[RADIOLAB INTRO]

JAD ABUMRAD: Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT KRULWICH: I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: This is Radiolab, the podcast.

ROBERT: That's my line. Who are all those people?

JAD: Hello. Yeah, okay, so here's the thing. Here's the story. Robert, I've been meaning to talk to you about this, but last Saturday I did an event and it was.

ROBERT: I remember you were gonna go brush your teeth and put the kid to bed.

JAD: No, I. After that, I hosted this Radio Lab show.

ROBERT: You.

JAD: Without you. I'm sorry, I should have told you. I'm sorry. I should have told.

ROBERT: That's okay. That's fine.

JAD: You're upset. I've made you up. This is terrible way to make me at all.

ROBERT: How many people were you with exactly? Because I heard a lot of people yelling. 800.

JAD: Yeah, just a few people.

ROBERT: Okay.

JAD: It's not that many. Are you sure you're not upset?

ROBERT: No, because I had, as it happened, 800 creatures of my own. Flies, mostly in my. In my. In my home where I often talk with them.

JAD: Yeah. All right. I feel terrible.

ROBERT: 800 people. Were they paying?

JAD: Yes.

ROBERT: Oh, really? Yeah. It's interesting, my flies, they didn't pay very much.

JAD: Maybe we shouldn't do.

ROBERT: No, no, of course you should.

JAD: No, no, no, no. Maybe we shouldn't do it.

ROBERT: You know, like me wondering what you did on Saturday night. All right, okay, so just go ahead and wind up and let us know.

JAD: You sure?

ROBERT: Yes.

JAD: Okay. So Radiolab is a show that's about science and philosophy and big questions and mystery and wonder and curiosity and all this stuff. The not so secret secret about what we do is it's a deeply musical situation that we have here. So I thought I'd get up on stage. We're gonna do something a little different on the podcast. Well, first of all, we are live at the NYU Skirball Center with 862 some odd people. And I was like, let's just do music. All music, all music, all the time, all the time. For about two hours. It was a little bit of an experiment, but honestly, no bs, it was an amazing concert. It was really. We had three people, three acts. First got Buick and Gase coming up. Remember them?

ROBERT: Yeah, sure I do.

JAD: We had the drummer, Glen Cochi. The band Wilco is gonna perform for you, doing a very non Wilco situation. And then we had the amazing Reggie Watts. Watts. So what follows is an all music podcast, just to let you know. Here's how I set it up for the audience. These are three acts that are really hard to describe. And if I were to get highfalutin about it for just one second, I would say, all right, like a metaphor. Like if I were to say to you in the striped shirt, hi. Your eyes are like a star. Okay, it's a metaphor, right? Something people say. Oh, simile. Okay, fine. My point is that your eyes really aren't like a star at all. A star is a giant thing of gas. Your eyes are really tiny things in your head. They're very different. But that experience of putting them together, finding an affinity between two things that are on opposite sides of the universe, that to me, is what makes life worth living honestly. And I think each of these three acts do that in their own musical way, on the level of sound and genre and blah, blah, blah. So I'm going to shut up now and actually get them out here. So our first group. What should I say about our first group? I mean, there are two people, they're both named Aaron. They have been, and this is the honest truth, they've been raping and pillaging my ipod for about six months. One of them plays the beuke, one of them plays the gayce. Together they are Beuke and Gase. Since we featured Buke and Gase on the podcast before, we're not going to play the full set. Here's one song. It's one of their more recent offerings.

Speaker F: One day I like the truth until then I know you kill till you be on the bank drive to it's not my fake until my brick won't pain let's then waste everything to gain. Too bad it's not my turn. You got witches, two girls well they swamp or something big bigger than you, bigger than me you choose your battles oh and surely wonderful build, strong character that's what you find that's what you're. Your face is leaving you your face is leaving you before you can turn your head yonder disguise don't you think you don't another male kind don't you ever think you know another mega all of your sound too bad you like the guts fixing light face as long as you make a guide the white space is on the cross all had to make me want to know. Thanks a lot.

