The Watch - Ep. 30: 'The Watch' With RZA and Hua Hsu

Episode Date: March 25, 2016

Chris and Andy spin it back to 1996 to discuss the influential music of that year. They talk to Wu-Tang Clan's the RZA about Ghostface's solo debut (13:20), and bring in The New Yorker's Hua Hsu to discuss Tricky, DJ Shadow, and Beck (35:20). Then they wrap up with a tribute to A Tribe Called Quest's Phife Dawg. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch on the Channel 33 podcast feed. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor from The Ringer.com and joining me on the other line, my devil in Helsinki. It's Andy Greenwald! This is a big one. This is exciting.

I'm kind of emotional about this podcast, man. This is a special episode of The Watch. It's the Reap. And we are on the Channel 33 podcast feed. You can subscribe to us on. on iTunes Stitcher and SoundCloud, and please sign up for The Ringer newsletter at the ringer.com. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm with my buddy, Andy Greenwald, who I've known for 20 years.

And that is kind of what this podcast is about. Ooh, this is deep. This is sort of an origin story. This is really dawn of justice. Yeah, this is the dawn of justice. We're talking about the year in music, 1996. Now, what Andy and I wanted to do is not really do a, you know, like a complete, objective overview of that year, because that's not really what drew us to music in the first

place, isn't really to be objective. Obviously, you get into it for the train spotting stuff of being a completist and knowing about everything and feeling like you're discovering things all the time. But music is really a tool, especially when you first get out of high school. And this is – 1996 was the first year. It was our first year of college. And it was the year I met Andy. I actually met Andy in Philadelphia in the summer of 96 and music was sort of the bridge for us to kind of meet up. And so this playlist and this podcast is about remembering that time and remembering the music from that year, but not like in a completest way. And it's been a kind of really cool like act to go back and look at all these records from that year. Andy, it was such a great year for music. We were so hyped up all the time about new records and new bands and new possibilities. And actually, what makes me the most a little tenderhearted about this conversation is that, as you alluded to it, it really kind of was music that brought us together. Because we found out later that we were probably both at the Trocadero at a certain guided by voices and pavement show.

There were probably other times that our paths intersected. But both of us left Philadelphia for college, and we were both back after our freshman year in the summer of 96. and we had a mutual friend who basically said to each of us, oh, I've got a friend that likes pavement, you should meet him. And we were like, oh, totally. But we actually weren't like, totally. This is going to sound like a Nora Ephron movie or something. But when I met Andy, he was wearing a t-shirt for this New York band called Verses.

And that was a very obscure indie rock band. And I was like, oh, like, I've heard of Verses. And here's the thing about, you know, this isn't going to come as news to anybody who's, like, our age. but pre-internet, you kind of had to find your own people and you had to find the subcultures that you were interested in and you would basically start down this rabbit hole where maybe it would be alternative nation or 120 minutes on MTV or you pick up an issue of alternative press or spin or magnet

or the source or whatever and you're reading about rap, you're reading about alternative rock and you just get deeper and deeper and as you go deeper you kind of need people to go with you. And that's kind of how I met a lot of my friends. I know it's the same thing for you when you were at school. Yeah. And what I really, yeah, right, people, my first week of college and at the end of 95,

the end of fall of 95 when like we had a RA training on how to be respectful to each other. And then two of the kids I met like came back to my room to talk and they were like, oh, you, you like got it by voices. And I was like, okay, now we're friends. And we're still friends. I'm going over to one of those dudes's house tomorrow. And our daughters will play together because we're old. But the bigger point that I think is worth noting, okay, two points.

One, I am very happy that we weren't weirdly like pissing contest about liking the same bands. I felt like we were very, to our credit. You came to meet me when I was on my shift at the borders and Rosemont, RIP, to both borders and Rosemont. But maybe Galifties is still there. Anyway, but that we were both excited to meet someone else who was interested in these things, which I think was good. And I hope that all subcultures continue to behave that way, even though the internet suggest that maybe they don't. But it wasn't just that we were, what's important to note is that we

weren't just fans of the bands we were talking about, which that first night at the Villanova Diner was probably pavement and Arges of Loaf and whoever was on whoever's T-shirt, but that we were also really deep fans of finding out more about the cultures sort of radiating off of them in waves and in circles. And, you know, I found this quote this week. Well, let's keep it to 96. One of my favorite bands, Bell and Sebastian, released one of my all-time favorite albums that year. If you're feeling sinister. And they're doing this thing on their website now, where Stuart Murdoch, the leader of the band, is sort of going back in the archives and talking about the iconic record sleeves that he made for those early records. And he was talking about the record sleeve they made for if you're feeling

sinister. And he said, as soon as it was done in the summer of 96, I wanted to put it out immediately. I wanted the band to be like a factory. I wanted to have an instant and extensive back catalog. I guess what I really wanted was to make up for all the time that I'd wasted. And that's what was so exciting about music at the time, and I feel like we can't stress this enough, which is that everything was the potential first step down a set of stairs into a whole new world. That if you heard of one band, if you liked Bell and Sebastian, be like, oh, well, they're influenced by felt, and then you would have to research felt and listen to, what was this band? Oh, they were on creation.

