DJ Shadow: classic or dud?

On the tolerable side of classic because he's a total fucking goth -- and like me doesn't immediately demonstrate it on first appearance. There's a reason why the UNKLE album turned out that way and had Thom Yorke on it -- I prefer to think of the hip-hop image he projects as covering up his doomy moodiness. Which may not sound very goth, but if Tricky can like Gary Numan and Danzig, anything's possible. ;-)

another point against him is that he falls into the 'only-thing-with-a-beat-at-an- indie-kids-house' camp that tom put the beastie boys in, and he's become the default torch-bearer of the dj element in 'real hiphop' beloved by jurassic 5 fan. mention grandmixer d.st and you'll get a blank stare, but mention shadow and you're sure to find someone to let you in on the secret that 'all the good rap is underground'. blech.

of course i can't blame shadow for that, and taken for what it is, his output is mostly fantastic. if this was a search and destroy, my verdict would be to search 'endtroducing' and early singles (and i still maintain that the unkle album is asorely underrated pop album, but i wouldn't advise one to 'search' for it) and to destroy his stereotypical indie production on solesides cuts. but this is classic or dud, so i have to say he's classic.

oh and ned, re: the goth connection, i think there's a good bit of truth to that, although the 'wasn't he famous once' comment is a bit harsh considering there hasn't been a new album with the man's name on it in five years. wait and see.

'Holy Calamity' still fucking rules.

Yeah, but the rapper couldn't rap without vocal cords, lips, tongue, and the English Language!

Girls! Boys! Start screaming and tearing off the clothes of world- famous icon Hua Hsu!

ha ha!

Please deconstruct this comment.

Okay: it's true.

Why can I get a copy of influx - like - to-day?
(i've just been outbid on ebay and am very sad).

And I'm not proud to beg.

http://www.discogs.com/sell/list?release_id=17256&ev=rp <-- that one?

it's on one of the compilations.

xp
Yes that one. I've got it on Headz but I specifically want the one that starts with some guy talking which I believe is the single version. I have it but when I loaded it up yesterday I discovered it was cracked. Indestructable cds, pah!

Hey, I just found another copy. I have so much shit I don't even know I have. Sorry to have taken up your time. Anyway, while I'm here can i just say I am very much enjoying the DJ Shadow's early records what I am listening to presently. So, classic!

Entroducing was without doubt an absolute classic. In my head.

Maybe it was good timing - it was unlike anything to me at that time,me being a guitar indie fucker.

It had depth and was moving.

Why were his successive releases so shit?

it's on preemptive strike dude

right???

I really liked The Private Press, but I haven't had the stomach to try The Outside yet...

er, Outsider.

High School Band Plays DJ Shadow !

http://ia300108.us.archive.org/2/items/BrianUdelhofenTheShadowPercussionProject/spp.wmv

classic up to and including entroducing, patchy after.

i also liked Private Press. not 100% classic, but damn good.

The Outsider was a mess.

last time I saw him play he got huge boos for anything from the outsider. Eventually he stopped and spent a while explaining to the crowd that he wasn't going to apologise for experimenting, and he'd never make the same record twice, and he had to keep on trying new things.

Really nasty mood in the crowd that night.

maybe he should just apologize for making a shitty record

and selling it to us

making a hyphy track when hyphy is at its peak is not 'experimenting'. more like trying to capitalize lol.

last time I saw him play he got huge boos for anything from the outsider. Eventually he stopped and spent a while explaining to the crowd that he wasn't going to apologise for experimenting, and he'd never make the same record twice, and he had to keep on trying new things.

this sounds really awkward and weird. given a boring, predictable lecture by a dude you paid to see rock the decks???

Everyone should be allowed a bad album. But yeah I can't really see listening to this a second time.

he seems genuinely restless and always searching which I think is bound to result in another good album at some point, but yeah on first pass this ain't it

That's optimistic considering what others pointed out that his interests are moving increasingly in the navel gazing technical production aspects.

What I meant by 'disparate styles' on The Private Press was mostly drum & bass and affiliated styles that were booming in the Bay Area around that time. You can hear also the echo of James Lavelle in that polished sheen over some of it, and I'd guess Lavelle was probably a guy vacuuming up influences from up and coming styles.

