812. - Richard Russell

All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Stateside with Kai and Carter, a new podcast from The Guardian. And they are using this podcast to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions that we all have about what's happening in the world. And they do it three times a week, Jason. Does that sound familiar to you? We don't really talk about, you know, a lot of international global news items and climates and cultures and sports and things like that. We do talk about fashion and wellness, but for everything else, Kai and Carter are a great place. All right, so who couldn't use more news? Listen wherever you get your podcast. or watch on YouTube. How long gone? It is an absolutely scorching hot Tuesday afternoon in New York City. It's 100 degrees. The pavement is sweating. Steam is coming off the streets. Everybody's scantily clad. The city bikes are crisscrossing the city. And I am, let's just say, not happy to be back during this period. Damn, that sucks. Yeah, over here in L.A., it's so early. The sun hasn't come out yet. So we are really beasting and different. playgrounds. The sun isn't up at 845. It's hidden by the marine layer of the morning. Don't worry. Come 3 o'clock it'll get up to a brisk 79. It'll be a beautiful day. I'm sure it'll get back up to something nasty and stinky soon. But I think when you come to LA tomorrow you're going to have yummy weather. Since you are a fashionista, you said, you know, everyone's walking around, the sidewalk is sweating, scantily clad folks. What is the summer 2025 fashion trend report? I know, are we still wearing the mesh, the row, jelly slippers that break because you got them onto me?

Those have been replaced. No, the real one's broken. That was the problem. No, they've been replaced by flip-flops, which I'm happy to see come back because I don't really have a problem with those. The Javianas are back. An Orange County staple. Yeah. I mean, I just don't. I never understood the issue with flip-flops, but luckily they're back, and I'm happy with that. But, yeah, there's some mesh. There's some mesh shirts out there. Is there anything new, though, is what I'm wondering? Or is it just the same old kind of shit? flat sneakers that are all upwards of $650. No. The flat sneaker wars continue, but I haven't seen the Zara or Koss versions yet. I'm sure they exist. The only ones I've seen are the... the Prada ones that are the most expensive, then the Margiela ones, which are the best ones, and then the Dries ones that are the least expensive. Didn't you say there was also a Prada Keds as well entering the chat? They just showed the Prada Keds. That's not on the market yet, but it's stupid. Well, they're really comfortable. I mean, I'm surprised they had them in my size. They sent them a couple months ago. They're pretty dope. But you said they're not out yet? They're actually super dope. So do you think that everyone is having a low-profile, low-profile, flat sneaker because of the zero-drop kind of Vibram sole, toe shoe? No, I think it's... Everyone is deadlifting, so we don't have a Zoom air pouch in our sole anymore? I wish that was the case. No, I think it's strictly a... kind of whiplash from the giant shoe balenciaga era is is a is what it's just the complete opposite of that which is is i think those shoes were comically oversized and these are comically undersized and we can't yeah but also i mean i agree with you and i think that plays a part into it but the giant oversized balenciaga shoes we all saw photos of them laughed at them. The one weird gay guy got them on 60% off sale at Departamento. That is not true. Maybe in LA. It wasn't a $1,300 Balenciaga New Balance ripoff shoe or A6 ripoff shoe with an oversized sole.

those were only being worn by select people you know a few basketball players maybe had some you know some fashion gays had them but they didn't have the streets in a chokehold most people found them to be ugly and ridiculous right i mean i think that they had the streets in a chokehold in a way that was more aspirational than reality you know i think that like that whole look that whole look yeah i mean they weren't i mean you weren't seeing them it's not like they were sambas they definitely weren't like permeating i guess it doesn't have to be worn by everyone to be played out it just has to be seen too much you know just seen in general seen it now is happens on the internet so you can see i feel like i saw a million people wearing those shoes and how many of those were in real life i i have i do not know i do i do yeah that's kind of the interesting i do not know but okay that makes sense i'd like to think that you know hunter's mobility training and his onasuka tiger play I think that lends a little bit. He wears those karate shoes, the ones that are like canvas. Exactly. But I can't remember what the brand name is. They actually look pretty cool, though. I bet they're going to have a moment because they're very cheap. Yeah, they kind of look like shoes that the Japanese Navy gave out in the 40s kind of energy. Yeah, they're cool. They come in black and just regular canvas, I think. You know, because Dua Lipa is doing a headstand every other IG post, and I feel like a lot of people are getting into there. mobility era. Or is it just me? I think that's true. I mean, I don't follow Dua Lipa on Instagram, but I'm sure she's doing a lot. Anything to distract away from her music is a plus. So I can't blame her for that. Anything but that fucking pear-shaped engagement ring. I saw that yesterday. Emily Sundberg's newsletter was all about pear-shaped engagement rings, and I was like, wow, this is something I've truly never thought about in my entire life well i would i mean not to

Not to get into it, but it feels like... I know that they call it that, but it feels more teardrop-shaped than a pear. Yeah, I think that somebody probably branded it as pear at some point. Of course. I agree with you. It does look more like a teardrop. Oh, yeah. Like my quads. Real ballers have a real pear-shaped. It doesn't come to a point at the top. It's rounded, and it's fat and chunky. It's kind of like that... Remember we were talking about that cabbage, that teardrop cabbage that comes up to a point, and you're like, what is the deal with it? And I said, it's... simply cosmetic and ornamental benefits. Same thing for this ring thing, but I feel like the world of trends doesn't belong in the world of engagement ring action, but that's a whole other problem. Well, trends aren't, unfortunately, they can't be avoided in any, basically anywhere at this stage, thanks to the World Wide Web. But yeah, I guess I've never, I find diamonds not something that I'm super interested in for myself personally. My chain is, So I don't really think about this kind of stuff. The cut and clarity. Yeah, yeah. I know you're kind of always thinking about it. I got my RAA certificates in the safe. It's all taken care of. Don't worry about that. But yeah, I mean, we don't really think about diamonds, right? I mean, I think you think about it once in your life when you have to buy it. Or if you want to give your chicks... Hopefully once, right? Well, I was looking yesterday at a jewelry brand that Alex was showing me. I love it when jewelry brands show. It was a ring. And I know the woman who makes it. And it's $12,000 for a diamond ring that is like a shape of a letter. And you can get any letter. And they're very, very nice. But I was just like, 12 bands is kind of steep, you know, for that. But I don't. Well, I guess I'd have to take a look at it. I mean, that's an average price for like an engagement ring, right? Yeah, this is like a fun piece of jewelry you wear sometimes. Yeah. I mean, I think engagement rings always depend on, you know.

