self-titled - no. 3 - (Page 67) When did anticon. start up? Doseone: Right before anticon., we recorded as Deep Puddle Dynamics, and nobody liked it, so we figured we’d release it ourselves with our own label. Why?: We were selling tapes at the time. We worked on it at Kinkos. Odd Nosdam: This was when the Internet revolution was going on. You could get your tapes sold everywhere. Doseone: We had as many fans in Japan as we did in Chicago. Why?: There was a weird culture of tape traders in underground rap that happened in the late ’90s. We met Pedestrian through tape trading. He ran this thing called TrueHipHop.com. It was so comprehensive. Meanwhile, we had nothing technology wise. We went to a computer lab and used the scanner for our first cLOUDDEAD artwork. Odd Nosdam: Me and Adam got in a car wreck on the way back from that. Why?: We had to be hustlers to survive in that scene. Doseone: We were very romantic and idealistic back then. But we’ve come to our prime now, in the least romantic time for music ever. Odd Nosdam: At that time in the Midwest, there was a huge underground hip-hop phenomenon. There was a movement to start crate-digging in the post-DJ Shadow era. And we’ll never see that excitement again. When did the anticon. scene transfer to California? Doseone: It was gradual. Yoni and Dave didn’t move out until a year and a half after I did. They moved in with me and Jeff [Logan, aka Jel]. We were in a three-bedroom with nine people. Jeff worked temp jobs. I hoed it out and worked for Mush. It was a very shaky, strange time. Why?: Anticon only became legit as time went on. We almost didn’t notice it. Odd Nosdam: I was art director for five years, and everyone had opinions, and it sometimes really drove me crazy. Doseone: The mutual era of anticon. has diffused. A lot of us live in our own respective Antarctica, some of us only a few blocks away. Alias, for example, moved back to Maine. We’ve always been home wizards recording in our bedrooms, and that’s what it’s become again—doing our things in our own private Idaho. We coordinate through anticon. and managers We’re on different speeds, but if we hear something we like [we share it with one another]. Like S.J. Esau; the same week that Yoni recommended it, I went through all my demos, and the only one I liked was S.J. Esau, and so I called [label manager] Shaun [Koplow], and we signed him. Odd Nosdam: The way the label went from being the core focus of our lives, I can stop being art director and now put out records by people we really admire. Why?: We are all A&R for the label, essentially. We don’t run the label. Shaun runs it, and Baillie [Parker] helps. It’s more focused because it’s one individual. Doseone: The state of the industry is so that we could only have one person running the label. It wouldn’t work any other way. I miss certain chemistries of how it used to be, but it was also really confusing. Odd Nosdam: The thing I miss about that time is that we were discovering ourselves and discovering new ways to express ourselves through music and art. I really miss those early days when we stumbled on our sound. Doseone: What I don’t miss is all that confusion and fighting. We fought so much. People thought Antipop [Consortium] was like us and Paul Barman was like us. We picked something that didn’t have a place and still doesn’t, and people tried to put it in this space where it didn’t belong. Nowadays, Yoni’s music, to the world, they can fit it in with stuff that they’re somewhat familiar with. But white rap, or whatever you want to call it, is not going to fit in anywhere. Experimental rap, weird rap, whatever you call it—it still doesn’t have a place. While guys like Atmosphere didn’t really go further down the road, we plowed ahead. Odd Nosdam: I don’t miss the shit-talking with Rhymesayers and Def Jux. Doseone: White people hating on white people. Those guys on the more rap side of things were very self-conscious about us implicating them in some fascist white regime to make rap smart. But that was never the case. We just liked being around one another. We had no motives. For them, they were still looking for the ghetto pass. But now everyone is more mature, and we’ve since patched things up. Odd Nosdam: It started when Sole recorded “Dear Elpee.” If that hadn’t happened, I don’t think it would have progressed to what it was. That was the beginning of what became years and years Doseone: Well, [Sole]’s whole thing was that Rawkus was a subsidiary of Fox. Company Flow was not really independent either. Tim [“Sole” Holland] called that out, and El-P called Sole “shorty,” and Tim called him “tall-y,” and it got out of hand. I was naive. I was hoping that anticon. would be all these people working together, but there were those who felt too passionate about it all. Is the driving force for you guys to do something genuinely different? Why?: We’re just trying to do something true. Doseone: Yoni once said defending me, “Well, Adam writes something closer to the sun.” Let’s talk about the birth of cLOUDDEAD. Odd Nosdam: I made a beat, which became “She’s Calling”—the first track on our first album. I was driving in a terrible snowstorm from Minneapolis with Yoni, and somehow we ended up off the road in an embankment. We missed a tree by this much, and we almost died. It was the worst situation I’ve ever been in. Later on, we were at an AAA station. I remember we were like, “We gotta do this.” That, for me, is when cLOUDDEAD began. We didn’t even have a name for it yet. When Ten came out and people responded enthusiastically Doseone: Really? Why?: I like Ten a lot. Odd Nosdam: I think that Ten was more collaborative than the first [compilation] record. Why?: I like the music on the first one a lot. But I cringe when I hear myself on that one. http://www.anticon.