Starting June 1rst, the Production 101 workshops will be held inside the theatre of the Downtown Independent, and as usual the workshops are FREE and open to the public.

If you plan on attending please rsvp on this page (so we have an idea of how how many people are coming), and feel free to post any ideas or suggestions you may have for topics to be covered.

The level of instruction depends on the desire of the people who attend… if the majority of people want to learn more advanced techniques then we won’t spend much time on the basics, and vice versa.

June 1rst, 7-9pm at the Downtown Independent! Come and learn for FREE!

Download: Nocando “Hurry Up And Wait”

(from Jimmy The Lock out Jan. 26 on Alpha Pup)

Low End Theory’s resident MC Nocando maimed a generation as a battle rapper but that was a little bit back, and now after two promising EPs, he will release his debut, Jimmy the Lock, this month on Alpha Pup. He now commutes to Low End Theory weekly from Oakland and he speaks now while riding the bus. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

In the song ‘Flight Risk’ from Jimmy the Lock, is the lyric ‘sitting on a bathroom floor with a gun in my hand/masturbating while I’m staring at a picture of you’ based on a true story?
Nocando: I plead the fifth.
You’ve done interviews before, I can tell.
Nocando: I have done interviews before but I didn’t think that question would ever come up.
Why does that song go right into ‘Skankophilia’? That’s amazing sequencing—suicidal heartbreak into dating ‘community college homegirls’ that like ‘older guys who act mature … and deodorize.’
Nocando: I just wanted to weird people out a bit more. Coming from the whole battle rapper thing, I know how to manipulate emotions on a really crude scale. Like—I don’t know how to make you feel happy, but I fucking pride myself on those emotions and hopefully you might get that feeling. I knew some people, in that section of the record, get a little weirded out.
It definitely gets heavier as you go through it.
Nocando: That is the journey you’re supposed to be taking with Jimmy the Lock. I did that intentionally. Battle rappers can’t make music, but furthermore, battle rappers can’t make a record. There’s battle rappers that can’t make songs and then there’s ones who can’t make records—that’s the stigma, and on both I wanted to fucking smash both of those theories. From the first song on it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s a good song.’ OK—I proved that wrong and you can take it through the first half of what I think are modern L.A. underground hits and then after that, if you had any thought that this was a pop record or something shallow, then I just give you really real stuff after that.
Do you feel like you have to prove something against being a battle rapper?
Nocando: I really don’t think that I have to move through it in the public’s eyes. I feel like if you’re a fan of Nocando it might just be because of the songs or the records—it might be because of freestyles or nights at Low End—it’s probably not just for one thing. I don’t think for the public or my fans I have to prove to them that I am a good songwriter. It’s just for me and my circle of friends and all the L.A. underground rappers; it’s like I’m doing what I believe we all can do—what we’ve all been doing—and I’m doing it as hard as I possibly can so that fucking stigma can knock off of all of us. I do feel that I’m the spearhead of L.A. underground rapping, right now, for this generation. Cuz there’s a lot of us—a lot of guys that are really, really dope. L.A. guys who don’t sound like they’re from Detroit or don’t sound like they’re from New York—they aren’t punch-line-based, they are these street characters that if you grew up in L.A. that you would see. There’s no archetype of us anywhere in the country than here. And once one does it—which is going to be me because my record is coming out first—I feel like that might open the door for the rest of us. I’m thinking more like Kail, Intuition and VerBS, Dumbfoundead, myself—those guys you know. There’s more to be named. Open Mike Eagle. Sahtyre.
Low End is really starting to get attention and you’ve been at Low End since day one. Do you feel like you’re the connection between beatmakers and street-level rap?
Nocando: These producers have no idea the talent that is sitting right next to them—MC-wise—and these rappers have no idea the kind of talent that is sitting next to them beat-making-wise. It’s snobbery on both parts and it’s politics on other parts, but honestly—and I consider the beat scene hip-hop, whether people want to call it dubstep or whatever—but I don’t think that great hip-hop records are going to come out of Los Angeles … I mean great hip-hop records that get radar beyond niche counter-culture things aren’t going to come out of Los Angeles until these producers and these MCs sit down, look at each other eye-to-eye and criticize each other and make their record. Bottom line. It’s a great spot to be—it’s like the spot right before critical mass. Which is most exciting.
How does Jimmy The Lock fit into this? You have Nosaj Thing, who’s known for pure instrumentals, alongside people like Thavius Beck and Maestroe, who’ve done great work with you before.
Nocando: I think out of all those producers—all those beat heads—Nosaj’s instrumentals are the most hip-hop-y to me. They have this fat thing in the mid that rappers—a lot of rappers—feel intimidated by. But when I play his beats for my mom, my mom is like, ‘This reminds me of skating at World on Wheels!’ These are just funky-ass beats. I also have some stuff with Free the Robots—I’ve worked with Free the Robots since like 2003 or 2002. My first demo, the Impatient EP, he made the beat to the song called ‘Deep Sea Diver.’ A song about drinking.
What does your mom think of the other producers you work with?
Nocando: Oh, my mom—she really thinks that I need more negrismo in my music.
She said that?
Nocando: She doesn’t say that outwardly but she’s like, ‘Oh, I can kinda get with it, but it’s kind of electronic-y …’ It’s not jamming enough for her.
Your mom’s not fucking around.
Nocando: She gave me a good critique but I’m not going for her demographic anyway. So I got stuff by Free the Robots—DJ Nobody gave me a good hand. When me and Elvin came back from Japan, we had some really great stuff. Every Wednesday when I come out here, I get off the plane and go to his house—he smokes some weed and plays a beat and I write a song and I record it. We’ve recorded some amazing stuff and it’s really intelligent and it’s bordering pop-sounding except … you know, it’s what you would imagine Nocando and DJ Nobody doing a pop record would sound like. It sounds like ‘Hurry Up and Wait’ on Jimmy the Lock, but it gets way more funky. I don’t smoke weed—it slows me down. It doesn’t slow me down but … not until I’m on vacation. But we get along so well because Nobody likes ’90s rock and modern pop rap and I like ’90s rock and modern pop rap. We can talk about fucking the Toadies and T.I. in the same conversation.
Have you actually had that conversation?
Nocando: Yes. Local H and Rick Ross and Drake. By the way, my favorite rapper right now is Rick Ross because he is an excellent liar. Everybody hates him because he’s an excellent liar but I love him because he’s an excellent liar.
That’s hard to do. Not just anybody can lie.
Nocando: Not just anybody can. In his lie he is the coke drug warlord of the world and he was rolling around in that lie and he loved it and it makes me love it.
I know you wrote ‘I Never Lie,’ but are there any Nocando lies we can reveal here?
Nocando: Any Nocando lies? No, not really. I used to get smacked for lying when I was a little kid so I have a Pavlovian dog flinch whenever I do—I can’t do it.
Is that because of your mom?
Nocando: From a myriad of elders. On that whole record, my biggest tool is honesty and observation. I really don’t have the attention span to think up imaginary things now. I’ve read too many comic books in my life and watched too much Japanese anime. A lot of it is really new to people because it’s about me and the good part of it is I’m just like everybody else. So if I have a song about my girl ready to go or my pops dying or I just found a thousand dollars—well, not a thousand dollars—or something like that, then everybody relates to it. Or the people that I give it to relate to it—if you can’t relate to it, then maybe it’ll happen for you later on in life.
Joan Miró said that the more an artist truly represents themselves, the more universal the work will be.
Nocando: I agree with you 100 percent that it connects with people. My grandmother’s weird—she listens to right-wing radio and Dennis Prager was on this morning.
Congratulations on the second-ever Dennis Prager reference in the paper.
Nocando: He had this chick who was writing a book about how the voice tells what you are and it’s the most honest thing about you. And I feel like when I’m coming from a really honest place when I’m recording, it always comes out right. When somebody tells me to write a story about me feeling like I’m the best rapper in the world, it comes out a little pompous. I can pull it off but it’s an act. When I don’t have to fucking act and I can just be in a good mood and make a song about being in a good mood—or if I just won a battle, make a song about being a dope rapper—things where I don’t have to act, performance- and recording-wise, obviously I’m more proud of it and I’m more willing to let people hear it and it gets out quicker and people end up responding the right way after it comes out. When I’m honest. Very few times have I recorded something that was not totally honest or was filtered a little and have not gotten a good reaction from it. You pretty much know when you write it, if it’s honest and sound musically and creatively. You pretty much know when you write it that people are going to like it.
At this point, is there anything that you wouldn’t let yourself talk about? Like that song about your father dying, ‘98’—is anything off limits?
Nocando: Naw, I don’t think anything should be off-limits. Not for me. And it kind of scares me with my relationships. I have a song that’s yet to be released and it’s supposed to be on this Canadian producer Factor’s upcoming record. It’s to the point that it’s super honest and it’s a really great song. It’s about me—well, a whole raging thug thing that I went through in the summer that’s not really me, but just happened to be me at the time. I turned into a raging thug and choked a guy out. I’ve never done anything like that before but I was just so fucking angry. I played it for my girlfriend—who’s still my girlfriend now—and she was like, ‘I hate this. It’s a great song, but I hate you.’ And then we didn’t talk for a week.
