I was born in Manchester, England on January 5th 1958. I am a twin. From being a young child, I have always been interested in music, especially instrumental music. At home, we had a blue 'Dansette Bermuda' monophonic record player, on which we would play stacks of popular 7inch singles. One of my earliest favourites was the brilliant instrumental track "Telstar" by the Tornados, as well as The Shadows, The Love Sculpture or TV theme music like "Stingray, Thunderbirds", "The Avengers" or "The Man From UNCLE", but I liked some vocal music too, I was also a fan of The Beatles and later Jimi Hendrix. I was introduced to classical music at junior school and I briefly learnt to play the violin, until we moved to another area and I had to stop.
My musical tastes were also heavily influenced by an elder cousin, who was (thankfully) into more 'progressive rock' music than pop and he brain-washed me with music by bands like Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple or The Doors. He also had a fascinating new audio development at home - a stereogramme! (which was actually a huge bulky sideboard-cabinet affair, made from thick solid wood, with speakers at each end and a drinks cabinet in the middle, right next to the record player! a really stupid conception which would make the glasses rattle if the bass became to loud).
Practically every weekend he would take me to his favourite record shop in Manchester (Rare Records in John Dalton Street) and I would be placed in what resembled a glass telephone box in the basement where they kept their rock records and subjected to a varied mix of the latest progressive rock sounds. It was around this time (1968) that I secretly bought a copy of Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland (in retrospect, I think I probably only bought this album really because it had nude women on the cover). I saved up many many months to buy this "deluxe" double album with the highly controversial cover and then, out of fear it would be confiscated if discovered, I hid it in a box under my bed for many years, so my parents (nor anyone else) could see it. Actually, this 'rude' record sleeve was eventually withdrawn after much protest, and the album was divided into two LPs and the cover replaced by some stupid boring psychedelic-ish hippie artwork. Up until the small Virgin Record shop opened in Manchester, Rare Records was my musical Mecca and years later, I was to meet Ian Curtis in this shop, where he briefly worked.
I wasn't only interested in music as a child though. I was (still am) a big fan of Gerry Anderson's TV series, James bond, The Saint, The Prisoner and The Man From UNCLE, The Outer Limits, The Invaders, the Munsters and I am fascinated by aeroplanes and I made many model aircraft. This obsession eventually had me joining the Air Training Corps, where I flew in gliders and became a rifle marksman and aircraft recognition 'specialist'.
After leaving school, I studied advertising graphic design and while at college, my passion for music became my main focus again and I became the Social Secretary arranging disco-events for the students and running the record library. I briefly worked in the advertising industry (it was literally all rub-down letraset and cut-&-paste back then).
Bored, I left advertising to go and work in Virgin's first Manchester record shop in Lever Street (a small hippie record shop that smelled of incense, where I had already spent much of my time and most of my money as a teenager) to further feed my addiction to music. By the late 70's, as the punk movement developed, our branch of Virgin was the only shop selling this new style of music in the area, as everwhere else banned it. Here I befriended many of the punk era's Manchester legends (Buzzcocks, John The Postman, V2, Rob Gretton, Tony Wilson or Mark Farrow). Through this job, I also had access to many different kinds of music too not only punk, and I also became infected by rare German imports (mainly of the early electronic music by pioneers such as Klaus Schultz, Giorgio Moroeder, Kraftwerk or Tangerine Dream) and without question, after my first trip to Germany, I had already decided that I wanted to explore that country and its musik, more.
Meanwhile, I was bitten by the excitement of punk. In 1977, together with Mick Hucknall and Neil "Moey" Moss, we formed "The Frantic Elevators". I played bass (for a term) and we supported some popular punk bands at that time, such as Sham 69 in the notorious Rafters club.
In early summer 1978, I eventually left Britain and I moved to Germany, where I first lived for a short while in Pullach, near Munich. After a few months, I moved to Berlin, where I was 'designated' Factory Records German "representative" by Rob Gretton.
I was fascinated by Berlin, with its cold war atmosphere and the parallel political regimes living side by side. The atmosphere was utterly unique. East Berlin became my Disneyland. After I had been in Berlin for only a few weeks, I travelled to Prague, something I had always wanted to do since being a child. Everything about the journey was incredible. The many pass- controls, the great escape atmosphere. Upon arrival, I noticed there were no westerners to be seen, anywhere. I was alone! I became hooked on experiencing the other communist countries and I travelled extensively throughout the "Ostblok", first travelling clandestinely all around Czechoslovakia, then Hungary and Romania, in an attempt to discover their forbidden underground music scenes and watch the "birds".