the earnings of traditionally i think it's three months of salary three months salary but you know we live in a freelance economy i mean how do you really do that on a macro level how is mr how is mr beast ever going to get engaged like is it's it's crazy he's not going to be able to he's not going to be able to parse that from that yeah i think uh i wonder if you can get the diamond ring that's in the shape of an x and that's sort of the uh the baller version of the swatch x watch for you know maybe maybe there's a a turn style member or two who's able to afford The X ring as a nice statement symbol. I love. Oh, my God. Imagine an X ring. That's nice. That's very nice. An X pinky. Get that token on the train on the way home from high school. That'd be wonderful. You know that. I never had an X watch, actually. But that's a nice piece of design. I actually think that holds up. That's the reason it's been popular for so long. Yeah. And they remade it, and it looks different. And that's the worst thing you could ever do in the history of the world. Oh, they changed the X watch? It's slightly different. I think they made it a little bit bigger. And, you know, if you can, you can Google the, you know, the AB comp of the original and the remake, which, you know, happens all the time, but it's just like, all you have to do is don't change it. No one ever wants you to change it. Like, oh, we brought back this root beer from the blah, blah, blah, but we added this instead. Please don't add. Please. No, you're right. I mean, that also is like, the whole point of that is how simple it is. If you add anything or change anything, you're only going to muck it up. Well, sometimes it's easier and cheaper to do it the new way and you hope they don't notice. Yes. I assume the young straight edge warriors aren't as tuned in as we were. Yeah, those fucking bitches. Really quick, speaking of working out, shout out to... A friend of the show, Scott, who does a coffee company called Homecoming, he sent me some beans, which he has done before. Great beans, cute packaging, and included a T-shirt. And, you know, when brands send you a shirt, it's always like, ugh. But on the card, he says, here's some coffee and a workout tee. And then him, just him, I just like the idea of him framing it as, like, this is a workout tee. This is a T-shirt with a logo on it. It's a nice logo. It's a logo for a coffee company.

I only expect you to wear it as a workout tee. No, that is. And I think more brands need to start doing that wording when we get that APC bag in the mail that don't fit just right. You know, this is just a workout thing. Don't worry about it. I work out. I mean, that is a whole category. I mean, I buy T-shirts to support things just to wear them to the gym five times, you know, and then sweat through it. But I do think that's nice to just level set before the shirt is even on. Level set. And just to remind you, if you're like, oh, the last thing I need is another tea from another brand. If you just frame, like, oh, I could use, you know, I have my old coffee company t-shirt that is becoming threadbare. And I'll replace it with a new coffee t-shirt. I think we both had a great pond coffee t-shirt. Wore it yesterday. That I wore. I wore it to Pilates. I wear that shirt a lot. Yeah, I wear that shirt a lot. There's a lot of bitches at the Glendale Motivate Pilates studio who are like, what is pond? Pond coffee is... All right. What else is there? I guess that's... We have somebody here in the Zoom chat. Yeah, that's John. John is... We can introduce our guest. Actually, one before, if we have two minutes to kill, I was watching the basketball finals. Unfortunately, our Pacers lost. I became endeared to a player on that team named TJ. Great player. Loved him. But they were showing, you know, people are talking about the differences between, you know, watching the NBA Finals, you know, back in the day, the pageantry, the excitement, the blah, blah, blah, the glitz, the glamour, the fireworks, and watching it now, and it's just like, it just feels like another game kind of thing. And I noticed one specific thing. They'll put the little stats up on the crawler at the bottom, you know, whatever it is, interesting stats. And you would see, you know, like turnovers for the game. It'll say, you know, OKC, 17 turnovers, Pacers, 9, you know, turnovers, whatever. Sure. I was watching the game two days ago, and instead of saying turnovers for the game, it says turnover story.

Oh, God. Jesus Christ. I thought you were going to hit me with this suicide is now unalived type thing. But this might be worse than that somehow. Like, everything can't be a story. That's just not okay, guys. Everything can't be a story. That's just not. It exists in one place. Instagram has stories. Nothing else does. That's how it's got to be. If we're talking about the hair story of Blackpink, that's fine. If we're talking about, you know, what is your shoe story for the Mew Mew? fall winter show that's fine if it's turnovers in a basketball game it doesn't need to be your story what's your turnovers it's really funny so we ask all the nba legends what is their turnover story it's giving rebound that's really that's really funny that's really funny that's so stupid um all right uh we have a guest today uh richard russell is a um musician, producer, and he owns the record label XL Recordings, which is responsible for, I mean, countless records that you have in your collection. He's put out several studio albums himself. He's produced everything from, you know, Bobby Womack to Peter Gabriel to Gil Scott Heron. More importantly, released music from Burial. His own solo project, everything was recorded. I think he got a Mercury Prize nom a while ago. Nice ambient vibe. How Long Gone Alumni has released the Fontaine's DC record, the most recent one that's really good. Kenny Beats, Joy Orbison, King Cruel, MIA before the incident. Radiohead before their incident. I wasn't going to gas him up this much, but yeah, you're right. Let's not forget Tom York. Of course, Tom York, but most importantly, the recent... record from uh dj python friends of the show oh that's your okay wow new forte record gigs you know a lot of the early kind of grime stuff dizzy rascal shit like that so legendary label tons of stories a lot of life lived you know he's kind of like if rick rubin was cool so let's give him a zoom this episode of how long gone is brought to you by squarespace

Obviously, Jason, you and I spend a lot of time on the World Wide Web, so do our peers, our listeners, our friends, our colleagues, maybe even your parents if they're freaky. And if you're doing anything in the world, writing, taking pictures. I do topless boxing. You need a website. Exactly, a website that works, that does what it's supposed to do, that allows you to be creative but also business-minded. Jason, there's one place to go for that, Squarespace. Yeah, Chris, I'm over here. I'm modifying calculators and putting Claude inside of them so you could cheat at school. And I just want a place where I could, you know, have everything all in one place. I can have the SEO tools so those future graduates can find me. And, you know, I'm able to accept, quote, unquote, donations for my services that might be gray area. You know what I mean? And then email campaigns. Hey, I got a new 2.3 version upgrade. Boom, boom, boom. Get the analytics going. Raise some money. Show your investor all of your cool analytics of what's going on. They're going to want to get in early. And we can use Blueprint AI to make your website look as professional as your competition, if not more. So head to squarespace.com slash howlong for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code howlong to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Quince. Jason, the temps are warming up. It's getting hot out there. Summer always changes how I get dressed. I need pieces that feel lighter, more breathable, and that are just easy but still put together. I don't want to look like a slob. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high-quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Breathable linen and soft organic cottons. Well-made basics, but without the luxury markups. That rare balance where everything feels elevated, but still effortless. Yeah, Chris, linen season is here. I wore a linen blazer to dinner a few nights ago in the warm California sun. But, you know, you got that Italy trip coming up this summer. And quality European linen pants and shirts.

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How long? Taskers book up faster, especially for same-day tasks. So book trusted home help today. That is $15 off your first task using promo code howlong with the TaskRabbit app or at TaskRabbit.com. Yeah, often we have people in your position that are professional musicians with access to incredible equipment, you know, etc. And they often stumble over the Bluetooth issues. And it's always interesting if that's who it is. Yeah, I think it's there's something like where you look extra lame if you're meant to be someone with some kind of audio expertise if you can't get this shit to work. I take offense to that as our sound person, as our sound boy of this episode. I take offense to that. Well, you're just an analog cat. You need a wire most of the time to get that warm. This Bluetooth shit ain't giving you the real sound you need. I like your Pet Shop Boys poster. Thanks, mate. I'm a huge Pet Shop Boys fan. It's weird. No one ever asks me about a pet shop. No one ever talks to me about a pet shop. I love the pet shop, boys. Why does no one ever talk to me about the pet shop, boys? This is bullshit. I talk about music all the time, and they just don't ever... It's weird. They don't seem to come up. I don't know why that is. That is strange. Well, you have... I was skimming through the memoir, and I think you mentioned early aspirations of mimicking Adam Ant or other kind of early 80s British... less than heterosexual style uh music so maybe that's why it hasn't come up all the time if you're you know putting out the gigs records and the uh you know the punishing uh idm tunes they're not like hey what do you think about always on my mind by uh by the pet shop boys so yeah let's get into how gay you are bro well but i i did you know i grew up on 80s pop and that was because pet shop boys actually turned up a little later right they were mid-80s they were actually as everything else kind of faded out. I'm actually writing about this at the moment. I'm writing about the 80s at the moment. So I've been going deep into this period, and I've sort of realised there was this sort of narrative where, like, early 80s, we had all these amazing synth-pop artists and what people used to call New Romantic, and we had Culture Club and Spandau Ballet and Wham and Duran Duran, and they were all exciting. They all did well in America. But I think what then happened was the big boys turned up.

Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna. And actually, once they kind of like really got going, our guys were all over, except George Michael. And George could compete musically with those guys, but he wasn't built as ruthlessly as they all are. This is the sort of story that I seem to be... it's just my interpretation you mean ruthlessly as far as like i'm gonna crush my competition kind of vibe like i want to be number one he was more of an artiste maybe i just think he was he was a really delicate pretty sensitive guy whereas i think madonna prince michael jackson famously known as being tough as nails not sensitive at all right in a way in a way those guys weren't they just wanted to win yeah i kind of think michael jackson's a killer yeah they all they all did have killer instincts they all were Their goal was to be number one. But that's why George Michael is the best out of all of them, right? Because he was a real artist. Every time I watch his documentary on the plane, I'm just like, Jesus Christ, man. I know. They took the wrong wham, right? My first boss was a real new wave head. The amount of George Michael we listened to in that store. I got a full crash course in the George Michael catalog at a clothing store in Atlanta, Georgia in 2003. I had never thought about it once. And I really came to appreciate it. I really, really came to appreciate it. A good pop song is a good pop song. He wasn't taken seriously at the time, especially in this country, especially early on. He wasn't taken seriously because of how he dressed initially and the fact that Wham! just wasn't taken seriously. And all his peers were seen as like... Someone like Paul Weller, the jam. They were seen as incredibly serious and political. And Paul Weller was brilliant. But I feel like George Michael is someone who the world has really caught up with their greatness quite kind of late on. Because he was an amazing producer. I mean, incredible. I always say the best thing you can do for your career is die. That's always the best thing you can do. It's like if you leave us too early, people really...

Love you more. It's a sad reality. I mean, when he was in Beverly Hills and he was getting caught in the public bathrooms sucking dick, it was on the news and everyone was painting him in a negative light. And now in 2025, those photos of him coming out of the public restroom are iconic and people are celebrating his sexual freedom and how awesome it is and how cool his outfit was. But in the tabloids back in the 90s, it was just like... This scoundrel, you know, scourge of the earth coming up from under the bridge. Disgusting. Yeah. Unfortunately, it took him dying to get there. It's funny. So he grew up in the same area as I did. And he used to work. He's a little older than I was, but he used to work in his father's restaurant, which was on the same high street as the record shop where I worked in. It was funny. So when I started working in the record shop, he was already a pop star. And we were selling their records in the record shop. He wasn't in the restaurant anymore. people used to talk about him all the time and i think there was something about just the fact that i knew he was from somewhere near he was like he was sort of real in some way yeah totally that kind of made you go oh right and he was like obviously he was a fan of soul music i don't know that i think there was something really inspirational about him uh because he just sort of made these things become real he made this whole dream of his become real which i suppose made you know the fact that he ended up Not being happy, you know, extra. Extra tragic, really. Was the restaurant good? Never ate in it. Walk us through the menu. What kind of cuisine was George's dad peddling over there on High Street is what I'm asking. Well, obviously, it was a Greek family. Sure. I believe that it was a steakhouse. Okay. I don't think it was Greek cuisine. I never ate there. Like, eating out was not a big part of my sort of family's. thing like you just that wasn't that like you wouldn't hit a friday night with the with the family at the at a local restaurant no no no i would that was just wasn't really on the air i think it was generally not done and was that for for financial reasons i think it's a variety of things yeah i think it would have been thought of as extravagant as extravagant to do that to do that when there wasn't but even celebrations i don't remember them happening in restaurants but i also think in this country at that time there was like ow

our restaurant culture was like zero like you can they're they're opening the same cans of beans at the restaurant that you're opening at home so why pay pay double to do that yeah i mean i've heard you guys talk about food in this country it's been interesting hearing you talk about it i've actually like i've discovered i discovered well it's everyone knew this spot but i'd never been there until i heard you talk about it which one oh we're we're putting you on to london food that's very cool yeah yeah and now i'm like oh it's obviously that spot so i'll actually since then i've like met the owner and it's like it's um uh canteen oh yeah canteen's great rochelle rochelle canteen no no no he's talking about canteen the place oh just canteen yeah the place that i went to it it's the guy for it's one of the guy that used to work at river cafe right oh i didn't know that was his background he used to have restaurants in new york when he was like super young and now he's got yeah maybe the pelican that one canteen they've got like a little spot upstairs called the fat badger and they've got one with the hero in made about yes and they're all great the fat badger i've heard of the fat badger such a great name for anything i mean i just that makes that makes me want to put my credit card it's great it's great i love it so it's i mean it's it is one of the sort of exciting things about london at the moment so you so you eat out more often now is what you're saying. Yeah, I love restaurants. I've always loved eating. I mean, I loved eating out as soon as I discovered the idea of it. I thought it was unbelievable that you could go and try any food. As soon as your bank account told you it was possible, you began your love affair. Before. Now I've got greater freedom now. But even before that, and also going to New York when I was 18 when I got there, just like... experiencing that food culture, just like being able to get an amazing bagel and like a great size of pizza and these like snack foods that were like extremely good. That was something that it was easily easy to come across in the UK. There was more exciting stuff in America than the chip batty at home is what you're saying. Batty. Batty. That's what I said. It was just my accent. It's an accent thing. I just got back from London last night.

