This is Part 2 of the MC Moore interview I did at the Jack Richardson Music Awards last month. If you missed Part 1, you can go back and read it now. You can listen to the interview right here (there is a player at the bottom of this post), you can read the transcript, or you can download it for free. Enjoy!
Chase: “The current way we consume music is almost killing the album. Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins says he isn’t going to release albums anymore. He’s gonna release 44 songs, release them gradually, and make an opus out of that. Ivan Ives is doing the same thing. He’s releasing one song on the first of every month. I’ve been buying those because I love what he’s been doing and I’ll be putting it in a collection and at the end of the year so I’ll have a ‘First of the Month’ album.
I like albums. I don’t just want to listen to singles. I’m bumping Brother Ali’s ‘Us’ like crazy and quite a few different albums right now.
MC Moore: “See, that’s the thing. If the music is there people will want it. That’s what’s so awesome about this digital revolution because all you need is a laptop. If you make a bad album, everyone’s heard it before it’s come out. I’m really interested to see what happens in the next 10 to15 years with all these trends.”
Chase: “A few years ago, I thought this was going to destroy new music because I didn’t think anyone would want to release new music when everyone steals it. But almost the opposite has happened because there is a lot of new music coming out. And just like the old days, you gotta dig to get to the good stuff because what you’re served on pop radio or Much Music or MTV or any of those things is not necessarily the good stuff. You gotta dig for it.”
MC Moore: “And if you want to sell it, you have to take it out there yourself, you gotta take it on the road, you gotta meet your fans and sell them your CDs. Some people call that the hard way but that’s how it’s done.”
Chase: “But that’s not the hard way, that’s how it’s done. Even at the panels, they were saying that you have to have your live show and that has to be tight, and you have to go out there and get known from that before you even think about selling anything.”
MC Moore: “I’ve heard CDs where it’s amazing but then I see a live show and-”
Chase: “Yeah, well they can trick you because they have all
sorts of trick they can do in the studio. But you have to have that live show. In the old days, we called that ‘paying dues’ whereas nowadays, I see too many artists who have a MySpace and a Facebook and they’ll be rhyming over someone else’s track.”
MC Moore: “This goes back to why I’ve been ignoring MySpace and Facebook. I see the hottest looking Facebook or MySpace page. ‘I got all this going on and I look so awesome,’ and some of them, their music is fast food.”
Chase: “Well, we pretty much live in a disposable culture, especially in music. I’m a blogger and I work at the radio station so I get stuff sent to me all the time. It’s almost like the listeners expect us to play new music all the time too. Well, you know what? I still wanna bump Blu and Exile from 2 years ago because that album is just so amazing. I know that Daddy J really likes to spin Frankenstein and his old stuff too. Good music is timeless and we don’t always have to be focused on what’s new and hot.”
MC Moore: “A lot of people call me a purist. I don’t really think I am but I pretty much only listen to pre ’94 hip-hop, I’m sampling records, I record on a hard disk still too.”
Chase: ‘Wow, that was a golden era though.”
MC Moore: “There’s something about it, even just the analog sound, the crunch of the drum, the short sample times that made people really innovative as to how they made their music. You have people now who have days of sample time, if they’re even sampling. The music that is coming out now just seems like it’s fast food.”
Chase: “Exactly.”
MC Moore: “There really is good music but it seems harder and harder to come by.”
Chase: “That’s the one thing I like about podcasts because there are so many good radio shows. I used to tape CFMU shows and I’d tape the Mastermind show every week on Energy 108. And now I don’t need to do that because there are good shows outta Ottawa and Montreal and Hamilton and the UK and I listen to those podcasts all the time.
Here at DOPEfm, we spin that purist kind of stuff but it’s the new stuff because it is still being produced. If you listen to our signal, I think you’d be surprised and might actually say ‘This new stuff is pretty good.’ A lot of the new stuff we play, no one has ever heard of. Gamma Krush is constantly digging through the Internet to find good music.”
MC Moore: “It gets tough too because when you are so focused on your own music, and you got your friends dropping albums so you’re squeezing those in, it gets harder and harder to find new music. You go to shows and you meet people and you’re getting so much music just from hand-to-hand from meeting artists. I mean, I don’t even turn my radio on anymore.”
Chase: “I never listen to the radio either, just the podcasts really. I never listen to an actual radio signal, it’s weird.”
MC Moore: “I haven’t had a computer for over a year now. I need to catch up. I know that. I’ve just been doing shows and getting stuff hand-to-hand and doing it that way. Like I said, I just got sick of going online and seeing all these overproduced MySpace pages from people who have never even rocked a stage, have never even been on a stage.”
Chase: “That’s wrong. You gotta pay your dues. I know that is old school but you really do need to get out there. You can’t just produce music in your basement.”
MC Moore: “Paying your dues is not a MySpace page, paying your dues isn’t having all your friends as your fans on Facebook, and not going to a hip-hop show. I’ve missed maybe 3 hip-hop shows in the past 3 or 4 years. ya know what I mean?” That’s paying dues.
How many shows have me and NGA played? empty shows, dues are being paid, learning your skill, meeting each other, ya know, we met at an empty show. That’s paying dues. It’s not a MySpace page.”
Chase: “Good advice for any up and comers out there.”
MC Moore: “Totally. You don’t want you music being viewed by the world when it’s premature.”
Chase: “Yeah, too many people will say, ‘I recorded this. I gotta put it out.’”
MC Moore: “Of course when you drop an album, I dropped my first album in Grade 11 and of course, you think it’s the hotness. But when I listen to that album now, I thank God that there was no MySpace.”
Chase: “Yeah, Classified has a lyric like that. He says, ‘My fourth record was the first I really liked’ and you can’t find his first three unless you really search for the. He’ll give you the last four though.”
MC Moore: “He has a selected discography. But it’s a natural progression.”
Chase: “But that was a cool way to pay dues because when he first started, the Internet was so young and it was just message boards back then and I remember seeing his name all over the place. It was several years later before I actually saw him. He actually paid his dues. He took a long, hard road to get to where he is at.”
MC Moore: “Well for years, he was hitting every single town, regardless of the population, regardless of anything. He went from town to town, paid his dues, and kept meeting people. And here we are today and he’s selling out every time.”
Chase; “It was crazy the crowd he drew here.”
MC Moore: “He sells out every time he comes. He’s a perfect example of how it’s done. You make your music, you do it yourself, you take it on the road, you sell it, you keep going, you go home, you make another album, you go out, do it again, there’s 5 more people at that show, you do it again, there’s 15 more people. Here we are ten years later and he sells out shows everywhere. It’s a success story.”
Chase: “It’s good to see that Canadian hip-hop has grown too. Before it was a handful of names and now there’s quite a few.”
MC Moore: “The music is absolutely phenomenal that’s coming out of Canada and it always has been. It’s just the industry is now here. That’s just the way it seems to be.”
Chase: “That’s why I’m impressed with these Jack Richardson Music Awards and how they are recognizing hip-hop because a lot of Awards don’t. Well. good luck at the awards tonight and thanks for taking the time to sit down with me. We’ll spin some of your tracks now and wrap this up.”
MC Moore: “Thanks.”
Chase: “Alright, peace!”
