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READ THE LATEST
ROCKWIRED
ON-LINE
EXCLUSIVE
INTERVIEW
WITH
DJ MONKEY
HERE
ROCKWIRED LIVE
WITH YOUR HOST
BRIAN LUSH
EVERY SATURDAY
AT
5:00PM (PST)
ON
CLICK THE LOGO ABOVE
MONKEY
BUSINESS
MICK MCMAINS OF DJ MONKEY
TALKS TO ROCKWIRED
ABOUT
MAKING MUSIC
THAT'LL GIVE PEOPLE AN ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT
AND
THE POSSIBILITY OF PEOPLE BURNING THEIR NEXT CD
(WE DON'T MEAN COPYING)
WRITTEN BY BRIAN LUSH
Any band
that quotes FRANK
HERBERT on it's CD cover is a band that
ROCKWIRED wants to know, but DJ MONKEY is no mere band. It's more like
a mad artist's rendering of a society coming together and coming apart
at the same time. The world has gone to hell and they're shouting it
from the fucking rooftops. ROCKWIRED has taken notice.MICK MCMAINS OF DJ MONKEY
TALKS TO ROCKWIRED
ABOUT
MAKING MUSIC
THAT'LL GIVE PEOPLE AN ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT
AND
THE POSSIBILITY OF PEOPLE BURNING THEIR NEXT CD
(WE DON'T MEAN COPYING)
WRITTEN BY BRIAN LUSH
If the music is hard to put a finger on, just take a look at these guys. Quite frankly, they all look like each of them stepped into the wrong band. This adventure in music making began with friends, JOEY ALKES and MICK MCMAINS getting together to write and produce pop songs. Along the way,they eschewed benign pop lyrics for MCMAINS' spoken word readings of ALKES' poetry, got JAMAL "LIL' TIP TOE" CRYER to add some rap, MITCH "COUNT DADDY-O" RAFAL on sax, IAN MCMAINS (MICK's son) on guitar and JEREMY "MR1" ROTH on turntables.
Their CD ANOTHER EVOLUTION smashes the notion of pop music into a billion little pieces and puts all back together again mismatched pieces. It's unusual site, but an all-the-more intriguing listen.
MICK MCMAINS, the voice of DJ MONKEY, spoke to ROCKWIRED over the phone. Here is how it went.
I was really eager to find out more about a band that has a quote from FRANK HERBERT on their CD cover.
It's kind of unusual, huh?
I think it's amazing! I love it! I grew up with FRANK HERBERT books (The DUNE Series)
I read DUNE several times. One of my good buddies is trying to get me to read past the second one (DUNE MESSIAH) and read the rest of them because they are supposed to be really good. I tried reading the second one and it didn't realy grab me, but apparently, I should've kept going. So maybe I will. JOEY was the one who found that qoute and it was his idea to put that one there.
The figure drawn on the CD cover even looks like FRANK HERBERT a little bit.
That's accidental. I believe it's supposed to look like DA VINCI.
(PAUSE) That to.
I'm not sure maybe he was thinking of HERBERT.
DJ MONKEY looks like a mad science experiment. You guys look so different from each other.
We are.
How did you guys meet?
It happened really organincally. It wasn't thought out or anything. The only thinking was when I met JOEY, my partner and co-producer of the project. He and I were working for this company in Pasadena. He worked with the publicists and I was working the equipment. This comapny set up shows for people like KOOL & THE GANG, DIONNE WARWICK and STEVIE WONDER whenever they'd come to town. I met JOEY and found out that he wrote the song A MILLION MILES AWAY.
THE PLIMSOULS.
Yeah. I was like "You wrote this song?" He co-wrote it with the guy from THE PLIMSOULS. This was first time I had gotten to know someone who had a hit record and I figured "I want to ork with this guy!" As soon as we were free from that company, because it was kind of wild and we couldn't get anything done working for them, we became friends and started hanging out and writing songs together. We weren't thinking we'd be the artists.We thought that we'd write songs and that somebody would like it and they'd cover it. We tried doing that and the
stuff we came up with was kind of lame. It wasn't exciting either one of us. One night I was looking through one of JOEY's poetry books that he had lying around in the studio and I started reading the poetry into the mic as the music was playing in the studio and recorded it. JOEY heard it and was like "MICK, that's it! we'll do something unique." This sound had so much more potency to it than the pop songs we were trying to make.
