Pioneering DJ and record label owner Gilles Peterson talks about the politics of early pirate radio, how he broke artists like Jamiroquai, Brand New Heavies and even The Roots, and his passion for helping the right music find the right audience.
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Of Course Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
What up, y'all is Liaiah and Welcome to another QLs classic. This episode is all about a pioneering DJ and record label owner named Giles Peterson. He talks about the politics of early pirate radio, how he broke artists like Jamarkua, Brand New.
Heavies, and even the Roots.
And his passion for helping the right music find the right audience.
He is so dope.
This episode was actually taped Brut's Picnic Weekend June twenty eighth and twenty seventeen. This is episode thirty eight in June.
Supremo Supremo roll called Suprema, Su su Supremo, roll call Suprima su Supremo, Roll call Suprima.
So sure I want y'all to know. Yeah, I'm being sincere.
Yeah.
Without Josh Peterson, Yeah, I would not be here.
That was nice.
Sum my name is Fante, Yeah, I say it proud. One of my favorite labels was talking loud.
Small Supremo.
Sure my name is Sugar. Yeah, I got that style, I got that smile. What's up?
Giant Supremo?
Yeah, y'all don't know me. Yea we in Philly. Yeah, he Upremo role bass bell present. Yeah, on this call of roll Yeah quest Love Supreme, Yeah, will make you whole.
Braver Rod suprem Supremo Rome.
It's like, yeah and I'm feeling right.
Yeah, goddamn Jil Peterson.
Yeah, whoa whoa.
Supreme Suprema Roll Supreme Suprema Rome.
My name is Chiles Gill Peterson. Yeah, but I come from un.
Suprema Rome, Suprema so Supreme rorem Son Son.
Dog Bilingual.
Let's all admit that we didn't think that none of our roll call moments were going to be hot, but there was some bust of rhymes stealing moments in this row.
We have.
At least three of them.
First time Steve smiles whatever.
That's amazing.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Course Love Supreme, only on Pandora and our special guest today. I have to say, uh, he exemplifies the role of my favorite person in music, and that's the music that's the taste maker. The taste maker would be the guy that was in the know of what you didn't know about music, and it would spread sort.
Of like what's what's a good term for virus the virus? Uh? Is there a positive virus outrection these medical terms because they're like.
They're like negative connotations, like it's influence spread like a virus trend.
Yeah, because they even use the term like viral now, like viral marketing.
Right. Yes, Giles is my favorite virus virus virus of all time. Yeah.
I have to say that if it weren't for Jiles Peterson taking our organic CD and playing it in clubs in London way before, you know, back when it was just a demo that really started the buzz on on the roots being here today and us wanting to move to London and kind of bringing us to where we are now. So uh, one of my favorite people ever, literally this is Giles Peterson, Lazy welcome, Thank you very much.
Yeah, Giles, now you're on my radio show. Yeah you know that you named my show. Yeah, thank you for that.
Well, thank you, well, thank thank you for Oh god, this is going to be a whole bunch of things. So okay, so what I'll say is that, okay, as of what makes this day really truly special, even though we're not specifically getting on dates and time period, but as of this recording, this specific day that we're on, this was the Saturday twenty five years ago that when Tarika and I were watching Soul Train and saw that Spike lead commercial of the Bucket Drummer Chocolate playing that Levi's commercial.
We looked at each other and like, yo, why we do that?
So today, as we speak is the twenty fifth anniversary of the Roots as you know it, not the oh we formed in high school and did some talent shows, but like when we got buckets, went to South Street and us start busting.
Yeah, and we were square Roots, and you know, I'll say that in.
I guess I'll say in twelve or thirteen weeks later, this is when we started the process of recording the Organic's demo, which then really material around material material virus materialized into a CD so that we could go to Europe and sell it on some festivals that we were invited to, and somehow it made its way to Giles, who we were told with play it in nightclubs, which was like really weird for us because I thought the nightclub was the last place that the Roots whatever wind.
Up dance session. I was thirteen minutes.
No, I was like, see I played over here and it clears the floor instantly. But you know, I mean Giles's position. I'll say that he was my generation's John Peel. John Peel was the cat in London who you know, he took a chance on unknown groups. He lets you know who this unknown name Elvis Costello was or or who the clash was, and Steve frickd up Steve now writes for Elvis Costello. So basically I mean that that was the role. And then when we met, we we thought that we were going to sign to Giles's parent label, Talking Loud, Talking Loud. Well we signed to Talking Loud, but we were going to sign to PolyGram, and then by a strange twist of fate, it became Geffen. But we still maintained the relationship with Giles Peterson to release our very first EP, like well widely distributed.
EP, which was from the ground up on his label. And you know we lived over there. So wait, what I want.
What I want to ask about is what you showed us in London during that time Perreo that the roots quote unquote exiled to London was there was such a scene going on and We basically took that scene and reproduced it in America. We took everything that we saw you do and did it over here. So the idea of like clubs having multiple rooms of different DJs playing, you know, the jam band on the top floor and the disco floor was the third floor, and the you know, the techno music was on the second floor, and the soul music was on the first floor. Like, is that still prevalent now in London as it once was? Is this still a scene or you like the one of the last Mohicans still holding up?
I think bigger than ever? Really really yeah, in a way, here's some people like it's not the scene anymore as used. I think it's like, I think it's just a bit more DIY.
I think that sort of the superclubs came along and people sort of sort to make something out of it bigger and people reacted to that. And I think that nowadays, if you go anywhere from Leeds to Manchester, Bristol, London on a Saturday night, there's a lot of stuff going on, a lot of big raves parties with alternative music being played in different rooms. And also there's actually a return to a live element which did go away for a little while, and I think that certainly at the moment in London and the South of England there's a very strong live in pro jazz scene.
We can come back home now, mate.
Honestly, it's really it's very interesting at the moment, you know, I think that maybe maybe it's more towards the jazz side of things with what Camasi did and the fact that that sort of energy has kind of come over. And then from the UK point of view, a huge set of musicians, groups like Sons of Kemet and groups like you know, artists like New Baio, Moses Boy does, a lot of musicians going on, and there's a really good community which there hasn't been for a while. So the club culture has always been there. That's really where I come from. I'm sort of a DJ club culture, acid house, acid jazz raves Germany, France, residencies all over the place, playing this kind of slightly alternative view of dance music because you know, when I grew up that I'd go to I used to go when I was seventeen sixteen. I'd go to sort of weekenders in horrible holiday resorts which were empty in winter and four or five thousand people would come from all over the country to listen to groups like Roye's Come Over or the Fat Back Band or or you know Clear or you know artists like Leroy Bojess would come to the UK and they would and we would celebrate that music, and they'd be and they'd be a main room and they'd be playing sort of you know, all these big tunes from summer madness by calling the gang to I found Loving by the Fat Bat Band, and then there'd be another room at the back where you'd be hearing DJ's. I mean, that's the first time I heard John Coltrane Impressions wasn't in a jazz club. It was basically in the back of some sort of restaurant in some depleted holiday resort near Norwich on the North Sea right, and there's a DJ called Bob Jones playing Impressions or maybe Giant Steps by John Coltrane at full volume, with twenty people dancing to it, backling like like bee boys like you know so that and when I saw that, I was like, this is what I want.
I love this music.
I was going to say, didn't you once tell me the fante that the the most the most daring thing you ever saw was a DJ you'll played Return to Forever in a nightclub.
It was was it in London or it.
Wasn't in London, It was in Chicago, and it was a guy. It was Detroit guy, the Parish deal Parish. Okay, it's Perish because I was going to say that the first time that I saw at Cenie, someone went back and forth on like the first sixteen bars of Love Supreme where they're really grooving, and that was one of my open, my eye opening moments, like, oh, like anything, if it's groovable, you can play it, because I would never think like it has a groove, But I didn't think it was danceable and I wasn't ever going to try that take that risk here in the United States. I mean we had like you know, King Britain and Dazi and those guys had a little scene in Philadelphia. But even then there was no place for me to really test it out to see if it were work. But once I started going to Iceni and all those like those soul kitchen clubs over there, Yeah, and seeing you guys do that, that was that's what told me, like, oh, anything is playable if you play the right part and if you.
Do it at the right time.
So for you, when you were observing anything and going to these clubs, were you was this in the revival stage or was it in the first round, like when you were first going to clubs, Like how what year was it.
We're talking nineteen eighty, We're talking cameo, you know, so you.
Were in the first draft, not in the revival draft of like eighty nine to ninety, because by that point.
You eighty eighty one eighty two. I mean, there were some British groups as well. There was a very interesting jazz funk scene in the UK. So there was groups like Light of the World, High Tension, Incognito. These are the groups that kind of precursed groups like Loose Ends and Soul to Soul, which came about seven or eight years later. So there was a really strong Level forty two. I was a huge Level forty two fan. I used to go and see them everywhere. I used to love Marking, who I met recently for the first time, the bass player and uh yeah, wonderful guy, wonderful and what underrated vocal, underrated voice, And I used to love that. So for me, there was the kind of one hand, there was this sort of fan of the band thing, and I'd go around like you know, you follow your favorite band. It was also a time of punk as well. It was just post punk, you know, so there was that thing where you kind of were you a punk or were you a soul boy? And I'd had to make my decision about what I wore and how I dressed. I was one of only three soul boys in my school the rest of the people, and what was like being an outcast? Outcast for real? The only reason I was only for black people and that yeah, it was kind of all working class in a London people, you know, like the urban urban people would be into it. And so for me, I had an Indian friend at school and a Black African friend at school.
We were the three soul boys.
And the only reason I didn't get beaten up was because I was in the rugby team and by being a sporting guy in the school, it kind of gave me certain status and swagger.
So who was when you were listening to radio? And I know that pirate radio, yeah, was a big thing. When did the idea of pirate radios start in London? Well, was that always a thing, like even in.