And I noticed that there is something that is very American, but you guys have done your own spin on it. There's a Pizza Hut slice shop in London that I have. Yes, a slice shop by our friends at Pizza Hut, something I've never seen in the continental United States. And I just want to congratulate you and your people on that innovation, because that's amazing. That's a smart move. Pizza Hut was actually, I think, my kind of gateway restaurant. Really? I loved Pizza Hut, Pizza Hut on Edgeware High Street. And also. i became known having skills at the salad bar like i could pile that thing up like other people used to get me to build their salad bar bowls and i think that the salad you get from there i think it did have like fresh greens in it and stuff but like the amount of like um dressings and fruto and bacon bits yeah and so it wasn't like this wasn't like a healthy no no like light side salad this was like Do you remember any of your salad bar philosophy? I only remember having one thing that I stick to, which is the first thing you put on the plate dictates the ratios of everything else. So you can't have a huge layer of your first thing because then you're going to have to – it will become too big. So what are some of your fundamentals with salad bar? If you put the sweet corn at the bottom before you put any dressing on, that's lost to the world. Unless you're going to start mixing the whole thing up. The bowl isn't big enough for that. No, and all your aesthetic work is going to be ruined. So I would say you're talking about a bed of greens, dressing, basically working towards smaller items as you go up. Pyramid shape. It's a pyramid, but with the logistics of a lasagna where there's a layer of greens, a bit of dressing, a layer of croutons, a layer of... cheese or whatever it is do you have somewhere slowly working our way up do you have somewhere in the states where like there's a like a salad bar and it's like really great is that is there any like really good ones not that you build yourself that's not that is that i think that was lost to like quote unquote germs at some point i think people thought that was they still have it at whole foods but it's really true post elon or i mean sorry post jeff bezos

It's a fraction of what it used to be. But we have a huge salad bar culture. Somebody else makes it for you, though. My recollection of the British Pizza Hut salad bar is there was no sneeze guard. That's nice. See, you guys don't give a shit. I like that. You're not sick. Get back to work. You're too drunk to care who's sneezing. You don't give a shit about that. Just get over this thing. Chat to your friends. Breathe in and out. Take some deep breaths of the greens. Let's get that in the nostrils. Let's really feel it. Let's really feel it. That's actually really funny because Pizza Hut, I think, was a formative part of every... person jason and i's age like growing up because they did this thing called the book it program and they would partner with schools and if you read a certain amount of books you get free pizza and it was like this it was a whole thing so you spent a lot of time inside of pizza huts and like the design and the taste it's all kind of hardwired into my brain now in my recollection the pizza hut deep pan pizza was extremely delicious. Yeah, yeah, banging. Yeah, 100%. And the bottom of it, it was almost like it was deep fried or something. It had a nice crisp to it and it did feel quite oily, I will say. There was some oil. There was a Maillard reaction in play. But I also think that because now pizza is so popular and there's so many varietals and Pizza Hut is sort of, that's not really, you know, that was called pan, I believe, right, Jason? Personal pan pizza. Personal pan as well. So it did get that crispy, much like a Detroit style or something that's popular now. Yeah, you know, we were talking in the intro of the show about the Swatch. Remember when Swatch made the X-Watch back in the 80s? And straight edge people would wear it as like a little, you know, thingy. And then they just remade it a few years ago. And it just, it's not the same. It looks a little different, you know. And I think that's the problem. Like we all reminisce the original Pizza Hut pan pizza. And they're never going to be able to duplicate it in 2025. They can do everything they want. Never be the same. It's just going to be fucked up. The cheese is different. The flour is different. It's all lost. And we don't even know if it was good or not. It's hard to imagine going in there now. Because there's options now. Even if you're in an airport, there's options. Next time we're in London, we're hitting the Slice Shop together. It's on me. It's on me. I'm up for doing it.

Watch is still a big thing. They still have stores. Yeah, they have stores. There's a store in New York. I would say it's definitely not as big as it was in the 80s, but it still has a following as an interesting, affordable watch company. Yeah, it's an affordable thing to collect, and you can get some really crazy ones on eBay or whatever. So I think there's that culture. Thanks to the old iPhone, we're not really doing a whole lot of watch shopping in general unless it's too... Do either of you two wear a watch? Jason might be. I don't. Not at the moment. No, no, no. I don't like the way they feel. I wear every single... chain except when i'm in the house you have a lot of jewelry on though i noticed you're iced out i do i do wear quite a lot of jewelry let's get the fingers out richard let me see what you're working with let's get let's get the finger okay yeah he's all right he's got multiple per all right so these custom are these chrome hearts what are we working with This one, this was a gift from my partner. She had this match to her eye. I like to think this is not her, like, not keeping an eye on me, but looking out for me is more how I would see that. I bet that's how she spun it, too. That's smart. That's how I see that. And this one, this one, you ever been to this place, the Great Frog? Have I got the name right? I know the Great Frog. They're known for their rings. Yeah, there's a Great Frog in Soho. Yeah, so this is from there. they have me they have meaning to me and i just i don't know i found somehow i find quite helpful in social situations i always felt like when you saw like a woman with a handbag and she's got all this stuff in there i remember thinking that would be nice to just have these bits and pieces that might like calm you down or just like you're feeling socially awkward you can get like the the vix inhaler out or like right or just something that's just something to do you know yeah and honestly yeah and i've increasingly just like found the value and having like bits and i don't know bits and pieces like almost some kind of like mild psychic defense from the world or something and i think jewelry jewelry does do that it's called it's called stimming oftentimes and i think like the like the like the bracelet that you have on your wrist it's like a buddhist kind of bracelet people will take those like the rosary in their hand one of the very first stimmers

where you'll just kind of run those beads through your hands while you're sitting in traffic or whatever it may be that's causing you stress. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's definitely therapeutic, isn't it? The counting on the beads. I used to do that type of meditation where you count the beads. It's quite a good way of just... Sounds like a hoot. Hard to compete with the Instagram Explorer page nowadays, though, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, the Instagram competing with... meditation or doing nothing i mean that's a big that's a big thing isn't it that is a big thing i mean it's definitely it's definitely got unbelievably harder not to do anything yeah um i don't know how people do it unless unless you've been doing it almost predating technology you know what i mean not not fully predating technology before it was like really part of our lives you had like a very steadfast practice already in place i mean in some ways though there is something that's become easier, which is that if you manage to get out of your house, get out of where you live without your phone, and you manage to close the door behind you and leave the building, you are basically on a retreat. Immediately. With no expense. If I leave my phone in the house to go downstairs and pick up the newspaper, I'm on a fucking retreat. And it freaks you out, like going on a retreat does. It's like, oh, you know, but then, you know, you potentially do realize after like, you know, it's been 10, 20 minutes, you're okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I go on a retreat and every year I come back from it and I'm like, why do I take my phone out when I walk the dog first thing in the morning and go for coffee? That's insane, right? I'm going to stop doing that. And I say this every year and it lasts a few days. Sure, sure. And then you just strike back to it. I mean, what if something happens and you need to call somebody, you know? Yeah. I think about that all the time. But what we did, you know, back in the 70s, like I'm going to go to a football game. And if.

My mom dies, then that's what happens, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I'll find out tomorrow. Think about if there's, like, a SAMFA vinyl delay or some shit. You've got to answer the phone. You can't. Biggs has trouble with the purple vinyl. You can't be dicking around at the coffee shop. The whole of the history of humanity, no one had these things, right? And everyone was totally cool. That's right. Yeah, that's true. It was totally fine. Everything was fine. Yeah, I reminisce those times when you watch, like, Seinfeld or something. from the 90s and you just you come home from seeing a movie that wasn't very good that cost four dollars and you had a cup of coffee and you get home you hit a button and then your friend called you and you call him back i think that was the peak of communication to mental clarity ratio you're probably right what about the idea that everything's cyclical Maybe everything is cyclical except technology. I don't know. But, like, is there any chance we're going back? I mean, there could be some event. I mean, it might be a catastrophe, I suppose. We haven't necessarily gotten more intelligent with our technology, you know what I mean? Is there any chance we're going back? Like, is there any going back? Could we end up not using these things ever? I don't know. I don't think we could ever go back, but I think there will always be people who aspire to that and are able to pull it off because they know, they remember a time before it. I think that we will get, potentially get back to a thing where we don't really have technology in our peripheral vision at all times, but it'll be for reasons that are more dubious, like we have a microchip. implanted inside of our body so we no longer have to carry our devices around or look at screens that's perfect for me i give me the fucking chip i don't i don't need to wear the ray-ban metas you know what i'm saying give me the chip i'm i'm straight because you won't even get the real id where this is this is a long way well that's because real real real id you gotta wait in line i don't want to do all that the chip maybe i could get a concierge doctor to come install the chip at the house you know that'd be great if you could just come over if you could just come over that'd be super simple what's the real id

