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"Carl's Garage and House Website"
95 North, Washington D.C, Usa - Official Interview - May, 1997
Q..Deep Dish and yourselves have more that put Washington DC on the map as regards to Garage and Deep House? But has this lead to difficulties? For example the dance music press. Have they tried to put down your music achievements now that you are highly regarded within Garage!
A. Not really. If anything, some folks in the press have tended focus only on Deep Dish, BT, Alcatraz, etc., thinking that no one else in D.C. is worth writing or talking about. But that's O.K. because we're going to keep doing our thing. When we and other producers in the Baltimore/Washington area get our massive hit, we'll see what happens.
Q.. Have you got a good relationship with the Press as a whole??? Do you constantly worry that you might be misquoted?? And have you??- For the most part. We really don't worry about being misquoted, although it did happen to us once. Someone quoted us as saying that Strictly Rhythm had fallen off as an indie label, when what really said was that, "Strictly releases so much music that the quality had slipped on some of the releases."
Q ..You mentioned in your last interview that you were to visit England? What where your impressions of England's club culture especially concerning Garage and Deephouse music?.
A..We think the Sunday scene is really cool! It's nice to see black people getting back into house music. We haven't had a chance to work with anyone in the scene yet, although Tim Deluxe and Omar did do some remixes of the song we did on Resolution Records called "Don't Go". We also recently did some Sunday scene style remixes for AM:PM and for DJ Disciple's label, Catch 22 Records.
Q ..Many DJ's within England have stated that given a choice they would not DJ in London because the clubs there are so pretentious
Did you find this the case when visiting these clubs on a social basis, or when working as DJ's??
A. It depends on the club and the clientele. We've had good gigs at Garage City, Camden Palace, the Satellite Club, and Mas Y Mas (London). But I will say that the best clubs did seem to be ones up north like Back 2 Basics (Leeds) and DiY (Nottingham).
Q ..One plus that can be labeled about the London club scene is the strength of the Pirate Radio setup, which is "fueling the fire", or spreading the gospel. Where you impressed by this Radio Scene or Not?? Where you asked to take part within their programs whilst you were visiting; And did you ??
A. We are absolutely impressed with the pirate radio scene in the U.K. It helps to give our music much needed exposure. In previous trips to the U.K, we did live mix shows on Girls FM that were well received.
Q. .Recent reports state that DJ Disciple and Benji Candelerio are now living in London. Could this be something you could be wanting to do in the future!!!- No offense, but probably not. We'd be leaving too much behind in America if we moved to the U.K.
Q ..Moving back to your area of the world at present. Are you residents at any House clubs within the Washington area??- We're residents at a club in D.C. called Red. We play there every other Saturday night from midnight to 6 a.m.
Q. .Has an appreciation of Garage taken place within Washington D.C? Or is it still dominated by the sounds of Hiphop, Swing, Rock and GO-GO
A. .Washington D.C is still dominated by R&B, hip-hop, go-go and pop music. Until radio gets behind garage and deep house (which is highly unlikely), the scene will always be small.
Q. .What about the state of Radio within the City of Washington D.C. For instance is there something similarto the huge networks of pirate radio that exits within the UK popularizing dance music much more than television ever could???- The only thing close to the London pirate radio scene in the U.S. is college radio. However, even college radio is dominated by other forms of music like jazz, classical and hip-hop. There are some stations that have house music mixshows, like WEAA in Baltimore, Maryland, but nothing on the scale of say, Girls FM in London.
Q ..Not asking you to give away the secrets about how you come about your sound. I would like to ask how do you go about creating a new tune?? Do you write down your Lyrics first and then tailor your sounds around them? Or is it the other way round. Sounds and effects first, then the lyrics second? Or is there any method that you prefer to use??
A. It depends on the what we're working on. If it's a vocal, sometimes we'll start with the lyrics first, other times we'll have a rough track that we write lyrics to.
If we're doing a track, we may start off with a simple 4/4 beat and then add to it, or build a track around a particular sample. We really don't have a set way of creating our music.
