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Features
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| 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! |
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Storm vs Frantic preview with whizzkid Barry Diston — Part 2 of the HF Production Masterclass
Reported by benz
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Submitted 06-09-05 02:03
For the second installment of the Harderfaster Production Masterclass series, we are pleased to bring you one of the most talented and respected producers in hard dance today — Barry Diston. His work rate is prolific, with over 60 releases under his belt since 2002, making him one of the most hardworking producers in the country, and as well as producing tracks of his own he also engineers and produces for artists and bands across the musical spectrum. He runs and owns two studios, DJs as far afield as the US on a regular basis, and now with his stunning live show has reached his creative zenith thus far.
Barry first came to the forefront of the scene in 2002, when his debut track ‘DJs Do Pills’ got snapped up by Sundissential Records for a full release. He had been running his own night Fidget in Coventry since June 2001, and this release enabled him to get his name known across the country. December of 2002 saw the inception of his own label, Fidget Records (later also spawning the Fidget Hard offshoot) and the beginning of his status as one of the hottest new producers around. An attention to detail, brilliantly-produced and inventive tracks and simply a knack for writing good, catchy music were the things that were causing Barry to be the name on everyone’s lips.
A few years later and we now find Barry at the top of his game, still churning out quality release after quality release whilst circulating around the country with his much-lauded DJ sets and live shows and continuing to help others realise their musical visions. Saturday 24 September will see him perform for his beloved CyberKitten at the massive Storm vs Frantic soundclash at The Emporium in Coalville, in what promises to be a no-holds barred smackdown between three of the country's mightiest hard house titans. Barry had a natter with me in the run-up to the event, and I took the chance to conduct part two of the HF Production Masterclass as well as getting the inside story on his rise to fame and his current activities. If you don’t know already, you really should.
Easy Bazza... You burst onto the hard dance scene in 2002 as both a DJ and producer, and at 25 you’ve accomplished a great deal in a relatively short period of time. Care to tell us some of your best highlights?
A lot has happened in the last 3 years, 2003 saw my first visit to the U.S.A, I got booked to play on the strength of my records becoming really popular over there, and it was great fun. More recently, my records have appeared on many mainstream club albums. These include Infinity mixed by Lisa Pin-Up, collaboration tracks with A-Star, which have landed on the Lisa Lashes Lashed Album, and the Nukleuz Hard House Anthems series. I’ve been working on a number of projects with A-Star and since last year, we have been producing the Lashed Digital radio show on Pure Dance for Sky TV. It’s aired every Thursday evening from 9pm on Channel 890!
Looking forward to the future, next year we are in the process of putting another U.S. tour together again, and in the meantime I’m working on an exciting overseas collaboration track with DJ Qubit (Brian Kitchener) from Denver in the U.S. We’re writing together over the internet and it looks set to be a monster. And currently a catalogue of tracks from both my labels Fidget and Fidget Hard are available on www.trackitdown.net
Apparently you were invited along with a numbers of other producers to participate in the Lashed television commercial to promote the compilation, what was that like?
Great fun! It was really good to to spend the day with some of the top stars of the scene including Lisa, BK, Paul Glazby and Charlotte Birch to name a few. The commercial was filmed in Birmingham at Code during the daytime, although we had a lot of difficulty at the end trying to leave when most of us had our cars clamped for failing to display a ticket to park in the car park! Oops.
Tell us about your new studio set up...
Well, I’m adding to it all the time. My latest major addition was earlier this year when I had Studio 2 built next door. A big project, it took a few months to build it and soundproof it, but it’s done now and it’s looking all nice and spangly with lots of shiny new kit. Special thanks to Lee Amos who pretty much built the whole thing from the ground upwards. Another recent addition is the digital mixing desk. It’s loads better than the old analogue one — instant recall of clients’ projects and mixdowns at the flick of a switch! Then there’s all the synths... I could talk about all this all day so I’m gonna stop here — but for anyone interested in the setup take a look at www.fidget-studios.com— there’s loads of info and pictures on there, lots of toys with flashing lights.
Has there been a noticeable improvement in your production since you purchased all this new kit?
Yeah, keeping up to date with new hardware and software always adds a new touch to the productions. Producing all sorts of different music always keeps my productions interesting. I’m constantly learning new things while working with the variety of styles of music I produce. By crossing tricks and ideas from one style of music to another all productions naturally evolve and improve.
