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Fresh
scent
S.F. producer-DJ Kaskade cleans house.
By Peter
Nicholson
IT'S BEEN
A while since I was really moved by an album of house music.
Last year's Metro Area, from Morgan Geist and Darshan Jesrani,
was nice and sleek, and I've heard some decent mixes, but as for
"big grin-repeat button-get every previous 12-inch" proof,
like I said, it's been a while. So it's possible I like It's
You, It's Me (Om), the debut album by Kaskade (San Francisco's
Ryan Raddon), simply because I'm sick of the filtered, redundant
drivel that's been clogging my headphones. But more likely, the
explanation can be found in the clean beats and strong melodies
that remind why I fell in love with house in the first place.
Raddon understands,
no doubt about it – just ask him about the legendary scene
in the early '80s in his hometown, Chicago. "It was on the
radio," he says. "There were tons of teen clubs that were
doing this stuff. I mean, Frankie Knuckles, for crying out loud
– before he moved to New York, he was a Friday-night resident
at a [teen] club I was going to." After hearing about the legendary
Gramophone record store on a spot for WNUR-FM (the Northwestern
University radio station where Mark Farina and Derrick Carter would
eventually DJ), Raddon began buying singles and playing them on
his mom's record player.
A move to Salt
Lake City left the college-bound Raddon with culture shock and motivation
to find an outlet for his burgeoning vinyl collection. His Monday-night
gig at the Manhattan Club was, at first anyway, just a chance to
play records; it soon became more. "It took off and put me
through school," he explains. "It put my wife through
school, and it bought all my first gear." It also funded the
purchase of a local shop, Mechanized Records, about the time he
began to cut his first tracks. Although he claims it took graduation
and the prospect of finding a job for him to get serious, the satisfaction
of making his first single and getting a review in Urb made
the decision easy. He put all of his energy into his career, which
in 2000 inspired his move to San Francisco.
"I was
doing tracks, and I had samplers and was cutting up old disco records,"
he recalls. "But really, when I came out here, I'm like, I
need to take it up a notch, get more people involved, the sound
needs to be bigger. Rhythm tracks are great, I love 'em, and half
my crates are full of 'em, but I want it to be more musical. I mean,
I'm getting older, I enjoy listening to music." Where Raddon
decided to take it was straight to the soul, as evidenced by a batch
of singles on labels like Afterhours, Moezee Music, and Jamayka,
most pairing a dose of funk with a strong emphasis on vocals. But
he really broke though with "What I Say," on Om, where
he was working as a production assistant. Featuring the incredible
vocals of R&B-influenced Rob Wannamaker, whom he had met in Salt
Lake City, the single was used to devastating effect on Mark Grant's
Sound Design v.2 mix CD for Om and got heavy DJ support worldwide.
Male vocalists
are becoming rare in house, and the Kaskade-Wannamaker collaborations
take me back to the early '90s, when records by Robert Owens, Michael
Watford, and Donell Rush were in heavy rotation. Raddon's DJ mixes
are also liberally sprinkled with male voices, including tracks
from custom white labels of the Talking Heads' "Naïve
Melody" (an idea sparked by one of Mark Farina's "genius"
sets, according to Raddon) and Justin Timberlake's "Like I
Love You" (a Kaskade remix commissioned by Jive that was turned
down and then mysteriously showed up in stores as a bootleg) to
his work with Wannamaker, who appears on It's You, It's Me's
strongest songs.
The down-to-earth
(he wears flip-flops, for chrissakes) producer is quick to credit
his musicians. "The album turned out well because all the people
I worked with are extremely talented," he says emphatically.
Personally, I could have done without the CD's first two tracks,
both of which feature vocalist Joslyn. They lack the effective structure
and use of empty space that set apart the cuts with Wannamaker.
It's You, It's Me gets into gear with "What I Say,"
followed by "This Rhythm," pairing a more R&B-styled Joslyn
with a 2-step beat. Though definitely a house album, its feel and
spirit are inclusive, with plenty of room for broken beats and a
bit of downtempo breaks. The title track, which pops up in the middle
of the album, is a catchy, soulful gem built around a simple guitar
hook and four lines of vocals, again by Joslyn. It reminds me of
Todd Terry's remix of "Missing" for Everything but the
Girl, one of those rare house tracks that got extensive commercial
airplay.
Raddon is as
mystified as I am by radio programming that ignores music as good
as this. "I wanted the album to be accessible," he says,
shrugging his shoulders. "I mean, why can't this stuff
break through? There's so much good music out there. I find records
that I know there was only 1,000 [copies] pressed. I mean the guy
probably lost a couple hundred dollars doing the project, but that's
just what's so cool about house music: people are doing it because
they love it." Raddon might not understand the simple, crude
forces driving commercial radio. Love, on the other hand, is a different
matter.
Kaskade
DJs at Om Happy Hour Fri/7, 6 p.m., Wish, 1539 Folsom, S.F. Free.
(415) 278-9474. He performs with Doc Martin March 29, 10 p.m., DNA
Lounge, 375 11th St., S.F. $20. (415) 626-1409.
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