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| verndogs |
| quote: | Originally posted by lücid
hey Vern - any good shows in NY over Thanksgiving weekend? |
tiestor - Nov 26 (21+) - Crobar
tiestor - Nov 27 (18+) - Crobar
Benny Banassi - Nov 25 - Avalon
Oakenfuld - Nov 24 - Crobar
Danny Tenaglia - Nov 25 - Crobar
that's all i know so far
edit: yeah I realized you meant good, but who knows? You may see tiesto twice so you can get some more photochop inspirations? :toothless |
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| Spliph |
| quote: | Originally posted by ctprincess
how many lawler virgins are going to this show? |
+1 |
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| ctprincess |
really, really good interveiw on etn.fm
Exclusive Steve Lawler interview - Lights Out 3
posted by: Raffaella
date: 10/16/2005
ETN's writer Skandar caught up with Steve Lawler, fresh from the release of his new Lights Out album, vol. 3. on Global Underground. Here's another exclusive ETN interview...
ETN (Skandar): Tell me about how Viva got started.
Steve: Well I've been a resident DJ at Space for seven years in Ibiza, and I just thought that this year was the time to break off and do my own night in Ibiza, like others have done. Carl Cox did the same thing four years ago, and Morillo, and Sanchez. I've been a resident on the island so long that I just thought it was time I did my own night, and that's generally how the idea came about. I got Sasha involved to bring his Fundacion into Ibiza as well.
ETN:How has the club been doing versus your old residency?
S:The night's been amazing; the feedback's been really good. I just found out today that I won "Best Underground/Progressive/Tribal House DJ of the Year" in Ibiza again this year, for the third year running. So it's a good indication of really how the night's gone, I think. The night's been really successful; the numbers have been good; the atmosphere's been amazing. So I've been really happy with the first year.
ETN:Can you give me a few highlights from the night? S:I had Damien Lazarus come play with me one week; he played a great set. And the closing party. Loads of people brought sparklers in; we had bubble guns, and we had like flags flying in the crowd everywhere. It was amazing, the atmosphere was unreal.
ETN: Do you ever go to the club incognito just to check out the scene?
S: I do frequently in Ibiza, yeah. I tend to go to this place called DC10 every week. I go there and check out new DJ's, and I've been to Cocoon a few times. I do when I get the chance, yeah; I like to hear a new DJ spin cause they bring something new to the table, some fresh sounds.
ETN: What do you think a new DJ can do these days to get ahead?
S: I think production is a way of getting your foot in the door quickly, and getting people to know who you are. The thing is you can be the best DJ or the best producer, you can be very good at your trade, but if no one knows about you it's not gonna help. The best way is to get music out there, and also a residency to start something small, you know? Like DJ Demi did in London, he started a night called Substance, which really boosted his career because it's become a popular little night in London. I think that's a good way of getting a regular crowd to come down and see you.
ETN: Who in your mind is the next big thing?
S: Some new guys called Audiofly, who I think in the next couple of years are gonna shine. They're producing a lot of music and they're great DJ's. One half of the outfit is Italian, the other is from London.
ETN: Who is your favorite dance floor DJ?
S: Loco Dice
ETN: Who are your favorite producers at the moment?
S: I tend not to have favorite producers because I'm just constantly playing new producers' music. I don't think they're a producer out there that makes a lot of music that I love. Sometimes King Unique make stuff that I love and sometimes they make stuff that I don't like. It kind of happens like that with all producers. I don't think I have a favorite producer, to be honest.
ETN: What kind of equipment are you using for your own productions these days?
S: All the music I make I do in Logic Pro 7. I use all the synths and plugins on that. The only outboard stuff I use is an Avalon compressor, mixing desk, and some monitor speakers. The rest I do on my computer.
ETN: Can you tell me about the process you go through doing fresh production versus doing remixes?
S: It's pretty much the same. I mean a remix really is, in hindsight, a fresh production. Usually when you get a remix for a track they'll send you, possibly, if the original track's a vocal track then they'll just send you the vocal. You have to do the rest yourself as if you were doing a new track, so the process is just the same. If someone gives you the vocal of a track to remix, then obviously you listen to the vocal and imagine what sounds you want to go with that. If you don't have a vocal and you're making a new track, you don't think about it fitting anything, you just go in and build a track, but the process is very similar. It's the same.
ETN: How did your Skeleton Key remix come about?
S: The director of the movie, Aaron Sopholie, apparently he's a big fan; he hunted down my management, and he got hold of them. He was actually looking for me in particular to do something with this movie. He saw me playing in New York, and Miami, and Ibiza and in London. I wasn't aware of this; I wasn't aware that he'd been at any of my shows, and I certainly wasn't aware that he was a fan. I must say I was quite overwhelmed, really, when I found out because I want to, in the future, get my foot into Hollywood and work really closely with movie directors and produce soundtracks. This way was a good way of me getting my foot in the door. He was very happy with what I did and hopefully there'll be more work in the future with him.
ETN: Did he give you a specific direction, or did he just say, "Make me a good track"?
