10 Qs With Nick Marshall aka Taelue

Chilling

I spent my Sunday afternoon listening to new records and one of the highlights was the compilation The Barbershop which drops on vinyl today (and digitally in three weeks) on the great label Perpetual Rhythms, which is co-owned by Victor Aguinaga and Nick Marshall, the latter of whom is the subject of this edition of 10 Qs. Like the other releases on the label, this comp contains a lot of truly deep house music, all from the Perpetual Rhythms Chicago family in this instance. The quality level they stand for demands they get some shine, and the release of this compilation should help raise their profile. This made the timing of these questions quite fortuitous, as we can now learn a bit about one of the cats behind some dope new music in his own words….

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1. How did you get into music and at what age did that occur?

a. I’ve really always been into music since I was young. My mom had a big influence on me as she would literally play everything imaginable in our household. After she passed when I was 6, music became my therapy. When I was about 9, I kept telling family members that I was the DJ at family get-togethers and would manipulate the EQ on a cheap Philco stereo thinking I was really doing something. It’s funny when I think about it now, but it really was the spark of a passion. About the age 11 was when I knew I wanted to be a DJ, more importantly, a Hip-Hop DJ. Hip-hop was and to be quite honest still is a huge influence for me. It was my escapism of things going on while growing up. New York stuff in ’95/’96 was it for me; Nas, Mobb Deep (R.I.P Prodigy), Biggie, WU, etc. I mean, I memorized the Notorious B.I.G’s “Ready to Die” album while riding the bus to and from school in 6th grade. I’d watch and record videos from Yo! MTV Raps and Rap City every day after school. Around the same age is when I discovered House Music from a family member in Chicago who’d come to Michigan to visit often. She left a mixtape in our home stereo that had a bunch of cuts on it that I was fascinated with; Brighter Days, Love Train, Beautiful People, etc. Listening to a lot of Hip-Hop & House throughout my adolescence made me realize I wanted to really DJ. This brought me to finally buy some rundown Technic 1200s and a RadioShack Realistic mixer when I was 17. I Began collecting records and teaching myself to DJ. The first two records I ever bought; Larry Heard – The Guidance EP and Glenn Underground ?– C.V.O. Elements EP both on Guidance.

2. What came first for you, DJing or making music?

a. DJing definitely came first for me; however the production bug was definitely in me. When I was in 10th grade, my aunt bought me a Yamaha keyboard from Kmart. I would try to emulate productions from Havoc of Mobb Deep, DJ Premier and The Alchemist on it. I was neglecting school work doing edits on this thing. The drums were wack and I had no idea what the hell MIDI was. I would record things through the MIC input on a Hewlett Packard PC that had Windows 95 and a 5GB hard drive. The recordings and tracks were terrible, but I was really excited. I was taking a piano class at the time in High school and my friend Michael and I would sneak into this other room while the teacher was working with other students. We’d be in there trying to emulate productions from Timbaland, The Neptunes & Dr. Dre on these two Synths that were in this quasi studio room. We’d definitely get caught, but sometimes we would be in there the entire period and felt cool cause a few of the girls would come in there with us just bullshitting skipping class trying to listen to and make beats. I’d beatbox with the older juniors and seniors in between classes in the hallway and at lunch time while they would spit rhymes. It was cool, but I wasn’t focused on school at all. I was doing the bare minimum to pass. This music was my drug, my therapy, remember? Not long after I bought my technics is when I was at a friend’s house and his brother had just bought the red Korg Electribe off of eBay. We were at his brother’s house just messing with this thing for hours. Messing around so much so that I ended up buying one off of eBay as well. I was all into this thing, but it wasn’t the sound that I was really trying to make. I was really just having fun with it. I’d record some things which were really what I came to know as Drum & Bass at the time. They were cool, but I didn’t really take production serious until about 2010.

