Test

Life, oh Life

OK, so I’m a bit slow putting this up, but better late than never. Test goes to the Life Bar tomorrow night for what we hope will be the first in a series of monthlies at this venue. For our first flight from this location, we’re accompanied by two of Dublin’s best DJs, Barry Donovan and Dan McElligott. Barry you may know from his Lunar Disko nights all over our fair capital - actually, it’s not that fair, but that’s another day’s topic for discussion – and for being a purveyor of all things electro(nic) and disco-y (usually at the same time). Baz has brought over people like Bangkok Impact, TLR and Legowelt (as Chicago Slags, natch), Sneak Thief, and word has it I-F soon (together with the EC guys). Dan on the other hand is simply one of the best techno DJs in Dublin - believe me, there are quite a few – and his sets are coloured by the steady march to dominance of central European producers in the past five years. Apart from the fact that it’s free in and they have loads of cheap booze for sale, we have also procured a nice clear rig and loads of lights. If you’re in Dublin tomorrow, it’s a nice option for some fun and games…

Slices of electronic life

I’ve just received two of the latest editions of electronic music magazine 'Slices' with my latest Juno  delivery - Monolake, Goldfish & Der Dulz, John Tejada (twice)... mmm! - and while I haven’t seen them (yet, both discs look jaw-droppingly good. Any magazine that puts Dominik Eulberg on the cover and has features on Joakim, Like A Tim, Luciano and Johannes Heil is good thing in my book and a rarity in this time of advertising-led editorial (should it not just be called 'aditorial'?). The artists and producers that most music magazines adopt does seem to be proportionate to the amount of money that the label they artist releases on spends in advertising. This approach also makes for compromised, unquestioning journalism – after all, who is going to slag off a producer or give their label a hard time if they are indirectly paying  the writer’s wages?
In my humble opinion, this is no way to run a music magazine and it’s no surprise that so many of them that use this model have gone to the wall in recent years  - witness the demise of Melody Maker, Muzik, Jockey Slut and Ministry and Mixmag’s future by all accounts is far from rosy.
This ‘aditorial’ approach also goes some way to explaining why websites and blogs have become increasingly popular - the opinions are unbiased and usually more interesting, and it beats paying six or seven euro to read a succession of obsequious features on people with the biggest spending power.
Plus the internet makes the information instantaneously available all over the world (although one of the arguments in support of maintaining print magazines is that you can read them while on the toilet – try doing that, even with a laptop). There are downsides to this information free for all, most notably that some of the writing is at best sloppy (stop looking in my direction!) or at worst ill-informed - is this what Villalobos meant about the internet bring an instrument to spread lies with? See last post.
The reason that ‘Slices’ succeeds is that maintains high levels of professionalism, delivers objective pieces on underground artists and has secured enough sponsorship without having to resort to advertising to fund itself… and it’s free. In an ideal world, all music magazines should be run in this way…

Caught in the net...

I’ve just read a hilarious interview with Ricardo Villalobos (thanks to
Ross) on this Japanese website . It seemed like the interviewer and interviewee didn't get on at all. Sometimes, this happens and it's unavoidable, due to a clash of personalities or a multitude of other reasons - because the interviewee or interviewer is tired, emotional or just not interested.
I remember doing an interview with Grooverider in the late 90s as a favour to the promoter who was putting him on and when I met Mr Rider, the firstthing he said was 'Right mate, you've got five minutes of my time'. It was hardly a promising start, and things went downhill from there, as he answered each question with a slight variation on 'yes' or 'no'. Our cosy chat didn’t even reach the fourth, let alone fifth minute.
Going back to the Villalobos tete-a-tete, it seemed like our normally chirpy Chilean compadre was in grumpy form (maybe due to jet lag?) and he pretty much disagreed and disputed everything that the interviewer, who must have grown increasingly uneasy with every question, asked him.
But the most hilarious part of the interview was Villalobos' claim that the internet was an ‘uncontrollable monster’, a machine that evil people used to spread lies with.
His problem was that certain unnamed dark forces were at work to tarnish his reputation online. Why would this ever happen? Anytime I've spoken to him, he's come across as a sweet, gentle and personable type. It seems his main bugbear with the internet is that someone posted that photo - you know that one - of him in what appears to be a 'refreshed' state. Ricardo claimed that he was merely closing his eyes and 'feeling the music' and that any suggestion that he was messed up was untrue and damaging.
There are two counter arguments I would make to this outburst: the first is that having witnessed Villalobos 'in action' so to speak, there's no doubt that he
likes to party as much as anyone else, so why should it make a difference when there is what looks like hard, photographic evidence of his lifestyle floating about online?
The second point is that although he hates the internet because it’s a player hater's wet dream, there is a flip side to this argument, namely that his career has benefited hugely from the technology. Think of all the positive messages his fans post on message boards; count the amount of sales his releases notch up through digital and hard copy online distribution; work out the extra gigs he gets when his mixes are posted online, or just try to calculate the free publicity for his gigs email and internet circulars generate. Seen in this light, his complaint about what may or may not be a picture of him in high spirits seems petty, over-protective and ultra-sensitive.
But then again, maybe he was just jet lagged...

