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Vinylogue

Peanut Butter Wolf

Since he was a kid, DJ, producer and Stones Throw Records founder Peanut Butter Wolf has utilized every listening opportunity as a chance to learn and grow. His collection is massive as a result.

Interview: Brian Tunney / Photography: Jen Agosta

Peanut Butter Wolf at Gold Line Vinyl Bar

“Most of my collection is currently in storage because I recently moved, but I have around 5k in the Stones Throw office and over 10k at my vinyl bar,” Peanut Butter Wolf quips in advance of our interview.

What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye….that song just hit my emotions as a child. I was learning about music through TV… That stuff was ingrained in me before I even discovered disco and funk.”

Peanut Butter Wolf

That’s 15,000 records in one building, meaning that whatever amount of records he currently has in storage eclipses 15,000. Is it 20,000? 25,000? It’s tough to know. 

Between buying, selling, moving, and even a bout of mold, Peanut Butter’s vinyl collection has fluctuated in size throughout the years. The Stones Throw Records founder, DJ, and producer is less concerned with numbers and more concerned with the twists, turns, and alleyways he’s discovered as he continues his search for new music. 

Through his love of hip-hop and the never-ending search for samples, along with an innate ability to utilize every listening opportunity as a chance to learn and grow, Peanut Butter Wolf’s enthusiasm for music discovery has directed most of, if not all, his life’s pursuits, from record store clerk to DJ to producer to label founder to artist.

Peanut Butter Wolf shows off vinyl at Gold Line Bar.

All from collecting records, a desire that started in the early 1970s.

As a child in San Jose, California, Chris Manak, AKA Peanut Butter Wolf, discovered an emotional connection to the music he heard on TV, beginning with Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” which played before Saturday morning cartoons. 

“That song just hit my emotions as a child,” says Manak. “I was learning about music through TV. There was Sonny and Cher, Donny and Marie, the Brady Bunch, the Monkees, Sesame Street, the “Pinball Song” from the Pointer Sisters – that stuff was ingrained in me before I even discovered disco and funk.”

In second grade, Manak had a teacher that ignited further music discovery by introducing him to everything from Paul McCartney and Wings to Heatwave. He began asking for albums for Christmas and birthdays, and started cataloging songs he had heard on the radio, eventually recording songs to make his own mixtapes that he’d listen to through a boombox while riding his bike. (Ever the collector, he still has those mixtapes.)

By fifth grade I was buying a lot of 45s….Star Records told me when you’re old enough to work, we’ll hire you, and that became my first job. It was a dream come true.

Peanut Butter Wolf

“By fifth grade I was buying a lot of 45s from a record store called Star Records in San Jose,” says Manak. At age 10, he was creating his own version of a Discogs Wantlist and stumping the staff. “They were surprised that I knew all the songs. I would listen to the radio and I’d write them down and bring my lists in, but usually the stuff that I asked for, they didn’t have yet. So I was ahead of them.”

The meticulous cataloging, obsessive buying habits, and rabid thirst for knowledge of all music fueled Manak’s teenage years, and led him down a path that he still chases today, over 40 years later. 

“Star Records told me when you’re old enough to work, we’ll hire you, and when I was a teenager, they eventually did,” says Manak. “It was a dream come true.”

As a young teenager, Manak learned to scratch using his parent’s Fisher turntable, all while expanding his musical palette to include electronic, new wave, reggae, punk, and hip-hop.

“I was so excited, and I didn’t even care about learning how to mix,” he said. “I just wanted to scratch all day long. So I put a record on and I’d scratch along with it.” 

By 15, Manak was exploring the emerging hip-hop scene more and began collaborating with friends to create their own music. The young group gained local attention, even opening for freestyle artist Trinere at an 800-cap venue.

“I just remember being so scared and nervous on stage,” said Manak. “But sharing the music that we created, there was nothing like it, and I’ve kind of stuck with it ever since.” 

In the early ‘90s, Manak collaborated with a San Jose MC named Charizma (Charles Hicks), forming the duo Charizma & Peanut Butter Wolf. They recorded demos, played live throughout the San Jose area, and secured a manager (Matt Brown, who managed DJ Shadow at the time.) Eventually, the duo started the search for a record label to release their material. They signed with the Disney-owned label Hollywood Basic,

A portion of Peanut Butter Wolf's massive vinyl collection.

I never wanted to be a label guy.

Peanut Butter Wolf

 “Our checks had Mickey Mouse on them,” says Manak.

While signed to Hollywood Basic, the duo continually recorded new tracks, but the label kept refusing their submissions. Only a promotional cassette (a split with Lifers Group) and a flexi disc were released there. Regardless, the duo continued to gain momentum, opening for Nas, The Pharcyde, and House of Pain, appearing in Billboard Magazine, and traveling to Europe for live performances. Eventually, creative differences between the label and the duo forced Hollywood Basic to release them from their contract.

Unbound from the constraints of a mainstream label, the duo returned to San Jose and began recording new material with a more raw, stripped-down approach to their songwriting. They recorded four new songs in the fall of 1993. Two months later, Charizma was killed in a botched robbery attempt.

“I didn’t want to be on stage with anyone else. It didn’t feel right,” said Manak.

