story with that is very simple. We were looking for a drum machine, for sure, Monica Monica looking through the Village Voice and we find men men with drum machine. We call him up. What drum machine do you have?

01:00:34
Speaker 1: He would just have an ad Yeah, drum machine.

01:00:36
Speaker 2: Well, you find drummers in the Village Voice, right, you would find anything there, you would.

01:00:42
Speaker 1: How did you know that machine technology? No?

01:00:44
Speaker 2: No, no, no, But here's the thing, he said, eight oh eight. So I went to Manny's and heard it. I went and heard the drum machine, the eight oh eight. They had it at Manny's, right, So I got in. They showed me what it sounded like.

01:00:56
Speaker 1: Wait, because I'm gonna ask you so many minutes, minuscule details. Okay, So you have a vision in your head of how you want Planet Rock to sound, but you know that a live band can do this.

01:01:10
Speaker 2: No way, it's drum machine.

01:01:12
Speaker 1: Right. So when was the first time that you heard that a non doctor rhythm sly Stone, how they in a like a real like that there's a machine that can.

01:01:27
Speaker 2: I was looking for a drum machine. It could have been any drum machine.

01:01:30
Speaker 1: But how did you know they existed?

01:01:31
Speaker 2: Come on? I knew that you existed from Sly Come on, you knew that?

01:01:36
Speaker 1: Okay?

01:01:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, and halland Oates had used one and no can do I mean they were drum machines. I mean it was a thing.

01:01:42
Speaker 1: I was unaware of that, Okay.

01:01:43
Speaker 2: So that's the there was a thing called the drum machine, right.

01:01:46
Speaker 1: And that you were aware that existed.

01:01:48
Speaker 2: I was aware that the drum machine existed, Okay, I didn't know anything about them because I never used one of them.

01:01:55
Speaker 1: But do you acknowledge that, yes, there's sly dude, I did an old bible.

01:02:02
Speaker 2: Just lie, but I didn't know that really in real time.

01:02:07
Speaker 1: You're the first time that we ever knew a drummer scene two existed. I'll say, right before Planet Rock came out Rock and Soul Magazine. Steven Ivory, I think happened to be this back when the Jacksons were accessible, and Michael's inviting Steven Ivory to a demo session which will eventually become thriller. And this is like March of eighty one and they're unpacking these boxes and if I find this article, literally they're pulling out Len drum or whatever was before the Lenn Drum, and the whole entire article is forty five years before AI comes, because they go from well, first Michael's like, well, your day's are number. He's talking to like some drummer in the room. Your day's a number because we could just do this, and then drummer's like yeah, but won't have the same feel and da da da da da, And then they went from that He's like and the engineer says, well, don't worry one day. They don't have computers that will just mimic a voice and da da da da da, and Michael's like, well, it won't have the emotion like if she's out, Like.

01:03:16
Speaker 2: Literally, wow, I'd love to see that.

01:03:18
Speaker 1: They're predicting. So that's how I knew that a future was coming, because literally the entire article was Michael Jackson pulling out keyboards and all this stuff, but hearing it. When I heard your thing, then I was like, this is what they're talking about that Michael Jackson article, like futuristic spacey shit.

01:03:40
Speaker 2: But it did sound futuristic. That was the thing the DMX and Lynn really didn't.

01:03:45
Speaker 1: So you knew there was a machine that existed, and I.

01:03:48
Speaker 2: Knew there were machines that existed. And then when I was told it was an eight oh eight, I went and listened to it.

01:03:54
Speaker 1: And where did you go to listen to it?

01:03:56
Speaker 2: I think, Manny's a sam ash, you know, one of the They were right next to one another. How much were they back then? Probably three grand or something?

01:04:03
Speaker 1: Okay, so it was out of the question for you.

01:04:05
Speaker 2: No, I wasn't gonna buy it.

01:04:08
Speaker 3: Now.

01:04:08
Speaker 2: We were gonna rent. We rented the machine and the guy for twenty five dollars.

01:04:12
Speaker 1: Does that guy know that that machine is.

