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I'm way too white, not necessarily in color but in demographic category and "out of it'ness." I was raised in a place where everybody else was equally white in the same ways. I'm also not particularly young anymore. Very few of the people I grew up with can stand rap or hip-hop at all. I have problems with most of the popular stuff. I certainly have a lot of problems with the gangsta thing, and I cringe at a lot of the music my daughters listen to. That's part of the cycle of life, I guess. So I realize that I'm light years removed from the language and the scene and everything I'd need to truly understand much of this music. I know my shortcomings. The one difference between me and the majority of people who fit the rest of my description is that now and then I'll happen upon a hip-hop artist whose music hits me like a thunderbolt. It's rare, but when it happens, I find myself listening to it more than everything else in my collection for quite a while. It gets under my skin in the best of ways. I hang on every word and every beat, and I can't get it out of my head for weeks at a time. I crave it like a drug. No need for an intervention, though, because it just doesn't happen that often. Blackalicious, Common, Disposable Heroes...they don't come along every day.
Recently, a package arrived with a few CDs for review, one of which was by someone I'd never heard of. Pete Miser. The title of the album was Radio Free Brooklyn, and my addled brain spun the words around on me. And so it was with great anticipation that I played what I thought was a new CD by one of my favorite acid jazz bands, Brooklyn Funk Essentials.
Don't sign me up for the loony bin yet. I figured out something was up almost immediately. I wasn't disappointed, though, because I had accidentally stumbled on a hip-hop album devoid of chest thumping, the word "nigger," and containing only intelligent and often funny usage of the words "bitch" and "ho." "Ho," in particular, has a special place in Pete Miser's world, as Ho is his last name. What is a mean spirited cliche on 6,000 CDs per year appears only in a song about Pete's childhood, in the form of an irresistibly catchy chorus in the song "Ho Made." Radio Free Brooklyn is loaded with clever songs, innovative recording techniques, and other things that can all be boiled down to one very pure word: creativity. Pete Miser deserves a better word, but that'll do for now.
Before we began this interview, I explained my background and views to Pete, who was very polite and understanding even though he probably wished someone who knew something about hip-hop had been assigned the interview. I had a dual purpose for this interview. There are a million hip-hop interviews, but not many for people who are in my boat. Hopefully, this interview will help open some doors for those, like me, who can be totally dazzled by hip-hop but, sadly, don't have that experience too often, and who are a million miles away from it all, culturally. For those who completely get hip-hop, know the lingo, live the lifestyle, etc., this is a look into the life and thoughts of a fantastically talented artist they should get to know.
Pete Miser grew up in Portland, Oregon, and for a six year stretch he was a king there. As the leader of The Five Fingers of Funk, he was a local celebrity and a rising star most, including industry insiders, thought would be an international recording star at any moment. The moment never came, and after a very close call with stardom, Pete made a very risky career move. He said goodbye to one of the most successful bands in the Pacific Northwest and headed for the complete uncertainty of New York. Since his arrival there, he's been through some adventures, including a wild and scary first few months, as well as finding a place in Dido's band, which is a pretty plum gig indeed. We began our interview thinking back to the music he made in Oregon.
Cosmik: My first experience with your music is all happening now. I grew up in Seattle, and I know about The Five Fingers of Funk, because I mean everyone talked about you guys, but I haven't heard your previous work. Now even though the songs on Radio Free Brooklyn aren't telling one extended story, it all feels like it flows seamlessly and feels like a conceptual piece of art to me. Is this what I'll find when I start collecting your back catalog?
Pete: First of all, I don't know if I can recommend that you collect my back catalog. (laughs)
Cosmik: Why not?
Pete: For the same reason that any artist is gonna say that; because I'm proud of stuff I'm doing now, and I just try not to look back too much, personally. On the other hand, feel free to do whatever, because I'm just talking shit. (Laughs.)
Cosmik: (Laughs.) I have your permission to buy your records? Thanks!
Pete: I think one of the reasons my stuff sounds like an organic, continuous thing is because it's the product of just me, and I wrote it by myself, for the most part. There are two songs on the whole thing that were produced by somebody else, and there are some musicians that show up on it, but for the most part it's just me.
Cosmik: You're talking about Radio Free Brooklyn now?
Pete: Yeah.
Cosmik: Huh. I'd been under the impression you recorded this with a five piece band.
Pete: I perform with a five piece band.
Cosmik: Ah, okay.
Pete: And basically, the members of the band are specifically down with the program because of their aesthetic as musicians. For example, the piano player (Robert Muller) played on "Endure." The bass player in my crew has about the most unmusical approach to playing bass that I'm aware of. I mean, he listens to a lot of hip-hop and he's into the idea of samples and loops and things like that, and he's into science fiction, musically. He also played with me in Dido's band, so he's a super-badass, but he really doesn't want to play music that sounds just like a bar band or whatever. The piano player is just the opposite. He's so hyper-musical, like kind of jazz-based. He's a student of Andrew Hill. He's so out that he goes into the anti-music zone, you know what I mean?
Cosmik: Playing off someone who's in that frame of mind must be kind of inspirational for you.
