Bottin brings his own brand of intricate cosmic thump with this exclusive mix for We Love. He’s been star performer in for the Tirk crew in Space’s chic back room El Salon for a couple of years now and we’re big fans of his uniquely horror fueled disco. There’s a few unreleased bits on here so think of it as a literal look into the future.
52 minutes of 320 Kbps gold, listen below, download here.
In celebration and anticipation of his performance tomorrow, playing for the Moda crew on the Sunset Terrace at the We Love Space opening party, Greg Wilson has given us a mix of the highest order recorded live at The Cut club in Newcastle – a venue which is part 70s Manhattan loft, a bit 80s East Berlin squat with a touch of 90s Fenham house party – suiting this mix down to the ground. If you want to download it for your own home listening pleasure then feel free to do so, here.
You can follow Greg Wilson on twitter and don’t forget to check out his insightful blog.
We’ve pretty much fallen head over heals for the artwork coming out of the GLA / BCN collective commonly known as Thunder Disco Club. The flyer was created by Ian Guy who clearly knows his chops when it comes to all things with retro-future appeal. It’s all in aid of this weekend’s festivities at Stereo in Glasgow where running mates RPZ and TDC will share musical and cultural influences from the spandex clad moment of American culture which created the workout video. Expect the best in “hi-tech disco, italomatic euro beats and cybernetic funk”. Joe Crogan will be on hand to mix up a video wall of footage from the aforementioned exercise tapes. Workout! promises to be a day-glo smorgasbord of beautiful women, handsome men and tight jeans.
The main reason we brought your attention to all this is the canny aerobic mix from Hushpuppy you can find over at the TDC blog, here.
Workout! is at Stereo, Glasgow, Friday 11th Feb 2011, doors are at 11pm. There’s a Facebook event page thing, here.
You can follow Thunder disco on twitter, listen to them on soundcloud, like them on facebook and even visit their blog like we did in the old days.
Above you can stream or download Greg Wilson‘s set from our We Love Leeds night held on New Year’s eve. It’s a party mix in the truest sense of the word with exclusive edits a plenty. While you listen, take a read below of Greg’s philosophy of the importance of “living to music”. In our accelerating post-everything age the idea of sitting with friends and listening to an album from start to finish may seem quaint and romantic but Greg puts across a great case for an enriching experience which is both communal and individual. If you make a New Year resolution this year, it should probably be this.
Reel-to-reel-to-reel-to-reel-to-reel...
Read the rest at Greg’s insightful blog, here…
DJs Greg Wilson and Jamie Fatneck will be hosting what’s becoming an annual event in the North. Kitchen Sink Disco on Boxing day in Huddersfield will give you listening and dancing pleasure with a man who needs no introduction and a man who will happily introduce himself given but a smidgen of a chance. Read more about Greg Wilson in our preview of last year’s event. The pair will be appearing in cultural rival town Leeds on New Years Eve. Although there is a deep-seated enmity between the two localities, our booker Mark Broadbent (Huddersfield) aims to harmonise things by booking only DJs from Leeds as residents in 2011 for We Love Space…
There’s a facebook event page with all the info you need here.
For sure they'll have the right mixer
We’ve got you covered if pretty much anywhere in England between Boxing Day and New Year, but if you are North of the border you could do little better than the SWG3 Studio Warehouse in Glasgow where a collaboration between Thunder Disco Club, Itch!, Vitamins and One More Tune is set to bring 2011 in with a hi-nrg inferno. Throughout the sweaty, sordid summer months TDC residents Raul Pindi, Romero Heat, Sweets Edison and Ray Tropic have been collaborating with some of the city’s favourite institutions including Subclub and a now infamous Art School degree show party. As for info on the New Year party (selling out fast) check facebook.
Cheap and nasty, show us your pasty
Thunder Disco Club claim to give you the full visual squalid package they describe as ‘beta-max sleaze’. A video-jock crew will be on hand to help bring the brand of disco-xploitive love to life. The TDC residents are said to be currently holed up in Southern Bulgaria as they put the finish on their “intercontinental gateaux of boogie”. Check out their blog for some fresh sounds and strange stories.
