The Many Faces of Manny Faces

Man, I don’t really expect too many heads to be checking for me here (although I am surprised because I do get emails and feedback, so thank you all who do care..) I have been insanely busy in my ‘real-life’, job, school (yes, as I mentioned in a previous post I have gone back to school to acquire the degree I never got. In my 2nd semester now, so far rockin’ a 3.8 so I’m feeling, like, smart an’ stuff :-)

Two quick notes, I wanted to state for the record, just because I have been missing my hip-hop state of mind lately..

1st.
50 Cent is really quite a genius. After defining the mixtape genre, moving on to conquer actual record sales, and being one of the largest entities in music, not just hip-hop, this guy drops this Sincerely Yours mixtape that is really kind of genius. I mean, content/lyrics completely non-withstanding (although he spits rather decently on it, I say), the concept is brilliant. String together all the summer BBQ flavored hits that everybody and their mama (especially their mamas) know, spit a lil’ here and there, and give it away for free. Flex plays the sh*t out of it, mad heads playing it in the yard, on the block, etc., and even the folks who are not entirely 50-fans (like wifey), can’t really complain or turn it off, because by the time 50 is done with his 16 or 32, you are jamming! Just a really cool concept, and I have to give it to the guy.

2nd.
I was at Big Ced’s weekly Industry Cosign party a couple of weeks ago (shout to Ced! Cool cat.), and Ralph McDaniels was there. I didn’t get the chance to meet him, I didn’t stay that long, but I just thought of how many DVD magazines have cropped up in the last couple of years and thought damn, this dude is the Godfather of these things. I always got a little extra respect for someone who did something first, especially so long before it became the “thing” to do, so my hat again goes off to Ralph McDaniels, the O.G. King of “Man In The Street” Hip-Hop.

That’s all for now. Thanks for tuning in. Hope to come back soon. As always, working on a couple things up my sleeve.

COP MY LATEST MIXTAPE: The Producer: The Best of Manny Faces - Free as always, www.mannyfaces.com

So, what happened was, Usher’s new song Love In This Club, was produced by Polow Da Don. But it turns out, Polow Da Don essentially made the track using preset loops in Apple’s GarageBand software, which comes free with a Mac computer [seen @ Miss Info]. Well, this interests me of course, and as usual, I see things in at least 3 ways.

1. As a “struggling” or “up-and-coming’ producer
This crackerjack-ass no-talent-having, gets 50Gs for doing not much more than <click>, <drag>, <export>, [OK to continue]? No, it is NOT OK to continue Goddammit! I been crate digging, DJing, sampling on cheap ass reverb machines rigged to loop, spent car insurance money on records and Ensoniq keyboard memory chips, listed to hours and hours of albums over and over, looking for JUST the right loop.. Turned my back on good weed and better ass cuz I wasn’t done with this track I was working… Played baselines, piano twinkling, day in, day out, up until 4am on the regular with full time jobs and baby mama drama to turn out to be a pretty damn decent producer/remixer, but who is still not making a dime, while this guy essentially takes his textbook, photocopies chapter 12, hands it to his teacher as an essay, and gets a fucking A!!

2. As a sampling up-and-coming producer
OK, so the argument is, how is this different from me (or Kanye, or Pete Rock, or countless other successful and talented producers in Hip-Hop’s history), sampling loops, adding some drums, and calling it a beat. Lord knows I’m still milking good response and radio play from my Bartender remix, which unashamedly samples George Benson note for note. Well, it is kinda the same. Sort of. I mean, I consider myself a connissour of good music. I sample from records I own (yes, vinyl), or mp3s I download. I filter out so many songs, my ear listens for loops, they are not handed to me. OK so the Give Me The Night loop didn’t take DJ Premier-like audio genius or skillful chopping, but still… I’ve come across royalty-free Loops/Beats CDs here and there, and I would never in my life use any of them. No matter how hot it was. I’m sorry, I just wouldn’t. But there are those producers, who might be very musically talented, who would say the same of me and my sampling. While I just can’t bring myself to say that Polow’s extremely uninspiring method of selecting music and creating tracks is nearly close to being equal in creativity to doing what I, or many other talented sampling-based producers do, to really call him out on it, would verge on hypocrisy.