That’s a great compliment.
Nocando: Yeah. It is. But if it comes up, I’m going to try my best to put it out. What I learned in ‘98’ when I was in my early twenties—and with everything else I’ve done—is that it’s in my benefit to be as honest as possible. I’d be doing myself as an artist and people who run across my music an injustice because I’ve had people personally—and I didn’t even know how to reply to it—I’ve had people hit me up on MySpace and Facebook and Twitter and say, ‘Hey, I’m going through that right now, man—I listened to that song and it gets me through.’ I haven’t gone through that since I was 14 so I don’t know what to tell you, but I’m glad I wrote that song and that’s bigger than that rapper feeling of, ‘Oh, I’m being lyrical! This is the best punch line ever!’ For somebody to say, ‘After visiting my mother at the hospital I put on your song and it’s good for me to know that you dealt with the same thing and you didn’t break down.’ That’s bigger than any fucking punch line that I ever spat in my life. That’s better than any hundred guys who ever wrote to impress a room full of anybody.
You were talking once about the Impatient EP and said, ‘It’s funny on that EP because I was super, super smart but I was living like a dumbass—it was the dumbest period of my life. And now I don’t have much drama and I’m a smarter dude but I rap dumb things.’ What happened?
Nocando: Back then, I was fresh out of two years of community college and high school and I was constantly learning new things and getting new words and my vocab was out of this world, and I knew the least about music and I was making stupid decisions. I had a daughter when I was 19, me and my baby’s mother—my current fiancée now. But we broke up for a year and I had another girlfriend and I worked on a mountain farming medical marijuana. I lived in a tent for like four months and slept with like three guns. I would wake up and yell and hear a mountain lion and yell and it would yell back. I would do that like once a week. It was right there. But me and my friends were getting into a lot of drama in the street and I was a little dumbass—I didn’t know what I wanted to do with myself. And as I got older and more focused and I actually learned more, I found that I didn’t have to project this image of a smartass all the time and I could talk about the dumbass that I like to be some times.
Do you feel like you’ve grown into any of your songs? Something where you were artistically more ahead of where you were personally?
Nocando: ‘Paint Me Impatient.’ I’ve always been a hurry-up-and-wait kind of guy and thought about the plight of people that are like me. I don’t think that I’ve grown that much—I wouldn’t be able to show you if I have because I’m too busy living my life. That song, I haven’t grown into that guy but I’ve always been that—and I still am that. And then ‘Hurry Up and Wait’ is the common man’s version of that song. It’s how the 26-year-old version of me would describe how I was feeling when I wrote ‘Paint Me Impatient’—when I was 19.
What are some of the hardest things you’ve done as a musician? Things that really could have gone the other way?
Nocando: In terms of battling, I went to this place called The Pit—where everybody wanted to hear rap about guns—and I won those battles and I wasn’t in my element. I wasn’t in backpacker land anymore. And I went in there with the mindset of ‘these guys are talking about guns and the street and shit and I know; I’ve always lived in the hood my whole life and all my friends and family are fucking in jail and these guys don’t look like the people that I knew from the hood but they do put on a pretty good act.’ And so I went in there—this was on the west side of L.A. Me and my friends hang out in Leimert Park. People have been shot at our rap spot and these guys are on the Westside, by the Westside Pavilion and the 4 Play strip club and a Best Buy. And then there’s the individual battles with old L.A. legends like Dotted Line and Otherwize and things that I didn’t win but that brought the most growth out in me.
What kind of things made you grow?
Nocando: Usually it was the losses. The first time I went up against Otherwize I was 18 and I don’t know if you know Otherwize but he won the ’97 Rap Olympics when he was like 18. He’s a genius. He was heavily intoxicated at the time and he was pretty much trying to establish dominance on everyone there and I was a young kid who wouldn’t shut up. And me and him went like ten rounds at each other—and ten rounds of freestyle, that’s amazing. I won like Iron Man battles where I was the first one up and it’s kind of like last-man-standing and then I went through like 22 other competitors.
What are you thinking at competitor 21?
Nocando: I just take each one as a specific problem. This guy, he’s a crowd favorite. This guy, he’s a pushover. This guy, he’s a tough guy. Every person is a specific situation. This guy’s just like me—how would I beat me? This guy, I’ve battled him before and he really wants to win—what should I do? Twenty-two different people, there’s 22 different way to beat them.
How would you beat you?
Nocando: How would I beat me? I mean really, I’ve only ever lost when I was unprepared or unmotivated so the best thing to do is to catch me on one of those days. That’s like the name of the game—when you’re in the final four, and you’ve got those four players who are exactly like each other but slightly different. That’s what’s so dope about all that battle stuff—it’s a gamble. Which one of you guys is gonna slip? Who’s slippin’? All you gotta do is catch that guy slippin’ and you just won $5,000.
Now everybody is going to be waiting for the day when you didn’t get a good breakfast.
Nocando: Well, I don’t battle anymore. Well, I haven’t battled in a year and a half, so I lied—I do battle. On New Year’s I’m battling and on the 30th I’m battling somebody. It’s just to see if I can still do it. I don’t feel the expression that I used to have when I was younger. I’m not really focused on it anymore. What I’d really love to do is write songs right now. I’m trying to master the idea of writing songs and creating records. After Jimmy the Lock and that feeling you get when you’re done—I haven’t gotten that feeling ever in my life. I want to make that feeling happen for me like five more times! I love performing my songs. I feel like I have really good projection and really good stage presence but I wanna add to my live show. My new obsession is going pro as a rapper and performer and a musician. It’s not about finding the most clever way I can call somebody an overweight homosexual in a green shirt.
Who’s out there now that you’d like to knock out of their spot?
Nocando: Well, let’s be serious about this. I’m way more handsome than Drake is, so if he’s a fucking heartthrob … I might not know how to pander to women, but I’m more handsome. Off the top. Secondly, anybody who’s in that ‘cool black nerd’ niche or whatnot, they can get the fuck out of my way. That’s the thing—the battling has made me … or I probably was before it, too, but I’m hella competitive. I may not be able to do what you do, but don’t think that I’m not going to be able to do what you do. I’m not really playing the game of trying to fill somebody’s niche by writing songs or being the kind of rapper that they are—I don’t think that works anyway. It just so happens that I’m surrounded by all these instrumentalists so there’s not rappers to make look bad. But ever since I was a wee lad, there are very few guys who I can share a stage with. I shared stages with a lot of my legends.
What’s the first time you tasted blood?
Nocando: I don’t want to talk about the battle thing anymore—tasted blood? Come on, man.
I don’t mean battle-rapping. I mean life.
Nocando: I don’t really know—I wasn’t too good. I played baseball as a kid—I was all right. I played left field. I was kind of starting. My competitive thing just came … honestly, I remember freestyling with my friend Terry in his bedroom when we were in high school. We all did it and I was great at it and I wanted to do it all the time. And I kept doing it all the time. I never wrote a rap down for like three years. The whole taste of blood thing, it just came because I thought I was great at it. It really wasn’t a taste for blood—it was more like, ‘Why don’t you think the way I think about me? I’m going to shove it down your throat!’ And then the battling started.
You were talking about the nerd thing—what are the four elements of being a nerd?
Nocando: If comics, video games and anime are three of the four elements then I’ve already got it. I was a video game tester for like four years for EA. With the video game thing, I’m super into 2-D fighting games since I was a little kid. Street Fighter II Champion Edition, King of Fighters, Fatal Fury, Guilty Gear. And comic books—I’ve been into comics since I was a kid. $1.25 a week fed my addiction and got me 52 issues every year. Anime—before Blockbuster had the age restrictions I was watching animated breasts when I was like 10. The fourth element? What is the fourth element of being a nerd? Having nerdy-ass friends.
That’s kind of a sweet answer—the friendship of other nerds.
Nocando: It’s like, ‘Wow, nobody else understands me but me and you.’ And you can have conversations with these guys about things that aren’t even important in the video games like, ‘Well, the hat changed color in Fatal Fury 2—it went from a blood red to more of a Target red!’ I’ve had these conversations with people.
I appreciate the detail there.
Nocando: I try.
There’s a line at the end of ‘Exploits and Glitches’ where you say, ‘What the fuck—is this the future?’ What do you think is missing?
Nocando: The only thing I wish was here is a really healthy American economy. Or things blowing up, like I’m surrounded by these rappers that are really bubblegummy rappers and I just thought that would be dead by now. You can make a party song without being a fucking coon. But honestly, away from the rap thing, what I expected was—especially being younger—I thought that things would flourish now, and if I put out a great record it wouldn’t get lost in a sea of wack records. I am happy that I got my relationship with my girl—I’m like Superdad now and a husband and I’m really happy I got my shit together and I took responsibility to do that. I’m really happy that we have a global economy and we get to go to Japan and Europe and trade and learn all these things as musicians. I’m really happy that L.A. music is thriving with this unlikely hero, which is this experimental music. And I’m happy that I put out the best rap record that L.A. has put out in—I don’t know—ten years?

