Quiet Entertainer» 247

Interview with Orig the DJ Part Two: Get Got

Quiet Entertainer — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:02:21 +0000

Get Got

This is part two of my interview with Orig the DJ. If you missed part one where Orig discusses the origins of Mashville, you can click that link to read it. In this section, he discusses Get Got.

QE: Tell me about Get Got

Orig the DJ: Get Got is my band. That’s Skyler Glover, Gary Hundley and myself. We’re a three piece. We’re like a trip hop funk rock turntablism electronic just melting together. And That’s what WE are. Skyler plays the drums. He’s got an acoustic kit as well as a pad kit. So, he can get the 808 sounds and other samples he can trigger. And Gary is just playing bass guitar with no effects. He works really hard to fill in sound where there’s no guitar or piano or any other high to mid range sound. I’m more of the soloist with the scratching the vocal samples and scratching other instruments. Also I play synthesizer but I don’t use a keyboard. I use a midi controller. The MPD 24 which is basically like an MPC drum machine but without the sounds. It just controls my computer. My computer has all the sounds. I use Ableton Live to launch all my sounds with the pads. I use Traktor to scratch my sounds.

Get Got / Photo credit: raywen.org

Orig: So anyway! This is how Get Got happened. skyler and Gary and I were working at Whole Foods Market. At the time, Whole Foods had a month where if you were an employee and you were a musician or had a band, WF gave them an opportunity to play their music live in the lobby area. We wanted to play together but we weren’t a band or anything. so we figured we’d just come up with 4 or 5 songs. That way we could play. So, we took a couple of weeks. We came up with 4 or 5 songs. We didn’t even have a name. We weren’t Get Got at the time. We just called ourselves the Three Amigos. We were just three friends you know. anyway so we performed that day. And people really liked us. We got such a great response from the whole store. The store wasn’t really crowded around us but the sound system allowed our music to be pumped through the speakers through the whole store. A lot of the employees really liked us. Some of the people who stuck around and watched us. They asked what’s our name and do we have a CD. We had to say “No, we’re not even really a band.” So we went home with that. We just said to each other “We work really well together. We should just keep jamming.” I think the thing that solidified us as a band, I think it was Spoken Nerd…

QE: Yeah, Nerd booked you guys before I ever did.

Orig: Right, so he had a monthly night at Cafe Coco called the Holla. He wanted to book us. So we had to get back together and practice our songs. That’s when we came up with the name Get Got. That name actually came from when we were taking a little break from our practice. We were still tossing around ideas for a band name. I had the idea: let’s call ourselves The Entertainment System or The Sound System. Skyler didn’t like it, he thought the word entertainment was too long to be in a name. Entertainment is a long word…

QE: HAHAHA!!

Gary Hundley / Photo Credit: Ramiah Branch

Orig: Yeah whatever. Yeah it’s long. So anyway, we were just chillin outside. And I had to refill my dog’s water bowl with my hose. Skyler was standing right next to the hose. The hose had some holes in it. So if I turned the water on; it was just squirt from all the holes and so on. So I told Skyler “Hey watch out before you get got!” And Gary said, “Hey, that’s a cool name for a band. Let’s call ourselves Get Got!” And yeah that’s exactly how it happened.

So we played that first show. Things just started happening from there. You heard us, you booked us for the next show. To this day, it’s still a side project for us. That’s been what, 3 years now?

QE: Yeah that was a long time ago.

Orig: Yeah we had no true intentions of being a band. It was by the demand of our friends and our peers that we continued the band. We did release an album. I’d love to talk about that.

QE: Go for it.

Skyler Glover / Photo Credit: Ramiah Branch

Orig: So Skyler and Gary are in another band called Cheer Up Charlie Daniels. With Neil O’Neil. That’s not his real name. but that’s what he goes by. Good friend of mine. Once again, another person that worked at Whole Foods. Anyway, he worked a part time job at Welcome to 1979 studios. He called Skyler one night because the studio was hosting the NAMM show. They had a microphone company at the studio one night. They were showcasing their microphones. But they needed a drummer, so Neil called Skyler to come set up his drums and be mic’d up. So Neil said “hey if you do me this favor I’ll help you out.” So Skyler did that, and in return they gave us some studio time. So we took that opportunity. We had about 7 or 8 songs at that time. We came in for a studio session.

