Back in October of last year, DJ Harvey, or Harvey
Bassett to his mum, played in the UK for the first time in 10 years when Red
Bull Music Academy brought him to back to London to play a single, specially arranged, one DJ party at
the Oval Space in London, the town where he made his name as resident at the
Ministry of Sound during the height of its success, as well as at his own
nights, like Moist, Beautiful Bend and New Hard Left, all of which have become
the stuff of legend.
Prior to the party, there was a lot of cynicism, on
the internet mainly, about how it may all pan out, but fortunately it proved to
be unfounded, online moaning. The space was great, the sound system was spot on,
Harvey lived up to all expectations, playing a set that had people talking for
weeks afterwards, if not months, and the crowd was like mass meeting of old
friends from every strand of London clubland in the last 20 years. Smiling,
hugging, and dancing with old friends were all order of the day, on what was
undoubtedly the night life highlight of 2012.
Before all that though, I was lucky enough to get the
opportunity to chat to Harvey for the ever wonderful Ransom Note. I wasn’t
feeling that great the night the call came but I dragged my man-flu ridden
backside from my sick bed, got smacked up on Lemsip and Skyped the very accommodating
Mr Bassett in LA to find out a little a bit more about he is all about.
Hi Harvey, thanks for talking
to us.
No worries.
So, the London/Manchester parties, the excitement over here palpable now,
there’s people who go out pretty much every week who are counting how many days
there are before the night! Are you getting a feeling for that level of
excitement where you are? And are you feeling slightly nervous at all about
coming back to London and playing here for the first time in 10 years?
Erm, I think the fact that a 1000 tickets sold out in 24 seconds, or
something really… it was a little bit of a shock actually, I wasn’t quite
expecting that sort of reaction and it’s a good feeling you know… I feel wanted
or anticipated as it were, so that’s really good, that’s sort of bigged up, it
just… makes you feel good, if an event sells out in advance, that’s really cool.
I’m a little bit nervous cause I wanna do right, you know what I mean, but I’m
nervous before every show, I have the pre-show butterflies or whatever, and I
feel you’re only as good as your last gig. I was nervous about the Berghain
gigs, the Sonar and the last Sarcastic and stuff like that, as I do honestly
feel you’re only as good as your last gig and I always wanna do well. This one
I mean is particularly special, I suppose, because of what it is, you only come
home or come back, as it were, or return from being 10 years away, kind of once
in your career. It’ll be doubtful whether if I disappear for another 10 years
whether anyone will give a damn in 10 years time, what I’ve been up to, but I
think the climate… the way communication has changed over the last 10 years,
you know, the proliferation of things… the internet, facebook and tweeting and
all that kind of stuff has added to the, I suppose, [to] the legend... and to
the momentum of an event like this.
You mentioned
the legend there and also the internet - the legend has grown almost,
exponentially over the time you’ve been in LA, have you got a view on why
that’s happened? I mean, you were a pretty well-established as big name when
you left but it just seems to have grown and grown and grown, do you think it’s
just a case of ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’?
I think, in some
respects…. [mobile rings] Let me just grab this a sec, cause it’s probably
someone asking me whether I’m speaking to you or not… [pause while Harvey takes
an urgent call] Well I’m getting a haircut especially for the occasion! Haha,
that was my hairdresser!
I actually I had
mine done on Friday, but they’ve made a mess of it, anyway…
Where were we?
Sorry about that…
The legend of
Harvey has kind of grown while you’ve been away… why that is, if you had a view
on why that is?
I suppose, to a
certain extent, there is an element of ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’, I
think, maybe things in the last ten years there has been a body of work, you
know, there’s been; remixes, original productions, a couple of albums,
mixtapes, all this kind of thing... and in many respects it’s only England that
hasn’t really had me in the last 10 years, and the legend thing, I don’t know,
anyone that has stories told about them is ‘legendary’ and you know, ‘the grass
is always greener’ and things appear more glamorous when they’re sort of told
second hand, stories are embellished and stuff like that… I don’t know, cause I
haven’t been there when people were talking about me so I really don’t know what’s
been said, I’m sure there’s some rather nasty things too…
I think I’ll
touch on a few of those stories later… (laughs)
Yeah, go on, no
worries. I think with the global communication, that’s obviously a factor,
people only have parts of the picture to go on and maybe they fill in the gaps
in between and if they’re leaning in my…in a positive direction for me then
that bigs me up, you know, so if they see a picture from a club in Japan, or
get a bit of a mixtape, or see/read a bit of an interview, they’re gonna have
some idea of what I’m about and then they complete the picture themselves - and
that makes the legend, if you like.