The fifties and no, in the in the sixties, it came from the boats, so they used to and it was on medium wave. A movie about a movie about it, yeah, And that was basically they'd go out and they'd sort of go in neutral waters in the North Sea where they wouldn't get busted, and they'd broadcast on medium wave and they basically that was what Radio Luxembourg was and that radio station kind of gave the birth. Was the reaction to that by the BBC was to set up Radio one and that was how Radio one became a non sort of talk station because up until that point the BBC was controlling radio and it was very classical opera, old school you know.
Open I was about to ask you is to rest your radio different over there than here because by now you know differences the commercial.
Radio, well, FM radio started kicking off in the seventies because all these radio stations in the beginning were like on medium wave, and that's where the pirate stations that really interested me, they were on FM. There was only a few stations locally, so like he'll have I don't know maybe in Philly, how many would there be twenty well.
Like urban sta like we have BR and B and hip hop stater.
So let's say we have two, okay, but if you include all the other types of denominations like twenty stations. So in London they'd have been back in the seventies, there'd have been maybe two commercial radio stations on FM and so maybe three with BBC we're playing a little bit. Maybe we'd be sort of doubling up on FM and on medium wave. The point was there was a need for music to be heard and so they weren't giving licenses out. So these people at a time when CB radio was quite popular, remember that that was kind of it was illegal in the UKCB radio wasn't over here because of your long distance lorry drivers, but over there is the illegal and you'd get You see, if you knew a bloker could build you a CB rig, they could also build you an FM rig. And so what happened was we started finding out that these guys could build us FM transmitters and then the station started popping up in the seventies, of which there was one soul jazz funk station called Radio and Victim ninety two point four. They used to broadcast every Sunday from midday until six.
Is that where two seven nine started or DJ's seven nine.
No, No, this is way before that. Okay, this is way before that. And that was the first station that I would listen to. I would listen to it in the in the bathroom of my house because that was the only place in the house that I could pick up the signal. And sometimes it would go on, and suddenly at fourth thirt in the afternoon, it would get busted and it would be off, and it would be off for two weeks, and you'd be waiting every week for it to come back on because it was the only place you could hear jazz funk music. The other place was there was a disco show on a Friday night called the Best Disco in Town, presented by Greg Edwards Life from the Lyceum. And then the other show was on a Saturday afternoon from midday to two presented by Robbie Vincent who did a probe. And the section that I loved from his show was the jazz Funk forty and he used to play Japanese jazz funk records and he'd play things like you know, open and fire, but that's when I thought. The first time I ever heard the Jones Girls Nights over Egypt was on Robbie Vincent and it was Christmas whatever, nineteen eighty two or three, whatever that were. I'll never forget it. And he played it twice on the same show. It was that good a tune and I'll never forget. In fact, when I played at the Routs picnic the other day when I was over here, I played that track as a memory to him, the connection between Philly and my pirate radio routes.
But anyway, basically at that.
Time it was just literally FM radio stations, of which some were pirates, and you would get busted every every couple of weeks.
So two questions, how much would it cost you to start a pirate radio station?
Well, I started my own pirate radio station.
Oh, I was just that. The was that easy.
Need a boat?
No, no, this is FM, because by then it's FM. Sorry I didn't explain that. So but in the when it was mediumwave, it was on a boat. And then in the seventies, all you needed was you needed an aerial a transmitter, a car battery, a cassette player and a high point right and if you were. If you were smart in London, you had the keys. There was four keys that opened up every council for block right, every like block in London, right for you, cheap accommodation block in London. So any high spot, if you had those four keys, you could get on every rooftop.
So I had the four keys, really right the key. I had the keys.
So that's how I got to know London. That's how I got to know London because I started off by I finally got my show myself because I sat at my little pirate station.
Cost me with fifty pounds to get a rig.
My dad used to take me up the road to episode where they have the horse racing, which is a high point in South London, and he basically helped me put the aerial up on a tree, connect the aerial to the transmitter, transmitter to the car battery, car battery and transmitter also to a cassette player that would play a C ninety and the forty five minutes a Saturday was my show which I recorded in my garden shed and I wanted to be a guy called Robbi Vincent who I mentioned before, And the other forty five was my next door neighbor called Ross Tinsley but otherwise known as Ross Travone. That was his radio name, and he wanted to be John Peel. And basically that was the hour and a half that we'd broadcast from a tree and then we'd leave a phone number on the cassette of the recording, which was the phone box by the tree, and so we'd go, we'd press play go off in the phone box, all three of us with my dad, and and then we'd and we'd get one phone call.
That was the request. One phone but that was enough. That was enough to carry a pre record your show. But yeah, and they go to the Okay, did our priority pre recorder shows?
Well, no, then if unless you're on Radio and Victor, because Radiar and Victor was one of the well known ones and the only sole station, the one that inspired me to get my rig. And they got busted one week by the home office.
Now that was my second question, how do you get busted?
Well, they used to go around with a little team of guys with special equipment and they'd literally find the studio, they'd find the aerial and they'd come up there, you know, and they sort of you know, imagine sort of you know, sixties looking policeman, you know, working for the DTI. The you know, the the government was the punishment. You'd get what you get, you get fined, and no one got a center present.
See you next week.
Yeah, it was a small but you know, they didn't have a lot of budget for the DTI for this particular sort of department. So there's only one guy who's called Eric. Eric Gotts was the main guy because he got he became legendary. This is the guy who busted all the station, especially as pirate Radio became bigger and bigger. Because this is kind of the early day of the late seventies. It was still quite naive and sweet and lovely. But then by the mid eighties it started becoming a little bit cleverer, and people started becoming twenty four hours, and advertisers started coming into it, and then you were more likely to get busted by another pirate than by Eric, because of course they wanted.
That's when I got out of the game, right because it got to carry stuff.
Yeah, it got a little bit dangerous at that point, but it was quite an interesting time and a very exciting time for me. But initially I got onto Radio and Victor because they got busted and they and the guy built my equipment built their equipment. So I said to my guy, they can have my equipment as long as they give me a show. And they said, we'll give you a show, but first of all, you go spend the next six months putting airs.
Up for us.
So that's how I kind of went up the pirate radio status list.
And you know that was not.
So compared to what we have now in the United States, Yeah, which is total corporate radio. And I mean even being or Pandora, it's kind of my version of the middle finger of pirate radio thing where we get to determine the type of music we want to play in the guests we have. You know, since nineteen ninety seven, business corporations have totally taken over.
Radio.
But I look at how London is operated and now you're legit, you're or BBC a government station? Is it still half a dozen six eggs and half a dozen and the other.
Like to you? What is I know? I totally yeah, we need cliche for cliche busters. Well what I'm saying is for government radio.
Like I look at you guys over the pond and I'm like, well, government control radio is better because you know, it's required that you play a variety of things. You know, the idea of one artist getting uh forty spends a day like corporate radio.
Uh, it doesn't exist. Everyone gets their fair share. But look at that.
But then if you get our government, you really kind of negates everything.
So said Scratch, like, do you that's the beauty of the BBC in a way, And and and the fact that the BBC is always having to struggle to be a kind of neutral yet creative body at a time when they have to give equal.
Fairness to commercial stations.
So the beautiful thing about about the UK, I think in terms of broadcasting and the BBC is that you know, you can get the RT left field, really creative, weird shit on the BBC, but the BBC also has its kind of commercial end so because it knows it has to compete with the commercial stations. I don't know if I'm making myself particularly clear, but that balance between the BBC maintaining a presence yet also constantly being progressive with the art of radio, and for me, one of the people that was an incredible inspiration to me. As you mentioned earlier on of course, was John Peel. And John Peele changed the way radio was because he was on the BBC, and up until that point it was still very old fashioned guys on the radio broadcasting in that kind of way that you could imagine, you know, you had to wear a suit, Winston Churchill, kind.
Of the war type stuff.
And up until then it was still you know, even up until the Beatles, it was still kind of very conservative. But when John Peel came along, because there's been a few people before him, and some pirates and stuff on the on the boat stations, but basically John Peel was he broke. He changed the rules of broadcasting and he said, you can play you know, television, this new group from New York next to Slide the Family Stone, next to a punk record that someone just sent me.
Do you know what I mean?
He basically and the way he presented radio, he basically said, you don't have to do it that way, you can do it a different way. And he had a huge influence which made which remains an important part of why the BBC has a certain standard that he that he said needs to be kept up.
Did commercial radio take because I know you said in the beginning, it was only four, you know, but now present day have they taken he from the BBC?
And what is it like now? Like is there a few soul stations on the commercial radio.
Size dance stations, okay, And if you want to go more specialist, really specialist. I mean there's you know, there's the jazz station that's quite conservative, straight up not bad, you know, but I mean there's nothing if you want any think edgy, anything that really the kids are into. The commercial station is never going to be able to react to trend fast enough. So that's why the pirates are always coming along, because there's always going to be a new type of music or culture to represent because the main the mainstream stations try and keep up.
You know.
I mean, the BBC has its own R and B network called One Extra. I'm on a station called BBC six Music, which is kind of for the over thirty year olds, which is kind of cool in a way. Yeah, But in a way I was quite likely to be to find myself on there because it's a cross between sort of what I'm about and what someone like John Peel's about, so they kind of it's quite a progressive, experimental, interesting music, experimental.
It's just like it's the most out there. It's where you could hear.
The roots records being played every day, you know, more likely than on a pop station or in a commercial station.
So for you, is it more important to be the first to bring you Kenchick Lamar, the first to bring you a new singer from America Lauren Hill? Or is it like, what are your goals because of that? Well, I know, I got I can't like I.
Want you exclusives come in, I know. But a guy like Fresh of the Week, Fresh of the Week, what their funk master Flex? Oh?
Now, I know Westwood has his sets on being the funk Master Flex, which.
Is nostalgia though put people like Westwood no style nostalgia I know in the now.