[Pictured: Andrew Hill]Pete: Yeah, it's dope. I mean it's definitely somewhat the product of Andrew Hill, just in terms of... not necessarily how he applies it to what we do, but you know, Andrew Hill has stuff where you don't know where the 1 is. Nobody knows where the 1 is except for the guys on stage, and then they somehow bring it back to the 1 when they're done with the solo. Well, he kind of goes there chordally and kind of goes there, not so much rhythmically, but just in that kind of weird, anti-musical thing. Then the drummer I'm working with, when I met him - I met him through the artists and youth educators and prison activists that I hang with out here, and he said "Oh yeah, I'm a drummer," and I said "What do you play?" He said "Hip-Hop." Well I'm super skeptical of a musician who says he plays hip-hop, because I know a lot of musicians who want to play hip-hop but don't get what I consider to be the fundamental aesthetic of hip-hop as a musician. But once I started hearing him play, I was like "Wow, okay, you're one of four drummers I've ever met who said they play hip-hop and really play hip-hop." Brother Question [of The Roots] is one of them.
Cosmik: Looking at the liner notes here, I can see where they did contribute, but now I see it's mostly you on there.
Pete: Yeah, and getting back to the thing about it flowing, it basically all comes from me, so even when I try to take on different things and go into different zones, it always seems to have something... It always has my little vibe on it.
Cosmik: And that makes it feel like a concept.
Pete: Yeah, so I don't know if I could make a record that sounded like it came from totally different sources.
Cosmik: Wouldn't sound disjointed.
Pete: No, not even if I wanted it to.
Cosmik: When you were growing up in Portland, you had a reputation as a tagger, as a very good artist. Being my age, I didn't know until about a decade ago that anyone thought of Graffiti as genuine art, but then I started seeing pictures of the great stuff, like what you were doing. I think someone who develops artistically in that way could have a different way of looking at things as a musician than one who never had that talent. Do you think it had an effect on you as a musician?
Pete: Yeah, I would say I'm about the least musically savvy person I know. I don't understand anything about chords and theory and notation and things like that. I just don't come from an even kind of trained musical background, which really serves me in some ways and is a kind of hassle in other ways. But it's kind of funny, because musicians I meet out here, they all just assume I know some theory, they all just assume I'm making the musical decisions I'm making because I'm trying to do something different, when in reality I don't think I could make a standard pop song just because I don't really understand just exactly what's going on, String pads and stuff like that don't make any sense to me. I mean I would sit in front of the keyboards and don't really know what I would do.
Cosmik: Well I gotta tell ya, when I found out it was almost all you on this CD, I automatically assumed you knew everything from notation to electronics to the MIDI Bible.
Pete: No, man, I don't know anything, I... [changes to a playful, kidding voice] I don't know anything about art, I just know what I like. No, the reason I'm doing music now is kind of a strange thing, because I never really expected to be playing it. I figured I'd be a visual artist when I grew up. I did all the design work on my album cover and stuff like that, which is just a little easier for me, I guess. A little more intuitive.
Cosmik: Which part of the booklet is your work?Pete: If you open up the booklet, there's a centerfold that's all art. If you look at it you'll see a baby carriage. That's by a friend of mine, who's from Seattle. He's a graffiti writer who writes Whirl. In fact, on the side there you see Miser, Werler, Sober. Werler's just a variation of Whirl. The centerfold is done by the three of us. Sober's the guy who does the illustrations of the little guy with the book.
Cosmik: All three of you did one piece of art for this? That's pretty cool. And it came out very nice, too.
Pete: Basically I had this big stack of cardboard that all three of us just sat around drawing on over the summer, and we didn't really have any intention of using it for album cover artwork, but when it came time to create the cover art, I just started to pull these things apart and do stuff with what we had. So minus the stroller and the guy with book, the rest is my work there.
Cosmik: I love the tagging in your name.
Pete: Thanks.
Cosmik: It'd make a great font, actually.
Pete: Yeah, I thought about designing a font, I just don't have the patience.
Cosmik: I don't blame you. I've tried it and it's a nightmare. So you had all this art experience behind you, and the progression to music was...?
Pete: I didn't really get into music, I got into hip-hop, you know what I mean? I got into B-Boy first. I was like "Whoa, that's amazing!" Then graffiti and MC'ing at the same time, because I starting rhyming with these kids that I wrote graffiti with. Then I got into deejaying because I would be working on a song and I'd want to throw in a scratch on it, and I'd call in one of my deejay friends, but he'd be too weeded out to make it over to my house in time, so I'd just try to learn to do the scratches myself. That's how I got into deejaying and production.
Cosmik: I just recently learned to have a whole lot of respect for anyone who can do that.
Pete: Oh, turntables and stuff like that?
Cosmik: Yeah, shit man, I've been a musician for 32 years, I play bass, guitar and a bunch of stuff, and I'd go to guitar center and there were turntables sitting there for people to try scratching on, and I'd think "that's a joke, that can't be hard," but when I finally tried it I sucked. I couldn't make it sound like anything worth while.
Pete: You should sit down with DJ Ace in Seattle and have him show you some shit, and you'll have a profound appreciation for it. He was in this crew called Pros & Con a long time ago. He's sick. His name's Giovanni, and man, this dude was really so ill. Just nice on the turntables. I mean, I'm cool. I'm serviceable on the turntables, but I'm not phenomenal, by any means.
Cosmik: Ever hear of Dalek?
Pete: Oh, yeah.
