Bill Laswell is starting out 06 as the trailblazer he is with his new outfit, "Method of Defiance" and their new project. (SOUNDCLIPS at the bottom) Remember this is the cat who declared a turntable was an instrument before it was even trendy to be on the Hip hop bandwagon. In fact he brought Herbie and D.S.T. together to fuse them on a timeless international record called "Rock It" Ever since then Laswell never stops experimenting/recording/collaborating. Just the ensembles he has created and fused together various musicians. A Brilliant sonic alchemist who does not get his daps from outside the Left Field world.


Remember when Prince claimed Musicology? Laswell should have a institute for all the musical information he has spreaded and connected through out the entire globe. It's ridiculous all of the musicians he has collaborated with. I sometimes refer to him as the occult Quincy Jones. Laswell's new direction is no different and that should not surprise his fans. And I for one am glad that this remix compilations have taken a back seat for a group release. And this drummer is madness personafied. Read this antecdote on who Bambatta wanted to collab with. Look at the pictures he looks like Tv Show producer Steven Cannell
or Harry Blackstone

Check out this article. I hope it makes someone's day. Las' fans are gonna be happy that Laswell is picking up his electric bass once again with a new group of musicians in the Drum N Bass direction in this relentless dark energetic manic sound. And a new Praxis album has just been completed? With Mike Patton? Serj from System of a Down? and John Zorn? A Bio Book is in the works? Laswell is coming out with Both guns Blazing for 06










link:

http://www.themorningnews...fiance.php

Bill Laswell’s Method of Defiance
by Patrick Ambrose
Acclaimed bassist Bill Laswell has his own way of making music, and these days it involves some serious drum and bass. One performance, and a life’s work.

All photos by Peter Gannushkin / DOWNTOWNMUSIC.NET.

Tonight, I’m just one of many fans jammed into The Stone, composer John Zorn’s new performance space, to see a series of drum-and-bass concerts featuring Bill Laswell, who easily is one of the world’s most talented electric bassists and music producers. The Stone is New York City’s best-kept music secret—where else could I see Laswell perform for the price of a movie ticket? The program, “Six Nights of Iconoclast Drum ‘n’ Bass,” promises something special, given Laswell’s insurmountable impact on the global soundscape—from his contributions to improvised jazz and collaborations with African musicians to his production work on albums by Yoko Ono, Mick Jagger, and Herbie Hancock. Although drum-and-bass music has been dismissed by some critics as repetitious and dull, Laswell persistently attacks the genre’s limitations with smoldering bass runs that compete aggressively with the corresponding beats and electronic instrumentation, challenging those with whom he is playing for the duration of every song.

Born in Salem, Ill., and raised in small Michigan towns, in the fall of 1976 Laswell packed up his bass and moved to New York City, where he soon became a part of Manhattan’s downtown music scene. With keyboardist Michael Beinhorn and drummer Fred Maher, Laswell formed Zu Band, which later morphed into Material, an outfit best known for its experimental boldness and recordings with such artists as free-jazz saxophonist Archie Shepp and pop singers Whitney Houston and Nona Hendryx.


* * *


Tonight’s show features Method of Defiance, a trio that comprises Laswell on bass, drummer Guy Licata, and Submerged, an electronic artist from Brooklyn. Also on stage for the evening is cornet player Graham Haynes (the son of drummer Roy Haynes), who has worked and performed with Laswell for many years.
Bill Laswell, photographed by Peter Gannushkin / DOWNTOWNMUSIC.NET, copyright 2005
At the beginning of the first set, behind his drum kit, Licata establishes a hypnotic foundation of breakbeats as Submerged applies a mixture of jazzy samples and ambient loops—a complex juxtaposition of cut-up rhythms and rapid-fire drumming timed so perfectly that someone listening to an audio recording would swear that Licata’s beats were programmed. Then Laswell plugs in with a series of silky, effortless runs up and down the fretboard at frequencies so low that his bass lines aren’t merely heard but are also felt in intense, gut-rumbling waves. Surrounded by pedals and effects boxes, Laswell tirelessly experiments with filters, reverberation techniques, and styles so varied they resemble everything from free-form jazz guitar to crunchy metal-chord progressions.

