As I have mentioned before, in the late 90s and early 2000s, I would hang out with Dave Cuzner (aka Moodswing 9) a lot. He had a car and we'd drive around to different record stores around the Bay Area. There are several clips on Left Handed Straw that I recorded in the back seat of Dave’s car. Dave was pretty savvy at the non-job having side hustles. He was telling me about barcode scanners for rare books way before everyone had an iPhone and the internet in their pocket. At one point, I believe he was driving around and getting paid to help map traffic patterns. He also knew how to find stuff and flip it. I learned a lot about records from him. One time, He jokingly said that you should buy any record with an egg on the cover. It’s actually a fairly solid metric if you’re talking about 60s and 70s records.
So, if every record with an egg on the cover is good…
If you make a record called Egg, it’s gotta be good.
That is both a joke and the truth. I named this ep “Egg” because of Dave’s comment. There’s generally some inside joke, nod, or reference hidden in most things I do.
It appears that I made the first 3 songs between February and March of 2005. I do not actually remember that, but it’s on Discogs and it must be true. Sixtoo sent me a huge folder of art ideas, mostly scans of Brazilian records. The text on the record says “Artwork and Mastering by MonoHeat with direction from Controller 7.” MonoHeat was Sixtoo, but I don’t really remember my art direction. I can say this with a laugh now, but I may have gotten the “direction from” credit because I was annoying and Sixtoo didn’t exactly like all of my ideas. (Insert crying laughing emoji)
This came out on Bully in 2005. My second double 7-inch EP on the label. I guess besides a few beats on the compilation CD, I only did double 7-inches on the label. I remember hoping that this would get a repress. I think it sold pretty well on the first run, but times had already started to change and repressing it became less and less likely. Nowadays, 1000 copies seems like “damn, who do you think you are, Metallica?!”
“Tired”
I don’t think I will ever listen back to something I’ve made and not think about something I’d do different, but I like this one. It holds up pretty well and fits in an interestingly little pocket of time for me. I was really trying to develop my ability to make a “song.” I primarily worked with samples and an MPC2000. The thing that pushed things a little further was that I was using pro tools. As I mentioned in the post about the “expansions” EP, I was running a pretty basic set up. I basically used Pro Tools like you’d use Microsoft Word to write a letter. It was there to lay things out and make edits, but I didn't get too fancy beyond editing. Besides reverb, I didn’t use other plug-ins or understand them.
I was pretty excited when I got the drums and the main loop working. I was also pretty excited with the other elements, like the Rhodes and the sax solo. I hadn’t every really done any songs that featured sampled vocals, so I was pretty excited about how those worked out.
I guess it’s kind of a weird song to lead off an EP on Bully, which was mostly known for drum-heavy instrumental hip hop stuff. I like the unexpected and I thought it had a really good feel to it.
I made a video for this song using some 8mm footage my friend Greg filmed in Golden Gate Park. On the weekends, they block off certain streets in the park and people would gather and roller skate. I edited it in iMovie.
Around this time, I was working at Amoeba Records in SF. They frequently had guest DJs play music in the store. One day, I was working at the registers and Vinnie Esparza was djing. I heard a song that sounded familiar. My first thought was “I know this…someone sampled this….what is this?” It took me a little bit to register that it was my song. I ran over and told Vinnie “hey, that’s me. That’s my song.” It’s not often that you hear a song you made in a context where you are not expecting it at all.
“Dream”
At one point, I was so proud of this song. I felt like it may have been the closest I got to a certain type of style/song I was trying to create. Essentially, that is something with movement, structure, and lots of samples. I don’t really think in those same terms these days, but at the time, it was kinda what all us super nerdy beat makers were trying to do (basically what DJ Shadow perfected before any of us even knew to try). I don’t hear it with the same ears these days, but hey, it’s from 2005. Someone once called it an evil b-boy cut, which sounds cool to me.
In the December 2005 issue of URB magazine, there was a guest reviewer section with Blockhead. Much to my surprise, he reviewed this EP. We’ve never met and I am always surprised when anyone knows who I am, so this was definitely a surprise to see this in print. Admittedly, I was kinda bent out of shape by the line about the self-composed parts, but in retrospect, I’m not mad at all. He’s right. I assume he’s referring to the synth lines on this song. valid point. (insert crying laughing emoji again).
“Ex-Telest”
I felt like this song was kinda like “Tired” in that it wasn’t exactly expected, but I was into it. I remember telling Marco (who ran Bully) that I had this kinda 4 on the floor dance type song going and he didn’t seem too interested in that description. I think he thought I meant some Boosh Boosh Boosh type club song. When I turned in the EP, he loved it. I am pretty sure he said he stood up on his chair. Haha.
Unintentionally, this song has a few really random funny things related to it.
The title: It is called “Ex-Telest” and that is 100% out of me remembering the sample wrong and being lazy I guess. He really says “extra telest” and I somehow wrote down “Ex-Telest.” At some point later, I realized my mistake, but it was too late. Does it matter? Maybe not, but you better believe it haunts me and keeps me awake at night. Every fucking night!