01:04:15
Speaker 2: The guessed he would have at the time, you know, did you let me hear the end result? Like this is the craziest thing. He basically wanted cash and not a check. So we didn't have his name. We didn't have his full name. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. Wait, really his name was Joe, but we never got his last name. Can you believe that? That's how much?

01:04:39
Speaker 1: Did he want? Cast?

01:04:40
Speaker 2: Twenty five instead of the check he was afraid Tom would bounce to check on him.

01:04:46
Speaker 1: Twenty five dollars, Oh dollars?

01:04:49
Speaker 2: Man, wait twenty five bucks?

01:04:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, motherfucker, I could just give my like here, are you serious?

01:04:56
Speaker 2: I'm totally serious? Yeah, crazy. And here's the thing. So he came men and we had the basic beat, you know, boom boom. You know, we had the beat, and we gave him that and he programmed it and then bam said.

01:05:10
Speaker 1: You told him what to do?

01:05:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. But then but then he showed me how to do it. So I programmed some other stuff the cop.

01:05:17
Speaker 1: What about that switch up that man with the beat switches?

01:05:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that was supersperm. We had two different beats. Yeah, it's that's where yea, that is super sperm. So that was bam. You know, he wanted super sperm for the change. But all the percussion I did the percussion. He showed me the cow bells, the high hats. He showed me out of you know, play it, play it with that one key that you could play it live and then it would you know. So he made the track first, we made the beat first, right, okay, right, and then John Ruby who played the keys. Then he came in and he played keys on top live.

01:05:57
Speaker 1: That's all live.

01:05:58
Speaker 2: That's all live. There's no no sequencing at Planet Rock at all. Even the ding ding ding ding, that's like with the delay, right, all that stuff. There's no there's no sequencing in that at all.

01:06:10
Speaker 1: Okay, So how are you formatting?

01:06:11
Speaker 2: Well, we had A and B you know, you just we just sort of you know, there was a switch that you have the A section and the B section.

01:06:18
Speaker 1: But you realize that Planet Rock is taken from the all right. So George Clinton had a theory which is like every song should have miniature songs in them, not just needing deep. It's a great example. There's really eight songs inside of that fifteen minute song, whereas with this song there's not a chorus, but there's there's least seven seven.

01:06:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what a lot of hooks.

01:06:42
Speaker 1: So are you saying, okay, give me something for eight bars which you got?

01:06:46
Speaker 2: No? No. I actually was where's the leader? Like, well, rock rock the Planet Rock?

01:06:51
Speaker 1: Right?

01:06:52
Speaker 2: That was me?

01:06:53
Speaker 1: And what device is that?

01:06:54
Speaker 2: That was just a microphone going through a PCM. No, I'm not saying it. I'm saying I gave them that hook because do you know the record Body Music by the Strikers.

01:07:06
Speaker 1: You finally struck me for a song.

01:07:07
Speaker 2: I don't If you don't know, I'm gonna send it to you. It is my probably my favorite record of that time. And they have a thing in that rock rock, the disco, rock, don't stop, and I made it rock rock the planet rock.

01:07:20
Speaker 1: Wow.

01:07:21
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, so you have to hear that. I played it last night and it still rocks and it will become one of your favorite I can't believe you don't know it. Probably don't know, No, you would, okay. So there was that hook and then the rock and note stop. It was. That was one of the things Soul Sonic.

01:07:38
Speaker 1: Would do their routine.

01:07:39
Speaker 2: That was one of their routines party people. That was you know bambada. So literally it's each bit is someone else.

01:07:48
Speaker 1: Came up proud like I'm thinking you guys are doing this.

01:07:52
Speaker 2: There's some kids, they're friends. Everyone went in.

01:07:55
Speaker 1: It was a swell people's sound.

01:07:58
Speaker 2: Well, we put the we put the PC forty one to give it that electronic sound, and Jay Burnett did the uh.

01:08:05
Speaker 1: Oh and singing the hook like those were kids.