Cosmik: My wife and I saw them last year and they blew us away. The guy who was doing the scratching, it was like watching Hendrix. He looked like Hendrix, had the fingers of Hendrix and the soul of Hendrix, he was getting amazing sounds out of those records.Pete: If you ever get a chance, see DJ Chill, who was Five Fingers of Funk's DJ. I mean, he looks a little like Hendrix, and he has a similar kind of vibe on stage, except he's always holding a glass of fine wine while he's doing the shit, but... [laughs]
Cosmik: Which, I'd think, could be a problem.
Pete: No, not for him. I'm not too sure exactly how he does it, but I've seen him do it many times. He just can't be bothered to put a cigarette down while he blows your mind with a solo.
Cosmik: People in Seattle and Vancouver and Portland, all over this region, always talked about how tight that band was, and how it was a sure thing. Looking back, are you surprised it didn't break bigger than it did on the national scene?
Pete: Oh... I don't know, I'm not really surprised, but it's definitely a little upsetting. We were doing this shit even before I was aware of The Roots. I think we started making music around when The Roots recorded their first album in Europe, before they got signed to Geffen. So it's a little bit of a bummer that we were doing it back then, and even getting label attention - you know, I had a meeting with Tom Whalley at Interscope Records and all these different labels - but record industry people are not much in the way of visionaries, so they just said "Well, we don't hear hits." We were saying "This is a movement, you know what I mean? You don't need to hear hits. This is ground floor, and whether it's my band or someone else's band, this is gonna matter soon."
Cosmik: More proof that the record industry is pretty much in the hands of CPAs and not music people.
Pete: Yeah, exactly. I'm not shocked that it didn't ever blow up, but it should have. I could have done some amazing things. I did it for six years. We were profitable, completely independent, not even a manager, you know? We all made our living doing it, so I'm not upset about the whole thing. It also has to do with the fact that I was not really on top of my game as a business person. I was managing the band, and I had the meeting with Tom Whalley, hadn't ever had a meeting with a record label dude before, I'm in a room with the guy who signed Tupac, basically, and I'm just... [laughs] You know, I didn't come prepared, didn't know what I was supposed to say, didn't know that it was expected of me to say "This is what we're doing, this is what we need, this is what we can partner with you on."
Cosmik: Yeah, that probably would have been a good time to bring in a pro.
[Pete in the middle of Five Fingers of Funk]Pete: The other thing is who's looking for hip-hop in Portland, Oregon? Who's trying to sign Portland hip-hop? There were no managers in Portland that could go represent me to Interscope Records, and this is back when Interscope was pretty much at their height, a little bit after they had gotten Death Row Records down with them, so Suge Knight was always in the office, and they were selling all Dre's shit and Snoop's shit and just every single thing Death Row put out went multi-platinum, and at the same time... I think it was Marilyn Manson had blown up, and all that was huge for Interscope. I think Interscope had six of the top ten records when I was in there, and yeah, some manager could have made that happen, probably. I didn't know what I was doing.
Cosmik: Well, you wrote those songs for Five Fingers, you made a living at it for all that time, which almost nobody does at the indie level, and you honed your chops, and made a name for yourself, so it has to be seen as a positive thing.
Pete: Yeah, and we toured all over the country and did all kinds of crazy stuff, too, so...
Cosmik: At some point around then, when things didn't happen with Interscope, I assume, is when you started planning your own thing, correct?
Pete: Well, in 1994, Five Fingers put out our first record, and in '96 I put out my own solo record. In '98, Five Fingers put out our second record, and then at the end of '98 I moved out here [New York]. I put out all these little tapes and compilations and hip-hop solo things way before Five Fingers of Funk, and then halfway through my Five Fingers tenure I was like "Okay, I gotta put out a solo record to let the people who knew me before the Five Fingers Of Funk know I'm still doing my thing."
Cosmik: A repeating theme in your music now is racism. A lot of hip-hop is about racism, but you get it from several directions. What did you go through?
Pete: "Ho Made" kind of explains everything I went through. I'm not too sure how much racism is addressed on this album, but I feel like race is one of America's central issues. Most of the big issues in America come down to race, which is in itself one of America's biggest issues because it should come down to class. Basically, there's a big class struggle in America, and class issues fall along racial lines in this country. The fact that people are so race conscious or caught up in the issues of race distracts them from the fact that the real issues are issues of class and exploitation, and the fact that poor people, which in this country tend to be people of color but aren't exclusively, are just essentially denied full citizenship. Access to the things that wealthy people or middle class and above have access to. Essentially the American dream. So I don't consider race the biggest issue for me. I've definitely dealt with my little stuff, but I feel, at least now, enlightened enough to not have that really effecting me too much. It's not my childhood trauma. [Laughs.]
Cosmik: You're kidding. There are songs on Radio Free Brooklyn that made me think otherwise.
