Steinski interview

In 1983 Steve Stein cut a sound collage of funk and breakbitten hiphop with his friend Douglas di franco. Under the name Double D and Steinski these two non teen aged white guys won the remix competition put up by New Yorks Tommy Boy records by offering the said collage as a reinterpretation of Tommy boys ‘Play That Beat’ by Globe and Whizz kid. Their remix process known as Cut and Paste involved hands on tape splicing of looped beats mixed with eccentric samples them smeared on a funk base. It is the percussor of the ubiquitous Mash up technique used by Soulwax, Coldcut and also with a judicious academic slant, Dj Shadow and Cut Chemist.

The originality of that ‘Payoff mix’ and subsequent other playful collages such as ‘The Lessons’ series not only were snapshotted references to obscure records being dug out and reconfigured as new work, but as notes for the continuing debate in the legality of the sampling process.

Steinski’s reputation as an innovative pioneer committed to politically expanding the gene of cut and paste was confirmed with the 7’’ release of ‘The Motorcade sped on’. This assemblage of street Hiphop and snippets of recorded media reports on the assassination of JFK was issued under Steinski and the Mass Media. Steinskis ‘grown up job’ as he describes is as a worker in the Advertising and his critique of the Mass media begun on vinyl is maintained on his blog www.steinski.com.

In his own words as a Dj, Steinski is ‘Someone who made Cut and Paste Records and whose attitude to music was shaped very strongly in the early days of HipHop and Hip hop is any music that’s funky to listen to and mixed up like what they used to do in The Roxy ( seminal 80s club in NY)

This phone conversation with Steinski took place in early October.

P. You seem to be ‘re-discovered’ every 5 years and emerge as a continuing old school hero for respective generations, like a cut and paste James Brown?

S.I love doing this! Ive got a different set of responsibilities to those who do this dj thing for income but I get this ‘oh he did this or that’ every once in a while but I don’t know why im back every few years, it’s a mixed blessing! As times change tastes change. Cut and Paste went away for a while but guys like Shadow and Chemist brought it back and me with it in the mid 90s.

P. They brought you on stage for the Scratch Pickls final show to recreate some of your classic moments

S. Ahhh! so many mistakes by me on that night

P. I didn’t think so. There is a cleanliness to that type of recreation that is associated with Shadow and Cut Chemist, a delivery that often freezes these things. A little roughness is no harm perhaps.

S. yeah (laughs) I was rough enough for 3 or 4 people then.

P. That was the height of the 45 record collecting craze as well.

S. The 45 collecting explosion then had a very lasting effect on the market.

P. All downloads now. Kids with phones.

S. That’s very much the case here. For myself downloads have saved me time and money as well as allowing the listening experience of things I would of never have experienced otherwise.

P. how do you operate playing out.?

S. I use Abelton with a few boxes in a computer set up. Someone told me it’s the equivalent of pro-tools but as an electronic instrument for stage. So I thought ‘This will solve my vinyl problem’ . See, Im not such a hot vinyl Dj and even while people say it doesn't really matter the fact is people are used to an extremely high standard jue to people like Shadow, Chemist and in Ireland people like TU-KI. Everybodys used to that so for some middle aged white guy to show up with a bunch of records and just play em, its like ‘well that was nice but whats for dinner’! So with Abelton I get to make it fun with loads of transfers. Im still fumbling but I have to say it’s a gift from god!

P. That ‘Rough Mix’ LP from a few years back (for Coldcut,s Solid Steel radio show) is a great mix of street hip hop ,soul and film snippets on one Album.

S. Im very proud of that mix though I think I got a little crazy and put too much!

P. On the Mix, before Marvin Gaye kicks in, there is a panic stricken guy screaming about his girlfriend messing with his record collection. Was that bit from Hi-Fidelity ( the film of Nick Hornbys novel of record obsessions)?

