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From: owner-mobility-digest@lists.xmission.com (mobility-digest) To: mobility-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: mobility-digest V2 #96 Reply-To: mobility Sender: owner-mobility-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-mobility-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk X-No-Archive: yes mobility-digest Wednesday, August 25 1999 Volume 02 : Number 096 RE: (mobility) I ain't no sell out Re: (mobility) I ain't no sell out Re: (mobility) reiteration: dc (mobility) I'm sorry Re:(mobility) I may be a sell out, but at least I don't use oldies. (mobility) concerts (mobility) my problem w/ bodyrock (mobility) (no subject) (mobility) suggestion Re: (mobility) (no subject) (mobility) yahoo (mobility) detroit show (mobility) Moby quoted in World Magazine Re: (mobility) Sailin' On Re: (mobility) my dad can beat your dad up! Re: (mobility) my dad can beat your dad up! + Coachella (mobility) GEtting over ourselves (mobility) Grabbed Article. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 21:17:08 -0400 From: "Eric M. Goldberg" <gold@netrox.net> Subject: RE: (mobility) I ain't no sell out my cent worth theres no such thing as being a sellout. show me the money eric ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 21:46:07 -0400 From: david chamberlain <dchamber@chuma.cas.usf.edu> Subject: Re: (mobility) I ain't no sell out First of all, I didn't call anyone a sellout. On the FATBOY SLIM thread, I just heard Moby's Southside on Fox Files piece about the porn industry. And Moby's music has been used for more movie preview soundtracks than probably anyone in history( I remember going to a movie and hearing his music in 3 previews in a row, as well as in the feature). HE's on commercials, tv shows, at every club and recently has even been on the radio and now is listeed on MTV's TRL listing. I think the guy gets plenty of exposure. Just because he isn't on MTV jams countdown or whatever doesn't mean hes not selling records. PLAY has had countless reviews, made tons of top album lists, he even had an interview in MARS(music store) newsletter/magazine. I mean, I'M pretty sick of the guy to be honest with you. Its a good thing he's got a huge discography to keep me entertained. =P oh yeah Led Zeppelin sold gazillions of records in the 70s, the beatles were a teeny bopper band in the 60s, and MOBY has a plethora of RAVE music. SO just because someoen starts out being poppy seed doesn't mean they won't make a huge impresssion further down the line. I mean, the beatles are the perfect example of how a band can progress. and the latest BSB album is much better than the first. =) as for britney spears, I don't like her music but i have a good friend of mine who looks just like her so....whatever dave ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 21:48:24 -0400 From: "Dave Linn" <veganboy@mindspring.com> Subject: Re: (mobility) reiteration: dc This is a multi-part message in MIME format. - ------=_NextPart_000_004C_01BEEE7A.63E49C60 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable my ticket says ages 19 & up. -----Original Message----- From: J Holland <mobscene@go.com> To: mobility@lists.xmission.com <mobility@lists.xmission.com> Date: Tuesday, August 24, 1999 2:19 PM Subject: (mobility) reiteration: dc =20 =20 =20 =20 i'm v. sure that we already went over this, but is the dc show 21+? =20 --J =20 =20 #*I #.....# I*#.....#*I #.....# I*#.....#*I # =20 find it amusing. fight the power. =20 =20 =20 =20 ________________________________________________________ ____ Get your Free GO Network Email address at http://mail.go.com =20 - ------=_NextPart_000_004C_01BEEE7A.63E49C60 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META content=3Dtext/html;charset=3Diso-8859-1 = http-equiv=3DContent-Type> <META content=3D'"MSHTML 4.72.3110.7"' name=3DGENERATOR> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff> <DIV>my ticket says ages 19 = &=20 up.</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE=20 style=3D"BORDER-LEFT: #ff0000 solid 2px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-LEFT: = 5px"> <DIV>-----Original = Message----- From:=20 J Holland <<A=20 href=3D"mailto:mobscene@go.com">mobscene@go.com</A>> To: = <A=20 = href=3D"mailto:mobility@lists.xmission.com">mobility@lists.xmission.com</= A>=20 <<A=20 = href=3D"mailto:mobility@lists.xmission.com">mobility@lists.xmission.com</= A>> Date:=20 Tuesday, August 24, 1999 2:19 PM Subject: (mobility)=20 reiteration: dc </DIV> i'm v. sure that we = already went=20 over this, but is the dc show 21+? --J #*I #.....# = I*#.....#*I #.....# I*#.....