Imagine for a second I'm at your work, I'm sitting next to you at your desk.
I spill a drink down your top, and as I apologies, a little bit of spickle lands on your cheek as I propel my words out, battling with the soundsystem. I stumble around the office doing a discombobulated dance looking for the toilets before forgetting what I was doing and start hitting on your female boss. And finally, I light up a fag and start exuding noxious fumes all over you, fumes so claggy, so hard-to-shift that your pens, your stapler, your hair, your shirt, your XL documents reek of smoke. And then I stub said fag out against your jumper mid dance move, burning a hole through to your scarred arm.
Well, that's a pretty ordinary day at the office for a DJ. And largely, it's fine - you head into a club to have a drink, to have a chat, to have a dance, even just to be a bit of a dick. They're all choices, and most don't have a definite or lasting impact.
But smoking does, and increasingly it is becoming a choice around the world.
The UK brought in non-smoking 5 years ago, New York and Toronto long ago opted out, and while smoking has been outlawed in various areas of Dubai (public and municipality buildings), it's still to find its way into club land.
And I for one can't wait for it to come.
Through various decisions, a lot of my life revolves around bars and clubs - from writing about them for DJ Magazine, Time Out and now Infusion, to DJing in clubs most weekends, I spend a lot of time in smoke-filled, poorly ventilated clubs. And my laptop, headphones, CDs, hair and clothes reek of smoke, which means my lungs can only be gasping for fresh air.
While the UK argument might have been paused to think about the reduction in cigarette tax revenue (perhaps offset by savings to the NHS?) and smokers' reluctance to stand in the cold getting their nicotine fix, we're faced with different pressures and problems in Dubai.
Firstly, fags cost next-to-nothing: Dhs10 at most for a pack of 20 (that's about 1 pound 60 embittered UK dwellers). So there's little tax impact, and zero health benefits as medical care is private. But the Middle East has long been a smoking haven, and it's ingrained in the UAE culture thanks to shisha - some of the best venues in town offer a shisha terrace or facilities (360, N'Dulge, Trilogy etc).
This in itself should provide a hint at a possible (and easily implemented) solution - smoking should be outlawed everywhere but on the terrace/rooftop/somewhere outside. And considering the year round sunshine (a 40 degree fag has to be better than a nicotine hit that risks frostbite) and the outdoor spaces, this has to be a strong contender.
Or, as a friend suggested, clubs could actually spend some of their hard-earned dirhams on properly ventilating their indoor rooms - it wouldn't alleviate the problem entirely, but it would go a long way to helping beat second hand smoke. But we're talking industrial sized fans, rather than a makeshift fan which has less huff than an asthmatic fish.
Clubs would then be smoke free, and thanks to the proclivity of rampant DTCM inspectors happy to enforce nonsense rules like this, they can patrol the premises and hand out fines to the venue (which could even be put towards lung cancer charities?).
Having grown up in smokey pubs and clubs (not literally - my folks aren't bad people), I can see the advantages smoking brings. It lends atmosphere, it blurs the edges and adds depth to a room which otherwise might be too clean cut or stark. The smell also covers a multitude of stinks: having been back to the UK post-ban, I can confirm that venues now reek of BO and farts, a truly devilish concoction. Some clubs have even had to pump in synthetic smells to cover up the stink. On top of that, some clubs have suffered as clubbers rush for a cigarette hit and desert the floor. And of course, smoking is cool.
But fundamentally, clubbing is about choice - the right to choose your music, what you wear, who you go with, what you drink. But you haven't chosen the right to breathe in someone else's second hand smoke, and be exposed to any number of far-reaching, life-threatening illnesses.
And that's a choice we all should be able to make ourselves.
Monday, 28 May 2012
Thursday, 19 April 2012
The rise of the deckheads
Friday May 8, 2013, Miami Music Conference
Welcome to Dave's world, Dave's 9-5, Dave's line of work. Not for Dave the stifled hell of a cocooned office job, not for Dave the laborious monotony of construction, or even the fact-or-fiction number crunching of a banker.
Dave conducts sweeping, synsape-popping electronic music in a room rammed full of weapon's grade narcotics and bowel-loosening bassbins. His office has nitrate-swollen sweat drips from the ceiling, his water cooler gossip is supplied by gurning punters who clamour like the living dead at the front of Dave's office (AKA the DJ Booth).
