The Name Game
Imagine if we didn’t have names for things. It would be really complicated talking about anything.
“I had the most delicious apple today?”
“A delicious what?”
“You know, the red and green skin covered mush ball that grows on the tree near my house?
“Near your what? On the what?”
Luckily we have all kinds of fancy words and we love to name things. Fuji Apples. Flaming Hot Cheetos. Cargo shorts. It really does simplify things. I’d hate to have to describe the utility pockets on the side of my shorts every time I call someone to explain my clothing for the day.
There comes a time in every budding musician’s life when a name must be considered. Sometimes, parents are forward-thinking and they give their kids really cool names that also sound good for music. Jon Bon Jovi. Bon Iver. Bobby Digital. For the rest of us, we either come up with our own (usually regrettable) name or are assigned one by ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC. As soon as we strum a chord or tinkle on a piano, the music industry machine starts whirring. I’m not really sure how they know. They just know. It’s sometimes the way that people find out they are musicians. You just get a letter in the mail one day informing you that you are a musician. It’s actually pretty exciting.
When I was 7 years old, I picked up a Casio keyboard and tried to play the Axel F theme, but I got the notes completely wrong. I don’t know how the heck this works, but Mr. ASCAP heard me create a melody that rallied something deep inside. I was just a 7 year old kid. I had no idea what ASCAP was and I definitely had no idea that there was a Mr. ASCAP and that he had magical ears and that he always listening. I guess it’s kinda like how Santa knows if you’re rotten. Anyways, a few days later, I received a 10 page letter about the song I played. In reality, I only played a few notes in succession and it maybe lasted about 10 seconds total, but I guess there was some “potential,” hence the 10 page letter. I was 7, so of course I didn’t read it.
When I was 10, I was asked to clean up my room. That was when I found the letter and actually read it. It turned out that Mr. ASCAP really liked what he heard and he saw big things for me. He suggested that I get into a slightly obscure style of music he called “instrumental hip hop.” Again, I was 10, so basically this dude is talking skin covered mush fruit to me and I’m like “what’s an apple?”
But, I was 10 now, not 7. I started imagining what life would be like on the road - opening up for Aerosmith. Mr. ASCAP said I could do that. I had MTV and wasn’t a dum dum, so this all sounded cool. My parents set up a meeting in an office in New York City! At the time, there was a really cool salsa commercial on TV where they would say “New York City???!!!!” Oh gosh, it was so funny, so I kept saying it on the flight there. Everyone loved it. When we walked into the office, they had like 15 Ritz Cheese and Crackers packs (with the red spread stick) on the table and they let me have two Pepsis. I basically would have signed up for anything at that point. Mr. ASCAP said I could be a relatively unknown musician if I worked hard and went to the post office a lot. He said my name would be Controller 7. To be honest, I didn’t really understand half of the things he was saying. His lawyer kept saying big words and I was essentially out of my mind on processed cheese and Pepsi.
My parents asked “why the name Controller 7?” The ASCAP man said that there were 6 others before me, but that they’d squandered their talents on things like baseball and reading books. We reluctantly agreed, unaware of what was really happening. Before I knew it, I was ushered into another room where they made me listen to Midnight Oil for 4 days. I still don’t really understand that part. I didn’t sleep because the music was so loud and they kept giving me Pepsis. On day 5, I transcended any concept I had of mere existence. I floated in a state of euphoria for what felt like a day, but when I emerged, I was much older. Roughly 17 years old now, I awoke from this suspended state of reality and my eyes began to focus. I was alone in an empty room with nothing but an MPC2000. Without explanation, I had gone from a 10 year old in a fancy New York City office to a 17 year old in a room with some space-age cash register. There were no windows and no door. After a succession of 4 beeps, a calming voice began to fill the room. It spoke in a meditative whisper…
“everything you need to know can be found at ughh.com”
over and over.
over and over.
I’m still there.
And with that…
Welcome to Custom Wallees. It’s nice to have you here.
The true story is that I took an electronic music course at De Anza College in 1998. We had to create a piece of music for our final project and when I went to play mine for the teacher, there was a glitch that messed it up. The teacher then told a story about a famous glitch involving “Controller 7,” which is the part that controls volume in most electronic devices. He jokingly said “We’re going to call you Controller 7.” At that same time, I was working on some of my very early music and was about to finish my first cassette. I didn’t have an artist name yet. When he said that, it stuck and I went with it. Although it may sound like a random word with a random number on it, which is not uncommon in hip hop, my name actually comes from a real thing and a real moment. Shout out to Dan Mitchell, who has absolutely no idea who I am or that he unintentionally gave me my artist name.
I’m hoping this will be a fun way to share things with people. I’ll do my best to go through old tapes, hard drives, and any other things I can find and share some back-stories, unreleased demos, etc. I’m open to suggestions for what you’d like to see on here, so feel free to send me a message with some requests.
-Tommy (Controller 7)
Great story, I laughed hecka.
This made me LOL