Fatboy Slim - The Rockafeller Skank | The story behind the song
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- Опубликовано: 5 фев 2018
- Norman Cook, also known as Fatboy Slim, explains the structure of his song 'The Rockafeller Skank'. A short documentary by Top 2000 a gogo (Dutch Public TV) from 2016.
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I just love how Norman Cook keeps his 90's setup intact, it's like a living museum that should be kept alive for decades to come!
Atari ST forever
I can't believe that Atari computer still runs and actually loads up the files!
Kind of regret selling mine many years back. In fact, I even thought about it just the other day before transitioning to PC.
The PC that I could afford compared to the price you could pick up an expanded 1040ST for was terrible.
If it aint broke , dont fix it i say. Many turn there nose up at me i still run a winxp pc , ok not the oldest but, creativity spawms from inside the person/artist before the machines.
@@AdamTheAd-vanc3d XP was a diamond.
Holy shit I love that there’s hidden samples in this song from 22 years ago that he hasn’t cleared i fucking love it
In recent times, several of them was found, for example, the Rockafeller deep distorted voice is actually a Jay Z sample, its Jayz voice saying it
So we are living the good times!
@@arthurmartins5495 yo dry snitching
In almost every interview I've seen with FBS he does this grin like he can't quite believe that he's getting paid to do what he does.
He's not the only one :-)
This music was soooooo freakin fresh when it came out. Never heard something like this before and even today it sounds so cool. Masterpiece!!
But most certainly the only one to enter the Netherlands with such cool beats! Thanks for the term, never heard of the category before.
Yep, completely!
One of the best of this series. Getting to hear the original samples and details on how it came about, awesome.
I often come back to this video and tell people how genius this song is, the true art of sampling at its best 🔥
I've started making music in late 90's, when even chopping a sample was very time consuming, and samplers he used had ~12 sec memory, that's a huge limitation, you actually had to knew what you want to do, before even chopping. This guy is a pure genius, I admire him a lot, his sound, even though it's sample based, is unique, just like Prodigy, DJ Shadow or DJ Premiere. Great artist!!!
Nice mentioning Premiere that was my direct inspiration in the 90s which hugely effects my albeit a BIT more electrech tastes today. ;]
osearth esp the list of great producers is endless, but Primo was a game changer for me, so unique you can recognize his beats instantaneously, no matter if they were made now or 30 ago. I’m actually huge hip hop head and sampling is close to my heart, and I absolutely love sampling in other genres of music. Nowadays the problems with copyrights is slightly killing sampling art, and I also tend to use synths way more than ever. Peace!
Yes i totally agree hes a legend and a genius ...sampling music and cutting and pasting to make a whole new track is an artform in itsself...
"even though it's sample based, is unique, just like..." Stars on 45 or Hooked On Classics.
Try using my Fairlight 😂
I remember vividly getting into an argument with a bloke from Hull at Glastonbury in 1999 , saying The Housemartins were rubbish and words to the effect of “where the hell are they now? Not here, that’s for sure! Hahaha...” the guy replied “you’re gonna see one of them, right here...right now”
Haha I saw the beautiful South on pyramid stage right before fat boy slim in the dance tent 1999.
He was followed by the chemical brothers I got goosebumps just writing this
@@mozart7820 I think I was at Glasto the same year. Did it rain the week previously, rain the Friday night and then remain sunny for the rest of the weekend? I remember the mud of the place. You couldn't avoid it! I remember seeing Herbie Hancock on the Jazz stage and he came on stage with plastic bags covering his shoes! It was hilarious!
@@mozart7820 Same year, must be june or july, I saw them (fatboy slim & chemical brothers) in Chicago. It was my first trip to U.S and that (I can't identify it as a concert neither rave as well :) ) party was incredible.
