Yeah. Can I ask you a question?
Yeah?
Is it healthier to take a bath or a shower?
Is it healthier shower?
From a medical perspective, I think more relaxing. Okay, which is better? Bacon or ham? Which is better for the heart?
Lake?
Which is more heart healthy?
That's a toss up.
Okay, we'll say bacon is screaming a good cardiovascular workout.
Gummy?
All right, Time to take a bath while eating bacon and screaming my head off. From Gimblet Media, I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode.
Nick.
Right after the break, Hey.
Hey, how's it going?
How are you?
The clocks move forward an hour so it's not all dark anymore.
Huh. These two subdued dudes aren't on ludes. They're Canadian and their lack of expression is an expression of their proud Canadian heritage. One of these Canadians is me, Jonathan Goldstein, and the other is Nick. Nick grew up in Ontario with his older brother Chris. They had the same dad, but different moms. Still, Chris would always say.
There's no such thing as a half brother, no matter what anyone says, like we're brothers.
Chris split his time between his parents' houses, so the brothers mostly saw each other on weekend, but I think.
Because of the rarity of his presence, it was that much more special to spend time together. We'd stay up until four in the morning playing video games, listening to music.
Nick says his brother introduced him to the music that would form the blueprint for his taste. Chris loved electronica and house music, but his special love was beatboxing, and Chris was an amazing beatboxer.
It was like relentless, Like we would go to McDonald's and the car ride there would be beatboxing, Sitting down in the booth would be beatboxing. It would just be like constant. I'm not taking the picture.
Nick sends me a grainy YouTube video from two thousand and six. In it, a shaggy haired teenage Chris is leaning against a wall with a group of friends outside a bowling alley. He pulls the gum from his mouth, and as casually as whistling a tune, starts to beatbox. It's hard to understand how the sound of a whole drum line is coming from the mouth of one seventeen year old boy. In the YouTube, comments a twelve year old Nick has written you were My Hero, only a
few months after the video was shot. Nick remembers coming downstairs one morning to find his mom sobbing. She told him Chris had been in an accident.
At which point I thought, Okay, Chris has been an accident and broke his arm, Chris has been an accent and broke his nose, whatever it might be. Yeah, you know, when nothing that bad has happened to you in your life, you don't jump to the worst case scenario when someone says there's been an accident and then Chris had died.
Chris had been killed in a car crash. He was seventeen years old.
I feel like I'm warned in the way a twelve year old would like. I would often find myself doing things that I would think that Chris would have thought were cool to do, and trying to keep those parts of him that I admired alive. So I got like a little bit more into beatboxing, and of course listening to music to music that he liked, like mostly Bonobo.
Binobo is a British DJ and electronica musician. He was Chris's favorite, and so became a favorite of Nick's too, and even as Nick grew older, Chris's musical influence remained. Through the years, he kept an ear out for new albums by Chris's favorite bands, always wondering what Chris would make of them, which brings us to twenty seventeen. By this point, Nick was in his early twenties. He was at his parents' place having a beer with a friend when the friend put on the newest Bonobo album.
And he started playing this track that opens like very clearly with beatboxing.
It was just a short sample, a few seconds of beatboxing that Binobo had looped several times.
And the second I heard that, I'm just like, I was like, that's Chris for sure. The sound of his beatboxing is like just totally drilled into my head, like I just I just know what it sounds like, in the same way I know what my wife's sneeze sounds like. There's, of course, like the very logical part of me that was being like, there's no way this is just some
random sample. There's no way that could be Chris. But the other ninety nine percent of me, I'm just like, that's got to be him, Like that's got to be.
Him in that uncanny moment as he listened to the sound of his brother being brought back to life a decade after his death. Nick looked over at his friend and said, nothing.
I remember, not wanting to bring it up in the moment as to not like kind of freak him out, to be like, well, this song reminds me of my dead brother.
