Category Archives: Interview

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

Depeche Mode

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Depeche Mode is one of the stalwarts of the alternative music scene. They’ve been making music which is both moving and emotional for 25 years, have been through various line ups, and have endured all the hardships and highlights that a quarter of a century in the music industry could throw at them. “We feel really privileged to have worked for 25 years,” says Martin Gore, the lead songwriter of the band since Vince Clarke left in the early 80s. “It’s kind of nice being around for so long, it means parents can introduce their kids to us,” he laughs gently.

Alternative is not a word they take to lightly however, as selling over 50 million records is hardly “alternative”. But they do have a distinctive style, a style that puts them almost in a genre of their own making. The floaty vocals, the dark, electro synths and emotionally charged lyrics have kept them in a mystical place aurally, the province of Goths and other alternative subcultures, although they’ve appeared on Top of the Pops numerous times, and charting in the Top 10 with 13 album release. “We don’t really make music for any one group of people,” Gore states, “this album is aimed at anyone, our old diehard fans and new fans alike.”

Depeche Mode has never felt the need to branch out. “We leave that for our remixers,” he chuckles. They synth lines and dream-world vocals lend themselves to electronic remixes especially, and they’ve been remixed by nearly every big name in the electronic music scene since the 80s, including Flood, DJ Shadow, Kruder + Dorfmeister, Speedy J and Portishead. They even offered their tunes Dream On and I Feel Love from Exciter up for fans on the AcidPlanet website, although Martin isn’t too keen on doing that again, although he wouldn’t go into further details.

But this is almost like mutual obligation, considering that Depeche Mode pioneered synth and sample based electronic music, influencing everyone from Portishead to Derrick May. I was surprised to hear that they had asked Ben Hillier, who has produced the acclaimed Doves release Some Cities, and Blur’s classic Think Tank, to produce their latest album. “Ben Hillier isn’t known for working on electronic bands, so we were surprised and excited when he turned up with all this vintage synth gear,” Gore says. “We used both old and new technologies on this album, a bit of re-wire on a Mac G-5, along with the old synths.”

However, despite claims that Hillier hadn’t listened to the back catalogue he was supplied, he did add a little something to the band. Although the band went into the studio with an open mind, they were surprised with Hillier’s ‘down to business’ attitude. “We’ve always thought we worked quickly with other producers, but Ben worked with us really fast,” Gore exclaims, “it was probably the quickest recording session we’ve ever done, and it was great,” he adds with the touch of a smile.

The new album is also a little more upbeat, but that’s a little like saying a slug is faster than a snail. “Melancholically upbeat” laughs Gore, agreeing with me. In the press release it claims that Dave Gahan, the main vocalist said: “It’s better being in Depeche Mode now than it has been for 15 years!” “It’s probably because he’s feeling good about himself and his health,’ Gore says, a veiled reference to Gahan’s drug troubles in the 90s. “He also wrote a few tracks on the album (I Want It All, Suffer Well and Nothing’s Impossible), and I guess that makes him feel more attached to the creative process this time around, which is a great thing for the band as a whole. I feel excited to have a new album and keen to get on the road for our world tour in 2006.”

dB Magazine, Interview, Other, Writing

Ninja Chops

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On the Comedy Channel’s Hit & Run, they asked comedian Tommy Dean, who delivers outspoken and political stand up, to be campaign manager for a porn star in a local Queensland election. He jokes that all he heard were the words “Porn Star”. This was very similar to my experience when I was asked if I wanted to interview someone from the Naked Women’s Wrestling League. The only words I heard were “Naked” and “Women” – two of my favourite words, especially when combined. So, I jumped at the chance, ignoring the fact that the phrase had “wrestling” in the title, as well as the warning that someone had already picked up the DVD to accompany the interview, and they were deeply disturbed by it.

For, when you first hear the term “Naked Women’s Wrestling League”, it doesn’t really sink in. Even when you consider the term wrestling, it seems oxymoronic. I thought it would be a titillating experience akin to Foxy Boxing. You know, two chicks gently slapping one another in a suggestive manner. I thought that it would be some kind of fun slap and tickle romp in jelly or mud, and I couldn’t have been more wrong. For the Naked Women’s Wrestling League is all about wrestling. The fact that the stars are naked is secondary to pile drivers and submission holds. Imagine moves that The Rock would do to Mankind, or Hulk Hogan to Andre The Giant, and then picture them as naked women, and you’ll get the idea.

Now, for some reason, this DVD didn’t turn me on. In fact, I cannot honestly see how it can turn anybody on. Because, like real wrestling, it looks real, and it looks like it would hurt! I know that it is all staged, but these ladies don’t have much to protect them from pinches, punches and rope burn. When I interviewed NWWL star Ninja Chops, I expressed my concern at the possibility of rope burn and other injuries in uncomfortable places. “There is no prospect to think of pain,” she begins in badly faked oriental accent, and I know that I’m not going to get the answers I came for. “It is about the passion and the amazing feeling you get from being thrown onto the mat, thrown into the ring. The red passion in my opponents eyes, the fire burning within, feels soooo good,” she purrs. Ninja Chops, being Asian, is perhaps the least endowed of the wrestlers, and maybe her slender frame allows her to be thrown around with less damage to herself.

