As with all the posts on this blog I am not attempting to provide definitive articles or be a magazine. There are far better places you can go for those, and if you want to read the best and most in depth interview with Chez Damier then I recommend you try the Resident Advisor interview by Dave Stenton. There is no point rehashing his history which is well covered there. My Basic Vision blog is about my own personal experiences, there are some that were not covered in the RA piece. As I mentioned in the previous entry, Save The Robots - NYC, I first met Chez in New York City the first time I visited the Sound Factory in 1992. We became friends and recording partners in a project called Chuggles. There were a total of three releases under that name - Thank You,I Remember Dance and Deep Alarm. We also made a one off track called A Dedication to Jos that came out on Serious Grooves.
They are all among the favourite productions I have been involved in and it's good to see they have kept their value over time. Chez named the Serious Grooves release in memory of my girlfriend of the time, Jocelyn Higgin, who died in a car crash on March 12th 1993. Stacey Pullen also had his first ever release on the record with his track 'Forever'. Our track on the EP was recorded at Square Dance Studios in Nottingham and was produced by Martyn Watson. All the other Chuggles records were recorded at The Farm in Rothwell Leeds, and produced by Carl Finlow although I'm sure the 'Made in Detroit' tag on the record did us a world of good.
Chez left house music in 1997 after his partnership with Ron Trent in the Prescription label broke up. I also lost contact with him. I did hear that he was doing some music with Leroy Burgess in 2004 but our paths didn't cross. This little foray back was exactly that - just a foray and Damier continued to be off the radar. In 2008 Chez was invited to play in Manchester at Joshua Brooks and he accepted. The night was packed and Chez told me he played one of our productions 'I Remember Dance'. As the record peaked he had a 'moment' where he remembered exactly why he was inspired to make records in the first place.
A year later Giles Smith from secretsundaze asked him to play at a private Loft party in London and they got talking. It culminated in a NYE 2010/11 show alongside Space Dimension Controller and Chez joining the Secret Agency. In June 2009 Damier released his first new track 'Why' since 2004, alongside two re-issues on the Time Visions EP on Mojuba records. Since 2009, in a very similar fashion to Greg Wilson's highly successful comeback, he has been producing, touring and re-invigorating his label Balance Alliance. It didn't take long before he also had a new club hit under his belt with In My System co-produced as The Gathering with Jef K and Chris Carrier.
I watched Chez's comeback from the sidelines but I didn't rush to join the crowds. I knew that at some point it would be the right time to meet again without forcing the issue. It actually took longer than I expected. I was visiting Tristan Da Cunha's Waxwerks record store in Leeds on a day when Brawther was hanging out. Brawther is a Balance Alliance artist and was talking to Chez on skype, he put me online totally unexpectedly. Time is a very funny thing - if you think about a large block of time since you've seen someone, it seems far bigger than it felt actually living it. People are amazed that I've played at back to basics for 21 years but for me it has just passed week to week and many of the moments seem like a few days ago. I spoke to Chez and immediately connected in the same way we had in 1992. We both realised that it was the right time to meet and start working together again.
We had already booked Chez for the back to basics 21st birthday party and also for our 2020Vision Xmas party in London so rather than just talk about it we made firm plans to set aside some time while he was over to go in the studio. So that's what we did. It seemed fitting that we played on the same bill for the first time in 15 years at back to basics; firstly because that was where we first played together and secondly because that was also the name of Chez's night at The Music Institute in Detroit with Alton Miller.
While Chez was in my studio we spent a lot of time catching up on music. After all it had been a long time and people change. He dropped loads of new music on me and I liked nearly everything. I find it bizarre that we came from such different cities, families and lives but we share such similar taste in music. I was lucky enough to get unreleased material from him forthcoming in 2013, notably a two part series on Balance called 'Purpose By Design' but the one that really grabbed my attention was simply called Chez 0000 and has been made for Mojuba. Damier often left tracks untitled or simply with catalogue numbers in his early work, including one his best known works 'Untitled' or KMS 049. It makes sense that this new addition to the family has taken on the persona of a new child with the title being simply '0000'. It is a stripped down, hypnotic groove that marks a fitting continuation to Damier's more dub sided productions. It will be one of those records that stands out from the crowd without you really knowing why. Here is a quick blast of it
Chuggles was a very special collaboration but I'll be the first to admit that the most important partnership Chez made was with Ron Trent. Chez n Trent trailblazed their way through the early and mid nineties with a distinct and pioneering sound that producers still attempt to copy today. You could call it deep house but it was really something very different from the music you hear listening to the deep house chart on Beatport today. For me it's magic was created by fusing the diverse elements of three cities and their sounds; Detroit techno, Chicago jack trax and New York house. It was interesting to read the story behind the making of Morning Factory to understand how important Damier's trips to the Sound Factory were. The fact that he took Ron along to witness it himself shows how much he wanted his partner to 'get it'. The pair lived and moved between the three cities on various occasions and they were influenced by the different music that emanated from the streets and clubs. The pair fell out badly and the partnership ended in 1995. The two have hardly spoken since then. So it is an exciting new development in this story that they will finally play together for the first time since the split in Japan on New Years Eve 2012/13 in Tokyo at Club 11. There will be some electricity in the air that night for sure.
Here is a taster of what to expect from a Chez Damier live set. Exclusive to the Basic Vision blog.
Chuggles 2012
]]>Save The Robots - New York Cityhttp://www.ralphlawson.co.uk/blog/2012/11/15/save-the-robots-new-york-city.htmlRalph Lawson2012-11-15T16:46:58Z2012-11-15T16:46:58ZNew York City - Calm Before The Storm Sunday October 28th 2012
I’m writing this in Jersey City at my friend Stephen Grimes house the day after ‘Superstorm Sandy’ hit the East Coast of America. I can still hear the constant sirens of Fire Trucks and Police cars in the area and the insistent hum of generators being used to pump water from people’s homes. I’ve just returned from a walk around Jersey City and witnessed first hand the damage caused to this area. We have had no power for 24 hours now and no power means no Internet, no information, no phones and no niceties. I fully charged my laptop before the storm hit as we were well warned in advance and decided to get as many thoughts down as possible while my battery life lasts.
I intended to write a piece on New York before the storm came but the extreme events have refocused the post. Firstly, I realise what a natural disaster can do to one of the most advanced cities on earth and secondly just how precious power is for a city and it's people. The most important item in a disaster is a phone so you can communicate with emergency services, family and friends. As I am abroad the prohibitive cost of Internet usage and calls means I am reduced to text messages. I presume the phone masts are also down or depend on electricity, as I have had no signal all day. I anxiously watch each attempt to send a message home drain valuable battery life. I have no information and looking at the scale of the storm damage leaves me fearing that we are far from an end in sight. It is always so easy to plug in a phone, we don’t even think about it twice until there are no outlets for recharging.
The winds were strong last night but more damage has been done by floodwater. The high winds have caused; fallen trees, ripped off roof tiles, scattered signs across the streets and torn hoardings from their supports but they have done far less than the flood water.
All along 5th street where I am staying the basement flats are flooded by 6 inches of stinking river water, closer to the river four blocks away it’s 6 feet. The boardwalks have been thrust upwards and split and there is debris everywhere, left after the river has receded since it’s highest levels last night. Most people have been up all night pumping the relentless tides out to little avail. Many areas have no running water, and there is the serious problem of dirty water returning from overflowing drains. I am stuck far from home but I don’t have the unenviable job of cleaning and re-building that millions of people do along the East Coast. As we walked through Jersey City we stopped and spoke to people on the streets and heard stories of deaths, evacuations and extreme hardship caused by the storm. They were humbling and made any complaints I had seem petty.
Wednesday October 31st 2012
We looked across the Hudson River this morning and could see no lights in Lower Manhattan at all. The skies were black with heavy clouds so the offices would be lit if they had power. To witness a city the size of New York with the plug pulled was deeply unnerving. It’s even stranger as just 24 hours previously I was in a huge warehouse, lit up like a movie set, situated right next to the water on Java Street. It became one of the first zones to be mandatorily evacuated on Sunday.