Still, Psyence Fiction has held up decently, but my favorite Shadow release is In Tune & On Time. The transition from Fixed Income/What Does Your Soul Look Like Pt 2. Great tour too.

the De La joint live on Kimmel with Babu & Melo-D from Beat Junkies, and a horn section:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_I_CDJTyfs

man is gonna get checks from nobody speaks for decades, i swear it’s been used in dozens of ads and trailers

That album is as good as Endtroducing to me

I rank his first two albums roughly equally as well - Entroducing is superior in terms of depth and texture, but Private Press is much catchier and more playful.

This is obviously all my opinion but Endtroducing is one of those classic debuts where it’s obviously the result of years and years of honing a “long”term artistic vision and sorting wheat from chaff (there’s probably an actual term for this sort of thing). It just has a such a deep deep mood and it’s obvious that he went all in and threw down all his favorite magical samples... Private Press to me sounds like it was made by someone else who was really into Endtroducing but also maybe Moby’s Play and other electronica things.. with significantly less love for electric pianos. it’s like the old yarn about a band using up all its good songs on the debut... it’s not even remotely in the same wheelhouse to me, he fell to earth with a thud. endtroducing evokes a lot of heavy Bay Area atmosphere to me.. downtown SF at sunset, foggy mornings at the Ashby BART station flea market... Private Press doesn’t have a feel to me. Just my 8 million cents, sorry to go all turrican

I made similar point re: The Avalanches. Sample-based-collage producers blow their wad on 1st album and struggle thereafter.

imo shadow's real debut was "what does your soul look like"

i like entroducing and brimstead's post a lot tho

Yeah, brimstead otm. I should probably revisit The Private Press tho, I haven't heard it in 18 years.

I made similar point re: The Avalanches. Sample-based-collage producers blow their wad on 1st album and struggle thereafter

they only became sample-based collage producers on that album though, whereas Shadow's 1993-94 stuff is very much in the vein of Endtroducing - and the Avs had the problems of having albums that weren't in the vein of SILY rejected by Pav, and then the two who did the collage stuff becoming unable to work together, possibly related to various health issues of the one who didn't quit, which then further slowed down his process.

Shadow just seems to have wanted to make all his albums have a different sound, and to change his working methods

brimstead makes a very valid point for sample based music. when you think about it, dj shadow was probably destined to fall into that mode. he literally built his early eps and endtroducing on his favorite records. and everyone's list eventually ends, so it only figures that he started to just look for similar records to build similar sounds on with the private press. i still think private press is really good, but ultimately disappointing coming after endtroducing.

Dilla didn't seem to have that problem

Read Nate's new book about sampling and hip hop, which is excellent.

^Didn't know about that book, looks great, thanks!

https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/bring-that-beat-back/ btw

for those that would prefer The Private Press to be a little more compact :

https://soundcloud.com/strictly/press-cuttings-the-private-press-compacted

(totally forgot i had this until this thread bump)

Dilla didn't seem to have that problem

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, August 31, 2020 4:43 PM

and superman didn't have any problem flying. bit difficult for the rest of us tho.

i like endtroducing and brimstead's post a lot tho

― the late great, Monday, August 31, 2020 6:03 PM (yesterday)

yep. and yeah, like many others, private press did nothing for me.

He's doing a show at Webster Hall in February. Not expensive if you get tickets at the box office (online fees add 50%). Is he still worth seeing? I love Endtroducing and The Private Press but I noticed on setlist.fm that lately he typically does only one track from each, maybe two.

it feels to me like he did not cross over to zoomers the way similarly lauded 90s albums (my bloody valentine or radiohead's for example) did

I saw him about 10 years ago doing a DJ set with his own (octapad) drumming, it was great tbh.

He was amazing at Portola last year, but who knows how much it's changed given he's dropped a new LP

I've actually never seen him before so maybe I'll go for that reason alone. My only reluctance would be if he's been less-than-good, in which case I would hold out for (hopefully) a better tour.

The new album mostly reminded me of the Stranger Things soundtrack.

There were occasional nice moments on the new album but it was definitely not my thing. I like when an artist follows their muse but he's moved away from anything I found interesting about him in the first place, which like, good for him, do your thing man.