“Bill’s bass is like one big oscillator running though a web of modulation matrices,” Licata explains between sets. “And we’re all reacting to whatever we throw at one another. It’s like we’re turning our brains into sequencers. And the fact that we’re humans means that our responses will differ at each performance.”

Submerged, also known as Kurt Gluck, has recorded a drum-and-bass album with Laswell called Brutal Calling. He uses two computer programs—Logic and Ableton Live—to weave together the extraordinarily complex electronic textures that fill each piece.

His bass lines aren’t merely heard but are also felt in intense, gut-rumbling waves.“I select small samples, cut them up, and program the bits into longer pieces,” Submerged explains. “It’s intense, time-consuming nerd work.”

The music is entirely improvised; the performances, riveting and otherworldly. And both 45-minute sets produce endless surprises as Haynes cushions the trio’s often-abrasive interplay with soft tones on his cornet. Haynes periodically samples some of his own melodies and then plays them back while adding additional live cornet to the loops. Sometimes he sounds like an entire horn section; at other moments, he resembles a pair of competing soloists. It’s sonic anarchy.


* * *


In the early ‘80s, Laswell took an interest in a unique style of music emerging from the South Bronx—what would later become known as hip-hop. The percussive scratching of records that is so integral to hip-hop was first introduced to the mainstream on Herbie Hancock’s Future Shock, an album Laswell produced. Although these performers are often referred to as DJs, Laswell sees them as artists in their own right, each with a distinctly different style.

“A DJ is a disk jockey—someone who spins records,” Laswell tells me after one of the performances at The Stone. “Turntablism is something different. The turntablists actually play the turntable as a percussion instrument.” Laswell has worked with a number of turntablists throughout his career, most notably with Grand Mixer D.S.T. on Hancock’s 1983 smash-hit single “Rockit.” Charged, one of Laswell’s experimental-fusion ensembles, also relies heavily on scratching in its live performances.

In 1984 Laswell produced “World Destruction,” a single that combined the vocals of hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa with the sarcastic snarls of former Sex Pistol John Lydon. This tendency to combine ostensibly opposing influences is a Laswell trademark and brings me to ask: Is Laswell making a conscious effort to mix genres, or does he simply ignore musical boundaries altogether?

“I’d go with the latter,” he says. “I think it has more to do with bringing musically diverse people together at a particular point in time.”

So was uniting two diverse cultural icons like Bambaataa and Lydon an experiment to see what would happen?
Bill Laswell, photographed by Peter Gannushkin / DOWNTOWNMUSIC.NET, copyright 2005
Seated in a cushioned chair in the basement of The Stone, Laswell pauses a moment to ponder the question. Polite and soft-spoken, he is nevertheless an imposing figure, dressed in black, his shoulder-length hair protruding from beneath a knit cap.

Is Laswell making a conscious effort to mix genres, or does he simply ignore musical boundaries altogether?“No, Bambaataa called me and said he wanted to do a song with the lead singer for Def Leppard,” Laswell replies with a wry grin. “I told him I didn’t know the singer for Def Leppard, but I knew John Lydon. So the request to do [the record] actually came from Bambaataa.”

“World Destruction,” composed by Laswell and Bambaataa, addresses issues such as genocide, economic disparity, racism, nuclear war, and the stultifying influences of American media culture—social and political themes that reappear in Laswell’s collaborations with other artists such as the late Nigerian composer Fela Kuti, the Last Poets, and Praxis, a metal-fusion consortium that often includes former Parliament/Funkadelic members Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell.

Right now, Laswell is juggling a number of projects. A soon-to-be released Praxis album, Profanation, features Killah Priest of the Wu-Tang Clan and Serj Tankian, the lead singer for metal band System of a Down. With Zorn and rock vocalist Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle), Laswell also has recorded a benefit album for The Stone. But he seems as excited by upcoming live performances as he does about these studio undertakings.