After the devastating death of Ian Curtis, I was very upset and actually felt a bit isolated, being so far away in Germany and quite uncertain as to the future of Factory and Joy Division. Around this time, I started to become interested in live sound engineering and other aspects of the music industry. When Rob told me that the band had finally chosen a new name, "New Order", it was more like an influx of new life. Although, after the release of 'Ceremony' and 'Movement', I believed it was really time for the band to take their album title literally. So, I started to send "inspirational" cassette-tapes to Bernard, featuring the kind of music that I was listening to at that time, in the secret hope of inspiring him with other kinds of music - new, electronically driven dance-club music, as I already knew he was an electronic music fan, Bernard even built his own synthesiser, which he played on Warsaw's and Joy Divisions earliest recordings (and which I actually still have). I sent him mix-tapes featuring obscure film music by people like Ennio Morricone and new electronic underground disco, by producers like Patrick Cowley or Giorgio Moroeder and with the release of 'Everything's Gone Green' and 'Mesh', I could see that my subliminal influence was finally beginning to work. Years later, I was to discover that I had greatly influenced the composition of 'Blue Monday' too, after Bernard 'confessed' this fact to John Savage for the liner notes to a New Order CD box set.
Meanwhile, I had become quite involved in the (West)Berlin new wave punk scene too, and became friends with Gudrun Gut, Beate Bartel and Bettina Koester of the impressive Mania-D, or Michael Schaeumer and Alexander Hacke (Borsig) of P1/E, drummer Thomas Wydler or Elisabeth Recker of Monogam Records. Eventually on 31st December 1980 I was asked to play a spontaneous gig together with Thomas Wydler and Human League's Adrian Wright, who was spending new year in Berlin, at the last night of the legendary Exxcess punk rock club (we played a mix of James Bond themes and swearing).
It mustn't have been all that bad though, for a few months later, I was again asked to perform at the SO36 for "The Concert for the re-unification of Germany" on 17th June 1981. I called my ex-pat friend Alistair Gray and asked him if he could sing (his crooned reply was a brief bathtub rendition of "strangers in the night") I said "yeah, that's great, we have a gig next week!" We wrote three tunes in my little flat on my acoustic guitar (while Alistair had to learn to play bass at the same time) and on the afternoon of the gig, we wrote the song lyrics in the pub across the road from the club, while we were waiting for our soundcheck. I had borrowed a lo-tech MFB drum-machine for the rhythm/percussion and when we finally hit the stage, the lights went up and my guitar immediately went out of tune and blinded, I accidentally turned on the wrong drum pattern for our first song "Radio War". Alistair was also having trouble. Not recognising the drum sequence, he also had no idea where we were in the song. Also as the lyrics had been written on both sides of the piece of paper in pencil and therefore due to the brightness of the intense stage lights, the reverse of the page could also be seen, causing him even more confusion. He couldn't read anything! and had to stoop to read his text, which resulted in sounding like the first word of each line was missed off. For us the gig was a complete shambles. However, this unique accidental rendition of "radio war" can be heard on the infamous album "Berlin 17 Juni 1981". Local journalist Andre Schwerdt was nonetheless impressed with our "avant-garde" set and gave us a favourable review and as he didn't know our names, he simply called us 'the two unknown Englishmen'. the name stuck and from then on, we were known as "Die Unbekannten" (The Unknown) http://www.myspace.com/dieunbekannten. The name stuck and from then on, we were known as "Die Unbekannten" (The Unknown)
As "Die Unbekannten" we performed all around Europe, mostly together with Gudrun and Bettina's newly formed all-girl five piece "Malaria!" (as I had become their sound engineer and "co-manager" together with Jochen Hulder).
Through my many previous trips to Prague, I had meanwhile befriended some heavy political dissidents (David Koplelent, Jachym Topol and Sasha Vondra) and so "Die Unbekannten" were invited to play at a very very secret gig, deep in communist Czechoslovakia, at a hidden location in Lukov near Zlany. It was very exciting. The venue looked more like The Alamo, complete with a cannon! We all got very very drunk and biscuitized on my "Reeder's Digestive's". Sometime later, I arranged a gig in the Karl-Marx University, in Budapest together with "Die Toten Hosen" to a crazy crowd of craving commie kids. Personally, these 'eastie' gigs were some of the most memorable (well, what I can actually remember of them) and were an enlightening and satisfying experience.