01:08:08
Speaker 2: Yeah really yeah, they were young girls or ah wow yeah. But then and then Jay Burnett, who was the engineer, did the like Brooklyn Rocks to the Planet Rock don't stop. So he did it through the mic with the slap back on the PCM forty one, so literally. And then Tom he was going through the fair light, which was a sampling which you couldn't really use to sample in well. Fair light was expensive as ship. Yeah, but they had one at the studio. How much were fair lights back then, like one hundred grand or something. They didn't pay it was on lease or whatever, you know. But he was going through the sounds and then he went boom, boom, whimp, and we were like, we gotta keep it. The Orchestra hit and that is after that record that created the Orchestra hit and and uh and dance records. You know, so many things in Planet Rock, that beat game staple.

01:09:01
Speaker 1: Day before yesterday of this interview in my Instagram feed, someone finally breaks down, I don't know what the Stravinsky song is that that hit comes from. Yeah, but they were explained that when the guys invented the fair light, they were like, wait a minute, we better give them some source sounds.

01:09:18
Speaker 2: Just the show was to deal with.

01:09:21
Speaker 1: And the first thing they just happen to have that Stravinsky record and the first hit was.

01:09:29
Speaker 2: And then yeah, wow, that is Tom Silverman hitting. He was going through different things and then what and were We all went like that. It was one of those moments and we got to use that.

01:09:40
Speaker 1: You know, probably the most innovative idea of that song that never gets discussed is that's also the first twelve inch in which there's instrumentals, there's bonus beats, there's different mixes.

01:09:56
Speaker 2: Bonus beat, the name Tom. That was the marketing thing.

01:10:00
Speaker 1: Bonus speed got it.

01:10:02
Speaker 2: He said, we should you know, the acapella stuff that you know Larry Levan with Don't Make Me Wait. That was like the first record that had acapella. Then I used Walking on Well, Walking on Sunshine was after so yeah.

01:10:15
Speaker 1: When do you immediately know? Holy shit, I invented fire.

01:10:21
Speaker 2: I played it at a record pool party and everyone just, you know, I think it was Judy Weinstein's I'm not sure, but I remember playing at a record pool party and people were just you know, when what the you know, it was one of the when you first heard it, What the fuck was that?

01:10:37
Speaker 1: You know?

01:10:38
Speaker 2: And that was even with just the instrumental because a lot of people in the beginning played the instrumental side.

01:10:43
Speaker 1: They weren't afro futurist. Then, they weren't dressing up in those spacy costumes and none that like the song forced.

01:10:49
Speaker 2: Them to be that, that forced them to be that. They were not like that. They were wearing snorkel coat.

01:10:53
Speaker 1: You know, they were like, at what point did they realize like, did they ever so a need gratitude? They?

01:11:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, well they after that they trusted me, and you know because when we did Perfect Beat, that was very different.

01:11:08
Speaker 1: Speaking of John and keyboards, there's no way you're not going to tell me that that Perfect Beat opening line? Was it perfect? Could you loop back? Then?

01:11:16
Speaker 2: Yeah?

01:11:16
Speaker 3: That was?

01:11:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was sequenced.

01:11:19
Speaker 1: Okay, So talk about sequence culture in nineteen eighty two, because.

01:11:22
Speaker 5: That was eighty three eight, Tell well there was about srequence back then. Technology, Yeah, it changed, it changed, you know, step sequencing. You'd do a note and you know it was step sequencing. You'd press a button, do a note and it could either be sixteenth to eight, so you know, it was really.

01:11:40
Speaker 1: And you can speed as fast as one and slow as.

01:11:42
Speaker 2: It would sink to the drum machine.

01:11:44
Speaker 1: I mean I was going to say, how did sink to the drum machine and the keyboard?

01:11:47
Speaker 2: And it had you know, so the earliest MIDI midi a MIDI clock.

01:11:52
Speaker 1: So was Mady and eighties think or was Mady even the seventies it.

01:11:55
Speaker 2: Was eighties thing. Okay, the guy who did mister K from Roll and this other guy David, who I think was either from Lynn or one of the other drum machines. They created Minty together to link all these machines up because nothing was sinking. I mean, Oberheim did the system made famous by the Group of Systems, which was a drum machine, a sequencer, and the O B eight. So that was made. You didn't need another box. You could just sink that up together. The box was and he was the.

