Where are you from?

I was born in 1978 in a small town in Denmark, i guess there isn’t any need to mention the name since nobody ever heard of it anyway. Even in Denmark nobody knows it.. I did most of my bike-riding and tree-climbing there and since then I have been living all over Denmark. I have also been living 3 years in Iceland and currently I’m living in Copenhagen.

How did you get into beat-making?

I have always liked instrumental music, here amongst the instrumental aspect of hip-hop. So beat-making seemed like the natural choice for me.

I started out with turntables in 1999 and in 2005 I bought my first sampler. Between those years i tried with different software but that never worked out for me. I always encountered technical problems with the computer or the software which drained my energy. So hardware was definitely the right choice for me.

List your discography.

• Idepthz & Son of a Bricklayer – Esoteric Tone Poem – 2010
• Holzgarten – ‘Ne Menge Holz – 2009
• Son of a Bricklayer & Shitao – La Jetée – 2009
• Son of a Bricklayer & Morgue – Empire Guilt – 2008
• Mumledyr – Et fjernt fyrtaarn – 2008
• Son of a Bricklayer – Shades of Grey – 2008

Besides that there is an old beat tape and some other productions..

What is your philosophy for making music?

I don’t have any general philosophy. I always try to get a beat done while the idea is fresh, if it takes too long the result will often be poor.. But I like making the music based on a concept of some kind. On La Jetée it was based on a movie, on Empire Guilt the aim was a certain atmosphere and with Mumledyr it was just mixed seafood..

What is the electronic music scene in Copenhagen like?

Hmm.. I havn’t really found my niche here, but maybe i havn’t been looking hard enough. There are few good danish acts at the moment, but the underground hip hop scene isn’t worth mentioning. There seems to be plenty of good venues but the music played there isn’t down my alley.

There is a lot of street parties here though, some of them spontaneous, but in most cases they’re a part of the electronic festivals here.

What was the first sampler you bought?

My first sampler was the mpc1000, I bought that one in 2005. Since then I have acquired a sp303 and a sp1200..

My favorite is the mpc because of the usability, but the sound of the sp1200 is fantastic. Unfortunately its broken at the moment, the spring on my run/stop button is in two pieces and i can’t find the spare parts. Depressing..

Esoteric Tone Poem…it’s dark and maybe sinister which is why I like it…what was the inspiration behind your newest project?

My inspiration for the project was Idepthz’s beats and soundscapes. We tried to put our focus on the drums and the general atmosphere, which you describe as dark and sinister I guess. Actually not that different from what we do individually.

How did the 7″ collaboration come about?

We connected through myspace a few years ago, i think the first ideas emerged around the time Empire Guilt was released. I can’t remember who proposed the collaboration but we were both keen to start the project. Last summer I visited Marcin (Idepthz) in Poland and we agreed on how to release it and so forth..

In what ways did you collaborate with Idepthz?

We did our parts seperately, but inspired by each others sounds. I started out making a beat inspired by one of his older tracks, sent that one to him and he made a continuation of the beat. We made a few tracks like that and selected our 2 favorites for the 7 inch.

What is a Tone Poem?

A tone poem is an arrangement of sounds which evokes a certain atmosphere or mood. That’s my thoughts behind it anyway, I don’t think it’s defined anywhere.

Tell us a bit about the interesting artwork.

The artwork was made by Pavel Koten, also known as Noizcut, the man behind Ground Floor Records. I sent him the music and he came up with some different sketches. As far as i know he painted it on canvas, took af photo of it and processed it from there. The artwork on my previous releases was also made by him, he seems to have a remarkable ability to match the atmosphere of the music every time.

Are there any movies featuring your sounds?

No, unfortunately not. I would love to do a soundtrack sometime though..

What other projects are on the horizon for you?

At the moment i’m working on another 7 inch with contributions from a few people (not to be mentioned yet..). Hope to have it out sometime in the fall.

After that i will start putting a new live set together and hopefully do a few shows..

Are you still into climbing trees and bike-riding? What do you do when you’re not making beats?

When i’m not making beats i try to learn the skills of fatherhood, I recently became a dad. Besides that I work as a physical therapist.

I enjoy bike-riding on a daily basis, tree-climbing happens too seldom..

Shout outs?

Thanks to Pavel for the amazing artwork, Etienne at Vulgar for helping out with basically everything and thanks to Simon and Tim for helping out with distribution in Berlin and Dublin.

Vulgar Records
Son of a Bricklayer (myspace)
Idepthz (myspace)

[MP3: View post to listen]

In April, you released The First Downloadable Drug, your first solo album in five years. Why’d you decided to get back in the solo ring?

A lot has changed for me in that time, so it’s definitely the right moment for me to do this record. I worked out a lot of my personal issues with this project. Fuck therapy. I’ve been told by those who’ve heard it that it feels and sounds different then a conventional rap record and that makes me pretty excited.

I’ve been following your music since it became public, and I think this is your best work yet. It’s more personal and the production is nicely polished. What did you do differently here, production- and project-wise?

I just got better, plain and simple, in all categories. The production sounds more polished because I’ve worked hard in the studio for the last five years. In that time I’ve mixed seven albums. Every time you do a mix or get busy with the beats, you learn new ways of doing things and your ear gets better and better — it’s just like anything you work really hard at. All that work and learning from my past ventures has made the whole idea of starting a project much easier. I’m fully self-taught. I had to break some big-ass eggs to get to this point. I find working on other peoples music helps you grow as an artist and it’s interesting to see how other people work their crafts. I’m willing to always learn and improve. The fact that the album is more personal is a reflection on my greater ability to articulate my personal feelings to tape. I learned how to let my guard down and just write.

Why give the end product away for free?

It was a pretty easy decision for me to go this route. I felt it would be the most effective way to get my music heard by the most listeners, and in the end, that’s all I want — for people to hear it.

What does your music say about you?

I want listeners to think when they hear a rap record but it has to make them bump their heads too. I’ve produced 90 percent of the record so in the purest sense it is a solo effort. It’s me … take it or take a hike.

There’s a good mix of songs that are all flair, like “Bounny Hunnas,” and songs that are all thought and concept, like “Vegetables.” First of all, why did you decide to diss anti-carnivore protestors?

[Laughs] “Vegetables” … I’ve taken some heat from this one. I never really thought of it as a diss track. On the surface I realize that it comes off as that, but it’s really a comment on human behavior and human evolution. I mean the first thing I say is “I’m just explaining where we come from.”

OK, I’m gonna lose anybody who is not into evolution here, but the science shows that we got to this place not by being herbivores (or carnivores either for that matter). We hunted for meat it and it gave us the suitable levels of protein to sustain our increasing brain size. The hunt for food displayed by our distant ancestors is a great analogy for our capitalistic society today. It’s still survival for the fittest, is it not? Veganism is a modern idea in evolutionary terms created by modern humans who had the time and energy to spend contemplating what they ate — and so fucking be it. Amen, vegans. I just don’t want to be told that it’s the natural order of things and that it will save mankind and that I am not enlightened.

Using “Vegetables” as the example, what’s your producing and writing process like?

The beat was constructed around the Beach Boys track for the hook and I just laid some heavy synths over it. I was mixing my friends album at the time and I liked all the vintage synths he was using and it really got me inspired.

The actual writing process took less than an hour I think. This progression was a little different in that I brainstormed a few concepts before I wrote the track, so I’d know where I wanted to take the track at each bar. Then it was just a matter of getting it out. I think I quickly tracked it to my computer with Garage Band just to have an idea of how it would sound right after.

Normally I don’t really get into the brainstorming, it’s usually more stream of consciousness style. Sometimes I like to write directly to tape too without writing it down. I will do a few bars, stop tape, then do a few more. That’s how I wrote “Hell Seems Kinda Nice.” It works with slower tracks.

From your album’s titles and songs in your catalogue, past and present, you show an obvious affinity for hallucinogenic drugs. What’s with that? With the exception of a few, most rappers just want to talk about the sticky, the icky. and sometimes the sticky icky.

Yeah, I have an affinity to most drugs. Fact is, I probably would like them all. I’m about “everything in moderation,” and I think that’s only because I realize that my love for drugs could possibly harm me. I like benders, dude, and prolonged states of euphoria. In actual fact, the idea of hallucinogens scares the shit out of me while I sit here digesting your question. They usually come into play in a few drugs down the line, when I’ve mustered up the courage to fuck up my entire well-being. Booze, weed, coke, then acid, pills, mushrooms … Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday — sleep. The fact is that The First Downloadable Drug is a reflection on those experiences, but most of that is in my past now. I’ve wasted enough time and money on that shit and it has always left me weary.

