King Tuff is in Detroit recording his new heavy metal record and also posting insanities. From the Glamour Shottes Tuffblog—that’s Conspiracy of Owls’ Bobby Harlow showing off the Mia Doi Todd poster in the new issue. Worlds collide … with love!?

Looking back, you might say that brothers Bobby, Dannis and David Hackney started as a ‘proto-punk’ band, but really this is pure punk rock made years before anyone else even touched the genre. Within the context of the time and place—east side Detroit in the early 1970s—Death seem absolutely sagelike in their prescience. A documentary and a book are in the works, and tons more reissues to follow their rediscovered, barely released … For All The World to See on Drag City. Bobby and Dannis speak now from a snowed-in recording studio in Vermont about Death’s upcoming visit to L.A., David Bowie, and the day disco came to town. This interview by Kristina Benson.

I was looking at the Death site, and it said that what really intrigued you were bass players that could sing while playing, like Jermaine Jackson and Paul McCartney.
Bobby Hackney (bass, vocals): Paul McCartney, always from early—when we first saw the Beatles on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” that struck me. The fact that he played—I was so young at the time! It was just an amazing four-stringed instrument. I didn’t even know what the instrument was. I just knew they were guitars! … And Jermaine Jackson was another one. I think that the reason why that connection was, is because I grew up in the black community, the Jackson 5 was a huge thing at the end of ’68 to ’69, and it was the big Afro era. And I was just kind of starting on the path of being a serious musician at the time. We were just kind playing around with every type of music, and it was just kind of cool if you could play the bass and have a big Afro! It did a lot for my teenaged social life!
What’s the best thing having an Afro did for your social life?
BH: In the ’70s, man, it just made you cool! Sly Stone had an Afro, he had the signature Afro, Linc from ‘The Mod Squad’ had a signature Afro, Jimi Hendrix had a signature Afro, so, I mean there was a lot of signature Afros. And of course, with the Jackson 5, they kind of—after that, Afros just exploded. But it just made you look cool, like wearing cool clothes of today! The guy who signed us to Groovesville, Brian Spears, he was a real executive type—Brian had a really big Afro! So I mean, everyone had big Afros back then. It was cool!
I kept reading that there was a lot of resistance to the idea of black guys playing punk, or proto-punk, or whatever you’d call what you guys were doing.
BH: We never called it proto-punk back then. See, Kristina, what you have to understand, is during that time we just called it rock ‘n’ roll. And if you said punk, well, that term hadn’t taken on in music until the late 1970s—and this was between 1973-76—if you called a musician a punk back then, those were fighting words! So I mean, we just called it straight ahead, hard-drivin’, rock ‘n’ roll. And I think the fact that we were getting such resistance— ‘Why don’t you guys stop playing that rock ‘n’ roll, that loud noise, man, and play some Earth Wind and Fire, play some James Brown.’ And so this is what we were surrounded by unless we went out maybe to Ann Arbor or Gross Pointe, where there were other rock bands who were doing our thing and we kind of hung out with them a little bit. In our neighborhood, I mean, yeah. We was kind of weird, you know? But it was music that we chose because we loved it! We loved the whole movement. I think that 1968 had a real big effect on me and my two brothers, you know. Musically. And I think the fact that in 1968, three big events happened in our household, and that was Martin Luther King, Jr. being assassinated, and then after that a month later, we lost our dad, you know? To a car accident. And then a couple months after that, Bobby Kennedy. I just remember 1968 being this surreal year where like, the country was like on fire but the music was just incredible, just this incredible music and all these incredible happenings, and a lot of it had to do with rock ’n’ roll music. … It was like this whole wave of the young people just trying to be one voice and it was almost as though the rock musicians were the carriers of the message.
What were some of the other bands you’d hang out with?
BH: David saw the MC5 right before the riots broke out and that sort of thing. He hung out with old blues musicians, and you never know who he’d have with him. That’s where most of our exposure came. When we went out to Ann Arbor, we’d go to a club called Uncle Sam, other clubs, take in the scene. Even then, it was kind of weird! We were the only three black guys in the place! This was back in the early ’70s, and you know, it was like white club, black club, that type of thing. But everyone treated us really nice, and when people would ask us, because when we were together some people would ask us if we were a musical group or band—of course, David used to love the shock value of telling people our name. ‘What’s the name of your band?’ and David would look at them and go ‘Death!’ just to get the reaction.
Why didn’t you play very many shows?
BH: We had signed up to Groovesville in 1974, and our manifesto was to concentrate on developing the music, songwriting, making sure we had as many songs as we could. Hindsight, maybe he had intuition or a feeling within that he knew he wouldn’t be here so he spent a lot of time just recording, recording, writing, recording, recording, writing. And I wrote all of the lyrics, and I’d be writing a lot but David was just like a marathon! I’d go to school, he’d be in the corner with his guitar. I’d come home, he’d be in the corner with his
guitar. Late at night, in the corner with his guitar. Always constantly writing music. … The fact of the matter is that we did play a few shows out, but the problem was like those shows were booked in front of entirely rhythm & blues and black audiences. These people looked at us like, ‘What the heck just happened?’
Were there clubs that wouldn’t let you play?
BH: There were clubs that didn’t understand us, didn’t know us. And on top of that, we didn’t have a hit record out. That also—that was the main thing that was our main goal. Back then, we were kind of—I think we almost kind of fell into this ‘Us Against the World’ kind of thing and we were just used to that. And David almost had this attitude, we all did, like, ‘We know something you don’t know.’ And it gave us an edge, and we kind of liked that edge. But we would have loved to have performed, been involved with a lot of shows. Here we were, stuck on the east side in the black community and we just loved rock ‘n’ roll music!
You, or maybe your brother, spoke of disco as an effort to glaze over all of these political issues and be just like, ‘Don’t worry, just party!’
BH: It’s weird, it turns out that 1976 would be our worst year, and almost 34 years later we find out that it could have been our best year for the decisions we made. Because had we not done some of the things we did in 1976 there’s a possibility that the world wouldn’t know about this music. But at the time, 1976 was the most dismal year for us as musicians. Simply because a lot of things had happened, and we were no longer with our production company, who was shopping us to a major label and we decided to put out these records but, see, the thing about it is, when you grew up in Detroit, we saw a lot of our friends and associates that made this kind of happen and got local hits. And you’d give it to the disc jockey and he would play it! … So when we released ‘Politicians in My Eyes’ and ‘Keep on Knocking’ in 1976, we was trying to get airplay but we were getting really sparse airplay, like way in the night, 3 in the morning, one or two times in the day, and that’s all you’d hear it. Of course, David would go to the DJs and hound ’em, like, ‘What’s going on, man, you guys are not playing our music. You say you like it, why won’t you play it?’ And finally one DJ told us what was going on, cuz we didn’t really understand that that was the beginning of the corporate wave that was about to take over radio. He said, ‘We’re no longer picking our music and we don’t have as much control even over the local music,’ and then that’s one thing—they’d just block out local music. … This disco thing was really growing strong and no one could get any airplay. … My brother Dannis just came in!
We were just talking about the disco tsunami and corporate control over the media.
BH: 1976 was definitely a serious recession year in Detroit, and that happened to be the year that we were trying to get our little single played on the radio! And it was also the year that Bowie came to town! This was the biggest announcement to us that disco was moving in, and taking over rock ‘n’ roll. Cuz that’s what everyone was saying in Detroit: ‘Disco’s gonna take over rock ‘n’ roll, disco’s gonna take over rock ‘n’ roll.’ And you’d hear that, you know? And it happened in 1976. David Bowie was coming to town, and we were kind of down and out so we figured it would be a great concert, let’s check it out. And we thought it would be Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and all that great stuff, you know. … And he comes out in his little jacket, his little disco suit, and he’s singing in his little disco suit—and you know that album Young Americans? What had happened, Kristina, David Bowie, of course, not the radio stations—no one played this—none of the radio stations played this. That was the whole promotion. He rented the Michigan Palace as if to say, ‘This is the new me, check it out.’ And it was the weirdest thing, walking out of that theater that evening. We had been to a lot of Detroit concerts. We’ve seen ’em rowdy, appreciative, elated, disappointed. But that was the weirdest vibe cuz you can tell everyone was like, ‘What the hell?’ Cuz at first, they were like, ‘OK, that’s it, David you got us!’ … and after the fifth song we were looking at each other like, ‘He’s for real about this.’ I’ve seen crowds in Detroit throw things, but I mean, it’s David Bowie. There are some people you just don’t throw at. I remember the reaction and that was the announcement to us that disco was going to eat at the fabric of rock ‘n’ roll, which it did. That was the night, in Detroit, that disco truly came to town.
Is that what ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Victim’ is about?
Dannis Hackney (drums): That was actually a song, I think, about us! Because we were the rock ‘n’ roll victims, trapped in our room—listening to rock ‘n’ roll, looking for an outlet!