Well that's crazy, you know, let's see, that's weird because the Westward I'm referring to was the nineteen ninety six, ninety seven. Okay, I know I'm hearing myself speaking known that's twenty years ago. But back then he was the you know, playing the news, the today hip hop, the street hip hop, and kinda taking a different stance on underground or stuff that he would deem too old school, even though he came up in that era. But my whole point was that I saw him more as a fump master flex guy who you know, where he's the celebrity. He you know, it's about him, Whereas I see you as wanting to still be a taste maker and put people onto stuff that they don't know about, Like you know, I think when you first played a I think I heard you on the air when you first introduced UFO on on, you know, when they first debuted like this is back in late night Japanese. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's like to me, I feel that I'm asking do you feel better as a taste maker or do you feel you'll get more done if you were the celebrity DJ.
It's interesting.
It's a bit of a combination of elements in a way. I mean, my role is to on one hand, fundamentally excite myself. You know, I don't really care about my audience in that sense. I mean in the sense that I do care about it, prepare for a fifteen, but if it feels right, do it.
You know.
The thing is for me is it's it's always interesting because I think that people get off on your energy and your energy is your authentic feeling. And as a broadcaster, I buzz on new music. I buzz on discovering old music that I've never heard before where there's an incredible story. I buzz on playing some classics because I like a bit of nostalgia. But fundamentally it's that mixture of all those elements with entertainment as part of it. So someone like Westwood, incredible broadcaster, changed the generation. People grew up on him and his radio show, and he brought a certain esthetic of hip hop to a UK audience, and he did it incredibly well. On the other hand, you could say, well, where's your legacy, what did you break? What did you do for UK hip hop? Why were you so influenced by American music? Why has it taken twenty years for grime to finally come through and for UK hip hop fundamentally to actually finally have its name out there and to be doing something because friendship hop was way ahead, different language. I mean, as you know, you know, it took a long time, so I think there was certain powers that held it back, and I think that's a shame and my viewpoint as somebody who's also been very much part of the music industry as you know, because we worked together and all that sort of stuff. I feel that, you know, Britain has a lot to shout about. Musically, the UK is a unique place, you know, from going back to the Rolling Stones and led Zeppelin, through punk music, through all the different elements of dance music, from step to drum and bass.
To broken beat.
And I think that it's this unique mixture of people and the club culture that make sure the music is constantly reinventing itself and there's always something new coming up. And that's why for me being on the radio, it's easy. You know, it's easy because at the end of the day they'll be there'll be a James Blake, They'll be you know, James Blake will come along, or a Mount Kimby or come along.
There'll always be something happening.
You're not you know, there's never a time when you're like going, oh God, there's not been anything interesting for two or three years. So for me as a taste maker, that makes it easy for me to be a taste maker because there's so much great stuff to be able to shout about.
So do you feel okay?
I'm thinking of like Benji, like who do you feel if you were to start right now, and I don't mean morbidly like death or whatever, if you just said I've had enough, I've done it, my work is done. How many does rifles of yours? Do you fully trust will carry on the tradition that you have and in spreading Tomorrow's music, supporting Britain scene, keeping us educated on the past, because you've got to do like three to four different things to keep the train running. Do you feel as though there are enough people that have the education and the will and the drive to be the person that that meets you at the gate, the greet the taste maker, Like, I think.
There's they're all my children in the UK for sure, in the sense that you.
Know Digs, I listened to him. He reminds me a loud of you in La. Yeah, yeah, yeah, No.
I mean I think Solection do some really great stuff. I think Deviation do really great stuff. I think boiler Room, you know again, the guy who sat out Boilerroom, Tristian, he was working with me, you know, for eight years, and then he was like, oh, I'm going to go and film us doing a gig down the road in Dawston, and that was Boiler Room. I think NTS another really interesting digital radio station. Again it was very much so if you ask me who's coming through, there's a whole load of people with that certain attitude where on one hand I'll be playing an Omar Sulliman record or some abstract sort of record from the Congo released on Analog Africa, and on the other hand they're going to be releasing playing some sort of you know, crazy Mickey Miller, you know which I heard you chatting about last week. So that that way of approach to music I think is really normal now. I think that when there was a time when you played of this music in a mix, it was a little bit abnormal. Today it's almost expected. If you look at even you know, you read Pitchfork or or Resonant Advisor, all these really important influential websites and new school writers of the culture. It's about the eclecticism, you know, it's about having Rufus Harley on a roots record. I mean, you were doing this years ago, you know, and throwing it all together. And for me, my big thing now at the age of fifty two, is it's about heritage and it's about the people that really took us here. It's about Philip Coran in Chicago. It's about Sun Rah, It's about Jimmy Merritt here in Philadelphia, the bass player who wrote Nomo and played with Max Roach. For me, it's about putting a light on these people, because without those guys, we wouldn't be here. And they put in so much work and some of them are still alive, you know, and of course people like Royez still around. I mean, my god, those guys, they did so many gigs and we're kind of, I don't know, for me personally, it's kind of like it's payback time to those guys, and we've got to make sure that we use the power that we have and the means of influence that we have to shine a light on those people. Three people that I met when I was twenty two years old. I've just been picked up by to London because I was a young guy and I was playing jazz records in clubs and I met three people in the space of one week or two weeks, Wayne Shorter, Jalal from The Last Poets, and the jazz singer mart Murphy, and those three guys in the space of two weeks. They taught a young boy from South London who didn't know much about American culture. They taught me about the different elements of music within jazz, whether it was spirituality, whether it was more of a bohemian attitude, whether it was the civil rights. I got lessons from these three people in a very early at a very early age, and that had a huge impact on me. And I want to be able to do the same thing for another generation of people, to bring them closer to the roots of the music and away from the superficiality of big commercial corporations.
Do you remember the first record you ever brought, the very first record you purchased?
I purchased. Yeah, I remember picking up a record cards. I remember buying Blondie Dnie by Blondie.
I love that.
That was Electric Light Orchestra, mister Blue Sky. I was a bit prog rocky at around twelve thirteen, you know, Caravan in the Land of Graham Pink, brilliant record, first sort of record I bought. I mean, I was very thankful for my library in London where I lived in Sutton. They just had a new library and that's where you could sort of take home records. I don't know, if they did that here in the States where you could borrow records, you still do that.
For those Oh yeah myself. That was sorry, that was a good place anyway.
So that's where I kind of heard a lot of you know, I bought Herbie Hancock, you know, really important records to me. Actually, Herbie Hancock Mister Hands nineteen eighteen, huge record, huge record.
Way. So wait, who was I mean?
I know, I say if John Peel, and I'm using American sports terms, you know, for every Michael Jordan, there's Pivet.
Oh yeah, there's.
Definitely ten or fifteen unsung heroes that will never get their props that were just as important or vital to the movement. But I mean, who was your John Peel when you were coming up, Like, who's the person that truly introduced.
You to music?
Was it a school friend or whatever? Who started your obsession with collecting records? Yeah, because you have, Like, what's your collection up to now? I don't I don't count you stop counting. It's three houses? Yeah yeah, oh three properties. Yeah yeah, I keep getting pushed out by my wife, but yeah, no, for me, it was, uh, it was my friend Andrew Crossley's sister fourteen years old. I went to his house and she had a copy of Mays Live in New Orleans. She had a copy of Bobby called Well What You Won't Do for Love? The album that's when.
When I first heart left, when the fire All in all, I think it was around then that I'd hear Brazilian rhyme and fantasy, all those songs. I mean that blew my mind. I hadn't heard that on the RATO in the UK. The most amazing music ever. Mays was big for me. I remember going to see Mays all the time. They used to come to London play at the Hammersmith Odio. Yeah, who would come to Who from the States would come? The bands when you were when you were I never forget seeing Cameo. Cameo disappointingly because they were doing their rock thing at the time, and I really wanted them to do this sort of slat bass thing at that time.
But still, I mean, yeah, they were all coming.
A lot of those groups were coming, and you know a lot of the jazz funk bands, you know, people like Lonely Listen Smith would come, you know, this sort of slightly offbeat less. There was a Motown scene for the more traditional stuff. That wasn't really what I was into. I was more into the jazz funk thing.
You weren't into the North. What do you explained to me Northern soul? Gosh, Northern Soul is okay, well, I mean.
They like they break, they break, yeah.
Tune wise, I mean it's really sort of The UK was very into motown and soul. You know, all of that Marvin Gaye, Smoky Robinson, the sixties stuff that was big, and that was big, and that was that got playing the wady down. There were clubs and you know, there was there was the stuff going on, and they come over to the UK. The DJ club scene started happening in the sixties and seventies in the North as well as it was in the South, but in the North of England they basically had a slightly different taste and they didn't want to play the obvious motown records, so they went and found the records that sounded like Motown records but were hard to find. And that's really what Northern Soul was. And it's a certain tempo. It's quite high tempo. There's some amazing songs. It's basically you know, it's it's Discog's forty years go. You know, they were pulling out the rarest local songs. They there's guys who'd come and they'd realize that the music from America was local, you know. So there's there were the major labels that would release all the big records, but if you went to Saint Louis, or you went to Dallas, or and you just went to the local record shops, they'd hear local music where there was mightbe a thousand copies ever pressed just for the local market. And that's really what Northern Soul kind of was. It was about going in like New Mirror Group for example, labels like that. It's just going in that much deeper. And some of the music, of course, there's so much music. That's the other thing that just to answer you from earlier on about what drives me how much music is that? I thought ten years ago, I was like, yeah, I've got most of it.
Even now as you speak, there is stuff that you still I'm spending people.
To make much music on records at the moment, not because I'm earning more, you know, but because I'm just I'm excited and there's so many more record shops and really great experts. Now you can go anywhere in the world and you'll find a place which is where there's going to be someone who's going to invite you to their house. Maybe it's not in a shop anymore. Now it's a more bespoke record dealer that exists right where you go to the crib.
And yeah, there's a lot of those cats.
But they're good man, because they do all the work for you. I mean, I don't have me coming like well, I know they're overcharging me for some you know, you've got to accept that it's going to be twenty five percent over for you. But you will get some good stories. And those guys for their role as as great bespoke records sort of finders, they if they're really good at their job, they'll tell you the story. For example, recently there's a guy called Victor Kiswell in Paris. I think you might well have been to his house and he gave me a record the other day and it was in Russian, right, and it was all in Russian, and it was from the Ukraine from the seventies and it was a Ukrainian big band version of a Fella Kootie song right right, Shakara right right exactly, and you out right and uh and and he had gone to the to the point of translating Russian to find out more about the record than you realized.
