The Lost Deep Puddle Dynamics Interview

I did not do this interview; I can take no credit for it except that I (sort of) commissioned it and got The Source to post it online back in 1999.  And I think I minimally copy-edited it, because I was doing that for everything that got posted there in those days; but as I recall, it didn't need much at all.  I never posted this on my blog ("necro'd" it) because, again, it's not my writing.  You can tell; all that expository text really isn't my style.  But this vintage Deep Puddle Dynamics interview is no longer online, and hasn't been for decades.  I'm pretty sure if I don't share it, it will be forever lost to the ages, so I'm posting it for you all to enjoy now in 2023 as a tiny bit of Hip-Hop history.  Enjoy!

"Hello?"
"Yeah is Del - I mean Jel - there?"
"Yeah, Del's here."
"No, I mean Jel.
"Yeah, Del. Catch a Bad One. I'll go get him."
"Word."
"Which one?"
"What?"
"Which word?"
"Um - chicken."
"Cool. I'll go get him."

I'll probably never know which member of Deep Puddle Dynamics (besides Jel) answered the phone that afternoon. The smart money is on Slug, but whoever it was, I doubt he even remembers the interaction. Regardless, it pretty much reflects the dichotomy of the entire crew: For a bunch of guys who're trying to take hip-hop to the next, mind-expanding level, the members of Deep Puddle Dynamics are a bunch of goofballs.

Deep Puddle Dynamics didn't come together like most groups do. All of the MCs (Slug, Dose, Sole and Alias) had distinct musical careers before they assembled as a group and have continued to work on their solo projects all along. And, even though Deep Puddle Dynamics is set to drop later this year, all four are working on a whole slew of solo albums and collaborations with and as other groups. Everyone involved is about putting out product and keeping their fans equipped with dope music.

The MCs of Deep Puddle are a unique cast of characters, to say the least. Slug, straight out of Minnesota and the Rhymesayers crew, is practically a superhero in the Midwest underground, albeit a rather tall and gangly one. Many fans and MCs in Minnesota, Chicago and surrounding areas are literally awestruck in his presence. He has the charisma and ability (pun intended; his DJ's name is Abilities) to truly control the mic and the crowd. As for Dose, underground MC Eyedea has described him as the James Joyce of hip-hop. Some audiences don't know how to react when he hits the stage. Now living in Cincinnati by way Philadelphia and a bunch of other places, the 1200 Hobos MC wraps words and thought around the average listener's gray matter and squeezes hard. Sole, the short and kinda stocky former frontman for The Live Poets, is a physical counterpoint to Slug. Originally from Maine, now living in Oakland, he's self-described excessive talker and charismatic mic controller. Alias, one of Sole's old partners in crime from Maine, is much quieter and more reserved than the other three. Maybe it's his marriage. This calm exterior hides a propensity to lyrically snap hard on a track. Production for the group is usually split between Jel, Mayonnaise, Alias, Abilities, and ANT (of Atmosphere).

Most of their interviews are nightmares for the conventional journalist. You ask them a serious question, and they fuck with you. You ask them a not so serious question, and they still fuck with you. Jel, one of their producers, told me about an interview they had with some German magazine while in California.

"She kept on asking us these real deep questions, like 'What's your definition of hip-hop?' and 'What are trying to do with your music?' We just sat on the on the couch and had a blast. She didn't know what to say after a while."

That's what I had to look forward to that afternoon. This June, all of the components of Deep Puddle were together in Chicago for a show - a truly rare occasion - and on this Saturday they d gathered in one place: Jel's crib. So I got to do an interview with all of these components out on the lawn in front of Jel's apartment.

The members of Deep Puddle have a penchant for spinning works of complete fiction during their interviews. The problem for the interviewer is that they're so damn good at it, it's hard to tell the difference between the fiction and the reality. They're great at building off each other while creating a story, and even better at telling you with a complete straight face that it's all true. Of course, when you're going over your notes, you realize that it was all a joke, but it sounds feasible at the time. I mean, how likely is at that Alias and Mayonnaise can't drive through Michigan anymore because they held up a pumpkin patch with two pale-skinned Goth women?