ROBERT: Thank you.

JAD: Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Buick and Gays. So our next performer to take the stage was a fantastic drummer by the name of Glenn Kochi, who normally plays with the band Wilco. Do you know Wilco?

ROBERT: That's sort of insulting.

JAD: No, no, no, no, no, no.

ROBERT: Do I know Wilco? Who doesn't know Wilco? I even know Jeff Twimbley. Tweety, Tweety. There you go.

JAD: Any case, Wilko is this huge band. You know, they've sold tons of records, won bunches of Grammys, and they play kind of this straight ahead southern rock type style. Glenn, when he's not, you know, rocking out with them, has this whole other side to his musical life, which is he is a classical composer. He's written music for, so Percussion, Chronos Quartet, among others. And when he's in that classical mode, his approach to the drums is completely different. It's like the drums become a kind of orchestra for him. All right, so, Glenn, before you really get rolling here, since we are recording this for people who are out there beyond the room as well as people in the room, can you. I mean, you're sitting in a drum set right now, but it's not an ordinary drum set. Can you introduce us to the cast of characters that you've attached to your drum set? He had all this stuff hanging off his drums.

Speaker E: Sure.

JAD: I'm gonna walk over here so I can actually see what you're talking about.

Speaker E: These guys over here, which are called crotalis, which are.

JAD: Do you want to bang on them so we can hear while you're talking?

Speaker E: So those are like high bell tones. And those, you know, originally were from Turkey, like antique symbols, but they kind of are used more in classical music. And then there's these tuned cowbells called amglocken, which are like Swiss or German. And then this is a prepared snare. So it's the same idea is like prepared piano, but with a snare.

JAD: You see a bunch of screws and springs sticking out the top of your snare.

Speaker E: Yeah, yeah. So the drum acts as a resonator for these little sounds. I'll play a bunch of those sounds.

JAD: And what is this right here? This last.

Speaker E: That is. That was a wedding present.

JAD: This is a wedding present. Can everybody see what this is? Can you guys see it?

Speaker E: A fruit basket. A fruit bowl. A fruit bowl. It's like a metal coil. Yeah. And my wife of 13 years now is very forgiving of me banging on kind of everything all over the house and anything we might pass in a store on the street that looks like it might make a cool sound. And this is one of them. And it didn't actually sound that great kind of whatever. But when you Hang it from a rubber band over a contact mic. It sounds really cool.

JAD: Oh, my God.

Speaker E: Kind of like a big gong.

JAD: So what are we going to hear first?

Speaker E: First, I'm going to.

JAD: The first piece he played is called Monkey Chant, and it's based loosely on a story from the Ramayana.

ROBERT: The what?

Speaker E: Ramayana.

JAD: Ramayana. I guess how you say it. Well, it's the great Hindu epic with Rama and Sita and all that crazy, complicated tale with tons of characters. So what he did was he assigned all the different characters to different pieces of his drum set.

ROBERT: Different pieces of the drum?

JAD: Yeah. Each character would have their own sound. Like, I don't remember exactly how it went, but, like, say this would be Rama and maybe this would be Sita, and then his would be another character. So he could kind of make the whole story unfold before you in music. Now, you don't really need to know any of that to appreciate this. All I'll say is it's a little bit longer than the last one, but it's so worth it.

Speaker E: Okay.

JAD: Okay. Well, ladies and gentlemen, Glenn Kochi.

Speaker D: SA.

Speaker F: Sa.

JAD: SA. That blew my mind.

Speaker E: Thanks. I have to say, that's the first time, well, for me maybe ever, that the thumb piano. The kalimba's got an applause midtune. Thank you for that.

JAD: Wow. I mentioned in the introduction that you write music. You've written music for string quartet, you know, for Kronos.

Speaker E: Right.

JAD: How did. I mean, when you've got to write music for strings, do you then step away from the drums? Or do you. How do you, as a percussionist, write that?

Speaker E: On the drums?

JAD: On the drums?

Speaker E: Yeah. For me. For me, everywhere outside. Like, composing for other groups is an extension of drumming or anything.