Real ID is this new thing that they forced upon us in the United States that's basically like a driver's license with a little star on it, and they require you to have this to fly, unless you have a passport, of course. It's basically like a national identification system so we can keep a social score on us like how they're doing in China. Track our movements and et cetera, et cetera, across the federal level. It's more advanced than a driver's license, less advanced than a passport, but required to get on a plane anywhere. So a lot of people, it's considered a little shitty because there's a lot of people that, you know, only have a driver's license and don't have the time. It's also something that you have to pay money for. if they force everybody in america to get this and they spend 45 and get it shipped to them That's an extra however many billions of dollars that we're just giving the government again on top of the other. But the reason, the real ID, it was for, I would say, maybe two years. Every time you would go through TSA PreCheck, they would remind you that you have to get your real ID by May 7th, 2025. And that day felt so far away for so long. And then it finally came. And we're here. And now it's part of our reality. And now thanks to Apple, we just put our passport on our digital. I haven't done that yet. It might be on an update that's not here yet. That's happening, is it? I think the newest iOS on the phone, you're going to be able to put your passport on your digital wallet and just show that to them at the border. I guess you could fake a physical passport. just as well as you could a digital one. So, you know, the number's got to stand. That's right. Ocean's 11 style. I'm just showing up. I'm getting through every border. But going back to the early, like, new wave music of the early 80s, when you were enjoying that so much, I know that you were kind of in a hip-hoppy zone, you know, maybe a little bit later, mid-80s, late 80s, making some pause tapes and things like that.

did you ever make any new wave music when you were younger or did you ever make any pet shop boys beats so i got a i don't know if you can even call it a sim it was called a yamaha ps1 the weird thing is i got one recently i thought about it It's like the little plastic with white or black. It's like a little toy kind of, right? Yes. But it had power. It's a toy. Well, you might be talking about the Casio. The Casio one was sick. The Casio one had like a drum machine. The Casio one was used on a bunch of dancehall records. There's one called NT40. That was sick. The Yamaha one wasn't sick. I'm looking at the Porta Sounds. Yeah, the Porta Sounds. It wasn't sick. So I got that when I was really young. And I thought, yeah. I'm going to make a soft sell record now. I've seen soft sell on top of the pops. They were number one. I'm going to make a soft sell record now. And then I started playing with this thing and I was like, this sounds nothing like soft sell. And I almost felt like the investigation stopped there because I didn't know anyone else I could ask about it. There was no internet. And the idea of, okay, what is the equipment these people are using? What are those things? I just didn't know anyone who would have known that. And there was no way of finding it out. And I realized I couldn't do it on my Yamaha PS1 because it sounded super crappy. And, you know, they were soft sell. Although it had like a DIY quality to it, they made their album in New York in a great studio with. the cutting edge equipment at the time with a million dollars worth of uh rack mounted effects and thingies and i would always watch those like old depeche mode or new order videos and them in the studio and it's just you know a guy playing guitar and like okay i understand that singing into a microphone i get that and then there'd just be a rack of 11 synths and compressors and reverbs and like So you just made the whole sound by just turning this knob on a rack-mounted thing that looks like something that would be at your uncle's house under the TV. And that's when I stopped as well. Yeah. And nowadays, you can go into ChatGPT and say, I want to make a song that sounds like Depeche Mode, Question of Time. Tell me all the equipment and buy it for me on eBay right now. And I'll just be like, brr, here you go.

This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by a new podcast from The Guardian stateside with Kai and Carter. This is covering a lot of our bases, Jason. It's trying to slow down. The news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what's happening in the world. And I know you particularly have quite a lot of questions. A lot of questions. But how often? Because we do this podcast three times a week and that's a sweet spot. How many times do they do? Three times a week. And I have a feeling just based on the platform and these talking points that they're maybe going to be covering different stuff than we do. That's just a guess. The Guardian is not some billionaire owned. They're not afraid to say what they want to say, brother. Yeah, Rupert ain't sniffing around in what journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman are up to over there at Stateside. But yeah, listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch it on YouTube. It's three times a week. And who couldn't use more news? Especially when it's not from here, let's say. Give it a listen. Give it a listen. Hi, Talk House Network listeners. It's your old friend, Nels Klein from Wilco here. Wilco is touring this summer, and we'd love to see you somewhere on the road. We're playing shows this June and July in Rochester Hills, Michigan, Chautauqua, New York, Lafayette, New York, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Vienna, Virginia, Forest Hills, New York, Portland, Maine, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Memphis, Tennessee, LaGrange, Georgia, Charleston, South Carolina, Virginia Beach, Virginia, Wheeling, West Virginia, and Columbus, Ohio. Plus, there are even more dates, some with Willie Nelson that I didn't even mention here. So please go to wilkoworld.net to see the full list of dates. We'll see you on the road this summer. Do you hear that? Sounds like breakfast is ready. Because Quaker's coming in hot with morning nutrition. 100% whole grain oats and a good source of fiber to fuel the rhythm of your morning and kickstart your day. And that sounds absolutely delicious. Fuel to start whatever's next. Quaker, official sponsor of FIFA World Cup 26. Although apparently the other thing you could do with it, because I bumped into someone recently.

He was saying to me that he recently got ChatGBT to teach him how to use modular synthesis. And he said it's taught him from scratch. And it's incredible at teaching you stuff like that. That's fair. I mean, it's cool because when I brought up... you making the pause tapes, like listening to radio and recording little bits and building samples and creating songs out of, you know, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And nowadays people use AI to, you know, create stems of songs, extract vocals, make mashups and, you know, do this, do that. I like the idea of using AI to teach you how to use a modular synth. It's easier to fly an airplane than to fucking make a sound happen on a modular synth. Very hard. So that was, yeah, that was kind of interesting. to to hear about that but yeah i suppose the making of new wave music like when i was listening to that stuff i was too young then to like get any sort of a handle on it and i think because then i was like that was like early 80s so i'm like 10 11 12 13 and it was really it was turning on turntables it was getting turntables that was what was my i mean i always played guitar as a kid i was kind of into it i liked it um but turned nothing like with turntables when i got turntables i got like fully obsessed and i think you know did that 10 000 hours thing i think of like trying to create the breakbeat merry-go-round and it's like that you know and even to get like when i first the first record i got two copies on to try and create the breakbeat merry-go-round um and being such a big such a big thing and me being so and also i didn't have techniques decks initially they were really pricey i'm sorry to hear that sorry i had like a mobile disco set up okay and and like that that's like the to to develop those skills on that is it's not impossible it's very very difficult sure it makes it it makes it even more challenging yeah more challenging like so yeah the the the pause tape thing and like gradually getting to turntables and a mixer i was like so serious about it i was really just like

