|
|
California's top breakbeat deejay Simply Jeff
has played a pivotal role in the West Coast breaks
scene for many years, as deejay, artist and owner
of his own record label, Phonomental Music, which
he launched back in 1999.
I caught up with Jeff in San Francisco on February
2nd, 2002. The previous nite, Jeff had headlined
Analog at Space 550. In classic San Francisco
style it was breakbeat in the main room, supported
by a drum 'n' bass sector and the hip-hop/funk
lounge.
When Jeff dropped the Hyper & Rhymes remix
of Puretone - "Totally Addicted to Bass"
party-goers abandoned their stations at the bar,
put out their smokes and packed the floor. As
he ripped from his own tracks to nu skool heavies
to a few so fresh people had to sneak up to the
booth to catch the names, strangers high-fived
one another and 1200 people shifted through the
club to catch the fire he lit under us.
I joined Jeff, his agent Jaemi Swope, and long-time
friend Dennis (who claims he recently found some
of his Jeff's mixed tapes from middle school)
for pizza and a trip to the record store. Along
the way, Jeff breaks it down for us |
|
Simply
Jeff on the decks @ Analog |
|
Anne: Basically, you're on
fire. You have two really fresh releases on your
Phonomental label, "Luminous Moodswing"
with Josef Plante and "Pacific Breaks Connection
#3". Plus you have two more releases coming
out soon. Tell us about the latest tracks and
what we can expect from the next ones.
Jeff: The next Phonomental release will be a
track that I produced with Stacey Q. I call that
project Divine Frequency, and it's basically a
track that I would say is . . . well, I don't
want to say trancey breakbeat, but its almost
on that kick. I'm using a more synthesized breakbeat
sound with female vocals. Sometimes it might be
with male vocals too, at some point. We've been
working on this project for a really long time;
it's been a very long process. |
|
|
Sounds |
|
Simply
Jeff - "Break It Down"
[Phonomental
USA 2000]
 Listen
|
|
|
|
|
Anne: Are you talking months
or years?
Jeff: Years! This is an attempt to do something different
so I used a vocalist I know in North Carolina - a fan
that sang in front of me one day and I was, like, "Man,
you're good!" So we went to a recording studio
in North Carolina to record him down. I wrote a track,
he did the vocals on there, and then we brought the
vocals back to L.A. and laid them out. Then I wrote
vocals for a track for Stacey, brought her into the
studio - the same place where she did her hit "Two
of Hearts" [laughs] - and we did vocals there as
well. After we put that together, I had a guitar player
come in, and we put that down. So there are a lot of
live instruments with vocals happening here. At the
same time I was working on other Simply Jeff records
and remixes, so it just took a long time for us to get
together. [laughing] So we finally got together and
we just mixed it down in the studio and sent it off
to England to get it mastered. It should be back next
week! I'm really excited about that project. I did a
remix on the flip side for it, more dancefloor friendly
kind of stuff. That should be out hopefully late February,
early March.
|
Then I just started a new electro label called
Electro Life, a subsidiary of my own label. That's
dedicated to the electro style breaks instead
of the traditional breaks that I've been doing
throughout my career. The first single I did pays
tribute to the tour in Germany with Uberzone and
Crystal Method. What I did was take sounds from
my video camera - a taxidriver giving us a tour,
recorded train sounds, lots of samples from my
video camera - and made an electro track out it.
So those are the next two things happening and
we have more really cool things coming from Neosouls.
Then Mizota has a new track and we're going to
have remixes, with some fantastic people remixing
that. We're not sure exactly who but we have an
idea so we don't want to disclose that yet. And
I'm working on a track for Afrika Bambaataa for
his album right now. That's an honor and a learning
experience. I just finished the mixed CD on Moonshine
Music. That will be out March 12, and I've got
a lot of cool exclusive tracks for that CD. Then
I have a Phonomental CD coming out in April which
is an artist compilation of all Phonomental artists.
Anne: When you play these
tracks out, do people ask where they can find
them? |
|
Simply
Jeff laughs at the mayhem and catches it for more
samples - we're waiting for the San Francisco
Electro Travel track next! |
|
Jeff: Definitely getting some of that response. Some
of these tracks on the Phonomental album are tracks
that have been out already, but some there are some
new tracks on there as well.
Anne: What was the turning point
that motivated you to launch Phonomental?
Jeff: The turning point was basically, and I'm not
going to disclose any names, that I really wasn't happy
where I was, and I couldn't do what I wanted to do with
my life. So instead of having partners I wanted to do
it my way. I started Phonomental out of my own money,
my own pocket, and I needed to develop a label the way
I wanted to do it, from picking the right artists to
the right artwork, the whole nine yards.
|
