Kid Koala
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Happy Story, Sad Story, Happy Story
🕑 Added 2020-05-27 16:43:18 +0000 UTC
Seeing as it's the 20th anniversary of my debut album Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, I hope you don't mind me sharing a few stories about that "futuristic" time in the past.
It was the year 2000. Which at the time sounded very futuristic. The 90s were officially over. Y2K was going to usher in a slew of chaos with some technological shutdown, I don't really know, but I heard it had something to do with all the computer clocks not being able to switch to 00 after 99 or something.
And, in a small little corner of the music world, a debut album whose artwork resembled a brown paper bag or old piece of cardboard, was unleashed on to an unsuspecting public.
But why Cardboard??
The reasons for this were simple... sort of. This was my first album. And as excited as I was to have signed an actual recording contract and release an album, I was pretty much creatively paralyzed for most of the time I was working on it.
I was signed to Ninja Tune records on the strength of Scratchcratchratchatch, a mixtape that I had a lot of fun recording, and one that took only 3 months to complete.
So, when Ninja Tune's label manager Peter Quicke asked how long it would take for me to complete an album, I thought about the duration of the tape and it's recording process and came up with a number.
"I can finish an album in 6 months." I said relatively confidently.
"Great, let's slot that into the release schedule."
So I walked out of that meeting with a skip in my step, excited for the future, then immediately fell into the deepest chasm of uncertainty, basically running full tilt into the biggest creative block I've ever known...
In hindsight there were a number of factors that caused this...
1) The Ninja Masters. I was signed to the label started by the mighty Coldcut, whose records I've listened to thousands of times, and whose album What's That Noise?! was literally one of the 3 albums that convinced me to try to start scratching and DJing in the first place! I was very honored that they had faith in me to create something for their label, but in the back of my mind, I was scared to death. I couldn't let them down. They were my musical HEROES!
2) A lack of wax. For context, Scratchcratchratchatch, in contrast, was a joy to record, mainly because I didn't really have much to prove. I just put my then 10 or so years of practicing onto a tape and tried to speak through it with the scratches the best I could. But I had pretty much exhausted all the turntable ideas I had to date. I had fine-tooth combed through all my records (back then about 3 or 4 crates) to make that tape. Some of those records I had since I was a child, all of the records I knew every rotation and cue point on from practicing on them everyday.
But here I was. Blank slate. Not a single idea of what this debut record was supposed to sound like.
3) Focus/Out of Focus. It wasn't obvious to me at first, but it was more like a subtle external industry pressure. Activities such as doing interviews/photo shoots for the likes of big publications like Rolling Stone. Or being included on "artists to watch" lists before I had even recorded one song. Not that I believed the hype. In fact, my outlook was quite the opposite. I was flattered to be a part of it but the spotlight was actually making me more stressed about recording than anything. I mean, I didn't know how to make a record! I'd only ever done a mixtape! So being asked "How's that album coming along??" even in some casual, small-talk kind of way would send me into a low level panic.
4) Overtime. A culture shock in scheduling. I had just graduated from McGill where most of my days were dedicated to classes and schoolwork and only late evenings and weekends were for music. But once I had graduated, all of a sudden I had no obligations other than to finish an album. So I'd work from dawn to dusk and sometimes back to dawn again.
I had been touring a lot and always had fun while performing. And my scratch sets were beginning to generate a little buzz around "this kid koala kid." While I imagine certain people thrive on that kind of attention, I was learning that I wasn't one of them.
Ever since I was a child, I did my most creative work when no one was paying attention.
So there were many, maaaaaany days of swimming in self doubt, many tracks scrapped after working on them for weeks. I was just getting myself deeper into the woods and all because of my own skewed perspective on "the stakes" of this record being "the debut album." And with each passing day of not recording anything "worth keeping" I would feel worse.
I remember calling Kevin Foakes aka DJ Food, one of my best friends on the label.
