CVNTY loves the PUBLIC HOUSIN' label

A new offshoot from the guys behind Top Billin' out of Finland, the PUBLIC HOUSIN label, as the name would suggest, is dedicated to all things house, with a very classic 90s vibe. And I fucking love it! Here's some examples, and get ready for the CVNT TRAXXX "Jersey Nights" EP coming on this label very soon...

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM THE NIALLIST & JSKY!

Something awesome happened to me in 2013 - I started working with a brilliant Manchester-based vocalist called Jsky. His honeyed voice reminds me of classic hosue music vocalists like Robert Owens, and he has an instinctual understanding of house music.

So I have decided to put all my musical energy on working on tracks with Jsky (though I am sure there will be some more CVNT remixes/DJ mixes/original tracks too).

Here is the first fruits of our labour, a cover of the 1987 obscure gem by Jamie Principle, produced by Frankie Knuckles, "Bad Boy". Expect a lot more from us soon...

CVNT Statement EP test pressings

Look what arrived in the post this morning:

The QWEEN BEAT interviews pt 2: BYRELL The GREAT

It's PART TWO of the CVNTY Qween Beat interviews special, and this time we catch up with the producer/beatmaker BYRELL THE GREAT, who may be relatively new but is making quite an impression. You should definitely check out his new mixtape "In Great We Tru$t Pt II: The Understanding" on vibedeck (which unfortunately I can embed here)

Who is BYRELLtheGREAT? 

BYRELLtheGREAT is the top leading DJ in the kiki ballroom scene (getting into it only a year ago) along side his Qween Beat founder MikeQ. He is also an upcoming producer in the ballroom scene as well as doing side works in the genres of Hip-Hop, Dancehall, and Trap. 

How do you describe what you do? 

What I do varies. One day you'll get a track from me that is dramatic and another day you'll get something that has more of a soft and cunt feel to it. Either way, my tunes are going to make you feel it deep down inside. 

How did you get involved with the whole ballroom scene? 

I started off doing mixes for dance groups, cheerleading squads, drag performers, artist, and many more. In mid 2012 my gay mother asked me to DJ her ball. She knew it was something I wanted to try but never had the chance to. That day started my Ballroom Dj journey. 

Earlier that year, my friend Gia said to me you should make a beat-which she gave me the concept for and all- and that day started Byrell the producer. 

And what do you think of the ballroom scene now in 2013? 

Nothing like what it used to be but still very similar. I think the elegance and grace of the performers are nothing like what it used to be. To me, the newer generations are definitely losing the art of it all. 

Can you explain for our readers the different types of "MCing" used in ballroom, and how these are different and might have developed?

The Mc'ing definitely grows and changes with the times. If you look at Paris is Burning, the MC's were more calm, and elegant on the mic's yet shady. Today the MC's are more hype and rowdy on the mic's. This changed when the voguing got more hyper/ up tempo. 

How did you arrive at your own production style? 

Well coming from an under ground dance scene where theme, and mixing music, is very big to us; I believe that helped me develop my own style but still keeping the influence of original ballroom. 

Who has been the biggest influence on you as a producer?

The music I love definitely! I always look to the things I love for inspiration. Also, Vjuan Allure is a big influence to me as far as making vogue beats. I think every ballroom producers can say they looked up to him because of the way he changed it all. 

What is your favourite production you have been involved in? 

My Vogue Workouts. When I had to set myself apart from everyone else, this was the way to do it. It's my proudest work thus far in ballroom. 

Who are your favourite ballroom MCs? 

Snookie Juicy Couture, the voice of the kiki scene. 

How did you get involved with Qween Beat? 

I had been DJ'ing balls for Twiggy Pucci and she had told MikeQ about me. As my tracks on soundcloud started building, he started to watch me and pay attention to me. And long story short here I am.  

What does Qween Beat mean to you/ how would you describe it? 

Qween Beat is what challenges me to be better. Coming from a group that has so many hot figures in the ballroom, I feel that I have to live up to that. MikeQ took a chance putting me in QB when he did because I can honestly say myself I thought I was horrible when he picked me as I look back. So I don't ever want to let him down, nor the QB legacy. I always strive to do better and better, and being here helps me do just that. 

What does the future hold for Qween Beat? 

I only see us getting bigger and better, and I think everyone can say the same. 

Can you explain for the readers what "cunt" means in ballroom? 

Cunt in the ballroom scene can be any person, place, or thing. If I see a hot shoe I might say "that's cunt" or I may walk in a cold building after coming from the heat and say "it feels cunt in here". Overall, it's a reflection of something good. 

And finally, what exactly is a "kiki house" and how does it differ from a regular house?

As far as houses, everything is the same in the kiki scene and major scene.

The difference is in the scene, not the houses. One scene is for the younger / newer / more fun generation and the other is more mainstream: it's more serious and has way bigger cash prizes.

Oh, look what I fouind on Byrell's Soundcloud page: 

 

Get that while you still can, and remember to follow Byrell on twitter at: @BYRELL_theGREAT

WHITNEY WEISS Interview

DAMN GURL. I met Whitney Weiss this summer as she was travelling and djing with with Tranarchy's good friends, the weirdo party collective CHERYL. We bonded instantly over her Ima Read hat and her love of voguing and Vogue Knights, not to mention her rock-solid set at the Islington Mill. Being a very talented DJ, Whitney spends her time travelling between New York and her home in Buenos Aires, and I was intrigued enough to get the low down on who and why she is for CVNTY:

How long have you been DJing, and how did you get started? 

I got my formal start when I was briefly living in Amsterdam in 2006, which is a long and different story. Friends of a friend owned a bar/club called Sappho, and they needed a DJ on kind of short notice. I'd been playing guitar with a band in Amsterdam at the time, and I guess my friend thought that meant I was capable of DJing. They asked me if I could and I said "yes, absolutely" even though I'd only ever messed around with friends' turntables back in the US. One of the owners loved Prince and for some reason I ended up playing a lot of Prince that night, so that made her happy enough to ask me back. I got my hands on some proper equipment so I could practice, and it all went from there. 

And how did you get into production/remixing/etc.? 

I grew up playing in bands and writing music but also listening to a lot of electronic music, so it seemed like a natural thing to do. I can play drums, bass, guitar, synth, even banjo, and with the exception of that last one, those skills are still applicable when making dance music/remixes/edits. And I love DJing, but I didn't want playing other people's music to be my stopping point or to be the only thing I do. Though obviously, it is not an easy thing to do and requires a great deal of talent. 

What's your favorite production you have worked on? 

I'm really excited about this remix I just finished for Kiddy Smile's new single, "Get Myself Alone." I did an EP with a Brazilian singer/force of nature named Sura Sepulveda for a project called Hotel Vanity, which is named after a sex hotel on the Copacabana across the street from her place. It's dance music for slutty people that exists somewhere between Prince's "Erotic City" and "Be My Lover" by La Bouche. That was a lot of fun to make and will be out soonish. 

And what's your all time top 5 tracks?