And Dave, stood stock still in his finest All Saints threads, index finger perfectly poised above the play button, is paralyzed by a potent mix of fear: fear of being found out, fear of being revealed like a bad magic gag by 'not a lot' Paul Daniels, but ultimately, the fear that inexorably rises inside every DJ that's been faced by an unruly hoard of beat-hungry clubbers, the fear that without this artificial environment, without the tinnitus-inducing sound system and without the toxic cocktail of booze and chemicals eviscerating the crowd, he's simply Dave. For 4 hours every weekend (and during grandstanding press interviews when Dave pretends he really does live the hedonistic life style, snorting a home-made mix of ants, Bolivia's finest and, inevitably, some crushed up toilet cleaner for Elevenses), he lives the dream at work.
He gives a worrying percentage of the population a reason to live as they countdown the 9,600 minutes from when they leave the club as a mangled, A&E ready corpse at 6am until they can re-enter a week later. He lets shadow-dwelling drug dealers hustle their way to a conscience-free fortune, he lets high rollers flash their cash (and cold-plated credit cards) in the VIP area, he lets students blow their bank loans as they embark on a 48 hour bender learning in the process that comedowns really aren't conducive to a degree and that home-made bongs really should be tidied away before the parents come round.
But the sad, inescapable truth is that Dave is ordinary - like off-white, beige kinda ordinary, like Saturday afternoon down at Ikea sort of ordinary. Dave is the most boring man he knows (and having become embroiled in more after-party chats that are a spectacular combination of narcissistic hot air fueled by after-party supplies), he knows all about stultifying degrees of boring.
He spends his time Googling his name, eager to find any relevant - and often non-relevant - reference to himself in the online world. And when he's not Googling himself, and sending his analytics into a self-propelled spin, he's selling his own distinct brand of hidden boredom via Facebook and Twitter, making sure his social media output is a direct reversal of his actual social output. He spends hours - sometimes days - locked away in his sweaty, socky study hunched over his laptop trying to decipher which of the 86 almost identical sounding tech-house tracks will detonate the dancefloor into a seething mess of clubbers. He spends his time looking wistfully at the party pictures taken during his set, the over-tanned and out-of-his-league club girls he never gets to meet leering at the camera while he's up in the DJ booth making the trainspotters froth with nervous excitement as he drops unreleased white label after unreleased white label.
The fact that Dave is even up on that raised podium, spreading his arms wide in a Jesus-was-never-this-good pose is a cosmic fuck up of biblical proportions, the likes of which haven't been seen since Jimmy Saville inadvertently spawned the birth of DJ culture. Dave makes progressive house sound like seismic, earth-titling dubstep in comparison, he's that dull.
Before Dave actually became a big DJ, he dreamed of becoming a big DJ, he dreamed of commanding per-hour fees that would put a small African's GDP to shame, he dreamed of controlling the every move of thousands of clubbers, he dreamed of touring the world playing his counter cultural, revolution stirring (in his wildest dreams at least) mix of house music.
And the thing is, Dave is not alone in having this dream, oh, far, far far from it. Rightly or wrongly, Dave is a very real, very tangible by-product of today's society Decks Factor society. For Dave is merely the tip of the DJing iceberg, one of quite literally millions who believe that playing other people's music - and if they're supremely talented, their own music - to other people is not only a worthy occupation that should be pursued, but one that should fulfill their every waking thought.
But right now, none of that self-importance, none of that hype matters, as Dave is blissfully unaware of man's greatest fear. Dave is about to experience quite what his success means to other people, quite how far DJ disciples will go to try and turn the tables and flip the script. Because Dave, or Dave Van Pyke as the rest of the world knows him, has a flickering red dot hovering just below his bespoke customised Dave by Beats By Dre headphones and above his vintage-but-not-vintage t-shirt, with a hidden sniper about to pull the trigger at the signal. How did drastically dull Dave end up here? Well, that's a story best told in Dave's own words…
Welcome to Dave's world, Dave's 9-5, Dave's line of work. Not for Dave the stifled hell of a cocooned office job, not for Dave the laborious monotony of construction, or even the fact-or-fiction number crunching of a banker.
Dave conducts sweeping, synsape-popping electronic music in a room rammed full of weapon's grade narcotics and bowel-loosening bassbins. His office has nitrate-swollen sweat drips from the ceiling, his water cooler gossip is supplied by gurning punters who clamour like the living dead at the front of Dave's office (AKA the DJ Booth).
