Trailblazers Podcast featuring James Lavelle

[jimmyjrg]

This week, the Trailblazers team welcomes the master of Mo’Wax, who through his UNKLE collective and associated projects has to be considered one of the most influential musical artists of the past 30 years… the one and only James Lavelle.

909originals.com/2020/07/30/check-out-the-latest-episode-of-trailblazers-featuring-james-lavelle/

They've also interviewed Gary Numan, Mary Ann Hobbes, Goldie, and heaps of others. The latest episode is on Deezer now: www.deezer.com/us/show/56841

[AstroBBoy]

Also here if you want to download it: podcast2facbb.podigee.io/22-james-lavelle

[jimmyjrg]

Thanks Astro!

[jimmyjrg]

This was a really great listen. The whole Shadow vs Lavelle Psyence Fiction credits comes up and they discuss it in depth. There's also really interesting stuff about early Mo'Wax and some UNKLE remixes. Near the end he kind of touches on 'who is in UNKLE now' and then they talk about "the next album" but they discuss The Road Part II...so I guess this was recorded last year.

[Kee]

This was great, listen to some of the other ones Goldie, Oakenfold & Middleton.

[essei]

It's hard, because I wasn't there, but I think James should have been given some credit. A director doesn't write, act, or do the music for a film, but he gets the credit. Stephen King and Anthony Burgess both hated Kubrick's version of their books, but Kubrick's name is still "in lights". Add to this, James also came up with the ideas. He pursued many of the artists. He suggested that he wanted a call out/answer style singing for "Lonely Soul" among other ideas for artists to guest on Psyence Fiction.

R.E.M. wrote a song called "Monty Got a Raw Deal".

I think James did too.

[Bester]

Aug 5, 2020 8:39:35 GMT essei said:

It's hard, because I wasn't there, but I think James should have been given some credit. A director doesn't write, act, or do the music for a film, but he gets the credit. Stephen King and Anthony Burgess both hated Kubrick's version of their books, but Kubrick's name is still "in lights". Add to this, James also came up with the ideas. He pursued many of the artists. He suggested that he wanted a call out/answer style singing for "Lonely Soul" among other ideas for artists to guest on Psyence Fiction.

R.E.M. wrote a song called "Monty Got a Raw Deal".

I think James did too.

Yes, because Kubrick directed those films. King and Burgess didn’t. We have never had, and never will have, a similar idea of a director for music. Credit goes to the person who created the music, not who suggested which artists to feature.

[jimmyjrg]

I don't think this board will ever agree on the credits discussion haha.

Personally I do think Lavelle deserves a bit more credit than he gets. From what he's said over the years he was promised credits, and assumed he was getting them until the last moment. I agree with Shadow that Lavelle didn't contribute in the studio as a producer, but he helped bring the project together in terms of samples, guests, and general ideas for structure. I imagine if the project hadn't taken so long, and if Shadow wasn't such a big name, then Lavelle would have been given his credits, but it seems like because Shadow gave Lavelle three years of his life that he understandably became possessive over giving away writing credits.

[dusted]

This was an interesting listen. Thanks for posting it up.

[Bester]

Looking at the credits, it says “All songs produced by UNKLE, UNKLE is (ugh...) James Lavelle and DJ Shadow”. It’s just that it then says that Shadow wrote all the songs and did the music. I’m not sure what additional credit Lavelle should have. It’s common ground that he didn’t write the songs or do the music, isn’t it?

[jimmyjrg]

Aug 6, 2020 17:42:01 GMT Bester said:

Looking at the credits, it says “All songs produced by UNKLE, UNKLE is (ugh...) James Lavelle and DJ Shadow”. It’s just that it then says that Shadow wrote all the songs and did the music. I’m not sure what additional credit Lavelle should have. It’s common ground that he didn’t write the songs or do the music, isn’t it?

I think his contributions should have warranted a writing credit, even if he was only making minor structural suggestions for the songs. I think he shouldn't have acted as A&R on the album though as a lot of what he did can be seen as general A&R stuff which muddies the argument. 

Edit: Just to add, I think James should have got written contracts for these things instead of relying on a spliff and a handshake type of agreements. His own naivety is what stuffed up a lot of Mo' Wax I think.