Spring 2023

(ethereal music) (gentle music) - If you love music, you're in for a treat.

Join me as I visit The Firehouse Community Arts Center in Avondale, Alabama.

We'll talk with Founder and Director, Eric Wallace.

I'll also get to learn how to play a few instruments.

Let's see if I have what it takes to be a rockstar.

(door squeaking) Hello.

- Hey, Jackie.

- Hi.

- How are you?

- Good, good, how are you doing?

- Good.

- So Eric, where are we today?

Tell us about The Firehouse.

- Today, we're upstairs at The Firehouse Community Art Center, and this is our creative learning space where every day after school we do all kinds of programming where we open our doors to make music education accessible to anybody who's interested in having it.

- So, what are the classes like?

What is the range of classes you offer?

- As we've grown, we've been able to offer all sorts of programs.

So, when you come up here any day, you're gonna see kids that are taking guitar lessons, bass lessons, keys lessons, drum lessons, learning how to song write, learning how to make beats, learning how to write lyrics, just learning how to express themselves, and most importantly, learning how to do that together.

- What are the teachers like?

What are the, you know, like how does that work out too?

- Yeah, all of our teachers that work here are working musicians folks that are making records, playing shows, booking tours.

I like for all of our students to be able to learn from a mentor who is not only being sustainably paid to do what they're good at, which is play, but also, providing type of role model who can show you what an actual life in music looks like.

- And so, like what kind of other things do you do?

It's like you provide space, but there seems to be some other fun things that happen at The Firehouse.

- Oh yeah.

We do all sorts of programs and we're always trying to give our students opportunities to perform, 'cause that's what it's all about.

But every Monday we do a pizza party with Shaheed and Supreme who have a great program called Knowledge Rhythm and Understanding.

And every Monday we get a bunch of pizzas from Post Office Pies down the street.

They do their program right here in this space while all our lessons are going on.

It's an open house.

The door is always open.

So, it's just a really fun time to be here.

- Well, luckily I'm here on a Monday.

I'm gonna be a student today.

Mila Olivera, one of the instructors here, is gonna teach me some of the basics.

- Okay.

- But before that, let's learn more about The Firehouse.

(gentle upbeat music) - A space where anyone, especially a young person, can feel like their art can be performed and accepted is so important.

Without that, then none of that art happens.

I have been a resident of this neighborhood and in this building since 2009.

Over the course of that time, I was teaching guitar lessons here.

We have a space downstairs where all sorts of shows have happened over the years.

And the Community Arts Center is really an outgrowth of that as we try to reach out and get other kids involved in learning how to carry on Birmingham's really rich music tradition by learning from other artists in this community.

When I first moved here, I was in a lot of bands touring myself with a lot of... My spare time I would, I was teaching guitar lessons and it was something that I found I was really good at.

And it was something that I found was really rewarding to me.

Over the next decade, my experience in music, my experience as a teacher and my experience as a neighbor, led me to this dream of creating a space where I wanted the experience that I was getting to watch all my students have this life-changing experience, these life-changing relationships form.

I wanted to make that equitable and accessible to anyone who lives here.

My goal is for every young person that comes through here to be able to feel that fulfillment that I have felt over a life in music.

One of the strength that we have here is we have so many unbelievably talented musicians that we can sort of pick and choose and place personalities with.

So, over time, students get to know all these really cool musicians that work here.

We try to make sure that all of our teaching is directly towards live performance and directly towards creation and playing together.

So it, from day one, we're trying to learn your favorite song.

We're trying to figure out who else is a student here that you might wanna play with.

Then we're gonna figure out how to make that happen.

Another thing that really informed me and the way that I think about art and the way that I think about this entire space is when I was growing up going to see shows in places like Cave 9 in Birmingham where I was able to see that the music that I liked didn't have to be performed on TV or in an amphitheater.

It could be just watching regular people pull their amps out of a car and set it on a stage and play.