That's a tough question! My favorites for a dance floor might not necessarily be my overall favorites. A fair mix of both would be:
Be Thankful For What You Got (the William DeVaughn version) 
Sparks - Number One Song In Heaven 
Prince - Wanna Be Your Lover 
The Flirts - So Many Men, So Little Time 
And Fleetwood Mac - Dreams (the original or the Gigamesh or the Psychemagik remix, depending on the scenario, because it is a perfect song and Stevie Nicks is everything)

You spend a lot of time in Buenos Aires. How is the club scene there and what are the major differences between NY/other cities? 

I do. It's been my hometown for five years, even though I spend time in NY, too. As far as nightlife goes, I'd describe Buenos Aires as "gleefully lawless." It's more gentrified than it was five years ago, but not in the soul-killing, venue-destroying way. Which means that people can throw parties pretty much anywhere and not have to concern themselves with whether or not they're going to get shut down. The city has passed smoking bans and made it so you have to stop selling booze around 5am, and some places decide to follow those rules, but most do not. Headlining in NY, you're going to be out of the venue by 4:30, unless it's after hours. You can headline at a major venue in Buenos Aires and not start until 4am. And I love that. It's also a great place to throw parties, since it doesn't cost you a ton of money to secure a space and rent (or borrow) equipment and also be making your rent each month at the same time. I feel like my friends in NY spend a lot of time thinking about making rent and that parties have to be "commercially viable," whereas in Argentina if you called a party "commercially viable," people would look at you all confused-like. 



Is there much difference between what you play there and in NY and if so, what?

For me, the major difference is endurance, it's how I play. Buenos Aires is like Berlin in that people go out late and stay out for days. I think the average set I play in BA is four hours, and the longest was close to 13. And you know what? I really like DJing for 10+ hours. You get to be really creative and jump from genre to genre a lot more than you do during a two-hour set. Maybe you play things out that you don't often play out/haven't played out in awhile, or you test the endurance of people dancing by playing a long stretch of really frenetic songs when you know there are still six hours to go. I'm from the Danny Tenaglia school of thought; you should absolutely be capable of DJing for a long, long time. And when I'm not working and am just out dancing, I love when a DJ plays for more than six hours. 

Another thing that's different in BA, I think, is that people are hungry to experience something new when they're out, not while they're sitting in front of a computer screen at home. I remember playing a MikeQ track at Niceto, which is a huge club with a great soundsystem, and watching a packed dance floor of young Argentine gay kids just absolutely lose their minds, because it was their first time hearing something that sounded like that in a club (this was before "212" or "Ima Read" came out). It feels really great to play something for people for the first time and to experience that energy.

What took you there in the first place? 

Initially it was to escape winter and go broke at a more leisurely pace than was possible in NY. My second week there, I ended up stumbling across Kim Y Novak, which was this den of hedonism in the transsexual red light district where everyone in town went to dance and take too many drugs and stay up entirely too late. The first time I was in there, a woman who looked like Charo's grandmother was up on the stripper pole, to set the scene, and I figured that this must be a great place to DJ. I ended up getting a residency that lasted a little over a year, until the owners tried to turn the place into a sushi restaurant, which led to it finally shuttering. As that was winding down, this party called Dengue Dancing started taking off. Laura, who was doing booking for Dengue, asked me to DJ there and Lolo, one of the founders, grabbed me and shook me and offered me a residency right after I finished that first set. We had really similar taste in music, so that worked out wonderfully. So I stuck around for that, I actually didn't set foot in the States for almost three years, and then was offered the DJ residency at The Clubhouse in Buenos Aires, which is this members-only spot that's a bit like Soho House. We've had after-parties there for people like Grizzly Bear and the people in charge of The Clubhouse have been amazingly diligent about ensuring that the music meets a high standard of excellence and isn't just boring and popular, so it's been wonderful to collaborate with them.

While I was doing both of those residencies, I had a dream, like, an actual dream while asleep, that another one of the Dengue DJs, my dear friend Traviesa, and I were throwing a party called Father Figures, where we only played iconic underground arty music from before our birth dates. So I called him and said "let's throw a party together called Father Figures." And we started doing that, and it's been my absolute favorite thing in the world. We're hoping to do it in other countries next year. Father Figures happens each month I'm in BA at Sedgwick, which is a warehouse that's literally underground. It's always been free, so it's inclusive. And it's a chance to play things like actual disco or Italo disco or two hours of nothing but Patrick Cowley and Bobby O and Divine back to back and have an enthusiastic crowd of indeterminate sexual orientation that is fully committed to spending the night together there dancing in the least pretentious way possible. Which is funny, because these kids look really, really good; a crowd that good-looking in the northern hemisphere would be insufferable, but they're not in BA. When the band Poolside was in South America playing festivals, they came through Buenos Aires and guest-DJed this amazing 110bpm set of soul and funk and Grace Jones for no cover, which meant that kids who usually pay out their noses to see international talent got to come in and sweat on our dance floor and get an education in all of these artists they'd not heard played out before. That made me really happy, and it was really nice of Poolside to do, too.

Have you played in other South American cities, and if so, what has your experience of them been like?

I have, and I've found that people are generally really excited to see DJs or bands from the Northern Hemisphere play, because it costs so much damn money to get to South America if you aren't going to stay for a year or four that a lot of people can't or don't do it. If any brands or aspiring patrons of the arts want to be my sugar daddy so that we can get better up-and-coming talent down there, rather than like "the farewell tour of a metal band that really needs the money," let's talk. Same with exporting talented DJs from BA to other places for shows.



You recently played a tour of Europe - how was it?

It was wonderful. It was my first time in Manchester, and I fell in love with Islington Mill and think everything they're booking is great. I had a lovely time DJing in London and Berlin and especially in Paris, too. I liked it so much and it went well enough that I'll be back over in the fall.

Which has been your favourite club to play?

Wanderlust in Paris was a total dream. Watching people dancing next to bunnies romping in a miniature grassy knoll while the sun set over the Seine was the best. Niceto in Buenos Aires has my favorite view from the DJ booth. The Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn has the kindest sound people in the world, who do an excellent job. I got to DJ there for CHERYL, which is one of my favorite parties. The masterminds of CHERYL are some of the most creative people in all five boroughs and they're doing a great job of keeping New York fun and culturally relevant. Gong, which is practically a national landmark in Buenos Aires and has been preserved in nightlife ether since 1970, will always hold a special place in my heart because of its Soviet-issue light machine.

And your worst?

Nothing truly abysmal has happened…or I've blocked it out. There was an awkward moment in Buenos Aires when I thought I was DJing a private birthday party and it turned out to be a private birthday party slash gay orgy. I was in the library and the guests were all in another room after they mingled in the library and got food from the buffet. Every so often someone would come in and let me know that the music was good and that I wasn't done yet. That wasn't actually a bad experience, though. It was more of a surprise.

Any advice to young up and coming djs/promoters?

Just pay your dues and enjoy it.

As far as promoting goes, have good taste and deep pockets so you can compensate fairly.

Any to women in particular?

Don't let men try to show you how the mixer works when you already know how the mixer works. Become 20 percent more adept than an average male DJ, this includes knowing how to set up your equipment, so at the very least, they have to say you're as good as the guys. Take deep cleansing breaths and expect to put up with some shit, but please don't quit.
 

DJ SPRINKLES in-depth interview part 2

Here's part two of my hour-long interview with Terre Thaemlitz, aka DJ SPRINKLES, from Glasgow's Tramway Theatre earlier this year, as part of Arika Episode 5: Hidden In Plain Sight. In this section we discuss politics and the difference between activism and organisation, how Terre's rejection of the "soul" goes against notions very commonly associated with "deep house", and how being an aetheist can effect her own position within the transgender community. 