It was fella cootie and stuff.
And then he kind of listened to the track and halfway through this little riff that comes in and It'straka by Ukrainian big band in the mid seventies. Wow, that's what we want. Wow, that's what we need. That's what you need. That's your food, that's your food.
It is it is. See yo right in this room.
Used to that guy used to come up here. Yeah, he was like yeah, he was like a fucking drug deal.
He sent me down. Let this dude in the front door go down there. I'm like a Mirea's gonna buy some drugs talking about Jean Brown. So you would come up here and go back there and whispering. Guys are showing them all different kinds, like if you had different kinds of weed. You know, these records from here, This one's twenty five, this one's thirty.
I'll take it.
I'll take you real.
The best thing is they do the records and the drugs now to this day, Jean Brown is my professional shopper.
See that.
Okay, that's the thing. It's like, I still feel like you're actively getting your hands dirty. You're using elbow grease to search for the song that you don't got. You still actively dig. Like I almost feel, even as I'm asking you about the comparisons between a Westwood and Appeal, I almost feel like I have to make myself personally a corporation or a Westwood so that I can have peel moments, like in order for this show to even happen, Like I have to be quest love, like I have to have a corporate day job life. That's the total opposite of not what I stand for. But it's just like, you know, twenty five years ago, do you think I would be like.
On late night? Yeah, on late night.
If that's you went from busking on the corners at late night, that's pretty bad.
I mean, that's that's my point.
Like I feel I almost have to robin Hood my way to keep culture alive. I mean, if I really had the monetary, rolling in the money, rolling into to do even bigger things quote for the culture, I mean I would, but it's like slow coming. But it's it's like I feel that you still, you know, you'll you'll you'll dig on websites and look up playlists like how active are you still? I mean there's a point where before Boss Bill was my ears, like he would search for records for me and meds because there's not enough hours.
In there, you know, for you your drummer, So your chomps is like you know, you're playing, you're practicing.
You're a musician, right, you're going.
Out the right I'm a DJ, but I'm ninety and other things too, So that's that's your prime your your prime role and and and I mean, you just got to do your thing the way you do. You do such an amazing job of bringing culture to people to a new generation. I mean, you're the Quincy Jones of this generation.
Don't say that the way you are because I think that you're the you are, because I think you probably have a comfortable role index so many ways. You got to do your back on the black Man. You got to do that. Saying that is super snarky. You gotta do you no, you know, I think at the end of the day, people listen to you.
At the end of the day, I saw what you did in London and said by any means which even the roots picnic is still an extension of.
Like those places that we used to play in a h outside of London Brighton right. Thank you for saying that to me. That's that's the important thing.
Like I don't know why I think that way either, like okay, instead of like living the moment, I'm trying to think of what mark I can leave here when I die. So besides Djan, I mean you you developed probably one of the most important dance labels ever, which was Talking Loud. Could you talk about your like when did you develop it and what means you want to Well?
I first started off as a pirate DJ in a club DJ from the age of seventeen eighteen by doing compilation albums. So my first thing was like the mixtape, but I used to do license tracks and compile them. So the first series I did was Jazz Juice and I think I am the world record holder of compilation official compilation You were Silver. So I always wanted to be like close to our Blake keeper from a DJ point of view and releases, so I managed to do that and then I set up a pirate a pirate station. I stayed upper my first record label, which was label called Acid Jazz, and that label was Brand New Heavies, Galliano, Jamiroquai and all of that stuff, whoever they are. Yeah, that was that was the beginning then. But who got to remember at that time everyone used to go work. You know, it was like it wasn't you know, there was no scene. There was no business really, I mean there was a scene, but there was no way of monetizing it. And this music was super underground and you know, you'd sell a few hundred, couple of thousand records, so all the artists were basically, you know, going to work during the week and you know, as you were doing the other days of the roots and.
You see him at JK of Jamiroquire once had a d job. No, he never had a day job.
But all the Brand New Heavies did, you know, and all of Galliano did, and those early groups. And from my point of view where I was at being the champion of this new scene going on in the UK, I got I knew that I needed to take it to another level and I couldn't do it independently. So I got an offer from Funogram Records, which was PolyGram which is now Universal, and they said to me, Charles, why don't you do this little thing that you're doing with acid jazz and do it for us. So that's when I said, I'm Talking Loud. Because at that time, there were no bootique record labels. You know, I didn't have anybody to go, oh yeah, let's do you know, what did you do? What kind of deal did you do? So I ended up just being brought in by them as an A and R guy with my own label. And that's why I set up Talking Out because I knew that Talking Loud needed to happen to break the bands, to be able to break the movement, so I needed a major label. So that's when I set up Talking Loud. And so the beginning of talking about it was groups like Incognito and Galiano and Omar and the Young Disciples, which is the best record I think we ever put out. I put out, anyway, a very underrated soul hip hop record which had Master Race on it. It had Johnny Light all the Vibes player on it. And then that was that time, and that was the sort of period of louse of salt to soul and that kind of London sound happening. But I wanted Talking Out to be more than just a soul funk, acid azz label. I wanted it to represent UK club culture and all the elements directions was going in, from the massive attack to what became the drum and bass, and all those groups of people like four Hero, people like Ronnie Size represent They were natural artists to come through the label. Carl Craig, we did him, who was off s course, the Detroit Sad. The best record I think I put out apart from your EP, was the new Reconsult Records with and that was a full on A and R experience because they'd released a little twelve inch called the Nervous Track on Nervous Records, and I was playing that at Barumba my Monday night session, and they heard about it. And I was a fan of Louis and Kenny and I said to the guys, I called him up, I says this, and guys, you know, this is a really big record for me. Because the house hit kids weren't by playing that record because they were house producers, but they weren't on it because it was a little bit offbeat.
But it was perfect for people like me.
So I then said to Louis, let's let's develop this into an album project. So that's when the New Reconsole thing happened. And now and then it just opened up because Louie's got his his nephews, his uncle's Hector Lavo, so the whole of Latin music was was in it. Then Kenny had the connections with Jazzy Jeff and roy Es, and then we had George Benson on it, and then Tito he turned up. That was the best ever launched album launched Supper Club New Reconsole by.
They were all there, the pictures from the inside game from.
A very bad quality day of it, which is up on such a shame because it's like that they were all the La India.
They were all there.
So that was my official most fantastic kind of experience, like the turn back.
The term about the song but in Needlember is it about that club?
Yes come the nation of a tribute to Luis Essa, who's the Brazilian composer who wrote a song called Baromba and bar Rumba because Blue used to come down every Monday, remember, so I introduced him to the music of the Tamba Trio for whom luis Essa wrote, So that was.
Kind of a very nice you know that.
You know.
The maddest thing for me was when because when I ran Talking Ad Records, of course it was a UK and European thing, but I was trying to break this music in the States. So you're talking about FM radio here and stuff. So I had to the first time I came to America with music in my hand to sell to the A and R guys of the department at Mercury Records. It was Ed eg Stein and Lisa Cortez who were running it there, and and I went in there with my young disciples and my oma, and they were like, we love this music, this is amazing. We're going to try and you know, make it for you, make it happen. But it was so hard to get that music on the radio over here. But it was very interesting sort of learning process for me to kind of see how the industry worked here and working with those people.
What was it? What was it like for you?
Because one of the moments that I saw as kind of a breakoup month for Talking Loud was when for a Hero two Pages got the Lee review and Vibe. It was the first review of the I don't even if you remember this, but remember it, but yeah, that record got the first It got the Lee review and I actually went and checked it out on the stream for that. That made me like a lifetime Me and Mark we've done you know work, But man, that was what was How did you and fo a hero?
We four? Hero?
Was it?
I mean remarkable because they are Mark and Diego. They're another kind of super combination like Louis Viger and Kenny Dope and two very different characters and personalities who make magical music based from a community in West London, and they really just developed their sound which is a combination of kind of stringy jazzy stuff with you know, UK under ground bass music and drum and bassed music. So to work with them was unique and fantastic. But the break record, the one that really broke talking loud in America. This is a mad experience for me. Was I suddenly got called that Deep Waters buy Incognito featuring Masonlink was a big record in Detroit, and Blue said, yeah, come over and see us playing in Detroit, And I literally got on a fly it went to Detroit and they were playing in the stadium and it was a completely black audience, and it was and that's when I started realizing, you know the power of a city or a few radio stations, how they can break an artist. And thankfully they broke Incognito because they kind of went a bit bigger from there, sold me a million records which went back into my coffers, which allowed me to record four Hero and Ronnie Size and all the other groups, MJ Cole and people like that. So can you speak about the Drum and Beast movement because the British underground history, the Frosten Night, I.
Still feel like it is yet to find its moment, it's true moment. And I feel like.
Now that now that tempos are sort of slowing down at least from where it was. I'll say, like the tempo of two thousand and six to two thousand and thirteen was just straight up boots and cats, gots like straight one thirty one. So now that stuff is slowing down a little bit down. Tempo, well still, I'm one p'in sixteen is fast. I mean, if you're a public enemy, that's vastert shit for hip hop, but for dance music, it's rather slow, but it's slow enough for drum and bass to really find a lane now. And the first night you ever took us to bar Rumba, speaking of Monday night, watching you spend this is like our first our first week in London. And and the guy on whoever was spending before you, his last record was Anita Baker's Sweet Love, and I was like me and TERI started looking at it like the fun So the intro to Sweet Love.
Were in a bad way.
I'm like, wait, why are they playing a slow song at a London nightclub? And when the intro came on, big the whole audience are losing his mind right, And we just looked at each other like, oh god, this is gonna be our life in London. Because you gotta understand, we exiled, like we straight up took our budget and left.
All right, we love y'all.
We out, So we're here and so the first verse comes on, We're throwing hot and on it and people are just like preparing like some riots about to happen. The second the chorus came in and it went to double time, and then we just like we'd never seen madness marshing like that in our lives.