Any last shout outs?

I’d like to give a shout to the fam Bizoid and Logical and DJ Scratchmarx. Also, I wanna thank D-Rec for the cuts on the album and for his production on “Sleeper.”

kidlithium.com
eastsidemagic.com

[MP3: View post to listen]

From an industry standpoint, have you ever thought that there is a push for more, more, more, rather than focus on the quality of the work?

Entrepreneurship drives the country, it’s needed. Competition is good economic growth. It’s supposed to inspire you to be more creative, different incentives, strategies…it’s really about your desire and how bad you want to be in this. It’s good. It shows that if you put your mind to it, you can do it…there’s enough for everyone, as soon as greed sets in, that’s when the problem comes. I think that’s the biggest problem right now – just the fact everyone having respect for each other (business, personal, whatever). Sometimes it seems like we’re back to the bartering system, people charge a million dollars for something that’s not worth a million.

Do you think there’s anything wrong with rap? Are people needlessly tripping over spilled milk?

I don’t want to ever condemn other people or rap itself ‘cause being a rapper has been good to me. So the only thing I can say, rap is like water…it’s good for you, you can drink it. If you abuse it…it can drown you. It’s whatever you make out of it. It’s a medium, I don’t wanna ever put it as the root cause of things. It’s a tool. Rap is a beautiful thing.

Give us some background on Day By Day Entertainment, how did it start?

It’s me and 5 or 6 artists, soon it’ll be 8 people. The style of music is not one genre, it’s all styles of music. Not to pull away from rap, but it’s all genres of music that are focused on…because we all different types of people.

I realized that there were other people going through what I was going through. Unfortunately, I was shot and I was paralysed…I had deals on the table for like half a million dollars and stuff like that. When I got shot, nobody wanted to take the risk and sign me anymore because they didn’t know how to market someone in a wheelchair. This was 1994, before everyone was getting shot and things of that nature. I guess it wasn’t in style. All these years later, artists like 50 cent, Fabulous…they went through something that put them in a different light. To me, it’s ain’t cool getting shot – but whatever… it was a different time then.

After your injury, how long did it take for you to get back into rapping?

To be honest man…from the moment I got shot, when I fell…that’s the reason why I wrote Bloody Love Letter/Scarlet Memories I wrote that while I was laying there in my head. All those songs were from the time of me getting shot, laying in the snow, in the ambulance, waking up from my coma, surgeries…the only thing that made me want to stop being an emcee was when I was incarcerated. I just didn’t want to do it. I had a little drum machine, so I made beats…I just didn’t want to do it while I was incarcerated. When I was injured, I never stopped. When I got my hearing back, I started writing right away.

With such a major physical injury, did you notice whether it influenced your style or delivery?

Yes. Getting shot totally altered my way of emceeing. It was supposed to stop it to be honest…I got shot in the neck twice, two collapsed lungs, I had a bullet in my stomach – think about it, those are the 3 tools you need to be an emcee (to a degree). I couldn’t talk, I had to rebuild my lungs, my stomach and my throat. To top it off – sitting. I’m sure certain emcees understand that sitting and emceeing is much harder than standing up and emceeing ‘cause your lungs aren’t fully expanded, your diaphragm, stomach…gravity pulling. It’s more difficult to sit down and rhyme. It’s kind of like being a boxer; you break your hand, hurt your shoulder…you still have love for boxing, you got to make the adjustments appropriately and continue. I developed styles from it, although my cadence is always kind of the same, my tone is the same – there’s little undertones, every song sounds different from each other. It’s the way I attack the beat or merge with the beat – I never submit to a beat.

How long after your injury did it take you to recover enough to do a show?

I’d say months…maybe 6 months. But I haven’t. I haven’t [really] done a show in like 16 years…I’ve just been chillin’. I’m thinking about doing shows, maybe…

Do you feel accountable in trying to portray rap in a more positive light?

I feel obligated yes, to an extent. I’ve shown a lot of negativity toward it…so if I don’t show any positivity, then I’ve learned absolutely nothing in all my years on this planet. I feel obligated, I’m not putting that obligation on others…there’s young children that listen to older stuff – yeah, you know most of that stuff, I felt it ‘cause I only speak from my heart. I’m not above anyone, I make mistakes too and I learn from my mistakes – that’s the beauty of life. There are two sides to a coin, it’s good to show both sides if you’re able to. There’s a lot of children in prison for the rest of their life ‘cause they’re trying to live up to an image and now they don’t even have a second chance, ‘cause there was no one – as far as I’m concerned – who made mistakes, who was willing to come forward, be humble [and say]: ‘Look, I messed up. I wasn’t right, I was wrong.’ A lot of people are afraid to be humiliated or embarrassed…or to have to admit that there are other perspectives you have to take into account. Hopefully, I can rhyme ‘til I’m 60 – if I live that long.

In the last interview, we asked you “If you could collaborate with any artist, alive or dead, from any genre, who would it be?” – you said Ghostface. Has that changed?

I think I’ll go with Madlib, I like what he did with Doom. There’s so many, I feel bad saying one name…

Last words/shouts

I would like people to please check out Day By Day and D.B.D. artists. I really feel strong about the artists that I represent and they represent me and I want to make sure and make clear…that this is a partnership. Every artist that I’m working with is an entrepreneur. They own 100% of their product. I think that’s what separates us from everyone else.

You Only Live Twice as well as the MF Grimm back catalog is available through daybydayent.com, Sentences is published by Vertigo comics.

[MP3: View post to listen]
[MP3: View post to listen]

You’ve been living in Los Angeles since back in 2004, what prompted you to leave Chicago?

I was in college at the time. I had done the first year of a graduate program that I didn’t want to be in and I had been in my college town so long that I was living like a corrupt deputy mayor. I could do just about whatever I wanted anytime. And the way that path went, everybody came from Chicago and went back to Chicago after they left that town. I would have ended up running with the same people and living an extended version of my undergrad life in the city. I had a crazy moment of clarity between vanilla Black & Milds and shots of E & J. It felt like a corny part of a coming of age film, but I felt like I needed to hit reset. So I bought a used car with a school loan and drove to California.

What do you miss the most about Chicago?

I miss my network of close friends the most. I traded my support system for these new adventures and I feel their absence in a real way a lot of the time. That’s where songs like “Freak Flag” come from on my album. They’re love songs to people that I used to know.

“The Blowed is like the UCB or the Groundlings of rap. You go there as a student and you hone your skill.”

These days your well situated with Project Blowed and your own crews; what was it like first trying to make your way into the L.A. hip hop scene?

That was the easy part. I think that people think its hard to get familiar with the Blowed or get into the L.A. scene. I think you just have to know how to rap. The Blowed is like the UCB or the Groundlings of rap. You go there as a student and you hone your skill. For me it was like rap graduate school. I feel tempted to make a Fellowship/Fellowship joke, but higher-ed jokes aren’t funny in real life.

How does that compare to coming up in Chicago’s rap scene.

That’s just the thing…in Chicago you come up but you never really come out.

You’ve still been keeping your Chicago ties, with Serengeti guesting on your new album and working with Rift Napalm not too long ago. Have you been able to convince any of your Chicago people to join you out west?

Between Rift, Geti, Pugz and Psalm One almost everybody I still work with from the Chi has spent some time on the West coast at one point or another. Pretty soon folks are gonna start having dual residencies. Sometime I wish I had maintained my Chicago rap citizenship a little better.

How did you hook up with Mush Records?

Busdriver got me a meeting with the folks over there and fortunately they felt like they could get behind the music that I played for them. They also signed Dumbfoundead, Psychosiz, and I to do a second Thirsty Fish project thats being mixed down as we speak.

Tell me about Swim Team; is it a crew, label or what?

The Swim Team is an army…better yet a hetero navy. ugh…that was tasteless. The Swim Team is a crew consisting of myself, Sahtyre, Psychosiz, Dumbfoundead, Alpha MC, VerBS, Rogue-Venom, Lyraflip, DozTres, and DJ Zo. When we have a little pocket money…we’re a label. We released Saht’s debut last year and Lyraflip & Real Reid’s EP. We fundamentally represent everyone who was killing shit during a certain era of the Project Blowed open mic. We banded together to swim against other international rap colleges.

Your album Unapologetic Art Rap comes across nicely polished, how long have you been working on this release?

