Interview with Mike 2600
This last week I got a chance to interview local renaissance man Mike Davis (mike 2600). You might know him from his graphic work as part of Burlesque of North America or the graffiti mag life sucks die. Their work is amazing, definitely check it out. Burlesque has expanded into music and throwing parties under brisqotheque (check the website for some great mixes by jimmy 2 times, soviet panda, wes winship, etc). They’ve brought in some amazing artists too, recently they hosted brooklyn bass queens Star Eyes and Jubilee. In the last couple of years they’ve released two e.p.’s, do it to it, and do it to 2 which have great artists like Emynd, Dave Nada, Bird Peterson, Smalltown DJ’s, Cosmo Baker, Tittsworth, and the Wizard of Gaz dropping gems of the club and funk variety. Burlesque hosts the events, street sounds (classic funk and disco), Triple Double (baltimore, hip hop, funk, disco, etc), Bomp! (in conjunction with the moon goons) and the yearly event Dre Day (yes, in honor of the dr.). Mike is a very busy man, he also has his own portfolio, 12 car pile up, and recently released a scorcher of an ep last tuesday on Emynd’s label crossfaded bacon. It’s got remixes by Emynd himself and new label mate scotty metalic (his ep just dropped too, also very taste), pick it up at turntable lab. Turntable lab did a solid interview for the ep, and local stand out blog, Above the fold did one in 2008 for do it to it at SXSW. Mike has definitely created a niche for himself and really developed an amazing style. His music, like his art, has a retro nostalgic 70′s feel to it, but the originality is unmistakable. He has done all his album covers and each do it to it ep cover. In particular on his new ep, ready to rock, gigolo rhythm just grooves perfectly. His love of the 70′s, early hip hop, and funky bass shine through. I’m super happy he’s letting us post it here. So now, its easy to see why I was excited to to pick Mike’s brain about music, burlesque, and life. In particular, his insight on focus, and how he meshes his influences into his work are worth taking to heart. In conjunction with the ep, he’s released a couple remixes, and they’ll be at the end of the post. On a side note, the last couple sets I’ve caught of Burlesque partner, Wes Winship, have been huge (Bomp!, and Hotel). So, if you get the chance to catch a burlesque event, don’t hesitate! Big up Mike!
- INTERVIEW WITH MIKE 2600
1. Your knowledge old funk and disco is famous, when did you start collecting, and what were some of your early favorites? Have any go to samples?
I’ve been into hip hop and rap music since about 1986 when I first started hearing Run-DMC, LL Cool J, The Fat Boys, Whodini, Beastie Boys… those were my favorites. I kept listening as the style of music progressed into more sample-based beats. Public Enemy, Gangstarr, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Cypress Hill… I was really interested in where all of the music came from. One day I was looking through my dad’s record collection and happened to pull out Bob James’ “Two” LP. I put it on the turntable with no real idea of what to expect and then heard the beat from Run-DMC’s “Peter Piper.” That was a huge eye-opening experience for me – it dawned on me that there was a whole world of old records out there that had been used to make up almost every rap song I loved. I started DJing in 1996 and quickly got into searching for and collecting these old records. I remember some of the first ones I found were Deodato’s “Prelude,” the Babe Ruth record with “The Mexican” on it, Average White Band, Rufus Thomas, things like that.
2. How did burlesque, and 12 car pile up get started? How’d you all meet?
OK I’ll try to keep this long story short! I was working at a small graphic / web design studio in St. Louis after I graduated from art school. I was helping my friend organize an event called Paint Louis where we invited hundreds of graffiti artists to come to town and paint (legally) on a three mile stretch of the Mississippi River flood wall. There was a crew of writers from Minneapolis who came each year and they were working on this magazine called Life Sucks Die. I’d never seen anything like it – it was graffiti mixed with roadkill and porn and the most fucked up shit I’d ever seen. I became good friends with some of those guys and then started helping them do graphics and writing articles for the magazine. Around this same time I got laid off from my job and started working freelance from home. I called my studio Twelve Car Pileup – it was just a name that popped into my head while driving around in traffic one day. After about a year of working on my own, the guys in Minneapolis were working less and less on the magazine and more and more on graphic art projects. They suggested that if I came up to Minneapolis, we could work together and really get things poppin’. I was getting super bored with St. Louis and decided to move up North in 2003. We started Burlesque and it’s been growing ever since.
3. What is the creative process like for you (music and or art)? Where do you draw inspiration from? Do you have a routine? Do you work alone?
