User:IL Rev (music)

iL Rev
iL Rev is a hip-hop producer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He first started experimenting with making music when he was a freshman at Schenley High School, in the part of town known as Oakland. He acknowledges that his first early works were medicore at best, but he says it was because no one told him how to make any music, and did it on his own, by way of trial and error. Gradually, he became more familiar with certain musical theories and patterns, and began to branch off on his music tastes, and incorporate many different stlyes of music into the tracks that he made.

Early Days
Born as Ethan Osterhout on August 6th, 1988, in Pittsburgh, at a young age he developed a strong appreciation for music. He claims that his early life in the suburbs almost destroyed him as a person:

''The thing with the 'burbs was, that everyone was pretty much the same...like everybody listened to the same stuff, with almost the same enthusiasm for it, which now when I look back on, it just makes me realize what a joke it was. I'm glad my family moved out of there when I was that age, because I wouldn't have the same kind of personality, or even desire to make good music that I have now had they not.''

His parents divorced at the age of 13, and a few months later, his mom moved out of the suburbs, and into the city, into the area of Highland Park. He still saw his dad often, but he moved from place to place for a few years before re-marrying and moving back into the suburbs, when iL was 16 years old. He attributes much of his personality to his dad, Karl, who he claims had a major impact on him, but as he says, came after his parents got divorced:

''It's a pretty hard concept to understand for most people, even my own family, but I really do think that my parents getting divorced was the best thing that happened to me. It was obviously a horrible thing to endure for a good bit, but when that happened, I became actually like, friends, with my dad. Growing up you see your parents as just protectors, or guardians, who tell you to wake up, and tell you when it's bed time, etc. But something happened, and me and my dad started talking to each other like human beings, and like really good friends. He's a great guiar player, and I always have liked the stuff he plays, which is mainly folk, but it sounds really good. Listening to him play his guitars was my first inspiration to play, and make music.''

He went to a small private school from Kindergarten to 8th grade, named "Pittsburgh Urban Christian School," or "PUCS," a decision that he steadfastly maintains may have been a factor in determining his philosophy on life in general. His middle school graduating class was a total of 8, including him, and being taught with moderately strong conservative views of Christianity, and life in general, as he puts it, "almost drove me damn near straight up nuts." He gives the credit mainly to listening to people when they talked, and formed opinions on whatever they said on his own terms. He once argued that the kid who sits in the back of class and doesn't say anything is sometimes not a slacker, because he claimed that he was more interested in what others around him had to say, although he claims he wasn't afraid to talk.

High School
When Ethan graduated from PUCS, he was living in the city with his mom a few days a week, and with his dad in (eventually) the suburbs for the other portion. He chose to go to high school in the city, where most of his friends were going at the time, and attended Schenley High School, where he played on the school's soccer team for all 4 years. He was at least 1 full year older than all of his friends in his grade, a result of him being held back a year before entering Kindergarten, so most of his friends at first were either Seniors, Juniors, or Sophmores. He once said it took a little bit before he made friends with many other Freshmen, because they were all so much younger than him.

In the middle of his Freshman year, he found out about a music-making program called FL Studio, and decided to try it out, and see what he could do. It went from a hobby to simply cure his boredom to a job that he took very seriously. By the time he was a Senior in high school, he had created over 110 tracks. Some of them were meant for rapping, and some were meant for listening to them the way they were. He estimates that these tracks he made were about 75% hip-hop beats, and the rest were meant as instrumentals.

During his high school years, he developed a taste for all kinds of music. It was predominately in his junior and senior year where this became evident. He claims, however, that it wasn't all music that inspired him to continue composing music of his own:

''Before I got to high school, I had played bass, drums, and guitar. I owned this little piece of shit jumpstart bass for a while, got bored with that, and got a drumset for Christmas one year, and got bored with that. I sold the drums on eBay, and used the money for a new, much nicer bass. I sold my shit bass to my friends brother, and used that money for a shitty electric guitar. I tell people I play bass, but some guitar also. My main point though is, like, I knew the basic aspects of each instrument enough to make basic music on my computer, and that's what I was doing for a little bit, even though eventually it began to sound alright, with the tinkering around and stuff. But, there was this one day where my family...was coming back home from a vacation in Florida, and we were gonna be on somethin like a 4 hour flight back home. We were waiting in the terminal or whatever, and I decided to pick up a magazine to read. It was Spin's 100 Best CD's ever, or something, and I was reading it, and came across someone I had never heard of before: DJ Shadow. The article was talking about "Endtroducing..." and I decided that when I got home I'd check it out. After I heard "Changeling," I decided that was the kind of music I wanted to make.''

From DJ Shadow, he developed strong interests in Acid Rap, and Trip-Hop, from such artists as Prefuse 73, and Deltron 3030. He says that he listens to this music for ideas for his own, but that he also likes to listen to it for recreational purposes as well. He says that his favorite band is Rage Against The Machine, and that Tom Morello is one of his main influences to get involved with music.

Presently
He hasn't released a CD, or even an official mixtape yet, but he has over 110 instrumentals in the bank, some using very unique samples, such as "Hotel Yorba," by The White Stripes (Goodbye Country Roads), several orchestral pieces, mainly from the NFL Films catalog (Bold Statement, Marching On, and Peoples Champ [used for STDs, with ?Marc]), "No Leaf Clover," by Metallica (Crunk System), and his most obscure one, being a spanish guitar version of the theme song from The Legend of Zelda (Question Time). He is gaining recognition, however, with his first produced track with long time friend ?Marc (named Marc Salo), called "STDs."

He claims to have made a beat extremely similiar to Jibbs' "Do Ya Chain Hang Low," close to a year before it was released. He says that he was inside on his computer, and he heard the ice cream truck roll by, and come to a stop. He said it sat there for a few minutes before inspiration struck, and got a recorder, then recorded the whole track several times, went inside, and sampled it. His family backs him up on this claim, as well as many of the people he goes to school with.

Below is the list of tracks he considers to be the "Cream udda Crop," as he puts it. He claims to have several raps written to some of the beats listed, however, is still open to submissions by anyone who thinks they have something legitimate.

1. At Last 2. Bold Statement 3. Circle 4. Crunk System 5. El Planeta Se Ve Feo Hoy Un Dia 6. Everyone's Playin' The Game 7. Goodbye Country Roads 8. Headcase 9. Icy Trucks 10. Marching On 11. Mystique 12. One Step At A Time 13. Pride 14. Question Time 15. Reflection Contraption 16. Smooth 17. Sudden Realization 18. The Haunted Washboard 19. Unanswered Questions 20. Victorious 21. Whistle While You Die