Once, during a tour of Benelux with Malaria!, Die Haut and The Birthday Party, I managed to convince Nick Cave that it would be a great idea for him to come and live in Berlin for a while. I thought he would like it. If nothing else, you could buy cheap duty-free booze and cigarettes from the east German run "Intershop" (which was a specially created duty free shop, situated on the platform of the main U and S-Bahn intersections to west Berlin, at friedrichstrasse station in east Berlin - it basically incited westerners to smuggle cigs and alc) and I'm sure this appeared a highly attractive prospect to Nick at that time - it certainly wasn't his only reason to live in Berlin though!). Well, Nick actually decided he'd do it too, and one day, he arrived on my doorstep and stayed in my pokey little flat in Kreuzberg for quite a while, until his girlfriend Anita Lane eventually turned up and then my place became too crowded for the three of us, and so he moved out to go and live in the larger Dresdener Strasse with Die Haut's bass guitarist, Christoph Dreyer.
On our "Unbekannten" records, my friend Thomas Wydler also joined us on drums and percussion and on the odd occasion for a few live performances too, but mainly for live gigs and records, we used a drum machine.
As a member of the popular synthi-pop band, The Human League, my friend Adrian Wright had been given a prototype Roland 606 drum computer to test, which he then gave it to us to try out for him. We had it only a few days then immediately went into the studio to record "Don't tell me stories" and "Perfect love" for Elisabeth Recker's Monogam record Label.
Also being friends with "Die Toten Hosen" (I mixed many of their concerts and was their tour sound engineer together with Faust and Elmar up until 1987). I also arranged with my East German punk friends, a very secret gig in the Erloeserkirche in Rummelsburg, a suburb of East Berlin. This Toten Hosen gig was disguised as a religious service (a so-called "blues-mass" which could be classed as something vaguely similar to a black spiritual church service, where they have rock music, prayers and singing). Only this was the disguise for a forbidden punk concert.
I must add, in communist East Germany, it was virtually impossible to get electric instruments, you had to pass a special test to obtain the permit to even own an electric guitar, and then pass another test to see if you were musically proficient and then apply for a further permit to be able to play it in public! It was not easy to find all the equipment we needed.
Alistair and I successfully managed to "smuggle" the band over the heavily patrolled border into East Berlin in groups of three, so as not to attract attention and using the borrowed instruments, "Die Hosen" performed their exclusive gig, to a hundred hand-picked friends. It was a very emotional experience for everyone and a momentous coup for us. We had all beaten the grim Stalinist system with our music! We had brought a bit of western freedom over to the East. It was apparently the first ever punk gig in East Berlin, with a band from the West. Years later in 1988, we were to repeat the feat again, also in a churchyard in the Pankow district, the gig this time, was disguised as a concert for the starving kids of Romania. Again, we invited a hundred people to this "secret" gig but as "Die Hosen" were by now much more popular, over two thousand kids turned up! (as well as the Stasi - the East German secret Police).
Around this time, I had decided to stop being Factory's Rep, as I was travelling with "Malaria!" and playing with "Die Unbekannten" and had other commitments and (ad)ventures I wanted to pursue.
During the 1980's one of Britains most popular and influential TV shows was "The Tube" hosted by Muriel Grey, Paula Yates and Jules Holland. Here many famous bands made their debut appearances, such as Frankie Goes To Hollywood and the likes.
The Tube planned to come to Berlin to make a "special" and being an Englishman and former Factory Records Rep with dubious contacts and an active participant in the Berlin music scene, I was asked to be their "Mr Fix-it" for the show.
The special was originally going to be co-hosted by Muriel Grey and mild-mannered NME writer, Chris Bohn and before we got started, Chris and I discussed what kind of portrayal of Berlin's current music scene we would like to show on this important programme, and we were very pleased to be able to convince The Tube that no traditionally commercial pop-artists would be featured (except to take the piss out of).
Although I played in "Die Unbekannten", I purposely opted to not include us in the programme, as I didn't think that would be right somehow.