Music projects – they usually start by hearing a chunk of a song that sticks out. I’ll grab it and loop it up and start layering percussion and other elements on top of it. Sometimes I’ll end up scrapping the original sample entirely and start building a track out of everything else I added on top. I like to listen to a lot of different stuff while I work on design projects during the day – psych rock, disco, funk, rap – and if I hear something that strikes me, I’ll jot down the name of it to work on it later.
For design inspiration, I collect a lot of old graphic design books, packaging, and other old stuff from the 1960s – 80s. I started a blog last year at http://somuchpileup.blogspot.com where I share all of the old design from that era that I love and get inspired by.
4. Where do most of your projects happen? What’s your studio like?
Music projects happen either on a variety of couches or my bed at home or sometimes on airplanes. It’s hard to hear any fine details in headphones on a plane but I can at least get a rough layout of a song going. For design projects, I doodle a lot. I keep a sketchbook in my back pocket at all times and am constantly jotting down ideas on napkins. All of my design work happens at our studio in Northeast Minneapolis. I have a desk and some shelves and a whole bunch of toys and posters and trinkets and inspirational stuff hanging up all over the place. The print room is filled with posters, test prints, unprinted paper, scraps, ink buckets, rags, machine parts, screenprinting chemicals, and lots of dangerous equipment!
5. Do you have a favorite medium? Favorite software or equipment (art and or music)?
I love to draw, but my favorite method for creating actual design work is Adobe Illustrator. For music production I use Ableton Live.
6. Burlesque, a new ep, numerous events, and a recent feature in Juxtapoz; you’ve been putting in some serious work. How do you maintain all these projects? Any keys to your success?
It’s hard to keep up with it all. I guess I try to only pick projects I’m really passionate about and feel I can truly put my heart into. Alot of the design work will come together during the day and music will happen at night. Aside from that I have to find time to keep the house in order and spend quality time with my girlfriend. I don’t drink or do drugs – maybe that has something to do with it?
7. Burlesque has gotten darn good at throwing a quality party. Streets sounds, bomp! and triple double are poppin off. What’s essential to putting on a great one?
Thanks! It’s been great to be able to throw parties in a city where everyone is excited to come out and support what we’re doing. I think the key has been to offer people some kind of familiar element – either they know most of the DJs, or they know the venue, or there’s an enticing drink special… and then hit them with something they’re not expecting – an out-of-town DJ they’ve never had a chance to see live, crazy video and art installations, etc. Having a good sound system is also essential, especially for really bass-heavy dance music. We love doing parties and First Avenue because the sound is always awesome. Wes (from Burlesque) and his dad have built a dual 18″ subwoofer cabinet that gets brought out to Bedlam each month for Bomp and it’s really helped fill that room with BASS.
8. You’ve been creating for a number of years. Music and cultural trends and how we receive them have changed and evolved quite a bit. There are tons of different ways to communicate promote, create, and release material now. In particular music and culture trends have definitely accelerated. What’s this transition been like for you? What’s your take on trends and memes?
It’s important to keep up with what’s going on and adapt to the changing environment, and it’s even more important to be able to adapt without losing focus of who you are and what people expect to see or hear from you. As Burlesque has grown over the years, people have come to expect certain types of posters and design work from us, and if we all of a sudden changed gears and started coming with some conceptual minimalist stuff, people would probably turn tail and head somewhere else for posters. Same goes with DJing – Serato has made it so easy to gain access to just about any song that has ever been recorded and it’s really tempting to want to play all of them, but it’s much more important to stay focused and play music that makes sense for the party / occassion.
9. While your art and music has a definite retro feel to it, there is also tons of originality. Gigolo rhythm has elements of funk, hip hop, but its fresh and has a perfect bassline (is the vocal sample from style wars?). How did your style develop?
It’s hard to say how it developed… I suppose it’s the end result of trying to find the common points between all of these disparate things that I love. I love disco music, classic hip hop beats, old disco rap, James Brown-era funk, early reggae music, early ’90s British cut & paste hip house dance stuff, ’60s psychedelic rock, and all of the visual aesthetics (album artwork, logos, posters, etc) that accompanied all that music and those eras. I like the idea of combining them but not forcing them to fit together just for the sake of doing it or being gimmicky.
10. What’s next for Mike, and Burlesque? I read on fully fitted that you might be doing a collab project with prince klassen.
Well, for Burlesque, we always have a lot of great posters, t-shirts, and other great projects and products coming out. Dre Day 2010 is just around the corner! February 18th – mark your calendars folks! Musically, Prince Klassen and I are going to be working on a new mix together. He’s a fantastic DJ and we really see eye to eye on a lot of music. I’ll be heading down to Austin soon to put it together with him and it should be up and online before the end of this year. Aside from that, I’ll be doing a few new remixes and other mix projects which should be surfacing before too long.