@@davidlean1060 yes it was unsettled leading up, a glorious Thurs, Fri, sat then a mud pit Sunday. I woke up in the rizzla tent on the floor while the place was packed with ppl. Fat boy slim and the chemical brothers knew how to throw a party
@@mozart7820 ...but I bet none of them were as cool as Herbie with his plastic shopping bags!! ha ha!
I was smiling along with Norman at many points during this video. Truly enjoyed it
what a legend! its so impressive he has kept his original setup mint...man i remember drooling over all of that gear back in the 90s
Matt Redlich I remember drooling over it in 2001
@@megazoned3973 I second that in 2020 😂...right about now 🤣👌
I used to pause the game in fifa just to hear this classic
What fifa is it
@@sclitchmusic 99
I'm 15 years old, and very fascinated by the work daw's do. Seeing this. i really salute to Fatboy slim the way he made his records. Love from India
and it's not even a DAW, just a MIDI sequencer, no audio. the outboard instruments make the sounds.
Er zijn dus nog samples waarvan hij geen toestemming heeft en hij deed alles op een Atari ST met diskettes. Geniaal.
Those were the DAWs of the era ❤
The Atari ST and Cubase most likely
I remember the exact moment and location when I first heard that song. BLEW ME AWAY!
Super creative. I love how he mashed up the various music genres , styles, sounds using Old School vinyl on analog recorders ..then probably recorded /remixed on early to mid 90's digital(?) studio equipment.. He wove music together using different disparate but related genres and era's. Creativity comes from everywhere...
This so cool hearing Norman and seeing his studio. I raised my children listening to this music in the car we loved it. Thanks
What a phenomenal little clip. First time I ever came up on an ecstasy, I was in a taxi with friends on the way to a night club - then Rockafella Skank came on the radio. I was the first time we had ever heard it and we got the driver to pump the volume. The whole taxi bounced down the road. Never felt anything like that before. Now twenty one years later Ive just quit singing in a rock band after releasing a well reviewed debut album... and Im working on rock dance record. ( . Cool stories ehh :P . )
Yawn
whats it called?
Master Big Groove Thanks for asking, The album I recorded with band is called “Stone Rising” by Stone Rising.
I also have a lot of stuff on my RUclips channel as Greasy Belcher - about 16 videos made for an album that was solo called “Greasy Belcher - Fuckin A Sides”. You can hear them both on Spotify iTunes etc. Right now I’m working on a new project called Wolves of Exile. There’s only one video up for that so far, called “Keep Ya Head On”.
Here’s a promo I made for the album with the band... ruclips.net/video/F9EsrrB5D0s/видео.html
This is the first album i became totally obsessed with as a kid, will always have a special place in my heart, however Lord Finesse not being paid is criminal. Norman should pay the guy, he is a legend in his own right.
He already doesn’t earn any money at all for this track. He had to clear four other samples and each one asked him for 25%. I’m sure you can do the sums...
@@lidbass Same with that big The Avalanches hit.
@@snowstrobe Frontier Psychiatrist!
@@snowstrobeSince I left you?
Norman cleared the sample with Lord Finesse through a fax. Lord Finesse had no idea what it was for, but I figure he was just trying to help out a producer. It sucks he's not getting money for this track, but Fatboy Slim legally obtained his permission.
Good ol' Atari ST. Never forget the moment when my uncle showed me his Atari ST and his Roland D10 synthesizer. I was mind blown.
To this day , you still cannot do the time stretching in Rockefeller Skank in Logic Pro. There was so much raw power in those old school sequencers that modern laptops can’t even touch. In a tracker like Octamed on an Amiga 600 I was able to time stretch from 20 bpm to 150 bpm. While keeping in sync with my 808. It was awesome.
The Amiga (i used to have the A500) was ahead on its time.
You can in Ableton though and it's one reasons I want to switch. Logic is great for many things but audio manipulation is not one of them.
It's probably because back then Assembly programming was common place, and allowed much more fine-grained control over speed. Today with libraries and garbage collection, etc., there can be bloat that can work against you if you don't know how to work with it properly. The upside to modern development is speed. Assembly was slow as hell, and very prone to errors/crashes for even the most skilled. I programmed graphics layers for games, etc., in ASM back then, as anything else was too slow.