In 1994, now without his partner, Manak dropped the influential breakbeat album Peanut Butter Breaks. And with the experience of Hollywood Basic still fresh on his mind, he formed the independent label Stones Throw Records in 1996, with a commitment to stay true to his style.

The label’s first release was “My World Premiere” by Charizma and Peanut Butter Wolf, which ultimately became a hip-hop classic. Since ‘96, Stones Throw has been a staple independent label of the hip-hop community and beyond, having released seminal albums from Madvillain, J Dilla, Madlib, Lootpack, and more. Ten years after Charizma’s death, Stones Throw also released Big Shots, the studio album recorded by Charizma and Peanut Butter Wolf while signed to Hollywood Basic from 1991 through 1993.

Stones Throw is probably one of the most unique, boutique creative labels in existence, going beyond the boundaries of what underground hip-hop is

Questlove

According to the Discogs Discography, Stones Throw has over 1000 releases in its catalog (including test pressings, samplers, singles, etc). In 2016, the label expanded to open a studio in the label office. 

“Stones Throw is probably one of the most unique, boutique creative labels in existence, going beyond the boundaries of what underground hip-hop is,” said Questlove on the Questlove Supreme Podcast in 2017. “A lot of my favorite artists that I listen to on the daily are on this label.”

Through Stones Throw, Peanut Butter Wolf is continually searching for and discovering new music to release. “The excitement is having a new generation of music appreciate the older music in a new way,” says Manak. “For example, Apifera is a band we’re putting out. There are jazz influences and rock influences. You can’t really describe it as one thing. That’s what I want people to discover.”

Peanut Butter Wolf in the DJ booth at Gold Line Vinyl Bar.

In the early 2000s, Peanut Butter Wolf and Stones Throw moved into a building on North Figueroa in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. Close to downtown, Highland Park’s low rents and home prices attracted a new generation of artists, entrepreneurs, and residents.

 “I’ve been in this building for at least 20 years, because we put out Madvillainy (the only studio album from a collaboration between MF Doom and Madlib) 20 years ago and shot a music video in our office back then,” said Manak.

In the process, he also moved a large part of his record collection into the Stones Throw offices, while constantly buying and adding new records.

In the time since, Peanut Butter Wolf, Stones Throw, and his record collection housed in the label’s office have become staples of the neighborhood. But there was another idea brewing in Manak’s mind since his first visits to Japan in the late ‘90s: a vinyl bar. 

We have a Discogs page for the bar because we wanted the DJs to know how to find records.

Peanut Butter Wolf

“Going to Japan and seeing the record bars, it was something I had in my mind,” he said. “But I knew I wasn’t going to be here every day. So the concept I came up with was to have all of my records in here, but have different people playing them,” says Manak.

Utilizing the 12,000 records he had stored at the label office, Manak and partners Tyler Bell and Jason McGuire opened Gold Line Vinyl Bar (named for the Gold Line Metro that runs through Highland Park) in 2018. Using Discogs to sort by genres, Gold Line Bar’s Discogs page has over 12,000 records in their collection. 

“We have a Discogs page for the bar because we wanted the DJs to know how to find records,” says Manak. “Once a week we’ll take the records out of here and file them back like a library and then take different ones out from the other room. So that the customer and the DJs and the bartenders all have a different experience. They’re not hearing the same songs over and over.”

“It took a while to catch on, and we don’t over promote it,” added Manak. “My wife made a joke that I buy and buy records and don’t even listen to the ones I have, so now people are listening to them in the bar.”

“Serendipitous nights at Gold Line feel like pure magic,” says DJ and record collector Melissa Dueñas aka Sonrisita. “To be able to play everything from Steve Monite to Moodymann to ESG to Sonic Youth from Peanut Butter Wolf’s expansive collection, grounds me and reminds me why we do this. It’s not for the likes, the instafame, the clout — it’s for the music we love and the people we love sharing it with.”

Peanut Butter Wolf at Gold Line Vinyl Bar.
The DJ booth with Stones Throw slip cover at Gold Line Bar.
Vinyl at Gold Line Bar

It’s records that I don’t know exist, records that I’ve never heard, that I get excited about…I’m looking for the records I don’t have yet.

Peanut Butter Wolf

Between Stones Throw, Gold Line, his own musical pursuits, and a family, Peanut Butter Wolf doesn’t seem to have much time to keep digging. But his road to discovery almost seems to inform itself these days. He’s releasing Brazilian music created by the bar manager at Gold Line (Gabriel da Rosa), he’s revived his high school garage band name (Campus Christy) for a new project alongside multi-instrumentalist Brian Ellis, which his daughter created the single artwork for, and he’s still searching, still buying records all the time.

“It’s records that I don’t know exist, records that I’ve never heard, that I get excited about,” says Manak. “I went to Val Shively’s store in Upper Darby, Pa. years ago and it was right before they were closing. He’s got millions of records in the store and I told him, “I’m looking for the records I don’t have yet.” 

Not much hasn’t changed since Peanut Butter Wolf was a kid, buying 45s at Star Records in San Jose. 

Peanut Butter Wolf at Gold Line Vinyl Bar.

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