Electronic music is not my genre of expertise, so it came as a surprise to me when I heard AO’s soothing and ambient tones on his solo release.  I had the good fortune of then, seeing him live at the Dropping Gems Showcase at Decibel Festival, where he was joined by friend and frequent collaborator, Zuri Biringer, whose lilting guitar riffs added a grounded sense of nature, invoking images of sky and water.  It’s impossible to listen to the Seattle native’s sound without being drawn to the beats.  However, while they ultimately drive the music forward, they aren’t the primary focus of the songs, which create a vivid mood through crooning vocals, guitar, and keyboard.  In combination with some incredible imagery that accompanied the performance, the set was nearly transcendent.

Not long after his show that night, I was able to sit down with Alex to discuss his development as a DJ and find out where he draws his inspiration from.  His ambient sound was a divergence from the sounds that I had heard from him previously and I had many questions.  Eloquently and in fascinating detail, he was able to give me answers to questions that I didn’t even know that I had.  To an electronic media newbie, like myself, I found him to be incredibly informative and insightful; even providing hints on where to start my own exploration of the vast genre.  In the end, he was even so helpful as to give a demonstration of how he creates his unique style.

The following is the transcript from that conversation.

PARVANEH: I guess my basic question would be, when did you get interested in electronic music and where did you see yourself going when you started?

DJAO: So, I don’t really know where to begin really.  I guess the first time that I ever heard an electronic music song that I thought, “Oh shit this is really incredible,” I heard- yeah, I guess it’s like the first track from the Beastie Boys album, Hello Nasty.  Yeah I heard it in like sixth grade.  We were sitting on a bus.  We were on a school trip and they had the CD and that was when that album came out, and I remember hating on it quite a bit.  -I’m sorry, I’m really OCD, I just need to make sure this is recording right.

[Checks on the recording]

Anyway so sixth grade on the bus?

So, sixth grade on the bus.  I remember I saw- I don’t know, it’s a long story, but I saw the Beastie Boys album cover and I was like, “I bet that sucks!”  and I was on this bus ride, and a friend of mine lent it to me.  I thought that them rapping was pretty cool, but the beat… everything about it was just so crazy to me.  It was like, “Wow, this is one of the hardest pieces of music I’ve ever heard”.  Up until then, I was just listening to 90s alternative.  I was really into Rage Against the Machine and stuff like that.  Then, through the Beastie Boys…  Their DJ is one of the best scratch DJs, his name is Mixmaster Mike and is one of the craziest musicians who uses a turntable, basically.  He’s really out there and really experimental and the crew that he’s from is really experimental.  They’ve done a lot of work.  They’ve released albums around turntables, using them to produce sound that I don’t think anyone’s really matched…  The whole turntable thing really died out.  That’s the way I really came to it, ’cause I really started DJing sophomore year of high school.  I wasn’t even DJing for people.  I was just, literally, in my room with the turntables just scratching for like ,two years probably…  Just scratching, listening to really, really weird beats made by other DJs and scratching with no purpose and no plan whatsoever.

Then I started DJing high school parties and dances and stuff, but I was still basically listening to all hip hop.  So, then I started DJing out.  Playing shows and stuff, just doing dances for friends at their houses and fundraisers.  You know, high schools.  Then, I went to college and I was still pretty much just listening to hip hop all the time and DJing and all that, and my style of DJing just started to get weirder -like the chopped and screwed stuff that I do now when I DJ, as opposed to my live show- started freshman and sophomore year.  I mean, it started in High School, but that’s when it really started to flourish.

And then, it was my junior year, when I studied abroad in London, where I really got exposed to-  Well, I was kind of eclectic, but when I moved to a different city where no one listened to hip hop, or most of my friends didn’t listen to hip hop, I suddenly learned about just so many different kinds of music and started to go out and see it live, which had a lot to do with me starting to catch on.  Especially when, around that time, that was…  that was 2007-2008…  That wasn’t when dubstep first started, but it was right when it was blowing up in-  Before it had blown up in America, but when it was becoming really developed and popular and a lot of people were starting to accept it as cutting edge and interesting.  And a lot of my favorite artists are dubstep artist who are from that era and who I saw live.  Like Benga,who I saw live before his album came out.  I only knew him through the internet.  I didn’t come to London knowing anything and, sitting in my room in London on the internet and realizing that all these super cutting edge dudes, who are so interesting and fascinating to me, are all in the city I was in, I was like, “Oh my god, I have to go to some of these shows”.  I remember, when I went to see Benga -I couldn’t find anybody to go with me- and, I remember I was just lying in bed that night and I was like, “Well, what am I gonna do tonight?  Am I just going to smoke and pass out, or am I going to go to this show by myself?“  And I went and, first of all, I met him and then, that is where I met my British girlfriend, totally randomly.

So it worked out well.

Turned out to be a good choice.  But I came back and my senior year just completely changed the music I DJed.  I started listening to electro, started listening to way more dubstep, and started listening to futurebeat.  Which is I guess is where you’d put me now, sort of.  But there’s a lot of words for it, like IDM.

What would that stand for?

That stands for “Intelligent Dance Music.”  It’s for like, experimental 90 beats per minute roughly.  It’s a pretty nebulous term.  It has a lot of connotations with music that came out in the mid-late 90s, or early 2000s.

I know when I saw you at the Baltic Room last fall, it definitely sounded like-  I mean, I’m sure it also had to do with the theme of the night, but it sounded much more dubstep-style.  A lot of heavy beats, but definitely pretty scratchy, do you feel like you were influenced by glitch at all, either?

You know, I think I was more influenced more by J Dilla than I was by any hard IDM or hard glitch, and I have friends who are really into glitch, like Calvin from Ghost Feet…  We did a Portland show recently and he drove me down from Olympia and he said, “You should check out this hard minimum glitch that I got from France.”  He said, “This stuff is so computer error,” and I was like, I like this stuff, but I don’t.  I don’t seek it out.  It definitely influences my music but it’s not like…

Not one of your main influences…

Not one of my main influences.  I think mainly it influences me through other artists that inspire me.  But that particular show was a DJ set, right?

Yeah

So yeah, I remember that set, that was really fun.  That was a lot of hip hop and chillwave and future beat and there was definitely some really crazy dubstep in there too.

*laughing* Yeah.

Yeah, the guy who booked me, Ill Cosby, is a future bass DJ and so, I pulled out more of my upper tempo- you know, strange, really mindblowingly arranged dance tunes for that one, more than I normally do.

I think…  I want to go back to that, too, but for your current stuff -like your Ep and the stuff you played at Decibel Festival- is much more low key, kind of with Zuri playing guitar and the singing aspect of it…  I’d been keeping up with your pieces coming out on the Dropping Gems compilations and, when your EP came out, I thought, “Wow, where did this come from?“  It sounded like a completely different style.  Was this something you were building up to, or was it something you didn’t really have the opportunity to do with the Dropping Gems Collective, or….?