Why did you
leave it so long? Why did you stay away so long?
Initially, I’d
overstayed… I came out to America and was having such a good time, and
basically overstayed my visa, and it took me, kind of, 10 years to really get
my shit together, or sort of work it out. I hadn’t really thought about it, I
wasn’t too desperate to go back to the world… you know, America’s a big place
lots of discos, I had plenty to do, I was spending a lot of time in Hawaii, and
it’s just gone and turned out that way. There was no big design of like, you
know, it was really the American immigration process that really kept me away
for 10 years.
So, what should
people expect musically from you now? Kind of, ‘Harvey, 10 years on’, as you
said, people have got snippets of what you’re about - reports back from
Berghain and Panoroma, Japan, places like that but is there anything you’ve got
especially prepared for London?
No, not really.
I mean… I think those who will have heard me before and kind of know me will
know nothing’s changed at all really. I’m still playing a very select, modern
dance music and that’s basically it. I got a lot of music to choose from, lots
of old stuff, lots of new stuff, and I haven’t got any mixes lined up or basic
ideas. I can only carry a limited amount of vinyl, you know, a couple of
hundred titles at the most, and I’ve got some cd’s, and stuff that isn’t on
vinyl, remixes, re-edits, unreleased stuff, stuff that just hasn’t made it to
vinyl, and I’ve got some cd’s with that on and I shall, you know, select from
that selection to the best of my ability. In many respects, the people
determine what is played, you know, I think, as I said before, I’m a bit like a
sushi chef, I’ll put down one piece and depending on the reaction to that piece
determines what I serve up next, you know. And then I might even throw in a
little surprise, if they expect, if they know what to expect next, you know.
So there are all
kind of stories about you turning down gigs in Britain that weren’t right for
whatever reason, mainly around the soundsystem and stuff like that - but a lot
of effort is going into the system and production of these parties. What are
you doing for the London party, especially?
I mean it’s a
very, very simple recipe. Again, I sort of… a food analogy… it’s like the best
Italian food. There’s only three or four ingredients, you know, you’ve got
like..garlic, olive oil, pasta and… lemon juice or something and it blows your
mind how good it feels and tastes, and the reason why, it feels and tastes so
good is because those ingredients are the best that can be found of those
ingredients, and that’s basically what I’m putting together for the London
show. A very simple, open space with a beautiful, monster soundsystem and a
mirror ball with some spotlights on it and that’s basically it. And, all I’ve
got to do is get the records in the right order. Hopefully the people will come
with open hearts and open minds and actually, with one thing, when you go to a
party ‘it takes two to tango’, you know what I mean, become involved as someone
who’s going to the party instead of standing there expecting me to save your
life, that’s basically it, you know. It’s a very simple recipe, where the
ingredients are the best and the freshest that I can possibly found, so the
venue’s great, it’s a very simple warehouse space but it has good bathrooms,
smoking area, a cloakroom, car parking, stuff like that, you know. The
soundsystem is just a soundsystem, but it’s the monster,best soundsystem
probably available in England today.
You’re putting
in the system especially for this party aren’t you?
Yes. I don’t
know what they had in there before or whatever but I was given the opportunity
to basically install my own system so that’s what’s happening basically.
I don’t think
you have any worries about the whole party thing, because everyone I know who’s
going, and that’s a lot of people, are going to party, they’re not going to
stand round, like take pictures and stuff, that’s what’s exciting about it from
someone who goes out fairly regularly over here, the excitement isn’t like a
‘this is a spectacle, let’s all look at the DJ’, everyone wants to go and enjoy
what you’re about.