Well, Oasis is on creation now, who used to be on creation. And then you end up, you know, suddenly fighting over a biff bang pow seven inch at repo records in Bryn Mahr, but, you know, let's stop talking about me. But the idea that everything was a possibility, and I think that one of the things we wanted to stay on in terms of this conversation, was that sense of possibility that is really, that's not necessarily tied to 1996 or even in a pre-internet era. That's really tied to getting super into music when you're young and building yourself as much as you're building a collection. I think that that's something that I've started to really acknowledge about getting older. And when I was getting into pavement, there were guys who were about six years older than me who were just like, pavement's just like, pavement's just a dinosaur junior rip-off.

And now when I'm into, you know, when I see people who are into, I don't, I don't know, I don't even know what people are into now. I mean, like, no age a couple years ago, I remember being like, that's just, that's just music I liked, you know, like, whether it Japan droids or, you know, like, nothing wrong with those bands, I like them, but it's, it's not necessarily that one band rips off another or that one band is a watered down version another. It's just, that's your generation's band. That's your classes band.

And, um, we can identify all sorts of. of stuff from that time period, whether it's extra musical context or the specific things that seemed to be threads through that year, which we're going to talk about. But I think that it's important to recognize that to every season, you know what I mean? And like the same way that we feel like 1996 or the late 90s are this super fertile important time, I'm sure people feel that way about Yadi and Thugger and everybody else today. You know, it's like there's everybody's always going to get their their golden generation. Yeah, and the music that is always going to sound better to you because of context.

I mean, that that's generally a great way to approach art anyway, or at least an honest way to engage with it, that, you know, who you were and how you were when you experience it for the first time is always going to color it. But it is, you know, I was writing for 95 as maybe a better year because I had this, like, magical day. I went to the record store in Providence and bought the new Oasis and the new superchunk and this red. Hot and something or other compilation that had these amazing tracks on it.

Was that Red Hot and Bothered or Red Hot and Blue? Red Hot and Bothered and exactly. And then the Help compilation that had the first new radiohead music in a couple years on it. But you've made a really strong case. You've made a playlist. We should say that we're going to share with people for this conversation. And 96 was a pretty wild year. Yeah, it was a great year for music.

And the playlist is called Midnight in a Perfect World. It's on Spotify and we're going to share it with folks. And we actually have some very special guests for this podcast today. It's a little bit of a different look for us. Joining us later in the podcast are going to be Wausu, is one of our favorite writers, and we're going to talk a little bit about DJ Shadow's introducing record and a little bit about Tricky's pre-millennial tension record,

but the sort of big get, and I'm sure Wao will acknowledge this, is we are going to be joined by Wooten Clans, the Riza. Now, Andy and I have been talking a little bit about rock music and underground rock music like pavement and super chunk and archers of loe from verses and all these bands that we were kind of into. But Andy and I were rap fans, and we still are, but like, rap and the emergence of rap from 88 through high school and into college, and the emergence of these kind of totems of the genre

were, it was really like one of the defining things of my youth and Andy's youth. And 96 was a phenomenal year for hip-hop. Some of the best records that came out that year were rap records, whether it was the Fuji's, man, Noss's It was written, which in, after about three and a half beers, I will make an argument for being better than Illmatic. What about, what were some of your favorite rap records from that year? Well, the thing about that year, though, is for me, it was like coming off of, it was like a hangover, right? Because you were talking about this, this unbelievable run that was for us was high school, which was Wu Tang, Nas and Biggie, basically, just bang, bang, bang in 93 and 94. And then we suddenly are in this whole new world where these people are superstars.

Not that we helped them get there, but like it was one of those early moments where it's sort of transitional. And like, they're right. They're coming back with second statements and they have to be bigger and they're everywhere. So I don't need any beers to tell you that you're insane about it was written, but I appreciate your moxie. When you talk about rap records that year, the one that I'm pretty excited about is the Roots Illadelf Half-Life. Now, the roots obviously have had a second, amazing second life as the tremendous house band on The Tonight Show. But for us, also coming from Philly, like this was the record. I think it was technically their third record, although organics doesn't really rate that highly with a lot of people.

I think people usually go from Do You Want More? But Do You Want More was this sort of like coming off a post-gang starry kind of like, are they a band? And do people like them just because of this jazz thing? And we're going to talk about the jazz thing when we talk about Tribe in a little bit. But this was just a rap record, and it's a really good one. And it's pretty astonishing to listen to in retrospect that they are making records that sound like Mob Deep records, but they're making them as a band. And as they are today, one of the best live acts in music. And that's a big record for me from that year.