Well all of that music is definitely like Dropping Gems music-

Really?

Yeah, because I make a lot of different kinds of music, but I have my more up-tempo stuff coming out on Car Crash Set in the middle of November, and I also have just straight dance music, like just regular dance music…  I guess it’s not regular, but to me it is, I just sit down and I think, “I’m gonna make a Baltimore club tune” and it just comes out however it comes out.  But, like the first song on the EP, “Underbrush,” when I sat down to make that, I thought, “I’m gonna make a dubstep tune” and that’s what came out…  So, I don’t always know. *laughter*  But, in my head, I classify it one way, but people…  But, that material is mostly over a year old.  Like “Green Lake” was a song I made right when I got a computer.  Like, I was in Seattle a while without a computer.

I guess I didn’t finish explaining…  When I graduated from college, I started working at a production company and started using the studio there and that’s how I actually started making beats.  I mean, I made beats in high school in the digital media lab on GarageBand and so, then using Logic -which is the professional version of GarageBand- which was at the studio I was working at, was not difficult.  And I still have tons of material from that time that hasn’t been released and I don’t know if it will ever be released and what I’ll do with it.  It doesn’t really matter, but all that stuff is really different.  But, I moved back to Seattle and, a couple months later, I got a computer; it was that summer.  Summer of 2010.  So, a little over a year ago.

So do you feel like you identify with some of the kinds of music that you’ve put out any more than others?  Like, do you feel like the stuff that came out on your EP was maybe stuff that expressed more of an individual style, or…?

Well, it’s hard to say with that, specifically.  I mean, all of that is really, really personal stuff, but, like I said, it’s pretty much a good record of the last year.  “Green Lake,” I made it last summer.  I made “Taigamoss”…  I made it last fall or winter.  “Underbrush” I’ve literally been working on for a year, at least.  “Moon Sun Ravine” just started as a beat with those voices, and that shit is really old too.  “Through The Field” is relatively recent, but couldn’t be any newer than the Spring.  The only thing that really I made this summer would be the second half of “Moon Sun Ravine” with Zuri playing the guitar, which I just made while I was living on Capitol Hill and I just called Zuri and said, “Man can you come over and play?  Bring your guitar I need to finish this goddamn EP.”

So how did the partnership…?

Yeah, the collaboration, the collaborative partnership-

…the collaboration with Zuri come about?

We’ve just been friends for a long time- Man, when was the first time we jammed?  I don’t even know… the first thing that comes to mind is a song called “Forest,” which I played live at the Decibel show…  No, there’s another song, it’s called “Pacific City”…  Me and Zuri went down to Portland.  I think Zuri actually just came down to kick it, just the two of us went down to kick it with the Dropping Gems people.  This is like when I was first getting to know all of them.  And we just hung out and, at one point, we went to the Oregon coast and we went to this place called Pacific City, which was really, really, really incredible.  But yeah, at a certain point, he came over to the house and I had just put together-  Well, I think I might have actually, just done it all at once…  I just played some pads, played some noises, I had a couple different sounds, just a couple different chords on top of each other, or maybe just one chord, and I said, “Hey Zuri, just play some guitar over this” and a week later, I just went in and just chopped up what he had played and put it into a sampler and just played it.  And, because I don’t know how to play piano and I don’t know how to play guitar and, because like of all these things… collaborating with people who are really talented like Zuri, who is, first of all, unbelievably talented, but he’s also got exactly the same (well not exactly the same) but in the exact same continuum that I am, in terms of taste and definitely in terms of melodic sensibility, is great.

Of course.

And, during the Decibel show, he was really blowing me away.  He recorded that set -or, someone did- and I don’t know where it is.  I meant to record it, but was too flustered in the process of getting everything set up.  It just turned out to be just a really happy accident.  It wasn’t really an accident, but really an organic thing that I didn’t have to plan at all.  He would just come in and play over the things I made, I’d chop it up in the sampler and it would add so much.  We did a couple more songs that way and it developed into a thing that was just really, really fruitful from a production standpoint, and I realized, if we can do this in the studio, this would be perfect live, too.  He came through and played at the Electric Tea Garden and it was amazing.  It really helped my anxieties, ’cause there’s a general sense of anxiety when you’re playing music like this that is generally done in a studio ahead of time.  When you’re not like, just pressing play on an Ipod, which I have literally seen people do before…

Right *laughing*

So, having it be done as much live as possible is really important thing for me and I’m not anywhere near where I want to be in terms of that.  Like, I just do what I can at the moment and, as I get to be a better musician, I’ll add more.

Well, I think the stuff you’ve done with Zuri always sounds really natural.  I think, a lot of times, when people have another instrument come in, it can sound weird, but I was actually playing your EP with my boyfriend -this is kind of an aside- but he said, “God, this would be really great with some guitar over it,” and then all the sudden Zuri comes in and he was like, “oh! Perfect!”  So, I think it feels really natural and makes a lot of sense.  And, I guess I have a lot of questions, too, about how you put your music together on a technical level.  I mean, I have NO knowledge about the process of making electronic music; like what programs you use or how you put it together, but I guess I’ll save those for later when you show me how it works.

Having seen your previous show and having heard the stuff that’s been coming out on compilation CDs, I think I heard a much more obviously complex kind of a sound from you, like you were saying about the show that I saw; that you were really kind of throwing everything out there.  And it seems like a lot of your recordings have been showcasing a lot of different skills that you have technically as a DJ.  When you came out with your EP, or your stuff that you’ve been working on longer term, the sound seemed to be a lot simpler on the surface.  Though, seeing you live, I feel like I could tell the complexities in the beats, which kind of moved around a little bit, subtly changing tempos.  Why did you make that change in your sound?

Well, it wasn’t that much of a change for me, really, because that’s how I’ve always done it.  I just hadn’t released any of it, so no one really knew.  When DJing, I’m so eclectic and I’m drawn to so many different things…  The biggest distinction, though, is that I’m playing other peoples’ music and not, you know, not mine.  I’m not creating that stuff that I play.  Anyway, the thing about my live shows is that I don’t have a template or formula for making song, and I don’t have a formula for structuring songs in the middle of making them and, especially if I come back to something that I was working on… anything new that I do will be different than what I was originally doing.  It’ll be in the same vein, but… you can really tell on the fourth track of the EP, “Moon Sun Ravine,” there’s the part where the voice is and then, there’s the part with the guitar.  And they were both made months apart from each other.  And so, you can just tell.  And, for some people, the switch may be too much.  I know I had long conversations with people, in Dropping Gems specifically, who just said,”the guitar is too much, it’s too jarring.”  I agonized about that for a little while, but eventually, I decided to keep it.  But, in any event, the reason why tempos change and beats change is because that’s just what happens when I play the songs.

