Mixmag Classic Feature - Heores OF Dance Music - October 2006

By appointment to the ClubbingNation, Mixmag presents‌

HEROES OF

DANCE MUSIC Interviews by Duncan Dick, Andrew Harrison, Gavin Herlihy, Ralph Moore, Joe Muggs, Nick Stevenson and Craig Torrance

Who made it all happen? Who created sounds never heard before? Who summoned forth the groove where no groove had been heard before? We asked some of the biggest names in dance music to name their heroes – the ones that inspired them. They

chose everyone from electronic visionaries to New York hip hop dons to the geeky recluses who created the Doctor Who theme from a busted piano and an echo box. Turn over and meet the people who changed everything...

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TOM ROWLANDS CHEMICAL BROTHER CHOOSES…

New Order: starting the 80s revival on Top Of The Pops

in radio presenting. What’s she like off radio? She’s got a loud, filthy laugh and an even filthier mouth. She’s very engaging – its nice to meet people you admire who turn out to be as nice as you want them to be.”

WHERE TO START: “Listen to her show on Friday mornings from 2–4am. She supported people like Pendulum from the start, and today she’s pushing some of the grimiest sounds on radio.”

SMOKIN’ JO IBIZA’S QUEEN OF THE DARKSIDE CHOOSES...

Tony Humphries battles the maelstrom

“Original New York house DJ Tony Humphries.”

LISA LASHES FIRST LADY OF BOSH CHOOSES...

“I’M NOT REALLY the kind of person that has heroes, but I’d probably say Tony Humphries.

In ’89-90 I used to manage a fashion shop in London all day and then go out every single night. I used to hear him play at a club on Shaftesbury Avenue, playing bass-driven soulful house from America, tunes like ‘Stomp,’ which really got me into dance music.”

WHERE TO START: “The mix album ‘Choice’ that came out on Azuli in 2003 – a fantastic mix with Todd Terry, Swing 52, Hamilton Bohannon and Cher on it.”

A big hand for Rob

Sven: shady

“Sven Väth, German godfather of techno” “SVEN INTRODUCED TECHNO to Germany, and was the first DJ to get a following. He started out as an electro pop star, with a German number one hit, ‘Electrical Salsa’, but re-invented himself as a DJ, 072 OCTOBER 2006

and he’s been re-inventing himself ever since. He’s still the only DJ in Germany who can get 15,000 people to come and see just him. I first met him when he played at Technomania in Frankfurt in ’91, where I was resident. I looked at the way he played, how he read the people – he showed me what it means to be a charismatic DJ. If you had to describe life with Sven it would be as a never-ending disco night, or if you watch the Franco Fellini film ‘I Vitelloni,’ about men deliberately trying to party themselves to death, that sums him up. He’s a visionary.”

WHERE TO START: “Get to the Cocoon opening or closing party in Ibiza!”

ANNIE MAC RADIO 1’S THURSDAY NIGHT STAR CHOOSES…

“Mary Ann Hobbs for making me fall in love with music” “I GREW UP IN the Republic of Ireland and we couldn’t get BBC on the radio.

My family listened to talk radio and it never occurred to Mary: me that radio DJs could be cool. Then I smooch went to university in Belfast and discovered Mary Ann Hobbs’ show on Radio 1. She blew me away. Her style is so warm and she has an amazing way of

describing music. When I moved to England I’d record her show every Monday and spend the rest of the week listening to it. I fell in love with music listening to her show. It was where I learned about the labels and the artists and sometimes I’d try and buy every record I heard.

Today she’s still focussed on pioneering new sounds and I respect her for sticking by the music that doesn’t always get on radio.

When I was an assistant at Radio 1 I presented a demo in the style of her show and gave it to my boss. One week Mary Ann was ill, and I got to fill in for her – and that gave me my start

“ROB’S BEEN ON the scene for 15 years, maybe longer, and he’s still got it. He started by putting parties on, even getting arrested for it, and he’s still got the same enthusiasm that he always had. He’s never really been a superstar, which will surely change – he has such a presence on the decks, always smiling, so much energy. I’ve known him since we met in the back room of Sundissential about nine years ago, and I’ve never heard him drop a beat. Rob really is a DJ’s DJ, and just as fantastic a warm-up DJ as he is a finisher.

If he’s available I always try to get him in for my Lashed parties. If it’s not his night, he won’t try to big himself up and play all the anthems. And he’s really thoughtful: somehow he finds the time to make little intros for me to play at the end of his set. He’s also a mine of information, and he finds some amazing tracks. I’ll ask him, ‘Where’d you get that?’ and he’ll say ‘Here, have it.’ He’s got the most infectious smile, and he’s a real hedonist – you can’t have a festival without Rob Tissera.”

WHERE TO START: “His single ‘The Day Will Come’ – it’s a really girly, accessible melody that has everyone singing along. I chose it for my ‘Lashed’ album because it really means something to me.”

WWW.MIXMAG.NET

ROOTS MANUVA BRITAIN’S MINISTER OF HIP HOP CHOOSES…

Rakim (left) and Eric B

“Eric B and Rakim, the greatest innovators in hip hop.”

REDFERNS, RETNA, ZACK CORDINER

DJ TOM NOVY GERMANY’S BIGGEST HOUSE DJ CHOOSES…

“Rob Tissera – he really is a DJ’s DJ”

REDFERNS, SPIROS POLITIS, BBC PICTURES

“New Order, for making up dance music as they went along.”

were students in Manchester. We’d just started DJing as The Dust Brothers and our house had a reputation for being a bit of a party place. One Saturday night Bernard knocked on our door going, ‘Where’s the party, then?’ But me and Ed “THEY’RE SO IMPORTANT to me and The Chemical Brothers. were watching telly and having our tea! We all trooped out We were lucky; when we started out it was becoming to say hello, pop-eyed like proper fans. When he realised easier to do anything you wanted with sound. But they there was no party he went off down the road and had to make it up as they went along. And they’re we followed him like a little entourage. In the end “WE FOLLOWED partly responsible for putting a New York disco in he shouted ‘Fuck off, you bunch of wurzels!’ at BERNARD DOWN Manchester. The Haçienda changed lots of us. It’s a treasured memory. He pretends not to people’s lives. They’re heroes just for that. remember it now.

THE ROAD ’ TIL HE “I first got into New Order with the ‘Power, “Years later, we made ‘Out Of Control’ with SAID ‘FUCK OFF YOU Corruption & Lies’ LP when I was about 15. But him. We were worried that in collaborations you WURZELS”” from ‘Blue Monday’ to ‘True Faith’ to now, every can end up with less than the sum of the parts. track is so alive, so full of ideas. They’ve always But he made it into something brilliant.” done their own thing. Sometimes it was dance music, WHERE TO START: “On ‘Everything’s Gone Green’ you sometimes it wasn’t, but you always had to hear it. can hear what’s going to happen in electronic music taking “The weird thing is, we met Bernard [Sumner] when we shape. I’ve hung a copy on the studio wall, for inspiration.”

“THEY MADE SOUNDING bad so cool. Not bad like ‘I’m going to kill you,’ but dark, deep, hard. It was that ‘real bad boys walk in silence’ thing that BDP had. And they looked so great with the gold and the dark outfits. They looked like they were gonna take your money off you! And the music was amazing. It’s just a few samples but they honed it down to the most sinister sound you ever heard.

I first heard them when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, on a pirate called LWR. I was sold. ‘Paid In Full’ is great, but WWW.MIXMAG.NET

on ‘Follow The Leader’ they developed it to a totally different level. It’s mad, imaginative music and it goes way, way out there. For me, Rakim is still one of the best, if not the best MC out there.

When I was a kid I used to do all the Rakim raps in the mirror, to teach myself! He set the precedent for eloquence in rapping, he used similes, he was always understated. He raised the game, undoubtedly. Every rapper that followed owes him something.”

WHERE TO START: “Find a copy of ‘Follow The Leader’ – it’s the one where they bust out into a whole universe of their own.”

LEE ROUS OF BREAKBEAT DONS PLUMP DJS CHOOSES…

Orbital: it’s a monster!

“Originators of live techno Orbital”

WHERE TO START: “Start where they did, with ‘Chime’.

Andy Plump will recommend the dubbier ‘Naked And The Dub’, so for both ends of the Orbital spectrum, get both.”

SYED HOUSE FAN AND TV APPRENTICE CHOOSES…

‘Homework’. The second record, ‘Discovery’, was a natural next step, but the first album is the one that really changed everything for everyone. And I love the robot costumes – that means they don’t even have to be at the gig!

“From time to time, I’ll pick a track from ‘Homework’ to

play out and it will all go off.

We all love the whole Roulé/ French sound. They were a big inspiration. All our early records had a similar funky, crispy bassline. I’d say eighty per cent of producers have tried to do a track like that.”

WHERE TO START: “‘Homework’, obviously! Every track is pure genius.”

EROL ALKAN TRASH DON AND ALL-ROUND ELECTRO BASHER CHOOSES...

