Home Interviews Archive Future Primitive Special pt1 - Mark Herlihy

Future Primitive Special pt1 - Mark Herlihy

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Interviews Archive - DJ Crews/Collectives/Bands

Written by Laurent

Monday, 29 November 2004

Back to the Future... An interview with Mark Herlihy "We are building the standards of this music" Mark Herlihy Based in the San Francisco Bay area, Future Primitive is a close knit collective of DJs, producers, graffiti artists and visual artists who truly represent the way many people see San Francisco the world over: an open minded oasis in the bastion of cynicism America has become. Future Primitive is the brain child of Mark Herlihy, a Filipino San Franciscan who wears his love for the city tattoed on his arm. It started as a club night alternative to the predominant sounds of gangsta rap and raves that were abundant on the West Coast at the time. Alongside partner Mark Wesserman, Mark set off to try and break away from accepted views of what a hiphop show or club night should be like by incorporating elements from the rave scene and bringing a bboy ethic that was sadly lacking from the majority of shows at the time. For most people who have never been to the Bay or had the chance to experience Future Primitive live, the first taste of this collective's talent came in the form of a CD with two names written on it: Live at Future Primitive Soundsession Volume 1 featuring Cut Chemist and Shortkut. The CD has since become legendary amongst heads the world over spreading the Future Primitive sound and philosophy to foreign shores. This first release, from what was to become the Future Primitive label, perfectly encapsulated the musical ethos Mark wanted to represent through the parties: bring together two DJs in a musical meeting like none before. One would be an established mix DJ, able to rock crowds for long hours, and one would be a turntable wizard, able to manipulate sounds and create sonic tapestries that were both mind blowing and musically innovative. This pairing of two great DJ minds was a first and could have very well caused Future Primitive to shut down after one party, but as it turned out it was probably their smartest move as their reputation spread and musical boundaries kept on being pushed back further and further, till they no longer mattered. In addition to bringing DJs together to rock crowds like never before, Future Primitive are also known for putting on some of the best and most entertaining nights bringing to the mix everything from bboys to martial arts, fire breathers, visuals and live painters. Doze, of the legendary Rock Steady Crew, is a member of the collective and has painted at many parties bringing in another dimension to the musical experience. As such the Future Primitive parties aren't just about good music and seeing DJ X, Y or Z playing for an hour. They are great fun and have something for everyone to enjoy, relate to and feed off. These elements were a direct result of Mark's past experience on the club scene as a promoter and organiser, he managed to blend two worlds together which most people would have probably thought could never mix. Since the first party in ‘96, the Future Primitive collective has been through a lot, they stopped putting on parties for a year while Mark reassessed where they were going and the best way to get there. The label grew over the years as the parties gained recognition. It is already over 6 releases deep, most of which have become underground platinum classics (most notably volume two of their live series featuring Radar and Z-trip, as well as Urban Revolutions a compilation of DJ produced tracks which showcase the inherent compositional skills and musicality that are the trademarks of scratch DJs). The nights have become legendary the world over (more so since they were prominently featured in Scratch the Movie), and helped break through some artists that have gone on to bigger things such as Z-Trip and Cut Chemist amongst others, while also bringing through artists from all generations of DJ culture such as the X-Ecutioners, Faust and Shortee, Louie Vega, DJ Food and many more. There is now also a new shop which opened in San Francisco last year. The shop sells clothes which all showcase the art of the FP roster, sells all the music that has made the label, as well as that which inspires the artists and DJs of the collective. The shop also holds a gallery, giving people a chance to see some great artwork such as the retrospective of Style Wars, the art of the Barnstormers Collective and more recently the work of one of Europe's most talented graffers, Mode 2. The shop ties into the visual aspect of the collective. In addition Future Primitive were given the task last year to produce the soundtrack to the game XIII which was yet another occasion for Mark to showcase the talent of the collective as well as work on something which was closely linked to the heritage of Future Primitive. So now the future looks very bright for Mark and Future Primitive as they prepare to push through a new generation of artists on the label, keep on putting together nights that redefine the meaning of cool and spread a love and understanding of DJ culture and music that goes far beyond most people's grasp of it and the paltry attempts by media outlets to constantly tag it with a cool badge till the next hot thing comes along. Most notably Future Primitive recently flew over Dizzee Rascal for one of their nights, after Mark admitted that he is really feeling the sound coming out of the UK garage scene He is also keen on other UK artists such as the Nextmen, whom Future Primitive are trying to get over for a tour as well as release their second LP, Get