We’ve started digging into back issues and dissecting them so we can chuck some of the more interesting pieces on the web.

I met Scott Bourne down at the Carhartt store on Elm Street in Copenhagen before he did some readings and book signings for his (at that time) recently released Cheating on the Metronome. We had pre arranged an interview about the book and himself. Since I’m a fiend for creative writing and also a pretty big fan of realness, this turned into pretty much the most personally interesting interview I’ve done thus far. We locked ourselves in the store while people milled around on the street drinking the free beers and talked until both sides of the tape were full of inspirational chit chat about writing process, broken hearts, friendship and ignorance.

Interview below or in Bitchslap 9

Photos: René Johannsen

Scott Bourne rolled into Copenhagen (actually he was driven and put into a nice hotel) for just long enough to wow a small crowd of locals that were possibly equally as interested in a few free beers mid afternoon on a Saturday as they were in hearing a pro skateboarder recite poetry for them. Scott’s book ‘Cheating on the metronome’ which is a crazy and deeply personal look inside his head and heart in the form of poetry and diary entries breaks the mould of the traditional colab. As analog as you can get, the book is scans of his original A5 typed material. Not all attending could gauge the idea but being a wannabe writer I was hyped. We drank beer together with a tape recorder running after his reading. This is what was said:

Bitchslap -: I got a few questions for you, I even didn’t bring my computer cos I thought . .

Scott Hobbs Bourne (laughs): Good call

BS -: The first thing I’ve got here says ‘are you a lover or a fighter?’

SHB: (a big deep breath) Man, I think one of the things I’m going through in my life right now that I’m trying to change is I feel like my entire life has been fighting. I feel like everything I’ve accomplished in my life has been fighting and skateboarding is a good example of that. I was never gifted, I was never like the greatest skateboarder, I was just fighting and pushing it. My philosophy has always just been ok try it one more time.

BS -: Yea I saw that rail on youtube.

SHB: And that’s the point, if you quit now what if the next try was the one. So I think I’ve spent most of my life as a fighter but now I wanna get a different flow in my life. Like letting things happen naturally or being a natural component in my environment instead of trying to force my environment to be like me and I think that takes a bit of love, so I’m trying to love the world a little bit more than I have.

BS -: It’s interesting that you see yourself as something different than you’re writing about.

SHB: I think that when you love something it makes you into a fighter. I’ve always loved skateboarding and people see me in skateboarding and see me as a very controversial person, a fuck you, kinda go for it – type person which is, that’s who I am man. If I love something I go for it. It could be a woman, it could be a skateboarding trick.

BS -: And the book was something like that?

SHB: Well the book kinda happened like I was writing a lot of stuff just because I was writing, and then Lars at Carhartt really liked the stuff that I wrote for the Mongolian book (Dirt Ollies) and he was asking me about my writing and how I felt and if there was anything we could do together and I was like ‘man I’ve got all this short stuff that I’ve been writing’ and I gave him all the half pages you know and I never thought in my wildest dreams that they would publish this stuff.

BS -: But it’s far out and it’s different that what anyone else is doing in these circles right now and it’s not like your typical poet.

SHB: That’s thing things is that I don’t wanna portray myself as a poet, I wanna portray myself as someone who had things in his head that was happening so he chose to write them down and if the rest of the world wants to call it poetry then that’s fine.

BS -: OK man, so you live in Paris right now. What’s the attraction of Europe over the States?

SHB: At the time when I left the states I didn’t have to like there, I was making enough money with skateboarding, I could basically do what I wanted and I’d made this trip to Europe 3 years prior and loved it and the only reason I kept coming home was this girl that I was in love with and then when we broke up I didn’t have to be there anymore so I opted to make an attempt to come to Europe.

BS -: I have the feeling that when you’re American people wanna hear the political thing, was it a rebellion? Although it doesn’t have to be.

SHB: It wasn’t a statement , it wasn’t a rebellion but it really was in the sense that I’ve lost hope in my country: George Bush is insane. The second presidency of George Bush blew my mind, I cried, it blew my mind, I couldn’t believe the people of the United States elected him again or the powers that be put him in office and the people didn’t reject it, so for me it was a pretty big deal and it became a political… a lot of people think that I’m anti American but I’m not anti American but I am very anti patriotic to any country. For the first time in 15 years I have hope for America, and for the first time in I dunno 20 years I’m watching tv again. But what you have to understand is that 7% of Americans have an active passport. That means 7% of Americans are actually travelling and once you know that you don’t want to be treated as an American.

BS -:So I’m curious about the difference between sitting and pouring your heart out to your typewriter and basically reading your diary out loud for a bunch of strangers?

SHB: It’s different for me you know, this is the second reading for me on this tour and nights ago I was reading in London and I read some of the pieces I read tonight but I just read ‘em and tonight, I don’t know if you noticed but I got choked up, I almost lost it I almost felt like I was gonna cry when I was reading something which is really…it’s me, I mean the stuff Im reading is emotional but it’s funny to me as the writer, as the reader that last night it didn’t make me cry whereas tonight I almost lost my shit. Because every time I read something I am seeing what happens.

BS -: That’s dope man, that it’s that personal for you, but I guess that’s the point though, right?

SHB: Yea I guess, part of the message though, if there is any message at all, is ‘write your own fucking poems man, write your own fucking song, go out and dance’, fuck it you know what I mean, do your shit you know.

BS -: Analogue technology.

SHB: You’ve done your research eh?

BS -: I’ve got written here – you’re an obvious lover of analogue technology, or is it more a hater of modern technology?

SHB: It’s just that there’s a real problem that with digital we’re erasing our history. What you have to realise is that everyone’s computer crashes and if your computer crashes and you’ve got the last 3 years of your relationship or you child’s life on there then it’s gone, and that’s my problem with it. I think digital is really great for commercial use.

BS -: It made sense for me that you came out with the stuff you’ve done with ‘Eclipse’ because for most people they wouldn’t see the connection between the paper format when you just see the book alone.

SHB: Yea, you see the foundation.

BS -: How is the writing process for you? Are your fingers trying to keep up, or is it more waiting for the right words. The impression that I get is that it’s raw thought and you write as you think rather than think as you write.