Yost: completely in the dark about grindie

“Kevin Yost for his flawless house sets” “WHEN I WAS in Paris a little while back I had the pleasure of hearing one of the world’s most brilliant musicians spin a fantastic set of house music.

Kevin Yost grew up on jazz in Pennsylvania and he brings that influence into his music.

His tracks are a seamless marriage of percussion and piano, soulful and jazzy, and he’s inventive: his albums feature acoustic guitars, real bass and pianos, sax, and awesome synths. It’s a combination that can only come from a man with years of love and experience for real house music behind him.”

WHERE TO START: “His ‘One Starry Night’ album is one I’ll cherish for a long time to come.”

“I grew up in the sticks, off the M25 just as rave was exploding.

I remember seeing Orbital posters before I actually knew who they were. My sister was into rave before me and when I finally got involved I’d nick her copies of their records and STEVE ANGELLO listen to them on my dad’s beltSWEDISH HOUSE BARON CHOOSES… drive turntable. Now I think of them as one of the first UK bands to take dance music to a live stage. We toured with them in 2000 and 2002 and I can personally vouch for what heroes they really are. The first time we met them we’d just “THEIR FIRST ALBUM, finished warming up ‘Homework’, made me realise for them at the that there could be so Bristol Academy. much more to They summoned electronic music. us to their dressing They took it to a room. We were different level. shitting it, but I love their they welcomed whole us with real ale catalogue, and we talked even the about UFOs early Daft Punk and apple pie. techno, prepare the We were sad but they leather forecast when they made retired, but I house in think they’ll a different be back.” way after

“Daft Punk, for making us do our ‘Homework’”

Meek also invented this early waffle iron

“Maverick producer, hometown hero and groundbreaking producer Joe Meek” “I COULD HAVE very easily picked Brian Wilson, Larry Levan, Johnny Marr, Paul McCartney, Leonard Cohen or Stock, Aitkin and Waterman. But instead, I think I’ll settle for a chap whom I admire for the very reason that he gave the mainstream a full two-fingered salute and then proceeded to make some of the most era-defining, and strangest, records of his time, all recorded solely in his North London flat: Joe Meek.

“A short walk up up the Holloway Road from where I live will lead you to the building which Meek transformed into a hit factory in the late 50s and early 60s. Joe had the mixing console in his front room, the band in an adjoining room and the vocalist often in a makeshift vocal booth that doubled “HIS VISION WOULD as his bathroom. Here he made many LEAD HIM TO NEW records that went on to sell in their SOUNDS WHICH STILL bucket-loads, notably ‘Telstar’ by The Tornados – the first British record to SEND A SHIVER UP top the US charts.

YOUR SPINE” “He’s a hero of dance music because he was the world’s first truly independent producer. His vision would lead him to new sounds which still to this day send a shiver up your spine. He would use unconventional methods in recording and was undoubtedly years ahead of his time.

“He was a fascinating character – beset with personal problems, obsessed with the occult and unable to come to terms with his homosexuality, which was then illegal.

His life came to an awful end when he shot his landlady and then turned the gun on himself, aged 37. But he left a legacy which is still being discovered. A true innovator.”

WHERE TO START: “Check out his space concept album ‘I Hear A New World’.”

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PAUL OAKENFOLD GLOBAL ÜBER-DJ CHOOSES…

favourite. It’s got that industrial noise in it that Liam pioneered, that came up later in drum ‘n’ bass and breakbeat. I’ve heard them called ‘industrial punk’ – what a brilliant thing to be called.

“I’ve never seen them live, which is a big regret. But I’ve seen live videos and they’re the closest thing dance music’s got to the Sex Pistols – so fresh and full of attitude.”

WHERE TO START: “‘Music For The Jilted Generation’ is perfect – the music, attitude, even the artwork. It rocks, man!”

CARL COX SPACE’S TECHNO OVERLORD CHOOSES…

“Grandmaster Flash, for inventing the superstar DJ” “GRANDMASTER FLASH? Wow. At the end of the day, anyone in DJing knows what he stands for. He toyed with the idea of making music with other people’s records. He was so cheeky, he’d make beats out of old rock records and instead of cutting up breaks he’d cut up sax. He came out of the breakdance, body-popping block party scene and he was the DJ. When he met Melle Mel and they made a record with Flash as the DJ, this is where the culture started. It made DJs into artists in their own right. He created the concept of the superstar DJ. “I first came across him in 1979. I saw Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five at the Hammersmith Odeon, and again at the Hippodrome when Dave Pearce was the host.

That’s still where my heart lies.

Any show they did, I’d go and see them, because they created something unique.

They were a band without instruments, but their instruments were their decks.”

WHERE TO START: “‘White Lines’ is rightly regarded as a classic. What a message!”

ALTERN 8 HARDCORE HERO MARK ARCHER CHOOSES…

“No, I haven’t got ‘Hands Up For Detroit’!”

“Derrick May. Why? It’s bloody obvious, isn’t it?!”

PLAN B UK HIP HOP HERO CHOOSES…

Keith shows Maxim his new romper suit

“I GOT INTO HIP HOP listening to Grandmaster Flash. I was 17 when I first went to America to see him. I blagged my way in to his show with a false ID saying I was from NME. “When I worked with him on ‘Set It Off’ I was so nervous – I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m meeting

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Grandmaster Flash!’ but he was a really nice guy. We were trying to do dance and hip hop together, so I brought the tempo down. I said, ‘I’ll do the arrangements, keyboards and rhythm, and you do what you’re good at doing,’ so he’s scratching and bouncing, laying down real old“I WAS 17 WHEN I school, Afrika Bambaataa-style synth lines. It BLAGGED MY WAY IN worked out really well.”

WHERE TO START: “‘Adventures On The Wheels Of TO HIS SHOW WITH Steel’ sums him up in terms of what he does A FALSE ID SAYING I and how he does it. It’s just about perfect.”

WAS FROM NME”

“THEY WERE THE first band I got into and they were a big influence. ‘Poison’ was the first tune I heard, as I was a bit too young when they first came out. It blew me away. They’re more than just a rave group – Liam’s really musical, it’s deep, man. I sampled ‘No Good’ on my first single and it’s still my WWW.MIXMAG.NET

PYMCA, ,REDFERNS

“Grandmaster Flash for inventing cutting and bringing hip hop to the people”

“The Prodigy, for being the Sex Pistols of dance music”

REDFERNS

Grandmaster And The Furious Five on “dress-down Friday”

“SOME OF IT’S 20 years old but it’s still amazingly beautiful, rich music that covers the whole spectrum of emotions. When Detroit techno first came out we were all told ‘this is the future’, and Derrick’s Rhythim Is Rhythim records still feel like that – they just feel right, the way Kraftwerk do. He’s not prolific and he’s had loads of problems with records not coming out and people biting his style, but something like ‘Nude Photo’ or ‘The Dance’ – these are perfect records.

“Derrick, Kevin Saunderson and Juan Atkins’ tunes are the first few absolutely pure techno records, before it became everybody’s property and people started buggering about with it. They’re snapshots of an amazing time in music, and people like B12 or Anthony Shakir or Kenny Larkin have kept that alive. It was the pure, sheer emotion in the music that Chris Peat [Mark’s partner in Altern 8] and I wanted to get to when we made our early records as Nexus 21. We just wanted to make Derrick May records.

And we got to go to Detroit, us two nobodies from Stafford!

We met Kevin, we met Paris WWW.MIXMAG.NET

Grey, Jay Denham got me a 909, we got everybody’s autographs… I was 21 and I was eating chips with Kevin Saunderson! Someone told us that Derrick said he was going to break our kneecaps for nicking the ‘Wiggan’ bassline on our track ‘Real Love’, and I was a bit frightened because he’s a serious character, but he turned out to be all right. I was a bit starstruck, but he just said, ‘Yeah, Mark, I’m a real technocrat!’

“I still get into rows now about what techno actually is. I wasn’t having all that Rising High stuff with reggae beats on it years ago and I’m not having it now. Death to false techno!”

WHAT TO GET: “It’s got to be ‘Strings Of Life’. It’s his bestknown tune and it’s the Detroit techno track. I’m amazed that some people don’t know it. We sampled it on ‘E-Vapor-8’ years ago, and we had people coming to us saying ‘We’ve heard this American track that rips you off…!’ Sacrilege.”

TRACEY THORN HOUSE CHANTEUSE CHOOSES…

“Arthur Russell for bringing intelligence and emotion to house “ARTHUR RUSSELL WAS a classically-trained cellist, based in New York from the mid1970s, where he worked alongside people like David Byrne. He started recording disco singles under the name Dinosaur L in 1979 – the single ‘Go Bang’ became a club classic, as did another of his tracks, ‘Is It All Over My Face?’

by Loose Joints. He continued with his more avant-garde work, especially on recordings like ‘World Of Echo’. He died in 1992, aged just 40.

“What I relate to most in his music is his lightness of touch and subtlety, qualities that can be hard to find on the dancefloor – or anywhere else, for that matter.

