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Features
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Counting down to the DJmag Top 100 DJs Poll with Editor Lesley Wright
Reported by HarderFaster
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Submitted 21-09-07 13:09
Working in the music industry is a hard enough graft, especially when taking into consideration the constantly changing face of our precious scene. Just five years ago the dance music magazine market was completely saturated, with DJmag, SE7VEN, Muzik, Mixmag, IDJ and M8 all facing uncertain futures. The fact that out of the other publications remaining, not one has retained their editor, illustrates that DJmag head honcho Lesley Wright is either someone who won’t budge, or someone whose belief and commitment is above the norm. She’s Scottish, she’s loud, and she’s one of the very few editors out there who’s 100% passionate and honest about what she does. With voting for the 2007 Top 100 DJs Poll closing at midnight on Tuesday and one hell of a party being planned for the awards ceremony on Wednesday 24 October, we met up with Lesley outside her Brick Lane office to get the latest on this growing international phenomenon.
DJmag got bought out nearly 12 months ago and the team now is the strongest it’s ever been. But we’re not here to paint a sycophantic canvas that’s all rosy red. The fact remains that after 17 years, and in times where print media has had to combat online media such as our very own HarderFaster, you’ll have to agree with us that DJmag is standing the test of time. And judging by the vote count we’ve got a hold of already for this year’s Top 100 DJs Poll, the magazine will be around for some years to come. We get the latest from Lesley Wright on the magazine’s new owners, this year’s Top 100 Poll and awards party, the future of dance music and more...
You were last interviewed on HF in October 2004 and since then a lot has happened. What have been the highs and lows in the life of Lesley Wright and DJmag in the last three years?
On a professional level, DJmag was put up for sale about this time last year. It came as a bit of a shocker to all involved when Future put us up for sale, because the magazine wasn’t making enough profit for a big publishing company like that, so it was a pretty scary time. What was the worst about it was our concern for staff jobs, my own job. But more than that, if Future had folded the company it would’ve sent out a very wrong message to dance music.
There had been an unexpected slump in dance music in the UK for 2–3 years previously. Independent labels, distributors, clubs and yes, even magazines all went under. So for DJmag to weather the storm and then have to face an uncertain future on the whim of a massive company… it didn’t seem right or fair. Then obviously the management got brought over…
On a personal level, my most recent highlight would have to be last weekend’s Underworld gig in Central Park.
DJmag was bought by a small independent publishing company last December. Who are the new owners and what changes has this brought to the mag? Has it changed your job at all on an everyday level?
It was a bit touch and go getting some of the issues out… but we get most of them out by blood, sweat and tears! We were bought by the Music Industry Manual (MIM) guys, James Robertson and Martin Carvell. It means we’ve gone completely independent again, which is a very good thing. The people in the office are all responsible for the magazine’s content, meaning everyone! They’re passionate people who know their shit. There’s no need for red tape or bureaucracy or going through eight different departments to get an answer on the simplest little thing.
On an everyday level, I’ve been made a director. That means I’m more involved in the decision making on a higher level. But I refuse to wear a suit and I still consider myself one of the troops, one of the ravers.
From the point of view of the team there were some changes, but as far as the whole team was concerned, we got a renewed enthusiasm, because the mag was back in our hands and our baby once again.
2006 Top 100 Awards party @ Fabric
Have you always been a music journalist? Please tell us a bit about yourself and your background.
Not always… I wanted to be a journalist from the age of 13. I started off at Journalism College in Scotland. I got work at local then regional newspapers and worked my way up to being a news reporter on the Daily Record, the biggest selling newspaper in Scotland. It’s the sister paper of the Daily Mirror. I started freelancing for M8 magazine, basically because I could write and it covered my weekends out. Then after two years at the Daily Record I covered a particularly gruesome story and realised I’d turned into one of those tabloid journalists everyone loves to hate. I didn’t like myself very much. So I was lucky enough to make the switch from doing music part-time to full-time. I’m very grateful I had that option, or I’d probably still be doing it on the side and not the other way around.
Who were the first DJs that got you into dance music? Did you ever have a defining moment where you knew that dance music was your calling?
Oh my word! I used to go to an event called Streetrave, held in the Air Pavilion on the West Coast of Scotland. I used to drive from Glasgow down there. There were DJs like Sasha, Mike Pickering, Graham Park… all the old school really! Next weekend is Streetrave’s 18th birthday — that makes me feel ancient!
There was no particular moment, but I do have some shady memories of being a teenager and being sent to my room to clean it and spending hours taping the top 40.
Another very dodgy memory is of roller skating in my disco roller boots down a very steep hill with a red ghetto blaster by my ear and a flashing visor cap, which if I think about it, now all the rave kids are going mental for that look! I wish I’d kept my gear! I can’t remember what I was playing, but no doubt it was some proper electronic cheese!
It’s an interesting time for print media, with the internet now dominating publishing and many magazines being replaced by websites, while some magazines and publishing companies have simply gone under. What systems does DJmag have in place to ensure its future ongoing success? With some advertisers now seeing print advertising as a waste of time and money, how on earth can a paper publication compete?
It’s no great secret that certain magazines are not selling in the numbers that they were a few years ago. But in my mind, there’s a place for both of them — the website and the magazine both compliment each other. It’ll be a sad day when you’re taking your laptop to the loo! Nick Muir, John Digweed’s partner in Bedrock, once gave me the biggest compliment when he told me he had a stash of DJmags by his loo. There are certain places where magazines will always do well over websites!
It’s also a very exciting time for the magazine as we have our second DJmag Brazil coming out now, then Poland by December and Latvia and Lithuania by the end of the year. DJmag Dubai has gone to the government for approval — we’re hoping it will be out for the end of the year. We’re talking to Russia, Argentina, China and South Africa and actively investigating places where people are interested in dance music but don’t have the abundance of dance music magazines we have.
Paul van Dyk, Top 100 winner 2005 & 2006
DJmag is currently running its poll for the Top 100 DJs, the one internationally recognised and respected poll of its kind. When did the Top 100 DJs poll first start up and why?
It actually started as a feature in DJMag well before my time. Over thirteen years ago, maybe even more, the staff in the office selected their top 100 DJs. At that time they had people like Tony Blackburn in it! You have to remember that back then things were very different. Then a few years later we got the public voting by mail — it seems so draconian now! Then of course with the introduction of the internet it all changed…
The first year I was there as editor, six or seven years ago, I remember we had 700 votes in the first top 100 I ever oversaw. This year we’ve literally smashed through 250,000... you know this before the mag has even been printed!
Trends-wise, obviously back when we were getting 700 votes by post it was very much dominated by UK DJs and the big American legends — Danny Tenaglia, Frankie Nuckles and the big UK DJs. Now, it’s truly international. Last year there were votes from 229 countries [And there's only 234 countries recognized in the world: Ed], and with the more international votes, there are more international DJs in the poll. So that’s the argument for me when people say it’s not representative of what goes on… it’s not representative of those first 7,000, but totally of the quarter of a million we’re getting now.
What trends have you seen in the Top 100 since its onset? And where can you see things going in the future?
Fuck knows! It just keeps growing and growing. It’s turned into a huge unyielding monster! But it’s the time of the year when more people stop and think about dance music and that can only be a good thing.
What systems do you have in place to catch out those who try to cheat and/or rig their votes?
I’d like to think that if you truly believed in the music and your ability then cheating wouldn’t cross your mind. But sadly it would seem that it does cross some people’s minds, perhaps those looking for the dollar and kudos — which I think is incredibly sad. In previous years we’ve relied on various computer programmes to weed out the cheats, if you’d like. We’ve also had votes collated by a third party. It seems like for all the technological advances we’ve used to weed out the cheats, it seems that the naked eye is the most foolproof system.
This year we’ve not only brought it in-house, so that there’s no possibility of anyone interfering with the votes, but the publisher has spent a ridiculous amount of man hours going through every vote to make sure no-one’s cheating. Those people who’ve been caught — and there are a few — will be named and shamed very soon.
Armin van Buuren signs autographs at the Top 100 party @ Fabric, 2006
Over the last few years the Top 10 has been dominated by the same big name (mostly) trance DJs. Why do you think this happens and do you reckon it’s going to happen again in 2007? Any clues please!