SHB: Man, it’s just coming straight out. It’s not like I have 20 lines in my head and a panic to get them down. But anything in the last 18 years you’ve read from me in publications and magazines, I wrote for SLAP for 3 years, but every single solitary thing you’ve ever read from me has been written first on paper and I still write with my hand and then I type it and if it has to be in a computer to send it somewhere then I put it in a computer. And there’s a real process to this, my novel I wrote was originally 412 pages typed on paper and I wrote that novel 3 times front to back and when you write something over and over again you really turn it into what it’s going to be whereas a lot of people will just write it in a computer press spell check and it’s done. You’re editing you’re own work as you write.

BS -: Because you typed it straight out?

SHB: Everything in ‘Cheating on the metronome’ I put the paper in the typewriter and I wrote it, everything in there.

BS -: So you’re forced to get it right first time, or is it ‘right’ because it’s raw and honest?

SHB: It is ‘right’ – it’s arty right, because it came out the way it came out. I always say there are perfection’s in your imperfections. A lot of time when you rewrite things you take out shit because you’re scared about how someone else is going to feel about it.

BS -: How important is that to you, to keep it raw?

SHB: Well the thing with ‘Cheating on the metronome’ is that you’re looking at stuff that I was just writing on my own and I was also writing it as a break up you know. I had no idea anyone would have any interest in it and now actually that it’s published and it’s all over fucking Europe it’s insane cos like it’s super personal and now I have to deal with emotions of I let people that close to my life and so far it’s been super receptive.

BS -: Why do you think it’s so easy to relate to your work?

SHB: Well you know what? There was a young girl who came up to me tonight …

BS -: No shit?

SHB (laughs): The point is that what she said was so relevant to me because she said ‘I really like what you read and said because it is relevant to our time.’ You know which is cool because it’s not about some out of date poem written in 1800 which is really beautiful and we can love and we can study it but it doesn’t, we can’t relate to that shit, the world’s just different and I think that’s probably one of the greatest compliments thus far.

BS -: So I’ve written here ‘heart on your sleeve’ and that was before I’d met you and seen you tattoo. But is it just in your writing or something you live by?

SHB: I hope that heart on your sleeve is everyone’s writing, everyone’s life. But I’ve got some bullshit fucking reputation for being a tough guy and ah I mean fuck it it is bullshit but yea fuck it I am a tough guy, I been fighting my whole life you know what I mean, one way or another and I think now what I’m doing is fighting to not stop fighting.

BS -: What are some of your main influences right now?

SHB: Right now, to date my main influences are still my mother and my father. Influence is not who you choose. Influence is the people who moulded you whether you liked it or not. I’d love to say this great writer or my favourite skateboarder influenced me but the truth is they didn’t.

BS -: How much does skating influence you?

SHB: Now at this particular point in my life I don’t feel like skateboarding has any influence on me. If anything I’m trying to break away from…but it’s like, skateboarding is really great but the thing is it’s for children.

BS -: But it’s still fun though.

SHB: You know skateboarding for my development in life has been amazing but you can’t keep skateboarding in your life unless you somehow make a living from it, it might be running a magazine, it might be professional. See the thing that actually happens when you’re a professional skateboarder is one day you get out of the van and you’re 16 or 18 years old and everyone is 16 or 18 years old and then one day you get out of the van and you’re 30 and everyone is 16 or 18 years old so you get stuck in this defunct Peter Pan world, they won’t let you grow up. So for me I’m like completely anti skateboard influence. It’s ok if it carries you to a point but don’t let it stop your progression.

BS -: So about your tattoos, in the book there’s a poem or a story where you express a hatred or regret or even shame over your tattoos and you cover up and become the people you never wanted to be to avoid them judging you..

SHB: It’s called ‘My shoes’. It’s about a theory I have called social camouflage. If I show up in a nice establishment and I look like this then no one takes me seriously but if I show up with a shirt and tie on people are open to me and in essence the piece I wrote in the book is about not being scared to penetrate circles that don’t want you in em. I would like to think I’m fucking dangerous because I am in those circles. You know I have friends in veryveryveryvery fucking high circles. I also have friends in some of the lowest circles you can imagine. Circles that you can’t buy your way into and you can’t buy your way out of. The high circles, you can buy your way into. And it’s funny for me when I get into these higher society establishments and people respect me or all in love with me in the sense that they enjoy a young person wants to speak about certain things or knows about Vavaldi or knows about classical music or has read these classical novels adn then when they see me outside the place on the street and they see that psychopath, that crazy tattooed fucked up kid, it blows them away man, they don’t get it, that for me is a thrill.

BS -: But it’s still a big part of you, do you still feel like you have to cover up or what cos what ‘My shoes’ said to me was, yea I’ve been through all this stuff and this has happened to me and in a way it fucken sux.

SHB: It’s a warning poem to the youth, that I’m a part of. It’s like do what you’re gonna do but realise you will be held accountable.

The tape runs out while Scott is explaining that ‘friendship is the greatest love because you don’t even know why you love those fucked up motherfuckers’ and we bang on for another 10 minutes until both our bladders are about to burst so we cruise back out onto the street where sushi has been bought in major quantities and I leave the crew to their beers and fish to go watch cartoons and eat ice cream with some buddies.

Thanks to Carhartt (INTL and DK) for setting it all up and Scott for your time.
Buy the book here.

Because I came late to skateboarding, I wasn’t tied up with this common image of Ray Barbee as a ‘cult’ skateboarder, a legend from the Powell days. Truth is, my mental image of Ray, prior to meeting him, is that one no-comply over some trash can in some Transworld video. Period.
And of course the music, which I discovered by avidly looking for whatever was related to Tommy Guerrero‘s production. It would be amusing if not shameful to say that my knowledge of Tommy is along similar lines.
Interview and photos by Hern.

Anyhow, I know of both Ray’s public sides, or only one actually, as he would tell me when I met him and tried to arrange for a chat (I don’t like the word “interview” either, bite me). It happened after being smashed in the face by the performance he and his three friends (the Mattson 2: Jonathan & Jared Mattson, and double bass player Aakaash Israni) pulled at La Fontaine after the projection of The Present at Grand Teatret on the 28th of November 2009. That was a double smash: first the movie (which includes some of the same musicianship as the soundtrack) and then the show. The show lasted until about 2am and the next day. I was not very fresh at work, nor in this little café where Aakaash, Ray and me enjoyed some drinks and cake while a ninja was stealing Aakaash’s money and phone. The crazy thing was that we were in an almost empty café, and none of us realised a thing! Talk about Copenhagen being a safe place to live.
Anyhow Ray and I discussed many different things like being fed up being seen as a skate legend, his interesting musical path and many different things. We also talked a lot about photography as Ray also happens to be a talented photographer, doing things the old fashioned way with film and chemical empowered might in the darkroom. Adding to that, we got the chance to hear them again at the V1 Gallery the next day as they play another powerful show during the opening of UMMMM, an installation/exhibition by Thomas Campbell (see the Bitchslap Thomas Campbell interview here, he is also the director of aforementioned movie “The Present”. It’s all connected). Whatever the place, a small jazz club or a big white gallery made out of some slaughterhouse building, the energy these guys develop is contagious.
The full chat will be printed in the next issue of Bitchslap so don’t miss it. In the meantime here’s a taste test and a few pics of the man.