On the DVD the extra features, which I found to be much more entertaining than the actual wrestling itself, features the girls training with the same trainer used by Trish Stratus and Edge of World Wrestling Entertainment, formerly World Wrestling Federation or WWF, but they had to change it because of people kept getting wrestling confused with the World Wildlife Fund, and probably expected pandas to smash chairs over each other. “Much training is done. I train with sensei and wrestling coach on wrestling mat. Many hours of training is spent, yes, to learn all the moves to capture my opponents fire and take her down with my mighty will!” Ninja Chops breathes. “Most training is with me nude, to make moves that follow my body movements and to strengthen the most… virtuous parts.” Ah huh! I took that to mean it’s beneficial to train nude so you know where to grab and be grabbed without fingers or toes slipping into places that could turning this wonderful DVD full of MA 15+ “family entertainment” into something that could only be sold out of Canberra.

Speaking of the DVD, it’s hosted by Carmen Electra and Megan Summers, two names you can’t google at work without being busted for ‘viewing unsuitable material for the workplace”, so you know this is pure class. Unsurprisingly enough, the production values throughout are quite similar to the other entertainment Electra and Summers are known for. Admittedly a naked wrestler doesn’t have the same opportunities for product endorsement that clothed wrestlers can, so we’ll probably not see this reach the lofty ideals of the WWE Smackdown, for example. Ninja Chops disagrees, saying her name alone should sell any endorsements. For some reason, I don’t think her bravado will pay off in this case.

I was curious as to why someone would want to do this. There are far safer and less painful ways to be naked and still earn a living. Could Ms Chops see this as a stepping stone into the WWE perhaps? “NWWL is enough for my passion and to see where my fighting may lead. This WWE falls within the sphere of my life, then I will fight, but NWWL is just fine for me.” And what do her family and friends think of her profession. “Far, far away my family know not of television or pay per view. They know I fight virtuous, and I fight for them with courage and much passion.” Fair enough, but she did also mention she was from Canada.

I had to wonder what someone who spent the majority of their day throwing naked women around did in their spare time. “Well my side job is special massage”, she says, and here I feel like putting quotes around the word special, and I don’t want to insinuate anything but if you heard the way she said it you would want to as well, “and I do hair cutting for various, famous celebrity. I do that naked for very, very special customers,” she adds seductively after asking me if I needed a haircut. I decline, and wonder how the hell I’m going to pull this off… the interview, I mean.

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

Ils

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Maybe he inherited it from the intensity from his hippy mother who named him from reading the Iliad, but Ilian Walker is intense and likes to talk. A lot. When we chatted he claimed he wasn’t quite ready for press interviews, but the man known as “the producers producer” talked my ear clean off with me saying nary a word. He was geared up to talk about his new album, Bohemia, his third studio album under the guise of Ils, he believes is his best to date, and I have to agree.

Part of the reason it is so masterful in production is that its working title was ‘Masterpiece’. I asked Walker why the change to Bohemia, and he explained that he didn’t want to seem too conceited. “A lot of people might not agree it’s a masterpiece, you know what I mean?” he laughs. “It was just a really motivational working title to push myself. “I found it useful and it did drive me to new levels. If you’ve got masterpiece written on post-it notes all around your house it constantly sets the bar higher and higher. When you’ve got like 30 tracks, and you’re trying to pick the best ones to finish, trying to give the whole thing continuity if in the back of your mind it’s “masterpiece masterpiece masterpiece” it really does affect your approach. I really thought I could do a really good job on this one, and it was just a working title to give me a kick in the arse,” he chuckles again.

Another reason the album sounds great is that it features some incredible vocal tracks, each of them deep and moving and sounding like actual songs, not just a beat with a vocal dropped over the top. “Developing a vocal tracks for me is really the next level,” Walker says. “It really is bloody challenging. I’ve mastered how to make instrumental music, I feel confident in myself I can make good instrumental music and tearing club tracks. I never really used lyrics in the past. I was a bit of an instrumental purist as a producer. I wanted to move toward lyrics for this album; it adds another dimension”. As to the content of the lyrics, he is, “very fussy about lyrics, for me they have to mean something. So those three songs on the album have a great deal of personal meaning for me. Cherish especially, it’s the summarisation of the human condition and if that song doesn’t touch you in some way you’re probably dead or something”, he laughs, punctuating with a “ya know what I mean? Maybe I’m just getting old and developing as a person or something like that,” he chortles.

“I think on an artist album, there’s always room for a couple of songs like that,” he continues, “otherwise it’s all very same-ish. If I was going to do a purely club thing I’d rather do a DJ mix CD, to get a clubtactic vibe off it. But an album should work on different levels. An album is a reflection of one’s self, whereas 12’s are DJ tools really.” He discusses his philosophical feelings behind his album, how it reflects his journey over the last few years, and normally I scoff at that kind of talk, but Walker told it with conviction and sincerity. “In all honesty,” he adds, “my ultimate goal for an album is longevity. In my head when I’m making an album, I’ve got my grandchildren, if they’ve heard of ‘crazy Grandpa Ils’, going up to the attic and finding the dusty CD and have a listen and go ‘fucking hell!!!’, you know what I mean?” he laughs, “something that will still have relevance.”