Nick's modus operandi is to never impose a burden on others, but as a result, even into his adulthood, he's never quite figured out how to broach the subject of his brother's death, even with some of his closest friends. Many of them don't even know Nick ever had an older brother at all. But in the weeks that followed, Nick played the song in private over and over. The experience of listening to it and feeling Chris's breath in it
provided him with a space to grieve. Since Chris was cremated, there isn't a grave for Nick to visit, and so the sonic space became all the more in value.
Feels like that sound came from a different time, Like came from the time of my memories as a kid with Chris. It's nice to hear a person's voice, so you don't get to hear anymore.
But Nick wants to be absolutely sure that he is hearing his brother's voice. Despite his initial certainty, a part of him wonders is his brain just working through the grief or is he really hearing his dead brother's voice in a track by a Grammy nominated musician. Nick has several points of evidence to support the latter. First, of course, it just sounds like Chris. Second, Chris often reached out to musicians he admired. In fact, at the Ottawa Jazz Fest,
Chris even navigated backstage to meet Binobo. The two ended up chatting about sampling in a bid to further impress Bonobo. Nick thinks it's entirely possible Chris followed up that interaction by sending him beatboxing samples. Samples Binobo might have saved. The third point of evidence the song's name Ontario, Ontario, the Canadian province Nick and Chris are from. Bonobo is from England, but he met Chris in Ontario. Nick has
tried everything to get a definitive answer. He searched online for information about Bonobo's samples, and about once a year he'll reach out to Bonobo. His management and his record label.
I'll like go on an emailing spree and I'll reach out to like everyone who's ever sniffed Banobo, being like I do not want to like say that my brother deserves credit for anything, or.
Like you just want to know payment or anything like that.
I just want to know.
And they've never responded and never responded. I mean it's not like the Rolling Stones, right, I mean you'd think that he would be a little more accessible. Yeah, I'm just looking at Banobo just to get a sense of but all I'm coming up with a wow, amazing pictures of primates. Oh yeah, that would also cow. I'm just looking. Oh god, it's very moving. You haven't experienced true emotion until you've seen a picture of two bonobos playing with
their baby. And then there's their personalities. Did you know bonobos share food with strangers, or that they make love face to face, or that female bonobos show a preference for unaggressive males, that is, males who are subdued, not rude. But Nick did not approach me to learn about bonobos, even though they are wonderful. Nick came to me for help.
It would be amazing to use your fame and clout and power to get a hold of the people that I haven't been able to get a hold of.
Nick has an outsized view of my fame and clout and power. But it's not like I'll be trying to get an actual Bonobo on the phone, which by the way, would be adorable. I'll only be trying to get Bonobo on the phone. So I promise to try, and Nick, in a subdued way, is thrilled. Awesome, thank you, thank you? And in my own subdued way, so am I I even break out a little beatboxing a mouse boosh? Did you hear that?
Yeah, a little scratching.
Is it possible for a beatboxer to be recognized by just a brief sample? Can one actually identify beatboxing as one would a voice? In short? Does Nick's story make sense? Before approaching Bonobo? I want to consult an expert, and Nick thinks he knows just the person, beatboxing ic and former member of the Roots Rozelle.
I remember Chris saying that Rozelle is the greatest of all time.
I know this other guy named Devon.
Nice.
Did I mention him last time we spoke. Devon was a Gimblet intern who participated in many beatboxing competitions. Every time I'd run into him, like say in the bathroom or about to go into the bathroom or coming out of the bathroom, I'd say, hey, Devon, want to spit a little something for me? And he'd laugh and say maybe later. Yeah, Devon's pretty cool.
Rozelle is like beatboxing Royalty.
But Nick seems super stoked about this Rozelle guy.
But I mean no, like, in no way do I mean to discredit Devon.
I send Rozelle an email, and when I don't hear back, my producer Khalila finds a phone number for him, which oddly is listed on his Instagram. Is it possible that he's not aware of it, that he did it by accident?
