Pacha Chief Spurns Simon Cowell’s Superstar DJ Search
Leading Ibiza club promoter Danny Whittle was ‘sick in his own mouth’ when he heard of TV impresario Simon Cowell’s plans for a ‘superstar DJ’ X Factor style talent show, he revealed this week, and vowed that Pacha will have nothing to do with the concept.
“How likely is it Pacha would get involved? We wouldn’t, it has nothing we would want,” said Danny.
“What impact will the show have on club culture generally? None at all,” he predicted,“Certainly not the side of club culture that actually matters.”
Handling Pacha’s bookings since the late 90s, Danny helped David Guetta and more recently the likes of Swedish House Mafia and Luciano become bona fide international stars off the back on weekly residencies at Pacha though predicted established DJs will have little to fear from Cowell’s contestants.
“They will just create some shit DJ who will probably make a fortune playing in shit clubs,” he suggested.
Danny Whittle on Ibiza-voice (2004 interview): WHAT IS IT DANNY WHITTLE DOES EXACTLY? - Brand Director? Musical Director? Content Director?”) click for more
Details of the show emerged via a press release Simon Cowell released in which he promised it will ‘capture the incredible rise of the DJ phenomena’ and discover ‘the world’s greatest DJs’
“DJs are the new rock stars,” the multi-millionaire TV presenter declared, “It feels like the right time to make this show“.
Danny Howells’, Dave Clarke’s & Tim Sheridan’s Top 3 Ringtones (videos)
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For those who missed the first 3 DJ interviews about ring tones, these three tunes each appeared on the phones of Danny Howells (The Osmonds), Dave Clarke (ABC) and Tim Sheridan (Star Wars).
Ring Tone Etiquette; Dave Clarke’s Good Vibrations (interview)
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Posh people’s lifestyle guide Debretts issued new guidelines for mobile phones and ring tones this week, so Skrufff decided to ask a bunch of DJs about their personal choices, including high tech techno type Dave Clarke . . .
How to Moonwalk (like Michael Jackson)
Notoriously techno DJ Dave Clarke claims to be better than MJ at Moonwalking….. if anyone has any video clips, please send them…
Click on the picture for video instructions (as watched by 27 million people!!!)
Click HERE for text instructions…..
ADE 2011 – photos
Seth Troxler & Ali Dubfire (pic by Alco Lind)
Circo Loco bon vivant Seth Troxler won this year’s inaugural Cook-off’ competition, effortlessly out-tasting haute cuisine from rivals including Deep Dish’s Dubfire and John Acquaviva…..
ADE delegates quaffing champagne in the registration queue (pic by Aico Lind)
Early arrivals snapped up limited edition ADE umbrellas while others made do with champagne (in between torrential downpours on the Wednesday…..)
Boy George laughs at another Dave Clarke joke (pic by Mike Breeuwer)
Skrufff @ ADE: Ibiza, Russia, Radio & Staying Alive
Demolition panel (saturday 19.00; click for more details)
The Skrufff team will be temporarily relocating to Amsterdam next week as Jonty Skrufff moderates and appears on seven panels at this year’s Amsterdam Dance Event.
Also DJing on Friday night at Club Home (alongside Da Fresh, Christian Cambas, John Acquaviva and Anthony Attalla) in the day time he’s moderating panels on new talent (Room at the Top: http://bit.ly/nKg9ju) and Russia (http://bit.ly/qhBDXO ) plus a heavyweight panel Staying Alive on Friday afternoon (http://bit.ly/pUtuTi )
Da Russia panel (Thursday: 17.00)
“Staying Alive features six of the sharpest, most opinionated, accomplished characters in today’s music business, chatting about everything from egos (how should you handle out of control artists?), releasing music (are albums obsolete?) and surviving failure, I think it’s going to be particularly interesting,” said Jonty.
“The panel is all about how to survive and thrive in today’s music business and all six (Mute Records founder Daniel Miller, Ed Banger chief Pedro Winter, Cream CEO James Barton, Mo Wax’s James Lavelle, Wall Of Sound’s Mark Jones and Pieter van Bodegraven (Talpa) are full of knowledge, experience and ideas.”