Orig The DJ / Photo Credit: Ramiah Branch

Orig: The cool thing about 1979 studio is that everything is analog. Tape Machines…the only thing that was digital was my turntable setup. My laptop and the DVS. They were going to give us 10 hours. which would have probably cost $2500 or more. So it was a huge blessing for us. We really only used 5 hours. We basically just set everything up. and we performed like we were performing on stage. Bert Stone was the Engineer. it felt so good for me to be an artist in the situation. For a long time, I’d always been the guy recording and on the mixing board. This time, I was the guy on the couch. So I would have an idea and he would get his guys on it. We literally just re-did one song. We only punched in one part. They gave me the multitracks. They recorded everything to tape. But then we had them find a way to give me a DVD of the multitracks and I put that into Ableton and I mixed and mastered the album. It sounded so minimal. So we took time to add in sounds. All the while, I still had all these other projects I was working on. So it took us a while to finish this album. We released it in December of 2010. It’s only 7 tracks. We had an album release party. You were there.

QE: Yeah man.

Get Got by Get Got

Orig: You, Spoken Nerd, 247. It was great. Lot of love that night. With having an album release party, and having all these visions of where we want to go. We’d been realizing more and more that this is more than a project. But Cheer Up Charlie Daniels, they got real busy. They’re heavily involved with the scene. Neil is a super busy guy. He’s probably out there as we speak. He caused his band to get really busy. We had to put Get Got to the side for that. And I got really busy with Big Smo. So we had to push Get Got to the side again with that. So we decided to let’s not worry about it. It’s not like we pushed really hard. It’s not like something that’s going to fall apart. Despite pushing it to the side, Get Got is still performing. Still getting calls… We have a show coming up pretty soon.

QE: August 30th with me!

(QE note: tickets)

Get Got / Photo Credit: Ramiah Branch

Orig: Yeah It’s still happening. It’s been effortlessly happening. I’m really excited about it. It’s awesome. It’s rare that bands can just happen from nothing and continue going with hardly any effort. We want to get another album going but we have a lot of work to do…

Connect with Orig the DJ on Facebook.

This is only the Part 2 of the 3 part interview series with Orig the DJ. Be sure to sign up to receive blog updates in your email so that you don’t miss the rest of the interview!

Spoken Nerd and Bobby Exodus Release New Videos

Quiet Entertainer — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 01:46:23 +0000

Two of my blogworthy friends have recently released new videos! I wanted to make sure I mentioned them. My very first show in Nashville was with Spoken Nerd and Bobby Exodus. I was brought in to DJ for Nerd. Bobby was heavily involved with Nerd’s set and also did a solo set during those days. I’m glad that they both have a great video to showcase what they’re doing.

Here’s the video for “Just Another Werewolf In The Night” by Spoken Nerd featuring Manchild & Gary Hundley

And here’s the video for “My Magic Goody” by Bobby Exodus

These are great! Both were done by 247 who is one-third of The Billy Goats and also has great solo music as well!

Get Got Album Release Party

Quiet Entertainer — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 11:00:46 +0000

I’ve told you about Get Got before. They’ve been one of my blogworthy bands. Well, they finally have a record finished and are releasing it on December 3rd. I’m excited because they’ve asked me to be on the release show. Also, they have brought on my friends Spoken Nerd & 247. You remember that I’ve mentioned Spoken Nerd before. I also told you about 247. I’m looking forward to all of us being on a show again. It will be just like the old Cafe Coco days! Well, maybe not. But this will be a good one.

Here’s the facebook event for you facebookers.

Oh! Listen to the new record here:

247 is Nashville’s Secret Weapon

Quiet Entertainer — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:33:16 +0000

247 is a good friend of mine here in town, but more importantly he’s the hidden force behind a lot of great things happening in Nashville! 247 has done a lot of production for other artists around town, including my friend Spoken Nerd. I’ve told you about him before because he’s one-third of The Billy Goats. Also, he appeared on the Machismo EP.

One of my favorite things he’s done was his project with BlackatSylvesta & Ugly Lovely called Out of Place. 247 is the main lyricist in the project. You can get their entire Genetic Defects album for free by going to the Out Of Place Bandcamp page. Or just play it here.

He’s been doing a lot of video production as well. Recently, he began an online interview series highlighting some of his favorite artists around Nashville. You can catch interviews he’s done with James Fate, Bobby Exodus & Spoken Nerd on his youtube channel. Finally, I was able to “take my talents” to 247′s place and shoot an interview video plus a live performance featuring Jed Smith on drums. Take a look!