Over It, as it is apparently catching on to many people's ears stateside. As with other music collective based around San Francisco and California, such as HipHop Slam or Bomb HipHop, Future Primitive were primarily doing their ‘own thing' before realising the potential and impact of their work on people far and wide, and much like these other two collectives as time goes by it is important to realise the importance and place of the collective's work in the history of turntable music and DJ culture as well. We were lucky enough to catch some words with Mark this month, and what follows is a transcript of the phone conversation I had with him. So sit back and enjoy as we delve into the past, present and future of this seminal collective that has helped change the way in which many people looked at and thought of DJ culture. And be sure to check out the next two parts of our Future Primitive special, as we talk to some of the  on the label, and look at the output of the label and it's mark on DJ culture and music in general. Both these can be accessed from our archive for the second part and our musical section for the third part. First of all can you tell us a bit about your background, where you are from and how you got to where you are at? MH: I'm a Filipino, raised in San Francisco since I was 3 years old, so I'm now by all means a San Franciscan. Actually it's quite funny because my mom has now moved to Weston Super Mare, so I get to go to England every once in a while. My background as a promoter goes way back to when I was 17. I started doing warehouse parties, hip-hop parties, illegal basement parties, and then around 92-93 the rave scene exploded over here, and really started blowing up everywhere in the States. I was drawn to it, especially the breakbeat side of things, I got involved with some major promotions trying to bring hip-hop into the mix, basically doing hip-hop and house music parties, which wasn't really being done by anyone. San Francisco always had an underground scene and I was involved with it promoting and setting up shows since I was 17. The thing is even though I was doing all this my heart always was with dub, raggae and hip-hop. I loved dub especially, ever since I was a young kid, I was drawn to the music, you know I was this little Filipino kid listening to dub and people thought I was a bit crazy. But yeah so the thing is while I was doing all these raves, I saw the technological side that they brought to their parties as opposed to hip-hop parties which at the time didn't have any of these aspects. Technology as in the video shows and these type of things and I wanted to bring a bboy ethic to these, an underground feel to a hip-hop show. At the time as well you have to understand that in San Francisco a lot of the hip-hop parties had become really violent, there was always ruckus, and I always thought to myself "why does it have to be like that? This is not what hip-hop is about to me and the people I know". To me hip-hop was a positive movement, and a positive outlet, so I tried to incorporate that into the shows I was doing. Future Primitive is a reference to innovating from knowing where you come from. You know the blueprint for hip-hop was set over 15 years ago by then, but it seemed people had forgotten that it wasn't always like this. Also at that time DATs had taken over hip-hop, and the DJ had sort of been forgotten. If you think about it, it got to a point where House DJs were being booked for up to $3000 and someone like Shortkut was doing a garage party for $200! And he was ripping shit up as good if not better then those big DJs. There was no real recognition anymore for the hip-hop DJ. And so with Future Primitive I wanted to marry two aspects together: two different approaches to what DJing is. Because DJing is a great artform, and tablism was one aspect of it, an aspect that not many knew about or even understood at that time. I grew up with the tablism aspect of DJing and at the same time I was exposed to the House and European DJs that played at the parties I organised, and that is the other aspect of DJing to me, which is central to music like House, the aspect of the long ride, the long continuous mix. And I respected that too and wanted to bring those two things together. A solid mix and heavy dose of improvisation was what I wanted to merge. A lot of it was an experiment in some way. I had to find hip-hop DJs that could understand those other concepts and see the thing about the ride, long mixes. And also understand composition, because the compositional element that is present in tablism was another aspect that was key to the whole thing. See I understood the battling aspect of tablism, and the virtuosity of technicality and the way in which that helped bring through the concept of the DJ as a musician, someone like Disk for example. Disk is an amazing DJ and musician, he really is a virtuoso in many ways, and more often than not misunderstood. So yeah both those elements was what I wanted to blend together and where the idea for Future Primitive came from. What about the integration of visuals and other elements in the nights? How did that come about, was it something you purposefully went for? MH: It was natural to me. I believe in progressive hip-hop culture. The 4 elements, the whole thing, I was a little less into the MC side of it, because of the way hip-hop had become was partly because of the MCs. But the other aspects of hiphop culture were really what I wanted to bring to the ‘rave' side of things. Bboys were always there at our parties, and I was good friends with Doze and other graffers who I also respected and had a lot of love for their work. I wanted to show the parallel between graf, breaking, DJing, MCing