Droid2 Mix
(access denied. anyone have a replacement?) tracklist
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So Discogs says Tangtron=Steve Tang. What's the deal? Tell us a bit about yourself, because your online existence is all screwed up.
Don't believe what you read on the Net unless it's from the original author. My real name is Thang Tran. I'm a refugee from Vietnam, arrived in the US (Kentucky) in 1979. Adopted by a Christian family and Greyhounded west to sunny Orange County, California in 1980. I got the name Tang in the 4th grade-all the kids called me Tang because of the astronaut powder drink. It's a lot easier to pronounce and remember when you're a fourth grader and a foreigner. It didn't bother me so I kept it, and besides "Jive" wasn't a part of the class curriculum so "Thang" was harder to pronounce than Tang. I didn't know that "Thang" was considered "Jive" until I saw the movie AIrplane! If you've seen the movie you'll know what I'm talking about. Give us a history of the Cytrax label. How did it start, how did it evolve, and how did it ultimately end? Cytrax, back to the beginning... It was at a party called "A Girl Called Myra" that I met the young Juan Mendez (Jasper). I had spun inside the chill-out room along with Jun and John Tejada. After the party Marcus introduced me to Juan, who had been flyering at the party and helped Marcus with breaking down the visuals. By his energetic personality we agreed to let Juan help out with our other projects. Months passed by and we showed our young protege what we were doing regarding parties and DJing. Soon I was starting school at SCI-Arc and knew I wasn't going to be able to work with Marcus so Juan would cover for me. He was a quick learner and showed a lot of potential. During SCI-Arc I decided to use some of my student loan money to start a new label "CosmicFlux" with Marcus. We had wanted to put out our own music for awhile now. We decided to release John Tejada for the first release (Lucid Dream, Mosaic EP) since he is very talented and had been very helpful with the technical side of electronic music. Later Marcus wanted to move to San Francisco for personal reasons so we decided to start the label up there, besides San Fran was the happening place. So Marcus moved to San Francisco, accompanying him was Oliver Goss, a friend whom he had met during his various visual and DJing jobs. After that I went away to study abroad in Mexico City for a semester and Juan was in charge in Orange County. After I got back from my trip my DJing had moved toward a dancier sound and away from my ambient/experimental roots. I started my DJing base in SF. Juan and I would commute to SF by car for our regular meeting and partying. It was at my very first gig in SF that I really made an impression with the crowd-one in particular was a guy called Warren. He was so amazed that he told his friend Josh "Kit" Clayton" to come check me out. Soon after that we were finally introduced to Kit Clayton and Jon Santos from Rosa (Jun's girlfriend at the time), while in SF she was looking for a graphic designer for a job and was introduced to Jon Santos who happened to be friends of Kit. She told them about us starting a label and Kit wanted to meet us since we had the same taste in music. During our meeting we talked about music and listened to some of their demos. After that Juan and I thought it would be great if they joined up with us. Juan and I would continue driving up to SF to visit and meet with Marcus and Oliver regarding CosmicFlux. Meeting after meeting Juan and I knew we were losing control of CosmicFlux into a jazz, jungle, hip-hop label. Juan and I could not go for that and it got to a point where we literally said F it and walked out. As Juan and I walked down the street I told Juan I wanted to do another label, but I needed someone like Marcus to help us out. Juan was ready. (Why would you start a jazzy jungle label and have a techno king as your first release?) (CF History) I wonder. Anyway, I asked Juan to join with me since he had learned everything from Marcus. Juan would be the spokesperson and myself the investor for the label. This was how Cytrax was born. For the first release of Cytrax, it was basically the second release of CosmicFluxMusiq. After a few releases we started to get a lot of demos of new artists. Juan wanted to put them out because the demos were good. I agreed, but it was pushing us away from the true purpose of having our own label, which was to put out our own music. Slowly it was harder for me to submit my own music to be released and I was always beaten out by someone else. I got frustrated and so I pitched Juan on another side project called D*LAY. The concept is simply new artists remixing Cytrax's tracks. Juan liked the idea nad D*LAY was born. I thought that with two labels my chances would be greater for getting on a release. We got even more demos and all of them were very good and I was out of luck. During SCI-Arc I was pretty busy and Juan (Jasper) ran both Cytrax and D*LAY. Jasper would drive up to SF himself to meet with Kit along with the rest of the new crew and work on new projects. Jasper dealt with everyone from artists to distributions, so naturally when you contacted Cytrax or D*LAY you would talk to Jasper. Jasper's justification was that he ran everything and I was not contributing, so naturally he thought the label belonged to him. Without any conflicts I quietly relinquished the label because I knew no one would listen to me. I had never met any of the new artists except for the original artists from the beginning (Kit, Santos, and Marcus). Jasper had been doing all the talking for me all this time. It took awhile to finally come to grips that I had lost Cytrax and D*LAY like CosmicFlux. I drowned in depression, disconnected myself from everyone in the music scene, and disappeared for