@ Washing Machine

Info

@ Washing Machine

Info

Info

Info

@ Washing Machine

Info

@ Washing Machine

Washing Machine @ Kater Holzig, October 2, 2011

Playing Favourites: Joey Negro

Rinder & Lewis – Lust (Pye Records, 1977)

The first one is by Rinder and Lewis – “Lust”, which is kind of a space disco prototype so to say. For 1977 it was kind of a landmark record I guess.

For 1977, yes. I suppose Rinder and Lewis were a very prolific production team in the 70s and 80s. They made an awful lot of records, a lot of albums. That’s probably one of their most moody tracks. A lot of their stuff has got a 1920s, big band, Charleston influence to it. But I like a lot of their stuff. But some of it is unusual in its arrangement. That one’s got a slightly more mystical vibe to it.

Would you say they tried to explore their field a bit further with this record? You mentioned that a few of the other productions had certain influences, like the latin stuff for example. But this one is really something different, almost science fiction.

Yes, but that’s quite different from the rest of the “Seven Deadly Sins” album. I reckon it wasn’t a track that was made to be a hit. It was probably considered an album track. But with that weird bit in the middle with the glockenspiel, it goes into a sort of devil bit about two thirds of the way through. Which is very out of character with the rest of the record. But what I think is interesting about that is that you don’t get those sort of unexpected bits in records now. I guess when musicians are making records, it’s very different to when DJs are making records. Now, when DJs make records they just tend to have the same stuff going throughout the track, it just loops round and round. Maybe there might be some changes, but there’s nothing drastic coming in really loud. A bad DJ produced record might just be a bit boring, whereas a bad record from the 70s might have a great verse and a really terrible chorus. Or you might have something really cheesy. A lot of records now are just rhythm tracks made by DJs for mixing and whatever, whereas then you might have records that have got loads in them, maybe too much. But the reason that they’re not great is maybe because they’ve got too much in them. They might have some great musical parts, but the vocals are crap. I think I’m digressing a little bit. A lot of Rinder and Lewis stuff – have you got that album “Discognosis”?

No, I know the THP Orchestra stuff which I found really good.

Yeah, and there’s El Coco and Le Pamplemousse. I like that track. It’s always very well orchestrated, they always had a bit of money to make the records. It wasn’t done on a shoestring budget, they must have sold pretty well. I think El Coco’s “Cocomotion” is one of my favourites by them as well. Obviously a lot of the stuff on AVI was produced by them, they were putting out a lot of music. They must have lived in the studio in 76, 77, 78, 79.

This is also a really good example for what you can do if you’re a good arranger – the arrangements they did are really complex and beautiful. Is that something you miss? You talked of modern rhythm tracks and functionality – I think it’s hard to pull off these days because you don’t have budgets for studio work…

Yeah of course. I suppose you have to think, this is now and that was then. Record sales were much higher, I suppose disco was like r’n’b was 5 years ago in terms of its worldwide popularity. So there was a lot more money, obviously there weren’t downloads or people copying CDs. I don’t know what the sales figures were like of something like Rinder and Lewis, but it probably sold half a million or something like that. It’s a completely different time, in terms of being able to get a string section in for your record. I’ve paid for string sections before, but to be honest with you what I’ve found is a string section with 30-40 people is so different to a string section with 7 or 8 people. I’ve only been able to afford 6 or 7 people. It isn’t really a string section! Nowadays, with CD-ROMs and whatever you can make something that sounds pretty good – not the same – but pretty good with just samples. To really make it sound a lot better, you need a 30-40 piece, big room orchestra. People at Salsoul and a lot of them classic disco records had that big proper string arrangement. Also, paying someone to do the arrangement isn’t cheap if you get someone good. Very difficult to do that now. So yeah, I do miss it. But there’s no point missing something, it’s like saying “Oh, I wish they were still making Starsky and Hutch”.

As long as a glimpse of an orchestra won’t do, it doesn’t make sense?

I think the only it could make sense is if George Michael decides to make a disco album, or someone like that. He could afford it. Or Beyonce. Some big star. But your average dance record – I suppose Jamiroquai had some live strings on some of his stuff. But then again, he was selling a lot of records.

Doobie Brothers – What A Fool Believes (Warner Bros. Inc., 1979)

“What a Fool Believes” by the Doobie Brothers, which is a merger of rock and disco.

There’s other tracks, like the Alessi Brothers “Ghostdancer”… I suppose that just shows how popular disco music must have been at the time when people like The Doobie Brothers and Carly Simon were actually making disco records. I suppose it’s the same as nowadays people making a record with a more r’n’b type beat. Or at the beginning of house music, there were lots of pop acts making house records. I was listening to a best of ABBA a few years ago. It started off sort of glam-rock, sort of sweet, like Gary Glitter, that sort of production. And by the late seventies their stuff had got pretty disco-ey. And by 82 it was folky. So I think the disco beat was just featuring on a lot of productions by acts who just wanted to make a contemporary sounding record. That’s probably why a lot of the American rock establishment hated disco so much. It wasn’t just that it was there: their favourite acts were making disco records! They hated the fact the Rolling Stones made disco records, it just wasn’t allowed.

