Wo' Pop; 1252; Thievery Corporation (recorded 2005-05-10)

This afternoon, or this evening, early Derek Mazzoni, will be taken over at six with his wonderful modern global show, Wopop, but Derek's joining us a little early today. He's in the performance base here at KXP with Seabree Corporation. How are you doing, Derek? I'm doing great. Kevin, how are you? I'm doing awesome. This is going to be fun. Excited to have Seabree Corporation here today. Absolutely. Absolutely. Wonderful to have you guys here. Full band. It's amazing to see. Our studio was packed with percussionists, woodwinds, vocalists. I'm here with Eric Hilton, a Rob Gaser of Seabree Corporation, or on tour with their record, the cosmic game. Thank you so much for coming to KXP. Thanks for having us, Derek. Derek, good to see you. Let's, I know we've got a little bit of time, and let's kick in with the song if we may. Yeah. Well, let's start off with a song from the new album, the song's called, Wires and Watch Powers. Right now.

It features a sister pad on vocals. Cheers. Oh, how can the wicked smile while the world is burning? Oh, how can they turn their eyes and walk away? Oh, how can the blue blood's hot while brothers can't hear brother? Why do they divide ironite for diamonds and gold? The dreams of children, they flow to the sky. And why us, I don't watch the wobbles, won't bring that in my heart. Tell me why or why are we so ploughed?

The treasures of the love live very desire. Tell me why or why do we deny? The chains of Babylon are all in our mind. Why or why the murderous clouds can't keep the sun from shining? The dreams of the children, they flow to the sky. And why us, I don't watch the wobbles, won't bring that in my heart. Tell me why or why are we so ploughed?

The treasures of the love live very desire. Tell me why or why do we deny? The chains of Babylon are all in our mind. Why or why are we so ploughed? Tell me why or why are we so ploughed?

The treasures of the love live very desire. Tell me why or why do we deny? The chains of Babylon are all in our mind. I've been a fan of yours for years. I've been a fan of my life.

I've been a fan of my life. There's an ongoing theme going through all your records. Why or do you have a guru in mind? Not wait for anybody to give us opportunity. We want to work with and try to make it very genuine.

They seem to really like it, especially southern Europe, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain. Let's see, we heard it's just a pat. Thank you for coming. Can you talk a little bit about how that process worked?

I thought about who might sound best on the track. He was a fan and was talking about how much he liked the incorporation. We played with Perry and got a chance to hang out and meet him. We had some experiences like that with people that we can't name.

He seemed to understand what we were trying to do and the unique thing for all the vocalist is if you check out their content of their vocals, it flows right in line with the message that we were putting forth and the other songs. The record feels like that, it's just a way it's weave together. I'm going to give you a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit.

I'm going to give you a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit. I believe.

Theory Corporation live in the studios, that was absolutely wonderful, you guys, it just sounds so good, often in these situations it's difficult to recreate the sound from the studio in a live setting and this is just going to be absolutely amazing, I've heard reports of the shows too and people have been absolutely beautiful, it's what we love radio. 18th Street Lounge, the label, the space, I guess the collective, I mean it's a business but you guys are bringing up a lot of bands, you've got Federica, Bella, sofa surfers

and others and I find that really heartening because of the history of how I remember the story of it, it was 1995 or 1994, Crudendorf, much to wear on tour and you guys gave him a record and then you ended up on that DJ Kicks compilation. Yeah, we met them down in the winter music conference in Miami and we went to tell them that we really enjoyed their records and... They were actually playing our record when we went in, so they had the record already which was cool and it was neat, we just went to here in play because they were kind of at the forefront. They were, you know, Tosca's going on, and Pudukur is doing his thing right now, which is still good. I remember they were on tour with Rafael from United Future Organization and they were in K-CMU and they were on my show and in that little book there's a bunch of shots of them. I remember they went to into music and so it's interesting connection how this whole global idea is evolving and in the last track and especially in the cosmic game, you guys

