Herb Sundays 155: Peanut Butter Wolf
School's out for summer. “Songs that got me through high school" from the Stones Throw impresario.
Herb Sundays 155: Peanut Butter Wolf
Playlist: Apple Music, Spotify.
Art by Michael Cina
“Songs that got me through high school. It was hard because since I knew it would be a lot, I originally was putting only 1 song per artist, but than I realized that there were certain artists that we’d just listen to over and over like PIL, Violent Femmes, The Cure, Schoolly D, etc. And we really discovered “new wave” in 1985 and would go back and buy the earlier albums from 1980/1981, so that might be confusing because I wasn’t in high school til ’83-’87. And soul/funk/disco was my music from the late 70’s til 1984 at which point I went full on electro, hip hop, new wave, and some punk, and reggae. starting in 1986, I got really into looking for breaks and making my own beats where I mixed in late 60’s / early 70’s stuff. Not sure if I should add that stuff in, but started to put a few in. RIP Sly.”
- PB Wolf for Herb Sundays
As I wrap up my Los Angeles adventure, another scene hero that must be repped is Peanut Butter Wolf, or Chris Manak, he of Stones Throw fame. DJ/producer/label runner/bar owner/record collector, etc., truly a man in full.
There’s a ubiquity to his career, seemingly there for every phase of the game. Born just at the right time before the atom split for Hip-Hop globally, he has been inside the wave of it’s development ever since. The bio on Stones Throw site states that: “1979 was my “coming of age” year. I was nine years old and started getting allowance. What that translates to is: I started buying records weekly… Coincidentally, 1979 was also the year that hip hop records started to spring up at the neighborhood record store. It was mostly songs on an independent label called Sugarhill Records that made it to the West Coast.”
He caught the bug early, as you can see in the photos he included here, was signed to a Disney subsidiary (that also included Organized Konfusion) smack dab in the golden age of Rap in 1991 alongside his friend Charisma whom was tragically killed soon after. He was there for “turntablism” in his Bay Area-proximate San Jose and influential in the moment of self-released breakbeat records of the time, he was part of an exciting wave of credible indie hip-hop with the founding of Stones Throw in 1996, outlasting most imprints of the time and finding a renaissance in the aughts with critical figures such as DOOM and J Dilla that perhaps has never been bested, and so on and so on.
I have a distinct memory of buying my first Stones Throw record, with the 1999 debut LP from Lootpack (what Dilla was to Slum Village, Madlib was to Lootpack), at the fly-by-night record store I worked at and flyered for, The Grooveyard in Ann Arbor. Countless memories have accrued since thanks to the Stones Throw team and its general, the curation always immaculate. Stones Throw might be the most influential label of its time, both in attitude and titles, but just as impressive is its continued mojo, a willingness to cruise to the next thing.
I’ve featured a lot of Stones Throw acts in Herb Sundays including Mayer Hawthorne (Herb 113) and DāM-FunK (Herb 148) as well as influential Stones Throw alumni such as Eothen Alapatt (Herb 24), but there are so many other connections, including one of my mentors DJ House Shoes (Herb 44) who was the Dilla evangelist who put Wolf on to the legend, resulting in Dilla landing on Stones Throw. As a fan, it was fortuitous as Dilla’s final living label home, a platform whose braintrust, including the indelible visionary Jeff Jank, which helped him permeate an elusive international awareness. PBW was always on the Herb longlist but when my friend Jesse Nichols, who now works at Stones Throw finally suggested I tap the glass, it was done.
Wolf is sort of the label owner’s label owner, the kind of guy you read about in a Japanese lifestyle magazine. As if that label wasn’t enough there are countless tributaries, like Gold Line, a Japanese listening bar-inspired friendly which has become an LA staple, where guest DJs can pull from the 12,000 records (there’s a discogs page) from Wolf’s collection on display (sorry for any cue burn Josh Marcy (Herb 31) and I inflicted on them a few years back Wolf). I have always felt a kinship to his work, a would-be younger brother to his pace. We both wrote term papers about Hip-Hop and starting record labels, really herbal stuff.
In an industry where character is often sanded down by the machinations of commerce, the element of Wolf and Stones Throw I find is most impressive is its outsider sense of cool, which in lesser hands would be vaguely uncool, but because of its character and the instinct to follow it’s own taste, results in a unique savoir faire. Hearing Wolf’s high school music diet on Herb 155, you get the soil he grew from, a musical moment of experimentation, color, and fun which set the stage for the label.
Indeed, there’s a silliness that has been the backbone of Stones Throw which has been pivotal its success which great moments arising like happy accidents: The Quasimoto alias, the Mayer Hawthorne character, Wolf’s own aliases as romantic crooner Folerio and part of Campus Christy, where he dons wigs and stuff. Only a certain kind of label can put out Kyle Mooney and Eric Andre records in earnest, everything Wolf does feels like something the culture needed but didn’t have the language for.
Bonus clips from Peanut Butter Wolf
“here’s some of my early (unmixed) mixtapes from 1983 / 84 when I was still on an electro/ hip hop only kick.”
“this was the month before I graduated (w/ the rapper I was working with at the time”
Bonus Beats:
For Dad’s day, revisiting my memories of driving with my dad as a kid, plus this unearthed playlist by “Dad FM” a short-lived Facebook group helmed by then-dads including Rob Theakston (a pivotal Ghostly alum), which is sounding great.
If I could teleport I would have been at A Warp Happening at the Barbican yesterday. Revisit Mark Leckey’s Herb 48.
New on drink sum wtr, the dazzling new album from Annahstasia, championed in these pages by folks like
, , and , plus featured as ’s album of the day. It’s a real triumph. Stream/buy it here.