Right, I wasn’t meaning that in a negative way.  I really like that, actually.

Yeah.  No, I mean, I have plenty of thoughts about what to say like, “Well, you know, life is always changing.”

*Laughter*

But seriously, life is never in a lock-step meter.  You know, every day could potentially be a revolutionary day.  Like, if something crazy happens and you have to upend your whole life… that’s kind of what this summer’s been like for me a little bit.  Things have finally settled down, but also there’s a lot of points on the EP and in my live set where there aren’t any drums at all.  It’s just ambient.  And then, drums come in and that’s kind of similar to the patterns of life, you know.  Activity and inactivity, or inspiration and depression, or whatever else you want to say.  So, the EP is also narrative, so it really has a specific narrative…  It’s like a trip, like a walk in the woods, you know?  And there’s stops and starts to that experience, too.  There’s parts where you’re walking down a hill and you might trip, or other times where things are just mundane and you’re trying to stay in line.

So, just to clarify, the narrative is the movement of someone through….?

Well, it’s just natural environments, forests, specifically.  Obviously, it’s not a specific place, it’s more fantasy-based than that.

I think you can definitely feel that in the EP.   Obviously, the names of the songs tend to imply that naturalness.  I guess that, to me as a listener, hearing some of your stuff that’s more rhythm-heavy and complex, compared to the ambient sounds that you have on the EP, it definitely seems to be much more reminiscent of nature as opposed to mechanics.

Yeah, definitely.  I mean, that’s the thing about… I love electronic music…  I was thinking about this the other day.  It’s probably the genre of music where the most exciting things are happening, just in general.  But, you know, there’s a significant history to electronic music and a lot of the pioneers…  I’m not like a hard electronic music nerd.  Especially with pioneer stuff.  I mean, I might get myself in trouble for saying this, but… I don’t like rigid, harsh, computer sounds.  I just don’t.  That’s what a lot of people make and that’s actually what’s popular, essentially.  Mid-range dubstep that has a lot of spikey computer sounds and huge over-compressed kicks and snares, it sounds like robots screaming and stuff.  There’s definitely a nice, enjoyable side to that music, but it seems like there’s way more bad than good and there’s way more inorganic electronic music.

Do they do that to put an emphasis on skill?

Well, not so much that, it’s just an aesthetic.  It’s a harsh aesthetic, and it’s an aesthetic that lacks a lot of mechanic rhythm.  It honestly, just has a lot to do with people partying.

It’s different for me, because I use a computer as my main instrument, but I don’t want to express robotic ideas or cold, synthetic ideas, or rigid ideas.

One of the cool things, I think, about the EP is that, because of the ambient sounds and getting away from the more mechanical aspects of electronic music, where the beat isn’t the emphasis, but has a large effect on the feeling of the music, it seems to have an appeal to more people who are outside of the electronic music world.  Were you intentionally trying to reach outside of that scene?

Well, not really.  It’s something I want, but it’s not something I’m explicitly aiming for in my head when I am making the music.  Part of it’s just that I have pretty eclectic taste and I like seeing a lot of different things live, you know.  I actually went to my first death metal show on Friday and it was a really extreme scene, but it’s really awesome, too.  I just got booked for a show in Portland and I’m playing right before the headliner and it’s just an indie band.  No one else on the bill is electronic and to me that makes perfect sense.  I don’t want to appeal to just one crowd and… there’s people I know I won’t appeal to, but…  I mean, I would love to appeal to everyone.  I guess I’m kind of insecure that way, you know, I’d love if everyone liked me.

*Laughter*

But, I don’t think that I want one scene or audience versus another.  And I like to make people feel comfortable and to communicate positive information and feelings, especially in a live setting where people are congregated together.  It’s nice to be able to communicate that individually to people through their headphones or whatever, but specifically when I’m physically there performing and creating sounds where there are a lot of people congregated to hear it, I really, really want what I’m transmitting to be positive.  I mean, I have a lot of music and I play these things that communicate a negative state of mind, but I try to do it in a way that’s enjoyable or at least uplifting.

There are a lot of artists, in my genre specifically, who are about being as harsh and nasty as possible and people go to those shows and are like “Yeah play the crazy shit!” and I totally respect that and sometimes I feel like that.  Like I said, I went to this metal show and it was awesome, but it was definitely some of the heaviest and most brutal stuff I’ve seen live.

Well, that kind of leads into what I think is going to be one of my final questions.  For you, what do you think are the advantages to playing a live show vs. a studio recording and vice versa?

Well, live shows are totally different, because (with) in studio recordings, I’m spending hours and hours and hours trying to find the right sounds and put them together correctly and getting them all mixed and balanced correctly, and to get the thing I’m looking for, which I only have the vaguest idea about and don’t really know it until I find it.  It just takes forever and it’s emotionally kind of harrowing and it’s just a mess and it takes a while.  And then, once I’ve found it, I’ve found it and it’s like a happy accident and I can enjoy it.  And in a live performance, it’s just about communicating that hard work to people in the most accessible way possible.  The most important work happens in the studio and the live show is like a celebration of what I’ve managed to find.  And I get to do some of it live, so it’s interesting to watch, but mostly it’s like, “Look what I found, guys!”

I know you mentioned this earlier and you didn’t really have a chance to talk about this, but you brought up that there were certain people who (you) felt like witnessing their live shows was really influential to you and (I was wondering) if you’d like to talk about it and how it influenced you….

Well yeah, James Blake is the pinnacle to me, as far as this section of electronic music goes, and he is a polarizing figure, I guess.  But to me, he’s the only person who has taken, well… I mean, I read an interview with him once and people asked him, “What’s your live show going to be like?” ’cause he was still developing it, and he said, “Well I just want it to be like Mount Kimbie’s philosophy on it.”  They’re another British group and they’re similar, but they don’t take it quite as far as James Blake, which is for him to basically play every note live.  Which is… it’s electronic music.  It’s made over multi-track on a computer -he makes it himself in his bedroom- but when he tours, he has a guy playing the drums and a guy playing the guitar and using a sampler, and he’s singing and playing the keyboards, and every sound that you hear on the record (and it may be slightly different) is being made live and being produced live and, to me, that’s the ideal.

So, do you see yourself moving in that direction in the future?

I have so many plateaus I have to reach before I can do that.  I have to learn to play the piano, I have to learn how to arrange for a band and I have to find…  I think Zuri would be a perfect person to tour with, which is why I do, but I’d have to figure out where I fit in and how I could have control over the sounds that I want to have control over.