It was just like, oh my God, yeah, it's cool and anyone can do it.

- To me, DIY means you, you go through and you do it yourself and it's just about doing it.

It doesn't matter if you're good at it at first, but that's how you get good at things.

And learning from your own mistakes and providing that sense of community, especially in a musical sense.

(upbeat music) We have hip hop acts, we have noise acts, we have folk acts coming through.

And it's not just one thing and it's not just one crowd going out to shows.

It's a larger sense of like there are shows pretty often and if there's music playing, it's often gonna be something you like.

- I think that's so cool about what we've always tried to do downstairs, that it's a space where anyone can perform or anyone is welcome.

It's always gonna be accepting and safe.

That's the exact same philosophy, the DIY mentality, that we try to carry into our teaching for the even younger folks.

How cool is it that you can just pick this thing up and all of a sudden you're doing it?

It's not something that you can, that you just have to have to absorb on a screen and think about.

You can do it.

- It really cultivates being able to both see yourself as a performer, but also, someone that can run sound.

Someone that can do things in a professional context and going into an alter ages space and being able to see those sort of acts, being able to see those sort of local musicians, being able to join and start your own bands.

That sort of thing that just flourishes around a community is so important.

- Without a place that's totally DIY, the most pure forms of art may not have a place to be expressed.

And I hope that that's what our space downstairs is always gonna stand for.

I can look back and truly say that every relationship that I have almost is because of music.

That's a really powerful thing when you think about it.

It's even more powerful when you think about a young person not being able to have that experience and not being able to have a small window into something that could provide them a lifetime of fulfillment, whether that's with the music they're making or just the people that they know that way.

Having a place and a thing and folks that are supportive where you feel like you belong is such an important thing.

It is to everybody.

I think that if The Firehouse can be that for one kid it's all worth it.

It's so awesome to get to see this place be such an acceptance spot and such a place of belonging for so many kids.

- I'm here with Firehouse instructor Mila Olivera.

She's taken on the daunting task of teaching me how to play the drums.

Should we get started?

- I feel like you're ready.

You got the drumsticks out and everything.

Okay, so first one I wanna start off is just holding the drumsticks.

- Okay.

- So, you kind of want it to lay in your hand and wrap your fingers around and you want your thumb on the side of the stick.

Yeah, perfect.

That's good.

Yeah, and then you want most of the movement to come from your wrist.

And then what we're gonna do is just count to six, but we're gonna do it in this kind of rhythm.

So, it's like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

- Okay, one question.

I see your feet are on the pedals.

- [Mila Olivera] Yes.

- Should I do that now?

- Yeah, yes.

(Mila and Jackie laughing) Good catch.

So, you'll step on the high hat pedal and that way it'll keep it closed.

Yeah, there you go.

- Oh, that's it?

- Yeah, but keep your feet on it though.

- [Jackie Clay] Okay.

- So that way it doesn't pop back up.

- [Jackie Clay] Oh, okay.

- And then you want, it's your other foot on the base drum pedal is, basically gonna replicate what you're doing here, but you don't have to press down.

So, just kind of put it in a comfortable position.

You don't have to press it all the way down.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

Yeah, that looks good.

- Okay.

- Nice.

Okay, so you feel good, all right.

So, with the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, we're gonna mimic that with our right hand on the high hat.

So, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

(drumstick tapping) Yeah, okay.

Now, on the one, the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, we're also gonna add a kick drum.

- Okay.

- At the same time.

So, we're gonna go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Yeah, yeah, nice.

(drumstick tapping) There you go.

And now, on the four of that we're gonna add a snare drum.

So, it's gonna be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Yeah, keep going.

- Okay.

(drumstick tapping) - Yeah.

(Jackie laughing) That's okay.

Both of your hands will play at the same time on four.

- [Jackie Clay] Okay.

- Yeah.

- Okay, okay, yeah, okay.

- You got it?

