HarderFaster presents SW4 preview with Carl Cox
Reported by Benz
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Submitted 19-07-06 16:21
Carl Cox is undeniably one of the greatest djs alive, so it makes sense that he’s headlining London’s biggest outdoor festival of the summer, SW4 — in fact, he enjoyed last year’s SW4 so much he actually asked to come back for more this year! Having already headlined the massively successful launch party at Brixton Academy over Easter, he’s head of the pack in the first of a series of features leading up to the party.
Techno god Cox will play in the 10,000 capacity main stage outdoor arena, alongside Paul Oakenfold, John Digweed, Sander Kleinenberg, James Zabiela, the Stanton Warriors and Desyn Masiello. His Carl Cox and Friends brand has been busy filling venues and festivals internationally, and we’re confident SW4 will be no different.
Here at HarderFaster we’re honoured to be the official media partners for arena 3, the hard arena, with the cream of London’s promotions, HeatUK, Serious and The Gallery. With a lineup featuring Judge Jules, Mauro Picotto, Fergie, Tall Paul, HF favourite and HeatUK trance ressie Ian Betts, plus Matt Hardwick and Sander Van Doorn, it’s promising to be the best SW4 yet! Watch this space for regular news updates, competitions and a series of interviews featuring the artists performing and the organisers.
SW4 is actually the first day of London’s Metro Weekender, with Get Loaded in the Park continuing on Sunday. Sunday sees the launch of South West Four Cardiff, with Cardiff Calling Cardiff on the Saturday. Check out http://www.metroweekender.com/ for full details of both days in London and Cardiff.
Now, without any further ado, we present, Carl Cox . . .
You are once again playing for the South West Four Festival this year, at both the London and Cardiff events. How was the launch party at Brixton Academy over Easter? You had quite a ball from what I heard . . .
I’ve been doing this for years now, and Brixton Academy is one venue which — I went to see U2 play there, I’ve been to see David Bowie play there — it’s always been an amazing and very popular venue for South London, you know? And they used to do rave parties there in the early days, Sunrise parties and Energy parties, so it’s a very revered venue, and going back in there on my own self-esteem, you know, people going and buying tickets to see Carl Cox play in South London at Brixton Academy, was a buzz!
I mean, going into that arena, no-one can actually understand how I felt when I got behind those turntables and everyone was roaring and screaming and going mad, to the point where it was a big spectacle with fireworks, the light system going all crazy, the Brazilian band, the dancers . . . and I’m just stood there like — “fuck!” It woke London up, it really did. And with that, for me to be able to go on stage and perform in front of that crowd for 3 hours, until 6 when it was still really busy, was just incredible.
Sometimes you can go away from a situation like London and go and play everywhere else and think, “well OK, London’s good, but if I go and play in France or Portugal or Greece or Italy, they’re better”. But then I played on that night and it just wasn’t at all — London’s as good as anywhere else in the world, if not better.
South West Four is one of your very few UK dates. Why did you choose to work with them in particular?
Well I trusted them to do the right thing, y’know, for the venue, for the scene, for the music, for the people, and how they created such a great event from last year when we played. I felt confident that they could do that again in a smaller venue. I mean I could of said, “no, I’m going somewhere else”, but I said “yeah”, and with that they put me right up front there and they said, “we want you to be our ambassador, and this is what we want you to do.” So I basically flew the flag that weekend.
You’ve been dj’ing since raves and dance music really took of in this country. Do you ever long for the days when partying was a more illicit, clandestine affair?
Nah not really, there’s no point in being snobby about these things anymore. The days of finding rave parties to go to, they’ve gone, and went years ago, and what we’ve got left now are people who want to relive those moments.
This for me [South West Four etc.] is what it’s still all about, and to have something, at the end of the day, that has been so predominant in my life, for people to come back to it after all these years . . . but not only that — the people who were coming 15 years ago.
Y’know, there was a lot of kids that were ‘created’ then or back in 1988 and they are the ones that are going to the parties today. The baton has been passed on to the next generation. And the next generation, really, are the ones who you see out on the dancefloor going mad!