You are primarily known as a "deep house" dj and producer, and yet so many elements of that culture have to do with "spirituality", and not even a religious spirituality. In the UK, I feel, house music culture and the drugs that surrounded it was in a way a kind of secular spiritual rebirth, though it didn't have a language to express that necessarily. I find it very interesting that you are directly oppositional to that. 

I am directly oppositional to that, but I also have no hope of crowds of people overcoming those spiritual subtexts.  But the promise of overcoming is not what is important, resistance is what is important. 

But do you find that your position alienates you from certain parts of the house music genre? Are there songs you wouldn't play? 

Absolutely there are things that I won't play. But there are also things like that I will play, I just happen to like them in some way. And I will deal with them. Like "Inspiration" by Arnold Jarvis, a track that is politically antithetical to my own nihilism. But I love it! And the irony of a track like that in one of my sets is not lost on everyone. You have to allow for humour, and camp. And hypocrisy, and "the fake" and all these things that are also a part of drag culture and transgender culture... I guess for those reading this who don't know anything about me, we should mention I identify as transgender, by the way...

So do you find your nihilism puts you in opposition with members of the transgender community? 

When it comes to spirituality among trans-folk, I do think that, especially with the dominant movements of transgenderism and transsexuality, in terms of their approaches towards transitioning strategies and stuff, that they lend themselves towards metaphysical interpretations because they often rely on a perceived division between physical body and inner self, and position that division as something to be resolved or transcended. In particular, that "mental health" comes through binary gender reconciliation. And of course, if that is the dominant discourse heard from trans-support groups and medical professionals, it then makes sense that this is a belief pattern many people ideologically fall in to, and I am sympathetic to that process. At the same time, that's not everybody's position nor experience, and there are also a lot of people who are very precise about the material implications of what they are doing, and what exactly it is about gender that they are trying to culturally resist, such as from a feminist perspective within patriarchy. These kinds of approaches are usually not about reconciliation within a binary gender system. Even though this latter group may be the minority in terms of vocality, I don't care, they are who resonate with me, and those practices are what I need to focus on. And I try to do that in a way that *does* interfere, that *does* "culture jam" – not just with dominant culture and society in general, but also with dominant subcultures. With queer communities, with trans communities. And one immediately finds sexuality and gender also interact with issues of race, ethnicity, spirituality and religion, faith and also, of course, class. In the end it all boils down to poverty: who can afford transitioning procedures, who has access to health care, and what lifestyle are they putting themselves into to continue a life of debt due to body maintenance? For me these things are all intertwined, so "solidarity" means I have to find ways to deal with people who are ideologically opposed to myself. When one's own views are in the minority, you would be a fool to think that your task is to get other people to agree with you, but rather how can you continue to work productively with people despite disagreements. And certain types of non-cooperation can also be productive.

I like that way of putting it, as personally I think there's too much emphasis in atheism on making people "change their minds" rather than just learning to co-exist with different opinions 

Again, that comes down to conversion, and I believe that the widespread deprogramming and de-indoctrination of spirituality is a social impossibility, even under secular humanism, so "atheist conversion" is off the table. I don't have to worry about it. I can attempt to be as clear and concise as possible, and at the same time I can assume that language will fail, due to unfamiliarity or whatever, but that does not invalidate the necessity of the gesture. To the contrary.

That strikes me as being a minority position among atheists? 

Clearly I'm rejecting liberal humanism. I think it's much better to regard atheism as a position of self-defence amid an onslaught of indoctrinations, rather than to position it as a competing ideology. Religious people position it as a competing ideology because they cannot perceive of knowledge or learning as anything other than attempting to grab onto some "truth" floating in the ether that is put there by a divine power, blah blah blah. Everything becomes religion to them because they place the construction of knowledge itself outside the human experience. They see human experience as "trying to understand why we are here" – trying to understanding the intentions of a spirit-energy-god-moster-creator other – whereas materialists see understandings as socially contextual human constructs. So disbelieving something is not always simply substituting one belief with another. From a materialist perspective, religious or spiritual belief is off topic from the necessary discussions of the social and cultural power dynamics behind existing ideologies – religious or otherwise. Similarly, believers tend to think understanding and belief always go together. They manage to fold their disbeliefs back into their beliefs through "leaps of faith." So any actual claim of disbelief is seen as a sign of non-understanding. That's not the case. Some disbelief is a social action born in response to ideological impositions. It is a refusal to cooperate with the social systems giving rise to particular oppressive ideologies, and comes from a deep understanding of what is disbelieved. It's both sad and ironic that non-believers often have a deeper understanding of a subject than those who believe – not only of the ideologies, but of their consequences. Particularly for those of us who have arrived at non-belief as a result of violence from believers. That kind of disbelief is an action-response. Not simply an ideological response, or theoretical tit-for-tat. And our understandings are not fodder for pride. In relation to gender constructs, I think we find this combination of non-belief and deep understanding within non-essentialist transgenderism as well. And that's precisely why atheist non-belief and transgenderism are inseparable for me.

And yet this position, to me, seems very much at odds with traditional modes found within the "deep house" subculture. How do you square your own disbelief in the soul with a genre that is so tied up in ideas about the soul, about "soulful sounds", expressing your "soul" through the music and the like? 

What music could I make that doesn't demand those criteria of soul and authenticity? There is none. So that again goes back to this thing that I mentioned in the beginning, it would be a false mission if I set out to make a true "soulless" sound. I mean, what could be more soulless than the very commercial pop the majority of people inscribe with so much soul? The very idea of some sort of different, authentic language betrays the reality of how we live, subjugated within domination. Internalizing the sounds and associations of domination until we "feel" them, even "love" and take pride in them. That's why my audio often sounds the same as others, despite different intentions. The word snippets that I put into my tracks are hints of where I am coming from, but I have no hope of people on a dance floor picking this up, especially if they are high or drunk or whatever. On the floor, if there's a build up they start screaming, or if the energy goes down they wait for the next build up. So the dance floor is not the moment of organisation and information dispersal, right? That actually happens elsewhere. And that "elsewhere" is how I actually came into house music. House and deep house clubs – in particular the trans clubs in the late 80s and early 90s – these were the spaces where community based activists, mobilisers and organisers went. They were often the spaces they met before they ever became organizers. At the time I was working with a number of organisations, such as ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), Women's Health Action Mobilisation (WHAM!), and some others. And the club spaces I stepped into as a youth were politicized. For example, they were the first places to distribute condoms, or do things that were about harm reduction. So the spaces themselves were not just for relaxation, they were places for people trying to protect themselves. They also became testing grounds and templates for implementing harm reduction and educational policies elsewhere in society. So for me, clubs and house music are inherently politicised within that history. Even though most people don't want to annunciate it so bluntly. I don't know if it's because they think some romance or mystique would be lost, or if it's something people these days are just not familiar with, but for me that history and context is something that's impossible to let go of. 

I completely understand that, and I agree. However, I am part of a queer/trans* collective in Manchester called Tranarchy, and while we do do some political acts, I find the language of politics can be very alienating for people. The way I see it, I would rather DO a political act than talk about how it is political, and if people want to read the political aspect into it afterwards, then that's great. 

