Mo’ Wax — Where Are They Now: Liquid Liquid (1997)
Mo’ Wax was a record label started by James Lavelle in 1992, which closed about ten years later. Initially they released 12" singles and licensed a compilation from Japan of Japanese Hip Hop, until 1994 when they began releasing albums of their artists original work. While some of these artists such as DJ Shadow, DJ Krush, and Money Mark continued releasing music after Mo’ Wax closed, others have seemingly disappeared from the music scene. In this series I will look at each artist on Mo’ Wax and try to find out where are they now…
Liquid Liquid are a group which includes Scott Hartley, Richard McGuire, Salvatore Principato, and Dennis Young. They originally formed in 1980 as part of New York’s “No Wave” scene, and released several EP’s on 99 Records (pronounced “nine nine”) between 1981–1984.
Liquid Liquid are possibly best known for their song Cavern from their 1983 EP Optimo. Cavern was sampled by Melle Mel on his song White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It) which was released by Sugar Hill Records, also in 1983. White Lines entered the charts in the UK and USA, reaching #7 on the UK Singles Chart and spending 56 weeks in and out of the chart between 1983–1985. In the USA, White Lines reached #9 in Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart the week of November 12, 1983, and this popularity caught the eye of 99.
99 Records was run by Ed Bahlman and originated as a record store located at 99 MacDougal Street, New York before it also became a record label. Customers at the store included Thurston Moore, Rick Rubin, and Glenn Branca, the later of whose debut solo EP became 99 Records’ first release in March 1980.
Liquid Liquid started after Scott Hartley and Richard McGuire first formed a band called Liquid Idiot. McGuire later described Liquid Idiot as “a ridiculous primitive band…We weren’t trying to sound like anyone because none of us had the ability to imitate anyone anyway.” The band recorded a 7" of instrumental largely improvised songs in 1978, recording onto a tape recorder in McGuire’s living room. In 1979 McGuire and Hartley moved to New York and invited Salvatore Principato to join them. Principato had only intended to spend a short two-week vacation in New York but he was invited to join the band and a gig at CBGB’s was secured. Principato later told Red Bull Music Academy:
It was so much fun [that] I never went back [to San Francisco], and that was the beginning of the band.
Dennis Young joined the band in 1980, and McGuire took a tape down to Ed Bahlman at 99 Records. The label soon after released Liquid Liquid’s first self titled EP in May 1981, and this was followed by Successive Reflexes in December 1981, and Optimo in 1983, their third EP.
Optimo had been recorded in late 1982 and was produced by 99 Records owner Ed Bahlman, who also manged the band and produced or had a hand in many of his labels other releases. Bahlman had the band record some extended versions of the songs from the sessions and he pressed acetates (test pressing) of Cavern and gave them to his brother Bill to DJ with. Cavern had started life as a 12 minute version which was refined and edited down as Ed Bahlman reworked several versions of the song. He would then see what audiences responded to when his brother played Cavern as part of his DJ set. Once it was completed Cavern began getting airplay on radio, such as New York’s WBLS and WKTU. The Optimo EP sold 30,000 copies and Cavern entered the charts in the USA, reaching #50 in Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart the week of July 9, 1983.
White Lines appeared a few months later, and is commonly credited to Grandmaster Flash or “Grandmaster and Melle Mel”, though the song doesn’t feature Flash at all and his name was apparently included to trick people into buying the record. White Lines became a hit on radio and in the charts, and initially Liquid Liquid weren’t bothered. Richard McGuire later explained “My initial reaction was that I was flattered [as] we were already fans of Grandmaster Flash’s. It got complicated very quickly.”
While it’s often considered a sample, Melle Mel hadn’t actually sampled Cavern, but had hired a band to cover the song almost exactly, only changing the lyrics “slip in and out out of phenomena” to “something like a phenomenon”. Reportedly radio suddenly stopped playing Cavern and replaced it with White Lines, so Ed Bahlman contacted Sugar Hill Records and a legal battle began which lasted 15 months.
Bahlman and 99 Records won, but Sugar Hill Records filed for bankruptcy so they never paid the $660,000 judgment. The financial and mental strain on Bahlman from the legal case led to the closure of 99 Records in 1985, and he left the music industry.
Liquid Liquid meanwhile had also come to an end by this time. Following the release of Optimo, Richard McGuire left to pursue his arts career, and the band released one final EP, Dig We Must, in 1984. This was both the final release from Liquid Liquid, and also the final release from 99 Records.
