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Features Mindbenderz talk ‘Lord of the Rings’ and fishing, as well as the creation of their new album ‘Celestial Gateway’! Iono-Music artists One Function, Eliyahu, Invisible Reality and Dual Vision talk Robert Miles, kids, dogs and vinyl, while we chat about their current releases! Luke&Flex talk influences, the Irish rave scene, why Flex wears a mask and Play Hard, their new EP out now on Onhcet Repbulik Xtreme! Lyktum expands on his new album ‘Home’ – talking about his love of storytelling, creating new harmonies and the concept behind his musical works. Pan talks getting caught short crossing the Sahara, acid eyeballs and tells us Trance is the Answer, plus shares his thoughts on his latest release 'Beyond the Horizon' - all from a beach in Spain! Miss C chats about living with the KLF, DJing in a huge cat’s mouth, training her brain and the upcoming super-duper Superfreq Grande party at LDN East this Saturday, 16th September! NEM3SI$ - I Live for the Night – talks superficiality, psychopaths, and bittersweet success, ahead of a plethora of evocative, emotional, and passionate upcoming melodic techno releases! Psy-Sisters Spring Blast Off! We talk to DJ competition winner ROEN along with other super talents on the lineup! Blasting towards summer festivals with Bahar Canca ahead of Psy-Sisters Spring Blast! Shyisma talks parties, UFO's, and Shotokan Karate ahead of his upcoming album 'Particles' on Iono-Music! SOME1 talks family, acid, stage fright and wolves - ahead of his upcoming album release ‘Voyager’ on Iono-Music in February 2023! The Transmission Crew tell all and talk about their first London event on 24th February 2023! NIXIRO talks body, mind and music production ahead of his release 'Planet Impulse' on Static Movement's label - Sol Music! Turning the world into a fairy tale with Ivy Orth ahead of Tribal Village’s 10th Birthday Anniversary Presents: The World Lounge Project The Psy-Sisters chat about music, achievements, aspirations and the 10-Year Anniversary Party - 18/12/22! A decade of dance music with Daniel Lesden Earth Needs a Rebirth! Discussions with Psy-Trance Artist Numayma Taking a Journey Through Time with Domino New Techno Rising Star DKLUB talks about his debut release White Rock on Onhcet Republik! PAN expands on many things including his new album 'Hyperbolic Oxymoron' due for release on the 14th April 2022 on PsyWorld Records! Psibindi talks all things music including her new collaborative EP 'Sentient Rays' on Aphid Records, her band Sentience Machine and 10 years of Psy-Sisters! N-Kore talks Jean-Michel Jarre, unfinished tracks and fatherhood! Celebrating International Women’s Day and Ten Years of Psy-Sisters with Amaluna A Catch Up with John Phantasm ahead of his upcoming set at the Tribal Village 4 Day Outdoor Event in Kent 6-9 May 2022! 'The Maestro that is Tristan talks barn owls, Shazamming and keeping it Psychedelic ahead of his upcoming performance at the Tribal Village 4 Day Event in Kent 6-9 May 2022! DJ talk with Psyrenzo ahead of his debut set at Tribal Village, the Steelyard this Friday 14th January 2022! TENZO aka Overdrive talks freely about launching his new act which will be showcased at Tribal Village, Steelyard on 14 January 2022! A long overdue catch up with JourneyOM ahead of his next Tribal Village party this Friday 14th January 2022 at the Steelyard, London! Goa based party animal and artist extraordinaire Nirmal talks punk concerts, metal sculptures, flying and rippin' it up on a High Tide! DJ Wired talks to us about the Rise of the Hope and parties, ahead of his upcoming set at Tribal Village on 14th January 2022!

The rebirth of Dirty Hard & Fast Reported by Tara / Submitted 24-09-08 17:32 At a time when so many clubs and promotions are opting to close down or, worse, being closed by the police, it is indeed refreshing to meet a DJ who's starting a night back up again for the pure love of it. That's exactly what Luca Falco aka Candyman01 is doing with Dirty Hard & Fast (DHF) this Friday 26 September @ Brixton's Mass. Given the name, we thought we should investigate what he's up to... Dirty Harder Faster was in fact started back in 2000 by some mates of Luca’s: Rupert, who DJs under the name of Akira; and George, who DJs as, funnily enough, Curious George. I met up with Luca, Rupert and George over a couple of beers one evening to get the dirt on this hard and fast trio... Luca aka Candyman01, Curious George & Rupert aka Akira When did you first form DHF and why? Rupert: We all grew up around Devon and Exeter and started when around 18. We were just kids playing records that wanted somewhere we all could DJ out. DHF started in October 2000 in a club called the Grove in Seaton. Mark EG and Nick Sentience were right at the beginning of their careers. We also got in touch with another hard house DJ, Divine Intervention. We started out with hard house, which flowed into hard trance. It’s cool that we had Mark EG cos now he’s here for the rebirth! Luca: I remember you guys doing it. I asked him: “What does EG stand for?” and he said, “eggs and bacon!” Akira: We had 3–4 years of that. George: We moved from Grove in Seaton to a pub called the Burston. It was known for its acid parties but we took it over as a hard house place. We were also doing trance by then. We did that for 2–3 years. The place eventually shut down and became a Happy Shopper. I remember standing in the frozen food section where we used to DJ! It was a good little club! Rupert: I moved to London and started doing more electro-based stuff. I went travelling, then Luca wanted to restart the party with a hard trance shift. Luca: Well I asked permission first… Jules should be mentioned too as he used to play at North at the Country Club, Mark EG’s favourite club for years. There’s a funny story about Mark EG going to the Country Club and filling up his new Beamer with diesel. He went mad and smashed it up! Anyway Jules is important to mention as he’s the co-founder with Rupert. So eight years later I was asking permission from Rupert and George moved up so we recreated an old line-up. We’re going to have all the ressies — Jules, K-Rush, Techtonic (Gavin), MC Spin Kid — they’re basically old mates who still want to play. We want to bring everyone to play again! George: And do a DHF tour! Curious George Luca: It’s full-on banging up North, they love their hardstyle and hard trance. Nick was one of our ressies back in the day. He’s been doing parties and Rupert and George have been ressies at Hindsight. Rupert: It’s a small town so we got to know Nick well. He’s been doing it for so long — he’s stuck with it and done really well. George: He’s the Mr Hard Trance of Exeter! Luca: He’s a really nice guy as well, really lovely. I went to Hindsight last weekend and saw Nick. It was nice to go and support him. It’ll be my third weekend in Devon in a row this weekend — wicked! My friends in Devon are like my family. We’ve a really good group of friends and we’re hoping to re-launch the party with them — I can’t wait! George: I can’t wait to play my new tune. Luca: We’ll do a sound check. That room’s got the best sound in the Mass. The main room is so big, it’s hard to get the sound right. George: It’s a big long square. You’re always going to get things bending round. Luca: The sound’s better! The speakers are better. It’s better cos it’s a smaller room. So, did you manage to book a lot of big names back in the day? George: All the flyers are over there! You can see the number of names on them! Luca: We’ve loaded them up to MySpace! There’s different figures on each flyer. We should make a computer game. Check them out on MySpace. Look at the one with the three wise monkeys! George: We used to do posters! We put up loads of fluoro posters! I remember Rupert having a bucket. We used to get ourselves in a lot of trouble! Rupert: Poster missions, they were fun! George: Because we were in Devon we had to put them around all the little towns! Rupert: Covert postering in middle of the night — off to the next village! Luca: It was such a mission and the locals would get really pissed off! George: It was pretty silly being covert anyway because our email addresses and phone numbers were on the DHF flyers! Rupert: It was before MySpace, FaceBook etc could do the whole online community thing. If only we could have done that then… George: It’s a promoter’s tool. Rupert: If you’ve got 2000 people on your mailing list it’s much easier! But this was back in the days before CD mixers, CDJs were just a twinkle… Akira George: We used to say that we’d never mix on CDJs — ever… ever… evAH! I used to say I’d be like Mad Max… but then caved in! Luca: If you look at Mark EG’s cool bio, he talks about music evolving. He started around 1985, so proper old school! Since you guys first started out, technology has changed every level of dance music, from DJing, to production to promotion and distribution. How has this changed what you do, if at all? Rupert: Production is completely different now. You can make a record