"Hey Kev, I'm kind of stuck on what I should be making. Y'know, what type of music should it be? Should it be DJ friendly? Should it be for the clubs? Maybe I should buy a sampler instead of doing the hand-cut turntable layering thing? Should I make tracks with more DJ mixable intros? Like 16 bars of high hats and bass line, then drop in the drums??" (I was literally that lost, I was asking for specific production guidelines and tasks. I would have taken any advice and run with it.)
Kev replied "No Eric, you were signed because we want you to do your thing. So you don't have to sound like any of the other Ninjas or any records you've heard. Just do what inspires you."
"Uh okay" I said, "Thanks." It wasn't really the type of answer I was looking for. I was hoping for some tried and true recording tips from someone who had released music before. It would take me years before I realized how generous an opportunity Ninja Tune had given me. But at the time I was a mess of nerves as the reality began to sink in that I had to go on this musical walkabout alone.
I know, I know, it's so cliché, the portrait of a koala as a young tortured DJ. Boohoo, the tiniest violin, right???
But that's how it felt. Swimming in self doubt everyday. On a couple occasions, I even considered paying the album advance back to Ninja Tune so I could get out of the contract and this limbo of studio un-productivity. Imagine having your dream come true but then being stuck because you never thought past that initial goal.
So I went to work. I had ALL DAY, EVERY DAY to just work on this album. Day in, day out, listening to records and making notes of the tiniest sounds and clips. Hoping something would connect or spark an idea. It was simultaneously a dream and a nightmare. But I worked as diligently as I could through it... and treated it like my job from morning til night.
I would catalog records endlessly, countless little bits of spoken words and instruments floating in my head constantly. That album that I confidently said would be done in 6 months was now entering it's 3rd year of production.
When I wasn't working on the record, I would be on tour, where I would always have fun DJing and travelling the world with other DJs. We would dig for records every day and over those 3 years, my collection of a few hundred records grew into a few thousand, all of which I knew I would have to eventually listen to and catalog to try to find the sparks for the tracks. In essence I was just making more work for myself with every record I picked up. I kept cataloging. listening. taking notes. waiting for sparks. scratching. recording, my pile of brown recycled-paper notebooks becoming a little library in and of itself.
It wasn't until Fender Bender or tracks like Barhopper entered the picture that I had a bit of a breakthrough. For the first time in ages I was having fun working on music again.
Imagine that scene in the movie where the protagonist has hit rock bottom and is staring at themselves in the bathroom mirror, then has a change of heart and a new-found confidence. Well I had that moment, only I wasn't in the bathroom, and there was no water, only turntables and stacks upon stacks upon stacks of records.
And at one point I said to myself, "Fine, if this is going to be a weird record, I'm gonna make a record that will be weird forever."
This led to further turntable experiments like Drunk Trumpet, Like Irregular Chickens, A Night at the Nufonia. None of these were songs. I'd be the first to tell you that. Nor were they anything you could dance to.
The further it went into the realm of strangeness the more I was able to unlock myself out of that writer's block, and that fear.
In a way, it's the most punk album I've ever made. And I'm glad it eventually found it's audience.
And that of course, was what he deserved for pretending to be a musician, when he was only a butcher...
That one was exactly on the nose. Made me laugh when I heard it. And no, the irony wasn't lost on me. 4 years of trying to make a record by frankenstein-ing tiny bits of other records. It kind of encapsulates exactly how I felt at the time. Just a kid thrown into the "big league" a little too early. I mean, I just made mixtapes on 4 tracks, I didn't know how to make an ACTUAL ALBUM.
But I've learned a lot from those years. Mainly, that I'll never go back to that tortured space while working on a project. That doesn't mean not challenging myself with the work, it just means not spiralling into some strange mental abyss where the stakes get so distorted you begin to lose perspective on it all.
I did finally settle on the tracks that would end up becoming this album. But even on the day of mastering (where you choose the sequence of the tracks) I didn't know what order to put them in. I had heard each moment of that record so many times, they were all just a blur to me.