The extent we rely on our screens to survive for necessity, as well as for fun, is hitting me now. The first move we all make when we are waiting is to reach for our smart phones. We have developed incredibly low boredom thresholds and having no power is basically very, very boring. Once the immediate danger has passed it becomes a game of killing time and trying to gather information from other sources. People are finding ways all over the city to charge their phones, some large buildings and supermarkets have generators and people are plugging into their power.
“When and how can I get out of here? When will the world be back to normal?“
My phone has now lost service and so I have no contact with the outside world at all. I am relying on information passed to me in the corner shop that has been the first store to open and the news is bad –they hope to have power on within four days. I am starting to get really edgy without having communication and information. We decide to take a drive to find gas (petrol) so we can charge our phones in a friend’s car and find areas further inland that have full power and open gas stations. We find nearby Secaucus has power and we spot a bar that has Internet. We sit there like screen junkies for over an hour without talking as we check our messages and find out what has happened on the news. The bar is packed with people doing the same thing. As we watch the news we realise the severity of the situation. Atlantic City and Long Island have been particularly badly hit. There are reports of as many as 60 people dead and the death toll is rising.
Without lights it feels very late very early. It must have been so boring in the old days, no wonder they all had 16 kids! There’s not much to do except try to get some sleep. I’m awoken at 2am with the room lit up like a stadium, every light in the house has come on at once. I have no idea where I am for a few moments. Although it’s only been a relatively short time since the storm it seems totally alien for a light switch to actually trigger light. In the morning we realise again how lucky we are to have power as all of Lower Manhattan is still in the dark…
Before
I have been going to New York for many years. It has been a huge inspiration for me in many ways. I feel like I’ve come home when I arrive. My friend Stephen Grimes moved out to New York from Leeds in the early nineties and so I have always had a place to stay. When Steve moved to NYC he was introduced to a guy called Jimmy Maylo. Jimmy was deep into the New York house scene and was helping do promotions for a new label called Prescription Underground. The guys running Prescription were Chez Damier and Ron Trent and they were based in Detroit and Chicago so he was working New York for them. Jimmy and Stephen had been going to a club called The Sound Factory and one Saturday night, when I was over, we made an arrangement to go along with Chez. The whole experience was different for me from UK clubs. The night didn’t really get going until 2am and ran through to 12pm on Sunday. In England, at the time, clubs closed at 2am! I remember we gathered at someone’s apartment before going to the club. The atmosphere was excited and expectant, everyone had been before except myself and they enthused about the DJ at the club – Junior Vasquez. You know you’re going to a special club when you get butterflies in your stomach and you feel nervous. You start to ask yourself questions like,
“Am I going to get in?”, and, “What will it be like?”
These thoughts are mixed with the genuine excitement of going into the unknown and the tantalising expectations of what the night has to offer. When I go out I want to hear new sounds and I want the DJ to inspire me but I also want a show – I want lights, camera, action! That night at The Sound Factory at 530 West 27th Street I was given everything and more.
Vasquez was the King of New York back then, he was carrying the torch left by the recent passing of Larry Levan and running with it. He had the club, he had the sound, he had he lights, he had the crowd and he had the skills. He played all night and he turned it out each and every week for 12 hours. In England time was so short that DJs would get 90 minute sets as standard. You play a certain way if you have a short set and, likewise, if you are playing all night at The Sound Factory NYC you have the chance to develop a different way of playing. Junior teased records in for ages; he played dub versions with one line vocal hooks from the main song, he would cut different frequencies to emphasise sections, strip it right down before finally dropping the full song. He was a master programmer. The progression of the night would be perfect. He also didn’t do it alone, the lighting was totally synced to the music. To this day I still don’t see lighting worked as well as it was in The Sound Factory and it amazes me. It is such a fundamentally important part of the night for me. People go to clubs to experience intense sensations, the most important of which are sight and sound. If you sync the two then you achieve far greater sensory input. Junior would play dub tracks and the lighting op would drop the lights to black out and fire off strobes. Junior increased the pressure and the lights would flash and brighten. Junior reached a peak musically and the disco ball would be illuminated with beams of pure white light that shone on everyone and everything in the space.
Special nights shared create strong bonds and we were all equally blown away by the events we witnessed at the Sound Factory. Over night I resolved to make music for Junior to play there. Here's the old workshop at the Farmhouse in Rothwell, Leeds.
I kept in touch with Chez and organised the first ever Prescription Underground tour of the UK with Chez alongside Ron Trent in 1993. I wasn’t a promoter but I knew all the best clubs house clubs and managed to put together a run of shows at Ministry Of Sound (which at the time was the best club in London with DJ Harvey as resident), back to basics, The Subclub and DIY at The Marcus Garvey centre in Nottingham. It’s strange to notice that these clubs, with the exception of the Marcus Garvey, are all still around 20 years later as house music venues. In downtime between gigs the guys stayed at the Farmhouse with me where we had built the fledgling 2020Vision studio. We created a series of records there under the name ‘Chuggles’. The first one came out on Prescription and was called ‘Thank You’ – Junior received a test pressing and started to play it at The Sound Factory every week. I was back in England but Jimmy Maylo kept me filled in with how the track was going down there. It became a bona fide Sound Factory classic.
On later visits to NYC I was introduced to other big clubs in New York; The Limelight, Shelter, Club USA and The Roxy. None came close to the Sound Factory but I did come across another DJ that blew me away – Danny Tenaglia. DT had his own experiences at Paradise Garage and also held a vision to create his own Levan inspired legacy. Junior was starting to play far more commercial music at the Factory while Tenaglia stayed true to the underground with his trademark tribal sounds and dub techno. They both played in similar ways but Tenaglia kept the edge that is needed to rock discerning crowds. He didn’t really have a great space to play in New York until he moved to Vinyl so the best place to catch him became The Winter Music Conference in Miami at Groovejet. One night on the floor there in 1998 he ripped up the rulebook and performed the single best all night house music set I have ever heard (to this day). But that’s another story, as I digress from NYC.
I travelled to NYC with the back to basics promoter Dave Beer a few times. In 1995 we ended up at The Limelight one night as he had become friendly with Superstar Dj Keoki, who played there. Keoki invited Dave back to an after party at his friends place and I tagged along with my friend Stephen. This was my first real experience of the ‘club kids’ as the press at the time were calling them. I suppose it was a similar tag to the EDM one that is being used in the states now for ravers. At the flat they were all taking Ketamine. It was the first time I had ever heard of the drug and this was years before it grew popular in Europe. At some point in the proceedings one of Keoki’s friends passed out on the floor. We went to help him but all his friends just laughed saying, “Oh look Michael’s in a K hole again!” He came round, instantly the star of the show. Keoki picked him up and introduced us to Michael Alig. I thought the whole scene was lame. I was relieved when Steve told me we needed to get out of there, as they were doing his head in. Less than a year later in March 1996, alongside his friend Robert Riggs, Michael Alig killed his flat mate and drug dealer Angel Melendez. Alig chopped up Angel’s body in the bath and threw him into the Hudson.
Over in Leeds we had finally secured a session with Danny Tenaglia at The Pleasure Rooms venue of back to basics. I had been playing long sets at the club, as Leeds was the first city outside London to be granted late licenses to 6am. So I was feeling confident that I could open for Danny and we could play the whole night between us. It is still one of my favourite sessions I ever played. There have been many peaks for me in house music over the years but that time around 1996-98 when DT was at his very best was the Himalayas. There was a glass roof at the Pleasure Rooms so it got light in summer on the floor around 4am. The last two hours became like an Ibizan terrace party, around 5am the Leeds faithful held a voguing competition in Danny’s honour, he was in hysterics. Danny enjoyed my warm up session and we stayed in touch. It is one of the greatest accolades on my CV that he invited me twice to open for him at Vinyl for ‘Be Yourself’ in New York City.
Another spot I have really fond memories of in New York was Save the Robots. Robots was at 25 Avenue B where the East Village borders Alphabet City. Every time I visit NY I am amazed at the transformation of nearly every area through gentrification. I wasn’t there in the 70s but even when I started going Alphabet City was rough but full of characters. I have never actually been scared walking the streets of NYC, I guess that has been through naivety though. Alphabet City was still a place you could wander about and feel like you were in a movie. Save the Robots was super underground, it felt like a London squat party. We went down really early in the morning, maybe 6am. I remember venturing down into a basement with small rooms and the craziest selection of drag queens, hip young thangs and heads getting down. It was also the first time I heard Doc Marten spin that morning. That trip must have been around 1992. Nearly 20 years later I’m back in town to venture into the heart of another robot.