He had that rare gift of being able to sound both knowing and innocent at the same time, so his songs can be sexy without ever being

gross, can be clever and dumb at the same time. He can be avant-garde and experimental, and yet charm you with the idea that it would be cool to play cello on some disco songs. And then of course there’s his beautiful voice, full of understated emotion.

WHERE TO START: “Soul Jazz released ‘The World of Arthur Russell’, which contains his early disco productions. My favourite compilation is Rough Trade’s ‘Calling out of Context’, a collection of unfinished or unreleased work he was working on in the years before he died.”

JUNIOR JACK LONG-HAIRED ITALO HOUSE DON CHOOSES...

Nile: c’est, er, chic!

“Disco legend and bass originator Nile Rogers” “AS A KID I used to listen to new wave – Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, that kind of thing. But when I started making music I switched to funk and disco.

The producer who really inspired me was Nile Rogers and his disco productions with Sister Sledge and Chic. He has an amazing groove that really stands out. Guitars and bass – he doesn’t need anything more. For me, the most important thing in music is the bass, and he put that bass groove sound into disco. I first heard his music when I was ten years old and it still sounds amazing.”

WHERE TO START: “The ‘C’est Chic’ album from 1978 is a classic and has been sampled countless times.

It’s got ‘Le Freak’ and ‘I Want Your Love’ on it.”

Arthur Russell, bunny fiddler

FERGIE HARD DANCE’S HEAD HONCHO CHOOSES...

“My mentor and friend, Tony de Vit” “I was 16 when I met him, winging it in a club in Northern Ireland. I went back to his hotel room and looked through his records. I’d had a car accident and my ribs were all messed up. I had my top off, showing him, and I thought it was weird that he wouldn’t feel them. I didn’t realise he was gay – I’d never met a gay person before.

“Tony opened my eyes to how big dance music and DJing is. I give my number out now to loads of young DJs, but I probably pestered Tony more than they all pester me added together. I would phone him up three times a day just to talk to him, or badger him for records. Yet he always talked to me.

“He said he saw a lot of himself in me, the same determination. I used to give him scrapbooks of his press and stuff like that. Stupid stuff, but that’s all I could give him.

He took me over to England and showed me what it meant

when he was recording ‘Are You All Ready?’. There was a vocal booth next to the studio with a window. I was standing there watching him. He didn’t know anyone was there, and he was dancing around to this track he’d finished, so happy.

What a geezer.”

WHERE TO START: “The GU mix album ‘Live In Tokyo’ is a fantastic way to remember him.”

AMADEUS CELERY MOZART TIDY BOY CHOOSES...

“Tony de Vit, for being a pioneer of hard house” “I FOLLOWED TONY’S career from 1984. I was 18 and I used to go clubbing at the Dome in Birmingham with my girlfriend – now my wife – and I would stand behind the DJ booth and watch the things he did to get the maximum out of the music. Once he put on a Madonna track, took a little keyboard out of his bag and played chords over the top.

He taught me that a DJ set should be ‘80 per cent entertainment and 20 per cent education’. He believed

The late Tony de Vit: “What a geezer.”

to be in the studio, to be doing three or four gigs a night.

“In the last few months of his career before he died, he wasn’t well. We’d be in the car going to gigs and he’d have his feet up on my back – some of the drugs he was taking made his feet feel like he was walking on broken glass, but he still did all these gigs. Once he passed out in Miss Moneypenny’s, but he got up and finished his set.

Whenever I think of him I think of his studio in Birmingham

that when the DJ smiles the crowd smiles, and it didn’t matter if he was having a bad day, he was still full of life and energy behind the decks.

“Unfortunately, everybody got into Tony very late. About six months before he died he was the biggest DJ out there.

WHERE TO START: “Find ‘The Dawn’ or ‘Are You All Ready?’.

‘The Dawn’ shows Tony’s melodic side, and at 155 bpm ‘Are You All Ready?’ is the ultimate hoover track.”

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“The undisputed queen of soulful house, Jocelyn Brown” “SHE’S AN ICON, a total inspiration to anyone like me, simply because of that voice.

It’s so powerful, so soulful – it could literally save the world, I grew up in Baltimore and I listened to her as a kid, tracks from before house music like ‘Somebody Else’s Guy’. When I heard her voice I knew that was what I wanted to do.

“Of all the voices in house music and dance music, hers really is special. She’s got all those things like tone and resonance, but really it’s about the soul she brings to a track – and that’s something you can’t dissect. It transforms a house track into something you really feel, and nobody does that quite like her. She’s become a good friend of mine since my own career as a singer took off. She’s going to be on my next album, which is a duets kind of thing.

She’s been a mentor and a big sister to me, and I’m really lucky in that.”

WHERE TO START: “You can’t go wrong with ‘Somebody Else’s Guy’. It’s a staple for a reason – it’s just the most soulful track out there.”

TESS DALY TV PRESENTER AND HOUSE FAN CHOOSES…

“Jocelyn Brown, for being the ultimate diva – in a good way” “I LOVE DANCE music but nothing too hardcore. It’s got to be the housey vocal stuff like Jocelyn Brown. She’s got an incredible voice that just makes a tune take off. Lots of singers get called divas, but she’s the genuine article. She even sang at mine and Vernon’s wedding!”

WHERE TO START: “‘Somebody Else’s Guy’ isn’t really house music but it is a great tune.”

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PETER HOOK NEW ORDER’S BASS MONSTER CHOOSES…

“Kraftwerk, for kick-starting electronic music” “IAN CURTIS INTRODUCED me to Kraftwerk. He was mad about them and The Velvet Underground. I thought they were just weird at first, but once you get into them they’re so compelling. You listen to ‘Trans Europe Express’ now and it’s such a big sound – it came out in, what, 1976? And it still sounds beyond modern.

“Their contribution to dance music is massive even though they don’t make ‘wahey, offyour-nut’ music like The Chemical Brothers. They just set the tone and captured everybody’s imagination. I like the way they hold themselves back; I saw them at a festival we did in Germany last year and everyone was just dying for a big 4/4 beat from them – if they’d done that they’d have had the roof off. But they stuck

to their own style and pace.

They’re in their own world and that’s pretty great.

“One of the greatest compliments we ever had was when Kraftwerk booked into Britannia Row Studios with our engineer Mike Johnson because we’d made ‘Blue Monday’ there. When they saw it they went mad [adopts German voice] – ‘Zis is archaic!

Zis is a shit-hole!’ – and they stormed off. We’d made The Great Electronic Record in a place that Kraftwerk thought was too crappy! But the secret of ‘Blue Monday’ was the tiled basement. We did all those famous drums just by playing them loud on a speaker in the cellar. Not good enough for Kraftwerk though!

“Kraftwerk have created something so simple that it’s impossible to imitate. Tracks like ‘Autobahn’ or ‘Neon Lights’ are the perfect crystallisation of an idea. It’s the essence of electronic music and I never get tired of it.”

WHERE TO START: “‘Autobahn’ is the starting point. It’s big, beautiful, hypnotic music. Then get the ‘Radio Activity’ album and you’ll never look back.”

SLAM SCOTLAND’S TECHNO STALWARTS CHOOSE…

Unlike Vernon, Jocelyn harbours doubts about Bolton’s chances in the FA Cup

“Kraftwerkforinventing techno and everything that followed” “WHEN EVERYONE ELSE was walking around listing to Pink Floyd and wearing kaftans, four German lads who loved jazz took acid and never looked back. They built their own equipment from scratch and had their own look, their own

sound, their own keyboards and studio when no one else did.

“In the 80s it’s easier to count the bands that weren’t inspired by Kraftwerk than those that were. Gary Numan, OMD, John Foxx, Cabaret Voltaire, Joy Division and New Order, Japan… the list is endless.

“They’re also partly responsible for the worldwide explosion of hip hop, when Afrika Bambaataa’s ‘Planet Rock’ sampled ‘Trans Europe Express’, turning on a whole generation of black American kids. In Detroit they influenced Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, Carl Craig, Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin and Mad Mike, now the main influences on modern-day techno, which in its turn has been shipped back to Europe, inspiring millions. Kraftwerk are to dance what the Stones are to rock. And they’re still innovating.”

WHERE TO START: “The ‘Man Machine’ album is Kraftwerk at their best.”

MR C EX-SHAMEN AND END CO-OWNER CHOOSES…

He got the funk

“Carl Craig, for putting the emotion back into techno” “HE’S THE ONLY PERSON whose records I play religiously.

Everything he does is incredible; he’s a constant source of inspiration. His music is beautiful, melodic, emotive, profound, funky techno. Back in ’91 I got a one-sided white label of his which blew me away. I was playing a warehouse party in Las Palmas and it was stolen. I was gutted; I’m not even sure what it was called!

“I’ve met him many times and he’s a real sweetheart, very reserved and super-intelligent.

Even the stuff he’s doing now is amazing. His remix of Theo Parrish’s ‘Falling Up’ is a classic.