(drumstick tapping) Yes!

Awesome.

Now you're grooving.

There you go.

(Jackie an Mila laughing) You did it though.

That was really good.

- Thank you.

I think I'm getting the hang of it.

- Yeah.

- A little maybe.

Next, we'll try guitar.

While we get set up, we're gonna learn what it takes to make an album with recording engineer Brad Timko in Sheffield, Alabama.

(upbeat music) - Hey y'all, come on in.

We're gonna head down to studio B over here.

I would say my job at the moment is recording engineer, mixer and producer.

So, this is the control room here in Studio B.

This place was built out in the late seventies.

It's a really nice design.

This is the second location to Muscle Show Sound here in Sheffield, right on the Tennessee River.

I started in Birmingham.

I was in college and I was at a pawn shop and I found a task cam 4-track machine that was cheaper than all the others.

And I've realized it was cheaper, because it didn't work.

So, I fixed it and I thought it was so cool to watch the meters work and not hear everything back and whatnot.

I never thought it was something you could actually do to you know, for a job or anything like that.

And I was in a band years ago, we went to record in a more of a proper studio and I saw how it worked and what he was doing, the engineer was doing and stuff.

And I thought, this is what I should be doing, 'cause it's right up my alley.

I started around 2009 collecting equipment.

I had bought a small mixing console, a Pro Tools system, microphones all that.

I then went to intern at Ardent in Memphis in 2012.

And when I got back to Birmingham from that I guess I was an, you know, so I thought I was an engineer now.

And so, that first few years were just tough.

Not much going on.

I had to learn how to maintain my equipment, 'cause I could not afford to hire technicians to fix any of this stuff.

It'd be really resourceful and worked out of there for a while.

Up until just recently where I've moved here up into Muscle Shoals.

First, Muscle Shoals Sound location was just a couple miles the other way.

They cut a million hit records up there, then they moved here.

This place was built out to a much more extravagant extent than the original one.

It's got excellent acoustics.

The live room sounds great with all the instruments.

The playbacks and mixing in this room is just awesome.

Lately up in the Shoals there's been a bit of a resurgence in recording.

More and more people are moving here, setting up studios or reviving some of the old studios.

It's also cool for artists and engineers to be able to live in a spot that's not too expensive and to be able to work.

It's also not too far from cities like Nashville, Birmingham, whatever.

It's not that big a deal for artists to drive up and record.

I mean, where else in the world can you be in a small town that's peaceful and quiet, on a beautiful river and there's a bunch of different studios and a rich musical history.

The job of the engineer is to keep things flowing smoothly.

Keeping the artists comfortable and not having them not get bored.

And then also, having things sound as good as you can.

A typical tracking session day, I'll be up here the night before, setting up all the microphones and instruments.

Getting all the patch base set up, the Pro Tools template.

So, when the morning comes and the band gets here, everything's almost ready to go.

They'll get here, we'll get the instruments set up, drums, guitars, whatever.

Usually, we'll start dialing in some drum sounds and I'm big on getting drum sounds as good as I can from the get go.

So, it takes me a little bit to dial all that in.

(upbeat guitar music) You have all these different instruments, whether it's a drum kit, you have multiple mics on it, guitar amps, keyboards, vocals.

All these different sources are individual channels on this mixing console.

You have to get all that to come together as good as you possibly can.

And it all gets sent down to a stereo mix, which is what you hear when you listen to a song.

And so, the interesting thing is between the artists, producer and engineer, you're really creating essentially two wave forms that have to make people have an emotion or emotional reaction.

So, depending on what you do in these rooms, alters how that wave is shaped.

And if it's shaped well then people get into it.

If it's not, they don't even wanna hear it.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (guitar strumming) - I'm here, and I'm ready to rock.

Mila's gonna teach me guitar.

- Yeah.

- What should I do first?

- So, let's go over how to hold the pick.

- [Jackie Clay] Okay.