Pete: I grew up in an affluent white suburb, and I was basically as close as you got to a person of color in that suburb, so I got verbal abuse for that kind of thing, when now I'm in New York, and I'm sitting with an Asian friend of mine talking about some Asian shit, and she's like "You ain't a REAL Asian." You know what I mean? That whole weird mixed race issue of "Well do I get to hang out with anybody?" My dad's Chinese and my mom is just general whitebread of various European origin. Quaker, actually. I'm culturally completely American. There's no real traces of my dad's Chinese heritage, mainly because he grew up in Hawaii, and his mother was born and raised there as well, when white plantation owners were really starting to run shit there and be in control of the economics and everything else. My grandmother was told in school "We're calling you Margaret now." How disrespectful is that? "Whatever your name is, we'll call you Margaret because we can't pronounce your funny name." She grew up with the understanding that she shouldn't be Chinese, that she should do as much as she could to assimilate, and she passed that on to my dad, so my dad doesn't speak Chinese, or have very much knowledge or understanding of Chinese culture, so I have very little as well.
Cosmik: Was Miser a name they took on to Anglicize?
Pete: No, Miser is just a joke. My last name is Ho.
Cosmik: It was just a joke?
Pete: Yeah, Pete Miser is like... There's a character in Frosty The Snowman called the Heat Miser. I was harboring a runaway for a while, and he used to joke around and call me Pete Miser.
Cosmik: You totally caught me on that one.
Pete: [Laughs] It's funny, because... Pete Rock, you know? Nobody thinks that Rock is his real last name. Miser was never meant to be anything but my rappin' name. If it was Chilly Pete, nobody would think Chilly's my real first name.
Cosmik: [Laughing] Okay, okay, don't rub it in, whatever your name is.
Pete: [Takes on the playful, almost sneaky tone he sometimes likes to use] Aw, I ain't tryin' to pull the wool over nobody's eyes.
Cosmik: [Laughs.] Yeah, okay, but there's a line in... I don't remember for sure if it's in "Ho Made," but the part about...
Pete: "Anglicized my name to Miser."
Cosmik: AHA! Yeah, that's the one. So I assumed that was something you had to do.
Pete: No, no, but... Well, the next line says "Some say a self conscious attempt to exempt myself from bigotry sent my way, but I say they read to much into it."
Cosmik: YEAH!... Oh.Pete: Basically, to put that in English, yeah, I started going by the name Pete Miser, and people thought "well maybe this is how he's going to heal the wounds of whatever racial issues he had to deal with," but if that's what you're thinking, I think you just read too much into it.
Cosmik: Ziiiiing. [Laughs.] Let's change subjects really fast here.
Pete: Pete Miser's just this nickname that this one guy said and it just stuck in the way most good nicknames do.
Cosmik: And it was said in a friendly way, which is a bonus. The way the background vocals are in that song, the "Hey you little - Miser - Seems you're just a Ho," the whole thing just sounds so cruel...
Pete: Oh, well did you know that my real last name is Ho?
Cosmik: Yes, I did! It's just it sounds like a memory of kids picking on you and exposing you.
Pete: Well yeah, that's what it was, as a little kid it was like "Chinaman, chink chink," and it was so confusing because I didn't really consider myself part of Chinese culture, so I'm like "Okay, why am I getting called a chink when that's not my scene?" And then to hang out with Asian people out here and get that "You're not really Asian" thing, it makes me wonder how many times you have to get called a chink before you're officially Asian, you know? [Laughs.]It's just weird. It's just that dumbass American shit, we're so caught up in it, and for good reason. I don't feel like reparations have been made for America's really fucked up past. America is this huge empire, the greatest empire of all time, partly because of having free labor for years and years and years. Until somebody even wants to talk about that shit, yeah, there's gonna be issues. But at the same time, after you have that first talk, then you have to get on with business and start to make some changes that are less superficial than the discussion of "black folks and white folks are really just like each other."
Cosmik: I don't know for sure, though, that it's going to change anything, because if you look at any country you'll see there's racism everywhere.
Pete: There's not racism like there is here. We've got an extra-special brand here.
Cosmik: Well, in some countries they're cutting off heads over racism.
Pete: Yeah, that's true, but I think this country is, too. It's at least shooting people 41 times in the Bronx over it.
Cosmik: No argument there.
Pete: Everything in America that's fucked up, the prison industrial complex, that's all because of race, and it's not going away any time soon. It's getting worse, and it's just crazy. Crime comes from poverty and lack of access to education and any kind of services, and that, in this country, is because of race. I think that class is the ultimate issue, but race is the doorway to get there, so you have to talk about that first.
Cosmik: Before we leave "Ho Made," I just want to mention that it bugged the hell out of me that the chorus was so infectious and joyful sounding that I was walking around singing it when it's really not a happy thing.
[Pete Miser's first solo album]Pete: It's dope to hear your perspective, because for someone who's a longtime hip-hop fan, they hear those samples and they recognize where they're from. The "Yeah ya little... It seems that you're a ho" is a sample of KRS-1, from Boogie Down Productions, on his first album, he had this song called "The P Is Free," and he's telling the story about seeing a girl who needs a ride someplace, he says "Get in the car," and he starts driving, and she says "I'll do you some favors if you hook me up with some crack." This is back in the 80s. In the original song, he says "Yeah ya little bitch, it seems that you're a ho," but on the edited version, which is on the album, it says "Yeah ya little... It seems that you're a ho." So I used that because, as much as anything, it's a shout out to this little record I used to love. Then the Miser part comes from Aceyalone from Freestyle Fellowship talkin' about "Well, I-za, heat mizer, and I'm wiser than any other rapper no matter the size of..." You know, for you...
Cosmik: Someone who just listens to SOME hip-hop when it really gets to me...