on Thursday arvo, bang it on CD and play it on Friday — and then you can email it out to other producers. It’s basically impossible to be successful now just as a DJ. Luca: It goes hand in hand. Why the name DHF? Rupert: Dirty hard and fast! Jules just said it one day. He just said it and it stuck! You were one of the first parties to book the likes of Nick Sentience and Mark EG. Was their music then like it is today? The scene must have been very different back then… Rupert: Completely! The kind of trance and hard house sound seems to have moulded together now. Back then to me there were they were two distinct forms. Bouncy hard house didn’t take itself seriously. The trance we used to play was very dark and minimal. Then the hard scene became very techno orientated . Nowadays all three styles have merged… Into hard dance? George: Well if you go on Track It Down the genre is hard dance! It encompasses it all under one name. Luca: But why label so many sub-genres under the one big name? Rupert: If you spoke to a proper drum & basser they’d say there’s X number of kinds of d&b. Someone who likes a bit of d&b isn’t going to be able to differentiate so clearly. It’s the same with hard dance. It may be a generalisation or a simplification, but like rock and pop it gets lumped together. George: What was that record shop in Soho we went into? Berwick St ? There were so many categories of each sub-genre, but only 3–4 records in each… so many sub-genres of sub genres. Luca: Online people aren’t so savvy. But once you’re into it you can hear the different sub-genres and identify hard house from hard trance. Candyman01 What’s improved over the years then? George: I think Luca’s the best man to answer that, as for the last few years I’ve been completely out of the scene. Luca: I’ve carried on listening to hard house, hard trance, and obviously psy in London, together with electro. There’s so many Antiworld parties I’ve been to, but I’ve always been faithful to the hard beats. I always go and see Alex Kidd and Cally & Juice. Did you know Cally and Juice played at DHF?! It’s great to see people getting into hard trance and hardstyle. I think it’s really coming back! George: I think the productions are definitely coming back. Luca: I agree totally with George. I’m hearing a lot more beats. The quality is getting better. George: It’s now so compressed. You’ve got the whole loudness thing… Rupert: I’m not sure completely how I feel about that. There’s no doubt now that tunes are a lot better produced, but part of that’s the technology, before the basic equipment completely changed dance scene more than anything else. George: The cost of a studio versus and the cost if a Mac and Logic you need to make fairly decent tunes. You can kick out a tune in 2–3 days now. Before you had to get a recording studio, then once you were happy with it, get it pressed. It just wouldn’t happen! You’d have to take a tape — a C90! Rupert: And now you can mail it to 30 other people that night! Luca: I’ve kept following the scene for many years and kept following my favourite artists. I’ve been following Mark EG for 10 years now! Other DJs like Alex Kidd and Cally & Juice — their production level, but also their style of music, I really like. People usually only play one style, not loads! Mark EG plays hardstyle, techno, hard dance — and produces. I did some research on the net and got hooked into Kid Chaos and Vandall. I agree with a lot of Nick the Kid says in his article about DJs about the power of the internet. The only bad thing is the lack of record stores, they’re where you meet people, flick through records, touch vinyl. That’s never going to die How long did your DHF parties run for and why did you stop? Rupert: We’d been doing them six years and to be honest felt we’d had enough. It’s very stressful promoting parties. The club closed down and we didn’t have it in us to do another move and do it all again. I started doing parties here [in London] and they were more electro-based. But we’re back here now and Luca’s doing it at the Mass cos that’s what he wants to do. We had a lot of fun and now some of the people we did it with are doing really well. Luca: Now DHf’s back together I want to take it to another level. I’m really honoured to be working with the guys again and really excited. I started promoting six months ago and met up with Rupert. I didn’t have any experience. Rupert went through his big sheet of notes and tips. Now six months down the line I’ve benefited from your advice Rupert! Obviously I