#*I # find it amusing. fight the=20 = power. _______________________________________________= _________=20 ____ Get your Free GO Network Email address at <A=20 = href=3D"http://mail.go.com">http://mail.go.com</A> </BLOCKQUOTE></= BODY></HTML> - ------=_NextPart_000_004C_01BEEE7A.63E49C60-- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 21:55:24 EDT From: JSoquet@aol.com Subject: (mobility) I'm sorry Ok I'm sorry for bringing up that subject of selling out. I didn't want to start that again. and frankly I don't think that you could call moby a sell out even if he does reach a mass amount of people. SellinG out. every garage band, DJ, singer, actor, wants to make it big and that is their dream. and when they finally do get there we pick on them for accomplishing that dream. That bugs me, but I do the same thing. Except for B.Boys. uurrrg like a kid putting a model car together. that's what they are. just for show. so enough is enough on that subject quit it. I thank Moby for his personality, and his gifted talents. I thank him because he's doesn't let Popularity go to his head. He knows he is just human and nothing more. Except I think he is........ I just want to say Thank You. I bet he doesn't get that enough. I hope it puts a smile on his face when he hears that. Also did moby put anymore on Voodoo Child besides End of Everything besides the Dog Heaven Single. like and Album before?????? I love End of Everthing. it's so personal I think ....... plus I also wanted to know what Moby thinks of Drugs. like did he ever Roll? I know he doesn't like to harm our beautiful Bodies, but when he was younger did he?? well Take Care everyone and Smile it makes people wonder what have you have been up too. oUTTs with the Shouts SUn....Tempe, AZ. music playing ORB U.F. OFF ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 19:21:3 -0700 (PDT) From: J Holland <mobscene@go.com> Subject: Re:(mobility) I may be a sell out, but at least I don't use oldies. Okay-- I'm not sure if this has ANYTHING to do with selling out... and least of all Moby... BUT -- what is with these GAP ads?? They are sooo wacky (and not a little bit scary!)!! 'mellow yellow???''dress you up in my love??' whoa. #*I #.....# I*#.....#*I #.....# I*#.....#*I # find it amusing. fight the power. ________________________________________________________ ____ Get your Free GO Network Email address at http://mail.go.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 22:41:30 EDT From: Io6032@aol.com Subject: (mobility) concerts yes, getting a big person to help you out is very good. i met this huge german guy from atlanta with a nin hat, who helped me out. i noticed that sometimes stupid people come up front who don't really want to dance and just kind of stand there and get nervous when people jump and dance to the music. don't worry. riz ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 22:59:38 EDT From: Io6032@aol.com Subject: (mobility) my problem w/ bodyrock in response to all the stuff that is being said right now. i have no clue where i stand on the whole world embrace moby / stay underground and tight with thte fans. i see it from both points. i wish more people knew who moby was when i mentioned his name, but i've noticed that a lot more people are getting to know him, not from bodyrock, but older stuff that they just come in contact with becasue their music tastes are expanding. my problem with the bodyrock is that it seems like an entirely a fatboy slim rip. i know that its been said that bodyrock, wasn't written after the whole bigbeat obsession, but even still its not a particularly great moby song. imho it kinda sucks mucho. i think there is was better stuff on play. and quite honestly fatboy slim does bigbeat better. the video just takes the fatboy slim comparisons to the next level. lets be honest how many when we first saw the video said "hey isn't this praise you???". i mean really its done in the almost exact same style. thats my problem. i wish moby could've at leats done something different with the vid. riz please don't flame lets discuss instead :) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 23:15:49 EDT From: Keets3@aol.com Subject: (mobility) (no subject) Hi all, I've been part of this mailing list for about a month now, however I haven't said much. I had a few things to say to everyone and Moby. First off, I want to respond to Moby. He said something to the effect of having "bad eyes"...guess again!!! Many things drew me to moby, but particularly his eyes. He has the kindest eyes I've seen in quite some time!!! Eyes are the windows to the soul and the spirit. His spirit is like unique and jumps out at you via his music, essays and eyes :) His eyes just make him even more attractive! His essays are unbelievable!! I find them inspiring and thought provoking. I love how he integrates his music with his beliefs. I am a veggie aspiring to be vegan, and I find his essays push me to attain my goals and see things from other perspectives. We need to remember why we listen to Moby and care so much about him and his music...and stop worrying so much about all these petty things like MTV. We like him and he knows it! That is all that matters! Why don't we just continue to support him the way we have and let him decide what to do with his own career. One thing that irritates me is how people are so quick to stop "liking" a band because they suddenly are accepted by the "mainstream" peeps. You should like music because you like it, not either because everyone likes