Flying Lotus is another person who tours with a drummer and Thundercat is a bass player from LA who’s like, amazing.  He’s at a computer consul doing stuff and controlling the sounds and letting the band members go wild, which is kind of what I do, but way, way, way less talent and control in my situation.

Mount Kimbie are another good example, but they run a lot of stuff off samplers.  They play guitar live and they play drum pads live and stuff, and they have a snare that they hit every once in a while, so they’re another good example of that.

Shlohmo’s newest album is really organic and he uses loops, which is another option potentially, but I like playing with other people.  It’s basically, translating what my really personal ideas are and having control over them and then expanding that to include other people.  It’s a tremendous challenge…

Also Brown Bear, who is in Dropping Gems, has a project where he plays with a full band.   And Toro y Moi, one of my favorite beatmakers, had one of the best albums in 2010, and now he plays with a band and his music is different, because he plays with a band, and it’s amazing, but it’s just not what I would have wanted him to do, just because I love that one album so much… but, it also reminds me that it’s just not something that I think I’d be able to do to full satisfaction for a few years.

Thanks so much for talking to me about this.  I think we should wrap up this section of the interview and head over to see how you make your music.

Sounds good.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

After the interview, Alex let me come check out his studio, where he demonstrated how he creates a track from scratch.  It was a really great way to end the day and to round out some of my newfound knowledge of the electronic music artform.

[Unfortunately, the flip cam recording the footage doesn't capture the bass very well.]

LINKS:

Find out more about DJAO from the following links…

DJAO on Facebook
DJAO on SOUNDCLOUD
DJAO Dropping Gems Profile

His EP, Wuhn, can heard and/or purchased by “name your price” through here: http://droppinggems.bandcamp.com/album/wuhn

His more recent release is an installment of the No Northwest series put out by the Car Crash Set Label.  The series is an effort to spotlight Northwest producers and is a split EP, which he shares with HxdB, a Vancouver producer.  Two of the tracks are from DJAO; one being a solo piece called, “Just For Today” and the other, “Meditation,” being a collaboration with Yuk.  It is his first “for-money,” wide-release EP and is available for purchase at the following links:
BeatPort
AMAZON
Boomkat

Photo Credit:

Header image taken by Parvaneh Angus.

All other images are provided courtesy of Lara Schneider.

Since 2003, David Wang has released a body of work that pretty much runs the gamut of experimental electronic music.  As “Mochipet“, Wang made his first waves with his mash-up masterpiece, “Combat“, on the Violent Turd label (an offshoot of Kid606’s seminal Tigerbeat6 techno label), in 2003.  Breakcore-inspired exercises like “Yes vs. NoMeansNo” and “They Might Be Giants vs. Lyrical Giants” proved that the mash-up genre has more to offer than Girl Talk’s pop-friendly blend of modern hip-hop and radio hits.   From there, Mochipet went on to release “Uzumaki” (2004, Component Records), a blend of cut-up beats, ethnic percussion, and tense ambience.  2007’s “Disko Donkey” (on his own Daly City Records label) saw Wang move toward the more dance floor friendly styles of disco, techno, and electro-pop with a little help from friends, like minimal queen and BpitchControl label-head Ellen Allien and SF rockers Scissors For Lefty.

But fans of Mochipet’s breakcore spasms didn’t have to hold their breath for too long.  2007 also saw the release of “Girls (Heart) Breakcore” (Daly City Records), an all-out attack of drill-n-bass chaos slipped over several seemingly unrelated genres, including Chinese Opera, Metal, Hip-Hop, and falsetto Pop a la JT. As the title suggest, Wang is all-to aware of the testosterone-heavy tendencies of the genre (seriously, how many female breakcore artists are out there?).  The album also features several remixes by partners-in-crime Aaron Spectre (Drumcorps), Rotator, and Otto Von Schirach.   Soon after came “Feel My China II“, the second installment of albums featuring remixes of Mochi’s work by his peers.   Remixes by glitch-hop poster boy edIT, Venezuelan breakcore/dubstep innovator Cardopusher, and IDM noodler Machine Drum reinterpreted Mochipet’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink style in their own language, often with exciting results.

Mochipet’s latest offering,”Microphonepet“, is a collection of collaborations with MCs and vocalists of the underground hip-hop variety.   Spanning several years, Mochi offers up a blend of classic hip-hop ( “Do What You Feel” with Artlinkletters, “Ride On” with Mike Boo & Raashan (Crown City Rockers), club-friendly dance tracks (“Get Your Whistle Wet” with The Hustle Heads), and glitchy bass stutters (“Boys And Boys And Toys” with Jahcoozi, “Mr. Malase” with Humanbeings, Dopestyle, and Casual of Oakland’s Hieroglyphics crew).   Albeit a little scatterbrained genre-wise (mostly due to the span of time in which the tracks were produced), Microphonepet offers a little something for everyone, from the Burning Man/Glitch Mob crowd to the Tribe Called Quest purists to the indie rap scenester.

Mochipet was kind enough to meet me after our first interview attempt was botched by technical difficulties.  Upon arriving at his house, I was offered a glass of wine by his girlfriend, Fiona.   “Or, we have beer.”  Having just drank a tall boy of PBR on the drive over, I opted for the brewski.  We chatted for a few minutes while I set up my recording equipment, and we were on our way…

MEMES: I wanted to talk about Daly City Records first, and you’re role there. Does running your own record label ever get in the way of creating music?

MOCHIPET: Yeah, a lot. It’s really taxing, actually. When I started the label, I wasn’t really thinking about what it actually took to run a record label because I’d never done it. I was just thinking “Oh cool, well, why not? I’ve got a distributor, I’ve got people down to help, and I have all of these friends that want to release stuff.” And it’s like, “Yeah, that sounds cool.” Then I started doing it and it was like “Man, this is so much accounting and bothering people and all of the stuff you don’t really want to do, but you have to do to kinda keep shit going“. So yeah, definitely. We’re actually trying to figure out a new plan for the label so it’s more about the music, and less about all of that logistical stuff. All of the stuff we put out- it’s pretty eclectic, and it’s definitely more about the music than making money or anything.

Or else you’d probably hire someone else

Yeah, exactly.

So you’re doing all of that stuff, the accounting and everything.

Yeah, well I have a couple of interns that help me out. So that’s cool. But, you know, it’s not their job- they have jobs, so a lot of times, it just falls on me.

So it sounds like its hard to work around, but what’s your favorite part of it (having a label)?

The creative, artistic side, having fun, just working with other creative people, musicians and artists. That’s definitely the funnest part.

It seems like Daly City Records is pretty open to new artists- you guys sponsor laptop battles and remix contests. Is that you’re masked attempt at A&R, or do you just enjoy hearing new music?