Ray Barbee: Skateboarding has given my the opportunity to really do whatever I want. It showed me through the very nature of it, of how much work you put and invest in learning tricks that just become a part of your approach to life, in anything that you want to do. You approach it from the stand point of the tenacity, that aspect of “I’m going to figure it out no matter what it takes” and hanging in there when maybe most people would quit. Skateboarding, the very nature of learning the tricks… You know, it took me almost a year to learn how to ollie, and in skateboarding everything comes from the ollie. You can do tricks but, in street skating, the ollie is like learning to talk, you cannot express yourself until you learn how to make a sound out of your mouth. Ollie-ing is making that sound. All the tricks derive from the ollie. It took me almost a year just to learn that. And that drive, that ability to hang in there and get over the learning curve gets applied to whatever you do in life. So, I realized that the ability to endeavour in other things really derives from learning how to ride a skateboard.

Ray: Yeah sure. When I first started I remember my fingers killed. It took a while for me to get calluses, I remember having blisters. It’s the same thing, basically nothing worthwhile is never easy.

Ray: Yeah I shoot a lot, I also print black and white. I got a little makeshift laboratory at home. But also I go to my community college. I do all my films at school, RC paper I do that at school. But if I want to do fibre paper I do it at home. Or if school is dead and I know it’s just going to be me in the lab then I’ll do fibre. You always have these new students who don’t know the difference between fibre and RC. And they can grab your fibre and put it through the squeezing machine. And it just confuses them so rather than confusing them I do that at home.

Thomas Campbell was in Copenhagen, at the old slaughterhouse place or something, both for the première of his new surf movie “The Present” and for the opening of an exhibition at V1 gallery… Both events where extremely fine and musically illustrated by the amazing Ray Barbee and the Mattson 2 (with Aakaash on double bass). We were lucky enough to be able to hang out with all of them, chat, have food, chat some more, etc. At the end, we could hook up with Thomas after he pulled out at least three all-nighters to finish up the exhibition on time for the opening.
The following talk happened while Thomas was finishing some painting in the basement of V1, armed with painting equipment and a hair dryer, good for painting, not good for microphones…
All photos: Hern42.

Thomas Campbell, behind the mask...

Hern42 – So I did my homework and read some biography… It’s pretty extensive: movies, painting, sculpture… Is there some sort of a path?

Thomas Campbell – (uses a hair-drier to dry stuff and it makes a lot of noise…) Well, all my creative processes started from skateboarding. I’ve been skateboarding since 1974, in the first movement of skateboarding, when I was very small, like at 5. And then in the early 80s, like in 1983 or 1982… I was basically skateboarding the whole time because I was living at the top of a hill and when I was very young I worked in a fishing place at the bottom and I was just (wooosh, makes the movement of bombing the hill) everyday. But I started skateboarding ramps and parks again in 82 or 83 until now. I was involved
in that time of skateboarding, which was a very creative period, not really only in skateboarding but more creativity for the creativity sake. Because it was a time in America when skateboarding was pretty small, people like Todd Swank and Neil Blender were very influential for me and to a lot of my friends because they were painting, drawing, making music, making fanzines, taking pictures, writing stories, you know, whatever! And since it was not really thinking “I could do this and then I’m going to make money out of it”, we were not really thinking like that because it didn’t seem possible. So it was more “oh that looks really fun I want to do that”. So I think that from being a skateboarder and growing during that time period we just tried a lot of things. “Oh I’m going to try to take some pictures” or “I’ll try to draw”, whatever… It wasn’t so pretentious, it was “that looks fun let’s try it” and we had really good example like those guys. They did it, we can do it. And from being a skateboarder you know that it takes work to do anything. If you want to succeed in skateboarding you have to slam, you have to try and it’s not easy to get tricks. You have to pay that price. That work ethic is something that me and a lot of my contemporaries who come from that period, we embrace. I think it was cool, it was cool to come from a time when it was about doing the thing, not really about making money from it.
I grew up in Southern California, Dana Point in between Los Angeles and San Diego. We had a good skate scene there. We’d go skate Del Mar skatepark during all that period. Me and my friends were at all the Del Mar contest when Hosoï was battling Tony. It was fucking awesome.

H42 -What was the first arty thing you tried, graphical things then Photography..? How did it all come about?

TC – I think I tried to work for my friend who was doing a fanzine “Ground Beef”
and I drew comics in it. And it was really shitty. So bad, incredibly bad, like the worst ever. But I kept trying and then I took art classes at school. I just kept trying. I wasn’t very good at it to start with but a lot of it is just persistence so I kept going and things eventually worked out. I eventually got my own style. I used to work for fanzines and make my own fanzine and do different stuff when I was a kid. I think that when I was 17 the guys at Transworld, Grant Britain and Todd Swank, they would give pictures to me. And then they told me I should write some stuff for Transworld. Then I pretty much stopped doing fanzine and started to work for Transworld, Big Brother and Powerage skateboarding magazine.
Then for 4 years I was a writer for Transworld, I was very poor, so so poor. You don’t make any money from writing in a skateboard magazine. At the same time I was doing interviews with people like Julian Stranger and Alan Peterson and Tim Braunch, all these people. And I was with them all the time, skating. I was watching them doing insane shit and then I would interview them at night but I didn’t really shoot photos. I have been shooting some kind of arty photos… But then, I was actually in Spain, working with the skateboard magazine and they had all the equipment so I said “fuck it” and I called Spike Jones, on the phone. “Ok Spike tell me what I do, tell me how it’s set with the flash and all” “Ok you set that one, right on 5.6 and then that one, one stop higher…” He just told me all the things. And I went out that day and that night and I shot totally professional photos. I had all the right equipment, I never had it before because I couldn’t afford it. I just did what he said because he was one of my favourite photographers at that time in skateboarding. Shortly after that I took the money I made from shooting the photos and I bought some equipment and then I was not so poor any more. I started to learn more about composition, etc.

