DJ T. tour blog: Week 1

DJ T. tour blog: Week 1

17 July, 2009 | 9.05AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Music News: dj t, dj t blog, get physical

Get Physical’s DJ T. is updating Beatportal each and every week during his six month world tour, and after a slight delay (he’ll explain what happened), the Get Physical man is here with his first weekly round up post.

Eloquent and sometimes thought-provoking, the rhetoric of DJ T. is quite unlike any other DJ diary we’ve had before, and as this lengthy episode shows, it promises to be an inspiring and entertaining journey that explores DJ culture well beyond the dancefloor.

Join him on his beat-driven exploits after the jump, which includes photos and videos recorded by the man himself.

Thursday, 9th of July 2009, Budapest

Welcome back!

Since my last entry, some of you might have been wondering what kind of event could throw off a seasoned party veteran like myself. So, let’s revisit last weekend and my fun-fuelled reason for flunking out on my very first diary duty. Picture the scene: This wasn’t some run-of-the-mill club event, but the party to kick off the tour, a celebration of my album release – and a cool 40 years of Thomas Koch.

So, let’s return to last Sunday’s scene of excess at a venue very much used to wild abandon, Berlin’s (in)famous den of beat-driven debauchery, featured in many publications currently; only today I came across new articles in two of Germany’s most influential news magazines, Der Spiegel and daily Frankfurter Allgemeine.

To me, this club is a true labour of love, a living, thriving legend of a venue, already elevated to a mythical status for its spectacular success, its music, DJs and imposing bouncers.

I can truly say it’s my favourite place in the world for spinning and experiencing music and getting lost in the best possible way: Berlin’s Berghain and Panorama Bar.

During the hot summer months, the club is expanded by an austere patio and the so-called Rüdershof beer garden and neighbouring mini-club Kantine. And it was here that my own party ran its adrenaline-soaked course – starting out under the sky and spilling over into the club.

40 years! I can still remember when, back in my early 20s, I tried to picture my life at this age. An abstract thought – it was so far off into the future… would I become yet another bland cog in the 5-to-9 machine, with a wife, kids and a mortgage in tow, like so many others at this stage in their lives?

Or would I stick to my rebellious blueprint (well, that’s what I thought it was back then) and continue to go against the grain of the people I had grown up with?

These were the offspring of filthy rich bank magnates, lawyers, and real estate agents, kids who wouldn’t think twice about asking their parents for a Porsche as an 18th birthday present. And then there was me, the only middle class kid in this crowd, forced to slave away all summer to buy a cheap moped with my own money.

Fast-forward two decades and a bit, and here I am: 40 years old, no family, no house, no regular job, not even a dog – and everything is more or less the way it was back then. Well, in a way, I have probably experienced far, far more than all of my childhood friends put together, I am a good deal more savvy and experienced and more or less know how the world works.

Keeping it up as a successful DJ for many years, maybe even decades, is extremely demanding work. You’re always on, always on the move, and it requires a level of strength and surrender most people with “normal” jobs will never experience.

Music, DJing and all those long, long nights still play the biggest role in my life. Everything revolves around this one, defining axis, like our planets around the sun … but how long will I be able to follow this road? Everything has a natural limit, nothing will last forever, the only constant in life is change.

Aeons ago, Westbam released a catchy title called ‘We’ll never stop living this way’. Are you sure? Back then, I couldn’t stand his attitude, his way of sloganising everything, that made this scene so damn special, but from a healthy distance – his statement rings true.

Just like an alcoholic who remains one long after touching the last drop, you will never lose your inner raver, even after you stop going out. Once you have spent a quarter century’s worth of weekends (well, at least 80 per cent of them) on the dancefloor, wallowing in the grime with people like yourself, once you have turned the music and everything around it into your way of life, it sticks to you like superglue.

Any regrets? No, I wouldn’t want to miss a thing, but moving on is also important.

One thing is for sure: Keeping it up as a successful DJ for many years, maybe even decades, is extremely demanding work. You’re always on, always on the move, and it requires a level of strength and surrender most people with “normal” jobs will never experience.

Unlike the wishful dreams of many aspiring DJs, this job doesn’t boil down to playing your favourite tracks on a permanent high, travelling to the world’s hot spots, getting all the sizzling girls and making shitloads of money with it.