and the way each element flows. I wanted to find a way to bring them all together, and I also wanted to bring in the progressive aspect of graf, the way it can use different mediums and the way it is really energetic. I wanted to show an evolved state of graffiti as well as an evolved state of bboying, which I try to do by not having just breaking, and your typical bboys, but also have free dancing, and even martial arts and dancers from different styles. We did one show with martial arts which then evolved into dancing and breaking. It was all about trying to show how hip-hop culture could move forward, how progression in this artform was one of the greatest things about it. You can only really see this type of progression by actually realising how rinsed out a lot of hip-hop and dance culture had become then and is now. The creativity that sparked hip-hop, was the mesh of everything. The hip-hop DJ is the one that really reworks records for me, he filters them through in a hip-hop mind state. I wanted to have a free approach to any aspect of hip-hop, there is more to every element. More to bboys, graffers, DJs, than what you might just see. I believe that when you try to define things it becomes a problem. You need to think outside of those definitions. Understand the roots, it's the essence of what we do, and then move forward. Like we said before (ed note: we spoke about sound system culture in length during the interview and this is what Mark is referring to), you can take the example of Jamaican sound systems and how they are the source for a lot of the new musical genres that were created through DJ culture. Herc is the personification of this, he came from Jamaica and brought Sound System culture to the Bronx and accidentally created hip-hop... Know where you are from and then it will all follow. I have tremendous respect for DJs and people who know music. What I'm about is the art of DJing with a leaning towards dance music. The first CDs we put out were the embodiment of what we do. Have you heard of Hop-Fu and similar audio-visual projects by Excess and IXL and the way in which these are helping to showcase the DJ as a composer that can fit the music to the mood much like cinema composers do. Do you agree that the DJ can be the new composer, that there is room right now for people like this to move into this arena and show that they can do it as good if not better then established composers? MH: I think it's natural. Different DJs approach things differently. Some of them see things cinematically, and those are the ones that can do it. You guys did the soundtrack to the video game XIII, and I know that you mentioned in an interview that you saw a lot of that work as similar to writing the soundtrack to a movie (which it very much is, as the game has a great movie feel to it). Was that a natural progression for you in terms of the production and work you do? MH: With XIII what we tried to do was make music that would fit the game. We were only given an idea to work on: the 70's and the concept of noir, and we built it all that way to try and make it feel organic, and also inject just the right dose of modernity in it too. DJs are great empathisers, they can empathise, so they will fit the music to the situation, the DJ understands the right music at the right time. What about the label, how did it come together from the parties? MH: I think there are aspects of turntable music that are best represented in improvisation. I always felt that its rightful place was in a live setting. Like Jazz, for example, you have a standard and then there is room for soloing. The music we make on the label is a way to show the standard in the genre of turntable music, and then in our performances we show the improvisation aspect. We also have an advantage that our performances are interesting beyond just those musical aspects. I think there aren't many people that can do a perfect blend of compositional standards and improvisation. I don't think there are many that can really do it to that level, Cut Chemist, Shadow, Ztrip. That's really rare: good producers who are also amazing live showmen. That's why I really can't wait for Z's and Cut's albums to drop. We were a part of really blowing things up for some of these guys, a lot of the people we brought through in the shows went major, like Z and Cut. And so now we want to concentrate on bringing other people through like Zeph and Romanowski. We also have other people like Junglist UFO coming through whose work is a perfect example of a true merging of jungle soundscapes and hip-hop. Zeph and Azeem will be doing an album as well this year. To me that's now the future of the label: production, compositions and keeping the music moving. Breaking new people. It's taken a lot of time, but now we are here and we are going to do it. Our main focus is the label, we will have 5 releases this year, and we will be sorting out our international distribution too. Did you ever think FPS would become so big? How does it make you feel in retrospect? MH: I'm really humbled, overall I feel blessed to be a part of a movement that has affected so many things and so many people. It gives me energy to do more, I didn't really make any money from it, a lot of the first CDs we put out were bootlegged and spread that way and I'm not bitter about it, in the end it's been beneficial to us. We helped push things along, we helped shine a light on these people and push them through. I believe it's all about the karmic circle and things come around. At the end of the day things are only going to get better from now on. What about the shop? How did that come about and was the art gallery a natural progression from the visuals you incorporate in