3. As a listener
Well, I do like the song. I kinda thought Usher was gonna remain fallen off, but I think this is a good look. Personally, I have to say dig the joint. I bounce in the car a little like a fool when it comes on and I sing the hook sitting at my desk at the day-job. I guess at the end of the day, that’s what really matters.

No matter who, or what, made the music.

Funny how things work.

February 3
I share a birthday with my Hunni. While this makes it unlikely I’ll ever get a surprise party, it does make for a fun time of year when we co-party, and occasionally, have a co-party. This was such a year. On the way home from BJs, I hear Funk Flex blasting off on a SICK remix of Sounds of Silence. Dope. Stopped me in my tracks! “Now this,” I said to myself, “is some issh I would /could/should have done.” Man it was good. Hard hitting drums, little bassline here and there, dropouts, buildups.. Well done! (I still don’t know who did it, and I looked, and I never look, but repect due.) So now, in the back of my mind, I now have a new wheel turning. Gotta find me a similarly styled old school, non-R&B-per-se joint, and get my Manny Faces on! I thought briefly about what song would be good to work, but nothing came to mind. So, like a billion other things, I filed it away for future reference.

February 11
Me, Hunni and the Faces youngens go to Wendy’s for dinner, and are devouring dollar menu items, filled with tasty glee. Fast-food muzak is playing, though muted, over the restaurant speakers, as always. There, softly wafting to my ears, is a classic rock song that we all pretty much have heard. I stop chewing, right side of my brain wrenching control from the left (or whatever area controls eating). I turned to Hunni, who probably didn’t care much, and said, “I should work that!”… She nodded “Ok.. Whatever.” So I turned to the kids, who probably cared even less, and said “I’m going to work that!”… They nodded, “Ok… Whatever. Can we get ice cream?” I didn’t mind. I had made my Babe Ruthian prediction, pointing to the music bleachers, proclaiming my intent. I was going to hit an audible home run. You’ll see.

February 11 - Later
Crap! I have schoolwork to do. (This online go-back-to-college-thing is hard!) But the juices were flowing. The heat, was not. It was cold. Very fitting for the song. (I also grasp the logo-irony that I was inspired in Wendy’s). I feverishly worked the ‘first round’. (There are usually 3-4 before I get close to being done). A couple of off-the-top choices of drums, sounds, etc., worked out great! That is a nice omen when that happens, as opposed to trying out 32488 different things before something clicks. You start to lose the vibe. Bartender remix was like that. The first beat in the vault I tried, ended up being the winner. Love when that happens. This process was more complex, had to chop up the song a lot, since it was originally live, the tempo varies, and I had to sync it all nice so it would work alongside more rigid drum programming. There’s more, but that is either a) boring, or b) production secrets. But by 2:30am or so, I had a rough draft. And oh what a great idea for a verse to throw it!! This just might be kinda sorta hot.

February 12
I started listening over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. As I always do. Listening for imperfections, different arrangement options, levels, etc. Oh how I liked how the verse comes in. I was sweating myself kinda hard. This is gonna be a good one.

February 12 - Later
Back at the lab, I snuck in a little touching up between homework and reading. I really worked this one fast. Careful not to sacrifice quality, but I had to get back to schoolwork or I’ll be in deep educational debt doo-doo. I saved a mixdown and dished it to a couple of confidants. They would tell me how it sounds, and be honest about it.

February 13
Feedback started coming in. Couple things. I took note, plus had a couple of my own tweaks in mind. During the work day, I go to the back, and my co-worker has classic rock playing through Sirius. Guess what song is on? This is definitely an omen (because of course, my remixes are part of an ongoing divine intervention…. Don’t worry. That was sarcastic. But I did think it was a very very cool coincidence). I can’t wait to get home to finish it!!!