Q ..Talking about effects its been noticed that a lot of DJ's worldwide are using the old Jazz Hammomd piano sound within their Garage compositions (Steve "Silk" Hurley used this to great effect during the early 1990's...??) Is this something that you enjoy employing yourselves Or do your favour creating your own sounds using the newest computerized musical equipment.
A. We use the Hammond sound occasionally, but we really try to experiment with different sounds each time we do something. It helps to keep our sound fresh. Sometimes We'll just take a sound that we're used to and run it through a new effect to make it sound brand new again.
Q.. you instead prefer the use of real instruments when making up new tracks, etc. Or do you prefer to use the "sample" approach to creating new songs?? Is it possible that you combined the two techniques together???
A. We combine both. However the majority of the time we use real instruments i.e. keyboards, and if possible, saxes and guitars. We try not to limit ourselves to just
real instruments or just samples, because ultimately, if you don't change your sound, people start to talk shit about you. Look at what happened to Armand Van Helden before he kicked everybody's ass last year with his remixes of CJ Bolland, Tori Amos and Nuyorican Soul!
Q ..Coming from a Hiphop background has this allowed you to add another dimension to your music!!
A. Most definitely. We incorporate hip-hop breaks and drum sounds into our tracks all the time. Being hip-hop fans allows us to appreciate the use of a sample as an instrument. It has also made us keenly aware of the raw power and potency of the drum in dance music. Without drums, you have no dance music.
Q .Is there another music that has influenced lately that in some way could see play apart of the music that you make at present??? For instances Jungle??? What did you make of Jungle... you must of heard it???- We really liked the Sunday scene stuff we heard in the U.K, and have incorporated some of the elements into some upcoming material. As far as Jungle is concerned, we were skeptical at first, but now we really like it, especially the jazzier stuff that's out there. We might even make some drum-n-bass in the future!
Q .For instances certain elements of Jungle like "Time Stretching" that have started to cross over into Garage.Is this something that could creep into your works???
A. Actually, time stretching is not a Jungle innovation. House producers have been doing it for years.We've been doing it for awhile now ourselves.I think the Reggae style basslines in drum-n-bass is what you might see creep into our music, although we have used such basslines in the past work.
Q. Changing the subject again will you be, or are you already thinking up of starting up your own record label??? And if so will it be run on the lines of signing up local talent only, or will it be about signing up talent world wide???
A. We may start up a label in the fall of 1997.Our focus will be on releasing what we consider to be good dance music. We don't care who does it or where it comes from.
Q. .The other group in town who are Deep Dish are another success story of Washington D.C. What would we like to know, "is there any rivalry between you??? ;"do you keep in touch with one another" on a musical basis? Maybe there is a chance of you teaming up together to make a single???
A. There is no rivalry between us and Deep Dish. They do their thing and we do ours. We keep in touch with one another just to keep up on each other's current projects and to exchange DATs of unreleased material. We hope that we can collaborate on a project in the future.
Q ..Last year you released a single that was on every lips, but didn't get the credit that it deserved. The single was called "Don't go" featuring Heather C. How did this single project come about? Who arranged for Heather to be your singer on that single? Is there any future plans to use her again?
A. We wrote "Don't Go" in 1992 for a singer named Lynn Lockamy. We tried shopping it to several labels, but we couldn't get a deal for it. We gave it to our manager in 1994 who, in turn, gave it to a friend of his in England. She, in turn, gave it to Heather, who was her sister.On our first trip to the U.K. in 1995, we hooked up with Heather, recorded the vocals, and then took the song back the U.S. to work on it. We finally got it done in January of 1996.
We may work with her again in the future once get the right song for her.
Anyway, thanks for your time.
I'm sure we are going to hear more from you within record producing reports this year!!!
(This report is of the responsibility of Richard Payton - 95 North Productions,(Washington. D.C USA) and Carl Brown, Ipswich,(England).
Any part of this report that you would like to use
then you will have to gain the permission of these 2 parties to do so.
This is copyrighted!!
carl@garage-music.com
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