have been tapping dub the Brazilian flavor, the South Asian flavor for a long time and now within the context of hip hop, South Asian sounds are coming up more and more artists are tapping into the Brazilian flavor because they've been doing it for a while. You haven't lost any of the edge and it's also the sound has become like this soundtrack of global lounge culture and in that it's been taken up as the soundtrack to any kind of shopping experience or hotel experience that anybody has. What do you get thoughts about that? They're like, you know, you step into a pot of your bond, you step into any piece of hotel. You guys are on it. That's sort of the negative aspect of that but you know at the same time people could say that about other artists like Antonio College or Beam or somebody like that who could be interpreted in the US as kind of background music or if you really want to go into it there's so many different layers and textures and subtleties to really explore within the music.

Yeah, you guys are, you're not smooth jazz, not even in the closest, I mean the lyrics and the message behind it is phenomenal. If you can be, you want to be, Eric's going to pull out. We got Kenny G here, Manny. You could show up and stop playing with you guys in a second. I like the hair, dude. Yeah, we all do. So there's also this esoteric vein that's running through the cosmic game. If you read the line or notes and if you look at a richest man from a Babylon, there's this incredibly strong photography in there. So you're throwing these curveballs at people. People expect, you know, the smoothest dressed men in the world and music to be rather shallow but you guys are throwing all this stuff in there and like what's with the curveballs? Are you guys part of some rosar cushion cult or is this just a big guy or something? Well, now that you mentioned it, bro, it's a templar. So how do you guys, how do you guys work that in? Is this just, you know, these are people we know, for instance, on richest men in Babylon were friends with the guy who took the photos, we used to hang out in his bar, his name

is Daniel Sima and he was the head photographer for the International Red Cross and just went to all these places and took these incredible photos and, you know, we felt that there was this undercurrent in America of what's going on, you know, in the whole geopolitical scene and kind of our music reflected that and we wanted to show, you know, parts of what's going on on the other part of the world. Is because the fact that you're an independent entity, you're able to put those kind of photographs on the label, like I can't see a major letting you do that. We can do it without any argument, you know, because there's no one to stop us, you know, there's no one to read our lyrics and say, oh, you really can't say that, you know, or you shouldn't say that. So that's nice. That's beautiful. That's great. You must have had a ton of offers, you know, it must continue right now. In the beginning, we used to, but now they kind of know that, you know, we're off the market, you know, not, we're not going with any majors any time soon.

You're going to stay independent, that's awesome. Yeah. And you're going to stay in DZ. Sure. Yep. Yeah, well, we're still able to say, well, we can say, it's a tough time in the world in the States. Can we hear another track? Sure. We're going to hear Xelio with Verne Varella, the evicorporation live in the studios of KXB. Yeah. The

We'll take this and take over the next one. MUSIC

TBR Corporation live in the studios of KXP 90.3 and 91.7 where the music matters guys that was beautiful thank you and you you're you're able to do it all really well I'm just thinking about this the song was playing you've got you around you got the 18th street lounge you've got you've got you've got a place to play and to perform and you've got the label you've got the band so you guys can basically create your own image do whatever you want nobody's telling you know you have to produce four records by such a such time before they release you from the chains of the deal so video plays a big part in the way music is presented right now you guys have a couple of videos out and you get to play with it like the the most recent one that I saw was

for uh um was for a warning shot and there was a lot of imagery in there which once again really played on commerce capitalism with sonic imagery with like um what are you reading right now oh there's a lot of things yeah Jim Mars ruled by secrecy that's a really good one uh David Ike yeah sure David Ike um I don't know what else so many books and the holographic universe Michael Talbot like I'll tell the cosmic game by Stan Slav graph he just putting it all into the big stew and uh coming out and that that video like unbrain washing yourself you know as you grow up they tell you certain things and they're like plug it into your head don't forget it go be a good worker but it's interesting when you want to step outside of that totally view things for yourself totally I could agree more and the thing with the video is it was shut by uh Rob Myers here on guitar who did all the shooting and did everything graphics and yeah so that was great good work direct did it very good work um what