Sorry to dispel your dreams, but that’s just a cliché that – if you’re lucky – might come true: for one fleeting moment of pure ecstasy, when all these factors snap together more or less by chance. But believe me – the longer you stay in this cosy bubble, this parallel universe, without keeping the door to reality at least ajar, the harder and harsher is your return to a regular life.

And when I say something like “regular life,” I don’t mean a steady, plodding existence with an everyday office job – nobody says you have to take the plunge and chuck in your DJ job. But after life on the tiles you need to find an inner balance, between nocturnal abandon in its thousands of surfaces, between its physical and psychological strains, and a life that measures up against a different set of values. As banal as it might sound – that’s the hardest thing about ageing in style as a raver or DJ.

When I look at my fellow clubbers between 30 and 40 – especially those who’ve been part of this scene for over a decade – almost all of them have found their own way of dealing with this constant conflict and balancing act.

Some of them paid a pretty harsh price (private, financial or healthwise) for sticking with their DJ career. I even find myself worrying about some of them, hoping they won’t follow in Michael Jackson’s footsteps and become caricatures of themselves, reaching a point where escapism and addiction to limelight and excess add up to that nasty, final climax, where the only way out is the most brutal, ultimate retreat. You know what I mean. Deep within, Michael Jackson seems to have made up his mind: 50 gigs in a row? Sorry, guys, not for me. I’m off.

I might have done this job for 22 years, but I’m still struggling with maintaining this balance. Every once in a while, it slips away, I slip up and end up bruised.

But I’m heading in the right direction. And music – this huge, never-ending love of my life – remains as vibrant and fresh as on the first day, it keeps me excited and on my toes. Sometimes, probably not as often as back in the days, I get my ass onto the dancefloor, let loose and become one with it all. And that still makes it all worthwhile.

Saturday, 11th of July, Budapest

Just woke up, hello hangover. Sorry, if I drifted off a bit in my last entry, taking you all the way down memory lane and into the tricky depths of DJ culture. So, let’s not keep you waiting any longer for that long-overdue report on last weekend’s birthday extravaganza …

Sunday, noon – sounds like an unusual start for a rousing house event, right? Not at Panorama Bar’s outdoor garden, the perfect setting for a long weekend. Getting the Berghain crew’s permission to hold my party in their hallowed halls was the best thing ever – I couldn’t have thought of a greater location. So, thanks again to Micha, Norbert and Andi, this was definitely the best present I could have asked for!

Although I have probably organised around 500 club nights and events myself, this was, in a way, the most important party of my life. I had a guest list of 500 – you can’t imagine how great it was to see all those friends and acquaintances from different eras and circles mingling on the dancefloor! And all those greying Berlin rave veterans, the ones who don’t really go out anymore, were so damn happy to meet up again. The weather, too, was kind to me and my guests, sunny and summery (almost) all day long.

The line-up turned out to be, let’s say, slightly unusual. I had invited my producer Thomas Schumacher and seminal Berlin DJs Cle and Terrible to man the decks, but the icing on the cake turned out to be a PA by Abe Duque and Blake Baxter.

I had put a fair bit of thought into my selection because my mission and theme for the day was: Old school! Every weekend, we get to hear and play the latest hot shit, so it felt totally okay to indulge in a touch of sentimental retro sound for this special occasion.

Cle and Terrible are true masters at their game: Together with Dixon (Innervision) they have been part of the Washing Machine party crew for years, paying homage to the originators of house and only airing records that haven’t crossed over into the 1990s.

I was aiming for something similar, not as strictly limited or defined, but this time ‘Jack the Groove’ wasn’t on my side. All the classics I had digitised especially for the event, reformatted and burned to CD, either completely refused to start or began to play up halfway in, so in the end I had to revert to my tried-and-tested everyday classics. The optical drive had messed up … in a new MacBook Pro!

If you hadn’t already gathered it from my first post – I really hate technology, it always plays me for a fool.

Okay, on to the set by Abe and Blake. Booking both of them hadn’t been easy, but the performance was totally worth it. Both of them will always be old school – even when they produce new stuff – both are living legends and both of them have sexy beats and vocals coursing through their veins, just like a truck driver has his alcohol.