In the late 1980’s Liquid Liquid was rediscovered by Techno and House DJ’s, and in 1995 Duran Duran covered White Lies which led to a lawsuit that was settled out of court between Duran Duran and Liquid Liquid, allowing Liquid Liquid to finally get some money from the sampling of their music.
In 1997 Liquid Liquid granted Grand Royal a license for most of their catalogue, and Grand Royal partnered with Mo’ Wax to release an album which compiled songs from the first three Liquid Liquid EP’s and some live tracks. The compilation was titled Liquid Liquid, and the artwork for both the Grand Royal and Mo’ Wax editions was designed by Ben Drury, based on the original EP artwork from Liquid Liquid bassist Richard McGuire.
While Grand Royal released just the compilation album, Mo’ Wax went further and also released a handful of 12" singles featuring new remixes in 1997 and 1998.
One of the Mo’ Wax releases was a 12" promo of Cavern which featured Cavern (Let’s Hear It For The B-Boy Remix) on the A-Side, and Lock Groove (Live) with New Walk (U.N.K.L.E. Remix) on the B-Side. The remix of Cavern is credited to a DJ Phantom, but it was later revealed to be the alias of Dave Paul who ran The Bomb Hip-Hop Magazine. Dave Paul made the revelation in a post on Discogs:
Most people don’t know that I, David Paul of Bomb Hip-Hop, did that remix on a 4-track reel to reel under the alias DJ Phantom…after I did a battle record under the name of DJ Phantom. James Lavelle wanted me to do a similar cut n paste remix. He just had the song, not the separate parts so I just did my thing with turntables and razor edits. The Crazy Legs part was from a phone message that he left on my answering machine…I just didn’t wanna get in trouble for samples at the time — lol. So I used a few dif names at the time for projects…It’s funny to listen to it now cause there’s so much I would do different. Even then, there were things I wanted to change but was under deadline.
Mo’ Wax also released another remix 12" featuring remixes by Cut Chemist and Psychonauts, and a 12" featuring two edits of Bell Head by DJ Harvey. Of their UK releases, the Cut Chemist / Psychonauts remix EP charted the highest, reaching #152 in the UK Top 200 Singles, unfortunately still outside of the Official Top 100. Liquid Liquid have otherwise not charted in the UK.
Spin Magazine gave the Grand Royal reissue 6/10 as they were not a fan of the vocals, writing:
…the hip-shaking and percussive perks of tracks like “GroupMeGroup” and “Bell Head” are consistently sabotaged by the vocals, a develish strain of Lower East Side throat-singing that never ceases to offend.
Muzik were also unsure what to make of it at the time, giving the Mo’ Wax reissue 5/10 and writing:
…Mo’ Wax re-releases their er, “arthouse” meanderings complete with some live sets too. Admittedly, remixes from UNKLE and DJ Phantom attempt to bring the Liquid Liquid phenomenon into the Nineties, but still the question remains. Why?
In 1983 an animated video for Cavern was created by Michael Sporn, who was a fan of Liquid Liquid and offered to make the video for them. Later in 1997 Liquid Liquid’s bassist Richard McGuire created a new video for Cavern from footage of Oskar Seelische’s 1927 animated film Seelische Konstruktionen. The new video was then shown as part of an exhibition Mo’ Wax held in 1997 titled A Visual Review of MoWax Recordings 92–97 which featured artwork from several Mo’ Wax releases.
The Grand Royal / Mo’ Wax reissues led to more interest in Liquid Liquid, but their compilations have since fallen out of print due to both labels shutting down. In 2001 Grand Royal Records announced it was closing, and the label filed for bankruptcy in 2002, with their assets put up for auction in 2004. The auction was won by a group who set up a new label called GR 2, part of the cruise ship company Stiletto Entertainment, and they soon re-released many of Grand Royals artists digitally, including Liquid Liquid. In the UK Mo’ Wax also shut down in 2003, but some behind the scenes label mergers and contract changes in 1998 means that Liquid Liquid’s Mo’ Wax releases are now handled by Universal-Island Records Ltd.
Following the revived interest in Liquid Liquid at the end of the 1990’s the band reformed in 2003, initially just to jam together again, but soon offers to perform came in. Richard McGuire explained how it occurred:
Out of the blue we got an email from the Knitting Factory that basicaly said if you ever want to do a show you have an open invitation. We took this as a sign and decided to do it. Well the show sold out so they added another which sold out too. Then suddenly there were offers to play in Europe. There is a club in Glasgow that is named after one of our songs called “Optimo”. These guys flew over for the gig and then asked us to play at their club. An impossible offer to refuse! Also present at the show were James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy of DFA. I had met them both before and invited them to the show and they were so completely overjoyed by it.