Wow, And I just remember I asked you. I was like, what the hell is that?
And you was like strum and bass, And you know, eventually I met Digo and those guys and knew what it was. But the religious power that music had that I saw that night and subsequent nights and months and whatever, I feel like it really didn't cross over to the world as it should, but it's still waiting for its moment.
Like what do you feel about that whole movement? Because you signed Arnie Size.
And I think that movement was interesting. I mean we won the Mercury Prize for Bonnie Size. Yeah, you know, the movement is pretty big then and at the time ninety six ninety seven and before, I thought the movement had some good some good leaders. I thought people like Gold the lt J Booker, Ronnie Side, because any movement needs a quest love, it needs somebody who can basically, you know, plant the flag and shout about it, right. And I thought that Drumm and Bass had a good movement. I think the Broken Beat had a bad so it had a bad leaders. They didn't have leadership because for me, the music it was ig culture, AG culture and Dego really were the leaders. And that music form still resonates today. You play broken beats now and they're big to the kids. That's the music I think is going to be coming through more than druma based because I think drummer bass is already in. It's in our DNA, it's there, and it's just morphing into different things.
Well, certainly in Europe it is, but I feel like it should have made it more of an impact in the State. But time. But what you got.
Why is why is America slow? That's what I was thinking this whole time, like, why does America feel like it's so slow?
Especially I think arrogant?
That might be it.
Are we just too damn picky.
I don't think it's I don't think it's picking. It's I think it's arrogance.
Really, it's just outsiders because there's something about the way.
That I feel this generation will pick I don't know, I mean that generation will pick up on it think now, yeah, yeah, I think.
But previous generations I think it was a problem because people just too arrogant, like this is an American music, they don't sound like me.
I think it's the question we're talking about it a little. Definitely, it's the d M thing.
As well. It's like, in a way EDM was a good thing.
I mean, I don't like the music particularly right, but what EDM did is it kind of put dance music into the head of radio programmers, into the head of people who might want to be produced or remixed by David Getter, major major artists, and it slowly was the doorway into a sound that America wasn't used to. And eventually the drips will get you to drum and bass. It's kind of the door backwards.
The doorway is there. And because up.
Until then dance music and everything that came out of dance music, it was a little bit, you know, it was like is it gay?
Is it you know? You know, is it right?
You know, so you'd have to go to Miami Winter Music Conference and that was like where we'd all meet, but it was underground in America a little bit. In fact, in a way, it's probably twenty or thirty years behind when I was going to my weekends when I was sixteen. It was almost like going to Miami Winter Music Conference thirty years later. And you know, yeah, that's probably. But I think it's getting their radio is changing. I think that people are slipping it in and producers are more prepared to cross reference.
I don't know.
I mean, like the new Drake record. You know there's that song which is kind of a house record, there's.
This Are you shocked at how I'm glad he did it because for me, like I didn't think that quote real house. The first president I thought about was like King brit I thought about, you know, because if anyone, he's been trying to hold this tradition up in Philadelphia for so long that it dwindled a little bit where you know, it's falling on deafiar's only certain people would would would gravitate towards it. And it's almost to the point where like we've now throw Sunday afternoon parties, so instead of Thursday nights, you know, from nine till three in the morning, now it's like Sunday afternoon in the park at one pm with you and your kids and your grandkids, and it's it's it's that's the moment. But now that Drake has has you know, leaned heavily on the South African house culture and really opened the door. Uh, do you feel as though that's a good thing or a bad thing?
That's a good thing.
I mean, there's nothing wrong with any of that, especially that he's got Moody Man on his record.
Yeah, I'm so jealousy. That's I love it. I used to just play that sample alone.
With the Strake song you're talking.
About Superman is the one he did the Black Coffee, but.
I can't remember the name of that song.
With the Guys record on again, he's like talking, there's a recording of a guy, Moody Man.
Who's this It's a recording of him DJ. Yeah, No, I know the I know the Moody Man recor. I didn't know the Drink record which one he I didn't.
Yeah, it's on the album. I can't remember what it's called. I'll look it up, but it's quite interesting. It's interesting that that's happening. But I think it's you know, you know all of it. It's just it's just in you know. And at the moment the music that I'm finding really brilliant, and I love it as the sort of subculture is all that stuff from Chicago, all the footwork stuff. For me, the one sixty bpm stuff is really exciting. And I dropped that wherever I dropped that. That's like my biggest music. If I'm sort of you know, at a festival, the moment I need to kind of bring them all in, I'll play some footwork, so.
Another level of Chicago House. Sorry just asking another level Chicago.
And stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, it's super fast. They'll take like the pac Man.
Theme comusic because that sounds like Baltimore House.
It's Baltimore House on steroids. It is like move jump jack your body now play that on forty five, but dance to it on thirteen. It's kids, Kids Today. So Jiles, You've seen a lot of historical magic moments in your career, throwing shows, having people come by to record on your show. Half of the show that we did with Pharrell at the Roots Picnic last month was based on the performance that any Ur he did on the world Wide show. So that was like that was inspiration, like taking off his music and then filtering it. I can't wait, it's it's it's, it's it's awesome.
It was amazing. Thank you, So, like what what.
What were some of the magic moments that you saw, Like some of the first I mean talking to is not that said Jazz Caffeice talking to Pharrell.
Actually there was a week and Winter Music Conference. There was a week before Winter Music Conference where I got the D demos from from From the demos with Rise were too too high on it to fly on it and all that stuff. And the same week as that, I got the n r D album, the first one, the one before they went because they.
The digital version, which is always better, shut up than you can I get? Can I get?
For years we know, we were arguing that in rehearsal, like to stick true to the synthetic an e r D or the live an e r D.
Spot Man, I realized it was my band, so I got the last say.
But why do you feel Neptune's an e r D first record is because that's what it was.
It was.
It was when they tried to when they redid it and did it with the live iss it felt to me like they were trying to make it go to a bigger audience quote unquote, But it was never going to be that record. It was always the Neptunes anesthetic was always to that point, always just sounds The.
Digital version just sounds anemic after hearing the live version. But that's how all the stuff sounded though. But that was the I think the songs benefit better from the live arrangements.
I don't think the song.
I think the song.
The songs were like kind of not cheesy songs, but they were like cheap and plastic, like the production like brain. I mean, I really need to call in a fucking band to sing about getting some head like Nigga really, I mean he had no choice.
I give Fante's point that I feel like the the wonder that is Pharrell is sort of like when you're singing in the bathroom mirror with a brush. It's it's cheap, plastic sounding music that's made legit.
Yeah, because it's a boat and it nails the performance and it makes you feel inclusive because it's like, oh, I can do this too. It's not like super intellectual, but then it's intellectual.
I could do this too.
You'll make it sound so easiest for real.
But what is farrel singing have to do with the instrumentation?
I mean, just in terms of the songs, I mean just the songs when I'm when I said, just his lyrics, So.
His lyrics also compliment his musical level.
Of music snobberies on an all time high.
I like disparity though the expedition of the opposites, juvenile lyrics and why you just think gar was cute and let's just go with that, we go down rabbit hole.
No, no, I'm a fan of the music.
I just don't have those words. And I just say again that the album was dope and I don't need it.
You don't know why when you like to know why it works and why it doesn't work.
It worked for me as a listener, though, what.
Worked about it for you? What was it about the record? Talk talk about run to the Sun? About it? Talk about the song? What is it? What is it in the song that I was moved?
Like for me, I'm a listener, so I'm not a musician, so I won't go you know, the streams weren't right here his people more about I was moved like run to the Sun with something I never that whole is something that the lyrics that yeah, and then once you realize about his Grandmam and everybody else has a moment.
Of like it's it's spoke to you on that level.
I'm a listener.
I don't make it.
I listened to it, and I get I.
Don't make it either. I think stuff too.
You don't try and act like you're just a common the comp you've been if anyone of all of us, you've been on commercial radio more than anything, you're you're you're the system, right I am I have because you're the system, Like you're not the listener on you were the radio, right.
And I was the one that was saying, and it's funny, that's why I was speaking about the differences between Excepting music and Europe and and and here is we had to tell people to listen to n E r D. We couldn't play it, so I had to constantly be like, this is the ship, y'all need to listen.
You have to tell your program department people like no, I told my listeners.
Oh, like you guys weren't playing the records. You were just but you were still telling them to go check it out.
Wow yeah yeah ANYRD. Yeah, that's stuff didn't get no no play like that.
I mean, there were some commercial records that we had to say, like, why aren't you we playing video India Area A dance was getting.
Played on on BT and cut Yes, yes, I forgot about that.
That was it and all the Girls. That's a whole another album standing in the line with a bathroom that.
We come signing me on the Electronic Nerd album Full Validated.
I feel like.
I feel like people that co signed the first any r D record are also the same people that say, like, well, I like Off the Wall better than Thriller because you're supposed to.
Nah.
I mean, I'm not with you then, because I think I like Off the Wall better than Thriller, but not for that reason.
Off the Wall, especially as you get older too, like always thrill thrill, Thriller was more consistent because I still don't you don't see it as equally as great.
Well, because I don't.
Listen to I skip She's out of my life and I skip it's the falling in love and.
On Thriller, like I skip beat it every time I play Thriller half a Thriller, I can't listen to.
We don't listen to Thriller because Thriller is not a record. It's not a record, so it's not an album. So anyway, Joab beside a.
Wow, great moments.
The moment that one of the early great moments that I remember very clearly right now was was a weekend of that I organized, and I remember we put on Tribe Call Quest in the UK, first show ever, and it was in one of those holiday resorts in the middle of nowhere again because they were we could hire these places for cheap. And it was Tribe Coal Quest, Pharaoh Sonders on the same bill, Brand New Heavies, Galiano, Jimmy Roquai. So it was like the acid jazz meets America meets the sort of spiritual jazz godfathers.
So that was that. That was that was a big one. That's amazing, remember that very well. It was a great night.
Good night America would never get that.
Okay.