Your sons are playing music, are they facing similar challenges to the ones that you faced?
BH: Well, my sons are in a band called Rough Francis and they’ve kind of, you know, introduced our music to the public locally. They played it and they heard it and it’s a long story but they were as excited as everyone else when they heard the music.
Do you all ever play together?
DH: Yup! BH: The very first Death show that we did in Detroit we all played on stage together and it was a pretty good show. We did Chicago and Cleveland as well.
You went to an Alice Cooper show with your mom. What was it about that show that made you so excited?
DH: My mom knew a lot of the people that worked at Motown and they used to invite her to the parties they’d hold. And one night, me and my mom was going to one of these parties but we had to go through the arena where Alice Cooper was playing in order to get to where we were going. We were in the middle of the crowd and my mom looks at the stage and says, ‘Who’s that fella?’ I said, ‘Mom, that’s Alice Cooper. He’s one of the biggest rock stars in the world!’ And you know, Alice was up there on the stage and he had his boa constrictor and he was laying all over the stage and my mom said she thought he had a couple of problems. She went to the Motown party but I stayed and watched Alice Cooper, and it was just—the way the drummer was going, and the guitar, and the bass, that music—I was just standing there mesmerized and it just changed me. I went home to tell my brothers about this exciting Alice Cooper concert that I saw, and Bobby—he went out and bought a bunch of Alice Cooper records and we sat up in the room and we grooved on it. I told the guys, ’This is the direction I think we should go.’ And initially I got kinda laughed off until the Who came to town, and when David saw the Who show he came back and since he was the leader of the band, he said, ‘This is the way we’re going; this is the direction the music is going.’ We all agreed, and we started playing rock ‘n’ roll.
And your kids discovered your band at some party in California?
BH: It was my son, Julian, in San Francisco and he was—I dunno what kind of party it was, and he calls me up and said, ‘Dad, do you realize they’re playing your music out here at underground parties and people are going crazy over it?’ I thought he was talking about our reggae stuff, that we were doing with Lambsbread. But he says, ‘No, Dad, you were in a band in Detroit, in the 1970s called Death.’ And boy, did the phone get quiet. Cuz keep in mind this is the first time, in about 30 years, that I’ve heard anyone playing our music and it’s the very first time I’m talking to my son about being in a band in Detroit called Death.
Why hadn’t you ever talked to him about Death?
BH: Those were all recorded on reel to reel … so even with the tapes I had, I didn’t even have a reel to reel machine to play it on! So it wasn’t like, ‘Hey kids, let’s sit around tonight and listen to some Death!’ It wasn’t like a family heirloom. And my kids were into punk and hardcore, a lot of that music. And I used to tell them, ‘This kinda sounds like some of the stuff we used to do back in Detroit.’ And I’d get, ‘Yeah, Dad’—you know. … We never really talked to them about Death, and I think it had to do with all the bitter rejection and all the stuff we tried to do. When we do finally tell the whole story in a book, I think people will understand the gist of the whole story. There’s a lot of good things to come—the documentary and everything—that’s going to tell the 100 percent story.
One of you said that many kids missed the Motown era because their parents didn’t want the devil’s music in the house and all these kids missed the musical movement of the ’60s because they were oppressed by their parents.
BH: Well, that was the way it was back then. All that stuff you see about Elvis, and the devil’s music, and burning the records—that was true. There were a lot of households that, you know, kids were not allowed to listen to popular music. The only place they got it was high school. High school was the place. Your parents could do what they want, but they can’t keep you from going to school! There were a lot of uptight kids who didn’t know, and some of our friends learned about Motown from coming to our house and listening to records after school.
Who did you turn on to soul?
BH: It was really [eldest Hackney brother] Earl who was socializing as a pre-teen and teenager during that time. I used to hear stories from him—one kid’s dad threatened to kick him out of the house cuz he discovered he had some Marvin Gaye records or Motown records. … That’s the way life was back then! This is the same era where Brian Wilson’s father beat him with 2x4s. So see what I’m saying? That’s just the way kids were raised. Back in those days you could get beat by anybody! Your parents, the teacher, the neighbor—and they all thought they were doing your parents a favor! I mean, if you were bad in front of the class, I remember the teacher called us up and you’d hold out your hand, and sometimes you’d get one whack, sometimes five!
Little did they know they were whacking the hands of the future bass player for Death.
BH: You know, it’s funny—we used to think it was only in the black community, but later I realized it was in every community.
When you started the band did you think you’d be huge? In spite of all the obstacles?
BH: I think when we left Detroit as a trio we did. I think that we held on to our dream throughout the time we were here, that me, Dannis and David were here. But I think that there was just so much rejection—we moved here, and we did change the name to the Fourth Movement and put out kind of a gospel rock ‘n’ roll album and there was an article that came out in the biggest campus paper in Vermont, the University of Vermont. It was a split article—it said really good things about our music, but really bad things about our message. And David engineered—well, we all were in. We all kind of directed the ship, but I think that was a really special project for David. Me and Dannis, we can take rejection and it kind of rolls off our backs. David is kind of one of these artistic Beethoven types that— something like that would just drive him over the edge. I think that after so much rejection, David just wanted to go back to Detroit and re-solidify things in Detroit but the problem was that we had begun to raise families here, and for almost three years it was kind of like a stand-off between us. We were here just making music, bass and drums, and we’d always say, ‘We don’t have our guitar player,’ and David would say, ‘Hey man, I don’t have my brothers.’ But time settled things in and we knew he wasn’t coming back, and he knew we wasn’t coming back to Detroit.
Is it true you wouldn’t change the name of the band and it cost you a record deal?
BH: It’s true, in a sense. Don Davis, who owned Groovesville Productions, who also owned our contract, he had pending business with Clive Davis and the Grammy award-winning song ‘You Don’t Have to Be a Star (To Be in My Show)’—Don Davis wrote and produced that, and it was on Arista. Later on, Don produced Johnnie Taylor’s mega-smash hit ‘Disco Lady,’ and that was released on Columbia. So he had this whole thing. And we were summoned into the office because Don was carrying our tapes, and someone in Clive Davis’ camp had heard our music and really liked it but didn’t like the name. So we got summoned into Brian Spears’ office in Detroit and Brian said, ‘Don is still in Detroit. Someone in Clive Davis’ camp heard your music, and it’s possible that you may have a deal if you’d be willing to play the game.’ So David, after pausing for a minute, said, ‘Tell Clive Davis to go to hell.’ So that’s the truth of the story. Brian was our real advocate and fan at Groovesville, and he was trying to piggyback on the success of these real big bands and real big albums that Don Davis was working for.
Any regrets about that, at all?
BH: You know, it was funny. At the time we were so enthralled with recording the music, and our expectations were so great, and we were so cocky and so young, and we thought our music was so great—David just knew we’d get another deal. We talked about it a little but never let that define the rest of our career, or our relationship with each other. Out of all those records recorded at United Sound that year, we truly were the forgotten ones. Johnnie Taylor’s record went on to go platinum, and helped to usher in the disco age. Parliament released ‘Mothership,’ and that went platinum. Everyone got released that year but us. We were like the forgotten guys.
How did you feel about all those people having all that success around you?
BH: We were a black rock band on a black rhythm & blues company, so we don’t blame Don Davis for the fact that he decided not to exercise the option on our contract. I mean, he had big business pending with Clive Davis. And he wasn’t really sure about the name anyway, and our concept, so I gotta kind of look at it from his perspective. ‘I got potential million sellers right here, why should I haggle with my serious contacts with a band where I’m not really sure about their name myself?’ So I can see that from his perspective in 1975. We wasn’t never really bitter with Don Davis, or especially with Brian. Right when this discovery came—Brian had faxed us a sheet that he did in 1976 cuz he was trying to get a deal for us in the U.K.; he still believed in us. And he got this letter back from this guy in the U.K. and on the letter it lists all the people that heard the music—Polygram, CBS, Warner Brothers, Elektra, all the labels from London and you know what it said at the bottom? It said, ‘Well Brian, none of these people seem to show much interest in the band, and less interest in the name. If I were you I’d just stop shoppin’ it.’ And we have that! We’re talking about doing a book, and should we do one, there will be a picture of that in there.
There’s a Mary Jane Hooper record, and the back of the record sleeve is a collage of all of her rejection letters from a bunch of record companies.
BH: Sometimes that’s just the way it goes, but the one thing I’m thankful about is that the music got lifted. David was right, he said Death’s music would outlive all the rejection and anything we regretted. The only thing I’m regretting now is that he’s not around to see his prophecy come true.
Are there more Death releases to come, besides the demos?
BH: A lot more. There’s just so much, so much that we did between ’73 and ’76—it’s just incredible. And we can’t wait to come to L.A. It’s going to be awesome.

