Eliot Wilder - DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing

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Eliot Wilder

Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

www.bloomsbury.com

Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Eliot Wilder, 2005

Eliot Wilder has asserted his right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: PB: 978-0-8264-1682-7
ePUB: 978-1-4411-9744-3
ePDF: 978-1-4411-2432-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

Big ups to: the sound of scratching (that voop voop voop), old 45s, vinyl, Neil Ross and KDEO, Dusty Groove America, John at Planet Records in Cambridge, Tom at Nuggets in Boston, Laurel and Hardy, the Beatles, Brian Wilson, Bob Dylan, Ray Davies, Neil Young, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Robert Christgau, Ed Ward, Steve Thorn, Pete Miesner, Natalia Cooper, Craig Palmer, Theresa Rochelle, Jack Mahoney, Zeena Malin, Max Vanzi, Joe Frank, Ann Japenga, Edward Abood, Dave Westner, Marvin Etzioni, Carolyn Chandler, Bob Gartland, Tom Schlesinger, Dave and Dan Linck and all the old Mutt gang, Barbara, Kitty, Blake and Nattie, Leigh Salgado, Mary Klages, The Simpsons, and the Kusnitt clan.

Also, a huge thanks to Joe Pernice for opening the door, David Barker for allowing me to do this and, most especially, Josh Davis, whose music continues to change my life

For Chris, with love, and Astrid, who sat with me during
the first seven months of her life while I wrote this.
And my dad.

For more information on DJ Shadow, visit
www.djshadow.com

For more information on the author, visit
www.eliotwilder.com

You cut up the past to find the future.

William Burroughs

When it was released in 1996, Endtroducing sounded like nothing before or sincean album of beats, beauty and chaos, a sound that cuts to the very blue flame of the heart. Looking back, no other popular record, to my mind, better summarizes the end of the last century. Josh Davis, alias DJ Shadow, took elements of hip-hop, funk, rock, ambient, psychedelia as well as found sounds, oddball spoken-word clips and cut-out bin nuggetsa literal sweep of sounds that exist on planet earthand then wrote the ultimate lesson. All this from a suburban kid who grew up in Davis, Californiaa small, out of the way aggie college town. But Josh was a suburban kid with a passionan obsession, reallyfor vinyl. Davis has spent a good chunk of his life scavenging through what most dismiss as ephemera: the records that reside in those musty and dark used record stores. To many of us, they are less than meaningless. But to Josh Davis, they are lost souls. And, as their rescuer, he has done them an honor. Because these lost souls have a home on Endtroducing.

It is an album that sits with you and lingers. Its an album you can return to and discover whole new areas you hadnt been aware of, like finding a room in your house you never knew was there. Or like the time you pulled The Catcher in Rye off the shelf and, after reading it, thinking, I didnt know it was about that. But what draws me to it time and againand what drew me to writing this bookis that Endtroducing never fails to deliver emotionally on so many levels. If I were to find one word that resonates more than anything within