“Lately I’m open to creating groups for festivals. Not necessarily fixed groups,” he says. “And I’m going to continue developing the drum-and-bass thing, too.”

With so many achievements in his lifetime of work, it’s now time to record them all for posterity’s sake. Music journalist Tom Bojko, currently on the road with Laswell, is doing just that, tenaciously resolving biographical and discographical discrepancies in his research for Destroy All Rational Thought: The Life and Music of Bill Laswell.

Method of Defiance, Laswell’s drum-and-bass trio, will perform Jan. 7 at Northsix, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Method of Defiance’s album, The Only Way to Go is Down, is scheduled for release in February."











Soundclips:

http://www.sublightrecord...revolt.mp3

http://www.sublightrecord...oliday.mp3

http://www.sublightrecord.../flesh.mp3

http://www.sublightrecord...nlyway.mp3

http://www.sublightrecord...depths.mp3

http://www.sublightrecord...orture.mp3

http://www.sublightrecord...rgiven.mp3

http://www.sublightrecord...a/body.mp3

complete track of Resculpted Flesh: (First one in the audio player)

http://www.myspace.com/sublightrecords
[Edited 1/4/06 20:58pm]

Call me old-fashioned, but the fusion of jazz and modern edgier electronic styles usually just results in jazz from hell. I'm yet to hear a single such record that would fully impress me. The ideas have been good, but for some reason they never manage to deliver a good end-product.

The problem is usually that these jazz musicians treat the new styles of electronic music as merely as backdrops for them to improvise on. They can never fully appreciate the fact that the real emphasis on such styles is something completely else than the usual soloist/background music dicotomy.

Novabreaker said:

I disagree. Theres some out there. And laswell has always pushed the boundary in electronic music. His ambient projects with Pete NamLook. I think the amazing thing is how sometimes Laswell doesn't say a single word on his records except a hush. But he learned from the best "Brian Eno" "Pete NamLook" "Atom Heart" "Jonah Sharp" He was the exception to the rule. Like his stuff on Strata or Subharmonic that he did.

So I think this is different. As in the case with Material Hallucination Engine.


Let's keep in mind this is the same guy who worked with some of the electronic greats of our day. And laswell created something special with Herbie Hancock for one. Alot of people don't know what he did because there is so much out there to sift through. When you can make a record with the kind of ambient layers that even Eno has pause at, you are on the right track. I dont know what you are into so again it's subjective when it comes down to it.

I hope Bill Laswell is coming back with some genuinely new thangs. He seems to have been releasing the same 'Dub Chamber' album over and over under different names in recent years, and I was beginning to think his time had passed.

And a new Praxis album? He'd better have Bootsy, Bernie Worrell and Buckethead on there (bet they're not!). Early Praxis was kinda like the new (early period) Funkadelic.

Don't know what happened to the mooted Laswell 'Remix/ Reconstruction' of Tony Williams Lifetime's first two albums (featuring John McLaughlin, Larry Young and Jack Bruce on the second album).Must have dropped into record industry legal hell.

And on another issue, Laswell's the only guy I'd let play around with Jimi Hendrix's tape legacy. I know he remixed Last Poets 'Doriella du Fontaine' with Hendrix and Buddy Miles, but not the same. I'd let him loose on the session tapes of Jimi's '1983', like Laswell did for Miles on 'Panthalassa'.

Hold it, my wet dreams are getting off topic.

I'm a huge fan of Bill Laswell. He did some killer shit for Miles and Bob Marley. I'll definetly be checking this out.

Glad to see a post about Bill Laswell. I'm a huge fan. Nice to see others around here dig him also.
Praxis first Cd and Material's Hallucination Engine are at the top for me.
If he does a new Praxis CD I hope, as someone else mentioned, he has Bootsy, Bernie, Bucket and Brain. That would be someting to really look forward to.
Bill Laswell touches on almost all the musical styles I dig.