DEATH WITH RTX AND SIC ALPS ON SAT., FEB. 26, AT THE ECHOPLEX, 1154 GLENDALE BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8:30 PM / $12-$14 / 18+. ATTHEECHO. COM. DEATH’S SPIRITUAL. MENTAL. PHYSICAL. RELEASES TUE., JAN. 25, ON DRAG CITY. VISIT DEATH AT DEATHFROMDETROIT.COM.

(from Main Source on Gold Dust)

Large Professor gave Nas his first appearance on an album on the landmark Main Source release Breaking Atoms, one of the purest production pieces in hip-hop in the 1990s. After a shelved (and then barely if at all released) solo album on Geffen and another on Matador, he returns with a new LP (called Main Source) and a show in Orange County. He speaks now during a break from the studio. This interview by Charlie Dial.

On the cover of this record you have your bag and on the last one you have a crate—what are you carrying around?
Just records, man. All kinds of tools—like drum machines. It’s just to let people know that I’m not just standing there. I come equipped. You know what I’m saying? I got records, mics, I got my tools with me. My tools are just as important. I just let them know that the tools are just as important as the instrument. Like, ‘All right, cool—I’m putting all this stuff together, but I need the records and I need the mic and all of that stuff.’ So I give them light too.
There was a Main Source reunion in Canada in 2003—what happened?
We—myself and K-Cut—the Canada guys were like, ‘Yo, come do the show.’ And we just went and knocked it out. I’ve always been cool with K-Cut. It was no problem. From there we did a few in Japan, but I had to rock with my dude Rashad Smith. But, I mean I’m always cool with K-Cut. I did Breaking Atoms —basically that was it. At that time I had went into a little bit of the 1st Class album, but mostly it was the Main Source stuff.
Why do you think you were the first person to put Nas on a record?
I guess it’s just dudes not really seeing the potential. You gotta really be able to see the potential in a guy, and I always saw the potential in Nas. I was adamant about getting that dude on. When he came with his lyrics—I mean, Nas is really cool, a real cool guy, and he has a meticulous work ethic. When he goes in, it’s not like he’s a sloppy guy—he really goes in there and really tries to be on point and get it done right. That’s a pleasure to work with someone like that.
You’ve said Slick Rick is the best MC you ever worked with—why?
Slick Rick has all of the departments covered. He can get gangster, he can be very lyrical, he can come up with some crazy words, then he can sing—it’s like he has all of the departments covered. So definitely—Slick Rick is that dude.
How do you feel about the Geffen situation? How did that put you where you are now?
The Geffen situation helped me grow into a stronger man in this industry. The Geffen situation really taught me about this industry. I was still keeping it real—everything was going as scheduled, as planned, and a lot of that marketing and just industry stuff came into play and that’s not my strong point. I like the music. I like doing the music and putting the music down, so it let me know about this industry and about business. It’s show business—‘business’ is the big word in that. One thing that I’d do differently with Geffen now—one thing that I did wrong with them is we released a single before the album was done. We had ‘The Mad Scientist’ first and then we had ‘ijuswannachill.’ Today I would rather just give them the whole album and then the album would come out and then we put the singles out. But that’s just all in the gist of like—what comes first, the chicken or the egg? It was all that industry stuff. Me, I just like to focus on the music.
What’s the best environment for you to start putting tracks together?
I like to be able to be comfortable and put in long hours if I’m gonna be there. I’ve carried crates on trains, I’ve carried drum machines on trains—en route to the studio with two crates of records on the train. Now I try to be a little more organized—better with the plan of how I’m gonna go about doing things. A lot of today’s technology makes it easier. In those early days I did it the hard way—big machines on trains. I’m at a point now where now I wanna be able to have—like the machine I was using was the MPC1000, and you can almost stick that in your back pocket. As long as it’s comfortable and just like a cool little small set-up, I’m good.
How did you get hooked up with Presto? He’s a local.
One day we were DJing along side each other in Brooklyn and he was like, ‘Yo, I got this project I’m working on and I make beats and everything.’ He let me hear a beat, and me, I’m a guy who respects skills—so when I heard that, I was like, ‘Alright, cool.’ Once I heard what he was working with, I was like, ‘Yeah, I can add on to that.’ And so we made it happen.
No hassle, no politics?
Naw, that’s Geffen—that’s the politics. You know—there was one time when I had a demo and I wanted someone to listen to my demo, and they would put me through all the politics. And I always swore to myself that I wouldn’t be like that.
What is your favorite biography you’ve ever read?
Marvin Gaye. His story was real ill. I’m still finding out stuff about him.
You’ve said you’ve always got a vision in mind of the guys in the old days with the sheepskin jackets, and if they wouldn’t feel the music you’re making, you move to something else. Where does that come from?
You have visions in your mind when your playing a beat and you can see that its moving—me personally, I’ll go back to that stuff and it’s just like, ‘Oh yeah, this is that type of beat.’ I guess me coming up in Harlem and everything and just seeing the older dudes with their Kangols on. I just try to nail it—to get it right from the beginning. ‘Yo, I gotta make ‘em move—I gotta make that guy move.’

ABSTRACT WORKSHOP PRESENTS LARGE PROFESSOR WITH J. ROCC AND DJ COCOE ON FRI., FEB. 27, AT DETROIT BAR, 843 W. 19TH ST., COSTA MESA. 10 PM / $15 / 21+. DETROITBAR.COM. LARGE PROFESSOR’S MAIN SOURCE IS OUT NOW ON GOLD DUST. VISIT LARGE PROFESSOR AT LARGEPROFESSOR-MAINSOURCE.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/THELARGEPROFESSOR.

(from Fragments of The Universe Nurse out now on Hook or Crook)

Human Eye is one of the many mentally deranged brainchildren of Timmy Lampinen, which also include Clone Defects, Epileptix, and Reptile Forcefield. He’s been releasing albums out of his hometown of Detroit for years and has toured the world over. Art-damaged psychedelic punk overload is an understatement of what their live show and records inject into today’s musical organism. These are the secretly important deviants of Detroit. This interview by John Henry.