I do what I do for fun but with Carl it’s art, and that makes him a hero. He’s a true artist.”

WHERE TO START: “His track ‘At Les’ on the ‘Virtual Sex’ compilation on Buzz Records.”

GREEN GARTSIDE, SCRITTI POLITTI’S BEAT NUT CHOOSES…

CRAIG RICHARDS FABRIC RESIDENT CHOOSES…

PAUL HARTNOLL TECHNO ORCHESTRATOR OF ORBITAL CHOOSES…

DJ Premier: you’re the target

Larry: hot and sweaty

“Larry Levan, for his pioneering sense of musical discovery”

“Gang*Starr’s DJ Premier, the greatest producer in hip hop”

“WITNESSING HIM PLAY in the late 80s was incredibly exciting.

Playing a record three times in a row doesn’t seem that outrageous, but when was the last time you heard a DJ do it?

On a reel-to-reel he played weird sound effects – thunder and rain, people talking – over looped intros which took forever to grow into a tune.

That sounds commonplace now but over twenty years ago it was unknown. He held the attention of the audience simply by pleasing himself.”

WHERE TO START: “Larry’s club mix of Gwen Guthrie’s ‘Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On But The Rent’ is still a classic.”

“IT COULD HAVE been Dre or Pete Rock or RZA or Marley Marl, but for me Premier is the absolute number one. We do a cover of ‘Come Clean’ from Jeru The Damaja’s ‘The Sun Rises In The East’ album, and it gives me pleasure just to say Premo’s name in front of an audience.

“Premier’s a hero because he’s the master of beats – ‘Come Clean’ was voted Third Dopest Beat Ever in The Source.

I’ve followed him since ‘Living Proof’, the album he did with Group Home, through all his work with Gang*Starr to Nas, Mos Def, Afu Ra… he’s even producing Christina Aguilera now, so I’ll have to buy that!

“The essence of a Premo track is a kind of immaculate cleanliness that doesn’t sacrifice on atmosphere. It’ll be haunting or threatening or beautiful or troubling, or all of those things. There’s emotional depth to his sound, and detail too: his snares are the poppingest, his hi-hats the crispest. He’ll build something incredible from a little piano loop and a reverbed xylophone.

And unlike a lot of hip hop producers, he’s adept at scratching. He can cut, dissect and compile a beat like no-one else, without any muddiness.

“To me, the beat is often more important than the rhyme in hip hop. I was always fascinated by language and put a lot of that into Scritti Politti, so I didn’t expect to fall in love with the side of music that was the opposite of language. The first time I heard Run DMC I thought it was just shouting, but you listen to it and it opens up to you. Now when I make beats, I try to do it like Premier.”

WHERE TO START: “ Jeru The Damaja’s ‘The Sun Rises In The East’ is his absolute best. No excuses for not buying it.”

VERNON KAYE TV PRESENTER AND ONETIME RAVER CHOOSES…

Graeme Park: hair today...

“Graeme Park, for being the God of Manchester” “FOR ME IT’S got to be Graeme Park. I don’t care what anyone says, he’s the best DJ in the world. You could give him any two records and he’d be able to mix them together. He’s got a fantastic nose for quality house music. I’ve always been a big fan of him and Mike Griffin – the old skool DJs from the Haçienda. I love that scene.

Everyone was friends, everyone was into it together, one love and all that palaver.”

WHERE TO START: “Find some of his old mixtapes on eBay.” WWW.MIXMAG.NET

TIMOTHY SACCENTI, BBC PICTURES

2 future 4 U?

REDFERNS, TIMOTHY SACCENTI, DAVID SWINDELLS (PYMCA), REX

ULTRA NATÉ ORIGINAL HOUSE DIVA CHOOSES…

WWW.MIXMAG.NET

Delia Derbyshire at work: in the 60s it was compulsory to wear evening dress for every recording

“Pioneers of weird noise music the BBC Radiophonic Workshop”

“Of all the people who worked there, Delia Derbyshire’s one of my favourites. She’s the woman who famously arranged the original Doctor Who theme; when the composer, Ron Grainer, heard it he said ‘Did I write that?’

“I’D SAY THEY were a big influence on Orbital, Kraftwerk, She said, ‘Most of it.’ He wanted her to get half of the Tangerine Dream and everyone else – but really they were royalties but the BBC wouldn’t allow it. It’s one of the big influences on every single person in Britain for about most bizarre and wonderful pieces of electronic music twenty years. They were a weird little laboratory dedicated ever, so modern and spare and mathematical, yet it’s to finding new ways to make music and they totally hand-crafted. She pioneered that creepiness produced huge amounts of the BBC’s incidental that you hear now in Aphex Twin and music. So the call signal for, say, BBC Radio “BILLIONS WERE Squarepusher. She was a highly intelligent Sheffield or the theme from BBC Schools EXPOSED TO MAD, woman in a world of men and she actually Programmes would be these insane pieces of looked like a Doctor Who assistant. She died in AVA NT-GARDE blippy-bleepy electronic music. I love the fact 2001 but if she was around now she’d be a star SOUNDS AS PART OF on WARP Records. Then there’s David Cain, that millions of people were exposed to these mad, avant-garde sounds as part of their daily who had a pop-skiffle mentality, and John Baker DAILY LIFE” life. They gave British musicians a taste for who we sampled for Orbital. I’ve got ‘Milky Way’ strangeness that would shape loads of dance music. by him as my ringtone.”

“The Radiophonic Workshop were pioneers of things WHERE TO START: “Lots of their stuff is being re-released like tape loops and sound processing, and they did it all on CD. I got the first album, ‘Radiophonic Workshop’, for before synthesisers. They were beyond old skool, they £10 in Spitalfields Market and it was the best tenner I’ve were pre-skool! In fact, when they did get a synthesiser, a ever spent. It’s full of work they did as jobs – a theme tune massive thing called a Delaware which filled a room, the for Tomorrow’s World or a BBC advert – and it’s better older members of the Workshop went mad because they than the later stuff they did for their actual album. The Art said it would ruin everything.

Of Noise did with samplers what they did with tape loops.”

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ELLEN ALLIEN BERLIN TECHNO MAGNATE AND BPITCH BOSS CHOOSES…

Bowie: the hair that launched a thousand Beastie diatribes

on The Tube, the Channel 4 show that changed music television in the 1980s. He also brought dance music to the Haçienda in 1983, but gave up DJing in 1984. Luckily he’s come back to DJing and is still a master of the re-edit, reprising the Larry Levan style of editing. Best of all he’s one of those people who are in it for all the right reasons.”

WHERE TO START: “Find a copy of his mix of SugarDaddy’s ‘State of Play’.

Greg is a great remixer because he doesn’t mess with your track too much, he just finds the best bits and makes the most of them.”

DAVID MORALES ORANGE-VESTED HOUSE VET CHOOSES…

“David Bowie, for constantly reinventing himself, year after year” “ONE OF MY FAMILY used to install jukeboxes in bars for a living, so I discovered music through the jukebox records that found their way into our house. My first hero was David Bowie. Because we couldn’t speak English, when my sister and I would listen to his records after school I’d always try to “WHEN I LISTENED imagine what he was singing about. At TO HIS RECORDS I’D the time German pop stars were here one minute and gone the next, but ALWAYS IMAGINE Bowie was always there and always WHAT HE WAS different from the rest. The biggest SINGING ABOUT” inspiration he gave me was his ability to change his style and update his music. Now I’m more into the older stuff.

When he made his dance album it wasn’t for me.”

WHERE TO START: “The great thing about Bowie is that he works in all areas. Rent the movie Just A Gigolo from 1979. He plays a soldier who returns from the war and gets seduced by Marlene Dietrich.”

TOM FINDLAY FROM GROOVE ARMADA CHOOSES...

REDFERNS, BBC PICTURES, EVERYNIGHT IMAGES

Greg keeps it reel

“Greg Wilson for being an electro rebel” “GREG IS A CORNERSTONE of UK dance music. His life story is amazing. Like many other people, I stumbled across it by WWW.MIXMAG.NET

reading the sleeves of his ‘Credit to the Edit’ CD series.

He might be only 46 but he has the life story of a veteran packed into about 35 years.

He started his first big residency at the Chelsea Reach on Merseyside in 1975 aged 15, playing funk and soul, but when electro arrived he played a pivotal role, championing records like Afrika Bambaataa’s ‘Planet Rock’ – much to the annoyance of the northern soul traditionalists, who shunned him. He was one of the first DJs to master turntable mixing and demonstrated how to do it

François K does a gallic shrug

“François K, for making everyone else look like an amateur” “HE’S MY ULTIMATE hero. He is the Einstein of DJs. He makes me feel like I’m part of the dinosaur age.

“François Kevorkian came to New York from France just before the disco era and taught himself to DJ and then remix. A lot of classics from that time, like Musique’s ‘In The Bush’, are François’ mixes.

