Page 28 - Zone Magazine Issue 013

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We didn’t learn about Ireland for example, you know, and also inner city London, we just didn’t learn about these things that were already happening. You’d see it on the BBC with a very posh voice ‘well I say you know in Brixton today there’s a riot’. And you think bloody hell I’m not driving through Brixton, without understanding what the riot was about and why and what it was for. And Hip Hop, because it was poetic, and yet it brought you in because it was so well told, so that obviously the message was really, really important, you learnt...I mean I learnt so much, I think he ended up teaching at Harvard, but I learnt so much from KRS One, so much from KRS One and even then when Hip Hop started to change and become a little bit more brutal, a little bit more gang banging, even when Wu-Tang tried to whitewash our religion with German sculptures, there’s so much to learn from these poets that, Hip Hop for me was not just influential it was a learning process and I could learn about other societies and then you had English Hip Hop coming through with Hijack, Blade...I mean Blade was about inner city London, I was on the coast in Brighton, not having an easy life but definitely what these guys were doing.
And you learn about that and it was non- centred, highly important and it just shows what was missing at school. So, it was thoroughly inspirational, it was inspirational from a musical perspective from people like Redlet, DJ Paul Hure just going around, I don’t wear a cowboy hat, I leave that for Thomas H Green who you see around here looking like a confederate agent, but he was going around with a cowboy hat in some fucking white car, with speakers out the back playing music to people. Not giving them a choice, like you should listen to this, you are going to listen, we’re going to do a block party, you’re going to listen. So, it was inspirational from the do it yourself perspective which we had from punk but I couldn’t play an instrument, I mean I tried to learn piano but I got too emotional when I actually read music and would end up crying cos it was just too much for me, it was like ‘ah I can’t do this’. So, electronics gave me that sort of
separation from emotion that I could do music, and of course turntablism we were looking at this going ‘fuck this is amazing’. This was truly amazing. So yeah, I mean Hip Hop definitely moved me forward to DJ’ing but also got me politically aware too.
Do you ever go back to what you used to listen to then?
Oh, yeah a lot. I mean production sucks now unfortunately, you listen to it, but yeah I still listen to a lot of Hip Hop, I love Run the Jewels now. It’s more bling now, it’s not really Hip Hop anymore. It’s all about yeah well I’ve got the Cristal and I’ve got this which of course was there but it doesn’t come with any deep political message so it doesn’t really interest me.
You see that in the clubs in America, with the Hip Hop nights it is all about the bling. And how much everybody’s spending, it’s way over the top.
I wanted to talk to you about your White Noise radio show. I looked up where you are, how many episodes you’re at and it’s way over 500, coming up to 600.
Yup.
That’s a massive commitment.
Yeah.
Please tell us a little bit about how that shows evolved over the years. What have you put in to it?
So, White Noise I almost gave up four years ago because chasing other DJs for mixes was tiring and then I concluded doing it for an hour. And I still need to go through all the music I get sent for DJ’ing in clubs, so it gives me the structure to do that anyway, and I still feel that I must play music that isn’t going to get necessarily aired on radio. And I think it’s at 100 stations worldwide now every week? Maybe 95. And sometimes it’s a pain in the arse to prepare but always when I’ve done it I’m always proud. And there’s that old adage I think Kevin Spacey said it once, you should never pull up the ladder once you’ve climbed up it, you should always allow people to climb that ladder too. Because otherwise you’ll end up with, I
think you’ll end up with EDM. A whole world of EDM because then it’s about the ego, it’s not about the music.
Which other DJ’s, Producers would you say are the ones to look out for at the moment?
I hate that question. I will never really answer it because if I mention three people I always regret that because then it feels like I’m supporting them. All I can say in all fairness is please listen to my DJ sets, please listen to my radio show and that’s the way I give a fair answer to that.
That’s a fair answer. Do you ever buy music as well?
I buy a lot of music. I don’t buy any music at all for DJ’ing with cos there’s no need. Everything comes to me. I get two to three gig of music sent to me every single week. It’s enough, it’s good. I have to go through it, it’s a bilateral service that we do for each other. But I do buy physical music, I buy a lot of vinyl but it’s music that’s recorded analogue for analogue so Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, and if I can’t get it on vinyl then I’ll still buy it through iTunes because I feel I have to.
So, a favourite group of mine is The Idols at the moment, I really like that, I also like Courtney Barnett, so I’ll still seek and buy music, even if I can just stream it on Spotify it’s not the same, I want to listen to it whenever I want to listen to it, so I’ll still do that. I think it’s important to.
My time with Dave Clarke could have gone on all day, he’s a very interesting guy, with a lot to say. The irony was that I had over 15 questions and only managed to go through less than half of what I wanted to ask, but with so many people wanting their 20minutes with Dave, it’s no wonder he’s in such demand.
Connect: http://www.daveclarke.com Words By Paul Sawyer
Pics courtesy of Nikki McNeil