If you were in Jozi back when Drum and Bass turned the then Transky in Melville into the weekly hotspot that it became, you’d probably have noticed one black haired DJ singing into headphones, if you’d followed the career of that wee DJ in that wee bar then you’d have noticed that she won 2 SAMA’s for her debut album…. not too shabby hey…

But then Ms. Baxter kinda disappeared… Oh, But she didn’t…

What she has been up to is a whole lot more impactful than any SAMA or radio bump. She’s been collaborating with some of the biggest and best electronic artists in the world, started her own studio and been nurturing 2 lovely children, but before I give any more away let’s turn to the interview!

DON’T PARTY CHATS TO

TASHA BAXTER

• Hello Ms. Baxter, to say that this interview is a long time coming is an understatement, but finally we get to do this! How’re you today?

Im planning my birthday actually, cant believe im 30 already! My time flys…

• What do you do on a day to day basis?

I run a music composition studio in the Braamfontein with my boyfriend Greg Reve, we make music for Film and TV commercials. Its called Humble Pi ?

• You’ve been in South Africa’s spotlight but now you seem to have been putting more focus on the international market. Why is this?

Its not that have put more effort there, its just that it the relationships I have formed on the net over the years have finally bared some fruit, it’s a very quick and easy process for me to lay down vocals here and send em over. Funnily enough, I put less effort into the work I do overseas than the work I do here, and get a better response too, I have to work so hard in my own territory and get little reward , its frustrating and disheartening

• Do you see any value in being a South African musician? By this I mean a ‘radio-friendly’ SA Artist?

Well sure, I live here, its important if you want to sustain a living you need to play the live circiut and play the corp shows, unfortunately it’s a small incestuous industry and the ceiling is low, it’s a struggle, constantly, all I can do is my part and hope for the best.

• It seems that your European electronic music collaborations started in 2007 when Noisia produced your ‘Colour Of Me’ album. Was this the case?

Well no, my electronic collabs started way before that in 2001, the first of those was singing with legendary Counterstrike out of my home town Cape Town, a track called Questions and then another called Nemsis. I had also worked with Roger Goode on his debut album, 5 or so tracks, the likes of In the beginning and To move you. The Dutch boys came later when I moved up to the 011.

• How did you end linking up with Noisia and why? Does it have anything to do with your DnB background?

Yeah, I statred Dj’in, my partner at the time (Dj Sonar) ran a night at transky in Melville on a Thursday ( reflex), it was the next best thing to do, it was easy, and not labour intensive, I didn’t need to rehearse or anything and it was instant gratification to DJ. He introduced me to Noisia, which I loved to play, and then I hit them up on AIM, the rest as we say is history.

• Since then you have worked with some serious globally respected electronic artists. Let’s start with Chasing Shadows, how did they end up doing a remix of ‘The Visitor’?

They hit me up and asked if hey could? I said HELL YEAH.

• Now from there we move to DnB superhero: Spor (a.k.a Feed Me). I am personally a super fan of his. How did the leap from the Dutch to U.K. producers happen?

Well, the internet has been the catylist for all of these collabs, I was chatting to Jon the same time I was chatting to the likes of Noisia, black sun empire, Teebee Calyx etc, the relationship grew and he was keen to produce my own material and forthcoming tunes, the likes of Ebb and Flow which is currently dpong rotation on the national stations.

• You’ve done a couple tracks with him (including one on his latest EP; which is about to drop) how come you keep working together?

We have a good working relationship I guess, he likes what I do and vice versa, Im not complaining!

• What can we expect from TB in the near future?

I have anothre side project Im very excited about called Nicky Not On! This is myself and my boyfriend Greg Reve, then Im working with Le castle Vania, Madeon, Feed Me, Chasing Shadows, Im also writing for big artists over seas. So I should be very busy!

Tasha Baxter – Bikes (Teaser) by Tasha Baxter

• Any final words, what would you like to say to the public at large?

www.tashabaxter.com x

Eve Rakow is not as scary in person as I thought she would be. I meet her in a sleazy pink-lit Chinese restaurant in Emmarentia, shielded by my Alice notebook from the feisty subject I think I’ll meet. Instead she smiles and embraces me as if we were old friends from way-back adventures in the sandpit.

Peruse images of her and you will find deserted expressions, growls, contortionist poses, a hooded fiend, a capped punk yelling into a microphone, a blonde-haired mod wrapped in a fire hose – a forlorn, aggressive, enigmatic sprite.

But far from the snarling artfag crazy-eyed beasty I’ve come to know in her many stage personas that I expect to be leaning all non-chalantly up against the wall with a cigarette hanging from her lips, Rakow is slight and fragile in person. Though delicate, she can rip out a lurking beast when the need arises.