into it and yeah i never became like as good as i wanted to be but i was really determined about it and also i did get paying gigs from when i was quite young and i just thought oh my god this is just insane how is anyone paying me to do this this is like this is my ultimate fun thing to do and someone is willing to give me money to do it and like i would totally be doing it if they didn't right How old were you when you got your first paying gig as a DJ? I think I was 15. That is young. And I think I was also, that was the age when I also got a job in my local record shop on the weekends. So pretty soon after that, I got a market stall in Canada market selling horse tapes. So I was doing all these things. It was definitely entrepreneurial. I definitely had some hustle. And I was, you know, we're talking about like 86, 85, 86, 87, 88. I mean, musically, obviously being for hip hop. And that became what I was completely obsessed. And house music, and house music excited me. And I think she used to play house music as well. But I was a hip hop obsessive in that time. I mean, it was, and yeah, I guess we can say historically that was, it was a special time. You know, it was a good time. There were lots of classic. Classic records coming out all the time. Yeah, you live through it. Yeah, yeah, you live through it. That must have been so, I mean, it just feels like the, I'm imagining the Richard Russell biopic working in the record store all week and people coming in, hey, do you have this, do you have that, getting a discount, buying doubles, maybe we'll steal, borrow a record for tonight and I'll put it back tomorrow, go to the club, play it all, everyone's loving you, you're getting money, selling your mixtapes on the weekends and the daytime. To me, you don't care about anything else. You don't care about how you're dressed, what you're eating. You're just as happy and content as could be. That's exactly it. That's well summed up. I did not. It's all been downhill since then. I didn't want to say it. Until you found Buddhism, it was a rough road. I'm exactly the same. I've spent the last few days making a mixtape.

marianne hobbs has a series on six music so she's like friday evening so if you ask me to do an hour-long mix and i knew what was going to happen i knew i was just going to go down this hole of like spending way too much time doing this but yeah it was great and what i realized while i was doing that is like when you do something like this For the radio, just DJing mode, obviously you're not thinking about it as samples. You can use anything you want without it to clear. So that was great. I really enjoyed doing it. I feel like you've been part of some great sample clearances over the years. I bet you've really been in the trenches of the sample clearance business. That's true. That's true. I think I learned a lot about things. Well, particularly the first Prodigy album experience. which is a sample-based record, you know? Yeah. I mean, Liam was great with synths as well. He was great all around, but I worked very closely on that record with him. And also, when we started, we weren't clearing samples. That was just before we totally realized that. The Prodigy Experience album, we got a license deal with a lecturer. They were like, don't think of this as delivered. Don't think you're getting the check until the samples are cleared. And it was like, what does that mean? how's that gonna work like that sounds nuts um and i had like i don't like that at all no this sucks i had a huge sheet of paper like a poster size piece of paper and i had a list going down the side of every sample that we were using on the record and then i was filling in the details of all the people we were meant to be talking to about cleaning the samples and what was meant to be happening and stuff and it was kind of interesting it was like another sort of way of you know being granular about it and getting into the the weeds of it um and we had they gave us a budget to do it with to me that just sounds like the biggest nightmare it seems this seems like the most annoying part of of music creation and thank god that you found it kind of fascinating and fun at that point i did because i think it was like it was for an album we had like time and yeah do you know what else i think i felt like it made me feel grown up

yeah for sure that's like real that's like real business so young you know i'm conducting business like a like a big big man yeah like yeah i'm like yeah we're clearing samples we're like doing license deals let's get them on the phone y'all let's just cut the over the years have you had to do the kind of or or ask the artist to do sort of like the heartfelt letter you know to get it cleared they don't it's sometimes it's not about money sometimes it's about like Do I like you? Do I like what you're trying to do? You ever write a letter to Brian Wilson's wife? No, but there have been loads of things like that. I tried to clear something from Kraftwerk recently, and they just sent a note back just saying, no. That clears out. Well, actually, now that you say that, you've spent so much of your life trying to clear samples for records that you've released. Now you've released so many records. Do people come to you? asking for a sample, and then you can go, whoa, whoa, whoa, I've got you in my spider's web. Yeah, I think it goes both ways a little bit. I mean, you know, there is this whole thing of, like, who sampled, which is great. I mean, I love who sampled. For our listeners at home, who sampled is a website kind of database that shows very detailed reports about songs, you know, almost every song in the world that has been sampled. who sampled it, the timestamp of where it is, and it could just be the sound, you know, a half of a second of a thong, and it'll track it down. A friend of the show, Bauer, has an Instagram series where he goes through it, and it's really fun. Well, yeah. It doesn't just point you in the direction, either. Like, there's the song. There's the sample. You just press play. It's all YouTube clips. You just press play, and you can... Oh, yeah. Like I said, it's bittersweet for a couple of reasons because this used to be the secret knowledge. Yeah, for sure. Like you did the 10,000 hours so you know what to sample. So there's that. And only the real heads know. Yeah. And now technology. Yeah. So there's that. When I first saw it, I was like, oh, shit.

We've got skeletons in our closet. They're all coming out. You just hope that those skeletons were for a record that maybe didn't sell so many. It wasn't the Adele record where all the samples that you didn't clear were happening. She doesn't come from sample culture. Although she's obviously a lot younger than me, she comes from traditional music writing and performing culture and i remember when she first got stampled i can't remember what it was i was like she wasn't big and i was like oh this is exciting right she was like no no no i'm all set i'm good and i was like no but it's like it's flattering it's like it's a It's a compliment. And she was like, it's my music. It's not their music. Unfortunately, that's a pretty fair argument. I mean, I see both sides. Yeah. It's very fair. It's very fair. And I think having got through that initial thing with Prodigy Experience, which I quite enjoyed, I then started to get irritated by having to clear samples and like how slow it was and how much money it took and how much it slows you down. And I started to kind of resent it a bit. But then I think the next phase, and maybe it was to do with her saying that, was I did realize, okay. To be fair, when you sample someone, you are collaborating with them without their consent. Like you haven't asked them if they want to collaborate with you. You've just taken a bit. I think when you start off and you come from the studio and you come from having an Akai sampler and you're putting something in it and you're sampling it, you're not really considering the human element of that. You're kind of considering the sound, the piece of sound. But someone generated that. Someone made that. Someone made that music. And so at some point I was like, oh, yeah, I mean, You can't really just go around taking people's stuff and use it. Because I used to think you should be able to do that. That would be fair. There should be some type of amnesty. I mean, you can cover someone's record without asking permission. But they get paid. Yeah. But it's standardised. If you cover their song, they get all the publishing. They don't get any of the master. It's standardised. And I know there is a bit of a movement, I don't know how it's going, that says that actually...