NOCANDO WITH DADDY KEV, THE GASLAMP KILLER, NOBODY AND D-STYLES PLUS GUESTS EVERY WEDNESDAY AT LOW END THEORY AT THE AIRLINER, 2419 N. BROADWAY, LOS ANGELES. 10 PM / $5-$10 / 18+. LOWENDTHEORYCLUB.COM. NOCANDO’S JIMMY THE LOCK IS OUT TUE., JAN. 26, ON ALPHA PUP. VISIT NOCANDO AT MYSPACE.COM/NOCANDO.

Download: Nocando “Hurry Up And Wait”

(from Jimmy The Lock out Jan. 26 on Alpha Pup)

Low End Theory resident MC Nocando’s single “Hurry Up and Wait” from his debut album Jimmy The Lock, produced by fellow Low End-er Nobody. Elsewhere on this record: Free The Robots, Nosaj Thing, Daedelus, Maestroe (on “Never Lie” also seen on The Patient) and Thavius Beck!

L.A. RECORD has been lucky enough to watch Low End Theory grow into one of the most exciting and vital music communities in Los Angeles, and some of our favorite interviews (and memories!) come from Low End Theory artists and residents like Flying Lotus, Gaslamp Killer, Nobody, Daedelus, Nosaj Thing, Samiyam, Dibia$e, Thavius Beck, Gangi, Crystal Antlers, the Entrance band and of course Daddy Kev, who holds the distinction of being the first person (but definitely not the last person) to get naked on an L.A. RECORD cover. (Pictured above—issue 21 from volume 1, lovingly assembled on Charlie’s futon.)

Tonight’s celebration will be the eleventh Unreleased Beat Invitational, featuring a destroying line-up of Flying Lotus, Jneiro Jarel, Free The Robots, Samiyam, Dibi$se and Matthewdavid with opening sets by L.A. RECORD contributors Kutmah and Nobody plus My Hollow Drum, Nocando and Daddy Kev. In honor of this birthday, we’ve linked the entire Low End Theory Podcast Series, and below we’re re-publishing this ancient Daddy Kev interview from the archives—done months before Low End even started. Congratulations and thanks to Kev and everyone who makes Low End Theory happen!