Maybe 4 or 5 years later, I was living in NewYork and I thought that I wanted to document the skateboard culture that was there at the time, in 1996. I went to Supreme, the shop as I knew the dudes there, and told them I wanted to do a little movie with John Coltrane’s “Love Supreme” as the song. They gave me a little bit of money to help so I could by some black and white film. The first day I started to shoot that movie was the first day I actually touched a 16mm camera. And actually a lot of that movie I shot without being able to see thought the viewfinder. It had a thing on the side but you didn’t really look through the lens… And then I just kind of evolved from there.

Oh and, do you know that band: Unsane? Have you ever seen that video which is all skateboard crashes? I made that video, which was more a compiling. I shot them live and then I had my friends, such as Jamie Thomas and different people, that gave me all their bails and wild crashing.

H42 -For sure! Here it is right there.

Besides, I have been surfing since I was 10. Not a lot when I was younger and it got more as I grew older. I was in California, riding traditional single fin longboards which I had done all my life. No one really does that, they take their old surf boards and ride their old surf boards. There wasn’t really much happening but then there was kind of a resurgence and I met some of the main people. Joel Tudor asked me to make a film with him because he knew my work in skateboarding as he was a skateboarder also. And that’s when we made the movie “The Seedling”. That was all on film and it took about a year and a half and was mainly based in California. A little bit in France but mainly in California…

I kind of slowly kept going… always at the same time making art and taking photographs. It was between 1996 and 2001 I was doing a lot of work for the company Nixon. I shot a lot of their ad campaigns. Always doing a lot of things at the same time to keep it fresh!

H42 -And then the photography is what puts money in the bag, more or less?

TC – Actually no. What brings the money in is art, really. The surf movies are a fantastic way to lose money, it’s so expensive.

Thomas finishing the mask

Finishing the beast #1

Finishing the beast #2

H42 -There´s something I’d like to know, at the beginning of the movie (The Present) there is that speech about keeping earth well and all… Doing that at the opening of a movie such as this one, isn’t it kind of preaching to the choir?

TC – Actually I’m not sure you understood what it’s saying… (Note from Hern: bad bad me…). It’s basically saying in general how lucky we are to be here on this functional planet. Because a lot of people completely don’t even think about how crazy it is that we live on that planet which creates oxygen and is covered in water. It’s just so weird. And people just take it for granted. The fact that it is functioning and that we have these strange activities like riding on these moving pieces of water, to me, that’s the mainthing. It’s called “The Present”, to be thankful for what we have. And taking care of it is just part of it.

If I wanted people to understand something that’s what: this is crazy, this is really cool… I think that, being a skateboarder you are not really in touch with the natural cycles as much as being a surfer. Being a surfer, being in the ocean, at sunset, or very early… And also being at all those places that I go to make the movies… It’s just really crazy. Sometimes, going on some boat trips in Indonesia, I told myself it couldn’t be more beautiful. It is sort of a miracle, if you look at every other planets that we know of, we are not looking in a telescope at another forest on another planet with people walking around. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, I find it very fascinating and that’s the idea of the movie.

Actually, my friend Dan has a more ecological slant on. He is involved, working with that company Patagonia and they are involved in a lot of different projects and things. So in his part, when he starts speaking about the people that he works with, he describes their movement towards trying to make more sustainable surf boards. But who knows who’s coming to see a surf movie! Who knows what anyone’s thinking…
But that’s not my main agenda, my main agenda is just present those beautiful images for people to be amazed. Most of the people don’t pay attention. Nobody wakes up in the morning and looks at the clouds and thinks it’s beautiful. I think it’s a pretty surreal place to be there and interact with nature…

H42 -To me it’s so obvious. I watch the coulds and the light in the morning! And I shoot a picture almost every morning in Denmark during the winter. The light, when there is some, is so golden and beautiful.

TC – Well I don’t think you’re normal.[Laughs]
I think a lot of people are just so caught up in their day to day existence. That’s a pretty normal occurrence. But anyway I think all my movies have that message. It’s more or less a recurring theme. And it’s like that, (Thomas points at the little thing he is painting, some sort of a bubble that goes on top of a painting saying “fuck yeah”…) it’s an assertion; be thankful for what is. That’s the message.

Thomas at work during the interview

H42 -And what about this label you have… The music in the movie is very omnipresent and obviously part of the whole art process. This Galaxia label, is it just a hobby on the side?

TC – It is a hobby, I don’t really get paid. I’ve had this label for almost 17 years, since 1992. We put out 2 to 3 records a year and some of them I’m really involved with, like the Ray Barbee and the Mattson I produced every single note. And some others I more from the outside, saying things such as “this songs maybe needs more bass” or whatever. For some people like Tommy [Note from Hern: T. Guerrero of DeluxeSF and other things...], they just makes the record and that’s that! I’m more or less the artistic director so I can get together with the people who are going to be on the label and take care of covers, design covers… I work with a few other designers but generally it’s my ideas and design. Try to get it all together

H42 -Thanks for the talk, it was very inspirational!

TC – Cool!

Fergus Murphy on Steinski / Illustration Max

Enter the teleport! It’s back in the day, as they used to say; New York 1983 and the pioneering hip hop label Tommy Boy Records needs to get some movement on one of their new releases. The tune is “Play that beat (Mr. DJ)” by G.L.O.B.E and Whiz Kid, and they decide to have a remix competition. Destiny draws a line across town connecting with a pair of music nuts who do clubs like religion. Douglas di Franco, a successful audio engineer, and Steve Stein, a Dj and record collector are hooked on records. They spend week in week out at The Roxy where the true school expansive foundation of hip hop is being laid out nightly by Djs like Africa Bambaata and Jazzy Jay.At this time Studio 54 and its infamous disco excesses were still going strong. The Roxy was different however. The Roxy was very very big; as a former bus depot it had to be big enough to drive a bus in and turn it around without backing up. Steinski recalls some other distinct differences.