About the Machismo EP

Quiet Entertainer — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:02:04 +0000

Machismo EP

I’m really excited and please about the Machismo EP. It’s a collection of some tracks I’ve done with some of my friends & favorite emcees. Let me tell you a bit about it, track by track:

1. False Alarm -
One night I went to Fuel and my friend Chip Greene and I were flirting with the bartender. Anyway, he was telling her that my music was like Blue Man Group except that you should call me Black Man Group. I thought it was hilarious. I came home with thoughts of Blue Man Group in mind and made this song. It’s fitting because Blue Man was the first show I saw that ever really grabbed and inspired me.

2. I Am…(featuring James Fate)-
I knew I wanted a theme song. It might be because of my long history with watching WWE as a kid. Theme songs and entrance music are a major part of the whole thing. I spoke about James Fate in a previous post. He is one of the best emcees I’ve heard in town. I knew that Fate would do a great job with it and he did. One of my favorite tracks for obvious reasons. Also I should mention, I got the idea for the beat after watching Paper Route perform. I saw them live at The End (also previously mentioned). They were playing a song from their EP, but I swore there were all of the sounds from the stage that I didn’t hear from the EP. Lots of electronic samples and delays. I wanted to recreate that kind of feel for the track.

3. Audition (featuring WT the Musical Mastermind) -
Audition was probably the first song I actually finished on the record. I was hanging out with a local Nashville producer who was making beats with such ease in the studio. I was really inspired. A lot of what inspired me was the producer’s ability and the rest of it was that I really wasn’t doing much with my life at the time. So being in there while he was making beats was kind of a kick in the butt. Anyway, I came home and did this track. WT is probably the main guy that got me into music. We were in a group together in college. I knew I wanted him to be on a track. This track was a good fit.

4. Machismo -
I was messing around on a sampler, the Roland SP 404. I tried running different sounds through the BPM Looper. I was actually running a synth line that I had heard somewhere; tweaking different things and distorting it. Eventually, I had changed the sound so much that I heard the beginnings of bassline. That was the beginnings of this song. So, I just built around that idea.

5. Still Single remix (featuring Spoken Nerd) -
You probably haven’t heard the original Still Single track, but it was one of the few tracks inspired by specific life events of mine. Also, Spoken Nerd is one of the more prolific emcees in town; always working on his next record. Check out his latest on youtube here. I asked Spoken Nerd to write topically for this track and I changed it up to give it a hip-hop bounce. It should be noted that this song was an indicator of where I was at the time and that it in no way reflects on Spoken Nerd, himself. Although, he did write it; and I think it’s a great measure of his lyrical brilliance. I hope this song is one of your favorites.

6. Wildfire (featuring J. Prodigal)-
I told you just a little bit about J. Prodigal. He had been waiting to get on a track for a long time. He actually wrote several verses for this song; I had to whittle it down to just two verses. He can write for days and freestyle for longer. Glad to have him on the EP. Also, I really like this beat. It was one of the few times I used an outside source vinyl sample for a melody instead of playing it or arranging it midi-style. But I’m not telling from where.

7. Our Time (featuring E.T.) -
You’ll like this one. Definitely check out E.T.’s music at the link I provided but ALSO please check out his side project, a hip hop crew called The Underground Senate. Some of the best hip-hop you will ever hear. Anyway, E.T. just moved to Louisville but before that he was in Nashville. He had been saying I should come over to his studio and do things for about a year or so before I finally went over there. I did this track in the corner in my laptop while a lot of emcees were there writing rhymes for a different track. I love this song so very much and am thankful for how it came together.

8. BlogWorthy (featuring J. Prodigal, WT, E.T., Spoken Nerd, Bobby
Exodus, Iller, James Fate, & 247) -
I told you about most of the emcees on this one. I even mentioned two of them (Iller & 247 of The Billy Goats) twice in previous posts. (here and here). So let me tell you about Bobby Exodus. Bobby also wrote different versions of his verse to this song. But I love the one we have here. He has a really unique kind of flow AND it’s really good. It’s easy to be different. Not easy to be different and GOOD at what you do. So, I was especially excited to finally get Bobby on a track as I have yet to do a full length track with him. I wanted an all-star track with all these guys on it. But the hook was an idea I got from listening to some west coast hip-hop. It’s a shout-out to artists like Jurassic 5, Dilated Peoples, Pigeon John, & Ahmad. In addition, I finally got to use the vocoder stuff (You hear it also in Wildfire). You know it’s BLOGWORTHY!