Download: Low End Theory Podcast Vol. 1: Daddy Kev + Samiyam

Download: Low End Theory Podcast Vol. 2: Nobody + Mike Slott

Download: Low End Theory Podcast Vol. 3: Gaslamp Killer + Ras G

Download: Low End Theory Podcast Vol. 4: D-Styles + Nosaj Thing

Download: Low End Theory Podcast Vol. 5: Daddy Kev + Daedelus

Download: Low End Theory Podcast Vol. 6: Nobody + Mono/Poly

Download: Low End Theory Podcast Vol. 7: Gaslamp Killer + Mary Anne Hobbs

Download: Low End Theory Podcast Vol. 8: D-Styles + Glitch Mob

DADDY KEV: PURE AUDIO PLEASURE (FEB. 2006 INTERVIEW)

Harbor City madman Daddy Kev came into music as an intern for Urb during high school and began producing beats with an Akai sampler and some ideas for 8-bar loops. Now he runs Alpha Pup records (between Myspace requests to DJ house parties) and has produced tracks for everyone from Sage Francis and Shapeshifters to his own Alpha Pup alums like Awol One and Busdriver. He speaks while watching a mugging in downtown Los Angeles. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

What makes a beat work for a certain artist—like how do you decide which is a Busdriver beat and which is an Awol beat?
Daddy Kev: Usually, it’s pretty obvious to me who’s gonna sound best over a particular song—and you’d be surprised how often I’m wrong about that. My stuff is pretty much custom-made, but what ends up happening is I’ll be all hyped—‘They’re gonna love it!’—and they hear it and they’re just like, ‘What? Aw, naw.’ So what happens is the beat gets reused. Usually I don’t let people know—‘Hey, this is a beat three guys passed on!’—but I don’t make like a big deal that it’s custom-made, either. Strangely enough, some of my more popular songs have been like that. My song on the Sage Francis record—like seven or eight people passed on that beat.
Is Sage gonna read this and be bummed?
Daddy Kev: Yeah, right? I sent him the CD and didn’t hear back for months—figured he passed on it. Then I got a call six months later: ‘Dude, that beat’s insane—lemme rap over it!’ And that was one of my bigger blow-up songs of last year.
How can you tell when a beat by itself is going to be good?
Daddy Kev: I never conceptualize myself as a by-themselves type of musical artist—I don’t think of it until it’s got a vocal on it and it’s taken to the next phase. People over the years ask many times: ‘Where’s the Daddy Kev solo album? Where’s the instrumentals?’ Maybe it’s even set my career back. But I love the collaborative aspect of music—that’s what keeps it fresh and interesting to me. I don’t like the idea of being in my own little world, not being checked by other people. When I was a kid listening, I’d wonder: ‘How did they make this? What was it like?’ The whole industry has fascinated me forever. To be honest, I think the age of music we’re living in now—the music industry being revolutionized by the digital world—is perhaps one of the most exciting times to be involved in music.
Alpha Pup has really jumped on the digital thing, too.
Daddy Kev: We’re phasing out CDs. And some people look at me like I’m crazy. But to anyone looking objectively, it’s pretty damn clear. The whole thing is moving to another plateau. I love it because we’re truly looking at the final frontier of how music is going to be distributed and consumed—the only step past digital is people injecting music into their veins. For the next hundred years, how our kids and their kids will be buying music—all the rules are being written right now. It’s so fascinating for a great many ways. And it can really liberate artists and a label, by not having to deal with manufacturing and costs—we can be more daring. We can drop whatever we think is good.
Do you still sample off the radio?
Daddy Kev: I sure do. One of the advantages of being in Los Angeles is there’s such variety in the radio programs. It reached a point with sampling where I felt like everybody had everything—albeit that isn’t the case, but it started bothering me a little bit. It started bothering me that some of the bigger things I’ve done were samples that people could now easily get. So the next level is I gotta start sampling stuff that isn’t available—that you can’t buy. Maybe it just broadcasts once; maybe never before. I try and capture those. On the jazz stations, they do regular shows where guys come out and bust out the old quarter-inch tape and they’re even telling you: ‘I’ve never even played this for anybody before!’ And I have a DAT and let it roll, then go back and review. If I find one thing for every ten hours—one thing that can be made into something—then it’s all worth it.
What’s the next level after that?
Daddy Kev: What I’m seeing for the next couple years is a combination of the real outlandish rare sampling combined with electronic layering and drum machines. At least in hip-hop, those have been different camps—you’ve got the synth cats and the hardcore sample cats, but not many people try and go in between. Daedelus is a great embodiment, and it’s something I’ve been trying to improve on. I’ve been layering my beats with electronic kick drums and 808s for years—people say ‘you got that organic sound,’ and sure, but by the same token, I layer it with the rap drums to give it that kick out. I don’t think of music as competition in that there’s a first and second place, but being in a town in LA, there are a lot of people out there that this is their dream, and that alone keeps me on my toes. I feel like I consistently have to do better than I’ve done before—at least to be able to look in the mirror in the morning!
What records will always have something there for you to use, no matter how many times you go back to them?
Daddy Kev: Funkadelic—either by myself or in the car or in the DJ booth, those songs will always remain timeless. It’s music I consider to be perfect, if you will.
How about records that you save just for listening for fun—that you know you can’t use in your own work?
Daddy Kev: A lot of rock stuff—when I listen to the Unicorns, I’m definitely not listening to listen to production values or mix quality. To me that’s pure audio pleasure. And I love reggae music, but there’s very little reggae element in any of the music I’ve ever done. Steel Pulse, Black Uhuru—when I listen to that, my mind is the furthest it could be from thinking of work. But then listening to someone like Lee “Scratch” Perry is when the lightbulb flips on again. With records that are overly engineered, I go into dissection mode—or ones that are completely poorly done, thinking ‘This is what I could have done…’
What records would you remix if you could go back and get in the studio?
Daddy Kev: That’s a loaded question—‘Whose record have you worked on that’s wack?’ It’s gonna sound terrible, but groups that fell off—A Tribe Called Quest or De La Soul, where you hear their later records and think ‘Oh my God, who said yes to this? Who was the guy in the room who was like, “Yeah, that’s perfect!”?’ I’m definitely at a point where I will retire before I start making wack shit—granted, a lot of people tell themselves that, but then go on to make terrible albums. I try to look at stuff as objectively as possible—if I made a beat wack, I’m the first to admit it. A lot of people keep going—it’s hard to think about going back. ‘That job doing data entry in Irvine is sounding good right now.’ But when the day comes where I got nothing left in in me, I’ll recognize it.
What’s a career you’d like to follow?
Daddy Kev: Rick Rubin. He has label success, he’s able to stay current, and he continues to produce albums and music that are astonishing. You gotta walk that line carefully: between creating music and marketing music. But one thing that will never change is my fundamental respect for the art.
Even if you grow a giant Rick Rubin beard?
Daddy Kev: When I’m in a Jay Z video, I know I’ve made it.