S: No, he said to my management something along the lines of, "This is a horror movie, I make horror movies, so I want the Lord of Darkness to make music for them. There was some sort of comment like that made when he introduced himself to my management. When I went into producing this track we got all of the parts sent over, and it was really strange. When I get parts of a remix I usually get a vocal or sort of a bass or synth sounds, but we literally just got sent sounds effects. It was like nails scraping down blackboards and screams. We just got all the sounds effects that you get from the horror movie, so it was really quite interesting to build a dark track with real dark, scary sounds in it as opposed to just making it a dark sound.
ETN: Have you been spinning that track out a lot?
S: I've been playing it all summer, every set I've played. It's been in the last, sort of, 50 sets I've played. I wanted to keep the sound very modern and moving forward, which is where I see music moving. It's more of a kind of an electro, sort of, energetic edge to a track, and that's how it came out the way it did. I wanted that element in there. I wanted it to be dark, but I wanted it to have that tribal feel to it too.
ETN: It seems like everyone is into electro these days. What do you think it is about the sound that's been making it more popular over the past few years?
S: You know electro is a word that's being widely used right now to describe many different styles of music. The way I see it, it's not really electro. It's more a case of, the sounds that are being used are more, sort of, old kind of analog sounds if you will. For me, you listen to Lights Out 1 which came out four years ago. There were some very electronic sounds in that, digital sounds, and that's kind of where the music is for me. I like my music dirty, I like my music fat. With some of these sounds that are being tapped as electro, they're not really electro. If you listen to an electro track, first of all they're electro does not have a 4/4 beat behind it, it has a breakbeat behind it. Original electro is pretty much quite commercial sounding. The music that's being taken now, it's just using the influence of the electro kind of sounds that were used in those days, the old analog sounds, and we're using those on house music now. It gives the music some feel, it gives it a dirty edge, and I like that.
ETN: How has the Lights Out series evolved?
S: It's evolved as I've evolved. In my head, and what I think about music. Lights Out 1 was my experiment into the darker side of house, and I was really really happy with that album. It kind of got slighted in the press four years ago when it came out, but now it actually gets sung as a legendary album. People are saying that's an absolute classic, and I kind of thought that when I finished the album in the first place, but it was just too forward-thinking for most people, I think. Lights Out 2 was sort of set on a terrace in the sunshine. A little more chunky, a little more funky. On Lights Out 3, CD One is kind of a more afterhours vibe, and CD Two is quite pumping. There's even techno on there, it's quite tough in parts.
ETN: What makes the new installment better than the first?
S: It isn't better than the first. I don't think one is better than the other because the three albums are different musically. They have the same influence and that influence comes from my head, the kind of sounds I like, the dirty, chunky basslines, the acid sounds, the chunky drums. You'll find that on all three of the albums, but musically they go in different places. That's what I wanted the series to be. I didn't want to put out three albums that were very similar musically, I wanted people to take home with them seven or eight hours of music that I love. A seven, eight hour Lawler set, really. So that's what I want people to get from the three albums.
ETN: You're known for your programming. Do you memorize the mathematics of each track or do you do it more by feel?
S: I just do it by feel. It's like driving a car for me, it just comes natural for me to know what record to put next to what. For me the track programming throughout a mix is the most important thing because you can take a good night and make it an amazing night if you program the tracks right. If a night is all over the place musically, people just dance and get off to it and that's it. But if you program the night well musically, you take people on a journey of music, and they walk out of that room going, ", that was amazing." You know? Programming is so important. You can make a track sound better by what you play next to it.
ETN: Do you ever have off nights?
S: I think we all do. I'm my biggest critic, to be honest. Sometimes I'll walk out of the club and everyone's patting me on the back and saying it was amazing, and I just think to myself, ", no it wasn't amazing, it could have been better." I really love what I do, so if I don't feel I've played well, I feel like killing myself. It's ridiculous, I'm just really pissed off about it. My tour manager says I shouldn't be so hard on myself or whatever. As long as I'm satisfied, knowing that I've done my job well, then I know it's right. But if people tell me I've been amazing and I feel that I haven't, I feel as if people are blowing smoke up my ass. I don't want that, I am very hard on myself, but yeah I do have off nights. A lot of times when I walk out of the club I'm not happy with what I've done.
ETN: Still, suicide sounds a little extreme...
S: Yeah, I mean, it's not exactly like that. Maybe I won't kill myself, maybe I'll just drink a bottle of vodka instead.
ETN: You're known for being the guy that re-edits most of the tracks he plays. It seems like now a lot of the big and even smaller name DJ's are doing this, especially with Ableton Live. Do you feel like you paved the way for this movement?
S: I don't know if I paved the way singly on my own, but I certainly did more than most people. The reason why is because I'm just a perfectionist in everything that I do. I create myself lots of work, I give myself a hard time. I want things to be as best as they can be. If I get a track in the post and I love this track, then all of a sudden there's this part in the track I don't like, I'll just take it out, re-edit it, and burn. Whereas most people, if a part of the track comes in they don't like, they'll just bin it. If there's a majority of that track that I like, I will play it, but I'll edit it first and take out the parts that I don't like. Or if I listen to the track and I like the groove but I think there could be all these extra elements that would work with this groove, then I'll add them to it. Whereas most people won't, they'll just throw it out, you know? I think there are a lot of other DJ's that did that, but I think I did it to the extreme.