them or no one likes them!!!!!!! If you don't like what everyone else likes simply because everyone else likes them, then you are just as bad as liking them because everyone else does!! One more thing. Comparing Moby to any other artist is an impossible feat. He is MOBY!!!! I will say this however...being a parrothead as well. Look at Buffett. He has never had a top ten hit in all his days, yet every concert is sold out and if you ask most people, they love him! It his spirit that shines through. I feel the same for Moby. He just keeps on shining!!! I hope that makes sense :) Well, thanks for listening...and Moby if you happen to read this...thanks for everything!! You are greatly appreciated by many!!!!!! Hakuna Matata :) LiZ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 22:24:14 -0500 From: Rob Skipworth <rskipwo@comp.uark.edu> Subject: (mobility) suggestion Hey everybody For all of you that are going to the concert soon, I have a suggestion. Take someone you really care about and hold on to them pretty tightly while "porcelain" plays. The song is incredible and sharing it with someone you love makes it ten times better. Sounds corny... but trust me. - -----rob <-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-> "An overturned Mercedes Benz, reeking of spilled gasoline, sat in a pile of broken glass near the east stage. The driver's-side door bore a green Bumper-sticker that read 'Greed Sucks.'" -Addicted To Noise on the Woodstock Riots <-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-> ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 23:33:38 -0400 From: david chamberlain <dchamber@chuma.cas.usf.edu> Subject: Re: (mobility) (no subject) > I will say this however...being a parrothead as well. Look > at Buffett. He has never had a top ten hit in all his days, yet every > concert is sold out and if you ask most people, they love him! It his > spirit that shines through. > Hakuna Matata > When I was living in miami I was backstage at a festival/Buffet concert thing and he assaulted me. he was upset about something and he took it out on me by calling me a name and pushing me. SO I don't like the guy and I take solace in knowing he writes silly songs about mixed drinks so he's not worth fussing over. dave ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 22:37:54 -0500 From: Rob Skipworth <rskipwo@comp.uark.edu> Subject: (mobility) yahoo Yahoo! launched its Digital Yahoo! music and video page Monday (Aug. 23) with downloadable tracks from Puff Daddy and remixable songs by Moby, David Bowie and Queen Latifah. The site (digital.broadcast.com) distributes music for purchase and free download in a variety of formats, including MP3 and Liquid Audio. By the end of the month, listeners will be able to post their own creations on the page, according to a Yahoo! press release. found this on addicted to noise - ----rob ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 23:58:52 EDT From: "- hyponoise -" <heavens_trash@hotmail.com> Subject: (mobility) detroit show since someone asked who will be there. ill prolly get there early. its my last day free before i go back to school so im gonna live it up. [livin la vica loca hehe] if anyone wants me to pick them up a shirt e-mail me and ill give you an addy to send the cash to. - -jason n . p . lamb . fear of fours www.mp3.com/wilt "Now that physics is proving the intelligence of the universe what are we to do about the stupidity of humankind?" -Jeanette Winterson _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 00:38:16 -0500 From: John Turpin <jct1@Ra.MsState.Edu> Subject: (mobility) Moby quoted in World Magazine Someone on rec.music.christian, spurred on by some Moby threads, posted this: > For those interested parties, this quote is taken from the August 14 > issue of World Magazine [www.worldmag.com]. > > "You don't have a rock festival based on peace and love and invite Kid > Rock and Insane Clown Posse."--Techno artist MOBY, on the riot-plagued > Woodstock '99 festival. He noted that some of the most popular > performers there specialize in a particularly combative mixture of hard > rock and rap. If you're going to quote this message, don't include the following signature... - -- The C.O.D. / John Turpin / <http://www2.msstate.edu/~jct1/cod/> "I believe in this reality / But it doesn't answer what it means to me My hope is / Above and beyond" -- Mortal, "Above & Beyond" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 22:40:35 -0600 From: Daniel Cerman <dcerman@verinet.com> Subject: Re: (mobility) Sailin' On michael.demattei@milliman.com wrote: > How cool!! I can't wait to hear that. The Bad Brains were one > of the most insane bands when they first started--live and on record. > I saw them in '81 or '82 and it was crazy. I'm glad Moby picked one of > the faster songs and not one of their Jah tributes. Moby's cover of "Sailin' On" is slow and very nice -- in a "When It's Cold I'd Like To Die" style. I never heard the original track, but I like Moby's version. Can't get enough of those pianos & strings. :) Daniel np: Fantastic Plastic Machine, "Honolulu, Calcutta" moby.org ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 03:30:15 EDT From: JRDYM77@aol.com Subject: Re: (mobility) my dad can beat your dad up! damn straight! lets all get over ourselves and return to loving moby and his music and being the best people we can be PS: do all of you know about Moby being at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, at Empire Polo Field in Indio, 20 minutes east of Palm Springs, CA (Coachella info line = 323)692-9361, www.coachella.com) Guess who else is going to be there on October 10 (sunday)? Cibo Matto! Gus Gus! Rage Against the Machine! and many more. The day before, on the 9th, Beck is gonna play there, along with Perry Farrell, Morrissey, and the Chemical Bros. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 05:14:07 EDT From: Arcya@aol.com Subject: Re: (mobility) my dad can beat your dad up! + Coachella Exactly!!! Coachella will be amazing. Yes I am BUMMED that I can't drive around the East following Moby, but this may make up for it (for us sad people in the west - I feel bad for the fans in Hawaii)!!! And KIM, yes tickets are on sale (I'll get you details as I find out about them - for now see www.coachella.com). I am thrilled cause I will be working together with a friend for LAUNCH mag and I'll get to meet some of the bands etc etc...and I'll get to see MOBY for the first time (I want to experience "Thousand")!!! Which is the giddiest thing now that everyone's stories have gotten me so pumped!!! I swear I am riding my bike everyday so I will be in shape and ready to dance from dawn to past dusk without pooping out!!! Love and salsa, Gabriele "Rock n' roll friends check each other's books back in! Rock n' roll Dan's got a 50 foot moustache I can't stand." - Sifl & Olly ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 05:34:57 -0400 From: david chamberlain <dchamber@chuma.cas.usf.edu> Subject: (mobility) GEtting over ourselves Don't EVER "get over yourself" Make a conscience effort to make yourself and your goals of p[rimary importance. If everyone takes care of their own problems the world will have a bright future. And make sure in taking care of yourself you distribute love onto other people. peace dave ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 11:08:52 +0100 From: Greening Ian <Ian.Greening@Tms-Ltd.com> Subject: (mobility) Grabbed Article. Hi folks, If you're interested, here's an interview with Moby from the July 99 issue of Future Music, here in the UK. Some of it's a bit for tech-heads and gear phreaks, but for those of you who work away in your bedrooms with samplers and the like, then enjoy. The more general bits are good as well... Having already explored the worlds of house, ambient, punk rock and soundtrack music, Moby is back with an album of breakbeat-soaked swamp blues. Martin James went to meet the man known to his mum as Richard Hall in his Manhattan home... Richard Hall opens the door on his spacious loft conversion. It's situated on the top floor of an ex-psychiatric hospital in the Soho district of New York. Trendy boutiques line the sidewalks once littered with junkies. Down in the basement is the studio where the Beastie Boys recorded their last album and filmed the video for Three MC's and One DJ. You could say it's a building of some history. Not unlike one of the top floor residents, Mr Hall, in fact. The slight, shaven-headed musician has delivered some of the finest rave tunes, punk songs, ambient epics and techno workouts of the last ten years. And this month sees the release of his eighth album. It's called Play, its creator is better known as Moby and we're sitting in his sparsely decorated apartment-cum-studio with the sun beating down through the huge windows discussing life, the universe, music and the man's own working methods. As someone not afraid to explore the elasticity of genre, Moby's recorded output has been nothing if not eclectic. Whether intentionally so - on his debut album for Mute Everything is Wrong where he pursued a melting pot of styles with an almost perverse sense of mischief - or as a way of recapturing the energy of youth as on the belligerent garage punk collection Animal Rights, he has always eschewed the externally imposed boundaries of style and genre. For Moby it's a simple act of anti-fundamentalism. For much of the media, such shifts of direction have been viewed with suspicion. He's therefore become the dance musician dance mags love to hate, the rocker the rock press don't understand and the soundtracker the film world won't acknowledge. For the man once called the 'Iggy Pop of techno', fitting into someone else's tight genres is simply not an option. Even if it would make life a little easier for the world to compartmentalise him. For his latest album, New York City's favourite maverick has once again defied the style police and come up with an album of down-tempo, swamp blues that's inspired as much by indigenous field recordings of black American folk music as it is by hip-hop. Not only his most commercial venture for quite some time, Play is also