I knew of his reputation because he’d played with Larry Levan. He made a lot of great records, from Prelude Records to D-Train, and graduated from remixing tracks to mixing the recordings themselves, like Kraftwerk’s ‘Electric Café’ and ‘Violator’ by Depeche Mode.

He was a major player and I used to book time in his studio so knew him a little, but it’s only recently that I got to see FK the DJ. He’s ahead of us all! He’s the future! He’s a technical geek and nobody does it better.”

WHERE TO START: “D-Train’s ‘You’re The One For Me’ on Prelude Records is one of his earliest mixes and it still sounds incredible.”

DAVID HOLMES DJ AND SOUNDTRACK KING CHOOSES…

“Andrew Weatherall, for his sheer creative unpredictability” “I FIRST SAW him in Ibiza in 1990 and I can remember being amazed that anyone could play such a varied set of music. It was totally uncompromising, yet great party music too. A few months later I saw him at The Egg in Ladbroke Grove and he was playing dub plates of his ‘Screamadelica’ stuff that hadn’t come out yet, Euro dance, The Clash, ‘She’s A Rainbow’ by World Of Twist – that variety is what he’s all about, and that’s what I want to hear when I’m out. I don’t want three hours of ‘bomp-bompbomp’, I want somebody to surprise me and keep me interested. Weatherall might have been the first to bring rock and dance music together and that determined so much of the good stuff that’s happened since. He’s an encyclopaedia of music, everything from 1950s rock ‘n’ roll to psych to avant-garde and punk, and to me that’s the true spirit of music since acid house.

It’s about inspiring people, and Weatherall does just that.

“I was a music lover before I was a DJ and I was a DJ before acid house, playing 60s stuff and northern soul, so his roots are my roots and I understand where he’s coming from. I admire the way he’s not afraid to move off somewhere weird, even though he could just capitalise on what he was doing already – like when he finished with Sabres Of Paradise, who

were fantastic, and went off to do Two Lone Swordsmen instead, which was a lot stranger and less obvious. He’s an obsessive and a genius and great to talk to as well.”

WHERE TO START: “‘Screamadelica’ is the indie dance classic but either of the Sabres albums are amazing – these giant hip hop dub electro movie soundtracks, totally unclassifiable. Above all go and see him play. I guarantee you’ve never heard anything like it.”

ANNIE NIGHTINGALE RADIO 1’S QUEEN OF BREAKS CHOOSES…

“Andrew Weatherall, for being a pioneering artist in his own right” “I’VE ADMIRED HIM for the past sixteen years. Andrew was the reason I was reborn, really – he changed my life.

Back then he was a new breed of DJ and producer who was creating something new by not just playing other people’s records but becoming an artist in his own right. He’s always maintained his principles and never went commercial. He has a cult following and always will have.

“Andrew’s also very funny, with a great dry wit. A few years ago I went to his birthday party. It was pretty full-on, and I had an asthma attack and ended up in hospital. When I let him know he was so good I ended up in hospital, he just said ‘oh good, I’ll put that on my CV.’” WHERE TO START: “The ‘Haunted Dancehall’ album by his first band Sabres of Paradise is amazing.”

Andrew Weatherall live with The Clash… sorry Two Lone Swordsmen

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MARK RONSON, THE NYC MAN WHO MADE US GO ‘OOH WEE’, CHOOSES…

he works and the way I work are very different, but he epitomises what I like in music.”

WHERE TO START: “The ‘Melancholia’ album.”

ERICK MORILLO SUBLIMINAL KINGPIN CHOOSES...

“Todd Terry, for leading the way and making beats that blew our minds”

1985: Rick Rubin tips for his soda the traditional way

was that with ‘Windowlicker’ he had a huge hit, it was so pop and catchy – but at the same time so bizarre and out there. That’s the best thing you can do as a musician: to go totally crazy, to not give a shit about making a hit, but then to have so many people get it and love it. I read a statistic somewhere that compared one of Aphex Twin’s records with one of Michael Jackson’s. It said that while Michael Jackson’s record had cost £20 million to make, the Aphex Twin’s had cost £1.50. The Michael Jackson record had everything spent on it but it was horrible and over-produced and lost £20 million, whereas Aphex Twin made a million from his. I love that statistic.”

WHERE TO START: “There’s a best-of album of his early stuff on R&S Records called ‘Aphex Twin Classics’ that’s amazing.

Get that, and ‘Windowlicker’.”

AMBER D HARD -DANCE VIXEN CHOOSES...

“HE IS SOLELY responsible for making me want to become a house DJ. I used to play disco, reggae and soul but going to the record store and hearing a Todd Terry record made me want to make music and become a house DJ. In the early days of my career, he always had a record I could count on. The drums, the

“Todd Terry, for turning me on to dance music” “I USED TO TAPE Judge Jules’ show on Radio 1 and listen to it at school on my Walkman. At the time Todd Terry had a string of great records. The first mix tape I ever bought was ‘Ministry of Sound Sessions vol 8’, mixed

PHILLIPE ZDAR OF HOUSE COLOSSUS CASSIUS CHOOSES...

Prince: nutty Few people know that Todd Terry works part-time as a traffic cop

“Avant-garde composer William Basinski for making a little go a long way”

“Rick Rubin for doing a bit of everything – brilliantly” “I love the way he traverses every genre. He’s been important in the careers of so many important people, from Rage Against The Machine and LL Cool J to Johnny Cash and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He many not be turning knobs in the studio but he always gets the best performances out of everyone.

088 OCTOBER 2006

But he’s very Zen, and I could never be that Zen.” “HE MAY NOT BE WHERE TO START: “Red Hot Chili ‘Blood Sugar Sex TWIDDLING KNOBS Peppers’ Magik’ album. It’s probably my BUT HE GETS THE favourite record because it still sounds incredible, especially BEST OUT OF the drums. They sound like [Led EVERYONE” Zeppelin’s drumming legend] John Bonham.”

“He’s the ultimate artist for making a little do a lot. He can take one loop and make it last fifteen minutes, and it’s just the most engrossing fifteen minutes you’ve ever spent. I like simple music and his is miserable as fuck, which is always good. I only got into him a few years ago when Boards Of Canada mentioned him as an influence. I’ve bought his whole back catalogue off the internet now. He was heavily involved in random improv stuff during the 80s and his music is very ambient. I’ve never seen him live, but I would love to. The way

“Prince, the most insanely creative man in music”

ALI SCHWARZ OF HOUSE UPSTARTS TIEFSCHWARZ CHOOSES...

Aphex: beardy

“Aphex Twin, for not giving a shit” “HE’S VERY IMPORTANT! He’s constantly breaking down boundaries, destroying things to make them come alive again. What’s so fucking cool WWW.MIXMAG.NET

REDFERNS

ALEX SMOKE MASTER OF MINIMAL TECHNO CHOOSES...

by Todd Terry, and when I first started DJing I had his tracks on vinyl. They all had an energetic sound and a big vocal, and he was one of the first DJs to use sound effects in his sets, which I try to do. I’ve still not had a chance to see him play!”

WHERE TO START: “Get Todd Terry presents Shannon, ‘It’s Over Love’. It’s unique and even works in my hard house sets.”

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percussion patterns, you name it, we all wanted to be Todd.”

WHERE TO START: “‘A Day In The Life’ is a classic, old-style, fast-edit, amazing record.”

“I first saw Prince on TV when I was a kid – he was whipping a girl on a bed. From this time I thought this man was crazy, but I started to buy all his records. My favourite album of all time is ‘Sign O’ the Times’ but he has so many great albums. His music is incredible, so diverse and with so much rock and electronic stuff – few people have matched him.

Maybe Aphex Twin. And of those people who’ve tried, few have done something that’s not retro. Prince always looked to the future. He was a real role model, and that’s another thing Prince did for me: he made me confident of my sexuality.”

WHERE TO START: “You have to get ‘Sign O’ the Times’, but he’s made at least five amazing albums so check them all.”

WWW.MIXMAG.NET

CHILL-OUT KING AND BESTIVAL BOSS ROB DA BANK CHOOSES…

Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry puts that in his pipe and smokes it

“Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry for creating dub and being one of music’s best characters” “HE’S UP THERE WITH The Clash or The Sex Pistols as a play Bestival and his manager said he was well up for it. legend who revolutionised music. A massive reggae So there we were, with the Isle of Wight in all its 1950sproducer but most importantly, while messing around meets-21st-century quaintness, and him cruising up in on his mixing desk and with mad instruments he this limo. He wanted two five-star hotel suites with came up with the components of dub. He’s such an adjoining door for him and his wife. We were “HIS OPENING LINE like, ‘It’s Portsmouth!’ – but eventually we a character and that’s what music needs. I’ve AT BESTIVAL WAS ‘LEE found something. We were ferrying him back met him a few times and I think he recognises me now. The first time I met him I was and forth for his soundcheck and SCRATCH PERRY’S interviewing him and he was smoking the BEEN GETTING MERRY performance, and when he came on stage his biggest reefer you’ve ever seen and talking opening line was, ‘Lee Scratch Perry’s been ON THE FERRY!” getting total gibberish. I had to transcribe this stream merry on the ferry!’. Everything he does of consciousness and the magazine loved it. is so off the cuff and raw.”