Thanks for that, man. I’m not sure if that’s because I worked on it for a long time…which I did…but I don’t think that’s the reason it sounds like it does. I’m glad you think its polished…but the impression that I get is it that it sounds like its the work of a guy who’s heard a whole lot of rap music in his life. I really try to make music from a place that respects all of the rap history that I’m familiar with. I try to avoid some of the mistakes that my predecessors have made…while there are other mistakes I’m trying my damnedest to repeat. To answer your question, though…it was nearly two years from start to finish.

It’s definitely one of the most well thought out debuts I’ve heard in years. The beats are also really well chosen and consistent, who produced the album?

Thanks sir. The foundation of the album is a set of beats made by Kuest1, Maestroe, and Alwayz Prolific from the production group E. Super. These are the guys that have been working on all of the Swim Team from the very beginning. I also have two joints from Adamatic who I’ve been working with for a while now. Then there’s a track each by Silencio and Exile. The latter did the first single “I Rock”. I made “Pissy Transmissions”…the acoustical emo singy thing.

“…I honestly feel like there are a bunch of really good rappers that are speaking to our real life experience as adults without insulting people’s intelligence.”

On “I Rock” you speak on not being able to make a living rapping. When did you first come to the realization?

*laughs* I think the underground rap economy died in what? 2005? I mean there’s money to be made…but if one’s not prepared to make a product that appeals to a wide swath of people…they shouldn’t expect to…well…that’s not necessarily true…if one builds a market…or attracts a loyal following…they can sustain themselves from art…I’ve got a long way to go, though man. This is art rap for chrissakes. I know the population that I would like to attract, but many of those folks stopped buying rap music a long, long time ago.

Do these target folks still attend shows? Who’s in the crowd at a typical Open Mike Eagle show?

That’s a helluva question there, Dave… I just wrote a song addressing that…in fact its the undercurrent of my next record. My fans…and by fans I mean the people that reach out to me after hearing the music…tend to be folks that stay at home on a Friday or Saturday night…or they go catch a dj somewhere spinning something interesting. They don’t really like rap shows. They may have come to a couple of mine but the venues, the patrons and many of the other acts make it a less than desirable experience for them. My folks tend to be working adults. They’re not into five dudes on stage hollering ‘get your hands up!’

You just described me and a lot of fellow 30-ish year-old music fans. Your song “Art Rap Party” is basically a funny fictionalized version, but do you think rap shows for grown-ups is an actual avenue worth exploring further?

I really think its a necessary reality…the difficult part is having the means to communicate to the rest of us that this kind of thing is out there. “Art Rap Party” is indeed an exaggerated version of it…but I’ve done a few shows and been to a few parties that were the inspiration. I did a little youtube thing about it.

I think its about finding a way to communicate with folks that have given up on this shit. The folks that are sittin’ at home watching VH1 Soul or the folks trying to find a soundtrack to their lives on the indie rock scene. I love rock music, as you can tell from the album. But hip-hop is our generation’s music. We’re the ones that blew it up to where it is right now and I honestly feel like there are a bunch of really good rappers that are speaking to our real life experience as adults without insulting people’s intelligence.

I saw MC Paul Barman mention that he’s going to be working with you, can you tell us more?

I’ve been a huge fan of Paul since his interlude on Deltron. I had that on a tape and I’d rewnd that interlude over and over again. I’d never heard anybody rap like that. I’ve reached out to him via the interwebs and shared some of my stuff with him and luckily he was into it. Now we’ve got some stuff in the works which is like a rap dream to me. I’ve been fortunate in that sense. I’ve been able to work with many of my rap heroes. Busdriver, Serengeti, and Paul are three of them.

Keeping with rap heroes, do feel more honored or annoyed when people inevitably compare you to the original Project Blowedians?

I feel mostly honored and not really annoyed at all. Its only right that the comparisons are there. I really and truly regard the Blowed as my rap finishing school. I went there to learn and the influence is undeniable.

You just wrapped up a big West coast tour with Nocando, Dumbfoundead and Intuition; any other tours coming up in support of the new album?

This July I have a tour coming up with Moka Only and Ceschi Ramos of Fake Four Records which should be a lot of fun. I have a goal set to tour with a certain somebody by the fall. Its still completely imaginary at the moment, I’m using dream magic and persistent phone calls to will it into being.

What is the most ridiculous thing that’s happened on tour so far?

Somewhere…betwixt the audacious metropolis of Seattle proper, and the rolling flats of Olympia…lies the Miraculous Rap forest. That was the most ridiculous thing that happened and also the most miraculous.

I loved your video for “I Rock,” are there any other videos from Unapologetic Art Rap in the works?

There’s at least three more videos planned. How about you tell me which three you think it should be, then we compare notes…

“Freak Flag”, “Unapologetic”, and “Easter Surgery” would be my pics… or “Art Rap Party” would make for a dope video too! So where is the best place for you, pocket-wise, to get people to purchase the new album?

“Art Rap Party” and “Freak Flag” are definitely on the list…2 out of 4 ain’t bad…in terms of purchase locations, the only places that benefit me pocket-wise are Fatbeats L.A. and Amoeba Music in L.A….I consider it an honor if anyone wants to purchase it anyhow. Between you and me, I hear Amazon digital has the whole album for $6.99.

What are the best and worst things about living in L.A.?

The best thing about being in L.A. is the weather. Cliched but true. The best thing musically is that there’s a greater population of artists that have serious careers, prolly due to the proximity to Hollywood. Entertainment capital of the world and all that. That’s kinda what sucks about it too. There’s a lot of fronting. A lot of people blowing smoke up your ass…selling you shit they don’t have.

Any last thoughts, transmissions or shout-outs?

I keep my transmissions pissy so you may want to avoid those… as far as shout outs go, these are the things I want everyone to check for:

Swim Team, Project Blowed, HellFyre Club, The Almighty PDX, the homies Machina Muerte, Oh Boy Films, Knocksteady, the Low End Theory fam, J.U.I.C.E., Philaflava, Galapagos4, Awkward, E. Super and my hometeam Bloody Beta Eta… and please subscribe to my youtube channel.

One more thing. An extra large waterhead shout out to ugsmag for not being snobby rap pricks and posting shit cause its dope, not because of insignificant indie rap politics.

myspace.com/openmikeeagle
youtube.com/user/mike1906
twitter.com/mike_eagle
mushrecords.com

Introduce yourself, where you’re from and what you do.

My name is Rajen and I’ve been living in Jamaica Plain for the past two years by way of Reno, Nevada.  I am a teacher in the Boston Public Schools and builder of audio and visual things.

A lot of people know of you and your releases under the name rajbot, but more recently you’ve been using the name FRKSE. Why the change?

The original idea behind rajbot was to create a vessel in which to transport drop freestyles and various improvised mayhem both live and in the studio. “It” changed and became too much: I think the idea of what I wanted to do as rajbot became too mired in wanting to do everything all at once; from writing meaningful verses, kick them with flavor and rocking the production, it all became gregarious and super impersonal and contrived for me.  In addition to being more fun to create logos and visual elements for, FRKSE represents a stripped-down, harsher, more focused and generally more grim sonic and aesthetic approach than rajbot.

Does FRKSE still rap or did you leave the emceeing behind with rajbot?

I’m not totally sure, yet.  I do have some things written…

Tell me about Divergent Series, the new record label you started. Is it only for you’re own personal projects or will you have other artists on there?

The premise for Divergent Series is to release non-cd things in low, hella occult print runs.  In addition to my stuff, I’ll be undertaking a few other outside projects.  I helped fund a 7" with a few other labels from British grindcore freaks The Afternoon Gentlemen and I’m set to release a Nevada themed visual-art oriented 7" from my friend Omar Pierce.  I’ll also be doing some silk-screened visual art projects and there’s also two cassette-tape releases. 

FRKSE – Remove LP

I’ve always loved that your releases have included unique hand-crafted artwork, from sewing together you own disc sleeves to printing individual covers and inserts. Do you think there will be a resurgence of indie artists taking it back to their DIY roots in regard to limited editions and such? 

Thank you!   I think consequently as a result of being exposed indirectly to punk, noise, indie rock, etc., purveyors of underground hip-hop releases have gotten very creative with DIY releases given limited budgets.  Maybe it’s necessity.  While more labor intensive, processes like silk-screening, stamping, stitched cloth vinyl bags making, die cut cover chopping, etc. side step the otherwise more cost-prohibitive processes involved in releasing something you love.  Arguably, the 7" format is a barometer for the market response to rising production costs and less lunch money, so I think people have to get more creative and more involved in the visual aspects of the release…and I can’t remember when the last time I paid less than $4.00 for a 7" release in a store.