I just like hearing music. I’m really into the laptop battles. And I think it has a great possibility. Were you in the laptop battles?

No. I’ve seen them in Seattle. Is that were it started?

Well, I talked to Zach from FourthCity (Records) and he was saying that they kinda started it, but there were other people that started it, too. There were other people doing it while they were doing it, so they didn’t want to take all of the credit for it. But they definitely were one of the first people who were starting to do that kind of stuff. And I guess it progressed a lot. At one point, they were going to get sponsored by Intel or something. They did a whole West Coast tour, and they got a little bit of funding for it, and it was cool. But the thing is, they did better in the pacific NW because that’s where all of their friends were, and then once they got to LA, they said it was just, like, not good at all. It was just all of these people that didn’t know them. It was just people from Cal Poly there doing the laptop battles, which made it very, like, a bunch of people and their friends, and it was not diverse, you know? It was just horrible- nobody came, so that kinda sucks. But I’m really into it- I want to try to build it up more. I was just talking to Zach about it and I think next year we’re going to try and organize it more, and maybe try to get sponsorship, because you can’t really do anything without some money behind it. So we’re going to try to get sponsorship to really push it forward, because…Well, even if you go on YouTube and you search for “laptop music” or, like, whatdoyoucallit, “controllerism” or something? Have you seen this?

No

I only know two guys that are doing it, but supposedly, there’s this new genre called “controllerism”, which is like turntablism, but it’s with computers and controllers. I think they just made it up to kinda coin a term and be like, “Oh, hey, we’re starting this new thing”. I don’t think anyone’s really bit onto it, but that’s just one aspect. And then there’s just people doing crazy shit with, like, circuit bent stuff, and doing stuff in (Ableton) Live and re-wiring it, the monomes- all that shit. That’s where music is going, you know what I mean? That’s where all of the producers and stuff are moving towards. I’m really excited about it. I just think it needs some kind of, you know- you need that special application, like Microsoft’s Excel, so that everyone can really get into it and get excited about it. Like, when people were scratching and stuff, it wasn’t until Q-Bert or the Skratch Piklz when it got really big and people started paying attention to it. And I think (laptop performance) is in its infantile state, but I think that there’s a lot of room for growth. And I think it’s really cool.

And once you start putting it out there, it seems like more people will realize that it’s actually there, and then they get into it…

Yeah, and there’s already a lot of limelight- well, a little bit, going to the whole Flying Lotus, that whole scene where it’s like beat-makers more than MCs. There are underground beat makers, and the press is really loving it right now, you know what I mean? So I think that will help in bringing this thing (into the public eye). I think its going to take a lot more. Its definitely going to take something that the mass audience- like someone that doesn’t even make music or use (Ableton) Live or any of these programs- so they can see it and go, “Wow, that’s really cool”, before its actually going to take off, but…it’s going to go there. Someday. Eventually.

I just saw Daedelus at the Apple Store, and I guess they’re doing a whole series like that, of different musicians coming in and…

Yeah, I thought they’ve been doing that for a while.

I had never been aware of it until this year.

Really? Yeah, they actually asked me to do something a long time ago, but I wasn’t in town or something, and then I just never followed up with them. I though they were doing it for a while. I used to teach at SF State in their New Music program, and my boss actually pointed me to the guy that was organizing all of it, I guess. He was organizing all of these shows at the Apple Store.

Yeah, I just heard of it this year, and it was just sort of a word-of-mouth thing. I had never seen any advertising before.

Yeah, I don’t know if they’re really advertising it or anything.

Well, they probably don’t have enough room in the store…

Yeah, it’s more, like, for people that are coming in and they’re like “Oh, cool, what’s going on?” probably more than trying to get people into the store…

They’re trying to keep ‘em there.

…which would kind of be, like, chaos. They probably don’t want to turn it into a venue. But just to have some sort of attraction while you’re there going “Whoa, this is cool. It’s modern! There’s some guy playing a box with a bunch of buttons on it. What does this mean?”

Still, it’d probably be a good thing to hit up for the Laptop Battles.

You mean the Apple Store?

No, I mean Apple in general, as a sponsor.

Yeah, I don’t know. They never…I think Zach hit them up, and they’ve never really…I should try to hit them up again, cuz I know some people there now. I should ask them if they would be involved in that, cuz it makes sense.

It makes total sense

It does make total sense. I mean, sometimes it’s just weird. Sponsorship is really strange sometimes. My friends that are skateboarders, they get free fucking Mac Books. Where as electronic musicians- nobody gives Alfred (Daedelus) a Mac Book, y’know? Or me a Mac Book, or (any electronic musicians) a Mac Book. But because these guys are pro skaters, they give them MacBooks because they’ll use it and little kids will see them use it and they’ll go buy it or something. It’s really strange.

That is weird. I don’t see anyone doing ollies…

On a MacBook?

Yeah, exactly.

(Both laugh).

Alright, so I guess in that same vein- I guess this applies to you even more so than a lot of musicians I ask this (being a label owner), but the current music business model is definitely changing. There’s no denying that, with digital sharing, and CDs not being distributed, MP3s…

I’m so done with the CD. I’m ready for it to just go the way of the tape.

Yeah a lot of labels have abandoned them. And I think I’m at that cusp of the age where people still buy CDs.   If it comes out on CD, I’d rather have a physical backup than, you know, something that can erase tomorrow when I’m not paying attention. So with all of that, how do you see that changing? What do you see in the future of the music business- its no longer going to be…

Selling CDs?

Yeah, I mean, do you see it changing other than that? Do you just see MP3s as the next evolutionary step from records to tapes to CDs…

I think everything is changing. CDs are definitely going away. I mean, basically, a lot of people are just going to Ameoba (Records) and buying a CD, taking it home, ripping it on their computer, and then going and returning it and buying another CD, taking it home, putting it on the computer, returning it. So for a label, you’re selling that CD once to Ameoba, but for Ameoba, they’re selling it, like, ten times. So you’re only getting that money once and you’re like, “Okay, this kinda sucks.” You know what I mean?  So, for many labels, I think it’s a necessity right now, just because it’s like the framework of everything.  People still buy CDs, but they definitely are making less and less money, if any money at all.  And records, they don’t make any money because they cost so much to make, and you can’t sell them for that much, so that’s kind of out.  MP3s are pretty cool because you can just download them and there’s no overhead; you don’t have to manufacture, you don’t have to store it- you don’t have to house it.   But then, at the same time, it’s like someone’s probably going to download that MP3 and then just copy it for all of their friends, put it on the internet- it’s just going to get copied a zillion times.   So, probably for everyone that’s interested in your album, you’re probably going to get maybe like 1/10^th of it, if that- I don’t even know.  So it’s more like a donation/charity thing, the MP3 thing.  There’s still money in (MP3s), and I think people do buy (them). If they really like the song, they will go and buy it. But its definitely not as lucrative as selling CDs was before.   And so, I think the whole idea of selling music is probably pretty bad.   You know what I mean…