Okay, so maybe I didn't fall for that one, but they got me with another, the details of which I won't divulge (something about Sole witnessing Bushwick Bill getting beat-down in Texas). But, hey, I didn't take offense. It was all in good fun.

All of Deep Puddle agreed afterwards, however, that this was the most serious interview they had ever done. The reason being they were, in their own words, "humbled" by the previous night's concert. But more on that later.

The members of Deep Puddle were united by pure musical appreciation, of other artists and each other. Although Sole and Alias, who d grown up together in Maine, had already recorded albums as The Live Poets, all they knew of Slug and Dose was their music. Then, they all came together at an Aceyalone concert.

"We all loved each-other's music and wanted to do a project," Sole said, "And we said,  Fuck it, let's all just come to Minneapolis.  We all just scrapped everything we'd done to do something different, [and] in doing so, we - for me - redefined hip-hop, what I want to do. It was totally life-changing."

It all finally came together a little over a year ago, in a nearly week long, extended recording session at Slug's house. A bunch of Minnesota sunsets, one funeral and countless cigarettes and blunts later, Deep Puddle Dynamics was finished, and the crew was satisfied.

"We vibed off of it. We just sparked the whole thing," Slug says. "And now, it's like everything that I get involved with has progressed way past what I used to be when I released Overcast! [his last album with Atmosphere]."

That week long session affected all of Deep Puddle emotionally.

"I still listen to the album and look at the pictures, and every time I do, I just get a warm feeling, like, this is such a great thing to happen," Sole says.

Alias agrees, "I didn't know what to expect but, like, it was a warm feeling to know all of us, not knowing each other, could get together and just rush an album basically in a matter of three days [of recording]."

"That weekend was like, none of us knew each other," Jel adds. "We might have met at a certain point, but after that weekend it was like " he paused as Slug snapped his fingers. "Yeah, it was like a family."

Sole continues, impassioned, "After I met Slug and Dose and Jel, I felt closer to them than anyone else in the world, plus Mayonnaise and Alias. I felt these were like my best friends. We're all drawing from each other and pushing each other [as artists] and nobody's satisfied. We just keep pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing. And I don't think it's ever gonna stop. I was humbled by the whole thing."

It was emotional on other levels for Slug as well. That week he d severed ties with a close friend and lost a grandfather. During the drive to the funeral, with his mother, his son and his son's mother, he sat and wrote a verse. This verse became his part of "June 26th, 1998," a track Deep Puddle considers a culmination of the entire week.

"I think this group we have is really good for showing and proving," Dose concludes, "I think that's what we did. Since we did Deep Puddle, a lot more innovative stuff between the four of us, and all of our friends, has been done. But it was Deep Puddle that really gave us a perspective."

The previous night's show left Deep Puddle feeling deeply conflicted. Slug didn't even want to talk about it at first. Everyone else grumbled about how frustrated and annoyed they were on how the show went down. But what left them so "humbled" by the experience was that, in many ways, it was a disaster waiting to happen. After it was all said and done, the audience left happy.

The concert itself would be any crew's nightmare. It was disorganized, to say the least. Not too long before the first act went on, there was a serious chance that the show would be cancelled, because the promoters said not enough people had shown up. Mayonnaise said he'd already packed his records and was ready to go, when the opening act went on.

The venue itself didn't help either. They performed on a stairwell in the lobby of a large concert hall. The really high ceiling made the acoustics sound terrible. "It sounded like we were performing in St. Patrick's Cathedral," Alias quips.

And like every troubled show, they had to contend with the soundman. But they all agreed that he was basically a nice guy, just out of his element.

"He dressed like a wedding DJ," Dose remarks, as everyone murmured in agreement. "He had it on him. He smelled like a wedding DJ."