I think it comes down to how precise language you need, and in what spaces. If some momentum within a space – let's say a dance floor or a ballroom – facilitates a social moment that leads to something else outside the ballroom, then that becomes something that fits in to what you are talking about. But I feel it is important to distinguish between that sort of positioning of music in relation to politics as something that is a time-based and transitional thing carrying us as groups into other social actions; versus the pop culture way music is portrayed as being political, like the "fundraiser" or those kinds of things that for most people aren't rooted in any kind of political investment at all. The politics of music charity are all about feel-good consumerism without consequence. I think the thing we both seem to be interested in is how to trigger political investments, by which I mean commitments of solidarity. But I think the charity idea, or the idea of the protest song, is something that is basically institutionalised at this point, and detaches the consumer or audience from commitment. It actually becomes a cop-out to avoid political investment. This is a distinction that I think is important to make. Otherwise, people will assume that people coming together to a peace-rock-out festival is inherently political. I think it *is* inherently political, but the politics behind it is related to capitalism, and the petit bourgeois' problems, rather than other types of liberation most people imagine.  

It becomes tokenism. 

Yeah. very much. 

That's one of the fascinating thing about vogue culture to me - it doesn't have to be overtly political, because its very existence is inherently political. It's the self-organisation of a minority within a minority within a minority, and it celebrates aspects of culture rejected by society at large. 

I think it is overtly political. There is this idea that overt politics means telling people things. If you are an activist you have a bullhorn and you are shouting, when in fact the real politics of the ball scene have to do with people organising amongst each other around homelessness, addiction and poverty. Trying to deal with problems of sex work, etc. Offering protection is how many houses began. But we can't get all feel-good, because if we're honest we have to confront the fact that a lot of "protection" is also complicated by issues of "pimping." So these are things that are happening internally, but not on the activist bullhorn. Shame and fronting one's class are definitely at play here, but I think things are not off-horn just to hide them. Within a violently transphobic and homophobic world, it's more from the point of view of "who the fuck are you that you need to know my business?" So I think it is a really important thing to get away from this stereotypical model of politics as being activists with bullhorns. But also not to retreat into feel-good "political art" vagary, where "personal feeling" and "dance performance" or throwing a party are seen as in-and-of-themselves "politically enough." That danger is there, especially within music scenes that push people to just go with their feelings, "Love is the Cure," etc. Going with essentialist feelings is what keeps us in a lot of these social messes, particularly around gender and sexual binaries. All too often the results of our "activism" are "happenings" devoid of organising. I think the Vogueology project, and Ultra-Red too, are trying to help people distinguish between political organisation, and political activism. They way I see it, activism is more about the strategic, situational amplification of an ideological message, whereas organisation is more focussed on social responses to crises. Those social responses, through their practices and protocols, ultimately contribute to the construction of ideologies, which in an activist moment can be strategically deployed as an informational bullet. But organising is putting out fires. Activism is the sounding of an alarm. So it's important to distinguish between activism and organising, if that makes sense.

The QWEEN BEAT interviews pt 1: BEEK

QWEEN BEAT is the ballroom production family headed up by Mike Q, and featuring some of the most talented young producers/MCs in vogue life. Some of these folks I have wanted to cover here on CVNTY for a while, so I have decided to do a QWEEN BEAT special series, featuring interviews with three of my favourite artists from that camp. 

Kicking things off it's Anthonyy "BEEK" Badon, a young MC/producer beginning to make serious waves with his tracks and mixes. A supporter of CVNT Traxxx since the very beginning, it seems only right to start off this series of interviews with BEEK, and to showcase his mixtape for Brother Sister Records, which features the best of his own producitons and remixes.

Who is Beek?

Beek is a Southern-Raised, Loud-Mouthed, Know-It-All who is always in some type of mess. Beek gets away with most things that I, Anthonyy, can't.

How do you describe what you do? 

I would describe what I do as an “eargasmic experience.”

How did you get involved with the whole ballroom scene? 

Honestly, just like many other people, YouTube! I started watching clips on YouTube and pretty much fell in love with it.

And what do you think of the ballroom scene now in 2013? 

I think it's going just a strong as before.
 
Can you explain for our readers the different types of "MCing" (commentating, chanting, etc) used in ballroom, and how these are different and might have developed? 

Commentating and Chanting are basically the same things. The Commentator is the MC who does the chanting. Chanting is repeating a short set of words.

How did you arrive at your own, quite unique, style? Both in terms of production and vocally? 

Well, I've always had my own personal way of writing and producing my music. But starting out I was afraid of how the world would perceive it. So I listened to other artist's music and mimicked their kick patterns and such. After a while people started comparing Divoli S'vere & I's style, and said we were “too similar.” That was when I knew I had to change it up and be myself.

What is your favourite production you have been involved in? 

My fav production has to be working with Sugur Shane on “Ckuntie”. 

Who are your favourite ballroom MC? 

My Fav is of course: B. Ames, I don't know if she is even considered an MC or not. We'll just call her a vocalist.

How did you get involved with Qween Beat? 

Well, I didn't really know exactly what Qween Beat was before I met my good friend B. Ames. After I started making ballroom tracks for fun he told me about the group of talented ballroom producers that he was apart of and helped me prepare my first mixtape to send to over to MikeQ.

What does Qween Beat mean to you/ how would you describe it? 

I would say Qween Beat is like a family. A family built of different people, from different parts of the globe brought together by their love for fabulous music.

What does the future hold for Qween Beat? 

I see a successful future for Qween Beat. Once everything is right and the ball starts rolling there's no stopping it.
 
Can you explain for the readers what "cunt" means in ballroom? 

“Cunt” is a mindset, a feeling. A feeling of empowerment!

BEEK's mix for Brother Sister Records.



1. Beek - Pulse (Witch Dokter Stomp Remix)
2. Kimbra - Settle Down (Beek Remix)
3. B. Ames - Like, Really Cunt (B. Ames Jersey Club Remix)
4. Beek - Blow Ya Smoke (Higher)
5. French Fries - Yo Vogue (Beek Remix)
6. Beek - Boom-Chiki-Boom (ft. Buddah)
7. Beek - JNGLFeevah 8. Beek - Feel It! [UNRELEASED EXCLUSIVE]
9. Beek - Like This, Like That
10. Beyonce/Kelis - The Naughty Milkshake (A Beek Mix)
11. Britney Spears - Toxic [UNRELEASED EXCLUSIVE]
11. Beyonce - End Of Time (Beek Remix) [EXTENDED VERSION]
12. Beek - Ckuntie (ft. Sugur Shane)
13. Beek x Divoli - Give It To Me Pt. 1
14. $1 Bin x Kilbourne - Hey Hoe (Beek Remix)

POISONOUS RELATIONSHIP Nite Brids (MIKE Q Remix)

NIIIICE remix by Mike Q, available as a free download:

DJ SPRINKLES in-depth interview, part 1

Is house music really a "feeling"? What exactly are we keeping "real"? How do we define notions of the "authentic" in this cut-and-paste, electronic-information age, and, just as importantly, how do we pick those notions apart again? And anyway, who says an "album" can't be more than a day long?