That would be weird.
I don't know. Look at me, I'm constantly making mistakes. How old is he?
It's fifty seven?
Oh fifty seven? What an inspiration?
Wow, here's more excited to talk to him because you're contemporaries.
He's fifty seven and he's still beat boxing away. Fantastic.
Leave your name and your number and someone will return local.
So I think we got the right number. The mailbox is full.
I cannot accept any messages at this time.
The box it is, of course it is Devin. Remember that I said I knew named Devon, great beatboxer, really cool guy.
Hey.
Yeah.
After Nick's hero Rozelle crap the beatboxing bed, I was blessed with the good fortune to get Devon on the phone.
For pro beatboxers, it's very, very easy to tell who the beatboxer is just by a quick sample of their beat boxing.
Right.
Your idea that somebody could recognize that just from the beatboxing is totally on point.
After Devon tells me that I'm totally on point, I asked if you could listen to the Bonobo sample alongside a recording of Chris to see if it's the same person.
Let's take a gamber.
When you went, I thought you were going to launch into some beatboxing. Now you've given me an appetite.
Hey Ontario by Bonobo.
Devin forges ahead, ignoring my hint to rustle up a hasty beatboxing Bouya Bayze Ontario by Bonobo. Next, for a point of comparison, I send him the YouTube video of Chris, and to my surprise, I've seen this video.
Really, I swear I've seen.
That how why would you have seen it?
Because YouTube was the only way people learn how to beatbox, and this video is like, he has really really good skills also for that time. It's shocking to me that you would be this good in two thousand and six. That's crazy. Those are really impressive boxing skills.
So impressive in fact, that Devin wonders, if indeed Chris is being sampled on the track, why wouldn't Binobo use a flashier example of his talent. Why would he instead loop something that sounds so sedate.
Like just very basic, That sort of would be the type of thing anyone would do as their first sounds. So I just don't know why he would take some random kid sample of the most basic version of beatboxing and put it.
In Stylistically, Devon isn't able to link the Banobo sample to the YouTube video, so I send him another example of Chris's work, hoping it might help clarify.
Okay, I heard something interesting.
What's that right there? Okay, so is it that sound?
Yeah, he does that.
It's the same thing from the Lenobo song. It does actually sound pretty similar now that I'm hearing just that part.
Now that Devin's confirmed the plausibility of Nick's story, reaching out to Bonobos seems like a reasonable next step. So email is record label, then an email is management. Then I email his record label again, and his management again. After waiting several weeks, I call in a favor from a friend with music industry connections who gets me a more direct email address. But just like Nick, I hear nothing back. Thanks calling red Light management if you know
your part of the extension. So I try phoning Bnobo's management company, but there's no operator, no directory. I have no way of knowing what extension to dial. Let me just try a random one maybe.
In Validentary. Try again, in validentary, Please try again one one a ah in Validentary.
For God's sake, my fame, power, even my clout is getting me nowhere. Why is it so difficult to get a response. In all my correspondence, I keep explaining over and over how this isn't about money or credit, how Chris idolized Bonobo and Nick listens to Ontario as a way to mourn him, and yet I still can't get
anyone to even engage. Maybe there's something about the whole business of sampling and authorship that's making them touchy because when sampling took off in the seventies, almost nothing was cleared, but then about a decade later, the tide turned and the lawsuits began. The Beastie Boys are still paying for
the samples on Paul's boutique. Kanye West was sued by the parents of a child he sampled from a YouTube video, and just last summer there was drama between Beyonce and Calise because Beyonce used a sample for milkshake without Callis's permission. Is it possible that for all our reassurances, Bonobo's people still think we're angling for a lawsuit? And then, at long last, Benobo's people finally get back to me. I'm
sorry for the delay in responding. The email reads, I did get confirmation that the person you've emailed us about was not sampled in the song Ontario, thank you and best. There's no sense of who was doing the confirming, no mention of Chris by name. He's only referred to as the person you've emailed us about. I write back, asking who and what was sampled so I can close the loop on this whole thing. After waiting three months and receiving no reply, I follow up, but I never get
a response. I did get confirmation that the person you've emailed us about, you know, being your brother was not sampled in the song Ontario. After all the waiting, all I have for Nick is a generic letter that turns his beautiful talisman, the song he's been listening to for five years to dust. I wish that I even had an email from them that was a little bit more considerate.