I know it’s been a few years, but I was at that Horizontal Action Blackout Fest in Chicago when you pulled the dead octopus out of the bag and wore it on your head. Can you tell me the whole story?
Timmy Lampinen (vocals/guitar): Well, I called Matt Williams and he put together the Blackout—and Todd Killings from HoZac Records and Victim Of Time—but I was like, ‘Yeah, Matt, can you get us on the Blackout? You know we want to play the Blackout.’ He was like ‘ Yeah, we can only get you on third Thursday.’ Third on Thursday—that’s kind of a crappy slot. I had been playing Chicago for five or six years and it was like the fifteenth time I played. I thought maybe we should play a Friday or a Saturday or something. So I was thinking, ‘Man, third on Thursday—alright, we’re gonna give you something to remember.’ So I went to Eastern Market in Detroit. They got this crazy fish market that has all kinds of weird fish and stuff and I was like, ‘I gotta bring something weird on stage. I don’t know what but I gotta bring something.’ I was like, ‘What the fuck is that octopus?’ And it was like this frozen block about as big as a brick you put in your house. A little bit bigger but it was in a brick and it fit perfectly in this six-pack cooler that I had. So I put it in the six-pack cooler and I put all this lime and lemon juice all over it—marinated it. I marinated that motherfucker because I was like, ‘You know that thing’s probably gonna end up in my mouth—HA HA HA.’
Johnny Lzr (pianos): The trunk of my car still smells like octopus.
TL: Are you serious?
JL: A little bit yeah. It’s funny that people remember that. They even used it on the flyer of the Budget Rock Festival we just played.
I saw that caricature they used—I mean it’s a pretty memorable and notorious moment.
TL: Yeah, so I put it in Johnny’s trunk and it was the beginning of summer. It was hot—80, 90 degrees—and as soon as we got there, I pulled that cooler out and we were ready to go on stage. I put the cooler on stage, had some paint, and got ready to play. We got into the fourth song and I was like, ‘All right, octopus time. I don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna do with this but I’m pulling it out.’ It was nice and cold and thawed out. Perfect. It wasn’t warm or nothing. It was just thawed out from the hot trunk. Then I pulled that thing out and everyone was like ‘fuck!’ and just staring at it like deer in headlights. I was holding it up and started pouring green paint all over it and put it on my head. Then I threw it out in the audience and hit Billy’s mom with it.
Billy Hafer (drums): No you didn’t.
TL: No, someone said it hit your mom. Your mom was in the audience and it hit your mom.
Hafer: I was just kidding around.
TL: You were just kidding about that? Hey, put that in the interview—that’s funny shit. I threw the octopus at the audience and everyone scattered. It was like if I were throwing money out there. Everyone would implode but it was like they filmed that and rewound it or something. That doesn’t make any sense but anyway everybody just scattered and it slid across the floor. Somebody was really pissed off. It must have hit their girlfriend. You know the face you make right before you say the F word—like ‘ffthghtffth’? That’s what he looked like, and then he threw it on the stage and I grabbed it and I was like, ‘Sorry, dude.’ I picked it back up and put it on Billy’s cymbal and he was playing a jazz beat with an octopus on there. I don’t even know if we played a full set, maybe five or six songs. When I went back to get my stuff they put it under a table where all the gear would go in a little bag for me. They saved it and didn’t throw it away or anything. So it wound up at a party with us at Brian Costello’s—who’s in a band called Johnny and the Limelights who rule. I got there before anyone else and threw the octopus in the freezer and sprawled it out like it was just beamed up from outerspace. It totally looked like an alien creature. People were taking pictures of it and people were taking pictures of people taking pictures of it. It was fucking hilarious. So then it froze in there and we went to the show the next day and the club has a new rule sheet and one of the things was ‘No Squids.’ I could have brought an octopus still. So that’s the octopus story and then we got into seafood after that. We did a tour later on that summer. I don’t know why but this is cool—the seafood thing. We became the seafood band. Like a restaurant or something. Now we just gargle paint.
Was that vampire blood or something you were drinking at the Redwood?
TL: No, it was glitter slime. Yeah, I drank the glitter slime.
Do you make all the costumes and props and that weird Cthulhu glove?
TL: No, I got that mask at Kmart. It was on sale. No, just kidding. I made the mask and I made the glove. We’re regulars at the dollar store.
Brad, I know you’re the newest member of the band. Don’t you run a record store in Detroit?
Brad Hales (bass): Yeah, Tim came into my record shop and said they needed a bass player and they had a show in ten days in New York. I was like, ‘I really want to do it’ and he was like ‘I heard you can’t tour.’ I was playing in Easy Action but I opened my own record shop and I didn’t want to tour as much but I was like, ‘No, man, I’ll do it, I’ll do it.’ My record shop’s called People’s Records. It’s a busy secondhand record shop. We got about 70 or 80 thousand records in there. People bring them in off the street all day.
TL: He’s the king of northern soul, selling all these rare northern soul 45s. The BBC is going to do a documentary about his store and shit.
Hales: It’s going to be about the fiftieth anniversary of Motown, which is this year. They came to Detroit and interviewed my friend Herman Weems who painted the cover of Psychedelic Shack by the Temptations and was a songwriter in Detroit for decades.
So what’s going on in Detroit lately? You were talking earlier about the Terrible Twos and bands like that helping bring back the scene.
TL: Terrible Twos are like the bastard children of the Pirahnas and Clone Defects. Those are like my best buddies. Terrible Twos rule.
JL: It’s like a new generation of music kids that are coming up there.
TL: You know what? It blows away the Gold Dollar days, the bands right now in Detroit. It’s real, it’s snotty, it’s mean, it’s art damaged, it’s avant-garde, it’s punk, it’s crazy and there’s probably about ten kick-ass bands right now in Detroit. People were like, ‘Detroit’s slow,’ and no one was coming out to shows and it got a bad reputation. It kinda sucked because I was a booking agent and I was getting blamed for these sucky shows and I was trying my best and having people stay at my house and feeding them, letting them borrow my towel and shit. It’s way better now, totally—the Frustrations, Fontana, Terrible Twos, Gardens, Fake Blood, Druid Perfume, Johnny Ill Band, Demons, Rise of The Peace Balloon. There’s more but I’m not thinking of any—Human Eye! Detroit’s kicking it like Bruce Lee, man.

HUMAN EYE’S FRAGMENTS OF THE UNIVERSE NURSE IS OUT NOW ON HOOK OR CROOK. VISIT HUMAN EYE AT MYSPACE.COM/HUMANEYEDETROIT, MYSPACE.COM/REPTILEFORCEFIELD, MYSPACE.COM/TIMMYSORGANISM OR ART-MUSICFORUM.BLOGSPOT.COM.

The Dogs “Fed Up!”

The Dogs were born in Michigan in 1970 and made the White Panthers a little worried before they moved to New York (and drove Kiss around) and toured the midwest (where they were beaten onstage by cops in front of 9,000 Bob Seger fans) and finally settled in L.A., where they were instrumental in the Radio Free Hollywood scene that came just before the Masque. They have just received a 2XCD tribute comp despite only releasing five songs before they broke-up. They are now back together and are working on a new DVD.

