Arthur Baker

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

We’re very excited to have our next lecturer, he’s produced some of the most important and influential records in the history of dance music. So, please welcome, Mr Arthur Baker.

[Applause]

Arthur Baker

Thank you, thanks a lot. I get a bit scared when you say “lecture” though. Lecturer, that reminds me of school and I flunked out so I don’t…

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

It’s like Inside The Actor’s Studio. Have you seen that show? That’s what we’re doing.

Arthur Baker

Cool, I’m ready for that.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Cool. So, welcome. You’re living in London now?

Arthur Baker

Yeah, I moved there about 11 years ago. And I’m thinking of moving back, but I’m waiting till Bush is thrown out of office.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

And you did some of your most famous work in New York, but you’re originally from…?

Arthur Baker

Beantown, yep.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

From Boston.

Arthur Baker

As you are, right?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Originally, yes. “The City of Boston,” as they say. Boston, for those who are unaware of the States and the dynamic of some of the cities in the north-east of the United States, it’s traditionally thought of more as a rock city, a rock & roll city. A lot of famous bands have come out of Boston. So, you obviously had an interest in other areas. How did that manifest itself, and how did you find outlets for what you wanted to do living in Boston?

Arthur Baker

Well, in Boston you could say that the bands who’d come out of there had been bands that weren’t particularly dancey, but there really wasn’t dance music back then anyway. There was no hip-hop. Boston had a big soul scene and disco, early disco, like Philly. So, when I was a kid, I used to listen to two radio stations. One was WBCN, which was really important, because it was a rock station, but they’d play everything. They’d play Al Green, they’d play Gamble & Huff stuff, the O’Jays, Joe Simon. So, you would hear things; not just rock & roll. And there was a radio station WILD, which was a great soul station. So, basically, I got my education through radio. I think, back then, radio was the most important [medium]. Radio and record shops. I’d go hang at record shops, and as soon as I could work in a record shop, I did.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Which shop were you working at?

Arthur Baker

I worked at one in Brookline called Soundscope, which, before that when I was a kid in high school a friend of mine’s parents owned a record shop, so they’d pay us in promos. We wouldn’t get paid, but my first promo was Al Green’s first album. So, you educate yourself by listening to music. I’m sure for everyone here, that’s how they get into music. You become a fan first, and that’s how it happened.

But basically, because the only thing I could look at – when I heard Philly records, or even before that Motown, I said: “I wanna do that, I wanna make those records.” Even though I was a rock fan. But I didn’t see myself producing rock bands, because it wasn’t as far as I was concerned, a producer’s medium. Even though it was. But in my head, I’d look at the Gamble & Huff records, and I’d see Gamble & Huff wrote the song, and the O’Jays would sing it, so I’d think that was for me, that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be able to write the songs and then have people sing them. Because, obviously, I couldn’t sing for shit.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So how did you get into DJing?

Arthur Baker

To get free records, really. Because back then, DJs didn’t get paid much of anything. So, when I started – I started DJing in ’73 - and in ’73, obviously, it was just singles. So, we discovered that if you got two copies of the same single, you could extend it by playing a bit of one and a bit of another. And, you know, it was a whole other time obviously, but I started DJing at college. I’d do parties. I actually went down to Brooklyn and bought a GLI, which was the company that made the first DJ mixer, one of the first. So, I got one of those, and I had a few turntables, and just started DJing at college.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Hampshire College, which is in western Massachusetts. So, it was a little bit easier to get to New York, from Hampshire.

Arthur Baker

Yeah, most of my friends at college were from New York, so we used to go on the weekend. It was like a two-hour [trip] – less than two hours. So, we’d go down and we’d go to Downstairs Records, which was probably the first dance music shop anywhere, I would guess. That was just dance music. So, we’d go there and get records, and then we’d go to record companies and I’d say: “Oh, I’m a big DJ in Amherst,” and they wouldn’t know the fucking difference. So, they’d give me all their records. To this day I have every Fania record put out from ’73 to ’77, because I said basically: “I play salsa,” which I did. I got a gig at a club called Rasheed’s, which was an Arab club, and I played salsa there. So, they’d give you the records, they’d say: “There’s a chance someone’s going to hear it, if someone’s playing it.”

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So, what was DJing in Boston like, after you left college? Just describe some of the clubs and the scene… what that was like?

Arthur Baker

I played at mafia clubs. I would play at the worst, shitty mafia clubs. There used to be these clubs called Sadie’s, I don’t know if you remember them. A chain of discos, in 1976, they were all in dinner clubs. The restaurant was called Chateau de Ville. I mean, you know, it was a really tacky place. But you know, you’d get to play records and no one would dance. You could watch the Celtics on the TV in the bar.

But it was frustrating. I was a horrible DJ, I mean horrible. So, basically I did it to get free records, and to get in the door at record companies. I mean, back then, the easiest way – in ‘76 it was the heyday of disco. And the easiest way to get into a record company would be [to say]: “I’m a DJ.” So, you’d go in, “I’m a DJ”, they’d let you in, they’d have these DJ promotion guys who’d give you free records. And then you’d get your foot in the door and you’d say: “Oh, I want to do a remix.” Even back then, that was the scam. You’d get your foot in the door that way.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You had a very special technique for DJing when people wouldn’t dance, right?

Arthur Baker

When they didn’t dance I’d just break the record and throw it at the dancefloor [laughs]. It’s true. Luckily, there were a few. I didn’t break my Donna Summer album, because you know, that one I stuck with. Eventually, they danced to that one.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

At what point then did you decide you wanted to get into production?

Arthur Baker

Well, when I was in Boston, I went into a recording studio. This was when I was still working at record shops, after college. And there was a studio called Intermedia Studios. The first Aerosmith album was recorded there, with “Dream On.” Really good, like a little studio, storefront studio. And I went in and I met the owner, and I said: “Listen, I’m a producer, I’m a record producer. I wanna make a record.” Actually, I took a course there. That’s not true, I took an engineering course there. And I met the guy through that. And I just said: “I’m going to make this record, will you give me free studio time at night, downtime?” And he gave it to me. He said: “Sure.” I was able to really talk him into it. And then I found an arranger, I don’t even know, you got to realize, back then, it was all live music. There was nothing… on that record we had a click track, there was some click track – a clap track it was called. And that was it. We had a Moog – I don’t know if we had a Moog on that first one. But basically, you had to hire an arranger and a band. This was crazy. I’m just doing this shit, and I had no reason to think, I had no musical training at all, I just thought I could do it. I listened to records and thought, ‘Oh, I could do that’. But I needed singers, so somehow I found these two singers, and they were pimps from Rhode Island. I don’t even remember where I met them but it was Chico and David, Chico Walker. And he told me he had been in a band on Motown called The Hearts of Stone. I found the records. He wasn’t on the covers. Basically, he had money. He was a player in Rhode Island so he had the cash, so he paid for everything, and they wrote the song, called “Losing You.” And we did it…

There’s a Canadian connection here because, somehow there was this guy called Pat Deserio, who was making dance records, and he had a label up here in Montreal and he gave me a record deal. So actually, the record came out on a 12”, and this was probably ’78.

So, that was the first record release. But from there, I just kept doing things like that. I went to my family and I borrowed like $1,000, from my grandmother, my father, just everybody. Got money from them and I decided to make an album. Something like a Gamble & Huff album. It was like doing a full album with strings on every track. I mean, it was crazy, and I probably spent like 15 grand. Then I ran out of money and, luckily – hmm, luckily – I ran into Arnold – Tom Moulton’s brother… Tom Moulton was the first remix guy… he’s done the most… all the Philly things, he used to mix all the Philly things… So, they were from Boston. His brother was living there. He heard it and he said: “Oh, we love the songs, we’ll buy it from you but we’re going to re-record everything.” So, this was the first time I got fucked in the record business.

Listen up for this one… so, basically, he said: “Here’s this money, you’ll get publishing.” Because, you know, I’d written all the songs. And he said: “We just want the tapes, we’re not going to use them but we just want them so we can listen to them better.” So, of course, I gave him the multi-tracks, and a year later it came out as TJM, it was on Casablanca Records. He’d used everything I had done, and he’d just sort of remixed it or mixed it. So, I got a bit screwed on that one. But at least it came out, my name was on it. That was before, like, “Happy Days,” or the Northend stuff.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

OK, so talk a little bit about how you got to do the Northend stuff.