I think the DJ’s
are very boring to look at, they don’t really do that… they just kind of stand
there really…
And play records
now and again!
I think, really,
the key and the focus of a really good party is the crowd themselves. When
you’re watching people really losing themselves in the music, there’s nothing
better than watching a beautiful girl in abandon, you know, in orgasmic abandon
over the music, and it turns you on and it turns her on and it turns everybody
on and it’s fucking epic… you know.
Yeah, I’ve seen
some of the pictures (see above) from the last Sarcastic Disco, and I’m not sure if
we can promise you naked women in London... but you never know…
Well, it’s a bit
chilly, I noticed, maybe their nipples will be slightly more erect, but, yeah I
did a little weather report and I was, like, thinking to myself, ‘Maybe I
should take a sweatshirt’ and then my buddy said ‘Hang on, it’s only like 15
degrees over there, you’ll need your fucking ski suit mate’
You need a wet
suit at the moment. So, you left in 2002, if my maths serves me correctly?
I think so,
something like that.
The scene you
were involved in then, was kind of, the scene from which the Idjuts etc came,
the New Hard Left, Leftorium at Smithfields , the 333 Parties & Tommy Touch
and things like that, it was all building quite nicely and really developing
its own identity around then and you left, so I assume it wasn’t for musical
reasons, was it just the time to go?
It was a good
time to go. Airline tickets to America were cheap after 9/11, I had a whole row
to myself (hahaha) and I could stretch out; 4 seats for the price of 1. But,
no, I mean I was actually DJ-ing all over the world and had the opportunity to
live anywhere I felt like in the world, you know, and it was like ‘Shall I move
to Shanghai? Naaa’ ‘Shall I move to Mumbai? Naaa’ ‘Shall I move to LA? Fuck
Yeaaahh!’ The sun was shining, sun shines everyday, there’s surf, there’s
pelicans, dolphins, raccoons, hummingbirds, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, all
this, and these are just the creatures hanging out in my back garden. It’s
amazingly tropical, pretty wild place, it’s the edge of the western world, on
the pacific here in Venice Beach, with all the craziness with everything from
Charles Manson and the Beach Boys and the Doors, and Little Feet, and you know
the US punk movement with Agent Orange and Suicidal Tendencies, Dog Town, and
the skate scene and hot rods and drag racing, you know, gangster-ism, you know
original gang hip-hop crippin’, the list is fucking endless, you know, they’re
all the things England doesn’t have, and I’m not saying… England’s got an awful
lot, England’s wonderful, absolutely super fantastic, one thing I have found
out is that the food and the weather is better in England than it is in Los
Angeles, cause the sun shines every fucking day here, and it gets a little bit
boring… I left thinking the food and the weather was awful in England, and ten
years later, I’d appreciate some jellied eels and some rain.
Well, we’ve got
plenty of rain to keep you going at the moment. So, LA’s keeping you busy but
you’re looking forward to coming back, but you’ve been back before haven’t you,
I’ve heard that you were knocking about Horse Meat Disco once not so long ago?
Yeah, I popped
in briefly just to say hi to my mum, dad, couple of buddies, and just, sort of,
had a little sniff around a little bit, you know, without having the pressure
of having to do a gig or whatever, actually it was on the back of a European
tour, and I had an absolutely wonderful time, you know, people were like: ‘Oh,
you won’t recognise London, it’s changed so much…’, I mean Old Street
Roundabout is still Old Street Roundabout, you know.. And I had some pie &
mash and a curry and a kebab and things, and it all still tasted the same. The
only thing I did notice more bicycles, that was probably… the places where I
used to go and sort of, sniff glue, now have, like coffee bars and stuff, along
by the canal in Dalston.
So, when you
left that disco scene - I don’t want to use the term nu-disco cause it’s got
other connotations now - but almost that disco revival, digging deep, finding
old music from that era and that working itself back into a club context, was
getting established in London again, and has kind of gone on to grow and kind of
become a scene of it’s own, with labels like Claremont 56 and the Idjuts who I
mentioned earlier, do you feel that you played a significant role in the
formative years of that scene?
