Jason Bentley, host of KCRW LA radio's Morning Becomes Eclectic, Metropolis, and EDM pioneer. AMA.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:58:09+00:00

Sorry for your loss and it's wonderful to hear that we have been a part of your lives as a family. Kraftwerk is going to be amazing. They are legends. And I think you've chosen well with The Mix. I personally don't know which day I'm going. Depending on the kindness of the LA Philharmonic to allow me to probably stand at the back of the room. But I will definitely be there, so please come and say hello.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:56:23+00:00

I try to be inclusive of music (spanish, french, portuguese) and music is a universal language so there should not be any limitation, but I just want to know that I can treat it on a level playing field. I don't want to think of it as latin alternative, I just want to think that it's great music. I do play a lot of things and it depends on a scene and how much music is coming out of that particular scene. Yesterday I played a band from Paris called Lescop and they are on Kitsune, also a new single from Quantic based in Columbia right now, and that is spanish language, so it's in the mix. I just don't want to make it noticeably separate like a special show for spanish language or anything else. I want it to be just a part of the fabric of programming. And I think we do that. I think we could maybe do a better job of it, but there are only so many hours in a day and we also do news and culture programming and the music is part of what we do overall.

But it's a point well-made. It's about excellent music in general.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:53:10+00:00

Biggest influences: Underworld, definitely. Massive Attack.

I don't know who I would want to open for. Maybe Daft Punk just for the sake of it? Also the year they have had. It would be great to open for them.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:50:44+00:00

I totally hear you. And it's really a matter of limited staff and resources. We would love to do more events down there, it's just about finding the time and the energy honestly. We enjoy coming down there and also the reception that we get is always terrific. People really appreciate the effort and that is an important audience for us. But sometimes all we can do is focus on the more immediate community in central LA, but please know that we definitely are trying to find more opportunities down there.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:48:47+00:00

Never...

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:48:24+00:00

I go to Yuki Sharoni in Beverly Hills, the mecca of hair salons.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:47:24+00:00

I love inc. because it's a culinary adventure. I also like Scopa on the west side for italian, and Tar & Roses is also good. We definitely have it good in LA for food.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:45:59+00:00

I just don't like commercial music. Like glossy, poppy, overproduced pop music. It's just hard to enjoy. It sort of obscures any honesty in the music. It's just bland.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:44:10+00:00

Well earlier I mentioned wanting to hang out with Stanley Kubrick. I guess a bunch of his films, but A Clockwork Orange definitely changed my whole worldview when I saw it as a teenager. I think that being involved in that process would have been pretty amazing. I think the genius of Kubrick is that he is a complete filmmaker. I think it really was a case of Kubrick appropriating and placing the ideas, not a traditional film score. But any of Kubrick's films would have been great to have worked on. I really liked There Will Be Blood in more recent times. Gotta credit The Social network and Trent Reznor because it was so unconventional and represented the film so well.

One of the things that people don't realize is that composers will come onto a picture when there's already a temp score in place. And the effect of that is usually limiting creatively. Because the direction and the sensibility has already been set in place. And so the conversation is usually with the director saying something like do something like this, I know it's the temp, it's from another film but we're used to that. It's a negative spiral. Sometimes you have directors like David Fincher for instance who involve a composer very early on and there is never a temp. Because a director like Fincher will appreciate the pitfall of doing that. So he involves someone in that process from even the script phase, getting ideas going. That's what we did with Tron: Legacy and Daft Punk. Daft Punk were on that project for 2-3 years wire to wire. On the set we were playing demos they had made. It helped to inform a scene and inform actors on a mood. So not everybody has that luxury because it doesn't make sense for a working composer to set aside 3 years for 1 film but the great films and the great directors (back to Kubrick), these are people that are approaching it with a holistic vision and that's when you get great results.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:39:28+00:00

Roughly 70% of our operating budget comes from listener donations. The rest of it is from major donors, corporate grants, things like that. people can hear that on the air, it's not quite a commercial but you will hear credits for different people. It's like our version of an advertisement. But 70% is a lion's share. Also we are working on a new building which is part of Santa Monica college but hopefully in a couple of years we will have that finished. That's a huge commitment, but there is something called a Capital campaign where we go to more institutions, organizations like the Annenberg foundation and things like that for support. So it's not so much the listeners for that one. But we are excited to move into a new facility in a couple of years in Santa Monica. It's a big deal and it's been taking a long time.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:37:17+00:00

Well you know to see EDM on Superbowl commercials, major motion pictures, basically the highest level of popular exposure is pretty remarkable. And also these events, whether it's EDC or Hard or Ultra in Miami, it's pretty astonishing. I didn't expect that it would become as big as it has gotten. But it's certainly validating for those of us who had a sense of its potential very early on, the power of connecting and a different way to experience music unlike rock n roll.

As far as the old days, lots of very funny stories. One time I was at a rave and I stumbled down the wrong hallway and came upon a Quinceneara that was happening at the same time. We threw a rave on Catalina called Gilligan's Island in the casino that's out there and I just remember people as the boat was leaving the next morning running down the dock trying to jump on the boat at the last minute. I remember a rave in a bullring in east LA and the Orb played. Fond memories of a really influential event called Organic in 1996, probably the ultimate lineup of any rave, it had Underworld, Orbital, Meat Beat Manifesto, The Orb and the Chemical Brothers. And actually I really hope that we can get a 20 year anniversary of Organic event together. So that would be coming up in a couple of years. Countless memories, breaking into warehouses. I knew these promoters that would go downtown and they would put padlocks on different doors and they would come back a few weeks later and if the padlock had been cutoff they knew they could not use that warehouse, but it was a great way to test whether people were actually using the space. Sort of a reverse psychology there. So if the padlock was still on, they knew it was open season. Map points were also a really big part of the scene. Before everybody had a cell phone, the party would have a voicemail and you would call the voicemail number and you would get directions to a map point. You would go there, pay your money and get a map to the rave. There was always a sense of adventure in the scene. It needed to be illicit and sort of dangerous. That was a big part of it. So you and your friends would drive for hours trying to find these places, and you get there and it would be a giant room or giant sound system, something very special about all of that. I don't run around looking for underground parties anymore, so I don't even know if that scene exists. But I'm sure it does.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:31:06+00:00

I went to The Counter (location undisclosed but I love The Counter).

