Mild mannered Canadian, Eric San, is better known as deadly turntable maestro Kid Koala. Earlier this year, he released ‘100%’: a free, downloadable rock / hip-hop project under an alternative moniker, The Slew. As a performer, San takes turntable trickery to new heights and anyone who has been to one of his live shows will attest to that. Rivmixx caught up with the man himself as he takes a well-earned break between tours.
Dylan Frombach (Dynomite D) and San began recordings for The Slew over four-and-a-half years ago. Though the pair were approached three years ago to score a documentary (one that never materialised) using the music, they continued with their initial vision of frayed needles juxtaposed against bleeding, blues guitars and vocals. Coincidentally, this year’s Black Keys’ project, Blakroc, also features hip-hop and rock colliding, albeit in an altogether different fashion. San explained why he believed rock and turntablism could go together, “We wanted to make something Black Sabbath fans and Public Enemy fans would both dig. There’s an inherent heaviness to a lot of those albums that we liked. Plus we’re both fans of that manipulated, twisted feel of scratching. So we decided to make that hand-cut rock record we hadn’t heard yet”.
Hand cutting is quite literally what San had in mind and took to his personal record cutter at home, “I’ll often just record something like an E-chord on a hammond organ and cut it to vinyl for about 8 minutes. Then, once it’s on wax I can bend it into all the other keys [using the turntable speed control] by hand. A lot of The Slew album was done this way. We would also plug the turntables into old tube amps and overdrive them and mic the amps – just to get that crunchy tone. We wanted to keep this record as dusty as possible. Cutting guitar and harmonicas onto records and then re-cutting it back onto the tracks was a good way of keeping that vibe there. We brought a lot of the production techniques of those old rock records to the turntable”. Taking this into account with the fact that every aspect of ‘100%’ was constructed from the turntable, and with no live instrumentation whatsoever, the four-and-a-half year term becomes somewhat more rational, adding a real sense of value to ‘100%’.
With that amount of time spent on just the record, attempting to take it out on the road must have seemed a task of Herculean proportions. To help, San roped in Wolfmother’s ex-rhythm section, Chris Ross (bass) and Myles Heskett (drums). “We met them on the first Wolfmother to of North America. Prior to that, Myles had come to see one of my shows in Sydney when I was there on tour with [fellow instrumental hip-hop producer] RJD2. I was surprised when he told me had attended that gig. I always thought people in rock bands just listened to other people in rock bands. They checked out our studio in Montreal and I played them some of the then work-in-progress Slew tracks. They liked what they heard and for the next two years, anytime I would see them in Australia they would ask, “What’s up with that Slew record?””
Though it’s completely plausible that the Zeppelin-esque rockers were simply in dire need of a righteous hip-hop injection, it still came as a surprise to the DJ. “Those guys are big rock stars, so we didn’t know how it would work schedule-wise. But they totally got it – there’s rawness to scratching that I think they could hang with. I think the two musical worlds meet very well. Wait until ya see the gig!”
For those who are understandably curious about how the live show works, it goes like this: San and fellow DJ P-Love have 80 custom cut records to scratch all guitar, harmonica and vocal parts from record whilst Ross and Heskett provide the thunder of the rhythm section. The use of vinyl when most DJs are employing the use of software like Serato, is testament to San’s adherence to a rock n’ roll ethos.
”We had moshpits going in all the cities in the States. That’s a first for me. I built special earthquake-proof turntable stands so we could jump around and rock out and not have to worry about needles skipping. It’s a whole different kind of show for me. And it’s very, very LOUD! Hair-standing-on-the-back-of-your-neck loud. It’s super bad ass”.
Super bad ass, indeed! With the UK tour scheduled for February / March 2010, this is the only UK tour planned: a complete one-off. With ‘100%’ currently only available as an MP3 download, the tour is the only place for fans to pick up one or two copies of The Slew’s physical CDs / records. “Yeah, we did that because the label weren’t able to release the record before the U.S. dates and we figured people would have more fun at the gigs if they’d heard the tracks before they got there. People did pick up the CDs and vinyl at the gigs though… I don’t know whether they just want something higher quality than mp3s, but they seem to want to support this project. We’re super excited about the response.”
With Ross and Heskett now officially part of the band, San intends to return to the studio (this time with the duo) to record new bass and drum parts for the next album. With any luck – that won’t take another four years. And what’s next for the restless, rapidly evolving San next? “I’m working on a new book called Space Cadet. The soundtrack to that, in contrast, is really quiet. I’m going to do a tour where everyone can sit around on beanbags wearing headphones and we’ll transmit all the keyboards and turntables to their headsets. It’s funny to go from doing shows with moshpits to shows where everyone is lying around on the ground, but I gotta keep a balance in this world somehow.”