Arthur Baker

I had a friend, this guy Russell Presto. He was a drummer and a DJ, and he had played on some of the sessions for TJM. The TJM thing… basically, I met Maurice Starr through that, Michael Jonzun. These were all people who I’d work with later on.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Who went on to do really big things…

Arthur Baker

New Edition, New Kids On The Block and stuff like that… So basically, Russell was a DJ; a really great DJ and a great drummer. But a very anal guy, used to hang up his socks, one of those guys. But because of that, his sense of rhythm and timing was amazing. He could play to a click track, even back then, which was really uncommon, he’d practiced to a click track. So, we went in. The two of us went in and we were going to do a percussion album. This was before breakbeat albums, before any of that stuff. We decided that for DJs we would do percussion tracks, that people could play to extend records. So, basically it was a concept way ahead of its time.

So, we did it and we brought it to John Luongo, who was sort of my mentor and all that, because he was sort of the top DJ in Boston. And he went on to move to New York and remix everything from things like Jackie Moore’s “This Time Baby”, “Shake Your Body” by The Jacksons. So, he was actually the first guy to leave Boston and really make it. Google him: the things he did, he was just the No 1 guy, really, in the late ’70s. So, we tried to do this thing, it didn’t work out, so we decided we would do a group. So, we found this guy Tony Carbone, who was going to Berklee School of Music, so he was actually a real musician. The three of us went in and we wrote this song called “Kind Of Life.”

We finished it up – no, Maurice didn’t play on that one – took it to New York, and all the record companies who thought I was a really great DJ would let me in, you know? And they’d listen to the tracks. So basically, Mel Cheren at West End Records, he gave me a record deal on it. It was the first time we had done a record from scratch that actually came out with my production credit on it, it was getting played at the Paradise Garage; Larry Levan loved it. He used to play it all the time. And Mel always wanted him to do a remix. Larry actually worked for West End, but Mel would always say: “You ask him to do the remix.” I’d go: “Why do I have to ask him? He works for you!” But Larry was a diva, and Mel was like, y’know…

So, that was the first thing, then we went back to Boston, they were still living there. We found this girl Michelle Wallace, and that was the track – Michael Jonzun and Maurice Starr all played on that track, which was called “Happy Days.”

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You want to throw on a little bit of “Happy Days”?

Arthur Baker

Sure, sure.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

This is Northend featuring Michelle Wallace. And as Arthur said, this features some of the players that would go on to do really big things.

(music: Northend – “Happy Days”/ applause)

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Alright, so how did that song do for you guys?

Arthur Baker

Well, it actually did really well. Larry loved that song also. He used to kill it at Paradise Garage. [John “Jellybean” Benitez] played it a lot, at the Funhouse. It was sort of the first thing that came out that actually was a hit. We sold 40,000 12”s in New York. It did well.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Did the flipside also get played quite often?

Arthur Baker

The flipside: I brought in this DJ, Tee Scott.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Anybody ever heard of Tee Scott?

Arthur Baker

He died way too young. Him and Larry. He played at a club called Better Days. He was an amazing DJ, and he was the first DJ who brought people in – well, that I know of – who brought people in live to the club. He’d have keyboard players playing over tracks, and this was literally like ’80, he was doing that in ’80. He had this crew of musicians from Queens… Charlie Street played guitar on that, the George Benson-type guitar. And Andre Booth, who ended up being Marley Marl’s production partner. Anything Marley Marl did, Andre did all the music. He turned me on to those guys, who also played on “Happy Days,” and then I had him do the mix. So, from an early time I realized it would be a good idea to bring in really good DJs to come in and help on the mix and get their feedback on it, which I did. I mean, even Northend, “Kind Of Life”, the first one on West End, I had John Luongo come in, and this guy Danae Jacovidis, who was a DJ in Boston – probably one of the best DJs I ever heard. I’d always bring in a DJ back then. Since I was a bad DJ, I’d bring in good DJs. It made sense to me, you know?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So, on that track it’s all live instruments?

Arthur Baker

That’s all live.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Where did you get that splash on the percussion?

Arthur Baker

That’s the one synthesizer. That’s a Minimoog handclap, which was actually a Maurice Starr special. Which would later turn up on New Edition’s “Candy Girl.” But the drum sound, it’s a really good drum sound, and that record’s been sampled many times. There was a bootleg, a “Happy Days” bootleg, by this guy PJ something-or-other, this guy in England. That came out ten years ago, and it went top 10. And someone’s just done a remake of that now. So, it’s basically a pretty timeless record, but the drum sounds have been sampled many times. We literally spent four or five hours just on the snare sound. I remember Russell put his wallet on, taped his wallet on. That’s how you’d get the drum sounds.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So, from this, I guess you did some writing as well, right? At the time, you were writing for Dance Music Report?

Arthur Baker

I was writing for Dance Music [Report], again, writing reviews, to get free records. Everything was motivating me, the record thing was definitely where my head was at, still as a DJ. As a bad DJ. You still need the good records. So, yeah, I was working for Tom [Silverman] and after “Happy Days” came out, he decided he’d do a label, which he called Tommy Boy. That says something about him, I guess. But I was the only producer he actually knew, personally. So, he said: “Do you wanna go in and do a record for me?” And I said: “Yeah, sure. You’re paying, I’m playing,” you know?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I guess, at this stage, your roots were in soul and disco, you’re working on these club records. For Tom, he asked you to do a hip-hop record. Set the scene a little bit.

Arthur Baker

OK, I’ll set the scene. Basically, back then, well there was no hip-hop. Because it didn’t exist. But really, the roots of hip-hop were club music, were disco. Guys like Kool Herc, he was playing breaks but the breaks were from disco records, or from any kind of records. But basically, it was the same, everything was the same. When rap started to be recorded, the records that rappers would want to rap over, were usually records that I had been playing, or DJs had been playing as disco records. So, that’s where the breaks were from. Even “Rapper’s Delight,” “Good Times” was being played at Paradise Garage. I mean, it was all the same thing. There was no break between what was club music and what rappers were rapping over.

So, Tom, he had a group, he had this guy Afrika Bambaataa, who had like three groups: Cosmic Force, Jazzy 5, Soulsonic Force. So, the Jazzy 5, they were the most together at the time. And we went in, I went in with the band. I went in with Andre and T-Funk, and all the guys who played on “Happy Days.” And Bambaataa came in and we had all of these records, and [we asked]: “Which one do you want to rap over?” And basically, back then you would try to take a current record, that was hitting the charts, and you’d do a rap over it, like, another version. And at the time there were two that we were thinking of: “Genius Of Love” by Tom Tom Club and “Funky Sensation” by Gwen McCrae. Basically, I figured that someone else was going to do “Genius Of Love” and there were three versions that came out. So, we picked “Funky Sensation,” and we called it “Jazzy Sensation.” And that sold, for Tom, like 50,000 records.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Put the label on the map, more or less.

Arthur Baker

Totally, there was no label before then. He had a record called “Let’s Vote”… I don’t know if you know that one – a really horrible record. But I’ll play you a bit of “Jazzy Sensation.”

(music: Afrika Bambaataa & The Jazzy 5 – “Jazzy Sensation” / applause)

Arthur Baker

That actually sounds really good, I like that. I’d sign it.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Not bad, not bad. What happened to those guys?

Arthur Baker

Man, back then, it was just one in, one out and that would be it. Basically, I had nothing to do with the business, Tom was hiring me, and he didn’t believe in albums for rap groups at the time. It was more like, one shot. Obviously, he was totally wrong, he wasn’t thinking in the future.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Well, I guess Bam was more or less the artist, or maybe that’s how he thought of it.

Arthur Baker

That’s probably how he thought of it, yeah, absolutely. Because they didn’t even do a follow-up record. That record did really well, and there was no follow-up. That’s crazy, but...

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So, I guess let’s talk about Bam’s follow-up.