3. How have the places you have lived affected the way you make and DJ music?

a. The places I’ve lived have had a deep affect on me mostly due to the interactions with the diverse groups of people I’ve come in contact with more so than the places themselves. I’ve always been hungry to learn about different styles of music, how it started, where it came from, etc. What’s always drawn me to music is the way music evokes feelings and imagery within me. I truly have to feel and see something with music in order to connect with it, similar to how I have to feel something with individuals in order to connect with them. The way I like to make music is by trying to create imagery. I’ll generally have a concept in my mind accompanied by some form of imagery, however it doesn’t always work like that. Sometimes I’m just playing chords or messing around with some drums and that will begin to create the imagery. That’s when I decide where I want to go with the sounds. Imagery is a huge part of my productions. Most of my tracks are based off of some concept I’ve been researching or trying to understand and utilizing music to try to convey that concept. Shoutout to Ben Parkinson; Boe Recordings / For Those Who Knoe Label owner, during a conversation we had once when I was in London, he mentioned how a track of mine entitled “Desolate Dreams” was “very Cinematic”. I never thought about my tracks that way, but it’s exactly the vibe I try to create. It’s like I sort of see myself creating a film score for my personal life and things I’m learning or simply put soundscapes to my life journey. Eventually, film scoring is something I’d truly like to get into.

b. When I was in my 20’s I would go out often here in Chicago; Hip-Hop shows, Drum & Bass, Techno, etc. I’d be out a lot and just see what the vibe was. It was cool. Some spots people were dancing, some spots people weren’t. There are various crews and pockets all over the city. When I DJ, I play what I like to hear when I go out to dance. I can play deep, but I can play dark and hard too. It’s all about the timing in which tunes are played. My DJ style was molded here in Chicago from listening to other DJs. That’s more in relation to their technique than what they were playing. Shout out to DJ 3rd Rail whom has been doing his Radio show on WNUR 89.3 FM for more than 20 years and was the first true Hip-Hop DJ I heard play extremely long blends. I’m sure there are others out there, but he for me was the first one I heard play long blends with vinyl of dope Hip-Hop that I loved. This was around 2004. I tried to emulate his blends with House music.. I sucked at it terribly. Not every record needs to be a 40 minute long blend, some records don’t blend well together like that, etc. This is shit I was still learning about; DJing and the overall craft. I met my good friend Victor Aguinaga around 2007 but we we’re just buying records from Discogs. He would have doubles or other records he was selling and I’d meet up with him to make the exchange versus paying for shipping. One day he gave me one of his mixes. I remember listening to it on the train home and was like damn this dude is dope as hell. He was doing the kind of extended blends that DJ 3rd Rail was doing, but with House Music. I’m like damn ok! From there to be honest, kicking it with Victor, and later Specter, Damon Lamar, Steven Tang, Chicago Skyway.. I truly learned a lot. These guys don’t get enough credit for their contributions to be honest and I’m not just talking about as far as Chicago goes, I’m talking about the international House/Techno scene. That’s a bigger discussion for another day though. They all are true to their craft, all talk a hell of a lot of shit, and all have been true mentors directly or indirectly on some level regardless if they know it or not. Much respect to my bros who’re gonna clown me for this.. haha.

4. What is the meaning or story behind your alias Taelue?

a. Folks will get a laugh out of this one. When I first started buying records and trying to DJ I remember I’d bought the “Masters at Work – The Tenth Anniversary Collection – Part One (1990 – 1995”. One of the tracks I was really feeling on there was “Lou2 – Freaky”. Man I played this track so many times. I remember my aunt yelling at me to “turn that shit off”. I had these huge 15” JBL speakers hooked up and they would knock. So I’m trying to think of a DJ name. I’m like hmm, I don’t want to use my name. My middle name is Omar so I toyed with that Idea for a minute then I learned about Omar S and I’m like nah I don’t wanna use that. So I was playing the Freaky track one night and just reading the credits again. I’m like hmm..Lou2.. The Lou? I’m like “Nick, You’re name is not Louie or Louis, but does that matter?? No, it’s going to be Lou something”. I was writing Lou down on paper in different variations. Some kind of way out of that I get “The Lou”. I’m like hmm, nope. Then I’m going through vowels to replace the h in the and immediately get “Tae”. “WTF is Tae, Nick?” Then I just put it together; Taelue. “Is that French, is that a real word”? No idea. I googled it and couldn’t find anything on it and said, yup. That’s it; Taelue.