JAD: Or get a drum to make a string sound.

Speaker E: Well, you don't. But the ideas, the concepts come from it. Like for the Kronos piece, for example, I sat behind the drums and started playing and thought, there's four guys on stage and I have four limbs, so why don't I just treat them like a drum set and have them play what I would play on the drums? And then, you know, instead of it being tom, Tom, rack, tom, floor tom, snare drum, habit, be violin, viola, cello, but. And then assign pitches to it.

JAD: Decide. So we did do. How do you assign. Do you assign pitches based on the pitches of your instruments? No. Or if you're. No, no, that's okay.

Speaker A: Yeah.

JAD: Huh. So you write for strings on the drums?

Speaker E: I did.

JAD: You did. Okay. Can you play us something else?

Speaker E: Yeah, I'll play one more this is another tune from my record mobile. And this is called Projections of what.

JAD: Might Everyone, Glenn Goethe.

Speaker F: Sa.

JAD: Give it up for Glenn Kochy. Thank you.

Speaker E: Thanks, Jen.

JAD: Thank you. Our final performer of the evening was a guy that's just difficult to describe. His name's Reggie Watts. You could call him a hip hop musician or RB singer. That wouldn't be right. Call him a comedian, but that doesn't quite capture it. He's kind of everything all at once. And he just happens to be maybe the most talented performer I've ever seen. So here's Reggie.

Speaker A: So write a song. I write a lot of song on my spare time. Anyway, this is on here. All mundo how old dog.

JAD: All right, Just to stick a picture in your head. Reggie has got this giant afro, extends in like two feet in all directions.

ROBERT: Like he has his finger in an electric socket.

JAD: Yeah. And everything he does is completely improvised. Like, I'm pretty sure he has zero planned the moment he opens his mouth.

ROBERT: Really?

Speaker D:  And I knew how the days.

Speaker A I know I knew and I'm tired.

Speaker D: I'm like a lovely way but I want be the time you.

Speaker A: Just kidding. Okay, here we go. Here we go. This is it.

JAD: So he does beatboxing, right? He'll do this into the mic and he'll loop it. It's got effects pedals and various things. And then he'll add a. And pretty soon we'll have this full sound that he'll then start singing to. There you go, singing.

Speaker E: Thank you.

JAD: Wait, no, no, don't go any. Come back, come back. Okay, let me ask you this, Let me ask you this.

ROBERT: Yeah.

JAD: Whatever that was.

Speaker A: Yeah.

JAD: When did that begin for you? Was it like, if you wind it all the way back to the beginning. Was the beginning. Like, I'll make this up. You standing in your. In your bathroom, looking in the mirror, doing impressions. Was it your first Dougie Fresh record? Was it. Was it comedy? Like, where did that start for you?

Speaker A: I mean, I think it. I think it started because I was an only child and you just need to, like, you need to come up with stuff to, you know, make sure that you're entertained. But, I mean, it was something I was always interested in everything, for the most part. I really like science and music and art and period pieces.

JAD: Paint me a portrait of Reggie Watts as an only child.

Speaker A: Yeah.

JAD: What would you do? Would you be in your room just doing that so you. Basin form?

Speaker A:  Sometimes I used to take models and I would build like a, you know, like an airplane model and like a jet fighter. And I put Firecrackers inside of it. I'd like. I'd build it fairly. Fairly sturdily. I put firecrackers in them. And then I would go into the garage and I would take a huge paint bucket and I'd put it over the model and light the fireworks. And then I put the bucket over, and I'd sit on the bucket. I'd blow up the plane. And then I would collect all the pieces and I'd reglue them together again. And then the pieces that were missing, I would cover with tinfoil. And then I would paint over it. And then. And then I would suspend the airplane on two bits of fishing line from my garage down to the gutter from a sidewalk. And then I would take two straws and glue them underneath the airplane wing. And then I put a smoke bomb, some, like, lighter fluid, saturated Kleenex tissue, and with some fireworks. And then I would light the smoke bomb and I'd let the aircraft kind of slide down, and it would end up kind of crashing into a mud thing. And so. And then my friends, we'd do it for each other, but my friends would be in the grass, laying down with binoculars, pretending like it's a movie. So I used to.