Arthur Baker

Yeah, which one was that?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

[Laughs]

Arthur Baker

Well, that one, “Jazzy Sensation” was successful and we decided we’d go in again. And Tom said Soulsonic Force is next up, and we went back in. And I had been listening to a lot of Kraftwerk. But there was a record shop in Brooklyn, I lived in Brooklyn, and it was one called Music Factory. And there were these two brothers, Donnie and Dwight, and I used to go down there and hang out on Saturday, hang with them and just see what was selling. I’d had that record out, so we’d just hang. It was a really great time, the early ’80s: things were really starting to happen in New York. A lot of great records were being cut in New York and a lot of good labels, like Prelude were happening.

Basically, they played me “Numbers,” which was a Kraftwerk record, and I just thought the beat was ridiculous. It just sounded great, and when people were in the record shop and it came on and it was just a whole other thing. So, at the time, the “Trans Europe Express” came out, I was working at Cardinal distributors, at a one-stop [store] in Long Island. So, I was making records that sold 40,000 copies and I was sweeping the floor at a one-stop. Well, eventually I got a promotion, but I was a good sweeper. We’d have our lunch break, and we’d go sit, and it was right near the projects. You’d sit there and you’d always hear “Trans Europe Express,” you’d always hear the handclaps, you’d always hear the melody.

It was really surreal, sitting in the housing projects and hearing that reverberating off the buildings. It just was very bizarre. So, I thought that the beat on that, it was too slow. We hooked the two of them up, and Bam decided that he was into this record “Super Sporm” by Captain Sky, that would be the break. So, we went in the studio with these ideas, and we decided we needed a drum machine. This wasn’t going to be a record that would have a live drummer on it, because we were trying to do…

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

… to emulate the sound.

Arthur Baker

Yeah, we were trying to emulate the sound of Kraftwerk, the electronic drum sound. So, we listened to different drum machines and we heard the 808 and we said: “That’s it.” Basically, no one had an 808. This is a true story: we put an ad in the Village Voice, we looked in the Village Voice and we saw: “Man with drum machine, 20 dollars a session.” So, we called him up and said: “Come on in.” And we went into the studio called Intergalactic Studio.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Appropriate name.

Arthur Baker

Well, yeah. And the Beastie Boys later made it famous, they were working there also; they weren’t working there then but they were part of that whole scene. And we went in and made this record. The programmer of the drum machine, he had no idea what the fuck we were doing. “You want me to do what?” We played him Kraftwerk… we did, that was the reality, and we showed him what to program. It was through a Neve, which is an amazing board. But basically, we went in there: me, Bam, John Robie, who I met through that and we’re still best friends to this day.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I guess, tell us a little bit about John, and his role in the record, as well.

Arthur Baker

Well, I mean John is a genius musician, but basically, he was very good, and he had a Micromoog and he had a Prophet-5, he had the keyboards. This was the first time we’d got to use a polyphonic synth, because I was always using the Moog. So, he brought the Prophet-5 up, strangely enough there was also a Fairlight there. Now, the Fairlight, the stuff you can probably do now on a $1,000 computer. The Fairlight was probably worth over $100,000 or more, you couldn’t even get anything close to what you get now. So, the technology, I mean, you can’t even imagine. The change in technology is ridiculous. So, we had this Fairlight there, which was just taking up a lot of space. But it had a few sounds in it, one being this sort of explosion sound, which we used in the break, and the orchestra, the infamous orchestra, so, we used that.

But Robie could actually play. You’d tell him to play that and he’d play it and add something to it. He was really, really good. So, we went in and the first night, there were no rappers around, in the house that night. Bam was there, none of the group was there, they came in later and we did this track. It took us like eight hours, and I took the thing home, and I was living in Brooklyn at the time, and I put it on, and I said to my wife at the time: “We’ve made musical history.” I mean, I knew. There was no rap, it wasn’t finished. But just listening back… when we went in the studio I wanted to make a record that punk rockers – as we called them then, but whatever – I wanted something that was going to be uptown and downtown.

I mean, from day one that was the idea. It isn’t like we lucked into that, we were going for that. We wanted to make a record that people into Talking Heads would play, and people into Sugarhill Gang would play. We wanted to sort of merge them. And that had a lot to do with Bam, because Bam was open to that. If he had said no, we wouldn’t have done it for that record. He was definitely open to that because he was DJing downtown and uptown. He was sort of the guy to first really be able – because, you know, Kool Herc was playing uptown but you wouldn’t see him playing downtown at Danceteria or that kind of club. So, you know, Bam definitely crossed the boundaries.

I knew we had something, without the rap. And then the rappers came, and they hated it. Not even hated it they despised it. They didn’t get it at all. They wanted something that sounded like something on the R&B chart, they wanted “Jazzy Sensation”: “Yo, man, why do you do that for us?” Just really pissed off. Mr Biggs was like: “Nah, man, we’re not going to rap on that!” So basically, we had to convince them.

The whole “Planet Rock,” the whole theme of “Planet Rock…” I think probably The G.L.O.B.E, he had the verses. I think my input into that, which I think was very different, was I said: “We need a chorus.” And I think that was probably the first rap record that I think had its own individual new chorus. You know: “Rock, rock to the planet rock, don’t stop.” I wanted it to be a song, I wanted it to have a chorus. In “Rapper’s Delight” there was no chorus. There was a hook line, in [Kurtis Blow’s] “The Breaks”: “These are the breaks,” but I said let’s make it so it’s a real song.

Having the cities in it was like James Brown, he’d always have: “Yo, Atlanta, Detroit,” whatever, so we took it international: “Berlin, Lebanon…” We just went through cities, international cities. So, when we were doing it I was attempting to make an international pop rap record. Not just pop, obviously. But with a song, with a hook, so in our minds we were trying to make this alternative thing that had choruses and that people all over the world would relate to – because, obviously, we put their city in it. We took bits of all the records that we liked. In a way, it was sort of one of the first cut-and-paste records. And when we put it out, we also figured… I always said, when I was being interviewed then, that it was similar to jazz artists, taking bits, quoting things from other records, which I thought it was.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Well, what about the “For A Few Dollars More” melody on the keyboard?

Arthur Baker

That was John, he came up with that. He said: “Oh, listen to this.” He just played it. And at the time, we had a feeling we’d get in trouble with Kraftwerk over the “Trans Europe Express” melody, so he played another melody, which ended up being used on “Play At Your Own Risk”. We recorded “Play At Your Own Risk” and “Planet Rock” on the same night. All the music was done on the same night and on the same piece of tape. Not like later on the tape: we used actually the same drums and everything. So yeah, that was a good night.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Well, we’ve heard it before, I think, hopefully. Let’s throw it on.

Arthur Baker

Alright, let’s see if we can find it here.

(music: Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force – “Planet Rock” / applause)

Arthur Baker

Thank you. Thanks, thanks!

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

How does it sound to you now?

Arthur Baker

Still sounds pretty good.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Yeah, it’s okay?

Arthur Baker

I would have changed a few things. They’re never perfect.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

[laughs] What would you have changed?

Arthur Baker

Well, I probably would’ve punched in over the “Zzz-zz-zz,” where he forgot the lyrics.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

That is where he forgot lyrics, right?

Arthur Baker

Well, there’s a few places, Pow Wow was always the loose end of the Soulsonic [Force], but you know? I said: “Ah, that sounds pretty cool.” But LL Cool J liked it, he used it last year on his record, on “Control Myself.”

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Oh, OK. I don’t know where to begin. So much has been spawned off of this.

Arthur Baker

Yeah, it’s cool to listen back to it and see… When we did it, I knew it. I knew we had it. I never had that feeling again after that record.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

[Laughs]

Arthur Baker

No, honestly I’ve had records where I thought, “Oh, that’s a hit,” but I never really had that feeling like we’ve done something that’s going to last and influence people. I really felt it at the time.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Even the rhyme style on this is very unconventional, compared to what came before it.

Arthur Baker

Yeah, it was like G.L.O.B.E. was the genius of the rappers, he was the guy. He didn’t want to be a rapper, he wanted to be an MC-popper. That was what he was calling his style, it was MC-popping. And then after that, obviously Run-DMC on “It’s Like That,”, they were totally influenced… well, the music was but also the rap style, it was sort of the half-time thing. Instead of being on the beat, being off the beat. Yeah, it was very different at the time.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Did you ever get any reaction from Kraftwerk?

Arthur Baker

Oh, yeah.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

What was that all about?