I would say
yeah, but I’ve never wanted to be stuck in a scene, I’ve always played loads of
techno music, and those mixtapes there’s techno and disco together, it’s
always, just dance music to me. I don’t really feel… a scene is this and that…
you know, from the moment I was DJ-ing, in the mid 80’s, I would play classic
dance music which might be considered disco, and whatever the latest modern
music which might be considered techno or whatever, you know. Scenes come and
go and I’d like to think I’m just a man of the moment, and I try to be ‘on it’,
you know what I mean. Maybe I was instrumental in that scene, but that scene’s
got nothing to do with me. You know I don’t want to be stuck in… do you
remember there was that awful thing in the late 90s called ‘Dad House’…
Hahaha!
If you’re a well
rounded DJ, you’ve always played what might be considered disco, and you’ve
always played music that might be considered progressive, you know it’s a DJ’s
job. The guys that are stuck in one sound often don’t last, until they become
marginalised or whatever, you know what I mean?
Hmm, yes. They
become associated with a sound and fashion passes that sound by and they are
associated with something that’s no longer fashionable.
Yeah, I’m a
personality DJ, and when I DJ you get my personality, nothing more. I’m not
stuck in ‘Nu-Disco’ ‘Old Disco’ or any kind of disco. I play records, some of
which, might be considered disco. [Harvey puases to answer door and let old
friend Heidi in]. Just a mini case in point, back in those days, in the mid
90s, I was one of the few DJ’s, if not the only DJ that played on Friday and
Saturday night at the Ministry of Sound. Friday being the opening nights with
Laurent Garnier, Jeff Mills, you know, all the techno greats, and then I would
play Saturday night alongside Tony Humphries and CJ Mackintosh and those guys
playing the, what at that point, was probably called like ‘Jersey House’, or
‘Gaararge’ . So yeah, I’m just a DJ who plays a selection of grown up… I don’t
know, not even grown up, just dance music, you know… happy, silly…
You’ve got a
broad palette from which to draw from and you want to draw from it?
Yeah. People
accuse me of all kinds of things. ‘Reinventing the re-edit’, ‘Relaunching
cosmic’, you know, that whole kind of thing, if you want to get into more like
than disco, the cosmic madness is something to touch on, you know you’ve got
these kids that are claiming ‘cosmic’ and I hadn’t even heard that. We used to
call it ‘Sleaze’ or ‘Balearic’ or, there was a couple of names, you know;
‘Funky’, what was played in the Italian clubs in the early 90s; what was left
of the cosmic sound. Now you’ve got all these ‘Cosmic DJ’s’, the chin-strokers
who don’t even know how to fucking dance. Absolutely ridiculous. You know,
whereas there was actually, an awful lot of wonderful music that could fall
into that category that’s actually being ruined by the category. I always felt
that categories only really helped journalists describe….to make a sort of a
relation to a sound to help describe in an article and as far as actually in
the real world of nightclubs or whatever, it doesn’t matter.
So if you define
a night or a sound too tightly, you are inherently limiting where that can go,
do you think that’s right? It’s like you’ve fixed the boundaries around it, and
that’s it.
Yeah, as soon as
you say like ‘I am a techno DJ’ you’re wearing blinkers that are definitely
cutting out the periphery of all the other fantastic music that you could
incorporate.
You touched on
your formative days as a DJ, I suppose that was back with Tonka, is that right?
Was that were you really cut your nightclub DJing teeth or was it before that?
Hmmm, I’m not
sure exactly when my first actual, kind of, nightclub DJ gigs were…Erm…there
used to be a place on Oxford Street, god…what was it called [calls out... Hey
Heidi, what was the spot on Oxford St where Wet was and where Rakers was?]
Spats?
Spats!
I think that’s
where Plastic People ended up, in that space isn’t it?
I think Plastic
People was in Dalston or Hoxton last time I was in town…
Yeah, I think it
started there in Oxford Street before it moved. Anyway…
Yeah, so my
first club gig was in Spats in the mid to late 80s, playing…I don’t know… I
don’t think I played disco music to be honest. I had breaks, sort of like, when
hip hop was disco, you know. Playing, stuff, it was called ‘Raaare Groove’
(laughs).