In that sense I feel like his muse has taken him further and further from anything I originally found interesting about him over the years.

Something I think about a fair amount with musicians and artists is that an artist is a kind of character or persona, and that's true musically too. I don't think it should just be "musically whatever I feel like doing, whether or not it has continuity with my prior work." Like that's what side projects/alternate names are for. Or some artists with very long careers have "periods" like Dylan or Bowie. But Shadow's career just feels like it kind of zigs and zags all over the place without clear purpose. Oh well, Endtroducing remains one of my all-time favorite records, and there is at least a compilation's worth of good to great material from the rest.

my buddy is trying to get me to go to that show with him but idk maybe

I feel bad for him though, there's basically no way he could have continued in the same vein. You know what they say, you have your whole life to find samples for your first album, and...

(also sampling laws)

I probably said this upthread but he's clearly made an effort to become a producer using modern tech that doesn't rely on sampling, but there are millions of those and it doesn't show off his most distinctive gifts (his ear and his digging).

RJD2 went the route of learning to play all the instruments and record them to sound like vintage samples...it still doesn't have the magic of his sample work, but it's way better than DJ Shadow's synth-based beats.

I've never seen him, so if it's cheap I guess I'd probably go just to see what it was like, although the new record is pretty weak. Just generic, tired beats.

I don't get sampling laws. Wouldn't rights holders want to price sample usage so that they can make money off them? I know it's complicated for a collage like Endtroducing but you'd think they'd have an incentive to figure out a scheme for assigning percentage of revenue so those works can be made and sold.

I don't think it's very codified, if you're doing it by the book you need to reach out to all the publishers and come to an agreement with each one. At the very least it's a big hassle that might end up with having to lose/replace/redo some samples, and then the artist probably isn't making much money from the record if it's entirely sample-based. But since no one makes money off records anymore, maybe he should just say fuck it and making Endtroducing 2?

The Private Press is still my favorite one btw (and maybe that was his interim solution, mostly sampling records not associated with major labels?).

Some interesting bits here: https://thequietus.com/articles/31624-dj-shadow-private-press-review-anniversary

He'd already set a few rules here: while, working on U.N.K.L.E.'s Psyence Fiction, he had allowed himself the leeway of using musicians to play things when sampling wasn't going to work, for The Private Press he refused to use any musical ingredients that didn't come from previously released records. The hugely influential Brainfreeze mix, made with Cut Chemist in 1999, found the pair only allowing themselves to use 7" 45rpm singles. Its all-45 follow-up, Product Placement, incorporated numerous 7"s released to promote some product or other, and recreated a fans' favourite sequence from Brainfreeze using different versions of the same tracks in a kind of "cover version" of part of the earlier mix.

The delight in accomplishing such absurdly, arbitrarily and unnecessarily difficult tasks was clear: so it was little surprise that there would be challenge he would set for himself here, and that it would be of another order of magnitude altogether. With the notable exception of its introductory cry of "What you gon' do now?", which comes from a 1977 United Artists release by The Whitney Family, on 'Monosyllabik' Shadow forced himself to make an entire track using only sounds he could make out of the first two bars of that privately pressed late-period funk 45. He began by cutting the two bars into 32 pieces, then set about attacking them in the studio, using only outboard gear and analogue equipment - no plug-ins or computers. Microphones were set up to record the sound being played in different ways from different speakers, then fed back through the system and spat out in new shapes, each to be reforged, sifted, rearranged and reconstructed in a process he compared to stop-motion animation.

He's never seemed interested in trying to do an Endtroducing 2. Which is okay because there were a bunch of other producers who tried to do it.

And that's the right attitude I think, it's just too bad he's not left with a fruitful alternative, apparently.

FWIW, re: ticket prices, the Webster Hall show is $35. If you purchase it online (via axs) they add $17 in fees. Webster Hall still runs a box office, but it's only open during evenings when they have a show going on (which thankfully is most evenings in general) - if go there when doors open (typically 6 or 7pm), you can get tickets for upcoming shows without paying those additional fees.

I only started doing this in the past year or two, and the savings really add up. The only indoor venue I've gone to that doesn't do this is City Winery (only members get fees waived). Anyway, the show's four months away, so I doubt it'll sell out imminently.

