Posted by Joel Bevacqua on Sunday, February 14, 2016
Like opera in a construction zone, hardcore techno and hardstyle sang through the city of San Francisco last night, to the utter delight of the Bay Areas’s harder styles faithful. Fittingly, in my dutiful jaunt through the fabled city, I came upon a man doing just that, singing opera in a construction zone. I believe his name is Robert Grant. Coincidentally, in quite operatic fashion, a group of crazy Italians would help strengthen a growing Bay Area harder styles scene. DJ Vortex, Super Marco May, The Melodyst, Amnesys, Placid K and DJ Mad Dog represented the boot-shaped country and fittingly kicked the Bay Area into overdrive. They were joined by the up-and-coming Tonegenerator, legends Scott Brown, Rob Gee, The Prophet, and adroitly MC’ed by Mike Redman.
My review unfortunately is somewhat incomplete though, I must confess. Because of a scheduling foul-up at the airport, and weather delays out of Edmonton, Canada that afternoon, I would not arrive to the Regency Ballroom until almost 11:30 last night. Approximately 7 hours was spent by yours truly yesterday and night en route to San Francisco.
Finally my flight arrived in San Fran to witness DJ Mad Dog
Nonetheless, I caught the tail end of The Prophet, who as expected, rocked the crowd to an appreciative hardstyle fan-base. He was followed by DJ Mad Dog, who continued his path of North American destruction, making the crowd go bonkers. Placid K followed with his signature classic hardcore style. The Melodyst picked up after that with their new school sound and the exclamation mark was put on the end of the night by Rob Gee.
Frankly all the sets I heard were just as banging in San Francisco as in Edmonton the night before. What was interesting though was the San Francisco crowd itself. San Francisco in previous decades had a robust punk rock and industrial scene, producing legendary bands like the Dead Kennedys. So, that underlying spirit in the Bay Area has always existed, and it was just a matter of time until some aspect of it surfaced again. What I saw was a spark of a new scene developing. That perfect moment when everyone in the crowd gets to know each other. It was pretty cool seeing the crowd go for it to music that was mostly new to them. Many people came for the bigger names, but were exposed to new things they liked, and got to meet like-minded individuals in the process.
It would unfair to call it the “birth” of a scene when crews like Spaz and 5lowershop have been doing underground hardcore parties for decades now. But, there was a whole new wave of ravers and party-goers getting their first taste of rocking out to a wide spectrum of the harder styles! Next stop: Los Angeles.
The Harder Styles Tour kicked off with a banging kickdrum last night when DJ Vortex opened up the tour his sage-like lessons in hardstyle. The unlikely locale of this seminal outburst was frigid Edmonton, Alberta, best known in these parts as the home of the Oilers and the legendary Wayne Gretsky. I’m still smarting from the night the Oilers sneaked out of the Pittsburgh Civic Arena with a win as Mario Lemieux and Gretzky battled it out on the ice. I suppressed my prejudices though and found a lot to like in Edmonton. Most notably the crowd liked it hard, and so it was a pleasure to be in the midst of mutual transaction of hard beats and appreciative crowd.
Edmonton got Trauma, and loved it.
Despite strong ticket sales, the venue wasn’t particularly crowded, as the frigid and windy -11 degree Celsius weather kept only the most maniacal home safe in their blankies. MC Mike Redman kept the crowd psyched the entire night, straddling that perfect MC balance between chiming in at the right time and not getting’ all walky-talky. After Vortex MC Redman introduced Super Marco May. You might’ve read his interview on the THD site, and he lived up to the hype it suggested, representing Italian hardstyle in splendid fashion.
Scott Brown reads The HARD DATA
You might have thought you were in Little Italy until Scott Brown jumped on the decks and cranked up the happy. Happy hardcore that is. He even played one of my old faves, “Now is the Time.” After which he took a well-deserved rest and read the latest issue of The Hard Data, rumor has it. Amnesys jumped on stage next and played a little of everything. He started kinda slow, playing Alien T’s Hammer of the Devil, and then picked up the pace with some of his soon-to-be classics, Shockwave and Embrace the Ultimate. In the middle of it all, he even threw in some dub-step sounding tracks which was a nice change of pace.
