All posts by DJ Deadly Buda

Last August Altern 8 visited Los Angeles courtesy of TR-99’s Trauma party. It was a great honor meeting these guys, as Altern 8 unalterably shaped rave culture by ways of the massive impact of their music and persona. I lucked into a thorough interview (hence the delay in upload) with Mark Archer and Josh Doherty before they would play that night, and here is what they had to say…

How about a history lesson on what you were doing in the late ’80s – early ’90s that made Altern-8?

Mark: It started in ’89 working with Chris Peat, one of the original members of Altern-8. We were working together as ‘Nexus 21’. I was heavily influenced by Detroit Techno at the time. We were owed some studio time where we were working, Blue Chip Studios, Stafford. We went in, and made about nine or ten tracks. It had further influences than just Detroit Techno, so we didn’t want to call it Nexus 21. That way it wouldn’t dilute what we were doing as the other group.

We were going to call ourselves Alien-8, because Chris was in a rock band called Alien-8. When the label sent the tune to be pressed, they didn’t do any DJ promos, anything like that, came back with all the sleeves. They phoned us up and said, “The records are here.” Drove down to Birmingham where the label was based, opened the box, pulled it out, it said ‘Altern-8’ on the top. The name came round by mistake, really.

Altern-8 at TR-99's Trauma — Altern-8 at TR-99’s Trauma. Photo by Peter Vincent.

It was just originally as a side-project, but the first EP had eight tracks on it, so a lot of DJs were buying it purely because there wre eight tracks you could play rather than one 12-inch that maybe had one mix that you could play, so it was really good value for money. When we did a follow-up, a lot of the DJs were already waiting for the follow-up, which was Infiltrate 202. It just went from there. We did that, and then we needed a follow-up, then we did Activ-8. Activ-8 got in the UK charts, so we started touring around the UK and around the world, and it took off a bit.

I remember you guys were on the cover of magazines, even here in the States and in Canada. What was the hysteria all about? Why were people so into you at the time?

Josh: Activ-8, I think, had sold enough copies that it would have gone to number one most weeks of the year, but it happened to be released the same week as the biggest British comedy act doing a thing, I think, and the new Michael Jackson single, so we got stuck at number three. Whereas a week earlier, a week later, it would have been a number one hit. There was a massive amount of hype around that time.

Mark: I think it was because we had the suits, which wasn’t planned. There was something really mysterious about the fact that people didn’t know who was making all the techno back then. There was very little known about it, so we took it to the ultimate by having the suits on. You couldn’t see who we were at all. There was a lot of hype and we did a lot of pranks, like giving away hot air. We were in a hot air balloon, and we were throwing Christmas puddings from it. There was the whole thing about the record label boss’s daughter, who was three at the time, saying, “Top one, nice one, get sorted” on the record, which was a phrase about people going out to raves.

Josh: Also, the rave scene was the last time that there was a huge social movement connected with a music scene in the UK. The government was really “anti-rave” and our look was “anti-establishment” as well, so people really connected with it.

How did you get into this? How did you find yourself in that wave of history?

Mark: There seemed to be a natural progression from early ’80s electro, soul, funk etc. People who were into that were, say, into like the early Chicago House stuff, including hip-hop. It kind of went hand-in-hand; banging to De La Soul and Public Enemy respectively. Then it went on to Acid House. After ’88, there was a lot of backlash about Acid House, but it kept progressing each year. ‘89 saw the arrival of Detroit Techno: the Belgians were making a lot of music and the Italians did this “Italo” House thing. There were so many influences at one time.

You were making music at that time?

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I was making stuff in ’88, we were doing Acid House and stuff different names.

There was something where you guys were running for office?

Mark: That was just another way to get your name in the papers. If you have a single out, people will be promoting it, but when you don’t they won’t write about you. Every time, we had a prank, it was just a way to get your name out there so people remembered you between each single. The elections were going on, so Chris ran for the local elections in Stafford.

Josh:He didn’t come last, did he?

Mark: No. There’s a party called the Natural Law Party, and we actually beat them and they were being serious, and there we were.They were pissed.

Why is he not part of Altern-8 now?

Mark: In late ’93, I was recording under the name DJ Nex, Xen Mantra, I was doing House stuff with Danny Taurus under the name Slo Moshun. I was doing loads of different things, while Chris was getting more into computers. We had musical differences also. I wanted to go a certain direction – he was just interested in computers – so we stopped doing Altern-8 and revived Nexus 21. That didn’t happen so we stopped working together. I carried on DJ’ing ever since, recording under different names, but not recording any new material as Altern-8, Then in 2008, I played at a party Josh promotes in London called ‘I Love Acid’, and from there we started talking again. Now we’re doing the Altern-8 live shows again.

Are you going to come out with new Altern-8 music?