Yeah, for sure, but yeah, thanks again so much for looking into it and really appreciate it. Well.
Nick's subdued reaction is to be expected. As a subdued Canadian myself, I can tell the news hurts, but being the kind of person who never wants to burden, Nick shows more concern for my disappointment than his own. Before this whole undertaking, Ontario could exist in a gray zone, Nick could believe he was hearing his brother. Now that that's been taken away from him, he's lost his place to mourn. But maybe there's another way to provide Nick with such a space. And so I brainstorm ideas for
a new Sonic memorial. Maybe I could get a remix from that guy Devin, whom I think I already mentioned. What about offers my producer Khalila, that other musical act Chris liked. Do you mean Devin, I ask no, She says, the erbalizer Khalila is contradicting me. Isn't due to insubordination alone. She's referencing a detail from that story about Chris's meeting Bonobo at the Ottawa Jazz Festival. Nick had mentioned that when Chris first slipped backstage, he ran into another.
Group and He's like, Hey, can you guys tell me where Bonobo is? Do I really want to meet him? He's my favorite.
One of the men in the group turned to Chris and said, in a pronounced British accent.
Banobo, like, fuck Bonobo?
Where the herbalizer, the erbalizer? Pottymouth Banobo? Hating the erbalizer. The erbalizer would go on to become another one of Chris's all time favorites and Nick's as well. And so I email an address I find online and explain Nick's situation, and then I make my request. Maybe the Herbalizer could create a song that features Chris's beatboxing. Whereas I'd spent months trying to get anyone even remotely associated with Bonobo to respond I get an email from the Erbalizer that
same day. It's from the band's co creator, Jake Werry, who explains that while the Herbalizer is now defunct, he's working on a new project with a new partner. He tells me they'd be up to hear more about the idea. So a few days later, I get on a video call with James Moss aka DJ Sterling Moss and Jake Werry aka The Herbalizer.
With British and we say the Herbalize us sorry today, an h you know none of this Herbalizer. Now look look here, oh boy, this is the bloody.
Herbalizer Herbalizer, Okay. Jake has the vibe of a character from a Guy Ritchie film, the ex rugby player who works as an enforcer for a loan shark played by Jason Statham. You know, scary, but he is well within his right to be tearing me a new one. I apologize for the faux pas.
Oh, I'm minded kidding.
I loved it. Sure, I've produced radio stories, but I've never once produced a song, not even one of those public radio premium ones. Ira Glass and Peter Segel singing a parody version of Biggie and Puff Daddy's more money, more problems, but with lyrics about how your money solves problems, problems inherent to sustaining important journalism. So, with neither musical training nor the slightest idea what I'm doing, I start music producing, offering suggestions for the vibe I'm going for.
Elegiic might be overstating it, but like allowing some of that feeling of loss into it.
Or you know, I think that the way that he beat boxes is not wistful. The story might be, but that's not the why that he performed.
Yeah, I was just.
Thinking wistful beatboxing. What was I thinking? James and Jake are well within their rights to be tearing me yet another new one.
It should be more like a celebratory, positive, happy thing. It should be about him living on through the music. But I think to see what happens, rather than trying to force it to go in a direction, just just let that, let the vibe happen. Man.
