'More than anything it's the spirit of the records'

By Joel Mathis

Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Josh Powers makes me want to shake my ass.

I know, I know, that's not a proper admission for a Mennonite boy and respected public paragon like myself to make. But it's true. Some of the best times I've spent in Lawrence have been summer nights at The Replay, dancing stupidly in the beer garden while Powers plays his collection of obscure funk records. There's not another DJ in town that I've heard who makes it so impossible to stand still.

But it turns out Powers has grander designs.

Late last year he released a CD, "sceneboostersoundsystem: Volume 1," a delicious mix of samples from those funk records, Powers' own scratching and bass-playing, and rhymes from the elite of KC-Lawrence hip-hop talent: Joc Max, Approach, Taha and Johnny Quest.

Friday night, he'll take the act live at The Bottleneck with a show featuring artists from the album. (The link, by the way, contains mp3 downloads of a couple of Powers tracks.)

Powers and I got together over coffee -- like me, he's a regular at La Prima Tazza -- and talked about the new album:

COJ:You have been DJing at bars around town for quite some time, and I've heard you play on KJHK as well. When and why did you decide to do your own record?

POWERS: I've been a musician for about 17 years; I started playing string bass when I was 11. I played in all the bands -- you know how musicians go through the maturation process. About 10 years ago, I started really collecting records, and hip hop has always been my favorite style of music. At some point, the two decided to go together. It made sense.

COJ: How'd you make the transition from traditional instruments to the turntables?

POWERS: In a short answer: Public Enemy. Their second album, "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back," really changed my whole outlook on music, how it could be made, what it could mean. As soon as I fully digested the record and found out it was built on samples, produced with samplers, I went out and bought turntables -- got started along the disturbing path to this record.

COJ: Take me through the process of making this record. How'd you do that?

POWERS: Well, it's 100 percent sample-based. Actually, I played a few bass lines on there, but very few. It's 99.9 percent samples. No keyboards. No other sounds. Every sound on the record came from the original first pressing of a record, and was manipulated by me to sound the way I wanted. It took a long time -- it took several years to get it to the point it was actually released in. Once the music was done, I just contacted the people, local people, that I felt were closest to not only what I liked, but message-wise, topic-wise. So obviously people like Approach, Johnny Quest, Taha, Joc Max, I had known them for years -- I'm from Kansas City, as is everyone except for Johnny Quest. I'd known them and DJ'd with them in the past. We changed some things to fit what they were doing. The way it came out was the way it came out.

COJ: Well you do, you have quite a few KC-Lawrence area hip hop artists on the record. It's kind of celebration of area hip hop, not just your own stuff.

POWERS: Absolutely.

COJ: How did it come together to get everybody involved like that?

POWERS: Well really, it goes back to Kansas City. I moved up here two years ago when my daughter was, just before she was born. The reason we moved here was, we were living in midtown Kansas City -- midtown can get a little crazy. We didn't think that was where we wanted to start raising a child. But at that point of living in midtown, I was DJing every week, managing a record store there, and through those two activities I knew Taha, Joc Max and Approach really, really well. Those guys are my friends outside of music. I always look to Kansas City first -- that's my hometown, my roots. Once I came up here, Approach soon followed, and when I wanted to look around and find who was doing hip hop I respected in Lawrence, Johnny Quest was at the top of the list. Along with that, there were a lot of people I wanted to work with that I didn't get the chance: SoundsGood I really wanted to do some work with, and on the Kansas City side I really wanted to work with Deep Thinkers. But those things just didn't come together.

COJ: There's definitely an emphasis on old-school funk in your DJing, both in the bars and on the record. What's the appeal of funk to you?

POWERS: (Laughs) Wow. That's my main collecting focus, is 45 rpm funk singles. They naturally translate to hip hop. Funk was centered around rhythm, obviously, and you could find a lot of drums on funk records that are applicable to hip hop. But more than anything it's the spirit of the records. Most of the singles were very small presses, things people had never heard before. Collecting funk records is a little bit nerdy, like collecting baseball cards.

