Who I have attempted to contact so far...

At this point, I've attempted to contact the Zappa Family Trust, DJ Shadow, John Oswald and Matt Dike, all to no success. Not quitting, just saying. I'm going to attempt to reach Steinski, who I've spoken with before, and Prince Paul soon as well. Steinski is very polite and might even be able to help me contact other artists, but I don't want to cross my fingers, he has a life of his own and I don't expect him to run around helping some guy write a book. Regardless, I'll keep you in the know.

No News Is... No News?

Hate to say it folks, but there is no news to report right now. It's hard to work on this book full time when you already have a full time job. That said, without going into heavy details, I do have a new contact who might be able to help me out and I'm going to be visiting a college campus soon to speak with their publishing end. It's not that I need someone to give me a bunch of money, in fact I don't need an advance or anything, I just need someone who can vouch for my legitimacy to potential interviewees. Hopefully I'll find that help somewhere. Until then, I'll do my best with what I was born with, my wonderful ability to annoy people until they agree to talk with me. I'll also try to find a better way to say that. How about "Dave is truly determined and lets his perseverance shine through in his ongoing pursuit to author this book." That's better I think. I'll be back with more details soon.

A list of folks I'd like to talk with

I want this book to be much more than just collected research. Not that there is anything wrong with that, and I do intend to continue doing research for quite a while on this topic, but I really want to speak with artists I consider important to sampling as an art form to get their personal and sociological perspective on themselves and their music. With that said, I've created a rough list of people I want to interview/speak with. I've attempted to contact two of these parties but haven't had any success yet. I don't know what exactly I'm supposed to do when contacting musicians and artists, so hopefully someone may have mercy on me and provide me with some details. Until then though, I'm just going to keep on calling and writing people in hopes that someone will help me out.

Here is that rough list of people I want to communicate with:

Negativland
Steinski
DJ Shadow
Zappa Family Trust
Christian Marclay
John Oswald
Rick Rubin
Sean "Puffy" Combs
Grandmaster Flash
The Avalanches
Matt Dike
The Dust Brothers
Beastie Boys
Jack Dangers
Soulwax
Richard X
Trent Reznor
Strictly Kev
Aphex Twin
Autechre
Paul McCartney
Prince Paul
Soul Coughing (Mark De Gli Antoni and Mike Doughty)
MC Hammer
Bill Laswell
RZA
Hank Shocklee
Dr. Dre
Quentin Tarantino
Coldcut
Mike Meyers
"Weird Al" Yankovic
Danger Mouse
Girl Talk
Madlib

If they weren't dead, that list would also include:

Edgard Varese
John Cage
William S. Burroughs
Teo Macero

Also, in case you're wondering, the reason I've included Quentin Tarantino and Mike Meyers on the list is regarding Tarantino's soundtrack work and re-contextualization of concepts in film and Meyers' attempt to start a business with DreamWorks productions to create films using nothing but pre-existing footage and content.

If anyone might be able to assist me in this gargantuan task, I'd love to hear from you! And if anyone knows how to contact the dead, let me know about that too. I'd love to chat with Frank Zappa for a while if I had the chance!

PS - Added Negativland to the list. Don't know how I missed them in the first place. They've been on every tentative version I've created. What can I say, strange things happen!

Ladies and Gentlemen...

Hi everyone. Maybe you've come here via my other site or maybe you found me through other means, but regardless I'm glad you're reading this. My name is Dave and, as the name of the site implies, I'm writing a book, or at least trying to. Let me explain...

Recently I wrote a proposal for a book on the history of sampling in music and sent it off to a publisher I had been in communications with. They turned down my offer in the most polite manner possible, most likely due to my lack of experience in the field of professional writing. Apart from my blog, The Unheard Music, I have no writing credits, certainly nothing professional. Nonetheless, a lot of people who have read my writings about unreleased albums and why they remain so have told me they found my text well written and informative.

That said, after communicating with several friends and supporters, I've decided to write the book on my own regardless of publishing support. This is not to say that I wouldn't accept support if I am able to get it, and I do intend to continue actively looking for possible support, but with or without assistance I will attempt to contact all the parties I hope to interview for the book.

This site is intended to give anyone looking for information about my project or how to contact me details about how to do so. If you have questions for me you can either leave comments here or send me an e-mail at dct3book-at-gmail-dot-com, which is also listed in my profile. If you want to contact me by other means, please e-mail me first and I will give you details how to do so.

I will be posting updates as they occur to let anyone interested know what is happening with the book, although please don't be surprised if there are decent length lapses between posts. It may be a while between updates but they will be shared as they happen.

Thank you for reading,
David Taylor