RBMA Bounce Ballroom Event TONITE

Oh ot be in New York! Check out this fucking line-up - brilliant mix of house music styles and the associiated dance scenes. From the RBMA site:

Four dance styles, four dance crews, four DJs: Bruk Up/Flexing with Bobby Konders, Voguing/Ballroom with MikeQ, Housing/Waacking with Todd Terry, Jersey Club with DJ Sliink. In the tradition of our 2013 United States of Bass event, Red Bull Music Academy pays tribute to hyper-local traditions that have made a global impact. With revered jocks providing the soundtrack and legendary dancers teaching you all the moves, expect a history lesson that your booty will never forget.
BRUK UP with Bobby Konders + dancers Bones the Machine, Drew Dollaz, Samiam, Ghost.
VOGUING with DJ MikeQ and MC Kevin JZ Prodigy + dancers Javier Ninja, Leiomy Prodigy and Dashaun Evisu.
HOUSING with Todd Terry + dancers Eriko, Cricket, Princess Lockeroo.
JERSEY CLUB with DJ Sliink and Mike Gip + dancers SoSo, Fiinesse and Emanni.
Lighting installations by Nuit Blanche New York (NBNY).
For an overview of all Red Bull Music Academy Festival New York events, as well as info on ticketing, visit: http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/nyc

 Here's the promo mix:

VJUAN ALLURE interview for RBMA continued

Told you this was epic! This is all the stuff RBMA DIDN'T use, including Vjuan’s thoughts on the growing and changing ballroom scene, and his work for other labels like Mad Decent/Jefrees and Ultra Nate’s Paradox Underground Records… 

Congratulations on the recent “Vjuanage" EP release on Jeffrees. The release notes that accompany it say it was two years in the making - why did it take so long?

The reason it took so long is that, before I started to save the songs in the regular format, I would just delete them, because I was just making tracks. Jeffrees liked my new suff but they’d been fans for a long time so there is certain stuff that they wanted. So I had to reconstruct those tracks from scratch. “Percussionix" and “Energy Bounce" are probably the newest tracks on the EP, but they have all been updated. 

How did you get hooked up with Jeffrees?

We’d been doing these beats and stuff, and in the States [ballroom] is this huge scene. And by “we" I mean me and MikeQ and a few other people. I was contacted by Kingdom [Fade To Mind] quite early on, and gave him some tracks, and then I basically went about my business, until I signed up to Soundcloud. There I found people that I was buying music from, and I would reach out to them and tell them I liked their sound, and they would be “Oh my God you’re Vjuan Allure!" and it just opened my music up to a new crowd. With Jeffrees, it’s basically to get new music out into the world. You know there’s a lot of people who hear me in the States or in other countries, but not that particular crowd of people. 

What do you think of the ballroom scene getting more and more popular?

It has been big but it is getting even bigger. and the main thing getting it into the media is the dancing and the beats that go with that. But there’s much more to the ballroom scene than just that. There are different categories aside from the voguing, which is just the dancing. There are runway competitions and face competitions, where you are judged on having a model’s face. It’s an all inclusive thing, but what we are taking and putting out to the world is just the part that you hear, not necessarily what you see. 

And how do you see the ballroom scene changing now it’s getting bigger?

It’s changing because a lot of people are taking advice from the ballroom scene, which has always been “take your talent and put it to use in the world." We have done that with the music and people have gone on TV with their dancing and choreography, and now they’re going all over the world.  So it’s changing in that way. I mean it’s always been done but on a smaller scale, but now a lot more of us are coming out and pushing the ballroom aesthetic to the world. 

Do you think the scene’s growing popularity is a good or a bad thing?

Sometimes it’s a good thing ‘cos the kids that are doing it are putting their talents to use. At the same time, if you put it to use and don’t watch it it can become abuse, so everyone is trying to recreate what they think is going on but they really have no idea what or why they are doing it. They look at YouTube and they see clips. A clip shows you a specific moment in time but you would have to go to a ball and experience what it is to understand what exactly we are into and where the energy comes from. The energy as far as the music comes form the whole entire night. By the time it comes to the category for dancing we are ready to go, but it’s what has come before that has got us hyped to do the night. 

And how do you find the ballroom sound gets accepted outside of the States?

It’s a great thing to play outside of the States, I’ve been accepted everywhere I have gone. They actually get into it more in terms of participation. In the States, you have to participate in what ever category you can participate in. But for example when I went to Japan everybody came out and did something at that ball. That doesn’t happen in the States cos it’s very categorised, you know? In terms of crowd reaction, I would have to big up my other home, which is in Naples Italy. I love playing there and I cannot forget London! The House Of Trax party was phenomenal! That was like one of the best parties and one of the best reactions. Apart from what I do with ballroom I also play house, so I’ve been in the UK and played for the Soul Satellite parties in Southampton, and in London itself a few times. I’ve been over there a couple of times, and it would be just playing house, but now that the ballroom scene is coming out too, it has opened up a different door for me. 