It definitely sounds like there’s a strong non-rap influence to your music, what sort of stuff do you listen to when your’e not playing rap records?

Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Qawwali and dancehall.  There’s some really interesting similarities between them that keep me reaching for them.

Give us a breakdown of the new projects you’ve been working and when we can except to see them to be released.

Two FRKSE 7"s are basically finished and just need to be committed to vinyl.  One of them is themed around farmer suicides in India as a function/failure of big business and western-appeasing government.  The other one is about India-Nazi connections (do a search on the phrase “Hitler’s Priestess” for a start).  I’m almost done with the second FRKSE LP called Horseless which is a narrative: the word of God is issued to all of mankind and one human being is not able to experience/receive it.  I’m also rocking a few beats and remixes for some folks.  And there’s a few other non-FRKSE projects being kicked around.  But the only thing that I can say for certain will be done by a sort of definite date, the end of April of 2010 to be sort of exact, is a digital only release called “Rosewater” which is full of various odds and ends and a few dope guest spots. 

Download: FRKSE – Rosewater

I remember you once mentioning an Anti-Bollywood themed project, is that still in the works? Why the Bollywood hate?

In South Asia, it’s very polarized along the lines of metal vs. Bollywood (Indian film industry).  Generally, no self-respecting Indian head-banger would ever admit to liking a movie like Dil Chahta Hai (translated: The Heart Desires).  Bollywood in alot of ways is the ultimate simulacrum, or the best representation of a South Asian reality without the qualities or substance of reality (read: doused in quixotic resolution).  Metal is also completely ridiculous for its own sake incorporating fantasy and other stuff that’s flagrantly preposterous, but it’s unpredictable and unsafe and a more individualistic form of expression.  So they say.  And yeah I’m working on a project related to this.  It will most likely be a boom bap mix tape styled project slightly similar to Bombay the Hard Way, but with some twists (like Iron Maiden samples)…I want it to play out like the metal vs. Bollywood battle that I internalize in my head…and I’m not sure which will come out on top because culturally speaking I’m conflicted.  I own some dope old school Bollywood soundtracks (thanks, dad!) and I love killer riffs (thanks, Steve Harris!). 

I know you play a mean MPC, what sorts of music making gadgets is your studio full of these days?

FRKSE is at its heart a break-oriented project which is why I like the MPC-60-it’s 12 bit capabilities and 16 pads do something magical to drum breaks.  But because it’s stripped down and boasts no onboard effects processing, I bought a couple smaller samplers for processing: the SST ZOOM and an SP 303 more recently.  I have a micromoog and a couple bass guitars which form alot of the heavy-end doom-glue for FRKSE compositions.  I bought another MPC 60 and a Yamaha SU-10 for live peformances in addition to two AMPEG bass amplifiers to ensure maximum infernal stereo thudding.  The bookend to all this mayhem are the handful of pedals I’ve been collecting.  But, must have more fuzz.

Speaking of live performances, any shows or tours coming up that we should know about?

A tour is in the works but I don’t want to jinx it by announcing dates just yet  The only thing that is for certain is a show at the 119gallery in Lowell, MA on June 5th with psychedelic knob twiddlers Barn Owl.  Shows, music, and other info can be obtained at divergentseries.info. 

What are the best things about living in Boston? What do you miss most about Reno?

It’s challenging at first, but I think for anyone interested in cultivating their self-culture, Boston’s a great place to live.  Education, good food, record stores, good music, history…it’s a great work environment.  Lots of solid people, too.  In contrast, Reno’s interesting…I miss the sense of danger in Reno…it’s very wild west,,, the endless desert, gunslinging, backstabbers, divine nemeses, anti-intellectualism, casinos, the Truckee River, defeatism, unholy winters…  I also miss my friends and family still in the 775 Babylon Leagues.

Is having to make you way into a new city’s music scene more motivating or intimidating?

While I like a good challenge, it is intimidating..thankfully folks in both the underground hip-hop scene, noise scene and punk/hardcore scene here in New England have been hella supportive.  It feels good.

Shout-outs?

For making this interview possible, thanks to Noyz, Good Friends Crew, 617 Black Lung, Recyclone, Joe Berzerker Boulanger, Wugga Architects Worldwide, west coast powerviolence, and all the desi necromancers from Fremont to Mumbai locked down in the belly of the tandoor. And extra special props to Deeskee for helping with the post-production.

divergentseries.info
myspace.com/oldforks

Take our readers into the world of Cityreal. What motivates you to do this rap stuff?

I kinda got into it through a love of music and went from there. I got into it organically making beats for the fun of it, rapping and free-styling with my buddies, then I gradually started to take it more seriously.

Why the name Cityreal?

As a kid people used to call me “Real” all the time, which I wasn’t crazy about. Then I was helping a buddy make a documentary style movie for one of his classes and we were looking through reels of footage and one of them said “City reel”. It was a reel of stock city footage and I kinda liked the sound of that and I took it from there. It was meant to signify just that. Images of the city. Then I changed the name from “Reel” to “Real” to signify those images and reality to the city as well.

How long have you been in the game?

I started doing it officially since about 2004/2005 while I was in University in Winnipeg. I’ve been rapping since I was a kid just messing around in high school. I didn’t start taking it seriously until I was in Winnipeg and was making beats for a bunch of Winnipeg artists. I got into the scene that way, then I got on the mic and got really good feedback and took it from there.

Does the fact you studied Political Science influence your music?

Yeah it did when I first started rapping. I was a lot more political but I started thinking that sometimes that political stuff can come off a little preachy, so I kinda eased off that and try to put it in slightly as a nuance in my music but not the main effect. I try to reflect on life itself. But yeah, it has a large influence on me as a person but I shy away from being too political in my music.

Would you say that playing the drums growing up got you into producing?

Yeah Yeah. I was in whatever my high-school band was. I had a good understanding of that. I played a little piano and keyboard on the side. Having that base knowledge definitely made it a lot easier for me to pick it up.

With the advent of new technology I find that a lot of producers aren’t legitimately based in music now. I think it’s good that you have that foundation.

Yeah for sure man. There are lots of dudes out there that just mess with the MPC, find a good sample and put some ok drums behind it and maybe a bass and that’s it.

For sure. Your beats have a layered quality and a certain level of depth to them.

Thanks man. I like to throw lots of instrumentation in there, but not synthesized stuff. I try to stay away from what’s poppin these days. You know the Electronica, House influenced beats. I try to take it back to a more organic, classic hip hop sound but add more instruments like piano and guitar along with the samples.

Did you play any of the instruments on the beats?

Yeah most of them actually. I played basically everything except for some for the guitars and bass you hear in there. I’m not crazy good at guitars. I had a couple of buddys help out. I had my buddy Daniel Pangman who plays in a bunch of bands around here to do guitar on 2 or 3 tracks. Then I had my buddy Justin Brown who’s a fucking sick bass player in Vancouver who charges people lots of money to do bass on their shit but did it for me for free cause I knew him from way back in high school. He must have done bass for like half the tracks on the album. Then there’re the collaborations I have with Wes Mackey. He’s an old school blues guy and a really good blues guitar soloist. On the 2 tracks he did he plays the guitar solos that go with the tracks. But other then that. I did everything else that’s piano or keyboard oriented.

Is “Liar” based on a real experience?

Yeah. Liar is my retaliation. It’s me being fed up with a lot of elements in main-stream hip hop. Both on my experiences coming up in the game, talking to dudes talking lots of bullshit about being hard or about the shiny aspects of the game. Then coming up and realizing that it’s really a lot grittier and harder to make it then that. Just being fed up with the whole chain, diamonds, grills aspect that used to be prominent but I guess is kinda fading away now. It was my rant about that I guess.

You and A-Hustle have great chemistry. You put out a mix-tape recently that was supposed to be an album but due to a mishap you lost a lot of the material and had to scale the project back. Do you guys have any joint projects planned for the near future?

Yeah but A-Hustle’s kinda AWOL man. He ran into some legal issues and I don’t wanna get to deep into that, but he’s kinda laying low right now. We keep in touch but I haven’t talked to him in a while. What happened with that mixtape is that… We were recording at this studio in Winnipeg and the owner packed up overnight and took off with a lot of our shit. In the process of trying to get our shit back Hustle got into some legal troubles. So I took whatever we had from those sessions and turned it into a mixtape.