COJ: Kind of like an updated version of Steve Buscemi in "Ghost World?"

POWERS: Pretty much, yeah. You have a very small group of people -- though it's getting bigger by the month. It may be dying off now, but the last year, collecting funk and things like that was the hip thing to do. But for the people who are really committed, it's extremely expensive. Most of the records I'm interested in are anywhere from $100 to $500 for a 45. Which is prohibitive for people who aren't rich. So you have to pick and choose wisely.

What I was thinking about those small pressings: Those people who were making records, those people by and large had day jobs. They were barbers and auto mechanics and for the most part were musicians on the side. They really had to make an extra effort to make a record they knew probably wasn't going to change the world, or even really be heard outside their immediate region. I think it translates to the music, just the raw quality of music that people really believed in. It's just the music that speaks to me, and when I'm making my music, I try to tap into those things.

COJ: I was going to say, it sounds like you're carrying forth that spirit.

POWERS: I try to do justice by the records that I sample. One of the ethics in sampling is, you try to take the samples and manipulate it so that people, even if they were familiar with the record -- which, by and large, they won't be because they're rare records -- won't be able to immediately identify. Mainstream hip hop is often very mundane. They take an eight-bar section of music, put a rap over it and put it out: The Puff Daddy model.

People who make the kind of music that I make take the opposite view. You should really try to take a record, respect its spirit and change it while drawing on its strength. A lot of it goes back to not even the music itself, but the technology of the time. The way they miked the drum set in 1972, when you record that and sample that and put it into your machine, are playing it back, not only are you getting the drum sound, but you're getting the intangible aspects of the recording -- the reverb, the noise of the room. It brings an analog feeling to what would otherwise be digital music. That's part of the problem when you listen to music today. Everything on the radio sounds the exact same because it all comes from the same keyboard.

COJ: I read recently that Al Green has one microphone that he uses, because he thinks that particular microphone actually gives him the sound that he wants -- it's unlike any other microphone that he's ever worked with.

POWERS: That's true. I believe the Rev. Green knows what he's talking about.

COJ: You talk about the old funk guys having day jobs. You have a day job, too, but yours maybe fits in a little bit more with your nighttime job. You work the jazz archives at KU. You ever draw on those resources?

POWERS: Yeah I do. The Richard F. Wright archive at University of Kansas has about -- nobody really knows because it's a work in progress -- tens of thousands of records of the rarest variety. When I'm at work, doing the things that I do in the archive, I'm listening to music that isn't readily available to really anybody. I draw inspiration from them, and I might dip into the well every now and then. I would certainly say there are some archive records that, in one form or another, found their way onto my record. Absolutely, I'm very lucky to do what I do.

COJ: Any surprises in store for the show on Friday?

POWERS: Yeah, there'll be some surprises. No pyrotechnics or dances in cages, but all the artists who are on the record will be there, performing not only the material on the record, but some sneak previews of things that they've got coming up on their own, as well as past hits. ... We're hoping to draw a good crowd that we can draw into our little world and entertain for three hours.

COJ: You call this "volume 1" and there are some promises regarding volume 2 on the record. What's coming up with volume 2?

POWERS: It's definitely a work in progress. As I said, it took years to make this album come to fruition. The hope is we can greatly telescope that effort down for this volume 2. It's definitely going to be in the same vein. I'm going to bring back most everybody that's on this record, but I want to also include some people I wasn't able to work with, the aforementioned SoundsGood, Deep Thinkers, as well as some other secret people that we're going to try out. No set timetable yet, but I'm working on it.

***********

The show is scheduled for 9 p.m. Friday at The Bottleneck.

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Posted by Rigg (Mike Rigg) on January 15, 2004 at 4:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Enough about your ass already!

'More than anything it's the spirit of the records'

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