“Another time I got him to do vocals for my ‘Lazy WHERE TO START: “Get the ‘Roast Fish, Collie Weed Boy’ album. We had to go over to his house in Switzerland and Corn Bread’ album, with ‘Roast Fish And Cornbread’ and record them in his mad musical room. I asked him to and ‘Free The Weed’ on it. Pure genius.”

CALEDONIAN ELECTRO SUPERSTAR MYLO CHOOSES…

Laurent: beardy

“Laurent Garnier, for pure DJing skills” “A FEW MONTHS AGO I was talking to a Danish journalist and he asked what I thought of Laurent Garnier. I gave him a long answer about what a legend he was, when and where I’d seen him play, what it was

like and so on. The guy let me finish and then said, ‘Oh really?

Because I was just talking to him, and he doesn’t like you!’ I thought that was great, so I’m nominating him as my hero.

“One of best DJ sets I’ve ever witnessed was when he closed the outdoor stage at Sónar By Night, in 2003 I think. I’ve got a short attention span, but it was hypnotising. He chooses material which is emotive, and some of which could risk sounding cheesy in another context. And at the very end he threw in a few trademark old school classics like SL2, Inner City. He also made one of the funniest videos in dance music, for ‘Flashback’.”

WHERE TO START: “Get the ‘Retrospective’ CD for the best of his own productions.”

Bowie’s three best albums, Devo, U2, Talking Heads. and being largely responsible for inventing sampling in his brilliant collaboration with David Byrne on ‘My Life In The Bush of Ghosts’. His ambient series, like the ‘Music For Airports’ album, more or less “ON THE LIST OF leading invented the whole genre too.

British players who’ve shown He’s a champion of pushing me the way in electronic music the envelope and stretching – everyone from Daniel the boundaries of what’s Miller to Peter Gabriel possible. He helps me to Aphex Twin – realise that it’s OK to take there’s one name risks, to overstep the that outshines the mark and to create and rest: Brian Eno. He’s experiment without fear. the master of WHERE TO START: “For electronic sheer inspiration, music, get the ‘Oblique producing Strategies’ cards, Roxy available from Eno:baldy Music, enoshop.co.uk.”

CROSSTOWN BOSS AND ELECTRO DJ DAMIEN LAZARUS CHOOSES...

“Producer, visionary and genius Brian Eno, for taking risks”

HEROES OF

HEROES OF

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DANCE MUSIC

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Maxim: grrr!

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SIMON FRANKS AUDIO BULLYS MC CHOOSES...

NIGHTMARES ON WAX’S GEORGE EVELYN, AKA DJ E.A.S.E., CHOOSES…

DRUM 'N’ BASS NEW ROMANTIC JOHN B CHOOSES…

“Masters At Work, because they never stand still”

Who said Daft Punk have all the best ideas? Inset: JMJ in his command module

“I’VE BEEN FOLLOWING them since the year dot, when they did a remix every five minutes.

Whoever it was it’d always be on the money. They were the first to really bring house and hip hop together, and their mix of ‘Only Love Will Break Your Heart’ probably started big beat off. They opened people up to new kinds of music with the ‘Nu Yorican Soul’ albums – to me, that’s the start of

“The Prodigy, for making rave massive”

Peely: RIP

“John Peel, for opening the door to another world” “I WAS TEN YEARS OLD when I heard John Peel on the radio at night. It was so different from daytime radio; he turned us on to so much, from Krautrock and German electronica to dub reggae, Faust, Neu, Kaftwerk, Tangerine Dream – all people who had a huge influence on 090 OCTOBER 2006

broken beat. And they never stand still. They’re so inspiring, but you can’t imitate them.

There’s something unique there that can’t be copied.

WHERE TO START: “The Kenny Dope ‘Unreleased Project’ stuff or the tracks they did with India.”

“Jean Michel Jarre, for inventing trance thirty years ago” “HE’S BEEN SUCH AN INFLUENCE on electronic music and live performance for the last 30 years.

One of the things that always stood out for me was his showmanship and the huge, epic nature of his concerts–- the way he had all the lights, video projections and fireworks all synched-in to the music. You could argue he was doing trance before it really existed. Listen to the huge synths in ‘Rendez Vous’ – totally ahead of its time.

Rick and I, and without John we wouldn’t have been touched by these things. His show was exotic, a foreign land. The Anglo-American music that was prevalent at that time was so bland, and he introduced us to all this mad German and dub music. He opened up windows into strange places. Without John, I’d be stacking shelves.”

WHERE TO START: “He did a great ‘Fabric Live’ mix, but for the real Peel experience get Faust’s ‘The Wümme Years’ box set. There’s a disc of John Peel sessions on there too.”

“Come to think of it, I might have been a bit too into JMJ. I remember giving a presentation to the “COME TO THINK Berkshire Computer Society about him when I 15, dragging in my Atari ST and keyboards OF IT, I MIGHT HAVE was and trying to show how you could ‘compose’ BEEN A BIT TOO using computers and MIDI and stuff. I had a little tie-pin mic and my dad even brought INTO JEAN MICHEL some huge PA speakers in the car for it!

JARRE...”

WHERE TO START: “Get the ‘Oxygene’ album. It came out in 1976, before I was even born.”

SIMON RATCLIFFE OF BASEMENT JAXX CHOOSES...

“Hip hop producer The 45 King for showing how weird samples could be” “THE 45 KING WAS one of the producers who first inspired me to realise that sampled music could be really mindblowing. There’s so much detail in it – a groove could

just go on and on and on and you’d be able to pick out more and more weird stuff that was going on. It’s the ‘sampleness’ of it that blew me away. It’s inhuman in a strange way. I had a tape of him with Lakim Shabazz that I listened to all the time when I first came to London. That was our chill-out. We’d come back in from a night out and listen to 45 King, Dr Dre, Mantronix, that kind of early hip hop. You

could hear the same influence in house producers like Todd Terry – slamming samples together that shouldn’t work, doing things back-to-front, just so spectacularly wrong that it blows you away. Same goes for early rave like Shut Up And Dance, rough and ready but brilliant. You don’t get music that inspiring very often!”

WHERE TO START: “‘The 900 Number’, of course! But surely everyone’s got that already...”

The 45 King: righteous

WWW.MIXMAG.NET

FORMER LAMB SINGER TURNED SOLO ARTIST LOU RHODES CHOOSES…

BASEMENT JAXX’S BEARD TECH FELIX BUXTON CHOOSES…

“Louie Vega for taking house beyond the clubs” “He’s always been a real inspiration. In the early days of house he really showed that dance music could have sophistication and a life

beyond just the clubs. I went over to NY with a friend, and saw him Djing. He made us feel welcome, and we were able to just stand behind the decks with him, having a drink and talking music.”

WHERE TO START: “There are loads of mix CDs but ‘Latin Verve Sounds: Produced By Masters At Work’ is really worth finding.”

“Gilles Peterson, for NIGEL CHAMPION OF OLD SKOOL RAVERS integrity and blinding N-JOI CHOOSES… nights at Bar Rumba” “Paul Oakenfold, for “I REALLY ADMIRE HIS being a legend” integrity. He’s been such a

REDFERNS, BBC PICTURES

UNDERWORLD FRONTMAN KARL HYDE CHOOSES…

ARNO FROM MINIMAL HIT -MAKERS BOOKA SHADE CHOOSES…

Masters At Work: why I oughta!

REDFERNS, BBC PICTURES

“I MUST HAVE BEEN about 12 and everyone was starting to listen to hardcore music. I was more into bands and rap music, but then my mate came round and put on a pirate radio station, and ‘Out Of Space’ was playing. From then on it just grabbed me.

The Prodigy have been a real influence and inspiration to us, as they came from the underground and broke through into the mainstream but still remained cool.

“In ’97 I went to my first festival, V, and didn’t really enjoy it. But the last slot was The Prodigy. When ‘Breathe’ came on and the lights went off, I got tingles up the back of my neck and I thought, ‘this is what it’s all about’. That was a key moment in me thinking about playing live.

WHAT TO GET: “‘Breathe’ is the tune for me.”

was too much stuff. A real old school hero.”

WHERE TO START: “He’s done plenty of mix CDs but The Young Disciples’ ‘Road To Freedom’, from when he ran Talkin’ Loud, is what he’s all about.”

“Paul is one of the few people pioneer and he’s so eclectic. who was there from the very I used to go to Bar Rhumba years back and he played such beginning and is still rocking it. a cross-section of music, from He was our inspiration when we used to see him at Shoom, drum ’n’ bass to acoustic Spectrum and the early Brazilian numbers. I want warehouse parties. As music to touch my soul Madonna said, “if Maverick and that’s what he sign a DJ it has to be the would do. He used to best in the world, so we’ve live in Finsbury Park signed Paul Oakenfold.” and when he ”WHERE TO START: moved he left all “‘Perfecto Fluoro’ is his music in the Oakey at the dawn basement of trance.” because there Gilles: jazztacular!

