ireallylovemusic vs steinski
having released only a handful of records, why is it that ireallylovermusic is somewhat excited to get some answers on questions that have been rattling around for years. perhaps this emotion is down to the fact that steinski was one of the first to propel the cut-n-paste genre into new dimensions. for an overview on the mans revolutionary funk, check the history link below, all will be revealed. so, without further ado, chuck on those lessons (parts 1 to 3) and motorcade sped on bootlegs, and enjoy.
when you made lesson 1 did you have any idea that this record made up of sections of other peoples records was going to win the competition for which the record was entered?
none.
.. i mean this was an experiment that you knew would never be available commercially?
it didn't even occur to us. we just aimed at making an interesting remix of the record.
did you never think – “actually, this might be regarded as cheating, it’s not a remix as such, just a sonic montage of tracks of the day ?”
not at all.
what gave you the idea to do a cut-n-paste track, you weren't djs by trade, and surely the whole process of creating the collage by manual methods must have been rather daunting, or, was it a natural progression from you answering machine funk (see steinskis blog for further detail on that particular adventure)?
nothing to do with my answering machine project at all, except in sensibility. i had been a dj in brooklyn for a few years, putting on funk & soul dances; douglas worked in a state-of-the-art recording studio that specialized in advertising production. he was (and is) quite skilled at combining vocal snippets with music. he used an 8 track tape recorder, 2 track recorders, and tape splicing on a daily basis. the two of us - with our records, our knowledge of the hiphop scene at the time, and our sensibilities regarding audio - just waded in.
how did you actually decide on the snippets and sections to use? was it random, or were there intense arguments between you and your partner double dee as to the final ordering of the various sections?
we used what made sense to us; what made sense to us surprised other people, and lucky for us, they seemed to like it. there really weren't any arguments, we were having too good a time.
did you have any concerns about being accepted by the hip hop community when submitting your remix?
no. we hoped that if we won we'd meet the judges, especially bam. the hiphop scene at the time was very open; color, age, sex, background - nothing mattered much if you loved the music.
i would love to have been a fly on the wall when afrika and the rest heard it. it can’t be often you hear a record and think 'this will change the way music is made forever'
i'm not sure they thought that, either. after the fact, the people at tommy boy told us that our record was the certain winner of the contest, so the judges didn't hear it until the very end of the session.
were you actually in the same room while they listened to the record for the first time - or was it all behind closed doors from which they came out and announced the winner?
i think the judges enjoyed a beer-and-pizza listening party at tommy boy after hours. no contestants were there that i heard of.
can you remember what you spent the money on (all $100!), and more importantly, who got the t-shirt ?
we split the prizes - we each got records, $50, and a shirt. the money and the shirt are gone, i have no idea where they went.
was the record ever actually released commercially - or were there concerns even then about the whole copyright side of things? research seems to indicate it was a nightmare the very concept of releasing your track even in those early 80s.
never released commercially by tommy boy, the copyright issues at the time were too daunting. which they'd still be, today.
yet tommy boy still signed you up to do the other 'lessons' tracks. did you know at the time you were going to do a series of 3 12" with a common theme and sound?
we weren't signed to tommy boy; the first records was a contest entry; the second was fun project that they put out for promotion; the third was a spec project to accompany a book on hiphop that i don't think ever came out.
do you still have the masters of all these tracks or are they under severe lock-n-key within tommy boys vaults still?
we have them all.
surely after all this time (25 years !), attitudes have softened and a certain regard for these records 'classic' status means that at some point we will get a definitive reissue of the tracks (possibly even 'hip hop - the album' will get released ?)
i wouldn't hold my breath about that.
would that be something you'd actually like to happen, or, do you think the fact that these records are officially unreleasable makes your status a lot more 'cool' for want of a better phrase.
i'm not sure at this point that it would make much difference, honestly. i think just about everyone that wanted to hear them has heard them. there are lots of bootlegs and mp3's of them floating about in the ether.
so moving forward, the lessons are over, and double dee decides to get back a more normal life. so of course, you turn your interest to the jfk assassination. for the ‘the motorcade sped on’ track, what on earth kicked off that idea ?
making records by myself wasn't an option at that time. i knew how to articulate what i wanted, but i knew nothing about how to operate a studio. i wanted to keep going because i enjoyed the process and the reception our records had gotten thus far. i settled on the jfk assassination as a theme because i felt it was unexpected, the samples were around in abundance, and the subject had (at that time) a tremendous amount of emotional resonance.
how long did it take for you to put the track together ?