I feel like it’s on its way out…

You know, you’re going to make money from it, but its not going to be your major source of income.  It’s gonna be something, basically, that is kinda helping you, but more on a donation kinda way.   I think a lot of people are going to start giving stuff away for free- they’re already doing it.   Its going to be more sponsorship based.   A lot of advertisers are basically going to pay you for attention.   Like, if you can generate so much attention with you’re MP3, they’ll give you so much money.  Its going to be like, “Oh, I made this song, and I put it on this website” and then it has an ad for whatever.   And people are going on and saying, “Oh, cool. I’m going to download this” and you get paid from the advertising, basically.  Or, there’s a lot of bundling with products. Like shoes, t-shirts- things that people will actually buy, and they can’t really download.  You can’t download a shoe, y’know. (Both laugh). Maybe one day you can, but now you can’t, so that kind of packaging is what a lot of people are looking in to.   I know Ghostly (International) did those flash drives. I don’t know how well that really works, cuz those things aren’t that cheap to make, and it just doesn’t seem like you’re going to keep a bunch of flash drives (around). It’s cool, but, it’s like, “Okay, I got this flash drive, I put it on my computer, but now what am I going to do with this flash drive? Am I going to frame it and put it on the wall?”

(Both laugh again)

Have a drawer full of flash drives?

Have a flash drive rack? I don’t know. So I think the music will essentially be for free. I mean, playing live, you still- you can’t download that, of course. People are going to have to pay for artists to play live. That, I think, will get better. Possibly.

Yeah, I’m sorta thinking maybe this digital age will bring back the idea of music as going to see someone live. Of course you can get it free here, but it’s more like a song downloaded from the internet would be a sort of advertisement for going to see the show.

Right, now that you’ve heard the music, you want to see it live.

So how long do you think Daly City Records will continue to make CDs?

I don’t know. We’re still making CDs, just because a lot of press want CDs.  They don’t want downloads or anything.  But I’m ready to stop making CDs.

A lot of labels are doing (that).

It’s a lot of work, and you have to house them, and you have to ship them to distro, you have to pay for shipping.

There’s middlemen…

There’s tons of middle people.  You end up making so little on each sell.  There’s just too much stuff going on in between that.  It’s too complicated.  It shouldn’t be that complicated. But, that’s just how things are, I guess.

So what’s coming up for Daly City Records?

We have The Bad Hand record coming out in late October. Its more like a rock, kinda psychedelic rock- kinda like if The Flaming Lips made an album with The Boredoms, or something.  That kinda shit.  And then I have a remix 12” coming out with the remixes from the Microphonepet record.   Mophono and Darko from Spank Rock, DJ C, Jahcoozi, and then Boreta from Glitch Mob, and a couple of the remix winners.   I did a little contest.

Yeah, I saw that.

So that’s coming out in December. There’s also a “Hope Again” remix album with Meanest Man Contest and a bunch of other people that are on the label.  It’s just a little digital EP thing.   There’s also a new Spaceheater record coming out.   That’s more like instrumental and jazzy.  There’s a Flying Skulls record coming out, which is more along the lines of Flying Lotus type hip-hop based 100 BPM type stuff with a lot of weird little samples. There’s a Cuti-Sadda record that I’m doing- it’s not coming out on Daly City, but it’s coming out on a Belgian label called “Blind”, and it’s like a death metal project that I did- I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of that…

I think I heard a little- you have an album on the website?

Yeah. So that has Eustachian- you know Eustachian?

Yeah, yeah…

The metal guys. They did a remix for Cuti-Sadda.  And then Cardopusher…

Yeah, yeah- big fan of him..

Yeah, his stuff is awesome.   Him and Speedranch actually did one.

Never heard of him…

Speedranch was kind of- he was on Planet Mu a long time ago.   I don’t think he’s on it anymore, but they did one that’s really fuckin’ awesome. Like dancehall grind- its kinda like Drumcorps. Kinda like that, but more dancehall-ish, but still like metal. It’s really awesome.

Nice.   So you just back from an International tour of sorts…

Yeah, well I guess there was Europe and US.

It was just in Europe?  I thought you were in a few other…

No, just Europe, and then US, and then I was supposed to go to Japan this month actually, but the promoter is in the hospital, I guess.  But he’s out now, and he’s trying to book it for November, so hopefully that will work out.

That’s a good excuse, I guess.    So, did you notice a difference between the European audiences vs. the US audiences?

Yeah, definitely. I think in Europe, electronic music is just more accepted. People are used to hearing it. It’s not like, “Oh, electronic music is what you listen to at a rave or dance club.” It’s just everywhere. That’s what everybody listens to. It’s like pop music.  So they’re really used to it.  So you can do anything electronic and have them accept it more.  They’re not as skeptical of it, I guess.   Which is cool.

So, did you have bigger crowds there, or were they just more into it?

Definitely, yeah. I mean, the festivals were- well, they’re festivals, so they’re bigger just because they’re festivals.   In Europe, they have way more festivals in the summer.  And in the winter, too.  Here, you have, like, Bonaroo and Treasure Island Fest- things like that, but they would never book me to play Treasure Island Fest.  You know what I mean?  Its more for like, Justice or Thievery Corporation or Raconteurs.  The festivals (in the US) are only for big bands here.  In Europe, they’ll have just a breakcore festival- just breakcore.   It’s not a big deal.  People just like to go out and get crazy and dance and freak out.

Do people camp at these festivals?

There’s some camping ones. I don’t think I played at any camping ones this year, because I was there in winter.  The camping ones are usually in the summer.

Yeah, I imagine a winter festival in, like, Ireland might get a little cold.

Yeah, it was really cold, actually.   I was freezing my butt off in a lot of places.  I’m not used to that.   I’m used to more, like, warm- here even, this year has been really cold.

It’s really clear today. I was driving down Fulton (street), and it was the first time I noticed the East Bay.   Usually, you’re lucky if you can see downtown.

Yeah, there’s some nice views, I think. Like if you go up into the hills.

I’m right by the Golden Gate Bridge…

Oh, you live by the bridge?  Where?

Outer Richmond, by Land’s End.

Oh, okay.

So its barely ever nice out there, but when it is, you can see a lot…

There’s some good Chinese food out there, though.

Yeah, there is. My neighborhood is very Chinese and Russian.

I haven’t tried any of the Russian food restaurants- I want to try that.

I’m pretty scared. I’ve had Russian food before, but, like, going into a deli is sorta scary.  I guess you can get hella cheap caviar…

Uh, I don’t want that…Yeah, you gotta find a good place for Russian food.   Otherwise, you’ll get, like, food poisoning.