what's the process for you guys in the studio like um how long do you usually take if there's there's such a time limit before you you know a song is done are you are you like you know some people it takes three hours and a song's done I think that's three months that's probably our best talent is the fact that we're able to know when a song is finished because so many other times have worked with people and it's like you never know when the song is finished but there's a certain point we get to where sometimes it may take a few weeks or it may take a few hours yeah people can get kind of neurotic about it like uh you know maybe I could just finish this you know tweak this little sound or something but in the end you just have to say okay it's finished let's move on how does that process work for you guys when you because you've you've got two worlds you're working with here you've got the live band and you've got your DJ sets yeah how do you how do you balance those two out do you find yourself being pulled to do more DJ sets or being a studio more when we get bored of one thing we do the other basically yeah yeah we just switch it up

okay yeah we went on a DJ tour last fall for like two months and that was enough and we just DJed recently in New York L.A. and San Francisco I guess the weekend at the album came out and uh now it's fun doing the live thing beautiful beautiful what will you play it some esoteric places to like I remember in New York you played at uh I hope the maritime hotel yeah we played at this hero hero ballroom it says japanese sort of kill bill looking doing it's pretty cool yeah nice what do you spend when you're on when you're DJ well it kind of has the same type of you know worldliness in a sense you know world influences um a lot of different tempos people are pretty surprised because you know it's very energetic just like their surprises our live show it's a lot more energetic than they might think that's true people people expect it just to chill but people think they're gonna go to the pottery barn uh show what it brings up on the scene wow um so when you guys are actually in the process of um of putting together a record

do you do like a live record I mean I'm not a live record but do you um do a studio record and then do you a DJ record or is it just doesn't matter depends how it flows people have been asking us to do DJ records over the past like six or seven years and we were like we have our own label so why don't we just do one ourselves you know people calling us up from another late night and back to mind and all these compilations and we're like why should we pick out songs and put our name and give it to some other label so that was the reason for that really how does the licensing process work for you guys like now that you know you licensed your own tracks and then you're putting a compilation together how do you is it easier to being who you want to get artists to get your tracks no actually you'd probably have to pay more you know because a lot gets going to sell you know a little bit more so in the beginning you know you could say oh give you $500 and some royalties and they'd be happy but now they want like sometimes advances at $2,500 or you know for one track and you know I can get kind of pricey but you know it's still it's very easy you know it's a

simple form yeah it's true I noticed I was just a record shopping and I you just released um some remixes like Louis Vega just did a remix um how do you guys go about choosing um the the producers to remix your tracks that was something we had never done up until this record you know to get people to remix our tracks and we decided to call some people who's mixes we really enjoyed like Lil Louis Vega or Brendan Lynch did a remix of uh Perry Ferrell and then we're taking a shot at remixing our own stuff as well like we did on Babylon rewind that must be really difficult actually yeah it's a lot of fun yeah it's just uh the pressure is over the song has been completed and you know we obviously like the original so then you just experiment you just uh try to take in a different direction just like the last song Exeelio that was um more of a kind of organic sounding Afro Cuban track on richest men in Babylon but that was actually the remix version has a sort of disco latin disco thing well so cut in this like really cool skipping thing that um

it's a really broken beat that was scratch and it was scratch and it was scratch and you know digital scratching right yeah pushing the limits it was gorgeous yeah might happen on the next track too okay hey you know it's an original piece you can tell everybody that this is an original on one right time only favorite corporation yeah um the show that I do war pop is um it's a modern global show so it plays a lot of like new up and coming current music and you guys have been tapping into global sounds for a while but now what must be interesting is that when you travel you see artists from different parts of the world wanting to sound like you so it's like the circle that's going on right now can you speak to that a little bit or it's pretty wild I mean travel to other countries and there's a lot of producers and kids you know handing you CDs and you are really inspired by what we're doing and you know it's it's nice to know that you know you're contributing something to music in general and that people can be inspired by it and that's the way we feel

when we're working with people like David Byrne for instance it's almost like a complete circle because he's somebody who's really influenced us and to have the opportunity to create something new with somebody's influence you it's just you know bringing it all together that's beautiful can we hear another track yeah we're gonna hear uh this is a sleepy wonder right here and he's gonna be doing the song uh warning shots I love this record yeah it's great you But don't you breathe it

David Corporation, live in the studios of KEXP, 90.3, 91.7 with the music matters.