Could you give us a little history about your label Intec, for those who may not know?
Intec started in 1999, and I’ve always run record labels, going right back to ’89/’90 when I had a small record label called Most Music Records (MMR), and then I went from MMR into Worldwide Ultimatum Records, and Ultimatum Trax and Ultimatum Breaks. And out of the ashes of all of that came Intec Records, which was shortened down from its original name of International Techno Records. I didn’t want the label to be perceived as a label just putting out techno music. And with that, we’ve had a lot of success from 1990 until present day.
Some of our biggest records to date have been: Smith & Selway — ‘Move’, which was our first release that we put out; ‘Visions of You’ by Trevor Rockcliffe, which was an amazing release for us; and many others, like Tomaz vs Filterheadz — ‘Sunshine’; Renato Cohen — ‘Pontapé’; and one of our biggest records that we’re still playing today is Sebastian Léger — ‘Bad Clock.’ This is a track which, everytime I play it, people just go absolutely crazy.
The idea behind the label really is to find artists from all over the world that I get exposed to. Some of these people don’t get the opportunity to be heard with their music, and so they bring it to me and if I like it — it goes it. I can only play what I like y’know, so if I am able to put that in front of 20 million people a year, then 20 million people get to hear that record that probably wouldn’t have been heard on any other record label. And that’s basically the idea of Intec.
HarderFaster.net, as the name would suggest, started life covering the tougher end of dance music. In which clubs and countries do you get to play your fiercest material?
In Portugal they like it hard and tough; Germany in certain areas definitely. In Frankfurt there’s a club called U60 and I let loose there. It’s kind of like having a Ferrari or a Porsche, if you get it out on the Autobahn and get 220 out of it, that’s what all my sets are like in certain places.
If I play I Love Techno in Belgium, techno’s what’s going to get played! But I find that people accept anything that I play these days, purely based on the musical content of me watching the crowd and just seeing how much they can take.
Some people were scared of my sets in the early days of my musical changes, but when you’re drawing people into your musical sound, or your sound of what you want to listen to, you find them dancing to techno anyway, at the end of the day. And there’s as good a music in techno as there is in breaks or in drum ‘n’ bass or as there is in house music! Y’know, I’ve always played a plethora of all of those sounds, but the places that I’ve mentioned are probably the only ones where I can play pure techno.
Which producers from the tougher end of the scale do you really rate?
I’m still into Ben Long/Space DJZ stuff, and I’m still into Jeff Mills even though now at the moment he’s not playing such hard techno. But Umek is still making some good stuff, and Adam Beyer, Chris Liebing — these boys are still causing a havoc out there with their music!
How did you feel your Carl Cox and Friends events go last year?
Yeah I was really pleased with them. It’s a very difficult thing to do what I was doing, in a sense of still dj’ing as a point of entertainment, and introducing the tracks from my album, and having the guys and the girls that I had to perform those tracks live . . . it was a bit of a freakout for a little while. They [the crowd] were hearing music that they hadn’t heard from me before, and I had to explain that it’s from my new album and these are the tracks: ‘That’s The Bass’, ‘Open Book,’ ‘Give Me Your Love’ and what else . . . ‘Got What You Paid 4!’ So 4 tracks off the album, and they all got very well received.
And here you’ve got a bunch of people who are creating and making this music sound live, and for me it was just great to see people dancing to music they’d never heard before. They went really well actually. The idea was more so that people could see that I was pushing things forward a little bit more, and for that we got the support for all the shows we ever did.
And what’s on the cards for this year? How do you build on the success of last year? More of the same or some different stuff or what?
Well, apart from having Carl Cox & Friends as a banner for me introducing djs or having djs that I think should be playing in the room, or certain djs playing certain sounds and me given them sort of an open door to have djs come through and for them to play their music, I’m actually in the midst of writing a new album now, which will be even more of a live conceptual album. And with this, you are actually going to see the band on stage, so it will be me with the musicians and the vocalists and performers, all sort of a “concert-style Carl Cox” energy of what I want to do. And y’know, what we did for the last couple of years with Carl Cox and Friends, we want to make this element even more predominant, and with it I’m working hard on creating the next outing of Carl Cox music.