This was one of the many unexpected directions that my interview with Terre Thaemlitz, aka DJ SPRINKLES, took when we sat down back in May at Glasgow's Tramway theatre. I was in town to review Arika's Episode 5: Hidden in Plain Sight, and to interview some of the weekend-long festival's performers, including Sprinkles. As this was a voguing event, I assumed our conversation would primarily be focused on dance music and gender/presentation. But I was pleasantly blown away by Terre's unique outlook and the explanation of the different philosophies that surround it.

We spoke for almost an hour, and what you read below is only the first 20 minutes of our conversation. So, yes, this interview is definitely what you would call "epic". We did talk about gender, dancing and vogue too, and I will be uploading the rest of this on CVNTY over the next few weeks, presented with as little editing as possible, besides some slight revisions made by Terre.

So how did you come to be involved in Arika and the Hidden In Plain Sight project?

I am here under two different aliases. One is Terre Thaemlitz, which is my legal name. On Saturday I am doing a lecture as Terre, and then in the evening a concert with video performance, all based around a project which is called "Soulessness". And then tonight, as DJ Sprinkles, I am djing at a club called Stereo. I'm doing the warm-up set for Vjuan Allure.

Do you know Vjuan?

No I don't know Vjuan, I have to confess ignorance 'cos I am so out of touch with the new school scene, and also I left New York in '97. For the last 12 years I have been living in Japan, so I am quite removed form a lot of western references in general. I am happy to meet people though, because of this whole Ney York revival of the scene, and Michael and the people doing the Vogueology project. It's exciting for me.

I have to admit, the line-up for HIdden In Plain Sight, and tonight's gig at Stereo, is very impressive. I'm always a bit sceptical when I see artists or groups appropriating vogue culture, but Arika definitely seem to be doing it well.

I think Arika are interested in having it connect to the people who come to their usual shows. One of the connections that has come up, in a few of their episodes, is the history of Glasgow in connection to the slave trade and how that connects to African American culture. So I think that is part, on a material history level, of trying to see these traces. But it's also one of these things where it takes a weird international meeting in Glasgow for us to meet each other.

Can you explain to me what your talk/presentation and show tomorrow are going to be about? 

What I am doing tomorrow is a project called "Soulessness", which I have billed as the world's first full length MP3 album. The format is a 16Gb micro SD card that has over 32 hours of music, 165 pages of pdf text and images, and then 80 minutes of video. The text and video are also translated into 10 different languages. The idea is that the centrepiece is a 29 hour and 40 minute MP3 file that is just under 4 Gb, which is the maximum file limitation size under fat32 requirements, and that is how I came to define how long an MP3 album would be. So the theme of that particular piece, which is called "Meditation On Wage Labour and the Death of the Album", is about how, with the transition from album to CD, and then from CD to MP3 (where we have the CD plus digital exclusive downloads, etc) and then the press demanding online mixes and stuff, basically as producers we have been conditioned to produce more and more content over the years. At the same time the labels are playing lower royalties and advances, etc. and this, for me, represents a labour crisis.

So I wanted to do a piece about this crisis of the ever expanding definition of what the album is, based on media format duration. Because these days we tend to think of the album as a conceptual framework, but actually concept of "the album" was first defined by vinyl playback duration, where you can have up to 18 minutes of audio per side before introducing notable sound degradation. Before the CD, vinyl albums were 36 minutes to 40 minutes. The CD album went up to 74 (then 78 and 80) minutes. So that 30 hour, 4GB MP3 file is Soulnessless' audio centrepiece, and it's accompanied by a text on the themes of meditation, wage labour and the death of the album. It's thinking about how materialist practices and analyses are burdened by always using language that is in servitude to, and created by, dominant cultures - which are almost always in service to the right. So the language we are left with to construct our critical analyses is contaminated in this way. The piano recording itself was done in sessions of about 8 hours each, and one of the underlying questions to the sessions was, "can this meditation be on material practice rather than on something spiritual?"

So that is Canto V, but my performance tomorrow night is actually focussing on Cantos I-IV. They also try to investigate and deconstruct spirituality. Or to put it more precisely, it's a rejection of spirituality within audio production, and how that also collides with issues of gender within audio production. So some pieces pursue transgendered issues, as well as electronic music production's relation to gender (because it is typically so male dominated). For example, there is one Canto called "Pink Sisters" in which I attempt to identify unmapped or unconsidered locations where these issues of gender, spirituality and electronic music collide - and that quest led me to interview nuns about  their use of electronic audio equipment: microphones, amplifiers, electronic keyboards, etc. But of course, even in their extremely "alternative" and off-radar activities, the nuns are not necessarily "inspiring" or "different." Their aesthetics are clearly inflected with standard music rhetoric of "soul" and spirituality, and that rhetoric actually defines their conservatism. My intention was not only to document the nuns, but to draw parallels between their activities and the activities of most "alternative" and off-radar experimental electronic music producers. For me, the disappointments and problems raised by "experimental" and academic computer music producers are often quite similar to those of the nuns.

What do you mean by a "rejection of spirituality"?

Well, I am coming from a very atheistic and also anti-spiritual and anti-religious position. At the same time, the way I look at atheism is not in this kind of trendy way where it's about, you know, educating people to figure out it's bullshit or whatever. It's more out of a position of hopelessness, where I really do believe atheism can never be a populist movement because people are too stupid.

I believe that, even if we get rid of religious organisations, we are still trapped by spiritual dogma and superstition. And even within the whole rhetoric of western humanism where, even if you step out of the religious realm, you still have a monotheistic notion of the shared human experience that underlies humanity itself.

So, from my stance, atheism is simply a means of resisting and deprogramming amidst a hopeless situation. House music is always classified as being "spiritual", and as a house producer, I'm someone who buys and listens to a lot of music that is produced with those intentions and overtones, and of course the different club scenes themselves use this rhetoric of soul and spirit. But, as atheists, similarly as queers or trans people, we build unintended relationships to dominant media. Vogue is an ideal metaphor for what I am talking about - it's not even a metaphor, it's action! So for me, rather than trying to invent a new language to discuss this, it's more about how has the history of resistance against religion, of resistance against spirituality, etc, how has it manifested itself within the limitations and context of dominant linguistic and audio formats? That goes back to the 29 hour piano piece that takes the idea of meditation as deep thought on something that could be about material process or labour. Getting away from the idea of the authentic, from the idea of doing something new. Getting away form the idea of inventing a new sound or a language that would be ideal, or whatever. Of course, my rejection of authenticity and naming puts me at odds with certain aspects of the vogue scene which is about acknowledgement and branding, but that's also part of the hypocrisy of life.

There must be conflict between your outlook and most house producers?

Sure, and not only house producers; for example, tonight I am djing house music, but tomorrow night is not house music. The Soullessness thing is not house, it's more in the realm of ambient, computer music, so the conflict is with other types of producers as well. So of course there is a lot of resistance, even to the idea that producers should be able to verbalise and think and express what their intentions are. Because how many people, just like in the visual arts, back away and say "I just want the song to speak for itself" or…

"house music is a feeling"

...yeah, and I guess for me "feeling" is also something that is suspect, because we are conditioned to feel our genders are natural, for example, or our sexualities are natural. I think most people these days would identify with that. If you asked if they feel they were born male or female, most people would say one or the other, yes. If you asked people if they felt they were born heterosexual, or born homosexual, most people within those two options, would say yes. So feeling, that house "feeling" is also something that is suspect, when positioned in relation to queer cultures or trans cultures. and that is something I am interested in speaking about generally and creating discourse about.