I note that the album is quite dark, with one song being written using the lyrics of Stevie Hyper D, his close friend and dnb MC who passed away in 1998, and Life Is Precious and Storm From The East, songs written about war. “I like quite atmospheric things, and that can be interpreted as a little bit dark, but I dunno,” he says “I didn’t set out to make a dark album. I’d say there’s a bit of a colouration in that direction and that often works well with breaks. I think it’s possibly a bit intense album in places,” he says stressing the word intense. However, it’s not completely intense or moody ‘listening’ material though, as Walker knows how to craft floor burners like Ill-Logic, Tiny Toy and the early Prodigy sounding Feed My Addiction. And we may be seeing some live Ils floor burning action later this year, as Walker hinted he may be coming to Australia in September or October, but wasn’t a 100% sure, so didn’t want me getting too excited.

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

Plump DJs

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Lee Rous of the Plump DJs is a very down to earth person who doesn’t like to mince words. He’s very modest in his achievements, and very thankful for the lucky breaks thrown his way. Having had the very glamorous job of waiter, especially compared to partner Andy Gardner’s box factory job, before the two met and began making music, neither had any idea they would transform the dancefloors of the world.

“I don’t think we were ever arrogant enough to believe we were going to succeed in what we were doing,” Rous begins. “You can just hope people like what you do when you get in the studio. We count our lucky stars every time we get another gig – it’s the best job in the world and we’re lucky to be doing it.” But he’s not saying it’s easy. “This summer has been giving me a good ol’ punch up to be honest,” he laughs. “We’ve been touring massively all this summer, and been trying to work in the studio when we can, but I think me and Andy are feeling the heat a little bit at the moment. We’ve been doing lots of gigs and it’s wearing us down a little bit, but it’s all for good, and we’re looking forward to getting stuck into our artist album and having a little bit of a chill out at the end of summer.”

When not touring, the pair have been in the studio, recording some new material and preparing for their latest mix CD, Saturday Night Lotion. “All the records we’ve done since Eargasm are all dancefloor tunes”, Rous explains on why a mix CD rather than a full artist album. “They’re just uncompromising dancefloor records we’ve really enjoyed and road tested for the last two years. Bearing that in mind, and thinking about what an artist album is – an artist album to us should really reach beyond the dancefloor and be a bit more personal. I think we really wanted to provide a dancefloor album, so slipping other artists on this album from the Finger Lickin’ label seemed to be quite a natural thing to do. Those artists are really influential to us,” he adds.

Rous thinks DJing and production go hand in hand. “I DJed before I knew how to work the studio,” he states. “It is absolutely lovely making a nice record in the studio, it’s a superbly creative process and such a great feeling once you finish a track. You get so excited about having the opportunity to be playing the record to people. But then again you need to play the record to people to get the full effect.” Wondering if there was any chance the pair would go the way of Adam Freeland or Freestylers and get a band together to perform, I was surprised to hear they prefer the DJing thing. “We’re don’t really have the inspiration at the moment to take the Plumps live, we really enjoy the simplicity of DJing, of playing records and providing a soundtrack to the evening, and we find it works really well. We’re learning about what makes people dance and get in the studio and putting that to practice. I think when we make another artist album you could see a lot of experiments that are quite unusual to what people think the Plump DJs are, but we’ve got no real ambition to do a band thing at the moment.”

Saturday Night Lotion is also the name of a new pheromone based scent aimed at the clubbing market, and all the promo material about it claims the Plumps are the ‘obvious choice’ for the face of the cologne. “I’m not really sure what that was all about! Rous proclaims innocently. “It’s a funny website though. Not really sure why I was the ‘obvious choice’, maybe I’m just an ‘obvious’ person,” he laughs.

The pair had just finished performing the Glastonbury festival, playing with the who’s who of dance music. Booked to do three sets over the weekend, it seemed the English Summer had other ideas. “We tried to do 3 sets, one for this breast cancer organisation, but unfortunately their tent got struck by lightning and got washed away in the rain. But the other gigs went really well, we had a great time.” Another festival they really enjoyed was Field Day in Sydney in 2003, which they still count as one of their best gigs to date. “Yeah, Field Day 2003 was such a momentous occasion for us, a first realisation of our goal of wanting to get breakbeat heard at such a large scale,” Rous says fondly. So, when are they heading back to Australia? Rous wasn’t sure about playing Field Day this year, but did hint they boys would make it down to Adelaide for the Big Day Out.

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

The Herbaliser

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Talking to Jake Wherry from the Herbaliser is like talking to a grumpy old lecturer. You know he’s willing to impart knowledge, but is a little peeved you don’t already know about what he’s talking about. It’s a little obnoxious now that I think back, but he’s an idol of mine and at the time it was like getting instruction from a wise sensei. We spoke at length about the Herbaliser’s new album Take London, as well as their last visit to Australia. They remember Adelaide, but probably not the way Adelaide would like to be.