01:12:28
Speaker 1: Nerd that was going to do all though the engineers.

01:12:30
Speaker 2: Would have to learn that shit, you know. Excuse me? Yeah, no, I had known part of that. John Roby was good with the with the rolling stuff and sequencing. But yeah, looking for the perfect beat.

01:12:43
Speaker 1: We give all our love the planet rock. Yeah, but also like I mean, we can't sleep on looking for the perfect beat, which I you know, can they do it again? And as a resounding yes. So was there a pressure to like.

01:12:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, now the group were on the road. There on the road, they're like.

01:13:01
Speaker 1: But what's their reference?

01:13:02
Speaker 2: I guess when they just have a seven minute ago play at Rock and Bam, had they had had some other you know, they had their stuff that they would do, and you know, before Planet Rocks.

01:13:13
Speaker 1: I'm going for Springsteen levels. The roots have to have a two and a half hour show and surprise, back when we had one hour ount we have four hour shows. So in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, do a cover song, a bunch of solos. But back then, would you just have to have a fifteen minute show.

01:13:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, they'd go out with the DJ. You know, they would go up with Jazzy J I think, and he'd play a set and then they'd come out and do call and response, audience participation, favorite g. Yeah, they do other stuff and then they they do uh, then they do Planet Rock.

01:13:46
Speaker 1: Was there any question or how do we do this live?

01:13:51
Speaker 2: Like? No, they'd play the they say the track and rap over it. I mean it was it was like a TV track or whatever.

01:13:58
Speaker 1: They never no point was like you might have to get a keyboard player or a drum machine programmer or not.

01:14:03
Speaker 2: At that point. No, No, at some point, at some point I think they may have. Well, Flash had he had a drum machine, right, so he did he played the beat box. That was like he did do that.

01:14:27
Speaker 1: Speaking of which, okay, so what were your general thoughts? Oh, this is a great example. I always said on the show that it's never the pioneer that gets the credits, the person that comes right after. So of course Numbers is the spark and Planet Rocks the twelve alarm fire. So what are your feelings in eighty three when you're hearing like Scorpio by Graham, Aster Flash and Furies five or you're hearing not Fish, It's time or basically so, I'm a Philadelphian and Grove in Juniors from Philadelphia and mister Magic was Mammoth. But of course DC's like, we'll take that, And even to this day I argue with DC people, I'm like, yo, dog, Okay, granted, you guys have go go, but you should acknowledge that you got it from a Philadelphia artist and y'all took it, you know, as far as the city's concerned. Like I could pinpoint you were there. You were doing this type of music over singing, but we weren't calling it new Jack swing. You know, Miami will take that record and make a trillion records out of it. The Latin Italian culture will take it and call it freestyle. Detroit will take it and call it techno. So for you, what is your feeling come eighty three eighty four when now like you basically help heilm the blues like you can't copyright one four five chords.

01:16:00
Speaker 2: But you know I didn't. I had no problem with it. I just didn't want to repeat myself. Everyone else was repeating it. I didn't want to do it to the extent that when Michael Johnson brought me Pack Jam to put out on my label, I said, nah, that's give it. I gave it to Tommy boy which was Pack Jam. Well, I just said, you know that's a Tommy BOYD record.

01:16:22
Speaker 1: Tell me about Michael Johnson and all right. So when we first heard Candy Girl, like, we ran with that lie so quick. We just thought it was Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson, Michael produced this.

01:16:37
Speaker 2: You heard Michael Jackson. Michael was Michael Johnson.

01:16:41
Speaker 1: So tell me about Michael Johnson's role in Boston Folkalore and.

01:16:48
Speaker 2: Well, Michael and Maurice, so they were.

01:16:53
Speaker 1: Was he always dressing like a captain? No, okay, that that became.