I was at the Robot Heart bus many times during Burning Man and was blown away. I was one of the last stragglers there on the Sunday morning with friends, having a dance about, when a familiar face come out of the crowd and introduced himself as Jason Swamy. I had known Swamy from previous trips to New York several years ago when he ran a Sunday club called Zouk. He is now one of the resident Djs at Robot Heart. We got chatting and he introduced me to the Robot Heart crew. It was to late for Burning Man but they were keen to have me play for them and asked if I could come for their show in New York for Halloween. It was the perfect end to a magical Burning Man trip.
Robot Heart is really something special. Every time I think I’ve seen it all something else comes along to inspire. I was unsure how the Robot Heart experience would translate from the Black Rock desert to Brooklyn. I had hooked up in New York with two of my favourite people in the world; Garrett Roche and Huggy. Huggy was my original DJ partner at back to basics so it was special to have him fly up as a surprise guest from Orlando, where he now lives. We got down early to the venue to check it out and soundcheck. The space was a huge Warehouse right next to the river on Java Street. I believe it is used for films.
I had already seen the West Coast bus 'The Bot' at Burning Man but they have a second bus based in New York called 'The Copy Bus'. It is actually bigger but very similar and the sound is also by Know Audio. The bus is fitted out with their trademark LED video panels by Light Harvest Studios with a different Heart sculpture on top. An army of VJs then worked on projecting 400 ft of IMAX scale imagery on to the walls. At the end of the space was a giant robot, made from LED strips with lights shining out of it’s eyes. East coast based art cars had been deployed to retain the Burning Man feel. All that was needed was 3000 people, each and every one dressed up in Halloween costumes. They came. We went back to the venue after battling the crazy halloween traffic around 3am with old New York friends Alexia Conville, Ariel Danziger and Bobby, one of our orginal Sound Factory crew.
The theme for the party was Robot Heart on the Fucking Moon. I’ve always been a space head so that’s the way I went rather than the traditional scary Halloween approach. It started out as the complete space suit but it was real hot inside so the helmet, gloves and eventually the top half all got stripped down so I could play without fainting!
I wanted to share my previous experiences from my times in New York with the people. I have so much love and inspiring memories from the city and it all needed to come out through my music and be clearly presented. I wanted people to feel like I did at the Sound Factory and when I first heard Tenaglia. I wanted the underground feel of Save The Robots and I wanted to make sure the music represented 2020Vision and my artists. Most of all I wanted to make it a special night. If someone gives me a chance to play at the best party in the world on the best rig in the world I’m going to respect the opportunity and work it to the full. A few years ago I would have been nervous about playing for such a big crowd but I was just totally hyped and ready for it. I had loaded in samples from NASA missions, sci-fi special FX and spacecraft sounds from movies to throw into the mix. I wanted it to feel like being on the set of Star Wars in the middle of an interstellar battle. I knew there was one record, that above everything else summed up my times in NYC, that had to be dropped - Carl Craig presents Paperclip People - Throw. To see that go down was a peak moment for me.
For a magical couple of hours I was there; playing on the fucking moon to the most beautiful earth creatures, from behind the controls of the most advanced space ship ever created by humans….
I eventually made it out of New York by catching the Chinese Lucky bus to Boston and flying out of there. I still have good friends evacuated from their homes and living day to day in the city. Some can't return until March. There are millions who have damaged homes, hundreds who lost loved ones and thousands with limited services still. Just because it’s a developed city doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help. Here are ways you can get involved –
]]>Leeds Live(s)http://www.ralphlawson.co.uk/blog/2012/11/8/leeds-lives.htmlRalph Lawson2012-11-08T21:00:00Z2012-11-08T21:00:00ZWords RL Photography by Oliver Cargill, JAD & CG Photography
Leeds was described by Conde Nast magazine in 2004 to be the,"UKs best city for nightlife". I have been part of that nightlife in the city since 1990, mainly through my residency at back to basics club. I have seen many peak moments for the city, espcially through the boom years of the 90s, and it does deserve to be a famous location for clubs but the last few years for me have been uninspiring. I have watched as most of my friends have moved down to London or further afield. I have seen many new nights start and keep the torch glowing here for electronic music such as Mono_Cult, Louche, and Flux but there have been too many new start ups and it has become harder and harder in the city to keep a stable healthy scene going as nights compete on the same dates and cut into each others fan bases. There has also been a lack of new venues that are on a par with Manchester's Warehouse Project or the seemingly endless supply of spaces in East London. A visitor to Leeds would still be shocked at the amount of unused or derelict city centre buildings and 'to let' signs. The recession has hit hard here in many ways.
But recently my hope has returned and I am genuinely excited by development in the city. Not one but several cool new music venues have opened recently - Nation Of Shopkeepers (catering for up and coming bands), Mint Warehouse, The Garage, Beaverworks, Full Circle and Canal Mills. I visited the Mint Warehouse for a Loco Dice Desolat show and was impressed with the sound and the space, espcially the potential for outdoor events in the summer. The Garage is a really exciting project on the other side of town from Call Lane, which has been the hub for Leeds bars since 1992. The venue houses Waxwerks record store, which is the first underground record store to open (rather than close) in the city in the last 10 years. It's genius marketing niche is that it also has a bar and lounge area so music lovers can hang out while perusing their products. It also turns into a second room for the Garage venue at night.
Feeling stuck in a rut in Leeds a couple of years ago I started 2020Vision events in London when the opportunity arose with another ex-pat Leeds lad Danny Raper. After the success of the London shows we really wanted to come home and do shows in Leeds but I couldn't see the space for us in an overcrowded scene or find the right spaces that would suit our style of one off warehouse parties. The cool thing about Leeds is that it's small enough to know everyone doing cool stuff and so I started to get wind of Canal Mills from friends; Simon Morrell, who runs Fina records and the Sound Channel guys Dan & Steve, who also run Wax On and Hideout festival. I could see that it had massive potential. Dan invited us to do the third ever show at the venue with Maya Jane Coles, Crazy P, Simon Baker, PBR Streetgang, Death On The Balcony and Danny Raper on October 20th 2012.
I'd say Canal Mills would be at home in Berlin, London or New York but thinking on, it wouldn't, as it's character is uniquely Yorkshire. It is a large old textile mill sitting on the Leeds - Liverpool canal that runs through Armley. Opened as a music venue but also as a space for Art Exhibitions and installations it has three large rooms that leave the interior rough and ready but provide scope for creative use. As with any new space it takes time to get the sound and lighting right and I made sure to go to the opening night for ideas. I felt the sound needed work especially so we changed the rig and tweaked it with advice from Roberto Pieroni, our London sound tech, and the Sound Channel guys. We brought in our own visual director to create the video work we expect at our London events and got busy on the promo. It was great to see that, when asked, other Leeds crews (Wax On, Mono_Cult, Flux and Asylum) got right behind us and helped spread the word. It has always been about bringing the whole scene up together for me, it's always a shame when it gets competitive and the original house music message of unity gets lost. I guess I'm old school like that.
I'm not going to review our own night so you can find a review here and more photos here. I can however say that we had 1500 people that looked very happy through the doors and I massively enjoyed the show myself and all the artists played out of their skins. The Leeds Arena opens next year and I have been hearing some other very promising develoment news from major players in the city but I can't splill the beans yet. Maybe I can persuade my remaining friends to stay in the city for a while...
As a gift to the new Leeds scene and the people who love to party here I have included exclusive live sessions from myself and Simon Baker from the 2020Vision Party at Canal Mills below. You don't have to be from Leeds to enjoy them.
]]>Burning Manhttp://www.ralphlawson.co.uk/blog/2012/9/13/burning-man.htmlRalph Lawson2012-09-13T12:23:30Z2012-09-13T12:23:30ZSo I'm sitting here, back in Leeds, staring at a blank blog page wondering how I could possibly do justice to my experiences at Burning Man. There are a million efforts online that are far better than I could ever manage and even reading the best ones leaves me with the feeling that it is an impossible task. The stories are fascinating, the pictures incredible and many of the short films are fun but they all fail to convey the most important thing about Burning Man - the experience, what it actually feels like to be there. There are also far better ways of preparing for a Burning Man trip than reading anything I have to say. The official website itself is absolutely packed with more information than you will ever need. If you start reading it all now you may just about finish by next burn (352 days as I write).