Below is a video used to promote the last event Thunder Disco Club put on at SWG3 featuring a pre-club screening of Walter Hill’s The Warriors…
Need and want
By guest blogger Jonty Skrufff. Find Jonty on facebook here.
Starting his career at the Hacienda’s legendary queer night Flesh in 1983 in Manchester, Guy Williams has gone on to become a fixture of both the gay and straight global club scenes, holding high profile residencies at the likes of Ministry of Sound and DTPM and more recently at Ibiza’s We Love mega-parties at Space. Focusing primarily on house, he’s also re-embraced disco’s latest renaissance, playing predominantly classic tracks at his monthly Black Rabbit parties at We Love.
“Personally I’m really happy that disco has become big again because my musical roots are based in 80s music and disco and it definitely still is big today,” he enthuses.
“There’s also loads of really good nu disco being made which is more musical and warm and through these hard times we’re living in right now people need that. Though I still love good deep house and tech house as well.”
He’s also firmly attached to the concept of playing quality disco and house music loud, judging by a recent angry message he posted on Facebook hours after returning from spinning a high profile slot at London’s Lovebox Festival.
“Lovebox Nazi sound police take note- it’s a MUSIC festival!” he stormed, hours after the event, adding for good effect, ‘Dickwads’.
Today he’s decidedly more chilled describing the East London outdoor event as ‘an overall good experience’ and one he hopes to repeat next year.
“In general it was a good day at Lovebox but the Art Against Knives/Jezebel sound system where I was playing at kept being told to turn the music down,” he explains. “They even closed it down a few times and it really wasn’t that loud.”
Sound quibbles aside, he’s a no-nonsense, knowledgeable interviewee, reflecting his 17 year career working as a DJ, party promoter and experienced dance label executive, who though continuing to travel extensively, remains based in London for much of the year.
Skrufff: What’s your assessment of the health- or otherwise- of London nightlife right now; how does it compare to 3, 5 and 10 years ago?
Guy Williams: “Well as most people will know, partly due to the recession and partly due to people going to more live gigs and festivals and web related events quite a few clubs have closed down and nights finished in London. Three years ago was especially tough because three of the nights I’d played at for a resident for a number of years all finished, pretty much simultaneously. But there are still some great nights and parties on and a lot of pubs have become cool places to go with good DJ and cheaper prices so people will always want to go out and dance.”
Skrufff: I’ve read that many gay pubs are closing because people are meeting over the internet and via web 2.0/ mobile phone apps: how much do you see a difference in the strength of the gay scene compared to straight clubs?
Guy Williams: “I’ve long thought the gay scene has been a little on the slide for quite some time due to both the reasons you mentioned and also because of the fact that being gay is no longer underground and has become almost predictable. Though there are still great parties like Horse Meat Disco and various warehouse parties, thank God.”
Skrufff: You grew up in the Manchester suburb of Cheadle Hulme: what were you doing between school and starting DJing in 1993?
Guy Williams: “I left school in 1986 and after leaving I went straight into a telesales job which I did for a few mind-numbing years before landing a manager’s job at a clothes shop aged 19 which I did for five years. I started DJing in 1993 and when that started to really take off in 1994 I left the clothes shop job and concentrated on DJing. I also then started working for PWL – Pete Waterman’s company looking after promo for Eastern Bloc records, his dance label, before moving to London in 1997.”
Skrufff: You became a resident at the Hacienda’s legendary night Flesh in 1993: how did you land the first gig?
Guy Williams: “I had been going to Flesh since the very first one in 1990 so when I started DJing in 1993, Paul Cons, the promoter gave us a slot. When I say ‘us’ I used to DJ with a guy called David and we went under the name of Planet Janet. It was definitely one the highlights of my DJ career as Flesh was such a seminal night.”
Skrufff: Peter Hook’s recent book on the Hacienda (‘How Not To Run A Club’) is full of tales of hooligans and gangsters packing out the club and regularly causing chaos, how much did you have to navigate/ interact with those kind of characters?
Guy Williams: “I started going to the Hacienda when I was just 16 years old and it was very much a student / indie kind of club until 1988 when dance music started creeping in, as did the gangster element. I used to go to a Wednesday night called Hot, Fridays called Nude and sometimes on Saturday as well; all of them straight nights and by end of 1989 it was definitely getting rougher. The gangsters eventually started appearing at Flesh too, which was a gay night. To be honest, the gangsters ruined Manchester’s club scene. By 1993 loads of venues and nights were closing down simply because it was just too dangerous, and that was partly the recent I left and moved to London after experiencing a few dry years.”