Pete: You don't have any of the background on that, so you're just like "Wow, this is just vicious shit!" [Laughs.] For me it's like "AW YEAH! It's a little party! Remember that? We used to listen to that back in the day!" And it applies to the song, but the stuff I'm addressing in the song was a big deal when it was happening, back when I was a little kid, getting left out of everything on the schoolyard playground, that bummed me out pretty profoundly, but at this point... You know, that's what the last line of the song is. [But looking back, putting all that into perspective / Me being rejected might have been a hidden blessing / 'Cause now I get paid for the fact my flavor strayed away from them / And in the end all my ends are Ho-made.] The fact that people disrespected me back then made me take a different path to what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be, and I had a different experience. And the fact that I took a different path and had a different experience means that I have something to say or something that somebody wants to hear, so now I'm satisfied. I'm glad I didn't have a standard, mainstream American experience, because I wouldn't want to be a standard, American, mainstream, brainwashed Bush supporter right now.[Pete receives the first standing ovation ever given by an interviewer at Cosmik Debris.]
Cosmik: Well put. Very well put, indeed. Seems like a perfect segue into the subject of Radio Free Brooklyn, which scares the shit out of me when I'm in the headphones and the lights are out, by the way. I know you're not old enough to remember the Cuban missile crisis and how scary that was, so... Well, instead of tipping the whole thing here, how about you tell us the process that led up to Radio Free Brooklyn, because it seems to have a lot of thought behind it. A plan.
Pete: Nope, no plan.
Cosmik: Yer killin' me.
Pete: [Laughs] No. I don't know. The song "For You," I recorded before I even moved out here, four years ago. Some of these songs at least started out a long time ago. I think one of the things that pulls it all together is the fact that I moved to New York, and it's just been a completely different experience than anything I've been used to before. A lot of that had to get in here somehow.
Cosmik: Jolted you out of your comfort zone?
Pete: Well, it definitely jolted me out of my comfort zone. When I came out here it turned out I didn't have the job I was told I might have, and it turned out I didn't have the place to stay that I thought I was going to have, so I ended up living in this rental van for the first couple weeks, and it was winter. And I had a whole bunch of cash that got robbed the first day I got out here.
Cosmik: Geez! Welcome to NYC, motherfucker.
Pete: I basically had nothing when I got here, and I was coming from Portland, my band doing really well, I didn't have to pay for a dinner at a lot of restaurants because people are like "Ah! Pete! What's up!" That whole small town celebrity shit. I don't really know if that shows up in a clear way in the music, but it just kind of reset my watch, I guess.
Cosmik: I had a similar experience moving to LA and not having the job or the place I thought were waiting for me, but it was warm and I had it resolved for me by family real fast. I suddenly feel wimpy for whining about that in the past. Living in a van in winter in New York is fucked up.
Pete: Do you know about the journalist and activist, Upski?
Cosmik: I'm not sure. What kind of activist?
Pete: He did all the No More Prisons and he did Bomb The Suburbs.
Cosmik: Okay, yeah, William Upski Wimsatt. He's a graffiti artist, too, or he was. And rich.
[Pictured: William Upski Wimsatt]Pete: Yeah. When I came out here, he was around. He was a friend of mine. I was so broke that he just kind of like snuck me 200 bucks and said "This is not a loan, this is food money."
Cosmik: Upski to the rescue. Which is what he does, but this was more personal. That's pretty cool. You must have been freaked about the whole thing still. So... I was completely wrong about the process on this album. Another theory wadded up and turned into a jumpshot at the garbage can.
Pete: Well now... I dunno... I couldn't say that I... I guess now I gotta come out of my perspective, because if you're asking some of my friends about this record, they would probably say that I don't think about anything but the current project I'm working on. I mean, I can't even have a good conversation with most people about anything other than the project. So I guess there must have been a lot of thought involved, but to me, there didn't seem like any extra thought. But the concept Radio Free Brooklyn is based on Radio Free Europe, from World War II, and the image I pictured in my mind is described in the song "Radio Free Brooklyn" where the apocalypse occurs, but I happen to be underground in a subway station. I come out and dust off an old radio, and the only station that's on the air is somebody who's put some wires and popcicle sticks together to make a radio station, and it's Radio Free Brooklyn.
Cosmik: And it's waaaaay too upbeat.
Pete: What's that? Oh yeah! [Laughs.]
Cosmik: That funky, happy beat totally offsets the horror of the story. I love it.
Pete: Yeah, well you know, contrast and juxtaposition is what it's all about.
Cosmik: Absolutely. It's so sobering at first, and then there's this upbeat DJ. "Heeeey, everybody!!! Iiiiif... there's anybody out there." [Laughs.]
Pete: [Laughs.] You know, I love New York, because people move out here to do whatever it is that they want to do, and that guy who is doing the radio announcing is this friend of mine, Mike, who I met out here, and he's pursuing a career as a voiceover guy, you know? I mean, he's just this weird indie rocker dude with an amazing voice, and he's down to do this kind of stuff. He just thinks it's fun and interesting, and he sounds so pro. He's actually the voice of sexual dysfunction. He just got a Viagra voiceover ad he's doing on TV.
Cosmik: Oh really! A rising talent. Okay, sorry, let's pretend I'm not that lame and just keep going.
