Artist Spotlight

In my senior year of college – when I was still ridiculously caught up in having every drum break that existed on record, a buddy of mine sent me a track via AIM simply titled “MLC – In My Life” and told me to check out the huge open drums at around the 1:45 mark. Surely enough, there was a heavy open solo with a nice little swing to it. Great, more drums. If there was one thing I needed in my life at that point, it was more songs with open and “sampleable” drums. But I was surprised by the next section of the tune. The repetition of those three words over and over “Iiiiin my life…… Iiiiin myyyyy life….” over that rhythm – the whole thing was just so soulful, dramatic and…. deep. I started the song over after getting lost in it for a few moments and was really thrown off when I heard the first few bars. It was this light, folky sort of fair, and it didn’t at all go with that heavy percussion bit at 1:45 – they were two completely different swings and much different tempos. But it was so good. I remember those goose bumps,, that oh-so-rare feeling we search and search for and only every now and again can obtain. I had found something great. Finally, something to geek out over with friends who weren’t in the know, as surely, none of them had this bad boy.

LISTEN TO “IN MY LIFE”

So I passed it around to a select few of my fellow record nerds and would watch minds get blown at 1:45. But, for a change, these uber geeks (myself included) were actually really digging the track – it wasn’t just about the damn drums. I could only imagine what the rest of the record (if there was one) sounded like. But, unfortunately, I was sort of screwed when it came to acquiring info on the artist. My buddy had gotten the track from a collector in Arizona who, if legend serves correct, had found it in a Goodwill store. The title of the song, presumably, was the only thing we knew for certain. It couldn’t really be deemed any particular genre – we couldn’t even begin to guess what ethnicity this guy could be. I had to ask and ask my friend to try and find out whatever info he could, even if it was just a last name. After a few weeks of constant nagging, a small portion of the mystery had been solved – MLC = Matthew Larkin Cassell.

This wasn’t too helpful. No matches came up anywhere online, and none of the record nerd forums were helpful.

I had sort of given up on the whole thing, imagining it to be some mythical LP that there were maybe a handful of left, scattered in basements and storage units around the world. My buddy Kon had fallen head over heels for the tune though, so I gave him a copy of the MP3 and he pressed up a few hundred copies via Turntable Lab and gave it away as a gift to those who purchased his Uncle Junior’s Friday Fish Fry comp via the TTLab site. Pretty cool. Maybe I’d even hear someone put it into a mix or something like that.

A year later, when I had settled into a gig at a record label, the song came up on my iTunes at the office and I was immediately taken back to that first listen. But I wanted more – bad. So, even though I thought there was no chance, I used my recently acquired record biz wherewithal and went to the BMI and ASCAP websites and did a search for songwriters whose names bared even a close resemblance. ASCAP turned up nothing, and knowing that BMI was pretty much my last shot, I typed the name slow and steady, making sure I wasn’t misspelling anything. No songwriters matched, and I assumed it to be a lost cause, but tried searching for performers as well. Surely enough there was a match. I figured there was no way it was the same guy. He didn’t even have any works registered from what I could see, but I called BMI anyway to find out what steps I could take to possibly find out more. I was told to write a letter to him and they would forward it to the address they had on file. So I did. I hand wrote a note saying something like “I’m not sure if this is you, or if you’re even alive, but if you are, ‘In My Life’ is one of the most infectious songs of all time…” and a bunch of other psycho super fan sort of stuff. I asked him whether or not he had more material, how I could get it, everything I wanted to know. Signed and sealed, I sent it off and only hoped that I would hear back.

A month later, while watching TV in my apartment one evening, I got a phone call.

“Hello?”
A strikingly deep voice asked “Hi. Is this Daniel?”
“Yes, who’s this?”
“This is Matt Cassell.”

Floored. I was completely floored. The whole spiel actually worked. He told me that he barely even thought about his music since the early 80s, and that he currently worked in Marin County, CA, as a teacher, but that he spends the majority of his free time surfing. He hadn’t been in a recording studio in 20+ years and had totally ditched music as a profession. Wow. And more music? There was a whole album from which “In My Life” came, and another album followed, plus a 45 some years later. And most importantly, he was going to send them all to me as a gift.

I remember when that package finally showed up a few weeks later.

My then-girlfriend was visiting from New York and was a little taken aback by how all my attention suddenly shifted to what had just come in the mail. I ripped open the package and pulled out Pieces, the album with the now infamous track. Matt the Cat was also enclosed and the 45 with the picture sleeve of Matt as a baby. It was so surreal, sort of, to have looked for that music for so long and to then be holding an actual copy, about to listen to it, in my bedroom, over a year after originally being introduced. It was like going on a blind date.

Now I had definitely had hopes and assumptions as to what the music was going to be like, but those were just hopes. There was the off chance that the music could have sucked – a lot. Such had definitely been the case before. You hear some tune off a really rare album, finally hear the record in its entirety, and its garbage. Well, I’m sitting here writing about the record three years later – so suffice to say, it didn’t disappoint.

The music was exactly what I had wanted it to be – sort of like late ‘70s Paul Simon meets Steely Dan, but way more minimal. But you could hate both Paul Simon and Steely Dan and still like this. I know, weird. From the first guitar notes of “Rendezvous,” to the moody and somewhat eerie intro of “Heaven” (and the ridiculous groove) to the sadness and masterful drumming and feel of “Ecotez Moi,” I knew I had struck gold, and that, I now owned my most prized and valuable record.

It didn’t stop there though. Now that I could record “In My Life” to a much better quality, I sent Kon a newer rip of it, which he showcased as the star track on BBE’s ‘Kings of Digging’ comp that he and his partner, Amir, did with Japan’s most famous collector, DJ Muro. I had put Matt and Kon in touch so they could chat and clear the tune. They also became friends and Matt sent him the same three pieces he sent me, and happily cleared the track, still completely stunned that this was all happening.

After The Kings Of Diggin was finally released, the track was everywhere and Matthew Larkin Cassell’s Pieces became an EXTREMELY sought after LP. Six months after the BBE comp was released, a copy of the album made its way on to ebay. Another then went for $1,400. Copies of the second LP, Matt the Cat started showing up on ebay soon after and would go for $750.00. The 45 still hasn’t found its way up there, far as I know, but I’m expecting it to.

Since all of this craziness came from the new found life of “In My Life,” the Japanese company P-Vine has re-released both Pieces and Matt the Cat in Japan and Matt, 26 years later, has made his way back into the studio, recording a few new tracks and pressing a hundred 12” singles. Even those have found their way into the ebay market place, selling for $50.00 plus. Matt’s passion for music has been reignited, even playing a few local gigs out where he lives in Marin County, CA.

Just a few days back, while writing this, Kon sent me an instant message saying “Madlib sampled Matt for this new Madvillain track.” Check out “3.214″ with Madlib’s use of “Heaven” to craft a pretty moody beat that serves as a perfect vehicle for the voice of MF Doom. Crazy, right? Pretty amazing what can stem from one collector sharing a simple MP3 with another.

LISTEN TO “HEAVEN” BY MATTHEW LARKIN CASSELL
LISTEN TO “3.214″ BY MADVILLAIN

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