(from Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow out now on Mush)

k-the-i??? word-crammed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for years before moving to L.A. to make a monster album with Thavius Beck. Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow is out now on Mush with verses from Busdriver, Subtitle, High Priest and more. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

If you go to Japan, what’s the first place you’ll visit?
I’m gonna sound like a nerd—I’m gonna hit the Capcom store and get my Street Fighter 4 on.
Is that a Japan-only release?
Japan-only, sadly.
What else do you love that is Japan-only?
Japanese girls! Video games, Japanese girls, electronic weird Japanese music. Krush, Blue Herb, Rhino—they’re pushing boundaries. It’s intricate hip-hop from Japan. Not many people understand it but I studied Japanese. But you have to keep it up to be completely aware of what they’re saying because there’s new dialogue and slang since when I was taught. But you can sometimes understand when they’re ripping the track a new asshole.
How do you say ‘wack’ in Japanese?
It’s probably ‘wack’ with a Japanese accent. ‘Ko-nichi-wa, wack rapper!’
What did you rap about when you rapped in Japanese?
That was on Broken Love Letter. All that was saying was, ‘Hey, girl, what’s your name? How are you doing? Can I get your number?’ All the important stuff. ‘My name is Kiki and it’s nice to meet you.’
Have you ever said that in Japanese in real life?
I did and the girl was shocked! ‘Uhhhh—are you really speaking Japanese and you’re like this black man?’ Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m speaking! That was in Cambridge which has a huge Asian population, but I did hear somebody three weeks ago downtown at Grand and Pico. I’m walking by going to my homie’s house and there’s a Korean couple and I’m like, ‘Anyong haseyo!’ They turn around like, ‘What?’ Yeah, you didn’t know—I dated a Korean girl! I know Korean!
Have you visited all the international communities we have in L.A. yet?
When I came here, I was originally staying in the Mush Mansion for a while.
Did the butler eventually kick you out?
I wanted to continue my life. They were willing to look out for me forever, but I like to be independent.
What was your plan B for L.A. if you didn’t make this album?
To wallow in my own shit in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Is that actually written down somewhere?
I definitely sat down and wrote that down. ‘If anything bad happens, I’m going back home to wallow in my own shit.’ Which would have sucked. But I’m glad it worked out—it’s working better than I could have imagined. There’s obvious California effects from the fact I came out and worked with the heavy hitters. I knew those dudes since I’d been on Mush for three or four years, but it took me time to release this—I’m a perfectionist. Actually I’m a pessimist perfectionist.
That sounds like a no-win situation.
Exactly. But you know what? It works! If you think you’re at the top of the scale, there’s no room for improvement. But being a pessimist perfectionist forces me to try my hardest. The difference between records is that one is about girls and this one is about the past, the present and the future. My life basically took an arresting turn for the better.
Is the world ready for the sheer density of your track with Busdriver?
I don’t know if America is ready but I’m sure Japan and Europe are down! But I did Low End last week and people went nuts when that song came on. So I guess they are!
Aren’t you already working on another two records?
I’m producing for my friend Onepersun. A homie from the east coast who just moved to California. And a record with Walter Gross—Youth:Kill—some punk noise shit! I like the group Outkast—I listen to so much I like to scare people. ‘How do you go from that to that?’ I don’t wanna be pigeonholed. Lots of people don’t know the first record—Me, Myself and k-the-third-person-i???—that record was all about robots and Transformers, completely constructing a robot. Love Letter—that was about girls. That transition already flips peoples’ minds—how does he go from robots to girls? And then from girls to about my life. And next for Mush is Color The World In Polka Dots. That’s gonna be a psych ‘60s-‘70s sounding record. I’m getting a whole bunch of musicians to get down with me. Polka Dots isn’t even gonna be sample-based. It’s gonna be a psychedelic record. People will be like—what?
You’re into the Fugs, right?
How can you not like the Fugs? The Velvet Underground, the Fugs—that’s what I was raised on. My family was into psych rock. My parents kept open-minded about my music choice. People will be like, ‘You probably came up listening to to hip-hop.’ I was more a Strokes kid, a Smiths kid, Ramones, V.U.—I was always into psych, and no disrespect to hip-hop, but the music wasn’t as intricate as a band. It couldn’t be. Now it is—but back then it was four-bar-beats til the sixteen-bar-chorus—four-sixteen-four-sixteen-four-sixteen. That’s one of the reasons I felt quite comfortable to live out here. Someone like Daddy Kev who brought me along to the scene, and it was so easy to weld myself because it was exactly like I always wanted to be! A venue that has Mars Volta and Busdriver on the same night! Who would be that crazy? And you won’t get that anywhere else—you won’t! It’s interesting L.A. has events going on like that. It doesn’t make sense to people outside L.A. What baffles me most if why it shouldn’t make sense in all music? I love the east coast and the Midwest and they all have different scenes, but I’d be lying if I said L.A. wasn’t taking a nice soft comfortable poop on the industry right now. I wish I could lie—we got the producer scene all wrapped-up, rock all wrapped-up, MCs all wrapped-up—everywhere else I go is not gonna be intense.
Is Mika Miko still your favorite L.A. punk band?
Ah yes! I’d probably marry all of those girls. I know it sounds crazy. I’ve been to their shows. They recognize me. ‘Oh, it’s the only black kid that comes to our shows!’ I’m the black kid, for sure. I wouldn’t say token but I’m the black kid. I’m performing at this place I was fiending to play—the House of Vermont! I grew up more on the punk end—the rock side of things. I kind of think I could be part of many scenes. My lyrics aren’t so pigeonholed. It’s funny when other genres like me, too. I just do what I want—I’m just gonna do me! And it just so happened to be that people like it. That definitely makes me happy. I got to be myself and people like it!
What did you mean with that line about ‘you play laser tag with sudden envelopes and candid cameras cantaloupe’?
I love how people love that line! I’m like a human thesaurus. ‘Cantaloupe’ is your brain—your melon. You ‘play laser tag with sudden envelopes’—going from certain elements in your head—and ‘candid cameras cantaloupe’—you get pissed off when you’re looked at different. When no one seems to understand. It’s basically me talking about myself. ‘Candid camera’ is like ‘now I’m exposed in the limelight.’ And ‘frontal lobe microbes’—I might be drilling into your head until it finally sinks in! I read tons of books. I’ve been paying attention to a lot of poetry. To how I write. Most people when they write a line—it’s partially freestyle. They come up with a line and write it quick. I write word-for-word. On ‘laser tag’—believe me I started off with ‘you’ and thought what would be the next word. Step-by-step at an even smaller rate than most people. So people understand I really tried to structure something. Life is more complex than me saying ‘cat in the hat scat…’ When I was in elementary school, I was like, ‘Why is water wet? Why is the sky blue?’
Why is the sky blue?
I’m not sure—I’m still trying to figure it out. I’m still learning. Curiosity can sustain me forever. Sort of like time-travel, which I’m still understanding.
Are you a big Philip K. Dick fan?
I can’t even begin! The World That Jones Made—that book is amazing! Basically The Matrix before The Matrix ever even had a thought! I’ve always been into reality—reality isn’t as real as we think. So that book hit the heart. I was writing a poetry book with some of my philosophy—Wait Until The Oceans Split In Half. Reality to me is based around water. Water plays a really important role in my life. In elementary school—being the ‘why is water wet?’ kid—I was always into creative writing and poetry. And musicians—as funny as it sounds, Rod Stewart or Morrissey because even though they were singing songs, they were really intricate detailed songs. So being who I was, it was easy to be like, ‘Ok, if I’m gonna write, I’m gonna make sure it matters and express it the way I’ll express it.’ Instead of the cookie-cutter bullshit. I mean—it’s not right for me to say that—who am I to say that? But this is just me. I’ve always been that kid, so it’s easy for me to take all the influences of how I was. And then it formed Voltron.
Lion Voltron or space-car Voltron?
Come on! Lion! Space-car is too many. I bought that toy! ‘Do I really need twenty of these little things to form the ugliest robot I ever seen in my life?’ But I was more of a Transformers kid.
Did you cry at that movie?
When Optimus Prime died, I cried. At that time, no one in cartoons got killed. I’m like, ‘Hold on—the hero died? What’s wrong with this picture?’ But he came back in later episodes so I’m happy. The G2 versions.
You’re a pretty specific guy.
I like to make sure people understand me. Rather than—‘Yeah, I like apples.’ People aren’t gonna read that and be like, ‘Now I think I know him.’
Who is your favorite writer from L.A.?
Right now Saul Williams, if I’m gonna keep this real. ‘Message to History’—I’m like, ‘Alright!’ For somebody to write about sending a message to something that really can’t debate back—it’s amazing to me. It’s more intricate than it looks. People are like ‘Message To History?’ Dude, you don’t understand—this dude is on a higher platform. He finds ways of being simple and still being overhead. But I pretty much respect all the artists. Busdriver to me is an incredible artist. I’ve been telling people Thavius is an incredible rapper but they’ll learn soon enough. When his new record Dialogue comes out, people are going to lose their minds.
At what point with Thavius did you realize you’d have to work together?
We met in 2006 at SXSW and it was like, ‘I like your music!’ ‘Word, I like your music!’ We remixed each others’ songs, and submitted it to Mush to see if we could get a 7” deal. And they were like, ‘You know what? You should do a record.’ So we took a chance. I almost can’t see not working with him—we kept that clear. ‘We’re gonna be with each other forever now!’ Everybody is so geeked about it and we’re so proud about it!
How much of your good mood is living in L.A. and how much is just inborn nature?
70% is my good nature. I smile at everything. If you look at my Myspace pictures, you’ll be like, ‘Why you cheesin’?’ I like life! People like me, girls like me—shit is awesome! I lived in Canada, Chicago, all these places—people would be like, ‘I don’t know you but I like you!’ You know Bigg Jus? When I recorded with him years ago for Big Dada, I went to Atlanta, where he was living at the time. We go to this convenience store and I forgot what I asked, but the lady was like, ‘You from up top?’ As they say in the south. And I started talking to her. And the last thing she said—I don’t know if you can quote me or not—was ‘I really do not like niggers, but for some reason I really like you!’ I would wanna tell her she was the most ignorant son of a bitch of all time, but I’d probably get lynched. I didn’t know how to take it! ‘Thank you-slash-fuck you?’ ‘Uh, I’m glad I upped your game on the black side?’ That’s my life for you—straight up. And L.A. added the 30% because it’s Cali. Cali just has that—you guys are so chill compared to everywhere else!
What vital life lessons has L.A. taught you so far?
Tread lightly when talking to females here! I’m a very hopeless romantic.
Rom-coms and ice cream on the couch?
Everything! Massages! Tell them they’re beautiful! I think every female is beautiful. I do everything for them. But girls don’t wanna date anybody as much as guys don’t wanna. I learned it the harsh way! So don’t be that dude—‘Man, girl, I’d place rose petals in front of your foot every step you walk!’
When was the last time you said something nice to a girl on the street?
Probably a few months ago—right before I went on tour. Well, to keep it real—probably twenty minutes ago.