Of course, yeah. I mean, and so obviously with the Rizza coming on, it's worth talking about Wu Tang. I think it's kind of hard to overstate the zap that Wu Tang put on our heads from 92. to like 98, right? Oh, it's unbelievable. Like, we could, and we probably should at some point to an entire Wu-Teng podcast because this was like,

it was like winning the cultural lottery where there was this secret society, basically, where you could be indoctrinated into it just by listening to really terrific music. But then they struck the most, probably still is the most unique deal in the music business history, which is as a group, they were signed to one label,

but individually they were signed to as many labels as there were members. And at 96, that number started to rise precipitously and perhaps dangerously. So it was really this thing, like, okay, we all love the group. Now, who's coming next? And there were people who were super into Method Man and to Cal came first. And then there were people who were just checking for Ray Kwan early. And I wish I could be cool enough to have said that I was that dude.

But I wasn't. But I only built for Cuban Links is my favorite Wu-Tang affiliated album of all time. 95, by the way, not 96. Yeah. So by the time we got to 96, there was a guy who I think wasn't on anyone's radar ready to drop. So not just that he wasn't on anyone's radar, Ghostface was like Rayquan's sidekick, right? Yeah. And so when his record came out, he's sharing the cover of Iron Man with just two other dudes.

This is this insane spirit of collaboration and weirdly non-existent ego that it would just be complete, it's just complete foreign language to what hip hop is today. And yet, that record bangs. And it was the coolest thing about Wu-Tang was that you would get these guys, you know, you would hear them on, you heard them on into the Wu-Tang or they would show up on some of the early solo records, whether it was Takal or only built for Cuban links. And you would kind of be like, okay, I have a sense of what ghost can do, or I have a sense what dirty can do. And then there would be these leap records where they would just explode as artists. And we can talk about this all day long, but I mean, I don't know why we wouldn't just hear from the person who produced all these. records. So Andy, let's take a very special break here to play my interview with the Rizza. I'm joined now by one of the greatest producers in hip hop history simply. This is the Rizza.

Rizza, thank you so much for joining us today, man. What up, Chris? All goody good. Happy to be in the building. Tell me a little bit about what you remember about the recording of the Iron Man record, because I know from reading previous interviews there was like, it was a little bit of a different experience for you guys, right? Yeah, actually Iron Man for Gold Space Killer is one of the first. album. So if you think about it, like, I engineered them while making the record, right? Yeah.

But then I had the big flood, and we had to, you know, find a place to work at. And there was a great studio on Staten Island called Mystic Studios. It smelled like a, you know what I mean? At the time, we got that open time as well. At night, come back,ology that I would. How did that openness, that, almost that rock and roll lifestyle that was happening around the studio, like, how did that affect the music itself? I think it has a unique effect in a sense that some of the thematic of the lyrics, some of the music. Like even if you take a song like Assassination Day,

I'm buying me a guitar. You mean like one of those like almost like a pedestal that sits flat? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yep, the pedestal. So I bring both of these back to the, and I'm sitting there trying to get there. That's how you do it. Right? Man.

You know what I mean? No. No, yeah, go ahead. Finish. So those, you know, I think one. fun than Wu-Tang Delphonic They came with an old soul On Dese thing

Love won't let me wait Which was recorded over by Luther Vangelo's later For a motherfucker like this is like This is Wu-Tang getting a chance to see Lether print their awards roll So they come in Timberlin Like kind of accomplished Because for as many years

They mean all the musicians You know, makeophonics Hate it, you know what I mean? In our own way And then so then they you know They say this studio working on the music You know they shot the Delphonix fan up and all the time the telphonic got to a shootout with Houtang and some neighbors did. A real motherfucker.

I'm glad that Delphonics can roll with that. Yeah, they roll with it, though. You know what I mean? And that's a story more because he told me what happened. That's amazing. They did the song. That's veteran showmanship right there. Let's talk a little bit about Daytona 500 itself.

The Nautilus break that you used is kind of, you know, it's like a famous hip-hop break. but the way you flipped it and it sounds like you run it through like an amplifier at the bottom of a stairwell and it's just so raw and fuzzed out and then it has so much energy how long had you been playing with that break

like what do you what do you what was behind the production of that? The cool thing about that right and you know when the baseline drops and the drums come in and breaking bells sometimes you call the Nautilus right? Yeah. Depending on who's asking.

Nobody used. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I think, hold on, let me just catch one something different about it. Maybe somebody didn't hit the high hat on that one. Maybe the snare dropped. Maybe the, you know, never know. I mean, it's never really all the same.