I began asking about Generals their new single, as on the Ninja Tune webpage for the video it read: “The Herbaliser and Jean Grae have been filming the video for the outstanding ‘Generals’ single in London – the rest of the Generals crew were not allowed on the plane at Dulles airport (USA) due (as far as we can tell) to dodgy passports”. Wherry set me straight right away. “I can now share with you,” he begins conspiratorially, “Generals is all a big myth, a lie we created. Jean Grey did all the ‘Generals’ voices. I’ve got some stuff in my studio that can distort voices to make them sound more male or female. We told a Radio One DJ and he went “so what?” and we were like “what do you mean so what? You think it’s normal we can make one woman sound like 3 men and 3 different women?” It is a pretty amazing feat, considering it is so well done – it really does sound like a whole posse of rappers.

I asked about another favourite, Gadget Funk. It’s a very groovy number, sounding, to me, like Quincy Jones. Knowing Quincy Jones was of some inspiration, I asked Wherry if Jones influenced this track. “No,” he states bluntly. “Gadget Funk is very much inspired by the music of Washington DC.” Before I get to ask, he explains, patiently. “When I was 14 and started going clubbing Go-Go music was really big, we’d hear it along with early hiphop, rare groove and funk. The music was funky, but it was a really percussive led music. Bands like Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers, Trouble Funk, EU. These bands are still going in the Washington,” he adds, “and for some reason Go-Go really broke out of Washington in 84 and lasted to 86 –87. You heard it in the clubs in London and the States, and then it got forgotten about and people moved on.”

“Some of these history of the DJ records – by Cut Chemist, Stienski’s The Lesson, some of the beats Coldcut use on Beats and Pieces – they’re sampling Go-Go beats,” he elucidates. “I think you’ll find that young people these days have never heard about Go-Go, and it’s such an awesome music that we decided to do a Go-Go Track to get people to talking about it and asking questions about it.” It’s certainly got me interested, as it is one tremendously groovy tune and I really am glad I asked.

Then I mentioned how I really enjoy their DJ set last time they were in Adelaide. “Hey, that was one of the worst shows on the tour!” Wherry exclaims “The show where the sound man thought it was better to fall asleep at the sound check and be totally asleep through the gig, and the lighting guy decided not to come until about an hour into the show.” Oh dear. Nice impression to leave.

But the rest of Australia isn’t rated too highly either, as I found out when asking about the possibility of the Band touring here. “To be honest,” he begins, “before we came out last, in the previous years I’d been turning down DJ offers from Australia. We wanted to bring our band over, and we felt that the more DJing jobs we took, the less they’d want the band. But last time we kind of gave in, said we’ll go over to big up our name and get ourselves more known,” he says, “and it just seemed it really worked against us. We were only meant to play Olly (Teeba) for and hour and he’d finish and then I’d play, that was the show that was booked. And on our own backs we decided to go in to a rehearsal room and work out a four-deck set so we could both be doing something at the same time. It was beyond what we were contracted to do. We thought since we’re not bringing the live band out, lets give them something a bit more than the regular ‘one guy play after the other on turntables’, you know?”

“But after we did that tour we got a few really abusive emails, and there’s some webpage in Australia that everyone goes on to talk about things for music (probably inthemix), and people were abusing us, saying how shit it was and that we’re rubbish. We’d never had hate mail before!” he says incredulously. “And all along people just wanted us to bring the band out. But unless our records start selling better I don’t think there’s a chance in hell we’ll get the band out there, unless it’s a big sponsored event”, he laments. Which is a really sad thing, considering they’re recognised as one of the best live dance acts in the world. But don’t despair too much, because the album is great and well worth picking up.

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

DJ Friendly

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The funny and funky DJ Friendly, known to his DJing mother as Andrew Kornweibel, was well loved in Australia for his quirky take on breakbeat music, but about 2 and a half years ago, having worked his butt off making a name for himself in Australia, his record label were “keen for an alternative direction for me” as he puts it politely, so he left for sunny England to seek a different path. “I managed to achieved what I set out to do, I put 12 inches out, play in clubs, and changed from live performer to DJ, managed to get by and the rest of it, and now I’m doing quite well,” he says.

He’s made quite an impression on the English scene, and won the best newcomer award at Breakspoll this year. “I thought it was funny I got the best newcomer – I’ve got three albums out and I’ll be dead a hundred years before I get the lifetime achievement awards,” he chortles. “I was chuffed, and from outside of Australia’s point of view I was the new comer. But I feel like I’ve been doing it for a long time myself,” he says, chuckling. “Living in the UK is a lot more global. All of a sudden people are booking me for gigs all over the world”, Kornweibel says of the move to the UK. “In Australia I found it very hard to break out of the Australian scene. I could get a gig anywhere in Australia, but I couldn’t get gigs outside, no one had heard of me at all. Over here I’m a lot smaller relatively speaking, but I’ve got a much wider spread and my music seems to go a lot further.”

But it’s not all sunshine and roses. “The weather is shit. It’s absolutely appalling. The people are grumpy nine months of the year because the weather is so bad. Everything’s expensive,” he pauses. “Are we going to workshop this? Should I pay you for this therapy if I pour my heart out to you,” he chortles. “There’s good and bad, London is a hard city to live in sometimes,” he continues, “the people can be really closed off and it’s got that big city feel about it, but at the same time it can be so inspiring. The competition is so great, and the media from the UK gets spread around the world, and you get up on your soapbox and people listen.”