Was that your
sort of introduction to that sound then?
No, no I first
danced to disco for 24 hours in 1978 at a sponsored youth club dance to raise
money. You went round knocking on people’s doors going “excuse me if I dance
for 24 hours will you give me 5p an hour?” And you have to sign in and then
you’d go round and collect the money afterwards... and then you don’t give the
money in, you spend it on Fanta and Embassys... (laughs).
Did you dance
for 24 hours?!
Yeah, there was
about 3 of us that made it all the way through. I think there was about 50 who
started but only 3 of us made it... me and the DJ’s brother and the one black
girl in the village...
Ha! So that was the beginning of a long and slippery slope?!
Yeah, that was
the first time I’d been awake for 24 hours actually.
So, eventually
you were playing with Tonka - Tonka sprang to mind the other day and I was
going through some crates in a second hand shop the other day and I pulled out
an EP and it had a picture of Choci on the front at a Tonka party, surrounded
by people dancing, his top off, soaked in sweat everyone going mental, and it
just looked amazing. And it got me thinking back to my early days as nightclub
goer. I was up in North London, those parties wereinaccesable to us and kind of
mythical - we’d heard about the nature of the parties and the massive
soundsytem. What were those parties like?
Ummm... Pretty
epic really! Y’know, every one was a winner. We had a great bunch of people
around. The idea behind Tonka was that we wanted to create, it sounds kind of
cheesy but a ‘sound-system collective’. Instead of just the DJ getting all the
glory to have an identity like a Jamaican sound-system. To have that record
played, there was like 5 or 6 or 10 people involved. Y’know the guy that drives
the van, the guy lifts the speakers, the people that are plugging stuff in, the
lighting guy, all this group of people and other DJs that go to make the group
identity of Tonka. There’s was a guy that’s now famously known as Tonka Roberts
who actually owned the soundsystem. He’d inherited some money and went out and
bought a marquee and a Turbo soundsystem... virtually no-one,, I don’t think there
was a Turbo Soundsystem in civillian hands at that point. Turbo was originally
built for Glastonbury... they’d work in a storm on the beach in Brighton. They
were built like a brick shit-house. The parties themselves, there’s little
snippets of stuff online, a few youtube things. You can see everybody’s totally
immersed in the music, the vibe, the whole. It was a very exciting time. People
these days are trying to get jobs so they can go to parties back then people
were giving up their jobs so they could go party more. It was a fantastic time.
I’m not saying that now isn’t a fantastic time, I think now is really, really
good but it was just an exciting period in mine and dance music’s history.
You touched on things as they are now. In London there seems to be a little
bit of a house music revival. House had been a bit of a dirty word for quite a
while, probably flowing out of that Dad-House you spoke about. That’s enough to
kill any genre really. But there’s a lot more vibrancy around the music now. Not
necessarily great big parties like there were in the late 80’s and early 90’s
but lots of small parties and yknow 19/20 year old kids are getting into
Strictly Rhythm b-sides and stuff like that. Has that renaisense touched you
out in LA at all? Or is it a London thing?
I think it’s a
natural progression. My girlfriend was born in 1988 and she’ll hear a house
record and she’ll be like “Why don’t you ever play this?” and I’m like “Well
that’s been rinsed out”. And she’s excited by it. There’s a whole couple of
generations that haven’t heard this sort of music. Luckily I’ve got all the
records! As with any type of music that’s good, it comes round and round again.
There’s young producers that get turned on by maybe a Nu Groove record or a
Strictly Rhythm record and they’re like hey yeah I wanna make a record like
that. The were producers in the late 80’s, y’know the first 200 house records
were just disco based records made with synthesizers. You take something like
Love Can’t Turn Around, till I discovered the Isaac Hayes original I thought
was an original piece. The flashback as it were happens all the time. As time
marches on, music that may have been lost or not so happening is revisited by a
new generation. I hear a record from a new producer that sounds like it was
made in in 1991. And I’m like well, that’s what’s going on...
