Cynet Media Podcast
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Standard Question #1: How did you get into electronic music?
I have been around the music business since I was born. My father is originally from the south but moved to Detroit when he was young. Shortly after arriving he got involved in radio. This was the mid 60's i think. I was born on July 4, 1970 and I have vivid memories of going to WJLB back then as a kid and playing with the reel to reel & cart machines while my dad did his show. My mother worked at Detroit's biggest wholesale record shop back then as well so I was just surrounded by music from day 1. I don't know any other life. I naturally had an interest in music but i was also heavily into sci-fi and comics as well. I loved the idea of the future and what it might bring. After graduating high school, where i did 2 shows after classes on our school's station WSHJ (Southfiled MI) I immediately began work as an intern at WHYT in Detroit. Answering phones and doing research. The opportunity came one day for me to do a guest mix for the station, I had never mixed before in my life but i put my first mix together and they liked it. I eventually got a slot on the friday and saturday night mix shows and began playing the music i found interesting. I was an avid listener of Detroit radio Mix shows like the Wizzard, Kevin Saunderson, Mojo, Juan Atkins, Alan Oldham, etc. All the standards basically. When it was my turn to go on air I played a lot of local records. I began to search out the labels and just went with the flow. Im an obsessive compulsive type so when i get immersed in something i really go all out to master it completely. So through all this i began to make friends and get more involved in production. It's been kind of a snowball effect, but ironically none of this was planned. I wanted to work in television as an editor or camera man. Describe the radio show that your father had on WJLB. How did he influence your development as a musician/person, and what aspects of his own teachings/style/aesthetic/approach remain with you most strongly? It was the 70 - 80's and my dad was one of the hottest radio personalities in the country. He was responsible for bridging the gap between what was then perceived as black and white styles of music. My father did not believe in barriers so i never had any as a child. Music was music to us and my dad listened to literally everything. In radio back then the DJ could play whatever he liked on air and this allowed each market to have a totally unique flavor. My dad played traditional funk stuff but he was also instrumental in breaking many major artist into the black market back then like David Bowie, Elton John, Falco, Kraftwerk, and the list is too big to name. He was frequently awarded by record labels and local producers for supporting their material when no one else would. Even then Mayor of Detroit Coleman Young (no relation) honored him with a citation from the city of Detroit for his community service. A very honorable man my dad and a hard act to follow. When i first met Shake (Anthony Shakir) the first thing he said to me is that he was a big fan of my dad's back in the day. So i stick to the idea of freedom in my musical endeavors. Labels are totally useless for me because you cant box in the worlds different races and cultures that way so it's ludicrous to do so in music. It's one of life's strange ironies to me. Technically I learned everything from my father. He was one of the main production managers at WJLB responsible for producing commercials and radio edits when he worked there and was known for his master skill in editing tape. I literally watched him over the years and gave it a try myself. We had an old reel to reel machine at my home so while my mates were outside playing football, etc I was inside splicing tape and listening to Thomas Dolby all day wondering how to make the same sounds. I haven't really changed much. I keep up with the new technology, its my main passion. What was/is the social potential (if any) in electronic dance music/its events, and in what ways has this potential been put into action/failed to be realized? I think it is and will always be a unifying thing. Thats what I like about it. Electronic music is organic and thats the aspect that gives me hope. Some guy or girl in a bedroom will some up with a new sound or technic and now has the chance to make that thing they so desire real. It's totally unpredictable and so it will always have a future. Once i realized that I knew things would be ok in the future. You probably don't feel like sitting around and complaining, but what are some experiences that made you feel that what you were doing had "gone off the rails," and what inspired you after your "half-retirement" announcement on detroitluv to re-emerge as an artist with cynet? I am retired as a full time DJ. Im not really available for parties etc anymore. That part of my life is pretty much over. I knew by the end of 2004 it was time for me to call it a day on the circuit as it were. I had always planed to go directly on to work on my label on a full time basis for once in my career so im making a natural progression. The dates im playing this year are tied into my yearly family visit to Japan and initial interest in the label from promoters there. I just had a feeling that it was time to stop last year. I wasn't having fun anymore and thats the fundamental difference between myself and some of my contemporaries. I have no problem being honest with myself & the energy I put into DJ sets I now put into the company and all we do. Describe cynet:media and your one.nine.eight.four release. What type of work should we