5. What made you decide to start your label Perpetual Rhythms with Chicagodeep?

a. I’ve actually wanted to start my own record label since my late teens but hadn’t truly put in the work or research on how to do so. I really liked the Guidance label because it truly was something that I identified with as their output was comprised of such a diverse catalog of electronic music. I always said that if I started a label, that was exactly what I wanted to do; have a very eclectic output and be able to put my productions as well as other artist’s music out that I truly believed in as freely as I wanted to. Sometime in 2012 I’d mentioned to Vic (Chicagodeep) about us starting a label together. We’d just completed our Sunday Drive track on Ernie’s Minuendo label as our very first release and of course wanted to dive deeper into producing more. Vic at the time had really ramped up his production. I was in my second year of college and working 3rd shift so was really only dabbling with sounds more than fully producing tracks. I remember the first time I asked Vic about doing a label together he didn’t want to. He wanted to shop his tracks around to get a solid solo EP out. We went out for some drinks the night before Thanksgiving 2012 and just chopped it up a bit. I’m like “bro, we should really start our own thing. Why wait for someone else to put us on?” He was still hesitant at this point. We had 3 Dirty Bastard Scotch Ales and were walking back to our cars. We sat in my whip for a minute and I played him Social Anxiety and another unreleased track. He was like ok this is dope, we should start our label. I’m like is it da liquor or? So I played it again and we were both like yea, this is fiyah. From there we just decided on 3 more tracks and I did a lot of research on what we needed to do to get this done. His Restless Nights track was done at this time and I had already said we need to put it on the EP. From this point, we were thinking of names for the label. I was in my college’s parking lot and I saw a license plate with the word “Perpetual” on it. So I told my then GF / mother of my daughter / Perpetual Rhythms’ Art Director, Adriana that it has to have the word Perpetual in it. We toyed with some names and I remember texting Vic back and forth some ideas. I had some, he had some, but none really stuck. Adriana then says “What about Rhythm or Rhythms”? I remember saying to her that actually works. I sent it to Vic and he dug it too; Perpetual Rhythms. From there she began working on logo design with assistance from our friend Jerry Reyes. Within 3 months we had a new label with artwork and 4 solid tracks going out into the world. We couldn’t believe it. All 3 of us were overly excited when our Secret Elements EP arrived to my apartment. We did this to put out the music WE wanted to put out and that’s been the whole idea since the beginning.

6. You two also have a number of musical collaborations together, some of which also include other friends of yours. How did these collaborations come about?

a. The original collaboration between Vic and I came from an Idea he got from the newer version of Cosmos with host Neil deGrasse Tyson where Neil mentions one astronomer speaking on how stars that we currently see are roughly “a bunch of Ghosts of the Sky”. Vic’s like “bro what do you think about us doing stuff together more and doing a group name as Ghosts of the Sky?” I’m like “damn, yea that’s pretty dope”. So we kind of rolled with it. We had already been messing with some tracks doing stuff together but in 2014 was when we went forward with the Ghosts of the Sky moniker and now have 3 projects with that name; one additional coming soon on Sassmouth’s God Particle Label. We had another project on Ernie’s Minuendo label with our good friend; Sean Hernandez (Chicago Skyway) under the moniker; Simple Machines. This just came about as random sessions to be honest. Vic, Sean and I would all just be hanging out at Vic’s house messing around with machines and recording. From that we had one really dope track, but the damn 808 kick was so loud and distorted we couldn’t use it. Was sad actually because the track was really dope. Sean and Vic had a session before we had recorded anything together and they came up with 7 Trumpets. Ernie heard 7 Trumpets and wanted to do a release with us. After that we recorded 2 more tracks and that was that. The three of us have spoken about future things together, we all just have very busy personal lives. Our last and most recent group collaborative effort was with Garrett David under the alias of Mystical Institute. I’ve no idea how we came up with this name, but I like it. We knew Garrett from Gramaphone and his productions and DJing in the scene. He’s a really dope producer and he had been sending us a few tracks. At some point Vic and I would just link up at Garrett’s studio and we’d just smoke and drink and literally do like 3 or 4 hours of recording live sessions. We all collaborated on every track and I love it because you can hear elements of each of our styles in every single track on our release; Shared Growth. The Shared Growth title is very true as all of us are still learning, progressing in this music / production game and we all are growing together on the EP. We will be releasing more under this moniker on our label in the future.