Skrufff: Danny Tenaglia booked you for a couple of his renowned Be Yourself parties in New York 2002, how did that happen and much difference did his support make to your career and profile?
Guy Williams: “Danny was a bit of a DJ hero to me in the early nineties and I basically became friends with him and his manager Kevin. When they first asked me to play it was one of the most flattering and daunting opportunities I’ve experienced though luckily a group of friends accompanied me to New York and the gig in the event was amazing, Danny came into the booth about an hour before he was due to play and asked if I would play for longer. And to get invited back a second time was ace.”
Skrufff: Do you ever go back to your hometown of Cheadle Hulme or any old school reunions?
Guy Williams: “I never really go back there but have driven past my old house, which I loved a few times. And there have been a number of reunions which I thought about going to but didn’t quite make it.”
DJ and production duo PBR Streetgang have recorded a mix that despite its title is pretty pioneering in bringing various strands of forward thinking dance and electronica under their home-grown banner of digital disco. They’ve been giving it away to friend and foe alike during their summer residency on the hallowed terrace here at We Love Space, and is a decent representation of what you could have heard from them there. Like last year, the boys tend to hold off producing too many mixes and prefer to put out only two or three maximum per year. This means it’s all about the sound and less about banging out fresh tunes. It’s as perfectly suited to cruising round the salt flats of Salinas at sunset in a Land Rover as it is to boogieing around a swimming pool at dawn with vodka limon in hand.
Darwinian Disco
Chicken Horror
Bottin, a producer, DJ and sound designer from Venice, Italy was raised on late 70s Italian disco and kitsch horror soundtracks which shines through in his imitative but always forward looking sound. His album Horror Disco goes down particularly well while cruising down the Autostrada from Milan to Turin on the way to listen to an 18 hour party of Berghain resident techno… as we did here. He shys away from the more soulful and retro elements of disco giving a warmer and less polished aesthetic than his Scandavian nu-disco contemporaries. More influenced by John Carpenter, Lucio Fulci and Goblin-esque robo-cult-disco than the sounds of late 70s NY or Philly.
Stevie Kotey was brought up in a time when definitions were looser and scenes and sounds more indistinguishable than today. As tea-boy for Audio One studios in Soho his belief in being part of the music industry was cemented – lucky us! Under guidance of his Bear Funk label a wide audience were exposed to the likes of Todd Terje, Prins Thomas and Lindstrom for the first time. When it comes to his own production, Stevie Kotey dips and delves into all things nice. Don’t miss his connection to the mighty Chicken Lips with their electro funk, dubby sounds and rocky disco. A true bear knows no hibernation.
So expect a reckless blend of retro-futuristic sounds and contemporary electronica set to light up the floor in El Salon at We Love on Sunday 22nd August. In conjunction with Resident Advisor, expect a special night all round with Carl Craig, Mathew Dear, Miss Kittin, Derrick May, 20:20Soundsystem Live, Steve Lawler, Motorcitydrumensemble and more… phew!
Click flyer for more info...
Is there one book that you have read that has been life-changing for you?
Bottin: The Junior Woodchucks Guidebook. That, and Paul Watzlawick’s Pragmatics of Human Communication.
Stevie Kotey: I couldn’t choose just one, different books for different times, different moods all determine whether your reading something life changing, But I suppose John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Pimp by Iceberg Slim have all had a lasting effect. Oh before I forget, though it’s not a book The Viz comic equally has had a great influence on my life.
Did your parents encourage you to work in music?
Bottin: No, there are no musicians in my family (apart for one of my uncle that plays flute). My parents did not specifically encourage me but they didn’t try dissuade me either and they bought me my first synthesizer when I was 12 (a Korg M1, the clerk at the shop told’em Pink Floyd used to so it must’ve been a good one).
Stevie Kotey: No not really, unless you’re a classically trained musician or top producer, working in music was always deemed a bit of laugh and not a real job, especially when you’re self employed. I’m sure they hoped for more.
How do you apply your past experiences to what you do today?
