On Sunday, October 6th, KCRW will host a screening of Our Vinyl Weighs a Ton: This Is Stones Throw Records. Food trucks will be on the scene along with DJs Garth Trinidad and PB Wolf. Grab a TICKET.
To help announce the event, KCRW’s Anthony Valadez put together a mix of Stones Throw releases and wrote a little about his own experience with the label. Check out his website, and – below – some photos of his from last night’s Myron & E show at the Bootleg theater here in Los Angeles.
In the late 90′s there was this time in the California hip-hop landscape that catered towards those who appreciated lyrics, rhymes and beats. Groups from the Bay Area began to experiment with an emphasis on production. Shadow, Hieroglyphics, Blackalicious all stood out but it was the obscure name of a gentleman by the name of Peanut Butter Wolf from San Jose who began to appear in the record bins around BeatNonStop and Aarons Records around Hollywood and on the liner notes of compilations and his own releases that always caught my eye.
Step on Our Egos was the first 12′ of Wolf’s that I purchased and there was something about the production and authenticity that I appreciated. Next, Charizma’s 2003 release Big Shots struck my ear while a sophomore, hosting my weekly radio show on KCSN. The label moved to L.A. and the label manager Egon assisted me in getting all the new Stones Throw releases. I began to see first hand at just how important they valued their relationship with college radio and the DJ culture. They made the DJ’s feel connected to the brand. They began to push new artists on the roster who at the time made us scratch our heads only to get it and appreciate it 2 years later. Stones Throw began to develop it’s roster across the musical board with the traditional boom bap styles of Madlib, Lootpack to the obscure sounds of Gary Wilson and Koushik. When you bought or received a Stones Throw 12′ or album, you never knew what you were going to get. And this made record shopping and digging fun again.