your shows? MH: The shop is the embodiment of our vision, and the gallery is the embodiment of the visual aspect of what we do. Now we have a gallery space showing artwork, which is there to help us show people the things we love about graffiti and the progressive aspects of visual culture. Also it allows us to bring in more visual aspects like the clothes range, where we got all our artists to do bits and artwork for it. And that's another way for us to bring the art through. We have clothes and music as well, all the music we like is in the shop, from hip-hop and tablist stuff, to jungle, and a lot of people are surprised when they first come because they expect it to be like a tablist thing only. The shop is all about what we like. We break those preconceptions of what we are about, and we surprise a lot of people. It's a combination of a lot of ideas, my goal ultimately is to open up other shops and have more outlets for what we do. There is also going to be a new online shop, in about a month, with stuff people have never heard as well as some art, clothes and the such... I read somewhere that your idea of bringing two DJs together that were from different spheres within DJ culture was kind of like an anti-thesis to the battling ethos. Instead of bringing them together to see who was best, you bring them together to show that together they can be more then the sum of their parts? MH: yeah totally, it's like what I was trying to do was form little bands. That's exactly it. I wanted to make a bigger sound. In a way I felt that even some of the DJs themselves didn't see the full scope of it, because some mix, some scratch, and it's the same thing really, but they are in two different spheres of DJ culture and music, two spheres that do not always collide. On top of all that you got to dig, get your breaks, know your records inside out. It's all the aspects of DJing that I always wanted to show. Show people that there was more to DJs and their music then what they think. What is your opinion on the turntablist artform and turntable music at the minute, where do you think it's going right or wrong? MH: I definitely don't think it's going wrong, but the one thing that is important is that in a way it's killing itself. We can't let it become a genre, that's really important. The beautiful thing about tablism is that it is the quintessential post-modern artform, and it's infinite too. Styles are infinite and what you can do with the turntable musically is infinite, take people like Radar who is doing the concerto for turntable, Faust and Shortee who cross genres and always bring something across and blend it like it was one. I mean even house DJs like Derek Carter, if you have ever seen him live, you can see he really is a turntablist at heart. We are past proving the argument that it is a musical genre. We have had 4 years to prove it, and now that we have this respect where is it going to go, you know? Think of it, it is truly limitless, you can play it like jazz, like rock, like dnb, its endless. There are so many aspects to the music, and also it's important to see the technicality as a positive aspect not a constraint that needs to be broken free of. We need vanguards like Q for example who is always going to be pushing scratching, and that side of the music and artform. And on his own shit too, and he is still way ahead of everyone else when it comes to that you know? He teaches other people, he shares his knowledge but he also works hard at pioneering. I was speaking to Shortee recently who said he was already on some next level shit, and he isn't going to stop. And so there is going to be people like him, and then there is going to be others doing other things and pushing through other aspects of the music. As a label we want to be about all of it, production, mixing, scratching whatever. Who is to say what you can or can't do? And that is the beauty of this music. Tablism is still really just one aspect of DJing and DJ culture. What do you think of DJ Bands like Live Human and even the newer ones like Gunkhole and Ned Hoddings who are helping to once again redefine the essence of what turntable musicians do and spread knowledge of the turntable as an instrument? MH: It's amazing, it's really interesting. Gunkhole is dope, Live Human is dope, Live Human is one of my favourite Jazz bands. The compositional aspect is what I'm always looking for in those type of projects. You know I think I look at it this way: it's not just about a DJ being in a band or a band comprised of DJs, we need to get past the gimmicky concept, especially the way in which it was abused a few years ago by all these nu-metal and rock bands, who just jumped on the bandwagon. At that time every band coming out had a token DJ, and we needed to get past that, and things like Gunkhole and Live Human are doing that. The improvisation and compositional elements are great aspects of what a DJ can do within a band or collective, it's showing yet another possibility and way for DJs to go. It's not just about a DJ in a band, it's about the music. Do you believe that the recent technological advances in the world of the DJ are more of a burden or do you think that they can become valuable tools for the DJ to expand his sonic repertoire and the possibilities at hand? MH: As technology progresses the tools are being expanded, that is something that has been happening for a long time but has really only blown up over the last few years. Like the way in which MIDI has been used in live DJ setups for years to help trigger visuals and other elements. And I do believe that again the technology only serves to further prove that it is a post-modern artform, it's making music out of other music by manipulating that