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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! | | N-Kore talks Jean-Michel Jarre, unfinished tracks and fatherhood! | | Celebrating International Women’s Day and Ten Years of Psy-Sisters with Amaluna |
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Getting Dirty Hard and Fast with Cally & Juice
Reported by Tara
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Submitted 15-04-09 19:08
In just a few years Cally & Juice have gone from being considered crazy Welsh wizards who scratch with their feet to becoming one of the biggest powerhouses in UK dance music. Their well-established nights Breathe and Bionic have consistently brought top names to Wales, ensuring it maintains one of the most vibrant scenes in the county, while continually promoting their hardstyle sound. Newly-launched label Ourstyle is already leading the way in the charts and they’ve got more gigs in your average month than many DJs have in a year. With the boys back in London for DHF (Dirty Hard and Fast, for those not in the know) next Friday 24 April at Hidden, it was definitely time for a decent catch up…
The 1st time I saw you play was at Convergence at the Fridge, your first London set for Frantic, and I’ll never forget the incredible energy and sound you bought to the party. I thrashed the CD you gave out that night for years! Now I know what I heard then was the beginnings of hardstyle. Back then, were you aware that you were pioneering the hardstyle sound?
Kind of. At the time we were both promoting events and had always been strong followers of the ‘European’ sound. At first it was the hard trance sound that was big abroad (for anyone into their harder sounds), but then we heard this new sound emerge. We were on it immediately, for us it was just where hard trance was going. The first few tunes of this newer style had hard trance elements, but then as these dropped out, the sound gained its own identity. We felt at this cross-over point it was a very strong sound as it incorporated the best of hard trance along with this harder sound, and that’s where we’ve tried to keep our sound at.
When did you first get into mixing music? And what made you start playing together rather than solo?
We’ve both been mixing for quite a while. Back just over 10 years ago we played back to back for Dreamscape, one of the country’s largest rave promoters at the time (think Slammin Vinyl). Our arena went from having 300 in to 3,000 people within the space of a couple of tunes. We both decided then and there we’d be doing that again. The rest as they say is history!
Your sound has always been very distinctive and you’ve described it as your “own fusion of hard trance and hardstyle with elements of drum & bass, old skool, hip hop, and any other genre that influence us thrown in for good measure.” How would you describe it these days — has it changed or evolved much over the years?
It’s definitely evolved and changed as our production skills have got better, and we learn new things constantly, but being into so many forms of music, it would be criminal not to draw on all these influences to make our tracks. If you only take influence from your own genre of music then you’re very limited where you can go with it. We try not to have any limits.
Who were your key musical influences growing up? And now?
C: I’ve always been into so many styles of music, everything from rock to hip-hop, to drum & bass, even down-tempo stuff. I also like a lot of bands. Growing up I was into everything and anything. I’ve always said ‘ 2 types of tunes, a good tune, and a bad tune, and even that is down to each person’s perspective. There are genres I’m not really into, but now and again I’ll hear something I really like. Just before I got into electronic dance music however I went through my rock/metal phase for a few years. I still listen to a lot of it now.
J: Much like Cally, I’ve always had a lot of varied musical influences but it was probably breakdancing and, in turn, hip-hop that really grabbed my attention first. I spent years breakdancing, entering B-Boy battles and even teaching it for a while. I absolutely loved it. Then a close friend took me to my first rave back in 1992, Pulse in Swansea. I thought I’d hate it but it blew me away, the energy and excitement of the whole thing just left me in awe. From that day on, I was hooked, going to raves all over the UK every single weekend. Nowadays I still think it’s difficult to beat the feeling you get when you walk in to a rave, it still gives me goose bumps and gets my heart racing. Musically now, I tend to listen to stuff like Blink 182 or Linken Park when I’m not writing music or DJ’ing. The reason I don’t listen to dance music too much when I’m not in the studio or behind the decks is that I never want to get numb to it; I still want to be excited by it when we perform.