k-the-i??? WITH MICHAEL NHAT, ONEPERSUN AND WALTER GROSS ON SUN., DEC. 7, AT THE AIRLINER, 2419 N. BROADWAY, LOS ANGELES. 9 PM / $5 / 21+. MYSPACE.COM/THEAIRLINERCLUB. k-the-i???’s YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW IS OUT NOW ON MUSH. VISIT k-the-i??? AT MYSPACE.COM/KTHEI.

Thavius Beck “L.A. RECORD Theme Song”
Eddie Kendricks “Date With The Rain”
Dawson Smith “I Don’t Know If I Can Make It”
Juan Pablo Torres “Son A Propulsion”
Arnold Blair “Tryin’ To Get Next To You”
Ann Sexton “You Can’t Lose With The Stuff I Use”
Ted Taylor “Somebody’s Gettin’ It”
Final Solution “Never Coming Back Again”
Ken Boothe “Let’s Get It On”
James Brown “Grits”
Fabulous Counts “Get Down People”
Dyke And The Blazers “Runaway People”
Thavius Beck “L.A. RECORD Theme Song (Redux)”

Dennis Owens co-founded Long Beach soul/funk club the Good Foot in 1998 and will be celebrating its tenth anniversary tonight at Que Sera. Complete versions of this mix will be available at the club. Thanks to Thavius Beck for our new theme song!

Where are you from?
Born at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Lomita, California. Spent my first six days of existence there. Spent most of my life after that in Long Beach, California.
Where do you live now?
Currently in Lakewood. Soon to be back in Long Beach.
Are you digital or vinyl?
Vinyl, but not anti-digital in the least bit.
What mixer are you using?
DJ Zanz’s Behringer DJX700 4-channel mixer.
What needles are you using?
Shure M447s.
What are your turntables of choice?
Technics 1200s!
First time you ever DJed?
I don’t remember. I DO remember the second time, though. It was at the very first Good Foot on Sept. 11th, 1998. Total “trial by fire” scenario.
Weirdest DJ gig?
I don’t remember the weirdest gig, but I remember the weirdest request. I was DJing at the District Lounge in Orange, CA, a number of years ago. An attractive young women approached me and asked if I had any Lisa Loeb. Being that I was spinning, you know, DANCE music, I politely informed her that I didn’t have any Lisa Loeb records, but if she had any other requests, I’d be happy to fill them. She gave me the once-over, cocked her head back, and asked in a very appalled tone, ‘You don’t have any Lisa Loeb records?! What kind of DJ doesn’t have any Lisa LOEB in their crates?!?!’ I guess I’m that kind of DJ.
What are you playing in your set right now?
Funky music.
What are you listening to in your car?
KFWB (mainly for traffic reports), KUSC, KJAZ, silence, etc.
Last record you bought and where?
High Priestess of Soul by Nina Simone at Bagatelle Records.
Best record you scored for $1?
Maybe LP by the Mystic Zephyrs 4. It’s for sale. Anybody interested?