The cyclical
nature of dance music, maybe? On the subject of old records, there’s a remix of
a Planet Funk record you did ages ago called ‘Sleepy In Ibiza’, that is pretty
close to my heart and reminds me of a fairly special holiday up in hills of
Ibiza a few years back. Did you spend much time in Ibiza back in the day?
Initially you
couldn’t have dragged me to Ibiza in the mid-80s. I had absolutely no interest
in going there whatsoever with a bunch of Euro trash and English hooligan types
to put it politely. It wasn’t somewhere I had any interest in at all. I don’t
know what I was into, I was into Heroin. I was busy catching Hepatitis. So I
didn’t get there until like 1990 and then I was gutted. I was like damn, this
place is fantastic. And they were like you should’ve been here like 10 years
ago mate before it was overrun. And I was like oh shit... so then I went there
every season for 10 years during the 90s, DJing and thoroughly enjoyed it and
it’s a special magical place. And I went back and played this summer and played
at DC10 and none of the things that I liked and enjoyed about it has changed or
disappeared. I stayed in Pikes, it was wonderful, hung out with Tony Pike,
talked story. Sa Penya is not overrun with lunatics. Went down to D’Hort, which
is like a beach where Jules Vern was inspired to write 20,000 Leagues.
Everything that I enjoy was still there. (laughs). I rented a Harley Davidson
and raced the sunset and went down to Cafe Del Mar as we used to and walked
round to the Cafe Del Mar and they’ve built this boardwalk all the way round
and there was like ah there’s like 5000 people here when there used to be 500
or whatever and reached the Cafe Del Mar and it was completely empty. And I was
like blown away, people have no idea. they’re all sitting on the front there,
seeing and being seen and they’re missing out on this little gem. So I sat
there on my own in the completely Cafe Del Mar and I watched the sunset and
ordered myself this chocolate milk on ice and spoke to the waiter about how I
was friends with Jose Padilla and how we used to drink brandy and chocolate
milk... and it was magical. And all those people out the front staring at the
sun, were looking in the wrong direction not seeing behind them that there was
this absolute jewel of the Cafe Del Mar absolutely empty except for DJ Harvey
who was having a whale of a time!
The last time I
was there they didn’t have that boardwalk. It was still packed though.
Change is good
though. If things didn’t change, they wouldn’t become how they used to be. But everyone there was happy. It wasn’t a shit show... there was lots and
lots of people there but everyone was having a really nice time. Which is OK in
my book.
On the subject
of change, what did you think of DC10?
I never went to
DC10 in the early days. I’d heard about it. 10 years ago, 12 years ago it had
only just opened. An old friend of mine Charlie Chester took it over, I think
he’s still involved. I had a great night. It was packed out with people. I got
two sit downs! Which was something I was unfamiliar with. There was this
breakdown in this track and I was going through my records and everyone had sat
down. And I looked over to this dancer and said is that a good thing or a bad
thing? And she was like oh it’s a really good thing, it’s a mark of respect.
And that happened twice during my set. And I thought to myself how the fuck did
that become a custom? And I thought it must have been when breakdowns had
become so long, that people just go tired and sat down for a couple of minutes
and waited for the beats to come in... but it was good to see, it showed unity
in the crowd and it was quite a beautiful thing.
Funny you should
mention Charlie Chester and Ibiza. I heard that you DJ’d on that infamous
Flying trip to Ibiza Charlie organised, which probably would’ve been about
1990? I heard that you turned up with like two bags, one filled with music and
the another platsic bag with just your pants and toothbrush... you DJ’d and
just buggered off into the hills!
That was
basically it. One pair of clean jockeys and a toothbrush... (laughs).
What did you get
up to in the hills?
I have no idea
how long I was there. There was a band called The Farm that came up and I dunno
we just had a 3 week long orgy of excess I think!
Right, so you
disappeared into the hills with The Farm?!
Well they came
up and visited from time to time. We had this finca on the top of a mountain.
It was pretty hedonistic to put it politely! There’s actually
a photograph, I’ll see if I can send it to you of me and another lad on the
roof of that villa... I’ll try and send it to you. You might get some idea of
the exploits... [Disapointment Ed: he couldn’t find the photo... but we found this, erm 'groovy' youtube]
Fast forwarding a bit... New Hard Left, you kind of established yourself
playing 8 hour sets and kind of where you got that sort of reputation. You’re
playing for what 9 hours is it when you’re here? Does a DJ need to play for
that long to really express themselves or can they pack it into and hour and a
half?