You’re known for your tricks which include scratching with your feet, blindfold scratching and a former breakdancing teacher, Juice you’ve even tried a handspin on the decks. When did you start doing tricks and did it take you long to master them? What’s your favourite trick at the moment?
C: If we’re completely honest the tricks have kind of taken second place to our productions. We’ve often thought we should buy a new bit of gear to come up with some new tricks, but from experience of watching a dancefloor during a set, it’s clear that the tricks can just leave people standing there watching, which as you can probably tell from our sets is something we try to avoid! We still pull out a lot of our classic tricks, so as the foot scratching and blindfold scratching, but it’s more about keeping people dancing so we try not to overdo it, maybe just pick two tricks for a set.
J: As Cally said, as we’ve found different ways of hyping the crowd up, we’ve tended to cut down on the tricks per set. I would hate for it to get to the point where someone thinks “Oh not that bloody foot-scratching” again, so we only tend to bring the full bag of tricks out for brand new crowds, e.g. when we play in a new area of the UK or abroad.
As for how long it took to master each trick, some of them come very easily and some like the foot-scratching have been perfected over the past five years. That’s still easily my favourite trick. I love the look on people’s faces when we do that one = )
Surely mixing with CD or a laptop takes the showmanship out of scratching. Would you ever give up vinyl altogether or is it still a central part of what you do?
I don’t think this will be our choice. Regrettably vinyl already seems on its way out, and just recently (after turning up at several gigs without vinyl turntables), we’ve modified our tricks to perform on CDJs. However we’ll always have a few records with us with scratch samples and acapellas, so if there’s a turntable there, we’ll be using it!
What’s your take on digital downloads and illegal file sharing? Do you see giving music away as a form of promotion or is filesharing theft?
There’s pros and cons. We can’t say we’re not gutted by all the sales we’ve lost due to people sharing our tunes. But on the other hand, there’s probably a lot of people who download tunes illegally to get them free who otherwise wouldn’t pay for them, so your tunes do reach a wider audience. This then helps get plays where you aren’t as well known, such as abroad, so it does have its benefits.
Hard trance and hardstyle have always been huge in Wales and you’ve played a big part in that. Why do you think it’s so popular there – well other than because of you?!
Our theory on this one is clubbers will tend to prefer the music that clubs/events play in their area, especially if they’re just getting into clubbing and are more impressionable.
Back in the day hard house became more popular in London and up North because that’s what promoters like Frantic and Tidy were playing. Promoters in the South West nearly all seemed to push hard trance a lot more and this sound is still huge down there. Our events, Bionic & Breathe, pushed what we like i.e. hard trance and hardstyle and that’s why this sound has always been so big over here.
What have been the highlights of your musical careers so far? And do you have any goals that you’ve still to achieve?
The highlights include playing to 5,000 of our home crowd at Escape Into the Park each year — as we’ve said many time, this is the highlight of our DJ calendar and, without wishing to sound cheesy, is genuinely a very emotional experience every time. Just talking about it makes the hairs on the back of our neck stand up.
Other huge highlights include playing the main stage at Slammin Vinyl’s 10,000 capacity WestFest, Q Dance’s huge Defqon.1 and Q Base events, and more recently playing Australia, somewhere we’ve always wanted to play. We’ve still got a load of goals left like playing the coveted main stage at any one of Q-Dance’s huge events. Another one of our ambitions is about to be realized this summer as we play at the 70,000 capacity Dance Valley in July, we can’t bloody wait for that bad boy! = )
You’ve been signed to Steve Hills’s Masif agency and with a tour planned of Australia, world domination is looming. Are you looking forward to hitting the road and educating the masses? Can you see yourselves touring for a long time or will you always return home to Wales?
Things have changed slightly in Australia now, and as we’ve just mentioned we’ve just come back from two weeks there which was arranged by Dr Willis. We don’t think we’d ever leave the UK for a long period of time as there probably aren’t enough gigs to sustain long tours and ultimately home is where the heart is. We have a very close bunch of family and friends back home and wouldn’t like to be away for too long.
