Jonty Skrufff's Blog

This weekend we’re back again at Secret Island Festival for another four day fest of outdoors techno goodness (and incredible freshly caught shrimp and salmon sashimi).

Click HERE to listen to a special ambient set I’ve done including classics from the likes of Sven Vath, Aphex Twin, and Tangerine Dream alongside new ones from Adam Beyer, Black Dog and more.

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Technasia: Wake Up People, Techno Has Nearly Died!

Rainer Weichhold (Great Stuff): I Completely Disagree

Dave Clarke: Techno Needs to Leave Space Ships and Aliens Behind

Louis Osbourne: Fuck the Genres

Luis Junior: Writing Music Shouldn’t Be a Job

Mugwump: Dull DJs Play Dull Music in Every Scene

Rainer Weichhold

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Last week Kiran Sande, deputy editor of leading British music magazine Fact, published a pointed polemic slating the unoriginality of much of today’s techno (see below). This week we asked some of the techno scene’s leading lights, namely Dave Clarke, Technasia, Rainer Weichhold from Great Stuff, Louis Osbourne (Miji) Geoffroy Mugwump and Luis Junior (Bedrock), what they thought . . . .

Kiran Sande:  “Techno has for too long clung to its self-mythology: the unshakable idea that it’s a vanguard music, that it’s still some kind of future-rushing phenomenon. In the past half-decade the hollowness of that claim has become increasingly obvious. Techno today feels like a nostalgia industry, fixated on its own past, and all too eager to operate within established boundaries, not to break any rules. A once fluid and revolutionary sound has become – in the main – polite, toothless, interminably dull.”

(FACT magazine article in full)

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American techno rocker Bryan Black from Motor revealed a peculiarly English obsession with the weather this week, via a series of Twitter posts in which he complained about both rain and sun.

“The weatherman is smoking crack again, it’s not supposed to rain today,” he grumbled last Thursday from New York, switching tack when he arrived in Europe several days later.

“One of the downfalls of being white (besides not being able to “jump”) is getting roasted like a lobster in the sun,” he moaned, “Now back to vampire mode.”

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His ‘something of the night’ stance struck a chord with equally sinisterly named studio sort Kris Menace who chatting to Skrufff last month confessed ‘I don’t’ like the sun, even if I like to feel it, I cant stand being in the sun for too long.”

Kris also recalled being ridiculed after falling asleep on the beach once in shade which disappeared as the sun rose.

“I was burned all over and looked like a lobster,” he sighed “Everybody named me Mr Lobster after that”.

In more sun tan/ lobster related news, the Guardian published their annual ‘summer holiday survival guide this week, including specific advice on tackling the ‘sun cream dilemma’:  how to politely refuse to apply sun cream on the backs of ‘sweaty, hairy and occasionally scaly friends and relatives’.

“Your best bet is to avoid the issue by running off into the sea,” the newspaper recommended.

The Guardian’s summer holiday survivor’s guide: learning languages: ‘Why get people’s hopes up? Better to open with the apology, conduct the conversation in English and then surprise them at the end by attempting to say their versions of thanks and goodbye. Like in The Great Escape . . .’

The Great Escape trailer

Jonty Skrufff

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Made To Play main-man Jesse Rose has reacted angrily after a number of leading dance music portals misinterpreted his announcement that he was planning no promo for new spin off label Play It Down to mean he was ‘fighting piracy.’

Sites including Australia’s Inthemix and London’s Datatransmission and several others emphasised the piracy angle which Jesse told Skrufff was totally false.

“I’m really happy you contacted me first, unlike anyone else,” said Jesse.

“This piracy thing is completely wrong. The rumour was started because I included a little piece of information about ‘Play It Down’ on my mailshot which said ‘we are not doing promo for play it down’. So everyone jumped to the conclusion ‘oh this means they’re trying to stop piracy and illegal downloads’.

