Music
5 things you should know about Theo Parrish
Before he headlines a special #RBMASP show, here’s a potted history of one of dance music’s finest.
Chicago-born producer, DJ and live performer Theo Parrish is the high priest of Detroit dance music, stirring sweet soul music, far-out jazz, and classic house and techno into his raw, brooding mix. His DJ sets are the thing of legend as he attacks the decks and selects vinyl like a guitarist picking his best axe. Parrish is one of electronic music's most vital voices and, on his own or with his Sound Signature label, he's responsible for one groundbreaking release after another.
#RBMASP welcomes Parrish to São Paulo on June 3, when he headlines a night featuring homegrown talent (Érica, Luisa Puterman, Raquel Krügel, Thingamajicks and Salvione) plus US DJ Honey Dijon and China's Pan Daijing. Which gives us an always-welcome excuse to delve into Parrish's past and learn a bit more about him.
Read the full transcript of Parrish's lecture at RBMA Seattle 2005.
Stevie Wonder’s Songs In The Key Of Life was a huge inspiration
"My mother used to run this whole album from side to side and Stevie Wonder was basically the beginning of my musical education. This is where it started. One thing I noticed as a little boy was that if lyrics had a certain depth, they always had a particular meaning that you could apply to your experience. What I didn’t understand at this point – when I was four or five years old – I didn't know when Stevie was singing a song if he was playing on it, if all his backgrounds was him, if he was doing the drums. All I knew was that all of this sonic experience was coming from this one guy."
Listening to house music on the radio was another eureka moment
"I was probably about 12 years old. And it was after complaining to my mother that I wanted a radio, and it was Christmas, she got me a radio. It was one of those one set deals, with the radio in it, the tape deck and the plastic turntable all in one hook-up. I was like, 'Yeah, this is sweet'. At the end of the dial I heard this thing come on, 'B.M.X!' I was like, 'Who's B.M.X?' I was into BMX bikes. 'That's strange! All right, that's a good association, I like bikes.' But they were the call letters for the [Chicago house music] station WBMX. They were playing all these different types of things I'd never heard, or couldn’t even conceive of… I don't think people really understood how widespread the idea of house music on the radio in Chicago was at that time."
Studying visual art helped him discover what he wanted to do
"I went to Kansas City Art Institute. I went in for painting of all things, ended up in sculpture. Went from sculpture to performance. Performance turned into sound sculpture because I figured at that point that basically you don't give a person a degree to be an artist, you give them a degree to be able to eat being an artist. So, if you're going to school to be an artist, then basically you need to be on your s**t. You need to know what it is that you're trying to say. Chances are that somebody already said what you're trying to say – and better. I had instructors like that, that got in your head and really made you think."
Setting up his Sound Signature label set Parrish free
"Once I started that, that's when it all kind of changed. I was, 'All right, I got to hustle. I got to make sure that I got stuff coming out.' But the beauty of it was, I'm not going to go out of the box. I'm not trying to do what I've heard, I'm trying to do what I feel, if it feels right. I ended up putting out what I felt, trading off with a couple of buddies of mine that were in it already and tried to help them out as much as I could and they helped me out as much as they could. And trying to get some music out and it did work. Just taking a step, a leap of faith and knowing that it's all on me now. Every concept I have in my head and how I want to manifest it, is totally on me now from beginning to end."
A jazz group inspired him to start performing live
"Somebody was like, 'You should do a live thing.' I said, 'Well, I can't imagine me standing behind an MPC being that interesting for a couple of hours. But if I would get some individuals that I like to be playing with, some people that want to come with me, then I might be kind of interested.' So I talked to a lot of musicians I was cutting with it at the time – and this is over the course of several years. I didn't really start working with musicians until my 11th release. And these were musicians out of Jazz Head, a group. I’d go see them because they were the only ones I heard in the city playing the kind of stuff that I liked to hear in terms of a jazz band really getting down. They just blew my mind."
Theo Parrish performs at #RBMASP on Saturday, June 3.
Theo Parrish is on Facebook.
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