You’ve played at some of the world’s biggest dance events, including Q Base, Impulz, Creamfields, Gatecrasher and Manumission. What’s been your favourite gig so far? And is there anywhere you haven’t played yet that you’d really like to?
There’s been so many amazing moments. And not all of them the biggest gigs. It’s nearly always about the crowd, if you have a really responsive crowd then that really makes the gig. We’ve been lucky enough to already play a lot of the places we’ve always wanted to play. If we had to mention one gig we hadn’t played that we’d like to it would probably be Q Dance’s Qlimax. Ever since watching a video of Zany play there we’ve been hooked on wanting to play there. Look it up on Youtube and prepare to be amazed ; )
Despite the recent downturn in clubbing you’ve still got one of the busiest DJ diaries around. How do you rate the dance scene in the UK at the moment?
C: People will always say things like “remember back then when it was amazing”, you never get tired of hearing comments like this. People really need to appreciate what they have right now though. There are some fantastic events around, and at the moment our own events are the busiest they’ve been for ages. I think even in financially difficult times when people have less money, young people will always keep their money for the weekend.
J: The number of hard dance events around has definitely decreased over the past few years but the ones that have survived tend to be the ones that always put the extra effort it e.g. Slammin Vinyl, Frantic, Tranzaction (Truro). Events like this are constantly trying to move with the times, looking for better line-ups or different and exciting venues to keep clubbers coming. Events like these are still packed out every single time and will be for years to come.
You’ve got 15 gigs listed on your MySpace in May alone already. If one of you can’t make it, does the other ever go solo or are you strictly a duo?
If one can’t make it (and this has only ever happened about five times in 10 years), then the other will attend. There’s no way we’d both let a promoter down unless it was totally unavoidable.
You play multiple events every weekend and spend your weeks busy in the studio and promoting Bionic with Brian M (Cally) and Breathe (Juice). Do you ever get any down time and what do you like to do in those precious hours?
C: Completely chill, relax with our girlfriends, watch some movies, and hit the booze!
J: I’m a firm believer in the old adage “Work Hard, Play Hard” so we do like to party hard when we get the chance … Ahhh, good times = )
At a time when record labels around the country were going bust you launched your label Ourstyle and you’ve said that you’ve been producing tunes faster than you can release them. How’s it going so far? Do you have any news on the production front for 2009?
Really well, and we’ve surprised ourselves, we’re actually getting round to releasing them now, lol! There’s loads to come so just watch this space.
What software do you use in the studio and what’s your favourite piece of kit?
A high end PC running Cubase, with lots of nice plug ins. Our favourite bit of kit has to be our Virus Ti synth, it’s the daddy! However, if you’re just starting off then you’ll be amazed what you can achieve on just your normal PC running a sequencer like Cubase or Logic with a bunch of soft synths which you can download free or for a very small fee. This is all we used until two years ago and never had a problem. Learning how to use the sequencer is the time consuming thing, after that it’s plain sailing.
If you weren’t DJs and producers, what would you do for a living?
C: I like to think we’d be in a band.
J: Yeah, some kind Welsh folk /death metal/reggae/ punk band touring all the pubs around Wales lol! That’s what we’re going to do if all the DJ’ing ends = )
What up and coming DJs and producers do you rate at the moment?
Frisky without a doubt, she’s making leaps and bounds at the moment and deserves everything she gets. She’s an awesome DJ. There’s so many good up and coming acts around though we wouldn’t like to name names and miss people out. But we always let people know if we think they rock it. It’s nice to let people know you appreciate what they’re doing.
What’s your current top five tracks to get the dancefloor moving?
C: (in no particular order) ‘3 Da Hard Way’ (C & J), ‘Numb’ (C & J), ‘Make You Move’ (DJ Big Lean), ‘2 Late’ (Showtek), ‘Start a Fight’ (DJ Big Lean & Yoz).