music through any means or any medium. Obviously the downside of a lot of the new technology is that it becomes a problem when you rely on it instead of integrating it in your work. It becomes boring that way. It's just soulless, you might as well be pushing buttons and doing nothing. The DJs' technology for the most part of the culture's existence has always been pretty simple and basic, but they have taken something like the 1200 and pushed it to its limits. And genius presents itself in these situations, you set rules for the game, like the equipment you can use, and let the people push it as far as it will go. I don't think and hope that the new technologies will ever kill vinyl. I hate to say it but as much as I love my record collection, and I have a massive one, it's going to start making some aspects of it obsolete. But at the same time it opens up a whole lot more music for the DJ to manipulate and compose with. I think the essence of digging will always be there, we are never going to be able to kick the habit, because it's integral to a lot of what these people do. And it's the same with skills and technique, even if you have new technology that allows you to do incredible things, you still need to know how to use a fader and manipulate it to create patterns and cuts. If you can't cut no matter what you use, you'll be shit. Things like Final Scratch are good for certain things, you can load anything onto your table, and do whatever you want with it, DJing becomes much more of a real time affair, and it will continue to go that way as the technology perfects itself. It's still another example of the inherent post-modernism of the artform, but pretty soon we will also be able to manipulate sound in real time, like for example recording the crowd and then cutting it up straight after recording it live. I saw Cut do that at a show in LA, where he went in the audience and recorded them speaking and then started cutting it up into his compositions. You are never going to lose the essence of music, you need to know music in order to manipulate it, and technology cannot replace that knowledge. Get your basics, and learn the tricks of the trade and then you can open even more doors with technology. It'll evolve and it would be stupid to try and stop it. Like digging might evolve and change, you might not be digging for vinyl in 20 years, but still we will have over a 100 years of recorded music history, to fuck around with and dig for, like blues, jazz, rock... And then you'll have the new stuff like mp3 digging... mp3 is really exciting in the way it allows DJs to play and manipulate their own sounds without them incurring massive costs or problems. I think it's going back to what we were saying about sound system culture, you look at that now and the Jamaican systems are using CDs now and not dubplates anymore, and they make raw music on CD and got rid of their plates and once again they are showing the way of true innovation, which has caught on to other genres. How important do you feel it has been that you were in San Francisco for all this to happen? MH: Very important, it is the mecca in a way and it still is. We were blessed to be here at that time, meet the right people at the right time. I don't believe in coincidence, I believe that it was written and I need to keep on building and innovating from that. San Francisco is an amazing place, beyond what happened with tablism the big thing about it I feel is the open mindedness to music and thinking. Especially in this day and age where most of America is closing in on itself and separating itself from the world, I feel like we live in a little bubble, and the rest of the US keeps on closing in. San Francisco has always been a forward thinking place, I think in the US there are no other places like it. San Francisco is 7 square miles with all this stuff going on in it, you are forced to become open minded. You are forced to become tolerant, I'd rather be in a place where I can be free instead of following the sheeps and do what I'm told. (ed note: by now we have been talking for nearly two hours and Mark has to be on his way and me too before my phone bill rockets through the roof) And lastly are you going to be touring this year and coming outside of the states with your shows? MH: Yes we are, it has taken us a long time to sort it out as we were concentrating on other things and building the label and such. We will go on the road this year, come to Europe. We have big plans for our tour, and the important part will be that we will be bringing through our new artists like Junglist UFO, Doze, Zeph and the others. I feel that because it has taken us so long to get a tour together that some people have taken our ideas and ran with it. And I'm not bitter or angry but I am getting fed up with it and I believe it's time to come out and do things our own way. I don't want to get too hung up on what people have been doing instead of us. Instead I am going to concentrate on what we will do with the tour and who we will bring out and the new things we are going to bring to the mix, because it's not going to be what people expect and I think that's good. Many thanks to Mark for taking the time to do the interview. Many thanks also to Sam @ FPS for all the help in putting together this very special feature. For more info on the collective, their work and all related info check the site futureprimitivesound, and if you haven't already get your hands on the label's past releases and new ones such as Romanowski's new EP, Steady Rocking. And while you're here check the second and third parts of our special feature on FPS.

Last Updated ( Sunday, 18 September 2005 )

 

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