Having run into a lost looking Paul Arnold, the head of Fat Records, in Sydney, he slipped him a copy of his demo and it became his first release on Fat, and the beginning of a close relationship. With Arnold now being Kornweibel’s manager, Friendly has become the resident at the Fat Records club night called ‘Chew The Fat’. “The people who come down for the night are music lovers, there’s no attitude,” he exclaims, “it’s all about getting down and having a really good time! We get heaps of girls,” he giggles, “and all sorts of people from all different backgrounds. Some of the other nights in London can be blokey, or ‘Laddy,’” he says in a really bad accent, laughing, “and at other nights it might be young pill taking clubbers who don’t even know what breakbeat is. I like to think we draw a nice line between being there for the music and being there for a great time.”

The first Chew the Fat mix CD is Friendly at his best, being fun and funky, a true representation of the night Kornweibel says. It’s got many of his own tunes on the mix, as well as a few remixes. “I think with any musical style you need to inject a soul into it,” he says of the mix. “I’m not interested in hearing music that doesn’t have a soul, and in all genres there’s that soulless stuff, including breaks, but you can add a lot of personality with a vocal. I play this way because they kind of end up being my tracks, my own exclusive re-working of that track. And because you’re going to be listening to it at home, what works in a club with the big bass system won’t necessarily work on your tinny little shelf system,” he adds, “so I think adding vocals / acapellas lightens it up and makes it more enjoyable.”

“I definitely enjoy writing my own tunes for the simple fact that it takes me probably as long to do my own tunes because I generally totally re-work a remix”, he says when I ask if he’s got a preference for remixes or original tunes. “Some people just take existing beats and put the sample over the top, or simply shuffle it about, where as I will turn down remixes if I feel I can’t do anything with it, turn it into one of my songs. But remixing is important, because you do learn a lot using other people’s musical parts and you can get a wider audience. I’ve just done a remix of Positiva,” he adds “and I’m really happy about that. It’s a different market and I hope I can reach out and convert a few more people to breakbeat.” He’s not afraid of having his own work remixed either. “I’m happy with what Krafty Kuts has done with Bump and Grind; he’s turned it into a bit of a monster,” he laughs.

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

Kid Koala

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If hiphop and turntablism conjure up images of trendy young kids with too much attitude, performing impossible technical tricks in front of a self-involved crowd of cap wearing wannabes, then get ready to have your world turned upside down by Kid Koala. Having parents from Hong Kong, but being raised in Vancouver and Montreal, Canada, Eric San aka Kid Koala has a diverse cultural background to draw upon, but it is his background in classical music that led him to the wheels of steel. Being one of the most enigmatic producers on a Ninja Tune, a record label that is renown for it’s eclecticism, in conversation he is very down to earth and friendly, jumping around the place, looping upon himself, much like his records, and is also very quick to laugh. After finally getting through, “It’s turning into one of those fibre optic traffic jams”, he laughs, and we chatted about his history and his upcoming tour with RDJ2.

“I’ve actually been to Australia once”, San quips when I ask about his DJ name “but I don’t think that trip had anything to do with it. There was a drink in Canada when I started DJing in the late 80’s, a really sugary beverage called Koala Springs. It had this really big stamp that said ‘Made In Australia’, which is really funny because every Australian I’ve spoken to has never heard of this drink,” and I had to concur that I’d never heard of it either. “It was actually quite a popular beverage especially amongst those who likes really sugary drinks,” he laughs. “So anyway, my mum would buy cases of this stuff from Costgo [the Canadian version of Bi-Lo] and if you were a kid, you know, 25 and under or whatever, you’d always be offered that – it’d be milk, water or Koala Springs. My friends started calling me the “Koala Kid” as a joke, as there were always empty bottles of the stuff around my room”, he laughs again, “and that’s the real story”.

San starting DJing in the early 1980’s, “in my really awkward, pimply period before I discovered discover girls”, he chortles. Inspired by the sounds of New York’s hiphop scene, as well as the sounds of the British cut up artists like coldcut, he says “at one point you stop spending all your money on firecrackers and candy and spend it on something you decide to get into. Some kids get into comic books and I got into records,” he says. “I think it was the classic music stuff I was doing. It was like an elastic band being pulled back,” he says referring to the stress of his training. “Because it was such a strict music experience for me as a kid, just being told ‘you have to play this 500 year old piece exactly the same way it’s been played for the last 500 years – any deviation will lose you points with the adjudicators’“, he laughs. “It wasn’t a very joyful musical experience for me, so when I first heard scratching the first thing I got from it was that it was so free from these rules. And the people doing it were maybe 10 – 15 years younger as opposed to 500, it was more within my grasp. I was like “oh there’s these DJs and they’re doing their thing and they’re really good at expressing themselves and they’re not like buried somewhere” and again he breaks into infectious laughter.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he begins, with a hint of seriousness in his voice, “I think at the time I was just too young to understand how you play a classical piece and actually put your own feel into it. For me it was just a rope memory exercise, and now obviously I’ve grown to like and understand all kinds of music. But when I got into turntablism there was a central idea that all the DJs, whatever they were doing, they were trying to do something new. And I think that was the most impressive thing to me. Technically I didn’t know what they were doing”, he confesses. “I didn’t know how they were making the sound, I just knew that every time I got a new hiphop record the producer or DJ behind it was trying to do something new. You never knew what you were going to hear when you dropped that needle, and I really liked that, and I think that’s something I keep to heart when I go to play or go into the studio. In my mind, if there were any rules to scratching, it would be to do something fresh,” he states.