But again, it's not about the idea that this is a completely new and unheard of discussion in need of a new language, or that what I'm talking about is some sort of surprise. It is more like, "how have these discussions existed historically, and in what ways and forms, through appropriations of dominant cultural languages and other familiar representational processes?" Which is not so dissimilar to how voguing appropriates imagery from dominant western cultures.

How did you come to reject spirituality, personally? Is it a deliberate rejection, a decision you have made?

For me it is a decision, and I think it is better when it can be a decision, as opposed to something that is done with ambivalence, trying to ignore the problem in the hope that it will go away. Being decisive and thinking about organisational strategy is something I am interested in. And I also think it's something a lot of the people with Vogueology, Michael Roberson, Father of the House of Garcon etc, are very interested in the idea of organising. And this is not simply to do with an exercise in analysis, it has to do with communal organising of resistance to dominations. I know it's tragic, but there was a murder of a trans woman in New York last week and Michael is actually in the process of organising the memorial right now, here in Scotland. So there's these really upsetting subtexts to the issue of organising too.

OH YOKO "Seashore (Sprinkles' Ambient Ballroom Mix)"

LOUIE BALO (Ride Committee/Tribal Recs) interview for Faith Mag

One of my fave 90s drag house acts, Roxy & Ride Committee, are back with a new single released on Batty Bass. I was asked by Hannah Holland, of Batty Bass, to interview the duo's producer Louie Balo for Faith zine in London. How could I say no?!  

It goes without saying that I love house music. The rhythm, the sounds, the energy, the emotions, everything about it. I love house so much, you can even find me grooving to the background music in a Clairol advert. Sometimes. But beyond what we perceive as being the main tenets of house music, one of the reasons I love it so much that it has validated gay and queer identities in the public consciousness. For real. It may seem outlandish to some, but I am convinced that being shouted at, and sung to, by various drag queens and obviously “queer” vocalists throughout the Nineties is partly responsible for the recent Marriage Equality Bill that passed in the UK (where many of these songs were regularly in the charts).

One of my all-time favourite draggy house vocalists is Roxy, best known for tracks like “Get Huh” and “Accident” with the Ride Committee, released on the legendary Tribal label in the mid 90s. So it came as a very pleasant surprise to find out that the next release in the Batty Bass’ “NY Series” label would be the return of Ride Committee ft Roxy, with the pumping “Guess Who”. It kinda makes sense though, what with 90s house sounds being back in vogue (literally) and also with New York’s current “gay revival” and the re-queering of house music in general. With all that in mind, and also wanting to get the low down on the current NY club scene, the legendary Tribal label, Ms Roxy herself and the Ride Committee’s comeback, I reached out to the man behind the act, DJ/producer Louie Balo, who was kind enough to answer my barrage of questions:

How did you get into djing?

I started djing around the age of 12. My dad owned a social club, and had two complete different stereos, and I would not allow the music to stop. I didn’t even use a mixer, ha ha, and I remember that one set of the speakers on one of the hi-fi stereos sounded better than the other. It was spanish music, but eventually it moved into 80′s r&b, dance, party music, etc… When I finally got two turntables (with a mixer) and a mic, it was popping.

How did you get into music production?

As many dj’s do, I wanted to transition from playing other people’s music to playing my own. So I bought a keyboard, synths, and a drum machine.

What do you use to produce now, and how is that different from what you started producing music on?

Read the rest here, inc questions about the NY scene, Tribal records and Ms Roxy herself...

My personal fave: Roxy & Ride Committee "Accident"

TERRY FARLEY exclusive interview

British house producers/DJs don't come more legendary than Terry Farley, acid house stalwart, original Junior Boys Own alum and one half of production duo Fire Island (not to mention many, many more). With the recent release of the exhaustive, 5 CD "Acid Rain" compilation on Harmless, I sent Terry some questions about acid, house music and the current UK club scene to twist his melon round: 

This compilation is pretty exhaustive! How long did it take to put together, and was there any criteria (beyond "original acid and deep house") for the selection?

It's taken about 9 months from myself chucking lists of records across to the label, me asking Miles Simpson about any tracks he would like to see released that i missed, and then getting knocked back from just about every crazy American producer and label from the 80s and having to start all over again.

Was there anything you wanted on there that you weren't able to get?

Loads - i wanted a few DJ International tracks but they were in dispute with the publishers. We wanted some Gherkin tracks, especially Mondee Oliver, but we chased that cat all over Ohio via contacts in the States and still could not find the label owner. Then there was a couple of Dance Mania tracks but Ray Barney has started to repress Dance Mania so that was out ...  Lil Louis wanted to keep all his shit for a film he's bringing out this year… Those Chicago guys are a nightmare.

Acid house had a huge impact on UK clubbing when it emerged in the 80s. Were you directly affected by this, and if so, how?

I got dragged along to Shoom by Gary Haisman, an old 70s dancing spar of mine (he made that D Mob "ACCCIIIED" track) and immediately I knew this concoction of music, dancing, drugs, clothes and attitude was going to change everything. People said 'Dont tell anyone about this' and 'Look keep it a secret '. Of course, exactly the opposite happened and we became disciples. Monday night at Spectrum went from 110 people on the first night to 2,500 inside and a thousand locked out within 6 weeks .

And how do you see the club scene in this country has changed in the 25 years since the original Summer Of Love? Do you think we could do with another Summer Of Love?

We could do with the ordinary punters realising that there role is just as important as the DJ. Kids in the main rock up in t-shirts and jeans, stand at face the DJ and shuffle about a bit. They need to realise THEY are the stars and the important ones not the girl or guy playing the music. I read once that Frankie Knuckles said the centre of the party should not be the dJ booth but the middle of the dancefoor, and I'm 100% behind that idea.

For myself as a DJ I always get pushed a little harder by a crowd who look like they have made a effort, who know what there role is for the night, who understand their importance. The times I've played at the Dalston Superstore i felt this, it's a lovely pressure that makes a DJ play better. You don't get people gawping towards the dj there as they are to busy dancing and checking out how fabulous everyone looks.

Similarly "deep house" has come to mean something different now to what it did then. How do you personally define "deep house" and do you have any gripes with what passes for "deep house" in 2013?

Deep House is a form of African-American music that stirs your soul and makes you wanna close your eyes and raise your hands. The download sites realised that tech house was on its arse so rebranded tech house as Deep House and most people it seems fell for that shit. The Deep House template to me is Ten City 'Love Will Find A Way'. Anything that matches up to that gets my vote and my attention and my dollars.

What do you think of the modern music coming out of the black/gay undergrounds in the States, stuff like footwork/juke and ballroom/Jersey Club?

Mike Q and all those guys? I think its something I would need to experience personally rather than by a YouTube clip to fully appreciate. I admire the dancing and walking styles but the music itself seems a bit crazy for a old timer like myself.

Do you think house music will ever again be a global movement/force like it was in the 80s and 90s?