@@jamesnw It's all moot now, becasue if you use any hardware at all the USB subsystem is going to kill your timing anyway.
play it backwards cause i really wrote this song.......josh oser in 1994 at ticket game
I was dancing to this core tune in 1972! I knew it as 'Sliced Tomatoes' by Just Brothers as did thousands of us on the Northern Soul scene.
KTF
Still a great song
This is the original
ruclips.net/video/yaFWPNn6wNo/видео.html
Great little clip.
Digging through old vinyls in dusty record stores was surely exciting
Oh my word, your songs are just magic, they are so unique and lift me up. My deepest thanks for doing what you do.
Best one so far... This series is great!
He's truly a legend, awsome guy! I still always think the evolution of "kids these days don't know how it was..." is so funny: So, some older jazz bloke probably told him the exact story about sampling and looping with machines, rather than playing your self; then he tells essentially the same story about having to look for samples the hard way to kids today. Then they'll go: We actually at least had to come up with ideas our selves, to the next generation, and so on =).
Everyone eventually turns into their parents and they don't even realize it!
I think it takes bit more to be a legend
@@KowankoMusic Some people have a soul and do everything they can to avoid becoming the sadistic the monster that raised them.
as "one of those kids" myself, i find not getting my hands dirty too boring. so i make sure that the soldering iron is involved somewhere in my production process :D
so true
I'd love to spend a day with Norman just looking through his record collection.
yeah me too. I especially want him to show how he made you're not from brighton or build it up, tear it down and listen to the unedited samples. Maaaan thad would be dopeeee!
Oh man...
Sitting in this room with Norman would be my biggest dream!
Where has this video been hiding! The tune of my youth and still love it (the whole LP actually)! Peace!
Jaaa, eindelijk online! Top track en top docu, super!
Huge inspiration , HUGE! Norman Cook , Thank you !!!
this guy is a legend. i betcha he paved the way for Dj's like Marshmello, David Getta, Calvin Harris etc. also the praise you dance is such a hard dance to do trust me i have tried.
One talented and nice MOFO he created so many quality songs, lovely fella
Pfft
Genius! And the Atari 1040 STE is just the cherry on top of the whipped cream.
Hadn't realised he was in the housemartins
I’m old. I remember when this came out.
Been into electronic music for over a decade now, known about Fatboy Slim since before that but never have really heard a lot of his stuff. I heard this in the radio the other day and was absolutely floored with how incredibly produced it was. Figured it came out awhile ago but damn that’s impressive even for back then
Norman changed the way I thought about music in some ways. I think there were a lot of us white boys who discovered that we didn't like rock and metal anywhere near as much as we thought we should.
They made this chart topping his song in a studio like this? in 1998? Geniuses!
as far as I know he made it all by himself (Fatboy Slim aka Norman Cook)
quite a lot of artists operated smaller scale like this in the 90s, even people like Seal did most of the music and songwriting himself on some of his best tracks
the guy from Skint Records (can't remember his name) did the "slowy down bit" with him on a Windows 95 machine. but the rest of the track is by Fatboy Slim by himself on the Atari. then he mastered it on the setup on the other side of the room.
I knew Fatboy Slim was in Beats International but I had no idea he was in the House Martins. You learn something new every day.
i never knew he chopped up his sampl
es Huge inspiration , HUGE! Norman Cook , Thank you !!!
Really cool series. Hats off, Dutchies!
Thank you, spread the word!
"breaks we may not be able to mention"
code for breaks stolen from black musicians
@@GuyTastycakes Not even code, he admits to it constantly in this video.
@@OhanaFilms you are absolutely right
If these artists are found out.. he's going to need a lawyer right about now...
@Techroach I applaud you sir. We need more people like you!