One of the tunes that San is most famous for is drunk trumpet, a fantastic scratch fest involving a trumpet being played over a 12 note blues loop. It’s distinctive sound drew me to Kid Koala, and I still haven’t heard anything like it. “I think for me when I started scratching it was very percussive,” San begins, but the falters as he tries to describe the process behind the tune. “How can I say this? I’m a big Louis Armstrong fan, and I know I’m doing him a disservice by comparing the two,” he laughs. “For the first few years I would say [my scratching] was very percussion orientated and very much into making the WEIRDEST noises ever. Stuff that would stand out and make you go “What is that noise?” And I still like doing that, making the freakiest noises ever,” he giggles, “but I think that from playing with bands and playing with other musicians that it’s equally as interesting to try to blend in a certain context. ie: you’re scratching, but you’re scratching on a ballad, so how can you do that? For me starting to do that with drunk trumpet – trumpet through a melody scratching – you’ve got a 12 bar blues song, is there a way to play and actually run within that by scratching? Trying to figure out how can you do something that can only be done on a turntable, but doesn’t totally overtake the rest of the song.”

San is stoked to be on the Ninja Tune label. “I can’t really imagine being anywhere else”, he states matter of factly. “Coldcut were one of the first tracks I heard with scratching, and ‘bits and pieces’ was very inspirational to me, and still has a big influence on the things I do, so philosophically there’s that kinship. They’ve very patient and they let you explore whatever music avenue you want to and give you time to fall on your ass and take a break if you need to,” he laughs. Being based in Canada, but flying to London every few weeks to do a Ninja Tune performance means San has racked up a lot of frequent flyer points. “Let me put it this way – we’re very excited to be coming to Australia for the first time. I’ve been touring across oceans since 1996 and still haven’t made it to Australia,” he sighs with a smile in his voice. He’s also looking forward to touring with RJD2. “We’ve never worked together before… it should be fun!” he exclaims excitedly. “I’m a big fan of his work and I’m really excited to see him play. I know he has a show that he does, and a have the show that I have and we’ll do them on tour, but who knows what we will do with the remaining time… we’ll probably open it up”

 

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

The New Pollutants

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The New Pollutants are about to contaminate your mind with their latest release “Urban Professional Nightmares”, a snapshot of their work of the last 18 months. I managed to speak with Mister Benjamin Speed, who provides the spoken component of this 8-bit wonder band from Adelaide. “We describe ourselves as an intelligent mash-up of 8-bit hip hop, beat driven experimental electronica, weird head-bobbing, banging beats and curious sound bytes which are reminiscent of 80’s and 90’s computer game soundtracks, dark themes from futuristic films and thought provoking yet baffling beat poetry,” Speed says of the Pollutants sound. “Hmm… that is a mouthful! We just think we make pop music really!” he jokes.

Coming together around 3 years ago, Speed met DJ Tr!p through mutual friend Red Rabbit, who plays experimental electronica at the Exeter. In late 2001 at the ‘This Is Not Art’ festival in Newcastle, a fortuitous accident led Speed and Tr!p to form a bond. “I had a broken toe and Tr!p has a limp so we were the ones walking way behind everyone because of our physical conditions, and we ended up talking and joking about together for most of the trip”. Both seem to have a love of the weird, which comes through in their music. “We are influenced by many things around us, not just music. As far as music goes, we do not care which genre of music we listen to, as long as it is good, and sometimes if it so bad it goes full circle and becomes good again. In fact we prefer it if we listen to as many different styles of music as possible.”

Something that makes them stand out is their use of 8-bit technology, through DJ Tr!ps’ Commodore Amiga. “The Commodore Amiga has only 8 bit sampling and 4 mono channel sequencing parameters. His whole sound is very lo-fi. Because I use a new computer for music, the nature of my sound is more hi-fi. We make songs on both computers but Tr!p’s contraption is definitely a defining sound. We bring finished songs from his computer and I always have to take them on to mine and hi-fi them up a bit,” Speed says of their unique production techniques. “It is a good mash I think,” he adds. “When we have composed what we describe as our ‘pop’ sounding songs they usually come out very different to what normal pop/electronic/hip hop music is today. This is just because of our backgrounds in music and where we come from. We also deliberately go out of our way to make weird tunes! We make some very experimental stuff but usually don’t play them at our gigs much. We make music people want to hear in their homes as well as when they want to have fun too.”