What’s the most ridiculous exit you ever made from a stage?
Loren Molinare (guitar/vocals): We were opening for Bob Seger at the Toledo Sports Arena and we got charged with felony inciting a riot. We had moved back from New York to Detroit and were booked with Bob Seger before he really broke, and we were like right before Seger. We’d waited all day and we were already set up and Bob’s road manager said, ‘Bob is tired and he wants to go back to Ann Arbor. You guys will close the show.’ And there were 9,000 kids there to see Bob Seger who barely knew who we were—‘We can’t do that! We’re gonna go play!’ And they say, ‘If you go on stage, you’re going to jail.’ “Oh yeah? Well, rock ‘n’ roll, motherfucker!’ So we go out on stage in front of 9,000 kids and started to play, and they pull the plug and Ron [Wood] started doing a drum solo. And the next thing—Toledo city cops come onstage in front of 9,000 people and beat the hell out of the band with billy clubs! They hauled everybody off to jail but me—I was running around screaming ‘rock and fucking roll’ to the crowd! They threw one of our roadies through a plate-glass window and charged him with destruction of public property. Needless to say, the booking agency—who did the MC5, the Stooges, Brownsville Station and Bob Seger—refused to have the Dogs on any of their shows in the Midwest. Their bands would not play. We got blackballed for standing up for rock ‘n’ roll! This was before they called it punk rock. We were raising a lot of of hell standing up for whatever we thought was justice.
Where did you get your code of ethics?
There was a lot of change going on, and especially with John Sinclair and the MC5 mentality—it became White Panthers on steroids for us! But it was still the music business. We didn’t realize that. It’s all about justice and doing things for the right reasons. Someone called me a hopeless optimist, and I said, ‘Oh yeah? Put it on my fucking tombstone!’ A lot of great bands—Beatles to Stones to Hendrix—paved the way, and MC5 opened the door. From Chuck Berry to the Beach Boys to the MC5—you got me going on a roll, motherfucker!
When you first heard the MC5 on WILS, did they play the version that says ‘motherfucker’?
The MC5 corrupted me at such a young age, but I didn’t hear ‘Kick Out The Jams’ on the radio—it was AM radio in those days. But in high school I was in cadet band class—I played drums, but really it was a derelict class for all the losers in school to come and just play records.
Did you get a grade for that?
I took that class for three years—it helped me graduate! We’d listen to MC5—B.B. King I learned in that class—and I got into the MC5 so much. They were gonna play our high school but the band teacher heard ‘Kick out the jams, motherfucker!’ and went and told the principal! So early on I was corrupted by passion, honesty and power and the political kind of expression of just breaking out and kicking out the motherfucking jams! It set me free—total liberation.
What was it like to graduate into the world of 1970?
I had no fucking idea! Other than I knew I wasn’t gonna go to college—it was gonna be rock ‘n’ roll. I made that conscious attempt. The Dogs were still kind of kids playing with toys. We opened for the MC5 when I was in 11th grade. The Back In The USA days—it was the first time I got to see them and it was so amazing! Truck driver, hippies, rednecks, rockers—it was the first time I’d ever seen a band that transcended cultural barriers. I saw young girls melting in the front row. It was the most powerful thing I’d ever seen in my life. A freight train coming through the center of my brain.
How did John Sinclair feel about the song you wrote about him?
That song was kind of a sore spot for a while. When he got arrested, we wrote ‘John Rock ‘n’ Roll Sinclair’ as a tribute to get him outta jail, but after a while, we never got to play any benefits, and we felt a little put off by their organization. Maybe they thought we had cow shit on our shoes since we were from Lansing and not Detroit? We felt he got a bum rap from the government, and we wanted to free his soul with rock ‘n’ roll and get him out of jail. The C.I.A. was doing a lot of weird shit in those days. Freaking out about rock ‘n’ roll in Ann Arbor and Detroit—‘Ask the C.I.A., see what they gotta say…’
What were they doing?
That MC5 movie that never came out—Dave Thomas had footage of the MC5 playing the 1968 Democratic Convention, and they were filming that secretly. The Detroit area was a political hotbed—rock ‘n’ roll and Sinclair and the White Panthers. The government just freaked out about it. So ‘John Rock’ was kind of our ‘Johnny B. Goode’ but a political Michigan rock ‘n’ roll thing. I think John was a little put-off and didn’t understand, but when Detroit Jack put our tribute CD out and asked him to do the liners, it came full circle. He didn’t think we were these mutant kids from Lansing anymore. But we were like the mutant kind of result of the MC5 and the Stooges, and here we were making the Detroit psychedelic hipsters uptight—it was punk rock offending the original punk rockers! And when we were playing that song when we moved to L.A., no one even knew who he was! Our first single in 1976—we can laugh about it now!
Why were you so set on moving to L.A.?
We moved from Lansing to Detroit in 1973 to a big three-story Victorian house in the slums by Tiger Stadium. Every Dog house has been torn down now. The Hollywood house—which had a rehearsal studio—was High Time Studios, after the 5 record and the fact we liked to smoke a lot of weed! We moved to New York in 1974 and that was a real experience. We opened for Kiss, played with the Dictators and Television at Max’s Kansas City—back when Patti Smith was Tom Verlaine’s girlfriend.
Did Kiss have their make-up then?
Yes, they did! The first day in Manhattan when we got there, I saw all these posters on poles: KISS AT THE DIPLOMAT HOTEL! So we went up—so naïve, green behind the ears!—and I found Kiss and went up to Paul Stanley like, ‘Hi, I’m Loren from the Dogs! We just got in from Detroit. Can we play your show?’ And he was like, ‘Look, this is fuckin’ New York! You can’t come in and think you’re gonna play a Kiss show!’ And we’re like—oh, wow, welcome to fucking New York! Needless to say, New York was too hard to survive in, and we ended up booking a spring of ’75 tour down south to Florida to play spring break in Daytona Beach. We were getting fired in every city. That’s when disco was going—‘You’re too loud and too fast!’ Ron Wood our drummer quit in Orlando and left us stranded. His girlfriend had moved from Michigan to start stripping at some strip club by our motel: ‘Fuck you, I’m staying!’ So [bassist] Mary [Kay] and I and the road crew said, ‘Fuck it—we’re going to Hollywood!’ So we borrowed money from our parents and made it to Hollywood and stayed in the Starwood parking lot for a week. And then got our place on Gower. And then Ron came out.
They broke up, huh?
She threw him out.
It’s like a drummer joke come to life.
He came back and we met the Motels, the Pop, the Berlin Brats and we got started on the whole pre-punk thing. 1975—pre-Masque. No bands who were original could get booked. We partnered as Radio Free Hollywood with the Motels and the Pop and got written up in Billboard, and after that the Starwood and the Whisky started booking the so-called ‘new wave’ scene. And it started exploding then. And then the Masque thing. But Radio Free Hollywood was the beginning of the independent out-of-the-box anti-establishment music scene—Back Door Man magazine, Phast Phreddie and them were on that too, pushing things, and Greg Shaw out in Bomp! Different factions pushing to make it happen. That first wave from ’76 and ‘77—you had the Whisky, the Starwood, KROQ Cabaret, the Masque—it was pretty much on fire! And by ’78, the hardcore thing started happening and the punks were out of the Masque scene. We played our instruments too good and we were caught in a weird spot. Normal rock people—if you’re talking ‘70s rock, Journey or REO Speedwagon—thought we were a little too weird. And the punkers thought we played our instruments too good! We weren’t here or there. We lost it! We’d recorded at the Record Plant—the live ‘Slash Your Face’—and our manager who worked with Journey had recorded the stuff, and we ended up stealing the mixdowns of those tapes and bootlegging ourselves so we could go on tour.
So the ‘Slash Your Face’ EP is a bootleg of that live Mabuhay set?
We stole our own tapes and released it ourselves—total punk rock stuff!
Who was your best fan in L.A.?
Keith Morris—this was before the Circle Jerks. He was a surf kid. And Greg from Black Flag. Just beach kids from Torrance and Redondo. And that guy Kid Congo—and Jay Lansford who ended up in Channel 3. They were at all the shows. Keith Morris was always almost at every show, yelling, ‘Play “L.A. Times!”’ I think we had some sort of impact. They liked us because they knew we were from Detroit, and we did sound like the 5 and the Stooges a bit. I think we had a small part in influencing those guys to get the balls to kick out the jams!
What was the song ‘L.A. Times’ about?
That was one of the first songs we wrote when we got here. We had two L.A. songs—‘Sleaze City,’ about the bondage houses and people who come here like locusts to make it, and ‘L.A. Times’ was the first song. At that point, the Whisky was closed—‘The whiskey ran dry in the summer of ’75…’ and the L.A. Times newspaper and I thought ‘Right on time with the fucking L.A. Times.’ Just a song to document what I felt the scene was with the Motels and the Pop and how we met them and the beginning of Radio Free Hollywood. And just a song about if you lived in the Midwest and dreamt about coming to Hollywood like I did. Creem did an expose on Hollywood with Alice Cooper at Pink’s, and we had pulled it out and saved it and that was our road map when we got off the Hollywood freeway!
At one point or another were you the heaviest band in L.A.?
The scene was pretty vibrant, but we could hold our own with Van Halen headlining the Starwood or the Whisky—but it was rough opening for them because their crowd was die-hard. They’d be asleep while you were playing! But Dave Roth—the first Hollywood date the Dogs ever did was Van Halen, Quiet Riot and the Dogs at the Starwood in ’76!
How were you able to move between all these little scenes?
Because of that Midwest normal-rock background. The Dogs opened for AC / DC’s American debut at the Whisky. A three-night stand with two shows a night. And we did things that sabotaged our chance to get signed—you’ll love this. We had our code of ethics and it damaged our career! Our manager said, ‘Look, I’ll get you to open for AC / DC, and if you guys dress a little more punk, I can get you a record deal!’ We were wearing kind of tight jeans, pointed shoes—kind of Detroit—and we go, ‘We can’t do that! That’s not punk!’ So we come out our first night—we took baggy dress pants and white dress shirts and put ‘em in the mud and pissed on ‘em and put mud on our faces and we were just like bums on the Bowery, and we came out played! And Richard Cromelin—who still writes for the L.A. Times, and who was a really good supporter of the band—he didn’t get it! He said we came out with a pretentious look.
Pissing on your clothes seemed pretentious?
Yeah, yeah! Our hair had mud in it—we looked like derelicts from Skid Row, and we got a bad review in the L.A. Times. But the funny thing is Iggy showed up that night with mud on his face.
Independently?
Yeah, kind of a coincidence! Needless to say, we didn’t get signed.
How did someone get a broken foot and a broken hand at your Japan reunion shows last year?
I don’t know about the broken hand but the one night it got really wild and our roadie from Detroit had to do to mouth-to-mouth to a guy who got crushed in the front row!
What do you think about getting a 29-song tribute comp when the Dogs only released five songs during their lifetime?
It blew my mind. I didn’t think about it til they brought me one. Detroit Jack’s girlfriend Aruha came up and I met her and she gave me the CD and said, ‘Loren, you’re my Chuck Berry!’
Do you still have your old MC5 records?
My collection got stolen when we came back from England. All our gear was ripped off, too. We were really stupid—really crazy! No matter what happened, we kept going. You can’t stop the rock!