I think it is…  think of DJ's like Jamie Jones, Villalobos, Troxler - they are playing to big crowds on every continent and kids are suddenly getting back in House music , even my show tune lovin 17 year old has started to appreciate the values of a good Moog baseline!

The comp is strictlly US-focussed, but what are your 3 favourite acid house productions form the UK, and why?

PAUL RUTHERFORD - GET REAL  

When Paul showed up at Shoom everyone was in awe of him being such a major face but he quickly became everyones friend and very much part of the family . Its such a amazing record that twists and turn emotionally as well as being a straight up jacker.

JOLLY ROGER - ACID MAN

One record you heard at every warehouse, every club or every party. Intense track that always worked best with strawberry flavoured smoke.

BANG THE PARTY - RELEASE THE ACID

My all time fave UK House record is the A side to this 'Release Your Body '. Produced by Kid Batchelor and his confusion Crew, they were House musics version of Soul 2 soul.
    ◦  
What do you think it is about the acid sound that is still so appealing?

It's druggy, intense, it evokes memories of memorable nights and long lost friends… And it's also a bit scary.

Name one acid record you really HATE and why?

Oh there are far to many, in fact I'd say I actually only love about 5% of all the Acid records ever made simply because to get it right is quite a hard task. You need the actual machine itself not some lame plug in, and the bassline you programme needs to be perfect.
Everyone thinks they can do an Acid track easily, that's why there have been so many made and most of 'em tragic. But when it's done correctly you get an 'Acid Over ' or an 'Acid Life' and then it all makes sense again.

CVNT Mix for Bottom Forty

I've just done a new podcast mix for the wonderful US website Bottom Forty.

It's a bit more housey/four-four than my usual ballroom/Jersey fare, but it still has an edge of high camp for voguing your ass off to. there's also a few exclusives in there, like the collab between Terry Farley and Horse Meat Disco's Severino, and an as-yet unreleased Hard Ton gem. Also big up to Paul Knight for the Malcolm McLaren/Willi Ninja track that kicks everything off:




MALCOLM McLAREN & BOOTZILLA ORCHESTRA "Opulence/You Own Everything" MATRIXXMAN & MYKKI BLANCO "God Created The Beat"
TRONCO TRAXX "Runway As A House"
FARLEY & SEVE ft Paul Alexander & Franklin Fuertes "Diva Snap (DJ Sneak Mix)"
UP YOURS "London (Ralphi Rosario Dub)
JOSH CAFFE & HOLLAGRAM "Play With The Maid"
YNFYNYT SCROLL "Brand New Pussy"
ARMAND VAN HELDEN "Work Me 96"
UNKNOWN "Callas"
DJ HAUS & MATRIXXMAN "Feel It"
CVNT "Wicked Beauty"
HARD TON "Off The Wall"

Check out my wee interview for Bottom Forty here. 

BOK BOK [Night Slugs/Rinse FM] interview

When I was researching my "Welcome To The Ballroom" aricle last year, when it was still a freelance piece getting shopped around, one of the first people I reached out to was the UK DJ, and head of the ace label Night Slugs, BOK BOK, aka Alex Sushon. Because of Alex's initial comments about cultural misappropriation, I decided to redraft the whole piece, and to do it as a very straight-faced look at ballroom culture, giving this unique scene the serious recognition it deserves. 

So, even though I didn't end up using his comments in the end, they were hugely influential on the finished article. 

I caught up with Bok Bok last week to ask him some more questions about his label, their recent US tour, and the expansion of the ballroom sound:

How was the recent Night Slugs tour of the States?

Great, thank you. The Night Slugs and Fade To Mind crews played a lot including a lot of back-to-back lineups mixing up the two crews. The synergy was felt by all.

Ballroom seems like a big part of the NS sound now, how did the US crowds react to that?

The sound makes the most sense over in the US, so yeah people tended to react pretty well. Certain tracks from the ballroom scene just tend to work really well in clubs in general, so people usually react pretty well to them, and theres a lot of influence from ballroom in our stuff too, so it all crosses over. And MikeQ was with us DJing on this tour, so bounaries have become more blurred. 

 

Did you see ballroom culture being approariated by more mainstream clubs while you were there?

I wasn't playing in massive clubs, so I'm not sure really. People dance and have fun at the nights I play, I have seen people voguing at the nights before in New York, for example, but whether that's appropriated or perpetuated culture is unclear and not that important when they're in a club dancing.

What is the attraction to the ballroom sound for you?

For me the sound really nails everything I love in club music - it's minimalist and devastating, it's an extremity of house so of course I'm gonna love it. 

 

Beyond ballroom, what is floating your boat right now? 

I've been locked away in my internet-less vault of a studio so I'm not sure what's going on in the outside world lately. Not to seem self-aborbed, but one thing that's doing it for me is our sub-label Club Constructions. There was a set of guidelines that was set out when we started it, and now the sound has really come into its own. It's amazing to watch the series develop. There's a definitely a Jersey Club and ballroom influence running through the series lately, especially with the forthcoming Jam City one. 

 

Who are your current favourite producers? 

Current top producers off the top of my head: Deamonds, Helix, Jam City, Neana, Rushmore, Divoli S'Vere, Beek, Tom Trago, Hysterics. Fiedel is killin it. 

What's up next for Bok Bok, and also for Night Sugs? 

 

Stuff coming on Night Slugs; a new Egyptrixx LP, a new Jam City release (an EP called "Jazz"), a new Girl Unit release, and loads more Club Constructions stuff etc etc 

 

Stuff coming from Bok Bok: a new EP on Night Slugs. hopefully before the end of the year is out!

A series of 12"s culminating in 'Night Voyage Tool Kit 2' with Tom Trago, and a subsequent compilation of stuff on Night Voyage. And watch out for my productions on the forthcoming Kelela mixtape on Fade To Mind also : )

BONUS

Here's some of the initial Bok Bok interview mentioned above that went on to shape the direction of the finished "Welcome To The Ballroom" piece": 
 What is "ballroom"? How do you define it?

To me, ballroom is a style of music influenced heavily by House and Club (Bmore, Jersey, Philly), made primarily to be a soundtrack to  voguing events. There are also House tracks that aren't ballroom per se but are a staple of these events. People like Robbie Tronco were doing the a prototype of that sound years ago, but in my eyes its Vjuan Allure who pioneered the current hard, stripped back sound that replies on sampling "The Ha Dance".

  

It's not enough to simply sample "The Ha Dance" though. There are a ton of tracks that do that that aren't anything to do with ballroom. The truth is, a ballroom track will simply have the right feel, whether it can be performed to or not is in its vibe and how its put together.  It's a little bit intangible, I'm also not fully qualified to make the call being a DJ not a dancer! But a lot of the stuff being made currently that's influended by the ballroom scene I can confidently say wouldn't work in that context. 

 

How did you discover this scene/music? 

I discovered the scene through Kingdom years and years ago, when he showed me Mike Q's music, and I remember thinking it sounded a bit like the harder more stripped down UK funky that was happening at the time, and also like Club, and also even occasionally like grime! It was tracky, stripped down, raw. I was addicted straight away. 

What are your top 3 ballroom tracks?

My top 3? It's really really difficult because the tracks are really great in their multiplicity. 

