Subject to classification

>> DJ/producer Greyboy on the scourge of acid jazz and buying records online

by SCOTT C

I guess it was 1993 when I had my first encounter with Greyboy. I was living in Toronto and had just secured my first weekly DJ gig, something that required me to spend all kinds of money I didn't have on records every week. On a very hectic shipping day at my neighbourhood record store, I managed to grab a copy of Greybreaks Vol. 1, Greyboy's first record and a piece that held 'nuff respect in my crate. Today, Greyboy is still making music out of his native San Diego, where earlier this year he released Mastered the Art on Ubiquity. Although he's evolved musically over the years, his sound is still rooted in hip hop, jazz and funk grooves for the discerning listener. Often portrayed in the press as a major player in the advent of acid jazz in the early '90s, Greyboy's catalogue will undoubtedly outlive this simple classification for reasons that those of you with any of his albums know all too well.



Mirror: Some people seem to think that acid jazz is alive and well today, only it's taken another form. What do you think?

Greyboy: Not in my world. Acid jazz was never a kind of music like so many people think--

M: It's a record store file heading.

G: It was a really bad classification. A lot of people don't know that the whole thing started out as a joke. In London around '88, a lot of nights that played strictly rare groove shit started to catch on, but acid house was huge at the time. So to get more people in to these rare groove nights they would bill it as "acid jazz." That's how that started. Then what's-his-name started the label and it took on sort of a life of its own. I never considered myself part of that. They kind of pulled me in.

M: I was reading some blurb about you on the 'Net the other day and they were calling you one of the founding fathers of acid jazz!

G: None of my peers have ever used that term. People can call it whatever they want.

M: What happened between you and the Greyboy Allstars?

G: I put the Allstars together as the first group on what was going to be Greyboy Records. Obviously the live thing took off and got really popular, followed by all kinds of things that eventually lead to them doing their own thing and then breaking up.

M: Karl Denson just came out on Blue Note.

G: Yeah--

M: Are you in touch with any of those guys now?

G: I'm super tight with the guitar player, but that's about it.



The 'Net or Nebraska

M: What are you playing these days when it's time to DJ out?

G: Rare groove shit, hip hop shit, basically anything that'll rock a party.

M: You still dig for gems?

G: Oh, definitely, but there's no digging in San Diego. To be honest with you, there's no digging anywhere anymore.

M: I disagree.

G: There isn't! I find so much shit on the Internet now that I don't even go to record stores anymore. I mean, I've been to a sick record store in Nebraska but that's like, Nebraska. It's just so easy to get hooked up with people now--

M: You mean dealers.

G: Yeah. There's always a way to find someone who doesn't know what they have.

M: I gotta say that I'm not a big fan of buying records off the 'Net.

G: Believe me, if there's a record store in front of me, I'm going in.

M: Well you're coming to Montreal man, where, amazingly, the pickin's are still good.

At le Swimming on Wednesday, Nov. 7, 10pm, $6