—Chris Ziegler

THE DOGS WITH THE CONTROLLERS, THE PISS POPS AND THE STITCHED LIPS ON FRI., JULY 18, AT RELAX BAR, 5517 HOLLYWOOD BLVD., HOLLYWOOD. 9 PM / $10 / 21+. MYSPACE.COM/RELAXBAR. THE DOGS’ DOGGY STYLE TRIBUTE CD IS OUT NOW ON FUTURE NOW. THE DOGS’ PURITY NOT PERFECTION DVD WILL BE OUT SOON. VISIT THE DOGS AT MYSPACE.COM/THEDETROITDOGS.

Invincible first gained major notice as a member of the all-female Anomolies in 1998 but has only now—after work with just about all of Detroit’s best producers and MCs—released her first solo full-length. She speaks from tour in Philadelphia.

I moved to the U.S. when I was seven and I didn’t speak English, and hip-hop is a big part of how I learned English. I was listening to A Tribe Called Quest, Paris, Gang Starr—Detroit-wise MC Breed, BO$$ and everything that was coming out then. I’d just soak it up. I’d write down the lyrics of my favorite cats and look up the words, and by the time I was nine, those were my vocabulary. I don’t wanna say it was my escape—it was more my life support. Hip-hop was where I was able to find a place where it felt like home and relate to each emcee’s struggle. I moved to New York when I was 17 and met somebody who knew the Anomolies—I was like, ‘That’s incredible—an all-female hip-hop crew!’ And at the time I was one of very few female artists I was familiar with. They instantly became like sisters to me—took me into the crew. We grew a lot together—did mad shows. Being young and being female, I had a lot of older dudes condescending to me early on—’Who does she think she is?’ When I was younger, I let it get to me. But at this point, all that energy funnels back into me making innovative music and being a really independent self-reliant artist. Now they got mad respect for me—it kind of came full circle!
Why do you think it’s finally the right time for your first solo release?
It’s been a lifetime in the making! Most people have been hearing for ten years, but I wanted everything to represent me currently—I didn’t want a mixtape of old songs. That’s Last Warning—my bootleg mixtape I put out through bling47. Different stuff I put out over the years, whether real old school or ‘Shotgun’ with PPP and Dilla. Everything on this album starts three years ago. For certain songs, I’ve worked on for years and researched it—like go into the community and ask people how they wanted to be represented.
Like interviews?
For ‘Locust’—that song is about gentrification in Detroit and people’s vision of the future of the city from a community perspective, instead of what city developers want. I’m not originally from Detroit, so I didn’t want to speak for the community. But Finale’s on the song and he’s Detroit born and raised—he still interviewed his grandfather and I interviewed mentors of mine to make sure we had the historical perspective—the community perspective. As artists you have limited perspective on things. On the album—even though the music is newer, the concepts I’ve been grappling with forever. I have a song about growing up in Ann Arbor—that’s a story I never told. About living in Palestine and Israel and how that affected me—I never wrote about that before. There’s a joint on there about the history of depression in my family—something I never touched on. And then I have songs with Wordsworth and Indeed and the Anomolies—people might not know but we all go back ten years, and we wanted to collaborate forever, and finally came together on this project!
What did Talib Kweli mean when he said you were one of the best emcees he’d ever heard, but you dedicate too much time to activism to really be the best?
When he said that four years ago, I really was deeper into activism—I’ve always done music constantly, but at that point it was in the context of work with youth and community organization, so it wasn’t really being heard. It wasn’t picking up industry buzz or whatever—but I never stopped. I think that’s where he was coming from—’She’s not out in the industry.’ At this point I still balance art and activism. I’m not taking a break from activism, either. There’s different times where one takes precedence over the other. It’s a whole continuum.
What was it like when you turned down a million-dollar record deal?
First of all, a million is not a million—it’s a million-dollar loan. And it’s not only a loan, but it’s from a person who’s gonna tell you how to spend every cent in ways you disagree with. I recently started my label Emergence to release the album—it really comes out of the spirit of a lot of independent labels, most importantly bling47. Waajeed is the type of dude who teaches people how to fish. The first record I did with him that he was able to pay me for, he was like, ‘Look, I’m paying you for this, but I want you to spend this on buying a laptop and ProTools.’ So I got my laptop and my ProTools and my mic and from that point I was able to make my album. This is my vision for how I want my label to run—I’m not out here trying to sign people. I’m trying to create a model so other people can sign themselves. How can I market and release my music in a way that complements my music? The way marketing and distribution typically happens is dry and formulaic even if someone is making innovative music, and that’s contradictory. The name is Emergence because the concept of emergence has to do with redefining leadership. People look at the way change happens—the fearless leader like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King in the forefront—but in the reality of how I see change taking place in the world and music, I see it as something from the ground up, with horizontal leadership—many people playing many roles. That’s what I see happening with Detroit hip-hop and the women in hip-hop movement. There are ton of women MCs on the rise, a ton of Detroit artists on the rise—I see it emerging. I wanna be someone that can support that—by this label model that other people can use pieces of and apply to their own success. That’s a lot more important than helping promote a huge label’s success—they’ll be alright without me. I want to create a path where artists can be all good without relying on these labels.
Why do you feel like Detroit has infinite potential?
We got a couple unofficial mottoes—one of them is ‘opportunity in crisis.’ Detroit’s official city motto is ‘rising up from the ashes.’ That says a lot about the city—we say we’re a city that’s had so much crisis, but there’s an opportunity to create something brilliant out of necessity. Hip-hop came out of the worst era the Bronx had ever seen—the worst gang era, the worst abandonment era—and when people come to Detroit they say, ‘This looks like the Bronx back in the day!’ Or ‘This looks like post-Katrina New Orleans!’
How’s that feel when that’s the first thing someone says?
We get sensitive—a lot of suburban people really hate on Detroit. There are a lot of racist undertones. I mean, yeah, it looks crazy—you think it must have just got hit by a hurricane or had a war. But our favorite motto—’Detroit is what the rest of the world has to look forward to!’ Detroit was the first city to be industrialized—the first freeway in the country was in Detroit—and to have all the abundance that came with industrialism and spread world wide. Other cities internationally were built on the Detroit model. And now we’re the first city to be completely hit by post-industrialism and the side-effects, whether it’s poverty, unemployment or violence. But people out of necessity are creating their own ways of being self-reliant. There’s no jobs, so people are creating their own businesses—building up cooperative economics in the city. You got a lot of issues with schools, so people are coming together—starting their own schools, or transforming other spaces for community education. We got one of the worst foreclosure rates in the country—last week I was called by one of my mentors because someone was wrongly evicted and they needed help moving her back in. We broke the locks and moved back all the stuff the foreclosure people put in the dumpster—took it from the dumpster back to the house and turned the plumbing and lights back on. Certain neighborhoods are starting to feed themselves—people got Southern roots and are bringing those skills to the table, feeding themselves because there’s few grocery stores. In that sense, we’re what the world has to look forward to—we’re in a position to create pilot programs to create small scale solutions that will hopefully evolve to sustain the city. Like in L.A.—I go and meet with the Bus Riders’ Union, and I got a couple friends at Jordan High School in Watts, and when I tell them what’s going on in Detroit, they relate. And when they hear solutions, their’s aspects of the solutions that can work for them. Whenever I tour, I try as much as I can to link up with groups dealing with similar issues—exchange models and strategies.
What do you see for the future of America?
I could never call the largest scale of it—obviously we’re on the verge of something huge right now. I think change really does happen from the bottom up. I’d like to see what I’m explaining to you about Detroit as far as self-reliance and community in other cities and other neighborhoods. I see that as a much more common thing. I don’t think people are gonna have a choice. It’s not a romantic progressive alternative—it really will be out of necessity, whether it’s because we’re out of oil or whatever. We might as well start planning now—like preparing for the storm. You can wait til it hits and it’ll be a shambles after, or be like, ‘I can already see it on the horizon—I don’t need a meteorologist to tell me!’