The Prophet in Edmonton
One of the best sets of the night was next, The Prophet. Easily the crowd favorite that night, the Scanntraxx CEO busted out a surprisingly hard-as-nails hardstyle set. I wouldn’t really call it rawstyle, it was just straight banging hardstyle. I like the fact that he played “Here We Go” because of the awesome hoover in its break and its old school sound. I still think the track was inspired by Edge of Motion, but I didn’t get the chance to grill The Prophet about it, dear readers, as he was busy interacting with his fans most of the night.
Mad Dog took to the decks next, and he made it clear that 150 BPM was “not his Tempo,” because he promptly busted out his floor crushing epic, “Not My Tempo.” It doesn’t get much clearer than that, and the BPM’s instantly skyrocketed to the delight of the hardcore faithful (you can read the Mad Dog Interview in the latest issue of THD).
Mad Dog at Trauma Edmonton
The hardcore onslaught continued as Placid K, not to be out-hoovered, laid down one of the thickest hoover sounds of the night at the beginning of his set. After all these years, lets face it, there’s nothing like a huge freakinig hoover sound on a banging system to get the blood flowing to all the capillaries. The rest of his set was his signature old school hip hop samples tightly woven with that classic Italian hardcore drive, which set the stage for the new breed of hardcore heroes, The Melodyst.
They sprang out the gate with their new track “New Dawn” and when the kick came in, it sounded wicked sick. Whatever special sauce they are adding to their 909’s, I want to know because it immediately drove the crowd into a state of frenzy.
At this point, you are probably thinking, “ok, what could they possibly do next to top the night off?” Well, the icing on the cake was our own made-in-the-USA Rob Gee, who went absolutely ape behind the decks. Just when you thought you couldn’t dance no more, the Gee-Man set a fire under everyone’s you-know-whats. If there was one drop of sweat left in that crowd, Rob made sure to squeeze it out with an energetic and inspiring performance befitting the first night of the Trauma Harder Styles Tour 2016. Next up, on to the Golden State in the U.S. of A.
“I pretty much feel like I’m gonna die.” Said Kari Lambou, jerking his head at the last minute before he was to make an impromptu pillow out of his MacBook Pro. Kari’s the head of Trauma Live, who are embarking on a 7 city North American music tour. Any music tour is tough, but Kari is pushing North America’s first hardcore E.D.M. tour (purists would call it hardcore techno), undoubtedly the least popular subgenre of the EDM world. The genre is squarely a mix of house music, hip hop, punk rock, heavy metal, and industrial noise. It’s as old-school ravey as it gets, and despite its detractors, it refuses to vanish. Mixed into the chaos is hardcore’s younger, cuter and more popular little brothers in music, hardstyle and rawstyle, to make sure the crowd is comfortable with the rock hard beats-per-minute.
Kari’s been up for a few days with limited sleep and the comfort of a few complimentary beers doled out by his office workspace in El Segundo, CA. There are numerous causes of his sleep deprivation, for example, his washing machine recently backed up and destroyed his family’s apartment, but even more so is the fact that he has almost 40 different DJs spread out all over the 7 city tour. Most are from Europe, requiring flights, hotels, and transportation.The email inbox starts blowing up again, and must be dealt with as adroitly as a 2 hour window of sleep will allow.
“I do it, because I hate commercial music. I want our own sound.” Says Kari, as I dutifully pry into his life for the benefit of my readers. “This is about us, about sticking to what we want to hear. I don’t really care if people say my line-up is too hard. Well, too bad. This is what Trauma is about. Events you’ll never forget.”
I point out that 40 artists, is a little overboard. “Well, ok, frankly I didn’t see that coming.”