Miles said:

Jesus you read my mind. Those dub remixes ...I complained to everybody. The Marley Dub was okay, but the dub projects. It was like they took Lost in translation and kept remixing it. In the nineties he was obsessed with that Sly Dunbar loop like Prince was with the NPG drum loops! Man and that's another thing he must have done those not for listening but because the market was there. I was like "What does he hear that Im not hearing....And there's that drum loop again" I heard Sly Dunbar was pissed that Laswell was using his breaks. But they still work together or maybe it's one loop? And that last Material album? I was not feeling that. Underground Hip Hop is one of the trickiest foray's now. Because theres hundreds of albums and it's not underground anymore really. It's kind of strange... What is underground? That's a good question





You know when he ran out of money to start his labels he became a truck driver? Who else but Bill?
Bootsy must be seriously scared to followup Zillatron because ever since then he has done crossover dance hip hop material. I can see why but still....
That was Bootsy's best album of the decade,imo next to the Praxis.


You know he hustled Columbia for the Miles Masters right? Only Laswell could have done that "Let me Remix Miles and see the tape vault" I have heard that Laswell is the king of the board room. His ability to talk to suits is bar none.


They paid him good for that. Tony Williams? We have to ask Verve on that one. I think they have the master reel. See, what happens is Laswell will get paid X Amount to do a project then the label decides "Okay, Do we want to release it or shelve it" You know Laswell did a album with Jack Dejohnette? The list is endless. The Labels get scared and it goes in the vault. When Bill Laswell passes his estate is going to be priceless.

Did the Santana Remix album ever come out? So many projects he did I think in the Hundreds got shelved.








I tell you what having Praxis back is good. This biography book is going to kick ass. I need a complete discography to see what Im missing. Because I can tell you this. Im missing alot.

BTW.... if I worked at Warners I would ask Laswell to remix some Prince shit. I never heard a comment on Laswell about Prince but when you think about it the name had to come up for possible remix projects.


A good example of Bill's ability. He got a 5 album deal with Sanctuary. At his age and his ventures/musical directions...it's a surprise they gave him a 5 album deal.

Someone told me Greenpoint is just wall to wall CD's and the musicians that walk in and walk out of there. It's like a revolving door. I never understood how Laswell could get some of the most guarded artists and be like, "Hey, listen you can record at my studio ...and will do this"

You know Ohio Players was supposed to record a project for Black Arc Series. But something happened. I think Sugar Foot was in a different mode of thinking.
I think Laswell bugged him out when he saw what he was into.

The fact this dude got Last Poets to work with him speaks volumes. Remember when he got Sonny Sharrock and Ulmer and Pharoah? That guy took people that the industry wanted to dispose of who were not famous but cult legends from every form of music. To me Laswell proved when he ressurected P-funk on the visible surface . Which was kind of funny because Prince was doing that as well. But LAswell did different shit with it. Not just working with George but bringing in Bernie,Jerome Brailey,Eddie Hazel,Bernard Fowler,Bootsy and whoever else. He brought in the Mob on his projects but what was crazy was he didn't use them together he separated them in alot of instances. He really put Bernie Worrell back on the map with his ideas. Like who else but Laswell would be like "Okay, you are going to work with Ulmer"


I remember hearing a story that Axiom logo was blessed by some shamans and sorcerers to not be tampered with no matter what turmoil it was going with. The only one who could stop Axiom was Laswell. And that's what happened....

He was the first person to work with Whitney Houston. That's bugged out right there. I wonder if Whitney would ever work with Las' again.


Laswell and Prince have some things in common
They both started in the industry in the late seventies
They both worked with George Clinton

It would be pretty cool to hear Laswell remix some of the Prince stuff, but I wouldn't want to see the 2 work together. I loved the "Funkcronmicon" CD. Bill was supossed to have Billy Cox and Buddy Miles work with Eddie Hazel in a power trio but sadly Eddie passed. I think that would have been incredible.

