Interview: Marc Lariviere of Donut Productions
Donut Productions were a three-piece hip-hop group from northern California who released their album $19.95 on German label Marlboro Music in 1995. The album was intended for Mo’ Wax in the UK, but only appeared in Germany, through a deal the two labels had.
It’s been theorised the Mo’ Wax catalogue number MW 041 was intended for $19.95, which would have been released by early 1996. But while some have tried asking Mo’ Wax founder James Lavelle about the missing catalogue numbers before, it’s been to no avail. The groups song Wire Cutter did appear on the Mo’ Wax Headz 2B compilation, making it their one appearence on the label.
Donut Productions consisted of Josh Miller (J Squash), Noah Daar (DJ Gunga Din), and Marc Lariviere (Macaroonie), and I recently spoke with Marc about the group and his other rap alias lifeseeker.
When did Donut Productions start, and how many members were there?
Donut Productions, first called “Donut Posse” started as a musical thing around ’89. Me and my boy DJ Gunga Din had been talking about doing a group. Him DJing me rhyming. Then our good friend Josh Miller (Squash or J-Squash) was down too. He moved back to the bay from college and started working on beats, so it was three of us. I went by M.C. Macaroonie at that time.
The first song we made was vocals over a tape loop we made our apartment in SF CA. on Shrader St. From there we started making tapes of multiple songs, that we would give out, and me and J Squash moved to the Fulton house soon after.
In 93 we released the Shady Side of the Donut, a tape with both lyrical tracks and instrumentals, which was our usual by that time. J Squash was rhyming more now alongside me too. In the beginning I wrote most of his rhymes, but as we progressed he started writing more of his own stuff, and got really good!
Shady Side of the Donut enjoyed a good amount of popularity, and was favourably reviewed in a local paper. It was also handed by friends of ours to people in LA. Later we heard that people from the Grand Royal Beastie Boy camp had heard it, and there was back and forth about us going down to LA to record with Mario Caldato. We were very excited about this as it seemed it could be a big step forward. As it turned out it fell through, but subsequently, I’m not sure how, out of the Grand Royal thing our stuff was heard by James Lavelle, who then offered to release some of our stuff, including Wire Cutter and the $19.95 CD, which is made up mostly from tracks from the Shady Side of the Donut.
Did you meet James Lavelle? How was that?
Yes me and Squash went out to dinner with DJ Shadow and James Lavelle. They came to the Fulton house and listened to some tracks. Then we got dinner.
Do you remember when you met with them? I know Lavelle and Shadow were recording with Mario C in LA in September 1995, and Max Burgos was there too. Maybe that’s when they heard your tape?
Could be, Max was definitely involved. He was friends with a bunch of people I knew and lived with in SF. That’s how our tape got to Grand Royal. Mario and others liked it, and so we were talking. Grand Royal also sent some dude to come by and check us out. He stayed at our house and we kicked it with him. We met with Shadow before the $19.95 CD came out, coz they listened to Inner Galactic Fanatic at our house which ended up on the CD. Sounds like it could’ve been around then, would make sense.
Were there plans for anymore releases with Mo’ Wax?
No, not that I know of. Squash talked to them more than me. After the thing with Grand Royal and then Mo’ Wax, the dynamic in the group changed. J Squash, Josh, seemed more focused on instrumental stuff, and that led me to moving on with my rap stuff and creating “lifeseeker”. Our hopes got really raised up talking to Grand Royal.
That was a really big deal back then, and when it didn’t pan out, it kind of fractured our vibe, plus we were young and living wild. At one point you’re just doing music to do it, then expectations go way up, and that was hard to transition out of. With Mo’ Wax, it was great to get a little exposure, but trip hop, as they were doing it, wasn’t what I was going for exactly. That’s how I saw it. So after that it was time to move on. Squash was more focused on doing instrumental stuff he thought would work for Mo’ Wax and that left me to my own devices.
The $19.95 credits list the following people as writing or producing: J. Miller, M. Lariviere, N. Daar, and The Front Bumper Project. Was The Front Bumper Project another group you were all part of at the time?
Oh shit I forgot about The Front Bumper. That was something Josh was cooking up to be more his Mo’ Wax thing I think.
Do you know if they released anything after Donut Productions?
Man I haven’t talked to Josh in a long time, not many of our friend group have. But nah nothing after Donut Productions, as far as I know.
You mentioned making tape loops on the early Donut Posse tracks. How did you record everything back then? Did you hire a studio, or did you have a four track in your room?
We were just on 4 track and then maybe 8 track cassette recorders. It was ancient. So we started looping on a tape because we had no sampler at the time, but later we were sampling and using an old Mac to sequence. I just sat and listened back then, put in my 2 cents. Josh was on the beats.
So after Donut Productions you started releasing music as lifeseeker. How did your sound evolve between the two projects? Did you start producing your beats?
I got an Akai S2000 and did all the beats, which was really cool for me, coz things had gotten frustrating with Josh. He would flake on me a lot, so I had to get busy on my own, which was good for me. Josh probably gave me advice on my setup, plus he was on the first lifeseeker album vocally. On Gone Guru and Middle Earth. In a way lifeseeker was my way of keeping Donut Productions going, but Josh showed up a total of two days. Still he did rad, he’s an amazing musician. He also helped on the beat for Killer Moves on the first lifeseeker record.
Then the sound changed coz I was more in charge. I wanted to make wilder shit with characters and crazy concepts. You can hear that on Inner Galactic, but it wasn’t done that well coz our work ethic wasn’t really clicking. On lifeseeker I was hanging with my boy Tommy! Who was a really funny and strange artist/filmmaker/ performance artist. Plus he had bands like “boo hisss pfffftthh let’s throw some tomatoes at these guys” (that was the name of the band). He had another band called “the Tex Pistols” (punk rock with a country western twist as in huge neon green cowboy hats) and his other band was “Poo Poo Pee Pee Pants”.
That was my best bud for a long time. He killed himself right before the second lifeseeker CD came out. But yeah, I had always been guiding the Donut sound by sitting there and listening, but I finally was set loose to go further with it. Plus Tommy was added to the mix, and he added a lot of fun, and his own expertise.
So it was just you and Tommy as lifeseeker?
Mostly me, but Tommy is on vocals on three songs, Gone Guru, Middle Earth, and Pretty Decent. Tommy helped with writing a number of the songs lyrics, also we came up with song concepts together. Josh did vocals on two songs Gone Guru and Middle Earth. Josh also assisted a bit in the Killer Moves beat. Gunga did scratches on Mr. California, Middle Earth (he killed that one) and Majick Vehickle.
I was reading the comments on YouTube for your song Gone Guru II. It’s cool that you picked up a lot of fans when the original song was included in Dead Rising.
Yeah, that worked out well. Capcom had me back to do the heme song for the hero in Dead Rising, because Gone Guru did well in the first game. I didn’t want to do a follow up to Gone Guru because they said I wouldn’t own it. So I agreed to make some instrumental stuff for Dead Rising 2. Slowly but surely they coaxed me into writing lyrics for a track, and then boom I did that. But that’s it. •
lifeseeker’s music can be found on streaming services, including their 2020 album Heavy Mellow. Check out their videos on YouTube and Marc’s Instagram for more updates.
This article was originally published in The Shadow Knows Issue #2, December 2021. Buy the fanzine here or read more at our website.