Throughout our conversation, my mind keeps turning back to one question. Why would two popular, successful musicians be so amenable to talking to a first time music producer like myself. James has performed for crowds that have numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and Jake has had songs featured in Hollywood films. Why would they entertain a request to write a whole
piece of music honoring someone they don't even know. But it won't be long before the answer to my question is revealed, And in the meantime, when I tell Nick the idea, he's thrilled.
Walking through a really nice suburb of London, Oh my way to see Jake.
In June, Nick travels to England to see family, but knowing Jake lives in London and being such a big fan, Nick nervously asks me if Jake might want to meet up. I figure it's not a bad idea for the two of them to get to know each other. It might even help the song. So I asked Jake if he'd be open to it, and once again Jake surprises me. Not only does he agree, but he invites Nick over to his home.
It's lovely little street. It's not where i'd imagine Jake of the Herbalizer to live.
Nick records the visit and tells me about it later.
There's a little nerve wracking walking up there. Hey, Jake, it's good, eh man, and this is surreal. That means you have to say, honestly, I.
Wake up in the morning, I put my pants on just like you.
Yeah.
I think I was a bit intimidated both it being someone who I kind of admire, who's music especially I mean I admire, and then also just like the fact that they're British and you know, have that you know, different sense of humor and a bit of an edge to them and stuff. When I was here visiting my cousin, he's like a diehard always sister.
Okay, right, Jake ushers Nick into the house and doesn't bother standing on ceremony. Almost the second Nicks inside, before he's even positioned his microphone, Jake gets right into it.
So how long is it since your brother poss uh?
Two thousand and six? I think, so, okay, I want one two thousand and four.
My wife died in two thousand and four, Jake says. And this, it turns out, is the reason why Jake's been so open to Nick. He relates to him. Around the same time Nick lost Chris, Jake lost his wife Mary, also unexpectedly and also tragically, off.
Of the plane going to jailing Popeans and I got a call from my nigh by saying get to the hospital.
Case hospital.
The neighbor had heard Jake's two sons, only four and five at the time, crying next door. An hour later, the kids were still crying.
She heard my little one say it's a pillow under her head.
It was then the neighbor jumped over the back fence and found Mary lying on the floor dead. Mary had been emptying the dishwasher, hanging the utensils up on a rack when she suddenly collapsed. It would take a few days to work out what had happened, but it seems to screw on the utensil rack had connected with a live wire under the wall. Mary was electrocuted. It was a freak accident, amazing.
Mary was really tough, but I had two little kids and so it has a testament to my love to her. So I'm not going to fucking destroy me. Yeah, the best style I can.
Like.
I was essentially a stranger walking into his home and he told me his life story within five minutes, which is admirable. You know something that I wish, I really wish I did have more the confidence just to be open, just to be brutally open with everyone.
Well.
Nick often worries that talking about his grief might be a burden to others. With Jake knowing he's been through something similar, that burden disappeared, and so Nick was more open than he usually is. He and Jay chatted about their respective losses.
There's something he said at one point that really stuck with me. This like, you know, once you hit a certain you know, a certain low point, you just can't get any lower than that, you know, you kind of bottom out. And and I related to that. Despite the fact that on paper his hardship seriously pelt Weigh's mind, you know it, it felt like I've been where he's been. He guys the most lovely little backyard with a cherry tree in it and a few cherries, and my.
Answer check clumps. There's a fucking pain growing your own vegetables.
And then in the back backyard there's this studio, which is like also equally magical. It's a big, big shed, got everything that's got a full drunkit inscene, collection of vinyl, all sorts of other instruments.
That's one of my favorite ones.
In the studio, Jake plays Nick some of the things he's been working on. As they continue to talk, I've had.
Some fucking down, down down moments, days, weeks, months, years, and music has definitely really been very cathartic for me.
When he was at his lowest, Jake couldn't bring himself to make any music at all. It was a drought that lasted years. But lately he's been on a tear. He tells Nick about a night last January, just after leaving the studio two.