So what's the point even attempting a piece on Burning Man ? Well, firstly I feel the uncontrollable need to do it, secondly I want to share my experiences and thirdly I can give an account based from a European perspective. I will give some information that could be considered useful but hopefully it will just be a fun read. Burning Man is also about 'gifting' so through the piece I share my DJ mix recorded on the Nexus soundsystem at sunrise, photos taken by Adam Carter and tonnes of stuff we found useful.
I had been wanting to go to Burning Man for a few years but as it's 5000 miles away from home and a mission to prepare for it kept passing me by. A good friend from my work in music, Ed Karney, had been the first person to really push me to make the trip. He was also invaluable in our preparations to get there. The seed was first planted by Ed but it took a chance encounter with a very old school friend for the seed to grow into a plan. Last summer I was Deejaying at We Love Space Ibiza when a face thrust forward from the crowd and a hand shot out,
"Hello Ralph, remember me ?"
Well I'm not best known for remembering people in the first place but this time I instantly recognised James Holdsworth. We went to school together a long time ago (ahem). We weren't best friends but had been part of a group of lads that, shall we say, got into trouble a fair bit. I've found out that when you meet real friends, however long you spend apart, you immediately click again. I invited him to the We Love after party and found out we had both been thinking about going to Burning Man. This time, instead of making excuses it was time to say,
"Let's do it"
So we got planning and the first things to get were a ticket and an RV or camping plan. We opted for the relative comforts of an RV.
Tip - First piece of advice coming up next. Research showed that RV prices related proportionately to distance from event. The exact same RV at the exact same company cost approximately 3x more in Reno and 2x more in San Francisco than Las Vegas or Los Angeles. Considering they are not cheap this meant a difference of $4000 from Reno to Vegas. Vegas it was. When we dropped lucky in the ticket ballot we had the first two main issues out of the way.
Next I spent endless hours with James reading about what you need to survive out there. At this point I'll spare a good few thousand words and give you a link to Ed Karney's superb guide to getting to Burning Man from the UK. This gives you pretty much all you need to take.
Burning Man is about people and what we can achieve and create. One of the best things about it is meeting new people but it can also be about meeting old friends again. A good example of this was meeting up with Elan Akerman as soon as we got to Vegas. I first met Elan in New York when he worked as a promoter there. He has since relocated to Vegas and it was fantastic to hang out with him in his hometown. He picked us up at the airport and helped me locate by far the most important item on any Burning Man shopping list - a good pair of boots. The legendary playa dust is alkaline and rots damp feet very quickly so keeping your feet out of it is essential. In Vegas there are hundreds of options of outlet and we looked at nearly all of them!
Tip alert - I found the perfect pair at Timberland. Fully attached tongue to keep the dust out, roll down tops so they look half-decent in shorts and comfy on first wear.
Our main goal in Vegas was, unusually for most, to jump off a skyscraper. The story now goes back to a guy called Bells, who was a good friend of James. He was the driving force behind James' Burning Man trip, being the first person to introduce him to stories of The Playa. He died last year and James dedicated his BM adventure to his memory. We decided to push the limits from the start and take the jump Bells had made on a previous trip. James only told me on the plane that the jump was 855 feet off the tallest observation tower in the USA. I'd jumped off bridges in New Zealand before, attached to a bungee, but they were mostly around 200 feet, this was more than four times that distance. Jumping is all about fear. Fear is the greatest obstacle to doing new things or changing something in your life. Burning Man forces you to confront your fears and question where you're at.
Jumping off the Stratosphere was a great way to face fear at the start of our trip.
I'm a natural optimist. In my mind I always imagine things to be far better than they turn out to be. In my mind I'd imagined our RV to be a rock star's tour bus with spacious living quarters and a pimped out cab. The reality was our Cruise America RV was more like Walt and Jesse's meth lab RV from Breaking Bad. It was even more dismal after living in the luxury the casinos offer for peanuts in Vegas. I was suddenly hit by the reality that I was going to be living in there in the middle of a desert with a guy I'd never met (Adam Carter) and an old mate I hadn't seen for years. As soon as we drove off, the vehicle shook like it was about to fall apart. It was only after crossing the desert 10 hours later than we found out that not one but three tyres needed replacing.
Pit stop - Fernley. Tip - Fernley is a great place to stop.
Adolfo at Purcell fixed up our tyres, there is huge Walmart to do 'the shop' and plenty of RV parks, eateries and gas stations. It is also within striking distance of The Playa. We rested the night there and planned our last leg for the Tuesday morning.
The drive from Vegas to BM is spectacular. The light constantly changes across the desert and surrounding hills and mountains and when you hit Walker and Pyramid lakes you truly understand the meaning of the word oasis.
We had read a tonne of stuff on the Burning Man site and forum about queuing times into the event. It can reach 8-10 hours (despite massive improvements this year apparently). By Tuesday it had eased down to 3 hours or so. Any amount of time can feel tough waiting in line in either direction. Vehicles kick up dust so you have to shut down the aircon, block the vents and sweat it out. Added to that we arrived in a dust storm so couldn't see 10 feet in front. We had to frequently stop or crawl along trying our best not to hit anything. After getting our vehicle searched for stowaways we then met the gate greeters. I loved the 'Welcome Home' greeting you get from them. It was only later that I fully grasped it's meaning but it was still cool at the time. What wasn't so cool was then being asked to get down in the dust and take a dust-bath. By this point we were so hot and sweaty that the dust was instantly sticking to our skin, our mouths were so parched we could hardly talk and now apparently we had to get down and love the stuff. When I declined I was told,
"You have to embrace the dust man."
Allright, allright, but can I grow to love it in my own time please? I'm English don't you know! I was happy to ring the bell and declare myself a virgin but easy on the dust demands fellas.
Finally, after a year planning and four days travel from Leeds we found our spot at Camp Bang Bang at 8.45 & Geranium (cross streets start the letters A-L with avenues running round the famous semi-circle city shape named after the times on a clock). No one was around but we had been left a red marker flag for where to park our vehicle. All that effort to finally get there but what should we do now? I felt a wave of anti-climax hit me. However much you read, however much you learn it is still different from your expectations. I had imagined it to be more compact with camps closer together so the sheer scale of the place was immediately overwhelming.
District day party was in full swing just over the road from us but we didn't feel like plunging straight in. We had no bikes yet so we decided to set off on foot towards the legendary Playa. We hadn't gone more than 100 yards when the magic started. A mutant vehicle pulled up behind us and an old man dressed as a middle American housewife said,
"Need a ride guys?"
Of course we did. We jumped in and off we went until we reached the open Playa. The weather on The Playa was drastically different from the more sheltered streets and the dust was now kicking up like whirling dervishes in every direction. It was an even more dramatic way to see the sights of Black Rock City for the first time because they emerged out of the off-white clouds only when we were close enough to be totally blown away by their sheer scale. I had no idea how our driver Kay was finding his way around but he managed to pick out The Man, The Temple of Juno and Burn Wall Street through the storm. He laughed hysterically as he drove which was totally infectious. We got talking and I found out that he had been to Burning Man many times. He had built the car with his son, who was also there, and he had Leukemia. I'm not sure if I'll ever see him again or if he'll even be alive for the next burn but he was certainly someone I will remember and the first person to show me The Playa.
On the way back we passed by the Robot Heart camp to check out their rig. I had already seen pictures of the custom built bus before I left but up close it was even more impressive. We spoke to the guys there, who told us the sound was designed and made by Know Audio . They were busy welding metal that needed securing and tweaking their vast array of speakers. They were about to head out but I planned to go and check out their rig in action the next night for Crosstown Rebels so headed back to meet my fellow Bangers at Camp Bang Bang.