JAD: That explains everything. Reggie Watts.

Speaker A: Yeah. He goes. Thank you. This is the song off my last album. I hope that you dig it.

Speaker D:  And I tried not put my hand on the ground. Yes. But I now gave myself a chance. Chance to rectify the situation.

Speaker F: Whoa.

Speaker D: What did they say to make you fall down? What? How come? I. I don't know. Maybe we could just think about it. Baby, baby, like a little baby. You really squishy. And you smell weird. Yeah, Baby, love what you do. What you do, baby, what you watch it through. It's like you don't even notice. It's like you don't even care again. Cause my baby likes to take whatever she has. Put it somewhere. Maybe she'll use it for later. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I don't know.

JAD: Yeah.

Speaker D: But girls, don't let your mind forget about the time that we had. You and I. You and I had an animal. Don't you forget that we said some things. Yeah, we said some things together.

Speaker A: Cause that's what people do.

Speaker D: As long as they have the ability to hear and talk. Oh, yeah, babe, I love the way you wore that dress. Cause you had it on your body.

Speaker F: Oh, yes, I did.

Speaker D: Whoa. So come on, get off of your highest horse. Your horse 30ft. I don't know how a horse can get that High. But, baby, get all that damn horse. Go on the fire brigade. Get that ladder truck up there.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: Cause Babe built a Trojan horse into my heart. Cause Babe built the biggest goddamn Trojan horse to get it into my arc.

JAD: Yeah.

Speaker A: 62 days, I was feeling good. 61 days ago, all that changed. 57 days later, I felt all right. But then 59 days after that, it's right back where I started again. But that's love, you know what I'm saying? Yo, yo. Yeah. Yeah. Come on.

Speaker D: Come on.

JAD: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yo. Skirt ball. Skirt ball. Yo, play some skirt ball. Gonna play some skirt ball with y'all. Gonna play some skirt ball. Yo, who's gonna be the catcher? Who's gonna be the squidger? You know what I'm saying? Let's play some skirball. Let's do this.

ROBERT: Yeah.

Speaker A: You got that rectangular ball. We're gonna play this. We're gonna do this Skirball. Get team together. You know what I'm saying? Life be changing. What you be doing? I don't know, but I have this haze over my head. Like an Isaacness that I can't get under my skin. Know what I'm saying? Yo, I got some glasses. I bought some. I have some. I'm an owner of glasses. I've got some glasses. I can say that proudly. Other people can't, necessarily, because they might call them something else. And that's too bad. That's their choice. It's perception. You know what I'm saying? You're in control. Listen, I've got this. But someone took it from me. But then I got it back. But then I called Marcy, and Marcy.

Speaker D: Was like, I don't know.

Speaker A: I was thinking about it, and I was like, yeah, that's a good idea, Marcy. And I had every intention to tell her, but I just couldn't. You know what I'm saying? So her dress looked really good. Know what I'm saying? Feeling good. Yeah. Got it. You're feeling good. Okay, this is a. This is the last song I'm gonna do here. Sorry, real quick.

JAD: So that's Reggie Watts.

ROBERT: How did you end an evening like this? Because it's so eclectic.

JAD: Well, my fantasy was to get all three groups playing together in one big, epic jam. So I asked them to do that. They came out and they started to play together. And it was. Initially, it was nip.

Speaker A: Is that the key?

Speaker D: Nip.

JAD: A little bit shaky because no one really knew who was leading or what key they were in or what was tempo.

Speaker A: Like Seattle, 1991.

JAD: But eventually they locked in and it started to sound really good. Not bad, right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

JAD: Anyhow, thanks to Buke and Gase, Glenn Kochi, Reggie Watts. More information about them on our website, Radiolab.org I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT: I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: Thanks for listening.

Speaker G: John Bliss, a Radiolab listener from Houston. Radiolab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan@www.sloan.org.

 

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