Click on the picture for full details of the awards

French independent music organisation Qwartz has selected Jonty Skrufff’s remix of Motor’s single Death Rave as one of seven nominees for best track of 2009 in their ‘Dancefloor/ Clubbing’ category.

Additional contenders in the same category include Citizen Records’ Monosurround (‘We in Hello World), Kompakt’s Supermayer (Hey Hotties!’) and HANDS’ the PCP Principle (‘37/41 in electronic violence phenomena).

A total of 43 tracks have been nominated by a panel of prestigious industry judges including Alejandro Jodorowsky, Bernard Parmegiani and David Chauveau who blindly listened to 4,077 tracks over the last few months before making their selection. The public are now being invited to vote for their favourites with the winners to be announced at a prize giving ceremony being staged in Paris on Friday April 2.

“I’m surprised and absolutely delighted that my remix has been selected as one of the Qwartz jury’s favourite tracks, particularly as it’s the first solo remix I’ve ever done,” said Jonty.

“Of course music is always about personal taste though I now find myself in that tantalizing position of wanting to win and feeling the temptation to launch a DJ Top 100 style ‘vote-for-me campaign’, he laughed.

“I won’t but I will ask readers to vote for one of the tracks: you can hear them all in full on Quartz’ website ((http://tinyurl.com/y96ot5s)

“I’d also like to add that I’m particularly honoured to going up against Monosurround and Supermayer and would like to thank Bryan and Oly from Motor for giving me the opportunity in the first place,” said Jonty.

All 43 tracks can be heard in full on Quartz’ website (http://tinyurl.com/y96ot5s) with voting now open.  Death Rave is also on Soundcloud here: http://tinyurl.com/yachmbt

http://tinyurl.com/y96ot5s (Qwartz awards: full details here: ‘– Qwartz, a program dedicated to the promotion and support of independent musical creation, announces today its sixth edition nominations and the opening of votes to the public . . .’)

Seb Mortimer (Skrufff.com)

Qwartz nominations; click on the picture for voting details

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JADE conference @ X2, Jakarta (December 09)

“As Morf quite succinctly posted on our Facebook page ‘Jakarta is half way between going into a steam room with your clothes on and locking yourself in the garage with the engine running. Apart from that it’s a riot!” And it is.”

Headlining Indonesia’s 2^nd annual Jakarta Annual Dance Music Event (JADE) Graham from superstar VJs Addictive TV admits to being highly impressed with both the city’s club scene and JADE, as was Rocky from fellow headliners X Press 2.

“Club-wise Jakarta was fantastic,” Rocky agrees, “We played at Blowfish on Friday and the space and sound were both excellent. We also went and checked out Todd Terry on the Saturday. Again an amazing space/sound system. There definitely seems to be a lot going on there, I noticed a poster for Richie Hawtin this weekend and a whole bunch of other nights/events coming up,” he says.

Thai rising star DJ Celeste is also enthused (‘Jakarta is a great place to be and be seen in’) leaving Dutch producer Secret Cinema (aka Jeroen Verheij) as the only JADE guest to sound a note of caution,

“I was here in Jakarta a few years ago and it really hasn’t changed that much. DJs are still playing the more popular music, women are still looking beautiful and sound systems are loud. All good for a major club scene you’d say. One problem though; there is no scene,” he suggests.

“What I mean by that is that people don’t go out for a certain type of music yet. They go to something that is known, to say they’ve been there, done that, whatever, not to really go out and dream away into the music while dancing,” says Jeroen.

“But I must add, Jakarta has major potential to becoming Asia’s capital of electronic dance-music thanks to forward thinking people like the people from JADE,” he continues, “Let’s hope JADE will grow and grow and will become Asia’s centre of electronic dance music, like Amsterdam’s dance event is for Europe.”

JADE itself is the brainchild of leading local DJ / producer Ai Tumbuan who brought in two of the country’s top promoters and nightlife entrepreneurs, Yudha Budhisurya and Arief Sundjaja, who as well as running the Embassy Club group both host the annual Playground Music festival. With all three highly experienced in the international club business, each is keen to put Indonesia on the nightlife map, a vision that seems realistic given the thousands who already go clubbing night after night in surprisingly hedonistic circumstances.

“We had the feeling that the city has a great sense of that ‘anything goes’ vibe about it,’ says Graham from Addictive TV, “It was nothing like how we expected it to be. I personally thought clubbing there would have had a much stricter feeling about what you could do, say more like in Shanghai, but it was actually the opposite.”