“Studio 54 was a refuge for obnoxious people with a lot of money who thought what you looked like and what you did for a living was probably the most important thing you do on earth. One of their door policies at studio 54 was to have large groups of people begging to get in, and they thought that this was just the greatest thing. Of course it was very demeaning and horrible whereas at the Roxy everyone got in. Absolutely everyone who waited on line got in. At the Roxy they frisked you, gave a full body search, and you had to open your mouth and your bag.Most of the time it was fun but there were times when I was standing behind people and the search would yield up a knife or a gun or a bottle of liquor and they would just take it away and give the person a claim check so they can get it back after the gig. This would absolutely not happen today. Absolutely not, but it was rather thrilling and I used to take any of the women I was going out with there as a kind of a test for ‘Ok, can you hang? Can you get through a full body search?’ It was a very interesting dating ritual on my part.”

Around this time a friend tells Douglas and Steve about the Tommy Boy remix competition. They decide to enter. Using his skills as a commercial audio engineer Douglas (soon to be know as Double D!) di Franco cut and spliced tape with magic precision while Steve (soon to be Steinski!) Stein supplied records, beats, sounds, samples and ideas. It was pure and simple craftsmanship, pushing buttons, cutting tape, recording to 8 track tape flying in stuff from turntables and two track tape recordings. As you guessed, by now they were the runaway winners of the competition turning G.L.O.B.E and Whizkid “Play that Beat (Mr. Dj)” into “Lesson1: The Payoff Mix”.Cut cut snip.Within days radio had it playlisted on rotation and within weeks radio station air check tapes were trading for serious money on the streets of London and New York.

The buzz was on.Double Dee and Steinski had double handedly elevated the notion of the mastermix to new dexterous levels with humour, groove and a distinct pop sensibility. With over 24 different samples in the remix the Tommy Boy lawyers soon made clear it was never going to be an option to release it commercially.Undeterred they followed it up with “Lesson 2: the James Brown mix”, and “Lesson 3: the History of Hip Hop”, creating a sample heavy canon of lessons that set a new standard of coherence for the mastermix.Think of Man Ray, Joseph Cornell, Dada or the Fluxus art movement. Think of things appropriated, in this case sounds, taken out of one context and made a coherent point or counterpoint of a new composition. This is big stuff in the world of avant garde music and art. They love the notion of the “altered piece”. When it comes to pop culture things get trickier.When Steinski and Double Dee went their separate ways and Steinski moved out of the consultant backseat role into a more direct, hands on position getting to grips with the new digital processes of Pro Tools himself and chopping to his hearts content to create what he calls “a blanket of me” on the project ‘Mass Media’. His most famous piece “The Motorcade Sped On” is a dark deliberation on the Kennedy assassination and features the distinctive voice of one Walter Cronkite. Walter Cronkite is an iconic figure of American radio, a part and parcel of the very texture of contemporary America.

The owners of the rights to Cronkite’s voice and legacy, in this case CBS, certainly did not want his voice used for a sound collage with political overtones. The piece was destined for illegality and criminality.In many ways Double Dee and Steinski’s very first mixes for that Tommy Boy competition raised the bar on Copyright.Steinski famously said he “agrees with copyright in theory but not in practice” and has always been very vocal about copyright criminality and the right to copy, to engage with popular culture.The appropriation of sounds and samples is a very modern engagement with popular culture and pop music.In the United States now copyright law is changing. It used to be that rights were granted for the life of the person plus twenty years. Now it’s the life of the person plus eighty years. Copyright just keeps getting extended.” The implications of this are not lost on Steinski.

“The idea that one cannot use and borrow pieces of previous culture is something new and different in the development of mankind and basically awful. Because you know… Corporations controlling how the culture grows. This is not a good idea. Corporations do not have anyone’s or cultures best interests at heart. All you need to do is look at things like pollution and any number of other things to understand that they don’t give a shit.”

“Almost all art work is derivative. There is no such thing as a completely new work of art. Even Mickey Mouse is based on previous characters. It’s a function of culture to look back and take what its sees looking back and move forward with it. What’s happening now in the US is that looking back is being erased.”

Parts of this story are based on an interview conducted by the author with Steinski on behalf of the redbullmusicacademy info session in Paris 2006

We were invited up to Lau Ebbesen’s jewellery studio, which also doubles as the Bolværket practise room, on a warm late summer evening to check out the band rehearse and possibly get some questions in. As we approach the building we can hear a 70’s Gasoline similar sounding sing-along roaring from the third floor. It’s Tuesday. We’re far from drunk and the noise we’re ascending the stairs towards reminds me of Andy’s bar just before closing time or every single Danish house party I’ve ever been to.

We come in mid-song and find at least 10 people rocking out singing about ostepølser, a box of freshly opened Budweiser standing on a log and the place is smoky as hell. The ‘jam band’ (as I find out they’re called) look like something from Mtv – fur coats, sunglasses and gigantic chunks of bling. All of this is being filmed non stop by Simon Weyhe to be used, no doubt, for music videos or documentary. My plan for in and out quickly is already been destroyed so we help ourselves to some beers and about 45 minutes later start chatting – in between shouts of abuse and cries of “BOLVÆRKET!” 

The quesions in this interview are asked by myself or Smarty and randomly answered by members of the band, jam band, film crew or fans. 

So what are you some sort of a political movement or what? A peace band?

A drunk band.

Just drink or does it go further than that?

Bolværket is how life looks from the bench…

“De spurgt om I tog stoffer.”
I do but I take that on my card. 

The whole room cracks laughing up as Phille stands in the corner with a pleased grin spread over his entire face waving his dankort in the air.  He’s the black sheep. He’s the vacuum cleaner

The drummer hasn’t got his bolværket tee shirt yet so Lau starts digging around and finds one. 

Du kan få den hvor bolværket er stavet forkert. (it says bolvæket)

Oh, det gider jeg godt.

And then they bust into a song.

“Fatter i noget af teksten overhoved?”  Simon asks me and Smarty. Yea man I get most of it. I especially like the cheese sausage song but when I first came up and you were playing it I thought you were singing ‘oste bøsser’. (Which would roughly translate as cheese-gay.)

So what’s this transportation theme you’re rollin with all about? The first time I saw you guys was on the back of a horse wagon and then you were out on that barge in the harbour.

Yea we just cruise around and play, we spent the day going from spot to spot in Copenhagen in a horse drawn wagon.

And Simon is shooting all the time?

Yea, he’s pretty much filming everything we do.

Have you done any real gigs yet?