February 13 - Later
Back at the lab again. Man if it weren’t for a “real job” I’d get things done much quicker. Anyway, made the final tweaks, listened another 235 times, and threw together an email blast. No time to lose. It was Thursday, I don’t like sending out stuff on the weekend and the urge to get it out and hear what people think was strong. Around 10pm, e-blast-off! Back to reading U.S. History and Physics, and waiting for the feedback to start trickling in.

February 14
Feedback is 99.9% great!!! I love it when a non-plan comes together!

And now, if you haven’t already come across it:

The Mamas and the Papas (featuring Tupac) - California Dreaming (Manny Faces Remix)

Click here for non-Tupac version.

Hope you enjoy! Let me know.

Well friends, I slack again. But this time is for a really good cause. While I have done well in the small business/corporate world that I live in when I am not super-producer Manny Faces, I have done so with no formal education. That is, I did not go to college. But now, some amount of years later, thanks to the wonders of online learning, I am did a Rodney Dangerfield, and I went Back to School.

It’s not something that will distract me forever. Just let me get through a couple of weeks and I’ll let you all know how it is!

Happy New Year. It has certainly been a minute or 3 since I last appeared in my blog-form, and since I know that my devoted readers have missed me so, I apologize to both of you. Ha! Ok, well, to whoever is checking in on me, I appreciate the appreciation, and I am aware that I am often not as consistent as any serious blog-wannabe needs to be. However, this is, in this case, for good reason. I have been busy trying to become a better person.

One of my greatest drawbacks, is my scatterbrainededness. Oddly, though I make my living in the ‘real-world’ as moderately successful, semi-big-dog-level Operations Manager, and much of this is project management, it is an interesting irony that one of my biggest flaws is my inability to stay organized. True, I have to handle all of my day-to-day activities, being a single father, boyfriend, worker, and aspiring music producer, none of which are particularly easy to do, and combined are close to impossible at times, but I have always secretly known that I just simply need to get a better grip on all of the activities and responsibilities that I need to juggle, if I wanted to come close to living up to my potential. So, the last 3 weeks or so has been largely dedicated to reorganizing (and in some cases, organizing for the first time) many factors of my life. My focus has been strong, and therefore, my attention to Manny Faces business has been on hiatus. Here are some things I did:

Home Office Overhaul
I begun this New Year’s Revolution during the week between Christmas and New Year’s. I was off from work, home with the babies, while my hunni had to work most of that week. So, I cleared out every ounce of furniture, music equipment, computer equipment, garbage, wires, rocks, papers, scissors… Everything. I completely threw away my desks, remnants of a modular office system that one of my old employers was throwing out. It was at home in a big office, too big for a home office. And more importantly I realized, it didn’t allow me to have my ’setup’ the way I want it. With dual-monitors, big ol’ speakers, a midi keyboard, amp, mixing board, and clutter, it just wasn’t feng shui enough I guess. Hunni bought me a new desk as a pre-birthday present, and it was great! Just how I wanted my ’setup’ set up, and inexpensive, but not cheap. So, after two nights of priming, painting, perspirating and painstaking preperation, my office was reborn from an office-slash-storage room-slash-hideout for the cats-slash-pigsty to a clean, HomeOffice 2.0ish looking oasis of ergonomically placed Manny stuff where everything is at arm’s length and just feels right.

Filing
I have papers. Boy do I. Bills, Family Court papers, Divorce papers, newspapers, bills, business papers, mortgage papers, bills, health record, birth certificates, bills and countless random sheets of printed matter, most of which, doesn’t matter. And it was high time that I lowered the high tide of this sea of paper. So, for about $12, I got one of those plastic tub-thingys from Staples that hold hanging folders, sat my ass down over the course of two days, went through every pile of paper, threw away everything that was truly useless, and filed. Now, instead of scraps of my whole life scattered throughout the house, irreplaceable important records entangled among insignificant leaflets of irrelevancy, I now essentially have everything on paper that is worth keeping, in one place. This makes a huge difference. And is 24% less of a fire hazard!