I think it’s because trance fans are very loyal. They buy into the whole thing. There’s a kind of element some people adopt that they don’t want to vote because they’re too cool for it or whatever…. but then the trance DJs get in and they complain. If you don’t vote then don’t fucking whinge!
At the end of the day, the trance fans are very loyal. While trance is still a force to be reckoned with, I think we’re going to see more techno and even more house DJs this year. But don’t hold me to that!
What do you say to critics who whinge that the Top 100 isn’t a true representation of the dance music scene?
What I say to those people is, for a start, it’s not about the ‘best DJ in the world’ because that’s impossible. Let’s get that straight! There’s so many factors so that’s impossible to measure. What the Top 100 is, is a measure of someone’s popularity. If people are trying to tell me that the likes of Tiesto, who’s filling stadiums, Paul van Dyk, who’s playing to thousands upon thousands at gigs regularly, and Armin van Buuren, who’s doing the same, are not popular… unfortunately I’d tell them to fuck off!
In 2006 the Top 100 also honoured the DJs who were top in each genre. Does this not reinforce the pigeon-holing of dance music genres, or do you think this is the only way for less popular styles to get the recognition they deserve?
When we honoured the top of each genre, it was because before we only honoured the number 1. Genres do exist, so why not give someone a pat on the back for being top of their genre?! At the end of the day, getting into the Top 100 is an achievement. And getting top in your genre is also an achievement.
In 2007 DJmag also started its first Best of British Awards, with a hardcore bunch of 300 celebrating British dance music at SeOne on Friday 29 June. What inspired you to start up another set of awards? With a large section of London being gridlocked that day due to the car bomb scares and many of the tubes being down, it’s safe to say that next year will be much busier. Will next year’s Best of British be following the same format?
With the Best of British, if you take a look around there’s no-one actually celebrating… well other than the Hard Dance Awards and Breakspoll, but they’re international. The Top 100 is now so international and while we’re all down with the global phenomenon, why not look at out own back yard?! Everyone likes a little pat on the back! It’s a little boost for dance music born and brought up in the UK.
We did the first one this year on no budget whatsoever and it worked! It got people talking about British born dance music and that’s great. We did it on fuck all this year and hopefully next year we’ll take the blueprint and expand on it.
The dance scene in 2007 has been mostly dominated by electro and minimal influences. What trends can you see coming forward in 2008?
I reckon there might be a little bit of a backlash against minimal. There are too many people making bad minimal. Minimal done well is beautiful, captivating music, but done badly… I’ve actually walked out of clubs! But at good clubs I’ll be the last one to be scraped off the floor.
I also think you’ll see a bit of a return of house music, proper deep, chunky house music, but with a 2008 futuristic edge.
The music scene is still very male dominated so being a woman at the helm of the world’s most important dance music magazine is one hell of an achievement. Do you ever find it tough at the top being a chick? What do you do when meetings and events start to take on a boys’ club feel?
No, not really. I think it helps being a bit of a tomboy from an early age. I’m not a girlie girl and I know how to hold my own. I’ve probably got more of a bloke’s attitude that a good percentage of blokes. Having worked at the Daily Record has made me tough. Having worked for fierce old news editors I tend not to get easily intimidated.
You’ve recently covered a rave in a fort in Russia, have just got back from seeing Underworld live in Central Park in New York and will be heading to Argentina soon to cover Creamfields. This sounds like a very glamorous lifestyle that many readers would kill for! Is covering events abroad as exciting as it sounds? What’s the best international event you’ve covered to date? And the worst?
Is it fuck?! It does sound glamorous and I love travelling and I never forget how lucky I am to have a job that combines my passion for music with my passion for travelling. But going to New York for two days is a lot less glamorous than it sounds. You certainly ain’t no pretty picture when you land at Heathrow!
The other thing is, people hear all about these wonderful trips that I get to go on, but what they don’t see is the actual number of hours I work, or the weekends where I’m working at home, or the times I’m still sitting in the office putting the magazine away at 3am. So it’s all about the Ying and the Yang really!