a couple of months. i'd book a few hours of time (the first hour was taken up convincing the engineer that i wasn't crazy), work on it, mix a rough piece to a cassette, and go home and listen to it for a while. i also had a friend, dj et (earl kerlew, rip) come in to do the cuts and offer general comments.
by this time, was it all still manual tape editing or did you have access to slightly more advanced technologies for the motorcade track?
only marginally more advanced. still compiled on 24 track using vinyl and 2 track tape for most of the elements, with one of the earliest commercially available samplers (emulator, with a gigantic 20 seconds of memory or so) to fly in some vocals.
i have to say, the way that, walter cronkite, the newsreaders vocals are cut to the beat is still jaw dropping. which came first : the beat, (and then fracturing the vocals to fit the beat), or the flow of the vocals to which you then strapped on the beat ?
i wanted a beat something like the opening break of the stone's "honky tonk woman." the engineer, craig bevan, programmed the initial track, and we added and subtracted parts during the mix. track came first; vocals second. i couldn't imagine doing it the other way round.
did you have to scour shops for tapes of films, or did you have all the movies to hand to lift the various snippets?
i used to run the audio of my vcr through a cassette player in my hi-fi, taping the pieces i wanted to keep. now i can strip audio from dvd's using software. some dialogue from films and cartoons did turn up on lp's, and i have quite a few of those.
again, you must have known there was no way this would get a commercial release as with lessons. so when the uk weekly nme asked to cover mount the track did you see an opportunity to spread the track far and wide and avoid all the legal issues, or did you have other reasons for handing the track over?
this was arranged by an island records a&r person, joel weber (rip). he was interested in signing me to island (i got a deal for two 12"s), and helped bring this about to build a bit of a buzz around upcoming records i might do. there was never a question of legal release.
the jfk shooting is still to this day a highly contentious issue in america. did you get any hostile kickback from friends/relatives who believed the record to disrespect the whole incident?
most of the feedback i got was positive, but i certainly heard from several people who were mortally offended. the memory of the assassination was much fresher then in the minds of many people. i still hear occasionally from people who have problems with the way i handled it, or with the fact that i used the dialogue at all.
did you ever find out if walter actually got to hear his famous dialogue being put to a hip hop beat?
no. somehow i doubt it, though.
after which, rather than propel the steinski name into the masses, you sort of 'disappeared'. surely offers to produce/remix flew in your direction making it possible for you to enter the music industry on your terms, or was this something that you never wanted ?
i'm basically a lazy, inertial person. i didn't view making records as anything other than a sideline because i was quite busy working as a freelance writer/video and music producer/director/cable television consultant. i didn't have the self-confidence to chuck that existence and pursue making records full time. there weren't many people knocking on my door to do legitimate recording projects, so i didn't pursue it. it was rather cyclical reasoning, and as i said, my laziness won out over the formation of a new career.
then to the outsider, you appeared to get the groove back with the fantastic solid steel radio broadcast of the 'nothing to fear' mix a couple of years ago.
what prompted the return ?
when coldcut offered me some time on their show, i figured i'd do an hour-long mix of the sort i used to do when i had a weekly show on wfmu; about 30 hours of work culminating in a pleasant sludge of a lot of diverse music and spoken word. then it occurred to me that for solid steel this was no big deal, and besides - no one was tuning into coldcut's show to hear full songs of bluegrass bands or cantorial music.
my friend alex heard my early stabs at this and urged: "stein, make it yours!" so i started making it mine. it was the first time i'd undertaken a sizable creative effort without having to meet a client's expectations, and without a deadline. it took me 18 months, and i have to say that it was the happiest i've ever been as an adult. it's still one of the only things i've done that i can listen to without cringing.
did you see the direct connection, kinship to your records and the whole ninjatune/coldcut/dj food scene ?
sure. although they've certainly taken it in a lot of new directions.
prior to ‘nothing to fear’, were you aware of the whole reborn culture of cut-n-paste with hip hop djs like dj shadow and cut chemist both making homages to the lessons tracks ?
i had to have it pointed out to me. people came by my studio with the chemist and shadow records, and i was scratching my head because i had no idea that anyone even remembered our stuff.
i read somewhere that nothing to fear took 3 years to put together. is that a legend that you are happy to concur with, or is it an exaggerated time period ?
as i said, 18 months all told, which includes a month or two of the hard drive living at douglas's studio while i tried to convince him to mix it for me. he made me take it back, and i mixed it myself, which accounts for the last several months of the project.
what was the story behind the mix, of course, after all, each lesson track had a certain theme, motorcade an obvious narrative thread, so how did you start with nothing to fear.
it just evolved over time. the ubiquity of that sleepy voice repeating "there's nothing to worry about, there's nothing to fear" wasn't deliberate, it just made sense to me as i was piecing the mix together.