The meeting with James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy led to Liquid Liquid re-recording their song Bellhead for a DFA compilation, with the new version produced by Murphy and Goldsworthy. Both Murphy and Goldsworthy described working with the band as an honour, while Goldsworthy felt it was “terrifying…and it’s difficult to produce because… they have a pretty faultless back catalog.” More songs were recorded during the DFA produced sessions which percussionist Dennis Young described as having “a tremendous amount of energy and power”, but he wasn’t sure when or if they would be released.
In 2008 a new remastered Liquid Liquid compilation was issued by Domino Records which also featured bonus tracks from Liquid Idiot, a group featuring Scott Hartley and Richard McGuire which recorded in the late 1970’s before Liquid Liquid had formed. Later in 2015 the first three of Liquid Liquid’s EP’s were reissued on vinyl by Superior Viaduct, and that same year the Liquid Idiot recordings were compiled again with those by The Idiot Orchestra, another pre-Liquid Liquid band featuring members of Liquid Idiot and Liquid Liquid.
But even as Liquid Liquid has returned to touring and their music is available widely again, the band has still encountered issues over their masters, and in 2017 Liquid Liquid sued Stiletto Entertainment who had become the owner of Liquid Liquid’s master tapes following the bankruptcy of Grand Royal. According to legal documents, the band were never paid royalties and Stiletto had licensed the bands music outside of North America which breached their agreement. The band had tried to rescind the rights to their masters in 2015 but this was ignored which led to Stiletto being taken to court.
It’s unclear on what the outcome of the above legal case was, but Liquid Liquid’s music has remained available to purchase and stream online.
Outside of Liquid Liquid, Scott Hartley has been the quietest of the bands members, and only appears in the news with regards to Liquid Liquid, but his three bandmates have had fairly extensive careers in music or other fields.
Richard McGuire has been the most prolific outside of Liquid Liquid with his successful career as a visual artist. His art career has even surpassed that of his musical career for some, and when Grand Royal released their Liquid Liquid compilation in 1997 CMJ New Music Monthly announced the release by stating, “The wee ones know Richard McGuire as the writer/artist behind a slew of award winning children’s books…Their parents know him as the bassist behind the super influential funk group Liquid Liquid…”
Early in his career McGuire had exhibited with artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Futura 2000, and Keith Harring as part of the show New York/New Wave at MoMA PS1 in 1981, and a book of his early work was later released in 2018 titled Richard McGuire Art for the Street, New York 1978–1982. In 1989 Raw began publishing McGuire’s comic Here which was later published in book form, and his work has also appeared in The New Yorker. In 1997 McGuire was reportedly working on a flip book for Mo’ Wax which was never released, but his work has continued to develop across various mediums including animation and sculpture.
Salvatore Principato, or Sal P, teamed with Ken “Man” Caldeira following Liquid Liquid’s breakup to form Fist Of Facts, who released the album Fugitive Vesco in 1988. He has since worked with Battles, Tussle, and BMG, while outside of music Principato has taught and written about his passion for vegan cooking. In 2008 he took the idea further and launched Go Gather where “guests make reservations to visit Sal’s downtown Manhattan apartment where they then communally prepare a full dinner from scratch.” The project seems to have ended sometimes after 2011, but Principato has continued to work in music and in 2019 he contributed a remix to a reissue of Gray’s Shades Of… and also appeared on Battles’ Juice B Crypts album.
Dennis Young was already recording as a solo artist before Liquid Liquid ended, but following the bands demise he began releasing his work. Young released several New Age albums as Dennis Andrew, and also worked with Padded Cell, Fist of Facts, Tussle, Headman, and Kasper Bjørke, among others, in a career that has continued to this day. In the 2000’s Young began releasing solo work under his own name, which included reissues of his Dennis Andrew albums. In 2019 a career spanning compilation titled Primitive Substance was released, and in 2020 Young has released a new album titled Bella, as well as two collections of older work, Robots On Fire, and Under The Stars: The Planetarium Shows, with a new album Grey Umbrella planned for later in the year.
Since first reforming, Liquid Liquid have continued to tour but no new releases have been announced from the band. Alongside the unreleased Liquid Liquid sessions produced by DFA in 2003, there was also a live DVD with archival footage which was teased for release at some point. While it’s unclear if either of these will ever be released, it’s nice to know there could still be something new from Liquid Liquid in the future.