It's not a little, it's a great part of a great loop. Even though it was only maybe 16 bit at the time. It's even 16 bit. But so not just, I think I must have said, at 23, 3, you got a little more grungy sound out of it. Mathematics, you know, who actually to me. Oh, yeah. Scratching in between the first two verses. is incredible.

Yeah, so we got math through the scratches, you know what I may? And he fucking killed the scratches and bong. These are two, I want to ask you a little bit about Ray and Ghost's relationship,

not only his friends, but like the great thing about those two guys across Cuban links and Iron Man and whatever else is just like the way that they play off each other. And I was wondering,

did they record those verses like in that order? Because does Ghost hear Ray go out of his mind on that first verse and know he needs to be? to bring it because that was like one of those first ghost verses where you're like ghosts is just tapped into something else like he can hear jimmy yeah you know what look capo was in

a building too though yeah you know i mean and and and and doing a during the quarter of that he jumped on iron man uh then he jumped on went to shopping together always hanging even for all capo was already developed you know i mean yeah um and like you pointed out and i agree by the time he got the But I remember the old Dirty fan is to me, yo. It's like, yo, Cuba Links. You know what I mean? Yeah, like issues. Yeah, he was having some kind of fucking, it made it.

That's what Dirty was like, yo, that's why this niggas have an headache. This nigga, look on the fuck he's writing, yo. He's fucking busting his brain to get this shit out. And come back with fucking mega bombs. Oh, man. I mean, you said, you mentioned Dirty. Like, how much were other Wu Teng members around for the solo record recordings? So was meth or dirty?

Like, would those guys show up? Yeah. Yeah, so they were just, there was just a communal vibe going on where those guys were just around. Yeah, during that album, somebody was always in the building. Whether they got on the song and parties, that was a really kind of came to Cali

and it still, you still felt their energy. Then maybe during the W, it was trying to make that energy. Right. You know what I'm right? It's like you're trying to be Wutei rather than be Wooten. Yeah, it was, it was big. Because everybody lived in the same.

mansion and uh while we did the W I'd just say this last thing I know you're asking about that but anyway everybody no that's okay you want to talk about W we're talking about W I just say it's one day everybody looking at the same matching why we did the W because like you'll come home and everybody's home but you don't what a motherfucker um let me talk about it all fucking causes anyway guys everybody so everybody's just zooming around um I wanted to ask you a little bit about like you know it I'm sure that it just like I when I think about the 90s

they kind of blend together, but 95-96 is such a creatively fruitful time for you. And it's not only the stuff you're doing with Wu-Tang, but I know you worked with Trici around that time. And I was wondering, it's like, that's where, like, the Wu-Tang sound really started to just permeate across, you know, into England, it starts showing up. I know you worked with Bjork around that time. Like, what are your memories of that time period as an artist? And is there a way that you would almost characterize that time period?

I just was I just I don't know if I had a I came back with a You know what I mean And I was Comfort of years later on

It's not Because not the walks Or an avenue Like when your parents Just don't want to tell you No more To clean your womb up You know what I mean

That personality Had came into me And said In 1997 And my form Yeah Yeah Yeah

Yeah You know Thank you so much For calling in today And thank you so much For the music You've given us Seriously

along with hip hop Take care Peace All right So we're back man Risa at the end of that interview Started talking a little bit about Working with people like Tricky

And people like Bjork And the idea that basically His music was starting Like I think in his words Pursue these different avenues Right And like that You were hearing things

That were Wutang in Tricky's Pre-Millenium Tention Or you would hear Rizza remix of Bjork track I don't think it was from 96 but my point is that basically there seemed to be this transatlantic and global kind of conversation happening and in the same sense it's like what you were talking about earlier about like the sort of possibilities of music and and some of the records that were really almost emblematic of that were introducing by DJ Shadow pre-malineum tension like we're talking about with Tricky and

Beck's O'Dillay as record as music fans wasn't the most exciting part about all of this that it felt like our record collections were starting to like manifest themselves on these albums? I think I think that's really well said because I think the experience for a lot of people in the 90s. This sounds, I would imagine this probably dates us more than anything else, just to say that music taste was just so much more parochial than, I think in general than it is now. The idea of having a conversation across genres, across styles, across oceans now is that's just taken as a given because the world is tiny and, you know, reachable through your laptop or through your phone. But, you know, and I think I've told this anecdote before on the show, but like the same friends who are

still my friends who came to my room and checked out my guided by voices box sets, which sounds weirdly dirty. It shouldn't. Seemed very weirded out that I also had Biggie albums and I had a poster up. Because the idea of those two things occupying the same space was sort of foreign. It was either one or was the other. And so to have an artist like Tricky come out and, like, Tricky came out of Massive Attack, who was another hugely, I think, at this point, underrated artist or collective.