Arthur Baker

Basically, they went to Tommy Boy, and were angry to say the least. But what he did, he gave them a dollar a record. But he raised the list price of the record, over a dollar a record. So, basically, it didn’t cost him anything. All you guys who bought it paid Kraftwerk.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I bought that. I was wondering why it cost a dollar more.

Arthur Baker

It was a dollar more! It was a $5.98 list 12”, as opposed to a $4.98. But by the time when he did that, the record was so hot, people just went for it. But that’s actually why it was a dollar more. He paid Kraftwerk a dollar a record. Actually, I was reading – the drummer from Kraftwerk - he’s written a book. And he doesn’t have nice things to say. But what’s very weird is, he’s saying: “Oh, they sampled this.” Obviously, there wasn’t sampling back then. We borrowed the melody, which we ended up paying more for than if we had sampled it now. Now, you’d get half the publishing or whatever. It wouldn’t be a dollar a record, that’s for sure.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So, they never saw it as a homage, they never saw it as, ‘Now, all these people never heard of that song before’?

Arthur Baker

No, no, they didn’t. And I mean, he’s the guy who got fired out of the band. So, I don’t know. Maybe they fired him because he was a jerk. And he’s a drummer, too, so you know [laughs]… in an electro band so, not much use for him… [Laughter]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Does anything stand out as far as the profound influence of this track on all different genres of music?

Arthur Baker

Yeah, even when I listen to the “Super Sporm” beat, the Captain Sky beat that’s sort of in the middle, it changes beats and there’s that melody that you mentioned. Well, in England, two-step, that house thing that happened, that’s still going on, that was the beat when that whole thing came. You know, obviously, Miami bass. You can go through it and see where different people [used it as an inspiration]. Drum & bass, definitely. Obviously, it hit all those things.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Having done strictly live instrumentation on your productions before, this really took you in a whole different direction.

Arthur Baker

Well, it was the record, plus the technology coming about. That was the big change. Basically, as someone who wanted to write their own music, and do their own thing, there was no way you could do that without having to hire musicians. Because musicians always think that they know better, so they don’t really listen a lot of times. So, I wanted more control. I didn’t want to have to bring a band in to make dance music. Even though, obviously, the things I had done before worked, and it was great, but if you wanted to experiment, experimenting with a live band is not the most cost-efficient thing to do, right? When you’re paying people.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

But you would still use studio musicians on your other remixes and things.

Arthur Baker

Yeah, but I’d use one guy. Me and Robie did stuff. I used a guy called Fred Zarr, who ended up doing keyboards on all the Madonna records. You’d have one person, and you wouldn’t have to… I mean basically, it was not having to use drummers, first of all. And from there, things became easier, you know, obviously. And then more technology and sequencing… things moved on, music moved on from that point. We just happened to be there right at that time. People took it seriously and started making instruments and the technology was growing. There were these new machines coming out every week. But the whole idea of using a Roland drum machine on a record, before that Hall & Oates had used the drum machine on “I Can’t Go For That.” Sly had used a drum machine. I mean, people had used them before. But this was the first – well, it wasn’t the first, but we were definitely the first ones to use a Roland [808], and from then on, Jam & Lewis, all these different people started using Rolands. I remember the first time I heard a Jam & Lewis record on the radio, using a Roland, I was just really depressed. I was like: “Oh man, we’re done!” You know? Someone else discovered the Roland, you know?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

They found the ad in the Village Voice apparently, the same one.

Arthur Baker

Yeah, and the other thing, basically, the guy who did the drums for us, who programmed for us, he wouldn’t take a check. This is a true story. He wouldn’t take a check. So, we only paid him $20 cash. And because he didn’t take a check, we didn’t remember his last name, so he never got credit. It was like ‘Joe’. I figured he would’ve come out of the woodwork at some point, he never did.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

That’s crazy. In the wake of this, I’m assuming you weren’t sweeping floors any more, at the one-stop.

Arthur Baker

That got me out of there, actually.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So, a few more people knocking at your door?

Arthur Baker

Well, actually, at that point I also had started my own label. With a friend of mine from Hampshire, from college. We had put out a record right at the same time. “Jazzy Sensation” came out first, then I started my label, it was called Streetwise, and then we put out a record by this guy Pee Wee Ford, who was a bass player from Washington DC, and basically, it really flopped, OK? So, at the same as I’m putting out on my label, Pee Wee Ford, Tom [Silverman] puts out “Planet Rock.” So, my partners were, should I say, a little upset with me, right? Then we went in so the next record I made for my label was “Walking On Sunshine.” It wasn’t as big as “Planet Rock” by far, but it sold like 400,000 12”s and it was a huge, huge club record. So, after the two of those, both of those in succession, basically, “Walking On Sunshine” was a pop hit in England. It went to No 4 in the pop chart. So, that got me my cred, you know? “Planet Rock” was underground, but “Walking On Sunshine” was huge, it sold over 250,000 12”s in England, and it sold 200,000 12”s in America. So, that… actually the combination of those two, got me noticed by other people.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Do you want to throw on a little bit of “Walking On Sunshine?

(music: Rockers Revenge – “Walking On Sunshine”)

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So, that was a big hit, a radio hit, a pop hit as well.

Arthur Baker

It was a pop hit in England and in America. In New York, it was like the national anthem, it was huge in New York. Yeah, it was done with a team. Pee Wee, the guy who did the record, the first Streetwise record, played bass on it. And he was in that band BB & Q.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

“On The Beat”?

Arthur Baker

Yeah, he played on that. And then there were people like Bashiri Johnson, he’s played on everything. He did that. Fred Zarr, who went on to play on all the Madonna records, played all the keys. It was an Eddy Grant record, and the two guys singing on it were the two guys from the Music Factory record store, who were my friends.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

That was Rockers Revenge.

Arthur Baker

Yeah, that was Rockers Revenge, and the idea for that record came from being at Paradise Garage. Larry Levan used to play the original. Eddy Grant did the original a few years earlier. Larry used to play it and I really loved it and just thought I could do a better version of it, I think. And when it hit, I became really good friends with Eddy, because it brought his career back, and he used to play it live when he was on tour. He’d always thank myself and Rockers Revenge for getting it back out there.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So, I guess some of these songs were, like you said, pop hits and huge in the clubs. Maybe just set the scene a little bit about different clubs in New York and where things were being played.

Arthur Baker

New York at the time, it was definitely the heyday of clubs like from ’81 to ’84, places like the Paradise Garage, the Funhouse, Better Days, Danceteria, those were probably the main ones… Bond in Times Square, where the famous Clash week-long residency was. So, there were all these clubs, and they were all, like, not small clubs. They were like 2,000-capacity clubs, and they were just all kicking off at once. You know, there’d be little bits of musical differences in them.

For instance, at the Funhouse, Jellybean played everything. I mean really, looking back, the best clubs for me were the Paradise Garage and the Funhouse. And both of those DJs would play anything. Larry was playing The Clash, he was really open to anything that would get people dancing. And, at the time, you know, it wasn’t like now when there are so many things coming out all the time, you had to really search for good things, because less people were making dance records at the time.

So, if you found something by… Jellybean used to play a record called “Slang Teacher” by some band from England [Wide Boy Awake], this indie sort of weird record. He’d play Cat Stevens’s “Was Dog A Doughnut”. I mean, he would play anything that would work. And along with that, guys like Bambaataa, Jazzy Jay, they were open to playing Aerosmith, they were playing all kinds of stuff. So, it was really an amazing time, because you could really try things.

You could try things and then bring the tape down to the Fun House and Jellybean might throw it on. Once you had the rep, you could have your stuff played pretty instantaneously. So, that was cool. I mean the clubs, Danceteria was an amazing club – Mark Kamins and Freddy Bastone. So, someone like Madonna came out of Danceteria, because Mark, who discovered her, DJed there. And then Jellybean, who also produced her, was at the Funhouse. So, she was like – that was her thing. She was at the clubs every night, she was just a club kid, really. That’s where it all came from at that point, the clubs.

To compare it now, it’s just pathetic now. No, it is! Club-wise, in New York, it’s just pathetic. To think, in the early ’80s, we had five or six huge clubs that pumped out music. You could go to five or six places and there’d be thousands of people dancing to great stuff and now it’s just really bad there.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You mentioned playing bands from England. There was a little band from England you did some work [with] as well.