The delight in accomplishing such absurdly, arbitrarily and unnecessarily difficult tasks

I feel like this is a good description of the energy that comes through in his best material.

The Private Press still has it. I like that record overall, I should probably revisit. A few of the tracks are up there with Endtroducing material for me, but it starts to feel sort of scattered in the second half of the album, like an awkward back and forth between slow moody beats and fast, frenetic beats, at least that's my memory of it.

The More You Know is also a bit of a "return to form" if not on the same level. I should probably revisit that one too.

there are some sample heavy albums I look at as “endtroducing-adjacent” but with different vibes

since i left you = endtroducing on ecstasy
ptaki przelot = endtroducing in 80s poland

I consider Since I Left You my "Endtroducing 2".

Also DJ Frane's records help scratch that itch too.

Wish someone would drop an all sample based album that's blatantly illegal to show how beautiful the artform can be without legal limitations and just release it to the public domain as an act of protest or something

Oh nice timing there brimstead

Maybe I need to give Since I Left You another spin - the few times I heard it I thought it sounded a little too perfect. I don't know the other one.

Com Truise sometimes scratches an Endtroducing sort of itch even though it's synthy and not samply.

Four Tet 'Rounds' is definitely Endtroducing-adjacent/entirely samples.

I wonder what the post-Ableton warping Endtroducing is. Or maybe we only got mashups/edits/Girl Talk once sampling became easy and user-friendly. Thinking through all the L.A. beat scene stuff there were definitely samples, but it leaned much harder on original production.

Maybe I need to give Since I Left You another spin - the few times I heard it I thought it sounded a little too perfect. I don't know the other one.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, November 10, 2023 12:22 PM

thought it was just me all these years! listening again for the first time since it was new and i still get absolutely nothing out of this music.

anyway yeah, endtroducing was lightning in a bottle and our friend mr davis just happened to be the one to catch it.

DJ Frane's Journey to the Planet of Birds is a legit masterpiece imho. Vibes more with Private Press era DJ Shadow. But I love all of Frane's albums. They're made with a lot of love and cannabis

did dj shadow sample anything from herbie mann’s stone flute? some serious gothtempo vibes there

Interesting Facebook post about touring. Rough out there:

The final big tour of the year is over, which is hard to believe. 2024 was my busiest year in almost a decade, having played nearly one hundred shows around the world. This was what I had been waiting for ever since COVID squashed the 2020 dates. And yet, my perceptions of this tour were decidedly different from prior runs, in both positive and negative ways. I found myself constantly weighing the changes, not only as they affect me, but other musicians and the touring industry as a whole.

I’ll start with the positive. Obviously, it’s been great to be back out there and exhibiting the craft of DJing while representing my music. When I played Montreal last month, the club owner said, “We book DJs all the time, and I’ve never seen live scratching before.” That statement blew me away, but also reminded me that at every show, I’m potentially altering people’s perceptions of what a DJ is and does, hopefully in a way that honors the legacy of those who came before me. Simultaneously, I’ve also noticed an uptick in people referencing me from the audience as “a legend.” I take it as a compliment of course, but it’s also a paradox...I still think of myself as a student, a disciple to my peers I consider more masterful than I. But increasingly, others see me for what I represent externally: someone over the age 50 who has endured, who’s still grinding while so many others have fallen away.

Which brings us to the other side of the coin. At my age, touring ain’t as easy as it used to be. There’s aches and pains that didn’t used to be there, and it takes a total commitment to conserve energy for the show; not always easy when sleep or nourishment become disrupted. It’s also WAY more expensive to get from point A to point B. I joke about it with my crew sometimes, but it’s true: almost all of my money goes to the travel sector. And yet, I’m also aware that many of the venues I played this year are struggling financially. I don’t think it’s an over exaggeration to say that the touring industry as we know it is one more global crisis away from extinction.

So where does that leave us? Well, for myself, I can only control my own thoughts and actions. I still love touring, still love making music. After the Australia and Japan dates next February, it’ll be time to build something new, and when I’m ready to head back out, I hope the promoters, venues, and fans will still be there. Until then, I’ll continue to appreciate every opportunity as it comes...and maybe check out a show or two to remind myself what a precious and powerful thing live entertainment can be.

DJ Shadow,
November, 2024