How did you hook up with Sweatshop Union?

I originally hooked up with Kyprios through some people I knew and took it from there. We did a track on my album then I asked them if I could open for them. There are lots of people from Van City trying to open for them but they gave me a shot. I met all of them and they’re all good guys. Then built a relationship from there through the different connections I had.

What else should the people out there know about you?

That’s a good question. I’d like the music to speak for itself. I’m quite politically motivated if you talk to me but I don’t put a lot of it in my music. I like to stay with that soulful sound. Keep it more organic and for lack of better word, more “real”. Not as much bullshit in the music. I reflect on my life and my life experiences without making up a bunch of shit or act real hard.

Any shout outs?

Moka Only, The whole Sweatshop Union family, A-Hustle, Shannon O’Neil; basically anyone that helped me with the album.

cityrealmusic.com

I hear 2010 has been a real big year for you so far, after some much needed dental work and a license to drive. How does the new independence feel?

haha.. I don’t know about dental work.. some jerkoff started that rumor and the label thought it was funny for my bio so we kept it for giggles. My teeth are fine.. its not like i have wooden teeth. I’ve survived worse. Right? Anyhow, 2010 has just started so I’m gonna cross my finger and hope for the best. Its really like a wet balloon if ya think about it. Could slip or pop, either. I know it’ll be good. Got the fat record deal with Fake Three records. Checky is a cool label boss. Factor is the man.  

There is much confusion when it comes to you and Moka Only. Can you set the record straight for the listeners what the deal is?

What’s the confusion? I don’t see how people compare us other than we are first cousins. Stylewise I’m doing stuff he would never do. That’s no diss but c’mon, lets face facts. I’m older so I know more than him… nah… haha joking.  

How annoying is it for you to have people continually confusing you with your cousin Moka Only?

Wasn’t this what you were kind of getting at with your last question? Yeah, holy turtle, you bet its annoying but amusing too.  I mean, we  DO look similar and there was that initial confusion when Moke broke me into the game in 99.  He thought it would be smart to bill my first album as  Moka Only Is Ron Contour… But NOW look.. a thousand doofus’s are putting things on the internets like “Moka Only AKA Rontour”… bunch of apple morons, you know? Who are they? Electric scientists? Is these tha people that are going to run my countries in the future? Hope not. hawhaw!

You disappeared shortly after your 1999 release. The word on the street is you left the rap game to pursue some honey dips and bee keeping?
 
Yeah, basically the first deal soured and Moka was pretty busy with his music so I took time off to learn how to make my beats better and yeah, i was living in a small ranch house in Kelowna for a min and i had taken over the last tenant’s bee hive, if ya can believe that. Crazy, huh. I went to a workshop then and learned about how to care for the beez and cleaning the hive and extracting the honey. It was fascinating. I did get stung once or twice or three times over a couple years and I think I may have developed a partial allergy. I went to the doctor about it but he told me it wasn’t a allergy so who knows. Needful to say I gave up beekeeping. It bugged me being away from music so long. I have my stories to tell so…   
 

Is there any truth to the rumours that Moka Only discovered you freestyling at a family reunion?
 
hehe.. kind of.. I mean, he always knew that I was the  rap guy that was into doing some raps  but I don’t think he really knew how skilled I was until 95 at a fam reunion and a couple of us were  freestyling. I knew that Moka was already doing some stuff and had been living in California and meeting people but. I NEVER sweated Moke for hookups… it happened naturally, as it often does for family, ya know? Pass the torch, pardon the pun. From there on we stayed in close contact and he got me into rap things and those type of situations with rap.  
 

Do you think distancing yourself from Moka Only on this release and working with Factor will be enough to break free from his shadow?
 
Honestly, let me  address that… I’m gonna address it like this.. I think Moka’s pride gets in the way sometimes and he bites off more work than he can handle and gets himself into situations where he is trying to balance like 20 projects at one time. He had always done the bulk of my beats but around summer 2008 he didn’t have time to work on a new project for me so i hollered at Factor and we started Saffron. Factor is dope so i knew it would turn out swell. We crafted the album slowly though… over a year, actually. Summer of 2009 i started working with Moke again for the album The Beach and it was dope. Moke hit me with a bunch of beats for another project that i finished in last November called Rontario but I’m waitin’ on releasing that one.  For now I’m going full steamy ahead with this Saffron. Its a safe bet and it will unfold like a napkin. Totally.   
 

Saffron is your third release and you teamed up with Factor and Fake Four. How did that connection come about and what was it like working with Factor?

Oh i just knew Factor through Moke cus they had done occasional work together since 2001. Simple shit.  Factor is easy to work with… creates the beats, we sit with them and then he kinda zones out and doesn’t talk… at all… for a long time.. So I just do raps at him and we put it all together. Then we usually eat some food or whatever. Typical type rap stuff, ya know? I try to come flexi with tha verbals.  Verbals for gerbils, i always say. 
 

How would you describe Saffron?
 
Let me break that down.. the Saffron sound… well the title has Ron in it.. and saf.  Factor’s other nickname is saf and its short for moneysacks, in a roundabout way plus where he is from in the Canadian prairies its all yellow with Saffron so there’s a dual meaning. Its like two meanings… in one! The sound is like raw veggies. its something that isn’t in rap and is a step away from my usual shit with Moke. Although the stuff i do with Moke is magic too. Three.  Ummm… Factor and me used a lot of folk music type vibes on this album. To bring out a special mood. A new mood that feels like the flatlands. We tried some uptempo stuff too. Even Def Three is on the album! I dig it.. its mellow and nice and hyper. The both.  Both of the vibes. Mellow yet it can be hyper. you know?  
 


You just released the first single “Glad” accompanied by a video directed by Stuey Kubrick. Is the Sasquatch in the video a friend of yours? Why did you make him wear a paper bag on his head for the video?
 
You didn’t get the underlying theme of the hairy sasquatch in the vid? Remember my song “Hairy Gumdrops” from 1999? Well go back and check it… there’s messages. And also in the vid i think its apparent that the squatch is trying to fit in with civilization and does not want to be  spotted, other wise it’d be like the movie E.T.  and guys would come and take him away… so he  was just hiding, but we had to turn him loose cus its the right thing to do. That’s what we were  trying to get across. You can’t always get the cookie AND the cake. That’s the message.


What does the future hold for Ron Contour?
 
The  future of Ron… well… more raps. I’m kinda like Moke, in that sense… I just care to do music and build on that. Me and him are the only ones of our immediate families that do music so we gotta represent. I mean, it wouldn’t be very cool if we quit and did normal jobs, now  would it? Nope. I’m happy doing some raps and beats.  
 


Any last words, shout outs, stories etc?
 
I gotta shout out the monkey kings, my homie flan-dog, din din and my homeboy mic-grabba and pinchy and betty the sweater. As for stories, yo.. I  ate this  weird muffin two days ago and it gave my the shits something terrible. I went to the movies with my homeboy’s girlfriend cus they were  fighting and anyhow, we were halfway through the movie and i kept have some farts come out of my bottom and it was getting worse by the min, and pain too. I didn’t think much of it cus we were eating that stinky movie popcorn so you couldn’t REALLY tell what was a fart or what was just food.. and then  BOOOM.. my guts were twisting and i had to bounce to the toilet. I sat down and just spray painted that toilet… let me tell you! When I was  done and wiping up, I heard someone come in the mens room and say somethin’ like “boy, it stinks in here”… so i said somethin’ like” what the eff do you expect? its a frigging TOILET ROOM ” or whatever and that shut him up.. I mean, its crazy that people make comments like that when they KNOW damn well where there are. I mean, how is it supposed to smell in there? Like some nice candy or a bunch of the flowers or something?  Anyhow, I went back into the theater but the girl I was with bounced… She left her soda and the rest of the popcorn so i gladly finished that off and then I went home and watched the late news on tv or whatever.  SO… yeah… that’s a little story. Some REAL rapper life shit! Stuff that most cats won’t talk about but its real.  I’ve always been the type of nigga to keep it accurate as far as what really goes on so thank me later… or now.  Thanks for the interview, doggie.  Go pick up that Saffron. It will shit your pants!

fakefourinc.com
myspace.com/mokaonly
myspace.com/factorg
Twitter: @ron_contour, @factormusic, @fakefour

[MP3: View post to listen]
[MP3: View post to listen]

How intense was it moving to New York and having to struggle so much in the early days?