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Puddle_Dynamics http://www.anticon.com/index.php?section=artist&target=Pedestrian&js=yes http://www.TrueHipHop.com http://www.anticon.com http://www.anticon.com http://www.myspace.com/jelanticon http://www.anticon.com http://www.anticon.com http://www.myspace.com/alias http://www.anticon.com
Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of self-titled - no. 3 self-titled - no. 3 Contents Titus Andronicus A.C. Newman Los Campesinos! Zombi Arthur Russell Gentleman Jesse Circlesquare Oneida Cut Off Your Hands Frances and the Lights School of Seven Bells and Free Blood ...Trail of Dead’s Conrad Keely cLOUDDEAD self-titled - no. 3 self-titled - no. 3 - self-titled - no. 3 (Page Cover1) self-titled - no. 3 - self-titled - no. 3 (Page Cover2) self-titled - no. 3 - self-titled - no. 3 (Page 3) self-titled - no. 3 - self-titled - no. 3 (Page 4) self-titled - no. 3 - self-titled - no. 3 (Page 5) self-titled - no. 3 - self-titled - no. 3 (Page 6) self-titled - no. 3 - self-titled - no. 3 (Page 7) self-titled - no. 3 - self-titled - no. 3 (Page 8) self-titled - no. 3 - self-titled - no. 3 (Page 9) self-titled - no. 3 - self-titled - no. 3 (Page 10) self-titled - no. 3 - self-titled - no. 3 (Page 11) self-titled - no. 3 - self-titled - no. 3 (Page 12) self-titled - no. 3 - Contents (Page 13) self-titled - no. 3 - Titus Andronicus (Page 14) self-titled - no. 3 - Titus Andronicus (Page 15) self-titled - no. 3 - A.C. Newman (Page 16) self-titled - no. 3 - A.C. Newman (Page 17) self-titled - no. 3 - A.C. Newman (Page 18) self-titled - no. 3 - A.C. Newman (Page 19) self-titled - no. 3 - Los Campesinos! (Page 20) self-titled - no. 3 - Los Campesinos! (Page 21) self-titled - no. 3 - Los Campesinos! (Page 22) self-titled - no. 3 - Zombi (Page 23) self-titled - no. 3 - Arthur Russell (Page 24) self-titled - no. 3 - Arthur Russell (Page 25) self-titled - no. 3 - Gentleman Jesse (Page 26) self-titled - no. 3 - Gentleman Jesse (Page 27) self-titled - no. 3 - Circlesquare (Page 28) self-titled - no. 3 - Circlesquare (Page 29) self-titled - no. 3 - Oneida (Page 30) self-titled - no. 3 - Cut Off Your Hands (Page 31) self-titled - no. 3 - Frances and the Lights (Page 32) self-titled - no. 3 - Frances and the Lights (Page 33) self-titled - no. 3 - School of Seven Bells and Free Blood (Page 34) self-titled - no. 3 - School of Seven Bells and Free Blood (Page 35) self-titled - no. 3 - School of Seven Bells and Free Blood (Page 36) self-titled - no. 3 - School of Seven Bells and Free Blood (Page 37) self-titled - no. 3 - School of Seven Bells and Free Blood (Page 38) self-titled - no. 3 - School of Seven Bells and Free Blood (Page 39) self-titled - no. 3 - School of Seven Bells and Free Blood (Page 40) self-titled - no. 3 - School of Seven Bells and Free Blood (Page 41) self-titled - no. 3 - School of Seven Bells and Free Blood (Page 42) self-titled - no. 3 - School of Seven Bells and Free Blood (Page 43) self-titled - no. 3 - School of Seven Bells and Free Blood (Page 44) self-titled - no. 3 - School of Seven Bells and Free Blood (Page 45) self-titled - no. 3 - School of Seven Bells and Free Blood (Page 46) self-titled - no. 3 - School of Seven Bells and Free Blood (Page 47) self-titled - no. 3 - School of Seven Bells and Free Blood (Page 48) self-titled - no. 3 - School of Seven Bells and Free Blood (Page 49) self-titled - no. 3 - ...Trail of Dead’s Conrad Keely (Page 50) self-titled - no. 3 - ...Trail of Dead’s Conrad Keely (Page 51) self-titled - no. 3 - ...Trail of Dead’s Conrad Keely (Page 52) self-titled - no. 3 - ...Trail of Dead’s Conrad Keely (Page 53) self-titled - no. 3 - ...Trail of Dead’s Conrad Keely (Page 54) self-titled - no. 3 - ...Trail of Dead’s Conrad Keely (Page 55) self-titled - no. 3 - ...Trail of Dead’s Conrad Keely (Page 56) self-titled - no. 3 - ...Trail of Dead’s Conrad Keely (Page 57) self-titled - no. 3 - cLOUDDEAD (Page 58) self-titled - no. 3 - cLOUDDEAD (Page 59) self-titled - no. 3 - cLOUDDEAD (Page 60) self-titled - no. 3 - cLOUDDEAD (Page 61) self-titled - no. 3 - cLOUDDEAD (Page 62) self-titled - no. 3 - cLOUDDEAD (Page 63) self-titled - no. 3 - cLOUDDEAD (Page 64) self-titled - no. 3 - cLOUDDEAD (Page 65) self-titled - no. 3 - cLOUDDEAD (Page 66) self-titled - no. 3 - cLOUDDEAD (Page 67) self-titled - no. 3 - cLOUDDEAD (Page 68) self-titled - no. 3 - cLOUDDEAD (Page 69) self-titled - no. 3 - cLOUDDEAD (Page Cover4)
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