Man you guys are making remember all the cool Bill Laswell stuff I have that I need to break out again.
More top choices:
Zillatron
Hardware
Funkcronomicon
Tetragammatron
Material "The Third Power"
Herbie Hancock "Future 2 Future"
Axiom Ambient
Altered Beats
there are many, many more that I know I'm forgetting.

Also thanks Trickology for the update and info.
Didn't know he was into the occult. Or is he more into mysticism?

Gotta love 'Funkronomicon'. Some of Bootsy's best work (including on funky rhythm guitar, which I dig) is on that album. Also Eddie Hazel's last works are on there, and he's playin with Boots and 'Bigfoot' Brailey on one track. Bootsy's version of Hendrix's 'If 6 was 9' approaches the original in greatness imo - his bass is soo funky on that one!

George Clinton and the rest of P-Funk should've worked more with Laswell. He always seemed to get cool stuff out of George and they did some less obvious (=creative) thangs. I've also got Bernie's Laswell-produced album 'Blacktronic Science' which is cool. It's got Bernie with Tony Williams and Maceo Parker as a jazz trio on two tracks!

Has anybody tried Laswell's 'Tabla Beat Science' stuff with Zakir Hussain? The live album of that has Bill on bass and a turn-tablist too, maybe a pre-cursor of his new thang. Tabla Beat Science is sort of ambient drums and bass with Indian percussionists and feels.

Trickology, glad you mentioned Sonny Sharrock. That guy is so under-rated! His Laswell-produced album 'Ask the Ages' with Pharoah Sanders and Elvin Jones in arch-Trane mode is fantastic. And of course, Bill produced and played on 'Arcana' with Tony Williams and Derek Bailey (recently sadly departed and subject of a recent thread on here).

I really want Sonny Sharrock's album 'Guitar' (don't think there's any Laswell involvement). I've only heard the odd track but it sounds awesome, kind of like Hendrix's studio sound experiments of 'The Star Spangled Banner' and 'New Rising Sun Overture' (hey, I like to get obscure ) - nothing but orchestral sounding guitar overdubs. It seems to be rarer than gold-dust though.

Isn't it great to actually have a real Music thread goin' on around here!!

Does anyone think Funkcronomicon was intended to be a new Funkadelic album? check this out.
Official Funkadelic Logo at Top of Cover but with Axiom Funk and a skull painted over it.
Perdro Bell artwork. Including front,back, and inserts.
Last Jams of Eddie Hazel.
The whole album, with a few exceptions, is the Funk Mob in various forms.
George, at that time, had legal problems using the names Parliament and Funkadelic.
For all intents and purposes, I consider it a Funkadelic album representing the 90's incarnation.

I wanted to import picture of Album Cover but can't figure how to do it.

Bfunkthe1 said:

Bfunkthe1 said:

From waht I read Laswell is a heavy reader and pretty radical in his beliefs. I read something where he was explaining how he thinks Sound is an actual entity. What Laswell said about it was like no Dogma or any type of preaching. He just said something like, I believe Sound is a living force and I believe we can summon it at will. He was talking about a particular experience.


I don't think he accepts just any form of spirituality. Some of Laswell's track titles are pretty grim and dark on the other hand.

I'm sure this biography book will delve into it.

I read a review where someone called Laswell a trickster/deceiver and he just plays in the shadows to see what he can get away with. And I think that sums up Laswell pretty good. He knows how to work this industry and has more ideas than most producers/musicians and is completely open to being with anyone new. But I think once you get in those doors... He has Sven Gali dedication to how he operates. And part of that if you think about it that makes Laswell a sorcerer of sorts. And I guess if you want to get really deep about it the records are kind of alchemic incantation or spells of sorts. And if you want to get deeper about it I guess that makes his participants on records disciples of his teachings. But what does that mean in the end? Laswell goes to alot Shaman seminars

I think Laswell revels in Chaos and structure simultaneously. I think that scares most people and they want to believe that there is 1 structure in everything. That everything has one pattern how everything should be designed.
This is a whole other thread on programming and what I believe why we all have been duped since birth to "EXPECT" something how everything should be created as.