In spite of forays in androgyny, obscure videos on Youtube, bizarre costumes and whack personas, rising to the elite of Jo’burg artistic mastery and chilly trysts on roofs in the inner-city, Eve Rakow is rather down-to-earth.

To my disappointment, she tells no tales of sex, drugs or general artistic madness, but rather paints for me a shambolic mix of her personal passion and lusty desire for creative accomplishment, while ideas that she has no means of taming spout through her teeth in short orgasmic bursts.

You may recognize Rakow from Jo’burg bowling alleys circa-2008, from her stint in the neon-loving party band – “my band – what a big word for that thing that we did in varsity” – Love on Rollerskates. The band turned spandex and disco into cool before the rest of us even knew how to say “shuttershades”.

Then, in the Kolo Novo Balkonology era came the gypsy-nouveu-on-acid  Frown Family Caravan with Gustavo Fasani. “When the Frown Family Caravan dissolved I was a little bit terrified. Through that I realized that music was what I wanted to do with my life, but it never felt like that was the project.”

When Waddy Jones saw a video of one of her self-made tracks, Rakow says, “he was like ‘this is next level shit – you must come open for me’.” Shortly after that she was opening for Die Antwoord in Cape Town.

“It was only my second show. I knew then that I needed to fatten up my beats, and the only person I thought could do it was Tim Apter.” The Frown, as we know it, was born.

Rakow has since become a mythical beast, owing partly to a series of stories spun around her eccentricities on Mahala and partly to the oblique, love-them-or-hate-them personas flaunted by the Frown on stage.

But cut back to living-room matinees to old records for her mom who was a “little bit of a Liz Taylor with the men”, pan over a childhood in Alberton, where as she puts it, “I was this very strange, strange girl,” and stick that image into a montage of her not quite fitting in in the sticks of southern Jo’burg, and there you have a familiar fable of small-town girl hits the big time. But it wasn’t always easy.

“I always felt I was a weirdo for liking the things I liked, listening to the music I listened to, for dressing like I did. School was hard for me. I had a strong personality but I felt very isolated from people, and there was nothing I could relate to.”

Fast forward over a Drama degree at Wits, where “what a cliché – I found myself at arts school”, and we get the gist of how Rakow discovered herself. It opened her mind, she confesses: “It was the first time I was accepted by a community of people, the first time people were listening to me. My ideas weren’t absurd, I had something to offer.”

Rakow always saw herself as an actress. But music was something that popped up and hijacked her fate – just in time. “As an actress you’re not really in charge of your destiny – you’re a hanger for other people’s ideas. At a certain point it didn’t feel right.”

Rakow knew that she was meant to be a performer, but it was only later on that she realized it would be as a musician.

“My mom was never one of those moms who made me take piano lessons.” But when Rakow met her best friend Melody – the irony is not lost on her – she fell in love with music.

“I would go on drives with her and her brother and father and they would break out into three-part harmony. But music was always this unobtainable thing. People often get indoctrinated to stick to what they’re good at instead of trying to be good at what you really love.”

With her abstract vocal style and forays into difficult genres, music was not something that just fell into her lap.

“My whole life I’ve been realizing that I have a different kind of beauty, a different kind of energy and a different kind of voice.”

She professes to being influenced by many of those artists to whom she is often compared. But the addition of her mix of genres and musical ideologies separates her timbre of squeaking and booming from that comparison.

“I was definitely influenced musically by all the girls that taught me how to sing, and that it’s okay to have a strange voice: Bjork, Joanna Newsom, Coco Rosie, Fiona Apple.  And – yes – Lady Gaga – I don’t care. But there are so many ideals that we share – the idea of anti-beauty.”

Though she pictures herself as an asexual beast, she can’t help but be as sexy as hell.

Like Gaga, she has switched between androgyny and overt sexuality at the flip of a hat, from wearing paper ball gowns with tuxedo shirts to being completely invisible to the crowd, cutting off her wild hair and wearing trousers that let her ankles stick out above a pair of – well are they Doc Martens or Vellies? I can’t really tell. Rakow attributes her stage garb to her love for revolting vintage clothing “that looks like it has a seedy story”.

In her spare time she has turned the place formerly known as Bob Rocks into the flagship for the dispossesed indie kids of the Tokyo Star days, driving retro/indie/suicide parties on week nights and weekends.

“The beauty of Bob Rocks is that it’s absolutely revolting. It’s this really ugly dog that I’ve fallen in love with,” she says.

She is generally cool and calm, but the tortured artist rears its head when she contemplates the inspiration for her songs. For Rakow, Robyn is one of those tracks that tears at her insides.

“I have the strangest relationship with the track Robyn. She was just the person who, no matter how hard I tried, just wouldn’t love me.  She just couldn’t see the soft side of me, she would always sees the things she didn’t like and it just killed me.” All of her songs are metaphors for life, but Rakow rarely uses actual characters in these.

Her ballad to Robyn became Apter’s masterpiece. “It was the simplest song, and Tim took it and made it into his opus with a hundred different time signatures in it. The only person who can sing it perfectly is Tim. That’s our relationship in a song – taking an idea I have and running with it in the opposite direction, and me running after him going ‘what are you doing!?’ It’s this delicate little journey of finding balance and not compromising too much.”

“The Frown is defined by how different our musical tastes are. There are very few things that we see eye to eye on in the music world- but that’s what makes it so interesting. My songs always start out as Folk. And then Tim takes them to some other place.”

It’s in the musical relationship between Apter’s wild heavy beats and Rakow’s tender lyrical imaginings where the magic of the Frown’s live performances is made.

But when fans started agitating for music to take home after shows, they realised the need for an album. “It was stupid that the only way people could hear our music was at a live show. So the plan was to record a little five-track demo and do free digital downloads – albums feel a bit archaic.” But down in Illovo, Shane Durrant had a little pot of Howl brewing.

“He wanted to start an independent record – and it’s just the kind of music he wanted to put out there.” And so, A-men became the first album to be released on Howl records.

Rakow swears by collaborations like these that move in and out of the Frown’s orbit. “I’m always making sure that somebody else somewhere is thinking of the Frown or working for the Frown”.

From printmaker Niall Bingham who did the linocut artwork for the album, to Jean-Michel Wickli who allows the mad imaginings of Eve Rakow’s mind to materialise in set design for performances, to photographers Liam Lynch, Chris Saunders and Justin Mcgee  – three photographers with “three completely different energies” – who through their works have conceptualized different personas of the Frown, there are always creatives helping to mould the Frown’s identity.

Fans and haters alike can look forward to a graphic novel in the works by Derrick Pitts which conjures up the dark fantastical mythology behind the Frown as a post-apocalyptic band, playing on the collective ominous mood derived from fears of Armageddon and capturing the tragedy in the Frown’s sound.

Their recent cover of N.E.R.D.’s Rockstar has sparked interest in cover lovers around the globe.

The cover went international as sites around the globe picked up on their viscerous interpretation.  “N.E.R.D.’s Rockstar is such a killer track. And I thought it would be interesting to turn something so misogynistic and brash and verbose into something really small and sad.”

But she hasn’t grown that thick layer of skin to deflect the shit that hundred of self-proclaimed critics hurl at her via the Mahala comment feeds. “I’ve actually banned myself from reading that – I’m such a softie and everything penetrates – if it didn’t I wouldn’t be able to make music,” she says.

“I’ve always said I want to make the kind of music that affects. We definitely don’t make the kind of music that’s for everyone. But for every bad comment there’s someone who’s defending us. I often wish I could make music with mass appeal because life would be much easier. But I make this music because this is the kind of music that I make – this is the music that comes out.”

At least, for now – we can expect a lot more of that coming out. “This is it. I’ll be doing this for the rest of my life.”

Eve’s Jo’burg:

“In Cape Town they’ve got the mountain, the sea, this landscape, this amazing nightlife – there’s no desperation to interact with other people. It’s really easy to explain to people why you love Cape Town. It’s right there. Johannesburg, however – there’s something deeper. I love it here. There’s something in the air, a strange energy that makes Jo’burg…. There’s something… you know…”

“In Johannesburg it’ s all about our interaction with other people, our relationships – that’s what all the collaborations are about. It’s all we really have here in Jo’burg. It’s the people here that matter.”

“There are so many new spots that the city is so open to embracing. There are always new things popping up all over the place. Jo’burg takes these places, like Arts on Main, that no-one was coming to, and gives them a second chance. That’s the beautiful thing about Jo’burg in general. It doesn’t matter what you like – I promise you there is someone here and some little scene that’s there for you. If a weirdo like me can find a little niche…  There’s so much here. No matter who you are.”

Eve’s Jo’burgers to watch:

“There are a lot of amazing things happening here. Shane [Durrant] and Angie [Durrant Batis] at Wolves have created a whole industry out of something that they love. Even Tim is incredible – he’s not just in The Frown. He has Double Adapter, he owns a post-production company, he is just everywhere. And people like Russell Grant, who does the Bioscope.”

A lot of people that are in the music industry at the moment are from Pretoria. Does that count? Aren’t the like the same thing? Us Kids Know and Shortstraw are awesome. A Skyline On Fire just blew my mind the other night. Of course, always Joao Orrecchia.

Greg Reve, heard of him? Well don’t feel left out if you haven’t because most South African’s haven’t either… but a lot of Europeans have!

Reve had a brief stint in the public eye whilst in a rap group called ‘The Realist’. The Realist were a hardcore, dark and sordid, heavy hitting trio that popped up in Cape Town one second and was gone as fast as they appeared. Then, like a flash, Reve disappeared…

What most don’t know about the muso is that he didn’t disappear, he just migrated. Greg headed north to the hard grind of Johannesburg to pursue his musical dream further. Starting a sound production agency with hubby Tasha Baxter, named Humble Pi, and continued his production making some waves in the UK but let’s ;et him tell the story:

• Hello Mr. Reve or should I say T.O.B! What are you doing right now, as we speak?

Looking to light my cigarette with no lighter in sight, trying to burn last nights pizza box on the heater but its not working. This Espresso machine is taking forever to warm up, maybe I should have tea instead..

• What, why, how is Greg Reve?

Im a 27 year old producer born in France. I live in a secluded world with little human interaction. I don’t use Massive much, but I think Lego Star-Wars is really cool.

• You had a short but quite impactful stint as the producer for the group ‘The Realist’. Heavy and hard rap music! What happened to The Realist?

Well, moving to Joburg and leaving the others behind in CPT obviously didn’t help much as a start.. I still have a huge space in my heart for The Realist & the music that we made. Unfortunately I had to make certain sacrifices to make time for all the rest of the music that still needs to be written in the 1 & only lifetime I was granted here on Earth. Its definitely to be continued though, maybe we’ll make another album down the line when were old and crinkly at age 50 or so. hah!

• A lot of South Africans thought that you just disappeared, vanished, but little do they know you have had far more success internationally than you ever did in SA. BBC 1 play, support from artists like Bassnectar and N-Type… How did this happen? What was your first stepping stone into the international realm and how did they take notice?

TBH (to be honest) [locally] I dont think i’ve ever “appeared” to ever “disappear”, i’ve never really put in enough time towards building my name on the South African market..Mainly due to the fact that I’ve been really stuck in the studio making sure my music sounds right and also getting released at the right times, building momentum has really been my primary focus more than anything.. The overseas attention started with Bassnectar & Laurent Garnier, they’ve always been solid supporters of my work since the very beginning & have always taken time out of their busy schedules to make time for my music. Im deeply grateful for it, they’ve helped me stacks and is something I will never forget.

• Your latest release, Decoy, seems to be gaining some serious momentum. What interests you about hard electronic music?

Decoy has been doing great & gotten allot of massive support from people who I have admired for many many years, which has been an absolute honor. Funny thing about it though is that its taken a full year for this track to get where its at today. Initially, pretty much every dnb label slated it and everybody told me that it wouldn’t go anywhere, at 1st it was absolutely heart breaking, I knew this track would definitely be a force to be reckoned with. So I kept at it and eventually got contacted with some interest & thanks to some real hard work from myself, Whosane & Muti Music, were sitting at No.29 on Beatport’s DnB Top 100 chart at just 8 days into the release. So it seems like its finally paying out.

I am also doing some other varied stuff at the moment & keeping it fun is obviously the biggest thing for me, its definitely not all about being “hard” or in fact fitting any musical mould at all. 2011 has been an amazing year so far and i’ve been blessed with lots of new & different sounding material for the masses.

• You are also a sound designer and music composer for ads, movies etc. Tell us more about this and your successes?

Yeah myself & Tasha Baxter run a studio in Braamfontein called “Humble Pi”, its a really great space & we’ve been at it with some really interesting projects, after the success of the film I did the music score for last year “Jozi Kings”, its lead to me being commissioned to do 2 more feature films coming up within the next few months which I’m super excited about.

• So you are a well accomplished musician online. Where to from here?

“Online”? Haha, cheers mate Im in discussions about possibly doing a tour in Australia this year In November which im super amped about.. Myself & Tasha have also been working on our new act together which I cant mention much about right now, but were finishing our debut EP & been getting really positive response from artists and labels abroad. Its been a long time in the works, but it seems like its all coming together finally.

• What do you think about the state of South African electronic music at the moment? Do you foresee yourself racking in the SAMA’s?

South Africa definitely has a sound of its own, which is amazing! Been really impressed with how much the level has risen locally.. I really dont see “local” as “local” anymore..I think its safe to say we’ve passed those times, Local isn’t “Lekker” anymore, its AS good, if not better. Its all great export, as is with any other country in the world that we might look up to.

As for the SAMA’s, its definitely not on my bucket-list for what I’m personally doing at the moment. Maybe for another project one day, who knows?

End.

FREE T.O.B TRACKS

LMFAO – Party Rockers Anthem [Greg Reve_Remix]

(right click / save as to download)

Greg Reve (T.O.B.) – Decoy (Instrumental) free 320 k MP3 by Muti Music

T.O.B LINKS

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Woodstock Mafia (and I hope they don’t mind me saying) are a heavy version of the Foo Fighters in my opinion, which isn’t so bad to be compared to, I mean have you ever heard somebody say that they don’t like the Foo’s? And to be honest very soon you are going get the same response about this band…I went to go watch them the other night at R.O.A.R and I tried to find something to crit them about (coz I’m a dick like that) but to be honest everything about their performance oozed quality. They’re here to play, they’re here to stay and their lead singer can scream better than a Norwegian Black Metal vocalist…This is what they have to say for themselves…Blood and all.

Since our friendship began, over 15 years ago, Nick and I have avoided playing together in a band. In 2009 we had a stint together at the Hare Krishna Centre in Rondebosch and during this time we decided it might just work. Some months later I was involved in a pop-rock act with Joe and knew his voice would be perfect for this project. Owen I found on my couch one morning after a debaucherous house party. Everything fell into place in late January 2011, the name Woodstock Mafia was decided upon in March and we had our first gig later in April.

• In your facebook profile picture, how did you attain your supposed injuries? Is it good make up work or did you guys beat each other up in true rockstar fashion hahahah?

Haha, I can’t lie to you about this, but on the day of the shoot we had a make up artist come in thanks to our friends at Aiko Photography. However, the concept was inspired by the bloodied nose Nick gave me when I took his last Rolo without asking. I understand the reasoning behind his violent outburst; I mean I would have done the same.

• What musician’s/bands/artists  inspired you guys to become musician yourselves…When did you know you wanted to be in a band?

I think for all of us it started when we were very young. We were all brought in homes where music was a part of life. Joe’s dad has an amazing voice and plays sweet bluesy tunes. And at the other extreme is my dad the disco DJ, who at the age of 60 is still playing parties.

• Your single ‘Dance on Cars’ is a crazy track, what is it about?

You know when you’re at a house party, and the craziest girl in the room is the one you’re most attracted to, yet the most intimidated by? I think those types of situations can be some of our biggest regrets, it is like the fear of the unknown, the unconventional. And what the song is saying is that you shouldn’t be limited to social convention. Also, crazy girls are awesome.

• If your band was a car, what car would it be and why?

That is a bit random, haha. I guess we would be a classic Ford Mustang, for no other reason than I think they’re pretty cool. They’re kinda solid and sporty without being too offensive.

• Ryan, you are the bassist and Beer Logistics Officer for the band, why have you been appointed with this extremely job? Do the rest of the band have different roles other than their instruments?

Haha, someone has to do it. I think we all do our bit and share the load. Owen and I handle most of the marketing, the business side is my baby too, most of it involing petty cash for beer. Joe is a sound engineer and a damn good one at that. And Nick is the primary songwriter and some of the stuff he is coming up with is really jaw-droppingly brilliant. However, our strength really lies in working together as a team.

• For our female readers and Jax Panik, who is single, who is in a relationship and who pulls the most groupies?

Haha, is this a dating site? Tell you what, let the readers find out for themselves when they come to a gig. As for groupies, Joe and Owen are the pretty boys and attract the most attention. Nick has considerable fans too. My role is to act as their pimp.

• What album is playing in each of your car’s at this present moment?

In my car I have a classic Porno for Pyros album called Good God’s Urge. Owen is tucking into the new Foo Fighters, Joe is waiting for the new Incubus album, and Nick snacks on so many bands all the time that it could be anything from Them Crooked Vultures to The Raconteurs. He also has a penchant for rare Ace of Base remixes.

• Who would you most like to play with?

Make them easy, make them the easiest questions in the world! I think locally we really want to play with Taxi Violence, Van Coke Kartel and Isochronous. But having said that, there are so many amazing local bands coming through all the time. South African music has never been so strong and a big thank you has to go out to every single person – from fans to artists to managers to suppliers – for making the industry continue to grow. That being said, in “fantasy-land”, touring with Muse, Foo Fighters, Incubus or Wolfmother would be absolutely mind-blowing. The way things are going for South African artists, “fantasy-land” certainly seems more attainable than ever before.

More Mafia?

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CATCH THEM:

• 25 June: Blizzard, Durbanville with Red Huxley, Heldervue and special guests Llevado

A good friend of mine immigrated to the land of the Shaolin a few years back to study and has remained there ever since. His name is Lebo Rasethaba and he has been involved in pushing some pretty cool film stuff out in the East [click HERE to see the Damon Dash post that he was previously a part of].

In his latest production endeavour Lebo has gets busy with WordySoulSpeak, a duo packed with 3 X Asian DMC winner DJ Wordy and LA based Soulspeak, in the creation of their latest music video for the track ‘High All the Time‘. I caught up with him to catch up and discuss this project of his life in that foreign place.

THE CATCHUP

• Lebo you have been living on distant shores from SA for some time now. Is China home now and do you have any plans to return in the near future?

Yeah man, totally – in fact, I’m coming back home next month. I mean as time goes by I need to figure out a way to split my time between China and South Africa, you know, some sort of 7/5 split. I would prefer it if it was 7 South Africa 5 China but we’ll see.

• Who is WordySoulspeak and how did you link up with these guys?

Wordy is an old friend of mine, he is a nasty-DJ-recently-turned-producer and Soulspeak is music whiz kid from LA. A little over a year ago the two of them started having these jam sessions in Wordy’s studio and I was always just hanging out with them, and I had done a couple of silly fun videos for them, and so when they when eventually launched a legitimate album, we decided we should try make a legitimate video.

• When did your journey into film production begin?

My first foray into film was a short documentary I made about Xenophobia in South Africa; I think that was about 6 years ago. And then when I moved to Beijing, I really got into it proper. I have been illegally doing freelance videography work for a while, and things are starting to pop off.

• The style of hip-hop reminds me a lot of the DJ Honda type sound. What’s the hip-hop (or should I rather say music) scene like up in China?

In general I would say it’s still quite infantile, but in a good way. In the last couple of years Chinese kids have had more access to “stuff” because of this awesome and crazy world we live in with the internet and airplanes and VPN’s and all that. So things are happening, everyone is more privy to what everyone else is doing. But Asia in general has a really crazy ‘pop’ situation; so in much a broader sense there isn’t a lot of this type of thing happening. But ultimately here it is-things are happening-it’s just in small isolated spacings.

• Does China’s stringent laws and seemingly non-humanitarian legislature adversely affect creative culture over there?

Oh for sure, but I think there is a cool flip side to that. I think that because of the way things are here in China, you have to almost be extra creative because you cant just come out and say what you want to say, you totally cant just go via generic creative avenues to express yourself, you have to try think of a newer, smarter, shorter way of saying what you trying to say and still not piss anyone off. Is that a little awesome?

• What’s next for Lebo?

So I’m coming home in July to work on this documentary project, I don’t even know how to start explaining what its about but I think people are going to want to see it. And then on the side I am also going to be working with this German friend of mine (click to check his stuff) and we are going to make a documentary about Kat. Yes Kat as the black snowboarder guy. No I’m just kidding. But we are doing a documentary about snowboarding in Lesotho, but I cant say anymore for now.

SCREENS

A rock, indie, hells-yeh band from Cape Town they are the winners of ‘The Loeries battle of the bands 2009’ & ‘The Rock Premier League 2010’. A serious contender in the Sa Rock scene. We had a little chat with these dudes to find out what makes them tick! So without further ado:

 

DONT PARTY CHATS TO RED HUXLEY

Howzit guyz, as always, first things first…Who the hell is Red Huxley? And what are your weapons?

We are a rock band from Cape Town and we’re having a good time making our version of rock music. We’re armed with old school rock foundations and a straight and simple no frills attitude which has translated into a raw, gritty and jamming sound that intends to cut through the superficial layer of image based rock and hit you directly in the bones. (Exactly what old school rock intended to do.)

I love Band Names,why bands choose them and how they came to pass. Whats the story behind the name ‘Red Huxley’?

Well it’s a story about this crazy fictitious character who’s name sounded cool and just suited the bands sound. Band names are always tricky, suppose it sounds cool and feels right at a certain point in time and we decided, cool, lets smash it.

Being a successful band these means more than just playing killer music, you need something that sets you apart. What do you think makes you guys different?

A successful band is only as strong as their weakest link, so we try to do everything from the music to the artwork etc. as best we can. But what we think sets us apart on the music front is the fact that we play with a high energy and our sound is unique which gets people going at our gigs. People often say they can’t tell us who we sound like, which is a good thing.

What I also really dig about Red Huxley is the artwork you guys put on your posters, fan page, website etc. Who’s the designer? Is it one of you guys?

Yeah, Matthew our bassist is a mastermind designer and all things related which is insanely awesome. Artwork can be just as captivating as a really good song that gets you going, if you put strong visuals and music together it can be very powerful.

The biggest venue doesn’t necessarily mean the best audience. Which is the best crowd you’ve played to to date?

The best gig/party was the Rated R gig we organised at the Harley Davidson Club. It was a night filled with good music, lots of cheap booze, bikes and an awesome crowd. There was just an amazing atmosphere that lasted for weeks. Another bigger better party there is definitely on the cards towards the end of this year.

What band are each of you guys loving at the moment?

Murray – the new Foo Fighters
Dylan – The Black Keys
Matt – Kyuss

If you could play at any concert which one would it be and why?

We’re a little torn over this one, but Download, Glastonbury and Lollapalooza festivals spring to mind. Who wouldn’t want to play there?

Ive downloaded your whole EP, its okay…Kidding obviously hahaha…When can we expect a full album?

We recorded that EP ages ago at Red Bull studios and if you couple never-recorded-before nerves and an electric drum kit, I think its pretty cool for a first shot. (We’re probably a little over critical though, electric drumkits don’t gel nicely with rock music.)

At the moment we are in the relatively long process of pre preproduction of an album. We plan to release an 8song EP in the not too distant future accompanied by a music video. So we’re constantly busy trying to get all our shit together, so when the time is right we can make it happen and hopefully keep it going.

Oasis or Blur?

Its two against one for Oasis.

Nice one brutha’s!

MORE HUXLEY

• RedHuxley.com
• Red Huxley on Facebook

It has been a while since we last caught up with you, what has been happening in the world of Gtronic since South Africa?

Yo guys! Well, a lot has been changed. New manager, bookings agency’s, several EP’s and remixes, …

I graduated in 2010 as an engineer and became an artist fulltime hehe.

A lot of good stuff happened.

You’ve been travelling quite a bit… where has your musical journey taken you and who have you played alongside?

Uhm that’s quite difficult to say. I play in 4 to 8 country’s every month.

The last year I’ve seen a lot of cool places and played with a lot of good artists.

Bangkok and USA were really cool, because it was my first time playing there.

You have also remixed some amazing artists! How does that process happen? Do they contact you? Is it organised by labels?

It’s a bit of both I guess. My manager arranges all the remix requests, but normally I’m already having direct contact with the artists. Most of the time it’s just the matter of available time.

Arent you a qualified engineer? How / why / when / what!!??

Hehe yup! I got some good job offers for working at big oil company’s. But I’m going with the flow at the moment.

What I’m doing now for living, is so amazing. Being my own boss, traveling around the whole world and meet cool people… Partying every weekend and earn money with it. God, I hope I can keep up doing this for a while…

What is the Gtronic “Rebirth”?

Well, I’m now working for this Gtronic project for a while now. I guess almost 5 years ago I started producing music. But all this time I never thought about settling down a clear concept. A concept with an own visual style that fits the sound perfectly. Dark, rough, evil and mysterious are the keywords for this project.

With this rebirth, we’re taking everything to the next level. I made with AOOA.tv a cool promo video where you can feel the vibe and atmosphere of the Gtronic project. It was really exciting to make the audio effects and soundtrack especially for this short video. Beside this video I worked on a new logo, press picture, EP, …

More new stuff is coming, but you’ll find out next week hehe.

So old Gtronic RIP, it’s time for a new G. Rebirth…

Your latest EP “Dance Machine” is amazing, a journey back to the original G. What inspires you nowdays?

Thanks! The feedback I’m getting all over the world is my main inspiration. I’m trying to improve my sound all the time. Every EP is a sort of test project where I introduce new sounds. With the feedback I’m getting, I learn witch sounds I can re-use or develop for the next project. I’m already having good ideas for my next EP on Dim Mak Records…

Are you still living in Belgium? Do you have any plans to immigrate?

Yeah, I live in Antwerp, Belgium. I don’t have any plans to immigrate at the moment.
To be honest, I think this will never happen. I see a lot of great places around the whole world, but all this traveling makes me homesick everytime.

Immigrating means I would have to leave all my friends, to miss the nice culture in Antwerp and the most important stuff of all: I would have to say goodbye to Belgian frites with a good cold beer. Never gonna happen hehe

What can we expect from Gtronic in the near future?

I’ll keep developing my own sound keeping the underground electro trash values. New originals, cool remix projects and a lot of touring.

As long the people like my shit, I will make this shit hehe

Dankie en hopelik tot die volgende keer!

GTRONIC

MORE G:

• facebook
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Fresh out of Hollowpoint Recordings is Counterstike’s latest footprint stomp into the music industry: Violent Neon Robots, a four track dubstep E.P. that will make your neck sore and your joints ache! Don’t believe me… just have a listen!

THE INTERVIEW

• Who are Counterstrike?

Counterstrike is 500 Mills and Animal Chin. We’ve been around the music scene in Cape Town for ages. I first started out in industrial metal band Eraserhead gigging around Cape Town around 1992 in long forgotten venues like “The Stage” and D’Elyzium. 500 Mills started gigging in Drum & Bass band Mo-Fi Tuesday around 1996. I guess we are what they refer to as “toppies” now. You know, those guys with the 90′s fashion, receding hairlines and boeps.

• How did you guys first link up and make music?

We met through mutual compadre Carl Fremen, who played with me in Eraserhead back in the day. Mills and Carl formed Mo-Fi Tuesday. I needed a place to stay when I moved back from London in 1998. Mills had a spot open at his place in Tamboerskloof. We set up a studio with the little gear we had in a small extra room in the house. We had a psychiatrist’s practice next door. We could hear her talking in between us blasting D&B at 11. Very therapeutic. I can remember Felix Laband also being around the house at that time. He used to date one of the young ladies that lived with us.

• Who came up with the name Counterstrike?

I can’t actually put my finger on it, but I remember Mills and our house mates playing a lot of Counterstrike at the time. It probably came from someone’s drunken suggestions at one of our house parties.

• I have seen crazy footage of you guys playing to like 5000 people in Russia with women in the audience holding up signs with “Counterstrike” strewn across… So your Eastern European fanbase is pretty devoted! Where do you guys feel most comfortable playing?

Although it’s awesome playing gigantic parties in foreign countries you never quite feel comfortable. Comfortable is at Homegrown in Cape Town. We love our home crowd. It’s more like playing a big house party than a gig. The only thing that sux is that we are usually stressed from running the party at the same time as having to DJ. So many little things go wrong on a night. Being a promoter really takes it out of you. DJ’s have it easy.

• You are known for your hardcore drum and bass sound but your new EP, Violent Neon Robots, is straight dubstep! Why dubstep?

I’ve been into dubstep for a while now. I started spinning 2 or 3 dubstep tracks in my sets here in Europe and Mills also started getting into it. Then I started spinning more and more dubstep and found a sound in it I can relate to. The next obvious step was to produce dubstep. It’s pretty close to D&B, just a lot slower, so there is a lot of space to work with. It’s quite refreshing working at a different tempo for a change.

• Are you guys dubstep fans?

Sure. Presence Known & Vista, SPL, Balkansky, Sinister Souls, Nanotek, Luke Stepwalker and Chasing Shadows are rocking it out.

• How did you guys get released on Hollowpoint recordings?

SPL is a long time friend of ours. We’ve done some D&B together. I did a couple of Dubstep tracks and didn’t think much of them. They just sat on ice. One day I spoke to SPL over AIM and I decided to send him some of our Dubstep to hear what he thinks. He loved them, played them… one thing led to another and he asked us to do an EP for Hollowpoint.

• How do you guys produce music together if one of you live in Europe and the other in SA?

We just send each other project files. With modern DAW’s it’s really easy to collaborate long distance. We have the same headphones and the same studio monitors.

• Why do you both not live in Europe?

Mills has a full time 9 – 5 in Cape Town and I was doing most of the foreign gigs. Me and my wife decided to move to Europe since I was spending most of my time out here DJ’ing. We miss Cape Town a lot, but it’s pretty exciting living in Europe and the Czech D&B scene is massive.

• The music that Counterstrike produce is hard-to-the-core! So I’ve always wondered: what do you listen to when you are relaxing? Is it hardcore 24 / 7 or do one of you have some small Justin Bieber type fetish that no one knows about?

A bit of Rebecca Black during weekdays. We usually let our hair down to a bit of Bieber over the weekend.

• Lastly… when can we next expect a joint Counterstrike show in SA?

Probably around summer time 2012 if the world is still here.

MORE COUNTERSTRIKE

• Facebook
• Soundcloud
• Buy the EP: Violent Neon Robots HERE

Skism was in sunny South Africa for a 2 city tour [CT & JHB] and boy did he rip it!

Dont Party.TV caught up with the dubstep myth at his gig in Cape Town! Enough said!

SCREENS

SPECIAL THANKS TO

Skism
Dubstep SA
Rub-a-dub

TRACKLIST

• Skism – Power
• Skism – The Blank
• RacknRuin – Dazed & Confused (SKisM’s Baroque Out Remix)

CREDITS

Produced: Michael Hazell, Alex Wright.

Edited: Silo Dimba

Camera: Michael Hazell, Dayne Malan

Sound: Dayne Malan

3d Graphics – Malcolm Skene

I picked this up off of we-are-awesome.com and had to repost it. If you have ever made a track in your life, ever thought about DJing, ever “dug” for music then you have probably experienced the wonderment of the Social Media music instalment: Soundcloud.

Alexander Ljung & Eric Wahlforss, sound desginers based in Germany, started Soundcloud in 2007 due to a passion for sharing music online. What makes Soundlcoud a little different from other music sources is that it is completely free to join and share; Therefore no cash is required to sign up or listen and song giveaways are up to the producers discretion.

Soundcloud [www.soundcloud.com] now is one of the main sources or hot spots for up-and-coming producers, more well known ones and music fanatics from around the world. From the Beastie Boys, to Foo Fighters to the Rusko’s out there Soundcloud gives us them all… it is truly an internet gem… and here is their story…

SCREENS