Nastia (appearing on Room at the Top, Wednesday 15.30)
On Wednesday he introduces upcoming talents DJ Nastia (Ukraine), Claudia Cazacu (Romania, London) and Egbert (Holland) on Room at The Top, discussing how they’re carved themselves niches in today’s massively overcrowded club scene. Legendary R&S chief Renaat Vandapapaliere (Belgium) is also on hand, discussing how he reinvented his seminal label two years ago (almost 20 years after he first helped popularize techno).
Claudia Cazacu (on room at the top, Wednesday)
Push: Founding Muzik Magazine, Fighting Serious Ilness & Setting Fire to Jordan (interview)
Push today (click the picture to access his articles)
“The most bizarre situation I experienced was setting fire to Katie Price, I got chatting to her in a bar once and she asked me for a light. I must have had a new lighter or something and it must have been set very high.”
15 years after he launched seminal British dance music magazine Muzik, founding editor Push admits his memories of the era are a little hazy.
“I can’t remember when and where it happened, but I think it was somewhere in Soho,” he continues, recounting his incendiary encounter with the uber famous (in Britain) reality TV star (who at the time was better known as topless model/ glamour girl Jordan).
“As she leaned forward, a huge jet of fire shot out from the lighter and there was this horrible smell of burning hair and a squeaky scream,” he chuckles, “I think it was mainly her eyebrows that went up because her hair was in braids and pulled back from her face. Luckily she was totally hammered and seemed to soon forget about it.”
One of the first music journalists to start seriously championing acid house and techno, Push started his career with then hugely indie music magazine Melody Maker, setting up the newspaper’s first dance section in the early 90s. From Melody Maker, he left to become founding editor of Muzik, which he edited from its launch in 1995 until the end of 1998.
Notable for taking dance music and its fast-growing global culture seriously, the magazine was instrumental in launching superclub brands such as Cream and popularizing Ibiza yet also covered underground club culture and issues,successfully campaigning for free drinking water in clubs and warning of the dangers of tinnitus in one of its earliest editions.
It also created a new caste of fledgling superstar DJs, in putting then relatively unknown producers such as Deep Dish, Brian Transeau, Slam and Josh Wink on the cover, most of whom were then booked at the same nascent superclubs and festivals.
“I’m so proud of Muzik. It was a terrific magazine and a very successful magazine,” says Push, “It won several awards and sold over 50,000 copies a month during my time there. My personal greatest achievement was getting through the first year. I’ve never worked so hard in all my life.”
“I think the magazine’s single greatest achievement was giving dance music a sense of identity that it had never had before in the music press,” he continues.
“We took all those supposedly faceless DJs and musicians and presented them the same way that Melody Maker and NME presented rock and pop stars, and I think that was exactly what was right for the dance scene at that point in time.”
Skrufff.com’s Top 50 Most Influential Dance Tracks Ever: DJ by DJ: the 1st 10
Compiled by Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff
Click on the logo to see the top 50
Individual DJ Top 10s
: Ade Fenton
: Alisson Gothz
: Ascii Disco
: Camilo Rocha
: Chris Finke
: Chris Fortier
: Christian Smith
: Christopher Lawrence
: Danny Howells
: Dave Clarke
Skrufff.com’s Top 50 Most Influential Dance Tracks Ever: the details
click for Jonty Skrufff's Band page
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Click HERE to access the full results:
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We recently asked fifty of our favourite DJs and regular Skrufff contributors to tell us their top 10 most influential dance tracks of all time: the ones that both inspired and affected them personally and helped shape wider electronic dance culture.
The resulting Top 50 (see below) has been calculated by adding up each track’s votes with no weighting given to ranking within each DJ’s top 10 (so a number 1 has the same value as a 10). Where the total numbers of votes are equal we’ve listed tracks in alphabetical order (by artist) reflecting more than a few contributors’ approaches to selecting their key tracks.