And Tricky was essentially a rapper, but he didn't really care that much about rapping. He would often let his then teenage girlfriend, Martina Topley Bird, just sort of sing raps, either his own or public enemies. He was a producer, but you couldn't tell exactly what he was doing. He was incredibly prolific and clearly charismatic, but then would hide from the spotlight. and in 95 you put out Max and Kay, which is still a close to perfect album. And then with premillennial tension, you know, he was basically articulating everything that we were interested in, but on wax, right? Because he was taking the hip hop that we love from the East Coast.

He was taking the funk that was still very much happening on the West Coast, but he was filtering it through this post-trip-hop, post-Brit-pop filter. And so it suggested a larger world, which is really, you know, that in its sense, is really appealing to people who are 19 years old and very eager to participate in a larger world, but not really sure how to get access to it. And you talk about sort of the boundaries that were there with genre. There was also a real adversarial relationship with success that was going on back then, I think. And the relationship that people who were music fans had with the ideas of corporations,

I mean, we had just kind of like watched firsthand the rise and fall of neurodial. Nirvana. And it's sort of strange. I mean, like, I wasn't really a huge Nirvana fan at the time, but I think that made a huge impression on me was the was the relationship between what mega corporations could do to the music you love. And also, one of the things that happens over and over again in the 90s, you see, is just people starting in a sort of underground, subcultural way, getting massive amounts of exposure because of something they've done, and then basically collapsing under the weight of that exposure. And that happened with tricky, because pre-millian tension is basically an answer record

to the fact that Maxine Cook Kay was in every urban outfitters was basically the soundtrack of going into a coffee shop or an urban outfitters back then. And then you see that happen with Radiohead a couple years later with OK Computer, where they just are like, we cannot be the alternative rock poster boys. And I would jump in and say that that tension, whether it's pre-millennial or not, is all over the playlist that you made. And side note, the best and most beautiful love song on the tricky record is called Makes Me Want to Die, which sort of sums up the 90s in an incredible way. But if you look at the bands on this playlist, you know, there's a lot of, there's some expansiveness coming from the rappers and the hip-hop tracks you put on this playlist.

but in terms of the so-called indie artists coming out of the alt-rock boom in the post-Nirvana, what there is is a lot of modesty and a lot of retreat into quietness and beauty. And so bands like the Spananes and Red House Painters and Bedhead. And, you know, there's also the beginnings of other things happening there. You know, you put some early emo stuff on there, like we're just regional scenes doing their own thing now that the major label attention had been focused elsewhere. but I think it's pretty noteworthy that the smaller bands seem content to say small and the relatively bigger bands. And in this case, I'm thinking of Weezer who put out Pinkerton.

That was that year, right? Yeah, yeah. I still remember you came over to my parents' house and you played me Pinkerton. I was like, I don't know what these guys are up to, but they sure like Asian girls. You're right. And I was right. That was just me being a future rock critic. I really nailed that one.

But no, but like that was a band who should have been one hit wonders. were three-head wonders, and then they were like, I don't know what to do anymore. And of course, that album now 20 years later is considered a masterpiece. But it is this sort of awkward retreat that is pretty fascinating to watch. It was fascinated to watch play out when it was happening. And now it's even more amazing considering all the things that happened in the decades since. Yeah, I mean, part of the cool thing about that era is, I mean, it was difficult to find this music. There was a like, you know, I didn't know about Promise Ring in 1996. I didn't find about really out about them until 97 because like some friends of mine were listening to

nothing feels good which is the record that they put out that year I think and they were like oh yeah don't you know promise ring and I was like no I don't know promise ring they weren't written about and spin so I just didn't know you know what I mean and I didn't know about uh Sleercinney as much you know I knew that there was this really great band apparently coming out of the Pacific Northwest that combined a bunch of people who were in big riot girl bands but I didn't know about like the scenes and that was sort of this secrecy. One of the, um, one of the things that was also happening around that time in terms of like these like subgenres and these, these kind of, um, underground scenes was like this

DJ, beat maker, producer stuff that was happening. It was kind of happening with massive attack like you were talking about with Tricky, but probably the biggest kind of purveyor of that stuff, the, the, the, the most critically acclaimed purveyor of that kind of, you know, beat heavy post hip hop music. was DJ Shadow. And we brought one of our favorite pop culture writers, Wausu, on to talk a little bit about introducing. We're now joined by one of my favorite pop culture writers

of my favorite music critics, Wausu, who writes for the New Yorker, used to write for Grantland. Wow, what's going on, man? Man, awesome to be here. I'm so excited to have you. We wanted to talk to you a little bit. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about DJ Shadow's introducing record,

which was something that, I think it is one of the sort of lasting records from that year. It's something that I feel like people have continued to go to over and over again, and it hasn't aged one bit. Do you still listen to introducing today? You know, for the longest time, I probably would have said that introducing would have been the one album I would take with me on a desert island if that was, you know, like your concern about going on to Desert Island.