There’s a track in the [Trauma] live set which is brand new, right bang in the middle. We’re also working on an album.

Are you going to team up with any artists from back in the day?

Mark: Yeah, I’ve been working with some guys from Unique 3, Forgemasters, LFO, Rhythmatics, under the name The Originators.

There was something extra imbued into the Altern-8 sound that wasn’t just in all the other rave music. There seemed to be some bigger ideas behind it. Was that my imagination or was that actually going on?

Josh : A lot of that’s got to do with where some of the samples and the sounds are sourced from. There’s lots of really soulful House and Detroit Techno and bit and pieces like that that have gone in there. There’s something a little bit extra in them. I fucking love most of that old Hardcore, people like DJ DMS and stuff like Production House, but the source material of what they’re sampling was often other rave tunes, and it didn’t really reach back much further. The Altern-8 stuff just had a little more reach in where it was pulling tracks from. That’s my opinion, anyway.

Mark: At the time, I was just making tracks that I liked the sound of. The fact that people liked them was just … we just seemed to be doing something right and carried on doing it.

Are you just doing this one track?

Mark: Oh no, we’re going to be working on an album, get Full On … Mask Hysteria remixed and re-mastered. Get that out, and then work on new material for the new album.

Are you going to aim this material at the old schoolers, or are you going to aim it at kids?

Josh: We’re just going to write tunes that we like.

Mark: There’s no point trying to follow trends or push it to a certain market. Just like we did back then, you just made tunes that you liked and you hoped worked on the dance floor.

Josh: Both of us are producing other stuff anyway, so if we end up writing something Housey or Techno or something, it will just end up going under one of the other aliases. You don’t even have to go into the studio and go, “Must be Breakbeat,” because if something else works, then you just do something else with it.

Is there anything that you wish you could do over from that time? Or wish that you could do now?

Mark: If I had known how well the gig we played out here in ’92 went down … It was only after we were getting letters from people in LA, saying how good … from where we were on the stage, I didn’t think we did that well. At the end of our gigs, we used to come to the front of the stage and greet fans, but because it didn’t look like we did well, we just scurried off stage. Apparently, we blew that many people’s heads. If we somehow knew, we could’ve enjoyed it a hell of a lot more, gone out and met people etc. That’s probably the only thing.

What’s been your best memory throughout your musical journey?

Mark: The first time we played Downingtown Park, UK. That was our first big gig, and it was in a massive warehouse.

Josh: I played at a festival called Bloc in 2009, and the crowds were singing along to all the tunes. This was coming on after Skream & Benga, they were doing a dubstep thing, which was the most hyped music at the time. I was thinking, “I’m playing a bunch of old-school records after they just absolutely smashed it. I’m going to go down like a lead balloon.” But it just went off. This year, we ended a stage on Sunday night at Glastonbury, amid like 30,000 people

So what can we look forward to tonight?

Josh: All the classics, but they’ll be mashed up and changed a bit. The lucky thing is that the technology now is better than it was.

Mark: You’d have to take on a full studio on stage back in the day, whereas now you don’t have to.

Josh: A couple of laptops. There’s only so much that we can bring up. 303s and stuff stay at home.

Mark: All the tunes that hopefully people will remember. Different versions and a few surprises, and obviously the new tune in the middle.

All right then, top one, nice one, get sorted on iTunes!

From there, Altern 8 then prepped their set and later rocked and wowwed the crowd at Trauma.

^{Additional editing was done by DJ Daybreaker.}

^{All photos in this article were shot by Peter Vincent.}

Articles, Interviews

Leo Corson Interview

April 4, 2016 DJ Deadly Buda 8 Comments

In my mind, Leo Corson is one of the main people responsible for the current popularity of the harder styles in North America. As a tireless advocate of hard dance music, he was once known as DJ Dutchboy and then as Used & Abused. Now, he’s a booking agent for Corson Agency and Circle Talent Agency.

How did you get into the rave scene in the first place?

I went out to my first rave in 1994 or ’95. It was called Angies Urbal Jungle. From then, I kept going to raves. Insomniac was also throwing their first events around this time. I immediately fell in love with hardcore, the high energy 170-180 BPM stuff and some of the early rave sounds. I did a lot of things within the rave scene: I worked events, I did flyers, I worked in a booth selling necklaces and glow sticks, etc.

When did the music come in?

In 1997 or 1998, I happened to be working a show. Lenny Dee, DJ Isaac and G-Town Madness were booked for this. I met them, took them out the day after the show, and then I was invited to go to Holland. Holland is where I started really becoming a DJ because I was able to bring back all of this vinyl and white labels back to America. I started playing out as Dutchboy, my first show being in 1998, Neverland. Then around 2000, the music started to change: a big influence from Germany. People like Cosmic Gate started making 138 BPM music and then that morphed into what we know today as hardstyle, but it was a lot slower at first. A lot of the hardcore guys decided to switch to this sound. This started in about 1999, but it didn’t really become classified as hardstyle until about 2002 when it really started to take off. Then I switched as well and changed my name to ‘Used & Abused’, but I still played hardcore as Dutchboy. Then around 2003-2004, I opened up a record store on Melrose, Underground Culture. But at this time, vinyl was starting to die.