"You could tell by the cordless mics," Slug agrees. He and Dose then proceeded to discuss whether or not the mics smelled like cake or Macy's.

The cordless mics were another source of trouble. Apparently someone forgot to change their batteries before the show, so they buzzed really loud during the performances.

"Let that be a lesson to you," Slug says. "As much as rappers wish they had cordlesses so they could, I don't know, stage dive - or whatever the fuck it is that they wanna do - corded mics are a lot more dependable."

Furthermore, they had to perform without monitors. As an attempt to remedy this, they faced the DJ speakers at the top stairwell outwards, but even that didn't work.

"Actually, it was kinda funny, 'cause all we could hear coming through our monitors was our vocals, which was really weird," Slug says. "So at least we could hear what we were saying, but we already knew what we were saying, so "

And, on top of all that, the DAT machine stopped working midway through the show, forcing the crew to perform sans music. Phenomenally, this didn't set Deep Puddle back at all. In fact, it helped give the show its really unique character.

"At that point we were like, 'We can't rock beats any more. Let's just do it acappella,'" Sole explains, "And Dose loves doing acappellas anyway."

So, for reasons that Dose couldn't fully explain, halfway through his set of the show, he instructed everyone in the audience to sit down on the steps while he read his poetry for almost 10 minutes--not something you see everyday.

"I was just doing what's in me, and that's what s cool about it: it wasn't contrived, it was natural," Dose beams. "And in my opinion, the type of shows I want to walk away from - it's that type of stuff. Because naturally, I'm a nervous wreck, so I have to put effort into being relaxed and happy, and things like that helped." But the audience loved it.

"So, like, it went from like a hip-hop show gone bad to almost a slam, and that's something these kids have never seen before," Sole says. He then concludes, "I didn't have a good time performing until we started doing the acappella shit."

The entire audience had a great time. Deep Puddle credits the audience's reaction for transforming the evening from a disaster to a life-affirming experience. Fans that Deep Puddle didn't even know they had showed up and gave they crazy love.

"Afterwards, it was like, 'You guys are fucking freaks! You are fucking crazy! You guys moved me!'" Sole exclaims. "And we had all the conversations afterwards with kids who knew our stuff, had heard our stuff. It s just a nice feeling to know that you're not doing it for nothing. Forever we've done it for nobody, just each other." Since it was the first time that Deep Puddle had performed for its fans, they were especially troubled that the conditions at the venue were so atrocious.

"See, it would have been different had we played unknown, opening for some known group, and the sound was that bad; we would've looked at it differently," Slug explains. "But since everybody was so cool to us and so nice to us, that the sound thing sucked  But we still walked away from it feeling good about the audience."

"Last night I think I came into my own, performing," Dose says. "And only because I had confidence that was genuine. With all these guys behind me, I could truly be myself. That's never been the case before. It was like I was myself on stage for the first time. And it was because I had these three guys with me. It brought so much to me."

But not everyone in attendance appreciated Deep Puddle's show. One wannabe MC in particular took it upon himself to challenge the crew to a battle as the show wound to a close. He wanted to battle Dose; big mistake. In all honestly, it was over before it started, and actually pretty embarrassing. Dose quickly showed his lyrical superiority, and the challenger was unable to mount even a basic comeback. Soon the crowd was chanting for the guy to get the hell off the stage.

That's almost a metaphor for what we're doing," Sole reflects. "We want these people to listen to our records. And if you take someone like that up on stage, and they're doing their DMX impersonations, and you got Dose doing Dose, it's just funny."

Dose himself didn't take the whole thing too personally, and even though he made the guy look like a schmuck, he says he didn't try to totally destroy him. He admits, "I went in there and I didn't mean to be mean or angry with that kid; I just had a blast and let him completely reflect himself in me. He was just being a fool, so I gave him what he wanted for dinner, and then it was mellow. It was just a mellow battle."