“It has really pissed me off that online media have not checked with the source and are now starting to act like tabloids,” he continued, “copying other websites rather than getting the story themselves.”

“It also got me mad because we do free downloads ourselves,” he continued.

“We feel that in these times you need to give back to the fans and support the people that buy your records. Suggesting that the text we put out was about us trying to find ways to stop people blogging is complete bollocks. I just wanted to start a label that was not about hype and more about tracks. That pleasure of going to a record shop and finding something new. We are doing limited 200 runs of vinyl and downloads. Music is for all.”

Play It Down’s first release is a track by Made To Play regular/ in-house engineer Oliver $, called Shaka Lao.

(ONLINE MUSIC PRESS NEED TO GET THEIR FACTS RIGHT & STOP ACTING LIKE TABLOIDS . . .’)

http://www.madetoplay.net/

Jonty Skrufff

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London’s fashionista club of the moment Caligula is moving to newly revamped Hoxton venue Basing House this week, taking over the Friday night slots that up until 12 months ago were occupied by erstwhile electro scenesters Trailer Trash.

The newly modernised venue (which was previously known as On The Rocks) has been expanded to include a ‘secluded roof terrace’ and ‘a secret boudoir for all the naughty minds to run wild’, Caligula promise, in a press release which also namechecks an MTV review describing them as ‘the London answer to Studio 54’.

“The smoke filled dancefloor will be glowing with Caligula’s trademark red lights and everybody knows that red lights spell danger – and sex!” the promoters add.

“Think of the poppers fuelled atmosphere of Paradise Garage meeting the sweaty crotches of a Soho brothel with an uncompromising Shoreditch twist of sexy fashion demons, dark minded queers, and open hearted trannies,” say Caligula.

Their Studio 54 reference came just as the News of the World hailed Torture Garden’s Studio 54 style ‘taste of sleaze’ in an interview with celebrity make-up artist Gary Cockerill about when he took reality TV celebrity Katie ‘Jordan’ Price to the London fetish club last October.

“As well as a dance floor and DJs like a normal club, there were also lots of private rooms catering to every fetish you can possibly imagine,” Cockerill recalled.

“We had the most amazing night. It felt so decadent, so outrageous – kind of like a kinky Studio 54,” he added.

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French disco legend Cerrone chatted to Skrufff last year about his own experiences partying at the real Studio 54 in the late 70s though was notably discreet about what he got up to.

“The balcony was the place where people were partying very often with their pants (or more) out. But actually, Studio 54 was really the ‘preparation’ phase’ the most physical and intense part of the night was always afterwards at after-parties in the City. I have really intense memories of Andy Warhol’s after-parties at his apartment,” he confessed.

“Sure I was a regular at Studio 54, but I have to say my memories are really not for telling there is a parental advisory sticker on them. All I will say is that I didn’t write very many songs when I was there, I was too busy learning about other things connected to sex and other things that were illegal,” he laughed.

(Studio 54’s ‘Rubber Room’: “The room had a High-Tec bar and was designed with thick rubber on the walls to be easily washed down with water and soap after all the sex and drugs going on up there. Some people used to refer to the Rubber room as “Upstairs”, but there were actually more secret places above the Rubber room were more private sex took place. Those areas were the real “Upstairs” to the initiated . . .’)

Caligula opens on Friday July 30: James Priestley and Guy Williams headline in future weeks, alongside weekly residents Jim Warboy and Monica Soldan)

Cerrone performs at Privilege Ibiza on Saturday August 1.

Jonty Skrufff

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“Having a baby changed my life massively, I took myself out of the loop quite dramatically for a while and all I could think about was my gorgeous little boy Stanley. Although I started doing gigs again when he was quite young they were all local and I didn’t go out apart from that so a lot of people thought I’d disappeared completely. It takes a while to feel normal again and it’s only the past year I’ve been back in it like I used to be.”