Pete: It's funny when he talks about it, too, because he'll just say it. He ran into my friend and her mom and he said [takes on radio announcer-like voice] "Hello, Mrs. Morenio, how you doing?" And she said "Oh, I'm good, how are you, Mike?" "I'm good... I'm the voice of sexual dysfunction." "Oh, that's great!"
Cosmik: [Laughs] "Your parents must be very proud."
Pete: Yeah, I know. So I love the fact that I run into these weird people out here, you know, and I... I wish I'd moved out here 15 years ago, I swear, because... I mean I love Portland, and Portland is me, and I was talking to this one MC from Mt. Vernon last night who said "You can take Pete out of Portland, but you can't take Portland out of Pete." [Laughs.] But I came out here and finally found people who spoke my language and understood what the hell I was talking about. In Portland, since the hip-hop scene is relegated to the tiny little zone where it supports itself and cares about itself but nobody else cares about it, most hip-hop fans aren't even aware of it, of the local music. And there was this thing among Portland hip-hop fans, and it wasn't a conscious thing, but if they heard it and it didn't sound like Jay-Z on some east coast stuff or Snoop Dog on some west coast stuff, then it must not be real hip-hop. It must not be valid music. It must not be a valid form of expression. It's gotta be validated by the media somehow. Then I came out here and I had made a couple beats and presented them to an MC, and he said "Man, this sounds like the shit I hear on the radio. I'm not trying to hear that. You've gotta have a voice. What's you're voice? If I don't hear a voice from you then I'm not trying to hear you." So it was an artistically, hugely liberating thing to come out here where you could do an album of... Well, you probably got the postcard with the CD that has my little blurb on it that says "Radio Free Brooklyn, a new full-length album from indie emo hip-hop polka-core pioneer, Pete Miser."
Cosmik: I about fell over when I read that. If I hadn't already fallen in love with the CD, or more like if I hadn't even played it yet and I saw that postcard, I would have played it just because the sense of humor was intriguing to me.
Pete: Out here it's okay to say some dumb shit like that, but say it in Portland and a few people get it, and the rest are like "Well, what exactly IS emo hip-hop polka-core..."
Cosmik: Then some of the critics write about it like it's the new big thing.
[Pictured: Anti-Pop Consortium]Pete: [Laughs.] Yeah, you know? That's it. My favorite groups out here are like Anti-Pop Consortium, which are dope. If you're into hip-hop, these dudes have real rugged, real rhymes about real shit, and they don't sound like they're trying to do something unnatural, but their stuff is so weird, man. NOBODY who's listening to Ludacris is even gonna begin to give it any love. Because it's just so... bananas! It's from another planet. But that's where hip-hop has always been, it's been from another planet.
Cosmik: Anti-Pop Consortium's on my list, but I only know them through Matthew Shipp. That's my problem, see, I have maybe a few dozen hip-hop CDs I like and only a few I totally love because with most of the stuff I hear, I can't get past the cliches or the negative and cold stuff. I get really excited when I find one I really love, so I'm always trying everybody, just trying to find the next one that does it for me.
Pete: Who have you found?
Cosmik: I really like Dalek. I find that really dramatic and powerful and the imagery is amazing. The poetry is kind of mind boggling. I love it. I love Pharcyde. My favorite is long gone, and that was Disposable Heroes of Hiphopricy. I appreciated the political intelligence. You're in my top five all time. And for fun I like Handsome Boy Modeling School.
Pete: Yo, have you checked Dead Prez?
Cosmik: No.
Pete: If you're into political shit, their first record's called Let's Get Free. I'm not positive, but I think the guys in the crew are originally from Florida and then they moved up here, and they live in Brooklyn. So some of their music has that down south bounce to it, but all of it has crucial, crucial political lyrics. I mean, Public Enemy was my favorite crew for years and years, but Public Enemy were never activists. They were just hip-hop artists, whereas Dead Prez are hip-hop artists second and activists first. They put on political education courses for little kids in Brooklyn. They're seriously active in the political movement.
Cosmik: See, now that's for real. I like that. It's not just repeating your name over and over or talking about how all the "bitches wanna ride my dick" and crap like that.
Pete: They're deep, man, the lyrics are. They got some shit.
Cosmik: Got it written down. Thanks, Pete. Back to your album now. I think we left off talking about walking out of the subway and hearing this way too cheerful DJ, the voice of Radio Free Brooklyn after the apocalypse. Is this intended as simple sci-fi, or commentary on what's going on in the world right now?
Pete: I had this whole idea for Radio Free Brooklyn and what it meant before September 11th, and I had the idea of the nuclear attack. It just happened that it was easier to write after having experienced all the craziness that went on out here. I think there are only two songs that really reference war and that kind of situation on the whole album.
Cosmik: "Might Be" is the other, and that one is scary too, thank you.
Pete: Yeah. But when I was sequencing the album I kind of spread them around, and then I think people just get that feeling from the record because the second song is about that, so it's already in people's minds early on, and then every time someone says "Radio Free Brooklyn," it probably brings that back and puts it in stone.
Cosmik: That makes perfect sense. Every time I heard someone say it, I felt like the scenario was still playing out in some way, maybe these were memories, or whatever. It did make it feel like a concept album.Pete: Yeah, "Toothbrush," for example, is not at all in that realm, and "Tell Me Why" is not in that subject matter, and "For You," and "Endure." But they all have that same writing tone simply because it's my writing.