Slug agrees, and explains how the entire encounter really reflects what the group is trying to accomplish musically. "That kid, when he came up, wanted to hate on Dose in general 'cause he couldn't understand Dose. And then, afterwards, I was talking to kid, and he was like, 'Yo, I'm from out East, and out East we do it a little different. But I gotta say, you guys got your own sound, your own thing, and I think it's really dope.' We could present what we re doing. Granted, we're coming from four different things as it is. And if we can push it all together and present it and have cats accept it like that, to me that's what it's all about. Quit writing out of your head and start writing with your heart."

After the interview is over, a small brown rabbit comes out of the brush and hops leisurely across the lawn. Dose points and exclaims, "Look! A rabbit."

"Let's get it," Slug replies.

"You wanna?" Dose says, and then looks at Slug for half a beat. They both then spontaneously break out in a sprint across the lawn towards the fleeing rabbit.

They chase it down the alley along the house, onto the nearby street, towards a large brown house. As they turn the corner into the yard, Jel says, "Yeah, they're having fun now, but wait 'till they run into the dog that lives in that house."

On cue, the dog bellows three or four times, and Slug and Dose run back in the opposite direction, to the rest of us congregated on Jel's lawn. As they approach, out of breath, Slug says, "You know what's the worst thing about hip-hop? Chasing rabbits through the streets."

Dose adds, "I think we just changed the course of nature. That dog probably killed that rabbit. We hit the lawn and the dog went directly for it."

Deep Puddle then heads back into Jel's apartment trading jokes and insults all the while.

Ah, the Halcyon Days Of Anticon

Man, remember the great days of Anticon Records? When they were hip-hop and ingenious and releasing great records and CDs as fast as you could collect them? It seemed like you never had to worry about them running out of material, and even if some of their hand-made, limited CDRs were sub-par, you could be confident it would still be full of compelling moments and great samples. But man, I just had to check anticon.com right now to make sure they were still in existence. I don't even know who's on the label anymore - just a bunch of folk singers and Alias making techno beats I guess. But all you guys who spent the early 2000s hating on them missed a Hell of little thunderstorm in Hip-Hop, at a time when the rest of the genre was going through a slow drought.

What about the time they all came together to do a track for DJ Krush's album called "Song for John Walker?" That was his 2002 album, The Message At the Depth; but you can just do what I did and get this sweet little 12" single of it. There are a couple other non-rap album tracks on the 12", too, but who cares? I sure don't. I only listen to "Song for John Walker."

In case you've forgotten, or just aren't a big news follower in the first place, John Walker Lindh is the white kid from California who got shot and captured while fighting against the United States during our invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. What was he doing there? Well, some kids join the school marching band and some kids lean towards something a little edgier, like the taliban. He shot some Red Cross workers while he was over there, plead guilty when he was brought back, and President Bush (the first one) got in trouble for calling him "some misguided Marin County hot-tubber."

The song surely shares inspiration with the piece Black Like Me that The Pedestrian had published in the East Bay Express a little while after the song was released. That article uncovers the surprising and under-reported fact that John Walker was, prior to leaving the country, a huge hip-hop fan who wrote battle raps on newsgroups and pretended to be a black man named Mr. Mujahid, calling out rappers who didn't live up to his ideals of blackness, i.e. calling Dr. Dre a "sellout house nigga living honkey dory," and "a disgrace selling out to the talcum. He'll be left dead and naked in the outcome; word to brother Malcolm." Yeah, you won't learn about all that in many other sources; you should totally go read the whole article.

Ironically, the song focuses less on Walker as a hip-hop figure, though; and more as a political icon. Like all of their best work, it's both directly sardonic and perplexing abstract at the same time. At one point, Dose One is chiding, "he wanted Hammer pants. He joined the tali-hey-ban. He sought an absolute truth, the alpha cliché; But he got the omega and fucked," at another you'll be struggling to decipher what he means as he repeatedly sings, "again we use the magnets poorly; again we use the magnets poorly." While Why? comes in, getting at least close to rap (longtime Why? listeners will know what I mean) to represent the non-voting, slacker generation:

"Well, I heard the two parties split platforms at the turn of the century;
But. I. Know. I'm. A. Mer. I. Can. By the coins I carry.
And that's fuckin' scary.
Bla-bla-bla-bla-blah blah blah.
And even the worn-wigged hard news anchors are un-affected;
And every psychic and small-time prophet is aloof.
We've been injected to the point of immunity;
It takes an F load of S to stimulate the desensitized taste buds of the sugar expecting community,
'Till we can barely detect... the weather man's insincerity."