his finest album yet. The man's musical adventures, it would seem, know no bounds. It's an approach which points an accusatory finger at the anti-evolution purism of dance culture and Play provides a one-finger salute to the purists who have written him off since he first deserted the dancefloor a few years back. "Fundamentalism exists in all areas of life. I've simply found myself criticised by music fundamentalists", explains Moby. "Fundamentalism, whether it's religious or with dance music or whatever, is so attractive to people because it provides you with a rigid, unchanging lens through which to view the world" he argues. "Everything is neatly compartmentalised and easily slotted. If you're a drum'n'bass fundamentalist, either it fits into your slot as acceptable of unacceptable. It's so clear. It has to be because the world is so complicated and confusing that people love belief systems that are reductionist. That's how they make sense of all the ambiguity in the world". Moby has made sense of all the ambiguity in the world by trying to adapt to all of its complexities. As a result, the key words that crop up in Moby's conversation are tolerance and flexibility. Words which are borne out in his lifestyle. He is still a Christian, although he doesn't believe in any organised religion, and he still chooses to be a vegan although, as he points out on one of his infamous inner sleeve essays (this time from Play) "... I don't judge people who choose to eat meat." These days Moby is indeed a far more tolerant man than the one who first launched his dance music career through seminal rave tracks like I Feel It and the Twin Peaks sampling Go. "I just figure the world is complicated enough" he laughs "and to be honest, I've been wrong so many times in the things I've said. When I was younger I was a lot more narrow in my beliefs, in some ways I couldn't accept another view to have the same validity as mine. But I've been proved to be so spectacularly, idiotically wrong on so many occasions that I've come to accept that there's room for many views. It's all about a balance. "It's like with the millennium he continues. "The worrying thing about the millennium is that it's going to be followed by a world malaise because of the depression at nothing happening. It's like in war time when people prayed for peace but once it came they found out that, actually peace is pretty dull. "I'm not advocating war but, for example, when I first moved to New York I lived with three other guys. One of them ended up being a psychopath. I mean he was really crazy ... he tried to kill us and burn down the apartment. We tried hard to get rid of him and then he finally left. We cleaned up the apartment and thought 'Wow, life is going to be great now', but actually it was kind of boring. "As I said, I'm not advocating war, or living with psychopaths or the millennium bug or anything. I'm just saying that somewhere between war and peace, life is interesting. And there are lots of different ways of living between war and peace. No one way is fundamentally better than the other." When Moby talks he fixes you with a captivating stare. Not a threatening, testosterone induced stare but one which both puts you at your ease and makes you feel like he's completely captivated by your conversation. It's the kind of skill a politician spends years learning. With Moby however, you always get the feeling that he is totally sincere in his actions. It's this sincerity that he admires in others. Especially when it comes to music with the man who has occasionally been known as the Little Idiot, Evil Ninja or even DJ Cake, giving huge props to the current Blur output as sounding "honest, in some way true to themselves". This honesty is something which Moby has striven for in his music. And where it can be contested that both everything is wrong and Animal Rights were contrived in their execution, with Play Moby seems to have made a record that has no need to make any statement beyond its own music. No deliberate eclecticism in order to shake up the dance community, no punk metal kicking petulant dust in the faces of the electronic music purists. "I've been told that this is a widely eclectic album" he says with a look of amazement, "but really I think I've tried to make something which hangs together as a whole. For this record I probably made about 200 songs. Out of these about 40 were punk rock songs, 30 were faster techno-y house things and I also made about 20 straight-forward pop songs because I have in the back of my mind this anonymous pop project. "I knew that I didn't want to make an album from any of these styles this time. After the last Album, Animal Rights - which was very aggressive - I wanted this album to be more inviting. Still very personal and emotional but a little bit warmer and less self indulgent". In many ways Play can be split into three separate, yet intrinsically linked, sections. Firstly there are the tracks like the singles Honey and Run ON which were formed around field recordings made be a folk historian called Alan Lennox who, along