Can I say, now, are your listeners still your list from twenty years before or are do you have a generation of listeners that are open to new music? Because I'll say, the one thing that I find kind of unpenetrable, uh in DJing now as opposed to back then, is the boldness of playing the unknown without repercussions. It's like, I borderline have to trick them to listening to something dope because I had to disguise it with you know, three songs that they know. Then I'm gonna hit you with you know the shit that I like. And then right before the dance wor clears. I'll you know, it's like a system that you have to have. Do you find it harder now?
Uh? Facing audiences of unknown music. I just need them before. I need more time.
So if people book me now, I say five six hours, you need me to play that long.
Because the problem you redeem yourself in cases.
That's the generations I've got, you know, I've got the people who come and listen to me and they're like, Oh, I really like that record you made in Cuba, or I love the Brazilian stuff you do, or I love that kind of new bass music you're playing from South London. So at the end of the day, all these different people are coming for different bits of me. So I need to say, look, I'll do the whole thing, the full journey, but I need five to six hours on a great sound system. That's why I love playing at output all places like you know, like that way you can, but it's more work. But that's the only way I can kind of give them. I feel better at the end of the night. There's nothing worse.
You're literally the only person I know besides myself. I love marathon gigs and love them. You're the only person like, uh, next week, I'm going to do an eight hour gig. It's and promoters are always scratched, head scratching because most DJs, Wow.
That's the normal.
I said, Wow, that's long.
Oh oh no, that's normal. I mean you think I get long winded answers to see my DJs.
In that one.
Those ten to four am gigs were my favorite. Yeah, I'm just saying that it's not you've got to have.
I mean, the thing is on.
When I played Output the other day in Brooklyn, I played the full sixteen minute version at peak time off. I thought it was you, but I hope you the director Japanese version, right, that one, that one right, which is the best version of I thought it was you all sixteen minutes. I think it's sixty enough minutes long, right, But if I hadn't been playing for five hours, I wouldn't if that would have been a quarter of my one hour set, you know. So the fact, but to be able to play that and for people to because then people get because at the beginning, people are looking at you, especially when you come to America. For me, they come and they're looking at you, going give me a show. I'm like, no, I'm a DJ, right dance and let me get into my zone because I'm not a performer in that way.
Yeah, I want to ask because every time, like when I go out, I see people like now, DJ culture is the it, and it's like you're doing it wrong, Like how did how have you adapted to that? Like how does the audience adapt to you being a pure DJ in that way?
Well, you just have to keep doing it, I think that, and you've got to accept that. You know, there'll be people taking five and that even though they're not dancing, they are into it because I think initially I was like, oh, no, they don't like it, but they hadn't but they haven't left.
That's when you came here, right, you hadn't experienced that a.
Little bit of that. I mean the first time I ever went to Japan, I remember thinking, my god, no, it's no, yeah, you think you're bombing. But after the shi, yeah, they love it. They give you an uncle.
But it's kind of it's that's a weird thing. But no, I think it's it's good. I think people are getting down, people are beginning to understand the etiquette of going out to hear a DJ.
Now.
I think a few years ago it was like there was especially in the States, because they was like unless you were going to the proper real clubs and.
You're going to like a festival.
I remember playing at Coachella and six years ago, and I was like, am I really this is terrible? You know, but it was just the way because they there was no you know, there was no festival culture for DJs like me. You know, there was festival culture for techno DJs like you know, cult, but for people like me who went through it, it was a little bit odd.
But it's getting there here in peace. Since I love By the way, I.
Asked you about the time you came to Philly and went to James Poorser's dad's church.
Oh wow, Yeah, that's right, that's right. Why it's what we live in Philly. Yeah. Oh. I have to say.
The first person I really fell in love with, apart from Erica bad whilst interviewing her, was and probably in fact more so than Erica, was Jill Scott. I remember interviewing her when she just released her first record.
Who Is Jill Scott?
And I was so in like when I met her, I just absolutely fell apart and and and really really really liked her a lot, and.
Obviously that's what it was, but but it made me want to come to Philly. We all haven't called.
It's actually a segment on the show.
We haven't been all kinds of ways, even when she's not trying.
You never fell in love with James Poyser though, right.
Was waiting for James Sky the Yeah it's a mere Thompson.
I know, yes, and about uh.
Seven, You remember I used to always call you during my radio show when someone mentions your name. Yes, okay, so I have Jiles Peterson here, and he just wanted to let you know that you're really really cool.
Baby. How you do? How you doing? We're kind of janking with the communication here.
So now I know you're not gonna hug Jiles for me, but try.
I will hug Giles just you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have it with Jill.
Are you in Atlanta right now?
I am?
How do you know everything? I know everything you do? Jill Scott, I do you know everything?
It's weird.
He's got jps'll start.
Your position. I ask about you often, Jill.
Oh, you can always just call me Sucker.
Anyway, next time your name on the radio, So thank you, love you baby, bye bye.
So I had I had a question about celebrity DJs. Is that a thing in Europe as much as it is here?
Well, it is the thing because DJ culture is just so normalized now in a way, so you're going to get that side of it.
But on the other hand, you're still going to get you know.
The funny thing is in the UK at the moment, if you were like a celebrity DJ and you were to me, you'll probably you know, play to big audiences and stuff. But people like full TETs, who's a sort of left field techno DJ, they're the guys who are getting the biggest numbers and the biggest audiences. It's not the kind of celebrity DJs in that sense, or maybe that is happening, but the left field, more progressive underground that's what the kids are really looking for.
I don't know if that's answering the question, But no one from like take that or a rabbie like We've got Yeah that was like a couple of years away. Who is he opened? Yeah, I forgot. I used to do a few with them. But that's.
Like a musicians saying it's a bit like I don't know, it's like a bit like I mean, I think Woody Allen takes his music seriously, but I see it as like it's like, you know, they're like amateur musicians, you know, but they're not the real thing, I mean, a real DJ. And I really believe in DJ culture and the awe of djaying and the heritage of djaying.
You know.
I thank you David Mankuzo and all the guys who set it up for us. But there's an ought to it, and that celebrity scene is just a little bit of you know, bubblegum somewhere.
But there's there's a word that I'm looking for. I think it might be integrity. Okay, that's what you guys have that we don't have no more in the United States.
So from the White House all it's different, like the fact that you would still.
What you said was correct, But because I'm immersed and living in this new alternative reality that we're in right now.
Where you're competing with like the Paris Hiltans and yeah, where you know, I've.
There's a few DJ gigs where I mean I I have an agent that has a few actors or whoever and their money. It's like crazy, it's like three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand dollars, like and I'm just mind blown.
But that's just.
I mean, you're just like that's just how it is. Yeah, I mean you either accept it or you fight it. And I guess maybe in my older age, I'm not trying to fight it, Like there's other fights I can have out there.
Besides, why is this DJ giving four hundred thousand dollars and not me? You know that sort of thing. Wow, Yeah, DJ culture is becoming How do I do it?
See, if you were to move to the States, here's the here's the funny thing. What's what's weird about American culture is that we are so obsessed with getting in the king's throne, like with hip hop, with DJing, with anything, like everyone wants to be the top person and they're fighting for it. No, no, no other scraps will do that. There's a whole middle level that's absolutely empty. And thus I've made a home in the middle level. Like I would never want to fight for jay Z's throne or Drake's throne or I mean in the DJ world right now, pretty lights makes the most Calvin Harris, who shockingly in my conversations with him, is almost like talking to you, like he thinks like you, an aesthetically has you and probably Fonte and Bill's education and knowledge of music, but he knows where.
Right.
So it's like everyone's fighting for that position. So they'll scoff at like a cat. Like Diplo would laugh at one hundred and fifty thousand dollars you know, Christmas party carper DJ gig for Viacom. They would laugh at that shit because they're now playing Madison Square Garden.
For two three million dollars.
So it's like there's a middle ground that you know, underground is like you're you're you're fighting with everyone else to get underground gigs. But if you managed to make a name like a person like you could come to the States right now and do these middle ground gigs and.
Hitching like that's where it is. And I absolutely just gave me a UK. Get everyone. Everyone unheard what you what I just said to you? Man? So what not? Like what's the future for Jalles Peterson? Like is this to you? Is this? Is this a good end game for you? Is this what you always wanted? Yeah? This is the best. I'm having the best fund of my life.
I really am. I've been dangling for thirty years. I travel around the world. I'm still passionate about music. I connect with people, I communicate for the music. My mental artists bring it through. I don't think there's a better game. Really, there's more, there isn't you know.
I mean.
I keep saying I'm going to give up DJing. I was going to give up at forty. It didn't happen, you know, And I'm actually, I'm actually.
What made you want to give it up? Well? I just thought you had a bad DJ?
Yeah, loads, But the thing is you have to have your bad gigs to enjoy the good ones, obviously. But but the thing is with I thought forty was too old to be a DJ, you know, when I was thirty, I thought, yeah, old DJ. Yeah, But actually no, I mean the funny thing is, I'm I'm better. I'm the best I've ever been. So I want people to hear me being more experience thirty years to be able to mix two house records together, so you.
Know, yeah, I would do it.
Which your browns with bubbles cups that you do, how much of those are you actually hand pick all those songs.
Yeah, that's still you going through all let.
Yeah, yeah, because I mean in a way the radio show that I do every week on the BBC and I do or digital radio station gorble WFM. But the BBC show that I do, which is three hours every week, that's it's like my that's my homework. So every week that's my dark that's like my painting. So that is the build up of listening to five hundred songs that week and building a show.
So that's I have to listen to all that music.
Yeah, I was glad to see you use a Good Night by Philippo on that incredible track.
God, I'm still waiting for that album to drop. It never came out. Nope, Oh damn. How long has it been? That's four years? Easy.
What is the process of you auditioning songs that you feel are worthy to be on your radio show?
What is it?
But I know you have to take in a lot of music and a lot of blogs and a lot of recommendations, so just personally you're not overloaded like I'm personally overloaded and not quite numb yet, but.
It's a process. Like I chose Sundays as the days to.