It's almost like there's a prejudice against sample culture because of where it comes from. And it should be treated more like cover versions. And they should have made some way that, you know, there should be some way of make that guy. Do you know who he's a writer? Dan Charnas. Do you know who that is? Yeah. Yeah. Is it his idea? He wrote that very good book about the business of hip hop with the big payback. And he also wrote an excellent book about Jay Dilla. Dilla time. Dilla time. And I believe he was involved in some sort of a movement. Yes, I mean, it would be great. It would be great if there was some way of changing the legislation so people could sample things and you still pay a bit, but you're not like completely hung out to dry. Giving everything over. Yeah, I think that would be incredible if that was possible. I've always been meaning to kind of look into that. Yeah, I've always wanted there to be a way that... You could take a mixtape that you've made at home featuring a bunch of songs that you like, that you put together in an interesting way, and instead of it going on SoundCloud and getting taken down or hoping that it doesn't get removed on YouTube or whatever, put it on Spotify or Apple, any streaming platform. And then the artist that you're playing the song of will get maybe a quarter of a play or something like it. So we can listen to mixtapes made by DJs who are doing amazing things, not just here's my playlist, but putting a lot of thought into it, building a piece of art. And then I'm sampling a Joy Orbison song or I'm playing a Joy Orbison song. It counts as a quarter of a play or a third of a stream, whatever. That's a great idea. And you would have thought. The technology is there, and that would be easy to do, but I guess everyone would have to kind of agree to it. The technology is there to take everything down, so it's got to be there to pay everyone out. Do you spin? Do you play out? I used to play a lot more. I DJ still, but not as much as I used to. But now, with the success of the podcast, I'm getting more offers. It's nice. It's fun. Great.

So will you hop on a plane and go somewhere? Do you guys do stuff live together for this, right? Yeah, yeah, we do. Yeah, we do live shows and we'll do after parties and I'll DJ with some local guys around and play some festivals and things like that. Great. It seems like it must be like a good... job that you've got doing this i mean i know things always look from the outside different to how they are but this because i've listened to it and i thought when i listened to you i've enjoyed it a lot enjoyed the guests but i also thought when it's just youtube talking that's also really entertaining that means you're a true head richard that means you know the real fans the guest is just i'm and i feel the same way when i'm listening to a podcast over the years that i've liked a guest just means that there's a chance that the episode is going to be bad And if it's just the host that you know and love, you know it's going to be fine. No pressure, Richard. We only have 15 minutes left, so you're fucked. This is just great, but if somebody comes on, like we have a new actor on a new Netflix show, the chances of them being an amazing, hilarious, interesting, insightful conversationalist, if it happens, it's a surprise versus the opposite. When we listen to our pods, we need this pod to be good. I'm going to go on my dog walk. I'm going to the DMV. This has to be good or my day is ruined. So if I'd have canceled today, you guys would have been like, yeah, great. We just get to chat to each other for an hour. I get excited if the guest cancels and I didn't really know who they were. If it's somebody that wrote a book and they canceled and there's a bunch of other stuff going on in the world in my life, then... I will breathe a sigh of relief. It's also easier to edit with two people instead of three. But we get legitimately sad if it's somebody that we were looking forward to. We spent the time to take notes and read there. you know op-eds and memoirs and listen to their books and music or whatever and they cancel that's a bummer you know you know how these fucking divas are richard i gotta hunt people down you kidding me many people can't be arsed especially you know we're traveling we're touring we're doing all these important money making things and then they're like

Oh, you have to do a Zoom call. That's the thing. They're not even making any money on tour. I'm like, sit in the bus for an hour and let's get this going. You got nothing else to do. How long does Soundcheck really take? You know who I noticed as well is really good when there's not a guest there is Louis Theroux. Oh, well, I mean, he's got a new podcast. I didn't know he had a podcast. Yeah, he's got a podcast. And at the end of every episode, he's just chatting with his, I guess, his producer in the studio. And he tends to just kind of go off a bit. I think he's meant to be reviewing what happened on the show, but he just has to go off and he gets a bit kind of looser. Yeah. Yeah. He's so funny. That guy's so funny. No, he's very. No, he's I mean, he's good. I mean, he's very good. I only really know of him. British legend. The only thing I've ever really watched is when he brought Pete and Carl from the Libertines back together on that. I haven't seen that. Yeah, it's really. It's really wild. It's really wild. I highly recommend it. I mean, it's like he sort of chases Pete down. They have this whole thing, and then they were reunited. It was a whole thing. When it came out, a lot of people sent it to me because they know I'm a big libertine's head. It was harder to bring those two together than to take down Scientology for old Louis, huh? Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He went deep with that. I'll give that podcast a listen. It's a BBC show, right, I think? No, he's on Spotify now. It's like a Spotify podcast. Oh, okay. But it was like a COVID project thing that turned into something bigger. I think there was that, and now he's got a deal with Spotify. Okay, well, I guess speaking of all these technological advancements and new things that we all have to do in the music. and the business of selling it, it's changed so much since the 80s. I know you have a deep hip-hop root and a background in it, and you at one point have represented all four pillars of the hip-hop community. So two questions. What was your graffiti name? And if there were to be a new pillar for these modern times of hip-hop, what would it be? Okay. Graffiti, I would say,

was it's funny because immediately before this i've been making a large welcome home poster for my son who's been away traveling to be on the wall when he gets back tomorrow getting the cans out huh getting the cans out i got the cans out and i was like this isn't gonna work at all like how is this gonna work what do i think i'm gonna spread like so then i reverted i think i am i reverted to markers and acrylic paint and i got like halfway through and i was like this is a fucking mess like the this the the the spirit is there i'm hoping he's gonna like yeah i mean i i kind of like to shout yeah i'm not picking but it's big he will look he'll be he'll be touched no doubt but it's not that pretty and then so at one point i thought oh i'll throw a tag in there i'll kind of like throw something taggish in there And I was like, that is so bad. That's the worst part of this whole thing. And really, my graffiti career, I got relegated to Lookout. There were three of us, and I got relegated. And they did it. My friends, they were both good. They're both good. They are both good visual artists. And they could both do stuff. Like, they were good. They could do stuff. And we were. We were throwing up a mural on a building in Swiss Cottage, which was like some sort of medical facility. It probably wasn't called to be doing that. It was a children's church and we decided to bomb it. And I was the lookout. And yeah, and the police pulled up and it was awful. It was awful. It was like, I mean, I just completely, I'd been relegated to a lowly role. And I screwed up because they were just there. They were there and on us before I'd said anything to anyone. So I don't know what caused my like lapse in concentration. I mean, I wouldn't have been looking at my phone because there were no phones. You were daydreaming, nightdreaming in this case. Yeah, nightdreaming. Exactly. Early hours of the morning in Swiss cottage. So you didn't even have a chance to give a little bird call or anything. Useless. The coppers were on you. Useless. So that was.