expect (for this first release and for the future)? cynet:media is a media company. I call it that because were not really vinyl based. My main focus is on producing Albums & Visuals to support the music. Not just once or twice a year but with every release. When I used to come home from touring I wanted to watch some independent electronic videos and there were just not enough coming out. I bought every DVD i could find but these would only come out once a year usually. We have the technology to present a proper electronic lifestyle now so im working in those lines to provide more quality output. I don't have the time restrictions on projects anymore. If i want to do a 50 min. ambient piece i can do it. And with so much space on a CD or DVD why not include some clips, the only investment I need to make is my time. Since im no longer touring full time I have a lot of time and it has to be productive so I work on music or clips most days. cynet:media will also be releasing sample CD's, im developing some simple pocket guides / DVD tutorials on Quicktime & LOGIC. Whatever we can dream up basically. As long as it's quality it's fine with me. I don't want any more restrictions in my life. My father has just come on board to help with the label as well so it's basically a family run label now. It seems from your Electronic Dissident release and some of your online "radio" mixes (G7R-4, etc) that you're still going to be working in the vein of music we know and love. How do you hope to bring electronic music together with other forms of media? We wont be breaking any ground really. Were just coming at it from another angle. No limits. There will be live recording's, music, visual clips hopefully short films. I don't even know what we will be up to yet, but we wont ever be tied down to any niche things. Were not looking to be mass appeal. We just want to be small and innovative and u have to take chances to be innovative. Some are not willing to sacrifice their comfortable positions to get down in the trenches and do the real groundwork after they have moved up the ladder... but it's what i do best. I get the impression from your site that you're interested in recreating/representing memory/experience. What are some of your strategies for "recreating some of that magic?" Nothing deep here, just writing song's. Just making clips. The best way to share the experience is for me to do it via audio & video. It's a simple concept and one that is the basis for basic human understanding. Sight & Sound. Intermission Question: What's yoru favorite food? Okonomiyaki. 5+ Japanese tour dates and one Ireland tour date... What's the reason for the short list, and what types of venues/shows will these be? (setup, participants, content, etc) I really am retired, I have turned down everything offered to me this year. The Japan shows will be my first time playing this year. I have been working on the label for the past 6 months really. My wife is Japanese and our home is in Tokyo. Every year I go home to visit my wife for a good chunk of the year. Once we started promoting the first cynet release in Japan I was offered some dates. I'll be there till the end of the year so I thought it would be good promotion for the label. The tour is mainly with people we have close connections with and young promoters who are sick of seeing the same old thing at all the bigger events. Im into supporting small clubs if im going to tour. I need to have fun if im going to do it from here on out. Which wont be very often. All the locations will be upfront and personal 100 - 300 size events. In some cities well be meeting people for lunch the day after events to say thanks for coming to the show and to answer any questions people may have in a more personal setting outside the club atmosphere. During the show i'll be playing music - no particular style at all just music. plus ill be live remixing some tracks and maybe even showing some original video clips of mine if i can get them ready in time. I will only be touring my major projects really if i have to tour at all. And we will definitely be going on the road live in the future with a band. But my old activities of working the DJ circuit are well and truly behind me. I just want to make music now. What was the deal with Electronic Dissident being a Dust Science release and then ... not? (The same about your listing as a Dust artist and then ... not.) That was an unfortunate incident between friends that actually was a tipping point in everything for me really. I am a huge supporter of Dust Science and its artists. They have a lot of quality material there. But there were some grave mistakes made on their part early on and in the end I was never paid for a single record. Nor have I been offered any kind of compensation for my music. It was the last time I put trust in someone's word. Instead of making a big deal about it I asked that the record be stopped and that i be removed from the website as an artist as it's unlikely I would be recording for them again. It made no sense to continue with the record because i was just starting up cynet so i am re-releasing the track but as a DVD extended mix with a few extra tracks and corresponding video. I don't hold grudges but it makes no sense to allow a label to take your record, release it and then not pay u but you continue to be involved. But i have been assured it was all a learning error. This just moments after being told the owner just got back from a cozy family vacation... That cemented my idea of surrounding myself with people i could count on for cynet. In the end it was the same group of supporters I have always had. So cynet is my main thing from here on out. I wont be