years. Cytrax continued on minus the creator. What were some early music experiences that had a strong influence on your endeavor into DJing? When I started high school I was a skater and with my skateboard I would travel to new places and meet other skaters. Most of my skater friends were just starting out as musicians and painters. We would hang out at this place we called "the Shack" on York-town Ave. in the OC. It's basically a shack in the back of an apartment complex. We would go there after skating to paint and play music. Even the young Paul Frank dropped in sometimes. They were very involved with music and held live concerts at the local library and the local American Legion. This is where I met Marcus Miller (the other founder of CosmicFlux), the drummer and the visual guy from a local indie band. I went to see him play because he was one of the best young drummers I had ever seen. Many shows later, we became friends and started going out to other shows. I started to collect Indie records and made mixtapes for myself with my Technics DC Servo Automatic Turntable from my brother's stereo system and a dual cassette player. After months of practicing, I had learned the art of beat matching from the belt-driven Technics DC Servo and a dual cassette player. I gave some of the mixtapes to some friends and the tapes found their way to Indie promoters, and I was asked to open for some of their shows. At my very first Indie show I didn't know what a Technics 1200 or a mixer were! As soon as they showed me all the functions, mixing was like butter. Marcus and I would venture out of Orange County and into Hollywood in search of more music. I had gotten more into the electronic ambient sound because of KLF, The Orb, and Primal Scream. In Hollywood there was one particular club that was our favorite called PUBLIC SPACE. It was hosted by Lynn of Green Galactic. They had artists and DJs playing all electronic music, especially experimental to ambient. It was here that we became friends with some of the artists like John Tejada, Joe and Alan from Plug Research, Jun and Thomas (who BTW were doing a chill-out thing at this cafe called Nova Express). We eventually got to play there ourselves and Marcus did the visuals (film loops mostly) for the club. Thus it was my beginning as an ambient DJ. I played at parties in the chill-out area sometimes with Marcus. Later after CosmicFlux and the beginning of Cytrax I did a weekly with Jun called "Anachoic" @ Nova Express, which is where I developed my DJing style. It was a good place to start developing your DJing technique and learn how to feel the crowds even though they were sitting down and eating. We even let Jasper go at it when he started DJing. We eventually had to stop because people were starting to dance and nobody was ordering any food. How did you first get started (with the technical aspects of) producing music? Marcus and I would drop in on John Tejada at his house for help with the technical side of making electronic music. The first time I walked into his studio I knew someday I wanted a studio like this. The place was packed with musical equipment, from live instruments to electronic gears. When I saw a 909 leaning against the wall unused, I knew John had too much gear. What is (one of, if none) your favorite record to put in a set? Cytrax #1. It reminds me of the best and worst time of my life. How is your sensibility for the techno aesthetic reflected in other things you do? The things that I've been working on are architectural designs. In my opinion, designing architectural spaces and making music are inversely related, meaning in architecture you have really detailed drawings for a simple space, and for music-making you have a simple drawing for a complex sound. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said it best when he described architecture as "frozen music." As someone who's been around the LA electronic music scene for awhile, in what ways do you think the scene (live context) has progressed, and in what ways do you think we've fallen behind? What suggestion do you have to keep our music/experiences moving in an interesting/worthwhile direction? I haven't really been out and about, but on the occasion that I do go out, I've noticed that most newer artists use laptops with their performance. I think this is great because it shows progression rather than stagnation. To be honest, even though I'm an old school analog knob turning DJ, I use Final Scratch for DJing in my bedroom. The only drawback to using a laptop is that the crowd doesn't know what the hell you're looking at on that little screen. For all they know your set is pre-recorded and you're playing video games. The music is there, but it could be more interesting in the performance aspect, especially for those using laptops. Most of the laptops are sitting on the table not going anywhere. What happened to mobile computing? I want to see someone dancing with their laptop. If my Technics were as small and lite as a laptop I would be wearing and dancing with it...just my thoughts. Why do you think so many people who used to be involved with electronic music no longer come out to the events taking place? I think it's mostly due to the Net. Back then before the internet life was pretty boring at home. We wanted to go out to parties or to record stores to listen to music. Now with the Net + broadband you can search for newer and even better music to listen, rip, or buy. Which current producer's music interests you the most? I've been away for awhile now and don't really know of any current producers who interest me, but I'm sure there are a lot of good ones creating software-based music. The only producer who still amazes me is Kit Clayton, even though I didn't really get to know him personally. I know him through his music. interview by bijan for droid (email) February 2005 |