Finding the talent, equipment and filming permits in West Berlin wasn't really such a hassle for me to organise (the East was another matter entirely). Contrary to popular opinion about the punk and new wave scene, everyone involved was very co-operative. I even approached my friends at the US and British military and the appropriate passes were granted for us to film at such impressive locations as on the Glienicke Bruecke (where they would occasionally exchange spies) and at dodgy places around the wall (of course, they would also provide us with "protection").
The day before the Tube crew came over, I was told that Chris Bohn sadly couldn't appear in the programme after all, as he had to go to China(!) and Chris had suggested that I could do the co-hosting instead (thanks Chris!). I was shocked! I thought I had enough to do already without having now to appear on the bloody programme.
Not wanting to disappoint everyone and flake out on this important job (especially after all the hard work I had put in) I decided I would do it, and not knowing what this all really meant, I jumped in and stood like wood, babbling in front of the camera, completely stoned after a long party night in Risiko and other trendy bars, the night before.
As Alistair and I became more proficient, our musical style was also changing too. Spending almost every weekend in "The Metropol" disco at Nollerndorfplatz, we were influenced greatly by the emerging "gay-disco" sound (later to become known as Hi-NRG) and always being fans of electronic 'disco' music, "Die Unbekannten" were moving more in that direction. To reinvent ourselves, we eventually decided we had to reform and regroup.
We gained two new members, Leo Walter on drums and percussion and Helmut Wittler on bass and synths (formally from "Soif de la vie") and for a European tour with New Order in 1984, we decided to change our band name to "Shark Vegas".
The tour was very successful for us. After our Munich gig, we went back to the Intercontinental Hotel and discovered there was a private Nena/Udo Lindenburg party in full swing in the swimming pool area. By chance, Nena's keyboarder Uwe Fahrenkorg-Petersen met us in the lift and after a few brief introductions, kindly invited us to their pool-party. How nice.
A huge, colourful buffet was on display and all the new wavey dressed music biz guests were obviously enjoying themselves, chatting and drinking. Stiff looking waiters served chilled beer, wine and sekt and as we drank, we sauntered aimlessly around looking for cute girls to chat-up.
After a while, the party was beginning to get a bit boring. Even though we are all in the collective music industry, the guests seemed to us like an alien life form, at least we all felt we were definitely from another musical universe. So as to liven things up a little, as per usual while on tour with these lads, it was (N/O's manager) Rob Gretton's custom to bet someone to undertake some form of "dare" for a substantial sum of cash.
In this particular instance, Rob randomly selected a well dressed business-suited victim, then casually said to Andy (the lighting engineer) that he would give him 100 pounds if he pushed "that bloke" into the swimming pool. We were giggling. Hooky was edging Andy on. Andy thought for a brief moment, quizzed Rob with a curt "hundred quid?", winked, then strolled over and in an instant, shoved the poor man into the swimming pool!
Oh no! We had a sinister foreboding that this could end in disaster, or worse if Andy undertook his mission and dry comments were made about sleeping on the street if Andy was actually successful.
As the poor man crashed into the pool, a huge cheer went up, there was a brief scuffle, a few punches, more shouts and then someone else was propelled into the waters. However, in his attempt to halt his fall this other man snatched at the corner of a tablecloth and part of the buffet went in the pool with him. More cheers, more people and more of the buffet ended up in the pool. People were screaming and jumping in. Bits of the buffet were bobbing about the pool and utilising the total confusion as cover, Andy hurried over to Rob and sharply demanded "give me my fuckin' hundred quid, quick!"
At this point, not wanting to face the consequences of collaboration, we all decided it might be better for us to leave. We scampered as fast as possible for our rooms.
Much later that night, we were woken by a rhythmic thudding on the wall. We heard Andy (who's room was next to ours) heavily shagging his hundred quids worth (as he himself put it) she was like "a hodd-carrier with tits"
The next day at breakfast, Andy appeared with a broad smile and a 'mornin' (with his freshly showered hair tied back in disguise).
We all sat around stunned when the waiter (an obvious N/O fan) engaging in polite conversation said to us "ahh you should have been at the Nena party last night - someone threw the hotel manager into the swimming pool!"
