Jaki Liebezeit

Jaki Liebezeit

RIP

26 May 1938  •  22 January 2017

Bill Laswell Shares the Stories Behind Some of His Most Memorable Releases

With approximately 4,000 projects to his name since 1978, it’s fair to say that bassist-producer Bill Laswell has been around a block or two in his day. As house producer for Celluloid Records, he recombined New York’s rock, jazz, funk, reggae, and hip-hop scenes in the ‘80s with inspired abandon. In 1983, he struck gold with Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit,” which led to lucrative production gigs for Mick Jagger, Yoko Ono, Public Image Ltd., Motörhead, and Iggy Pop. In 1990, he bought Greenpoint Studio in Brooklyn and launched his own label, Axiom, which provided him with a home base for increasingly esoteric experiments in improvised fusion as he began reaching out to the sounds of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. At the same time, Laswell was laying down the sonic groundwork for aggressively avant-garde outfits like Last Exit, Praxis, and Painkiller while forging career-long relationships with looming figures like John Zorn and the late P-Funk keyboardist Bernie Worrell.
Laswell’s currently moving forward with the combination musical collective and label Method of Defiance (M.O.D.), whose recent emergence on Bandcamp gives us the opportunity to check in on this free-ranging American original.


How’s Bandcamp working for you? What do you like about it?

We have two pages, one for my label and one for me. The albums on the M.O.D. Technologies page are all fairly recent. My personal page mostly contains out-of-print albums and a few newer releases. It’s like a combination art gallery and storage room. It’s changed my mind about alternate ways of releasing music. Now I can record something tonight, edit it, balance it, create artwork, write a story, and tomorrow morning someone could access it, listen to it, or buy it. While my past experiences with digital releases and downloads were not positive, I can now see exactly what was sold, how much it was sold for, and even where it was sold. It’s a big difference from somebody telling you that your digital sales aren’t worth mentioning.

Do you tweak the content in any way for the site?

We try to do new artwork, and sometimes we remaster. I have a lot of live stuff from Japan and Morocco I need to go through and clean up, edit, mix, and master.

What’s your focus as a player these days?

It’s intuitive. Lately, it’s not so much about systems and notes as telling stories in a language you don’t even understand. I want to play with people who are also able to tell stories musically. The music is starting to be its own thing, and I’m just part of it. Like, this isn’t me—this is the record I made, the music, the sound. And lately, the sound has been mainly telling a story. I’ve had my own facility to work in for the last 20 years. It’s a much different environment than these spaceships in Manhattan where the assistant has an assistant, and somebody’s getting the menus because lunch is coming up pretty quick. They don’t do music. That’s something else. That’s why it takes so long and costs so much. I drift toward expression. That may not be good for your livelihood, but it’s good for you.

Read the rest of the article here

Las/wɛl/ kuh m-plee-tist /ˈse·ries | 05

com·plet·ist

[kuh m-plee-tist]
a person who attempts to complete a collection or set,
especially a collector who wants to collect an example of every item in a particular field:

The Men Xperience  • La Mancha Negra The Black Stain

1. P Spot
Menace

Guitar, Bass, Live Drum Loops, Keyboards, Lead Vocals
Adamhead • Rap
Duane Snite • Intro Rap
Elsa Cornish • Backing Vocals
Kozio • Funky Clavinet
Vincent Henry • Saxophone
Bruce Purse • Trumpet

2. LSD
Menace

 Guitar, Bass, Keyboards, Lead Vocals
Keziah Jones • Lead Vocals
Bedhead • Drums
Reggie Powie • Bass

3. Give It Away
Menace

 Guitar, Keyboards, Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals
Elsa Cornish • Lead & Backing Vocals
Reggie Powe • Bass
Pierre Andre • Saxophone
Bedhead • Live Drum Loops

4. Mr. Intellectual
Menace 

Guitar, Bass, Keyboards, Live Drum Loops, Lead Vocals
Elsa Cornish • Vocals
Umar Bin Hassan • The Last Poet
Donald Blackman • Electric Piano Solo

5. Sam Wake Up Call
Menace 

Guitar, Bass, Keyboards, Live Drum Loops
Umar Bin Hassan • The Last Poet
Bruce Mack • Keybords

6. End The Sin
Menace • Guitar, Keyboards, Lead Vocals
Elsa Cornish • Backing Vocals
Sandra Smith • Backing Vocals
Bill Laswell • Bass
“Fatty” Black • Live Drum Loops

7. Nu Age Aquarius
Menace 

Guitar, Bass, Keyboards, Backing Vocals
Vernon Reid • Guitar Solo
Elsa Cornish • Lead & Backing Vocals
Lady Zara • Vocal Ad-libs
Toby Kasavan • Piano Solo
“Fatty” Black • Live Drum Loops

8. Plunk
Menace • Lead Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards
Joool • Rap
Elsa Cornish • Chant, Ad-libs
Toby Kasavan • Chants
Reggie Powe • Bass
Vincent Henry • Saxophone
Bruce Purse • Pocket Trumpet
Kozio • Funky Clavinet
Bedhead • Drums Loops

9. Hold On
Menace 

Guitar, Bass, Keyboards, Percussion, 

Live Drum Loops, Lead Vocals
Elsa Cornish • Backing Vocals

10. Backdoor
Menace • Guitars
Elsa Cornish • Vocals
Bill Laswell • Bass
Pierre Andre • Sax Madness
Bedhead • Live Drums Overdubs & Trumpet

11. Truth Of Sex
Menace • Guitar, Keyboards, Lead Vocals
Lady Zara • Lead Vocals
Bootsy Collins • Bass
Maceo Parker • Saxophone
Bastard Bob • Drum Loops
George Clinton • Inspiration

USA recordings engineered by Julian Baker & David Crafta at 

Undersound Ground Studios, New York City
Bill Laswell & Umar Bin Hassan recorded at Greenpoint Studios, 

Brooklyn, New York by Bob Musso
Programming engineer: Julian Baker at Night Owl Studios, NYC
London recordings recorded at Trinity Studios, London
London production coordinators: Hooch, Annette, Chris, 

Jaspar the Vinyl Junkie, 

and the rest of the Nu Funk Mission, Funkin Pussy Crew

Album production coordinator: Duane Snipe
Management: Dick Vos of World Events and Projects, Holland

Produced, arranged and mixed by

Menace

Label: P-Vine Records ‎– PCD-5354
Format: Flac
Country: Japan
Released: 1998
Genre: Hip Hop, Funk / Soul
Style: Screw, Favela Funk, Funk