And Dave, stood stock still in his finest All Saints threads, index finger perfectly poised above the play button, is paralyzed by a potent mix of fear: fear of being found out, fear of being revealed like a bad magic gag by 'not a lot' Paul Daniels, but ultimately, the fear that inexorably rises inside every DJ that's been faced by an unruly hoard of beat-hungry clubbers, the fear that without this artificial environment, without the tinnitus-inducing sound system and without the toxic cocktail of booze and chemicals eviscerating the crowd, he's simply Dave. For 4 hours every weekend (and during grandstanding press interviews when Dave pretends he really does live the hedonistic life style, snorting a home-made mix of ants, Bolivia's finest and, inevitably, some crushed up toilet cleaner for Elevenses), he lives the dream at work.
He gives a worrying percentage of the population a reason to live as they countdown the 9,600 minutes from when they leave the club as a mangled, A&E ready corpse at 6am until they can re-enter a week later. He lets shadow-dwelling drug dealers hustle their way to a conscience-free fortune, he lets high rollers flash their cash (and cold-plated credit cards) in the VIP area, he lets students blow their bank loans as they embark on a 48 hour bender learning in the process that comedowns really aren't conducive to a degree and that home-made bongs really should be tidied away before the parents come round.
But the sad, inescapable truth is that Dave is ordinary - like off-white, beige kinda ordinary, like Saturday afternoon down at Ikea sort of ordinary. Dave is the most boring man he knows (and having become embroiled in more after-party chats that are a spectacular combination of narcissistic hot air fueled by after-party supplies), he knows all about stultifying degrees of boring.
He spends his time Googling his name, eager to find any relevant - and often non-relevant - reference to himself in the online world. And when he's not Googling himself, and sending his analytics into a self-propelled spin, he's selling his own distinct brand of hidden boredom via Facebook and Twitter, making sure his social media output is a direct reversal of his actual social output. He spends hours - sometimes days - locked away in his sweaty, socky study hunched over his laptop trying to decipher which of the 86 almost identical sounding tech-house tracks will detonate the dancefloor into a seething mess of clubbers. He spends his time looking wistfully at the party pictures taken during his set, the over-tanned and out-of-his-league club girls he never gets to meet leering at the camera while he's up in the DJ booth making the trainspotters froth with nervous excitement as he drops unreleased white label after unreleased white label.
The fact that Dave is even up on that raised podium, spreading his arms wide in a Jesus-was-never-this-good pose is a cosmic fuck up of biblical proportions, the likes of which haven't been seen since Jimmy Saville inadvertently spawned the birth of DJ culture. Dave makes progressive house sound like seismic, earth-titling dubstep in comparison, he's that dull.
Before Dave actually became a big DJ, he dreamed of becoming a big DJ, he dreamed of commanding per-hour fees that would put a small African's GDP to shame, he dreamed of controlling the every move of thousands of clubbers, he dreamed of touring the world playing his counter cultural, revolution stirring (in his wildest dreams at least) mix of house music.
And the thing is, Dave is not alone in having this dream, oh, far, far far from it. Rightly or wrongly, Dave is a very real, very tangible by-product of today's society Decks Factor society. For Dave is merely the tip of the DJing iceberg, one of quite literally millions who believe that playing other people's music - and if they're supremely talented, their own music - to other people is not only a worthy occupation that should be pursued, but one that should fulfill their every waking thought.
But right now, none of that self-importance, none of that hype matters, as Dave is blissfully unaware of man's greatest fear. Dave is about to experience quite what his success means to other people, quite how far DJ disciples will go to try and turn the tables and flip the script. Because Dave, or Dave Van Pyke as the rest of the world knows him, has a flickering red dot hovering just below his bespoke customised Dave by Beats By Dre headphones and above his vintage-but-not-vintage t-shirt, with a hidden sniper about to pull the trigger at the signal. How did drastically dull Dave end up here? Well, that's a story best told in Dave's own words…
Sunday, 19 February 2012
The (not so) subtle art of promotion...
DJs get into DJing to play good music to good people to help them have a good night out. It's that simple.
But increasingly DJing has become promotion. Both self promotion (hmm, gotta love endless self aggrandizing) and promotion of the event you're playing.
And both are fine - necessary evils if you will, especially for producers turned DJs, happier with their head in a copy of Ableton than shouting said head off. If you're good, there should be no problem telling people about it. And presumably as you've been booked to play a night, you're happy to be associated with that event, so telling people about it isn't going against any DJ code of omerta.