This is my favourite video of the series
Right on, crate digging is not dead yet though, physically finding good stuff feels amazing. You never know what's behind the next record...
The best dance track OF ALL TIME. It straddles so many different genres and styles at the same time, it is a work of utter genius, and will never be repeated.
I like it. I remember a guy teaching me Ableton (we were both 'real' musicians) going apeshit when I said I really liked it. And he went berserk on Skank but even more so on Praise You. He looked at me and said "this is outrageous, for people who can't play any of their own music." Oops sorry to bore you with this story.
@@allancerf9038 So he didn't like those tracks? Seems a very contradictory person, to be using Ableton and not liking a track which could have so easily been produced within it!😂
@@EddieG1888 It was a trip, that's for sure.
I love that somewhere I have a CD-R from the dude who used to source a lot of Norman's source material for him, sat in my bedroom, and all simply because back in the day I had a 'pella that he didn't. Nice guy, Name escapes me (I'm tipsy) but he was a Brighton lad. Must dig that out and actually give it a listen (some 13-14yrs on)
I love these behind the scenes videos.
these videos are amazing guys please add more
The amount of dust on that 303 is just epic
Sensacional....
De Jundiaí, SP Brasil...
I want to like it twice! Amazing dude and a song.
You are so brilliant!!! I love your work, it's the best. Should be on the next craft leaving the galaxy.
I lost it when he pulled out the bang on a drum record. Love pulling from that lp
You know sampling has come of age when it can be referred to in terms of “back in my day……..” love this guys music!!!!
Forever thankful for "skip to my loops".
I've been a fan of Lord Finesse and the whole DITC crew for quite some time, but I just yesterday realized it was him that he sampled
Great interview!
What a great interview
Very good interview. Interesting to see how his process works.
flippin hell the Happy Monsters! memories from the 70's!!!!
I still love 'Right Here, Right Now.' This man is a master on the decks!
i remember when this album came out. then discovering the first. it just sounds different to me with all the analog gear. i've heard many ableton reconstruction videos. just doesn't have the soul to it. but then again i remember people saying that about hip hop and dance music in the 90s compared to the music it got the sample from. you can argue the best years for whatever genre of music for days. for me the golden yrs were 98-01. my favorites were fat boy slim, beastie boys, the chemical bros, the prodigy, underworld, sasha and digweed, and an endless list of prog house, trance, and dnb artist.
I was in a large Molly's den second hand warehouse and found a load of records and started going through them purely for that nostalgic experience of flicking through hundreds of records looking for that hidden gem. Used to like going to reckless records as that was a good place for white labels etc.
4:48 an "oh sh¡t" moment 🤣 Edit: I'm 6 months late finding out it's a Jay-Z sample?! 😮
4:13 he's still concerned that artists could still come after him! 🤣
Love this sound!
We owe so many greats to Atari's rigid rock solid reliable Midi Sequencer. The best in the industry.
C-Lab was a company which became Emagic which was then bought by Apple. Creator ---> Notator ---> Notator Logic ---> Logic ---> Logic Pro
The other one (or one of them) used on the Atari was Steinberg Cubase.
Holy crap. I actually remember The Housemartins. I haven't thought about them in years.
House Martins: One of my favorite bands of all time.
Gunther Ultrabolt Novacrunch They were such a catchy tuneful group. Inspired by The Smiths but more jolly
@@VanielDeeform what they did after was better though: Fatboy slim and The Beautiful South
I also like them a lot. 'Happy Hour' man. 'Happy Hour'.
His music is as chipper as he is.
mad respect for this dude
Memorable videos for sure!
He's a great guy, my studio was just as messy in the 80s, maybe I should never have tidied it up! I also went to Basement Jaxx studio near Brixton and again, similar messy place but they made great music from it too!
keep it up with this vids, I love them.
DJ legend.
God damn legend and amazing he’s still got his setup. What a baller.