Passage and Sole team up, reminiscent of their classic duet, "Isn't It Sad How Sad We Are?" ("Become a smart happy healthy pet rock if you can eat like us; you'll make great soup and hot new imports for domesticated devils. Don't worry, in thirty years we'll all be Johns and Sarahs"), while Alias provides a more omniscient perspective a la his great "Divine Inspiration." The Pedestrian only really chimes in for the song's opening lines, but I'm sure he was deeply involved with the writing of the whole thing, which has often been his role. The whole gang really pulls together, often with quite divergent styles, into a cohesive whole, thanks in no small part to DJ Krush. At the time, I know Krush's production for the Anticon collective received a lukewarm welcome by fans; but I actually think he does an excellent job capturing the dark, bitter joke; and subtly shifts the music to fit the different segments of the song, rapped or sung in styles you'd otherwise think could never be parts of the same song.

Krush remixed this song on an album called Stepping Stones years later, but it really doesn't retain the energy or effect of the original at all. It's kinda cool once or twice as a variant - he adds some slick scratching during one of the breakdowns. But the newer, earnest instrumentation takes things too seriously, losing the feeling that these are courtroom jesters singing a coded message of our extinction. Stick with the original, which is conveniently available on 12" already. The idea that Anticon has been moving on without Sole for years feels like some kind of a morbid joke. But that's the great thing about records, they last even as the times change. We can plop 'em on the turntable and go back whenever we want.

Free Alias!

So yesterday we had a HipHopSite freebie, now let's look at some competing Sandbox freebies. By the early 2000's, Anticon's Alias had pretty much turned his focus completely to production. He still did guest verses and stuff, but he was really devoting his energies towards a prolific, and still ongoing, run of instrumental albums.

Now, just speaking for myself, strictly instrumental hip-hop barely holds my interest; if it doesn't have a lot of cuts, change-ups or... some fucking thing happening, I get bored pretty quick: Once the same drum pattern and sample loops for the fifth time with absolutely nothing different from the last four, I'm ready to go home. And, producers, that little drum roll every seventy seconds doesn't cut it. Now, granted, Alias's instrumentals are a little more alive than that sort of worst-case scenario I'm describing (more on that in a bit), but it's the same principle - instrumental hip-hop just doesn't compare to the stuff with proper vocals.

So I was on the fence about buying any of his post-Bits & Pieces releases. The Other Side Of the Looking Glass had a hot song with Dose One, and Muted featured a great song with Pedestrian. But buying entire albums for just one song apiece, even really compelling ones? Granted, I'd done it before, but still. I needed something to push me over the edge. And Sandbox was there for me.

This four-track CD of completely exclusive material came free with an order of The Other Side Of the Looking Glass. Three of these tracks are also instrumentals, which means they're probably more interesting to other Alias fans than they are to me, but hey. They're exclusive, they help make a nice collectors' item, and it's not like the music isn't any good.

"Kill My Television" features slow, abrasive drums, a cool piano loop, and distorted vocal samples that go a long way towards keeping your attention as other elements start to feel monotonous. It also has a nice breakdown.

"Firstsong" doesn't have any helpful voices, but it's constantly changing, introducing new synths or other distorted elements. It picks up around the minute mark once it's got more layers in the mix, though it starts to collapse on it self and repeat before it's over.

And "Waves Hello" features a lot of backwards percussion and wavey drawn-out keyboard notes. It's the mellow, low-key one of the bunch.