Having DJ'd and run events in Dubai for 6 years, I like to think I've got a handle on what it takes to promote a night reasonably well (the main thing is passion for what you're doing - without that, you're dead in the water), but over that time, the lines between Djing and promoting have got blurrier than a night out with Brandon Block.
Increasingly, promoters want their DJs to co-promote the event - to invite their FB database to the event, send round email blasts to your friends, and put the word out on their social networks.
But in return they're offering, well, nothing. There's none of the financial gain that a promoter has (or possible losses, equally), and you're certainly not getting paid per click as you literally invite each FB friend by clicking through a list well into the thousands. And if the event goes tits up, people will come to you for answers as you've been so visibly pushing and promoting the event.
Shouldn't the DJ's time be spent hunting down tracks, making dancefloor edits, remixes and their own material, sorting out their record collection so they've got the right bombs to drop at the right time?
I'm as guilty (if, in fact, it is something to be guilty for) as the next person - Loaded runs on a pretty low budget, so word of mouth is key and that starts from the ground up meaning me and the resident DJs. Conversely, we play a niche night which we put on largely because no one else is playing the tunes we play, so it's not a financially motivated night (even more so when you consider the drink deals and free tequila we give out). Where do resident DJs fall into though? Should they spam their followers, friends and interested internet bystanders, or is it their job to, you know, play music? Does the number of people they bring down to the event impact the way that promoters look at them?
Equally, do those who do the most shouting get the most gigs, even if, for example, they're a more limited DJ than those who prefer to let the music do the talking? Not all DJs are socially adept, some probably prefer the sanctity and solitude of the DJ booth where they don't have to answer to questions (apart from fielding crappy requests).
The worst though are those who brag and promote without substance, just shouting 'look world here's me doing stuff, and here's me again doing more stuff,' the inane drivel slowly mounting into a torturous mountain of promotional babble. And some are just offensive: 'Yeah, smashed that gig in the FACE. Who's your Daddy now?' Really?
And then you get those that either buy in their promoting powers (1 million Facebook fans, a sudden rush of 20,000 extra Twitter followers?) and those that abuse their powers by telling their Twitter denizens that the club was packed to the rafters last night, when in actual fact the bar staff were quietly mopping the dancefloor at 1.30am.
In effect, it's a null and void question. Social networks are such an ingrained part of our life now that if you refused to help out on the promotion front, it would surely mark you out as the black sheep of the Djing family. Promotion is the art of making noise, and noise is something all DJs know a lot about. But with sifting through all the garbage out there increasingly becoming a full time job, alongside your normal DJ duties, it's never been harder to make yourself heard.
But increasingly DJing has become promotion. Both self promotion (hmm, gotta love endless self aggrandizing) and promotion of the event you're playing.
And both are fine - necessary evils if you will, especially for producers turned DJs, happier with their head in a copy of Ableton than shouting said head off. If you're good, there should be no problem telling people about it. And presumably as you've been booked to play a night, you're happy to be associated with that event, so telling people about it isn't going against any DJ code of omerta.
Having DJ'd and run events in Dubai for 6 years, I like to think I've got a handle on what it takes to promote a night reasonably well (the main thing is passion for what you're doing - without that, you're dead in the water), but over that time, the lines between Djing and promoting have got blurrier than a night out with Brandon Block.
Increasingly, promoters want their DJs to co-promote the event - to invite their FB database to the event, send round email blasts to your friends, and put the word out on their social networks.
But in return they're offering, well, nothing. There's none of the financial gain that a promoter has (or possible losses, equally), and you're certainly not getting paid per click as you literally invite each FB friend by clicking through a list well into the thousands. And if the event goes tits up, people will come to you for answers as you've been so visibly pushing and promoting the event.
Shouldn't the DJ's time be spent hunting down tracks, making dancefloor edits, remixes and their own material, sorting out their record collection so they've got the right bombs to drop at the right time?
I'm as guilty (if, in fact, it is something to be guilty for) as the next person - Loaded runs on a pretty low budget, so word of mouth is key and that starts from the ground up meaning me and the resident DJs. Conversely, we play a niche night which we put on largely because no one else is playing the tunes we play, so it's not a financially motivated night (even more so when you consider the drink deals and free tequila we give out). Where do resident DJs fall into though? Should they spam their followers, friends and interested internet bystanders, or is it their job to, you know, play music? Does the number of people they bring down to the event impact the way that promoters look at them?