The best? Fort Dance in Russia was one of my favourites. The venue’s just incredible. And Ibiza still — it’s always a riot.
Fort Dance, Russia, 2007
The worst? I can’t actually recall any shit trips. I don’t think you can put ‘shit’ and ‘trip’ in the same sentence! That’s when you start to look like a proper arsehole. There’s things that go wrong… but ultimately if you’re there to get a job done, you get it done.
I appreciate that the old cliché “what goes on tour stays on tour” is there for a reason, but what’s your most hardcore story from the trenches of an international rave monkey? You don’t need to mention any names…
It’s not so much ‘hardcore’, but one that sticks in my mind was in Miami a couple of years ago, where we were doing a cover feature on Danny Howells. Now there are certain DJs that can be wanky and not agree with your ideas and there are certain DJs who put their trust in you and go with the flow. The idea was that Danny was to do a CD on underbelly, so we got him dressed up as a rather dapper pimp. We had him photographed in a back alley next to some stinking bins. Then we took him downtown to the Pink Pussy Parlour — it was the real underbelly with neon not working... we got pictures by the cashier’s desk, which was riddled with bullet holes. Then we went inside and got fully leathered! It’s not a hardcore story, but a story from a working trip where I laughed so hard my sides were aching.
It must be a hard life living and breathing dance music 24/7! What do you do to unwind?
Go swimming — but not as often as I should! I take a month’s holiday in January; it’s the quiet time for the magazine and the dance music industry. Going away for a month is perfect as it takes a week to unwind, two weeks to lie on the beach brain dead, then in the final week I start thinking about new ideas for the forthcoming year.
Once the Top 100 votes have been counted you’re having an awards ceremony at a major London venue, followed by one massive party. Could you tell us a bit about what you’ve got planned for the awards party and why HF readers should come and check it out?
The awards party for me… well we could do a sit down dinner and all that malarkey, but the Top 100 is voted for by the people on the dance floor. So why not have a big fuck off party for the people on the dance floor? And I’m including myself in that. It’s the one night where the industry and the clubbers come together for a fuck off mid-week rave… and there’s always something naughty about that! I can’t reveal the line-up until next week, but we’ve got some very exciting DJs playing this year, people from all genres. If you’re into psy trance get yourself along! If you like trance, get yourself along! If you like house, get yourself along! And if you like techno… get yourself along!
We really do have a very varied line-up, but with good strong names confirmed already. It’s the biggest and strongest line-up we’ve had before and there’s still more to be added.
People should also book the next day off work because we’re working on a very naughty afterparty. Get twisted — don’t get fired!
Book the next day off work...
If readers can’t make it to the awards ceremony, what’s the best way for them to find out the results of the Top 100?
Come on HarderFaster.net at midnight.
Finally, what advice would you give to readers wanting to get into the music scene? As DJs? And how about the sad wannabe hacks who hope to become music journalists?
For DJs, it’s important that you know your records. Develop your own style and keep plugging away at it. Don’t give up. Start your own little night if you’re not getting your foot in the door anywhere else and make it work for you. Remember a lot of DJs rise up very quickly and fall just as quickly. If you want to do DJing and music as a career, it’s more of a marathon than a sprint!
If you want to be a music journalist, I’d recommend strongly doing proper journalist training. Get a grounding in journalism, then choose a specialist subject… then you can knock on the door of DJmag to get some work experience. A lot of our members of staff at DJmag started as work experience. There’s lots of wannabe journos out there who can’t write a shopping list. We’re very fortunate to have discovered a number of talented writers.
Voting closes for the 2007 DJmag Top 100 DJs at midnight on Tuesday 25 September. Go to djmag.com to have your say...
Photos courtesy of getinpr and the HarderFaster photo archive. Not to be reproduced without permission.
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Other Features By HarderFaster:
HarderFaster Awards 2016 - The results are in!
HarderFaster Awards 2014 - The results are in!
Lashes, Dimples and the Brighton Music Conference
HarderFaster Awards 2013 - The results are in!
HarderFaster Awards 2012 - The results are in!
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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DJ Mag's one of the better publications out there & nice to hear it's expanding overseas too, onwards & upwards