Wikipedia’s entry on Jakarta notes how the city is ‘famous for its nightlife, with a very cosmopolitan atmosphere in clubs such as Blowfish and Stadium’ though also references the riots of 1998 when 1,200 died in the city over 4 days of ethnic related violence. And just five months ago, nine died when suspected Islamic terrorists exploded suicide bombs at two 5 star hotels, the Marriot and Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

Five months on, the ongoing terrorist threat is made tangible by ubiquitous security guards scanning for car bombs at the entrance to every shopping mall, though Jakarta’s vibe otherwise seems remarkably tranquil, with local people smiling as often as those in Thailand,

However, as culture guide Into-asia.com points out, smiles in Asia  (in Thailand in particular) can be far more complex in subtlety and meaning, varying from the ‘yim yor’ (‘the smile used to mock, taunt or laugh at someone’ to the the ‘yim mee lay-nai’ (the smile used to conceal evil ideas, AKA ‘I’m smiling because I’m just about to rip you off and you don’t realise’.).

In Jakarta however, yim tak tai (polite smiles used for strangers) seem definitely more prevalent, presumably because locals have met fewer of the terrifyingly sleazy tourists that continue to flock to Bangkok. Its club scene instead is decidedly local and deliciously vibrant.

“There’s no shortage of party people out there is there,” X Press 2’s Rocky agrees.

“Between ourselves, you and Addictive TV, we played three separate clubs on the Friday, all of which were busy. I definitely think that events like JADE are heading in the right direction and coverage from the media will only help to open folks eyes as to what’s on offer in Jakarta.”

Friday night in Jakarta my first of three consecutive gigs is at X2, a state of the art laser studded 1,000 plus capacity super-club aimed firmly at Jakarta’s monied elite. So much so in fact that a luxury car marque has placed a brand new model slap bang in the middle of the dancefloor, but despite this X2’s overall vibe is good.

I’m warming up for Dutch trance producer Marcel Woods (trance being apparently Jakarta’s dominant genre presently) though in the event, the crowd prove open and receptive to stripped, but energetic electro. Building the groove steadily via tracks from the likes of Ramon Tapia, Oliver Ton and Oliver $ I spin for 2 hours to an increasingly packed floor that’s euphoric by the time a  (very tired looking) Marcel takes over.

Marcel Wood & Jonty Skrufff @ X2

Six hours later I’m on the plane to Yogyakarta, a relatively small city 50 minutes by plane from Jakarta. Yogyakarta was briefly Indonesia’s capital and is packed with universities and students and according to the JADE crew is a special party city. They also insist their club there, Embassy, is one of their best, so it’s with some trepidation that I arrive at 1am to discover just 4 girls dancing and a smattering of guys holding up the bar of the 200 capacity venue

Local resident Billy seems impressively unconcerned, however, mixing together an uptempo house set seamlessly and smiling. And indeed by 1.30 a huge influx of girls, gays and assorted fashionistas have packed out the club, transforming it into a sea of happy faces and up for it clubbers.

Jumping on the podium right across the front of the DJ booth a selection of girls (and less frequently guys) writhe and pout throughout my entire set, and the whole club as one seems intent on having a good time. Yogyakarta, indeed rocks.

Embassy Club Yoyogkarta

Sunday back in Jakarta, DJing at Stadium is an entirely different affair. 5,000 clubbers are rammed into the 4 level club in an atmosphere which is as dark and even intimidating as the limited lighting permeating its upper floors. Notorious for many reasons (not least for being open for 72 hours non stop from Friday to Saturday) Stadium is located close to Jakarta’s red light strip where scores of street walkers strut their stuff, and is correspondingly sleazy and genuinely edgy.  But at the same time it’s a club where the likes of Sasha has played at unannounced- for free, according to local legend.

For me, Stadium’s progressive house reputation means I’m dramatically limited in what I can play but a largely instrumental selection of crunchy electro-tech keeps everybody happy with Ame’s Rej and Nathan Fake delivering two of many hands-in-the-air peaktime moments. Dancing at the front enthusiastically is Secret Cinema’s Jeroen (on what’s his second trip to Stadium of the weekend) though speaking afterwards he’s adamant that Jakarta needs more.

“As I said, there’s no real ‘scene’ yet in Jakarta,” he insists.

“What is needed is some local producers doing inventive and forward thinking electronic music and make it a ‘cool’ thing. Making dance music a culture instead of it being about becoming a DJ just because it looks good. You have to be an artist, before you can call yourself a DJ. So let’s hope some people group together and cause a stir in the Jakarta clublife, and create a culture everybody would want to belong to,” he smiles.

“I also felt something was boiling here in Jakarta too,” Jeroen adds,” There are so many clubbers and they like to party. And so did I, so hello to everybody I’ve met.”