It was very dramatic… haha. I originally moved to NY on the pretense of going to school out there, but in retrospect that was never really the plan. I’d given up on school somewhere around 7th grade. So when I started performing at the Nuyorican and was met with some immediate success, that was all the validation I needed. I let my family know that I was quitting school, which touched off a crazy shit storm. There was a long period where most of them refused to speak to me, or would call and threaten me and shit.

So the decision to pursue my career as a performer basically deaded all family relationships at that point, and I’d made the decision to drop out of school and had no place to live. I was basically living on friend’s couches that winter, crashing with girls and sleeping in subway stations and sometimes on trains. So, it was a long winter until I finally scored a job as a doorman on Park Avenue.

That job allowed me to buy my first drum machine and laptop, which I kept at a friends house, and then after I had those things I found an apartment. I was young and I felt invincible and like my feet were finally on the path though. It was hard but it didn’t phase me too much.

Is it easier today than it was in those early stages of your career?

Not really. It’s just hard in different ways. Some things have gotten easier. Parts of the process I’ve gained a very good mastery of in the past decade. But other hard things have come along to fill in the gaps. Hard work rewarded with harder work. It’s always taken a sick amount of effort and an unhealthy amount of ambition and focus… and maybe when it stops being hard you should quit. It’s easier to heat my apartment now. Harder finding time to stay there and enjoy it.

Do you find it kind of ironic that you dropped out of school when so much of what you do is informing and educating people?

Yeah. It certainly seems ironic when I’m asked to perform or lecture at Universities, and in general the educating role that I end up taking on a lot of the time. I’ve always loved the process of education though… the actual relationship between a good teacher and a good student, and the process of people learning from each other. I’m into that. In some ways I function like a career student, and I credit that with getting me to where I am today. I’ve really never stopped learning, or being hungry to learn, or been satisfied with a certain base of knowledge or ‘expertise’. I’m constantly seeking out new shit that I don’t know about, and trying to absorb and understand it… so, I appreciate learning. However, I became really disenchanted with educational institutions from a young age. I was always a kid that was aware of death, due to some things that happened when I was young. I always knew about the concept of death and that I would die… which obviously made me a very weird kid. Haha. But I can remember being in 3rd or 4th grade and thinking “why am I doing good in this school? So I can get into a better school. Why do good there? So I can get into a good college. Why? Get a good job? Why? Work until I die.” something about the whole industrialized learning process that they put you through in school… I saw through that shit at a young age and stopped trusting it. Then later I learned that it’s true that the department of labor is actually responsible for setting the standards for the department of education. So the purpose of school isn’t to help you actualize yourself as a human being, in this country. Their purpose is just to produce the desired traits in the next generation of workers. And I guess I instinctually resisted that shit. So, that’s where that kind of seeming contradiction comes from probably. Love learning, hate schools.

You faced a lot of doubters and, as you mentioned, hurt your relationship with your family because of your pursuit of a career in music. How did it feel to quiet your doubters?

Well, the shit with my family is complex. My grandmother and grandfather both immigrated to America with next to nothing, went to work in sweatshops and factories, and established a better life for their kids. My father still works in the same warehouse he worked in my whole life, and my mother was a secretary at a law firm. So, basically I come from a working class family with immigrant values; and my job in the order of things was to do good in school and become a doctor or a lawyer or something. And continue the climb up the social ladder. haha. Until my children’s children presumably become the first Guinea president. So, when I announced that I was gonna drop out of school, pursue my dream of being a rapper, and probably continue to shovel shit alongside my father in the same warehouse while trying to do so… I was throwing a big wrench in the works. So, 10 years later they recognize my tenacity even if they don’t understand what the hell I do. And they see me traveling and making money and shit… So there’s a kind of grudging respect. And on my end I had to make a decision years later to just accept them for who they are and be at peace. When you consider neglect and abuse that goes on, family can do worse shit than doubt you. I can get over people doubting me.

The production Alias does on this album really does a good job of setting the mood. How was it working with him throughout this process.

Alias is the shit man. I don’t know if there’s a more talented, unsung producer doing it right now. He also happens to be one of the nicest dudes I’ve ever met, and I consider him a real friend. We developed a kind of trusting friendship relationship early on, and fairly quickly, after doing some shows on Sage’s ‘Death Dance’ tour together… Which allowed us to be really up front with each other through the whole process… There was no awkward or uncertain period really. We were both confident that we were fans of the same kind of shit in hip-hop, and that we both understood what kind of album we wanted to make. So from there it was just a process of passing the demos back and forth and working out the songs.

By the way. That shit with the band on “Border Crossing” is so fucking ill!

Yeah, “Border Crossing” was a special kind of track man. Pulling all of that together was a really incredible and rewarding job. All together that song took about 6 months to complete, from the time I started conceptualizing it and made the demo, to tracking down the What Cheer? Brigade, to working with them on an arrangement and having Alias come down to Providence and record them, make the track, finalize the vocals and writing, etc. There was really a period of despair with that song. Where I felt like ‘Fuck man. There is no WAY this song can survive being worked on for this long. This has to suck.’ but miraculously, it doesn’t suck. That song is a total anomaly in the course of my career. Haha… usually if you think you stink…

You and Sage Francis have great creative chemistry. Any chance we’ll be seeing a B. Dolan, Sage Francis collaboration album?

It’s certainly been discussed, though mostly in jest. There’s no strong concept of how to approach a project like that. I would say the chances are fairly high that it’ll happen at some point though. We did a run of shows with El-p earlier this year and he kept referring to us as “The Bushwackaz,” after that old WWF group. The two bald brothers who used to lick each other’s heads. So maybe that’ll be the group name. Plus it has the political double meaning. We can call the lp ‘Fuck Bush.’ We’ll be right on time with that.

Your piece, “5 Ways to Bleed Your Customer” for urb.com is on some real shit and you’ve got a song called, “50 Ways to Bleed Your Customer” on the album that touches on the same issues. You mentioned how important it is that you educate yourself. How important is informing your listeners of the atrocities we commit against each other and our environment?

Well, for me I feel it’s important to actually do something in terms of social justice work, instead of just rapping about it. Which is why I created the Knowmore.org website along with Sage in 2005. We try to offer that resource to people who hear the political content in our music and are fired up and want to make some positive change in their lives and the lives of others. I never know, really, what impact my music is having on people in that sense. My only frame of reference is personal experience, and I know that I started thinking about politics at a young age, probably due mostly to Chuck D, KRS, and later bands like Rage Against the Machine… I remember they had an album insert that was just a picture of a pile of books and I started hunting down those books… But, that just sparked a kind of awareness.

Only after living in NY on September 11th did I actually get active and start doing real work on issues, because the immediacy of these ideas came home to me, and I saw my city become a warzone overnight. So… you know… I don’t know what it takes to turn a comfortable, middle class college student into a soldier for change. Or if rap songs will ever or could have ever had the power to organize working class and poor people single-handedly. If Chuck D, and Bob Dylan, and John Lennon’s music didn’t spark a revolution, I’d have to be feeling myself pretty hard to think that mine had some quality theirs didn’t. So, when it comes to political art I just try to make things that are honest, and that I have genuine feelings about… I try to communicate it all in ways that are radical and challenging, without sounding preachy or like I know better than anyone else. It is what it is. Then I go try to balance that with some action in the real world, and some hours of work.

I’ve lead whole workshops on this topic man. Haha. Your questions are too good. This is a tricky subject. Political art and its usefulness… It’s like, I think music can in some cases be an incredibly powerful revolutionary force… but you can never rely on that happening. Like in South Africa, songs were really important to the whole anti-apartheid movement. They were critical tools. When the men were marching towards you with guns, what kept the line from breaking is that everyone locked arms and sang the same songs. Those songs were real-world weapons. But in other cases, a song is just a song. A Che Guevera t-shirt can be a totally empty symbol, and the kid wearing it thinks the guy on his shirt is named Bob Marley.

If the artist reinforces their songs with actions as you do it makes it more real though.

I hope so, anyway. I hope that message makes it through to people for that reason. It’s important that the listener and artist not get caught in this pat-me-on-the-back cycle of bullshit. Where we just become spectacles of revolution. I think that happens a lot in the ‘underground.’

There is a theory held by some that the world is controlled by an alien race of shape-shifting lizard-people. While doing research for the song, “Reptilian Agenda” you were warned by one of your sources to, “Think carefully before you start talking publicly about this stuff”. Is “Reptilian Agenda” a challenge to the lizard people to come and get you?

In a word? Yes. Haha.

What’s the energy like at the average B. Dolan show?