- This is all, I mean, I consider kind of it personal preference, but I find it the most comfortable if I kind of put my thumb like over a little over half of it.

And that way I just can strung down.

(guitar strumming) - [Mila Olivera] Yeah, perfect.

- Awesome, cool.

So, I figured we could start with the A cord.

- Okay.

- So, you're gonna use these three fingers.

- [Jackie Clay] Okay.

- And you're going to want to go so, these are the frets.

So, we're gonna go second fret, and then we're gonna go on these strings so.

- [Jackie Clay] All three?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- So, your fingers try and make, squeeze them in there.

And then you're gonna press down on these three strings all on the second fret.

- Okay.

- So, if we count from the top then you'll go third string, fourth and fifth string.

And then you'll just strum starting from the fourth string.

(guitar strumming) Awesome.

(Mila laughing) There you go.

We can do the D cord as well.

And you'll have your pointer finger on the second fret, on the third string from the bottom.

And then you'll have your ring finger on the very last string, on the third fret.

And then you'll have, oh, actually move up one more.

So, it'll actually be on the second string from the bottom.

- Okay.

- And then you'll have your middle finger on the very last string, but also on the second fret.

So, these two will look like this.

And then you'll have your ring finger on the third string like this, and then you'll just strum again starting from that fourth string.

(guitar strumming) - This feels very good.

(Jackie and Mila laughing) - And then you have A, and D. - There's no way I'm going back.

(Jackie and Mila laughing) I can already feel how excited that would be, but (indistinct).

- It takes a little bit to go- - Yeah, - but that sounds great.

Now you got two chords you can practice with.

- Okay, thank you so much for your patience.

- [Mila Olivera] Of course.

- It was a great lesson and it really opened up some things for me with like what I'm hearing and connecting it to technical skill.

This is so much fun, but I'm starting to get a little hungry.

And I heard there's a pizza party with Shaheed and Supreme.

- Yeah.

- Speaking of Shaheed and Supreme, they're old friends of Monograph.

We're gonna close today's episode with a segment we did a few years ago, while I go share a meal with some fellow musicians.

See you next time.

(guitar strumming) (Jackie laughing) - People are looking at you like, who are these guys?

And then when they find out you from Birmingham, Alabama, that's another, you know, like Birmingham, Alabama, come on, there's hip hop in Alabama?

♪ You can #*#*#*#* up a mike ♪ ♪ Then you should give me a beat ♪ ♪ And if the people wanna have we can turn up the heat ♪ ♪ Say you don't want it with me ♪ ♪ And you don't wanna compete ♪ ♪ We came to tell ya how it is ♪ ♪ And the way it's gonna be ♪ (bass music) - What got me into hip hop in my youth was basically, being influenced by my father and my uncle and my mother making me keep a daily journal.

I started turning that into rhymes.

- Around the first time that I heard Run DMC on a show called "The Midnight Funk Association Electrifying Mojo".

I grew up in Detroit, so this was a staple on Detroit radio late night.

I'd be up late and he would play such an eclectic, all different types of music from B-52s craft work, Afrika Bambaataa, - EPMD.

- Run DMC.

- Gang star.

- George Clinton.

- Even some NWA.

- Prince, Michael Jackson.

- You name it, I was influenced by it.

- Plus I come from a musical family.

My father, Johnny Malone, he's a songwriter, singer, producer.

He wrote for the Blackbird, the "Taste of Honey".

So, it's just embedded.

- I always had to be battle ready when it came to just flexing and showing your skills, sharpening your tools, the environments.

Meeting different people from all aspects of life.

It gave me a sense of a early age of diversity.

So, as a musician and as an artist, it played a major role, because I don't think I would've developed, if I didn't have that diversity around me in those different elements around me.

- Say around 2000, 2001, was when some of the first songs that Shaheed and I began to do as a group.

- Supreme and I recorded our first song, as he's the producer, I'm the MC, in 2003.