One of Jakarta’s great benefits is also its climate, comprising all round summer tropical heat, though none of the DJs see it as a ‘new Ibiza’. In fact, it’s got much more in common with South America’s great clubbing city Sao Paulo, being an edgy, tropical 20 million people packed megalopolis with locals dominating nightlife far more than tourists.

“I think Indonesia, with Jakarta and Bali could definitely become a serious clubbing destination, but not necessarily for Europeans in the same way as Ibiza – it’s slightly too far to travel,” notes Addictive TV’s Graham.

“But it definitely has the potential to become a major clubbing destination for Asia and the Far East, as well as being a great stop-off point for European DJs and acts going to Japan, China and Australia,” he says.

“In all honesty, I don’t think anywhere could be the new Ibiza,” Rocky concurs.

“The beauty of that time and place was that there was no internet. It really was all word of mouth, now it’s word of web and everyone knows about the latest thing within seconds of it happening.”

“Also, the thing with Ibiza, and a huge part of it, although many would disagree, was the drugs,” he continues.

“I don’t care what anyone says, but that played a major role in why Ibiza became the phenomenon that it did. This simply would not happen in Jakarta I think.”

“I think Ibiza will always be what it is and Bali can certainly become a stronger destination it its own right, with better beaches, better weather, all year round,” Celeste agrees, “And Indonesia is well connected with the rest of Asia. Jakarta is cool apart from the traffic, which is a mess.”

Thanks to the people from JADE and Jakarta but please,” Jeroen concludes, “Please build a subway system, a monorail, whatever to the airport, PLEASE!”

http://gojade.asia/main

http://www.into-asia.com/thailand/culture/smile.php (Thailand smiles explained)

Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)

Dinner with the JADE crew & Addictive TV

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James Palumbo (click on the picture to access the Tomas website)

“There are two sorts of men, my friend: those who seek riches and glory, and the others. The former will, no doubt, find what they seek, in varying degrees. So? They die. What imprint do they leave? Nothing. Only echoes. The others seek a higher purpose: to make a difference to those around them: to change, shape or improve things, if only to a small extent’.

Though Ministry of Sound chief James Palumbo is the first to admit his novel Tomas, like all debut novels, is partially autobiographical, it’s through side character Napoleon that the book delivers his best lines.

“The risk taker is defined by one idea only, burned into his soul: a willingness to fail,” the French Emperor tells Tomas as he outlines his roadmap to becoming a ‘great man’. “That’s why wealth and glory seekers can’t qualify,” Napoleon continues. “They may take risks but only up to a point. And they would never endanger their spoils or glory.”

That’s he both super-wealthy and a mega-high achiever is immediately apparent from the most cursory of Google searches. While Wikipedia says ‘James had a privileged childhood and grew up at Buckhurst Park, Windsor, now the UK home of the King of Jordan’, the Independent is more specific, labelling him the ‘formidable-sounding scion of the Palumbo property dynasty, founder of Ministry of Sound, and 406th (equal) richest person in Britain’. Clicking further, however, reveals a highly developed propensity for risk-taking; a trait he admits has characterised much of the first 46 years of his life.

“When I was in banking I took a big risk when I started a legal action against my family which could have obliterated me financially,” he recalls, “Then also during the first few years of the Ministry of Sound I took another when I could have been shot in the head.”

The first tale involved a bitterly fought court battle with his father (multi-millionaire property magnate Lord Palumbo) over his deceased grandfather’s Trust Fund which he won in 1995, while the second involved some of taking on some of London’s most dangerous gangsters two years earlier. Kicking out the security teams from the club in 1993 over drug dealing issues, he took to wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying CS gas to work, precautions his advisors indicated were more than necessary.

“There was a business management guy at the time who used to come into the club, he was like a manager/ psycho-analyst,” James recalls.

‘His job was to teach everyone the logical consequences of their actions and he said to me at one point ‘you do realise that you could be killed’,” he shudders.

“I did realise that but I really don’t think I had any options,” he muses, “It’s a bit like I say in the book; you’ve got to charge the gun, you’ve got to get into the arena.”

In the book, the story’s central character Tomas tackles (and murders) fat cat corporate businessmen, ‘aggressively challenging the moral corruption at the centre of the present financial turmoil’ the book’s sleeve notes suggest, though throughout Tomas’ real enemy isn’t individuals but a state: Russia.

Accusing the country of using money to ‘debauch Western values and behaviour’ via ‘envy, the corruption of scruples and social dysfunction’, the narrator (in this case Russian general ‘the Great Bear’) is direct.