How freaky is my valley?

I've just spent an entertaining weekend at the Dance Valley festival
just outside Amsterdam. The first thing that struck me about the event was
how efficiently organized it was -  mind you, the Dutch did reclaim over
one-third of their country from the sea, so a small matter of people managing a crowd of 40,000 loons was surely a trifling matter.
The other noticeable thing about the event was how mad the Dutch are: it’s one thing having liberal rules in place to govern society with, but it’s another thing to follow these guidelines to the letter of the law in your behaviour and dress code. Dan, the photographer who accompanied me on this work-related trip (see last post) was given the task of doing a series of vox pops with the freakiest people he could find, and they weren’t in short supply. Hopefully when he emails me some images you’ll have a better idea of the class of nutjob on show at Dance Valley.
Having said all that, the music at the festival was in the main, fairly poor: risible DJs like Judge Jules and Eric Morillo were given control of the main outdoor stages, and, seeing as it was the hottest day of the summer in Holland, these areas were mobbed (I can only hope that it was down to the weather and not the awful music). With a capacity of 40,000, there is an argument that Dance Valley’s main attractions will almost by default be cheesy, but it doesn’t excuse Afrika Bambaata and A Guy Called Gerald playing to an empty tent – Bambaata looked especially hacked off at the situation -  or Guido Schneider facing an empty dance floor at the start of his set. By the time he was finished, the space had filled up nicely, but if you came to Dance Valley expecting the Clone collective, Delsin, 100% Pure, Eevolute or Rachmad, the stuff that makes Holland such a hub for great electronic music, you’ll have been disappointed

Board At Work?

If, like me, you spend a lot of your free time or just cheat on your employer by making his time your free time and like the same kind of music that features on this site, then, in a very roundabout kind of way, let me give you a recommendation about Mnml. The end of the URL suggests that this indispensable message board and resource site is run from The Netherlands, but what draws me to it again and again is its international dimension - there are users form every continent -  and unlike other boards, who shall remain nameless, its members don’t waste valuable downtime debating the pros and cons of ketamine or whether Sven and Richie are together in a Biblical sense (my own theory on this is that it’s a fabricated effort to conceive a wholly marketable Eurotrash techno metrosexual identity and that at some stage they’ll release ‘Sven & Richie: The Love Album’ – but that warrants another days’ time-wasting, sorry, posting).
No, the good burghers of this particular digital domain keep their threads coherent and intelligent, although there are too many enthusiastic sign offs, and there are the added bonuses of interviews with some leading techno lights. These are conducted with the same thinly veiled enthusiasm that goes hand in hand with Euro-English - or could the interviewers merely be free of the jaded cynicism of ‘professional’ journalism? - and free music, both from netlabels and live sets from clubs.
I’m still wading through these at the moment, but one of the first ones I downloaded was the 'Stink' mix that Mayer and Lazarus are giving out to promote their Ibiza night of the same name, and it’s a pretty good selection featuring tracks by Dinky, Gabriel Ananda and Gui Borrato, but some of the mixing is, well, a bit ‘minimal’.
Speaking off Holland and DC10, I’m off to Dance Valley of all places this weekend. It’s work-related: I’m doing a live feature on Guido Schneider, who is playing one of the rooms, a DC10-associated space. If you can avoid the trance dancers, come along and say hello…

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Syd Barrett RIP what sad sad news...

Scratch the surface

This is turning into a bit of an ongoing subject on this site. Having ignored it for too long, I checked out Serrato Scratch in action in a club on Saturday. I had unfairly written it off as, well, not a gimmick, but a piece of smart but ultimately unnecessary  technology.

In some ways, the same argument against the now ubiquitous mobile phone could be used against music technology like Serrato - eg, before it existed, people got along just fine without it - but what struck me most about Serrato  (I have never had the occasion to witness Final Scratch in use, but I would imagine it employs a similar methodology) is that it has the same 'hands on' approach as DJing with vinyl. Ironically, this is really what persuaded me that Serrato and its ilk are worthwhile, that it has a human side, that it is possible to make mistakes with it and that the margin for human error still exists, which has not been replaced by some kind of surrogate digital perfection.