What would be the difference between your “house" and “ballroom" sets?

Well you know, the house set would be very energetic, I would basically run a party and stomp through the music. But I wouldn’t personally play a lot of my beats. So for instance there would be a lot less of the bitch tracks if I came to play a house set. Before, when people got me to play it was to do house, but now they have found out I do ballroom, we can do both and we can get two different crowds in. Before you used to know what you were getting, and that used to separate them. 

So how did you get into DJing? And from there how did you get into production?

In the beginning I was not actually a DJ, I was just collecting music. I didn’t actually become a DJ until I went to Italy, and when I got there they wanted me to play hip-hop but I wanted to play house. But I played hip-hop, I became a very popular DJ you know, gave them the element that they didn’t have in the clubs. But when I got with my team Angels of Love, I started to play house. And they told me how to play, how to mix and to blend. When I got back to the States I was making these small mixes for my friends, you know just these little productions putting my name in it and stuff, and it wasn’t until I went back to Italy that I started to make tracks. I started making tracks on anything I could get my hands on. I was focussed on making beats. Before I went back to Italy the second time, I was asked to DJ in Detroit. When I got to Detroit I had all my music with me, but they only wanted 6 songs (this was at a ball) and on my way home I started making my first remix. The remixes I had done I gave them to my friends and then I went back to Italy they would get in touch with me and say “hey they’re playing your music in XXX". SO got hold of some of the djs, Sedrick was one of them, and started sending him my music. And when I came back in 2004 it was all over the place. It was everywhere. 

At this point, did your productions feature the recognisable “Ha" sound?

It was featuring the “Ha", yes, because like I said, it was one of the particular records they wanted me to play [at the ball] and I was running out of good music. I didn’t want to play what I was gonna play at the ball before the ball. So I was running out of music, the crowd were losing it, but I put the Ha on and instantly it picked up. I thought “ok" and I went home, got mad, and made a remix. That was the first remix in terms of ballroom. I took that from [the] Detroit [ball] in fact, about a week or so before I left. I had “Ha Dance" on vinyl, so I just cut it off [after the “ha!" sound] and it wound down and the crowd all looked at me. So I put that on my remix, and that was what really started everything. 

Why do you think that particular sound effect has worked so well and become so synonymous with ballroom and modern voguing?

Well, there was a new form of voguing coming out at that time which was called vogue femme. And when “The Ha Dance" got re-released, that song just fit with what they were doing. And much to the credit of DJ Sedrick, he brought that song back out, especially in DC. Then it spread like wildfire throughout he ballroom scene. So it was already out, the Ha was like a staple before I even got a hold of it. It is because of the syncopation of it. You have those four beats and then just something else that closes out the whole stanza. It is the defining sound for vogue femme. But there are other categories in the ballroom that don’t even use that song, and other types of vogue that don’t use that song either. 

And what do you think of producers incorporating the Ha into non-ballroom music? There’s a lot of that going on right now, it seems.

A lot of people are putting out tracks using the ballroom crash, but even the ballroom kids who use this music will know “that’s not ballroom". That’s why I said you have to go experience what a ball is, you can’t just put a Ha or a crash on a beat and expect it to be ballroom. It doesn’t work like that. You have to know the inner working and why it is you would put that in a song. 

So what inspires you?

It can be anything, it can be a voice, it can be a sound, a word, a sound I hear on the TV anything, and I build the beats around that. I wait until something hits me. I try to stay away from anything that, like, went viral because I don’t want to have anything that’s dated to that particular time. I don’t listen to a lot of stuff that’s out, I like to keep it different. Basically it’s what’s going on in my head. 

Are you inspired by other ballroom DJs, like MikeQ?

MikeQ and I listen to each other when we are in the club. We find out what’s going on when we show up together! We talk almost every day in some kind of way, but you know, it’s not a competition between us or anything like that.

So what’s next for Vjuan Allure?  Is there anyone else you have been working with that you would like to big up?

There’s another person within the Elite Beatz camp, he’s called Ultra Energi, it’s his voice on the track Energy Bounce. He’s definitely unique. Delmar Brown is another one, his edits are good and I’m trying to get him into production, but his ear as far as music is great. DJ Pillsbury out of Ohio. There’s Davey Boy Smith over in the UK who I am remixing stuff for as well. The Elite Beatz team is still forming. I have been Elite Beatz for the longest, cos it’s something that I made and something I’m foraging, but I’m letting other talent come in now. We’re planning a party for WMC next year, we’re talking to a few places and getting that together. We’re planning on bringing some hot DJs over from the UK and Italy for this party. As far as me, I have a CD for Ultra Nate’s label Paradox Underground Records which will be out in a few weeks. 