Tell us about your Global Radio Show. It’s doing quite well by the sound of things?
Yeah, I mean Global has just gone from strength to strength. Last year we pulled in about 1 million listeners every week on the radio show. I’m on about show 183 now, so we started about 2 years ago. We’ve just had JuiceFM come on board for the UK to do syndicated shows, and also MaximaFM from Spain.
Not many people know this, but Global is not an internet-based radio show — it is a terrestrial radio station, so if you switch on your radio in certain areas where Global gets broadcast, then you get to hear it on radio, which is very nice. When I’ve got people calling in, well not calling in ‘cos it’s not live, but people sending in emails and stuff like that, saying that they like a track, in Turkey or in Lebanon, or in Spain or wherever, it’s great to know that I’m reaching out to people with this radio show that I’ve never be able to to do before. So it’s something that is still growing. I mean we’re up to 2 million people [listening] now which is absolutely fantastic. I’m really happy with the success of the radio.
Great stuff! Thanks very much for your time Carl!
No problem, Thanks Ben!
Photos courtesy of Carl Cox and Cypher Press. Not to be reproduced without permission.
South West Four
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On:
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Saturday 26th August 2006
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At:
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Clapham Common [map]
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From:
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12pm - 9pm
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Cost:
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£25 Early Bird Tickets SOLD OUT / £30 Others
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Website:
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www.southwestfour.com
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Ticket Info:
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As you may have already heard, the Early Bird Tickets for both days of this summer’s Metro Weekender have SOLD OUT in record time. Demand for this year’s two day event has soared to new heights and we’re extremely pleased to be able to offer you a limited number of JOINT WEEKEND TICKETS to both SOUTH WEST FOUR and GET LOADED IN THE PARK for the very first time. Joint Tickets are priced £55 (+BF) and can be bought exclusively from Ticketmaster, see below link or 08709 030 150
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Buy Online:
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Click here to buy tickets
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More:
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This summer’s 10,000 capacity Main Stage Outdoor Arena will play host to the legendary Carl Cox & Friends! Carl enjoyed last summer’s event so much he asked to return to headline 2006! Joining Carl will be the man responsible for kick-starting club culture in the UK Paul Oakenfold alongside Bedrock main man John Digweed, recent winner of the best European DJ at this year’s Winter Music Conference Sander Kleinenberg (live!) breakbeat heroes Stanton Warriors, James Zabiela (also returning fort his second year) and hot new DJ talent Desyn Masiello!
Arena Two ‘Essential London in association with Dig Deeper, Harlem Nights and Type’ will be hosted by one of the most influential men in dance music today Pete Tong. Pete’s Friday night ‘Essential Selection’ on Radio 1 is the definitive guide to what’s hot in dance music and has been broadcasting every week since 1991! Joining Pete will be Harlem Nights boss Steve Lawler, ex Radio 1 and Type promoter Seb Fontaine, Danny Howells, No.1 dance act The Shapeshifters who will be performing Live (UK Exclusive!) and Nic Fanciulli.
Finally Arena Three hosted by London’s leading club events HeatUK, Serious and The Gallery ups the tempo (only slightly this year!) featuring Radio 1 DJ and boss of the Serious World empire Judge Jules, Italian techno legend that is Mauro Picotto, our third Radio 1 DJ Fergie alongside Gallery resident Tall Paul plus the UK’s leading Trance DJs Ian Betts and Matt Hardwick plus fast rising Dutch tech trance superstar Sander Van Doorn.
http://www.metroweekender.com/
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Flyer:
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The views and opinions expressed in this review are strictly those of the author only for which HarderFaster will not be held responsible or liable.
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![[HarderFaster] - Work Hard, Play Harder!](/images/mainbanner_top1.gif)
Looking forward to see u play at I 
techno
Great review Benz! Mr Cox sure rocked Brixton Acad!! I cant wait for a “concert-style Carl Cox” event. It would be pure briliance