But the most interesting track here is "Times Up Remix." I remember seeing that and thinking, "I don't remember Alias having a song called 'Time's Up'." Well, that was right, but of course you know who did have a song called "Time's Up:" O.C. Yup, this is Alias's take on his classic Wild Pitch debut. And, interestingly, this isn't the only time Anticon's taken a stab at releasing their own remix of this song - Sole also remixed it for his Secret History Of Underground Rap compilation.* And like that one, honestly, it doesn't hold a candle to the beloved original (or the phat Eclipse remix on the same 12"). But, wisely - and also like the Sole version - it doesn't try.

While the vocals are of course the same, this version is so different, it plays like an entirely different animal, not a competing alternate. The opening lines come stuttering in, and then they're merged in with a sort of distorted, low-fi electronic sound made up of of belligerent computer noises and drums that sound like they were played (intentionally) way too loud so they broke when the meters went deep into the red levels. He essentially turned it into an El-P joint. It's pretty effective in its own right, though the original "Hey Young World" scratches sound out of place on this mix. He should've replaced them with something new for the hook on this mix, if you ask me.

Two years later, I was really not feeling the idea of buying another entire Alias album for another single song. Even when Sandbox again read my mind and presented another bonus CD, I still wasn't taking the bait. But then, thankfully, Alias released a 12" single off of that album, which featured the Pedestrian song. Perfect, that's what I really wanted! If only he'd done the same for "Opus Ashamed"... But, anyway, somehow I wound up getting a free copy of Muted from them, too - and with it, the bonus disc.

This is a three tracker, and like the other disc, all the songs are exclusive, never having been released anywhere else before or since. And this time it came in a nifty, circular CD case. They're all instrumentals here, too, but I like these better. I'm not sure it's because he's grown so much as a producer, as I like some of his old stuff as much or more as his later material. But I think he's gotten noticeably better at making instrumental hip-hop tracks that stand alone as complete songs, rather than sounding like unfinished song pieces that are missing their vocals.

"Drunken Piano" sounds very DJ Shadowy to me. And I mean the good DJ Shadow era that everybody likes; not his cheesy hyphy stuff or whatever he drifted off into. As you'd expect, there's a lot of piano sample going on here. And though it's mostly a very short six-note riff, there are some nice change-ups, and even more importantly, it all plays on top of a very moody, shifty soundscape. But it still has very fast, distinctly Alias-y drums. And usually that would be a criticism, because I often feel he's replacing soul by trying to distract you with high energy busyness... but here I like his drums. 8)

"Forgotten" is in some ways similar. It has a bunch of slower, moodier samples playing to build a richer atmosphere, which works well. But this time the main samples that drive the song are boring and unengaging. It's like if a label gave a really talented producer a really shitty record and told him he had to use that sample as the body of the song (which I'm sure has happened more than once in this genre). He takes it and pulls out all the tricks, chopping the drums and flipping extra little horns and what-not, which improve it and show off his talents; but at the end of the day, it still doesn't fly with audiences, because it's built around a lousy idea.

Things pick up again with the last track, "Rhymeoverthis." Is that a dare? Because this beat really doesn't lend itself to rapping over it. But it's still pretty fresh. It samples a lot of chimes and bells with a smoother, slower track. Again, like the last CD, he ends with the cool out song, like we should all lay down, get high and stare at the stars. And this one goes for over six minutes, but I still don't get bored listening to it, which is a huge compliment from me for instrumental hip-hop.

So, even though I could've done without "Forgotten," this disc actually shows me why there's an audience for this stuff. Still, though... it's not really for me, and after this review I'm sure I'll be putting both discs away to go unplayed for a very long time. In favor of songs with actual vocals on them. I imagine these are more exciting and essential for Alias fans who are into his instrumental albums. But even for the rest of us, they were cool, free bonus discs.


*And he used a line from it for the hook and theme of one of his earliest 12" singles, "Respect." This was obviously a very inspirational song for them back in their early days n Maine.