I hate Twitter. That living your life online ish isn’t for me. Tucking self-promotion between tweets about how good your Cornflakes taste and how you feel about sitting on a bus in traffic jars my spirit….I still use it though. And as much as it pains me to say it, I have to admit its not all bad because it’s thanks to a tweet from the Brownswood BPM that I found out about Bookworms.
His bumpy yet hypnotic re-imagining of Mi Ami’s African Rhythms is currently smacking up the real and virtual worlds and his dense, unreleased dubs have rumbled their way onto the playlist of Ms Mary Ann Hobbs more than once over the past year. With our current wave of hot beat producers, you’d be forgiven for thinking Mr Worms is yet another fresh-faced talent jostling for position in the Bass Music marketplace….not so. He’s been doing this for a minute.
“…since around the year 2000, I was 17 years old…making beats on PlayStation recording to boom-box. The first music I ever let anyone hear was a couple Bjork remixes I uploaded to this old website called bjorkremixweb. This was around 2000. Then I produced and worked with some punk and hard-core bands who met through friends from high school. I also made beats for a couple mc’s from around the way. Around 2003 I got really into making my own beats and instrumentals, mostly because other people were too hard to work with…I guess you could say it was a natural progression.”
Although other artists proved hard to work with, it would seem Bookworms has no problems making friends with different genres. Listen to any one of his original productions or remix efforts and you’ll hear traces of Punk/Rock, Hip Hop, Detroit Techno,Disco, Dubstep and Experimental Electronica all present, all correct and all somehow managing to compliment one another.
“My dad was really into stuff like Talking Heads,Brian Eno, Elvis Costello and Jazz. The first music I started buying was random Punk CDs, because I would hear those bands in skate videos. When I started high-school I got into Wu-tang and Drum and Bass…Lately I have been into Detroit Techno, Gucci Mane, Arthur Russell and Kate Bush. I have also been feeling a lot of San Francisco based bands like Tussle, Mi Ami, Roche, Steve Summers, Yao, Lemonade and CB Radio.”
I need to know more about the San Francisco scene. There’s some hot music out there and by the looks of Bookworms’ discography, he’s busy remixing a lot of it. Lemonade are a San Fran based band who have been getting some hype this side of the water recently and sure enough, who do we find on their ‘RemixTape’…
“My ex girlfriend used to work at a used-clothing store in SF with the Callan from Lemonade, so we knew each other from around SF and going to shows. They’re cool dudes, we talked about it at a show and they sent me the files to remix ”
Talking to Bookworms it soon transpires that many of his links are a direct result of long nights spent listening to loud music on herbal foundations. Take the Solos label that’s put out his version of African Rhythms as a case in point.
“Solos is on some crazy shit, it’s electronic music. It’s all across the board. I met Roche at a warehouse party Solos was throwing in Berkeley, I wanted to smoke and he was rolling a blunt, so we smoked and then I gave him a CD. A week or so later he asked me if I wanted to put some music out with Solos. The rest is history.”
Probing further, I discover that sadly, not all of Bookworms night-time trips have such a happy ending
“…back in about 2006 I went to Big Sur, California for this weird show where San Francisco bands Tussle, Brookhaven, Lemonade and the Drift were playing. Now Big Sur is way out in the woods and nature so I was a bit out of my element and it was hella dark….to cut a long story short I end up jumping off a motor home into the darkness and spraining my ankle really bad outside the show…not a good way to end the night…”
We feel you on that one…moving on to happier times we’ll focus on the music, or rather how Bookworms would like it to be received.
“I would like people to listen to my music on headphones while riding around a medieval city on Tron light -bikes. I am trying to expose parallels between sounds and samples and styles of music. I hope to share that with others.”
Shared it he has. Sounds to me that he’s read a little too much Sci Fi though. Well I guess with a name like Bookworms you can’t fault the brother for hitting the books…
“I like Simple Takes A Wife by Langston Hughes… anything by Isaac Asimov and [I read] lots of Sci-Fi end of the world stuff when I was younger..Reading helps me come up with names for songs…sometimes.”
DOWNLOAD BOOKWORMS’ HEADS HIGH PODCAST
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Bookworms Live @ Lipo 07/06/09 from Solos Records on Vimeo.
Bookworms’ Discography
Remixes:
Finest Dearest – Slow Going (Bookworms Rmx)
Brookhaven – Something Must Remain Of Us (Bookworms Rmx)
Brookhaven – Static In The Valley (Bookworms Rmx)
Mi Ami - How Can I (Bookworms Rmx)
Mi Ami – African Rhythms (Bookworms Rmx)
Lemonade - Sunchips (Bookworms Rmx)
LP’s, EP’s and singles
Bookworm Kills (Demo cassette)
The Hidden Staircase LP (Solos Records)
Mandarine Hits CD (Expel Records)
Folks: Remixes (Self released)
African Rhythms CD (Solos Records)
Links
Big respect to Bookworms for his time, energy and exclusive Podcast!
By Etienne
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Vice posted up a mix Lemonade did for them anout a week ago.
http://www.viceland.com/music/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/lemonade-summer-splash-mix.mp3