Equally, do those who do the most shouting get the most gigs, even if, for example, they're a more limited DJ than those who prefer to let the music do the talking? Not all DJs are socially adept, some probably prefer the sanctity and solitude of the DJ booth where they don't have to answer to questions (apart from fielding crappy requests).
The worst though are those who brag and promote without substance, just shouting 'look world here's me doing stuff, and here's me again doing more stuff,' the inane drivel slowly mounting into a torturous mountain of promotional babble. And some are just offensive: 'Yeah, smashed that gig in the FACE. Who's your Daddy now?' Really?
And then you get those that either buy in their promoting powers (1 million Facebook fans, a sudden rush of 20,000 extra Twitter followers?) and those that abuse their powers by telling their Twitter denizens that the club was packed to the rafters last night, when in actual fact the bar staff were quietly mopping the dancefloor at 1.30am.
In effect, it's a null and void question. Social networks are such an ingrained part of our life now that if you refused to help out on the promotion front, it would surely mark you out as the black sheep of the Djing family. Promotion is the art of making noise, and noise is something all DJs know a lot about. But with sifting through all the garbage out there increasingly becoming a full time job, alongside your normal DJ duties, it's never been harder to make yourself heard.
Tuesday, 10 January 2012
Best of 2011
The Black Keys - El Camino
Like The White Stripes: big, bold basslines, scuzzy 60s guitars. Unlike the Stripes, pulverising, in-time drums. This is their 7th album, and hopefully the one that sets them onto super-stardom. And not only is this an amazing track from the album, the tongue-in-cheek video sh*ts over most of the crap shown in Dubai's cinemas.
Gil Scott Heron vs Jamie xx - I'll Take Care Of You
Like The Jesus and Mary Chain covering the Beach Boys (No, really! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb4OJ4EQajk), this really really shouldn't work, but it really, really does, as Jamie xx's reworking of Gil Scott Heron's album took it to bold, dazzling new heights. And this song, the album's finest moment, was criminally short at just 4 minutes of bass-buzzing beauty, hence this more DJ friendly re-work.
http://soundcloud.com/i-am-andy-buchan/jamie-xx-vs-gil-scott-heron
The Horrors - Still Life
Vivid, psychedelic but now imbued with a withering pop sensibility, The Horrors' 3rd album featured their best moment to date, the utterly bewitching 'Still Life.' A word of warning to the die hard Horrors fans out there: this version comes with a little added extra from Richard Ashcroft…
http://soundcloud.com/i-am-andy-buchan/the-horrors-vs-the-verve-still
I Break Horses - Winter Beats
Beware 3 Swedes who conjure up anti-equine names and profess they don't know how to play their instruments, when in fact they create soundscapes that echo and reverberate like a lost Sigur Ros album.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Sg7YkPnEYw
M83 - Midnight City
The weirdest pop single of the year, and also one of the best. Ghostly shrieks, intergalactic breakdowns and an 80s sax solo that would give Kenny G a run for his money combine into something truly special. And with a beats and bass re-rub, also fitted into my DJ sets rather nicely.
http://soundcloud.com/i-am-andy-buchan/m83-midnight-city-da-funct
SBTRKT - SBTRKT
The poppy, acceptable face (or mask) of the British bass scene, with 'Pharaohs' the stand out track from an outstanding album.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErYAGQZs8e0&ob=av2e
Rustie - Glass Swords
Dubstep/Post-dubstep/future garage - the fragmented bass scene never sounded as unified as on this Warp Records release, with frazzled melodies, fractured beats and warehouse vibes combining to euphoric effect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4AqCrR_nAU
Tuneyards - Bizniz
A one-woman band and yet capable of sounding like a magical mashup of Sonic Youth and Vampire Weekend? Yes, yes please.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ1LI-NTa2s
And 2 to avoid
Bjork - Biophilia
I'm the biggest Bjork fan. I even like 'It's Oh So Quiet' despite it being the worst. song. in. the. world. But this monstrosity of beats and bleeps, where 90s rave collided headlong into 6th form poetry and prose was hideous from start to finish.
Justice - Audio Video Disco
The 'new Daft Punk' were left standing naked in the Emperor's clothing on their second album. Only 2 tracks - 'Canon' and 'Civilization' - escaped the 70s bad-rock pastiches. Bof.
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