Computer tweakin’
So I am pushing through! I am psyched! I am excited and working hard and staying up late and organizing and rearranging and rebuilding and so this is the PERFECT time for my computer to die, isnt it?. Ah yes, Mr. Random.Windows.Operating.System.File is missing or corrupt or has herpes or who knows what. Now, in the past, because I am a) cheap, b) broke and c) technically savvy, I bought lower end PCs, no service contract or brand names - “If it breaks, I’ll just fix it” was (and largely still is) my mentality. But this one, is still relatively new. And was not cheap. And is a name brand. And I am super careful about keeping it clean of unwanted stuff. So, when it died, I was definitely a tad miffed. But OK, nothing a Windows reinstall can’t fix. Well, long story short, I reinstalled Windows, and as Microsoft-luck would have it, this did not solve the problem. So I tried a million and 7 things, all tidbits of tech procedures I’ve picked up in my many years of PCing, with no success. I wondered how a Windows file could still be missing, when I reinstalled Windows?! Bizarre. But then the answer! One of my USB slots was broken. Now, the corrupt file message I received, that was not permitting my computer to breathe any e-life, had nothing to do with the USB slot being damaged. But as anyone who has had major computer trouble undoubtedly knows, it does not have to make any sense at all. So anyway, a little mechanical prying and I fixed it. The actual silver lining here though, is that by reinstalling, I actually got my computer back to near-factory level cleanliness. Sure I had to reload a bunch of my applications, but I definitely de-cluttered the OS, registry and all the unwanted programs that I had previously loaded, tried, and dismissed. So in a way, this major annoyance was not a bad thing. I cleared my desktop of the 239847239 things that were there, made improvements to my browser (hotkeys, easy to get to toolbar links, etc.), set up an iGoogle page, a Google Calendar page, set up my email boxes (in accordance with the Getting Things Done system that I have also been reading up on, an intricate, but much heralded method of learning how to process information. Valuable time-management self-help). All in all, I got this computer setup just the way I like it now, and I’m taking advantage of many lifehack-type of technical tips and tricks and it has made a huge difference in me keeping track of all the things I need to keep in mind.

There are a few other things I’ve done to try and get on top of my game this year, some I will hopefully hold on to, while other ideas and methods may fall to the wayside, but I point all this out to those who are reading because it is important to realize that despite whatever natural talents you may have, whatever dreams and aspirations you might be following, sometimes you have to stop and take stock of the situation, and of yourself, to determine what you need to do to be a better person. The best part is that this is something I need to do to be better at music. And at marketing myself. And at my day job. And at my relationship. And at fatherhood. And at staying sane. So no matter what, taking stock in myself, recognizing my flaws, and finally taking the time to simply DO something about them, is the #1 priority on my new fangled to-do list. After that, everything else will just be better.

Now if I could only stick with my exercising. <sigh>

So I was e-leafing through the hip-hop related blogs in my RSS favorites when I came across a posting on RealTalkNY regarding an entry written by FoxSports columnist, Jason Whitlock, that appeared to blame ‘hip-hop’ with the shooting and subsequent death of the NFL’s Sean Taylor. The responses were, as expected on a blog that targets hip-hop supporters, largely against Mr. Whitlock’s assessment. And for many years, I probably would have been in agreement. Maybe I’m getting old, but today was one of the first times, and it pained me to do so, that I had to agree with an opponent of hip-hop. But at the same time that it’s hip-hop’s fault, it’s not hip-hop’s fault.

See, hip-hop in 2007 is not the hip-hop that was in 1990. In the 90’s, it was easy to blame hip-hop music and subculture for the woes of the inner city. In actuality, it was probably crack-cocaine and IT’S subcultute that had the most impact on the African-American youth of our nation. But since hip-hop music was closely associated with that youth, it was too easy for the uneducated and ignorant politicians, newsmen, parents and racists, to blur the lines between the youth intricately involved in the crack epidemic, and those who just relayed the messages over a funky, James Brown-sampled, beat.

Enter 2007 and the tragedy that is/was Sean Tayor. (For the record, it does not matter what the circumstancs were behind this heinous act, it is a tragedy in every sense of the word. But the issue I am addressing is that of Mr. Whitlock and his blaming of hip-hop. The issue is that in 1990, he would have been wrong. In 2007, I truly hate to say this, but he is right.)