Yeah, and it’s mostly delis- it doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot of just Russian restaurants out there…

Yeah, I want like a mom & pop, good Russian restaurant…

Where they’re yelling at each other in the back.

That’s what I want.

So, would you care to describe your live performance set-up at all?

Uh, sure, I can.  It’s different a lot of times, though.  Like, when I go on tour, I usually just bring- I have this little MP3 DJ thing. Its basically like a little DJ thing with a plastic controller, and then I have my Trigger-Finger, and my soundcard, and my laptop, microphone- that’s pretty much it.   But, sometimes if I play here (San Francisco), I’ll have a more elaborate set-up.  Way more pads and effects pedals and stuff like that.

So when you play a live set, most of the time is it something that is sorta pre-planned- the set list, or is it something you sorta improvise?

When I play live, its usually improvised.

Even the set list, the songs you’re selecting.

Well, when I play live, it’s usually like, I’m just making everything up from scratch.  I’ll pick the sounds for whatever it is I’m doing, but I won’t really sit down and figure out…That’s one thing I want to do, actually- is sit down and actually figure out what the hell I’m doing before I do it live.  It’s such a weird thing, because with electronic music, it’s so not live. Most of it is not live.  It’s programmed, and it’s sequenced- that’s the whole point of electronic music.  So, to do it live is kinda like an oxymoron.  It’s kinda like asking a drummer to play a sequence.   So it’s really bizarre, but I want to do it.   I want to figure out a way where you’re just doing everything on-the-fly.  It’s planned if you have a song, you know, like if you’re a band and you play guitar, you have a song, but then you can also change it up if you want.  I haven’t really seen anyone do it (play electronic music live) to the point where I’m like “Wow, that’s amazing.”  And I really wanna see that, or do that, or something.  It just makes sense- it’s just, like, the next level. I mean, everything right now is so sequenced, manipulating sequences- like Alfred’s thing.  He has loops, and he uses the monone to chop off those loops and stutter them in a certain way…

And there’s improvised parts, but it’s planned improvisation.

Exactly.   And then there’s a lot of the hip-hop guys- they’ll chop up the song into pads, so it would be like chopped up into quarter notes or something, then you can just play it “boom-chick-nu-nu-nu-nu-nu-nu-nu-nu“, you know?  And that’s kinda cool, too, but then you kinda get bored after ten minutes.  It’s hard.

Yeah, you always feel like there’s a wall sorta in between the audience and the performer in some of those laptops situations because, for one, the audience doesn’t know what you’re doing back there.   The screen’s facing you, and you know what you’re doing, but the audience doesn’t know what you’re doing.   For all they know, you could just be surfing the internet.

Right, exactly, checking you’re email, looking at porn- “What are you doing?!”

So I see that as a hurdle as well…

That’s definitely a hurdle. Even with scratching, you can see them doing it.  So you can actually see what’s going on- like, “Oh, wow, that looks complicated.” You know, “That looks really hard to do.” But with a laptop, you’re like, “I don’t know what the hell he’s doing.”

So what artists do you see taking music to the next level, sort of pushing things forward?

Man, I see some crazy people on YouTube.   Like some of these crazy kids- some of these kids doing stuff really inspires me.  I don’t even know who it is- people send me stuff and I look for stuff.  But there’s these kids that hook up electronics to their drums and stuff, and they’re just bangin’ out this crazy shit.  Like, they’re playing at their high school, you know, and you’re just like, “What the hell is that? That looks really cool.“  That really inspires me to do some stuff.  I really like the people that do stuff differently.  They give you a new angle on it, like “Woow, okay.”   I feel like electronic music- I don’t know if it’s just I haven’t heard enough of the new stuff or what’s going on.  Back in the day, it was just Aphex Twin, Squarepusher- I was like, “Wow, that’s fuckin’ amazing.” And then, they just kept churning out the same shit, and I was like, “Wow, that’s really boring.”  And then so, now, I don’t know. I mean, there’s people making really good beats and things like that, but virtuoso…

Well, even outside of electronic music, is there anyone that’s really catching you’re ear right now?

Um, let me think…(pause)…I was into Lightning Bolt for a while.  They’re pretty cool.   I was just thinking about this the other day, actually, because people always ask me that and I’m like, “I don’t know!”   And then I was looking at my music collection and was like, “These people are really good. I should remember that.”   But I can’t remember. (Laughs) There’s definitely artists that I like- all-time stuff, y’know?   Like Flaming Lips stuff- I think we were talking about it- what’s that album with the four CDs?   That can play at once?

Oh, yeah, I can’t remember what it was called, but we were talking about that.

I heard they just re-did the ”Yoshimi” and the “Soft Bulletin” in 5.1 (surround sound) or something?  I’m curious to hear that.   They’re movie looks really cool – “Christmas on Mars”? I have a list of favorite albums that I think I could listen to from now until I’m, like, 50, or (until I) die, and still be like, “It’s a good record.”

I think they’re called “desert island” records

I have a lot, though.  Like Radiohead “The Bends” I like- that was a good record.  “OK Computer” was pretty good.

Did you see them at the Outside Lands festival?

No.

Yeah, neither did I.

That thing just looked way too big for me.

Yeah, it’s just too public or something, I don’t know…

It’s just too big.  It’s going to be so many people there, you can’t see the band, it just feels really weird- like, I went to the Beastie Boys, the Tibetan concert there.  They had the same thing, at the polo fields, and it was just so big and so unintimate.   So commercial- it was weird. Like, MTV was there, and…

And from an audience standpoint, you’re mixed in with a bunch of people that really like whoever they’re seeing, then people who sorta like them, and then people that just wandered up.

Yeah, that’s the other thing, too.  You’re around a lot of people that are just there because they need something to do.   And they might not even necessarily like the music. So you’re like, “This is really bizarre, because I’m just around all of these people in this strange kinda”- cuz that changes the experience of the music.  I think I was watching- I forget who I was watching- like Rage Against the Machine or something, and there’s some frat guy talking to his friend about this girl and how he wanted to do her (laughs) and I was like, “This is so weird!” I dunno, it was a strange experience.

Let’s talk about Microphonepet- I read that that album was sorta “years in the making”

Yeah, it was kinda just all of the hip-hop stuff I made.  I have so many friends that are MCs or whatever, so I was making these beats and getting them to rap over them.  But I’m not really a hip-hop person per say, or a producer per-say; I just make music- that’s just one aspect of it that I like to make.  I guess after time, there was a collection of this stuff, and I said, “I should just put this out,” you know?   I didn’t know what else to do with it.