Under Shark Vegas, we released one single "You Hurt Me" on Totenkopf Records and simultaneously a different version on Factory (FAC111). This single was produced by Bernard Sumner and Donald Johnson (the gory details of this session I've put on the Shark Vegas myspace page http://www.myspace/sharkvegas). We also had one track featured on the Factory U.S. compilation "Young Popular & Sexy" (FAC US 17) for our first (and last) U.S appearance in the "Danceteria" in 1985. It was also during this tour of NYC that we had the pleasure of going to the legendary Paradise Garage club, to hear Larry Levan's amazing djing. That evening undoubtedly changed my life.
Shortly after that, we won the Berlin Senats Rock Competition and our future looked promising.
However, after a series of unfortunate events, Alistair decided to return to the UK and I carried on working alone with Leo, under our new project name of "Alien Nation". We released 3 singles under this name.
Then, in 1989, I was asked by East Berlin 'indie' band "Die Vision" if I would produce their album in the state-owned AMIGA recording studios in the Brunnenstrasse, in East Berlin. I have discovered in the meantime, that I am the only Englishman to have ever had this special privilege.
I started recording with "Die Vision" in the summer of '89 and was told the recording would take about six weeks, but as the studio engineers worked in commie-style shifts, the recording actually took months and we eventually stopped recording the album (which we named "Torture") on November 2nd 1989, after which, I then embarked on a well earned holiday, together with my English friends Dave Rimmer, Trevor Wilson and John Stokes, on a trip eastwards to Ceaucescus Romania, to visit "Dracula's Castle" in Brasov, via Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
We left Berlin in the gloomy night of the 8th November. Unknown to us, the Berlin Wall was to come down the following night of the 9th November and for most of our trip, we had absolutely no idea this world shattering event had even happened, as no one told us! Dave Rimmer wrote about our exploits on this crazy trip, in his book "Once Upon A Time In The East".
After experiencing the collapse of communism literally first hand, we found upon our return to Berlin, that the city had completely changed. It was no longer the same. There was an incredible energy and excitement. A new found enthusiasm.
Everywhere new party locations were springing up in derelict buildings. Although it had been around for a few years, it seemed that Techno was finally born!
Throughout 1990, using my contacts at the now ex-AMIGA, I tried my best to convince their head of A&R that this was their chance to make real credible club-music (techno music) with fresh and enthusiastic eastie kids, but they hadn't a clue what even a 12inch single was (the only 12" available was actually the Soviet National Anthem! and no one wanted that in their house) and so they really had no idea what I was talking about.
Meanwhile, I had also taken on another commitment. I was asked to "star" in Joerg Buttgereits (highly controversial) film "Nekromantik 2"...
In November 1990, the ex-AMIGA (now renamed "ZONG") suggested that as I knew more about clubbing, I should start my own record label and offered me the use of all their facilities. My label was officially founded in December 1990 and I called it, "MFS (Masterminded For Success)" using the initials of the hated Stasi - East German secret police - to install a new kind of fear and intrigue.
As for the musical style of my label, I wanted to make a more hypnotic, melodious and trance-inducing form of techno music, as a counter balance to the cold, discordant sound of techno (or as it was known here in Germany as tekno, tekkno and tekkkno, the amount of k's determining the hardness of the sound) and so I first experimented with "Alien Nation" and a selection of early MFS artists, such as Gabi Delgado's & Saba Komossa's "Two German Latinos" or Paul browse and Johnny Klimek's project "Effective Force".
My idea of creating "hypno-trance" manifested itself further with the addition of "Neutron 9000" and Mijk van Dijk's "Microglobe" and "Mindgear" projects to the label and their more melodic hypnotic techno sound was begining to be simply known as "trance".
Frontpage magazine editor Juergen Laarman also informed me that our mutual friend, Cosmic Baby had told him that he was also looking for a new label too and after a brief meeting with Cosmic and a pleasant discussion about musical direction, he also joined MFS in 1991 and I released these first MFS singles under the banner "MFS Trance Dance".
Although Cosmic was a very proficient musician, he needed a helping hand to make truly dj compatible tracks. After performing at a Dubmission party, he was impressed by a young unknown dj who played before him. He told me that he thought he had found someone who might be right. So I invited and met this young dj the following Monday. That young dj was Paul van Dyk.
Paul seemed pleasant enough and I told Cosmic to simply give it a shot. The result was the first "The Visions of Shiva" single - Perfect Day.