Bottin: I often learn my mistake and I’ve done quite a few mistakes. Like trying do music that I don’t actually feel or producing for people I don’t share a similar taste with. Now I know the only way is to develop your own trademark sound and that’s what I’ve been doing in the recent years and I do not intend to stop.
Stevie Kotey: Every minute of everyday past experiences help me to judge new situations, how to judge people you meet, when to be nice and when to be an asshole. Different strokes for different folks. There’s nothing like experience especially in music.
How did you begin to work professionally in music?
Bottin: My first record deal was for a track on Irma Records Italy, in a compilation called Sister Bossa. It had a sort of Brazilian rhythm, acoustic guitar and vocoder. Quite a strange arrangement now that I recall it. Shortly after that I started making music and sounds for commercials and websites.
Stevie Kotey: Lucked out completely, I had a good careers teacher; I studied a bit and just applied myself. You can work in music without the help of anyone, but it usually doesn’t pay well. If you want something hard enough you make it happen, but essentially I invested everything I could both mentally and financially into releasing music.
Where is your current studio and what is it like?
Bottin: It’s in Venice, I have all the gear in my apartment. I’m lucky since my neighbors work till late at night and they never complain about the screaming synthesizers. I have 8-9 synths, most of them cheap Italian machines from the late 70s and early 80s (Farfisa, Siel) among the non-Italians I have a Roland SH09 and a Moog MG-1 Concertmate. Although I believe the most important piece of equipment in any studio are the speakers.
Stevie Kotey: Well I don’t really have one, I couldn’t afford to have a bespoke studio anymore, I have a little set up at home Mac G4 (old skool) some outboard synths and sound modules. If you know what you’re doing you don’t need much.
How much have you had to consider marketing issues since embarking on your career and how has that affected your creativity?
Bottin: No marketing issues at all. I’ve been doing this type of music since a while, then when Lindstrom and all the so-called “nu disco” came out I was sort of lucky since label started wanted to sign my stuff, the same stuff nobody seems to want before. I’m very active promoting my stuff on the internet though: twitter, facebook, soundcloud… I only use those for promotion, I very rarely write about personal stuff.
Stevie Kotey: Well yes you need to promote your own shit these days but, I’ve never been one for self promotion, nothing makes me cringe more than receiving weekly emails from DJs about what they are doing and where they playing etc, surely your music and your DJ sets should do the talking for you? I’m only on facebook five months ago so I’m trying to do more, as for affecting my creativity I say less profile updating and more music making.
How would you describe your work?
Bottin: Artisan-like and restless.
Stevie Kotey: A&R, production, remixer, a thinker, bringing people together and hopefully something that will be remembered when I’m no longer here.
Who were your teachers?
Bottin: My teachers were the records of Steely Dan, Earth Wind & Fire, Claudio Simonetti, Celso Valli. I took piano lessons when I was a kid, but that was the only proper music education I got – though later (at 18) I took some jazz and orchestration lessons and I also learned a lot by playing piano and hammond organ in a big bang.
Stevie Kotey: Well my teachers are my record collection, everything I want to know about music or life can usually be found in a record I own or want.
Your home is burgled but fortunately the culprits are caught and your possessions returned to you. What would you deem a suitable punishment for the burglars?
Bottin: They will have to buy me an extremely sultry dinner at a very expansive restaurant of my choice.
Stevie Kotey: I say we get medieval with that shit, flogging in the town square. naked embarrassment of the highest order, then a t-shirt that’s say’s I’m a fucking scumbag thief that has to be worn for a couple of years.
You have to make one species of animal extinct. Excluding insects, which species would that be?
Bottin: Pigeons and people who feed them.
Stevie Kotey: I can’t wish that on any animal no matter how naughty they have been; only the big man upstairs decides who stays or who goes.
If you could spend one week in any period of history, which period would you choose?
Bottin: I would love to see Venice when it was at its prime, before the plague, Napoleon and all…
Stevie Kotey: Easy April 26th 1977 at Studio 54 Bianca’s birthday party
Thanks to Ben Terry and Matty J at The Pool London / Tirk for the original article at their blog The Loop. More 11 Questions here. For a little taste of something to expect from Bottin and his horror disco roadshow, check the video below…
