Sometimes I think about how fast and how slow time can be. I’m sure we all have those moments. You could do a space case stare off into the distance and 10 minutes could go by in what feels like a blink. Alternatively, you can put something in the microwave for 1 minute and go to the bathroom, complete a task on the walk back, and see that it’s only been 43 seconds.
Either 1998 was an incredibly long year or…I was tap dancing on that flat circle.
In the last post, I mentioned that my first two tapes came out in 1998. I don’t remember exactly when I met Sole and Moodswing 9, but I’m guessing it was around September or October of 1998. That would mean that I got an Ensoniq EPS either at the end of 1997 or the very beginning of 1998, made two tapes on it, met some new people, and then moved on to the MPC by November of 1998. In retrospect, that seems kinda crazy to me, but I guess I didn’t have much going on besides school and music.
The Ensoniq EPS was probably about $350 when I got it, so to move up to an MPC2000 at over $1200 was a big leap for me. I had to borrow money to buy it. I don’t really know why I bought the midi cables because I had nothing to connect them to, but I bet salesperson #010074 Joseph Faylor told me they were essential. $1360.00 out the door. Even much later in life, I’d think about that price tag and think about how crazy it was. I’d see a car or a motorcycle for sale for less and think about how weird it was that I paid $1300 for a musical instrument that had no sounds in it. It doesn’t seem that major now, but that was the biggest investment I’d ever made at that point.
I never like learning a new piece of gear. I have ideas in my head and I just want to get them out, so it can be frustrating when you just can’t figure out how to do something. You know what you want to do, but it’s like your hands are tied. I remember struggling a bit with the switch from the EPS to the MPC, but I guess I figured something out a few weeks later.
The very first beat I made and finished on the MPC was from 11/17/1998 and I labelled it as “2 Drums, 808, horns.” I spoke to Sole and Labtekwon on a 3-way call and played them this beat. They were going to do a song together and wanted it. I’m not sure what happened, but it ended up becoming “Dismantling of Sole’s Ego” from his Bottle of Humans album.
The drum rolls at the end of the song are very much the result of the MPC’s pads. I didn’t really know how to achieve this on the keys of the EPS. There’s definitely a little Bjork influence in that programming.
This next disk is from 12/19/1998 and is what would become “Furthermore” on Bottle of Humans. I got the record for this one from a friend of my parents. He gave me a bunch of records, mostly easy listening and Herb Alpert type stuff. I sequenced the whole layout of “Dismantling of Sole’s Ego,” but “Furthermore was less complicated. Sole had me split the beat into two tracks, the music and the drums, and we tracked them out on an ADAT. He recorded his vocals and all of the drops in the song were done by him simply by hitting mute on the ADAT. Nobody was recording on a computer at that point, so there wasn’t much editing going on.
I am the type of person who keeps boxes for a long time, if not forever. I would pack up my MPC in the box whenever I took it somewhere. While tracking “Furthermore,” Sole was on the phone with someone and my MPC box happened to be right near him. He started doodling on the box. To him, this was nothing, but it was pure insanity to me. I got mad and he laughed and probably made fun of me. I still have that box today and here I am almost 24 years later still talking about that doodle.
The “Furthermore” instrumental was used as the outro music in Peter Agoston’s Culturama Video Collection vol. 2. Before Youtube, these compilations were pretty amazing and I came to love some videos that I otherwise would have never seen. You can watch them on Youtube now. The Konceptual Dominance video is a personal favorite of mine. Peter later went on to start the Female Fun record label and he released the first MF DOOM Special Herbs record, among other things. He also went on to do the House List Podcast, where I edited a few episodes.
"It's Sixtoo -- Robert Squire -- And I'm back from the dead..."