Keep a certain station on, you know, listen five to six hours, and then she's saying what I like, mark down what I like, and then maybe I'll have seventeen songs I never heard of now in my vocabulary. But what's their process for you?
I mean, I never forced myself to listen to music, So I just come to it. If there's a week that I'm not like in the mood to feel like I need to do all this research for A and R reasons, for record company reasons, I just go through my old records and I'll put on a classic record to remind me. And maybe on the radio, I'll just play a lot of old music for example. Right, if ever, I get to the point where I'm a little bit sort of just like not really inspired. But to be honest with you, with the amount of music that I listened to, whether it's the sort of new DJ music, whether it's of hip hop, I mean there's a new track, that buddy track, you know. I mean, all the stuff that's been coming out of LA has been incredible, right, I mean, you know from sort of all that Kendrick Lamar and beyond stuff, all the stuff that Flying Lotus is responsible for Thundercat. I mean, my god, there's just so much good stuff. And for example, when I played I don't know, like when Take the Box was sent to me. I mean Take the Box by Amy Winehouse. It's a good example of a tune that my friend was trying to sign it Max Desarder Atlantic Warners at the time before it went to Island, and he just sent me the dam He said, what do you think of this, Charls?
And I was like, immediately take the Box.
And I started playing it as a demo on the radio then because it just had those little things, just like when you're talking about any rd run to the Sun you hear that, and it's just an immediate tune, right or good Night by Philip o Wusu these songs, and that's what I'm searching for. But I'm also searching for raw dance music that I've never heard before. The way they've arranged the bass in this, you can tell because it's a bit like we're chefs, you know, we're tasting those ingredients all the time. So when there's a certain type of onion that comes in that's it's got the right edge.
We know it.
We've got you know, I'm rubbish at wine. I'm rubbit. I've got a terrible palette, but when it comes to music. But when it comes to music, I'm not even very good at music. But because I've just constantly listened to it, I've got a good memory of music. So when something fresh does come, I know it's new. I can feel it quicker than others.
I think.
Well, what I mean is that I feel like there's an expectation for you to always have that shit I never heard before, or this version of that song I never heard before, or that sort of thing. So I know that you have to put a lot of research, Like what keeps you from repetition like Okay you go to Okay, I'm always going to play level brings back together by Roy Ears, Like what keeps you from saying stuck in those saying fifty songs that you know work like gamebusters every time, and what like you're still going to have to discover tomorrow's music first before the next younger guy gets to it. So that's what I meant, like as far as your research process, like what do you do?
Good network, great people who know what I like, lots of exchanges. I'm over all of the music, from the new electronics stuff to the hip hop, to the jazz, to the old staff, to some new soul that might be coming out, to the rock and the alternatives. There's some great music coming out of that area as well as we all know, and I'm just listening to all of it. And within all of that music, I mean a lot of it. And you know, obviously there's millions of songs being made every week. But amongst my network of friends who know, we know each other's taste, We're coming from different parts of the world, we are able to satisfy with music, and then I take that onto the radio, And to be honest with you, I don't even think about it that much. I've never really felt like I was thinking the other day, I didn't listen to the whole Solange record properly.
Things like that.
That's those sort of things bother me a little bit. I'm like, oh, yeah, I just went through it, and something else happened the week after, and I liked, you know, yeah, yeah, but I listened to it this week. Then it hit you leader yeah, and I was like, I need to listen to that record because that's a different way of listening, because I listened to music as in a curative way, and sometimes I want to listen to music in an entertainment for myself way, emotional way. So sometimes I make sure that I just hide myself at home and put a record on from the beginning to the end. Very important to find the time for that. I bought a good sound system specifically.
For that is an American tad no, okay, no, but.
You know, I bought a vintage thing and all this stuff, and it just makes music sound remarkable about as it should be. So I don't know, I don't overthink it.
Just to never get overwhelmed by the abundance of music on the daily, never even in my.
Record room, like I'm pretty sure only listen to that's for your retirement, I mean my record collection. That's the way I look at it. That's true when I'm retiring.
Do you know most people, I feel like most people who listen feel like y'all have listened to every single record in your record collection, because a mirror I would have guessed that your record room, you've listened to all.
Those The thing is is that I've absorbed it. So it's a it's a thing of it's a thing of you know, I'll skim through it. And because I'm in hip hop, it's about samples more than anything. So I mean, there's two ways to listen to records. You either you go a record digging and then you Q records and then you know it doesn't hit you, you put it away. But I'm going to sit and actually listen to it. That's what I do on Sundays. I don't skim through it.
I listen to it.
So, seriously, that's ten percent in your record room right now, those records that you had a chance to do this.
I mean it's physically impossible. And that's just my record room. I have hard drives and I mean, right, I just had to buy I had to acquire a new spot. I'm trying to say it.
So I'm not going you know, I'm a rich judger. I'm a judger, but I ain't gonna judge you for your next statement, I ain't gonna do.
Well, okay, would you like me to take care of the things that I acquired, I do.
I would like that.
Okay. Well, then there's about.
Maybe one hundred thousand other records that could get damaged in the current state that they're in in my storage unit. So I had to purchase a building with cool, with the right air and all that stuff I had. You had to like the thing is.
Is that a New Yorker Philly? Because I need a temporary storage spot. I'm I'm gonna tell you what I did.
I'm gonna tell you what I I had to let go to houses because again I'm I'm I'm a sentimental pat wreck, and you know, in my mind, I'm thinking, I'm gonna give these close to you know, to the Smithsonian Museum to Timothy Inn or something, you know, like I saw my you got me closed in case.
You know from the video. Yeah, it was a black T shirt, wasn't it?
What is it? Goals? It's like, you want to get back down to that size. I want to get back that I was. Man.
I was like, yeah, you got me. I never want to go back there. Yeah, Jesus Christ, he scared the ship out. No, I'm just saying that.
I got judging. There's a picture you don't even say. Look, there's some things that happened on this show. Put it away.
We're in a mere studio, you guys, his personal studio.
We're in my.
Phillips this this person triggering. Yeah, not only records, records and other stuff too. I'm just saying that, can I have this A track?
Steve? Yes, it's yours, Steve.
You can have my c T I A t PA with another Freddy Hubberne.
Take all the CD I A tracks. Shouldn't you be here on the microphone, Steve? Steve is like going through my records right now?
Wait, Jos, do you have homes for your albums as well? Oh?
Can?
People?
Are y'all really saying like a person live in this place with your records?
It just it's just for here's the deal. This is a weird.
Kind of name drop techy thing about you. But you know, always got preface the tacky ship. Okay, so wait, can I this deal.
John Trump?
Yet? Come on man? Okay.
Initially, when I first moved to New York, there was there was a there was a chance that I was going to acquire or at least couch crash the Destiny's Child apartment that Beyonce had. I guess that was their crash spot whenever they were I didn't have a house where the one by Bloomingdale's. Uh, they have a lot of property.
There's a lot of their property. One of them. Wait, why did you know? I just feels poorer and poorer.
I know this.
Yeah, I used to work in the Noles empire. That's right, you did music World. What damn, I'm interviewing you next week on Quest. Anyway, my point was that she was trying to make the decision on whether or not she was gonna let me have the spot or not, because she hasn't been in that apartment forever. But she realized that a lot of her clothes were getting damaged in the storage units that they had, so she.
Decided that it's probably better off instead of.
A month after month after month for storage unit, to just buy a house and put your stuff in there and care for it there. So the Destiny style apartment now houses all of Beyonce's shoes that she's ever had and doesn't wear any wow.
Wow wow damn. Anyway, Yeah, so there's houses.
So the spot that I have in Philly, I made sure it was outside of Philly sort of, and that's where my records and I also have like.
Sixty one drum set. Jesus, it's like.
A battle, I said. He has one hundred thousand records, which you got.
He has way more than that. I do not think I've got that. You and Claude of Claude from Manto Jazz Knobs. Yeah, you guys have the largest Where does Craig Common fit in that?
One hundred thousands a lot? Though Craig doesn't count. You're counting forty five's in that.
That is a record, isn't it.
Yeah, I'm counting. I don't even count my forty fives. I have a lot now, But you got one hundred thousand physical pieces of I have one hundred thousand physical pieces of vinyl. Probably have maybe one twenty now, okay, but I mean as far as the forty Like right now, there's a lot of people down south that don't know that forty five culture is coming back. So what I'm running into is there's a lot of widows of say, like one stop shop juke boxes.
Juke Boxes used to be a thing in those liquor houses and everything.
So once people stop using juke boxes in their nightclubs and their bars or whatever, especially down south, they had to go somewhere. So you have a lot of widows or a lot of daughters that have haired stuff. I don't know what to do with this stuff, all these records. And so that's where Jeane Brown comes in and he'll just say, all right, I got a collection of you want them, Okay, I'll take them, and then I'll take them and they don't listen to them.
Right now, in that room, I have Levi Stubbs's record collections.
And in it is just a lot of white label motown stuff that will never see the light of day. Like just so, there's a lot that I haven't listened to. So yes, to get back to the beginning ten percent.
Someone's going to.
All right, Elia's judging me, But let me just tell you that when you get in my field of business, you got to get into something. So I rather this than cocaine about saying yeah, really something. Yeah, you're going to get into something. You're going to inject it, listen to it, sniff it, taste it, or it's going to kill you.
Like you gotta get into something.
You have more physical records in your collection than I sold.
We're getting ahead of our tradition. First of all, listening John Speter worldwide.
So before we end Bill, I paid Bill. Yeah, what did you learn to day man?
Man? Taste makers? I like the idea of people being tastemakers. I think he's right. I think you're a taste maker. And I like the idea of people listen to you. I strug off titles, man, I know you don't like titles. You don't like people talking about you.
You're not good at that. But that's fine.
This is all therapy here this to I just like the fact that the idea that people listen, and I think that you have the platform to do that until you open up people. But open up those minds that that wouldn't necessarily listen.
To the music. I'm gonna taste and trade of Joels. I'm gonna taste test Steve. Besides my records you just stole. What else would you learn today?
Uh uh? I want to see Giles record collection go through the jazz section.