Arthur Baker

Yeah, well, New Order got in touch with me after “Walking On Sunshine” and “Planet Rock.” And a friend of mine, a guy by the name of Michael Shamberg, worked for Factory [Records], the label that they were on, and he ran Factory in New York, and he thought we should work together. At the time, Ian Curtis [of Joy Division] had died six months earlier, and they were putting together the new band, New Order. It was funny because at the same time they came to me, this other group from England came to me, which was this group Freeez, who’d had a hit, “Southern Freeez.”

As cool as New Order were, Freeez were as uncool. It really disturbed New Order when they found out I’d also been working with Freeez, because it was sort of the north/south divide in England. Northern moody guys like New Order and Freeez were southern soul boys – really different. Both groups sent me loads of stuff to listen to and I just didn’t listen to anything. Because I figured if they came over here and we picked some of their songs, we’d have to work on their songs, and I didn’t want to work on their songs. I wanted to work on songs we did together.

So, when New Order came in, it’s funny, we went to Brooklyn, to this studio. This guy Fred Zarr – the keyboard player who I said worked on all the Madonna stuff – basically he had a little studio in Brooklyn, but sort of way out in Brooklyn, King’s Highway. I don’t know if any of you know about Brooklyn, but it’s sort of like a Jewish ghetto thing happening there, and there was a temple next door, and we’d bring New Order there, and they didn’t know what to make of it. And then I’d just sit them down there and was just sort of standing there and no one really knows what to do. I was used to working with John Robie and a few other people and Fred, who I had a good relationship with, and with them it was sort of, their whole reputation was being really dour and moody, they never smiled. When you’d tell people in England you were working with New Order, they’d say: “What are they like?” Because of the whole Joy Division thing, I understood that later. But at this point, I was like: “What’s that all about?” So, I stood there and we tried to write songs together and it wasn’t really working. They were sort of intimidating me, there were four of them, and I was really intimidating them, which I didn’t know at the time. So, nothing got done for a while.

Then we went in the studio, and the clock was ticking, so we started writing in the studio. And from that session we came up with “Confusion,” but also “Thieves Like Us.” So, we wrote the two songs in the studio in a couple of days… And then they flew off, and they took the tape for “Thieves Like Us,” and I figured I’d never hear about that one again. Then one day, about two years later, “Confusion” had already come out, I’m going into a club and I hear this beat. And I’m like: “Damn, that sounds like one of my beats!” And I finally climb up the stairs and I look, and it’s “Thieves Like Us.” So basically, they’d finished it up and put it out. But I got my credit and everything. I just hadn’t really ever expected it to be seen again. But I mean, that isn’t usually how they work. I thought they were going to be some sort of really flash, polished English band and they thought I was a flash, polished American producer. So, we were both wrong.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You mentioned the two, do you maybe want to contrast a bit of both? Of what was going on?

Arthur Baker

But “Confusion” is the one that I brought in Jellybean to help us with the mix. We’d bring the tapes down, obviously [there were] no CDs or anything at that point. So instead of cassettes, we were bringing the big reel-to-reel down. So, he would actually play it. So, when we did the video, that’s obviously what the video shows.

(music: New Order – “Confusion”)

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Things are getting even more rhythmically complex…

Arthur Baker

I’m just going to play a little... [inaudible]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Sure. So, this is the other track you did with the band.

(music: New Order – “Thieves Like Us” / applause)

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You said that they felt intimidated by you. So, after the songs came out, your impression changed of one another?

Arthur Baker

Well, yeah, we’ve been friends, we’re still friends. Yeah, Hooky and I DJ together all the time. Barney [Bernard Sumner] and I go sailing.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You’re past that initial [skepticism].

Arthur Baker

Yeah, we’re great friends.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I guess at this point, a lot of other bands are getting you to do remixes as well.

Arthur Baker

Yeah. I mean, basically what happened after those, and then I had Freeez, “I.O.U.”. That was No 2 in England and a really big record. But at the same time as all that’s going on, there’s Soulsonic Force waiting. Because Tom decided, that [“Planet Rock”] was a big enough record that they should have a follow-up. So, all this time that we’re working on all these other things, we’re trying to come up with a follow-up for “Planet Rock,” which was obviously really difficult to do. Because basically, what was happening was, everyone was sort of biting off what we had done. I thought there’s no way we can do the same thing, we have to do something different.

We couldn’t go even close to anything with that kind of tempo or beat. So, we were looking for another perfect beat. So, that’s how “Looking For The Perfect Beat” came out, because I just made myself crazy. At the time, I rediscovered drugs, so think about trying to do a follow-up to “Planet Rock” doing lots of cocaine – it didn’t really help. So, me and Robie, we’d be at his house, constantly trying to come up with a track for Soulsonic Force. By that time the rappers were all touring, because they had this big hit. So Bambaataa, they had their costumes and they were going out… the George Clinton stuff. They were going out on the road, doing really well, making money doing gigs, and they were waiting for us to come up with something. So, it was sort of a lot of pressure on us.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So, was that more or less how you dealt with the pressure?

Arthur Baker

What, drugs? Of course, yeah. No, yeah, definitely. I had done drugs earlier in my life, but when I moved to New York I stopped doing them. “Planet Rock,” “Walking On Sunshine,” those were pre-drugs, and then after that, “Confusion” was full drugs, and “Perfect Beat” also. The four-year period from ’82 to ’86, when I did drugs pretty constantly, yeah.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I guess, after “Perfect Beat,” were you content with the results?

Arthur Baker

Well, yeah! Actually, it didn’t come close to sales [of “Planet Rock”], but it sold a lot. It sold 400,000 12”s. It’s weird looking back, I didn’t really care about the sales at all. It was more about feeling good about what we had done. Also, we still wanted critical acclaim back then. We thought if critics liked it, that made us feel better. And it got voted, the year it came out, the New York Times Single Of The Year. It’s a really different record. When you listen to it, it’s dancey, it’s got all these elements to it. But over the years it’s probably been sampled as much or more than “Planet Rock.” So, that’s the one that the guys, Miami bass, they’ve taken every keyboard part in that and turned it around. Recently, the LL Cool J record used the entire rhythm track, slowed down. It’s been sampled a lot. But at the time I just thought, “Yeah, this is really good.” I thought I’d took it to the next level because it was even more musical than the first one. There’s lots of things, besides the keys, which have been sampled. The “Beat This” bit, and there were lots of other things in there that have stood the test of time, definitely. So yeah, I was really happy with that, you know?

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Did you want to throw any of that on?

Arthur Baker

Well, I like hearing that one.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

To give everybody an idea of the contrast. A little bit.

Arthur Baker

Well, see if you can hear the drugs in there [laughs].

(music: Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force – “Looking For The Perfect Beat” / applause)

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

The “Beat This” part, was that a challenge?

Arthur Baker

Yeah, that was me, too, I did vocals on that one.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Really, uncredited?

Arthur Baker

And all the, “Looking for the per- looking for the per- looking for the perfect.” That was me. All the bugged out shit the rappers wouldn’t do. They’re like; “Nah, we’re not doing that.”

“Oh, OK, I’ll do it.” [Laughs]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I mean, rappers are notorious for being fickle about rhyming over something. What was their reaction when they heard this came in? They trusted you.

Arthur Baker

They didn’t really, no, no. They liked the concept. The concept of ‘looking for the perfect beat.’ I mean, I had to sell that to each one. On “Renegades Of Funk,” which was the next one, basically he thought being a renegade was something bad. And I just had to say Martin Luther King and Malcolm X are renegades, so he bought into that. But yeah, you definitely had to sell him on it. We weren’t doing the typical [style]. But yeah, they trusted us after that. G.L.O.B.E. did, because he was more the thinker. The other guys were still a bit fickle on it.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

And at this point, what’s happening with Streetwise?

Arthur Baker

Well, Streetwise put out “I.O.U.,” so they were really happy. Because that sold quite a few records, and also my friends from Boston, Maurice Starr and Michael Jonzun… I was living in Brooklyn in ’82, and they used to crash at my house when they’d come to town. Maurice had come to town with some demo, and he’d played it for everybody. He said: “Oh man, I got this group, they’re really good, but no one’s going to give me a record deal.” He played it for me and it was a demo of [New Edition’s] “Candy Girl”. I said: “You found a place because, I’ll definitely put it out.” So, basically, we had “Candy Girl,” I finished that up with him and then we did the album. The album sold over half a million. It put Streetwise on the map. So, Streetwise took off at that point.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You also had a chance to sign the Beasties, is that true?