could have done it in three months, but I really wanted to do it properly. It’s been an incredible experience and learning curve — from dealing with designers to dealing with DJs as well. I think it’s really going to launch George’s new track ‘DHF Motherfuckerz’. George: DHF Records! Luca: Yep I’d love to do a record label and take it to another level. Hard trance is kicking off again. I’ve heard from Chuckie and Jon the Baptist and their labels are doing well! They remember DHF because it was the first time they came to Devon! Do each of you have a favourite party from back in the day? Rupert: I can remember playing at the Country Club, it was an awesome awesome experience. It was the big club in the area and I always wanted to play there. But the smaller gigs when there was just you and your friends were often the best. It’s easier for us guys to just turn up and have a good laugh without the stress of running a big night. Yes it can be one of the most stressful jobs and one of the most rewarding… Rupert: Yep so some of the best ones were the low key ones that I enjoyed the most. George: I can’t pick out any one night… Rupert: The first night was pretty good! George: The first time I mixed out was pretty good! I remember thinking, “I made that noise!” Rupert: It was really really busy the first time. George: The only thing I can think of is being sick in the sink! That was not one of the best ones…. Mark EG Having booked the likes of Mark EG and Chris Liberator, who would you say are your musical influences? Rupert: I can really only talk for myself… George: Justice! Rupert: That’s now man. When we first started playing out it was BK and Andy Farley — particularly BK for the production side. Then I got more into hard trance: Scott Project, Uberdruck; I guess it was more hardstyle than trance. The Crow. Pulse — now that was an awesome record label. George: I was never one for remembering labels and tracks but even I remember Pulse! Rupert. Tracid Traxxx. Luca: Yes back in the day, Tracid Traxxx were awesome. That’s going to be one of the first tracks in my set at DHF. Rupert: That was where the sound really came from then. It was really European. Luca: Very German! The Country Club was known for the German stuff DJs used to play there. George: But it used to be in the German charts in those days! Luca: Yep Kai Tracid used to be in the charts. So what DJs and producers influence you now? George: I’m now influenced by Justice and electro stuff. A-Ku-Fin, weird electro stuff. Daft Punk. Luca: Alex Kidd and Kidd Chaos for the the harder stuff. Mark EG for techno. Rupert: I’ve been digging out my old records… George: Tommy D — I’ve just discovered Tommy D and Outbraver. I also do kind of like hardstyle, like Alex Kidd and Kidd Kaos. Rupert: Yeah when I started out I had a few remixes by Yoji. Luca: I saw Lab4 and Yoji in Japan at Velfarre, a big club in Tokyo. They were playing at an after-hours. The clubs in the UK are so different. Could you please tell us a bit about your DJing backgrounds? Rupert: What started it for me was I went to Dreamscape 27 on NYE. I remember coming home and saying, “I’m going to do that.” George: Yeah we went for the D&B and spent the whole time in the happy hardcore room! Rupert: We were with our friend Daryl who worked at HMV. We bought his entire record collection! Then the buzz wore off and we moved on. George: Do you remember our first set of decks? They were Kam belt drives. You had to switch between 36 & 45. You had to change it and it took ages! My Mum was really into clubbing. She used to wake me up at 7am in the morning when she got home and make me play! Once she brought this DJ home and she made me mix for him. It’s 7am and I’m 15 ffs! She’s coming up on Friday and bringing a load of people. Rupert: It started out as a group of friends. We started to play the guitar, then decided to mix. Then we decided to play out. George: Then we progressed to DHF and realised if you book good names people will come! Please tell us the story behind your DJ names. George: Mine’s quite easy. I read a book at College about a monkey. There was a picture of him lying in the hospital and he’d just snorted a bottle of ether and was sleep with the ether next to him. I decided to call myself ‘Curious George’ given that my name is George! Rupert: I just loved that film Akira. Luca: Mine’s got a bit of a double meaning. I really like the horror film. It’s a bit of a silly one as there’s two meanings — one from the film and one with dodgy undertones. George: You’re making