In the morning, I was pretty high and went to bed and I was just playing the tracks on my phone on repeat. I was just like, I found myself chuckling aloud to myself with this like deep belly laugh, with this profound sense of just joy that the music I was listening to sounded fantastic, and the realization that I had made it.
I just couldn't believe it.
So this sounds amazing, and I've made it.
Jake's collaborator James, stops by to also meet Nick, and Nick tells him about that fateful meeting backstage at the Ottawa Jazz Fest.
Noble Worth of Herbalizer, and that's a fair responded it.
I mean, he made me a Keish.
In all fairness, it was a microwave Keish, but it was a very good microwave.
Keish.
Threw together a little salad fa We made keish and salad in his backyard, and I think that was one of those real moments where it's like, you know, I'm not particularly religious, but if Chris were watching down on me in that moment, he'd be having the laugh that I'm having Kish with the fucking herbalizer.
Yeah.
If Chris could see this, he'd think it's insanely cool.
Nick is a husband, a new dad, But no matter how life moves along, and no matter how old he gets, it'll always continue to think of Chris as the cool older brother, his hero, and eating Kish with the fucking herbalizer. Chris would definitely approve.
We're gonna have to go to train.
At the end of all this, Jake offered to drive me to my train to the airport, which was so so nice of him, and I honestly I don't think I would have made my flight if it wasn't for that.
Thanks again, man so much for all this.
The moral of the story is, indeed, fuck Binopo verb Flaser.
Hey Hey, Hi, Nick, Hey, how's it going.
It's good.
I miss you guys.
Three months after they bonded with Nick. That day in London, Jake and James get back in touch and they've made a song, a song featuring Chris's beatboxing. So we all get on a call together to listen. Okay, here we go, sona up Nick. The track is called We Are the Paradox.
Twitch.
You know, we wanted to build something around your brother. He's the engine, and I had this really real feeling towards the end. It was like, you know, he's back. He's here now and it's great to work with him, even though he's not here.
Leaving Jake's one day, James said he had this lyric rattling around in his head. Put the beat in the box. So they added it to the song.
And there's a lyric that says, cut the phone, stop the clocks, which is a reference to a W. H. Jordan poem called funeral Blues. It's an odes to a lost loved one. We are the Paradox, which you can interpret however you like. It will mean when it means to you as it means for what it means to us.
Later, Nick also plays the song for his dad, unbelievable.
Twitch and then at the end everything drops out and it's kind of like sending Chris back to back to the world that he's in now, so kind of everything fades out and then Chris kind of goes to the distance as well. It's it's saying goodbye again. Sorry.
Just incredible.
To have that much life and energy in the track was something Chris would have been happy about.
You know, I don't know.
It just feels right. It feels right, and I'm glad to feel like like it's mine.
We're all a mess of paradoxes, believing in things we know can't be true, missing the dead, but also whunwilling to talk about them. We walk around carrying feelings too complicated and contradictory to express. When it all becomes too big and words aren't enough to help get it all out, there's always music. This episode of Heavyweight was produced by senior producer Khalila Holt and me Jonathan Goldstein, along with
Mohey mcgauker. Our supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Special thanks to Chris's parents, Steve and Stephanie, as well as to Emily Condon, Steve Marsh Liz Fulton, Max Green, Ellen Frankman, Natalie Russell, Alex Bloomberg, and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Samson and he himself, Bobby Lord. James and Jake's new
group is called The Brilliant. Keep an eye out for them in twenty twenty three, and in the meantime, check out our own Brilliant, Christine Fellows' new album, Stuff We All Get. Additional music credits can be found on our website, gimlipmedia dot com. Slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by The Weaker Thans courtesy of Epitaph Records. Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight or email us at Heavyweight at gimbletmedia
dot com. This is our fiftieth episode. Next week fifty one is our final episode of the season and if I'm not mistaken, I believe it is our longest episode yet. So see you then.
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