Arthur Baker

Well, the Beasties. Adam Yauch worked at my studio, he was an assistant engineer. He used to get on his skateboard and go to Chung King [Studios] to pick up the drugs [laughs]. It’s true, he used to go down on a skateboard. Basically, I tried to get them a deal, and took them to Manhattan Records because a friend of mine was the A&R guy there. They were doing a gig at – I think the club was called the Pizza Club – it was in a pizza parlor. And the guy, my friend, wouldn’t wait; he was going out to the Hamptons that night. He didn’t stay for the gig and he ended up passing. They got signed to Sony.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You also had dealings with Rick Rubin as well.

Arthur Baker

When Streetwise started taking off, I wanted to do another label, more of a label that we could just put out 12”s with. Because when we did Streetwise, we thought we put albums out. So basically, Rick came up, and he had been working with Jazzy Jay, so he brought “It’s Yours” to me and I said: “Great!” Because I thought that Rick did with that record what no other rap record had done at the time, was bring in a live element. The cuts, it really felt like you were at a rap club. The beats were fat, so I signed the record. But a really funny side story: Rick’s a genius, because back then he was so sold on his logo. We wanted to put it in a Partytime sleeve, we didn’t want to put out his thing. But he said, “You got to do it, it’s a deal-breaker.” It was the first Def Jam record, with the sleeve and the crimson thing. And then, we ran out. Because we thought it wouldn’t sell 10, 15,000 – we ended up selling 30 or 40,000 at the time and we kept putting it out without the sleeve. He got pissed off about that, as Rick would.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

And Rick wound up doing his own thing with CBS.

Arthur Baker

Yeah, of course. He met up with Russell [Simmons], who was another friend of mine. They met after that record. Russell wasn’t involved in the first one, and then, yeah…

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So, Streetwise, what happened with that?

Arthur Baker

It went under. What happened was, all my partners had gone to Harvard Business School, so they all thought they knew what the fuck they were doing, obviously. And after New Edition, business people sometimes think if you have something like a record that sells half a million, next year you’ll have two. So, they made all these projections, and they started signing things. Because at that point, that’s when I started to do a lot of remixes for the big acts like Springsteen and Cyndi Lauper and all that shit. So, basically, I took my eye off the ball there, which was a major mistake.

They started signing things and giving people money. Like, “If you want a soft touch, go to Streetwise. Bring them a demo.” They were just throwing away money. And then a lot of the distributors in America at that time – say, if you had a hit record, that could be the worst thing for you, in a way. For instance, there was a place called Stands in St Louis, and we had sold 50,000 albums, and he went out of business owing us for 30,000 albums. Any time one of those things would happen it would cost us a lot of money. So, the label ended up going bankrupt. I took it over for a dollar, and then I sold half of it to Morris Levy – you know who he is, the guy on The Sopranos who’s Hesh – the actual real guy. Sugar Hill, he took over Sugar Hill, and TK. He used to take labels over that were going bust and he…

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

… he was a connected guy.

Arthur Baker

Yeah, basically. When you see the guy Hesh on The Sopranos, guys like Tony Soprano were in Morris Levy’s office daily. And I’d go in there and they’d be sitting around in their leisure suits. It was just like that, seriously. So finally, he took it over and he ended up with the label. I just sort of stepped away from it.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You mentioned you were doing all this remix work for people like Springsteen, Rolling Stones…

Arthur Baker

Yeah, I was hot, I living in New York, and I knew some people in the record business. And they were all coming to me to do remixes. And I really got in at Sony, Columbia and CBS, and I was doing pretty much remixing Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper, things like that. Paul McCartney, lots of crap stuff [laughs]. There was some good stuff. I mean, the Springsteen stuff, there’s some good mixes. But the Rolling Stones, but I did Bonnie Tyler… I did some really questionable stuff. But the money was ridiculous. It was $25,000 for a remix. So, you don’t pass it up, I mean…

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

How much time would there be in the studio, working on it?

Arthur Baker

No, it was time put in. Obviously, if you’re doing a remix for Paul McCartney or the Rolling Stones, you’re not going to just throw something down. At that point, I was doing lots of drugs. It was pretty much a nightmare. There was a lot of pressure on. Going from doing little street records to getting all this money for remixes. They weren’t obscure acts; they were all like big acts.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

At the height of this was when you did the “Too Much Blood” remix for the Rolling Stones?

Arthur Baker

“Too Much Drugs,” it should’ve been called [laughs].

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You guys had 20 reels of [tape]?

Arthur Baker

Ah, who knows. Back then, as opposed to now, you do a mixdown to half-inch. Each half-inch reel cost $75-$80. I’d take 40 reels in pieces. So, that’s like three grand right there in tape costs. Basically, that way you didn’t have to make a final decision. Now you can just save mix, save mix, save mix, then cut it in your computer. Back then we’d take it as reels and then I had all these different kids who used to edit for me. Probably the most famous became the Latin Rascals. And a lot of other guys did it for me. I’d just bring in cases of reels and say, “OK, listen to all this, take notes.” That started around that time. Before that, that didn’t happen. Definitely, I’d have to say I’ll blame it on the drugs, because basically before that I’d finish the record. You’d edit it at the studio, you’d take it in reels and pieces, just in case you wanted something. But then we just went crazy, we wanted to take a reel for every instant, whatever we’d need, we’d have there. It was a waste of time and money.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

What would you say to these folks here, as far as cutting through all the distractions, and dealing with the pressure if you create something that, relatively speaking, was a success, that you have to follow up on?

Arthur Baker

Well, I never tell people to stay away from drugs, because I did it, and you figure that out yourself. It doesn’t really help… I don’t think it helps creativity. It didn’t really help my creativity. Don’t believe the hype. Don’t get into your own hype, that’s one thing, for sure. The problem with a lot of people now making music is they have endless time to do it. Because you’re not paying musicians and you’re not paying studios. So basically, you can just get into it and be fixing and fine tuning forever, I think. I do it myself when I make music. You got to know when to let shit go, when to let it out.

It’s always good to get other people’s feedback, to play things out at clubs. Play it for friends, and play it for people who are into music. You never hear something the same as when you’re playing something at a record label, or to people who aren’t going to be “yes” people. I always heard things totally differently. Every little thing that you might have a suspicion about, when you play it in front of a record company or friends, it becomes super-obvious because you get really a bit nervous about it. It’s good to have the insular thing of having your own studio and being able to work as long as you want, but at some point… you know, there have been bands who have been destroyed by that. They couldn’t even finish their songs or follow-up, just because they had too much time. Deadlines are always good. To me, working on a deadline is the best thing in the world, because otherwise you could just go forever on something. I think it’s really important to have deadlines, to set deadlines.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

About remixing versus producing, do you have a preference? You got a lot of remix work at a certain point.

Arthur Baker

Well, there’s good and bad things about both. Good thing about remixing, you don’t have to deal with the artist, but the bad thing – you don’t [deal with the artist]. I mean, if you’re working with the right artist, it’s great to have that sort of collaboration. But remixes were always cool because back then I was getting offered lots of things I really liked, and then I’d get to do my own idea of how it should sound, what it should do. Especially with Bruce [Springsteen], that one I did three. That one was special, because he had never let anyone touch his work. We hit it off really well, it was very cool.

I mean, some of the artists – I worked with Cyndi Lauper over three records – some of them I had sort of personal relationships with. But then, I worked with [Mick] Jagger, and some were just jobs and I never met the people. And producing, I never did many albums. Because I’d get demos of stuff, and I just didn’t want to sit around for six months working on things I didn’t like. I turned down a lot. The one I mention the most is, Tony Wilson came over from Manchester and said: “I got this new band, you got to hear it.” He played it for me, and I said, “The songs are shit, you know, what’s good about the band?” [He said], “You got to see them live.”