He's going to steal all your CTI records.
You take care of your stuff, like unlike others.
You supposed to take care of this ship in a year more than that, like nine ship I haven't been in.
I've probably only been in this room maybe nine times in the last seven years.
Anyway, Should I have a job Charles Peters? No, Yeah, sounds like sounds like you got a nice collection, I would assume. But I also think Thriller is better than Off the Wall. God, well it's not a fair question. Off the Walls better. But but Thriller is not an.
Album to me.
Well, it's an album to me, it was an album. It was nice to meet you, though, really, man, Yeah, it's good to finally meet jobs. We did the show a little brother in Forunate Change, did the show like god, this is oh five six something, and uh, but I think you weren't there. I think you were out sick or something. Something happened. I can't remember.
But we taped it anyway. Yeah you did.
No, No, it was you just tap your just taped a live It was just a live in session join we did okay, But but nah, man, it's good to finally reconnect, well to meet you finally in person, and just you know, say thanks for the music that you've brought forth and just continuing to shine a light on those catstead are coming up. You know, we were certainly one of the groups that benefited from you know, you showing us love and everything, and yeah, just thank you for all you've done.
Man, built what did you learn to David Pirate radio stuff was quite interesting. I've always been very you know, intrigued by the whole concept. Like one of my favorite movies is A Kid was a Christian Body. It was basically about a kid that had a pirate radio station in his basement.
So Phillips is good to check out that movie.
To learn about, you know, good to get some good insight. Also a question that I wanted to ask, I just add to good.
As someone who has been like a lifelong fan of music, I've in recent years I've had a very hard time staying passionate about new music. How do you How are you able to do it.
Well?
I think probably because it's my role two to get people. I don't know, I think the fact that I'm sort of.
On a mission probably more so than you are. You have more of an audience. Certainly.
I get a lot of pleasure out of seeing out of seeing small acorns grow and seeing the journey of the artists, From receiving a cassette tape by Jose James, of him doing versions of John Coltrane songs, to him signing to BLUEO. Those things give me a lot of pleasure. And and there's enough music for me to be to be passionate about. I've never felt more passionate about music of all sides in all countries. It's never been more worldwide.
There's less. No, it's true, there's never been. There are less.
Have there been any movements that you've just kind of been very unsure about that? But they took off anyway, and you just kind of had to play catch.
Up or idiom.
No, No, not not really. Yeah, so you're a better man.
The name all right, we knew that guy.
Now you know what I learned to that.
I learned the grave Washington j that comes from Philadelphia.
That was.
Wow, the first time.
I'm taking Washington.
Washington Jr.
No, I don't. I don't look like Washington, Okay? And whytt net?
Can you play can you play high draft from that from the album?
Yes we will, we don't play it on the show. Let's play my Yeah. What did you learn today?
I learned a lot.
I want to thank you first because when I was sitting at my desk at RKO disc for eight hours and going to my commercial radio job hip hop and R and B, I used you to learn my new music because I didn't want my brain to be clouded BYuT what I was about to do.
So I want to thank you for that. And I just learned your journey and I.
Always been a big fan, and I think much like Bill, sometimes you fight with America. I just take America different in their acceptance of music, especially of soul music. So I'm just going to open my mind and damage some more jazz pewterising because there's always some to find.
You know.
One of thing that I love about America because I love about playing here. When people go out in America, they make the most of it. They make the most of it. And I feel that sometimes in Europe people are a little bit spoilt and they're a little bit.
Here. Really, I do.
When they go out, I honestly feel when you come out, it's like when it's like Japan, people go out. If they've paid their money to go into that club, they're going to have a good time. In Europe they might be hating quicker.
Really, I think so, thanks Philly.
Really, yeah, Philly's a snooty town because they're used to so much dope town.
Why, I just thought you guys were polite. So when they weren't clapping, they weren't satisfied. We got to change ourselves.
When they weren't clapping.
Now we're actually coming back. You'll you'll be happy to hear this, Giles.
Initially there was supposed to be a Tribe Roots summer tour, believe it or not. We want to play two arena. We had four two arena dates setup, but Tribe Tribe anyway, so what was this? This is like this It was going to be the summer of twenty seventeen. Wow, we had a three weeks with a tribe doing stadiums.
But for the.
Since we booked a lot of other stuff with the Usher project that we're doing, where we decided to instead of taking days off in London, we are going to go back to the task Cafe.
Wall for seeing us a very small so jazz. Yeah, it's going to be as big as this room. It's like three hundred I mean if that and I'm to DJ like I we just we just want to go back to the scene in the crime and.
You're gonna go back to South Street that I was gonna too.
There's plans for that too anyway, So Giles. Before now, we normally don't ask the guests what did they learn from themselves? But there is there is a game I want to play. No, no, we're not playing that game. Okay, damn, we should have played that game.
We should have played that game. But what I want to know is, if you.
Were in solitary confinement, I don't know what crime that you would commit that would.
Actually have you put away in a room.
Pirate radio Okay, yeah, let's say you finally you get a judge over there. Well, you guys are brexited anyway, so anything can happen over there. So if you're in solitary confinement, realistically, let's say three years, so that means no outside world for nine hundred plus days, but you are allowed five albums to keep you seen. So this isn't for the rest of your life, just for three years like.
The black version of Desert Island Discs, you're in solitary confinement, we.
Will wind up in an exact island. We in jail anyway, So.
What well, if I'm going to be there for that for that long. I think I have thought about this sort of question before, and I've thought that I don't know if I could handle vocals. One of the beautiful things about jazz and instrumental music is that you can kind of go different places within it. So I think that to hear Our Green or Smokey Robinson, it would all Stevie Wonder and I think I think crazy. Yeah, I think that I'd go crazy. So I go probably more avant gardes because that's where I think free jazz and sort of in pro music will make the most sense because it will always say different. You'll find something different within it at most times.
Interesting. You're my guy, man, I would see.
I wouldn't choose my favorite records because it would drive you crazy.
After you hit them your twelve listen and after the three years was up, every time you would listen to it, you would automatically taken right. Yeah, you would think of it, so you would choose. So what are those five records?
Well, I'd probably go for the The History of Sun Raw is it?
Can it? Can it be one record? Or is it? Can it be it can be the greatest hits? It can't be Okay, I mean I'd probably go for a.
Well, if there was one vocal record, I'd go with Terry Callier's What Colors.
Album with Charles Stepney strings. That's that's it. That's that's a great record. I don't think I get tired of that. I'd go for some.
Which cold Trane. I mean, maybe it off supreme. Maybe that would drive me mad. It probably will, actually, because I've heard that too many times already.
Wow, that's hard. Man do one each? I so I've done Terry and then you do one? So wow, yeah, because that's not so we all get one, all right? Yeah? Mine would be no one each, so we do five, but you do want to do one?
Well, well, if I were to take a Coultran record, actually I would have chose Pharis Sanders Train of Thought record or one of my favorite dealer records are on there, which is escaping me right now. Ah, but there's a Phara Sanders Train of Thought record I like. My favorite culture in that I'd never tire of ever is Coultrane plays the Blues, which is actually one of his more normal straight ahead records, and have to complete it.
See Miles's never TD record.
To him that was his middle finger record to the label Brass and him not taking solos on it, just repeating the same line over and over again. But I don't know, it's just the most hilarious comical jazz record ever, even though it's absolutely a work of art.
But just the fact that he's that mad to repeat the same.
Line over and over and over and over again for without soloing, I think that's a stroke of genius.
So I'd add three of those records. Anyway.
So you lost the game because y'all said, he do one, you do one. But I want to tell you.
You did three. You did for you once and left you with one more. Pick the final record.
Jolt, let's give it to I want to go something new. I think let's just give it to Camassi. And it's three three years. That's a good one. I haven't yet listened to it from beginning to end, so I've got time to do that. As much as I love it, it's epic, it's epic, it is epic.
My last question, yes, as a man who owns a ship ton of records, what's your holy grail that you haven't been able to find.
That I haven't been able to find? Actually, well, it's little obscure ones. I got this record on eBay last week. Actually I don't do eBay very much, but there's someone said to me, there's this record I'm looking for. It's from I think it's from Kansas and it's a seven inch by a group called Kalima, and it's basically a record that Elie A L I M A And there was a group called Klima in Manchester, but this is the different one. And this song I heard a DJ called Motor City Drum Ensemble play on a mixtape a couple of years ago, and it sounds like the ultimate Royez ballad that Royers never wrote at his peak time of when he was working with people like ethel Bt and d D Bridgewater, that kind of yeah, searching type of period. And it's by Google Khalima and I put a bid in for it, and I've never gone very I've never gone more than two hundred quid two hundred pounds sterling and and it unfortunately went for like one thousand, five hundred.
Dollars last minute some bloke fine. I don't know. It just really annoyed me because no one knows this record, but two hundreds of most you've ever paid for.
I've paid two thousand records for pounds for Brazilian records by Jose prattis called called Tam Tam Tam, which is a it's the it's the basis to George Ben's Mashkenada record that we all know and love, and every one thought that that Georgia Ben wrote it, practice wrote it, but but Georgia Ben got the benefit.
Damn.
I have a question, so boring? No I sound boring?
Right? No?
Do you have stone Bowing the Stone? The ct I? It was a Japanese only It's like the hardest ct I recordified.
It's J. J.
Johns.
That's what he really wanted to ask you at the beginning. That sounds amazing though.
It's J. J. Johnson and Kai Winding. Uh you know, Jane k Is there string and stuff?
Or was it quite straightforward recording?
I don't know. It's from nineteen seventy. I don't you can can't hear it online?
Ct Ire Taylor need to get him on here.
Yeah, but he's like in his nineties there, so.
Yeah, Mike, Yeah, wait, I have one request. This has been the longest, you know, No, Chiles, I thank you very much for coming on the show.
All right, So on behalf of Quest Love Supreme with Laya and Boss Bill and un Paid Bill and Fon Ticcolo and Sugar Steve and on Paid Bill, which I said already h This is Quest Love and Charles Peterson.
We thank you.
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.