Iconic LA DJ Cut Chemist celebrates 20 years of “The Audience’s Listening”<\/p>\n
Turntablist Cut Chemist was a member of Jurassic 5 and Ozomatli. His first solo album, “The Audience’s Listening” turned 20 years old this year. He’s been celebrating with “Expert of None” events at Only the Wild Ones in Venice Beach. The final performance is August 2nd.<\/p>\n
Twenty years ago, a Los Angeles DJ put out an album that asked a question nobody had quite answered yet: Could the turntable be a lead instrument? <\/p>\n
Not just a tool, but the thing carrying the whole record?<\/p>\n
Lucas McFadden, also known as Cut Chemist, said \u201cyes.\u201d <\/p>\n
His debut solo album, The Audience\u2019s Listening, dropped in 2006 after years of work, sample clearances and a clean break from the group that made him famous. He was a founding member of Jurassic 5, and before that, Ozomatli. <\/p>\n
Let us help you find the most interesting things to do<\/p>\n
Sign up for the Best Things To Do newsletter, our roundup of L.A.’s most interesting events.<\/p>\n
Two decades later, he’s been revisiting that record in a series called Expert of None. It\u2019s an intimate show at Only the Wild Ones in Venice, where he traces the records that shaped him right up to this album. The final installment<\/a> of the series is scheduled for August 2.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s a record that I periodically revisit throughout my life just to kind of see where I’ve been and to know where I need to go next,\u201d McFadden said. \u201cI always like to do something different from what I’ve done before. This is the year where I really go back and trace the steps of the building blocks that made that record and who I was as an artist leading up to that.\u201d<\/p>\n The art of mixing<\/p>\n Few fans know the behind-the-scenes work it takes for DJs and producers to track down sounds and then get the permission to use them. McFadden said finding and presenting music are two very different processes.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like a matchmaker, so to speak, because no one else would take things which are from completely opposite ends of the globe and put them together in the same composition,\u201d McFadden said. \u201cThen, you have to track down the artist to ask their permission. It’s very interesting and rewarding when they say yes.\u201d<\/p>\n McFadden walked away from the success of Jurassic 5 to devote his time to a solo career. He said the change gave him increased freedom but also increased pressure.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very scary to leave something so successful and really at its peak to do something where I was responsible for both the failures and the successes on my own,\u201d McFadden said. \u201cI couldn’t share that blame with anybody. It was all on me. So, I remember putting a lot of pressure on myself, because I was the one in the spotlight. Then the successes were twice as sweet in that regard as well.\u201d<\/p>\n The result was his debut, The Audience\u2019s Listening, which McFadden says is very much an L.A. record.<\/p>\n \u201cI was raised on L.A. radio,\u201d McFadden said. \u200a”Being from here and being in groups like Ozomatli and Jurassic 5, I feel like those two groups couldn’t exist anywhere else. They are such a byproduct of the city, coming from places like The Good Life in South Central. L.A. is such a melting pot, and I feel like my life in music is the same reflection of that as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Revisiting the past to create the present<\/p>\n