ETN: Do you ever think about going to Ableton?
S: I do use Ableton Live for my re-edits, actually, but I wouldn't use it live. First of all that's not how I use the program, so I wouldn't really know how to use it live. I use it more of a programming package that I do all of my re-edits in. When I play now I only use CD's, and I'm using two CD players or three CD players, I'm using two effects units, and I can do so much on the fly, it's almost like performing live. I'm changing tracks as they're playing. I'm setting up samples, I'm setting up trigger points that I can go back to in a track, I'm looping certain parts of the track, I'm looping as I mix two tracks together, and just leave two tracks looping together on the groove, and then with the third CD player I can drop in an acapella. I'm constantly busy in the DJ booth, I can really be creative with that, I don't really need Live to do that.
ETN: Do you feel that vinyl still has any advantages or is it totally a dead format? S: It's a dead format, really. It kills me to say that. I mean I still collect vinyl, I still buy records, and I still keep them, but what I tend to do is, whatever I get on vinyl I burn it straight to CD. I can do so much more with CD players now than what I can with vinyl, it doesn't really hold up any more. If I started playing records I'd get bored. There's all I can do apart from put two records together, you know? With CD players I'm constantly doing , so it's much more creative for me.
ETN: MP3 sites like Beatport are becoming more and more in demand. Do you think that's the future of how people get their music?
S: I'd say yeah, absolutely, and I think it's positive. It opens the whole world to your shelf. People from Brazil can go out and get a Harlem Records single, where before they might have found it difficult because there are no shops in Brazil that sold Harlem Records. Now, as long as you've got an internet connection, you can get them. It's very much a positive thing.
ETN: What are you trying to do with Harlem Records? Is there any direction you're trying to take?
S:I've got the three labels. I'm in the process of slowing down at the moment because I want to give each release a bit more attention than what it's had previously. I've got some really strong producers on the label, I've got some great music coming out, and I need to try and give it a bit more time. It's difficult because I have so many things going on, but I believe that these up-and-coming producers that I'm using on Harlem Records or Harlem Tracks or Harlem Electric, they deserve the time and effort put into it, and I'm just trying to get a company behind out Harlem that loves it as much as I do, to take control of it a bit, and take a bit of the work off my hands and give it more attention. So I'm in the process of slowing it down a little bit until I can get things set up the way I want them to be.
ETN: Between your constant touring, your club nights, your productions, and your record label, how do you find a balance?
S: There isn't really a balance. I love what I do, so it doesn't really become a problem for me. I'm either in my office where I'm arranging things to happen with my night, or with my labels, or I'm in the studio doing a couple of re-edits, or I'm working on a remix or a new track, or I'm on tour. My whole life is full of music in one way or another, and I'm happy with that because I live, breathe, and eat music, and so I'm constantly on the burn with it, and I enjoy. My life is good, I work at my own pace, and I do the things that I really want to do as opposed to doing things I don't want to do. It's quite nice.
ETN: All that and you still have time for 8-hour DJ sets.
S:I don't know what to say. I love music, I'm a freak. Even when I'm not playing music, I'm listening to it. I can never get bored of music, there's just constant excitement within music. I don't know, it's kind of weird. I often get off my girlfriend for not giving her as much attention as she'd like, but she kind of understands how I feel about music, so it's ok.
ETN: How do you keep motivated during an eight-hour long set?
S: Music motivates me. Every single time a track drops in it motivates me and excites me. Maybe there's a section for like thirty minutes where I want to take the music down to deep depths, and that excites me. Just watching peoples' reactions, and feeling the control of what the music has over people on the dance floor, that excites me. Then when you take them back up and within three records you've got the whole place jumping, strobe lights are flashing, that excites me. Then I bring it back down and the smiles on their faces, that excites me. Sometimes eight hours can feel like eight hours, and sometimes eight hours can feel like two hours. It depends on the venue, it depends on the crowd, it depends on the sound system.
ETN:Do you ever get bored during a set or don't try as hard?
S:Not really. I mean, sometimes you've been playing a long set, if I'm in a venue that doesn't feel comfortable because the sounds isn't so good, or the venue just feels cold, then that drags it out a little. I don't get bored but it feels like you're playing for eight hours. Sometimes the room is amazing, and the sound is amazing, and the crowd are magical, and eight hour are over, and I could still go on. It just depends on your environment I guess.
By Skandar Rassass
Thanks to Steve Lawler for his time and to Justin Kleinfeld for setting up this interview.
Read more about Steve Lawler's "Lights Out 3" and his tour in our previous post: HERE |
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| lücid |
| great interview, thanks for posting it Kristin! |
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| ctprincess |
| i'm thinking some of us will be here for this |
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