By Jason West

Someday, perhaps quite soon, we’ll see a new category show up in all the music polls: Best Turntablist. This wouldn’t surprise me, since DJs have been playing with live bands for over two decades. Turntables are considered by many to be just another instrument, and DJs have gained a reputation for setting the vibe and pumping up crowds. Certainly, the marriage between live and recorded music is getting stronger everyday as DJs bring new textures of rhythm and sound to live performances.

Medeski, Martin and Wood have known this for a while and that’s why they asked DJ Logic on tour with them for the past two years, featuring his mixes on MMW’s Bubble-House and Combustication Remixes. Logic has also worked with jazz, rock and experimental groups including Living Color, Don Byron, Ice-T, Graham Haynes, John Scofield, Vernon Reid’s My Science Project and The Psychedelic Furs.

In October ’99, Project Logic, DJ Logic’s solo debut, was released on Ropeadope records. Featuring bassist Melvin Gibbs and drummer Scooter Warner, the album’s seventeen tracks offer something for everyone. There’s funky grooves, raps, jazz harmonies, spoken word, tons of effects, samples, loops and the musical contributions of Logic’s friends and mentors: John Medeski, Billy Martin, Chris Wood, Vernon Reid, Marc Ribot, Teo Macero, Graham Haynes, and Sex Mob.

In mid-February I was fortunate enough to hear Logic and his four-piece band play two nights at the OK Hotel here in Seattle, shows that included special guest performances from local keyboardist Wayne Horvitz, violinist Eyvind Kang, saxophonist Skerik and guitarist Tim Young. Just two weeks into his debut tour, Logic sat down with me for a minute or two as we discussed his influences, his instrument, his new role as bandleader, the advantages of playing with a live drummer, MMW, the New York scene, and just what exactly he calls his music.

Jason West: Name some of the records that you are high on.

Logic: Like the latest stuff or the older stuff?

JW: A little of both.

Logic: I’m into Miles. I’m into Sun Ra. Terry Riley. And as far as the newer stuff, I like the Dirty Dozen [Brass Band], Mos Def….whatever catches my ear and feels comfortable.

JW: Have you spun for rappers before? Is that something you’re familiar with?

Logic: A little bit back in the day but my forte is with the musicians,

JW: Talk about what you do as a turntablist, for someone like me and probably a lot of other people, who don’t know. What does a turntablist do?

Logic: Turntablists try to be creative sound-wise – mixin’, scratchin’ – whatever it may be, and you know, just having an ear, basically. A lot of turntablists become great producers and remixers.

JW: Is it a new thing?

Logic: Not really, its been around since the seventies, since the Sugar Hill days – Grandmaster Flash, Africa Bambaataa, Kool Herc – you know they were doing it back in the seventies, ’78 ’79 around there. They would take regular funk records, break records like Kool and the Gang and cut those breaks that was on those records, you know the spaces, and just try to go back and forth with those records you know just to keep the vibe going because that’s the beat that everybody was feeling and also for the MC who was chanting away “SAY OOOO” or whatever, that kind of vibe.

JW: So it’s been around.

Logic: It’s been around but it just hasn’t got recognition until now. So now people are realizing the turntable is really an instrument, which is great.

JW: You have an effects box that you use also. What is that?

Logic: Oh, the box that I have in between [the turntables], which is like another instrument to me. It’s called a Chaos Pad.

JW: A Chaos Pad?

Logic: Yeah, I just rub my finger across the screen and it has different delays in each corner. There’s an x and a y diagonal and it allows me to create flange effects, distortion, also loops and samples – there’s 50 different effects – and I consider that my instrument. Just like a guitarist has his wah-wah.

JW: Talk about your name. How did Logic come about?

Logic: Logic came about basically when computers was coming about. When I was in school you know teachers didn’t know how to use the computers. So when I started spinning with Eye and I [alternative rock band] back in the ‘80s – before all the DJs-with-the-bands-thing started happening – they wanted me to come up with a name, you know every DJ is supposed to have a DJ name, so I had to find a name and Logic just fit.