But the thing is, that when the disco boom ended, a lot of the rock acts who made disco records acted like they never did! They deserted it pretty quickly.

Yeah, once it became uncool they pretended they never liked it, it wasn’t their idea and all that. I tried to once do a compilation album of that sort of stuff. But it’s too difficult to license it all. They’re all on major labels, they’re all big acts, and it’s very hard to license that stuff. In fact I’d go as far as to say it’s impossible: just too difficult and expensive.

Was it just because of budget reasons, or because the acts didn’t want to be reminded of what they did in that area?

I think often those big acts have to approve every compilation album license. A lot of the time, for the people who work in the compilation album license department, it’s easier for them to say no than to write to the management of Supertramp or Queen. And often, if they do see a title that has disco in it, they will say no. And a lot of them won’t license the Rolling Stones to a comp that’s got a projected sales figure of less than half a million. There’s so many reasons why it’s problematic. You could do it, but you’d have to leave off so many tracks, there would hardly be any point doing it. I did have a chat with a major label about doing it and that was one that owned quite a lot of them. But it’s just so difficult. They want to see a big marketing budget, they want to see you spend a hundred grand on television adverts. Otherwise they just go, why are we on this compilation album?

I think it’s a shame really, there were so many good disco records done by major artists…

Yeah. I like a lot of those things. I’m doing this compilation for BBE which is maybe a similar thing, just it’s not all well known acts. People like Fleetwood Mac, they did that track “Keep On Going”, those sort of things. I guess it’s blue-eyed rocky soul. Quite danceable… it’s not all disco, but it’s not really rock either. More black music based. I always think, if you look at the back of a rock album and it’s got someone playing bongos on it, it’s worth checking out. Read the rest of this entry »

Rewind: Bill Brewster on “Sextet”

In discussion with Bill Brewster on “Sextet” by A Certain Ratio (1982).

What is your personal history with this particular album? How and when was your first encounter with it?

I bought it the week it came out. I had just moved back to Grimsby (my hometown) after working in London and Switzerland as a chef for five years. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life but I knew I didn’t want to spend the rest of it sweating in a kitchen. I’d met some new people who were trying to do cool stuff with music. We’d all been punks in 1976 and 1977 but got bored of how musically limited it all was. We were searching for something new. We had a musical mentor, a guy who ran a musical instrument shop with a few boxes of records in the back, called Roy Bainton. He was 15 years older than us and knew loads about music, everything from Mike Westbrook and Carla Bley to Graham Central Station and, in particular, the blues. We were listening to all this brilliant old stuff that was new to us and also discovering bands like A Certain Ratio and 23 Skidoo who, like us, were also groping towards something different. We were in the process of forming a band when this album came out.

What made you decide for „Sextet“ instead of other of their albums?

They toured to promote this album and we went to see them at this bizarre wine bar in Leeds. I went with all the guys who were in my band. The venue was brightly lit, chrome-plated, horrible. And it was nearly empty, but they didn’t give a fuck: they were astonishing, really tight (helped somewhat by Donald Johnson’s prowess behind the traps). I suppose what “„Sextet“” represents to me is a crossroads of where I had arrived and where they were headed; a sort of Robert Johnson involving trams, drizzle and Northern misery. What is interesting about „Sextet“, listening back now, is that they’d reached a certain competence on their instruments but they still had a thirst for wayward and interesting song ideas and arrangements. Later on, when they were recording stuff like “Don’t You Worry Bout A Thing”, they ended up sounding like those pale Britfunk imitations of the real deal, whereas what makes „Sextet“ endearing is that they sound like nothing and no-one else. The world they inhabited then, it seemed to me, was hermetically sealed from outside influences. I imagined them living together in a big house in Whalley Range, a bit like the Monkees, except with acid and analogue instruments. Read the rest of this entry »

Playing Favourites: Till von Sein

> Backroom Productions – Definition Of A Track ( New York Underground Records) 1988

A rare tune from 1987. Indeed nothing but a track.

I knew this from the vinyl edition of the DJ-Kicks by Terranova. At that time it fit right in with what they were trying to represent with that compilation. I used to play this track regularly back then, it was very good for warming up.

So you actually know this for quite some time then.

Yeah, of course! I was not into Terranova that much, but the compilation had some brilliant tracks on it. East Flatbush Project and such.

This has some kind of Hip Hop vibe to it, too. But it does not exactly sound like 1988.

No, and I didn’t know that (laughs).