What do you mean, we do real gigs all the time. This doesn’t count. This is what do you call it, just øvelse. Hvad hedder sådan noget shit på engelsk? Reheashul? Rehearsal. Practice? This is life. When we play outside, it’s work. 

And then they all piss themselves laughing.

Or is it the other way around? 
I dunno.

What your favourite venue so far?

The horse wagon. And pisserenden. But the sound was shitty. 

And was it a proper set up in pisserenden?

We were on this 2 and half meter high stage and we had the whole street looking at us.

You’re relatively new on the scene right, what have you been together 6 months? But you’re playing more regularly than a ‘real’ band.

Yea we played a lot this summer. I told Simon the other day that we have to slow down. If we drive this fast then we’ll fall off the car. The band would kill me.
And then they (Simon)called me and were like yea we’re gonna have a big meeting and maybe have a break and then they called me back and were like ‘hey we’re going to cancel the meeting, we’re going to Floss for beers.’

So are you already sponsored and shit or what? You got budweiser all over the place and all wearing indy. I know Lau is all over those new Bud posters. What’s the deal?

First we’re gonna make a christmas song and then we’re gonna make this record next year in january.

Obviously the question wasn’t understood -

You know, like, are you getting free shit?

I don’t really get an answer – everyone is yelling at each other and the tiny dog under the work bench has begun barking and the drummers left shoe/tamborine is tapping and one of the members of the jam band is trying to convince Lille fis to go solo and …..

- “BOLVÆRKET”

The album, is that called Bolleren?

No it’s .. vi har en diskologi som hedder Bolværket, Savværket, Kraftværket og så laver vi en greatest der hedder Hærværket. Og så laver vi en elektronisk en der hedder Elværket.

So what does Bolværket mean anyway?

It’s the thing that protects the pier from the ships when they go to shore. You have this wood, it’s called Bolværket.

So you guys are sailors ? Cos when you hear it, it sounds like you’re a bunch of fucken sailors.

Yea but we can’t afford the boat. But the green benches is like the inner city’s ‘sitting next to the harbour’

How would you describe your music?

Fucked. Hard rock power folk. With a twist of Christian drunk. Alcho-folk.

So do you want to play at our release party?

Yea for sure – we’re really expensive.

Lille fis begins to introduce the next song for us.

There was one day when I didn’t turn up for reheasal and Lau the backstabber wrote a little song about me. 
It’s called John Telfon because he says nothing ever seems to stick.

No no it was called the ballad of John Teflon but now it’s called Kraftig påvirket.

Yea, even the name didn’t stick.

Skal vi tag den på engelsk? Vi ska da ha det til vores verden’s tournering.

Nej, vi synger kraftædme ikke engelsk er du syg man?

Yea fuck that, take it på dansk. It’s like Kim Larsen in the old days.

det er det de siger allesammen de svin. 

Then the ‘jam band’ returns from the kiosk mission seriously looking like they’ve come to the wrong Halloween party.

Nå har i taget bajer med eller hvad? Fuck mand, I er så dårligt til at fylde poser op!

De havde ikke nogen Guld Tuborg dernede. 

Fuck!

Bolværket have their already impressively long song list written on the door.

This song we made on 2 minutes.

Jeg skal ha briller ellers så ska jeg ik syng du

Teflon’s back!

They burst into a ferocious 45 second long punk yell-and-scream song about 1000 cases of beer, 5 cases of cointreau and John Teflon. Even on my shitty dicatphone a month later the energy is crazy and I can see Phille with his gigantic Elvis glasses yelling with the conviction of someone in a DC bassment back in the early 90’s.

So we need to get your names down at some stage, we got John Teflon over there right, aka lille fis…

We got Guldfisken derovre on the drums (actually a cajone – like a wooden box and with a tamborine ducktaped to his right mismatched shoe)fordi han husker kun et sekund af gangen. But his real name is Førwalter – before Walter. Then over there we got Capello cos he’s the only one that can sing. Capello Gonzalez. 

What about you Lau?

Jeg er Lau. Jeg er værkføreren. Jeg er en del af Bolværket.

I wanna see jam band sing a song on their own.

Yea but they don’t know shit! They get all the chicks. They get all the money and they get all the attention and they can’t do shit.

At this stage we’re averaging about one question per song. 

So do you have any love songs?

Det er den der med hende der er gravid? Nej, vi køre ikke love songs. Nå men ‘Smasket min ven’ – den er kærlighed.

Half an hour and 4 songs later, the beers are dry and things are winding up.

So what about the future for Bolværket? 

I don’t know what the fuck’s gonna happen. Free beer don’t pay the rent. I want money but we’ll do this as long as we’re having fun. Some people say we’re gonna go on tour and all that.

But the horses will get tired if you have to go all the way to Aalborg

We don’t play Jylland. We only play where the bench is green. 

I had hosted a public interview with Hank Shocklee in Dublin for the Red Bull Music Academy. And to answer all the questions left unanswered I was on the phone in a locked bedroom as the kids scurried around a little crazy in the daily run up to dinner time.
That talk in Dublin took in the old days in the cauldron of hip hop and the birth and rise of one of the greatest and most influential hip hop groups of all time, Public Enemy.
PE were produced and arranged by ‘The Bomb Squad’, essentially Hank and his brother Keith Shocklee and Eric ‘Vietnam’ Saddler with Chuck D closely involved on Public Enemy records. The Bomb Squad not only produced classic PE albums like ‘It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back’ and ‘Fear Of A Black Planet’ but also Slick Rick’s ‘The Great Adventures of Slick Rick’ and ‘Amerikkkas’ Most Wanted’ by Ice Cube.

Hank Shocklee of the Bomb Squad

The sound that the Bomb Squad pioneered is unique. It brought a darker disquiet to hip hop, leaving behind the happy good time beats and raps of an earlier era to take on a more confrontational, muscular and political approach to the world. The trademark elaborate and noisy collage of samples and sounds radicalised hip hop production. Just remember some of the tunes or check them out now if you never listened before. The list is classics all the way: You’re going to get Yours/Bring the Noise/Don’t believe the Hype/ Rebel Without A Pause/ Fight The Power/ with its classic line/ ‘Elvis was a hero to most/But he never meant shit to me/ You see, straight-up racist that sucker was simple and plain/Motherfuck him and John Wayne’/Contract On A World Love Jam/ Burn Hollywood Burn. Don’t forget Bring tha Noize with Anthrax. The touch from then is still true to here. All words and music already deeply seeped into our common musical and lyrical consciousness. Phrases and sounds jacked and jockeyed beyond recognition just as The Bomb Squad jacked James Brown for their bread and butter and anything else they saw fit to use for their insistent vinyl revolutions. All of this of course in an era before sampling freely got you big bills or arrested and detained like a terrorist suspect.