It all happened because DJ Distortion of Rotterdam Terror Corps happened to mention to Kari that he could get a few people to play in America. As soon as the feelers went out, every huge name in hardcore techno immediately lobbied for the gigs. No one took no for answer. Basically, the American market has eluded hardcore techno for decades, and it gnaws at the soul of all hardcore aficionados around the world, because frankly, America seems like the perfect place for it. These names may not mean a lot to the average American yet, but how do you say “no” to Mad Dog, Amnesys, Rotterdam Terror Corps, Tommyknocker, The Melodyst, Scott Brown… the list goes on and on. Though such a line-up might exist in Europe, such a tour as this does not. Everyone constantly undercut each other’s playing fees because they HAD TO PLAY. Everyone wanted to play. It was as simple as that. And when you have the combined talent, basically a line-up that would be historical anywhere in the world, well… you roll with it.
Vowing to document this first historical tour, I find myself jetting to its first stop in North America, Edmonton, Alberta, where it’s -11 degrees Celsius. “Well, we looked at the map and it seemed there were lots of harder styles fans in a few of these areas, basically.” Kari explained. I’m thinking like, “but this is like 12 degrees Fahrenheit,” but Trauma picked their first cities. Edmonton is the first stop before San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix (Mesa), Denver, Pittsburgh, and New York. So I packed up the long underwear, gloves, ski jacket, toboggan, a few stacks of The Hard Data magazine, and my trusty smartphone, and I board the plane for Canada….
Back in the late 1980’s-early 90’s, people knew me as “Buda” when I wrote graffiti. So when I started DJing I wanted to have a tough, kung-fu sounding DJ name like, “Grandmaster Flash” so I put “Deadly” in front of Buda.
Were you a DJ first, or a producer?
Well, I tried to make music on a 4-track recorder, with a guitar and drum machine, and had a punk rock band, but… I guess I would really have to say DJ because I started scratching up my parents records after I saw people breakdancing, and that was really my first step into music.
Buda’s artwork for the Turbo Zen parties.
How did you get into the scene?
Really I had to help make the scene in America. That was 1991 and things were just starting over in UK and Europe a few years earlier, and we wanted to make raves and techno big over here. In my case, Pittsburgh, PA. So we got our friends together and threw a party. People responded and that led to other things like writing for magazines, fanzines, owning record shops, DJing, producing, etc.
What was the first record you ever purchased?
I think Kiss Alive 2 or Dynasty.
Who was your biggest inspiration in the early part of your career?
The early PCP and Dance Ecstacy 2001 sound. All the stuff that Lenny Dee had a hand in, The Under One Sky/Groove crew, Caspar Pound, Woody McBride, Zekt, Underground Resistance, Plus 8.
I was 15 and playing in a bar in Shaler, PA with my friend Sean Payne. It was before rave or techno. His Dad was a DJ and we were just introducing scratching/mixing to the crowd for the first time. I totally messed up! But Sean started breakdancing and the crowd forgave me.
What was your favorite party you’ve ever played? Why?
Probably Catastrophic’s New Years 1993/94, in Washington DC. Not a lot of people talk about Catastrophic these days, but their raves in D.C. were the most insane, gigantic, illegal events. The Baez brothers were sons of a diplomat and could get away with all kinds of stuff. So it was the first time I ever played out of Pittsburgh, and it was a massive 5000+ crowd in a warehouse. I laid it on super hardcore going into midnight and me and the crowd went nuts. I wasn’t nervous at all, strangely, I just laid down the law that night! Also the sets I played at Even Furthur, the same night as the legendary Daft Punk show and the year previous.
What was the funniest moment during any of your performances?
Well it wasn’t’ my set, it was my buddy Controlled Weirdness’s set at Morph 1. This guy who DJed a few of the parties in Pittsburgh back then took too much of something and decided he would just walk up to the decks and start playing in the middle of CW’s set! Like he ducked down to get his next record and then this nutter just jumped on the decks! There were some other stories, but I gotta wait for the statute of limitations to expire before I say!