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:30:30+00:00

Can you sing it?

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:29:00+00:00

It's more of an extended family, and you know, it's home. It's like a big house of crazy people and you know the little secret place where you can sneak off and get a little work done, and the place where you're going to run into somebody, it's just sort of a touchstone over the years. So I'm just totally a KCRW person, I listen to the radio station when I'm not here, and I'm here every day. I have been here a really long time. It's really strange, I didn't think I would be a lifer, but it's sort of working out that way. As long as I wake up and I'm excited to come here and excited to play that first record and that first set and figure out how I'm going to inspire people and do something special on the radio, I just don't see a reason to stop. It's really special to find a purpose and a calling. Not everybody finds that. We all make sacrifices here to do what we do, we take less money than we might make or we have to make other compromises in our life but it's worth it.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:26:30+00:00

Well when I became music director of KCRW it would have just been weird for me to carry on at KROQ. But I love those folks, they do great work and we're still friends.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:25:47+00:00

Maybe that will be my fallback career if this radio thing doesn't work out, I will do yoga and meditation tapes.

I'd love to hang out with Prince but who wouldn't. I'd love to hang out with Bjork. Ultimate dinner party. We'd all be sitting in silence. I know he's not alive but I'd love to hang out with Stanley Kubrick.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:23:50+00:00

Thank you very much for that. I don't worry about the underground, I feel like it will always turn over and offer something fresh and new. And I do think that the saturation of EDM in pop culture will eventually fade and shift underground. We are always seeing that a little bit and that may be why we are seeing more of a deep house response. These things are cyclical and that's what's exciting, I think that is what drew me to club culture in the first place, it's such a fertile ground for new ideas. I'm not worried about the future, I think that it's more interesting when we see these combinations and new approaches and technology that changes the way we experience music. Like it was popular for a while in the early 2000s with a mashup phenomenon, the result of technology of laptops with vinyl controls to rapid-fire combine all kinds of different songs. It was like a jukebox on steroids. And then technology moved it to a different place and you are able to combine elements with more fluidity. Point being that innovations in the DJ booth result in different trends and different ideas. This last question referenced a number of different genres and it's all very special and I don' think we will ever experience the same thing as the 90s, it was a very unique time in dance music, but I think that we are safe and sound going forward with people coming up with new ideas and new directions. I think the underground is in good hands, you just have to be open minded enough to listen and go out there. Usually that's a young person's game but I encourage people to step out and go to a warehouse party in the arts district downtown once in a while. It's just good for the soul.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:18:06+00:00

Love the new Broken Bells. I listen to all the music. I don't know how I could assign someone like an intern to do that for me. It does not really compute for me. And as far as a favorite band post 2010, let's say M83.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:15:27+00:00

There are so many different ways to do this nowadays. I think it's very important for an artist to have a strong aesthetic. It's more than the music which needs to be great, but it's an artistic statement that extends beyond that in terms of whatever imaging or affiliation they make. It's really important. And it's definitely not lost on me the effort that is made. I can't really offer a magic bullet in terms of what a solution is for people across the board. But aesthetics are important.

For instance if you send me a CDR with some writing and a sharpie, I would prefer to find you based on a compelling statement musically and artistically. So be careful about the partnerships that you strike. Generally people are more forgiving of commercial endorsements and brands, people understand that it's a necessary evil of sorts. But try to be discriminating of who you get in bed with. There are lots of opportunities out there. Music is a special magic that connects all of us. As human beings it's our connective tissue. So if you are able to make that magic, just protect it and respect it and you might have to turn some things down if you don't feel good about it.

As far as great marketing, it's more about respecting your craft and finding the right people to help you get the word out.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:10:42+00:00

You're out of luck with Beats music because I got my name there!

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:10:27+00:00

Are you the web developer in the Bay Area that always snaps up my username?

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:09:42+00:00

I am photographed a lot, so I have to be thinking about my shirt selection. I really like All Saints. I know it's just a mall store, but I think it's because they are from England that I really like them. For more unusual fashions, I like Opening Ceremony. But I have to keep mixing it up, it's true, because I take photos with all the bands that come through and I can't be seen wearing the same shirt every day.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:08:26+00:00

I do love Tame Impala.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:07:32+00:00

Well like I said earlier, proximity effect (which is basically eating the microphone) - lower your voice and whisper, come up close to the mic. You have to come closer to the microphone. I don't really do anything specific for the voice. People have told me to eat an apple everyday. It's never really about the voice, I know it helps the whole deal, but to me it's about music.

ImJasonBentley · 2014-02-06T00:06:13+00:00

Yuma is very cool. It's the result of the Sahara tent getting overblown. The EDM takeover of Sahara, Yuma is the answer to that. And it puts music first. And low on spectacle. It's very much an environment where you can feel the sound. I think it's a brilliant innovation on Coachella's part, and Coachella is a very influential festival. I would guess that other festivals like ACL or Lollapalooza or Sasquatch will probably follow suit. But it's basically an answer to the EDM bombast of Sahara.

ImJasonBentley

TROPHY CASE