with his father, amassed a huge catalogue of black music in the early 20th century. Next up are the tracks featuring Moby himself on vocal duties like Porcelain and South Side. Finally come the quiet instrumental tracks like Rushing. The whole thing is then held together by down-tempo, commercial hip hop breaks as inspired by Busta Rhymes and Puff Daddy. Despite the apparent change in direction, the whole thing sounds typically Moby. Why? "I have a sort of stereotypical string sound from the (Yamaha) SY22 which you hear on almost everything "he says as we walk into his studio which he declares has been "tidied up for the benefit of this interview". "Every record I've ever made, I've done everything myself," he continues while stepping over Roxy Music CDs and a Joe Jackson album, "mainly because whenever I work with other people in other studios I get kind of nervous. "This is because I've been working by myself since 1983 when I had a little Mattel drum machine and a task M four-track which set up my basic methodology of working. And when I go into an outside studio I have that pressure of having to do something good because I've just spent $2000 a day on it. At home I can spend about a week and get garbage and not feel bad about it." Moby's studio is swamped by two things: fly posters advertising all of his albums and his Soundcraft desk. Along one wall sits a rack of keyboards while his samplers and effects stand in a single tower. Next to the desk sit two Apple Macs. However, it's the older one he reaches to in order to demonstrate the tools of his trade. "Isn't it pathetic I have this brand new Macintosh G3 and I'm still using my old 2CI" he laughs. "My friends think I'm a retard. I bought the brand new version of Cubase VST for the G3 but I don't like the way it quantises. This old version from about 1993 on my 2CI has, like, these four different built in shuffle patterns and it just feels livelier. "In 1987 when I was messing around with my TR-606 and my Casio CZ-101, all I wanted was more equipment" he continues as the Apple Mac loads the software. "I would read magazines and look in stores and drool over things. I'd be, like, 'If only I could afford a Midiverb, everything would be fine.' I used to know my equipment inside out. But now that I've got loads of gear, I'm not so into pulling stuff apart. I'll even stick with the factory presets on the synths". With Pro Tools up and running, Moby points to his four separate samplers, all of which he used in tandem in order to create as much sampling time as possible to record this album. On everything is Wrong, each track required a completely different set using separate sample disks and so on. The process of loading each track took at least 25 minutes. For Play Moby created a huge palette of sounds to choose from so he could just load and start playing as the mood took him. "I have this Akai museum here," he says. "I bought the S950 in 1990. In 1993 I bought the S1000 and then two years ago I bought the S3200. For this album I decided I wanted to create as much sample space as possible so I bought the S3000. So I've got pretty much every Akai sampler they made between 1989 and 1998. Now they have these big huge crazy ones with the removable face plate but I don't have any of those. "To me the 1000, 3000 and the 3200 are pretty much the same machine. There's a world of difference between them and the S950 but those three are pretty much the same. The differences are subtle. I mean the 3200 is a waste of time for me. It does all of these things that I'll never do like read and write SMPTE. I use my Studio 4 for doing that. The S950 is a wonderful machine. It's really special for looping and rimming samples. For some reason it's just more intuitive." For Moby sampling ahs a lot to do with intuition. Not for him the laborious task of learning to use the equipment inside out, upside down and in another dimension. "I've read an interview with DJ Shadow where he's said that he wants to master every single thing about the sampler and be like the sample king," he grins. "I'm not like that at all. My approach is pretty rudimentary. I sample things and then I use that sample. "The only thing I tend to do is play with the filters. The S3200 has two filter banks which I really like. You can send things like an LFO to the filters. On the track My Weakness from the latest album, I have this African choral vocal which has been filtered to death. Now it has no bearing on the original. And there's a song called Down Slow, and it's got this drum loop which has been really manipulated through the filter banks. But that's about as far as I go into the trickery." Running the whole show is the trusty Cubase. Moby may not like the Mac version but it's a system he can't see himself changing in the near future. "When I bought my first Mac, the guy that sold it to me recommended Cubase ... so I went with that. Basically I've never used anything else since," he considers, as he absent-mindedly plays the Twin Peaks keyboard refrain from Go on his SY22, as if to make his earlier point about the