What important changes have you witnessed from the time you got into the scene, until now?
Well, it’s more corporate. That is good and bad. It helps bring more money into the scene, but can homogenize things. The trick really is for everyone to organize their own corporations to compete, and that should make things better and better, I think. We’ll see.
Deadly Buda’s flyer artwork from back in the day!
Did you ever think you would be touring the United States? What do you think the Trauma Tour will be like?
I’m only playing two dates, but I am writing a journal of the whole tour, to document it. I’m not sure what it will be like, I just know it hasn’t been done yet, and so I want to preserve the memory.
What made you want to start producing Hardcore music?
I just wanted to express myself through that creative endeavor. After you DJ a while, you naturally want things to sound “your way.”
What is your favorite track that you have produced?
It’s a toss up between Style is Terrifik, Esto es Los Angeles, and My Theory
What advice would you give to up and coming Hardcore producers?
I’m not sure if I can give the best advice here, because my path has been a long and circuitous one. If you are looking for advice on how to get from point A to point B fast, I’m not your guy. If you want stories about planting seeds in the underground, maybe that I can give advice.
Have any of the other artists on the Trauma tour ever inspired your work? If so, how?
Lenny Dee was doing 25+ years ago what we are doing now. I often find I’m playing stuff or interested in stuff that Lenny was on the case of months or years previous. I should say that many of the new artists from Italy are very inspiring to me now, too. I think it’s a golden time for hardcore, right here, right now.
What are your top 3 favorite tracks of all time? Why?
Party People – Marc et Claude
We have Arrived – Mescalinum United (Aphex Twin Remix)
Vortex-Final Exposure
What was your favorite track of 2015 (that wasn’t your own)?
Mad Dog’s Good Ol’ Times
Are there any exciting projects or gigs coming up you want our readers to know about?
Well, The Hard Data magazine and website is all about the harder dance styles, so I’m pushing that hard. We need a communication node! I might be coming out with some comics soon, too.
What artists would you like to collaborate with that you haven’t already?
The Traxtorm/Next Cyclone crew, and after all this time I’d like to work on some stuff with Lenny Dee finally if he ever stops flying around the world long enough for me to catch up with him!
If there’s anything we haven’t asked, what else would you like to say to the readers of The Hard Data?
Share The HARD DATA with your friends, and write and take pictures for the magazine and website. When I look back at all the years, I notice that the one thing that really makes a scene pop is when it has a ‘zine or two that people can bug out with. Don’t take it for granted, make it better by contributing!
Check out Deadly Buda’s special mix for the Trauma Tour:
Pittsburgh, PA, 1993: “You know what my problem was?” His drunken ankle buckled, dropping his punk-rock body into the plastic rainbow-colored carpet of my little rave shop.
Two stoned teenagers in fat jeans and Fresh Jive T-shirts pried him off the ground. Rising undeterred, John’s beer belly plopped out of his faded Ramones t-shirt. He flicked off the long, black, fifty-something-year-old hair stuck to the saliva on his face.
”I never…” He made a basketball-sized globe with his hand gestures and stared into it—like it was fucking Rosebud or something and swayed back and forth as the two anemic rave kids braced to catch him. “I never…”
I couldn’t have cared less what John had to say. Smelling of booze and vomit, he had been frequenting Turbo-Zen Records—I assumed to get high with the college kids and high schoolers playing hooky at the store. I could never say no to him—he was a drinking buddy at Chief’s and did the sound at the Electric Banana, Pittsburgh’s finest punk rock club (R.I.P.) That conferred too much underground cred. But, he was creating a ruckus and I already was fielding calls from irate parents looking for their kids.
“Will you get him out of here?”