Umm... I mean 9
hours might be a bit excessive! I wouldn’t say I need 9 hours to express myself
but an hour and a half isn’t reaaaly long enough to express myself. I could
sort of play 5 or 6 records which would take up an hour and a half. 4 or 5
hours would probably suffice as a good time to, y’know. Few people would dance
for longer than 5 hours before their knees start to give in, they dehydrate and
fall over. But y’know 9 hours, I’m not sure how long it is.
It’s actually
7... my math’s is useless. I’m going to blame being ill and not being able to
add up.
Seven’s great...
that’s not asking too much of the crowd. And it gives me plenty of opportunity
to get through the warm up section and to go through a range of emotions and
styles without having to rush too much. An hour and a half is more like... a
lot of the festival appearances can be an hour and a half but that changes the
dynamic of the way I would play. I becomes more of a show. The music would
become more sonically intense, more ups and downs...
Do you think
that, that kind of short set culture, jam DJs onto the bill kills the art of
Djing? You’ve spoken in the past abbout what Larry Levan taught you in terms of
playing - he was used to playing long sets toos. Do you think that’s kind of
dying off a little?
To a certain
extent. Basically I think that originally started with promoters trying to get
bums on seats. Every DJ has 10 mates, so if we have 100 DJs a 1000 people will
show up... and that’s really what spawned those long line-ups and also nights
ending early there wouldn’t really be these long sets in these warehouse
parties. You’ve got your resident DJs and you’ve got your guest and there’s
really no time for the long sets. But that can be nice to end early on a high,
rather than playing till no-one can stand it anymore. So I just think it
changes the dynamic of the way people play. It’s not the end of DJing. It’s not
exactly a new phenomenon.
My friend [Wil
from R$N] he reckons that at Smithfields when you did Leftorium, he had to tidy
up pints of piss from behind the decks at the end of the 8 hour night. Have you
got a portaloo on your rider and if you haven’t, can we bottle it and get it on
ebay?!
I think bottling
some Harvey piss and getting it online might be good. It cures warts! That
might be fun. I have pissed in DJ booths. I remember actually Nicky Holloway
having a urinal installing one in the booth! Usually though, if there’s a
toilet nearby I’ll make a couple of toilet dashes sometimes tho I just sweat it
out! If it’s hot in there I might not piss for 7 hours. (Laughs) a very Zen
approach to taking a piss. The danger of pissing in pint pots tho is that
you’ll piss more than a pint!
Or make a
mistake later in the night when it’s all a little blurry.
Or someone else
makes that mistake... “this lager’s warm mate” (laughs)
Now you’re back,
are we gonna see a little more of you on these shores?
I really think
that how these gigs go will determine the frequency of my return visits to
England. If people express an interest and seem to be having a good time then
that’ll give me a good enough reason to come back.
I think you’ll
be happy with those gigs... the vibe seems to be right in London. If we do see
you again will you be playing smaller gigs like a Horse Meat Disco or something?
I saw on
Resident Advisor there were people moaning that there weren’t enough tickets. I
mean 1000 people is hardly an intimate gig. But I think I was overwhelmed by
the amount of people that want to go. I thought I might have been taking a
risk, that there might not have been enough people who wanted to come. But
anyway, who knows... maybe I’ll take on a week long residency at Plastic
People! You can still come and see me in Manchester next week too!
You’re flying
out to Amsterdam to DJ with Mr Weatherall aren’t you?
Yup, I’m flying
out the next night to do that. I saw Andy in Mexico last weekend and we
discussed it loosely. Sort of start slow and see where we go really... Andy’s a
great DJ and we’ll have a lot of fun.
It will go well,
I’m sure. Well, thanks for taking the time to talk to us anyway.
Thanks for
having me...
Good luck on Friday. Look forward to seeing you there.
Come down the
front and give me a wave, throw a rose! (laughs)
****************
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