Pedro Winter thinking about his top 10
US house star Chris Fortier said his top choice of the KLF’s What Time Is Love was particularly personal because ‘it came out around the time I started to really DJ and figure out the kinds of tracks I wanted to buy and play’, though stressed ‘my list could really be in any order’.
Underground British tech-house DJ Louis Osbourne concurred.
“Here’s my top 10 in no particular order,” said Louis, “I feel very “Hi-Fidelity” now,’ he chuckled.
High Fidelity: the Trailer (click for more)
Louis’ reference to the Nick Hornby book/ film, in which a record shop worker spends his time compiling- then endlessly debating- increasingly obscure ‘best ever’ lists struck a chord with this poll, specifically its identification of the hobby as a male obsession.
Indeed none of the female DJs and producers we contacted decided to take part in the poll, which otherwise drew enthusiastic responses from (male) leading lights of dance culture, including DJ Pierre, Tom Tom Club, Pedro Winter and New Order/ Joy Division bass player Peter Hook.
Relative newcomers including Get The Curse’ DJ Olibusta, Romania’s The Model and Nikhil Chinapa and DJ Arjun (Jalebee Cartel) from India also shared their opinions.
Joy Division's first ever TV appearance (Peter Hook on the right) click for more
Click HERE for full details (plus the next 50), of what we reckon’s a definitive list of the most influential dance tracks- ever! Thanks to all the DJs for taking part.
Compiled by Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff ) Each DJ’s individual top 10 will be posted within the next few days.
DJs/ producers who voted:
Ade Fenton, Alisson Gothz, Ascii Disco, Camilo Rocha, Chris Finke, Chris Fortier, Christian Smith, Christopher Lawrence, Danny Howells, Dave Clarke.
DAVE the Drummer, Deepgroove, Diarmaid O’Meara, DJ Ariel, DJ Pierre, Dusty Kid, Edwin Oosterwal, Gary Smith, Gladys Pizarrro (Ex Strictly Rhythm), Graham Gold.
Hugh O Bryder, Jagz Kooner, Jalebee Cartel, Jeffrey Disastronaut, Johnny Dynell, Jonty Skrufff, Judge Jules, Lenny Ibizarre, Liquid, Louis Osbourne.
Luke Howard, Mark Kavanagh, MOTOR, Nick Muir, Nikhil Chinapa, Olibusta, Pathaan, Patrice Baumel, Pedro Winter, Peter Hook (New Order).
Phuturetraxx, Sara Mrs Smith, Secret Cinema, Steve Mac, The model, Timo Maas, Tom Tom Club, Utah Saints, Way Out West (Jody Wisternoff), X Press 2 (Rocky).
The Winner is: New Order: Blue Monday (Blue Monday on Wiki: http://bit.ly/wfVnz)
“Which track turned me personally onto clubbing/ dance music the most? New Order- Blue Monday.”
Judge Jules was one of 15 of our 50 who selected New Order’s multi-million selling disco classic as did Irish DJ (and Daily Star deputy) Mark Kavanagh (‘this record changed my life’) and Audiosushi’s Jeffrey Disastronaut ‘Blue Monday made me realise- even in 1983 – that I could do this for the rest of my life…”
Peter Hook, however, admitted he was surprised.
“How much was I aware of how special it was when we created it? To be truthful not very much really. It was never one of my favourite songs. I much preferred “Thieves Like Us”,” the New Order/ Joy Division legend told Skrufff.
I tell you what, when I was sat there doing it in 1982? I NEVER thought it would get comments like this 29 years later,” he added.
Underworld's Born Slippy
While less than ecstatic about Blue Monday he was considerably more enthused about his own first choice, Underworld’s Born Slippy (or ‘Lager Lager’ as it calls it).
“To me this track embodies everything about clubbing from the beat to the lyrics,” said Hooky. “Live fast die young with no thought of tomorrow!”