J: ‘Enjoy the Silence’ (C & J), ‘Kick it’ (C & J), ‘Handlebars’ (C & J), ‘Ragga Tip’ (C & J vs Avaline)), ‘God’ (Luca Antolini – our edit).
I’m sorry that’s it’s all tunes we’ve been involved in but I don’t play anything else at the moment.
And the five classics that you never go to a gig without?
C: (in no particular order) ‘Serotonin Rush’ (Vandall – C & J rmx), ‘Cloudchaser’ (Aerodynamic), ‘Moonrise’ (Arctic Zone), ‘Walking Away’ (C & J), ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ (C & J).
J: ‘Wanna Fuck’ (Walt), ‘Exploration of Space’ (our mix), ‘Let The Music Play’ (Walt), ‘Tarantula’ (Pendulum – our mix), ‘Silver’ (Walt). I love Walt’s stuff, the man’s a legend.
You’re headlining DHF @Hidden on April 24th. How will you make sure your set is especially Dirty Hard and Fast for the DHF crew?
We’ll just be there early to see what’s going down. We haven’t played in London for months so we’ll have plenty of treats and surprises ready for the DHF crew. See you there, front and centre…
If one of your fans sees you at the bar @DHF what would you like to drink?
C: I’d like to say a double vodka and coke, but unfortunately we’ll both be driving so it’ll be a double vodka and coke without the vodka!
J: I wouldn’t say no to a Stella Artois as it looks like Cally’s already volunteered to drive back . Nice 1 Cal = )
Photos courtesy of Beth Crockatt, Gee, H.Pinkness, Paul Underhill and W0o. Not to be reproduced without permission.
DHF
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On:
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Friday 24th April 2009
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At:
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Hidden [map]
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From:
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22:00 - 7:00
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Cost:
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£10 all night
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Ticket Info:
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07866940781/lucafolco@yahoo.co.uk
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More:
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Hyper hard dance crew DHF rock up to Vauxhall’s underground Mecca, Hidden, on the 24/04/09 for a full frontal, speaker-smashing eargasm of banging beats and deep, dark bass lines. After their smash and grab assault on Brixton’s Mass club, these high energy hedonists are bringing out the big guns with a headline set from one of the hard dance scene’s brightest lights: Cally and Juice.
Also on the bill are: Riot’s head honcho, and all round legend, Ed Real, DHF resident Nick The Kid (fresh from wining the Regional Hero gong at this year’s Hard Dance Awards), Nutty T from Blutonium Records and Teknoworld’s Julian Gas… sweet!
This mighty line up is all backed up by the bass bin bashing DHF residents and will only cost you a credit crunching £10 all night, with the lucky first 250 neon noise ravers through the door receiving a free DHF CD too.
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Flyer:
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Region:
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London
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Music:
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Hard Trance. HardStyle. Acid Techno. Funky Techno. Techno. Electro.
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DJ's:
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Cally & Juice (QDance, Bionic, Breathe, Ourstyle)
Ed Real (Riot!, trackitdown.net)
Nick The Kid (Hindsight)
Nutty T (Blutonium Records, X Traxx)
Julian Gas (Stanch Records, Teknoworld)
Orpheus (DHF)
Curious George b2b Akira (DHF)
Candyman01 (DHF)
eL.E.D.J (DHF)
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Other Features By Tara:
Blasting towards summer festivals with Bahar Canca ahead of Psy-Sisters Spring Blast!
Turning the world into a fairy tale with Ivy Orth ahead of Tribal Village’s 10th Birthday Anniversary Presents: The World Lounge Project
A decade of dance music with Daniel Lesden
Telling Cosmic Tales with DJ Strophoria
Tom Psylicious aka EarthAlien takes 50 Spins Around the Sun: Raising Awareness Through the Power of Music
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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Comments:
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From: ~deleted5662 on 17th Apr 2009 08:59.04
great interview guys! 
From: crazy-frenchie on 22nd Apr 2009 07:37.51
nice one ! I love them
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