P.S. Thats a great Parliament song. Eddie Hazel's best Parliament album.
Hmm Come to think of it I think that's where Prince got the idea to do Vanity 6/The Time/Madhouse/ by changing the name and having a direct role in the creation of it by studying George Clinton.

Heres a great brief interview

link:

http://www.furious.com/pe...swell.html



Bill Laswell interview

Q: What was your first exposure to electronic music?

That goes back a long time. Probably things like Skiminovitch did this kind of musique concrete, trance thing with weird inventions. Oskar Sala who did another invention- I don't know if it was electronic but it was certainly not a normal sound system. Ilhan Mimaroglu. Gradually into more commercial things like Kraftwerk, Cluster, Roedelius, a lot of German stuff. It was all a kind of gradual process. Then gradually Eno and things like that, which I didn't really consider electronic. Experimental, I guess, using electronics.


Q: What interested you about this music?

Because it's not an instrument that's so typical- the guitar-bass-drum idea. There's another dimension because it's processed, expanded and mutated. It's a whole other dimension of sound.


Q: How much bearing did this have on you when you started as a musician?

I think it was inspiring and it was encouraging to know that you could do that with sound and also that the sound wasn't limited to that genre. You could apply it to everything, as people do now. It was encouraging to hear how expansive and experimental you could be with the sound. Any acoustic sound can be electronically processed indefinitely. That's very interesting.


Q: What kinds of theories and philosophies behind this music that intrigued you?

Not so much theories I understand or was able to relate to. There was certainly a lot of referentials, points of views and philosophies presented by people, especially Stockhausen and Cage that were very encouring. I think you could apply that to any sound construction, no matter what the genre or the style is.

Q: What was it about what they were saying that effected you?

I couldn't really pin-point it in detail but it freed up your way of thinking. In some ways, it eliminated the kind of structure and rules about sound. In the case of Stockhausen, there's a lot of density in his very interesting combination of sounds that create other sounds. With Cage, there's all kinds of different theories. You can't directly apply it to something outside of what he was doing. He was just inspiring to see how people were thinking so differently.


Q: You had collaborated with Brian Eno for a while. How did his way of thinking or working have any effect on you and your work?

I think I first worked with him on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which was more to do with playing conventional instruments in repetition and then overlaying sounds and recorded voices, which was very influential at the time. (It was the) first time I had heard that. Later on, Holger Czukay did that with a record called Movies.

On Land was a little later and that was strictly ambient. We were just creating sounds and then processing the sounds we had created. We almost never create the sounds by using a conventional instrument. It was always shuffling something or processing something and moving it with reverb and effects. His approach in doing that was a really big influence. His approach to technology was also a really big influence because whatever equipment he would buy to use or manipulate, he would never sit down and read the manual to learn how to use the machine. He would just immediately start trying to incorporate the machine into the process. So, it wasn't always the learning process, it was more like trying to find a direct function for whatever was available. It was very influential, by throwing away the manual.


Q: What is ambient?

Ambient means the natural center or atmosphere of a space. All music has that in it- a space or center. I think it just means the atmosphere or what defines the environment of sound and maybe removing the more destructive, harsh elements and harder rhythmic elements and you get down to the stillness that's inherent. There's an ambient quality in every sound. You may have to enhance that to hear it or bring it out in a different way but there is that in every environmental sound.


Q: Do you that think that ambient evolved as a branch of earlier electronic music?

I think it probably came out of that. No doubt. I think it continues, it moves. People are experimenting all the time with different ways of using ambient. Everything has an ambience- we have it right now in our telephone. We have it in the sound outside the window. I listen to that all the time. If you listen to really deep ambient records that don't move too much, very still records, long after those records are finished, you might find yourself listening for hours to the sound of the room. And that's very interesting in terms of sound.