JW: The guys on your CD are some heavy cats. How did you hook up with all these guys?

Logic: Those are the cats that I’ve been playing with, that I grew up with, played around in the downtown scene.

JW: Talk about that scene.

Logic: Well I started doing stuff with the Black Rock Coalition and with Eye and I, and Melvin Gibbs, a bass player who used to play around downtown with the Knitting Factory, and he would just bring me along and ask me to sit in on some stuff you know. I wasn’t totally down with it because I was young, but it just grew on me and I stayed with it. That’s how I met Vernon Reid, through Melvin and Eye and I. Vernon was the same way, he was experimental and always trying to do new things, and he encouraged me. And through Vernon I found MMW and we clicked. Billy Martin [the drummer for MMW] dug what I was doing with my sounds and scratchin’ – using my scratchin’ as percussion – so they asked me to come down and do some stuff with them.

JW: How about some of these other guys like your drummer, Scooter Warner?

Logic: Scooter I’ve known since Eye and I. Marc Ribot, I met him on the Knitting Factory scene, and Graham Haynes I met the same way. Teo Macero I met through Vernon. Me and him hit it off real good, just talking about different things, talking about Miles you know, he has a lot of stories. I just asked him if he’d do something on my record and produce something in that Miles type of vibe. I had the idea that I wanted to do something abstract, kinda dedicated to Miles, so he came around, contributed and also played on it.

JW: What do you like to call your music? When people say…

Logic: I like people to call it whatever they want to call it.

JW: What do you call it?

Logic: I just call it music. You know it’s something that I love doing. It’s the music that I grew up listening to and I just try to put it all in one form.

JW: But for someone who doesn’t know. They say, “Oh, you’re a musician. What kind of music do you play?” What do you tell them?

Logic: I’m an all-around: hip hop, jazz, junglist, rock, everything, you know. I experience myself all those categories, you know. I just love doing what I’m doing, and that’s making music.

JW: What’s your responsibility as the leader of the group? What duties do you have?

Logic: I call the tunes. I have my set list. I sit down with the band and talk to them about ideas or concepts, you know, what I’m coming up with. I try to change it up. Everyday we try to do something a little different, a little different groove. You know, I’m playing the role of leader but I don’t consider myself a leader, I consider myself a musician and I just trying to have fun. I don’t, you know, I’ve seen a whole lot of leaders and this and that. I try to do it a little different and make the musicians feel comfortable. I definitely speak my ideas and what I feel. If it doesn’t sound good – No (laughter).

JW: Let me ask you about the importance of having a live drummer. It that something that you have to have, or could you do without it? What are your feelings on that?

Logic: Yeah, I like to have a drummer because they come up with different ideas and colors and arrangements around what I’m doing, even if I’m playing a beat, you know, the beat that I might be playing might be just an extra punch, because I know on different records, different loops that I play, snares have different effects or sounds on ‘em, and I like to have those type of sounds with a drummer. The live sound with the sample loop – it’s like a whole other thing, a whole other texture – because you can’t get certain sounds out of a live drummer that’s playing on a loop, but if you put them both together and the drummer’s got some ideas and if it’s working then it’s good.

JW: Did you grow up in New York?

Logic: Yes, in the Bronx.

JW: Talk some more about your influences and what you listened to growing up.

Logic: My influences was like African Bambaataa, Cool Hurt, D.X.T., those earlier DJs and how they was movin’ the crowd and how they was kinda being experimental back in those days, with the turntable and stuff. You know, Africa Bambaataa, he had so many records and you could tell he’s been listening to a whole lot of things. And in interviews that I’ve read he explains that, you know, you go all around the world and you experience some hip-hop. You’re listening to a lot of things and seeing how people vibe to certain things, you know, your basically seeing how hip hop is all over the place in a lot of music.

For more information on DJ Logic check out: www.djlogic.com