It also makes perfect economic sense - especially if you can pick and only buy the tracks that you like from an EP online instead of having to buy the whole thing - but in a weird way, it also guarantees the survival of my much-loved vinyl. The hands on approach means its users don't just stare into a screen all night long and, of course, when it breaks down or fails to function - which it did very briefly on Saturday night - its owners invariably reach into the bag for a record. Vinyl rarely messes up and I hope that it can co-exist with technology like Serrato and continue to give me loads of backbreaking joy in the years to come...

Do you Pogo?

This is a very quick post to say that I will be playing up at Pogo at PoD in Dublin town tomorrow night. I’ve got some nice, shiny new records and I’m really looking forward to it. If you’d like to come along and say hello, or just come along and ignore me as my puny efforts at Djing are crushed by the mighty combined skills of Barry Bedwetta and Gay Jalligan (sorry, Barry Redsetta and Jay Galligan, how did that happen?!), get in contact and I’ll put you on the guest list. Until then amigos, have a great weekend – that promised Clone appreciation thread is on its way next week, look out for it!

The rise and rise of the in-betweener

I’ve been listening to Magda’s new mix CD, ‘She’s A Dancing Machine’ solidly over the past few days – there have been a few toilet stops, breaks for food and quality time with my other half along the way – and it’s becoming increasingly clear that her in-between approach, like that of her mentor Hawtin, to electronic music is the road that will lead to the greatest rewards in the future.
In the past, there was a clear divide between those who played and made electronic music: in one corner there was the old school DJ brigade, the Coxs and Vaths, guys who had been playing other people’s records  - in the main pretty well, it must be added – for a living since the mid to late
80s.
In the other corner there were the producers, the studio-bound faceless types who put out incredible tunes but who rarely got a taste of fame and fortune guaranteed to those who played their productions.
Once technology advanced and it became clear that it was quite easy to make house and techno on a basic set up, two things happened: those who had been skulking indoors for years started playing live- witness the rise and rise of the ‘live’ dance act, although that title is sufficient material for another post - and loads of people who had been solely playing records started to make them.
Some things didn’t change, and many of the old guard merely hired in help to do the do the hard work of making music, leaving them free to focus on consolidating their label/radio show/club tour power bases.
Now the sands have shifted again: digital technology has made it even easier to make techno music, but the focus is on the in-betweeners, people like Magda and Hawtin whose main remit is still to play music but who also use the available technology to integrate on the fly production/remixing into their performance.
When was the last time that either of these people released a production of their own? I’m not trying to diss them in any way – Magda’s new selection is a fine, often left of centre mix that stitches together 70 odd tracks and makes nods to electro, acid, Chicago and Italo from within a m*****l framework, natch - and Hawtin is probably too busy designing a new piece of kit to consider a new Plastikman album.
Maybe the popularity of the in-betweener and by default their release format of choice, the mix CD, is merely a symptom of a more general decline in interest in artists and the artist album. Part of the growing popularity of services like iTunes and now Beatport is that they allow users avoid the fillers and move to the main event, and, as Hawtin and Magda are fully aware, standing out to capture the audience’s flickering attention span is more important now than ever before…

New(ish) Albums That I Love:

Rhythm & Sound: See Mi Yah (Rhythm & Sound)
Kerrier District:  02 (Rephlex) (see above!)
Bodycode: The Conservation Of Electric Charge (Spectral)
Cassy: Panorama Bar (Ostgut)
Magda: She’s A Dancing Machine (Minus)
P-Toile: Past, Present & Future Mix (Trenton)
Milosh: Meme (Plug Research)
DJ T: Body Language 2 (Get Physical)

New(ish) Albums That I Like:

Tangerine Dream: ‘Essential’ (EMI)
Senor Coconut: Yellow Fever (Essay)
Herbert: Scale (K7)
Fuckpony: Children of Love (Gte Physical)
Jenny Wilson: Love & Youth (Rabid)

New(ish) Albums That Left Me Cold:

Perspects: People Skills (Interdimensional Transmissions)
Zoo Brazil: Zoo Brazil Needs You (Harthouse)
Point B: A Previous Version of Myself (Scsi)
Nitzer Ebb: Body Rework (Remixes) NovaMute)
James Figurine: Mistake Mistake Mistake (Monika)
Vitalic: OK Cowboy (Collector’s Edition) (PIAS) -  more for the idea behind it than the music itself…