releasing on any other labels in future. It just does not pay if the two parties don't share the same ideology and it's too easy to do it yourself now. I know a lot of people have been wondering about this but rarely do they come to the source to get any kind of confirmation. And my comments should not be taken as an attack on them but thats what happened, plain and simple. Regardless of what you do now, your 7th City/Frictional days with Bell/Shake and reputation as a beastly DJ have placed the Brother from Another Planet prominently in the techno annals. In what ways might your achivements/history be problematic/helpful in your new endeavors? What are the consequences of techno fans adopting a standard historical narrative/survey/canon (typically with Atkins/May/Saunderson at the source)? This is always a touchy subject. I can only speak for myself and I find people don't like the truth when its so blunt which is the only way i could really answer. I can only say for myself that im constantly looking at the foundations of what I work on. Thats the only way you know where you can go. You have to have a basic skill set to advance and be individual. In these days of pushbutton music, it really comes down to your skill in programing. In the end techno fans will do what they will, like all of us. It all depends on what wave you want to ride, where you turn out. The design of your website is very unique and seems to be mostly within an entire Quicktime movie(?)[since changed]. I've also noticed from a recent email that you're giving some demonstrations at Apple stores in Japan. So how did you put this together? Magically in QT Pro or using some other tools? Your the first one to ask about that actually. Im impressed. Normally I get people mailing me saying "there's something wrong with the site, it tries to load a Quicktime movie and then the page comes up normally". Im an Apple Addict and like everything I do I always go with the technology that gives me the freedom to do what I need to do and keep a consistent look and quality plus lets me be freeform while creating. Thats the key concept to working with digital you have to strike a balance between the control aspect (moving / cutting audio regions) and the delivery aspect (programing skills and technics that mirror real life movements). My entire website is in-fact all delivered in one 2.4MB Quicktime movie. Everything from images to sound to interaction. The only reason it is so big is because it's the first site I built after learning Quicktime fully. I went with Quicktime because it's fully cross platform which means i don't have to worry about if it will work on PC or Linux, etc. Quicktime is standards based so my sites always work. Even if you don't have Quicktime you can still view the sites and images (minus the media (video / sound), but i always use cross compatible formats for media like .mp3 & .mp4 so everyone can view the site and its all in one movie that i can put on a memory stick. All this can be done on Mac or PC using Quicktime Pro., iPhoto & Text Edit + the graphic editing software of your choice. The best $30 you will EVER spend is on QT Pro! By the way I don't work for nor am I endorsed by Apple. Ask Ian O'Brien, Shake, 65D Mav's or James Ruskin (to name a few) who they call when they need to know what's wrong with their machines and they'll tell you... it's me. I'm just an Apple Geek I guess and im totally cool with that. It really is like a religion to me. By pure chance Ian O'Brien (a close family friend) is in Japan now and my wife lives there and was at the Apple store to watch his presentation on working with Ableton Live. Ian mentioned to the people at Apple that I would be in Japan for my yearly family visit and I had planned to visit the stores anyway so I was asked and agreed to do some workshops. I will now be doing a demonstration on Logic Pro my sequencer of choice + i'll incorporate a section on how to take your audio and combine it with your video using Quicktime to create media for your 3G-phone, CD or DVD. Actually im considering developing either a pocket guide or a DVD series on different subjects be it working with Quicktime or recording in Logic. These are the things that interest me most now days. Leaving the information behind for anyone who is seeking it. Im also going creating a sample library and will donate it to the public under Creative Commons license so anyone can download it and use it in their tracks and video projects. Im into that sort of thing... Standard Question #2: What type of hardware/software are you/those around you using for different aspects of production, and why do you choose these means? Balance rules the day again here as well. I use a small setup with a mixture of hardware and software but it's amazingly basic. Over the years I have found that the best way for me to work is to get extremely intimate with the things i use and to know them inside out. Software wise I'm a diehard LOGIC man. It's the ultimate production toolbox. I dare say there is no better sequencer. I've been using it since version 3. Hardware im a Korg fan. I use an assortment of Korg Gear (but nothing new really) and multitrack my songs. I'm a big StealyDan fan and it's because of their recording technics. Everything im doing now in the studio is loosely based on little tricks they have done over the years. Obviously there are other influences as well, to many to mention. Life for me is literally a succession of moments & I like it this way. Feeding off the vibes as they hit me and capturing the moment in the best way possible. Then sharing it with anyone adventurous and kind enough to listen... interview by bijan for droid (email) summer 2005 |