With the amount of lawsuits against artists and the public in general for copyright breaches, the use of sampled sounds could be detrimental to a rising young group. “Tr!p is a untraceable button man who wont even tell ME where the samples he gets are mutated from!” Speed says of their material. “He is so paranoid about being caught by the sample police, or ASIO or the FBI, or something, that his music studio and computer is like a top secret fortress of solitude. Me on the other hand, I don’t really care because really, unless we are selling more than 50 000 albums, (which we haven’t yet but are working on) no one actually cares because, as Underworld so eloquently put it – we live underneath the radar.” Speed is self confessedly brash. “If there are sample police out there I’m like, “You want me? Come and get me!” On that note, we obviously steer well, well clear of using obvious samples that are really bad… so much so we have gone full circle and put a song on our 12” with all of these bad samples on it! But don’t worry; it only goes for 40 seconds,” he adds.

With their critically acclaimed debut album and airplay on a wide variety of radio stations, they have been all over the country at various festivals over the last year or so. “Our live performances are a manic, fun and extremely energetic mash of live and recorded material that always kills me because I jump around so much”, Speed says. “So far the best show we have performed at was the Big Day Out this year. We got to meet Kraftwerk before our performance and chatted to them while we were setting up. We found out they bought our first album the day before they met us too! At the gig I was jumping around so hard I smashed the table and my computer fell off and my microphone broke… we pulled the computer back on and loaded up our last track and I used Tr!p’s headphones as a mic. After doing that we got a big cheer from the crowd to round off our set.”

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

Katalyst

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Ashley Anderson has been producing music since the mid 90s. Along with fellow producer Illpickl (Michael Wright), they recorded Moonrock together, and were invited to submit songs for the Café Del Mar compilations. After Write passed away in 2001, Anderson took the moniker “Katalyst” and released a few titles that were issued on the “Dope On Plastic” series. In 2002 Anderson produced Manipulating Agent, a tour-de-force of laid back Aussie scratches and beats. Anderson sites the release of this record as one of his greatest achievements. “The way it was received, getting airplay, the reviews I got were all really positive, and that was the culmination of a few years work,” he says.

Anderson is also known for his remix work, remixing a range of artists such as Portishead, Dynamo Productions, Gift of Gab (Blackalicious) and Machine Gun Fellatio. About six months after Manipulating Agent came the remix album Agent Manipulated. “The remix album came about by quite a few people approaching me asking if I was going to do any remixes on 12 inch or whatever,” Anderson explains. “Also I didn’t get to put all the tracks I wanted to on Manipulating Agent due to running time, so I was able to put those tracks with the remixes and make a full-length release.”

The collaboration with Portishead saw Anderson strike up a friendship with the main man behind Portishead, Geoff Barrow. Seeing a gap in the market, they formed Invada Records, based both in the UK and Australia, to be able to give them “a lot of flexibility in a lot of other areas. Geoff has got his office in the UK, and that allows him to have his finger on the pulse in Europe and sign acts based over there. We have our ear to the ground here, and sign mainly Australian artists, and release them in the UK and vice-versa. We have a lot of phone contact, emails, MP3s, that kind of thing.”

Invada’s next big project is Jamaican born Australian artist R.U.Cl’s (Pronounced Ru-See-El) album Let The Music Talk. Due out the end of May, Anderson is quite thrilled by this new talent. “We’ve put a lot of time and energy into this,’ He states, “so we’re quite excited. His background means he’s got a bit of a different style for an Australian lad. He’s really talented, and we used some great producers on it, it’s quite a diverse product,” ranging in vibe from hiphop to dancehall. Anderson sees R.U.Cl being able to perhaps cross into the lucrative US market. “I think Australian hiphop is really good that is out there, but it’s not up to the standard of what’s coming out of the US,” he says guardedly. “I think it’s on par with what’s coming out of the UK and Europe, but I think the cutting edge production and most talented MCs in the world are American. America is very insular, and it’s hard to break into. But,” he continues, “the level of Aussie Hiphop is getting better and better. There’s lots of great new MCs I hear pop up on different tracks, and lots of talented young producers out there.”

You can get a taste of R.U.Cl on Katalyst’s first mix album, Dusted. This double CD contains a mix of funk, soul, hiphop and reggae, and includes some of Anderson’s all time favourite tracks. There were a few that he couldn’t get due to licensing problems, but Anderson says he expected that. “It’s not always the fact that people won’t or want stupid money for it,” he says. “It’s often a case of simply not being able to find the owners. That was the case in some of the more obscure tracks I wanted to include, which is a bit of a shame. It moved the direction of the compilation in some small way, but at the end of the day I had enough tracks anyway.” Anderson is also quick to point out the fact that it is all from vinyl isn’t an attempt to be wanky and elitist. “I didn’t mean to make a big point about it really. I was a bit paranoid about it because some of the records are a bit noisy, and it bugs me out sometimes if there’s a crackle. So I just wanted to get the point across – if there’s any surface noise don’t worry, I couldn’t help it. Plus,” he adds with a laugh, “it is all off vinyl because I don’t have many CDs.”