Cosmik: "Toothbrush," by the way... I don't want to forget to mention this. That song is just a blast to listen to, and man, I can't believe how perfectly you turned a toothbrush into a rhythm instrument. In case you wonder what people's first reactions are, mine was... big grin, surprised expression, and an out loud "I don't fucking believe this." Kudos.
Pete: [Embarrassed laugh.] Thank you. We've been doing that on stage.
Cosmik: Really?!
Pete: Yeah.
Cosmik: Unbelievable. How hard is that to mic?
Pete: Oh, we don't mic it on stage. Well, see, that's the one song we do strictly off vinyl on stage, so my DJ spins that beat, I do the lyrics, and everybody else in the band drops their instruments and just brushes their teeth.
Cosmik: [Laughs.] Now that sounds like fun. I'll pay to see that show. It sounds like you put on an entertaining show.
Pete: Yeah, it's pretty fun. 95 percent of all hip-hop shows are really awful. Hard to watch, boring as hell. Just two guys on stage with a DAT player or a DJ without much consideration for how they're gonna present their music or how they're gonna include the audience into their vibe. But some groups, like if you ever see Blackalicious live, they'll blow your mind. Del-La-Soul puts on a really good show, The Roots is phenomenal, and you know, after six years with Five Fingers of Funk... My stage show is important to me. It matters to me, a lot, to feel like I'm giving people something worth their money. It's not a lot of aggression, you know what I mean? It's a lot of "come join us." It's a participation sport.
Cosmik: There's a lot of positivity in your music compared to others.
Pete: [Thinks for a moment, then whispers] I don't know what to attribute it to. [Laughs.] dddddddddddddddddddddd
Cosmik: [Laughs.] Yeah, well I'll tell ya, some people appreciate that. "Might Be" is all spelled out for us, it's definitely about 9/11 and you're asking some deep questions there. A lot of them... Well, I have to assume the song was written at least several months ago, of course, but this song seems to be coming out at the perfect time, when people are questioning the President.
Pete: Yeah, it's weird, because... well I don't know if you read the liner note stuff about it, but I wrote the song in a way I don't normally write songs. I'll read what I wrote in it. "I wrote and recorded this song a few days after the attacks on the World Trade Center. I was planning to meet up with Upski and Gita at Union Square for a candlelight vigil when the lyrics just kind of spilled out of me. That type of writing is rare for me, so I went with the flow, at first worrying that I was going to be late, then worrying that I was going to miss the vigil altogether. I sat in my kitchen and recorded the lyrics through the little speakers in my laptop to help me remember how to say them. In the end I never went back and did final takes. When I thought about it later, I decided not to edit the lyrics or redo the vocals, but to leave it as a document of what was on my mind in those days. I got to the vigil late and missed the ceremonial part of it. I consider this song a decent alternative." I don't usually write songs very fast, and those lyrics are literally me MC'ing through the little speakers in the little laptop in my kitchen, whereas normally I'd go into my studio and actually cut lyrics. On recent listening, I sometimes say "Ooo, it's a little cheesy, it's a little sentimental," or whatever, but I just feel like that's where my head was at, and I think it would do it a disservice to go back and change anything.
Cosmik: I thought that vocal sound was some cool studio technique. It worked perfectly for the song.
Pete: No. It was just a sketch, you know? I kept playing the sketch to people, and everybody kept saying "you shouldn't go back and do this, you should go with this one." I mean it was mixed... It ended up being mixed by this mix engineer who's a genius, so he made it sound pretty clean and good, you can't hear my kitchen in the background.
Cosmik: Who was that?
Pete: This guy named Mark Plati, who plays guitar with David Bowie and does a lot of his engineering work. A few days after I wrote it, it was poignant as hell, because it was September 20th or something when people were hearing it, but I was kind of concerned that by the time I put it out people were going to be sick of hearing about that subject.
Cosmik: You know what, they might have been if it weren't for the way things are going right now, so you may just be right on time, with the Bush Administration making the moves they've made in the past few months, it's been pretty shocking, I think.
Pete: I'm really amazed that the whole country isn't outraged, and the only thing I can blame it on is just the sedation of the mass media and consumerism. It's to the point where I'm watching some news program and they're talking about hydrogen fueled cars, and they're talking about where we're going to get oil and despite the fact that these run on hydrogen, you still need to extract the hydrogen by using fossil fuels, and at no point does it occur to somebody that maybe we should just drive less. [Laughs.] Remember, that's an option, too.
Cosmik: And maybe turn in the SUVs.
Pete: Yeah, it's just kind of frightening. I don't feel like I'm a militia guy or a wacko, but isn't it clear to everybody that things are a little out of order here?
Cosmik: It should be. My blood boils real fast when I think about everything that's happening with the current administration, personally.
Pete: It's completely foul, right? It's like you don't even know where to start talking about it because it's all so completely offensive.
Cosmik: I do. I start with the election.
Pete: Uh huh. There's a little bit of graffiti in New York that says "Re-Elect Gore."