And just because it seems so expansive, you know, there are just so many ways you could imagine what was going on. Like, I think it's just being non-lirical, it has aged really well. Do you think that when it was coming out back then, I mean, how much do you remember in terms of the context under which it came out? Because I feel like he, Josh Davis, who, the DJ Shadow's real name's Josh Davis, he was kind of emblematic of a bunch of different subcultural scenes that were happening at that time, whether It was Moax, but it was also like the beat digger, crate digger, like funk break Indiana Jones thing that was happening at the time. And do you remember what you associated with him, like what scene you kind of associated with him with? I don't know, man. I mean, I think I think I, you know, one thing that I think drew a lot of us to hip hop besides just the storytelling, the content was just that sense of, oh, I didn't know you could do that.

Like, I didn't know you could sample. I didn't know you could just wrap over old music. And, you know, with Shadow, with, you know, a lot of the trip-pop stuff kind of in the UK, they just started sampling kind of weirder stuff, not just funk breaks, but I think Shadow sampled Bjork on introducing. Yeah. I mean, it was just, you know, just and tricky with sampling smashing pumpkins. I mean, that definitely pushed that.

I didn't know you could do that in a pretty different realm. probably explains why someone like me who was in college at the time, like it really appealed to me. But I think the other thing with Shadow was just the fact that he came from Davis, which, you know, was affectionately a career. Yeah. So it wasn't just the fact that he was sampling kind of like weird stuff or, you know, making really narrative instrumental hip-hop.

It was just also that you could do this coming out of your bedroom in, you know, a pretty obscure town in Illinois, California. Yeah, I think that the one thing that Beck and Shadow, and to some extent like you were saying, with Tricky, that they all had in common was it started to almost sound like the manifestation, like the artistic manifestation of record collecting and of being a music fan. Yeah. And it kind of gave us an avatar, right? Like if you spent a lot of time at Kim's or Third Street Jazz in Philly or wherever in California or in Chicago, like these record stores and you spent all. like hours looking through different albums and wondering what sounds

were inside, this music started to be an approximation of like all the sounds that were going on in your head. Yeah, man, there's so many on my record shells right now. Do you miss that kind of like almost

sense of adventure when it comes to listening to stuff? Yeah, you know, I finished writing my first book and something you think about when doing something like that is, you know, trying to pretty much just stunt on every page, just trying to do, like, everything you've ever wanted to do. And I think with introducing, it just really sounded like weirdly economical

or a little restrained given how big it was. You know, I mean, he could have, it just really felt like a refined vision of his style. And I think that doesn't really sound too overblown. It just sounds like exactly the albums you want to make. And I think that's pretty rare for an artist's debut. Yeah, and it still sounds incredible today. I'll let you go with this last question. Other than introducing, what is a record from 96 if off the top of your head that you still go back to today?

You have to think about sort of what the readily available drug was at the time. So 96 to me is definitely just kind of a hang out on your couch. Definitely the tricky album, just that kind of nightmarish, chopped and screwed dance hall style. I mean, it's so forward-looking and nothing sounds like it still. I was listening to that on the way, like driving in to work the other day. And it's so incongruous with having like mental stability. it just if you're driving and it's like sunny out and you're listening to vent or tricky kid it just doesn't you're like there's something really wrong in the world and I I am not in touch with it right now because like

and for some reason back then that felt like this like satellite from outer space that was just being beamed in and even though it used so much stuff that I was familiar with it it still sounds as otherworldly and as disturbing today as it did back then yeah and the other thing I remember remember about 96 is just that seemed to be the era when, you know, bigger rock artists, like like REM, I remember had some beat thing on, um, New Adventures. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It just seemed like the era when rock band started having, you know, like a DJ scratch on their tracks or, you know, some extra production help to add, um, you know, more rhythm to their arrangements. Yeah. It was a texturally, like really, really interesting time. Well, look, man, I don't want to keep you any longer, uh, let you get back to Zeeke. back to Zee. Thanks so much for joining us today.

We can read Wai stuff at the New Yorker and thanks again for calling in, dude. Thanks for having me, man. All right, talk to you soon. Listening to Wai talk about all that stuff takes me back. I mean, I guess that's the point of this podcast, but I spent so much of that decade

and literally all of the money that I was able to acquire on hope and on guesses. And so much of it came from a British label called Moax, you know, that put out. DJ Shadow stuff and then later he was so expensive.

It was so expensive and I was thinking about 96 they put out a compilation called Heads 2 and it was two double disc sets that were just beautiful with paintings by Massive Attacks

3D on the cover and they were full of DJ Shadow was on it and the side project he did Uncle but like nightmares on wax and I think maybe Fotech was on it

and it was just this beautiful noise that I didn't know where it was coming from it was coming from this like version of London in the UK that really only existed in my mind. And I'm almost grateful that I didn't travel there because I would have probably been disappointed because that, you know, I could just basically live off the heroin-scarred images of the train spotting soundtrack and like my back issue is a melody maker for London. You know, those Moax records were so expensive.