As the label started to gain its own "trance" profile, more and more artists such as Humate were added to the label. Once I had enough trance releases, I asked Cosmic Baby and Mijk van Dijk if they would like to remix each track to make a trance compilation album that would be the first and set a standard for all others to follow. This album became the now legendary "Tranceformed from Beyond", it was the first real trance compilation album.
After the release of their second and final "The Visions of Shiva single" Paul and Cosmic decided to go their own separate ways. Cosmic released his brilliant debut album "Stellar Supreme" and a series of superb singles for MFS and Paul concentrated on remix work and his first mix compilation for MFS "X-Mix 1 - The MFS Trip".The MFS Trip".
Paul wanted this mix album to be his best work to date. He borrowed a 4 track reel-to-reel tape deck and spent the whole day recording the mix and making over-dubs, effects etc. The Master-Tape was due to be delivered at 10pm that night for use on the x-mix 1 video soundtrack. I arrived at Paul's flat, just as he was mixing in the last track. He was very excited and really happy with his work. Once the outro was completed, Paul hit the rewind button so that I could hear the entire piece and we sat down to relax. The tape deck smoothly started to gain speed and rewind the tape, building up to a whirlwind speed. Then after about a minute, there was a malfunction and the tape deck suddenly started spinning out of control, it spewed the tape out, stretching it and mashing it all up, as the tape wound itself around the reels, eventually snapping it, all before Paul managed to leap up and stop the machine in a panic! He was devastated. I was stunned. For a moment that seemed like an age, we stood in silence not knowing what to do next. The tape was ruined and obviously beyond repair. Paul only had about an hour to go before the courier arrived to collect the master.
So without a moment to lose, I encouraged him to start again on the mix. I salvaged what I could of the reel and he set to work basically trying to reconstruct his mix from memory. He had to start from the beginning. I helped him with some of the effects and track selection and the results can be heard on the album "X-Mix 1 - The MFS Trip". This mix is therefore absolutely live, with no overdubs or edits, as he finished it only moments before the courier arrived to collect it.
After almost 8 dedicated years of loyal hard work, belief, love and investment in getting Paul to a point whereby he was ready to finally be able to fulfil his dream and break it big-time, and after all the hard work, the sleepless nights, the many gigs and tours together with Paul, he suddenly left MFS. No thanks, nothing. He has meanwhile gone on to become the superstar dj I had always believed he could and would become.
Most people are totally unaware that on MFS I also released many incredible (and meanwhile equally legendary) singles and albums, such as Denki Groove's "Niji", Humate's "Love Stimulation", Secret Knowledge "Sugar Daddy" or the excellent albums by Mijk van Dijk "Afeuropamericiasiaustralica" or Dr Motte's timeless 030 "Ki" album, Marco Zaffarano's Minimalism album, as well as the "European" compilation and "Assorted" series.
In 1999, I decided to form a new record label, "FLESH" together with my friend, Hungarian dj/producer, Corvin Dalek.
After ten years of Trance, I felt I needed a change of sound. We wanted to create a new identity especially for our own distinct techno derivative of saucy sounding club music, that we had decided to call "Wet&Hard". This amusing and controversial name describes the sound of music perfectly. The idea was to create a musical style that could be developed in any way we chose, one with no-holes-barred and one that would hopefully take us beyond the remnants of tedious TV Trance and traditional Techno. We also wanted to bring back some fun and sexuality into dance music too, as we found the music of the late 90s, was starting to be too much of the same, bland and boring. Personally, I also wanted to get some distance from what I had been releasing before on MFS and try out some new ideas and give others the chance to be creative again.
Corvin being Hungarian, was already very open-minded sexually and embraced the chance to finally express himself in his own way, without the constraints of an already established and flogged to death dance genre.
He included lots of overt sexual sounds into his music. We felt that the sexual and open-your-mind elements had somehow gone missing from late 90s techno and trance, it had become too repetitive and uninteresting and after all, isn't the sexual element what the dance ritual is all about?
So we added tons of sexuality into the music, with an emphasis on throbbing grooovy bassline riffs, driving latino-style percussion and trippy sound effects and for it we created a graphic art imagery to accompany the sound too, which we called "HotKunst" (Hot Art).).