INVINCIBLE’S SHAPESHIFTERS IS OUT NOW ON EMERGENCE. VISIT INVINCIBLE AT EMERGENCEMUSIC.NET OR MYSPACE.COM/INVINCILANA.

Willoughby @ Detroit Bar
Big Sandy @ The Blue Cafe
Quarter After @ The Prospector
Black Milk / Guilty Simpson @ Vault 350

Download: Guilty Simpson “Getting Riches ft Mr. Porter”

Detroit rapper Guilty Simpson signed with Stones Throw on Dilla’s recommendation and released his debut Ode To The Ghetto last month. He speaks now with Sinden Lee.

It seems like a recurring theme in your work is the life lessons learned as a young man and as a father—doing the right thing and depending on yourself.
I do agree. No matter what walk of life you come from, struggles and life lessons are very important to apply to your art. I try to make that the foundation of what I write.
What were you like when you were ten years old?
I was curious and observant. I was into sports; I was into music, but mainly sports. Sports taught me the aspect of winning, as well as losing. But the fact that you compete is saying enough in itself. Same thing as a rap artist: putting yourself on a plateau to be judged by a whole world of listeners in the game where fans can be so critical of an artist; to be judged and compete with others on that level. Win or lose—the same way sports rules apply. Whether they accept you or not, just the fact that you put your music out there is in fact victory in itself.
What were you like when you were eighteen years old?
Trouble. People were telling me things and I was learning, but you never really know until you experience them yourself. Basically I was chasing girls; probably an occasional fight, more often than now. Even occasional gun fights. Really, whatever it took to survive. It’s hard to live in Detroit where you think you’re going to fight somebody and everyone is pulling out guns. So you have to prepare yourself for whatever may come your way.
Did you carry a gun?
In Detroit, definitely. Anybody that knows me can go on record and say that I did. It’s not anything I’m necessarily proud of, but there were some situations where a gun helped me to be right here, right now.
What’s helped you keep your sense of humor?
My mother. Her name is Terry Jackson. She’s my best friend. She was able to face whatever she was dealing with with a smile. It inspired me. She became a single mother after she and my father divorced; I’m her only child. She was at work when I would get home from school, so I often went to an aunt’s or friend’s house until she was able to come home to cook dinner. The main thing she taught me was that no matter what she went through, she dealt with it with a smile on her face. The stress she was dealing with would never weigh on her face because being a child, I could observe and be influenced by so many things. So she always painted a face of happiness.
What did that smile represent?
It represented hope and her determination to not be defeated by the situation she was going through. Mainly understanding that whatever situation you’re in, you can overcome and that attitude has a lot to do with it. Your problem can be a mountain or a molehill, but if you have a positive attitude, you understand you can come out of any situation. It’s the main thing I learned from my mother and it prepared me for music and just life in general.
What was the turning point for you?
It was growing up in Detroit and seeing a lot of my peers go away to prison or die. These things let me know that tragedy doesn’t have an age bracket; that anything can happen at any given time. When I got out of high school, it prepared me for the real world. Fend for yourself or become a victim. Nothing is promised. My mother expected me to get a job and raise some kind of income on my own, because not everyone is guaranteed a financial structure to achieve whatever he wants. Music saved me from being on the streets doing God knows what to make a living.
Was your father an influence or inspiration?
Definitely. He played saxophone, harmonica and light guitar. He gave that to me at a young age when I didn’t accept it, when I might have thought that music wasn’t as cool as being a jock. Being an athlete was the cool thing to be. He definitely imbedded music in me. I still remember the records he used to play until this day. Certain songs that come on now, I’ll know all the words, even if they are fifteen or twenty years old. I’m thankful for everything that he taught me. We’ve had a rocky relationship throughout the years, but he taught me a lot. I know he loves me—he loves his kids. We’ve had our signals crossed at times. I accept that and I forgive him for it, and for any wrong he may have done to me or against my mother.
Tell me about the inspiration behind the song J. Dilla produced: ‘This Is A Man’s World.’
It’s to my father. It’s not anything to bash him with, but something I wanted to put out because it’s something that was lingering in my life that I felt needed to be addressed.
It sounds like he ruled the household with a heavy hand.
Right. And me being a man now, I definitely understand him a lot better. And I definitely appreciate him. I might not understand his tactics and the extremes he took in certain situations, but the motivations and the pressures of being a man—as a provider in a household and a disciplinarian for your kids—were what drove his actions. It’s not all financial. It’s mental as well as spiritual. But it also has a lot to do with communication. I’m sure I’ve done things to frustrate him, so I’m not here to point the finger at my father. However, I learned from the mistakes he made. It made me a better person—I know when I’m in that same situation as he was, I will deal with it better than he may have had at times.
What makes Kool G Rap your favorite?
It’s the underdog angle. Big Daddy Kane being the front man of the Juice Crew—he’s got the women and definitely had the lyrics. But the way Kool G Rap constructed his rhymes and how hard they were—you could tell he didn’t compromise anything. I think he gave the listener his style the way that they should have it, rather than how some people felt he should have delivered it. That angle in general just makes him a great rapper. I feel like in Run DMC, DMC was the better rapper. I just always liked the person that went behind the front man. Basically to solidify the group as something legitimate—that’s what Kool G Rap brought to the Juice Crew. He’s just hungry in general and I felt it.
What’s your advice for kids coming up?
My biggest advice is don’t let anyone tell you what you can and cannot do. It’s not going to be easy. For some, it might come easy. The main thing is if you feel in your heart that you have a genuine love for it and you have the urge to do it for a million dollars or for no money—between that spectrum, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Most people that are successful—that are large in their careers seeing x amount of dollars right now—have gone through a rock-bottom period in their career where they’ve questioned if this is what they want to do. I feel like in order to go to heaven, you’ve got to go through hell. In order to get ultimate success you have to through the struggle, so don’t take your first downfall in this industry as a deciding factor if this is what you’re meant to do. You may run into a lot of disappointments. So the main thing is to stay true to your dream. Stay true to yourself then you can’t go wrong.
What is your own dream and motivation for doing what you do?
To be able to earn a living with something I love to do which is music. And provide opportunities for my people that have gone through the same struggle that I have, with no outlet for your music where nobody cares. My thing is to generate something for them to have a position in this music and we can grow together. I don’t expect a million dollars overnight. I just expect a shot to bring my unit in and create jobs for them so we can learn how to create that million dollars. To be a self-contained unit where I can provide opportunities for my people that don’t have it as easy as me.