7. What is your favorite track of your own that has been released?

a. This would either be Social Anxiety or Cielo. Both are clear examples of the imagery I try to create that I mentioned previously. Social Anxiety is something I deal with and luckily through therapy have gained more insight on how to work through it. When I made the track, I was trying to make tracks with broken kicks and not straight forward 4/4 house. I typically listen to a lot of 90’s Hip-Hop and Jungle/Drum & Bass and I remember going through records and 4hero’s “Parallel Universe” was a big influence. Hakim Murphy’s “Creeper” was another track as well with the broken kick that I was playing a lot at the time. I took these two inspirations and tried to create my own house/techno/jungle type of track. I didn’t know what genre it was and didn’t care. I just wanted to create something that I personally didn’t hear a lot of and something therapeutic for myself. I wanted to somehow emulate the feeling one gets when experiencing anxiety; the air gasp, the sporadic thoughts, the fear, the sweating. I’m a huge horror film buff as well and tried to create a bit of dark element within the track too. In the end, I was happy with what came out and truly felt I captured what I set out to capture.

b. Cielo is a tribute track to my mom. Cielo is of Spanish origin and translates in English to roughly mean sky or heaven. I wanted to create something with a melancholic yet still uplifting mood. Like my mom is looking out for my life saying, “I know life has been rough, but know I’m still looking over you and my granddaughter. Positive things are still in store for both of you. I love you”. I remember when I finished the track and had it on a playlist to listen to in my car. It was on shuffle and came on as I was driving. When the strings came in I just thought about my mom and actually starting crying on the freeway. It was a happy type of crying. That’s when I knew that I’d created something representative of the mood in which I was striving to create.

8. Can you describe the process you have for deciding on a release for Perpetual Rhythms?

a. Vic and I truly run the label together, you know? We have different tastes but very similar tastes as well. Sometimes we can hear things and just know immediately whether or not it’s something we want to put out. As cliché as this will sound, we definitely have ears for “good music”. Sometimes even though something is really good, it doesn’t always translate into sales. That’s something we’re thinking about for the future; potentially making some release just digital releases versus full blown vinyl releases, etc. If there are tracks of his or mine that we’re thinking about putting out, we usually will give each other feedback; “Hmm change this, edit this, idunno about this one bro.. or yes this is really dope we should put this out”. If it’s other artists whom have made submissions to the label, we are very open and will definitely listen. Sometimes he likes things that I haven’t and vice versa, but we both have to agree on everything that goes out on the label. With the artwork, we always allow Adriana to take the reins as we offer little to no insight besides the info about the release. I think it allows her to push herself to be as creative with those aspects as it’s her domain and Vic and I both dig what she has continued to do. I feel you can see her growth with her artwork similar to one is able to hear the growth with Vic’s and my productions. That’s the great thing about our label I think; we all have a mutual respectable for one another and talk about the direction in which we want things to go. We’re not big name chasing folks or trying to follow what’s supposedly hot. We’re legitimately about putting out what we feel is dope music regardless of whom it’s from accompanied by dope artwork.

9. Who is your favorite DJ and what is the best DJ set you’ve ever personally witnessed live?

a. This is tough question to be honest. As my very close friends give me shit about, I can never straight forward answer a question, there’s multiple layers as anyone whom is reading this interview has probably taken notice of. I’ve honestly seen a lot of great DJs, man. I think for me it depends on my state of mind, how I was feeling, etc. As far as favorite DJ; I just can’t concretely answer that question. I’ve witnessed so many dope genre crossing DJs over the years that I can’t truly say like “yes! So n’ so is my favorite”. That’s like asking me who’s in my top 5 all-time lyricists; there’s multiple layers to that question. I think that the best set I’ve personally witnessed was Ron Trent at Smart Bar, I believe it was 2009. I remember I was really going through a lot of personal things at the time and just needed to go out and release. Trent’s opening track was “Paradise Regained” and I just danced and felt the sweat and tears flow and the rest of the night was just dope. It was a testament to the power music can have on us and how the DJ really can feed off the crowd. It was almost like Ron knew what the hell I was going through and played every single track perfectly for what I needed. I can’t remember the event but I remember that night and it was exactly what I needed.

10. How would you describe your musical style?

a. My musical style is personal, introspective, ethereal, dark, and mysterious. These are all prevalent themes in my productions and my DJ sets.

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Check out Perpetual Rhythms here:

https://perpetualrhythms.bandcamp.com/