Hill And Gully Ride

Hey, y’all.

It’s been a minute so I figured I’d holler with an update. But first, I want to tell you about a weird and alarming situation I encountered recently. Big heads up to my fellow makers of hip hop music out there. I haven’t heard this discussed anywhere yet.

As you know, a vinyl pressing of the first Buck 65 album - Language Arts - is in the works now. Not long after sending the master off, we received a message from the pressing plant (one of the bigger, more popular plants). They said there was an issue and refused to go forward with the pressing until the issue was resolved. We came to find out that they used AI to analyze the album and determined that the music was sample-based. They said they would only press the album if full details on sample clearances was provided. I went through all of this with Warner back when I signed my deal back in 2002 or whenever it was. That paperwork may or may not be collecting dust in a drawer somewhere in the world. Finding it now would be impossible and going though the whole process again - with lawyers and contracts and blah, blah, blah - would be just as difficult. I don’t even have a lawyer anymore. So we bailed and then had to scramble to find a different plant that was willing to do the job as pre-orders were already in and all copies sold out in advance. I was beginning to think we were going to have to refund everyone’s money and call the whole thing off. The stress was real.

Before this, I had never heard of a pressing plant getting involved in this sort of issue. Has anyone ever heard of a case where a plant was sued for pressing an album with uncleared samples? I certainly haven’t. Floored by the situation, we did some asking around among contacts in the industry and learned that this is the start of a trend and that a time could come soon when it will be next to impossible to get sample-based music pressed on vinyl or perhaps even mass-produced at all. Right when you thought things couldn’t get worse for recording artists these days. Gee whiz. 

The good news is, we should have our copies of Language Arts in hand soon and I’ll holler again when the time comes. I’m so excited to see it. It’s going to be a thing of beauty. 

What else? 

Do you recall that on one of the Dirtbike albums (Dirtbike 3, I think) there’s a song about Halloween? That song was made with the guys from Barnes and Barnes who made the legendary song “Fish Heads” back in 1978. If you’re not familiar, check it out and you’re welcome, in advance.

Years ago, I would rip a rendition of “Fish Heads” in my live sets and word of this got back to the Barnes and Barnes guys. One of the guys - Robert Haimer - got in touch. After exchanging several messages back and forth, we decided to collaborate and the result was the Halloween song. Robert loved it. After that, Robert and I kept in touch, checking in with each other from time to time. Having not heard from him in a while, I reached out earlier this year. I didn’t hear back right away but I didn’t sweat it because I figured the guy who made “Fish Heads” probably keeps pretty busy. Well, a few weeks ago, I saw his name pop up in my inbox. Turned out to be a message from his wife informing me that Robert had passed away. It was a very nice message but very sad news to hear. Robert was one of the best. 

A bit more sad news and then we’ll move onto the happy stuff…

I spent most of the month of August on vacation in the part of the world where I grew up - Nova Scotia. Within a few days of returning home, I had a reunion with a couple of my best friends from high school who I hadn’t seen or spoken to in 25 years. It was awesome and a lot of laughs were had. Of course, a big chunk of our time together consisted of the old “what ever happened to so-and-so” routine. When I asked about my old friend Bellery, I was told he had passed away. Bellery was a different kind of cat and didn’t have a lot of friends. He and I spent endless hours nerding out over hip hop records. As my old friend reminded me a few weeks ago, Bellery was the biggest Skinny Boys fan in the world. Anyway, by the sounds of things, life only got harder for Bellery after high school and the details of his passing were very, very sad. I’m still grappling with that one a bit. 

[Side note - my friend who broke the news about Bellery informed me that he is now a vodouist. He practices voodoo. For real.]

And then, a few weeks later, I found out that the mom of one of my best friends when I was a kid is now living on the street. That was shocking, shocking news to hear. I spent a lot of time in her house when I was a kid. She taught me things. She was a very, very talented artist. An illustrator. A classical music lover. I just can’t believe it. It breaks my heart. She must be in her late seventies now, maybe eighties.

Now how about some more uplifting news? The last month wasn’t all gloom and heartache. Something awesome happened too. This might be hard to appreciate if you’re not a serious record collector but I got my hands on a copy of my #1 most-wanted record. I wish I could say that I found it in a dark corner of a thrift shop somewhere but it was my friend Young Einstein - DJ and beat-maker for the group Ugly Duckling - who came through. He and I talk records all the time. He knew it was my most-wanted record and he hooked me up. I almost jumped out of my shoes. I figured the odds were that I would go through the rest of my life and never get that record. Not many experiences can match the thrill of checking off the #1 item on your wantlist. It really gets the heart racing. Last time it happened was when I found the record that I sampled for the drums for the song “Custom Auto” by Double Nice. I won’t say what this new addition is. Very few people know about it and the knowledge must be protected. But you can count on hearing a sample of it on my next album. Speaking of…

The next Buck 65 solo album is probably still a very long time away. But with each of my last several albums, the process always started the same way - by creating a big file in Ableton with rips of all the stuff I plan to sample. I have begun assembling a new rip file. I’ve even begun tinkering with matching samples a bit. I haven’t done any proper beat-making yet. But the wheels are beginning to turn. And I do have a title. And lots of ideas. No timeline. I’ll be taking this one slow. 

One last thing. Most musicians I speak to say they never listen to their own music. I get that on one hand. But on the other, shouldn’t we all be making the music we want to hear? In the old days, I listened to my own stuff a fair amount. Then I didn’t do it for a long time. This summer, I’ve listened to the King Of Drums/Super Dope/Punk Rock B-Boy trilogy quite a bit. Is it weird to admit that? I friggin’ love those albums. Sometimes I ask myself, “which is my favorite of the three?” and I can’t answer. I can’t compare them. I love them all equally. What really stands out to me now - two years later - about King Of Drums is that the energy is just unrelenting. The album keeps coming at you. It just doesn’t let up. I need to figure out exactly how I achieved that because I want to do that again with the next album. Dog with rabies. Hungry shark. T-2000. I’ll be back.