Like I just remember holding those those heads compilations and being like, I just don't know if I have the money, you know. And that in some ways was so influential. over what you wound up listening to is just the choices you made in the music. I know that helium's on this playlist, and I remember buying and selling the helium album, Dirt of Luck, at used record stores, like, three times, not because I didn't love it, or because I didn't love it. I just liked it, and I only liked a couple of songs, and I was like, well, maybe I can

get $3 in credit for it and buy something else. Yeah, but I did the reverse, which is when I bought those heads compilations, I basically considered it like a layaway plan because that would, I was no longer able to buy things for a number of weeks after that. So I was forced to listen to them. I carried those two beautiful cases with me up and down the Eastern Seaboard countless times. Like it was, it was like the only thing that I had to keep me company by because I had chosen to invest, I don't know, like 70 bucks in them. So because of that, I think I kind of appreciated it a little bit more. Like it was, it was, the value was so high.

By the way, I do think we should mention that we didn't just bond that year over indie stuff. It's not like we were both super into spent at the same time, and that's why we were conjoined at the hip. We really, really rode for that Wallflower's record, too, which I really appreciate it.

Oh, yeah, the radio was pretty good back then. And I mean, so you basically had all these incredible, like, sort of Hollywood versions of Alt Rock hits that were happening on the radio. I mean, there was also the Macquarine in stuff like that. But you had Smashing Pumpkins had singles for melancholy and infinite sadness that were still coming out. The wallflowers bringing down the house was out. So one headlight and Sixth Avenue heartache was out. Were there any other like pop rock radio hits that you remember

from that time period that you loved? Yes. And first of all, just to be clear, it was it was bringing down the horse because the model beautiful son of Bob Dylan does not need to bring down a house. The house goes down around him. Horses are another story. Do you remember like one of our biggest moments, I think, was the VMAs when the Wallflowers closed the show doing one headlight with Springsteen just screaming into the mic with Jacob Dillon. Did I hallucinate that? He took his whole life that night. No, of course that was that year, yeah.

But to your point, another thing that we bonded on, and I will still ride for, is when, this is what a crazy era it was, where you have a very, very good radio guitar pop band like Bush, right? and everything should work for them other than their terrible name, but, like, Gavin Rossdale is a, he's a gorgeous guy, he's, like, charismatic. The songs were, like, Machine Head still love it. These are fine pop rock radio songs. But because of the pressures of this underground or this idea of purity that really carried weight in the marketplace, I guess,

those dudes went to Chicago to record with Steve Albini, which is always an insane decision for anyone, I think, just for your quality of life. But they came out, not just with an Albuyer, that was okay, Razor Blade suitcase, but with Swallowed, which is one of the most nonsensical best songs ever recorded. And I feel like, I'm grateful that whatever putative attempts at record review zines we made in 1996, because we did. And I think we both took turns writing rapturous singles reviews of Bush's Swallowed. I'm glad that doesn't exist, but I'm glad we did it, because that song deserves it. Um, I wanted to wrap up things today.

a kind of a downer note, but, you know, the music lost someone, a legend, basically, like with the passing of Fife Dog this week from Trap Call Quest. So when I met Andy, like in 96 in the summer, and then sort of towards the end of the summer before people were going back to school, there was a night I know that like we basically like bumped into each other downtown. And it was the night that beats rhymes and life came out at midnight. Right? We can track this, right? Because the record was released on July 30th, 1996. So this was July 30th, 1996. When I was with my then girlfriend who was visiting that summer and was walking through South Philly to get to Tower Records to buy this album. Maybe it was the night before because it was like waiting to get it in midnight or something. Because we were so excited for the fourth triber. Because that was the big thing was like to go. Because I remember I went and bought.

being there by Wilco in that way, I think. But the truth is you and your high school friend, John, were the real midnight marauders that night because there was like a police lockdown in South Philly, and the two of you were just like, you were just out scavenging. I don't know quite know what you were doing, but what was nice is that I was, you were like,

what are you doing? I was like, I'm going to buy the new tribe called Quest album, and you were like, that makes sense to me. And I was like, what are you doing? You're like, we're just wandering around the city. And I was like, you know what? We're 19. That makes sense to me too.

brother. But, Andy, but in your life, yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah. Aside from the anecdote about us discovering it, like, this is a, it's a crazy week to think about it, just because the voice of this guy of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, a life was so essential to our lives for so long. And we talked about finding each other and over our music taste in this, you know, in this, we found love in a, in a, in a, in a hopeless big box store in 96.