When did you establish Corson Agency?

2008. At the same time I set up the label Hard Dance Nation; that was the conduit that allowed us to do events and tours. We also release music for North American hard dance artists.

When was Hard Dance Nation’s first show?

In 2008 as well, when I became 30. It was “XXX,” Roman numerals for the age that I turned. That was the first show that was all hardstyle, hardcore, and hard dance, which took place on the ninth of August, 2008.

What was the biggest challenge to getting harder music more accepted in America?

It was easier in the early 2000’s because the different styles were all around the same BPM, the general speed being around 135 BPM. Trance, techno, and club house was 135, hardstyle was 138. You could mix it all together. Then in the mid 2000’s, everything kind of splintered off and it got even more splintered as we go into the teens. Now we have 128 on one side, and 150 on the other. That’s a broad spectrum. You can’t pitch the music up or down too much. I think that’s the biggest challenge. For a lot of people, 150 is a bit much. But luckily, we have a lot of fans in LA especially that like it.

What’s been the most gratifying thing that’s happened over these last years as an agent?

Putting on Basscon in association with Insomniac… when you see the show practically sell out the Hollywood Palladium! Starting from really small raves and struggling to get the music recognized, then seeing promoters like Insomniac push it further, that’s a great feeling.

What would you like to see more of in the Hard Dance community?

I would like to see less bullshit and less fighting, because I think that’s going to ruin the scene faster than anything. The flaming online and the shit talking and this whole rawstyle versus this whole … you know what? It’s fucking music. We’re all on the same boat. It doesn’t matter what sound it is, who this guy is, who that guy is. I think that we need to let go and support each other. It’s the same thing that I faced back in the 2000’s. You had the people who like gabber and they would punch these happy hardcore kids in the face because they’re wearing furries and beads. That’s not PLUR. It’s not positive and it’s not a very good representation when you do those types of things. I even heard that there was a fight at Nocturnal between two hardstyle crews. I heard, I’m not going to call you people out, but I heard that there was an actual fight?! I mean, there’s a fight between two people who like the same thing! But you guys think you’re better than the other? I think that is something I would like to see stop, because I’m not doing this so guys can have a place to fight each other and measure their dicks.

You mentioned to me in an email that you teach a course in music business.

Unbeknownst to most, I have a Master’s degree.

An MBA?

It’s an MBA, but it’s called Music Industry Administration. It a 60-40 split of the MBA program and music. It focuses on publishing, licensing, copyrights, mechanical licensing, contracting, entertainment law, and stuff like that. I spoke twice at Icon Collective, a school in Burbank. They were looking to expand their music business department. It’s actually very important when these kids grow up and want to make music and want to DJ, to understand that there is a business side of it. So they gave me a job opportunity, and I took it. It’s a good way to give back to the community.

What’s on the horizon for Hard Dance in 2016?

We are already starting to book things in advance. I can’t really divulge one-hundred percent, but I can tell you that you’ll see more Basscon stages at more Insomniac events. I know Insomniac is the only major US promoter that is really putting an effort into pushing this sound so far. As long as the fans come out and support the harder artists, even if there is only one act per show, that will really help push things forward. We are a small group of dedicated people right now and the only way that we are going to help expand is by supporting the best we can and in any way we can. Go out and support the music you love for god sake! Another thing I want to address: the fans. I know you are so die hard but you can’t be so angry when we can’t get someone booked. Visas are very difficult to get these days. There’s a finite amount of visas that customs and immigration services can give out. It’s expensive. We have to prove that we’re not stealing an American job. It’s very highly protected. This law was enacted in the 70’s to protect American workers and musicians. Realize it’s not that we don’t want to bring them, it’s that they might not be able to get the visa that is required or can make the payments. There is a business side of things. The government does hold a lot of sway that we can’t circumvent. Keep that in mind.

Do you have any advice for those wanting to get involved with music?

If you’re an aspiring DJ, you should focus on producing instead. You can’t just go out and get the cool vinyl, white labels, and promos. Producing is what’s important. If you’re an aspiring hardstyle or hardcore producer, just get your music out there. It’s so easy these days. The more Americans and Canadians that actually step up and produce seriously, I think the rest of the world will take our hard dance community more serious. Stay professional and clean on social media. The more professional we look, the more the international community will look at us with that same seriousness. This music does come from the Netherlands. They have high standards, REALLY high. They will look down on all of us if you don’t hold yourself similar. Collaborate more. I think that’s really, really, really important.