Would you still play it?

Definitely. I don’t know when and for what occasion but it is a class track.

It somehow reminds me of the bonus beats they used to have on the flipside of old House records.

Yeah, but bonus beats have gone out of fashion a bit, apart from Hip Hop. Argy had some for that Sydenham track “Ebian” on Ibadan last year. But I think it is not really relevant anymore for the current generation of House producers.

The percussive elements really distinguish the sound of that era from today’s productions. Lots of handclaps, or here it’s rimshots.

My problem is that I don’t really like all these percussion sounds from drum machines. I prefer sampled real instruments. This is probably some classic Roland drum machine, like a 606. I would take the bassdrum and hi-hats from somewhere else. The toms of these old machines are always cool, but the bongo sounds for example are not for me. I wouldn’t use that for my productions. I couldn’t do these 100 % authentic references. I think it’s supercool to listen to in a Prosumer record for example, but I couldn’t do that.

You got qualms about doing something like that?

No (laughs)! I’m just working on a new track for which I sampled an old Amen-break. I don’t care, if I like it I use it. This kind of break is in 90 % of all Drum and Bass tracks and nobody cares, so I don’t care either.

> Phortune – Unity (Jack Trax) 1988

This is an old track by DJ Pierre, from his Acid House days. But it is different to most tracks he produced back then. It is pretty deep.

It’s great. Awesome vibe for 1988, I could listen to this all day. It doesn’t tranquilize my feet, it’s not boring, it’s perfectly right. And I would grin from ear to ear if I would hear this in a club.

Some of its sounds have aged really well.

I really like this. I think it’s a pity that there are not so many tracks with great basslines at the moment. There are a lot of simple, functional basslines without much of a melody. Of course it’s effective and some current tracks need some of these dominating, functional elements, but a track like this for example needs a bit more, and I miss that. It’s also simple, but it has more and different harmonies. I like that, it gets me hooked. I would love to buy this on Beatport (laughs)!

Yes, that could be difficult. Read the rest of this entry »

Playing Favourites: Quarion

> Sound Dimension – Granny Scratch Scratch (Soul Jazz)

This is a 70’s reggae track by Jackie Mittoo. It’s almost Minimal, very basic.

True. It’s got some Techno appeal, it’s just rhythm. That’s what I like about this Dub stuff, there are so many things you can recognize that were used later on in electronic music like House and Techno. Dub was so important for that.

So these ancient production techniques are still valid? There seems to be a direct line from Jamaica to today’s productions.

Yeah, I listen to Dub. I don’t listen to a lot, but I like some of it. But I like to use the state of mind of Dub in my music. It’s more a musician thing. I like to use the techniques of it. I’m getting more into the music, too. It’s amazing, the way they were mixing the bass and the drums in the 70’s. Really crazy.

They also put some emphasis on just doing tracks, not songs.

It really is the basis of what came afterwards, from Hip Hop to House to Techno. Drum and Bass also, of course. They all took elements from Dub, that’s really interesting.

> Yukihiro Takahashi – Walking To The Beat (Pick Up Records)

The next one is by Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Yukihiro Takahashi. A Synthpop track.

It is interesting. It has this kind of proto-House feeling. What I really liked was this crazy soprano sax solo at the end. It is almost like Free Jazz, for 30 or 40 seconds, and then it stops. That was quite bold.

I think he actually wanted to do some kind of pop hit though. The singer on this record is the one from the 80’s pop group Icehouse for example. But for a pop hit it is probably too weird.

I think the harmonies are built up quite traditionally, but this solo part really surprised me. It is almost like New York ‘s Post Punk era. Trying some new crazy stuff.

Maybe you should use some sax solo in a House track.

Well, I used to play sax in the past.

Really?

Yeah, for a long time. But I kind of really got tired of the sound and I don’t think I’m going to use it. But you never know. I started playing Alto Saxophone when I was 13 years old. I had tried piano a few years ago, but I wasn’t so much into it. I don’t remember why I chose saxophone, but I remember I wanted to do a wind instrument. With the saxophone, I learned to play jazz and I absolutely loved it! I began rehearsing with a few bands, mostly Jazz or Funk groups. When I discovered DJing, I was instantly hooked and I started playing less and less saxophone, until I quit around 2001. DJing, collecting and discovering music became more important for me. I dabbled into production around 1996, but got a home studio setup two years later. I remember that my main reason for producing was that I found that certain records were lacking something or were arranged in a way that I thought was not so effective. I was thinking “Hmm, the producer should have put this part first” or “the chord there doesn’t sound nice although the beat is dope”. After a while I just thought I should make my own tracks.

I remember that a lot of the early Deep House tracks used the same sax sound. Really flat and synthetic. They seldom used a real saxophone, always this cheap sound effect.

Yeah, terrible. Read the rest of this entry »