But at the time I didn’t fly, I passed. That was Happy Mondays. The songs on the first album are shit, they are, you can listen to it now. That’s the whole thing: when you produce an album, you’re taking on the responsibility of someone’s life. That might be their only chance in life to get ahead, and if you don’t believe in it, you shouldn’t do it, you know? Doing a remix, sure. You give me the money, I’ll do a remix. But producing a band, taking their life in your hands, it’s just a whole other thing. I didn’t want to do unless I really believed in the band and the material too.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Is there something that stands out as far as your remix work?

Arthur Baker

I’ll play you one that’s not as obvious, because I really like hearing it. It was one of the Springsteen ones, it was this one.

(music: Bruce Springsteen – “Cover Me” (Undercover Mix))

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

So how did The Boss like that one?

Arthur Baker

Well, he loved it because basically he hadn’t done that song live at all. And when they called me they said: “If you could come up with something that he could actually do live, he’d really like it. He needs help on a live arrangement.” So, when I did that, they started to play it with that arrangement.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

At a certain point, music evolves a little bit differently, it changes. How did you deal with the changes in the industry? How did it affect your career?

Arthur Baker

I probably didn’t and that was probably a bad thing. No, I just kept doing what I was doing at the time. I started doing solo things, and I was offered a deal with Columbia. They offered me my own label, which I turned down because I was thinking of my partners at Streetwise. This was before Streetwise went under, so that was a major mistake. I made tons of mistakes, business-wise, that’s the other thing. With business, don’t depend on yourself. You should have someone you really trust to talk to about business things, and business advisors are really important once things start going well. You should always have someone you can talk to about it. And preferably not lawyers, because lawyers are scumbags usually. It should be someone else, who’s good at business but not a lawyer. That’s what I would recommend. Because it’s true, you’re never prepared for success. I don’t care who you are, you’re never prepared for big success. That was the main thing I learned back then – too late. It was a bit too late but, you know? It’s good to have an advisor, business-wise, definitely.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I mean, you still kept producing through all this time.

Arthur Baker

Oh, yeah, I did lots of stuff. Like I said, I did the Beat Street movie with all those songs, I did “Breaker’s Revenge,” I signed Will Downing, he was one of my background singers, I got him a deal at Island Records. We did “Love Supreme,” which was top ten in England, and that sort of started his career off. I was still doing stuff, definitely. Did the “Sun City”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArtistsUnitedAgainst_Apartheid) record. Doing all sorts of things, all sorts of projects. Never really got the band; I was really particular about producing bands and I passed on a few that I should’ve sort of gone with.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

What were some of the other things, if you don’t mind telling us?

Arthur Baker

Tears For Fears, things like that. I mean, none of them were great, [but] I passed on producing the Red Hot Chili Peppers – that was dumb. That was a dumb one. But again, if I didn’t like the demo songs [I passed on it]. Quincy [Jones] says: “You can’t polish shit.” Which is true. If you think something’s bad, you’re not going to be able to get beyond that.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Well, that’s pretty much true to what you’ve always done. I mean, your roots are in soul, which is all about a song.

Arthur Baker

Even to the extent, most of the time, the remixes I was offered, I’d have to like the song, usually. Back then it would be – the Paul McCartney thing was the exception, because it was so much money. But other than that, you know, you couldn’t turn it down [laughs]. Yeah, it was always about the songs for me even to this day. I’m not going to say songs aren’t as good now, but I don’t get offered the best ones to do remixes on. In this business, you’re usually hot once, and if you’re lucky you get hot a few times. You just sort of hold on, and do things that you like, which is what I still do. And in the last, like, 15 years I’ve had peaks and valleys, and things that you don’t expect to be things that’ll work out. Like, I did a remix on a song I sort of liked, but I didn’t really love, and it was the biggest selling single of all time in England, which was Babylon Zoo’s “Spaceman.” So basically, that sold millions. It was a remix gig, I thought, “Oh, that’s an interesting song.” Did it. So, there’s been that kind of thing.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

And you’re also DJing while you’re here as well.

Arthur Baker

Well, I’m a better DJ than I used to be.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Yeah? Are you going to throw your MP3s on the floor when people don’t dance?

Arthur Baker

[Laughs] Yeah, that wouldn’t have the same effect, I have a feeling. I could throw my computer on the floor, though. That might have more of an effect.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

What got you back into doing that? Coming full circle.

Arthur Baker

Well, I was living in England… what happened was, I started DJing a bit, just because it’s fun, and it’s good money, and you get to travel. Those three things. You get to travel around. And I’d been DJing in Barcelona for Sonar, and the next day, Fader magazine, they were doing a story on New York, like it was about four or five years ago. They wanted me to write an article, which I was writing on the beach in Barcelona, as you do, sitting on the beach writing the article, and I ended it and I wrote something like: “And now, maybe I can return to New York.” And I thought, “Return To New York,” that sounds like a good party name.” So, I started doing these parties in [London], called Return To New York, and we’d bring people over, we brought LCD [Soundsystem] over, it was the second gig they ever did. So, I started DJing through that, and throwing the parties, and really got back into the whole club culture again. I mean, I do that because it keeps me in touch with clubs, and I stay on top of things, new acts. I mean obviously, now with the internet and shit, I download all that so… Nowadays, you have too much information and too much opportunity in a way. There’s no record stores any more. Soon, there won’t be CDs, it’s totally changed, it’s a whole new thing.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Yeah, I mean, what do you think of the whole transformation? Record stores, to me, were not just places to – as the other lecturers who’ve been here have said as well – they’re really centers for communities.

Arthur Baker

Well, like I said, from the time I was 13 I worked in record shops. I always would hang out in record shops. Even in England, I’d hang out in Rough Trade. The bottom line is, what’s happened is the blog sites have sort of taken that over, except it’s not the same thing as hanging out in a place. A place like Palms Out, and other ones. It sort of serves the same purpose, that community thing. But it’s not being in the same room, it is a little bit different. That’s why places like Rough Trade are really special. They’ve opened up another one in England, in East London, which is a club and it’s got everything. I think for record stores to exist, they have to do things like that. It has to be more than just records, because soon they won’t even be released. I think, pretty soon, there won’t be a lot of people putting out vinyl anymore.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Well, not as long as some of us are around [laughs]…

Arthur Baker

There’ll be some, there will be some. But you know, you got to look at it differently. You can’t live in the past with it. The reality of the situation is sales, going into music now is a different thing than when it was in ’78, that’s like 30 years ago. It’s just totally different now. But technology’s different, you have more freedom, you can do it less expensively, people who would never have been able to afford to go into a studio now have their own studio. So, it’s great but the thing you still need is a good idea. You need creativity. All the computers and plug-ins in the world don’t give you creativity. Creativity comes from your heart and your mind. If you’re creative, to me, if you’re creative and good at what you do, there’s more of a chance that you could succeed [but] to a lesser extent. It’s hard to get to the top. But I think people can get their music out more.

Case in point, I found a singer on MySpace, she got in touch with me. Liked her music, found out that she lived in Alabama and it was electro. I thought, “Electro from Alabama?” That sounds interesting, right? So, it turned out her father had an electro group in the ’80s that never succeeded, and they did the music together. So, I took Mark Jones from Wall Of Sound Records and we went to Huntsville, Alabama, a few days ago. And we showed up, and they opened the garage and they’d set their stage up. It was really surreal. But it was great, she’s really good and we’re going to sign her to a 12” deal, and [see] if it takes off. But basically, she’ll make her money, not by record sales. If you’re successful now, you’ll make it by merchandising, and you’ll make it by live [performances]. You’ll make it by [television] syncs.

Record sales are down the toilet because most kids have grown up not having to pay for music. How are you going to get them to pay for music? You have to pay to go to a gig, there’s no way around that. If you want to see live music, you pay. If you want a T-shirt, you pay. If someone wants to use your song in a movie, they have to pay. But other than that, the sales thing, I mean, unless you’re Kanye West… I mean, if you do country music, people are still buying it. They’ll buy records until they die out.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You think there’s a perception that music is more disposable, for a younger generation because they don’t have the tangible things? There are no record stores, they don’t have to pay for it.