“Depeche Mode, for making us want to get on stage” “DEPECHE MODE MADE THE soundtrack fact, the memory of wanting to be on a to my youth and every album tells me stage is one of the reasons why we do about a time of my life. If I listen to some what we do. Now things have come full of their albums now I can picture myself circle, because we opened for them at listening to the record in my room instead their live show in Berlin. For us it was the of studying for an exam! The gig that blew realisation of a dream. We were very me away as a kid was at a small venue in nervous. Sadly, though, we didn’t get to Germany in 1983. I was only 15 and hadn’t meet them! Their manager told us they seen that many concerts, but I loved weren’t in a very good mood and not the electronic sound and the to talk to them, but we punch of the music from the “ DEPECHE MODE understood. If you’re on tour soundsystem. I played drums everyone wants to talk to you.

ARE ONE OF THE and at the time people said After a while it can get on your REASONS BOOKA they can’t be a proper band nerves. But we were just without a drummer – but I happy that they knew enough SHADE ARE A LIVE loved the way they played live about our music to book us in BAND NOW” with synths and that there were the first place. “ no guitars. I remember playing the WHERE TO START: “Get ‘Violator’. record in my bedroom and pretending They probably don’t want to hear it to play keyboards. This is one of the because they’re ten albums on from it, reasons why Booka Shade are a live band but this, from 1990, is their best album. now – I used to imagine how it would be And if you’ve been a fan for as long as we on that stage with people watching. In are get their live DVD, ‘101.’”

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MARK RONSON, THE NYC MAN WHO MADE US GO ‘OOH WEE’, CHOOSES…

he works and the way I work are very different, but he epitomises what I like in music.”

WHERE TO START: “The ‘Melancholia’ album.”

ERICK MORILLO SUBLIMINAL KINGPIN CHOOSES...

“Todd Terry, for leading the way and making beats that blew our minds”

1985: Rick Rubin tips for his soda the traditional way

was that with ‘Windowlicker’ he had a huge hit, it was so pop and catchy – but at the same time so bizarre and out there. That’s the best thing you can do as a musician: to go totally crazy, to not give a shit about making a hit, but then to have so many people get it and love it. I read a statistic somewhere that compared one of Aphex Twin’s records with one of Michael Jackson’s. It said that while Michael Jackson’s record had cost £20 million to make, the Aphex Twin’s had cost £1.50. The Michael Jackson record had everything spent on it but it was horrible and over-produced and lost £20 million, whereas Aphex Twin made a million from his. I love that statistic.”

WHERE TO START: “There’s a best-of album of his early stuff on R&S Records called ‘Aphex Twin Classics’ that’s amazing.

Get that, and ‘Windowlicker’.”

AMBER D HARD -DANCE VIXEN CHOOSES...

“HE IS SOLELY responsible for making me want to become a house DJ. I used to play disco, reggae and soul but going to the record store and hearing a Todd Terry record made me want to make music and become a house DJ. In the early days of my career, he always had a record I could count on. The drums, the

“Todd Terry, for turning me on to dance music” “I USED TO TAPE Judge Jules’ show on Radio 1 and listen to it at school on my Walkman. At the time Todd Terry had a string of great records. The first mix tape I ever bought was ‘Ministry of Sound Sessions vol 8’, mixed

PHILLIPE ZDAR OF HOUSE COLOSSUS CASSIUS CHOOSES...

Prince: nutty Few people know that Todd Terry works part-time as a traffic cop

“Avant-garde composer William Basinski for making a little go a long way”

“Rick Rubin for doing a bit of everything – brilliantly” “I love the way he traverses every genre. He’s been important in the careers of so many important people, from Rage Against The Machine and LL Cool J to Johnny Cash and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He many not be turning knobs in the studio but he always gets the best performances out of everyone.

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But he’s very Zen, and I could never be that Zen.” “HE MAY NOT BE WHERE TO START: “Red Hot Chili ‘Blood Sugar Sex TWIDDLING KNOBS Peppers’ Magik’ album. It’s probably my BUT HE GETS THE favourite record because it still sounds incredible, especially BEST OUT OF the drums. They sound like [Led EVERYONE” Zeppelin’s drumming legend] John Bonham.”

“He’s the ultimate artist for making a little do a lot. He can take one loop and make it last fifteen minutes, and it’s just the most engrossing fifteen minutes you’ve ever spent. I like simple music and his is miserable as fuck, which is always good. I only got into him a few years ago when Boards Of Canada mentioned him as an influence. I’ve bought his whole back catalogue off the internet now. He was heavily involved in random improv stuff during the 80s and his music is very ambient. I’ve never seen him live, but I would love to. The way

“Prince, the most insanely creative man in music”

ALI SCHWARZ OF HOUSE UPSTARTS TIEFSCHWARZ CHOOSES...

Aphex: beardy

“Aphex Twin, for not giving a shit” “HE’S VERY IMPORTANT! He’s constantly breaking down boundaries, destroying things to make them come alive again. What’s so fucking cool WWW.MIXMAG.NET

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ALEX SMOKE MASTER OF MINIMAL TECHNO CHOOSES...

by Todd Terry, and when I first started DJing I had his tracks on vinyl. They all had an energetic sound and a big vocal, and he was one of the first DJs to use sound effects in his sets, which I try to do. I’ve still not had a chance to see him play!”

WHERE TO START: “Get Todd Terry presents Shannon, ‘It’s Over Love’. It’s unique and even works in my hard house sets.”

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percussion patterns, you name it, we all wanted to be Todd.”

WHERE TO START: “‘A Day In The Life’ is a classic, old-style, fast-edit, amazing record.”

“I first saw Prince on TV when I was a kid – he was whipping a girl on a bed. From this time I thought this man was crazy, but I started to buy all his records. My favourite album of all time is ‘Sign O’ the Times’ but he has so many great albums. His music is incredible, so diverse and with so much rock and electronic stuff – few people have matched him.

Maybe Aphex Twin. And of those people who’ve tried, few have done something that’s not retro. Prince always looked to the future. He was a real role model, and that’s another thing Prince did for me: he made me confident of my sexuality.”

WHERE TO START: “You have to get ‘Sign O’ the Times’, but he’s made at least five amazing albums so check them all.”

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CHILL-OUT KING AND BESTIVAL BOSS ROB DA BANK CHOOSES…

Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry puts that in his pipe and smokes it

“Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry for creating dub and being one of music’s best characters” “HE’S UP THERE WITH The Clash or The Sex Pistols as a play Bestival and his manager said he was well up for it. legend who revolutionised music. A massive reggae So there we were, with the Isle of Wight in all its 1950sproducer but most importantly, while messing around meets-21st-century quaintness, and him cruising up in on his mixing desk and with mad instruments he this limo. He wanted two five-star hotel suites with came up with the components of dub. He’s such an adjoining door for him and his wife. We were “HIS OPENING LINE like, ‘It’s Portsmouth!’ – but eventually we a character and that’s what music needs. I’ve AT BESTIVAL WAS ‘LEE found something. We were ferrying him back met him a few times and I think he recognises me now. The first time I met him I was and forth for his soundcheck and SCRATCH PERRY’S interviewing him and he was smoking the BEEN GETTING MERRY performance, and when he came on stage his biggest reefer you’ve ever seen and talking opening line was, ‘Lee Scratch Perry’s been ON THE FERRY!” getting total gibberish. I had to transcribe this stream merry on the ferry!’. Everything he does of consciousness and the magazine loved it. is so off the cuff and raw.”

“Another time I got him to do vocals for my ‘Lazy WHERE TO START: “Get the ‘Roast Fish, Collie Weed Boy’ album. We had to go over to his house in Switzerland and Corn Bread’ album, with ‘Roast Fish And Cornbread’ and record them in his mad musical room. I asked him to and ‘Free The Weed’ on it. Pure genius.”

CALEDONIAN ELECTRO SUPERSTAR MYLO CHOOSES…

Laurent: beardy

“Laurent Garnier, for pure DJing skills” “A FEW MONTHS AGO I was talking to a Danish journalist and he asked what I thought of Laurent Garnier. I gave him a long answer about what a legend he was, when and where I’d seen him play, what it was

like and so on. The guy let me finish and then said, ‘Oh really?

Because I was just talking to him, and he doesn’t like you!’ I thought that was great, so I’m nominating him as my hero.

“One of best DJ sets I’ve ever witnessed was when he closed the outdoor stage at Sónar By Night, in 2003 I think. I’ve got a short attention span, but it was hypnotising. He chooses material which is emotive, and some of which could risk sounding cheesy in another context. And at the very end he threw in a few trademark old school classics like SL2, Inner City. He also made one of the funniest videos in dance music, for ‘Flashback’.”

WHERE TO START: “Get the ‘Retrospective’ CD for the best of his own productions.”