01:16:58
Speaker 2: That became he wanted to be like Colonel Tom Parker, right. No, I mean I met their brother Sonny Donnie Johnson at the studio at in the Media, and then I met those guys and I started using them on my records, Michael and Maurice, and they the two of them the most talented people I had ever met, because they could play everything. Michael could play sacks, drums, guitar, they played literally everything. And I try to get them a record deal with Howard Smiley from t K and we saw them and it was just like it was too close to the Jackson's. It was like the Johnson brothers, but they were really talented, and they were but they weren't original. They could write things that sounded like they have tracks that they've done that I have the demos sounds like the beg's but they're like hits, but they sound literally just like yes, sounded like something else. Yeah. Well, Bark's second generation first generation Soul's finger come on, those were pretty creative.

01:18:03
Speaker 1: Right, but also yeah, okay, Soul figure, I'll give them. But literally all.

01:18:10
Speaker 2: The other cameo. It could have been earth wind and fire and could.

01:18:13
Speaker 1: Yeah. But the thing is also like when you're and I get it, Like my dad explained to me that, you know, a lot of these guys are bar bands, house bands. You have to learn.

01:18:21
Speaker 2: All that covers. Yeah, exactly everything.

01:18:23
Speaker 1: I think now there's at least seven thousand songs in our cannon since I've been at the tonight show. Wow. Well, I mean back then we were like, oh god, like like fifteen no. No, literally, I would just put a song on shuffle whoever it is, and I'll play for ten seconds, stop it right, and be like all right, let's go three notes under, and I will code to the member of the roots that is not too strong in dictation, like if you tell me, I'll say better about you go to my keyboard, play right, I'll and he'll do.

01:18:58
Speaker 2: So.

01:18:59
Speaker 1: I purposely go to him that might not pay attention and he'll come up with something else and then that's where we build the foundation. And so but I understand that, but wow, I would love to hear the demos.

01:19:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I meet them, and basically I moved to New York and we're still friends and they're playing on my records, right, and then Maurice comes. Here's where I guess Michael actually brought me the Johnson Crew pac Man. It was called it first, and he brought it to.

01:19:32
Speaker 1: Me to sort of capitalize off a video game called Course Yeah damn.

01:19:37
Speaker 2: Okay he and then he claimed he didn't know about the video game. I mean really yeah, but it wasn't true.

01:19:42
Speaker 1: Okay. So there was also a tribute song, yeah, called pac Man Fever that came out that was like a massive hit.

01:19:47
Speaker 2: But so he brings it to me and I'm like, let Tom hear it. So Tom signed it. I also gave Tom the four mds too. We went to Bronx River Center, me and Tom bringing and girl the Acetate and test pressing for Bambada and Jazzy Jay, and they played it and obviously everyone went mental, right, and then for some they were called the Four Seas. Then they come out and do a set and we're both going, wow, they're really good, and I go, yeah, but I have new additions, so Tom you can have them. I mean, wow, yeah, you.

01:20:22
Speaker 1: Did him a solid Yeah, how long does it take for you? Like, how do you coach kids?

01:20:27
Speaker 2: How do I coach him? I have Maurice coach them. So basically, they're coming to New York and Michael gave me pack jam. I came it to Tom and then Maurice is like staying at my I'm living in Cobble Hill in Brooklyn, rented an apartment from mel Sharon west End records his apartment and Maurice one night he's staying over and he comes back and he's really sad and like Maurice is always just like he's a real hype man, you know, he's like always, And I go, what's wrong? He said, Oh, I got this song and I brought it to Sylvia Robinson and she turned me down. And I brought it to Sylvia Roane and she turned me down. And I said, well, I got a label. Man, let me hear it. And he put on the cassette and it was Candy Girl. I was like, you got a record deal. And my partner flew back to Boston with them and we signed the deal.

01:21:14
Speaker 1: How fast did this session take?

01:21:17
Speaker 2: We went right to the album because they yeah, yeah, yeah, you did all that we did a whole album. Yeah, I mean he had, he had demos, but I said, let's get an album. We went right to the album.

01:21:31
Speaker 1: Did you instantly feel like you're going to strike hole? Yeah?

01:21:35
Speaker 2: You were a kid, you already you thought it was a hit.

01:21:37
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, no, no, no, we knew, we knew.

