8 Tracks: Of Formative Roots with Kid Koala

The album “It’s a Wonderful Life” is one of my favorite of all time. It’s full of beautiful melodies, textures, and subtle sonics that continue to reveal themselves with each listen. Perfect for long travel days or just relaxing and drawing at home.

Somehow in 2001 I was invited to join Radiohead’s Kid A/Amnesiac tour. Colin Greenwood gifted this album to me since I wasn’t familiar with Isan. At the time, I didn’t know much about ambient/electronic music, so this was kind of an introduction to that style for me. I ended up listening to this record everyday for the rest of the tour. It helped me to wind down after the shows. It continues to be one of my favourite records to draw to!

She’s the ultimate voice of comfort for me. My father used to play her records at home when I was growing up. There are many different recorded versions of Billie Holiday interpreting this song and they’re all wonderful.

De La Soul and Prince Paul’s work on the album “3 Feet High and Rising” changed everything for me. I bought the tape, threw it in my walkman, got on the bus and hit play. I must have missed my house by 20 stops because I was so transfixed on what I was hearing. It’s such a creative record. The tracks, the characters, the artwork… The whole album still brings me so much joy.

I love this track.

This was one of my “secret weapon” records when I started playing in bands and in my early dj battle days. It’s one of the first records I bought with my paper route money when I was a kid. I’ve pretty much memorized every drop cue and rotation on it and there’s always a copy of it in my crate. It was an “import” record all the way from the U.K.!! Imagine being a kid who grew up mainly playing/hearing classical piano and then hearing this!

I grew up watching The Muppets in the 80s. Jim Henson and crew were always pushing the boundaries of what was possible on TV and film. In grade school, my mom asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up and I said “I want to work on The Muppets” I thought it would be such a fun place to have a job. A place where you would laugh a lot and have something different to do each morning: Today we’re writing songs, tomorrow building sets, then making animated films, then doing comedy sketches. It still seems like a dream job to me!

This movie totally shattered what I thought the word “movie” meant. It’s chock full of the most bizarre and ridiculous things you’ve ever seen on the screen. It starts weird and just gets exponentially weirder until it’s unbelievable final scene! It’s a really, really fun watch.