STONES THROW, ARTDONTSLEEP, KCRW AND SOUL PEOPLE L.A. PRESENT GUILTY SIMPSON’S ODE TO THE GHETTO RELEASE PARTY WITH HAVANA JOE ON THUR., APRIL 10, AT CRASH MANSION, 1024 S. GRAND, LOS ANGELES. 9 PM / COVER TBA / 21+. CRASHMANIONLA.COM. GUILTY SIMPSON’S ODE TO THE GHETTO IS OUT NOW ON STONES THROW. VISIT GUILTY SIMPSON AT STONESTHROW.COM.

Quick list of all last week’s previews, reviews, interviews and MP3s!

2MEX @ URBAN UNDERGROUND: PREVIEW

2MEX “Shades Of Orange”

A-BONES AND ROY LONEY @ REAL BOSS HOSS: REVIEW

AFRIKA BAMBAATAA @ DETROIT: PREVIEW

Afrika Bambaata “Metal” (f. Gary Numan and MC Chat)

ARI UP @ PUNKY REGGAE PARTY: PREVIEW

ARI UP @ PUNKY REGGAE PARTY: VIDEO

Click here to watch

BLACK LIPS @ THE EL REY: REVIEW

Black Lips “O Katrina”

DAEDELUS: TRAINSPOTTING Q & A AND PODCAST

Daedelus’ L.A. RECORD Podcast

DAN’S EUROPE TOUR PHOTOS : FEATURE PART 2, PART 3

The Sads “Miniature Moons”

DARKER MY LOVE + MORE @ THE ECHO: PREVIEW

Darker My Love “Summer Is Here”

DEL THA FUNKEE HOMOSAPIEN @ VAULT 350: PREVIEW

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien “Bubble Pop”

DJ VADIM @ LOW END THEORY: PREVIEW

DJ Vadim “Got To Rock” (f. Zion)

EVEREST @ BOARDNER’S: PREVIEW

Everest “Into Your Soft Heart”

HENRY CLAY PEOPLE @ THE ECHO: PREVIEW

The Henry Clay People “Andy Sings!”

L.A. RECORD ANNIVERSARY @ 6TH ST.: REVIEW

Crystal Antlers “Parting Song For The Torn Sky”

LIARS + NO AGE @ THE EL REY: PREVIEW

Liars “Plaster Casts of Everything”

MAGIC LANTERN @ ECHO CURIO: PREVIEW

Magic Lantern “At the Mountains of Madness”

THEE MAKEOUT PARTY @ EL CID: PREVIEW

Thee Makeout Party “2 EZ 2 LUV U”

MANNY NIETO AND THE MATT CRONK BENEFIT: INTERVIEW

Qui “Freeze”

MIKE BONES: LIVE FROM NEW YORK

Mike Bones “Love’s Not Yours”

MIKE STINSON + MORE @ CHARLIE O’S: PREVIEW

Mike Stinson “Take Out The Trash” (clip)

NIKKI CORVETTE + MORE @ REAL BOSS HOSS: REVIEW

Nikki Corvette and the Stingrays “Back To Detroit”

NUDITY @ MOUNTAIN BAR: PREVIEW

Nudity “Nightfeeders” (Concentricks) (clip)

PEANUT BUTTER WOLF: TRAINSPOTTING Q & A AND PODCAST

L.A. RECORD Stones Throw Podcast

PINBACK AND MC CHRIS @ AVALON: REVIEW

Pinback “From Nothing to Nowhere”

SIAN ALICE GROUP: LIVE FROM NEW YORK

Sian Alice Group “Motionless”

ST. VINCENT @ THE ECHOPLEX: REVIEW

St. Vincent “Marry Me”

VAMPIRE WEEKEND: HERU REVIEWS

Vampire Weekend “Walcott”

WAIT THINK FAST + MORE @ SPACELAND: PREVIEW

Wait Think Fast “Lightning”

WEST INDIAN GIRL @ TROUBADOUR: REVIEW

West Indian Girl “All My Friends”

WOODEN SHJIPS @ McCABE’S: REVIEW

Wooden Shjips “We Ask You To Ride”

Peanut Butter Wolf will be spinning a set at Costa Mesa’s Abstract Workshop on Sat., Feb. 23.

Where are you from?
I was born in Maryland, but lived most of my childhood and teenage years in San Jose. 408, baby!
Where do you live now?
Mount Washington.
Are you digital or vinyl?
Both, as well as music videos.
What mixer do you use?
I like the Rane TTM57, but I might try out the new Pioneer mixer for my video sets if they give it to me for free—hint hint.
What needles?
Shure 44Gs if I’m playing rare vinyl because they are the least hard on your records as far as cue-burning intros of songs. Shure 447s if I’m using Serato because they have a higher output than the Gs and more clarity.
What are your turntables of choice?
Technics 1200. Without a doubt.
First time you ever DJed?
On my birthday in 1984. In my bedroom. Got my first mixer and I was sprung!
Weirdest gig?
My first time on a stage opening for Triniere in ’87 was weird. But mixing electro instrumentals at a rave on an Indian reservation in the late ‘90s while Q-bert and A-Trak scratched over my selections was probably the weirdest. There was a dust storm and all my records got ruined. The needle was skating across the turntable over a layer of dirt.
What are you playing in your set right now?
Videos. I got a bunch of ‘em.
What are you listening to in your car?
James Pants album that we just finished. Good stuff. And the Koushik album that’s also not released yet.
Last record you bought and where?
I bought about thirty old 12” singles at a secret spot I just discovered where there are no prices on the records and they’re in no type of order in the store. You gotta kneel on the dirty carpet and go through boxes to find the good stuff, and you gotta spend at least an eight-hour shift going through them. I told the guy I’d give him $5 each for the records and he agreed.
Best record you scored for $1?
I guess that would be the Grandmaster Lover, but most of my most cherished records were either a dollar or a hundred dollars. There’s little in between.

For more shows check out: larecord.com/radio

PEANUT BUTTER WOLF WITH JOSH ONE, COCOE, HYDER AND SCOTTY COATS AT ABSTRACT WORKSHOP AT DETROIT BAR., 845 W. 19TH ST., COSTA MESA. 9:30 PM / $10 / 21+. WWW.ABSTRACT-WORKSHOP.COM.