01:21:39
Speaker 2: I mean I couldn't believe that Sylvia Robinson turned it down. I mean, think about that. That's can you imagine New Edition on? Well, actually New Edition sort of did end up with them when Morrise Levey.

01:21:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, so why didn't they stick with you once they signed the mc A.

01:21:59
Speaker 2: No, No, the thing this is I'll give you like this is like this is a real deal. Okay, we didn't sign the group. We signed a production deal with Maurice. Maurice had them signed and we signed a deal with him, which was common back then. That was the way it was done. He came to us and said I'd have this group. We didn't think it through far enough to know that we should have got lawyers and made but we signed a deal with him, which was really common. If if I was a producer when I was doing a record and there was a singer, I'd give the singer the deal, I'd own the record, I'd own the production, and the record label would pay me, and I was meant to pay the group. Now. The only thing that went wrong with this was they were kids, and in Massachusetts the laws were that. Literally they signed the contract before they were they were now in New York. Fast forward if you years when he did New Kids on the Block, he came to New York recorded at my studio and he was able to sign them under New York law, which was, yeah, you could you could have.

01:23:12
Speaker 1: Did you work on New Kids on the Block.

01:23:13
Speaker 2: No, he just worked in my studio.

01:23:16
Speaker 1: Damn it.

01:23:17
Speaker 2: Did a remix. I did the right stuff. I did a few remixes for him.

01:23:21
Speaker 1: But even with him, did I think New Kids on the Block did you think like you?

01:23:25
Speaker 2: Well, I never doubted him at that point. I didn't doubt him, you know, you know I mean, but I'm just saying, so that's why would the kids always say when when new editions say, oh, they gave us VHS players, We gave them VHS machine so they could watch their videos because they didn't have them. I mean, it's just the whole stories. And and literally we signed the deal with Maurice and Michael. We didn't sign it with them, so any of their anger and shit should have gone to them, got it, And you know that never gets really.

01:23:55
Speaker 1: All the time. We signed a production deal in that directly to the and that was the you know by this point, by eighty three, eighty four, Yeah, I know you got at least have five good, could have had him, could have got away. Who well, I just told you to give me three biz Marky, how did you come into.

01:24:17
Speaker 2: Mister Magic brought him to shakedown? Mister Magic was sort of repping him, he was his manager at the time, and h we went in the studio to do a demo. Okay, this is probably eighty five, you know, it was not eighty three. This was after Beach Street. Well, Beach Street. Dougie Fresh he was in Beach Street and we try to sign him, and then someone else, David lu Casey, who was like our promo guy, ended up signing.

01:24:46
Speaker 1: Him to Reality.

01:24:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and damn you could have I missed him. I missed biz Marcky.

01:24:55
Speaker 1: At the time. Did you think, like I know what to do with this guy.

01:24:58
Speaker 2: Or no, I was not. I was on drugs, Okay that I was cocaine.

01:25:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was not that part.

01:25:07
Speaker 2: Of the Yeah, I was not. I was not too clear minded. But we he came in the studio and Keith LeBlanc happened to be there, and Keith made beats to give him a click track. So he's rapping and recently, I mean, I feel sort of bad how this turned out, but now it's actually I've turned it around. I auctioned that tape off with what was on that tape, the biz Marcky tape. Okay, but here's the thing. His wife won the auction, so I felt really bad that I took her money, but you know, I had to pay for my documentary, so auctioning things. But now we're friends and I'm trying to help her get that out as a as a record as something.

01:25:47
Speaker 1: So it's a complete song Laurence, well.

01:25:49
Speaker 2: It's five or six different it's a lot of his things that became songs later on. But he does a rap thing about New York. I mean, it's good. There's some stuff on that.

01:25:59
Speaker 1: I got to hear this.

01:26:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to hear that, but I missed that. And then obviously famously now is Mariah.

01:26:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, so at the time did you.

01:26:07
Speaker 2: I thought she was going to be the biggest star in the world.

01:26:10
Speaker 1: Okay, so this is what I'm saying now that we're in such an era, and I'm not saying that there's a lack of talent, you know, but it's just so much information fat show.