Cosmik: [Laughs.] Okay, my day's been made. Thanks for that.Pete: I heard this interview with Al and Tipper Gore, talking about their book. You know, Tipper Gore, I'm definitely not a fan of, but I was kind of feeling her in this interview, because every time the interviewer would say to Al, are you upset about this or that, like "Are you upset that you didn't win the election," and Al would always be diplomatic, but Tipper would jump in and say [voice raised] "I'll have you remember my husband won that, okay?" [Laughs.] "Let me remind you that my husband GOT the popular vote!" The wording was all stuff like "After you lost the election did you..." this and that. It was more about the context, and Tipper would jump on that shit. I was proud of Tipper. She was one step closer to bein' a gansta rapper.
Cosmik: [Laughs.] Ain't gonna happen!
Pete: Naw, but you know, she's got some gangsta.
Cosmik: That explains my problem with Tipper, I guess. I hate gangsta rap, too. Ooo! Segue! Quick! Do you agree that the intelligent, non-cliche hip-hop has very little chance of getting serious airplay?
Pete: Oh yeah. But then I feel like intelligent, non-cliche music has very little chance of getting airplay. I feel fairly confident that there's country music out there that I'd like if I heard it, but I'm not going to hear it on the radio, and I'm not going to do the research, so I don't get to hear it. I think, for the most part, I'm done being upset about mainstream radio, except for the influence it has on the brains of humans in this country, but I don't think it has anything to do with what I'm doing, musically. It's not why I'm doing music, I don't ever expect that they're going to show me any love and put me on the radio. I just figure if I don't think about that as a factor in my business or in my music, then it doesn't get to me.
Cosmik: Then how do you get your message out?
Pete: Through your website, through whatever, or I don't. [Laughs.] You know what I mean? I guess the way to get your message out is with the life you want to live. I mean you don't have to be making records to get your message out. I contribute to various activist groups in New York. I figure that's getting my message out, or at least getting my views out in a way that contributes to change.
Cosmik: All very true. I want to ask you one more thing, and it may seem like I've been fishing for this, but Pete, your music is so anti-cliche, and I hear so much that goes the other way. Do you cringe at the cliches on so many other hip-hop records?
Pete: Oh yeah, but on the other hand, this is what I keep in mind when I think about cliches. When I was a kid I went to see the movie, Lady and the Tramp, and I remember looking at my dad afterwards and saying "Man, that's the best movie I've ever seen. In fact, that may be the best movie of all time. What did you think, dad?" And he just kind of looked at me really confused and just said "Uh, yeah yeah, whatever." [Laughs.] There's a place for cliches, you know? Then there's the idea that something may be cliche for 99 percent of the people, but it's still not a cliche for someone who's never experienced it before. So the cliches have to exist somehow, and of course in this country everything has to be current, so there has to be a current version of the cliche for the kids to dig.
Cosmik: Yeah, but my kids bring home the latest mainstream hip-hop thing and after 40 "Niggers," 70 "Bitches" and 60 "Hos," I'm wavin' bye bye and putting on the headphones and heading for Radio Free Brooklyn.
Pete: Yeah, but you're coming from a cultural perspective where that stuff doesn't represent intelligent hip-hop, and within certain communities, that's just how people communicate. You would be making no sense to a bunch of the kids I was hanging out with today at this urban visionaries film festival. All these kids got together and created films, and my friend helped put on the exposition of this film festival. It's documentaries by kids under 18. A lot of these kids would just have a hard time understanding what you were talking about, in most cases, because you just don't speak their language.
Cosmik: And I guess that's fine. I don't need to speak their language. I'm not trying to. I guess it comes down to knowing what I like in hip-hop and what I don't. I know people who like some of the stuff I hate and they like your CD too, and on top of that, my outspoken feminist 12 year old daughter loves the whole CD, but her doorway into it was the respect for women in "Got That." You've got range, Pete.Pete: I specifically have this subversive agenda with my music. "Got That" is the most jiggy sounding song on the album, in terms of a beat. I mean I have all types of just hood, thuggy 15 year old kids in Brooklyn who are like "Aw yeah, that's my joint," y'know? Because of the tone of the thing, and it's got this little chorus that's easy to just go "got that!" As a person I try not to be too freaked out by the radio, but as an artist, I definitely feel like I don't see the point in my saying something that's already been said, and definitely not something that's already been said way better than I'm gonna say it.
Cosmik: You can drive yourself crazy with that stuff, though, because it's subjective, even figuring out whether or not it's really been said before.
Pete: For years and years, my little line was "I don't want to write a love song until I can write one that can go against 'Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.' [Bob Dylan.] That thing was a whole side of an album! If I can't compete with that then I don't need to be writing no love song. I must not really love her if I'm not gonna give her half of an album! [Laughs.]
Cosmik: He MAY have been a little stoned, though.
Pete: That's true, but still... If the thought isn't a cliche, then the expression of the thought shouldn't be a cliche. And the cliches apply, because they mean something to people, but you don't necessarily have to take the same route to get to that same cliche. I mean, "Got That" is still sitting there talking about money and the same dumb stuff all the other MCs are talking about, it's just got this one really slight twist: I don't have any.* * * *
Life ain't too bad for Pete Miser these days. His album, Radio Free Brooklyn, is a critical success. As a member of Dido's band, and through his other activities, he doesn't have to worry about sleeping in vans on freezing New York nights anymore. He's got no gold Mercedes - yet, but talent? An audience? Friends? The respect of his peers? He's got that. He's most definitely got that.
(C) 2003 - DJ Johnson