[Read more →]

Everytime I secretly start thinking about giving all this up, I get something like this:

[From Damian via MySpace note]

Wow…

That’s all I can say right now, man. Your revisions and recreations of familiar songs are so refreshing to my ears. The ears of a hip hop fan that yearn to hear something new and exciting. You are definitely the most original artist I’ve come across in a long time and for that I’m grateful to you for what you do. Thank you for creating moods in rhythm that motivate me to listen more than a handful of times.

Peace. Love. Respect.

Damian

Jeez. Damian, thanks. You’ve made a starting-out-not-so-great day, a lot better already for me. I appreciate the appreciation!

As a comment on the KrucialKeys blog, after a number of their supporters took my not-really-trying to be a hater, as being a hater, Krucial took the high road, and clarified some things:

“In Reference to Manny Faces, Its All Good, Homie Stated his Oppinion everyone has a right to. He Took it personal, I never heard his remix, I know Salamm Remi, well, He’s also been ask to do the remix by AK’s A&R. Alot of his oppinion was assumptions. If anyone want to attack me for my statements so be it, But It wasn’t that deep. Remixes helps Promote the record, reguardless the original writers gets the publishing. I aint mad at anyone givin their own interpretation of the song, But there are non DJ’s and Producers who will F*%k up a song, and scream out “this is the official remix” and get it played on the radio in their region by themselves or a DJ friend. which can be misleading. If it hot its hot, if it aint it aint. No Need for yall to attack Manny either. Yall will be fighting millions on the net, who have negative comments about people or who are looking to take things negative from what we say. Thats what makes the world go ’round. You have to know what you dont like to know what you like sometimes. Ask me what i feel and I’ll tell you , you won’t have to assume. - Krucial”

Krucial -

Fair enough. No disrepect was really ever intended (believe me, I’d like few things more than to be at the level you all are at, and again, I am a huge fan of Alicia and you and the entire camp and your achievements). I personally have never added “official” to any of my reworkings, and I guess it was also the reaction by some of the blog supporters to your comments that caused me to take notice. Because there are surely those who do perpetrate to be more official than others, but I don’t want the public to look down on what I do, which I pretty much do simply because people tend to like it, just because there are those who are less than honorable. Your comments seemed to diminish all of us who do this sort of thing, and I thought you were unfairly casting a pretty wide net. I’m sure that many in the industry frown upon those of us who do this sort of thing, but haven’t ‘made it’ yet, like myself, so I felt it important to state my view. No disrepect Krucial, I appreciate the clarification as well as the response, albeit indirect, and I continue to tip my hat to you and your crew. Again, though I wasn’t feeling this particular remix (and again, I even feel that my own was not my best work), I am a huge fan of the majority of the Krucial/Keys catalog, and continue to wish you all nothing but the best.

-Manny Faces

[I originally wrote this as a guest-blogger on HipHopRuckus.com] 

Last night, I heard a bit of a reggae remix of Alicia Keys’ No One, on Hot-97 in New York. Since unofficial remixes like my own seem to get played in nearly every city in the USA except here, I figured it was the real deal official remix. Plus, the vocals were different; it wasn’t simply a new-beat+acapella remix like the ones I do. So this morning, I checked the KrucialKeys blog, and there it was: Alicia Keys featuring Damian Marley - No One (Official Reggae Remix).

Let’s get this part out of the way. I thought I put out a cool version of No One, though hardly complex or spectacular. Some of my other works are definitely better. However, with the entire Alicia Keys machine behind them, including her singing new vocals, and the addition of Damien Marley, they put out a cool version too. Now, I am very humble, would be the first to admit being thoroughly outdone, and this is certainly not a contest, but the official remix isn’t really killing it to me. And this is not a competitive-producer-I-made-my-own-remix-so-I-am-biased answer, it’s my honest opinion. I thought, for instance, that the reggae remix to You Don’t Know My Name was GREAT, and I could not have done as good a job myself. So for the record, I am not particularly feeling the official remix. But that is not my point here.

[Read more →]

because I got caught.

They’re never sorry until they get caught. Amazing, huh?