01:26:20
Speaker 2: Also, really I missed on that. I sent that to Monica because I didn't have a label at the time. It wasn't you know. He came to my apartment in the Upper West Side, was sitting on the floor playing cassette. He probably doesn't even remember, but him also and what stories.

01:26:36
Speaker 1: He'll remember for me, Like right now, with this new year about to come up, like twenty twenty six, I will say that maybe I have expectations to hear maybe three songs I like, which coming from a person.

01:26:55
Speaker 2: Three songs you like all year are this year.

01:26:58
Speaker 1: I don't know if the bandwidin me has slowed down, Like I'll hear three songs in which is like word or sad enough. Maybe there'll be two artists that are really good. The song might not hit me, but in my mind I'll imagine, like, yeah, they came out eighty five, this would have changed my life for that sort of thing. And I'm trying not to get to that. You know that that grumpy I'm my dad thing. But I mean, back then everyone had mind blowing talent, So like, how do you know that this person, Mariah Carey might just be a step above.

01:27:42
Speaker 2: She was writing her own songs first of all, and that was just unheard of back then. Well, I've gotten slagged off of this, but I said she when I heard her, she sounded like Whitney and she wrote songs like Madonna. That's what I thought in my mind, that.

01:27:55
Speaker 1: She has a pop gift.

01:27:57
Speaker 2: When I heard that, that's what I thought. I thought, literally, voice like Whitney, writing songs like Madonna.

01:28:04
Speaker 1: I totally get what you's And I was like, oh my.

01:28:06
Speaker 2: God, Tommy Matola got the tape too.

01:28:08
Speaker 1: You know, where would you have taken her?

01:28:10
Speaker 2: Well, I was trying to take her to Warners, I was trying to take her to MCA. I mean, I did attempt to it, but Tommy was so you know, he had a lot more power.

01:28:18
Speaker 1: You know, got it.

01:28:20
Speaker 2: But I knew, I knew it isn't like you know, I didn't go home to my wife at the time, another my second wife, and say this girl's uh, I knew. I mean, there's no way you If you hear this tape and you put yourself back in time, you'll go, oh shit, because they all I mean, they all sound like and the production was great too. You know, it was just really it was there, the mut it was there.

01:28:43
Speaker 1: Okay, So look, obviously this is going to go to Jimmy jam levels where the six could be seven hours. So I'm gonna have to do a part two. Okay for you, you're gonna have to stop at two hours. However, Yeah, inclosing, can you give me a marsh Leavey story.

01:28:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, more what you can't teach you. He teached me, don't get into partnership with the mafia. That's what he taught me. Here's the thing, Tommy Mottola, this is before Mariah. This is like when I'm working with Holland. Okay, Tommy is my manager also, so he's my manager during that era, and through him, I would meet you know, we'd go down to the Feast and Little Italy and we'd go to places. You know, I was like hanging out with him and the priests and the you know, some friends. Yeah, our friends. And when street Wise was about to go bust. We got because we had given so much credit out for the new edition album right that basically people were going under with our money. So like you give someone one hundred grands worth of credit because they're going to buy, you know, twenty thousand new edition albums.

01:29:55
Speaker 1: So you're saying that even having a successful record could also be a.

01:29:58
Speaker 2: Curse, Well, it could you out of business if you if you're not smart enough. Yeah, I know, you're so successful, and then you go out of business and you can't pay You can't pay the artists. The only people are making the money of the of the distributor who's gone out of business and kept all the cash. That's what would happen. Okay, But basically we're going under. And then somehow I'm connected with Morris Levy about he wants to buy into the label, obviously him thinking new addition, I'm sure I was off my face on cocaine, so you know, and Tommy said, no, man. The one piece of advice Matola gave me that I should have listened to that I didn't was don't go into partnership with him. Well, not not that it really not that anything bad happened other than I lost everything, you know, and.

01:30:48
Speaker 1: He a strong arm, but not no, not with me.