Landing her first high profile residency at influential London night-spot Turnmills in 1999 and going on to regularly cover for Pete Tong on his hugely powerful Radio 1 show, DJ Lottie started the noughties as one of the few female DJs touring the world on the A List DJ circuit. 11 years on she remains comfortably placed within the same elite strata though she’s the first to admit becoming a mother four years saw her stepping back from the decks for more than a brief break.

“On a practical level, you simply can’t carry on playing three gigs a night or going touring for months,” she says. “There’s the breast feeding issue for a start, I breast fed for 6 months so could never be that far away, plus emotionally it’s unbearable to be too far away until they’re about two or three anyway,” she explains.

“I only did three gigs a month for his first couple of years and the furthest I think I went without him was Paris,” she continues. “I took him to Ibiza with me to play Space and Amnesia every summer, though. I have two mates now in the same boat as me, Jo Mills and Ayalah (Sister Bliss) and we have great DJ mum chats,” she confides.

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“Ayalah takes her little boy with her on tour and has help, there’s ways and means of doing it but it’s a lot easier when they get older. Now I’m going to Hong Kong this month, Dubai and Australia later in the year and generally travelling more and more and further afield again but I still wont go on tour for three weeks again unless Stanley can come with me.”

Staying closer to home she’s also launched Geisha, a biweekly party at East Village devoted to house music and more significantly female DJs.

“After years of not wanting to do all female nights I’ve had a complete U-turn on the idea. I used to think it was restrictive bunching us all together like we were a novelty but 10 years on, although there is an abundance of female talent out there, there is still a ridiculously large gap between the sexes in our chosen vocation,” she points out. “I have to say when I started I thought it would be more balanced between female and male DJs by now but it’s not.”

“Geisha is certainly not about excluding the boys though, it’s more about showing what great female DJs there are out there,” she stresses.

“We’re not getting all feminist about things we just want to get together, as girls do, and play some music. It seems everyone is a DJ now so the opportunity to play out is often slim. This gives us a night where we get to play together and control the music all night. It’s female driven but it’s for everyone to enjoy.”

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Accusations of negligence against festival organisers, local councillors and the police flew this week, as German authorities launched a criminal investigation into how 19 revellers were crushed to death in a tunnel approaching the Duisberg Love Parade.

Duisberg police blamed organisers for permitting just one access point to the site through the 300 metre tunnel and claimed they decided against having several entry points to reduce policing costs, despite being warned by safety experts hired by local cops and fireman that one entrance wasn’t enough.

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Duisberg police union spokesman Wolfgang Orscheschek said that festival organizers had put them under ‘immense pressure’ to allow the event to happen despite their concerns.

“The dead were the victims of material interests,” he told a local newspaper.

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340 revellers were also injured, some seriously, after cops attempted to turn back tens of thousands of revellers approaching the parade fearing over-crowding inside the already packed festival site. With the actual entrance to the festival closed and a gigantic crowd behind pressing in, thousands were trapped and crushed inside the tunnel. As panic set in revelers scrambled to escape, up nearby ladders and a tiny ramp.

“Everywhere you looked, there were people with blue faces,” one girl told German newspaper Die Welt.

“My boyfriend pulled me out over the bodies, otherwise we would both have died in there. How can I ever forget those faces? The faces of the dead,” she added.

“There were piles of injured on the ground, some being resuscitated, others dead and covered with sheets,” another reveller caught in the crush, Isabel Schloesser, 18, told reporters.

“It was way too full in the afternoon, everybody wanted to get in,” she added as she left the site. (BBC)

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Love Parade founder Dr Motte, who stopped being involved in the event when it was no longer staged in Berlin, accused the promoters of being motivated by greed.

“It is the fault of the organisers,” he told the Berliner Kurier newspaper, “It is just about making money; the organisers did not show the slightest feeling of responsibility for the people.” (TheLocal.de)

Legendary German techno DJ Sven Vath said he was ‘deeply shocked and stunned’ in a statement issued on his website and called for a full investigation into the ‘gross negligence’ behind the event.