Some examples of HotKunst can be seen on the HotKunst myspace pages - some I've made together with Corvin, some I've made with the incredibly talented Jan Kessler and music can be heard on Corvins debut artist album, "I Am A Dalek" as well as on the numerous FLESH compilation albums, by Corvin Dalek or Eiven Major.
For a listen, please go to http://www.myspace.com/fleshrecords
Meanwhile, "Wet&Hard" has taken me and Corvin and the other W&H DJ's around the Globe.
We have travelled to some great clubs in the UK, USA and Canada and also to such exotic places as Mexico for the brilliant Loveparade and Technogeist festivals, to witness some of the craziest crowds ever there (eg girls throwing their underwear at us!) or to experience eating payote, or adventures such as me getting thrown off a horse in the hostile mexian desert and breaking my rib, only to give a lecture at the G. Martell music academy the next day and suffer through the Loveparade with it, or to play in a former Atomic bunker set deep in the mountains of Slovakia, or see Clubs like NS Time, a wonderful club that has a MIG21 jet fighter inside it (where the go-go girls dance on the wings!), as well as to see huge festivals in Eastern Europe such as Creamfields CZ & PL, or the popular "Summer of Love" festival in Pardubice.
"Wet&Hard" has taken us to some of the most incredible locations, deep in the wild jungles of Colombia, to play for thousands of people on a mountainside plateaux, or even to the metropolis of Shanghai, the spicy city of Chengdu or dusty Beijiing during our month long tour of China, together with feline Fidelity Kastrow and Neebing. We have met some really wonderful people along the way. We have also gained additional "Wet&Hard" DJ's too, such as leading mexican dj Klang, czech dj/producer Jakub Mildner, San Francisco's badlad Pat Ibbetson, florida based dj Ed Whitty, Irish djs John Gibbons or Gary Collins, all who have made the decision to leave the mainstream tech-trance arena and come on board for the ride and to inspire and excite the young people and lovers of the World with their own style of Wet&Hard music.
Undoubtably, the musical landscape is changing. Clubbing is changing.
There is a definite desire from new clubbers to experience something as good as the "good old days" that everyone seems to talk about. That feeling of freedom and fun.
In the early 90s the young techno kids pleaded with their peers to open their minds and be tolerant towards techno and "feel" it for themsleves.
Of course, looking back over 15 years later, there were numerous factors that combined to create that overall feeling, such as the political climate and the euphoria felt by the fall of the Berlin wall, or the substances people were taking back then, they were also part of this feeling too. The political climate has changed and the drugs are different (E is not being consumed by todays clubbers in anything like the quantities it was in the early 90s) and so whatever the retro-synth-software manufacturers produce for the studio, no amount of retro-sound will recreate the real feeling of the early 90s either.
Sadly, in their search for that "feeling" there is one important thing which is always overlooked and that is the underlying desire to experience physical contact. All previous dance styles of the past had something to do with actual body contact. Even if it was only holding a hand, doing the bump, or shovin' n shoulderin' a fellow pogo dancer as in punk, it was all sexual and very physical. The techno kids were denied that physical touch aspect, as it was substituted through ecstasy. The revolutionary energy of the music combined with general "feeling" and experience of everyone loving each other and being on the same mental E-plane, substitued the need for physical contact. The clubbers of today can't really expect to experience that feeling of the early 90s, simply because they are taking different drugs in the clubs today.
However, their physical needs are there. From my travels, I've spoken to many clubbers. They see sexy hiphop videos where the people are all having a great time "freaking" together and even though they are maybe not into the music, they still want a piece of the hands on action. So, in the U.S.A and Canada "freaking" has started to filter through onto the techno-club dancefloors in places like Florida and San Francisco or Montreal, where the Wet&Hard dj's sound is sexual.
Indeed, the clubbers of today have to discover their own style and sound which represents their generation.
With "Wet&Hard", we have only provided a stepping stone for those who are interested, as an alternative foundation upon which to build upon. It is up to the active participants to make something out of it.
Whatever we have created, it remains open minded. The sound is not confined to any particular sound parameters, you can mix techno with electro with minimal with rock. The only thing the music really has to be, is in some way sexual, as dance music should be sexy to be part of the ritual of dance, but that is left to the individual to determine what they understand by that.
Wet&Hard has its own philosophy and its own artistic and design style, and with "freaking", it also has its own dance style too. Hopefully, you will want to cum and get freaky with us too.