01:30:54
Speaker 2: No, no, he would have just rip you off. Well no, I mean his technique would charming guy to me. I'd go in and he would know, he had to know I was coked out, you know. And basically I'd go into his office and there'd be all these guys and with the gold and it was the Sopranos. Literally they were there. They were all in his office and he'd be telling stories. And he told me one story about Tommy James. Now, Tommy James was a junkie, but Tommy James was on Roulette and making all these great hit records.

01:31:30
Speaker 1: Tommy James, Yeah, I.

01:31:34
Speaker 2: Mean, come on, those are multimillion selling records. So he wanted to get them clean up because he wanted them to keep producing for the company, right, So he had him go up to the farm, his horse farm, like Hish had. He did have a horse farm. I went to the horse farm. He had them go up and he went cold turkey and he's like yeah, and we cleaned them up and then he never had another fucking hit. And that was the story. And I was like, oh shit, is this aimed at me? And then and then we had a blind bid for the label and he said, you know, I don't want to be partners anymore, and he outbid me. And it was I lost the whole thing and the new addition, you know, it was that's my main The worst thing in my business life was that situation.

01:32:25
Speaker 1: All Right, I'm gonna tell you it's not a connected story. But there's a friend of mine who saw the slide doc and you know, instantly I was, I mean, it wasn't like I was expecting across the board's accolades, like so what'd you think? What do you think? Sometimes you'll ask what do you think? Knowing that yeah, you're gonna get praised or whatever. And they kind of shot me with something that stuck with me. They were like, I don't agree with, you know, the moralizing stance about like that drugs destroyed SLY And I was like, no, I've done the recent I think they destroyed SLY. And they left me with a gym that I can't get out of my head. And they basically said, well, according to your movie, if we remove all psychedelics music.

01:33:18
Speaker 2: The music would suck, you know, maybe.

01:33:20
Speaker 1: And then I walked away and now I can't, honey, I can't hear.

01:33:26
Speaker 2: Well, those drugs, I mean, those drugs back then, the psychedelics come on. That definitely made you think outside the box, right, sure, exactly. Cocaine didn't though. Cocaine. There's nothing positive about the cocaine experience.

01:33:41
Speaker 1: It didn't give you. Listen, I'm not asking this as a as an advocate like no, I would.

01:33:47
Speaker 2: I would answer you honestly. What it did do is keep you up all night now.

01:33:52
Speaker 1: Being just where I stay up anyway. Yeah, but that's you, Okay, you know what I mean.

01:33:57
Speaker 2: It is possible to stand up, and I did afterwards. I didn't stop producing after I stopped cocaine at eighty seven, So it isn't like I did it through the nineties or whatever. I'm just saying, wow, that literally it didn't you know. And what it did do is make your records brighter because everything was dull on cocaine, so you had to push all the high end.

01:34:21
Speaker 1: Really.

01:34:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why looking for the Perfect beat has not a lot of low end and it's really bright. Go back and listen to the guy.

01:34:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, I'm gonna take away from this. Yeah, right, of course, we didn't touch to we never make it right.

01:34:37
Speaker 2: Street.

01:34:39
Speaker 1: We are definitely doing a party, but I wanted to end it with at least of marsh Levs and I'm a man of my word. I always wanted to have you on the show because I got a trillion questions and thank you for everything that you've done. I promise a return on the Quest Left Show from the God himself, Arthur Baker. Thank you. We will see you on the very around.

01:35:00
Speaker 2: It's been great man, Thank you.

01:35:01
Speaker 1: Thank you. Quest Love Show is hosted by Me Amir quest Love Thompson. The executive producers are Sean g Brian Calhoun and Me. Produced by Britney Benjamin and Jake Payne. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown, Edited by Alex Conny. iHeart Video support by Mark Canton, Logos graphics and animation by Nick Allowie. Additional support by Lance Colban. Special thanks to Kathy Brown. Special thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel. Please subscribe, rate, review, and share The Quest Love Show wherever you stream your podcast, make sure you follow us on socials and beats. At q LS, we check out hundreds and hundreds of QLs episodes, including The Quest Love Supper, Dream Shows, and our podcast Archives. Quest Show is a production of iHeart radioh