I'm from Uruguay and I really like Fatboy Slim's music. Also the Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy and Moby
I hope Norman has imaged and backed up those floppy disks. Norman, if you're reading this, I recommend OmniFlop...
Well, to be fair there are millions of copies of his music, probably not a lot of pressure to keep his own backups. Although those original floppies would fetch a pretty penny if he so decided.
@@Outland9000he said in the more recent (going by filmed not uploaded dates) interview for "London Real" that he was transferring the contents of the disks to modern computer format (explaining to the interviewer why most of them had disappeared from this studio room).
@@Outland9000 I doubt there are many copies of this. The recorded mixes of his music, sure - but these are the originals, the composition tracks. There's much more in such a thing than just the final recording.
You're high
Looks like an Amiga computer to me.
this was amazing thank uu
one of my fondest memories of the 90s was Fatboy Slim
Thats really sad
@@rogermoore770 why...?
@@RWL2012 if you were there you'd know he was a commercial rip off, that came after it had already been done. Lame dad, wannabe
@@rogermoore770 right OK then
What a cool guy. Still, he's my age and I totally get the punk 'coming of age' thing. It changed my whole world.
Thoroughly enjoyed his chat with Scroobi
praise you is such a classic
Great. Loved it.
that combo of samples for Rockafeller Skank is legendary. he's so underrated.
Oh boy, it's this "underrated" rubbish again. How exactly is Fatboy Slim underrated? Back when You've Come a Long Way, Baby came out, The Rockafeller Skank, Praise You and Right Here, Right Now were played everywhere and the whole album was hugely successful. Halfway.. was a popular album too. After that, Big Beat in general wasn't a thing anymore. One shouldn't throw the word "underrated" around, if he/she wasn't there to see the artists popularity first hand.
Mikko Kukkonen I love how music brings people together. Good times.
2:54 If I'd have just an hour of that 'good week', my life would be fulfilled. :D
I remember dancing to his music. Harrogate NY
Cool to see the backstory of this song! Many nice samples. He reminds me of Toby from 'the Office' though.
Video to this song is fucking LEGENDARY!
I kinda miss late 90's movies about neo-cowboys driving through the southwest in old cars.
What a wonderful period for everything
beats international dub be good to me. another group he was in
danny blain - And Pizza Man.
Well, he made money from them
Tune...👍🏴
@@freddieleethompson3536 Never knew that, Pizza man had great tracks Fatboy Slim has pure genius
Atari ST lol, lovely to see one again, music on this and art and animation of the Amiga started completely new careers for people like me who would never have got the chance, try doing that with an XBox or PS. Iwas too old for this but still love his music, he always appears to be such a great guy also
At 4:53 you show Peter Gunn, but it seems to be Twistin' N' Twangin' instead. At least that's what's listed on whosampled and it also sounds more similar. Anyways, thank you so much for this insightful video.
Also, all of the samples on his synth that he didn't want to mention have now been identified.
amazing old skool set up that produced some awesome tracks that stand the test of time. I often wondered whose voice it was on Rockafeller Skank. Now I know but does he?
yes, Lord Finesse knows. He got paid I think nada. He said that was one big missed opportunity on his part. Something about publishing rights and not looking closely at the paper work. There's an interview with him.
@@casmo87 cheers, I'll have a look at it.
I'm sure Norman once said he made no money at all on Rockafeller Skank - all the royalties went to everyone he sampled, maybe Lord Finesse got at least a little something
This one I think? ruclips.net/video/mJdTgEqpoEk/видео.html
Love this!
Oh my gawd father's x blimey, NC was part of the house Martins, how did I not know that?! God bless, Fatboy Slim x
Norman was a fantastic bass player
I love how he used Lord Finnesse. Hes an amazing mc and producer!
A legend, the Funky Technician putting FBS and Big L on the scene.
@@bklyncrook hell yea!
Loving the ST action
Love his stories
RESPECT on that ATARI...I had an 'STE' w/Master Tracks Pro!