Controlled chaos. Unexpected costume changes happen. I say foul things and kick funky rap routines. Do dances. Talk shit. I’ve gotten into the habit of leaving pauses for people to heckle, and inviting and engaging hecklers a lot. Which thereby makes the crowd more likely to heckle. Kind of on some old Richard Pryor shit. People want to say dumb shit to me so I can pwn them. It’s familial and ball-busting and rowdy like that. Also, a marching band occasionally appears. I plan to push the crazy vaudeville circus angle more in the future too. If the gods keep granting me superpowers, I will continue to use them for evil.

Anything you want our readers to know? Tour dates? Shout outs?

Fallenhouse.com is the place to order the album. There’s a lot of cool deals SFR is offering, with lots of extras and posters and signed things and what not. Time is running out for people to grab those. Also, it’ll be available as a double vinyl lp starting in May, and people can pre-order those now. Assuming people still know what a vinyl record is. I start touring in 6 days. Europe, UK, Ireland, US, and Canada. Almost 70 shows in the next 4 months. Those details are at Fallenhouse.com. And Knowmore.org is the place to put your shoulder to the wheel.

Give the uninitiated a brief introduction of who you are, what you do, and where you live.

My name is Jason Cornell, aka “BRZOWSKI”. I am an artist, musician, and promoter who lives and works in Portland, ME. I was born in Providence RI in 1980.

You were on tour in Europe. Give us a brief itinerary and highlights.

The European jaunt with myself and Moshe was an idea that we had been kicking around for some time, and once we had solidified some contacts, that have since become friends (through MilledPavement Records, as well as a few moonlighting spots we respectively played on the “Our Accents Sure Are Pretty Tour”), we decided now was the time. We both have releases geared to the European market coming up, and it just seemed the timing was right. It was a bit of an experiment in “sustainability”, so we kept it brief. Ten shows in 12 days, France and Germany, set up mostly by friends. We are already planning on going back… the touring lifestyle is a bit of an addiction that needs to be fed. A rough night on the road beats a great day at “work” in every way imaginable.

Trier, Berlin, Lemans, Ferme de Mauriac (outside of Villefranches) were definitely all highlights, but the greatest pleasure was meeting friends, artists, and fans every night that we had communicated with for years on the intertubes.

Like Woe was just released somewhat recently… tell us some ideas you had working on the album and elaborate on working with fellow Portland artist Moshe.

Well, Moshe and I are both known for our “dark” sensibilities, him w/ sparse, bleak beats, and myself for self-destructive autobiography, so we just decided to make some dark, arguably catchy, tracks. This is what the fans would have expected, so we gave it full bore. It also includes the most “pop” song either of us has ever done, in “Dog Called Cirrhosis”. The hilarity inherent, is that the song is still bleak in its outlook on trading time for labor, work-a-day drudgery, our “fake” economy, and so forth. The EP was written, produced, recorded, mixed and mastered in 14 days or so, and initially just going to be a tour CD, but as it was coming together, we both realized that we wanted to take the project a step further. It is easily the fastest either of us have ever created songs, together or otherwise. We are usually slow as a glacier at creating, and unbelievably nit-picky, hence the plethora of guest spots and compilations where our names crop up, but not so in the “Official Solo Release” column. The immediacy is refreshing for my process.

You have some vinyl coming out, soon too? Tell us!

Ah, yessir. I have been touring with some regularity with H.W. and Shane Blakemore (both from Massachusetts) for the past 3 years or so, and have a working relationship with them and Delusional Records extending back at least 5 years. Last year H.W. and I had a bit of a brainstorm to do a split 7-inch, with myself on one side, and a bit of a Delusional Records “showcase” on the other. It will be limited to 300 copies on white vinyl, and includes a download card to grab the digital version. It will not be available as a straight up digi or CD release until the physicals are long gone. I am seriously attempting to maintain the “objecthood” of making records/CDs. Tom Brown, who did the Like Woe artwork handles my side of the sleeve… it looks super metal.

Tell us about the Blooddrive series.

The Blooddrive series is essentially a repository for collaborations, guest spots, compilation tracks, remixes, and “lost” verses. This way, all of the collabos from a given time period can be found in one place.There are no official digital versions of them at present and I intend to keep it that way. When I was younger I would collect certain artists ravenously and snap up every record they appeared on, only to find that they would be compiled and repackaged later. I would feel slightly wronged by these releases (by finding that I was no longer the keeper of “secret” songs), but now i guess I’ve become that asshole! Blooddrive Vol. 3 will be released late 2010 by 2-99 Records, out of Russia, who just released Moshe’s Thinning The Herd album, and handled “compiled” projects from Awol, Epic, Subtitle, and Existereo. I’m pretty amped on the release, it’s goon-deep and diverse, in so far as styles, beats, and guests are concerned.

What are some upcoming releases we can check from you?  Contact info?

• The 7-inch will be available March 27th from circleintosquare.com and others to be announced.
• 1000 Crooked Miles Tour (US + Canada dates) w/ BRZOWSKI, Jesse Dangerously, Moshe, and H.W. in May 2010 [Including Saskatoon & Calgary]
• For a complete list of upcoming performances, please visit myspace.com/brzowski
• Facebook: facebook.com/pages/BRZOWSKI/172588563858
• Twitter: twitter.com/brzowskimusic
• For past and present releases: milledpavement.com/brzowski.html
• For additional info on Delusional records: delusionalrecords.com

I hear you’re a visual artist… how often do you get a chance to work on painting and how does it contrast with what you do musically?

I work on painting whenever I am offered a show or project. I don’t have a regular studio practice, in the normal sense. I constantly sketch and collect ideas, but dig in and paint when a deadline presents itself. My educational background is in visual art, Painting and Art History specifically. In the next year or two I would like to integrate my art and music a bit more, a la Thesis, Agent 8, or Awol, but I’d rather make art related to someone else’s music. It feels like talking to myself if I try to create an image to match my lyrics. My visual work is cartoony, and laced with more humor than my music. It is more cerebral and less emotive and brooding than my writing tends to be.

I also hear you like metal and hardcore. How have more abrasive sounds influenced your hip-hop projects?

When writing, I listen to non-hip-hop music. I don’t want to inadvertently regurgitate something culled from the same genre-cluster and so I’ll listen to music that gives me the same feeling as the one I want to convey lyrically in a “hip hop” format. Sometimes that influence will be Type O Negative, Amebix, Waylon Jennings… I’m a sucker for things that sound urgent, whether they be aggressive, progressive, or pop-oriented. I tend to gravitate to powerful riffs, melodies (or flagrant lack-there-of) and hooks.

What should people expect at one of your live shows?

Sweat, rapping, singing, good-natured aggression, alcohol, and poor taste disguised as humor.

How is the Portland, Maine music scene organized? I hear you live with some doom metal overlords.

In a city of 64,000 we have at least 250 bands/artists gigging regularly, all competing for the same 10 stages, plus national acts rolling through almost every night. It can be tough when booking, because someone that would come see your alt-country band may skip your gig to check out the metal show that night. Some of the best shows I’ve ever played in town are on mixed-genre bills. People have wide-ranging taste, which is admirable for a small hipster burg at the southernmost tip of the “Mississippi of the North” (no disrespect to my southern homies). I live with Candy Carlson, who sings and plays guitar for uber-slow doom metal band Ocean. If megalithic doom metal is your thing, check these guys out. Candy doesn’t realize how huge his band is in that scene, which is refreshing. I have metal bands at my apartment as often as rappers and dj’s. Occasionally both stay on the same night and the party gets interesting…

What things should an out-of-towner check out while in Portland?

Hmm. Seafood (I know it’s cliché, but the seafood you can buy off the wharf is so fresh, you could probably resuscitate it.) Strange Maine, which is an oddball little store w/ Nintendo games, records, tapes, and a lot of opportunities for breathing dust. The We Push Buttons and Beat Happening electronic monthly events,The Green Hand is a great cheap used bookstore, and also houses the International Cryptozoology Museum. Sanctuary Tattoo and Gallery, Whitney art Works, Phoenix Magazine, The Bollard Magazine, WMPG radio, the Spinout show on WCYY radio, The Portland Music Foundation’s music industry seminars, Geno’s Rock Club, The Big Easy’s hip hop night every Wednesday (hosted by my comrades Sandbag) and the vibe of a tight-knit creative community… at least in the Arts District.

As an artist what does the term sustainability mean to you?