DENNIS OWENS PLUS NOBODY, SCOTT WEAVER, ABEL, RAMONA, SONIC DRED, MIGUEL, FRANKIE THE FACE, RILEY MORE, ZANS AND CHRIS ZIEGLER ON FRI., SEPT. 12, AT THE GOOD FOOT TENTH ANNIVERSARY AT QUE SERA, 1923 E. 7TH ST., LONG BEACH. 9 PM / $5 / 21+. GOODFOOT.ORG.

Purple – Project Pat
Cheese and Dope – Project Pat
If You Ain’t From my Hood – Project Pat
Bow E3 – Wiley
Gangsters – Wiley
Trading Places – K-the-I??? featuring NoCanDo
Get ‘Em Girls – Cam’Ron
Intro – Jim jones
Ghetto Music/What You Know About That – OutKast/T.I.
System of a Down Ass Nickel – LabWaste
Lick Dem Muthaphuckas – Brand Nubians
Light Sleeper – Saafir
2 in 1 – LabWaste

1. Where are you from?
I was born in Minneapolis, moved to Richmond, California when I was a month old, went back to Minneapolis at 7, then got kicked out and sent to L.A. at 16 years of age.

2. Where do you live now?
The city of Angels, and the Lakers (who ironically came from Minnesota…go figure)

3. Are you digital or vinyl?
Digital baby. Vinyl sounds amazing, but when packing for a gig files take up a lot less space than 12″s…

4. What mixer are you using?
Ableton Live’s internal mixer and occasionally a Yahama MG8/2FX.

5. What needles are you using?
I avoid needles at all costs.

6. What are your turntables of choice?
The kind that can play binary numbers.

7. First time you ever DJed?
I forget where it was, but it was me and Gino (Giovanni Marks) taking turns DJing at some club several years back, and my highlight was blending Egyptian Lover with Fast Forward… We were shocked at the idea and the fact that I pulled it off…haha!

8. Weirdest DJ gig?
I dj’d (can I write it like that?) at this little ass bar in Santa Monica that a buddy of mine did a weekly at and I was spinning vinyl (which i don’t normally do) of all this old hip-hop stuff that I got from Amoeba (I worked there at the time), and I was playing shit like YZ “Return of the Holy One” and other obscure anti-whitey type stuff (just based on the era…80′s and early 90′s more militant stuff… c’mon, some of my best friends are white), and the little crowd of people were really into it. These Westside ladies in their 30′s with their work clothes on (but their blouses were loosened) and semi-drunk were dancing to my trainwreck mix of “Welcome to the Terrordome” and “Jacking for Beats.” Weird and awesome at the same time.

9. What are you playing in your set right now?
It depends on the type of crowd it’s for, but I’m partial to really ghetto stuff, mainly from Memphis (Project Pat is the truth and the way), grime (Wiley is truly the Godfather) and whatever self-promotion I can sneak in (LabWaste, K-The-I???, NiggyTardust, Buy Busdriver’s new single “Ellen Disingenuous”, send money orders directly to…)

10. What are you listening to in your car?
I was still bumping MIA’s KALA cd, but last time I got my car washed they apparently rubbed it against the carpet in a manner so malicious and deliberate that it has been reduced to a skipping coaster. Now, if I’m not listening to stuff I’m working on, I listen to the radio and practice being patient.

11. Last record you bought and where?
“Survivalism” 9″ single by NIN at Virgin Megastore (Amoeba didn’t have it for some reason).

12. Best record you scored for $1?
Original copy of Ya Mama 12″ by the Pharcyde…it was barely warped (like hardly at all), so it reduced the value from $30 to .99! Goonies!

For more shows check out: larecord.com/radio

Lab Waste is Thavius Beck and Subtitle grinding the ungrindable grind. Their most recent release is a picture disc EP so beautiful it practically glows. They speak now from (among other places) the customer service phone at Amoeba.

Lab Waste “Mega Attitude”