Later in the night after that talk in Dublin, which ended with a standing ovation, Hank Shocklee played a storming set of dub, dubstep and electronic bass music. The club was a hopping mess. Our talk had mostly covered the old stuff, we never talked about Hank Shocklees’ involvement and interest in all things dubstep nor the mighty fact that The Bomb Squad are current again as Hank and Keith Shocklee prepare to release a new album, ‘Destruction Version 2.2’. 

The phone finally connected to New York and the man himself. I mentioned the great feedback from the talk and gig and press stuff coming up. Hank is pragmatic and seasoned when it comes to the machinations of media “I used to worry about that stuff but I don’t worry no more. It is what it is. Back when I was worrying about it the press angle was a lot different. The press was more into helping to establish the scene which I thought was really cool. A lot of the writers weren’t trying to prove their knowledge about stuff, they were in there trying to help develop something that people pretty much didn’t know about. Nowadays I think the press is taking an arrogant role. I think nobody ever gets involved in the other aspects of people and their lives and try to help with things that might be considered myths cause all it seems to be is just talking about whatever record they have out and then whatever problems that they had going on.” 

I ask Hank about a quote I had read online from Dj Boomnoise which suggested that The Bomb squad ‘prefigured’ dubstep.

“It’s funny cause I’ve heard that in a number of different music genres and it’s kinda weird cause in a way you can hear a lot of the elements in stuff that I’ve done like that. For example I did a record called ‘Son of Bazerk’ and if you listen to ’j dubs theme’ that was almost more dubstep and it is almost the early part of dubstep, if you wanna call it dubstep.” 

The issue of what to call this new music raised its head a couple of times in our talk and it’s certain that Hank’s thinking on this would be the view of many involved in the so called ‘dubstep’ scene. For the purposes of this piece we use the term that most can readily distinguish. What to call anything? ‘Bass & Snare’ anyone? Jazzy House, oh no! Things get given names and in terms of communicating a sound and style distinct from others the word ‘dubstep’ is handy if not musically adequate. The early stages of this form are characterized by deep bass and that is a broad church with many orders. Things are still wide open and it would be a shame for that to be lost to genre titles. What it definitively is, is electronic bass music.

Hank continues a little hesitantly. For him it’s not a question of claiming any credits.

“If you listen to ‘Dont Believe The Hype” in a weird way it’s kinda dubby in it’s approach. You know when we did that record I didn’t particularly believe it was going to do anything. I didn’t have confidence in that record until DMC took it out and started playing it in his Bronco up at 125th street and everybody’s going crazy for it you know, so that made me go ok, let me finish that up and we can release that as one of the next singles that we had coming at the time. The dub experience has always been a part of my musical background. I always listened to Tubby and those guys. My college roommates introduced me to Jammy and them. I always loved the Tubby stuff but then I started getting into Jammy and Scientist. You’re talking about early 80’s like ’79, ’78 even. I started getting into a lot of dub vibrations and I guess that kinda feeds into some of my productions particularly ‘Don’t Believe The Hype’ and ‘j dubs theme’.”

As a producer Hank Shocklee’s work is informed by a maverick sense of experimentation. The Bomb Squad famously and noisely jammed live in the studio and arranged from there, like a rock band or Duke Ellington. The Quest for music is key and the flow of ideas essential. His background as a Dj still looms strong. In the early days of hip hop it was as helmsman of his own Long Island rulers Spectrum City Sound. Records and music are an apprenticeship to producing. The dense, sequenced layers of samples that characterised the classic Bomb Squad sound were the product of record, soundsystem and Dj culture.

“It wasn’t so recently when I was looking for a different sound. About six years ago I started listening to more Brasilian, more world, more African or Afrobeat if you would. So I came across some Grooverider tape or mixshow or something. He was playing drum and bass. I always heard that stuff, jungle and drum and bass before and the early part of d&b didn’t really hit me as anything cause from my perspective I was deep in my productions. I’m not listening to that much outside influence. The early stuff seemed like speeded up hip hop with different B lines so it came across more like dance music than anything close to hip hop but sometime into it, as it started evolving, I started hearing more of the hip hop elements coming out. The syncopation! It wasn’t until I heard Bailey, Dj Bailey on Radio 1 xtra and when I heard his show I was just taken to the back. I loved Grooverider’s show but he had moved over and started playing more what they called anthems, so the music started having a lot of deep bass but it was a lot of cutting synth riffs on top. A lot of sawtooth synth lines on top too you know, so I started picking up the records, following, figuring out and finding out the groups. I started listening to everything, chasing labels and all the guys. Andy C, Photek, Zinc, Logistics, I started listening to a lot of different cats producing the material and lo and behold it was amazing what the culture had evolved to. That kinda rang into my head. I was fascinated how these guys were now not only producing the music, they were the artist themselves, they put the records out themselves and performed at their own events. It was a full range culture and that right there was the most amazing thing about it. That was the most futuristic thing these guys were doing. It was so refreshing to see the level of involvment from the artist. These guys don’t get a lot of credit for what they do. When I saw the amount of work their putting out every day and all of their whole situation is independent. I thought it was amazing, so that culture that developed got me thinking cause those guys are doing everything in todays format what I did in the early days when I started PE. It was like looking at a mirror through time and seeing how things evolve ‘cause we gotten complacent here. One of the reasons all the artists got complacent here is cause the media and record companies are all pretty much here. They don’t have to do that much. All they gotta do is make a hit record and then all the rest takes care of itself for them really. They get a manager, they get a press person who gets them in touch with all the magazines and all they gotta do is get up every day and you know go to the radio stations and play this up, get the dj to play it. You know everything is done in segments here, whereas the European market decided to take everything on themelves cause they didn’t have such exposure to media. That for me was a wake up call. It made me a fan of all of the guys. I didn’t give a fuck who was doing it, I’m a fan of it!”

The significance of chasing records and literally bumping into such a deeply rooted culture made sense for Hank Shocklee.