“The thought of the fear and panic that these young people went through when they’d gone out for dancing and fun is just too awful and unjust,” he added.

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Speaking on Sunday, festival chief Rainer Schaller said there will be no more parades declaring  ‘the Love Parade has always been a joyful and peaceful party, but in future would always be overshadowed by yesterday’s events.’

‘Out of respect for the victims, their families and friends, we are going to discontinue the event in the future, and that means the end of the Love Parade,” he added.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the causes of the disaster need to be ‘very intensively investigated’ and said Federal agencies will be providing full support to the local officials.

“Young people came to party. Instead, there was death and injury,” she added in a statement, “I am aghast and saddened by the sorrow and the pain,” she said.

“It is terrible that such a catastrophe brought death, suffering and pain to a peaceful festival full of happy young people from many countries,” new German President Christian Wulff agreed.

Sinisterly, scores of Youtube clips of the chaos posted by individuals have also been deleted within hours, with the only ones remaining long term appearing to be clips of news reports posted by mainstream TV organizations.

Youtube news report from Australia

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Skrufff Top 5:

1: Julian Jeweil: Cube

2: Luis Junior – BG

3: Denis A_Ahnenerbe

4: DFunk: Stranger

5: Egbert – Haasten

Julian Jeweil

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Chicago house DJ Jason Andrews (aka DJ Veritas) was this week languishing in Pasco County jail Florida after he was formally charged with murdering 41-year-old tattoo shop owner Dennis “Scooter” Abrahamsen.

Andrews, 27, who is also a bisexual porn star known as Addison on hardcore gay sex site Sean Cody, is accused of beating Abrahamsen with a sledgehammer and stabbing him to death, with the help of his girlfriend, Amanda Logue, a porn star/ escort hired by the tattooist.

Cops accused the pair of conspiring to kill and rob him during a sex session with Logue after they were caught trying to use Abrahamsen’s credit card several days after he was killed on May 15. With insufficient evidence, both were released, before US Marshall arrested each separately last week, Andrews in an upmarket pool hall in Chattanooga where he’d recently been hired as manager.

“I would say he was very surprised,” US Marshalls spokesman Paul Salayko told Fox News, “He was very clean cut, broad shoulders, dressed in a suit, not in a suit and tie, but more ‘Miami Vice,’ more of a GQ appearance,” he added.

Though cops published a string of texts and Twitter messages suggesting the couple had colluded, Logue has since accused Andrews of carrying out the killing entirely by himself in front of her, threatening to also kill her if she snitched.

Friends of Andrews from Chicago told Fox News they were shocked by his arrest with one, Chicago club photographer Michael Sarkowicz telling Fox ‘He was a really straight up dude.’

A person purporting to represent him as a DJ agent was less sympathetic, however, posting a pointed, though somewhat garbled message on Andrews’ DJ profile on Music portal NewMusicPromote.com days before he was arrested.

“It has came to our attention DJ Veritas (Jason Andrews) is wanted on Capital Murder Charges,” the statement, which appeared to be genuine, said.

“Please note if you are with Law Enforcement and or with the Press or Media I have not talked to Jason for about 6 months. I personally Last seen him (sic) about 6 months ago in Chicago.  I have worked with DJ Veritas in the past at events here in the city I am very shocked and this sort of hits close to home when you know a person up on murder charges.”

Press reports said the DJ denies all charges.

http://www.newmusicpromote.com/DJ_Veritas/ (‘A consummate live performer, DJ Veritas truly gives a complete show every single time he grinds the decks. Having never released a studio album, his sound has been cultivated through the intimate connection that he creates with his audience during each and every show . . . Those familiar with DJ Veritas’ music and the uneducated listener can both be seen dancing to his high-energy, beat driven, exciting performances no matter what the venue. You can expect to be sweaty, exhausted, and thoroughly entertained at the end of every show . . .’)

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click HERE for a top quality Jay Z parody

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