That was the first time we had ever did a song together.

It was called "Solutions".

It's the first song we ever recorded.

And that song ended up kind of being like a underground classic.

Like it ended up being a nice joint that everybody was feeling.

♪ Hitting heads like a beautician ♪ ♪ I'm in position to make the real heads listen ♪ ♪ If you're feeling I'm a villain ♪ ♪ With the hands up to the ceiling ♪ ♪ If the beat is kinda sick ♪ ♪ I brought the remedy like penicillin ♪ - One thing that Shaheed promised me when we first became a group, he said, "Man, we definitely need to link up.

I promise you this is gonna take us all over the world."

- And I was like, "Yo man, yo, you see what we got?

Let's do more of it."

- He was right.

He was absolutely right.

(indistinct rap music) - We were very blessed and fortunate to tour with a legendary hip hop group and crew out of Los Angeles, California called Jurassic 5.

- We got my man Shaheed and DJ Supreme all the way from Alabama.

So we wanted to give y'all a good treat of some real hip hop all the way from the States in a place that you wouldn't think that hip hop existed.

So, Alabama.

- We went to London with Jurassic 5.

- Luxembourg.

- To Germany.

- Glasgow, Scotland.

- Did a East Coast tour with them.

And literally, we were accepted very well at every place that we went to.

♪ You aint touching us lyrical high ♪ ♪ So make me fly like murder who them God ♪ ♪ Say too fly you ain't heard the us don't even try ♪ ♪ It's do or die like murder ♪ ♪ We refuse to write ♪ - Message has always been truth over beats.

- When we say truth over beats, it means being a positive contribution to your community and to the world and putting out songs and concepts that reflect that.

I bring hard boom back hip hop, but I fuse it together with melodic, soulful sounds.

You know what I'm saying?

Really warm, really warm sounds.

- We're going to hit you with realness and in the act of preserving the art form of hip hop.

- So when you hear a Shaheed and DJ Supreme song you can kinda settle in and it'll soothe you.

I mean, but it's unadulterated hip hop.

♪ I made moves, never make moves ♪ ♪ Busy making power moves ♪ ♪ And yo I make moves never make rules ♪ ♪ Tell him ♪ ♪ Busy making powers moves ♪ ♪ Hey, yo I make moves never make rules ♪ ♪ Busy making power moves ♪ - Knowledge, rhythm and understanding is a curriculum that DJ Supreme and I put together based on the elements and the foundational principles of hip hop.

- We basically teach hip hop to kids who probably don't really understand or know the history of it.

- There's a start, there's a history, then there's a art where you learn the craft.

- We have this thing called Wheel of Skill that has different topics on there social commentary, battling, just different other topics and whatever topic it stops on that's what you start rapping about.

- For us, that curriculum and that concept is based upon literally showing the younger generation what the elements and the foundational pieces of hip hop are and to be themselves, if they want to learn the craft.

- We teach that you can talk about who you are.

It's a reflection of who you are.

So, like I said, the response is tremendous.

♪ I do a show where people give me advancements ♪ ♪ My understanding is that of enhancements ♪ - The past 20 years have been very fruitful for us.

It's definitely been a blessing.

It's something that we don't take for granted.

- Wherever we've ever went, wherever we go, wherever we perform, we are staple in the Birmingham hip hop scene and we represent that.

- We promote positivity and we gonna continue to promote positivity.

We're going to continue to sustain our families and our community.

- Birmingham is known for a lot of things, the Civil Rights Movement, it's known for a jazz movement.

You've got Sunrise, you've got Erskine Hawkins, you have Tuxedo Junction.

So, Birmingham is affiliated with arts period.

And with struggle, and with a rich legacy.

So, when it comes to hip hop, I feel it shouldn't be any different.

- That is the Shaheed and DJ Supreme legacy.

We've been doing it for the past 20 years and we going to continue straight ahead.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (indistinct rapping)