Interview with Lokke Highstein - Music Director of the PS-1 Museum in Queens, NY.

Be sure to check out the legend LoveBug Starski on Saturday August 13. link

How do you think the series has changed over the years?
Warm Up started as a way to attract a new audience to the museum, it was not originally conceived as a fundraiser or a tastemaker event. By the time I returned to NYC from San Francisco, it had grown into a huge event that both generated income and also had a dedicated following with an unusually open-minded attitude towards new music.

I saw it as a chance to expose this special crowd to a wider variety of music than they had ever heard before, and I shifted the focus to both bringing back legendary innovators like Trax, Mad Professor, and Afrika Bambaataa, as well as bringing more exposure to under-known artists like Lindstrom & Prins Thomas, Force of Nature, and DJ Tyson.

In addition to selecting the DJs, you’re also a DJ and have mixed it up at a Warm Up or two. Both are curatorial in nature, but you get a bit dirtier when you’re actually doing the spinning. What are your thoughts/feelings on picking the DJs versus getting in the trenches and picking the music.
The DJs surprise me a lot with what they do, more often than not, so I really don’t have that much control. All I can do is hope that the music will go a certain way. So in that way it can be hard to be hands off, since I have been DJing for so many years. There is nothing like doing it myself, but I have a lot of respect for the artists and want them to express and really push themselves.

You mentioned that the DJs often surprise you. How so?
I had no idea Mad Professor was going to remix his songs live in the way that he did… I thought he would have a lot of stuff pre-programmed but he was just lightning fast with his hands on the faders, controlling the delays and reverbs by ear. I was stunned. It was a huge learning experience for me.

The funny thing is that I had people complain to me that he wasn’t “mixing” the records (He would play one song and then pause and load in the next one) people didn’t realize he wasn’t playing a DJ set, he was mixing his old records down in a new way right in front of our eyes.

How do you find the artists?
Although we do accept demo submissions and we have booked one or two people from them, most of the DJs booked for Warm Up are people that Jason and I have found through going out and listening, listening to sets online, or checking out sets on recommendations of friends.

New album from David Ramos of Anonymous Inc, Dead By Wednesday, and TOCA is out now via Beyond Space Entertainment. Visit Anonymousinc.com for mp3s off the new album. Songs like Broken Eyes and Lost My are some our favorite songs of the past few years and go great with the summer. Beyond Space is also preparing to release a full length from the Painkillers (Joe Dub - SFSM + Topic) featuring production by Emynd and possibly Ceschi Ramos who I heard played the Fender Rhodes on Joe Dub’s upcoming Pooretry LP.

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La The Darkman - Respect Made Men

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Found online:

Frank: Tell me about your history with blunt smoking.

Dark: I always smoked blunts. I never smoked joints. I was like 13 when I first started. I’m 21 now. Like ‘89 or some shit like that.

Frank: So you were smoking blunts ever since you started smoking weed?

Dark: Yeah. I roll Dutches. I don’t smoke Phillies. Dutch Masters, baby. But I ain’t goin’ promote them, ’cause they goin’ have to give me something for that. I’ll leave it at that.

Frank: So what is the difference between Dutches and other brands?

Dark: Dutch leaves burn way slower and taste natural. It lasts way longer. It goes out if you ain’t puffin’ it.

Frank: Yukmouth was sayin’ the difference between blunts and joints is whether you want to smoke by yourself or with a gang of niggaz. You think a blunt is the party way to go?

Dark: I don’t know, cause I smoke by myself all the time. Blunts is the shit right now, though, even though everybody be killin’ they brain cells.

Frank: What do you think about that?

Dark: Fuck it! The world is fucked up. You might as well smoke some, you know what I mean? Let all the world know we get high. Legalize weed, for real.

Frank: So what’s the difference between smoking weed through the cigar papers versus regular papers?

Dark: Joint papers be blowin’ away and shit. You in the wind, you roll in Harlem, Brooklyn, you know what I mean, comin’ through, the wind and joints be blowin’ away. So with the blunts you can keep it all together and you can just thump your ashes like BLAP!

The first Soul Assassins album was great. I hope Mugg’s comes strong and gives GZA what he needs - dope beats. Link

Hip-hop’s Cypress Hill, founding member and architect DJ Muggs is releasing his latest effort, DJ Muggs vs. GZA: Grandmasters, this October on Angeles Records, an imprint on Fontana Distribution. The stunning collection contains 11-tracks of Muggs’ neck-snapping beats with the legendary rap master Wu Tang’s GZA on the mic.