Bowie’s three best albums, Devo, U2, Talking Heads. and being largely responsible for inventing sampling in his brilliant collaboration with David Byrne on ‘My Life In The Bush of Ghosts’. His ambient series, like the ‘Music For Airports’ album, more or less “ON THE LIST OF leading invented the whole genre too.

British players who’ve shown He’s a champion of pushing me the way in electronic music the envelope and stretching – everyone from Daniel the boundaries of what’s Miller to Peter Gabriel possible. He helps me to Aphex Twin – realise that it’s OK to take there’s one name risks, to overstep the that outshines the mark and to create and rest: Brian Eno. He’s experiment without fear. the master of WHERE TO START: “For electronic sheer inspiration, music, get the ‘Oblique producing Strategies’ cards, Roxy available from Eno:baldy Music, enoshop.co.uk.”

CROSSTOWN BOSS AND ELECTRO DJ DAMIEN LAZARUS CHOOSES...

“Producer, visionary and genius Brian Eno, for taking risks”

HEROES OF

HEROES OF

DANCE MUSIC

DANCE MUSIC

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Maxim: grrr!

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SIMON FRANKS AUDIO BULLYS MC CHOOSES...

NIGHTMARES ON WAX’S GEORGE EVELYN, AKA DJ E.A.S.E., CHOOSES…

DRUM 'N’ BASS NEW ROMANTIC JOHN B CHOOSES…

“Masters At Work, because they never stand still”

Who said Daft Punk have all the best ideas? Inset: JMJ in his command module

“I’VE BEEN FOLLOWING them since the year dot, when they did a remix every five minutes.

Whoever it was it’d always be on the money. They were the first to really bring house and hip hop together, and their mix of ‘Only Love Will Break Your Heart’ probably started big beat off. They opened people up to new kinds of music with the ‘Nu Yorican Soul’ albums – to me, that’s the start of

“The Prodigy, for making rave massive”

Peely: RIP

“John Peel, for opening the door to another world” “I WAS TEN YEARS OLD when I heard John Peel on the radio at night. It was so different from daytime radio; he turned us on to so much, from Krautrock and German electronica to dub reggae, Faust, Neu, Kaftwerk, Tangerine Dream – all people who had a huge influence on 090 OCTOBER 2006

broken beat. And they never stand still. They’re so inspiring, but you can’t imitate them.

There’s something unique there that can’t be copied.

WHERE TO START: “The Kenny Dope ‘Unreleased Project’ stuff or the tracks they did with India.”

“Jean Michel Jarre, for inventing trance thirty years ago” “HE’S BEEN SUCH AN INFLUENCE on electronic music and live performance for the last 30 years.

One of the things that always stood out for me was his showmanship and the huge, epic nature of his concerts–- the way he had all the lights, video projections and fireworks all synched-in to the music. You could argue he was doing trance before it really existed. Listen to the huge synths in ‘Rendez Vous’ – totally ahead of its time.

Rick and I, and without John we wouldn’t have been touched by these things. His show was exotic, a foreign land. The Anglo-American music that was prevalent at that time was so bland, and he introduced us to all this mad German and dub music. He opened up windows into strange places. Without John, I’d be stacking shelves.”

WHERE TO START: “He did a great ‘Fabric Live’ mix, but for the real Peel experience get Faust’s ‘The Wümme Years’ box set. There’s a disc of John Peel sessions on there too.”

“Come to think of it, I might have been a bit too into JMJ. I remember giving a presentation to the “COME TO THINK Berkshire Computer Society about him when I 15, dragging in my Atari ST and keyboards OF IT, I MIGHT HAVE was and trying to show how you could ‘compose’ BEEN A BIT TOO using computers and MIDI and stuff. I had a little tie-pin mic and my dad even brought INTO JEAN MICHEL some huge PA speakers in the car for it!

JARRE...”

WHERE TO START: “Get the ‘Oxygene’ album. It came out in 1976, before I was even born.”

SIMON RATCLIFFE OF BASEMENT JAXX CHOOSES...

“Hip hop producer The 45 King for showing how weird samples could be” “THE 45 KING WAS one of the producers who first inspired me to realise that sampled music could be really mindblowing. There’s so much detail in it – a groove could

just go on and on and on and you’d be able to pick out more and more weird stuff that was going on. It’s the ‘sampleness’ of it that blew me away. It’s inhuman in a strange way. I had a tape of him with Lakim Shabazz that I listened to all the time when I first came to London. That was our chill-out. We’d come back in from a night out and listen to 45 King, Dr Dre, Mantronix, that kind of early hip hop. You

could hear the same influence in house producers like Todd Terry – slamming samples together that shouldn’t work, doing things back-to-front, just so spectacularly wrong that it blows you away. Same goes for early rave like Shut Up And Dance, rough and ready but brilliant. You don’t get music that inspiring very often!”

WHERE TO START: “‘The 900 Number’, of course! But surely everyone’s got that already...”

The 45 King: righteous

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FORMER LAMB SINGER TURNED SOLO ARTIST LOU RHODES CHOOSES…

BASEMENT JAXX’S BEARD TECH FELIX BUXTON CHOOSES…

“Louie Vega for taking house beyond the clubs” “He’s always been a real inspiration. In the early days of house he really showed that dance music could have sophistication and a life

beyond just the clubs. I went over to NY with a friend, and saw him Djing. He made us feel welcome, and we were able to just stand behind the decks with him, having a drink and talking music.”

WHERE TO START: “There are loads of mix CDs but ‘Latin Verve Sounds: Produced By Masters At Work’ is really worth finding.”

“Gilles Peterson, for NIGEL CHAMPION OF OLD SKOOL RAVERS integrity and blinding N-JOI CHOOSES… nights at Bar Rumba” “Paul Oakenfold, for “I REALLY ADMIRE HIS being a legend” integrity. He’s been such a

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UNDERWORLD FRONTMAN KARL HYDE CHOOSES…

ARNO FROM MINIMAL HIT -MAKERS BOOKA SHADE CHOOSES…

Masters At Work: why I oughta!

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“I MUST HAVE BEEN about 12 and everyone was starting to listen to hardcore music. I was more into bands and rap music, but then my mate came round and put on a pirate radio station, and ‘Out Of Space’ was playing. From then on it just grabbed me.

The Prodigy have been a real influence and inspiration to us, as they came from the underground and broke through into the mainstream but still remained cool.

“In ’97 I went to my first festival, V, and didn’t really enjoy it. But the last slot was The Prodigy. When ‘Breathe’ came on and the lights went off, I got tingles up the back of my neck and I thought, ‘this is what it’s all about’. That was a key moment in me thinking about playing live.

WHAT TO GET: “‘Breathe’ is the tune for me.”

was too much stuff. A real old school hero.”

WHERE TO START: “He’s done plenty of mix CDs but The Young Disciples’ ‘Road To Freedom’, from when he ran Talkin’ Loud, is what he’s all about.”

“Paul is one of the few people pioneer and he’s so eclectic. who was there from the very I used to go to Bar Rhumba years back and he played such beginning and is still rocking it. a cross-section of music, from He was our inspiration when we used to see him at Shoom, drum ’n’ bass to acoustic Spectrum and the early Brazilian numbers. I want warehouse parties. As music to touch my soul Madonna said, “if Maverick and that’s what he sign a DJ it has to be the would do. He used to best in the world, so we’ve live in Finsbury Park signed Paul Oakenfold.” and when he ”WHERE TO START: moved he left all “‘Perfecto Fluoro’ is his music in the Oakey at the dawn basement of trance.” because there Gilles: jazztacular!

“Depeche Mode, for making us want to get on stage” “DEPECHE MODE MADE THE soundtrack fact, the memory of wanting to be on a to my youth and every album tells me stage is one of the reasons why we do about a time of my life. If I listen to some what we do. Now things have come full of their albums now I can picture myself circle, because we opened for them at listening to the record in my room instead their live show in Berlin. For us it was the of studying for an exam! The gig that blew realisation of a dream. We were very me away as a kid was at a small venue in nervous. Sadly, though, we didn’t get to Germany in 1983. I was only 15 and hadn’t meet them! Their manager told us they seen that many concerts, but I loved weren’t in a very good mood and not the electronic sound and the to talk to them, but we punch of the music from the “ DEPECHE MODE understood. If you’re on tour soundsystem. I played drums everyone wants to talk to you.

ARE ONE OF THE and at the time people said After a while it can get on your REASONS BOOKA they can’t be a proper band nerves. But we were just without a drummer – but I happy that they knew enough SHADE ARE A LIVE loved the way they played live about our music to book us in BAND NOW” with synths and that there were the first place. “ no guitars. I remember playing the WHERE TO START: “Get ‘Violator’. record in my bedroom and pretending They probably don’t want to hear it to play keyboards. This is one of the because they’re ten albums on from it, reasons why Booka Shade are a live band but this, from 1990, is their best album. now – I used to imagine how it would be And if you’ve been a fan for as long as we on that stage with people watching. In are get their live DVD, ‘101.’”

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