My first lesson in Soundforge Circa 2000 - Field recording originally made at “The End Of The World Party”, Costa Brava, Spain.
A subverted DJ mix from one of the Babble DJs on the Smokescreen/BWPT soundsystem - This unfortunate DJ had been picked out for ridicule by the boys, poor sod, as JE:5’s Live rig was plugged into channel 3.
A pair of headphones were plugged into the live set mixer and the realisation had dawned that the level on channel 3 could be sneaked up while the dj’s back was turned and DJ WOT became master of ceremonies. poking fun at the cheese of the house music an anyone else unfortunate to fall onto the dancefloor during his watch.
The following autumn I used the recording to experiment with Soundforge at Stayfree in Leicester and basically taught myself how to manipulate audio. And this was long before I ever heard the Noodles stuff or Cassetteboy!
Saskia Slegers AKA Miss Djax gave me my first real big break into the music biz, and her Techno Label ‘Djax Up Beats” based in Eindhoven, Holland, has definitely been a big influence on the music I make myself over the years - So here’s 30 trax from various Djax Up records that I own that definitely showcase the very different sounds the Label has showcased over the years. And, in case you didn’t know, and particuarly for people from English speaking countries, the Dutch pronunciation of the letter “J” is like the English “Y” - So Djax is pronounced as the English speaker would pronounce “Jacks”- so it’s not “Dee Jacks” as many people here would assume. Anyway, hope you enjoy the mix.
Vadz (From Taganrog, Russia) has a new e.p. on his net-label which has quite in interesting story behind it:
Once upon a time i was working on a radiostation and we had a task to record some speeches for Emergency Department. So, an actor from the local theater was invited and all the instructions were spoken over the microphone. One record was about what to do if an incident on the Volgodonsk Nuclear Power Plant (aka Rostov Atomic Power Plant) happens. The text was scary and actual (Volgodonsk is about 260 km from Taganrog) and, of course, i decided to use it. That’s how the Nuclear Volgodonsk trilogy appeared.
This week we continue on the same thread as we left off last week, bit later on in the evening with yet more encouragement from our Lithuanian friend Shopka..
And in addition to that, the first person to email in a correct, completed Tracklisting wins a Mark Hawkins goody-bag which will include Vinyl & a DVD-R filled with archive sets and exclusive unreleased trax.
Sorry for the delay with this weeks SFS, had a lot on with the live gig in Zurich next friday!
Our friend Shopka came to stay, seeing that there wasn’t much worth going out to on that particular Saturday night, we stayed home with a bottle of Vodka & I made this mix during the course of the evening…..
As an electronic music producer with a career spanning the last 10 years, Mark has played both as live act and DJ all around the world. He released over 30 12" singles including records for such legendary labels as Djax-Up-Beats and Mosquito and ran his own record label, Crime.
