Christopher Lawrence’s Australian Error (Interview)
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Picking up numerous ‘Best American DJ’ awards in the middle of the last decade, Christopher Lawrence sparked surprise when he moved to Melbourne, Australia in 2008, just as America’s electronic music scene finally started taking off.
Returning last year, he admitted missing Melbourne’s coffee (‘probably the best in the world- the coffee in California is horrible’) though was otherwise happy to be back. One year on, he remains similarly grateful.
“Moving to Australia was an epic ‘Fail’. It was a bad career move as I was living fourteen hours away from my biggest market,” he admits.
“Touring was a disaster when I was based in Melbourne. I was never home and that really messed with my family. Moving back to Los Angeles was the best thing I ever did.”
As well as continually touring the world spinning his preferred flavour of progressive pumping trance, he’s also continuing to develop his label Pharmacy Music, through which he’s just launched a new compilation series.
Marketed with the catchphrase ‘You’ll never be embarrassed to admit that you like our trance’, the series offers ‘solid pumping trance designed for the dance floor’, though as the catchphrase indicates, not just any dance floor.
“We don’t care about superstar DJs and we don’t make cheesy music videos,” its accompany press release insists, “but we will rock you so hard that your teeth will chatter.”
Chatting to Skufff today, Christopher admits he’s far from impressed with the majority of his superstar DJ peers.
“The pop-dance scene is a pretty sad state of affairs and the worst part is that most of the DJs are pandering to the lowest common denominator,” he complains.
“All the genres have merged into one sound. You can go to any club or festival, close your eyes and you can’t tell the difference from one DJ to the next. They all sound the same and play the same tracks.”
“The lines have been blurred between he genres and everyone is playing the same trance-electro-dubstep-house sound,” he continues.
“It has made it difficult in some respects because people no longer go out to be blown away on the dance floor by music they have never heard before.
Instead, they want to hear all their favorite songs and if the DJ doesn’t play the hits they feel disappointed.”
Chris’ assessment of the blandness of America’s pop-dance favourites matches the even blunter views of British tech-house DJ Steve Lawler who, chatting to the Miami New Times this week, is equally frank (and reportedly ‘disgusted’).
“This electro-pop-dance that all the R&B artists are jumping on is the worst music I have ever heard in my whole life — cheap, no soul, no meaning,” Lawler snorts. “[It's] only made to make money.” (http://bit.ly/vRByzv )