Well, speaking as an artist, I would like sustainability to mean that one can eke out an existence solely based on finances gained through the sale and exploitation of one’s creative output. This is, in my experience over the last 15 years in the “creative economy”, increasingly rare. I can count on my fingers the number of visual artists/writers/musicians (that I am friendly with) that fit this definition.

Sustainability, in turn, has come to mean that it does not COST an individual to engage in the creative economy. That is to say, as much revenue comes back as is paid in. Hitting that mark, in of itself, can be considered a feat. Ask anyone that has attended an art school and paid for it with loans.

Are things getting better for the underground emcee in terms of sustainability?

Things are getting better for myself and for some people who have been doing it for a while. It took me 10 years of doing music seriously until I could tour and turn a profit. If I was more grounded in fundamentalist materialism or mired in responsibility, I’m sure I would have deduced that giving up and being a hobbyist was a good idea. The “leveling of the playing field” that took place with home recording, social networking sites, and rampant piracy hurt as many artists as it helped. For example, anyone can throw some flash on their Myspace, buy a bot to add friends, and boom, they look as legit as someone who has been sweating it out and paying dues forever… at first glance, if not first listen. DIY/Independent can be a double-edged sword, for certain. It always blows my mind when an acquaintance/fan/friend will inquire “so, do you LIVE off this shit?” It’s flattering when people think that may be the case. My creativity sustains itself, but my bills need some elbow grease.

Why is the front door to your house constantly unlocked?

That would be because my downstairs neighbors leave it open to offer convenient access to the steady stream of sketchy shitbags who need to buy… whatever. The resident(s) are too lazy to get up and open the door each time. Who needs exercise when you have contraband in demand?

What are you plans for the next five years?

Stay healthy, find homes for my upcoming projects, a ton of touring, ceasing diplomacy when unwarranted, and then likely getting my ass back to college to get some letters after my name. Oh yeah, and I’ve been considering quitting smoking. Again.

[MP3: View post to listen]

Give us a brief introduction to your current list of projects.

2010 is proving to be a very interesting year already… I just finished doing a score for a feature length film by the Suicide Girls (which is aptly called, “Suicide Girls Must Die”), Giovanni Marks and I are working on new Labwaste material, I am going to produce a record for Big Jus, I’m working with an artist called Blackbird on a project code named ‘Black Electro’ (which is more sleazy dance shit), I have a new record that I am very slowly working on, and in between all of that I’ll be doing various things on behalf of Ableton (I’m a certified trainer)…

Tell us more about the sleazy dance shit.

I’ve spent a lot of time making these dark emotional beats and heavy songs, and when I hooked up with Blackbird (he has released two albums with AlphaPup and was part of the extremely slept on group Darkleaf) we just started to record stuff with no real direction initially, but I knew I wanted to do something different with him. He’s an incredible performer, and just an interesting personality, and it gave me a chance to work with a very different kind of artist who wasn’t worried about being the hardest rapper or making these dreary heavy songs. We started making some more uptempo dancey sexy sleazy songs and it’s just been fun… it is very different from most of the stuff I’ve worked on, and I’m hoping we can find a good label to push the project through once it’s finished. You can hear some of the rough songs at myspace.com/starttheengine.

It’s been a while since Global Phlowtations…what should people know about your involvement in that group?

It has been a looooong while since Global Phlowtations… hahaha!! Well, I was one of the original members, I made the majority of the beats (though I was only one of four producers… everybody made beats, but I made the most), I rapped, and engineered the majority of our recording sessions (using our trusty Tascam Portastudio 4-track). I was never the leader of the group (that was always Zagu Brown), but I probably had the biggest influence on our sound.

How did you transition from Global Phlowtations to Adlib to Thavius Beck?

At the time that I moved to LA in 1996, I was already calling myself Adlib. The name came about because I played tenor sax in school and since I was one of the best musicians in the school band, I always got to solo on our songs. So I was the dude who adlibbed all the time… anyway, in 1996 I moved to LA and met Zagu, Nairb, Sach, and everyone else and we formed Global Phlowtations. The idea was that we would focus on more positive music and creative hard hitting beats.

The group was always comprised of solo artists (we were essentially a west coast Wu-Tang), so me doing solo Adlib projects was just a natural progression. I made so much stuff that it didn’t make sense for me to not do solo projects, so I started releasing stuff, mainly instrumental projects with my weirder beats.

Ultimately what lead to me ditching Adlib and going with my real name was two-fold: The main thing I told people was that I wanted to be taken more seriously by people outside of underground hip-hop, and I thought Adlib sounded kind of silly after a certain age. But the real reason is because I was really fucking tired of people calling me Madlib. That shit infuriated me. It takes much more effort to confuse Thavius Beck with someone else’s name (although a lot of people write my name as Thavius Black, which is equally annoying).

Dialogue just dropped and features you a lot more on the microphone. Give us some thoughts on Dialogue in contrast to your previous solo releases.

I try to make every album different, and Dialogue was basically my rap album. My first solo project was called VS., and it was a 10 song EP made of one verse songs… since then I haven’t really rapped very much on my albums. Most of the solo projects I made as Adlib were essentially just beat tapes with different themes… My first album with Mush records (Decomposition) was more of an attempt to keep up with the electronic producers of the day… when I made THRU, I was thinking about getting my music licensed for visual media, so I tried to make it more brooding and cinematic… When it was time to make Dialogue, I had gone through so much stuff in my life that I felt like I had a reason to rap again… I doubt I’ll do another album like that for a while…

One track that stood out was “Money.” Do you think society is becoming more or less materialistic?

Society has always been materialistic, there just happens to be more material for people to chase after and worship nowadays… And honestly, unless you were born and live completely off the land in a remote forest somewhere with no connection to modern ways of life, you are bred to be a consumer from birth. Our entire society and way of life is based on being materialistic… the more shit you have, the more successful you are supposed to be.

Any tour plans where we can check you?

No current tour plans really… I hope to get back to Europe this fall and play out there. I haven’t had much luck touring the states, but I have a few spot dates here and there. My main focus right now is working on these new projects and trying to network with some people who can help me get to another level.

How have your travels across the ocean informed your outlook on life?

To me, the best thing about traveling to different countries is being exposed to so many different ways of life and seeing remnants of the local peoples history… Being an American, we’re used to seeing buildings that are at the most a couple hundred years old, but when you go to Europe you see old castles and churches that have been around for 500 or 600 years… places that have survived numerous wars… structures built for royalty… etc. It really broadened my outlook on what it meant to be part of something bigger than the United States.

What keeps you relaxed?

Well, making music is usually a pretty relaxing thing for me if I’m just doing it for fun… it’s my way to escape from all the BS around me. I also enjoy a lot of comedy… I like stand up and goofy british shows (The IT Crowd is one of my favorites)… laughing is generally relaxing… and if all else fails there is always weed.

Tell us more about your collaborations, specifically with K-the-I???

The thing with K-the-I??? was a label connection… The guy who runs Mush suggested we do an album, so Kiki moved out to LA a couple years ago specifically to work on our album together. The process was very easy… I had a bunch of open beats, gave them to him and told him to write songs that were still him, but a bit more accessible, and we recorded several songs every weekend for about two months until the album was done. Kiki was very open to my suggestions, so everything flowed very smoothly. He’s an easy dude to work with. Big Jus and I haven’t started working on our album yet, but I’m looking forward to seeing how that will come together. He is very hands on and wants a very specific sound, so approaching that project will be different from the K-the-I thing… When I collaborate with someone, my goal is to bring out something in them that no one was able to before… otherwise there wouldn’t be much of a point. Even in my work with Saul Williams, you can hear the music I worked on and see how different it is from the other songs he’s done… it’s all about putting your stamp on something and creating something new.

If you could covet one piece of vintage equipment to add to your gear, what would it be and why?

Probably a high quality 2 inch reel-to-reel, but I would have to have a dedicated maintenance person come with it. I would love to have that true analog tape warmth on my mixes, and be able to take advantage of that warm fuzzy analog distortion… that or a Neumann U87… preferably both…

If you had to be trapped in a TV show for a month, which show would you choose?

I would hope to not be trapped anywhere for a month, let alone a tv show… if I’m not watching sports or comedy, I try my best to avoid the tv. Having said that, I guess I could spend a month in the world of the Flight of the Concords… I imagine that would be the most bizarre month of my life… hahaha!!

Last words? Shouts?

I just want to thank everyone who was supported my music and still has an interest in what I’m doing. I have a lot on the horizon so there will be lots of new music pretty soon… stay tuned…