Nick Sabine is an Australian and the man behind Resident Advisor. He invited us into the camp, which was also mostly Australian. I haven't experienced it another way but being in a camp was crucial for us; firstly it meant we had communal services such as shade, showers and a kitchen, secondly a social group to hang out with and thirdly we had loads of people to ask if we got stuck or needed things. The camp had been set up by Rachael and Anna in 2009 to persuade their friends band 'We Go Bang Bang' to come out to Burning Man - they named the camp after them to further entice them. On Wednesday night the camp threw a party for the band and I was happy to offer my DJ services for them.
I had been very worried before going to Burning Man about Deejaying there. I read loads of horror stories about equipment getting wrecked. I wasn't sure whether to take my full set up with laptop / Traktor Scratch & controllers or not. So once again I consulted my Burning Man oracle Ed Karney. Not only did he have advice, he had already written another very useful piece on playing out there. In the end I decided on taking two formats, full set up for the bigger gigs and some CDs for smaller camp parties. I was happy with that move as you need to be flexible out there. I totally desert proofed my mac with a hard case cover, iskin keyboard cover and taped up all ports with electrical tape.
Ed turned up with his wife Emma to our party and invited us over to their set up at Terminal Y right across the city at 3 & Esplanade. We jumped in an art car over there and left our bikes at base. A good few friends from the UK had also made it over to the burn this year and it was great to catch up with familiar faces over at Terminal Y. We got in full party swing before heading out for the main event - Robot Heart. As we prepared to go we noticed that the car we came over in had now gone.
Tip - Art cars are not taxis. They drop you off somewhere but will then leave. You could now be left literally miles away from where you live or want to be!
We realised this was a proper newbie error and were now without bikes just about as far away as you could possibly be from our camp or Robot Heart. So it was walking for us while everyone else powered off on bikes. Robot Heart parked up Deep Playa. Deep Playa is the mythical twilight zone between the city and the trash fence, the true city limits of the event, basically it's a long way out (more on that later).
We could see Robot Heart from at least a mile away. The converted double decker bus Art Car has a huge metal heart fitted with lights that can glow different colours but normally emit it's trademark red. Other Art Cars park up around the bus creating a virtual desert dancefloor space and a spectacle in the desert that can only be described as - 'what happened after the Cantina Bar scene on Mos Eisley in Star Wars.' We got there to catch Damian Lazarus play through until sunrise. He was dressed like Gandalf and spun a storm up on the playa. The whole experience was massively inspiring. I realised the only thing it reminded me of was my early morning sessions on the floor of The Sound Factory in New York in the early 90s.
There's no other options but to get involved on The Playa. I have hated fancy dress since I was a kid and always groan when I'm asked to dress up. But out there the tables are turned and you feel like a total nana in normal clothes. I spent so much time preparing all the other stuff I took absolutely zero fancy dress with me. My camp mates had taken one look at me and whisked me down to Kostume Kult at 2.45 & Esplanade to get fitted out. Within minutes I found a silver cape and a pair of medieval silver knights pants. I then acquired a zebra print cape and various hats from people.
By the time I was kitted out I looked right at home working it out in the dust among the other freaks as the sun rose over the desert.
Every event has a peak moment. The act that everyone loves plays. For Burning Man 2012 that act was undoubtedly Carl Cox. Carl has been venturing into the desert for years and built up a strong Black Rock following. He played on Friday at Opulent Temple and as expected the biggest gathering outside of the burns turned up to greet him. Black Rock City has many different types of people, there are; the original burners, old school hippies, EMD kids from LA and Vegas, millionaires from Silicon Valley, heads from San Francisco, New York freaks, Sparkle Ponies, Brits, Aussies, a huge gay scene and everything in between. They all love Carl Cox.
Carl played at the first big techno warehouse party I ever went to in London, it was called Biology. He played at my night in Leeds as one of our first guests in 1992, we payed him £75. I warmed up for him on Bondi Beach in Australia on NYE 2000 for the Millenium party hosted by Home and now I find him in the desert. I was 18 years old again, jumping up and down in the middle of the floor, getting up on the giant chair that took you above the crowd - the lot. Carl has no pretensions and is a larger than life character, this shines through in his Deejaying. He is so easy to like. After his set I took my friends round to see him. We were greeted by the Opulent Temple security team who asked for a pass, so I showed them my English driving license. They tried to explain to me that we needed an Opulent Temple pass but they were no match for a blagger of my years and they quickly moved aside so we could get backstage. There was the worst dust storm we had all week that night and you can see from the picture how bad it must have been from our goggle marked faces !
No visit to Black Rock City is complete without visiting the main features and as much art as possible. Our days were spent on bikes touring around. We climbed right inside the man which had either stairs or a harder central climbing structure. People cheered when someone made it to the top.
I think for virtually everyone The Temple is the most special excursion. It was simply an astounding construction, especially considering the fact that it is there for such a short space of time. James brought some pictures of Bells with him and wrote a message on the Temple walls, as so many other people had done. People sat in quiet reflection in the temple. For me it was all about Memento Mori - the realisation that you will also die one day (literally "Remember Your Mortality"). Steve Jobs was a firm believer in using Memento Mori as the driving force behind completing his mission at Apple.
The climax of the week is, of course, the burns. They started with the smaller art pieces on Friday then Saturday saw the main event of the man burning. Virtually everyone goes to see the Man Burn so we got there really early. The man burning is the easiest place all week to lose friends and bikes, we did both. Every Art Car on The Playa parks up and the DJs jostle to give their interpretation of the sound track needed for the grand finale. What this actually means is that you get a horrible soundclash in most places. We struggled to find a spot without hearing a hundred different clashing kick drums and finally settled for hearing about 3 at the same time. My favourite part was not the burn itself but just the moment before when the man raises his arms after a week with them facing down. It gave me a feeling of anticipation mixed with nostalgia in the same instant. They really go to town blowing the poor guy up. Thermal explosions and fireworks are a devastating mix.
After the event we decided we needed to go Deep Playa. It was like going on a scuba night dive on bikes. As we rode deeper the lights and sounds of the city faded into the distance. We encountered stranger art placed further apart, random people and art cars also diving deep. Looking back at the city gave a whole new perspective of it's size and scale. The city became a distant reef abounding with spectacular coloured fish and corals. We came across an artwork of four aliens protecting or abducting (it was hard to tell) a baby Jesus in a manger.
There was a place for gifts so I took out a 2020Soundsystem Live CD from my bag and left it. We rode off and found new and previously undiscovered species of art and burner.
We were just about to give up finding the trash fence when we came across two people dressed as astronauts walking back,
"You're nearly there, it's just another 100 yards."
It was really hard to gauge how far we had actually gone so we rode back in one go and timed it. It took just under 15 minutes, so I guess, riding steady at around 5 minute miles it worked out as 3 miles. Just as we hit the city I realised I'd left my bag somewhere. I needed to go find it. Everyone groaned but made no complaint. Back we went. It's really hard to convey how hard a task this was. Firstly I had to guess where we'd left it, secondly I had to work out the line we had travelled as we had left from a different starting point and thirdly it was very dark and we were already worse for wear. We set off and headed for the light sources we could see. We reached a piece we hadn't seen before and asked the people gathered around it,
"I know this seems like an stupid question but has anyone seen four aliens in the desert?"
They laughed but a girl came forward who actually had seen the aliens and believe it or not they were the right ones! We got vague directions and a few minutes later came across the dim green glow of the aliens - there was my bag sat exactly where I'd left it.
By the time we finally got back to town they were about to burn Wall Street. This time it was easy to find a good soundtrack for the burn as Robot Heart was parked there. I thought the piece was genius and to see it burn was special. I thought people would react with more anger or enthusiasm to the models of The Bank of UnAmerica and Goldman Sucks, potent symbols of financial greed burning, but most just stood and watched the pretty lights.
When I mentioned on facebook that I was going to Burning Man a guy called Dax Lee had got in touch to invite me to play at the Nexus soundsystem. Nexus had a four stack Function One rig at Burning Man and it was set up beautifully. I had been given the sunrise set from 0400 - 0600 so I felt honoured. We hung out with Dax and his wife who turned out to be awesome people. After the nights excursions I felt like playing some spacey techno - so that's just what I did and here it is for you to have for yourselves -
After Nexus we headed out to Robot Heart for a last foray onto the Playa. Jonny White from Art Department was waxing as the red sun rose once more. By the time we got home our camp mates were already up and preparing for camp take down. I still had some energy left and we still had some food left so I cooked up a big pot of Spaghetti for everyone. You have to leave absolutely no trace of your time on the playa so every piece of 'moop' (matter out of place) has to get cleaned up. This means a thorough sweep of the entire area and picking up every last bit. It was sundown by the time we finally finished and time to go watch the temple burn.