“This industry is home grown from the dirt, and that to me blew it wide open. Then all of sudden I’m a D&B fanatic and I’m buying everything that comes out, anyone that’s good, and now I can tell the differences between styles. I’m reading interviews, who they gonna work with next, what next record is coming out. One of the most brilliant concepts of an album was an album entitled ‘Escape From Planet Monday’ by DJ Fresh (Solo record from one of Bad Company released in 2006). The concept for me was the cover, this guy in his shirt and tie, sitting on this barren planet. That record to me was like the entire wake up call for music, as a musician or artist you have to understand that your biggest fear is having to get a job. His whole thing was escape from Planet Monday. This title about the guy who would do anything, at any cost, to not have to be at his desk on Monday. From that point on I said this is the next frontier, this is the next frequency and I started thinking how can I embrace this frequency, so then by mistake I picked up a cd ‘The Roots Of Dubstep’. I thought it’s another D&B record. I thought it’s just another subgenre so when I got it I thought it was cool, but it was slower. I thought wow this is different but cool. Now I had two frequencies. Drum and Bass and dubstep, so I bought the Youngsta cd, Kode 9 had a mix and I didn’t pay it much mind till I went to one of the first Dubwar parties (NY city clubnight). They had got to the point were they were doing it two, three times a year and I went to their first anniversary party and I saw two guys that blew me up …Joe Nice and Skream. I was thinking what the fuck is this about, a guy called Skream? Then I heard the updated version that’s not on those cd’s. I was hearing these riddims, the stuff that didn’t come out yet and the stuff just out. They had the wind back bit and the crowd yelling. The energy was very hip hop. A lot of people wasn’t around in New York City when hip hop was happening and if you want to know what the scene was like go to a really good dubstep event. We would get the same reaction in 82/83 even back earlier than that. That was the reaction we were getting in hip hop when we were playing, it was such a new music and it was such a new frequency and nobody knew how to dance to it.” 

The energy of those days is increasingly well documented but it’s still hard to imagine, no matter how many pricey photo books you check. Hip Hop is big business now and a different beast than the infant born then. It is not nostalgic to recognize this, people don’t really want the latest shit all the time, we all like what we know. New music is challenging in many ways, free to change, uncertain and very exciting when it comes a knocking. 

“There was no set tempo, no set records. You played everything back then, drum breaks from rock, from jazz, from classical, from funk records. Records with rapping, instrumentals, it was the same vibration then that it is now, the reactions were the same. Once I got the feeling of that I was like, wow, this is really unique. Keep in mind that I’m going with hip hop. I’m going with R&B, so I’m looking for something that inspires me. I’m looking ‘cause I was inspired by those musics when I decided to make it. I didn’t invent hip hop or R&B, I was just a fan that was inspired by it and put my spin on it. You know the same thing is happening in dubstep.” 

Hank stops midflow and the issue of naming a genre comes up. The flexible tool of a title like ‘dubstep’ is grist to any marketing mill and also a catch all net that does not filter the good from bad. It’s an easy bandwagon to jump on throwing the right name around and many deeply involved in the scene feel uncomfortable being associated with something that restricts them to definitions.

“You know I hate the name ‘dubstep’. It does it so much injustice. It puts it in a category and makes it ‘that thing over there’ and I think that’s what kills music today. That was one of the deaths of D&B, that categorisation. No one could establish was it jungle, was it ragga, was it D&B, and then all the subgenres took the energy away from it.”

“When we would do our parties it was energy. I come from that era, not the era of perfection, I hear so many people go for perfection but perfection without a little bit of improvisation becomes boring. What people vibe to is that people do not want to hear you do the same thing every day the same way. That’s boring. I think one of the things that got me excited was the energy and that the music form takes on many shapes. You not doing 4/4 time, you can do sixteenths, different types of riddim, you can do a soca or a hip hop-reggae, ragga or more a jungle or techno riddim It doesn’t matter what genre you coming from or riddim you on. You can vibrate on it and that to me is when a new musical art form is in the bubble, It’s getting ready to surface and considering it’s the first true new artform of the millenium. No other art form that’s been developed since 2000 other than this quote unquote dubstep. That’s a big thing you know. You come across new music once in every twenty years. It’s shaping up that dubstep I think is going to be the next frequency of this millenium. It’s still an infant. I consider it that the baby is just born, there are still many facets to go through but the blueprint that has been established by cats like Skream, Mala, Loefah, Benga, Kode 9, Coki. You could go on . There are new cats coming up that are ridiclous. I think that the music is going to be something to be reckoned with in the future. I don’t even look at it as dubstep. Its a new musical artform. I don’t even know what to call it.” 

Hank Shocklee has his part to play in this new artfrom whatever it ends up being called. As a pioneering sonic architect, the inspiration of dubstep has invigorated the maverick again and it’s certain when the new music drops it won’t be sounding like anyone else. “ Me and my brother are putting together our Bomb Squad album which is called Destruction Version 2.2, which is going to be heavily influenced by what you call dubstep but once again it’s going to be us taking it to the next frequency and the single is called “Lost Our Mind. That’s been my take on it, just being able to take the music and continue with the spreading of communciation of peace and togetherness and unity, and taking the music and utilising it as a unifying and more or less calming factor of making people come together and be inspired to do bigger and better things. I just think that’s one of the things that I love about the music, it is being able to communicate that vibration in it so that it heals the planet as opposed to adding to more of the confusion. The reason our album is called Destruction is ‘cause I wanted to destroy the current perception of where music is right now.”

We are ready to get down, giving it up to turn it loose for things not heard but felt, at electronic dub events. 

shocklee.com

myspace.com/originalbombsquad

This is simply beautiful. David Carvalho is a graphic artist/designer from Portugal who runs a small website called Hellokarpa. He specializes in visual identities and ads for print but just recently he launched his web shop selling–most interestingly–skateboard decks. And they’re simply beautiful. Check it ouwt!

Ian Stevenson is probably the funniest illustrator of the year, his shit makes me LOL all over the place, but it’s also a bit scary, kind of like clowns are scary, sure the drawings are funny but they hint at something darker and way more fucked up. At least that’s what I get. Oh yea THE PLUG: you can check his work in bitchslap 7, and if you like it you can win the book as well. His site is also worth a look if you’re into laughing that is! Say Hi to pac-man’s brother if you do.

Yea, so we basically got a bunch of our favorite photographers to send us their favorite photos, along with a few words about it. If you like words as much or even more than pictures then you can see it all in BITCHSLAP 5 online. Thanks, go skate.