“Oligarchs, the new weapons of war, are welcomed with open arms by society, irrespective of their backgrounds,” the Great Bear notes, “Yachts, mansions and jetted-in prostitutes are envied as symbols of the Great Bear’s new empire. Previously good people now bow in submission to the vulgarities of Russian taste, behaviour and power.”

So does James have many- any- Russian friends?

“No. I do not,” he says, “I’m sure they wouldn’t want me to be their friend either.” And does Ministry have any interests in Russia?

“No, zero,” he says.

James at the beach

Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): Starting with Tomas, why did you write it now, and how long have you been thinking of writing a novel?

James Palumbo: “I had no plans whatsoever to write a book, whenever anyone says they’re going to write a book you think ‘Oh Christ, have you got nothing else better you want to do? You’re a bit of a loser’, but I did business for 20 years as you may know and was pretty busy with that, and that had been my game. And also I’ve always been interested in how people relate to money and how they behave when they’ve got it. And I started writing with absolutely no agenda, no plan, no agenda, no characters, no idea. I was just sitting in my comfortable chair at home and I started writing. What I think actually happened was that 20 ideas of mush about stuff just came out of my head. There was no plan literally from one moment to another to write a book.”

Skrufff: How long did it take from that first step to creating a book and getting it published, how easy was that process?

James Palumbo: “I wrote it very quickly because I knew what I wanted to say over about four or five weeks. It’s only 50,000 words. It was an intensive process but it was also a lot of fun, one of the most fun things I’ve ever done. But, getting published is like going back to school. I found an agent and the agent had an editorial team and what happens then is that they take you through what works and what doesn’t work. And you’re very defensive and proprietorial about your work and you think you know best but it’s just like school. I ended up rewriting it and improving the text enormously over a period of about a year and then the publisher got their own editor to work on it. So what you first produce and the way it ends up are two totally different things.”

Skrufff: You have a very eclectic list of celebrity reader endorsements, everybody from (writer) James Herbert, to Stephen Fry, Rory Bremner and Pete Tong, how did you choose these people, are they presumably friends?

James Palumbo: “I read all of James Herbert’s books from childhood and he sold 40 million books and he’s a serious writer. I think Rory Bremner is probably one of the best satirists out there, Noel Fielding, you know. I’ve never met any of these people, apart from Pete Tong who I met once years ago. Stephen Fry is the ultimate isn’t he, he’s so gracious and thoughtful. I was really happy he liked the book.”

Skrufff: The book is a political satire, did you send the book to any politicians for reviews, such as Peter Mandelson and David Cameron?

James Palumbo: “Peter Mandelson (a highly controversial major power in Britain’s Labour party) you probably know is a friend of mine, so yes, he read it. I’m less friendly with (Conservative leader) David Cameron. Peter read it as a friend rather than a critic.”

Skrufff: What do you make of the current political situation in the UK with so many politicians discredited by the expenses scandal?

James Palumbo: “I don’t know quite what I think about politics to be honest with you. I’ve never joined a political party, I don’t quite know whether I’m left wing or right wing, I’ve got friends in all the parties, not just the Conservatives and New Labour. I’m a big supporter of Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat guy in South London. I’m not really informed enough to comment on politics I’m just a naïve person who doesn’t really know what they think. What I write about in Tomas is far more extreme than the issues affecting the politicians. Sure they cheated on their expenses, a hundred pounds here, two thousand pounds there, but that compares pretty favourably to politicians in most other countries in the world and compared to what I was writing about in the book was sort of nothing. And not that interesting in comparison to some of the stuff that goes on amongst people with real money.”

Skrufff: You spoke to the Daily Mail recently and talked about wearing a bullet proof vest and carrying a stun gun and tear gas when you took on gangsters controlling the drugs trade at Ministry, many people would have walked away at the point, why did you decide to take them on?

James Palumbo: “Because it was me against them. At that stage in my life I preferred to face the music than have had to live with giving up. It sounds as if I was trying to play the tough guy or taking the moralising position but it wasn’t like that. I don’t think it had anything to do with money either, I don’t even think I was courageous, I didn’t feel physically brave, I just wasn’t going to give in to these gangsters.”

Bernard Mahoney on notorious London gangster Pat Tate (click on the picture for more: fascinating details of early 90s crime)

Skrufff: Did you actively consider walking away at any point?

James Palumbo: “I’m not sure, I know what you’re trying to ask. There’s one bit in the book that I’m trying to work through which is the question of whether it’s easier to be brave if you’re stupid. And I think I say those unemcumbered with an education just get on with doing what they’re told. It was just a thought that occurred to me that maybe if you’re more cerebral then maybe you’re more questioning and if you’re more questioning then maybe you’re more frightened. At that time it was black and white for me.”