“No!” he croaked and stared into the imaginary globe. ‘I never took the time.” Then he got real ornery, waving his arms at me “to look at what I’d done, to look at it! To apprecccciiiaaaaaate it.” As he lunged at me for emphasis, the momentum of his arms threw him off balance to fast for anyone to catch. He smacked his forehead straight on the floor this time.
“He’s not moving.”
The paramedics came and took John to the emergency room. He was discharged and days later was back on the Electric Banana soundboard. But that was the last time I saw John Krom. A few weeks later, he was found dead in his apartment. He’d been dead a while when they found him.
Back in the 1970’s John was one of Pittsburgh’s biggest rock promoters, jet-setting with Led Zeppelin and all the other stars of the day. John was primarily responsible for orchestrating one of Pittsburgh’s most amazing concerts, but one practically forgotten. One summer day in July 1975, he ran a full page ad in the Pittsburgh Press, simply announcing something big was happening downtown. He then floated 3 barges down the Allegheny River to where Pittsburgh’s three rivers meet, Point State Park. In those barges were Suzi Quatro, Alice Cooper, and their bands. An estimated 80,000 people showed up that summer afternoon. The police were unable to control the masses of people doing whatever they wanted that day, such as: jumping off the Fort Duqesne Bridge, for fun. John Krom made that wondrous summer day happen.
Until I can find pictures of John Krom, Turbo Zen, and related materials, I will post some of these old flyers so you can see how we did it in Pittsburgh in 1992-3
Many great events can get lost in time, through error or intention. I had only heard of this amazing concert by word of mouth, by Pittsburghers I knew who were at the show. I have found virtually no written documentation of it other than this web post a guy did in 2001. http://www.drunkenbum.com/20010620.html
Someday I will search the Pittsburgh Press and Post Gazette microfilm for more details, as they surely must exist. But until then, the drunkenbum’s report stands as testament, and it corroborates all other stories I have heard verbally about the event. Amazing, wonderful things get lost in the shuffle of history. We read about wars, but never about wonder! Is it not as interesting I ask? Does it not fire the soul as much? Of course it does!
Anyway, something happened to John between floating Suzie Quatro down the river in a barge, to passing out in Turbo-Zen Records. I still haven’t the fine details, but John told me exactly what happened, and it’s my job to tell you. He never stopped to appreciate what he did. He just kept driving forward, oblivious to the joy he created, and never really took part in it himself.
John could have got wasted at a lot of places, but he chose my record store to get fucked up at towards the end. Now I know why. He could see us young raver kids loved the music too. The electric moments of music never left his soul, even as the booze grabbed control of his body and mind.
I didn’t respect John the way I should have the last time I saw him. I guess I can forgive myself considering the circumstances, but I can honor his memory and the man he truly was by relaying his accomplishments and one of his important messages. John’s legacy, and accomplishments will survive just a little longer, because they deserve to. So it is written, and I begin with John Krom’s story for my diary of the Trauma Harder Style Tour 2016.
The “Trauma Harder Styles Tour 2016” is America’s first hardcore techno music tour. It’s about forty-plus electronic music artists pushing the most extreme version of electronic dance music. This is EDM you might slam-dance to, pogo, mosh, or stage dive to. It is the type of electric hybrid John might have loved to hear, if he were only here.
Probably the most neglected segment of the EDM world in America, hardcore techno is actually one of its oldest—chock-full of rave pioneers and the perhaps overly-curious youngsters that found out about them. Like some others on the tour, I’m one of those rave pioneers with a nagging sense of unfinished business in the back of my mind. When I found out the tour would stop in my old hometown, Pittsburgh, PA, like a moth to flame I lobbied like hell to get on the tour, and vowed to document its entirety. This tour could be a boom, or bust, or just… whatever… but I want to remind myself, and whoever will listen to me, that what we’re doing is special, it’s important, and we’ll lose a part of ourselves if we take it for granted. So I dedicate my following journal entries to John Krom, who reminded me to take the time to look and appreciate what we all do.
Dedicated to the harder sound of electronic dance music.