Do you produce and engineer for artists outside of the hard dance scene?
Sure do, you’d be surprised at the different styles of music I produce and engineer here at the studios, although my number one love is for the hard dance sound. Music I produce and engineer in Studio 1 involves everything from speed garage to hardcore, and all sorts in between including breaks, trance, progressive, and even more commercial sounds including Paul Morrell’s Remixes for Matt Darey’s tracks and tunes that Dave Pearce plays on Radio 1 Dance Anthems!
Studio 2 sees more live music in which we have bands from all over the world come here to have their music mastered onto CD. It’s a nice break engineering music for bands and although I’m not really into the band scene I do enjoy engineering the music.
When did you start producing? Have you always been making hard dance or did you get lead astray to the darkside from a love of another genre?
The first style of music I was into was hardcore, although by the time I wanted to have a shot at writing a hard dance track, it was hard house that had become my favourite flavour. I think it was in 2001 when I had the idea for ‘DJs Take Pills’ with the help of Rob Pearson at Online Studios and my good friend Ricky Glassey. We spent a few days in Rob’s Studio in London putting the track together. A year later it got signed with Sundissential Records, and onto their album. After having a taste for it, I gave up my full time job, then a website designer/programmer, to start producing music full time, and to be honest I’ve never looked back!
September 24th sees you play for Cyberkitten at Storm vs Frantic at The Emporium in Coalville. Have you been to this legendary night spot before? What can you tell us about the place?
Yes, yes, The Emporium brings back many happy memories of my first few years of clubbing. Back in the day of JFK, and a rubber chicken called Charlie! That’s about all I remember actually, but something in the back of my mind tells me that I had some of the best times ever. To have the opportunity to come back to play a set at this venue is awesome. And a double pleasure that it’s for CyberKitten.
How did you become involved with Cyberkitten in the first place?
It was through my good friend and co-producer on many Fidget releases — Steve Gillen. Steve used used to come up and play for me at my promotion, Fidget, in Coventry. Steve introduced me to Yojo and Colin at Cyberkitten in MK. We got on really well and they invited me back to play. Simple as that. Yojo and Col are top party people and definitely switched on promoters — honestly they are two of the soundest you’ll meet in our industry. The precision and effort they put into their events is inspiring.
Barry and Yojo from CyberKitten
After playing for CyberKitten regularly, they made me an official CyberKitten resident in March 2005 at a CK Tour date in Birmingham for BBtB. I was booked to perform my live act in the CyberKitten Arena — what a night that was! In the last two years I’ve had many a good night at CyberKitten. It was Yojo and Col who gave me the opportunity to perform my live act for the very first time at a CyberKitten in Milton Keynes. A brave pair they are, anything could have gone wrong! But the whole thing went extremely well and the months of preparation really paid off. There’s nothing quite like playing to a CyberKitten crowd. The energy and enthusiasm you get from their clubbers is amazing.
I take it you are DJing on the night.... do you prefer DJing or doing your live PA thang? And which do you get more gigs with at the moment?
The live sets are great. I really enjoy doing these — it’s such a buzz. The whole performance is completely live, riffs included (thanks mom for all the piano lessons you made me sit through when I was a kid — it has paid off!). Performing live is much more demanding and because it’s all live, anything could go wrong, especially in a club where it’s hot and your fingers are a bit sweaty. It’s really difficult playing complex riffs and trying to avoid the odd finger slipping off a black note onto a white one on the keyboard but it just adds to the excitement and the buzz I get. When I come off the stage and everything has gone really well — it’s incredibly satifying. I only like to do these shows every so often as it keeps my work fresh. As well, it takes ages to prepare and equally it also takes ages putting the whole studio back together after! People tell me they don’t know why I bother, that I could just stick on a pre-recorded minidisk and no-one would know the difference, but it’d just take the buzz out of it — so it’s staying live.
On the live front, future dates include a main room set at the Sanctuary in Birmingham on the 20th August 2005 for Rave Aid and again live in the main room at the Fridge on September 10th. I’m getting more DJ gigs at the moment than live gigs. It’s a lot easier to do regular 12” sets than to play live, and I really do enjoy being able to play at a club without having to stress about carting my whole studio about, setting it up on stage and then taking it back and putting it back together the next morning.