Skrufff: Many of these gangsters are still around, do you have any anxieties about awakening old grudges by talking about these stories?

James Palumbo: “I think they’d have to be pretty careful now though I know these guys are immensely stupid. In the book I talk about rats and respect which I personally think is very funny. The whole gangster code is about respect which is a stupid word (slipping into mock thug accent) . . ‘respect, respect, don’t disrespect me’. The code for morons is that the more you’re in prison the greater respect you have so by the time they’ve been in prison four or five times they’re the ones clicking their fingers and expecting deference because they’re the really hard men who can take it. Good for you, you’re in for another seven years, isn’t that fucking brilliant.

In terms of my satire and what I was trying to say philosophically was ‘who do these people respect the most?’ the answer is people who’ve already been killed. They’re the people who are really respected. I know that these people are morons but they’d have to be truly stupid to kill me because they always get caught afterwards, don’t they?” If someone came to shoot me in the head I think they’d probably get caught one way or the other.”

Skrufff: Tomas is opposed to mega consumerism and the elevation of characters such as professional footballers in popular culture, how do you answer the charge that Ministry is promoting similar values, for example, through videos such as Benny Benassi’s soft porn centred Satisfaction?

James Palumbo: “I don’t think we’re doing that at all, we’re the opposite. If you look at the champagne spraying clubs in London where they make 20,000 euros for one table per night, we’re dealing in a totally different area. What are the life spans of these clubs? Two years, Three years, four years? We have always been for everyone, yes we have a VIP area, but we never make the slightest fuss whether a footballer comes down or not. We’ve got 2,000 people paying £15 and that’s it. Away we go. Then everything else we do whether it’s CDs or bottles of perfume, they’re little treats for people’s lives. But that’s a million miles away from what I’m writing about in Tomas.”

Benny Benassi's Satisfaction (NOT the original video) click on the picture

Skrufff: In your interview with the Daily Mail you talked very dispassionately about the low drug dealer you handed over to the police who later jumped under a train, did you feel any sense of responsibility for his death?

James Palumbo: “I guess I was pretty anaethetised at the time, it was so terrifying. Actually you almost feel frozen in time and space. At that time for me there was no point in keeping the club clean or having a proper VAT audit because if you could be killed them why bother? I was in that state of mind then, the guy broke the rules and I was thinking about that red line between anarchy and control which was what the security wanted. I was protecting my business and that was it, he was caught, so I handed him over.”

James Palumbo’s debut novel Tomas is out now via Quartet Books.

Jonty Skrufff (http://skrufff.com)

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James Palumbo in Cannes (click on the picture for more on 'Tomas')

Multi-millionaire Ministry cofounder James Palumbo chatted to Skrufff this week about his debut novel Tomas and revealed that its themes of decadence, immorality, success and failure were directly inspired by his own life.

“I had no plans whatsoever to write a book, whenever anyone says they’re going to write a book you think ‘Oh Christ, have you got nothing else better you want to do? You’re a bit of a loser’,” James admitted.

“I was just sitting in my comfortable chair at home one day and I started writing with absolutely no agenda, no plan, no agenda and no characters.”

The novel’s central character Tomas mercilessly massacres champagne quaffing financiers and takes on Russian oligarchs, learning key life lessons along the way from the likes of Napoleon (a leader James admits he identifies with).

“The worst possible thing in life- or death (is) mediocrity, those who strive for nothing “ the19th century French emperor tells Tomas.

“Can’t you send out a hundred CVs; try harder or finish with your girlfriend; buy a one way ticket out of town; retrain, go to night school; emigrate; think, discover; internet your way to a different life,” he urges, “Isn’t effort rewarded and trying always worth it? Anything but the twilight world of bitterness, prejudice, alcohol and bad language,” says Napoleon.

Fischerspooner: James Palumbo's greatest mistake

“I’ve sort of taken my own advice in writing this book. I’ve taken two or three really big risks in my life, including when I started a legal action against my family which could have obliterated me financially, then also during the first few years of the Ministry of Sound when I could have been shot in the head,” said James matter-of-factly.

“I’m 46, and writing a book is of course very autobiographical, everyone is desperate for things to fail and I’m sure there are plenty of people out there dying to say ‘what is this rubbish?’” he predicted.

“But when I go to the mausoleum in Paris and go to see Napoleon who has the most magnificent mausoleum of anyone in the world, surrounded by statues of victory and people blowing trumpets, what pops into my head is him being re-incarnated and saying ‘the defining word of my success is failure’. Because I believe that,” he said.