yourself sound like a freak! Rupert: I got confused with a Dutch DJ called DJ Akira. People used to come up to me and say “I thought you were Dutch!” The dance scene has recently been affected by the smoking ban and credit crunch, and some are saying that dance music is being pushed back underground. Do you agree with this? Rupert: Personally I can see how the smoking ban and credit crunch have affected clubland but there’s been a big trend to go back to illegal parties ? and why not?! One of the reasons dance music became cheesy was the rise of the super-DJ and the super-club. What was very underground and very anti-establishment became very commercial. Not it’s going back to its roots. People are going to it because they like the music, not just because it’s a big place so they might be able to meet girls. Now there’s fewer idiots and less trouble. George: My Mum did an event last weekend, a really underground night in Devon. There were 200 people and 2 ambulances, a massive fight and the toilets got flooded. Rupert: But that’s human nature and the darker side of life. We’re taking the underground back where it came from for the people who’re doing what they love. Shit’s always going to go down. But the smoking ban has really screwed clubland. George: I queued for half and hour in Fabric for a cigarette! Rupert: At the moment there’s five pubs a day going bust! That’s a shocking idea when you think about it. People have less expendable income, so they’re now going to places for free. So it has to be more of a party than a business. Luca: But you’re now sometimes more likely to get the venue for free. Now you have to much more professional, but it’s lost its nice aura… Rupert: But club owners are in the same boat… Chris Liberator What do you wish you’d known when you put on an event that you know now? Rupert: The benefit of hindsight! George: I wish I’d known how to produce properly back in the day. Plus I wouldn’t have got as hammered. So many times I had to pass my set on to someone else and finish my set in the toilets! But it’s still fun as well. Luca: And you don’t want to lose that! George: Having a sense of fun when arranging the party definitely rubs off. If people see a guy enjoying himself and jumping round like a madman… Luca: That’ll be me! George: Luca Mark EG’s broken his hand. What are you going to do? Luca: Well then what can you do? George: Dress up as Mark EG and pretend to be him! We can make you some spikes! Finally, what are you looking forward to the most on Friday? Luca: Having followed Mark EG for years I’ve never seen him play with Chris so seeing them together going back to back will be monstrous! Seeing all my mates plus to relaunch this is an honour! George: I can’t wait to see the look on Luca’s face when Mark EG starts playing! DHF Re Launch Party On: Friday 26th September 2008 At: Mass [map] From: 11pm to 7am Cost: £10 Ticket Info: www.toomuchbutneverenough.com Email maria@toomuchbutneverenough.com to join paying guest list £10! Buy Online: Click here to buy tickets More: DHF was born through a trio of motivations: youthful enthusiasm, the desire to ?create? something of our own and the profound love of music. Hard trance was a popular, but still underground, form of music in early 2000. DJs like Mark E.G and Nick Sentience (who headlined our first gig) have since gone to vastly successful, globe trotting careers since we first opened our doors at The Grove in Seaton. So, right from the start, I like to think we had our fingers firmly on the pulse of the zeitgeist. Several years later, long after I finally felt DHF had run its original course; We are back, its an incredibly exciting idea to think that our concept will once again be revived, showcasing new breed of Trance, Hard trance, Hardstyle and Techno. The music has gone through great evolution; inspired by more minimal, industrial, electro sound scopes and yet still melodic ? with a startling freshness and urgency pulsating through those baselines. So now we invite you to join us, on this new journey. We are ready as ever to take DHF to the next level very soon! See you all there! Peace The DHF Crew Flyer: - Region: London Music: Hard Trance. HardStyle. Techno. DJ's: Mark EG Chris Liberator Nick The Kid Curious George Akira Candyman01 Who's Going? (5) : cheerio, CLK, Maria, Tara, ViKa  Share this :: : : : Follow HarderFaster :: Other Features By Tara: Blasting towards summer festivals with Bahar Canca ahead of Psy-Sisters Spring Blast! 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