Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Music producer who shaped popular music over four decades, founded Def Jam, and worked with artists from Johnny Cash to Adele.
On the island
Eight records
The Beatles was everywhere and everywhere in my in my home. And it somehow imprinted what a great song is in a very deep level before I knew that I was looking for what that was.
At the Hour of Death (Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit, BWV 668)
I don't think we can have a conversation about music without somehow getting back to a foundational element. And if we're going to play a variety of music, including Bach seems necessary.
They were the first punk rock band I ever heard. They were the first band to play fast that I ever heard. And I remember hearing them in junior high school and just laughing. It was really funny to me.
This song represents my time in New York when I was going to NYU and I was going out to dance Tyria every night with the Beastie Boys and with Rundy MC and with LL Cool J.
I had a spiritual experience listening to this song where I was driving from Malibu. Back into Los Angeles and there's a a long drive on Pacific Coast Highway, which is a magical, beautiful highway.
Wholly Affirming, Wholly Denying, Wholly ReconcilingFavourite
This music feels like it's from not just another time, a timeless time. And it doesn't bring up specific memories of things to miss, which I was thinking about. I don't want to miss anything when I'm on the island.
It represents intellectual New York, the pretension of intellectual New York, but also beautiful music, harmony.
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
This deep soul, and I'll say spiritual. I don't know if she meant it that way, but I hear it that way. Almost a devotional Piece of music...
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:55Tell me a little bit more about your approach in the studio.
Well, I'm not technical in any way, and my job is to listen. I can listen in the deepest way if I'm relaxed with my eyes closed.
Presenter asks
5:29Tell me about your parents, Mickey and Linda. You were very close to them, weren't you?
I slept in my parents' bed with them for the first five years of my life. So and I'm an only child, so it was a very tight-knit family. The fact that my parents were so loving and warm and supportive of everything, maybe to a fault, in my life, gave me the confidence to be able to do things that were other people felt were more challenging.
Presenter asks
14:36What made you make the jump from fan and consumer to someone who thought they could make hip-hop records for themselves?
Well, I'll say the only reason I did it was because I bought every at this point in time it was 12-inch singles. Only there were no rap albums yet. There were only 12-inch singles. And the music in the hip-hop clubs didn't sound like those records. So my interest was I wanted to make records really for myself that sounded like what I liked about going to the club, which was much more raw, much less musical, and The fact that I didn't know how to make recordings allowed me to make ones that were true to what it was, instead of following the rules of recording...
The keepsakes
The book
Carl Jung
It's a book of his dreams and inner journey. It's pondering the inner world, the inner life, and it seems like a good guide for someone who's going to be pondering the inner life for some time.
The luxury
each card tells an archetypal story. And there's enough detail in the cards to read deeper and deeper into them over time. So in some ways, while there are only seventy eight images, it's an endless journey inward.
Presenter asks
22:13What were you experiencing and going through [during your depression in the nineties]?
I went through a um a depression for the first time in my life. It wasn't anything that I um I understood. I I thought I was dying. I didn't understand what it was. Uh at one point in time I was going to see a therapeutic practitioner of one kind or another, probably two a day, five days a week, six days a week, just hoping I would drag myself out of bed to get to the appointment in the hopes that this is going to fix it. And that was my life for two years.
Presenter asks
28:09How did making music with you help [Johnny Cash] in those final months of his life?
He wasn't well enough to tour any more. His partner was gone. And His choice was to to die or to carry on. and he chose to carry on.
“I'm not technical in any way, and my job is to listen. I can listen in the deepest way if I'm relaxed with my eyes closed.”
“The best work divides the audience, and I embrace that. I want to go as far as we can to the edge, and sometimes we fall over. But those are the things that most excite me. That's what I want to hear from someone else. If we all are in agreement about everything, art's going to be dull. Life will be dull.”
“I collapsed. I would say I'm not the same person now that I was before. In some ways, I miss the person I was before because the person I was before was more fearless than I am. Now I'm more rooted in reality, which I can't say I love, but it's real. And I would say I'm more empathetic with the artists I work with, many of whom have emotional issues because the best people do.”