We both like pop music. I like all kinds of music actually and both of our collections are as eclectic as any you are going to find. We recorded another song in that fashion and JOEY said "Hey, I've got a son-in-law whose a rapper, let's bring him in and see what that sounds like" A rapper??!! I've never worked with a raper before.LIL'TIP-TOE came into the studio, listened tot he stuff, nodded his head, took out his notebook, started scribbling stuff into this notebook and said "Gimme the mic." After about half an hour, he had worked out his part for TO COOL, which is one of the slower songs on the record there. That was really the first song we had finished with this poetry-rap idea. We listened to what we had so far and thought, 'How about some saxophone?' I had this beatnik buddy of mine, so I called him up. MITCH came down to the studio and added some horn. One day, my son IAN was hanging out. He plays all kinds of instruments. That day he was fiddling with the guitar. At the same time, we were listening back and thinking "Hey, why don't we put that on!" So we put him on the recording and after we were kind of done, we were listening to it and thinking that it needs to be a little more modern. How about some scratchin' like those hip hop guys do? I looked to my son IAN and asked if he knew any scratchers and he's like "My roommate is the best scratcher I've ever heard."and I'm like "Oh, Jeremy! He's a nice kid! Bring him on over."JEREMY shows up with these turn tables and we just let him go.Everyone who contributed, did whatever they felt like. We didn't give any direction to the other musicians. What am I going to tell a scratcher to do?
It turned into what it turned into.
Congratulations on being Number One on NEW ARTIST RADIO! (At press time)
I heard about that last night. I got a phone call. That's really exciting.
I just got an e-mail about it from JOEY as a matter of fact. What is NEW ARTIST RADIO? I've never even heard of it.
It's one of those internet sites where they expose new music and they have people e-mail in with votes for who they like. We've been on that chart for a month and a half. I was surprised to see that we've been noticed somewhere. Our music is so different that I just don;t expect anything. i just expect, "What are you doing?" Not many of my guitar playing buddies think of it as a worthwhile pursuit, except for me. I enjoyed making the music and thought it had some substance which I think is lacking in a lot of projects that Ihear and things that I've been involved with in the past. Now, we're just about done with ouur second CD. We've taken a long time to mix. We'd like for it to be really good. We're hoping that it's great and we're being more fussy with this one than we were with the first, which took us a year to make; five days a week for a year.
Are there any tracks off of ANOTHER EVOLUTION that stick out for you?
I like BOOMERANG. That's one that most people talk about. There's something about that track, that's kind of haunting to me. I really like JERUSALEM and the way it came out. The message of it is very timely and important; The whole firgiveness thing. Here in America, people make this big deal about being Christian. Forgiveness was one of the tenants of Christianity and yet it's completely ignored. No one seems to want to get behind it.
I understand. You see, I have the misfortune to live in Orange County. Whenever they make a fuss about putting the Ten Commandments in a courthouse, the same consideration is never given for the Beattitudes like "Blessed are the meek."
They're not getting it.
Because the meek ain't where the money is at.
Yeah, there is no money in it.
I can't think of too many multi-generational bands at the moment. How does it work for you guys? There is a little bit of a gap there.
It works out well for us. There's energy in youth. They have new ways of thinking of stuff and they play different chords. My son IAN has come up with a lot of the themes on this upcoming record and that's fun for me and quite honestly, if we didn't have rehearsals once and a while, I'd probably never see my kids. Once they've got a car, they're gone.
What is the audience reaction to any lives shows that you've done?
Well, we've done about half a dozen shows, so we've got a little bit of experience in putting the thing out but I have to say that the response has been overwhelmingly positive. People are tired of the same old thing. If there is any complaint about the music business, it's that there is nothing new. We're being fed what the current administration wants to feed us. They sell what they think we will buy and this Hollywood mentality has taken over the music business and with that kind of mentality, you're not going to get anything edgy or unique in the mainstream. You're not gonna turn on your radio, hear something and go, 'What the hell was that?' That's why it's cool to have all of these internet stations. God bless the internet!
What do you want someone to walk away with after hearing the music?
Honestly, I'd like them to walk away with a little bit of an attitude adjustment. Music can change peoples minds. We saw that in the sixties. It can change awareness and open the door to culture that has nothing but closed doors. I want to change the statu quo. I want people to change their minds and how they think about stuff. I know I'm asking alot but we need some changes and humans don't like to change
Especially now with all of the drugs that they're on.
visited my family recently and everybody who is in that house is on a dozen perscriptions andit was kind of freaking me out.
Are there any hints that you can give about this upcoming CD?
It's going to be shocking. It's going to be very controversial. We decided what do we have to lose. Lets just say it as we feel it. In that first CD, the most quoted llyric was that thing about Republicans and Democrats. I wasn't thinking, I just said it and felt it that day that we were recording and it resonated with people because it's true. We talk about God on this next record which is something we're normally not supposed to talk about. A lot of people will be shocked but if they listen carefully, they won't be upset, they'll get it. There are going to be a lot of people that will want to burn the next CD, if you can actually catch a CD on fire. I haven't tried it yet, but I think we'll find out. We started this new CD out with a rock n roll song. It's called HARD TIMES NEW YORK CITY. It's just this fast hard song. A tribute to New York City. It's not like anything that was on the first CD.Then we have this song called LOVE KNOW NO COLOR which is kind of like a BLACK EYED PEAS' WHERE IS THE LOVE? kind of song. There's also that song about God but I don;t want to give it away. It is going to piss some people off. You have to piss people off because that's the only way anyone is going to do anything. Everybody gripes but nobody is getting out of there chair. People just go along with it.