Click on the picture to access 'tomas'' website

“Do you know them? They were a gay performance band from New York and they were the hottest thing of the time and a bidding war erupted around them, which was taken to ridiculous levels by an East Coast Jewish American lawyer,” he says,

“After we signed them to Ministry, we had to deal with all sorts of bullshit,” he continued.

“They’d tell us things like ‘we can’t come over to London unless we fly on Concorde’ and ‘we’ve got to stay at (luxury hotel) Claridges’ and all this rubbish. They were acting like superstars before they actually became superstars and we ended up paying them US$2million. And sure enough there was a bang and a puff of smoke and they ended up selling nothing. I think they sold four albums, or maybe five, it definitely wasn’t ten,” he laughed,

“Their music was rubbish, I can’t even remember the name of their main song; ‘We Are Nothing’ or something like that: total nonsense. What was funny about it was that one side of the graph there was the hype and the promise and on the other side of the graph was the amount of money we lost: the bigger the hype, the more money we lost.”

Six years on, he concedes the experience was a valuable if expensive lesson into the machinations of the music business which helped him develop Ministry Of Sound into the massive entertainment corporation it is today.

“I learned what A&R is all about and I’ll tell you exactly what I think about A&R. People say ‘don’t disturb the A&R guy, he’s thinking, he’s a genius’ or ‘he needs creative freedom’ or ‘it’s a subjective process’ well actually it isn’t a fucking subjective process. There are rules involved,” said James,

“I think you can apply discipline to the music business rather than being swept by the tide of someone’s opinions,” he suggested.

James Palumbo’s debut novel Tomas (acclaimed by Stephen Fry- ‘absolutely amazing’, James Herbert- ‘bizarre, intriguing, funny and superbly written’ and Pete Tong ‘American Psycho comes to Europe’) is out now via Quartet Books.

Jonty Skrufff (http://skrufff.com)

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(Heineken Green Party in Hanoi, Youtube footage: 19 December’08)

“Hanoi’s club scene right now is dire; there’s no other word for it.  There’s simply no infrastructure in place to support a decent nightlife here at present.  The cops closed down the only decent club- New Century- about a year ago following a drug raid and fragmented the scene well and truly.”

Though New Zealander Giles Cooper heads up CAMA one of the few party promotion crews currently operating in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi- he’s refreshingly candid in his assessment of the city’s current nightlife scene.

“A couple of reasonable small venues have opened up but they tend to get filled with fancy boys and girls purely there to be seen; it seems no-one really gives a toss about the music,” he continues, “That’s not to say there isn’t good stuff going on from time to time (CAMA events of course) but it’s slim pickings.  Probably the biggest problem is the supposed official shut-down time of 12am.  It’s pretty hard to get cranking properly before that time, isn’t it.”

CAMA (standing for ‘Club for Art and Music Appreciation’) was set up by Giles and founding partner Nick with Hanoi Minsk Club adventurer Dan Dockery joining more recently to help fulfill their mission statement ‘to make something happen’. Dan, a pony tailed, charismatic, larger than life biker who’s lived in Vietnam long enough to be married, divorced and to learn Vietnamese, is as unimpressed as Giles with Hanoi’s current scene.

“Most Vietnamese clubbers look for a chance to ‘be seen’, they’re generally more concerned about being seen in the right place, drinking the most expensive liquors with extravagant trays of fruits over the table,” he says.

“Whilst people enjoy to ‘let their hair down’ most of them have little idea at all about music. Throw a techno beat behind Aled Jones, Chelsea FC or unheard of Danish bands like Michael Learns To Rock and they’re pleased as punch.”

“To be honest, the state of Hanoi night-life right now is in temporary forced retirement with a view to going back to work in the future. However a long lay off is expected,” he chuckles.

CAMA party information here (click on the picture)

“Though I wonder if we’re a bit too negative about the scene here,’ he laughs, “We want people to come here after all.”

Visiting Cama’s Myspace page, immediate idiosyncrasies stand out including their mood setting of ‘pugnacious’ and club motto of ‘trouble- music-more trouble’ though Hanoi, despite pre-conceptions turns out to be a remarkably trouble free zone.

As the capital of Vietnam for almost 1,000 years (the millennium is next year) it’s best known to Westerners as the heart of USA defeaters North Vietnam and a distinctive military presence remains tangible today. One of the city’s key tourist attractions is the prison where John McCain was locked up during the war and immaculately dressed soldiers- old and new- are highly visible on the streets.

