Mark Hawkins

I started writing this post quite a while ago, and never really finished it, but I thought I’d drag it out and give it an airing (as if anyone is actually gonna read this or really cares!! whatever, I’ll put it up anyway). Ive been thinking more about writing about music stuff, fortunately of late, I’ve been writing music a lot, so havn’t really had the time for blog posts, but I guess I’ve felt the need to do something with this bit of webspace & I guess see if anyone is actually out there reading this, so I know that it’s actually worth going through with my “History of mark’s musical taste” blogpost which I started writing a few months back but also left unfinished.. anyway, check it out, it still makes some kind of sense to me..

As some of you may have noticed, I’ve been on a bit more of a “minimal” tip recently. As I type that, I’m already wishing that I had a better way to describe it than “Minimal” because of how divisive the term is. People either love it or hate it. I’ve just come to a point where I’ve discovered what people call techno these days isn’t really the kind of techno I like. You know the sort, noisy, distorted and repetitive. Maybe I used to like stuff that was a bit like that, but in my mind it always had to have a hook. Anyway, I found myself booked to play parties (and still do), where the music in the room I’m playing in seems to bear no relation to the music I want to play. Yet, when I walk into the so called “Minimal” floor, the music seemed to be much closer to what I wanted to be playing. I’d play on the “Hardtekk” floor, and constantly be told to play “harder, faster” or, I should say “Harter, Schneller” as it happens most often in Germany!

So anyway, I guess I distanced myself from the Minimal thing before, just because I could see so many producers suddenly seeming to jump on this “Bandwagon” (Round about 2004/2005) and make cliched glitchy “minimal” trax. I didn’t write it off, as I was living in Berlin at the time, going out with friends to Watergate and Panoramabar, and enjoying it far more than any hard techno party, but I didn’t want to all of a sudden give up trying to forge my own kind of style. At the same time, I was starting to make some trax that the “put it in a box” people might describe as “minimal”, although I never really did anything with them as I felt they wern’t good enough. a few years later and I’m doing ###, but to me, this is a fusion of many things, many influences, although, I will admit a lot of minimal records I’ve been listening to.

After the debarkle of the album, which I think now was quite naive of me to think I was going to be able to sell it in the current climate, I wanted to get back into writing music, but not just for myself to listen to. I think it’s a bit of a cliche for producers to say “I only make music for myself”. For me, the point is, to see and hear other people enjoying it, and to get it out there as much as possible. It’s vindication to me that what I’m doing is of good enough quality, it’s a good buzz when you’re in a club, playing your own music and people are really enjoying it.

I’m digressing from my point here somewhat. Ok, I think a lot of people are too ready to try and classify things, and then put those classifications into things they love or hate, and then refuse to check something out because it’s been classified as something they don’t like, so then, they won’t even want to listen to it. For many people, music is part of their personality and persona. It’s like if they admit to liking a certain kind of thing they will be ridiculed by all their friends and peers. So, for some, it’s “cool” to totally diss minimal, particuarly the kind of people that claim to like “hard techno” but actually are listening to schranz.

Maybe it’s a case of just becoming older and less opinionated that makes you more open to other styles, and have less of an urge to classify things, as i remember that I was probably more likely to buy ito a “scene” when I was younger.. anyhow, since I wrote the above I’m feeling like I care much less about how successfull my musical projects are, and in turn, I enjoy the process much more now that the pressure to make money is off. Hobbies are great, but when they become a job, they can quickly become a drag if the outcome is not as successfull as you hoped, and also when you’re struggling to find next months rent!

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