Grammy
nominations have only recently been announced, but one Grammy-related
project has been in the works for a while, and is finally being unveiled
to the public.
The DJ documentary
RE:GENERATION, in association with the
Grammys and presented by the new Hyundai Veloster, takes five of the
world’s premiere DJs and forces them to experiment with musical genres
outside of their comfort zones.
And the team behind the
RE:GENERATION documentary project
aren’t pulling punches with these DJ/genre pairings: DJ Premier tackles
classical music with the Berklee Symphony Orchestra, and a little help
from Nas; The Crystal Method head to Detroit to record with the
inimitable Martha Reeves and the Funk Brothers; Pretty Lights wrangles
country sonic iconography with Dr. Ralph Stanley, of bluegrass banjo
fame, and LeAnn Rimes; British DJ Mark Ronson goes to the home of jazz
to record with Erykah Badu, Mos Def, members of the Dap Kings, Zigaboo
Modeliste, and Trombone Shorty; and Skrillex serves up a rock
collaboration with the surviving members of the Doors.
Last night, the Veloster team hosted a preview event/showcase/party
for this new documentary, held in the Farmers and Merchants Bank
building.
The first floor level space held a bevy of interactive events
showcased in tricked out Veloster cars; one had a 3-D TV set up in the
trunk, another had a turntable that allowed event attendees to mix
tracks, and one had a Microsoft Kinect (ed. note: I rocked at beach
volleyball).
Installed around the event space were multitudes of different artist
collaborations: Shepard Fairey art prints, tokidoki accessories, various
designer shoes, etc. This idea of collaboration, of things coming
together from different places but ending up in the same end product,
was reflected in the event’s name: the Re:Mix Lab.
This idea of remix was not just a random inspiration meant to fill
the room with as much technological and artistic gadgetry as possible;
remix and reformatting are the heart of the DJ culture, and something
that the artists involved in the
RE:GENERATION film stressed and showed both on screen and off.
The documentary portion of the film began with a brief introduction
by KCRW’s Jason Bentley, who gave a little bit of background information
about the film’s director, Amir Bar-Lev. Bar-Lev, whose most recent
film is
The Tillman Story, about NFL player-turned-soldier Pat Tillman, has worked with musicians before; in his documentary
Trouble the Water, about a couple in Katrina, Bar-Lev used music by Massive Attack, Citizen Cope, and The Roots.
With
RE:GENERATION though, Bar-Lev was attempting to
document the creative processes of 5 different DJs as they worked with
giants of their chosen genres to create new chimera renditions of songs.
The clip shown to the audience was not a steady stream of footage;
rather, it was a look into the beginnings of each collaboration, with
more focus on the initial DJ + genre collision rather than the fleshing
out of those collision’s ideas.
Skrillex (real name Sonny Lee) was the first DJ shown in the preview
clip, working with the surviving members of the Doors Ray Manzarek, John
Densmore, and Robby Krieger. While initially Lee didn’t know how to
approach his childhood idols, by the end of the clip everybody in the
studio seemed to have locked down on a musical idea.
DJ Premier was shown learning how to approach classical music from
renowned composer Bruce Adolphe. While Premier (real name Christopher
Martin) did know the basic note structures (in the film he cracks “I
used to play piano… Now I have to relearn where middle C is”), he
initially approached classical music as a source for sampling, not as a
genre that values completion over fragmentation.
The Crystal Method was given a tour of Detroit by none other than
Martha Reeves, former frontwoman of Martha and the Vandellas. The focus
of their portion of the preview was about the memories associated with
old Detroit, particularly poignant in the face of the city’s depleting
population and struggle for economic resurgence.
Pretty Lights (real name Derek Smith) had the unique challenge of
working with what was arguably the hardest genre to translate to his
electronic DJ stylings: country. His clip in the preview showed him
nervously trying to direct Dr. Ralph Stanley, who when asked if he
wanted to hear the original version of the song they were working on
replied, “I’d rather do it my way.” Out of all the artists involved,
Smith seemed to have the most difficulty with his chosen genre,
remarking that he didn’t understand the “twangy” nature of country
music.
Mark Ronson, on the other hand, appeared to slip effortlessly into
his selected genre of choice. His music already has jazzy elements in
it, as evidenced by the horns in his album “Version” and some of the
songs off of his last album, “Record Collection.” Watching him work with
some of the Dap Kings seemed like a natural thing for him, and what we
heard of their track sounded like a sample clip from his next album, so
seamless was the infusion of his style with a jazz sound and
instrumentation.
After showing the preview clip, Henley sat down with DJ Premier,
Erykah Badu (representing Mark Ronson’s eventual collaboration group),
Skrillex, both men behind The Crystal Method, and the film’s director,
Bar-Lev. Pretty Lights and the country genre received no representatives
at this post-clip Q&A.
While Skrillex received most of the questions initially, as Lee is
fresh off of his 5 Grammy nominations (“I was touring in the UK… my
manager opened the curtain, and was like ‘Rah! You got nominated for a
Grammy!’, and I was like okay and went back to sleep… I thought it was a
dream”), eventually all of the artists involved got to talk about their
experiences.
The one thing they all agreed on was a greater understanding of their
chosen genres (DJ Premier: “I used to sample classical music before…
now I have a lot more respect for it. I wanna go to an opera with Bruce
[Adolphe]!”), and a deep appreciation of the opportunity they had to
work with some of the best artists in their field.
Of course, the DJs involved had plenty of stories to tell about their
collaborators. The Crystal Method’s Scott Kirkland also shared some
colorful anecdotes about Martha Reeves, joking “She was feisty from the
beginning… She would be so nice until we got to the recording studio and
tried to work on the track, and she would be like ‘No, don’t do that.’”
Erykah Badu, who guest sang on Mark Ronson’s track, revealed the
inspiration behind her lyrics for the song: “I get there and Mark is
like, ‘You need to write lyrics for this song… and we’re performing it
tonight’… I was having this conversation with Trombone Shorty, and it
was so surreal because there were all these cameras around us, and he
said, ‘I’m going to go get some gumbo.’”
And here, at last, the audience got to hear all five collaboration
results. All five were cut with film footage from their respective
collaborations, and the resulting videos were then DJed by none other
than DJ Premier himself.
The Re:Mix Lab experience really tried to capture the essence of the
film, and the collaborative nature behind the work that went into it.
For the most part, Bar-Lev and his 5 DJs succeeded in creating and
showcasing unique tracks that reflected the multitude of inspirations
behind them.
While the film isn’t out in theaters until February 16th, several of
the song collaborations are available online already. Mark Ronson’s
track in particular is standout, although that may be because he was
already more familiar with jazz than, say, Pretty Lights was with
country.
However, all the songs are worth listening to, for their existence
cements a central tenant of modern music culture: this is what happens
when artists come together for nothing else than the pure joy of
transforming strange and separate sounds into music.