Hanoi also boasts countless fabulous pagodas and lakes and picture postcard French boulevards populated by strutting designer Dolce & Gabbana clad youth and old ladies carrying food dangling from poles across their shoulders. And it’s on the streets where Hanoi’s greatest danger lies, namely its traffic; threatening life and limb to both pedestrians and the hordes of apparently suicidal motorcylists navigating a traffic system that’s as near to total anarchy as anywhere on the planet. And one that bizarrely seems to work.

typical Hanoi traffic (Youtube)

more hanoi motorbikes

Strongly advised by Giles and Dan to pack a safety backup of crowd pleasers, I kick off my set at 10pm sharp with Andrea Dorea’s thumping classic Bucci Bag, followed by Princess Superstar, Crookers mix of Wiley and Tiegschwarz’s seminal rework of Spektrum’s ‘Something New’. The result (I’m delighted to say) is absolute pandemonium, as hundreds rush the stage, shouting, dancing and screaming. 90 minutes later, it’s 11.30 and the hall is shutting down, with many of the 2,000 revellers already streaming home from what’s already a late night. Hanging round for pictures are 20 or so keener clubbers, all of whom- to a man- are male.

“Despite the fact that several girls now drink, it’s fair to say that most of them don’t or might only in the slightest of moderation. The guys drink and drink in excess,” Dan muses. “Clubs in Hanoi are not necessarily so much a place to meet people; people go out in groups and tend to stick with their friends,” he says.

Despite this, both Dan and Giles (and seemingly all of their male expat friends) are in relationships with Vietnamese females, not least because, as Giles points out ‘far be it for me to make crass generalisations but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that Vietnamese girls are some of the sexiest in Asia.”

“But having said that, it can be difficult to make romantic headway due to language and cultural differences but then that’s true of all men and women isn’t it? “ Giles continues.

“It’s not uncommon to hear Western women complain that it’s hard to get the attentions of men in this place due to the competition. On the other hand, I know more than a few guys who have made it their MO (modus operanda) to mine the under-sexed Western girl vein with rich rewards.”

He’s also quick to point out that local Vietnamese guys pose little threat towards culturally insensitive expats on the pull.

“Aggro is not really an issue here provided you remain respectful,” says Giles.

“You’re far more likely to end up entangled with psycho, stalker girls who still believe in Prince Charming, true love and virginity than you are to encounter violence chatting up someone else’s girlfriend,” he laughs.

Girlfriend talk aside, both guys remain devoted to both Hanoi, and bringing over bands and DJs with Giles clear about what motivates his passions.

“What keeps me in Hanoi? Where to start?” he says, “The food, the weather, the motorbikes, the girls, the lunacy, the lack of a requirement to participate as a functioning member of civil society. “

And as far as putting on parties is concerned, it’s precisely because we do live here that it’s so important to us. We’re not just passing through; we are making lives for ourselves here and  we need to take a certain responsibility for our own needs and wants.  It’s self-sufficiency borne of necessity.  And of course it’s a lot of fun.  We meet great people we wouldn’t otherwise meet, and we get to play in an area that would be much more difficult to break into in an established market,” he points out.

Giles, who’s a business lawyer by day is also cautiously optimistic about Hanoi’s longer term future, both in clubbing terms and generally.

“Change tends to happen very incrementally here and predicting the direction things will take is not easy.  Often times it’s a case of two steps forward, one step back,” he says.

“That said, everything here, including entertainment in general and youth culture in particular, is on an upwards curve and I would not expect that to change.  The vast majority of Vietnam’s 85 million people are under 30 years of age and they are opening up and expressing themselves in ways that are new to Vietnam.”

So why visit Hanoi before Bangkok or Singapore?

“Let’s be honest: Singapore’s a lovely clean sophisticated but boring place; it’s the Switzerland of Asia; hardly a cutting edge kind of destination,” Giles suggests.

“If you go to an event there, you can be sure everything’s government sanctioned, and above board whereas Hanoi in contrast is a chaotic, contradictory place with a lot of energy and uncertainty.  People living here tend to be very enthusiastic about what’s going on because they know very well that options are limited and you never know when an event could be shut down.  Bangkok’s somewhere in the middle and a great place to visit, it’s closer to HCMC than Hanoi in temperament, options and venues.  If it was me, I’d stop in Bangkok on my way to Hanoi,” he advises.

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“Secret Island is different from other festivals, there’s a genuine family feeling in an incredible beauty spot where you’ll have a great time even if you happen to not like techno music. It’s the overall concept of the event that people find appealing, it’s the entire package rather than the whole package, most people don’t care which particular DJs are playing.”

Sunset

Though Secret Island’s 2009 line-up includes Berlin DJs such as Salon Renate’s Peak, Gigolo’s Joel Alter, Tresor’s Fidelity Kastrow and live acts DOP and Yapacc, Secret Island organiser Bjorn is impressively blasé about the key pulling points of his week long event.