What kind of stuff do you play in your DJ sets? Are you generally pretty open minded?
Quite open minded really, I sometimes get asked by promoters to play either hard trance or just hard. As a rough guide, and because I’m often producing a lot of new material in the studio, I usually play a few new tracks in my set and a few classic Fidget releases along with other new tracks I like. I usually like to drop a couple of classic classics in as well. I like to keep my sets varied, but always structure them accordingly to suit the night and most importantly to suit the clubbers. I like to see myself as a clubber’s DJ. I enjoy playing tracks for the crowd. I always make time before and after playing to catch up with the people who come to support what I do. I’ve never liked arrogant DJs. That’s not my style. Despite the successes that have come my way I’ve kept level headed and my feet firmly on the ground.
What do you find to be the most difficult part of making a tune? Do you ever get really stuck or does this not happen to you?
Fortunately I don’t often get stuck for ideas when it comes to making tunes. A lot of people find writing riffs difficult, but because of my musical background it’s one of my strong points. I could write riffs and chord progressions all day long. I’m engineering and co-producing tracks most of the week and I do worry that one day the ideas will dry up, but they haven’t yet!
When was your last big night out? Where did you go, and what happened?
My last big night out was my live set at the Sanctuary in Birmingham at the weekend. It was a fab night and great to see the place packed out, the whole event went really well. I’m playing most weekends now, so I don’t often get chance to just go out somewhere for a night out but I do wherever possible. After I’ve played out at a club I’ll usually stick around and enjoy the rest of the party..
If you hadn’t become a DJ/producer, what do you think you would be doing? What would your calling in life be?
Well, I’d probably still be working full time as a website designer/programmer, alongside whatever other exciting ventures I’d have kept going. I’ve always had a bit of a business head on me and my past business ventures have involved everything from property investment and computer sales to travelling around the country playing gambling machines for profit after discovering bugs in the software!
What would be your best advice for aspiring producers? What good advice have you been given along the way?
Make your music stand out, always aim to put something new and exciting in each production and always try and keep your sounds fresh. Also, get a set of Mackie HR824 Studio monitors, they’re awesome.
Barry will be playing at Red & Blue's night Colours on Saturday 10 September 2005.
Photos courtesy of Yojo @ CyberKitten
Frantic vs Storm
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On:
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Saturday 24th September 2005
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At:
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The Emporium [map]
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From:
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21:00-06:00
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Cost:
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VERY Limited Early Bird Tickets only £10 + B.F.
Standard Tickets £12.50 + B.F.
MORE on the door!
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Website:
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www.franticuk.com
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Ticket Info:
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Ticketweb 24 Hour Hotline 08700 600 100 / www.ticketweb.co.uk
Frantic HQ 07949 618 035 / amanda@franticuk.com
We will be running Coach&Ticket packages from London.
We will also be selling standalong Standard and Early Bird Tickets.
Tidy
Tickets are available at a discount for Tidy FC members.
www.tidyfc.com or call 01709 710022
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Buy Online:
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Click here to buy tickets
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More:
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At last! The party the Hard House scene has been waiting for is here!
Frantic: The most influential champion of Hard House in the UK!
vs
Storm: The Midland’s No. 1 Hard House club!
For one very special night these two Hard House Titans will join forces to bring you a truly memorable night complete with a solid-gold line up featuring some of the most in-demand performers in the scene.
Storm heroes Daley and Garbo are joined by a stellar cast of the sought after hard-edged talent in the land. The most popular live PA in the country in 2005, Nu Energy Collective, bring their unique brand of chaos to the West Midlands, alongside their good friend and Hard Dance Awards DJ of The Year 2005 Proteus. Extreme isn’t the word! Mark EG brings his unique hard European stylings to the dancefloor, and two bonafide Hard House legends Lisa Pin Up and Phil Reynolds will be in attendance to remind Coalville why they are so highly revered. We’ve also got the massively popular Wid & Ben showing why they are on everyone’s lips at the moment, as well as Frantic’s superstar Young Guns - Cally Gage and Andy Whitby!
As if this sickening line-up wasn’t enough on its own, Room 2 will be taken over by the UK’s fastest growing Hard House night Cyberkitten, featuring a line-up so filthy it would make Larry Flynt blush!
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Flyer:
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The views and opinions expressed in this review are strictly those of the author only for which HarderFaster will not be held responsible or liable.
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