Arthur Baker

But unfortunately, a lot of the music is disposable, you know? I’m not going to be an old fuddy-dud and go: “Oh, it isn’t like it used to be,” but the bottom line is, we live in a world with reality TV crap… you know, there are great artists out there, but there’s a lot more shit out there now, there is. The shit gets to be celebrities, and the celebrities get to be on TV. The whole concept is different. You can either want to be great, or be famous. Decide to be great and you might be famous. Decide to be famous, you might be there for – as Andy Warhol said, you know, everyone has their little thing, but then they’re gone. It’s really what you want to do… if you want to be great, then nowadays, there’s opportunities. I mean, this girl lives in Alabama, she would never have gone to New York. She might have sent her demos forever, no one would have ever heard of them. People used to have cassettes, boxes of cassettes that they’d just toss out the window. No one would ever hear it. But now you have that instant connection. Obviously, if you have something good… I mean, people send me things on MySpace and I listen. If it’s really good, I get back to them and say: “Hey!” I heard her stuff and I said: “This is fucking great,” and took it further. There’s a lot of stories like that. And I do think that makes it a lot more possible for people to get where they want to go in it, but, obviously, the fact is that more people are doing it. So maybe, percentage-wise, who knows what the deal is? But you have more control with things now. You definitely do. But it’s just a matter of, is there more creativity now? I don’t know. I’m not sure about that.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Does anybody have any questions at this point for Arthur Baker? Just wait for the mic, please.

Audience member

I wanted to ask, the song “Thieves Like Us,” how did this thing come about?

Arthur Baker

How did it come about? The name? I just gave them the name. What I would do, I’d always come up with titles for songs and then we’d write them together. I don’t know where I came up with it. There was a book “Thieves Like Us” or a movie, at the time. Then, when they wrote the song, the lyrics had nothing to do with the title, which New Order always did. “Blue Monday,” there’s no chorus about any blue or Monday or anything.

Audience member

You talked a lot about how important songs are to you, what do you look for in a good song or what makes a song good, to you, and who is still writing good songs?

Arthur Baker

Oh, that’s a good question. I’m a real big fan of the White Stripes. I think Jack White is clever. To me a good song has a chorus, the lyric catches you. If you’re hearing a song demoed, just an acoustic piano and vocal, to me that’s the purest way of hearing a song. But then, if someone sends me a demo and there’s a really great guitar riff? That’s more a great record, I guess. But song-wise, it has lyrics that you can relate to and a chorus you want to sing, that hooks you, you know? And this girl that I’m going to work with, it was just one hook. It’s different things. One hook doesn’t make a great song. That might make a great record, a great song is great lyrics you want to hear again, that relate. I might hear a song and go: “That’s a really well-done song,” but if I don’t relate to it, it doesn’t relate to my life. So, as you get older you look for changes in the song.

Audience member

Could you tell us a little bit more about the soundtrack for Beat Street?

Arthur Baker

That’s an interesting story. Basically, a friend of mine named Steven Hager wrote this article for Village Voice magazine, it was about the scene. About the whole up-and-coming dance scene, and rap and graffiti. He asked me, he said: “Listen, can I include you in the package? I’m going to try and get the deal for a movie.” He went to this guy David Picker, who was a big producer. David Picker hooked him up with Harry Belafonte to do the movie, and Harry wanted to get involved with the music, which was bad. And then his son wanted to get in, which was actually worse, and then all the rappers were really pissed off because it wasn’t showing the real thing. They were like: “Arty, this shit ain’t real.”

There was no drinking in the movie and there was no smoking in the movie. Now, if you were involved with that era, everyone was always smoking, everyone was always drinking beer. Most of those guys didn’t do any drugs. At that point, in ’84, they weren’t doing drugs. It was drinking beer, smoking, maybe a joint here and there. So, there was sort of a dichotomy in the album. I fell out with Harry, and the rappers were all pissed off. I did “Breaker’s Revenge” and a few of the other tracks, “This Could Be The Night” and a few other things. Then I got Melle Mel and Bernard Fowler in on it, but it wasn’t a great experience because in the end, I didn’t even go to the premiere, I had nothing to do with it. It wasn’t really a great time in my life, even though “Breaker’s Revenge” I’m still happy with the track and it was sort of my first solo thing, it was cool. But if you watch that movie now, it’s funny. Well, it came out second after Breakin’ but we were definitely on it first. So, it was the first sort of rap/graffiti movie, but it’s just so Hollywood and so clean. Everything people are wearing just looked too clean and new. It didn’t have the lived-in feel of Wild Style, which is obviously the shit, that one’s great. But, you know, it was cool to be involved in it, definitely. And the music in it, there was some good stuff and some shit, like everything.

Audience member

Hi, you were talking about too much information. A whole generation of kids growing up where they don’t even have to pay for music. It seems like more and more these days it’s getting harder to shock people. Like, when “Planet Rock”…

Arthur Baker

You can always shock people, man. To me, every day I listen to music, and it doesn’t happen often, but you can always come up [with something shocking]. To me, if I heard something in the club and I went, “What the fuck was that?” And you can still do that. It’s not as often, but to me, first it would be, “What the fuck was that?” Or, “Shit, I wish I had done that. I like that record so much, I wish I had done it.” So, that’s still how I measure things. To me, “What the fuck is that” is still [the benchmark]. You’re out in the club, you hear something, you know, that to me is the test. I think people are still doing it, there’s just more competition to shock, but it isn’t always about shocking but it’s always good when you’re out in the club to get that shock and you go, “Wow, that’s amazing.”

Audience member

Just quickly, being in my 30s, I’ve listened to a lot of music. I used to listen to a lot of rap, hip-hop whatever you want to call it, early on, what was it like putting out a record like “Planet Rock”, working with MCs at a time that I feel, it was a form of music that most people thought was absolutely uncool?

Arthur Baker

Well, when I was doing it, it wasn’t a thing. Back then it was just starting. There was no preconception on what it was. It was just something that came out of New York, and people in New York that would hear it, the kids thought it was incredible and other people thought it was a passing fad. The first time I heard about rap, I was working with a guy called Joe Bataan, who was a Latin singer, he was on Fania Records. This was before I met Bambaataa, this was years before, and he took me up to the Bronx, and he said, “There’s guys up here talking over records.” That’s what he said, and he said, “Someone’s going to make a million dollars out of that.” I’ll never forget that he said that, “Someone’s going to make a million dollars.”

We went up, heard what they were doing, went back in the studio, he did a record called “Rap-O Clap-O”, which I worked on, co-produced with him, and it came out and did OK. This was before any rap came out, so that was thought of as novelty. No one thought it was going to go further. And then Sugar Hill came out and started doing records. In the East Coast, man, rap from ’81 or ’82 after “Planet Rock”, Grandmaster Flash, that was never thought of as not being cool. That shit was cool. That was where cool came from, really. Maybe later on, like somewhere else, they were saying rap…. I have to be honest, I thought at first, “Will rap exist in ten years?” I had my questions about it, too. I thought it might have been a passing thing also. But after a few years, you couldn’t deny that it was actually the only new music form to come out in the last [30 years] to me. I mean, there’s electronic music, but I think rap is a genre that didn’t exist 30 years ago. I don’t know if we’ll ever see a new genre of music in our lifetimes. In your lifetime or mine, that’s a new genre. Rap created a whole new genre, it didn’t exist before 1976 or whatever it was, ’78.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Well, also at the time, those records you were working on, now we think of it in terms of categories. Well, here’s club or disco, but those were being played at the same clubs at the same time.

Arthur Baker

Everything was the same. You’d go to Paradise Garage… the first time I heard “Rapper’s Delight” was at Paradise Garage, which was definitely the coolest club in the world. People were open back then. Maybe older people would say: “Oh, rap, what is that crap?” or whatever, but the bottom line is they’d say that about whatever. Anything new, people are always going to be down [on it] and criticize anything new. The thing is, categories in music suck. When I was a kid I was into Jackson 5 “ABC” and all that, I’d be listening to David Bowie mixed with Jackson 5. Musicians should be open to all forms of music. You don’t have to like it, but you should at least respect all forms of music, whether it’s country… Ray Charles did his famous country [record], I was just at the Country Music Hall Of Fame, big display about Ray Charles. He grew up listening to country, and when he was successful he went back and did country, and he made a great country album. And people were shocked – a black guy doing country. He grew up with it, and he did it best of anyone. So, it’s sort of, you got to stay open to all forms of music, I think.