Skrufff.com’s Top 50 Most Influential Dance Tracks Ever: The Results
Compiled by Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff
Skrufff.com's Most Influential Dance Tracks Ever: New Order's Blue Monday
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For DJs’ comments on why they picked what they picked, click HERE
1; New Order: Blue Monday
2: Donna Summer – I Feel Love
3: Afrika BamBaataa & The Soulsonic Force – Planet Rock
4: DJ Pierre & Phuture: Acid Tracks
5: Lil Louis – French Kiss
6: Hardfloor – Acperience
7: Marshall Jefferson – Move Your Body
8: Underworld- Born Slippy
9: Kraftwerk – Numbers
10: Kraftwerk- Trans Europe Express
I Feel Love (Skrufff's Number 2 'Most Influential Dance Tracks Ever')
11: Plastikman-Spastik
12: Dave Clarke – Red 2
13: Augustus Pablo – King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown
14: Joey Beltram – Energy Flash
15: KLF – What Time Is Love
16: LFO: LFO
17: Massive Attack -Unfinished Sympathy
18: Rhythm Is Rhythm (Derrick May) – Strings Of Life
19: A Guy Called Gerald – Voodoo Ray
20: Aphex Twin – Window Licker
For DJs’ comments on why they picked what they picked, click HERE
KLF: What Time Is Love?
21: Chemical Brothers- Block Rocking Beats
22: Daft Punk- Around The World
23: Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five – Adventures of the Wheels of Steel
24: Jam and Spoon-Stella
25: Manuel Goettsching- e2-e4
26: MARRS – Pump Up the Volume
27: Orbital- Chime
28: Prodigy – Smack My Bitch Up
29: Art of Noise-Close to the Edit
30: Cerrone; Supernature
For DJs’ comments on why they picked what they picked, click HERE
http://skrufff.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/MarrsPumpUpTheVolumeAD707.jpg "MarrsPumpUpTheVolumeAD707")
MARRS: Pump Up The Volume
31: Chic – Le Freak
32: Daft Punk – Da Funk
33: Farley Jackmaster Funk; Love Can’t Turn Around
34: Front 242: Headhunter
35: Future Sound Of London – Papua New Guinea
36: Gat Decor; Passion
37: Inner City: Good Life
38: James Brown – Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag
39: Jeff Mills- The Bells
40: Josh Wink: Higher State of Consciousness
For DJs’ comments on why they picked what they picked, click HERE
Daft Punk; Da Funk
41: Meat Beat Manifesto – Babylon
42: Michael Jackson – Billie Jean
43: Moby: Go
44: Mory Kante – Yeke Yeke
45: Mr Fingers; Can You Feel It
46: Primal Scream; Loaded
47: Prodigy; Charlie
48: Rolando – Knights of the Jaguar
49: Sasha- Xpander
50: Soft Cell; Memorabilia
For DJs’ comments on why they picked what they picked, click HERE
More Kante's Yeke Yeke (click to listen)
Compiled by Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff
DJs/ producers who voted:
Ade Fenton, Alisson Gothz, Ascii Disco, Camilo Rocha, Chris Finke, Chris Fortier, Christian Smith, Christopher Lawrence, Danny Howells, Dave Clarke,
DAVE the Drummer, Deepgroove, Diarmaid O’Meara, DJ Ariel, DJ Pierre, Dusty Kid, Edwin Oosterwal, Gary Smith, Gladys Pizarrro (Ex Strictly Rhythm), Graham Gold,
Hugh O Bryder, Jagz Kooner, Jalebee Cartel, Jeffrey Disastronaut, Johnny Dynell, Jonty Skrufff, Judge Jules, Lenny Ibizarre, Liquid, Louis Osbourne,
Luke Howard, Mark Kavanagh, MOTOR, Nick Muir, Nikhil Chinapa, Olibusta, Pathaan, Patrice Baumel, Pedro Winter, Peter Hook (New Order),
Phuture traxx, Sara Mrs Smith, Secret Cinema, Steve Mac, The model, Timo Maas, Tom Tom Club, Utah Saints, Way Out West (Jody Wisternoff), X Press 2 (Rocky)