But one thing that we can talk about, for as tribal as music was in the 90s and as stratified by genre, everyone loved Tribe Called Quest. And I remember thinking for a while because I was, you know, a punk. I wasn't actually punk, but my attitudes were punky. It was almost annoying that people like Tribe Called Quest. You wanted to preserve something for yourself or you'd get a little resentful when there would be people who would be like, well, I only like real music like jazz. So I like Tribe Called Quest. and they were sort of tarred with that brush. But looking back, there is something pretty exultant and wonderful about the fact that

when we were that age and we'd go to college or we'd meet people, pretty much everyone had low-end theory. Pretty much everyone had Midnight Marauders. These albums, both those albums are perfect front to back, first of all. And I was listening to them again yesterday, and they just made me so deeply happy. But that is something that is, in all the conversations that we have and other people have about music. Sometimes the most basic thing is the most easily forgotten or overlooked, which is that this is joyful noise. So this is wonderful stuff. And that's what Tribe brought. And within that

world of joy, it was Fife who brought it the most because he was the most every guy figure. He was always funny, though, always jumping all over everything. And he wasn't the star. I mean, Q-Tip was the one from the minute people's instinctive travels came out. Everyone was like, oh, this kid's going to be big. And then he was in movies, like poetic justice. Fife was a five-foot-three diabetic kid from Queens who on record was you know in Adonis and a lover man and could dunk and he was always always always welcome you know this is not like a weed carrier situation he was the soul of that group and so to lose him at a young age yeah he it's it's equal shares I mean you touched on it back was an alien Wu Tang were superheroes you know

tricky was from some other world radio head we're dealing with this sort of crush of fame that I didn't really, you know, like is completely, you can't identify with that unless you go through it. Tribe were us. Like, I think the reason why Tribe is one of the most sort of universally loved groups is because everybody saw a little bit of themselves in those guys. And if you had friends, you saw yourself in the friendships that those guys, those three guys had. That's why it was so hard to accept them breaking up. Even if you could tell by the music that they were going in different directions or that Q-Tip wanted to try to maybe make different kinds of stuff. it was just you always sort of saw yourself and it was so weird it was like i can't remember

whether i started dressing like them or i was dressing the way that they were already dressing you know what i mean it's like the chicken or the egg with that and it was it's such a loss just to think that that that that life is gone and that that that part of my life is over and that that that music is done you know that that that group is is is sort of done it's it's just such a tragic loss what I really I highly recommend everyone check this out the 93 source cover story on Tribe that the Kierna Mayo wrote and I tweeted it out yesterday we're recording this on Thursday I tweeted it on Wednesday I'll maybe I'll re-up it again it's just an amazing snapshot not of just who these guys were as people and as artists but of a different time now the story was

from 93 right before Midnight Marauders came out and it just took me back like that that album was the soundtrack of my last two years of high school back to front front to back the itself, you know, is this collection of faces of people in the community. And just that idea that there was a community that everyone knew each other and they were commenting and hanging out. That was just mind expanding and really exciting. And frankly, exciting in the same way that like, not to get too grandiose, but a show like lost or Game of Thrones is exciting.

We're like, look at this cast. How are they going to interact with each other? That's so exciting. Right. And then you wind up getting, it's that delilo line from, not to be like, not to be grandiose to me myself, but it's like that delo line from Libra where it's like there is a a world inside the world. You find out that there's like a group of like-minded people who are interested in the same things,

who have the same reference points, who are interested in the same themes and sounds. And it's, it changes your life when you find that. There's no better, I mean, I didn't expect to find it in DeLillo, especially in a Delillo book about JFK assassination, but aren't they all about that really? But I think you said it best about what's great about music and what's great about looking back on the music of your youth. I just feel like also this tribe story, and I hope people read it, to feel, when you hear the two of us talk about it, maybe we're making this sound like a black and white foreign time and, you know, we sound old or whatever, read the story and it puts the world to perspective because these guys were coming off of two relatively big hits in people's instinctive travels and low-end theory. They were making this album that was going to be supposedly supposed to be their biggest hit. And they live with their grandmothers, you know?

They live with their families in Queens and there's just this intense humility and just realness of it and it's not just where they live in their circumstances that they let a writer just roll with them across the Manhattan Bridge you know and if anything I think that everything we've talked about today

the passion people are going to have for music the connection they're going to find with their generation's music none of that's going to change at all but no this that that acts that weird lo-fi access or relationship to fame and to celebrity and to these artists, that's gone for good or ill.

That's gone forever. Well, we really thank everybody for listening to us Go Down Memory Lane. We'll have a special version of the Ringer Newsletter tomorrow that has on Friday that has some of Riz's thoughts on Fife and has our playlist and some of me and Andy's favorite albums from the year. And we really glad everybody listened. Hope you enjoyed it. I really like talking about it.

Thanks, man. Thank you.