Phew! If there;s anything else we don't know about Vjuan now, it's probably not worth knowing. Here he is in action on Jefrees/Mad Decent, with what is still my favourite club track of 2013 so far "Kid Conga Re-Bounced": 
 

VJUAN ALLURE interview for Red Bull Music Academy

REPOSTED FROM RED BULL MUSIC ACADEMY. 

  OK, get ready for some epicness: this is the first half of my LONG ASS interview with Vjuan Allure, as commissioned for Red Bull Music Academy, focussing on his introduction to dance music and what has shaped his sound.

Vjuan is my favourite DJ in the world right now, and a huge, huge inspiration to my CVNT production work. His chopped up, post-tribal beats are EVERYTHING, and, along with MikeQ, have re-ignted my passion for house music. Because, let's face it, house was getting stagnant there!

ALL of Vjuan's remixes and dj sets are a must to check out, and if you have the chance to see him spin, do it! Anything I can do to get his name and sound out there I will gladly do.  Like this piece:

One of ballroom’s biggest talents is a DJ/producer Vjuan Allure. He’s the beatmaker behind the twist on Masters At Work’s “The Ha Dance” that most voguers are moving to at the moment. (It’s fittingly called the “Allure Ha.”) In this interview with Allure, The Niallist asks him about his formative clubbing experiences with DC’s DJ Sedrick, the enduring popularity of “The Ha Dance” and the unique computer program he uses to make his tunes.

How did you get into dance music?

I was in New York, and my mother travelled all around the world, so I was left with my cousins who all went out to clubs. I was a dancer, I was 11 and we focused on battle dancing. I begged them and begged them to take me to a club, and one night they did, and it was house music and I loved it. The biggest club they took me to was The Sound Factory in New York, and since I had been going to smaller clubs and battle dancing they never asked me for ID. They would see me coming with the certain group that was known for dancing so they would let me in. This was about 1989, the era of Junior Vasquez, when the Sound Factory was everything! This was just before [Madonna’s] “Vogue.” When that come out we were already in the club doing it. In fact we were there the night Madonna came to the club!

Tell me about your introduction to club music from outside New York, particularly the Washington DC scene and DJ Sedrick.

I got put into an exchange program in Italy, and I started to spend a lot of time in Virginia and Washington DC, because there’s a protocol school that you have to go to before you go abroad. So I ended up in the DC area, and I went to a place called Trax. When I went there I heard DJ Sedrick, and the music he played was phenomenal! I had never heard anything like it, never seen a reaction like it. If you could put crazy in a club, this would be it.

At this point I was a huge Junior Vasquez head. Anything Junior made I was into. But when it got to Sedrick it was more beat-driven. What you thought a beat could do, it did. The songs he played were kinda like techno, kinda house, kinda bouncy Baltimore-ish beats…They had a powerful impact! They had this one dance in DC, it’s called the DC skuzz out, and you have never seen anything like it. Just to watch it, the energy, it was crazy. These are people that do backflips and land on their heads, it’s hard to describe, but anything you can imagine they’re doing it! Falling on the floor and shaking, very Patti LaBelle-ish.

Friends of mine in NY would always talk about the DC scene and voguing, but I was too young to go. When I finally went and I battled, we got to know each other, and these beats were playing back to back to back and I was like, “What IS this music?” That’s when I went and met Sedrick. A lot of it had to do with bass kinda beats, very Chicago-ish, Detroit techno-ish, but it was all fun. He was just DJing, but with his interaction on the mic it was the perfect marriage. I’m serious, he was just screaming at people, hollering, taking the needle and scratching it across the record. He was doing everything, and the kids would scream and holler back. People came from all kinds of states around just to go to Trax. I mean they came from California, from the other side of the world.

How did you get into DJing? And, from there, how did you get into production?

I didn’t actually become a DJ until I went to Italy, and when I got there they wanted me to play hip hop but I wanted to play house. But I played hip hop, and I became a very popular DJ. I gave them the element that they didn’t have in the clubs. But when I got with my team Angels of Love, I started to play house. And they told me how to play, how to mix and to blend. When I got back to the States I was making these small mixes for my friends, just these little productions putting my name in it and stuff. It wasn’t until I went back to Italy that I started to make tracks.

Why do you think the “Ha” sound effect has worked so well, and become so synonymous with ballroom and modern voguing?