The Temple of Juno burning was important for us this time, especially for James, who needed to pay his respects to his friend Bells. It was the exact opposite to The Man burning. Everyone sat in silence. A guy shining a laser got shouted at to turn it off. This time there were no thermal explosions or fireworks, The Temple was lit by torches passed from bearer to bearer. Many people gathered there were lost in thoughts of absent friends. As the Temple burned so did all the pictures, words and tokens people had left. I watched the ashes fly off as glowing cinders into the night sky towards the stars.
Links to really amazing Burning Man 2012 stuff I liked -
My top ten useful things (out of the few hundred I took)
1. Great Pair of Boots 2. Goggles 3. Head Torch 4. Large Water Bottle 5. Bike Lock 6. Back Pack 7. Multi Tool 8. Soft material bandana / head scarf 9. Tumbler with Clip 10. P20 Sunblock
Post original post
After writing this I have had to keep adding as more things came to mind. Most imortantly I wanted to showcase the art cars, which are such an important part of Burning Man. Finally I found a great piece which do them justice on Burners.me
And my mum also asked for a picture of the man himself. Kinda weird to do a whole piece on Burning Man without one!
Important note -
I felt the need to publish my trip and possibly help others share the experience by helping them go in the future. All images are courtesy of Adam Carter. All copyrights remain in the original works belonging to the creators and fabricators of any art photographed. All copyrights of music used in the mix remain with the writers. A full list will be forthcoming on my soundcloud page. I have tried to link to the correct artists and organisations wherever possible. If you have any objections to anything in the piece then please contact me via facebook
I acknowledge that the Burning Man name and logo are the property of the Burning Man organization, and I understand that the Burning Man organization controls all rights regarding the licensing and reproduction of any imagery recorded at the event. I agree that I will not use the trademarks or logo of Burning Man or likeness of the Man on any website or in any manner other than for personal use.
]]>Union Jack Remixedhttp://www.ralphlawson.co.uk/blog/2012/8/10/union-jack-remixed.htmlRalph Lawson2012-08-10T16:25:49Z2012-08-10T16:25:49ZOk so perhaps we are now all suffering from Olympics overkill but one truly Great thing has come out of Britian this summer. For the first time ever in my life I feel differently about my national flag.
When I grew up Britain was still desperately trying to hold on to it's international image of Empire and power. You'd be shown pictures of the Union Jack flag flown above Queen Victoria in the History books, from which, our teachers preached the gospel of past glories.
The other place you'd see it was with the Skinhead gangs that were on every corner of every street in every town. Later on I saw the flag on the football terraces of course, but often used by the same skinheads. Then along came the BNP and further abused the flag by using it in their actual logo. What I'm getting at is that I always related the Union Jack to the far right nutbags that scared the living daylights out of me. They stole my bus money and they stole my national identity, I hated what they believed in.
The Punks had a go at using the flag but then again they had a go at using the Swastika. Jerry Dammers came along and tried to nice up the place with Two Tone. But he stayed well away from re-appropriating the flag, instead focusing on his iconic strong black/white theme for his label designs. After the second wave of 80s ska the skinheads were still there at the gigs. I remember going to see Desmond Dekker at the Duchess of York in Leeds and they took over the floor. A kid who got in their way got glassed. Desmond carried on but you could see in his eyes he was terrified. They loved him and they loved his music but they wanted his family out of the UK. I just couldn't get my head round it.
In the 90s everyone from The Spice Girls to Noel Gallagher used the Union Jack but it all seemed a bit superficial. A passing fad. For me it took another 20 years before I would go anyhwere near the flag and that was this summer. Stella McCartney stuck her neck on the line and totally over hauled the flags tired, old, out dated image and look how much hate she got for it when it was first released here. Surely it was decades of hate she was trying to remove from the flag ? Are we still the same old bunch of haters ?
This summer the flag belongs to everyone. From the black, mixed race, asian or white athletes drapped in it after every medal win to the crowds lining the streets for the road races. After all if it's good enough for Wiggo then it's good enough for us. So what if the athletes wore the new blue version? For me it was the boldest and most effective logo re-branding I've ever seen. As we search for our new self-identity in the UK surely we need a new suit and a new logo ? Isn't it about time the Union Jack got remixed?
The crowds were still waving the classic version in every stadium and I was happy to give my kids the original. But I still bought myself the Adidas blue remix, come on it's far cooler.....
By the way I know this is a controversial entry and people feel strongly about their flag but if you want to have a hate rant go elsewhere - I'm a lover not a fighter...
]]>Out Of This Worldhttp://www.ralphlawson.co.uk/blog/2012/5/17/out-of-this-world.htmlRalph Lawson2012-05-17T09:19:10Z2012-05-17T09:19:10ZSome things take a while to build while others are an instant hit. Our very first 2020Vision London event was a sold out road block show at Village Underground in Shoreditch on August 14th 2010. One thing I have learnt in life is that you have to take your opportunites and run with them as fast as you can, while you can. We did just that. A series of sold out Village Underground shows featuring 2020Soundsystem, Crazy P, Tensnake, MCDE, Simon Baker & Julien Chaptal followed before things took another turn on May 29th 2011.
We decided it was time to try something new so we looked into throwing a day time show that would continue on into the night. Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction - the recently disused Shoreditch Underground station became available for events for a short time before being developed. The name alone worked perfectly for us of course. On a beautiful hot day in May we invited Steve Bug alongside Jozif and myself to come and play to a very special crowd of people at a one off daytime event at The Shoreditch Underground. As the event had to finish at 9pm we then marched everyone down Brick Lane to Village Underground for Maya Jane Coles, Mark E and Simon Baker. You can still watch highlights of the epic 20 hour events here. From what I've been told it was a day for London to remember for a long time. It certainly was for me. It also firmly put 2020 on the map in the heart of London's East End.
For May bank holiday 2012 we again decided it was time to throw a big London show. Shoreditch Underground was now gone forever as a music venue and we didn't want to repeat ourselves with another show at our ever faithful homebase of Village Underground. Once again my partner, Danny, found an incredible venue but this time over in the previously unexplored territiory of West London. Loft Studios is a fully functioning professional film and photographic studios complex which also, on occassion, hosts music events. It comes complete with it's own outdoor courtyard space and multiple rooms, all of a breathtaking quality. As soon as I saw it I was convinced that this was the place for our May event.
I had become friendly with Loco Dice and his merry band of Desolat artists from meeting them in Ibiza and kept in touch on email. I knew it was very hard to book Dice for London but I had nothing to lose so I just got in touch and asked him. To my surprise he just said ,"Yes", straight away and I immediately got to work with his team to make it happen. We decided to theme it as a unique one off show and invite an unprecendented amount of acts from both labels to play. Desolat loved the Loft Studios idea and we set the date for May 6th 2012.
This show was far bigger than we had ever staged before. We had only ever done one or two room shows before but on this event we doubled the number of rooms to four. We spent months planning production with Martin Audio & Function One sound and installed loads of fancy lighting and projections. Each of the four studios we used were individually kitted out to suit the space.
The night before the event I checked the weather report to find it was forecasting the only sunny day the UK had seen for weeks and went to bed happy.
I decided to pick up Dice myself at Heathrow in the morning to save any mess ups with hired drivers. Bring on match day....
I woke up in the morning to find grey clouds and drizzle, so much for the forecast. I decided to ignore the weather and set off for the airport. Dice's flight was on time and we were looking good again - until he walked through the arrivals gate limping. "What's happened to your Leg?", I asked. The previous night in France his pick up driver had set off before he was in the car and driven onto his leg, trapping his ankle under the wheel. However well you plan for an event what actually happens on the day will throw your plans out! So instead of taking Dice to the hotel to get his well earned rest we had to find a hospital. We ended up at St Thomas hospital in Westminster by mid morning and went through X rays and consultations. Dice left with on a pair of crutches and an order to rest his leg. He never considered cancelling the show and promised to come up to the venue in time to play the first of his two sets...
I had to go straight to the venue as I was now late for soundcheck and arrived with people already at the gates. We set up as quickly as we could and the courtyard filled rapidly so that by 3.00pm when PBR Streetgang came on it was rammed. The Leeds based duo are getting dab hands at terrace sets as they also play alongside myself at We Love Space in Ibiza throughout the summer as well as staging their own bank holiday events called Asylum in Leeds.The weather, although cold, remained dry and our luck seemed to be changing.
Debukas did a great job with his live session, fully equipped with synths, drum machines and vocals. This multi talented singer songwriter from Scotland is making friends fast. Check out his new EP, especially my favourite cut which is a collab with Pional called Golden Mind.
Then suddenly it was my turn. DJing is a nerve racking experience at the best of times, but in broad daylight with a packed crowd surrounding you on all sides it takes on new levels of nerve. I find it really hard to switch from being the one running around getting everything set up to the one who has to play the music. I have learnt how to handle it but always need a few minutes alone to compose myself. You have to relax to play well. It also helps when you are in totally unique surroundings and the crowd are behind you. I believe you have to play up to the occassion and this was a special event which called for a special set. I also wanted to make sure I left it right for Dice. Well you can make your own judgement as I recorded it for you here -
Dice received a hero's welcome as he climbed down the stairs leading to the courtyard on his crutches. He managed to play with his bad foot resting up on a record crate. Dice is a big game player. You know that most of the crowd are there to see him and you know he'll deliver every time. I'm always impressed by DJs like that.
For me it was back to the beck and call of duty and being hit with a million more jobs to do. First and foremost I had to go and set up the main room to open as soon as the courtyard closed. I managed to check out Studio 1 on my way there, just as Simon Baker had it going off. Studio 1 is a beautiful room used at Loft for photo shoots with a white infinty wall covering it from floor to ceiling. Our VJ Stephen had it looking amazing by projecting 'Out Of This World' space images onto the blank canvas. Guti Live was one of the highlights of the entire night later on in this room and The Martinez Brothers also kicked up a cosmic storm in there.
The last time I played Day & Night sets at our shows I found that the day set really took it out of me. It was so intense I didn't have much left to give at night. This time I wanted to make sure that didn't happen again. The fact that our sound guys Joe & Rob had rigged up a beast of a Function One system in yet another of Loft's superb studios also helped considerably! This time we made the room feel like a classic New York Loft space. I could see Danny Tenaglia having fun in there. Come on Danny - "One more show, one more show!" We timed it so the room opened as the courtyard closed so it filled immediately. I felt like going deeper and darker in there - so I did. It's a very different set from the day session but turn the lights off and hopefully it should start to make sense. Anyway here you go again -
I left it for tINI to take over who left the place real hot and after an excellent Martin Buttrich live show, Dice played again. Once again he had it going nuts. At 5am his leg was killing him and he asked if I could play a while. I went to get ready but when I came back he wasn't going to quit and played on till the end. I suppose he must have been having fun :)
All Images So Hasegawa
RL Day Set Track Listing
Miguel Migs feat. Meshell Ndegeocello - Tonight (Crazy P remix) Kerri Chandler - Heaven Baunz - The Same Thing (Huxley remix) Franck Roger - Can We Joyce Muniz - Drop in Pressure Hunter - Under Scan Mode-This Is House- (Tapesh remix) Sccucci Manucci - Waze & Odyssey Coat Of Arms - Lovin Together Intruder - U Got Me Roy Davis Jr - About Love (Pezzner remix) Hot Since 82 - Hurt You Sebbo - Superfly Andrade - Dancing (Quells remix) Rob Slac & Alex - Sounds Right (Pezzner remix) Tiger Stripes - Beatbox Jonny Cade - Truffles at Dawn Aril Brikha - Palma Nicole Moudaber - Hair DJ Ali - Electra (Subb-an & Shelton remix)
RL Night Set track listing
Show Me Dub OCH - Sophisticated Animated Oliver Klein - Hey Baby (Chris Lattner remix) Kerri Chandler - Rain Song (Tiger Stripes remix) Andrade - Dancing (Quells remix) Joyce Muniz - Wanna Be There Nicolas - From The Roots Flashmob - Need In me Huxley - Box Clever The Midnight Perverts - Yes Thats My Baby (Franck Roger remix) Dense & Pike - Vomee Jay Bliss - Pluto Franck Roger - I Take You Up Jay Shepheard - Year To the Day Joachim Speith - Sensual Jay Bliss - Time Traveller Daniel Bortz - Again
]]>The return of the original 2020 funkateers...http://www.ralphlawson.co.uk/blog/2012/4/2/the-return-of-the-original-2020-funkateers.htmlRalph Lawson2012-04-02T15:51:32Z2012-04-02T15:51:32Z
I started 2020Vision records in 1994 and co-produced most of the early releases alongside a lovable scouser called Carl Finlow. As the label grew so did demand for our productions. We imaginatively started remixes also under the same 2020Vision name and embarked on trying to create a significant body of work. Our best loved tracks became a series of remixes for classic New York act Blaze which included 'Funky People', 'Wishing you Were Here' and of 'Lovelee Dae'. 'Lovelee Dae' still stands out as our best production and is still played today by Ricardo Villalobos and Luciano. It is also listed as one of the all time top 100 classic house records ever. The 2020 studio was home for Chez Damier, Ron Trent, Stacey Pullen, Alton Miller and many more when they visited the UK. But it was with Chez that we really clicked. We co-created the 'Chuggles' series of records with Chez for Prescription Underground at the studio in Leeds. Two records that stood out that we made unde that moniker were 'Thank You' and 'I Remember Dance'. 'Thank you' became a big record for Junior Vasquez at The Sound Factory in New York.
In 2002 the partnership faded as Carl Finlow moved to Paris. Over in France Carl pursued his solo project Random Factor while I threw himself into a live project called 2020Soundsystem. Exactly 10 years later we have decided to make music again together. It was basically down to being in the right time and place again. We never made music or took remixes unless we were really feeling them. When the artist Freak Seven came along I instantly thought of Carl as they come from similar roots - purist Detroit electro and techno soul. When I heard 'We Bring The Music" I asked the artist Nav for the parts and immediately got a drum track together on my machines and worked out the vocal arrangement. I sent the finished dub to Carl and just told him to do his thing. He sent me back his live keyboard takes in a day. As soon as I heard them I was overcome. I got goose pimples and a tear came to my eye. It was if 10 years had been 10 minutes. We were instantly transported back to the original 2020Vision studio together but we hadn't even been in the same room.
Our first release for 10 years is extremely special to both of us. We are going back to our roots but with music designed for right here and right now. We have decided to make this release vinyl only, not as a fashion statement, but because that is how a 2020Vision record originally started its life. We decided to start again from the beginning and see where it leads us. Aniff Akinola's vocals are layered and cut up around a tight drum workout while Carl Finlow adds ever-moving synth soundscapes, gritty analogue undercurrents and moments of pure beauty. It's coming out soon...
'We bring the music, to take your soul, so move your body from out the cold'
]]>Ali Cooke.http://www.ralphlawson.co.uk/blog/2012/2/14/ali-cooke.htmlRalph Lawson2012-02-14T11:05:32Z2012-02-14T11:05:32Z I first met Ali Cooke in Kik Flip Records in Leeds. The record shop was below a clothes store called Buffalo which was the first shop in Leeds to sell Stussy clothing. The walls were personally screen printed by Moose, who became an important part of the back to basics production crew and his girlfriend Suzy, who went on to co-host Speed Queen the pioneering Leeds mixed sexuality club. Upstairs housed a studio called Basic (nothing to do with the club) which was where LFO - LFO was made. It was engineered by a guy called Martin Williams, who was also the first person to play me the track, months before it came out. I am not sure what the whole story is but I have three sources that claim Martin had a lot to do with the production. So all in all this building was a veritable treasure trove. Ali was a big bloke and an equally large character. One time when I was down in the Kik Flip basement he intervened in an altercation over a white label record. In those days labels and promo companies would mail out one or two white label copies of up coming releases to stores in the hope they would support the record. Ali played one of these white label copies over the store PA and both myself and another DJ made a grab for it. We ended up arguing over who got there first and it was getting a little heated. Ali stepped in and sided with me and I walked out the store with my precious record. Looking back now it was a case of white label fever rather than an actual desire for the track itself as I can't even remember what it was.