Any last words before we depart?

I want to thank all the fans because a lot of them know me personally. I go out and they always thank me for what I do. I appreciate them as well. I don’t need the recognition. I do it, partly and sadly, because no one else has stepped up to do it. You guys show a lot of respect and in return I want to do that for you. Thank you.

^{Editing on this article was also done by DJ Daybreaker.}

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March 19, 2016 DJ Deadly Buda

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Articles, Reviews

Field Report 8: BASSCON WASTELAND DAY 1

March 5, 2016 DJ Deadly Buda 1 Comment

Word of Hardstyle’s imminent demise was brutally thumped to the ground and drowned in the Pacific last night as 4000+ squeezed into Los Angeles’ Hollywood Palladium for day 1 of Basscon’s Wasteland. A battery of lasers that would make Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Forces proud, combined with a sound system louder than Thor’s hammer lit up Sunset Boulevard and screamed the news.

The night started with Max Enforcer. As some of you may know, Max Enforcer is Evil Activities’ Hardstyle alias, so it’s no wonder that his set in particular was heavy hitting right off the bat, even if he played, and we guiltily sung along to, “Lost in Paradise.”

Audiotricz followed this up by maintaining the euphoria with all of their biggest tracks that are known to tug at the heartstrings, including the implementation of the very popular “Release” by Atmozfears, a track that even the raw kids can’t ignore.

D-Block & S-Te-Fan at Basscon Wasteland 2016

D-Block & S-Te-Fan was a particular highlight of the night because they were playing a lot of their older tracks which might feature their best sound design (Sound of the Thunder, Music Made Addict etc.). Opening with their track “Higher” set the mood for one the most emotional sets that could be remembered in recent memory.

Isaac got the crowd in a frenzy, veering from euphoric to raw in a perfect balance. He started out his set with some crazy Zelda samples that sounded absolutely insane on the massive Basscon sound system. Every track that followed seemed to be instilled in the minds of the crowd. Then, he even brought out every promoter’s best friend, Leo Corson, to grab the mic and remind the Southern California faithful why we love all bitches!

We took a little break and sauntered out to the smoking area where we even spotted controversial man-of-the-hour Kari Lambou holding court on the smoking patio! And not far away, Fresh Entertainment’s Sherief Zakher was showing off his new tattoos to DJ Mindcontroller and his posse.

We also spotted Kriss Erickson of Lucky Rabbit Photography who came down from NorCal to witness the spectacle. West coast party regular Giovanny Garcia made his requisite appearance (even though he was spotted at the last minute). He literally has been spotted at every Hard Dance show on the west coast! And of course Las Vegas true-believer Matthew Levin deserves a mention because no one has the amount of dedication to this scene that this man does and he is THE man that everyone looks forward to seeing when they attend harder events. Our photographer Marvelous Mike Ortiz was making the rounds snapping most of the flix you see on this page. Watch out for some of his upcoming video productions by-the-way!

Finally rested, we witnessed possibly the best set of the night: Audiofreq and Code Black’s reunion of Bioweapon. They played a lot of tracks from what is considered by many to be the golden era of hardstyle (2008-2010). They had a perfect blend of old and new, and they also incorporated some raw tracks. Finally getting to hear E-Force’s “Seven” in a live setting was a defining moment for our man DJ Daybreaker who could be seen bopping in the crowd. Even more evidence of this, there was a moment were these two really got the crowd bouncing off the walls when they dropped a slowed-down Hardcore track, DJ Mad Dog & Tommyknocker’s DJ Tool 1.

The night culminated with the reveal of who exactly were the “Notorious Two.” It is Lady Faith and the Pitcher’s new raw-oriented project. The response from the crowd at their tougher sounding tracks was strong and evidence that the SoCal hardstyle junkies are currently looking for more aggressive tracks, and that seemed pretty evident the entire night.

Night two is on the horizon and if the crowd wanted it hard, they are gonna get it. After witnessing Digital Punk in his USA debut on the Trauma Tour, the thought of him crushing on the Basscon system has us giddy like school girls riding unicorns. So get yourself sorted tonight and get ready!

While you’re out tonight, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of The HARD DATA as you exit the Palladium! We, along with faithful Utah hardstyle trooper Jesse Murdock will be at the ready to pass them to you! To those that don’t know, The HARD DATA is the only physical magazine in America dedicated to the harder styles of EDM. Not only is it great to read on the ride home, but when you want to remember this time, do you really think you’re going to peruse your saved web browser bookmarks from like 10 phones forward in time… or break out a shoe box hidden in your closet full of kandi, flyers, accessories, and The Hard Data? ‘Nuff said! Until next time, this is Deadly Buda and Daybreaker reminding you: The rhythm is life and death!