Well, there was a new form of voguing coming out at that time which was called vogue femme. And when “The Ha Dance” got re-released, that song just fit with what they were doing. And much to the credit of DJ Sedrick, he brought that song back out, especially in DC. Then it spread like wildfire throughout he ballroom scene. So it was already out. The “Ha” was like a staple before I even got a hold of it. It’s the syncopation of it. You have those four beats and then just something else that closes out the whole stanza. It is the defining sound for vogue femme. But there are other categories in the ballroom that don’t even use that song, and other types of vogue that don’t use that song either.
And what do you think of producers incorporating “Ha” into non-ballroom music? There’s a lot of that going on right now it seems.

A lot of people are putting out tracks using the ballroom crash, but even the ballroom kids who use this music will know “that’s not ballroom.” You can’t just put a “Ha” or a crash on a beat and expect it to be ballroom. It doesn’t work like that. You have to know the inner working, and why it is you would put that in a song.

Tell me a bit more about Italy. How did Italy influence your sound and style, and vice versa?

Like I said, I was an exchange student in Italy, and when I got there it was the total reverse of the States. Where you would hear R&B and hip hop on every radio station in the States, in Italy it was house music everywhere. So I immediately fell in love with the place. I was determined to get into Italian nightlife, which is almost impossible to do. There are so many very good DJs in Italy who will never get a chance to play. [Italian DJs] have a group and they call it a “society” and once they get into the group, they are in it forever. Nobody gets in, it just doesn’t happen.

I was determined to get in, though, and it started from my dancing. I started to work the same way I did in the States. I started to make little CDs for my friends, and at first they were like “thank you” and they were happier when they got the next one, and then they would ask me if I had any new music, and then they were asking people to listen to it. It grew like that. I never told my team that I was DJing. When they found out they were like, “We need you to play.” They got me to play at House Club, Maddison, Angels of Love, so many places. The Biggest And The Best, Metropolis, Havana Club. Once they found out I was DJing, it exploded. This was in about… 1999.

What would you say you learned from your time in Italy, and in return, what did they learn from you?

We learned from each other. My team is one of the biggest and the best, but they were famous for bringing over the big London DJs and the big American DJs. What I brought to them of course was my street knowledge and my dancing ability. What I did onstage, there was no one in Italy like that. In terms of DJing, when I came back from Italy I was more into blending. You know a lot of us do cuts, especially if you come up in hip hop. They were primarily interested in blending and making it a smooth transition. So when I came back, other DJs looked at me like, “Wow!”

How did you get into actually making tracks?

I started making music with Dr Rhythm samplers and a Kawai drum machine. I started to work from that. When I was in Italy for the second time, which was 2002-2005, I was given every production program from Cakewalk to Pro Tools. Everything, but it was all in Italian. For some reason I just didn’t want to comprehend what was going on, even Fruity Loops. But this one program stood out: Simian. When I looked at it, it just made sense.

What exactly is Simian? How is it different from other music programs?

Simian is similar, for a DJ, to what Ableton is now. It worked for a DJ. When I opened it up I understood what to do. And even with the simplest stuff, I couldn’t do it, even on Fruity Loops. So when I opened up Simian that day and I understood what to do, I gravitated towards it.

How do you make tracks, what is your process?

I’m not looking for a particular beat, I’m looking for a voice. It could be anything. If it grabs my attention I just build the beat around it. I used to use a lot of samples when I started, but now I’ve learned how to reconstruct everything, sometimes from scratch.

How did you get hooked up with Bok Bok and the Night Slugs crew?

Bok Bok is so cool! I was doing podcasts on Podomatic, and someone suggested I use Soundcloud. So I made a profile and I started to look around for other people, and some of the people who were on there I was already getting music from, I was buying their music. Same with Soundboy, Bok Bok, Lil Silva. I friended them and said, “Hey, I’m Vjuan Allure, I like your sound, big props to you,” and they would come back and be like, “Oh my God, we listen to your music all the time!” That shocked me!

By the time Bok Bok answered me, I said “I’m going to have something for you,” and that was the remix of “Silo Pass.” I did it because when I heard the original it was definitely something I would play over some beats, but not for a crowd I would play to in the States. Most of the crowds here want ballroom, or, you know, soulful house, so it wouldn’t have fit. But I took his track because I heard something, and I went and turned it into a runway track. I played it at a ball and they all went nuts.
What are you using for production now? Do you use Ableton?

I’m still using Simian, but I am getting used to Ableton. The problem is that if I work with someone else we have to work in wavs. Simian doesn’t use aiff files. Bok Bok got me on Ableton. But I will always keep Simian because I can make a beat in five minutes.

Thanks to Todd and everyone at RBMA! Here's a mix from Vjuan, serving you all the sugar you will ever need: