San Francisco’s Brazilian Music Scene

Peter Nicholson reports on the Latin-Brazilian meltdown

There are many stories about the origins of house music, but all accounts acknowledge the influence of black and Puerto Rican communities on the beginnings of a sound that has now branched into a myriad of forms. And in recent years a thriving scene has grown in prominence, openly embracing sounds and styles that reflect this many-hued past. Jazzanova, John Beltran, Rainer Trüby — these are just a few names that have found success through their electronic adaptations of tropicalista music.

The San Francisco Bay Area is no melting pot where cultures lose their individual identities — if anything it’s a healthy salad of mixed greens with each distinct community contributing its own flavor. As such, it is no surprise that there is a solid roster of DJ’s sharing a broader vision of “future” dance music, while at the same there coexists a roster of live bands playing more traditional sounds. Though their repertoires and crowds may differ, all share a love of beats from below the equator and a passion for getting down.

Both the audience and the musicians who follow a more traditional approach to the sounds are not necessarily “natives” themselves. Nossa Bossa, a leading Bay Area group that plays Brazilian music, features only one one bona fide Brazilian, Raquel Coelho, whose liquid Portuguese holds together the band’s tight sets. Coelho finds that “there are a lot of good musicians here. A lot of them are from Brazil but also there are a lot of non-Brazilians who love the music and play it well too.” Two such non-Brazilians are Nossa Bossa’s drummer Keith Wald and percussionist Tammy Bueno, whose Baião, Xaxado, Samba, Bossa, Choro, and Partido Alto rhythms propel the band’s fluid style.

Bat Makumba is another Brazilian-focused outfit, though they lean more towards interpretations of Musica Popular Brasileira. Named after the 70’s classic tropicalia song by Gilberto Gil & Caetano Veloso, the band’s sweat-soaked shows have earned them an enthusiastic following and they have an album due out later this spring. Band leader Alex Koberle cites Mission district venue the Elbo Room as “a great place for live music with always a full dance floor. We play there every first Tuesday of the month and every Tuesday has a different live band playing Brazilian music.” Besides live acts, the Elbo Room hosts many DJ’s, some of whose music Koberle enjoys. Yet he qualifies that “some pieces have a pseudo-Brazilian feel that I really dislike. It sounds like people are trying to jump on the Brazilian bandwagon by throwing in some samba elements without really knowing how to do it. It just ends up sounding sloppy to my ears.”

Sloppy sounds are not what one finds every last Thursday of the month at the Make-Out Room, another joint in the Mission. Instead one is treated to choice vinyl selections by Vanka (Stellar Trax) and a rotating crew of guests like Andrew Jervis (Ubiquity), Vinnie Esparza (Dis-Joint), and Tom Thump (Cosmic Flux.) Originally from Belgium, Vanka Van Ouytsel has DJ’ed in the Bay Are for 12 years and is excited about the scene’s potential. “Locally, I’d like to see more conversing and converging between traditional latin/cuban/brazilian music and electronic dance music, on a performance as well as production level…. Although the Bay Area is blessed with a vibrant musical community from the Americas, most local bands tend to perform in the more traditional vein. At the same time, there are also a lot of local DJs and producers that share an interest in the traditional latin/cuban/brazilian sounds, so hopefully more musical fusions will be created here in the future.”

Van Ouytsel is certainly doing his part, hosting East Bay group Superbacana at his Make-Out Room party. Andrew Jervis (Ubiquity Records VP and host of KUSF’s Friday Night Session) was impressed enough by Superbacana’s demo to include them on his label’s Rewind! 2 compilation. They turned in a solid version of the standard “Reza,” adding a heavy bass drum thump and flanged keys midway through the track for a more dancefloor-oriented feel. Bandleader Caroline Chung sees the electronic scene as often more open to change than traditional musicians. “For me, being a live musician, I’ve noticed that the traditional live music scene is adapting to the new electronic sounds at a more slower pace compared to the DJ/dance music crowd adapting to the organic, traditional styles.”

He has been hosting (with the help of XLR8R magazine’s Tomas Palermo) the Friday Night Session for 8 years now and his role as head of A&R for one of the US’s most progressive labels puts him in a front-row seat for changes in taste. “There’s a lot of wishy-washy crap floating around, often promoted as a new innovation, but just because the producer sampled a riff from a Brazilian compilation or something doesn’t mean it’s any good. Fortunately there are lots of really great interactions, too . . . for instance people like Seiji, John Beltran, and Osunlade are all working with Puerto Rican musicians and rhythms right now forging new sounds where Bomba meets broken beats and house and creating new dancefloor tunes that on one level are just great to dance to but also musically deep if you care.”

At the other end of the spectrum from Superbacana, Om Record’s Afro-Mystik comes from the electronic side of things but adds live instrumentation. Headed by Om President Chris Smith aka DJ Fluid, Afro-Mystik also features Simone White (disposible heroes of Hip-Hoprisy) and the amazing vocals of Omega. But it is the live-wire antics of percussionist JSN that drives their live show, one of the best amalgamations of live and electronic performance I have ever witnessed. With the album Morphology due to drop in mid-April, the single “Natural” is already in the crates of taste-maker DJ’s like François K, Halo, and local globe-trotter Andrew Jervis. Jervis is renowned for his open mind and eclectic playlists.

DJ Vinnie Esparza is one who cares, and it shows. In addition to DJ’ing enough to be voted the Bay Area’s Best DJ by a local weekly newspaper, Esparza has a full schedule. “I run a small record label called Dis-Joint, along with Groove Merchant Records owner Chris Veltri. We do new, beat oriented music, as well as funk, soul, Latin, and reggae reissues on our “Re-Joint” imprint. Also, I work at the Groove Merchant myself a couple of days a week, where I do all of the “new music” buying.” While some of Esparza’s customers are quite knowledgeable (the Beastie Boys are just some of their famous fans), he says that “Most people who listen to “DJ” music are not even aware that the latest track from their favorite artist actually has roots deeper than they may think.” In keeping with this theme, Esparza namechecks people like “…Vanka, Soulsalaam (whom I do “New Conception” with), Cool Chris, Romanowski, Andrew Jervis and a handful of others have a real sense of history when it comes to the music they spin, both old & new.”

That seems to be the key: respect the past while looking to the future. Though some may choose to honor their forerunners by sticking with tradition, others seek to apply the same spirit to new styles. Both use these powerful rhythms to move the heart and feet and, come May when San Francisco once again hosts North America’s largest Carnaval, everyone will dance together.

Om Records

Ubiquity Records

Elbo Room

Make Out Room

SF Carnival

Boozoo, Bajou, Dust, Broom

Boozoo Bajou Hit the Bayou

BY JOHN C. TRIPP

It should come as no surprise that four years passed before Boozoo Bajou followed up their first full-length “Satta” with a new release. After all “Satta” means relax in Jamaican patois and the German duo are well-known for their totally-chilled approach to music and life. The rush of daily life might be the driving force for our world but Boozoo Bajou have decidedly opted to take it slow.

The laidback feel of their sound reflects the eased-out attitude and pace with which the Boozoo´s produce their music. Good things simply take time and “Dust My Broom”, meaning to make a clean sweep, marks a fresh new chapter for Boozoo Bajou. Firstly, they’ve parted ways with Stero Deluxe records and joined K7. Secondly, their sound has expanded into blues-influenced vocal territory, with some of their musical heroes like Willie Hutch, U-Brown and Tony Joe White appearing on the album.

Boozoo Bajou have left the lounge behind for the swamp and the resulting blues-meets-dub-meets-downtempo sound is a tasty gumbo straight out of the bayou. “Dust My Broom” is seeped with the trademark laidback Boozoo vibe but is not a rehashing of “Satta“. Yet at the same time, the classic Boozoo sound remains with deep, cinematic textures, a dub sensibility and strong songs.

Boozoo Bajou convey the essence of various roots music styles to the surface and show their intrinsic affinity, no matter if it´s reggae, soul, blues, folk, jazz or original r´n´b. The big bracket that combines the roots cultures with Boozoo Bajou is dub – that particular technique that emerged in the early seventies in Jamaica. A technique that cultivated the dissection and rearranging of music, which is now masterfully applied to the contemporary by Boozoo Bajou.

Mundovibes spoke with Boozoo Bajou’s Peter Heider and Florian Seyberth from their fishing shack, deep in the heart of Alabama.

Mundovibes: You guys have a DJ set tonight at what are you going to be dropping?

Florian: It’s at the deep space Cielo, with Francois K. We played there last year and what I really like about this place is you have so much freedom of what you can play. So I would say the fist hour would be very low and a lot of deep, roots reggae tracks, some dub cuts and some very low, deep soul tracks and take off very slowly.

Mundovibes: Which is what you are all about.

Florian: Yeah, take the time for that, not a hurry.

Mundovibes: It’s been a few years since your first full-length “Satta”. What has changed since then in terms of what you are doing?

Florian: It sounds totally different compared to the first. And after we put this record out we thought “it’s impossible to do a second Satta”. And we have some different tools and it just came out a totally different sound. And on the other end it was working with singers, like Top Cat, and it was a totally different way of working. And we moved into our studio, the studio before was a very big one, now it’s a very small one. And there’s a lot of influences from that you know?

Mundovibes: Would you say one of the biggest changes was more collaboration.

Florian: Definitely, because when you only do instrumental tracks you have 100% control. When you have singers they give the lyrics and we had several tracks where the wrote the song.

Mundovibes: For ‘Dust My Broom’ you have so many interesting collaborators. How did you find these guys?

Florian: Well, we are fans of them and one of our managers, Willie, found them by looking for over a year constantly calling them up like every day. Hunting them like bounty hunters.

Mundovibes: What is it about the blues and southern music that inspired you to do so much of it on “Dust My Broom?”

Florian: It’s, how do you say, “every thing comes out of the blues”. So it doesn’t matter what kind of color you get, it gives it a background you know? You can find blues in reggae, in old soul tracks, funk can be blues. Everything can be blues, so we get all of the electricy from it.

Mundovibes: With “Dust My Broom” is the overall mood and the overall direction or mood you wanted it to be or did it just grow a certain way?

Florian: It should be more spread out this time, “Satta” was more one flow and this time we wanted to try different things out and because of the different characters of the singers we think that the tracks are really more diverse than before.

Peter Heider: The main thing is that we really like music with a cinematic kind of feeling. Our point is always to bring the little things up, it’s really important for us that the little musical things are strong.

Mundovibes: I read somewhere that you don’t really like playing fast music live because you cannot put in those “little” elements.

Peter: That’s true, normally we are more into the flow of the music and working in the studio is not like working on a track in a couple of days. We are working on it for maybe a couple of months and for us this is much more inspiring.

Florian: Slower things come more natural out of us.

Mundovibes: Do you feel like you’re moving and maturing beyond that lounge thing?

Florian: We’ve always been outside of this. People that do this same kind of stuff, Tosca and Peter Dorfmeister, was really supporting us but we didn’t have too much contact with the people. We only saw them if we went to Berlin but there was never a lot of contact with other groups. That was the scene which was really supporting us four or five years ago when we did “Satta”.

Mundovibes: You are both musicians, you play instruments right?

Florian: Me not, I never learned how to read notes and stuff, it’s just instinct.

Mundovibes: Do you feel it’s very important, the live element?

Florian: Of course

Peter: For me, I’m doing the instrumental part of most of it or we organize musicians to do it. It’s good for me just to concentrate, to work with an instrument with Florian beside me telling me what to do or what to leave out.

Mundovibes: Considering all of the people you’ve collaborated with and all of your influences, I read again that you define yourselves as ethnomusicologists. Can you tell me what you fell about what you are doing with the music?

Peter: Overall it’s really to use the different kinds of elements and we try to do it with a lot of respect, you know? And not with just a little trick or a little sample to make it more sophisticated or progressive or something. Really, we try to keep it very respectful. We are mostly influenced by the musical culture of America or Latin America or Africa so this is what we work with.

Florian: For us older records are more interesting than the records that come out now. Now the only major thing is how they use a sample, you know? So, it’s mainly the old music that interests us.

Mundovibes: You worked with someone like U Brown who is so famous and now, instead of sampling him you’re working with him.

Florian: Yes, this was a very nice opportunity.

Mundovibes: What did these guys think when you wanted to work with them? Were they very receptive?

Florian: No, I would say no they’re not really open to that, many because they’re old you know?

Peter: They don’t really know what’s going on here (laughter).

Florian: Maybe we’re surprised sometimes, but they’re just trying it and then hopefully they’ll like it. Most of them we got personal contact with. It was very important to get a common vibe but there were some situations like Willie Hutch, we never met him and we just sent him the track. But this track was not so very progressive or out there you know. We thought that he wouldn’t be comfortable with that.

Mundovibes: Will you be putting together a live band or do you have one already?

Peter: No, we don’t. Nobody is paying for it and we need a big band to do that, but we are doing it as a sound system with a DJ and a singer. But to put together a band is difficult and we would rather be in the studio working on new material.

Mundovibes: What remixes are you doing, since that is such a big part of your work?

Florian: We did a couple of remixes recently, one for Nickodemus, one for the Funky Lowlives and some bootleg stuff–we mixed Jamaican and blues elements.

Boozoo Bajou Myspace

Jerome, Derradji, Still, Music, Patchworks, Delano, Smith, Seun, Kuti

Jerome Derradji — Still Music

By John C. Tripp

French Algerian born, Jerome Derradji moved in the America six years ago. Now living in Chicago, Jerome created his very own independent label Still Music – a boutique label that has been making a few waves internationally since its inception. With early praise from DJ / producers like Laurent Garnier, Rainer Truby, Charles Webster and magazines like BPM, XLR8R, Grooves and Straight No Chaser to name a few, Still Music is proving itself to be one of the more exciting imprints around. Still Music has strong ties with rising talent such as Frenchman Bruno Hovart aka Patchworks and was the first label to release a record from Amp Fiddler’s Project CAMP AMP. The labels other ties with Detroit were also strongly showcased on the excellent album (and forthcoming DVD) In The Dark. As a DJ, Jerome has played and promoted countless parties in both Chicago and Detroit with the acts like The 3 Chairs (Moodymann / Theo Parrish / The Godson / Malik Pittman), Amp Fiddler, I:cube, Jimpster and many others. His eclectic style is similar to the music released on Still Music: from techno to afro via deep jazz and disco with a strong touch of Detroit House. Jerome is resident at the Chicago Demon Days party. (bio courtesy of Demon Days)

Mundovibes: Can you give us some background on yourself and why you started Still Music?

Jerome Derradji: I’ve been involved in the music industry since very young, my first DJ gig was at 15 and I started my own band at 18. I bought my first record when I was 12. basically music was always around me and i always wanted to start a label. Kinda fascinated with vinyl i must say – mostly jazz and soul. After I moved to the US, I found myself working for numerous music related jobs and I ended up working at Groove Dis where Dirk (van den Heuvel)gave me a lot of room to start P&D’s there. I basically got the confidence that I could start my own imprint from that experience. I started Still Music simply because I wanted to release and expose a side of the electronic music scene that i believed needed more exposure.

MV: What types of music does Still Music represent?

JD: Pretty much everything “soulful”. It can be a dirty house track from Detroit or a jazzy tune from France, it makes no difference to me as long as it has soul. I try to get Still Music to represent music that can actually speak to you at anytime. basically I like to see the label as a medium between each artist and their public.

MV: What is the label’s mission?

JD: Our mission is to grow so we can get our artists to grow along and develop more maturity in sound and creativity.

MV: You have both artists from Detroit, Chicago, Tokyo and Paris. Would you call Still Music a global label?

JD: Yes definitely, we also have artists from Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Italy….. no borders of any kind for us.

MV: Are you concerned with musical tradition at Still Music and how are your carrying it forth?

JD: As a musician, I believe that I understand the process of creation, this helps me respect and appreciate the works that I get from our artists. We have a lot of true musicians on board – accomplished keyboardists, singers, bass & guitar players – but I think that music can be made in so many different ways that only the result counts: how the final mix can carry on an inspiration, a message, a groove…. This is the basis for the A&R here. Music needs to make you wanna dance, cry, laugh, party, think…

MV: Tell us about the artists represented by Still Music?

JD: I find our artists to be very unique and extremely talented. The common factor is that each artist involved with Still Music gives his best towards the final product. Be it Amp Fiddler dropping some stunning soul tracks, Patchworks covering Brothers On The Slide to perfection or The Godson sharing an exclusive slice of deep Detroit house.

MV: How do you develop each release, what is the process?

JD: Mostly it happens like this: An artist will send us music, I listen to it around 200 times and then if we love it we basically sign it that day. After that i start thinking in terms of remixers, final production, marketing and sales projections. The idea is to create a piece of vinyl that showcases the best the artists has to show at that precise moment and what he inspires in other more established artists.
Each 12″ becomes a small LP of sorts.

MV: You have a uniqe grahic image. Who is repsonsible for this?

JD: I am and i am not. Back in France i went to art school for 10 years, i gained a strong artistic vision out of it. This really helps me everyday in taking design decisions for Still Music. I wanted the label to have a strong identity in sound and design which i think are totally linked. But all the designers involved with us really created our image: Julian Carow, Uncle Geez ( he did our logo), Scott Shelhammer (the fantastic paintings for Delano Smith’s 12″) and lately Richard Coulson from London (he did our superb site, our brand new t shirts and most of our sleeves)

MV: What is your strategy for marketing and promotions?

JD: Right now, being a small underground independent label, marketing is done mostly in house. The goal is to let the most people know about our releases the cheapest way possible! We have a great mailing list for the usual tastemakers and we also created a series of email lists that target different layers of population: from industry people to the electronic music afficionados… All this combined works pretty well and we have been able to get nice press, nice dj support and sales without going bankrupt hiring PR companies for a single 12″ release. I also think that releasing quality music is the best marketing strategy you can have… Djs playing our tunes everywhere in the world is what makes everything happening.

MV: How important is digital downloading to the label?

JD: It is important because even if it doesn’t replace traditional distribution, it complements it. At the end of the day our mission is to spread our artists’s music all over the map. Digital downloads allow us to be featured 24/7 on a ton of cool sites and be in a mainstream store like itunes while you will never be able to find a still music 12″ at virgin, which means that we can reach a totally different audience. It is essential for our artists and their music. Also if you take the South Korean example, there are almost no new cds or vinyl being manufactured, music is distributed mostly digitally!

MV: You have a sub-label in the works called “Past Due”. Tell us about this.

JD: I actually have two new labels in the works. Past Due is a project that i’ve been dreaming of for a long time now! With the help of Rob Sevier – aka the soul investigator- we decided to create a label that reissues mostly disco and modern soul from the midwest.
The entire concept is to trace a parallel between the past and today. Most of the artists on Past Due are totally unknown but they had a short fame at the time and their music is absolutely brilliant. We are going deep in this project. We managed to find master tapes and are scheduling heavy remixes. The entire idea is to pay our respect to artists that started it all and spread their talent around the world. We are scheduling a bunch of mad 12″ and a nice cd compilation this year. The second label is going to be a techno label, i guess being around Carl Craig and Gamall at the Demon Days party kinda rubbed off on me… we are scheduling a bunch of releases on this one too with some newcomers and also some cats straight out of UR…. Also to make sure i am busy enough, i do a lot of consulting for Ron Trent’s Prescription and Future Vision labels. Here I act as a production manager.

MV: Are you happy with the label’s success thus far?

JD: Definitely, Still Music went way beyond my expectations in a very short time. I truly owe that to all the artists that entrusted us with their music and all the people that support us and buy our records everyday.

MV: What are the current and forthcoming projects from Still Music?

JD: There is plenty to be released. Next week we are releasing the first 12″ from Benjamin Devigne, a nice piece of deep jazz & house that is getting a nice buzz and we’re already preparing his full length. We have a pretty full schedule for the next year or so:
Albums from Patchworks (featuring Spacek tbc, Amp Fiddler, Paul Randolph, Darius Rashau) & Paul Randolph (featuring Amp Fiddler, Moodymann…) are in the works right now. We have upcoming 12″s from Moses McClean from West End fame, Charles Matlock (our first Chicago signing) with Phil Asher rmx. Phil is also taking a spin at remixing the recently released On My Heart hit from Isoul8 and Paul Randolph. Rondenion just finished his new 12″ for us and it is mindblowing! We also just signed Gerald Mitchell from Los Hermanos (UR) for a very special 12″ that will ravish fans of Soul City and we are expecting a massive remix on this one – a secret for the moment. And we are also finalizing the release of IN THE DARK cd/dvd (with a 30 min documentary shot in Detroit), there should be a tour in the US and in Europe with Djs and screenings of the movie.
And there is a lot more coming, we are signing new artists every month, the biggest concern being how to release all this fast enough! Oh yeah, i’ve also been recently asked to get involved on the A&R level for a Bob Marley and Ray Charles remix project due to be released on a major label in the US. If we are lucky enough we may have a chance to see some of the mixes released on wax on Still Music…

MV: You are also a DJ. What are you sets like?

JD: Well it mostly depends where I’m playing. Pretty much you can expect deep soulful house music that dives into jazz, disco, acid house and ends up techno!
I also love to play straight African and Brazilian music – i opened for Seu Jorge , Boubacar Traore & Konono #1 last year and it was a blast to play music so obscure to most americans.

MV: What do see in the future for Still Music?

JD: A lot more releases and maybe a little more focus on album projects. I love releasing 12″ but it gets time consuming and leaves me feeling like there is still more music that needs to be heard…

Still Music Myspace

Baka, Beyond, Pygmies, Martin, Cradick, Hart

Baka Beyond — Rhythms of the Forest

By J.C. Tripp

Music has been a passage to many cultures for Su Hart and Baka Beyond’s leader, Martin Cradick. Sipping cafe con leche in a Cuban cafe on Manhattan’s upper west side, in town to promote their music, Cradick expels on the benefits of traveling as a musician. “If you’re traveling, then you’re a tourist. A lot of places people don’t understand what you’re doing because that’s just outside their comprehension. They couldn’t imaging just getting up and going around looking at places,” he said. “Whereas, as a musician you can turn up and play and you’re giving something to the people. And in virtually all cultures that’s an acceptable way to make a living. So, then you get accepted and can experience the culture from within.”

If crossing boundaries and uniting cultures is the basis of “world music” then Baka Beyond are its poster children. There is nothing quite like them, a melding of Northern European and West African musical traditions—a conglomeration of tribes, if you will. Their recordings piece together West African rhythms, Gaelic melodies, Breton Gypsy fiddle and the effervescent songs of their namesake, Cameroon’s Baka pygmies. Cradick and Hart, along with fiddle-maestro Paddy Le Mercier, form the core of Baka Beyond, with additional band members including master musicians Nii Tagoe, Seckou Keita, Pelembie and others.

Through all of their travels, Baka Beyond retain the spirit of the Baka people, with whom they are passionately attached. Cradick and Hart have been involved with the Baka since first traveling to Cameroon in 1992 and living amongst them in the forest, an experience which affected them profoundly. The adventure began with a BBC TV program on the Baka: “We were watching this program about the Baka, and what struck us was how central the music was to their lives,” explained Cradick in a soft Cornish accent. “At any moment it’s quite possible for all the Baka to sit down, start singing and playing music together. In England we really love just sitting around playing music, so to see this group of people where it was so central caught our fancy. We said, ‘we must go there.’”

As circumstances would have it, Cradick and Hart were destined to have their wish fulfilled. “A year after that program, I was running some percussion workshops and this guy came in with a very interesting drum that was from the Baka. He was an anthropologist and had lived near them. Suddenly we thought, ‘this could be reality’ and we soon discovered that the Rivers Museum of Anthropology in Oxford had a sponsorship for people to study pygmies. So, we wrote them saying ‘though we’re not anthropologists, we have experience as artists in communicating non-verbally. And they paid for us to go there on the first trip.”

This wasn’t the first time Cradick had crossed boundaries with his music. An accomplished guitarist and mandolin player, he’d been a member of the groundbreaking band Outback, which had done for the didgeridoo and Australia’s Aborigines, what they were about to do for Cameroon’s Bangombi (Baka Pygmies): give their culture and music a world stage. Outback’s two releases, Baka and Dance the Devil Away paved the way for Cradick’s future experiments.

Western Africa may have been a long way from London, but Cradick and Hart had their instruments and their music to connect with the Baka. The two went with little more than a tent, some instruments and recording equipment. They slept, ate and gathered as the Baka did and Cradick spent as many hours as possible playing with them, learning just how integrated the music is with their lives. “Sometimes they fish by building a dam and emptying out the river. There were some kids doing this, playing really. But when they’re emptying it with buckets, it’s totally in rhythm. And then you start hearing someone in the distance, singing along to the same rhythm. So, other people are singing along to it and all the activities in the camp are joined together. In a normal day, where there are people sitting around in a camp doing their jobs, they’ll almost subconsciously be doing it in rhythm, so that this music starts coming out of it. In playing music there’s always an element of telepathy and I’m sure they use music to enhance communication within the group,” said Hart. The rhythm of life, indeed.

But the music is fading, since the Baka, like most indigenous people, are threatened by outside forces beyond their control. The forests are being chopped down by logging operations, brought on by massive dept incurred by the Cameroonian government. “It’s changing rapidly. The forest is broken up and the intensity is going. That magic singing they do in the forest to make animals come so they’ve got food — they don’t do it anymore because of all the disturbance. As it breaks up, their whole knowledge and way of life is being dissipated,” explained Hart.

“The forest people’s situation is like the Aborigines. They had the land and lived in a natural way and then someone’s come in and taken it over. They have no land rights, even though they’ve lived in the forest before Cameroon was even a country. By law they’re not even allowed to chop down a tree or kill an animal, which has been their way of life for thousands of years,” said Hart.

But there is some hope, as futile as it may seem. Unlike many Western musicians who use indigenous recordings and samples in their music, Baka Beyond actually pay royalties to the Baka people. Their charity, “One Heart”, provides moneys and empowerment to the Baka. “The charity sends royalties back to them,” said Hart. “This helps them set up things to make their lives better. It’s made it possible to have the worst things in their lives changed – like not having identity cards. If you have a card then you’re a citizen, so now they can go into town without being arrested. What we’re trying to do with our charity is give them a choice, so they can have control over their lives.”

Their mission doesn’t stop there. Hart also runs a “Rainforest Workshop”, a one day multimedia session of music, dancing and performance that involves participants in the culture of the Baka. Working mainly with school children, the workshop engages and educates, and hopeful enlightens a future generation.

The spirit and sounds of the Baka have been an integral element of the music, but as the band’s title suggests, Baka Beyond is a continually evolving unit, embracing influences and musicians from Africa and Europe. And there’s a simple message in Baka Beyond’s music: everything is interconnected. “There is a sharing of simple things, each little thing given by somebody and it fits in,” explained Cradick. “Using that as the basis, you can bring in musicians from different places and it fits together. This is the Baka Way.”

Baka Beyond’s foray into world rhythms has resulted in several recordings, including 1998’s Sogo, a collaboration with Senegalese and Ghanian musicians. “Sogo” is a Ghanaian drum also called “the Lightening Pot” due to its use to call the lightening spirit in times of drought. For Sogo Cradick invited four musicians from West Africa and four musicians from the Celtic fringes of Europe to join Baka Beyond for an extensive tour. During this intensely creative time of playing together, new songs evolved that are a fusion of individual talents and traditions.

The departure of Joe Boyd from Hannibal Records brought to a close their relationship with the label and their most recent recording East to West is released on their own label, March Hare Music. It furthers Baka Beyond’s Celtic-African fusion, as well as their collaboration with the Baka. The opening track ‘Awaya Baka’, a song written by Baka guitarist Pelembie, features a chorus sung by Baka children recorded in the forest. The next song, ‘Braighe Locheil’, is a Scottish song sung in Gaelic augmented by Senegalese kora and Ghanaian balafon, while ‘Wandering Spirit’ is based on a dance that the Baka asked Cradick to take to the world seamlessly combined with an Irish slipjig.

In addition to East to West, Cradick and bandmates Nii Tagoe and Seckou Keita have formed a new project, EtE (translated: triangle in the Gha language) and released an album in that name. Tagoe is from a leading family of master drummers and dancers from Ghana. He originally came to Britain as principal dancer and drummer in the Adzido dance company. and has toured with Adrian Sherwood’s African Headcharge and runs the Frititi troupe. He has a deep knowledge of the diverse dance and rhythmic traditions of Ghana. Keita is a griot, descended from the founder and ruler of Mali, Sundiata Keita. Seckou is deeply influenced by his indigenous role as an historian, carrying his tradition in his songs. Mixing traditions, ancient and modern, from the U.K., Ghana and Senegal, EtE is an exciting extension of the Baka Beyond sound.

In this incredibly shrinking world, could Baka Beyond represent the future of “world” music? Their inspired collaboration has achieved both critical and commercial success with bowing to cheap cliches. And by channeling back some of the funds to the people from which the music is born – does this signal a new model for others to follow? For the future of the Baka pygmies and all indigenous people who’s cultures are threatened, let’s hope so.

Baka Beyond website

Baka Beyond Myspace

Eric, E Man, Lorie, Caval, Deep, Sea, New, York, house, music, It’s, Yours, Clark, Jon, Chez

by Lorie Caval

“What makes you journey in to the night and take flight in a pursuit of musical bliss? Chasing beats through ghetto streets to a dungeonous temple left by our soul descendants in a quest for peace energy and light. If you were to find this temple, would you have the knowledge to enter the temple? Do you want it? And if you had it, would you flaunt it? It’s yours!”

– from “It’s Yours,” Jon Cutler featuring E-Man, Chez Music, 2001

Possessing a 6’6″ frame, a winning smile and a larger-than-life personality, Eric Clark graduated from North Carolina’s Johnson C. Smith University, where he majored in communications and played small forward on their basketball team. After graduation, he went back home to live in the New York suburb of Mount Vernon where he grew up. But Manhattan’s electric art, music and nightlife scene of the ’80s beckoned him, and he came running. Eric became a regular at nightclubs like Paradise Garage, the Mud Club, Save the Robots, the World, the Saint and the Ozone Layer, but he was most impacted by the Loft. “When I landed at the Loft, fucking fugetaboudit, that was my shit, I almost didn’t miss any Saturday for five years – rainstorm, sleet, anything.” Eric explains enthusiastically, “The music [Loft founder and DJ, David Mancuso] was playing… It was beautiful to hear somebody who was so confident in his playing, he didn’t even have to mix [the records], he didn’t have to worry about if a record was rock n’ roll or soul or black or Latin or anything.”

Landing a job as a bouncer at the legendary Ritz concert venue, Eric became exposed to then underground bands like the Red Hot Chilly Peppers, Bad Brains, Fishbone and Kid Creole and the Coconuts – some of whom he would remain friends with throughout his life. Dreadlocked and usually donning a leather jacket covered with band patches, buttons and signed by scenesters like Keith Haring, would get his first DJing opportunity at the Ritz. Eventually, he would find himself bouncing, DJing or just hanging at most of New York’s hot spots — his face known in just about any place.

While bouncing around, a friend offered him a job as a security/production assistant on the movie set of “The Super” starring Joe Pesci, and after that, on many other films like “Home Alone,” “Crooklyn,” and “Die-Hard 2,” in which Eric even made a cameo appearance. Though Eric had found a new interest in the movie business, he still longed to be a part of the music scene. In addition to working on music videos, he landed a job at Tommy Boy Records promoting artists like Queen Latifah, De La Soul and other ground breaking hip-hop groups. It was at Tommy Boy that Eric would take on the nickname “E-Man” – a name that would stick, although the job did not. After leaving Tommy Boy, Eric continued to work on films and TV shows and still found time to moonlight as a DJ and after moving to Manhattan’s Lower East Side, he found more time still to promote parties with friends.

During a stint as a PA on the Fox TV show “New York Undercover” in 1996, E-Man was DJing and producing his own party, Hot Buttered Soul. At the time, I was working at Paper magazine as a nightlife reporter. He approached me about reviewing his party (which I did) and eventually propositioned me about throwing a party along with him. Our friendship eventually turned into a five-year-long romance, and our party producing turned into lifestyle. Since 1996, E-Man and I have created many events, but none as well known as our underground house event, Bang The Party, which started in 1997 and still takes place now on a weekly basis in Brooklyn, New York. Bang The Party became a showcase for E-Man’s DJing skills and a testing ground for his musical curiosities. As E-Man and/or guest DJs played underground house tracks to an enthusiastic dancefloor, E-Man and his old friend, Sweet Sable (house music vocalist best known for “Love So Special”) would talk, scat, sing and otherwise bullshit on the microphone. Their mic games would turn serious when we all took a trip to Chicago in 1999 to throw a special Bang The Party. E-Man and Sable met up with producer Daryn “DJ Quad” Brandon and created the single “Day By Day,” which was signed to HipBone Records. E-Man cut his teeth at HipBone and quickly released a second jazzy track, “The What,” but that would not be the only label who would jockey for his attention for very long.

Returning to Chicago for another Bang The Party stint in 2000, E-Man met up with Brandon once again to produce a cover of Steely Dan’s “Caves of Altamira,” on which E-Man provided the harmonious vocals. Promo copies were quickly charted by the likes of Tony Humphries and even E-Man’s DJ mentor, David Mancuso (the single was then signed to Nervous Records, remixed by Michael Moog, and eventually released in 2002). In 2001, Chez Music owner Neil Aline, approached E-Man with the idea of a collaboration with producer Jon Cutler. In an almost miraculous 20 minutes, E-Man penned the lyrics to “It’s Yours,” and almost over night, the single he performed spoken word on raced up international top ten charts and became a bonafide modern house classic.

In a few short years, E-Man has put out an impressive number of underground house singles, including “Where I Live” – the “Brooklyn” song, on Kerri Chandler’s Sphere Records; “I Am The Road,” with Markus Enochsen, on “Little Louie” Vega’s Masters At Work label; “Respect The Music,” with Romain on MetroTracks; “Musical Prayer” on Francois K’s Wave Music label; and “To Be With You” on Underground Collective. Not to mention the work that has not been released yet.

The success of the records of the Brooklyn-based DJ, who had never traveled outside of the US, would result in invitations to DJ all around the world. E-Man’s first overseas gig in 2001 was in Prague, an old city that blew him away with its beautiful landscape and architecture. Since then, the DJ who can usually be seen wearing a custom-made jacket embroidered with Bang The Party logos has played gigs in Stockholm (“best meatballs,” he says), Montreal (“best home away from home”), Toronto (“they know house music”), Ettenburg (“the home of the single malt”), Leeds (“with the most intense and fun party promoter”) Moscow (“the furthest I’ve been from home”) and Cancun (“best overall…warm, beautiful and fun.”).

With all of the traveling, we have had to enlist two new resident DJs at Bang The Party (Julian Bevan and Serge Negri) to fill in for E-Man while he’s gone. When E-Man is in town he still loves to spin and gab on the mic for his homegrown crowd, and the dancefloor gives him a great, sweaty reception. Chasing beats through global ghetto streets in pursuit of musical bliss, E-Man has pursued his love of music, and now that he’s got it, he’s gonna flaunt it all over the world.

Lorie Caval is a writer, musician and artist in addition to being a co-founder of “Bang the Party” with DJ E Man

DJ mixes by E Man

E Man on My Space

Deep See Myspace

Groovedis, Dirk, van, den, Heuvel, distribution, 12″, dance, vinyl, groovedis.com, dance, music

BY JOHN C. TRIPP

Since founding Groove Dis in 1999 Dirk van den Heuvel has been at the leading edge of dance, electronic and world roots music. Originally from NYC Dirk moved to the Chicago area to go to college at Northwestern. A radio DJ at Northwestern’s WNUR-FM Dirk founded the “CLUB BEAT” program in the late 80s. Every Saturday night he would play the best in industrial dance and new wave along with the hottest new import dance tunes. At the time it was the first (and only) radio show in Chicago to showcase the kinds of dance music being played on the northside of Chicago in clubs like the Smart Bar, Neo, and Medusas. Leaving Northwestern Dirk found a job managing a new (but ultimately unsuccessful) CD store named Van Clybourns which just happened to be only a few blocks from Cargo Records America, a well known and respected indie rock/industrial dance importer. After getting the job running the (one man) dance department at Cargo Records Dirk continued to work there for 9 years rising to be Operations Manager and ultimately General Manager. When Cargo Records America went out of business at the end of 1998 Dirk decided to start his own company and in January of 1999, with some help from his friend Nick Wilson and some money from his father and grandfather Groove Distribution was born. Concentrating “solely on dance music, especially electronica, big beat, trip-hop, and drum & bass” Groove Distribution shipped its first order in March of 1999. Nearly ten years later Groovedis is still surviving in a radically changed music market. With many vinyl record shop closing their doors and other distributors succombing to digital death Groovedis has become America’s premier importer and distributor of downtempo, leftfield, nu jazz, and broken beat records and CD’s. Groovedis carries a large selection of jazzy and deep house, drum & bass, import hip hop, neo-soul, and rare grooves, as well as select DJ gear, magazines, and record bags. Although a wholesale distributor, they also provide a mail order service at retail prices to DJ’s and music fans across the U.S. and around the world.

Mundovibes: You’ve been in the music industry for a long time, right?

Dirk van den Heuvel: I was really heavily involved with music in high school. My turning point was hearing XTC’s ‘Living Through Another Cuba’ on WBAI in New York. And, of course, the DJ didn’t backsell his set, so I didn’t know who it was. I just heard the song and loved it and at that point I didn’t know anything about “new wave” music or anything. So, I called up the radio station and couldn’t get anybody on the phone there. I went around to all the shops, and finally I went to Record Runner on 42nd Street and they looked it up in this big massive book and they found it and they go ‘Yeah, it’s this group XTC from England.’ So, I bought their album and I loved it, and I bought another album. And that was the floodgates: all my money pretty much went to music, from then on. I used to hang out all the time at CBGB’s and the Peppermint Lounge and I was really into new wave and a lot of the club culture music. Back then you had a real melting pot, especially in New York where you had rap, and pre-house house music, and new wave. So, I was really into that.

Mundovibes: It was all so new then and anything seemed possible. When did you get into DJing?

D: I came to Northwestern for school in the theater department and they were having this big freshmen mixer, and the general manager from the radio station was doing the music. She was in one of the production studios in the basement of the school playing the music and they were piping it out to this freshmen mixer for all of the school of speech students. And I was just playing name that tune with my friends, and every single song she played I knew. And so they were like ‘You should go and try and get a show’. So, I went downstairs and I talked to her and I applied for a show and I got one Saturday mornings. Then, for various reasons I left school and went back to New York, came back a couple of years later, started getting involved in the radio station again but times had changed and the rock show at NUR was in this kind of heavily ‘cooler than thou’ phase, where it was all about guitars and Husker Du, and things like that. Which I liked, but not to the exclusion of indie pop from England and stuff. And I also had gotten more interested in industrial dance music like Wax Trax and things like that. And there was no place for that on the radion station there. So, I struggled along for like six months on the rock show until I finally just got so fed up I quit. I didn’t want to do my show one day and I tried to get someone to cover for me and no one would cover. And, so one of the freeform DJs, this guy Chip, was bugging me to play Ted Nugent. You don’t really play Ted Nugent on the rock show on NUR in ‘86–that’s not nearly cool enough. But I was like ‘I don’t care’. I made a deal with him, I said if he could find me Judas Priest ‘You Got Another Thing Coming’, I’d play his Ted Nugent. So, he goes into the studio and he searches and searches and he finds it and brings it back. Long story short, my final rock show was thirty minutes non-stop of heavy metal music, at which point I quit. I wrote at the end of the log ‘I quit’. Which worked out fine because the rock producer was going to fire me as soon as he got back to the office anyway.

Mundovibes: At that time it seems nobody knew what to do with dance music, especially college radio which was so rock-oriented.

D: Exactly, which is why I took over the Saturday night program at NUR for a show called ‘Club Beat’. The idea was to have somewhere on the radio where people could hear ‘white club music’. Because there were plenty of places to hear the club music from the South side, if you went to the Warehouse, if you went to any of those places. But if you went to places like Neo or Smartbar, or Club 950 or any of those clubs on the North side of Chicago, there was no place to hear that music. And that’s what the idea for the show was, so we were playing Front 242 and Ministry and those types of bands. And as music in England, especially, started to change we changed with it. And so, we were the first place in town to play people like S’Express and M.A.R.R.S. and we just kind of folllowed that trend into it.

Mundovibes: How did you go from radio to the distribution business?

D: I became friends with a lot of labels and distributors through the program. So, I became friends with the people at Wax Trax, I became friends with a couple of guys who worked at a distributor, Kaleidoscope, which a lot of ex-NUR people would work at. And some of the key people at Kaleidoscope started a distributor, Cargo records. I tried to get a job at Cargo but I had never actually worked at a record store. I had worked in retail for years, especially in New York, and I knew lots about music but I had never worked at an actual record store. And, for some reason, that was the litmus test to get the job. So, I kind of fell into a job running a record store, which coincidentally ended up being two blocks from Cargo. One of the guys at Cargo went to be label manager at Wax Trax. And he had been doing most of the industrial dance buying at Cargo, so they didn’t have anyone to replace him with. So, I kept going over there, shopping for my store and going ‘you have nothing, you have no records. You should have me do it.’ So, eventually they relented, because now I had record store experience and I started working part time there. I’d work there every morning, while the owner of the record store would run the store. And then he would go to Ditka’s to bartend and I would run the store. I did that for three or four months until Cargo offerered me a fulltime job. So, my job at Cargo at that point was to run the non-existent dance department. So, you’re in this indie rock company, which admittedly carried some industrial dance stuff. But it was really an indie rock company and you had this little enclave at this point of one person, me, doing dance music. So I would buy dance music from all over England or Europe and then I’d call stores in the afternoon around the country and try and sell it to them.

Mundovibes: How did you turn people onto this music, which must have been so strange?

D: The main way you sell most big dance records is to play stuff for people, so nobody had any high tech things then, so you’d just take the phone and put it in front of a speaker. So, all the indie rockers, especially the shipping manager would hate it when I’d play the dance music on the speaker. It was just a very unpleasant experience at the time. But, the department grew and I hired more people and there’s almost like a who’s who of Chicago people who worked in that dance department. Rob, who runs Guidance was my assistant. Josh, who works at Gramaphone. Both the guys who do the buying at Dr. Wax on the South side. Chuck, who now owns Choke distribution and who is like the king of ska. He had actually worked with me at NUR. He was my assistant on Club Beat, and then he took over running the shows when I left. He ran the dance department at Cargo for a while, he worked with me. A lof of people came and it was a good experience for some. Some would have fond memories of it, some maybe not so fond. A lot of people went through there, and it was really a key place in the early days for certain kinds of records. From there I moved up to being the operations manager, and then at some point one of the owners of the company had to leave and I took over as General Manager and ran the company. When I started Cargo was seven people, and in the end when it closed in ‘98, we were up to 35 people. So, it was a pretty big company.

MV: What were the biggest challenges then with music. You were talking about new genres, like industrial music. You were there in the beginning, how did you change and grow?

D: The one thing I noticed was that whatever the trend or hot thing was, one of the things that was consistent with Cargo and with Groove, is we champion records that were cool before they were trendy and before they actually made any money. At the point they actually made money, they kind of moved past us. So, for example, with maybe the one exception being industrial, industrial we got there at the same time and some of it moved past us. When I was working at Cargo in the early days we were selling stuff like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry and Front 242. And then near the end of that whole scene all of those bands were on major labels. They didn’t go through indie distribution anymore, so we didn’t have any piece of that anymore. One of the things we first championed in the dance department at Cargo was American techno records, because back in the mid ‘80s you couldn’t find an American techno record in American stores, you could only find them overseas. The main people who were selling those were people who were exporting them to Germany and England. So, we were one of the first companies to actually take those records out of Detroit and sell them to stores here in America. So, we were doing stuff with Underground Resistance and Plus 8 , and all those guys before anybody really knew about them. And techno became bigger and bigger and bigger and once again, at a certain point it just passed us by. Both musically and in a business sense. The labels were making deals directly, they were getting licensed. Plastikman was on mute rather than on Plus 8, you know? We lost it, and we would constantly have to find the new thing to replace that and so we were the very first people to sell Portishead in America. One of our suppliers was friends with Go Beat in England, and we got white labels of Portishead’s ‘Sour Times’. All it said was P stamped on it. And in the early days it wasn’t an easy thing to sell. We were trying to convince people ‘this is fantastic, you need to get on it’. But it was kind of bluesy and the only kind of reference point was Massive Attack, but it was different. We pushed it and then we got the next single and we helped break Portishead at the early stages to a lot of stores and then it blew up. And, of course, once it blew up it was on London and Polydor and once again we were shut out.

MV: So, you don’t get the credit you deserve, then, or is it the money aspect of it that is the issue.

D: It’s a combination. I don’t know who exactly I would complain to but it is frustrating to know that you were supporting these bands in the early days when no one really gave a shit. And then when they come to town and play big venues, there’s no sense of any kind of connection to them, you know?

MV: You’re just there on the sidelines.

D: For most of them, they don’t necessarily know we had anything to do with it. And it wouldn’t be so bad if it only happened once or twice but it happens constantly. We used to be only one of two companies that dealt with Acid Jazz, the label, directly. So, we had a really good relationship with them and we sold tons of their stuff. And I remember the very first Jamiroquoi single, with the digeridoo on it. It was not an easy sell and we would push that, and Jamiroquoi got signed to Sony and sells hundreds of thousands of copies and we don’t get an invite to the show or anything. It’s frustrating in a way that you never can follow these bands all the way and have any kind of relationship with them. The other thing that’s frustrating-in one way it’s frustrating and in another way it’s cool-is that you always have to find something else. Because whatever you have, as soon as it gets popular or big everybody goes after it and usuallly you lose it. The only way you don’t lose it is if it doesn’t get big. If it stays kind of moderate then you’re cool. If it gets so small that you can’t even make any money on it, then you’ve got to drop it. And that happened with us like when we first opened one of the things that we really wanted to champion was overseas hip hop. And, so, if you were looking for hip hop groups from England or Germany or France we had them all, you know? If you were really into that music or knew about it, you would know certain labels and you would have them. But the problem was nobody bought the records. We would push them, but we couldn’t even sell literally 15 or 20 copies of these records.

MV: Because people were suspect to overseas hip hop?

D: Because people weren’t open to it and finally the straw that broke the camel’s back with us, when we first opened at Groove, for a couple of years we didn’t have accounts with some of the biggest hip hop stores. We finally got accounts with all of these stores, and we thought ‘if anybody can sell these hip hop records it’ll be them.’ Not that they’re going to sell tons, but at least there’ll be somewhere, that if somebody reads about these records and they want to get them, here’s a place that will champion them. They couldn’t care less-not one of them pretty much would support it. And, so, as a genre we had to give up and throw up our hands and say ‘we just can’t do it. We can’t just bang our head against the wall and have these records that never sell’. As much as we tell people they’re cool and try and convince them. We still carry a few records but there wasn’t enough and now, honestly, the other thing that’s in danger of going is some of the two-step. Two-step for a while was really good for us, we sold it really well and it got really hot and everybody was like ‘it’s the next big thing.’ But it didn’t really become the next big thing. And had it become the next big thing we probably would have lost it anyway. It probably would have gone to bigger labels and bigger distributors. So, instead, it kind of imploded and a couple bands made it past there but now we’re in the same boat. The stores that were interested in buying two-step a year ago don’t care and we’re close to throwing our hands up with that as well.

MV: In dance music, which tends to be fickle, that’s got to be one of the biggest challenges, not being too stuck on one genre where you can’t move on.

D: That’s especially hard for us, because unlike our competitors, we have a genre kind of misson. There is a certain kind of sound that kind of defines what we do. Something that has either a jazz or soulful base-and it can take different kind of slants. We carry some drum’n’bass but the drum’n’bass we carry is either really jazzy or really atmospheric. We carry some house, but most of the house we carry is really deep or vocally or soulful. So, we can’t just go with whatever trend is there. If gabber techno became the next big thing again, we wouldn’t go there. It doesn’t fit what we do.

MV: It’s a certain quality.

D: And that makes it hard is how close do we stay to that? And admittedly we have certain genres we pick up that don’t really fit that. Like, we do a decent amount of mash-ups, we do a decent amount of electro-clash. I don’t think anybody’s going to say that’s really jazzy and soulful but the other mission we have is to represent genres and labels and artists that are under represented, that fall through the cracks. Which is kind of what the dance department at Cargo did-stuff that doesnt’ fit what everybody else is doing, we were the place you would turn to. If someone does some bizzarro record that somehow would appeal to the dance people, the place to find it was us. And that’s the other thing. So, we gravitate towards the stuff that hasn’t gotten big. Because that’s the hole in the market. And if we do it well enough that nobody else can get in, that’s great. If we don’t then other people come in, and if the niche becomes much bigger then it moves past us.

MV: What are your general feelings about the state of the music business?

D: (laughter). I think there’s a lot of people that might slam the music business musically. Like ‘well, the reason people are stealing music or that stores are closing is because there are no good records.’ I don’t believe that for a heartbeat, I think there is lots of good music. I think the problem with the music business, to a certain extent, is access to it. When I was growing up there were radio stations, there were clubs, there were ways for you to be exposed to music and there were also ways that you could get music cheaply. All of my money in high school went to music but that was a time when you could buy an album at Tower for six bucks. I could go, and for $5.99 I could buy the new Talking Heads cassette. And if you really liked a band you could collect their entire discography for less than $50. Those days are over and beyond that because radio was much more album oriented than singles oriented, when you decided to buy a record you might have already heard three or four tracks off of the album. So, you knew that there was enough stuff on there that you liked, and even if there wasn’t, it wasn’t a great financial risk. And I think that makes such a huge impact now in terms of music. I think that music has gotten really expensive, there isn’t a lot of critical information as to whether it is good or not. And you don’t have a lot of opportunities to hear it. If you get to hear it, you get to hear one single and you hear it over and over again. Which would be great if all you wanted to do is buy the single but if all that’s available is the album-and they do this bait and switch all of the time. They’ll play the single to death, but the single is not commercially available, so if you really want that single you’ve got to go and buy the album. But you don’t know if the other songs are any good. The only people that seem to get past that are the mega-stars, where they pull so many singles off the album that by the time you get around the buying it you’ve heard four of five singles. I remember that with one of the Janet Jackson records I bought. By the time I finally bought it I’d heard half the record because everything had been pulled as a single. But for most people, you hear one song and you really like it and you’re like ‘well, is the rest of the album going to be any good?’.

MV: You end up paying fifteen bucks for one song.

D: Right, and that has a huge impact on people downloading music and copying discs for their friends. But I think there’s a hunger from people to hear music that they connect with and go buy it. On the business side, besides the pricing of records and not being able to hear it, is you have a real problem. I think a lot of indie stores should take a clue. Our whole plan is we take the stuff that people are not doing well and we try and do it well. We don’t try and reinvent the wheel, we don’t try and sell the stuff that other people are selling really well. I think indie stores should take a clue from that as well, and not necessarily try and go head to head with the Towers and HMVs of the world, but to provide them with the stuff they can’t get there. I think that’s one of the saving graces for a lot of DJ stores here in America is because they’re doing vinyl, and alot of them do imports. And those are two things that most of the big chain stores have absolutely no desire to do. But doing those things doesn’t mean you can’t look at what the bigger stores do well. And I think sometimes the indies stores don’t necessarily steal ideas from the bigger chains as effectively as they should. In terms of having listening posts, doing end-capping, having promotions, having a physical space that’s well laid out and condusive to browsing, having parking. The list goes on and on, or having competitive pricing. So, given that I think the state of the music business is in bad shape. I’ve got a lot of stores that buy from us that are on hard times, that don’t have a lot of money. And a lot of that is trickle down from the economy being in bad shape anyway. But I do think it hurts even more beyond the economy when you have something that is so easily traded and stolen as music.

MV: On any level there’s definitely that impact.

D: Here’s a concrete example of what I was talking about. If you have an underground record like the stuff that we sell, if you were to send that to the big chain stores it would just sit in the bin, and maybe one out of a hundred people would actually know who it is. They wouldn’t be able to hear it, there wouldn’t be anybody on the floor to tell them what it sounds like, but maybe one out of a hundred would say ‘you know what, I’ll take a chance and I’ll buy it. I read about this in some magazine.’ Now, if an indie store just does the same thing-just takes that record and sticks it in a bin and their staff doesn’t know it, and there’s no place to listen to it and they don’t play it on the stereo-then the only thing you’ve changed is instead of it being maybe one in a hundred people know who it is, maybe it’s one in ten. But, what if, just for arguments sake, the store actually had ways for you to be able to listen to that record, or played it in the store, or the people on the floor actually knew the product and their customers well enough to match them together. Now, there are stores like that, but unfortunately there’s not nearly enough. And so you’re faced with these products who’s only chance is at an indie store, and if they indie store would embrace that and run with that it would give them something effective to compete with the other stores. Because people want this music, they just don’t know that they want it.

MV: They need to be educated, and as you said radio has failed the listener. It doesn’t do what is was originally doing, which leaves us with the internet.

D: The internet is hard to because it’s so fragmented. I think the other problem with some of these things is there’s just not a real big tie-in between presenting you the music and you actually being able to purchase the music. There’s a split between people who hear the music but can’t find the music that they hear to go buy. And so they turn to things like Napster or whatever file-sharing thing or they turn to their friends that have it. And if the people who actually were turning them onto the music also said ‘and here it is, right here for you to buy’, I think they’d be much more likely to pick it up but there’s not a lot of people that are taking up that challenge. The way I always thought of selling records in the indie world, whether it be at a distributor or record store, is kind of like hooking up your friends. If you found some really cool records and some friends of yours came in from out of town and came by your house, you’d be like ‘dude, listen to this. Check this record out.’ All your doing is just taking the next step, and when they go ‘wow, that’s really cool, I want to get it, you go OK, here it is buy it.’ That’s the kind of relationship I think indie stores should have with their customers, and that’s the kind of relationship we try to have with our customers. That’s what we’re all about, we’re about saying ‘hey, we think this band is really cool, check them out. And here we’ll sell it to you.’ And the idea is hopefully they will turn around and do the same to their customers and go ‘hey, this band is really hot. Like, have you heard of Bent, this is the cool shit, you need to buy it. And we’re going to play it for you, we’re going to show you the reviews. And once we convince you it’s the cool shit, we’re going to sell it to you.’ And everybody’s happy. And that’s what I see as the way forward but unfortunately there’s not a lot of people that seem interested in doing that

MV: Are there shops that you work with that are doing that?

D: Oh, yeah, there are a few but there’s not nearly as many as I’d like. Which is the main reason we have mail order. If I relied on all the shops I deal with for people to be able to find this music, there’d be a whole helluva lot of people in America who’d just be out of luck. There’s whole states that we don’t have any wholesale customers in. And even if I have a wholesale customer, whether or not they decide to pick this record or that record is completely up to them. And there’s a lot of stuff we carry that some of our stores don’t pick up. And it just seems a terrible waste to have to say to everybody ‘yeah, I’ve got the records right here. I wish they were at your house, but because none of the stores in your town wanted to deal with us and carry these records, you’re just out of luck. So, that’s why we have a mail order business. We try to do it in a way so that we don’t compete with our stores. That’s why we don’t advertise it, that’s why we don’t have super low prices, that’s why everything ships late in the week rather than the beginning. The whole thing for our mail order business is not so that there’s an advantage to buy from us. The way I tell it to some of the staff is we are the store of last resort. We don’t want to take the business away from our existing accounts, but if the choice is you don’t get the record, or you buy it from us? We want you at least to be able to buy it from us. And that’s why we have these wack open-to-the-public hours. I mean, we’re open a whopping six hours a week at very inconvenient times, we don’t make any exceptions. And we do that, so if somebody really wants the record they can get it, you know? It’s not going to be super-easy and we don’t get tons of business that way, but that’s not the point. The point is, if somebody really wants that Buscemi CD, and nobody in Chicago wants to stock it, and guess what? I don’t think they do stock it. They don’t have to be ‘shoot, I’m out of luck’, they can come down and get it or they can order it and get it mailed to them.

MV: That’s a fair balance.

D: We try and walk that line all the time and it’s very, very hard. And every once in a while we get some static from some of the stores, but we have an obligation at a certain level to the music. There are labels and artists that trust us to try and get the records out to people. And we, in turn, trust our stores to do that and unfortunately we don’t have enough stores that are doing that for us in a lot of cases.

MV: Where would you say the interest in what you distribute is concentrated, on the two coasts?

D: It’s predominately the two coasts. Everybody thinks, because we’re based in Chicago that we’re selling all of these records in Chicago and the midwest but because we have such a strong focus musically, it really is just wherever people care about this music and unfortunately more people care about this music on the coasts and in certain big cities than in the midwest. So, I have as many store accounts in San Francisco or New York, than I do in Chicago. Because there’s just more stores and more people interested in the kind of music we do. If we did different kinds of music, either music that appealed to everyone, or music that appealed more towards mid-westerners or something than maybe we would have more stores but we don’t. And I think that’s actually kind of a testament to what we do and how we do it is that we’re able to keep those stores on the coast because we have a lot of competition from distributors that are right there. And, we lose some business to them, but we do a pretty good job selling to people in our competitor’s backyards. And that’s just because we have a real focus. People tend to think of us more as a regional distributor if they don’t really know what we do. But we’re more like a specialty distributor. For example, Ernie B’s is the premiere reggae distributor in America-nobody cares where Ernie B’s is. In fact, I don’t even know where Ernie B’s is, you know. It’s just, if you want reggae and you’re really serious about reggae, you need to buy from Ernie B’s. And it doesn’t really matter where you are or where Ernie B’s is. And, so we feel the same way-if you’re really serious about downtempo, or you’re really serious about broken beat, if you’re really serious about jazzy drum’n’bass or leftfield dance music, then you need to buy from Groove. And it doesn’t matter that we’re in Chicago and it doesn’t really matter where you are.

MV: Backing up a little, how did Cargo close and how did Groovedis come about?

D: In ‘98 the main owner of Cargo decided that the company was losing too much money, and he was going to close it down and there were a few attempts to save the company but in the end it just was unsavable. So, in the end of ‘98 it closed down and I was faced with no job and questionable prospects as to what to do with my life. I had spent the last ten years of my life working at Cargo. The only thing I really knew how to do was work at a record distributor and unfortunately there weren’t a lot of record distributors in Chicago, especially dance distributors, for me to go apply. So, I could get out of the business all together, which I definitely thought about, or I could try and take the part of Cargo which I really liked, the dance department and try and spin that off to a new company. So, I waited a couple of months to see if any of the other dance distributors would kind of pick up that niche that Cargo’s dance department had, which was the leftfield offbeat dance music that would cross over to indie rock stores. You know, dance music that non-dance people would buy. And nobody did, nobody picked up that slack-the records just weren’t getting there. So, I decided if I was ever going to do it, it had to be then. I knew the people, I had the contacts with the suppliers, I knew the stores. I could get out of the business anytime, but if I was going to stay in the business I had to do it then. Just coincidentally my father had come into some money and he lent me some money and I bought a bunch of the remaining stock from Cargo-things like computers and all the old dance stock. And there were enough suppliers in England and in Europe that were willing to take a chance with me, despite how much money they lost at Cargo, that we were able to open. So, in ‘99 we opened. The company, on paper, started in late January. We shipped our very first record the middle of March. We started out way too big, we had way too many employees. We had six employees when we started, and we couldn’t make payroll. We had sold a decent amount of records, but the money hadn’t come back and we just didn’t have the cash. And I didn’t know how I was going to fix it or what I was going to do. So, two-thirds of the staff ended up leaving, though thankfully on good terms, and for the next year or so it was me, Nate, and our shipping manager Jake. And it was the three of us for the rest of 1999. We ended up getting a couple of more people after that and now we’re up to ten people.

MV: And that’s where you want to stay.

D: Yeah, I’m pretty happy with ten. Who the ten may be may change but I think this is about where we need to be. I often wish we could do it with less than ten and I look down the list and go ‘how could we juggle jobs around or what could we do’. But, unfortunately, as a distributor you get to a point where you are stuck-you can’t do it with less people and be able to sell what you need to sell. So, it’s easy to add people, it’s very seductive. You have to keep it as tight as you can, but at another level, especially with the kind of stuff we do, it’s hard to cut it down too much.

MV: As an independent business, what is your primary challenge?

D: I think our biggest challenge right now is not so much in having a spot for us now, it’s having a spot for us a year from now or five years from now. It’s like ‘how do we make sure that we’re not obsolete.’ Because the music business is definitely going through some shakeups and I don’t want to be a casualty. I don’t want to have to find another job now. I like what I do, I like where I work and I’d like to make that viable for the future. And I don’t know if doing what we do right now is going to be viable in two or five years. So, the idea has always been from day-the main key thing that Groove is about is finding cool music and bringing it to people. The venue at which we do that right now is by distributing records to stores and doing mail order. But it doesn’t have to be. Groove can just as easily be helping people pick music for advertising. It can be involved in label and tour promotion. And those are things that ultimately we might really want to get involved in, it just depends on finding the right people. But the one thing that we firmly believe is that if you don’t have some records that you control, you’re going to get shut out. There has to be some records that, at least in the short term, can’t go past you. That people have to go to you for those records. So, the idea is how do you get those records? Well, you have to do a good enough job for them that people give you those records. You have to be able to promote them at some minimal level, you have to get the records out to the right stores in reasonable quantities. And that’s what we’re trying to do. In the long term it’s like ‘how do we as a company stay viable for whatever the music business becomes. What if CDs aren’t the way people buy music in five years? I don’t want to be tied to getting CDs from Europe and sending them to other people, because if CDs are no longer part of that chain we’re irrelevant. But if it is how do you find cool music that other people haven’t gotten and get it to people who want it, we could definitely be involved in that. Whether it’s digital downloads or subscriptions, there’s definitely room for us as a company to be involved in that. I’ve heard some people talk about how all music should be free and musicians should make all of their money from tour promotion. Well, then let us be in the tour promotion business, that’s where we want to be.

MV: Can you describe some of the genres that you specialize in, like what is broken beat?

D: Broken beat, when it first started, was kind of house music that didn’t quite have a house beat. It was dubbed in the early days, ‘house not house’. And it was a record that had house production, it had the same kind of keys and orchestration that you would expect in a house record. But the beats weren’t the normal four-on-the-floor, 120 beat house beats. They were just off and so after ‘house not house’, a lot of these people came out of the West London scene, so it became West London music. But then lots of people began making the music, in Germany and other countries, so they dubbed it ‘broken beat’ as in the beat was broken-it wasn’t a straight normal rhythm, it was a broken track. There’s a distribution company in England, Goya, who does a lot of the labels. So, you’ve got people like IG Culture and Domu-a lot of people who came out of the drum’n’bass world and some people who came out of the reggae world doing this music. And I think almost everybody would agree, we are probably the premiere place to find that kind of music. Our real core has always been and probably be for a long time, down tempo music, as represented by people like Portishead and Massive Attack, even though we don’t sell their records anymore, but people like that. We do a lot of jazzy and atmospheric drum’n’bass that years ago when we first opened most of the people buying drum’n’bass were buying the harder stuff. The stuff that was more jazzy, more soulful, really didn’t get as much attention. And that was the stuff we felt fit the best with us and because there was this hole in the market we did it. Now jazzy drum’n’bass is a little bit more trendy, everybody else does it. We try and do it better than other people. We’ve also moved heavily into Brazilian drum’n’bass, which is this new subgenre and we do a couple labels like that. We push them really hard. For a while we were the kings of two-step. We do a decent amount of two-step now but the demand for it has definitely died substantially. We do a lot of deep house; week to week we probably have as much deep house records as anything else. Even when I describe it I still think of us as primarily a downtempo distributor and a lot of people think of us that way, but we do an awful lot of house music. But we tend to do the more deep and soulful stuff, not the real banging stuff.

MV: It’s a more spiritual vibe.

D: Exactly. One of the labels we do is Deep Play from Sweden and their slogan is ‘Deep soulful house music’. And that’s what we do with house. And if it tends to be jazzy, so much the better but the one thing that’s consistent is it’s deep and soulful.

MV: Did you work with Naked before?

D: No, but Naked is the perfect kind of label. Naked is a label that musically would fit exactly what we do but for business reasons we don’t. They’re distributed exclusively through Caroline. And that’s the thing-a lot people who don’t really know all the intricacies of the business look at our rosters of records and labels and go ‘how come you don’t have this?’ And musically they’re right, but they forget that we’re not a store. We can’t just carry everything we want to carry musically. We’re a distributor, so we have to pick things that number one we’re able to distribute. So, certain things like Ninja Tune CDs-they’re distributed exclusively through Caroline so we don’t do them. Certain things go exclusively through K7. There’s records that musically we would like and we sponsor, but we can’t actually sell them because noone would buy them from us at a wholesale level. And ultimately we’re a wholesaler that sells some stuff to the public, not a store that also does wholesale. And that’s a big difference.

MV: What would you say to an upstart label? Don’t even try it?

D: There’s two answers to that: one, if you’re a person thinking about starting a label and you’re asking should I start a label, my advice is always no. Running a label is the quickest way to lose money. So, if you’re doing it because you have to, you have no choice-you have to get this music out. Then fine, go ahead and do it, no one’s going to stop you. But just don’t think you’re going to make any money on it. If you’re starting a label as a way to make money then I think anybody who doesn’t tell you not to do it shouldn’t really be considered your friend. Running a label is, in most cases, an easy way to lose money. It’s just a question of whether or not you can afford to lose what your going to lose, or whether or not you don’t have a choice. Now the question is, if you’ve already got a label, should you even approach us-yes you definitely should. Our determining factor is ‘does it fit what we do musically, and does it fit what we do business wise.’ So, musically that’s pretty straight forward. If you do the kind of music we do: if it’s down tempo, if it’s jazzy, if it’s broken beat, then you’ve got that first hurdle. Then the second hurdle is business: we have to be able to sell it in a way that we can make money. We don’t want to compete with everybody else for it. So, for alot of the music we carry on import-either we’re the only people with it or there’s only two or three other people in the country who sell it. So, it may not be exclusive but it’s awful close to being a very small set of people we have to compete with. For domestic labels, often times a domestic label will open up and try to sell to every possible person. I don’t want to sell a record that five other people are selling-there’s not enough value in it. Especially when you’re selling stuff that’s underground and unknown from an upstart label where I have to do a lot of upfront work to educate people to this music. And everybody’s going to have it for the same price. And what happens is most people buy it from whoever’s closest and fastest. So, if you’ve got distribution on each coast and I pick up your record and we’re all selling it at the same time at the same price, why are people going to buy it from me? So, in that case we say ‘you know what, musically we like your stuff but if you have more than one or two other distributors we’re just not interested-there’s not enough business. But, let’s say you’re an upstart label and you really like what we do and you’re like ‘I’m gonna sell to a couple of stores I know locally on my own but the rest of the country you can have’ then, if we like your music, we’ll pick you up in a heartbeat. You have to be realistic as to what that means. Just because we carry your record and we tell everybody it’s great and we put up sound samples doesn’t mean that every store in America is going to jump up and down and buy it. Which goes back to my first problem is that you have a lot of stores that really don’t push these records. So, you get some stores that carry it and push it and then you’ve got a whole bunch of other stores that couldn’t care less. And then you’ve got a smaller set of stores that care but just aren’t going to invest a lot of time and energy to push record. So, as long as you’re realistic as to what we can actually do for you, it’s great. The thing is people seem to forget, there aren’t that many really good stores in America. On the underground dance side, there just aren’t that many-you’re talking about maybe 25 or 30 stores. And the stores that can actually sell big quantities, you’re down to a handful. Maybe 10, and if those 10 for whatever reason don’t pick up your record or don’t like your record, your screwed. You’ve got a bunch of people buying ones and twos and that whole bunch is only maybe 60 stores and they’re not all going to buy it. Not every store is going to say, ‘yeah I’ll take a copy’.

MV: So, in terms of units what is a big seller.

D: For us, on a domestic record, if we’re only seling it in the states with no export business, we’ll sell on the low end if a bunch of people have it, or it’s not super hot, as low as 50 copies. On the high end, if it’s got a little bit of legs, maybe a couple hundred. There’s certain records we’ve had exclusively that have had really good legs. There was a drum’n’bass mix that this guy did in the midwest of a Method Man, Redman record that he did on his own as a white label. We probably sold 700 copies of that but those are the exceptions. On import, there’s certain records we sell a few hundred, there’s some records that are really, really obscure or really offbeat and we’re lucky if we can sell 15 copies, you know? You’ve got 15 copies of the record, you’ve got the entire states to sell it and sometimes that’s a struggle. Sometimes that’s a really demoralizing thing, which is another reason why we felt compelled that we have to have some kind of mail order business. On CDs there’s a huge range-there’s CDs we’ve sold a couple thousand and there’s CDs where, once again, it’s an uphill struggle to sell 20 copies. There just aren’t that many stores, and the stores you have-you have the CD and it’s got really cool music but most of the CDs we sell aren’t cheap, they’re all imports and it’s like how many people are really going to buy it. First of all, one of the problems with CDs is a lot of dance stores don’t even carry CDs-all they care about is vinyl. So, that’s an uphill battle. And then for those that do carry CDs, a lot of times they’re just looking for the ones that are going to sell themselves. They don’t want to have to work to sell it. But that’s not what most of the records we get are-they don’t sell themselves, at least not in the early days. Like, we carried the Zero 7 CD when it first came out in England, before all the hype hit. That record didn’t sell itself, you had to tell people, ‘this is the next big thing, you need to get on it’. Now, six months later, when it came out on Palm Pictures and Palm could put the sticker with all the great reviews it got worldwide, well, yeah, then it sells itself. But then it’s in every store in America. That’s the tradeoff these indie stores have to realize, they have a little window just like us where they’re the only people with it. But they have to take advantage of that, they have to push those records. Because if they wait until everybody knows about it-well guess what, then it’s on sale at Best Buy for $11.99.

MV: So, who’s the artist you feel now is the next Zero 7?

D: We’ve been pushing the Bent CD really hard. The Samba Loca CD, the Brazilian drum’n’bass classics. We feel that’s really strong. I don’t know how long this Brazillian drum’n’bass thing is going to go but at least for now it’s a pretty cool subgenre. Shaun Escoffery, who’s a British soul singer, I think his stuff is really good. We’ve got both his regular record, which is very much in the electroniic neo-soul vein, and there’s also a remix CD of his, with remixes by Koop and Jazzanova and Four Hero. And that’s really strong. I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets picked up a year from now and somebody throws a bunch of money to promote him and market him and he’s in the Best Buys and Towers of America. But right now he’s not, he’s bubbling on the underground. On a more mainstream R&B side, because we do a lot of neo-soul, there’s the singer Terry Walker who’s signed to DefSoul UK, that we’re pushing and think is really nice. Once again, nobody really has it; it’s on DefSoul UK, most of the stores here in America don’t have it. It fits perfectly in with Floetry and Angie Stone and that kind of music. It’s interesting, we’ve now built up a neo-soul group of stores, like a contingent of stores that are really into it. A whole bunch of stores in Atlanta, which is hands-down the neo-soul capital. So, there are certain records like Shawn Escoffery and Teri Walker and this group the Rurals, which are really a house group but they’re really deep. So, we do really well with those.

Interview conducted by John C. Tripp, late spring 2003

Groovedis

Groovedis Myspace

Offtrack, Radio, Dirk, Rumpff

By J.C. Tripp

For the past decade DIRK RUMPFF has produced the fortnightly radio show OFFtrack radio, one of the internet’s freshest and most innovative music casts. Rumpf is one of the pioneers of internet radio who’s excellent music choice has earned him a global fan base and stellar reputation for programming musical “pearls”.

With OFFtrack radio DIRK RUMPFF has found the perfect vehicle for his sincere devotion to music: his goal is about beating a path through the unthinkably big jungle that is contemporary music, to seek out the tracks that really mean something, and at the same time creating a platform for his extensive network of music and friends. A place in the virtual space where bridges are built and a multiplicity of musical currents can come into contact with one another. It’s a place where that which has long since ceased to take place in conventional radio can happen: dramaturgy, adventure and surprising changes.

The same vibrant selection of music of Offtrack radio can be found on the Sonar Kollektiv released “…broad casting” compilation which takes in the spectrum of sound heard on the program. Compiled by Rumpff, “broadcasting” features exclusive music by Slope, Clara Hill, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Mark Pritchard and many others. It is a record of Rumpff’s wide-ranging tastes and impeccable selection.

(biography – with some revision – by Hannes Bieger / Dirk Markham , courtesy off Sonark Kollektiv)

MundoVibe: You have been a pioneer in webcasting with Offtrack radio. What led you to start the program back in 1998 and what has motivated you to continue?

Dirk Rumpf: Back in ’99 i started university in a little town in marburg (Germany) where i joined the local student radio. it was a lot of fun even though it involved a lot of duties in order to being able to broadcast. An internet radio station called cyberchannel opened its doors in a town near by and a friend did a d’n’b show there that i hosted when he was away. after a while they asked me if i would like to do my own show. back then it was only streamed live without any archive whatsoever. we could see the numbers of listeners online. i believe it never exceeded 20. nevertheless it was worth the effort to drive an hour to get there every week. the station went down a couple of years later and thats when i hooked up with simon brant in london (RIP) who just launched freaked.co.uk. regarding the motivational aspect i suppose it´s just the good music that i feel needs to be heard.

MV: The music Offtrack features seems to span a wide range fo styles from acoustic to hip hop and beyond. So, you are clearly not bound to any

one genre. How do you tie it all together?

Dirk: whenever someone asks me what music i like/play i don´t know what to say. somehow there are pearls in any kind of genre. can´t say that i am an expert in any genre but i think diversity is the key.

MV: What is the criteria for a song to be played on Offtrack? What are you seeking in a track?

Dirk: somehow with the show i try to create the soundtrack i like to listen to while on my bike to work or sitting in a train watching outside or just before i want go out. can´t name you any criteria but i suppose it´s just whether i “feel” a song or not it will get a spot in the show.

MV: You are a member of Jazzanova’s “extended family” with a longtime relationship with Alex Barck and their Sonar Kollektiv label. How did

this friendship begin and how do you work with Jazzanova?

Dirk: well, the friendship also began in marburg. i actually invited juergen to play at a party but he was away so alex came instead. we had a great time and a couple of weeks later he invited me to play at their clubnight in berlin which was of course a great honor for a little student dj like me. he introduced me to the rest of the crew and after that we always invited eachother to our parties also after i moved to munich. alex also talked me into moving to berlin and soon after i saw myself reading bedtime stories to his kids. today i am in the sonar kollektiv office almost every day since i started to produce with roskow under our little season & sygaire alias.

MV: Webcasting has become a great phenomenon for underground sounds, since most radio stations ignore it. What impact have you seen Offtrack radio making in terms of exposing music and expanding the scene?

Dirk: It´s difficult to say. From my point of view i would say the show probably hasn´t changed anything but it´s always nice to hear that people really enjoyed this or that show. some may have even discovered new music through the show which is exactly why i am doing it.

MV: What is your production setup for the program?

Dirk: very very simple. only 2 turntables, a cd- player, a 2-channel mixer, mic and a laptop to record the whole thing.

MV: Do you ever feel pressure with playing certain labels or artists based on your audience?

Dirk: never. it is strictly 100% the music i like.

MV: Since a webcast is a one-play type of program, unlike radio where there is rotation of songs do you feel that webcasts play a substantial role in “breaking” artists?

Dirk: i believe webradio is still a niche-thing. The “regular” listener still only tunes into his/her FM-transmitter. due to the large amount of webradio-stations you really have to dig to find the ones that you like. on the other hand you find a station for every kind of taste. nevertheless probably also here the ones who shout the loudest have the biggest audience. or you build your audience over the years and rely on word by mouth. it takes time but i still prefer that way. is there still a way for new artists to break through just through their music? thought it always goes hand it hand with an image campaign….

MV: You are a warm and inviting voice, which gives Offtrack a unique personality. The program is much more than just the music. How do you approach the presentation of the program?

Dirk: that´s a charming compliment. my friends actually make fun of my “radio voice”. can´t help it. it´s like a switch turned over once i have a mic in my face. actually it just happens. never have any kind of presentational approach in my head

MV: You recently released the compilation “Broadcasting” on Sonar Kollektiv. How did this release come about and how did you choose its tracks?

Dirk: some artists made their way to the sonar kollektiv because i kept bugging alex and juergen to listen to their demos so alex one day proposed to just compile a cd with all those tunes so i don´t have to bother him anymore. after 2 years of collecting and listening i ended up with this selection. important for me was that the tunes have a certain timelessness to them. it would have been a bit pointless for me to just gather the current hits and mix em up. for some of the tunes it took a lot of convincing, long emails, phonecalls to get them exclusive for the compilation but in the end i am happy with the result.

MV: Is Offtrack a labor of love — is there income from it or is it not important to you.

Dirk: it definitely is. actually i invest more than i gain also considering $$$ but it´s worth every cent and minute as long as there are listeners appreciating the show.

MV: It must be a great effort to produce Offtrack on a regular basis, what keeps you inspired to do it?

Dirk: again, it´s mostly the amount of exceptional music that is floating around in the big music jungle out there

MV: Who are some of the artists you see coming up in the future? Any new

genres that you see emerging?

Dirk: I suppose everyone is keen to know which musical genre is coming up but for me it doesn´t really matter what´s hyped at the moment. there a lot of exciting producers at the moment. for me a guy called clonious from vienna is goin to twist some ears soon but there are constantly artists that i have never heard of before that surprise me. recently the ensemble du verre produced a beautiful albumthat will hopefully reach some people but also artists like carl borg and dimlite are always inspiring to me among many others.

MV: It seems that even though the music industry is going through major

changes, the music just keeps coming. Do you see more quality music as a trend and how do you see the market evolving?

Dirk: actually foremost the quantity has increased. you really have to be outstanding these days do make yourself heard (or have a clever businessplan or styling-assistant) could write essays about my view on the current state of the music industry but i rather not. the internet obviously plays a major role- both good and bad.

MV: One issue we face at Mundovibe is the lack of feedback from readers. We know they’re out there but we don’t often hear from them. Do you face a similar “silence” from your audience?

Dirk: I am always surprised that there is someone listening at all. the feedback is sparse but constant so i know there must be someone tuning in out there

MV: What are some of your other ventures in relation to Offtrack? Where do you DJ? Is there an Offtrack party?

Dirk: due to my day job i am a bit tied to getting up at 6am every morning so i can´t dj too much or my patients would be at risk but at the weekends i sometimes play some tunes here and there in small clubs.

MV: Will there be an Offtrack tour in the future?

Dirk: no plans so far but i am on a little road trip through europe this summer and if my old car doesn´t break down you might be able to hear me spin some tunes on the way’

Offtrack Radio

Dirk Rumpff Myspace

Dirk Rumpff Blog

Different Drummer also released some seminal compilations such as ‘Bastard Tracks’ and ‘Music Is Immortal’, featuring acts like Templeroy, Painted Van and Euphonic. Remixing became an increasingly worthwhile past-time for Rockers Hi-Fi, as acts such as Sly and Robbie, Tosca, Ennio Morricone and Ella Fitzgerald all received the ‘Rocker’s’ touch. The continuing success of Rockers Hi-Fi in Germany, resulted in a Different Drummer Compilation entitled ‘Spliffen Sie Englisch’, which featured the cream of the German Nu-Jazz scene with tracks from Jazzanova, Beanfield and A Forest Mighty Black.

Now in 2003 and ten years on, Different Drummer are sticking to their dub pistols with recent albums from G Corp, Pre Fade Listening, Phase 5, and Noiseshaper keeping heads knodding. And to commemortate their longevity in the shifty music business they’ve released “A Different Drummer Selection” a hand-picked mix by G-Stone’s Richard Dorfmeister from the label’s extensive back-catalogue. The CD captures some of the highlights of a 10 year love affair with all things deep and dubby.

In addition to the label, Different Drummer Club Nights are held at The Medicine Bar in Birmingham, an increasingly popular venue for quality music of all genres. ‘Leftfoot’ is a night without musical boundaries which has seen the likes of Jazzanova, Fila Brazillia and Grand Central Records, whilst the Rootsical ‘Overproof’ has featured 100% Dynamite and The Blood and Fire Soundsystem. The Different Drummer Soundsystem is a collective of DJ’s Musicians and Vocalists which can range from 2 to 6 members. The musical agenda is based around the ‘Leftfoot’ Club Night, basically a selection of quality music from around the globe. The Soundsystem have performed all over the world as well as clubs and festivals around the UK.

MundoVibes fired off a selection of questions to label founder Richard Whittingham on what keeps the Different Drummer crew going:

What is the concept behind “A Different Drummer Selection”?

To celebrate the fact that we’ve been releasing music for 10 years.

What is Richard Dorfmesiter’s role in the project?

To mix a selection of our back catalogue into a beautiful inimitable Dorfmeister mix.

Did he select the tracks or just mix them?

Richard chose some and so did we.

Where did your love of dub music begin and how did it develop?

In a punk club, in 1977/8, in my home town of Birmingham England called Barbarellas.It’s still developing – I’m still find stuff that I didn’t know existed!

It’s interesting how prevelant bass has become in music today. How important is bass to Different Drummer’s releases?

Very Important. In instrumental music it’s usually the centre of a track, the melody, the part you hum…well it is for us anyway!

Since the label’s name is Different Drummer, is it all about representing underground beats?

I suppose so, but I wouldn’t turn my nose up at crossing over, going over-ground.

What was the founding mission of Different Drummer and how has it evolved?

We started DD to release our own music as Original Rockers, but now we

release other peoples music. We also like to release albums now, as before it was all about 12″ vinyl.

Different Drummer is both a label and a sound system. What is your version of the “soundsystem” and how similar is it to the original Jamaican version?

Well, we use two decks instead of one, we don’t just play Reggae….although

most of the music we play is heavily influenced by Dub/Reggae. The rest is

very similar – a selector dropping the tunes and an MC/Toaster chatting and

singing over the Rhythms. We also use a Roland Space Echo which was a big

part of the Reggae and Dub sound of the 70’s and a few effects.

What do you feel are the essential elements of a Different Drummer

recording? Is there a “signature” sound?

Not really….although we are predominantly known for releasing ‘Nu-dub’, but we have released Hip Hop,

Electronica, Drum & Bass. If we are into something we’ll release it!

Are you at all influenced by what is current in Jamaica or is it more London?

We are influenced by what lands on the doormat.

What makes a track wicked for both ears and the dancefloor?

I don’t know!

You represent both dub and hip hop. How does this work?

We represent other forms of music too, and it seems to just work – there’s no secret formula.

What would be your dream project if you could bring anyone together?

John Barry & Johnny Osbourne

Who are the producers that have most inspired you?

Lee Scratch Perry, Scientist, George Martin…

You work with talent from Jamaica amongst other places. How do you find these artists?

We find each other.

What is the Birmingham scene like?

The scene that we are involved in is pretty cool. B’ham is a big place and there’s a lot of things going on!

Dub is an international phenomenon. What do you attribute that to?

The bass line and the echo echo echo…

You represent Birmingham with the label and with artists like Mighty Math.

Do you actively develop local artists?

There’s not enough local talent coming our way, but I’m very proud when we release something from Brum!

What has been your most well-received project to date?

The Dorfmeister compilation, with the G-Corp releases a close 2nd.

You seem to have a connection with New Zealand.

Yes, NZ has a great music scene! It all started with a guy called John Pell, now a good friend,

booking Original Rockers to play his dub club in London. He eventually went

back to NZ and took us out there to tour. Also, a DJ out there called Stinky

Jim was playing our releases back in the early 90’s – we hooked up with his

label, Round Trip Mars, to release the NZ compilation Sideways.

What do you think of the international dub scene right now?

Very healthy!

How does Different Drummer fit into the dub scene?

Snugly!

How do you promote your music?

Carrier pigeon.

How does Different Drummer use modern technology, while still keeping aroots vibe?

We mix the two.

What are your current and future projects?

New release from Noiseshaper (their 2nd album for DD) Debut album from Al Haca Soundsystem Inevitable (due end of October) Next year we have releases from Overproof Soundsystem,

Moma Gravy, Dollboy, and a few others that haven’t signed contracts yet.

Are your production techniques more on the digital side or analogue?

A bit of both, but we are moving more towards a digital set-up.

What are the primary obstacles you face as an independent label?

Cash flow.

Will you ever get into the reissue business such as label’s like Blood & Fire?

We tried to license a load of Reggae tracks a few years ago, but gave

up as it was a complete nightmare – but never say never.

What are some venues and shops in Birmingham you’d recommend?

Medicine Bar, Swordfish Records, Massive Records, Plastic Factory, Jyoti

Hindu Vegetarian Restaurant, No Name, The Diskery, A2, The Soya Café.