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