The cover version: Some nice person in Germany bought a copy of this record and he happened to be a dj at a German video game channel/show. In between takes, I guess he was djing and the host started freestyling over my song. He emailed to tell me about it. He meant well, but the more I watched, it kinda made me mad. It was essentially someone saying “your mother” on top of my song and it all seemed like such a joke. It was early YouTube days, sorta early internet days. I posted about it on the SoulStrut message boards and someone in Germany said something like “yeah, fuck this shit, this is lame.” In retrospect, I was being a sourpuss about it and I was overreacting, but they asked if they could use it for an official video and I said no. I didn’t want any part of it. At one point, it was on the featured page for YouTube and was viral for a day or so.
Anyways, I said no and told them not to use it for anything. I mean, I still feel that way, that’s not at all what I intended when I made the song. I can laugh about it now and also realize that it probably did bring some attention to me, but I used to get pissed at the YouTube comments on my video that said stuff like “Colin’s version is better.” Since I said no, they remade the music and made a video:
What a weird world we live in. (insert another crying laughing emoji) I guess it’s kind of an honor that this all came out of some little song I made in my room. Fuck this song, but it’s also funny.
Dancing videos: There are two videos on YouTube that I discovered because “ex-telest” is a rather unique search term. I have no idea who these people are or how they possibly came across my song and what inspired them to make these videos.
With all that said…
I made my own video for this song. I made it on iMovie and it was essentially a miraculous feat at the time. In the original iMovie, it did not have the timeline like it does now and it was a total nightmare to try to match anything to audio. I repurposed some old footage and cut it to my song, trying to get all of the claps on beat and also make it tell the story over the length of my song. I originally hosted it on my website (prior to YouTube) and it would crash the site because every time someone watched it they were essentially downloading it and bandwidth limits were pretty tiny back in 2005. Capuchin threw it up on YouTube sometime later and that was probably when I first became familiar with YouTube.
“Wandering Song”
This song came about in an unlikely manner. My friend Justin Pinkerton was in a band called The Roots of Orchis. He asked if I would do a remix for one of their songs. He gave me the stems and, if I am remembering correctly, the only thing I used from their original song was the drums. Justin was their drummer. Kind of a stretch to call it a “remix.” In reality, I just didn’t have the understanding to really remix their song into anything so I basically made a new song.
Since the two worlds didn’t overlap too much, I ended up using it as part of this EP. It was only released digitally before.
I remember times where I was really proud of this song. Again, my ears have changed, but there was a time when I felt that Egg was the best stuff I’d ever done. Ironically, I don’t have either of these EPs on streaming (besides Bandcamp).
I think it may have been used in a few things. There was some Canadian food show that used some of my songs. It did end up in a promo video that DC made for the Skate Plazas that Rob Dyrdek was starting to build. It was essentially a promo guide for any other communities interested in building their own plaza. I am pretty sure they told me they couldn’t pay me, but they did send me a bunch of DC products, which I sold on eBay and turned into money. Sometimes that’s the payment.
In the May 2002 issue of URB Magazine, I was featured in the Next 100 spotlight. It was the “Next 100” artists to keep an eye on. Hard to believe, but I was featured alongside people like Blueprint, Busdriver, D-Styles, Dabrye, Fat Jon, Monsta Island Czars, P Brothers, RJD2, Royksopp, Sia, The Fog, and DJ Tiesto! The other thing that is pretty hard to believe is that the author of my write up is Hua Hsu. Hua is part of a talented group of friends that includes Oliver Wang, Jeff Chang, and Joseph Patel. In 2022, Hua wrote a memoir entitled Stay True and he won a Pulitzer Prize for it. It’s great and you should read it.
A Pulitzer Prize winning author wrote the blurb about me in URB’s Next 100! That is crazy.
When Hua and I talked, I had been plotting a follow up to Left Handed Straw and I wanted it to be more developed and song-based than the beat-tape style of LHS. I never really got that done, but I revisited the title and made a short version of it a few years later. Kinda funny to think I was already planning the Egg title back in 2002. I did a lot more thinking than doing in those days.
You can find both Bully EPs on my Bandcamp page:
https://controller7.bandcamp.com/music
I always felt that Tired was the best of the “producers making a full song with vocals “ thing that was the new shit back then.
Lemme tell you it’s harder than it seems to get vocals from a completely different song to fit in pitch and key. Especially in the early 2000s
I remember Nate Price and I loving this EP when it came out. I was super blown away by how complete it sounded (or song like) and Bully definitely had the slick packaging going. I loved and still love the song/video for Tired, it felt so mature and sentimental, which was not what most of us were striving to make at the time. Even watching it again after all these years I still have the same ah I had when I first saw it. Like damn, I’m never going to be as good as Tommy.
I remember very fondly coming over to your crib in SF a few times and you playing us (me, Nate and Om) some of the tunes you were working on. I think at that time it was the Expansion EP and Shades of a Former You, literally sent Nate and I home with a lot of inspiration.
Dave Cuzner was such a cool nonchalant mentor when it came to digging and talking shop about beat making. I can totally picture him saying “If you make a record called Egg, It’s gotta be good”. He was also super cool when anyone would find a dope rare record at a spot he would take you too. Instead of most others (not going to mention names) getting jealous and bitter. Such a blessing to have been around to witness these little happenings of the late 90s early 2000s.
Thoroughly enjoying all your sharing as of late here on Substsack!