stereotypical Moby sound. "Until 1991 I used an Alesis MMT8, a potato chip sequencer that I loved. It's a wonderful piece of equipment but so limited. I loved the way that it was part based rather than being linear like Cubase. It's really easy to make monotonous music on modern sequencers like Cubase as opposed to thinking about linear blocks and segments which helped avoid making monotonous music. "Sometimes, for me, it's the limitations of a piece that make a composition so special. The piano will always sound just like a piano but that limitation makes a piano wonderful. The only piece of equipment that comes close to being limitless is the sampler. The only real limitations are what we as humans bring to it." A sentiment echoed time and again on these very pages. However, rarely do artists live up to their grandiose claims with record after record keeping to similar structures and frameworks. The magic of Moby's music is that it manages to tap into the energies of the source and marry them to the limitless imaginations of the true sonic surfer. His music may be commercial, but in his career he has explored more musical terrain than a thousand worthy underground artists. "These days there's so much to know about engineering in a studio," he concludes as we walk back into the white washed calm of his living room. "One of the album tracks, South Side, was mixed on an SSL. I'd always found them quite daunting but I succeeded and just thought to myself, "Wow, I'm like a real engineer now'. It'll be interesting in 20 or 30 years to autopsy the brains of sound engineers from the late 20th century". Doubtless it would be just as interesting to autopsy the brain of one Richard 'Moby' Hall as well. But let's hope it never comes to that. Inserts: Kit List Akai S950,S1000,S3000, S3200 Alesis ADAT Apple Mac running Cubase Casio CZ-101 dbx 160XT compressor E-mu Pro Piano Eventide DSP4000 Hafner power amp Oberheim Matrix 1000 Roland Juno106, Jupiter 6, TB-303, TR-606, TR-909 Sans Amp footswitch Serge modular synth Soundlab vocorder Spirit by Soundcraft 24:8:2 Technics 1200 turntables Waldorf Pulse Plus Yamaha SPX900, SY22, SY35, SY85 plus guitars and basses. Moby's graveyard "I have a gear graveyard which I haven't looked at in a long time because it's so depressing. The Roland GP-100 guitar preamp processor entered the graveyard really quickly because it's got unusable sounds. It was cool in the showroom but when I got it home it sounded too Japanese. Not that I'm anti Japanese. "Another mistake was this Drawmer EQ. I got the idea that I needed a valve EQ so I bought this. It's really expensive, and it's good but I never use it. I also have a Yamaha sampler from about 1989 called the TX16W. It's the least user-friendly operating system I've ever encountered in my life. I use it for strings occasionally because it's got one nice organic string sound, like a solo violin. That was the first sampler I ever bought and I saved up months to but this thing. And it took me like forever just to do anything. I spent so many nights just going to bed panicking because I'd just spent all this money on a sampler and I couldn't get it to work." Working Solo: "When you're working by yourself you cal lose objectivity so quickly and molehills become mountains. I'll be working on a song and if I can't get the kick drum to sound right I'll then I'm a failure and walk around Manhattan, mourning my fate. It doesn't matter that I've made lots of records in the past. All that matters is I can't get one kick drum right. And all I can think is my career's over and I'm going to have to become a fries chef at Macdonalds. "I wasn't happy with the mixes other people did for me so I went back to my own mixes that I did at home. Then I asked Liam from the Prodigy to mix something because I loved the sound he got on Fat of the Land. It's just a remarkable sounding record. One of those nights last year when I was walking around Manhattan feeling like a failure, I'd done a mix here and I put it on headphones. Then I thought, just for fun, I'd put Fat of the Land on. It sounded a million times better so I got very depressed. So I asked Liam if he'd be interested in mixing some or all of the album but he was too busy. It was a fortunate thing I the end because I'm really happy with the way the album turned out. "In the end I simply couldn't collaborate with anyone else. The only time I've tried it was in 1991 with Westbam. We were hanging out together and decided it would be fun to try and make a track. In the end we just brought out the worst in each other. I've been making music for 25 years now so I don't think about the process that much. It's got to a point where it's neither an intellectual nor visceral process. It's just something immediate and almost automatic. And working with another person simply affects that feeling." ------------------------------ End of mobility-digest V2 #96 ***************************** ------------- To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to majordomo@xmission.com with the line "unsubscribe mobility-digest" in the body.