I’m re-upping the audio originally posted by our mild mannered friend (I jacked the pic and added one word comments too) since I think it might have been slept on the first time around and to fulfill my selfish needs. If you like this at all just drop a line so we can beg for more. Link

FIRST WEEK OF JUNE

Young Zee with Lauryn Hill - Stay Gold [unreleased]
Nice And Smooth - Blunts [classic]
LoveBug Starski - Rappin [any of you heard this before?]
Drums
Bob Marley - African Herbsman [classic]
StevieB - Spring Love
Consciousness Change / EzElpee - Bloody Money

The man behind the infamous and ubiquitous images of BORF was caught recently. Link, post with tons of pictures, via no frontin’

Great interview with the legendary DJ Steve “Steinski” Stein featuring clips of his mixes. Here’s a brief introduction courtesy of MonkeyFunk:

Steve Stein was working with a large advertising agency in the early 80’s. Between briefs, he and fellow music-nut Doug DiFranco (Double Dee), spent many hours languishing around legendary NY hiphop club the Roxy, and buckling the counters of every record store with vast hauls.

When Tommy Boy launched an open-door remix contest in 1983, to promote G.L.O.B.E & Whizz Kid’s “Play that Beat (Mr.DJ)”, Stein & DiFranco hunkered down over a weekend, armed with little else but the song, a turntable, an eight track deck…and a fuck-off record collection, and an already huge, gleaned and lifted library of quotes, out-takes and samples.

The result, “Lessons 1 : The Payoff Mix” won the prize, and cut-ups were born. The record went crazy on the radio, and to this day has inspired kids to start plugging their parents VCR’s into a tape deck to lift choice dialogue and soundgrabs. Brainfreeze ? Ninjatune ? Skratch Piklz ? The Lessons series, and Steve’s subsequent work including “The Motorcade Sped On”, “it’s Up To You” and the Nothing to Fear” mix continue to cast a long shadow…

Link, via poplicks

According to this article, Atlanta’s L.A.’s KDAY is pushing itself as the first Hip-Hop Oldies radio station. I’m thinking this is probably true since “radio” would exclude dedicated satellite and internet channels, which we know have been around for a minute. I can’t help but think that the emergence of a radio station serving this niche might not have come to fruition if it wasn’t for Satellite radio’s (and the internet’s) ability to test the waters and prove their is a market. Link

British Phonographic Industry recently published their quarterly review of music industry in the UK. The report features sales numbers for 7inches which jumped 87.3% for 2004. By the way, the jump had nothing to do with our record (or hiphop).

BPI Quarterly Review - July 2005 : 11:7:2005
> Download sales top ten million
> British indie rock fans spark seven inch vinyl revival
> UK music enjoys US renaissance
> Second quarter round up; artist albums buck high street downturn
> Download sales top ten million

March 31 1998 1,637,000
March 31 1999 910,000
March 31 2000 601,000
March 31 2001 504,000
March 31 2002 455,000
March 31 2003 530,000
March 31 2005 1,380,000

One of the most influential producers in the game is back with a new album. Entitled Street Talk, the album features additional production by Lord Finesse and guest vocals by the likes of Fat Joe, M.O.P., A.G., Ruck of Heltah Skeltah and Party Arty among others. The track I am looking forward to the most though is Where You At? with unreleased verses by Big Pun and Big L. Although the October release date is pretty far off, expect upcoming albums from Lord Finesse (Funky Technician Remix Project) and A.G. (Look Records debut) to keep the momentum rolling. Link

Received an email today with a link to Miranda Jane’s short piece on Tragedy which somewhat describes the independent film based on his life in QueensBridge (which we’ve been trying to peep since we first heard about it).

Excerpt
“The film reveals much about his personal life, his personal pain, and all that he overcame to become one of our generation’s greatest unsung heroes of Hip Hop. With cameos from Poet, Delorean, Corleone, Capone, Havoc, Killa Sha, Littles, Marley Marl, Synysta, and many other QB MCs, artists, and ‘hood legends, the truth about Tragedy Khadafi and his illustrious career thus far is finally revealed; as well as the real deal on how he lyrically fathered QB’s most famous MCs.”

And I also came across this project last week: Tragedy Khadafi - QU Soldier. Seems like Sandbox had something to do with the pressing since it’s being pushed as a “SANDBOX & 25 TO LIFE EXCLUSIVE RELEASE.” Can’t wait to cop this or see the movie.