So that’s what I was going to ask- it seems like you’re albums often times have a theme or genre that they are tackling.  Is that ever a conscious process, or is it more like, “Oh, well I have this group of songs…”

That’s definitely a conscious process.  Yeah, I used to just throw everything in together, but people hate that.  I just got so much flak for doing that.   People would just be like, “What is this?” or “I like that one song- and I don’t like any of this other stuff.”  Because they’re so different!  Like, a metal song into a polka song… I guess, in a way, it makes sense, because there’s no continuity in a record made that way, other than it’s all made by me.  It’s me, but it’s definitely not a concept record. So after doing that and having people be really confused, I decided, “Okay, I guess I should save all of the stuff that’s similar and put them together so that people can digest it easier.” So it’s not just some crazy thing that is overwhelming to them.

But, do you sit down and say, “Oh, okay, I’ve got a couple of these mash-ups or something – I should make a bunch more and just turn it into an album?”, or is it something that sorta piles up over time?

Um, usually it’s just something that piles up over time.   And then I go, “Okay, I should make this into an album.”  I’ve tried many times to be like, “Okay, this month, I’m going to make a hip-hop record.”  And that always fails because I have such ADD, it’s like “Fuck, this is boring! I don’t want to make any more hip-hop!” (Laughs) “I want to do space-country or something. I’m just bored- this is so monotonous.”  So, yeah- and that’s why it ends up being a thing that happens over time.  I save it- and that’s tough too, because then a lot of stuff’s old and a lot of stuff’s new.  Like with the Microphonepet record, you can tell it’s some older stuff and a lot of it’s newer stuff that has that sorta glitchy sound, and some of the stuff sounds like it was made on a MPC, which it was.   I guess it’s a problem of mine that I’m dealing with.  But I don’t know what to do.

Along those same lines, do you ever impose limits on yourself when you’re composing?  Like, “I’m not going to do this certain thing” or “I’m only going to use this type of sound”?   Do you know what I mean?

You know what, I don’t impose limits on myself.  But I think that it’s a good idea, actually. (Laughs) I think I should impose limits on myself, because I end up going off on really crazy tangents.   I had an MPC for a while when I was in LA, and I was making a lot of music on that- like, just that alone.   And I wrote so much music, just because I knew it, I knew what I could do with it- I knew how to use it.  So all there was to do was make the music, because I didn’t really have to fix it, I don’t have to download this plug-in and install it on it.   So it’s just like, “I’m making music.”  And that was really cool- it makes it more about making music.   Whereas a lot of stuff on the laptop, it’s more, “I want to do this- let me make a Reaktor patch.  Let me take two days to make this Reaktor patch that I think will be really cool.”  Then you’re like, “Oh, what am I doing again?  I’m writing this song?   What the hell?” So, yeah- the boundaries are good, because it keeps you focused…

It keeps you in line…

Yeah, it keeps you in line.   I need more boundaries.  I need someone to tell me what to do.

(Both laugh)

So I’ve read a few things- some interviews and such where you’ve talked about a sorta “David Wang” album- a more personalized album…

Yeah, I have a couple of records that are already finished, and I’ve contemplated releasing them, but I think I’m gonna hold off and actually finish the one you’re talking about, a record that’s more about me and less about a collection of stuff that I’ve done over time that’s in the same genre.  It’s going to be more personal, it’s going to be kind of weird, pretty different- I’m not sure how people are going to react to it, really. But I think I need to do something like that right now, just for me.  To put something out there that’s really about me- you know, being really selfish- “This is what I want” – and see how people respond to it. I have a couple of records that are already done that I think are less like that.

Well, it’s nice to have a little reserve…

I will probably put those ones out after, just in case people are like, “What the fuck are you doing?!”- to say, “Oh, no- here you go. Look, something more palatable.”

So, you went to Burning Man this year.

I did.

Was it you’re first time?

No, it was my second time.

Any thoughts, observations…

I had a great time this time.  I don’t know if it was because it was so awful it was great, or what it was. cuz last time, I stayed in an RV- my friend had an RV, so I stayed in there.   I didn’t really go out much, I didn’t bear the elements as much, so I didn’t really have that great of a time.  And then this time, my friend let me borrow a tent, the tent fell apart- it was broken to begin with and I had to fix it, and then it started to fall apart, then we had to tie it to our shade structure, we had to take the top off so we had no top, then there was a 60 mile-an-hour dust storm, and it came and got dust all over everything, and then my girlfriend puked on me and puked all over all of our stuff, so we had to throw everything out. So we basically had no place to live. I only brought one change of clothes, and that was for the after-party that was playing in Reno, cuz I was doing an after-party, so I didn’t want to change into that, so I was basically in the same clothes for four or five days

With puke on ‘em?

Yeah, with puke on ‘em, no shower, dirty, no sleep, because I never sleep; just basically out of my mind.  And that was really fun.  It was great- I had a lot of fun.

So thumbs up on the sand storms?

Thumbs up on the sand storms.   There was actually supposed to be a sand storm when I played the first night, and I was really kinda excited about that.  I was like, “Yeah, I get to play in this crazy sand storm.”  I just really wanted to experience that, to see how people react to it while their standing there or trying to dance in the sand storm.

Yeah, performing through a natural disaster of sorts…

Yeah! So I was excited, but it never happened.   It was all nice and hot, and I really didn’t have that much fun on the first gig, actually.   I wanted a sand storm.  But the rest was really fun.  The music there is- I don’t know, not that great, which I’m kinda bummed about.  But I guess that’s just the nature of it.  People have their own agendas and know what they want to push out there…

Lots of dubstep?

Well, I like dubstep.   There wasn’t actually that much dubstep.  There was some…I wanted to hear some breakcore or something, y’know?  You figure you’re in the freakin’ desert, there’s sand everywhere, everyone’s dirty, it’s so Mad Max- it’s like, “Why are you listening to house?”  It’s just so weird.  It doesn’t seem like it fits.

From what I’ve heard from people that have been there a bunch is it’s a bunch of, like, Google-Silicone Valley sorta contingent there.

There is. But I think that’s kinda dying off, even.  I think it’s gotten so big that there’s a lot of foreigners coming now, filling up the spaces.  A lot of people are like, “Oh, how Burning Man used to be,” and then there are the people before that who are all about how it used to “used to be“.   It’s always changing, because people come in and change it, and then they get old and have families- they don’t go to Burning Man anymore, and new kids come in and they change it.   It’s definitely a lot of tech-y people, and, um, naked people- lots of nakedness.

(We laugh again)

At this point, I’m out of questions, except for one stupid one that I won’t torture you with after this novel of an interview (at least it felt that way while I was transcribing it).  The beer from the car ride and the one I drank during the interview are very insistent on their need to escape.   I use the bathroom, pack up my shit, and thank Mochi again for his time.  Life continues.

-Memes