“Actually all the artists we book always put a lot of effort into their shows to impress, though as a matter of fact, no DJ will, and has ever been, paid a fee,” he reveals, “Nevertheless I receive way more requests than I could possibly fit into the timetable.”

Taking place on a remote, usually deserted island, located just off the West Coast of Sweden, the week long August event combines alternative politics and partying, for a crowd of around 500 party people most of whom end up help physically building each event entirely from scratch.

“We’ve now done a number of small open air Secret Island events and each time we’ve been struck both by the strong community feeling present amongst everybody and the huge creative potential amongst both guests and participants,” says Bjorn.

“This festival is about combining nature, music and hedonism with the experiment of creating a society according to our image of utopia. So in practise, staff and DJs are joined by political visionaries to entertain and stimulate guests brains and bodies.”

The majority of revellers are from either Sweden or Berlin (reflecting Bjorn’s half Swedish/ half German heritage precisely, with several hundred travelling from the German capital on coaches available for either 7 day or 4 day packages. Many bring typical German habits such as nude sunbathing, Bjorn confirms, with himself an enthusiastic adopter.

“We are out in nature and being naked is pretty natural,” he points out.

“Before hitting Secret Island you should leave your social education and barriers on the boat,” he advises, “Quite a few are brave enough not to care and they jump into the sea nude. Personally the first thing I do every day is take a swim- naked- the moment I wake up. Though like everything else on the island, it’s only an option: there’s no compulsion to swim or sunbathe nude, or to do anything else.”

There’s also a typically minimalist approach to toilet activities, with some respite for the squeamish.

“There’s not even a tree is on the island but, stunningly, there’s a small wooden hut includes 4 toilettes,” he laughs, “Alternatively, the open sea will take care of everything.”

island life

Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): I know you had some issues with the local authorities at previous events, how are they reacting to this year’s event?

Secret Island (Bjorn): “Generally there is not much going on in the nearby fishing villages to occupy or distract the local police and Coast Guard, so they know exactly what we’re doing based on previous years. It’s complex how they react toward us; it seems to depend primarily on which person is in charge. In previous years they’ve either been initially sceptical and then very helpful or conversely they have this feeling they must be authoritative when other people are having fun and disturb us.

Last year we were given an 8 page long contract allowing us to be on the island and carry out political activities but no music or party was allowed after 11pm from 40 hours before the event started. The Coast Guard and police came and checked up several times before we really started and after talking to them for say half an hour we got the impression they really liked what we were doing and they didn’t actually disturb us at all during the party.

When a heavy storm came up right towards the end of the festival they even flew by with a helicopter to check if we all were OK. Great! On the other hand some local cops seemed to be bored and came to check our guests who were waiting in the small harbour to be picked up by our boats, for ID. After a while they started searching their bags for no reason. Whatever they were looking for they couldn’t find but then later on they decided to take one of our guests in to the police station for a piss test – one of the two black guys among hundreds of people. That choice really upset me, especially because they were so helpful before on all other issues.”

Skrufff: How important is the music policy overall?

Secret Island (Bjorn): “The festival has two stages, one is the social experiment of having random people on a island proclaiming their own temporary state looking for better ways and rules of living together than our capitalistic and materialist oriented society. Then after 5 days of this project we will have a great party with music from Friday until Sunday. Then the focus is on the music.”

Skrufff: In practical terms: what do islanders need to bring with them as a minimum (eg tents, food, swimming costumes, medicine? umbrellas?)

Secret Island (Bjorn): “they should bring personal stuff for camping, such as a tent, sleeping bag and inflatable mattresses, Umbrellas? mmm, nah, if it rains it rains and we all gather in the big tents. Some aspirin makes sense, and people should bring their hottest bikini, unless they prefer to swim naked. The most important thing to bring is your positive energy and creativity and to express it via your funky wardrobe. Fishing gear? Body paint? Great! Just don’t bring too much stuff if you come on one of our buses from Berlin.”

Skrufff; What’s the weather usually like, what’s the worst you’ve experienced, and given that there’s no natural cover, what happens when it rains?

Secret Island (Bjorn): “The worst story may scare quite a few people, there was a big storm last year which started Sunday and continued for way too long: it blew away a few tents. The island is by the open sea which implies constant weather changes. In the morning it may be too hot to stay inside your tent, in the afternoon you may need a raincoat but again, two hours later you will be watching the stunning sunset on the cliffs catching the last sun rays. In a nutshell, a bikini is as important as a raincoat.”

http://www.secret-island.eu (Secret Island takes place from Monday July 27 to Sunday August 2, with 8 day tickets available for 100 euros and 4 day ones for €60. Coach packages are also available from Berlin)

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