Dust Brothers
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The Dust Brothers are the Los Angeles-based, Grammy Award winning producers "E.Z. Mike" (Michael Simpson) [[1]] and "King Gizmo" (John King), famous for their sample-based music in the 1980s & 1990's, and specifically for their work on the groundbreaking albums Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys, Odelay by Beck, and the soundtrack to the film Fight Club.
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[edit] 1980s
The Dust Brothers started working together in 1985 at the Pomona College radio station KSPC, hosting a weekly hip-hop show, started by Simpson in 1983, called "The Big Beat Showcase".
They eventually turned to DJ'ing at parties, and in 1987 began writing and producing for the Delicious Vinyl record label, where they produced and sequenced Tone Loc's very successful album Loc'ed after Dark featuring the rap single Wild Thing, which reached number two on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. They also produced two tracks on Young MC's debut album Stone Cold Rhymin.
Through a mutual friend, Matt Dike, the Dust Brothers were introduced to Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys. Matt played some instrumental music created by the Dust Brothers for Adam, and he was so impressed that he recruited the Dust Brothers to make the music for the second Beastie Boys album Paul's Boutique which was considered one of the best albums of all-time by Time Magazine in 2006 [2].
[edit] 1990s
In the mid-90s, Beck, eager to shed the "one-hit wonder" label (after the success of his single "Loser"), had the Dust Brothers produce his very successful album entitled Odelay, released in 1996. The album spawned the hit songs "Where It's At" (reached #64 on U.S. Billboard Hot 100), "Devil's Haircut" (reached #94 on U.S. Billboard Hot 100), "The New Pollution" (reached #74 on U.S. Billboard Hot 100) and "Jack-Ass" (reached #73 on U.S. Billboard Hot 100). In 1995 they co-produced Vince Neil's, Motley Crue's then ex-frontmans second solo album Carved In Stone
In 1997, the Dust Brothers produced a track with Korn called "Kick the P.A." for the Spawn soundtrack, produced the hit "MMMBop" for Hanson's first major label album Middle of Nowhere and created a song on the soundtrack to the Howard Stern film Private Parts named "Tortured Man", featuring ad-libbed vocals by Howard Stern. They also took part in the production of the Rolling Stones album Bridges to Babylon.
In 1998, the duo were approached by director David Fincher to assemble the score for the film Fight Club, most notably "This Is Your Life", a song featuring lines from the film, including dialogue by the character Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). This remains their only original release to date.
In 1999, the Dust Brothers collaborated with Carlos Santana and Eagle Eye Cherry on Santana's multi-platinum album "Supernatural", for which they received their first Grammy award for "Album of the Year" after having received numerous nominations for their past work with Beck, Hanson and as artists for their instrumental song on the "X-Files" soundtrack.
[edit] 2000s
In the 2000s, the Dust Brothers have had continued success, again collaborating with Beck on the album Guero, Tenacious D on their self-titled debut, Linkin Park with a track called "With You" on their 24 million+ selling debut album Hybrid Theory, remixing the Styles Of Beyond track "Winnetka Exit" which made its way onto a Styles Of Beyond promotional CD Spies Like Us / Winnetka Exit, producing the They Might Be Giants album The Else, as well as working with several other artists, producing and/or remixing individual songs or entire albums.
[edit] Note
- The Dust Brothers was also the original name used by The Chemical Brothers as a homage to the American duo, but changed their name when they were threatened with a lawsuit by the producer duo. [3]