your mixes are often riddled with generous helpings of humour, an emotion that is far too often missing with most mixes these days. do you purposefully add vocal snippets to lighten the proceedings, or is it just the way these things play out in the final mix ?
it's a little like a stage magician's technique; if people are paying attention to something humorous or dramatic over here, then i can be working to change the mix over there without too much scrutiny.
with new technology available did the mix come together easier than with the manual methods?
hell yeah. i did the whole thing in protools.
do you still collect records to lift the samples from as avidly as before, or, prior to a mix, do you have to go through a catch up period to check out current beats, or have you never subscribed to that 'keeping up with the jones' side to beats ?
i don't dig nearly as hard as i used to. i think if you listen to my more recent stuff you'll hear how haphazard i am in using contemporary material. i just use whatever appeals to me, and whatever i think i can get away with (in an aesthetic sense, not a legal one).
then you get the chance to put together an official mix ! that will get a proper release ! the sugarhill catalogue was opened up and off you went.
what was that like when the offer came in, kid in a candy store scenario?
a wonderful opportunity, to be sure, thanks to dj yoda, who was a&r for the reconstituted antidote label. they shipped me so much material it took me months to listen to and annotate all the stuff i wanted to use.
how did you come up with the idea of the burning warehouse storyline thread?
the sugarhill studio fire happened either just before i started the project, or just after. it appealed to me as a thematic idea to pull the compilation together; i didn't want to do yet another "birth of hiphop/hurray for the south bronx" comp.
did you have to get the all clear from the sugarhill people to turn the mix into a form of audio documentary with the newsreels etc ?
they sold the catalogue long ago, and have very little say in how it's handled. i dealt only with the uk publishing company that has the rights to the material over there.
did you have carte blanche over the whole catalogue, or was it a case - "you can use these tracks only" – were any out of bounds that you wish you could have dropped in ?
carte blanche, i'm happy to say - with the ability to use the all platinum catalogue (whatnauts, etc.), as well.
the reviews were wall to wall glowing for the mix, surely you felt vindicated for all that effort and hassle that the lessons created?
well, vindicated perhaps by everyone other than the copyright holders.
over the years, have you ever called up tommy records and said 'look c'mon lets try and release them now ..people love this stuff now!!'
no, i think clearing those will be a nightmare forever.
you are to tour with dj food in the uk ..
the circle is complete, with the lineup almost being a case of ‘teacher and pupil’ (no disrespect to the food crew of course !) tour despite the fact i suspect its all laptops/mp3s these days ?
well, it really is laptops and digitized music for me, along with a few midi boxes. kev & dk use serato, cd's and real vinyl.
do you have a preset selection that you play out, or do you vary your set according to the mood of the day?
there are a few songs that come up in most sets, but i generally try to vary it to keep it interesting for myself, as well as for the audience. and since i usually play to people who want to dance as well as head nod, mood and direction is as important as a worked out routine.
how do you feel over the mp3 issue? after all, there you were 25 years ago paying little regard to the copyright laws, and now the world is one big free for all with file sharing and such. is this a situation that you believe is healthy for the musician trying to create a career, or have things possibly gone a little too far, but its too late to pull things back to as they were?
well, a career as a musician now is obviously quite different than it was even 5 years ago; most of the opportunities for income derive from live shows and licensing, rather than vending one's work direct to the public.
copyright is an issue i've been reading a lot about, and learning about the history, purpose and manipulation of copyright law has been fascinating. i talk about this stuff on my blog/site (www.steinski.com), and i also recommend that anyone interested in this check out some excellent, non-technical books by a stanford university law school professor named lawrence lessig, who writes extensively on this topic and works in the field - he invented the creative commons concept of licensing (www.lessig.org)
subsequently, as a result, the whole music industry has to re-evaluate the business model on order to survive, but is drm the correct way to go about protecting their interests?
probably not. it's not as if drm works. better to sue dead people.
as a direct relation to your sonic adventures mashups are now accepted by the mainstream with major labels even sanctioning them from time to time. do you keep up with the mashup/bootleg scene, and have you put out any 'mashups' of your own - or under a pseudo so as not to taint the well loved steinski brand ?
i haven't released any non-steinski mashups yet, but there's always that possibility. i hope.
and finally – other than the tour, what’s on the cards for steinski fans over the coming months?
i'm signed with a uk agency that books me there and in europe, and i'm about to sign with a us agency that will book me here and in the pacific rim. i'm looking forward to doing more live shows, with a video/lightshow component if i can. i'm working on original, legal material, which i hope will get even half as good a reception as my other stuff.
history : here
link : steinkis blog