About two years ago, Todd Drootin was sitting at his home in
Encino, surfing on Napster and trading his music with other
tech-happy, independent artists. While online, a man who went by
the name Infoslut told Drootin about his mp3 label No Type.
“I’d never heard of it,” Drootin said.
“The entire concept of an mp3 label was just out there to me.
But he told me it was a cool thing, just a community that can get a
lot of attention.”
Drootin, who releases and performs music under the moniker Books
on Tape, released an EP on the label and received a respectable fan
response, but more importantly, No Type planted the seed for his
own label Subversico, which now serves as a home for several other
experimental artists. Drootin, a prototypical and self-described
beat punk, was raised playing piano, drums and guitar, but the
tech-age has turned him into more than just a rock musician.
“It’s certainly been an exciting time for music
right now,” Drootin said. “The indie rockers are
finally unafraid to be electronic.”
Drootin’s debut album, “Throw Down Your
Laptops” ““ released just over a month ago ““
isn’t your typical electronic release; it was recorded live,
which led to a distinct big-arena rock sound. But its frenetic
sound, propelled by obscure samples and sequencers, signals a new
direction for So Cal independent music.
Drootin’s break from traditional rock started about four
years ago when he moved from a house to an apartment. He soon
realized that he didn’t have room to put his drum kit. He
bought a recording device, a sort of digital workstation, to play
around on with a friend.
“We started to explore the possibilities of it, but we
couldn’t just sit there and do this all day; we needed to be
looping and stuff like that. He was a guitar player, I was a
drummer, so those were crazy concepts for us back then,”
Drootin said.
Ever the inquisitive musician, Drootin soon started to get into
Los Angeles’ underground-hip hop scene.
“Eventually, we went in with a sampler, and the idea was
that we were going to make hip-hop beats,” he said.
“But it just so happened that two white kids from Santa Cruz
didn’t have a shot in hell at making hip-hop beats for
anybody but themselves.”
Turning to his own brand of spastic knob-twiddling, his live
show gave him the recognition he needed, notably from his current
non-mp3-based label Deathbomb Arc records. They were disappointed
in Drootin’s first recordings and convinced him that the live
atmosphere reflects the essence of his music’s charm.
As a result, a few of his tracks have been picked up by
MTV’s “Real World.” Still, his particular
approach to electronic music isn’t the kind that purists
would fawn over.
“It keeps coming back to me that the people really taking
interest in what I’m doing are people who are into more
eclectic stuff, into rock and jazz and dub,” he said.
“When I walk into Amoeba and I go to the techno section,
those are not the people listening to my albums. I think it
reflects the fact that I didn’t grow up listening to
electronic music.”
That’s not to say he doesn’t have something to offer
the so-called purists; Drootin’s approach may be wildly
unconventional, but it has the spirit of rock and roll.
“You’ll see them ““ laptop users ““ lean
over each other’s shoulders and go “˜check out this
trick.’ Then they’ll hit Control+F or something. I
don’t see the music in that,” he said. “When I
(see) people taking their samplers and completely battering them
and doing something totally wrong, that’s when my eyes light
up.”
Books on Tape performs regularly in Southern California, check
www.deathbombarc.com for recent dates.