That was the first time Ali helped me out by using his physical presence. The second time came in the summer of 1992 when back to basics were invited to take part in a Flying club tour of Rimini in Italy. We hosted nights at the famous Peter Pan and Echoes clubs. There were many Italian clubs built in the 70s and 80s on a similar line to the spectacular Ibizan venues like Ku and Pacha. One of the most celebrated was La Baia Degli Angeli where Daniele Baldelli launched his cosmic disco sound. Up the coast from Riccione lies Rimini with Pescara and Bari to the south, which all boasted remarkable discotheques. After Disco they were mainly used as commercial music venues but at the height of house music in Italy they became used as underground clubs. Peter Pan was the biggest and most luxurious of Rimini's clubs. The so-called Balearic network of UK clubs had grown to include basics, Flying, Venus, Most Excellent and Full Circle. Representatives from all these clubs descended upon the poor unsuspecting Italian holiday town of Rimini in July '92.
At the first show we played at Echoes club the manager came over to the DJ booth and threatened to take us off unless we started to play US vocal garage records. It was bedlam in the club with the English contingent throwing blow up beach balls around the dancefloor and they wanted it calmed down for their regulars. They eventually gave up when they realised it was a hopeless challenge to calm down over 200 deranged English clubbers and we kept the music fast and heavy all night. At the next show at Peter Pan the silly antics continued and once again the dancefloor descended into anarchy. I remember Darren Emerson dropping The Orb - A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Center Of The Ultraworld which begins with an intro as long as it's title. While we were waiting for the beat to hit Darren's mate Alex shouted 'Dead Ant' and the entire barmy army got on their backs with their legs kicking around in the air! Once again we had appalled our hosts. On the way out of the club the bouncers, who had been totally unable to act inside with so many people, came after us as we headed down the long driveway from the club. They caught up with myself, my brother George and Mickey Hirst who were straggling slowly down the hill. I turned around just in time to see one launch a kick to Mickey's head. Mickey is a thin fellow and he went flying, there was now no one left between us and three huge and very angry doormen. At that point Ali came up from behind me and shouted, "Hey!" at the top of his voice. Unbelievably this stopped them in their tracks. But it wasn't over.
At the end of the driveway there was more trouble. A few of the locals had also taken a dislike to our dis-respectful behaviour and started a fight with some of the London crew. I heard someone shout,"He's got a knife!"and watched the group part into a circle as a man clearly brandishing a blade turned to face one of our party. The man thrust his blade out in the direction of the Londoner, but it was dodged and while off balance he was knocked to the ground and lost the knife. We saw him run off and we presumed that was the end of the matter, but far from it. He had gone to get his car which he now drove straight into the crowd of revellers. Once again Ali was quick and I heard him shout,"On the wall". There were indeed the surrounding walls of the club behind us and we all jumped up onto them. The local was by now so enraged that he had totally lost all sense of reason. He just repeatedly drove his car into the wall which thankfully didn't collapse. There were sparks coming from his under carriage and his front bumper was hanging on by a screw. Eventually unsuccesful in his mission to kill anyone he sped off, but I can't imagine he got very far in his wrecked car. Ali had twice helped to keep us unharmed. Eventually our bus showed up and we escaped. People decided to go straight to the beach as it was now sunny. This picture of Ali was taken by Mark McNulty on the beach that morning -
Ali was an eclectic DJ before being eclectic was fashionable. Most people equate being an eclectic DJ as being a Balearic DJ. But Ali didn't have much in common, in my view, with the Ibizan Balearic DJs like Alfredo who were playing what were essentially pop songs alongside house music. He had a far harder edge. He had come from following punk and indie bands such as Leeds based Sisters Of Mercy but he also loved Nitzer Ebb and Front 242. So he gravitated towards Belgian New Beat, which also has a tough edge, when it came to dance music. I think one of his greatest traits as a DJ was his sense of fun. DJs take themsleves way too seriously as a general rule but Ali didn't. He got his kicks from testing the boundaries of the audience's taste. How far could he push it ? He was the first DJ I heard play Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit in a nightclub. I later heard Jeremy Healy drop it as well as 2 Many DJs further down the line but he was long before. There was so much energy around at the time in clubs that it really suited the moment. The rock track I always loved that he used to play was CSS - Whole Lot Of Love which was an instrumental cover version of the famous Led Zepellin record.
Ali was also into the more quirky side of house music. He loved cut up records that changed beats continually and threw in a multitude of samples, tracks like Rumble Dub - God Is In The House and Beats Working - Burn Out (Don't Fade Away). These were then mixed in with European records, mainly from Belgium, such as Code 61 - Drop The Deal and Dunne - Espiral. His style was very much about cutting quickly between tracks, which was actually the only way you could mix such diverse records which were also all at very different tempos. It could often sound a mess but in the heat of the moment when he was hitting it right it was fantastic.
So you can get a better picture of his tastes I have included a few of Ali's charts from the time -
The last chart above was printed in Jockey Slut magazine in early March '93, very shortly before his death on March 12th. I have chosen not to go into the details surrounding his death in this piece as they have been well documented in a recent comprehensive interview for DJ History. I wanted to keep this piece focused on Ali, the person, DJ and basics co-founder. I think Weatherall summed it up best when he wrote his obituary in The NME on April 3rd 1993,"Ali would spin whatever took his fancy, from hip-hop to techno, dub to indie. The fact that he shunned the easy path and was always willing to experiment meant his reputation and his popularity spread. It makes me sad to think of the records he could have made, and the people he may have worked with and influenced."
We have part of a rare recorded set from Ali, which has been re-mastered from tape (as best we can) so you can listen for yourself. The session is very different from todays super smooth mixes so you will need to adjust your ears and mind to grasp what it sounded like and the energy it created in the early days of basics on the bottom floor of the Music Factory in 1992. It is every musicians dream that they are heard long after they are gone. I think that is actually what drives us in the first place.
]]>Ralph Lawson Live. January 2012http://www.ralphlawson.co.uk/blog/2012/1/31/ralph-lawson-live-january-2012.htmlRalph Lawson2012-01-31T20:33:48Z2012-01-31T20:33:48Z
Image So Hasegawa
I realised soon after the first reactions started to come in for the Music Factory years mix that I could well be setting myself up for being typecast as a retro DJ and sentenced to a lifetime of wedding sets. The desire to document my years at back to basics is so strong that I have to do something about it. The mixes and sleevenotes that go up on this site are my way of getting clear what the hell happened over the last 20 years. But at this stage I need to get the record straight that I am all about moving forward. Backwards is a direction that is important to learn and understand but we must move forwards. I hope the history of basics will enlighten and entertain and we will all benefit through recounting the stories but I have no intention of wallowing in the past.
We live in exciting times in so many respects and music is no exception. There is a wealth of material coming out from new producers in so many different styles and those styles themselves are crossing over to form new ones. I have always felt it is the duty of every DJ to play as much new music as possible. Firstly to help promote up and coming artists but also to contribute to the progression of music. At the start of every year I search for new material with fresh ears. So, "that was what I was playing last year but what do I want to play this year". The first set of the year is therefore always a special one for me. So far these are sounds that have caught my attention, mixed together with some that were ahead of their time. Recorded live in London January 2012.
Freak Seven - We Bring the Music (2020Vision mix) Chez Damier - Can You Feel It (Steve Bug redub) Nicole Moudaber - Hair Daso - Dan Lyke Aera & Marc Schneider - Sumback Shonky - Les Shonkettes - (Joyce Muniz remix) Mario Aureo & Daniel Solar - Would You (Matthias Meyer remix) Nicolas Gala - Bring In The Funk Kerri Chandler - Red Lights Kyodai - Mi Rumba Phonokemi - Exterminators TT - Tired of Being Wrong (Burnski remix) David Keno - Cyrus Pete Dafeet - Stutter (Moodymanc d-d-d-drum dub) Skudge - Void Lula Circus - Infinity Mihai Popoviciu - If There Is Inside - Dark You Jay Bliss - Pluto Nicolas Masseyeff - Mugen
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