Q: What kind of influence do you think electronic music has had on other styles outside of its own realm?

Obviously, it's had a huge effect on repetitive music or dance music or house music. Ambient in the last ten years has infiltrated into all those repetitive musics. I don't know what part it plays in pop necessarily but I'm sure there's some connection. But in all the music that deals with experimental repetition, drum and bass, dub, various kinds of house music, there's always been a quality of atmosphere and ambience. I think it's infiltrated that pretty heavily.

Q: Are the same sensibilities at work there?

Only if you isolate the ambient. No, it has nothing to do with the kick drum that goes on indefinitely. I think if you isolate the atmospheric qualities of it, it's very related.


Q: Do you see yourself as someone who's inherited this tradition or as someone who's carrying it on?

I've incorporated it. I probably first experienced it from listening to Miles Davis' In A Silent Way or Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain." Those are ambient records before the word existed and it just meant atmosphere. And with the arrival of Eno and people like that, we started to have a better understanding. It was inherent with what I valued in sound from way back.


Q: What do you think might be the future of electronic music?

It's an old question but you never know the future of anything. I would just say that there's a lot going on, there's a lot available, there's a lot that's been done. For anyone who's interested, they could spend a lot of time just learning and experiencing and being involved. So what's happening next we have no idea. To say what's coming out is impossible, only that it will continue.

Q: You don't think that more convergence of styles is a real possibility?

That would be good but you really can't say.


Q: Do you see that electronic music has some kind of influence outside the realm of art?

I think it's now part of our life-system. It's integrated into how we exist so it's the pulse of what we're doing. In every way. Everything is electric, everything is electricity. Those pulses are no different that your pulse, your heart beat and how you breathe. It's all connected. It's that kind of age, an electronic age.

Q: Do you think this music is emblematic of the industrial age then?

I don't know because I see that electronic music can't exist without the human thought. So everything that is generated is a thought and energy follows thought. I think that all of it is generated by the human idea, constructed by the necessity a system, a structure, a sequence. So I see it all as being very human. It's very human, it's not cold like people think. Computers and electronic music are not the opposite of the warm human music. It's exactly the same. It's equal. You're not going to necessarily find the equivalent of Charlie Parker on a laptop because we can't perceive that. But there'll be a time when someone can and then it'll happen. It's all in your head.

Q: Why do you think people have this misconception that the music is cold and inhuman?

Conditioning. It's the lack of knowledge, perception. It's not the big mind. We're not that smart. We can't know these things. How could you? People are busy working and making a living. They can't spend their whole day trying to figure out about music. It's a full time job. It takes a lot of commitment and integrity to live like that. You do that 24-7 and you'll get it. But you can't just step in occasionally and think you have a point of view. It doesn't work.

Q: What other kinds of misconceptions about electronic music are there?

It's enormously misunderstood by people who play conventional music or who play conventional instruments. It's not justified. There's just not aware. They're threatened by it and they don't consider it to be as valuable as what they do with their more traditional form of creating sound and music. It's an old story. It especially relates to jazz, I imagine for rock people, it's the same idea.

People are afraid of things they don't understand. They don't know how to relate. To them, it threatens their security, their existence, their career, image. Miles Davis was someone who wasn't afraid of that. He fully embraced those possibilities and delved into it. He was criticized heavily from the jazz side. He was supposed to be part of a tradition but he didn't consider himself part of a tradition. He considered himself a person who was just trying to experience things and evolve. Evolve is the key. People who are smart enough to do that or are willing to try will embrace these ideas as new things and encouraging things and a new world. So whoever will want to be in that new world will be open and think about it and make an effort. And the people who feel that what they do is precious and in the tradition and preserving an art form, which is all complete rubbish, they'll not. They'll stick to what they believe and think it's all cold and non-human. There's as much musicality, artistry and genius and vision in the turntablist as there is in an alto saxophone player. You just have to have your mind ready to accept that. That's the new mind, not one who's in the past.