Current off the top of my head top 3:

Vjuan Allure - Silo Pass remix

Mike Q & Kevin JZ Prodigy - I Feel Like

Mike Q & DJ Sliink - The Bitch

LADY BUNNY Take Me Up High

Loving this feeling! Awesome old school diva house/garage vibes from the legendary drag goddess Lady Bunny - if you dug the Hard Ton tune below, you will love this:


Lady Bunny is a class act - she uses her position as a well known drag performer to speak out against all kinds of social injustice, and with a large dollop of righteous anger. She doesn't take any bullshit! If you don't follow her on Facebook or Twitter, then DO IT. NOW!

HARD TON interviewed by me for Dangerous Minds

Meet Hard Ton, the disco love-child of Divine, Sylvester & Leigh Bower: originally published on Dangerous Minds. 

Ladies and gentlemen, all the way from disco-licious Italy, let me introduce you to the wonderful Hard Ton!

This Italian house music performer comes across like the bastard offspring of Divine and Sylvester (and with more than a little Leigh Bowery to satisfy your outlandish-costume-and-make-up needs.) Hard Ton makes a righteous, soulful noise that harks back to the original pioneers of sleazy, seedy Chicago house like Mr Fingers and Robert Owens. In a sea of anonymous dance-music acts that seem happy to bask in the hazy glow of their battered MacBooks, Hard Ton stands out not just for making authentically retro-sounding house, but for making a huge visual statement that reminds us that house was once the realm of the weirdos and the outcasts.

Hard Ton is actually a duo composed of Mauro Wawashi, a formidable producer and DJ in his own right, and vocalist/front person Max, here taking a break from his day job in various metal tribute acts to channel his inner disco diva, including wrapping himself up in the kind of glad rags that would make a hooker blush. Being quite the big guy, this in itself is a bit of a statement, and a beautiful act of plus-size body positivity. Not surprisingly, Hard Ton are fast gaining a hardcore following among the gay bear community.

To my shame, I have known Hard Ton for quite a while now (we even shared a label, Dissident, a few years back) but have failed to feature them on Dangerous Minds before. Let’s remedy that right away! With a new EP to promote and a current tour of the States for Pride season, I sent the formidable Max some questions to wrap his tongue, and brain, around.

Who and what is Hard Ton?

A multi-sensorial experience: you can dance to me, you can watch me, you can touch me. Sometimes you can also bite me.

What inspires you musically?

Acid house, disco music, pop. But I suppose I got inspired from everything I ear, it could be a techno track in an underground club, a metal song in a concert, or the shit played on the radio. Outside of music I find inspiration in pop culture, club culture, photography, fashion and art. Well, some fashion and some art. And definitely all the queens who stood up against the police at Stonewall back in 1969! 

What can someone expect form a Hard Ton show?

A ton of meat screaming like a real diva. 
What is the strangest reaction you have had live?

A guy kissed me in front of his girlfriend while I was singing, and I’m not talking about that kind of kiss that your mama would give you…

What is in the near future for Hard Ton?

Our new E.P. has just been released [via Killekill Records - check it out here], and we are very proud of it. We’ve also just finished a remix for S’Express, and produced some tracks for Paul Parker. And of course we are working on new tracks. As for an album… is there really anyone who still buys CDs? Well, I do! 

Hard Ton “Work That Body”



You can find Hard Ton on Facebook, and keep up with the latest news via Hard Ton’s Twitter.

BYRELL THE GREAT Bounce Little Kitty

Kiri Kiri Kiri Kiri

DJ HAUS Cold As Ice [free download]

Love this - great mix of Bmore, breaks and house, very much in a CVNT style:

GREG WILSON "How House Music really hit the UK"

Great article by Greg Wilson about the white-washing of House music’s roots in the UK, and how that relates to the “no-shuffling" discrimination of certain modern dancefloors. Personally, I think there’s a lot of str8-washing in the “accepted history" Greg is railing against too, but race is the very deserving focus of this excellent piece:

During recent times I’ve been intrigued to hear about the growing schism on the House scene here in the UK, brought about by the introduction, primarily by young black dancers, of ‘foot shuffling’ (aka ‘cutting shapes’), an increasingly popular style of dancing that has been met with much hostility in certain quarters, and, somewhat bizarrely, resulted in shufflers being banned from some clubs for dancing in this way. The accusation is that not only do they take up too much dancefloor space, but there’s a general ‘moodiness’ with regards to their attitude. Although it no longer seems to be online, there was even an ‘Anti Foot Shuffling Campaign’ page on Facebook, with some of the posts suggesting underlying issues of racism. As one person commented, “It's not that all these people on here hate shufflers, they just don't like fact that black people are into House music now.” Although this comment may be well intentioned, it’s also somewhat misguided given there are, and always have been, plenty of black people in the UK who are big into House – it’s just that their presence is usually to be found away from the mainstream, in more specialist avenues like the Deep and Soulful House scenes. Furthermore, some of the older black crowd are also resistant to this new wave of shuffling, so to present it as a purely black / white issue would be wrong.

That said, what’s clear from this whole kerfuffle is that there are a significant amount of mainly white enthusiasts on the scene today who seem to segregate House as somehow belonging to them, whilst suggesting the black crowd should stick to ‘their own music’, the likes of Grime, Hip Hop, R&B and other more ‘urban’ genres. This is all despite the fact that House, as anyone with even a basic awareness of its origins would tell you, was born within Chicago’s black clubbing community back in the mid-80’s.

The 25th anniversary of the Acid House ‘Second Summer Of Love’ is upon us (the original ‘Summer Of Love’, of course, being way back in psychedelic ’67, emanating from the Hippie movement of San Francisco). It’s remarkable that House music has been the main staple of British dancefloors for a colossal quarter of a century, the original ‘ravers’ now middle-aged. Yet despite its importance to this country’s popular culture, its true roots have never been fully acknowledged. In fact, if you told many of those on the House scene today that it was mainly black kids in the UK who first embraced the music, they’d no doubt look at you incredulously, for everybody knows that Ibiza ’87 was year zero, as this is how the story has, and continues to be told – the true origins in the relatively grim cities of the North and Midlands buried deep beneath the sun-drenched romance of the White Isle.

What’s even more remarkable is that the original style of dancing to House music in this country, before the hands in the air approach of the Rave era, was uncannily similar to shuffling, as illustrated by this now historic video, recorded at the Moss Side Community Centre in Manchester on September 27th 1986:

Read the full article here on Greg's blog.

MIKE Q & ROMANTHONY "Get Sum"

Via Fact mag

Exciting news: audio of a collaboration between ballroom producer MikeQ and iconic house singer Romanthony, who died earlier this year, has emerged. 

Romanthony is best known as the voice of Daft Punk’s ‘One More Time’, but the New Jersey artist’s career goes far beyond that: he released several albums in the 1990s, and released solo records for Roule and more. In his later years he collaborated with Teengirl Fantasy, on their album Tracer, and had been working with Boyz Noize and MikeQ before his death in May.

You can now hear audio of MikeQ and Romanthony’s ‘Get Sum’ – it’s the first track on L-Vis 1990′s mix for The Fader, which also features new material from Bok Bok, Kelela and more. You can stream the mix below, and check out L-Vis’s FACT mix from earlier this year here.

BRENMAR & DJ FADE "Outta Sight"

HEAVY HEAVY BUSINESS