You’re both Amoeba alumni—what kind of privileges does that grant you?
Giovanni Marks: This. I get to come in Sundays, intern and help the customers for free, and in exchange I get to use the phones.
Are you going to put out all your vinyl at once like No Age?
Thavius Beck: Yes and no.
G: We just dropped a 7” picture disc—that’s the first strike in a maelstrom of Lab Waste hits. We got a few things up—a full-length later this year, and remixes abound, and Thavius does production for everybody, and I’m dancing a lot in Venice and at Hollywood and Highland.
Given unlimited resources, how much could you get done in thirty days?
G: I’d buy another Range Rover—besides the Briefcase Rockers Range Rover. And then I’d pay everybody back. And then I’d buy crackers because I wouldn’t have much money left. Then I’d help the people.
Were you really trapped in Montreal because you lost your passport?
G: It was one of those things where I could have left as a deported/exported kind of thing. Plus it was real hard to make money all the time. Haji from Wolf Parade had to give me money to get my passport back.
What’s the best recent response you’ve gotten at a show?
T: A makeshift tour in France. Eleven shows and by show number two, the response we got from there—with nobody knowing what to expect—people loved it. We were doing multiple encores every night, appearing on radio and TV and stuff—really mindblowing!
G: And we can’t get a show in L.A.—I can’t stress that enough!
T: Put that it in big bold print.
G: We were real low-profile for a while for no reason—we’re both accessible dudes. I moved to Montreal after nothing was going on here for a year. People are so used to seeing you, they don’t take you seriously. So you go to another country and come back and put out records you would have put out anyway. For a quick second with our solo material—hey, Nobody walked by me just now!—when that avant-garde scene was at its apex, we were doing a lot of solo work where we’d see each other in other countries and kick it. Like in Amsterdam, my tour manager was interviewing Thavius, so we came over and hung out. But once the whole thing died down and Busdriver became Busdrive, Atmosphere became Atmosphere, Aesop Rock was Aesop Rock—it wasn’t a movement. People were more individual, and everybody who wasn’t in that infrastructure kind of went to the wayside. And all these labels started putting out bad music and stopped investing in good music because they’re scared, and they weren’t listening to music to begin with. And that leaves Thavius and I out there. L.A. is now Ed Banger Land, and we’re already on-the-fringe dudes, and now we’re even more on the fringe. We had to start over. Put the same ideas to a new crowd because the old crowd up and left and the others never knew anyway.
T: The thing we learned in France—there are people there who are doing publications and online stuff and labels vouching for us, and if we had that in L.A. it’d be completely different.
G: It’s like jazz shit—for a lot of black musicians, you couldn’t walk in the front door out here but out there you own a castle. We’ve almost been doing it too long—all the dudes that are big now have been rapping for 730 days and that’s who everyone is rallying behind. It’s just really strange. We’re both almost thirty and we’ve been in the city forever. You’d think we never did anything. We never haven’t done anything—even with that controversy last year, when I quit rapping for a couple weeks for reasons I won’t go into. After that bullshit—I still put out a record three months before and two months after, and Thavius has been putting out records and kept stepping his game up—what literally do we have to do? People tell me every day that records don’t sell—I’m in a record store looking at records selling! Why in our hometown do people look at us like we’re being insane? We’re basically nomads in our own fucking town.
You’ve seen all the attention the bands at the Smell are getting—is anything similar happening around you?
G: No! You got clubs—certain clubs going down where they may start as one thing and end as another, and other clubs that are literally only for pictures, and none of it really adds to the community of L.A. and what the scene is about. In Williamsburg, you always know what’s going on—Rhode Island, France, Switzerland, anything! Even in Paris! Out here there’s no such thing.
T: I always tell people the difference with L.A. and every other place is there’s a lot of talent, a lot of competition and a lot of backbiting—there’s no camaraderie among the different scenes or clubs. Everybody wants to come up because it’s L.A. On top of that there’s that weird hippie trendy gentrification plague going on—people in the city with a lot of money and tight leather jackets who’ll spend $20 to go to a spot and $15 on a drink and wanna look cute and don’t even really care. That pushes artists like us even further. Promoters know they’re not gonna make money unless they get a DJ that plays the trendy hits and people can get their pictures on a blog. And the reality is that that shit is bullshit! To me it’s hard to really establish a real community when no one tries to make some shit that’s substantial that lasts. No one in L.A. is trying to create dance culture—a community, a scene.
G: What Franki Chan is saying—and he’s been blackballed by all these people but still makes money—is basically two things that make sense. Number one—however the scene came to L.A. nobody knows, but they’re here with it. And number two—it may not last three months, but if you wanna get on the trend, it probably happened. Our single was like 2005—that was us rapping over dance shit then, and that was some freak shit to motherfuckers at the time.
T: Back then no one would fuck with us. We were pioneers in a way with this shit. Well, we’ve been here and we’ve done really creative shit but we’re not acknowledged at all.
Gino, you’ve said before how you think everyone in music now has an earlier counterpart—who fits with Lab Waste?
G: Suicide. If you were still doing albums, we probably woulda flipped a Suicide cover.
T: Even something like Ultramagnetic MCs. No one gave a fuck, and then Kool Keith sold a billion records. And now kids are like ‘Ultramagnetic!’ and they were like three when they made a record. Or Organized Konfusion. Did Eminem really bump that in the day? Maybe. His homies? People who buy his records? I guarantee they didn’t!
G: It’s not like rock where Redd Kross comes out whenever—they can be in their forties or fifties clowning and killing it and everybody will be there, from that day to this day. No Age can come in thirteen years and motherfuckers will trip from the Smell up. We can’t even get fools from three years ago to trip. Motherfuckers who were there—editors who put us on magazine covers, we can’t even get them to run reviews of the albums we paid to put out! We could say, ‘Fuck it, at least we’re dope!’ but we’ve done that for eleven years. We bring all kinds of shit—we’re historians on music shit, we play instruments, we do everything! We’re not just pop-locking with a DJ looking for a pound of weed and a check—we’re musicians! But people look at the former and not the latter.
So what’s the plan?
G: We got a new record this year on Briefcase Rockers—I’m putting out. If people aren’t tripping, we’ll do other shit. We’ll go on the road.
T: I think on some level we’re respected by a lot of artists, but those fuckers aren’t buying records because they get them for free. But they’re not singing our praises because they got their own shit to worry about. They’re artists doing similar shit, and they’re not tripping on us because that takes resources away from them.
That’s pretty grim.
T: A rock and a hard place is where we’re at. But you can cry about it or just do it.
G: That’s what we do. Whether Jesus or Satan trips this year, we’ll do new Lab Waste records. Even though we’ve got our share of haters, we have enough supporters to justify it, and we’ll do it as long as we make sense. It just baffles the fuck out of us—how does it happen? Everybody’s waiting for the shoe to drop, but they don’t know who’s wearing it. Who’s the first to do the crazy handrail? Who’s first to jump off the waterfall? All the dudes are there but they’re scared, and when the first one jumps, everybody jumps—they’ll do flips off the motherfucker! But the point between the jump and everyone standing there could be a million years. It’s not a sad story—it’s a funny story. We’re definitely underground dudes in the scene, which is dope. But after a hundred years working up—it has to stop eventually. We’re not trying to be people’s trading cards. I don’t wanna be like Simply Saucer, or the secret Dooley O record or whatever that is! We’re not making material to be Sun Ra about shit, where we’re dead and people buy our shit. Time is really going—I don’t look to ten years! I don’t look to two years! People say we’re like the gangsta rap of the future? We’re broke today! We know it’s quality—we know we’re doing something right. But we get tired of being fronted on. We wanna fight all these dudes—or vent in an article!

LAB WASTE’S CAN I GET IT HOW YOU LIVE? EP IS AVAILABLE NOW AT AMOEBA OR FATBEATS OR FROM MYSPACE.COM/LABWASTE.

Bearish beats from Russian-born DJ Vadim, who worked his way west from a 1992 debut on Ninjatune toward forward-thinking collaborations with characters like Gruff Rhys, Slug and Gift of Gab, and who will be playing his last L.A. area-show of the week—and first ever show at unbeatable hip-hop club Low End Theory—tonight. Vadim’s famously inclusive collection—the only other DJ you’ll see name-checking Polish jazz besides J. Rocc—makes him a perfect fit at Low End, whose resident DJs (Nobody, Daddy Kev, Gaslamp Killah and D-Style, who is apparently staying home babysitting tonight) happily deploy block-rockers between acts like Entrance, Daedelus, Flying Lotus, Thavius Beck, Busdriver and Crystal Antlers without even wondering if tonight’s headliner is going to be plugging in a mixer, a Moog or a Marshall.

— Rob Battin

DJ VADIM WITH DADDY KEV, NOBODY, GASLAMP KILLAH AND NOCANDO AT LOW END THEORY AT THE AIRLINER, 2419 N. BROADWAY, LOS ANGELES. 10 PM / $5-$10 / 18+. WWW.LOWENDTHEORYCLUB.COM.