Gratts

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Drieduizend.be is a website that features photography from in and around Leuven. Some of my pictures are on there. Today it was 'Zwembaden'. Check it if you feel like it. Lots of amazing work to be seen there.
Moodclub will be going strong in the next following months. Check out the website and our Myspace calendars for more information!
A great piece of Japanese television. Here's how to learn English for dangerous situations:
DJ Igwaar is still alive and kicking. He'll be back.
Pierre De La Rivière has joined Gratts & Igwaar on their Thursday residency at Apero on Thursday. So from July, you will be able to hear all three of the Moodclub rezzies play on a regular basis. Sometimes with carefully chosen guest deejays that we really like.
What is a Gratts?
There's no such thing as 'a Gratts'. That's because Gratts is unique, there is only one of his kind. To be more exact, he is a dj from Leuven, involved in Moodclub (together with Pierre DLR), Touché and Night-Live Sessions 106FM , a local Leuven radio show about all things funky. Night-Live Sessions residents are Gratts, Cheez , Pierre De La Riviere and Holli & Di .
What the hell does he do?
Gratts has a weekly residency at café Apero (website in the making) in Leuven where he plays alongside good friend Igwaar. They play a mixture of disco, deephouse & leftfield 120bpm-ish stuff there, trying to offer an alternative to the usual nonsense you hear when having a drink.
Gratts has been deejaying for about 8 years and fills his days listening to music, listening to more music, organising events, wasting valuable time, deejaying, sleeping, eating and all that jazz.
He has played at a lot of places all over Belgium such as Decadance (Ghent), Silo (Leuven), Musicafé (Leuven), L'Amaral (Bruges), Sous-Sol (Kortrijk), La Rocca (Lier) and dozens of other locations. Over the years, he has shared the decks with deejays like Troydon, Da Sunlounge, Sound Republic, Slater Hogan, John Larner, Jamanta Crew, Diz, Inland Knights, The Littlemen, Freestyle, DJ Mes, Jonéné, Olivier Desmet, Phil Weeks, Amir Javasoul, Joshua, Kenny Hawkes, Jonny Rock, DJ Freestyle, DJ Heather, Eddie Flashin Fowlkes, and many many more. But what's the point in having a complete list anyway ? Who gives a fuck ?
Gratts likes to team up behind the decks. Currently him and Pierre De La Rivière are tagteaming a lot to bring the Moodclub sound to you. Gratts & Cheez love playing together too and so they do. And then of course there's Gratts' parnter in crime Igwaar, fellow Apero resident and allround great guy. Igwaar even has a fanpage, dedicated to his incredible talent! Quickly get in touch with the rest of the fans!
Apero, never heard of it!
Apero is a bar located right in the center of Leuven and has been the birthplace of a range of parties and funky initiatives: the Soirée Touché nights (a Touché offshoot offering funk, disco, house music), some Moodclub nights (a quieter alternative to the crazy Moodclub jams at Rumba), and lately a couple of Night-Live Sessions events (monthly events linked to our radio show on Scorpio). Next to that there's Cheez's 'Pikant' nights , Gratts & Igwaar's 'Deeper & Dirtier' nights focusing on the errr.. deeper and dirtier sounds and there's tons more fun(k) to be found. Some other residents at Apero include Cheez, Teddy Tendertouch & Blast Kid, Tiny Tom, Raoul and many more.
Gotcha. So there's only been local deejays playing?
No way. During the years, a lot of international guests could have been found behind the Apero decks: Justin Long, DJ Freestyle, Dizzy, Scott Ferguson, Tommy Largo, DJ Alena, Slater Hogan, John Larner, Chuck Daniels, and many many more have been known to rock the place to a small and intimate crowd.
Other than that, almost every hot deejay in the country has rocked café Apero: Jensen & Bugsy, Ya'Mo, Ricardo, PJay, Cute?, Yan, Wimpie, Red D, Guldentops & True City and so many more people I'm forgetting.
And if all this wasn't enough, here's the amazingly informative biography you can also find on the Moodclub website (in ugly red, so it's a bitch to read!):
Gratts was born, just like everyone of us. His mother was a loving woman born in Belgium, whereas his father was a man, born in Belgian as well.
It was this crazy mixture of male and female genes that Gratts inherited, and this mixture of cultures is probably the cause of his unconditional and early love for music. Gratts' parents were both music lovers too: they listened to the radio a lot when they were driving him to school, and sometimes they even bought a cd or two, especially for birthdays. I guess this explains Gratts's rich musical background. His parents never learned to play the saxophone, the trumpet nor the guitar, which is a shame, as it would fit nicely into this biography. As a result, they never played in a band or anything, and thus, of course, never toured the UK, let alone Hungaria or the Southern part of Spain.
All this happened a while ago, when Gratts was still a little kid, but in the meantime, he became older. Still at a fairly young age, Gratts learned how to play the piano. The mature sounds he magically generated always filled the living room with sheer joy and happiness when he was practicing these wicked choons on an old piano. But well... he never really practiced enough, as he prefered trying to be a superstar soccer player more than a piano virtuoso. In the end, he's become neither, but that's okay. Gratts subsequently quit playing the piano after four years of taking lessons, looking for other exciting projects. These included going to school, growing up and becoming a sane heterosexual geezer. He started getting into electronic music at a young age, listening to Orbital, Underworld, early Daft Punk stuff, Wall Of Sound records and mixtapes and other fairly hip things. He killed many friends's birthday party by trying to get the other kids into Ken Ishii. Unfortunately, this never worked.
Getting into puberty and being all angry with the world, Gratts embraced the roaring and heavy sounds of drum'n'bass. His parents truly hated it, and all the other kids thought he was playing the records at the wrong speed. But he knew he wasn't. Most drum'n'bass records should be played at 45 rpm, you know. They really should.
After getting tired of the industrial sounds that UK d'n'b labels were continuously busting out, he started digging in the techno crates. He liked the techno coming out at that time, and the tech-house tag that Mr C invented as he was taking over the clubs with his cocktail of house music and techno music. Soon though, he discovered the more peaceful world of quirky, bumpin' and stompy sounds: house music. After hiding his drum'n'bass records in the basement for years now, he's still as much in love with house music as he ever was and will ever be. He never liked 2-step / UK garage, although Mixmag told him to. He's always had a very strong opinion about his musical likings.
On a beautiful day in the city park then, Gratts was picknicking with all his animal friends. Suddenly, he heard vocal Naked Music sounding hooks and Seasons recordings records being played somewhere near. He figured the music must've been coming out of Swirl People's studio, as he was chillin' like a villain in his home town Leuven. But it quickly became clear this couldn't have been Raoul playing, as the mixing was terrible due to excessive crossfader use and frequent trainwrecks. He and the animals quietly got closer and saw a guy who would later become his beloved partner in crime: Igwaar.
He and Igwaar started drinking coffee and talking about music, world politics, Celebrities Uncensored and touring the town of Leuven, something Gratts's parents had never been able to. They shook hands, let their sideburns run wild and became a crowd rocking dj pair.