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Features
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| Introducing NEM3SI$’s new label Infinite Resistance! | | Mindbenderz talk ‘Lord of the Rings’ and fishing, as well as the creation of their new album ‘Celestial Gateway’! | | Iono-Music artists One Function, Eliyahu, Invisible Reality and Dual Vision talk Robert Miles, kids, dogs and vinyl, while we chat about their current releases! | | Luke&Flex talk influences, the Irish rave scene, why Flex wears a mask and Play Hard, their new EP out now on Onhcet Repbulik Xtreme! | | Lyktum expands on his new album ‘Home’ – talking about his love of storytelling, creating new harmonies and the concept behind his musical works. | | Pan talks getting caught short crossing the Sahara, acid eyeballs and tells us Trance is the Answer, plus shares his thoughts on his latest release 'Beyond the Horizon' - all from a beach in Spain! | | Miss C chats about living with the KLF, DJing in a huge cat’s mouth, training her brain and the upcoming super-duper Superfreq Grande party at LDN East this Saturday, 16th September! | | NEM3SI$ - 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! |
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Nolan Element 7: The Hard Dance Awards
Reported by Victoria Blue Bear
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Submitted 23-01-06 18:34
"And, the winner is............" Yes, ladies and gentlemen it's getting close to that time again when all the bosheratti get together for what is now becoming the seminal hard house night of the year. You've guessed it, it's the Hard Dance Awards.
The HDAs are the brainchild of Ed Real and Nolan Element 7 who decided it was about time that people within this boyant and vibrant scene deserved recognition. It was also a pretty damn good excuse to hold a party where clubbers, djs, producers, promoters, website owners, and everyone involved in hard dance can get together to celebrate the last 12 months.
The first one was held at AKA bar in London, followed by a full-on club night in The End. Thousands of people voted and the night was a rousing success. Buoyed on by the support, the awards expanded and last year’s hellraiser was at Air in Birmingham. This year the awards party is back in London, and this time it’s got the biggest line-up to date.
Over that time, there has been a lot of blood, sweat, tears and late nights at the office, but three year down the line it’s now an established and respected institution which gets support from all over the world, as people yearn to get a golden glowstick. In fact the first two held at The End in London and Air In Birmingham were incredibly good fun, and brilliant nights were had by award winners and fans alike.
Ed Real as we know is no stranger to the limelight and is firmly associated with the Hard Dance Awards. Busy in the background however, making sure it all happens, is his partner in crime Nolan, so it was him I spoke to to find out a little bit more about the Hard Dance Awards before its third glittering party on Saturday 11th February 2006.
The Hard Dance Awards are now in their third year, but what made you start them in the first place
At the time I was working with Ed on Riot! events and wanted to do something special at the end of the year, so decided that it was time the hard dance scene had its own awards... the truth is we just wanted to throw one hell of a year end bash and this seemed the best way to get everyone involved... The Hard Dance Awards were born.
BK, Nolan and Ed Real at the first Hard Dance Awards
Where were the first ones held, and how have the awards evolved since then?
Riot! was packing out The End every last Sunday of the month and the December event fell nicely a couple of days before Christmas. We knew everyone was going to be finishing up work and in the mood for some seriously debauched shenanigans so we took over the swanky AKA bar upstairs and held the awards in front of 300 people before heading downstairs to go hard all night long with the Riot! faithful.
In 2004 we decided to take the awards on tour and head North. The team at Polysexual said they would be honoured to host the awards at Godskitchen’s superclub Air and so we set about putting together a bigger and better show. The line up was immence and the clubbers came out in force to support it, we had a full house by 11pm. The awards had gained so much support that we had organised a special Hard Dance Awards album and DVD pack with live footage from the event so we had 5 cameras running round the venue capturing it all. It really was a very special night.
What kind of organisation goes into creating the awards each year?
We start by securing an event partner; this year we’re working with the lovely people at Most Wanted to produce our own event at the Fridge in Brixton. Once we have an awards event we then take care of the website and online voting process. Every award gets sponsored by an industry figure so we then have to deal with that. Once all that is sorted we go on a press mission tying in the big community sites in each region to get everyone voting. When voting closes we count up all the votes and notify those who made it to the top three and request their attendance.
We have Ed & Anne Savage presenting the awards again this year. Although they know what they are doing we have to produce a running order and compile the video screen graphics etc. etc. The nightmare starts when we start compiling the guestlist for the event, oh and the awards themselves! The golden glowsticks are made with my own fair hands and it takes a couple of days to make all 16. I’m not in the slightest bit artistic so I’ve always been really proud of them.
How do you ensure that no cheating takes place?
We put some pretty stringent coding into the website that checks for the voters’ IP address, email address and voting patterns. We also hand check the results on a massive spread sheet and it’s fairly easy to spot any foul play. Having said that when your getting 7500 votes you’d have to do an aweful lot of cheating to make a difference.
Nolan, Ed Real and friend with a famous golden glowstick
Do you thinking starting the awards has had a positive affect on hard dance?
Absolutely. Obviously it’s great PR for the scene, labels, artists and promoters that get involved and also win awards, but with this year’s awards we’re giving the opportunity for up and coming DJs to win a set in Room 2 via the online communities such as Harderfaster. What better way to get your first break than playing at an event that is going to be full of industry types.
There are 16 categories at the moment. Are their any plans to create more in the future?
Not at the moment but never say never.
Who votes for the awards? Is it just voters from the UK, or is it worldwide?
It’s worldwide. We get a lot of votes from The Netherlands, Australia and Japan but it’s fair to say the majority of the voting comes from Blighty.