When it was time to do the artwork I decided it should look like those recycled paper notebooks I used to take notes and catalog sounds in. But mostly, it should look like crappy cardboard because I don't think of these as polished songs but rather a collection of track "sketches." I wasn't even sure if they were "finished". Compared to the other polished records being released on the label, I just didn't feel like I was at that level.
The album was eventually released and I'm sure it confused a lot of people that year. I saw it racked in the DANCE section. In another store it was racked in the RAP section. Sometimes it was racked under ALTERNATIVE ROCK which, I guess makes the most sense??
I caught up with Kevin DJ FOOD a few months after the release at his house in London.
"Y'know, Eric, I really love that record. You've really created something else. Like it's number 1 in a field of 1."
That day, with a little time and distance between me and the release, and having acclimated to my less anxious, post "debut album jitters" life, I could hear what he was saying and it was the first day I remember beginning to make peace with that album in all it's wobbly sketchiness. I had tried my best and it was all I knew how to do at the time.
Just like New Years Day after Y2K. Things weren't quite as doom-y or drastic as they had been hyped to be. I could feel the world would keep turning, and I'd be able to rise out of these woods and hear and make new music again.
Later that year, Matt Black (half of Coldcut and founding member of Ninja Tune) came to my London gig and spoke to me after the show...
"You know, Scratchcratchratchatch was like your "Meet The Beatles" but Carpal is your "Sgt. Pepper"!
"What???!" I laughed when he told me that... I mean, whatever.
I was trying to decipher what he was saying in the light of DJ albums, but how do you get from Meet the Beatles to Sgt. Pepper in 1 release?? Impossible!
To me it was nothing more than my first record. And a very awkward one at best. One that I wrestled with every day for 4 years. One that almost made me quit music altogether.
I think Matt could tell I wasn't really convinced by his rather hyperbolic analogy.
But he looked me in the eye... and said,
"Really... The work you are doing is great... You're a true son of Coldcut."
I almost started crying. I mean, for this little vinyl butcher, to hear that from his DJ mentor. To this day, it remains one of the highest compliments anyone has ever given me.
Comments
Kid Koala
I like that! A wormhole algorithm story that ends on a postive note!! So happy the work resonates with you! Thank you for listening!
Björn Berg Marklund
I'm late to the party and haven't really listened to scratching independently of rap, or beyond it being a background touch to beatmaking, until fairly recently. In my defense, this type of music wasn't exactly common in Sweden when I grew up :). I essentially fell down a youtube hole years ago after seeing you on the Deltron 3030 live show and being completely blown away - which led me to this album. So, I don't have the same great stories of memories tied to the album as the other commenters. But I just wanted to say that this album did to me what you said about Public Enemy in your What's in My Bag appearance: "Sometimes you think you know what's possible in a format... and then something will come along and just destroy that." (slightly paraphrased) It immediately opened up an entire genre of music for me, so thank you for that! And thank you for sharing the story behind it!
Kid Koala
Thank you so much for the kind words! I remember growing up listening to so many Peel Sessions recordings. We didn't have access to the actual on air radio shows in Canada, but we could get the vinyl Peel Sessions at the shop. I couldn't believe it when we went to record one of the sessions in 2000. It was such an honour. So happy you enjoyed the recording and comic book. Did you get a chance to play the bonus video game? There was one hidden on the CD. Maybe I'll do a future post about it! At any rate, thank you for listening all this time!
slippifishi
I remember half-listening to the great John Peel in the car with friends one evening that year, and in between our conversations was the sound of chickens; irregular chickens. We loved it, thought it was a real hoot, but before long the conversation moved on. However the song stuck with me (how could I forget it?!) I was soon the proud owner of one Carpal Tunnel Syndrome CD, which was unlike anything else I owned or listened to at the time, in more ways than one: I was much more into techno and dance floor beats at the time so this was pretty different, but also the CD wasn't in a standard case so it really stuck out on the shelf. And it came with a cool comic book. You had me at the chickens, but the comic book was the icing on the cake. I have thoroughly enjoyed following your artistic journey since then, and I look forward to where ever you will go next!