Q: So you don't see a convergence happening because of this ignorance?

Yeah but remember that styles... nothing was a style first. Everything started as an idea. A guy did something with an idea. Someone copied him. Then someone copied him. Some copied all of them and it became important to copy that. It became trendy and then it became a style. Everything started as an idea. Nothing started as a style.

Here's something I accidently inboxed with:





Laswell was going to do this a huge Eddie Hazel project. He seeked him out in New Jersey. (That's another thing about Laswell he doesn't just make phone calls. He goes to the people directly) And I guess Eddie was like, "Who the hell is this cat" But after a little bit he realized Laswell wasn't some crazy stalker and had a idea to bring Eddie Hazel to a new project which would ressurect who he was as a musician.

As you know what happened next was.... Hazel passes not even quarter done recording the project. So Bill has to make it a memorial eulogy for Eddie and PFunk. Laswell came a little too late to make that happen or right on time depending on how you look at it. That album was really going to be a guitar heavy epic for Hazel to show people how versatile he was as a musician.

It's too bad not really anyone gave him that kind of freedom to be able to release a project like that. Im hoping that Las strikes a deal with Itunes. I can't imagine all the material that got passed on by different labels. Although I can understand completely not having any space on a label.


I was surprised when he got that Sly Stone/Bobby Byrd outtake on that album. And you hear Sly pop a beverage. I was like "WTF how the hell did he get this. Who did he hustle for this? "

I think another thing that would make people go absolutely ballistic is if Laswell remixed Sly Stone There's a Riot goin on. I think people would order hits out on him. lol
But I'd still want to hear it if he got the master reels. I just ordered Santana Divine Light. I only know Santana from the well known albums. So this will probably lead me into Santana's catalog. I will let everyone know what I think of this remix project.

Miles said:

Oh you want the Guitar lp? Laswell coproduced that with Sonny. Enemy records are up in value. I saw one for 29.99 at half.com Sonny is the man. I need all the Last Exit stuff as well. I wonder if his family gets royalties from the Space Ghost coast to coast theme.

Speaking of Miles, I never really got a clear answer if Laswell worked with Miles or not if they met and had conversations.

BTW...That Miles Cellar Door Box set sounds amazing.

This is Gigi and she's from Ethiopia.
Gigi is Bill's wife and if you hear and look at her you can see why.







Here's her Website:

http://www.gigimusic.com



I guess she has a solo produced by Bill and what else? a Remix dub album


Here are samples from her in limbo project of her next album "Gold & wax"
I have no idea why Palm Pictures is holding onto it.

http://www.silent-watcher...laleye.mp3

http://www.silent-watcher.../salem.mp3

http://www.silent-watcher...usalem.mp3



She has a unique voice. Reminds me kind of like Zap Mama. Still kind of surprise that Bill married a twenty something. But surprising he married an artist.
[Edited 1/7/06 15:35pm]

http://www.innerviews.org...swell.html

Check out this interview. It's pretty informative how he got the session for Herbie. It's almost like a dream. He begged Brian Eno that he wants to get into the studio. And his first gig was Brian Eno? Crazy.....He re routed the way you are supposed to get gigs. He just straight asked him "Hey man give me a gig"

And this part is revealing:

erbie Hancock’s Future Shock. [producer/bassist, 1983, Columbia]

I met a guy called Tony Myland at the Roxy when [Afrika] Bambaataa and everyone used to dominate that scene. It was 1982. He said he was trying to get tracks together for Herbie and I said we could do something. I asked Bambaataa "Who's a good DJ? I want to make a track with a DJ playing in time." He recommended Whiz Kid and DST. Whiz Kid was out of town, so I went with DST and we put together some beats in a couple of hours. Then we flew to LA. and made two tracks. One was called "Earthbeat" and one was called "Rockit." Herbie played on it five minutes. We mixed it, came back to New York and all of sudden there was a big interest. It spiraled from there. We’d made this freak hit record. But It was just an experiment based on the information we were getting from DJs at the time.