I'm Derek Mazzoni and here with the band and I've been actually just going to sound kind of cheesy but I like to run and I've been running with the cosmic head and that's just incessantly it's just, you know, it's wrong with the running and nothing, it's just really inspiring. It's a really beautiful track, I was hoping you'd play that live. At one point it seems like that song just really lifts off, you know, it's kind of... It's actually two songs we were working on and we just fused them together. It was the first time I think we did that and it actually became this great idea for us, you know, when we have two songs that we can't really finish and they're in the same key. There you go, together and all of a sudden something magic happens, beautiful track a lot of people really love it. You guys have... It seems like you have a family, a lot of the players and what you got going on at the 18th Street Lounge.

I know that recently I remember of your family committed suicide, Pam, Pam Brecker and it's a difficult subject to talk about but I know that music draws a lot of different personalities and people kind of need to keep an eye on each other because you never know what somebody is really going through and we were talking about this before and you said there was... You know that there was some trouble but you didn't expect that to happen. What are some of the, you know, a lot of musicians, especially in Seattle and people play together. I was wondering if you had any advice for people like to any kind of warning signs to look for and music and the people that you're working with to help people out so that something like this can be. Well, first hand be stopped. First of all, you know, it really took us by surprise what happened. She was, like you said, you know, part of our family from the beginning and, you know, it's hard to tell what will affect somebody, you know, from one day to the next. You can hang out with somebody and they can seem reasonably alright and then you don't

know what they're going through. Thing is, I guess, just to be a friend and try to be open and talk, you know, when we were having the service, it was really sad because you realize what an effect this person had and how many friends she had all around and, you know, you just wish that she was there to have seen that and experienced all those people together. Yeah, you feel like if she had seen that, she would never have done what she did but she just hit a depth and I think a lot of things came together at one time for her and she was struggling with a few problems at the same time and it was just too much for her. And we like to think she's in a better place, I know it sounds kind of like a cliche, but maybe she is, you know, and maybe we shouldn't feel sorry for it, maybe it's us, we should feel sorry. And we feel just the, you know, great that we had the chance to work with her and she had the chance to be an influence on our lives, you know, when we were starting, used

to go to little bars and cafes all the time and hear her sing and she really inspired my love, particularly of Brazilian music and jazz and, you know, the very corporation wouldn't be where we are today without Pam. I'm sorry, we've like, it was really shocked all of us and we're sorry for your loss. Thank you. You're playing at the premiere tonight, it's a big space, a lot of people are coming out and all ages show and, you know, this music tends to be 21 and up, I'm just wondering what you're expecting from the kids. And we like to see people of all ages, I mean, I get excited when I hear the teenagers like our music, it surprises me or I get excited when, you know, I hear oftentimes people who are much older, much older than ourselves like our music, so I think there's something good about the fact that, you know, there is a broad spectrum of people who listen to us.

Perfect. I want to thank you so much, this was absolutely wonderful and I took a lot of work to bring everybody here. Thanks for coming, everybody, love you guys, been playing you for a long time and plan to play a lot more great music with you. It's always great to be here, Derek. Thank you. Please come again. Thank you. We will. Well, thanks again. Thank you. Steve, we cooperation on KXP. This show is going to be archived and we're going to be able to listen to it any time we want on KXP, 90.3, 91.7 with the music matters. The board for KXP comes from the CXP. Thank you very much. Thanks for watching. You

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