It’s not long now till the big party itself. What can people who’ve never been to one of the first parties expect? Will it be any different from the first two?
Expect to see all the big names getting trashed on the dancefloor!!! We’re going all out this year to put on the best hard dance event of the year. We have an amazing line up which will be complimented with a full on lighting and visual show. The awards will be presented on stage by the lovely Anne Savage and Mr Ed Real so expect some good humour too.
Anne Savage and Rob Tissera presenting at the first awards
Why is the awards such a big deal? And why should people vote?
Because hard dance is a big deal. Thousands of people embrace this vibrant scene and it deserves to have it's own awards to celebrate the enjoyment it gives us all. Make your vote count, have your say at www.harddanceawards.com
Who is going to win?
The clubbers who make it to the Fridge on the 11th Feb for the Awards party, get your tickets now!
You’re also involved in trackitdown.net, the online digital music site. Why did you decide to start this and how is it going? Do you have any special plans.
I’ve been doing dance music since I was 11 years old so it’s really all I know. As I said, Ed and I had been working together on events for a while and both wanted to start something exciting and new, get in on the ground floor of the next big thing. Although everyone had been downloading music from the internet for a long time, it was only the summer of 2003 where it became clear to me that this was the future of music sales. Over a 6 month period Ed and I developed the idea, quit the security of full time paid employment, I sold my house and we went headlong into building trackitdown.net. Two years later I’m a bit older, a lot wiser and extremely tired but the site and our affiliate stores around the world are doing really really well, helping many labels to bring their music to a world audience.
We keep our cards pretty close to our chest most of the time but needless to say 2006 is not a year where we will be slowing down. We have some big plans on the table for trackitdown and new projects that we are starting this summer so watch this space.
What measures do you put in place to try and combat illegal downloading? We know you’re quite opinionated in this area...
I’m quite opinionated about everything! Anyone who works in dance music knows full well that it’s not the cash cow it once was. I know far too many label owners and artists who no longer put music out because they can’t afford to and that’s bad for everyone involved. You wouldn’t walk into HMV and walk out with a bunch of CDs so why think it’s ok to download them for free on the net? Support your scene or it will disappear. We have some special technology that allows us to trace any file downloaded from our network back to its original owner... so if you buy something from us, then share it through P2P networks you can expect that sooner or later the copyright holder is going to catch up with you.
So you think illegal downloading will kill dance music, or do you think it will just encourage people to work in different ways?
Funnily enough I read in the Metro today that for the first time there have been more legal downloads in the UK than from illegal sources. I don’t think anything can kill dance music, indeed downloads are making the game a whole lot more interesting. We’re dealing with over 2000 labels now and we are just scratching the service. We’re able to deliver new music from producers all around the world so essentially accessing new and interesting sounds has never been easier.
OK, so we know quite a lot about the HDAs and TID Nolan, but what about you. How did you get into dance music?
When I was 8 years old at primary school I was kinda in a band but I didn’t want to play drums or guitar, I wanted turntables... maybe it was seeing pop videos from Salt & Pepper where their DJ Spinderella just looked way cooler than playing an instrument. I used to get the Deep Heat compilation series on tape and mix them together on my Dad’s stereo, that was something like 1988, I just loved the music, acid house spoke to me! I grew up in a small village in the middle of the Cotswolds, there were no other kids my age, so I was left to my own entertainment... when I was 11 I bought my first set of decks having gotten really into my Fantazia and Obsession mix tapes from the big raves. By the time I was 14 I was playing main stage sets at raves held at the Milton Keynes Sanctuary... I’m not sure my school friends really understood what I did at weekends!
Do you ever get any spare time, and what do you get up to in this time?
I don’t get much at all and if I do I normally fill it with more work. It’s not unusual for me to work 36hrs straight in the office, and for the pedants out there yes I do it ‘straight’. I’m absolutely passionate about work and take a great deal of pleasure from it. Having said that the last couple of years have been a bit excessive and I’d like to get back to a stage where I address the balance and spend some time doing normal things at weekends.
Thanks Nolan for your time and thanks to Amy and Anders for their photography.
2005 Hard Dance Awards Party
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On:
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Saturday 11th February 2006
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At:
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The Fridge [map]
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From:
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10pm till 6am
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Cost:
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£15 advance MOTD
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Website:
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www.harddanceawards.com
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Buy Online:
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Click here to buy tickets
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More:
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Tickets are already selling on www.ticketweb.co.uk for the ceremony on 11th February 2006 at The Fridge, in London. Lee Bridle, owner of Most Wanted Events has been overwhelmed:
“I have been promoting events like Extreme Euphoria and Twisted for nearly 10 years and I have never seen tickets sell for an event the other side of Xmas and NYE – it’s unheard of!”
Such is the demand the Hard Dance Awards team has decided to announce the names of the hard dance high achievers ahead of schedule. Leading the charge will be The Tidy Boys and BK who will be supported by Nu Energy Collective Live, Paul Glazby, Amber D, Andy Whitby, Organ Donors, Danny D and Phil York. All the artists have been hand picked to represent a cross-section of the genre and the players within it. Together they’ll form an incredible powerhouse of explosive music, experience and personality.
Returning once again to host and announce the winners and top-runners will be London’s unofficial party monster Ed Real, and the very official Queen of the Clubs Ms. Anne Savage. Both of whom will also be gracing the decks on the night to present the ultimate hard dance line-up any of us can remember!
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Flyer:
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Other Features By Victoria Blue Bear:
An interview with Twist resident Peter Ward
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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![[HarderFaster] - Work Hard, Play Harder!](/images/mainbanner_top1-xmas.gif)
Witcked stuff Nolan 
Well done Captain Shadders.