S. Ha ha ! No its from the 80s film Diner with Mickey Rourke. Ive used that 3 or four times in various mixes.

P. Another record from the late 80s that you made (‘Play it Cool’ on 4th and Broadway) had a very influential impact in Italy as you left the accapella of all your samples open and in the spirit of the times they popped up in the various italo pop dance singles often in the sequence you programmed them for yourself.

S. God. I don’t remember that one!

P. The Classic of early Political Cut and Paste for me is ‘Major Malfunction’ (1986) by Keith le Blanc (the ex drummer from The Sugarhill Gang). A suite of songs based around the Challenger shuttle disaster.

S. I have vague memories of something like that. Keiths ‘No Sell Out’ was on Tommy Boy when we were there. We met him and that record for us was very influential ,politically and musically. Keith had hard drums.,all Machines! he got religion for the real drums when he moved to England.

P. Your website hosts a very concise breakdown of the madness surrounding the U.S election. It’s a perceptive respite against the non stop rolling overview associated with the campaign.

S. I do the site because if I didn’t i'd be walking around talking to myself and probably have a heart attack because at the moment the situation is so crazy now that Mc Cain is beginning to lose and his people are becoming more Nazi like. His rallies are pure incitement… Kill Obama! He will do anything to win and the fact that he is slipping away is making him desperate. Its really scary. Also the Republicans through their high rolling donors, own the voting machines.

P. That new documentary Ohio deals with those machines. Voters pressing Kerrys name and seeing Bush come up on screen and the supervisor drawlin, ‘ seen a lotta that today’. Any way on the cut and paste tip in movies did you see the video cut up in Die Hard 4 where the bad guys string a sentence together using clips of mainly Republican presidents to demand stuff? Its very Steinski i thought.

S.Really! I'll rent that.

P. The construction ease associated with video cut ups has people like Coldcut, Dj Yoda, Digital Slaves and the Eclectic Method churning Audio Visual experiences as performance. You sound like a candidate for that ,have you considered it.

S. I would lovvvvve to do that stuff! Douglas (Double Dee) has been experimenting with video software for a while and our intention would be to try out our laptop jams with visuals in some Club in NY on a quiet night. Sometimes listening back to some of our sets I think ‘that was cool,but with visuals it would be insane!’

I appreciate those A/V guys like Digital Slaves showing how they make their stuff as well. Like Qbert and his guys demonstrating scratches. Sharing tends to change the world a bit.

P. The aaccessibility of information and techniques requires artists to design and manipulate original content as well not just to emulate Shadow and SSoul-wax

S. Yeah you wanna add your own spin to it. Red Bull fly me around to talk to people on how I do my edits. The more that know about how things work the more the world is going to be different. If I can contribute to that im very happy.

P. The process of intervention that is Cut and Paste do you see it as a form of Resistance (against the dominant media discourse)?

S. Resistance by virtue of what everybody else says. What happens is that people say ‘oh you know that (sampling) is illegal’ or ‘Hey that’s Art!’ or this and that. nice to be cconsideredan Artist but the truth is that id do this no matter what, I don’t really care. and its so easy to distribute!

P. The days of samples being adopted in music for a political purpose, the era of Keith Le Blanc and Tackhead are from a simpler age almost The battle lines were clear then …

S. Things are cut and dried but that’s not how compromised and democratic decision making works. No guy gets to stand up and say this is how it should be. Of course we had to put up with Bush doing this for the last 8 years but its not supposed to be like that. I like it when its ( the notion of debate and intervention) messy and argumentative.

Socialism is the answer of course not the nonsensical out of the free market madness we see at the present. In the panic at the moment we see the system exactly what it is.

Paul Tarpey.

Comments

[d OOOOOOO bs]

Great interview - very obliging man, he did a pretty indept interview for my thesis as well. Will upload it in a few days. Here's a video link to a discussion we ran last year with Steinski in Plug'd records in Cork. Jay-ru on the camera work - biggups.

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=b1lN7XKKOGE