staying in touch with the club scene as a producer

[dyte]

I have an entirely different reason for not going out.

I live in Phoenix Arizona. Our entire party scene here focuses areound hardcore and happy hardcore. Occasionaly there will be a shitty underbudget stage for progressive, breaks, or dnb. I will not pay 30-40 dollars to hear one local dj I like on a horrible sound system with the Hardcore stages sound bleeding into the room . It simply is not worth it.

As for the clubs, the only ones that bring any real talent ever are in scottsdale and you pay thirty bucks to get in and about eight to ten dollars a drink. They are packed with trust kids and other rich snobs from scottsdale that judge you immediately by the brand of clothing you are wearing and what car you drive. On top of that the clubs almost exclusively play shitty electro house now. Before it was disco house, neither of which I like. About once every other month they will bring in a dj I actually want to see but they jack the door price up and the capacity for those clubs is around 800 tops so you cannot even walk in the place as they overpack it.

The end result is I occasionaly stop by a bar night playing breaks or dnb or house. Minimal techno or techno at all does not even really exist in this city of six million people. These bar nights are ussualy short lived and have no real sound system just a couple mackies or something. And ussualy attendance is very low so it's not all that exciting. But at least the prices are reasonable and ussualy the djs are better at them.

you only need 0.001% of the population to fill a 600 capacity club!

surely there must be some folks in the area that dig the same music as you?

oh aye, i'd be dingying the expensive parties too, got to a club to have fun, listen to some quality music and dance around. who give as fck about what your wearing or your background, that's their problem not yours

[mrgreynoise]

I'm kind of torn on this subject because i still like going out. I had to force myself to stop.
There is a point when you make music that if you stay too connected to what's going on in a "scene" you will subconsciously try to emulated it making innovation near impossible. I'm not saying you should never go out to parties anymore though, don't neglect your friends. There is a social aspect of electronic music scenes around the world politically that iv seen poison the careers of some very good artists. Keep social politics and your music as far apart from each other as it's possible for you to do.

really? i'd be curious to hear more about this

[victorgonzales]

I have an entirely different reason for not going out.

I live in Phoenix Arizona. Our entire party scene here focuses areound hardcore and happy hardcore. Occasionaly there will be a shitty underbudget stage for progressive, breaks, or dnb. I will not pay 30-40 dollars to hear one local dj I like on a horrible sound system with the Hardcore stages sound bleeding into the room . It simply is not worth it.

As for the clubs, the only ones that bring any real talent ever are in scottsdale and you pay thirty bucks to get in and about eight to ten dollars a drink. They are packed with trust kids and other rich snobs from scottsdale that judge you immediately by the brand of clothing you are wearing and what car you drive. On top of that the clubs almost exclusively play shitty electro house now. Before it was disco house, neither of which I like. About once every other month they will bring in a dj I actually want to see but they jack the door price up and the capacity for those clubs is around 800 tops so you cannot even walk in the place as they overpack it.

The end result is I occasionaly stop by a bar night playing breaks or dnb or house. Minimal techno or techno at all does not even really exist in this city of six million people. These bar nights are ussualy short lived and have no real sound system just a couple mackies or something. And ussualy attendance is very low so it's not all that exciting. But at least the prices are reasonable and ussualy the djs are better at them.

you only need 0.001% of the population to fill a 600 capacity club!

surely there must be some folks in the area that dig the same music as you?

oh aye, i'd be dingying the expensive parties too, got to a club to have fun, listen to some quality music and dance around. who give as fck about what your wearing or your background, that's their problem not yours

We had a techno night here for a few months. had the best sound system intown in my opinion and the dude even brought out some new djs from out of state that are up and comming techno guys. It failed even with good promoting. Dude lost a lot of money trying to make it happen.
We all supported the place best we could there just arent any people in phoenix who even know what real techno is or minimal for that matter.
Me and my buddy steve thought it would be cool to bring Brian Ffar down thinking god damn somebody has got come out for it and we promoted the fck out of it since we shared in the cost of bringing him and if Brian sees this hell attest that only about ten people showed up. I think the most peoplethat EVER showed up was about 50 and that was because it was Brad Lee who is a hard techno bigshot that lives here so he has good local support.

On the other hand we did have earthdance which I pl;ayed at that showcased techno on the main stage. That had really good attendance but earthdance is the biggest party of the year here. You could have dj IRENE mplay ten straight hours and people would still pack that party. It was nice to see people enjoying some techno and minimal techno though. The trick is getting them to go out speceficaly FOR that music.

As for the scottsdale clubs I go out there very occasionaly if someone special is playing but the music is only half of the show to me. I don't enjoy myself around people like that. I like to be around normal people that are friendly and you just don't find that in scottsdale. And 99 percent of the time it is cheesy electro house anyway so not realy worth it.

[::BLM::]

I'm kind of torn on this subject because i still like going out. I had to force myself to stop.
There is a point when you make music that if you stay too connected to what's going on in a "scene" you will subconsciously try to emulated it making innovation near impossible. I'm not saying you should never go out to parties anymore though, don't neglect your friends. There is a social aspect of electronic music scenes around the world politically that iv seen poison the careers of some very good artists. Keep social politics and your music as far apart from each other as it's possible for you to do.

really? i'd be curious to hear more about this

I agree man. When I used to be properly in the scene I was making music more for the scene and the labels in it, rather then what normally comes out of me. Influence is good, but too much of it can often sway you away from what you feel.

[Atheory]

if you don't go to clubs and check stuff out you risk becoming insular and stale.

i'd say somewhere in between would be more sensible.

[steevio]

ive been promoting IDM events for a long time now, in bars, clubs, forestry land, warehouses etc. and ive found that the more novel the event is, the more chance you have of it being a sucessful party, irrespective of who is playing.
put on a night in a city in a regular club, and unless you've got a big name on the bill or you've got lots of mates and connections its going to be hard work, you'll probably be competing with other more established nights.

put on a party in an unusual place, and it fires up people's imaginations.

our first freerotation party in 2005 was held in an outdoor pursuit centre in the middle of the mountains 20 miles from the nearest town, and 100 miles from any city, and yet we got 250 people to travel from all over the UK to a party with no big names on the bill, just quality underground artists.
i think the thought of an all night party with no restrictions was the key for most people who came.
its all about good networking and word of mouth advertising well in advance of the event, so that it builds into something no-one wants to miss, and having artists on the bill from a wide catchment area, people who are connected to other clubs and crews.
most people can take or leave a regular night in a city centre club.

[Myfirstcasio]

the reason i feel less satisfied with the EDM experience these days, is that i remember dancing in my bear feet on grass as the sun came up to the sounds of the future with thousands of beautiful people on one wavelength before the Criminal Justice Bill (in the UK) forced our music into the sanitised and sterile environment of inner city clubs, at the mercy of skanky street drug dealers, ludicrously expensive drinks, and worse still 'big name' DJs, to be turfed out at 6 in the morning before you have the chance to move up to another level altogether, and really experience what this is all about.
thats why you're itching to get back to the comfort of your homes and chill out with your mates.
dancing with your fellow humans in nature, in what ever headspace you wish should be a basic human right, its as natural as breathing.

Kudos, unfortunately outdoors partys in the Uk seem to be mainly Psy Trance based but there are LOADs of them in the rest of Europe.

[yacek]

I'm 18 and I feel like you... haha... rather just have a brew with friends, or chill at home make some music.