And I reckon that was a high point of my writer career. And my tag, you know, I used to write, and it basically used to say like, R-C-H and a two, which is like, what even was that? I didn't really like. Well, there was already one R-C-H, so you had to declare that you were. I would say no, no cool, no graffiti name is really cool. It's like a, it's like. Once you hear it enough, you decide that it's cool. It's never cool in Inception. Just like every DJ name, you know? Yeah. Yeah. But I did place Deccan in a breakdance competition once and won an album. It was like a youth club, disco. It wasn't competitive. It wasn't too hard to play second as one of those. We have tryouts for the football team and everyone makes the team, wouldn't you know it? That kind of thing? Yeah, it's been a little bit like that. And what was the second part of the question? If there were to be a new pillar of the hip-hop community for 2025, you know, corporate gig navigation or whatever it may be. That's good. The sixth element is corporate gig navigation. 50 cent, you know, like 30th anniversary. Videography or whatever, you know, like you're having a cameraman follow you around to buy pants at Chrome Hearts, you know, whatever. One of these core fundamental elements. But Richard, Richard, did you. I don't mean to put you on the spot. Did you ever spit bars yourself, or was it just more of an appreciation and behind the decks? You've got a 16 in your mental, don't you? I don't. I never did. The only type of vocal performance I've ever really attempted was I sung on stage once with a band that I put together with my friend. And afterwards, he said to me, I thought it went all right. And he said to me afterwards, That was bad, right? And I was like, oh. Was it bad? And he was like, yeah, you were completely out of tune the whole way through. And I was like, oh. But in like a cool way, right? I thought it was so close. Kind of like a burial kind of way. And I think. I like the word atonal more. I mean, he was definitely doing me a favor because, you know, that.

job you have to be built for that job like you have to be built to take what kind and i literally crumbled the very first hurdle which is like a bandmate criticizing my performance i completely lost my bottle i had like zero confidence in what i was actually about or doing and i was like yeah i'm not doing that anymore i think i'm not doing it again and i didn't do it again and so that would that would suggest i was not cut out or that kind of role. And, yeah, I don't think it ever really occurred to me to even attempt to rap. God bless. Me neither. Yeah, I guess so. We're better off for it for several reasons. Yeah, you learn very quickly you're better behind the console instead in a Quincy Jones or a Rick Rubin style position, working with the artist, not being the artist, you know? Yeah, I mean, I do believe, like, everyone's capable of playing multiple roles you know i'm a big believer in that and i think it's definitely can be quite harmful that people get put in boxes too quickly i get why people put people in boxes because everyone's busy so everyone needs to know oh yeah these guys do this this guy does that and if they do something else we're going to say they're like dilettantes or part-timers like but actually that doesn't really speak to the true nature of like artistry people do more than one thing everyone does more than one thing this is good news for me so i can so you don't mind if i send my demo over then you'll give it a listen i just i don't want to i don't want to you know make anybody uncomfortable but i mean everyone everyone i mean everyone likes to every type of artist likes to do likes to work in especially the artists who've succeeded in a particular field as soon as they're in another field the pressure's off So it's incredibly liberating to do it and really feeds you. Yeah, I mean, that's why every musician wants to be a comedian. Every comedian wants to be a musician. And then they quickly learn it doesn't work out. But we all, or at least I want everyone to know, those who can't do can just make ambient music, you know? But the thing that I think, I mean, not to get serious or anything, but the thing I think is a big deal and is like a big missing thing.

in our world is like no one says to artists even though like rap music has kind of clarified this you'd think no one says to artists you are a business person like as soon as you are an artist you are a business person you have a business you don't have a boss right you are responsible your managers have their own business so they may they might be great but really your business could fail And their business will still might still be OK. And that's like the proof. No, you're absolutely right. I've said this to people so, so many times and people often just seem devastated to hear it because it's like, what? Like, I didn't get into this to do that. And it's like, yeah, I mean, no artist got into it to have to deal with like the boring stuff. It's part of it. Unless you're like incredibly fortunate to have someone truly. who you can lean on and truly trustworthy and reliable you've got to deal with some of that stuff and um you kind of got to be on top of it because because it's like you've got people running a business who don't even know they run a business and it's hard enough if you if you do know you're doing it so yeah i mean i definitely try and like i think i used to like avoiding conversations about that kind of stuff because i don't talk about music but then you realize at a certain point now you can go broke easily yeah sometimes i mean that's your job is is to help people They get a hit song. They put out a record. They're suddenly building the tracks while the train is moving. You have experience. You've seen this many times, and you can say, hey, build your track this way, not that way, and we can all help each other. I've had an incredibly fortunate set of circumstances in that I've had the same business partner since I was 19 years old. God bless them. Yeah, I mean, I've been really lucky to have someone there who is great and trustworthy and who is good at doing that side of it. But obviously, I know a lot of people who've got businesses who don't have that and you've got to do a lot of stuff. You've got to do a lot of stuff, but there's no...

Yeah. No avoiding it, is there? Because you don't want to make sure that Peggy Goo's getting her checks on time. That's for your business partner, right? I mean, that's a very, that's a, but people start independent labels because they're fans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? They're not business people necessarily. And they're like, they're like, you're a DJ, and you start, and before you know it, there is all that very real stuff there to deal with. And so, which, you know, explains why most of these ventures don't work out. Um, cause you've either got to find someone who's really going to be on it, which I was very fortunate. It sort of, it almost kind of found me. It was weird. I didn't even know I was looking, but it was there. And so that, that's, that was amazing. Um, which is, uh, Martin Mills, who's the biggest, you know, and he also came from a background of being like, of starting a small independent label. Big up Martin. Yeah. Big up Martin. Big up Martin. Well, Richard, last, lastly, I would, um, I wouldn't live with myself if I had you on the pod and did not ask for some type of burial story of some sort. If you've got a nice, handy, fun tale, anecdote, or just anything about him or something that comes to mind. You know I really, really like. I'm like a super fan, right? I mean, I did not know to the extent, but one can assume. I love burial. I love burial. They're just the magic in that. in what he does there's so much well it's interesting isn't it that someone who doesn't want to like make their personality known there is as much personality in that music as anyone has ever got into electronic music to me there's so much sort of blood in it and there's so much sadness and just beauty um uh he's so the one thing i'll tell you is he sent me a really extraordinary incredibly moving text during the pandemic that talked about sort of talking about what was going on and what he hoped would sort of flourish musically in the in the aftermath of it and like this sort of it was kind of like a sort of a hopeful vision he'd had of like how it might affect music making and when people got to go out again and when people got to be in those spaces again and

that time of us all kind of realizing this shit that we've always taken for granted because how could you not take it for granted that we got to go to these places and maybe all these people and there'd be this music and it being this incredible thing you know we had it taken away from us and it was you know and we couldn't have known we were taking it away yeah so that was um that was a very beautiful yeah it was very very beautiful and poignant um yeah it was incredible and then you were like so does that mean we're gonna get some dj sets going after covid and he's like no no It takes a guy who's never performed live to be like, once we're out of here and we're able to enjoy live music in the community and spaces again, a guy who I assume just wants to play video games alone all day. Very profound. And that's why we love him. It is profound, isn't it? I think the way he does the whole thing, it is profound. I mean, it's beautiful, isn't it? To set an extreme example that not many people would follow. In a world where everyone thinks you've got to do... You've got to do everything. And he does nothing. Yeah, it's crazy. Apart from the music, that is it. And I do, yeah, I think it's very, very beautiful and profound. Love burial. I agree. Thank you, Richard. Richard, yes. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. And when I mentioned ambient music earlier, that was coming from a place of love. I'm a big fan. And everything is recorded. Solstice Equinox. I was listening to it yesterday and today. It's very nice. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We'll see you in London at Pizza Hut. Yeah, we'll be in London first week of August. Let's link up for a slice. I'm not even kidding. I want to do it. We're not kidding either. We're not kidding either. I've got a feeling. Bill, you're going to get fooled quickly from that. There's something about the density. I agree with you on that one.

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