Many times you’ll see Katalyst performing not at hiphop events, but at big shows such as Ben Harper, and the up-coming show with Jack Johnson, Xavier Rudd, G Love and Donovan Frankenreiter. “Obviously it’s a really different vibe,” Anderson says of these shows. “I’m there to play a different role too. I enjoy the Jack Johnson shows, because it gives me a chance to play different sorts of tunes that I feel I wouldn’t at a ‘Katalyst’ show in a club with a dancefloor vibe. I like to break up the sets, because they’re usually similar sounding kind of acts in the bigger picture, so it’s kind of nice to mix up different flavours for the audience in between them. I guess some members of the audience can’t relate to it, but if it broadens the mind of a few of the members who are there to see Jack and Xavier then that’s a good thing,” he beams.

dB Magazine, Interview, Music, Writing

Grand Master Flash

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Even if you’re into hiphop, Grand Master Flash should not need any introduction. You should know that he is, along with Kool Herc and Africa Bambaataa, considered a pioneer of hiphop. He pioneered the scratch, and introduced the turntables as an instrument. With his record The Message he brought hiphop and DJing from being a New York craze into a worldwide phenomenon. He’s sold millions of records, performed at the Superbowl and Commonwealth Games, and received countless awards and accolades. Anyone credited with all of this would probably be ready to give it up and retire after 35 years, but Flash still has a message he feels he strongly needs to deliver to a new generation of fans.

“I have to make it clear to all the young and up and coming young people that hiphop was created in the year 1971 and it was totally designed by a DJ. And if it wasn’t for a DJ there’d be no hiphop, there’d be no rap records, there’d be no breakdancing, there’s be no graffiti artists, there’d be no MCs, there’d be no nothing!” he begins passionately. “Now that hiphop has become so big, that knowledge is either nonexistent or it has become buried. Since I am one of the creators I have to make it clear to every audience I perform in front of, of where hiphop comes from. It’s very important.” And it’s also the reason why, after 30 years of doing it, he’s still doing it, still going on the road, performing to audiences both large and small.

“I love playing big events like the Superbowl and Commonwealth Games, because it gives the DJ a notoriety they should have. I think that people need to understand that hiphop was designed by a DJ,” he says. “In my shows I jam, which is what I love doing, and I also like talking to young people. Just to see what they know, and what I can tell them about what they should know. Hiphop in it’s beginning was just a DJ. No MC, no breakdancing, no graffiti; just a DJ, his turntables, a microphone, and his trusty records. That was it.”

I ask him if he gets nervous or could be worried by a wardrobe malfunction at such a big event, and he laughs heartily. “I’m a man I don’t think I’ll worry about a wardrobe malfunction too much. But I do get nervous, two minutes before. But when I get up on stage, it’s the only place on earth I feel totally safe, other than when I’m with my children,” he adds. “I feel totally, totally, totally safe once I come from that side stage and all those people waiting, and it’s just me and God.”

Like most fathers, he gushes when he talks about his children. “My kids keep me up to speed with new music. I might be touring for a couple of months, and might miss a few new records that come out, and they keep me up to speed with that. Let me know what’s in, what’s hot!” I was curious to know if he held high hops of his children following in his footsteps. “They’ve gotta be the best at it, because they’ve got a tough act to follow,” he laughs. “They’re going to have to be top notch at it, be deadly serious about it, because you can’t come in on pop, you’ve got to come in as you as an artist.”

As someone who created scratching and introduced the world to sampling, I wanted to know his take on the controversy that always seems to surround it. “The beauty of hiphop is that you take an older record that probably was never a hit, and make it a hit,” he explains. “Now it has become big business, these records sell millions, and the owners of the publishing rights are deadly serious about getting paid, and I think that’s fair. I think that if you take a piece of someone else’s song and implant that in your work to make your song become a hit, you should pay that person. I’m with that.”

The prospect of vinyl being replaced by CDs and other technologies doesn’t seem to phase Flash at all. “I think that in this point in time for the more animated DJ and the more serious minded person who goes and watched DJs, I think from what I understand, it’s not watching the arm on the vinyl. From what I am told, the average fan likes to watch the DJ. They like to watch them turn around dig into his boxes, take it and put it on the platter, set it, cut it, throw it in,” he says. “With a CD DJ, those steps disappear because the CD goes right to the point where you want it. I have much respect for the CD DJs who do their thing, but for the animated DJs, for those who move to the music, go the whole 9 yards, the look of the vinyl is just,” he searches for the words “more appealing, you know?”

Flash has recently created Adrenalin City Records, his record / production label, in order to produce new artists and get new material out there, and plans on doing a few more things once this current tour is finished. “When the tour ends there’s two things I want to do, things I promised myself I would do. One is to get a book deal and write about my life and hiphop, and open up some DJ schools. I want to give back, in my own way, to hiphop, because it’s been good to me. Over the last 30 years it’s been up and down, up and down, but if I were to go back I probably wouldn’t change nothing,” he says.

Flash is also looking forward to getting some time off on his tour of Australia, as he feels he hasn’t had a decent chance to explore our country, either in searching out Aussie hiphop, nor it’s natural beauty. “Every time I come into your beautiful country I fly in and fly out. They get me coming into a town, and they whisk me away to the next town. I think I have some days off on this tour, so hopefully I’ll get time to listen to some Aussie hiphop. Also, I want to see a kangaroo! I want to see your oceans. I’ve only seen it on the TV, and I want to experience it for myself, because it looks like a very beautiful country.”