Abe and Blake are friends and have known each other for ages, but a joint live set by them is a very rare gem and I felt honoured to host this special event at my favourite location.

Well, the sound in the garden might not be ideal, but they wouldn’t be deterred by that. Blake is one of those quiet souls who prefers to shine through understatement rather than extravagant poses.

At first, I thought he might never thaw, but once he got hold of a microphone, dropping a few words into the mix, a hint of a smile started playing around the corners of his mouth and he managed to throw in a few birthday wishes – thanks, Blake.

To cut a long story (and party) short – it all ended the way it had to end: A cool twelve hours later, just after midnight, me and the last remaining hundred or so had reached that very special state where we started to reinterpret and restage ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’.

When master of ceremonies Tayfun – scaling new, unexpected heights – staged a sit-down rave on the dancefloor, we knew it was time to leave the Kantine and take our last remaining sanity to the next adult playground on the list, Berlin’s legendary Bar25, and carry on with the unchecked performance. The rest (of the day) – is silence. Or at least not for publication … so, thanks again to all of those who made this day truly special!

Sunday, 12th of July, Helsinki

Just arrived at my hotel in Helsinki. I’m still determined to catch up on my backlog of diary entries, so right now I will curl up in bed – instead of taking a look around town – to keep you up to speed on my recent night in Budapest.

Picking up where we left off in my very first text for this DJ journal, my female entourage had expanded to four: my booker Patci, DJane Heidi, Beatport’s Noura and Richie Hawtin’s manager Franziska.

Together, we were heading for the Balaton Festival, a good 90 minutes away by car, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Shortly after leaving the hotel, I felt embarrassment welling up – I had managed to forget my laptop! And that on the night of my very first live stream … what a way to start the collaboration.

Using all my powers of persuasion, I sweet-talked the driver into turning around, while Heidi started to get a bit nervous – she was booked for the slot before me and this panicky return meant we risked missing the start of her set. Lucky for us, the driver switched to racecar mode and dropped us off just in time.

The festival looked seriously impressive with at least 80,000 punters milling around and having fun over the course of four days and nights.

Our stage was hosted by T-Mobile and designed for about 600-700 clubbers. While Heidi took to the stage in her sexy, shimmering trouser dress, we in turn headed for the buffet, a dish full of sandwiches and the only visible vodka bottle in the hospitality area.

After refuelling, we ventured out to check out Carl Cox’s set – I hadn’t seen him in almost 10 years! All through the 1990s, our paths would cross between DJ gigs, especially in Frankfurt, but ever since those hectic days, we’d only hear about each other via a string of mutual friends. Carl was playing one of the main stages, whipping up a storm for around 5,000 people, and the audience was hanging onto his every move, lapping up his stage charisma. He hadn’t lost a bit of his magic – very impressive.

Back at our stage, it took me and the stage technician a whole hour to set up the Internet connection for my Awdio.com live stream. I had basically given up hope when it finally started to work.

It was an odd sensation - here I am, somewhere in Hungary, clicking my mouse and knowing that, right at this moment, people from all around the world can follow my set on their computer.

To many of my colleagues, this kind of technological wizardry has become commonplace, but I still find myself amazed that something like this should even be possible. I think you should always retain a healthy respect for this kind of stuff.

Video: DJ T. spinning at Balaton festival, Hungary

The audience followed me on my journey and I had a huge amount of fun. Towards the end of my set, I took a highly motivated Heidi up on her offer to play back-to-back for the finale.

When it comes to DJ ping-pong, Heidi and I are a well-rehearsed team – and we love nothing better than to trump each other with our banging booty grooves. This was another instance of “musical marriage made in heaven” and the crowd adored our onstage flirtation, dialling up the entertainment factor with every sip from the vodka bottle.

Well, I guess, sometimes entertainment and technical perfection make perfect bedfellows, although in our case, raising one meant lowering the other … ;-)

Our drive back to Budapest was hot and loud. Loud, because there’s no stopping Heidi once she gets talking, and hot, because the rising sun was slowly but surely transforming the car into a full-blown incubator. The next day, after checking out, I was in for a pleasant surprise: Not only was my driver waiting for me, but he had Carl Cox and his tour manager in tow who also needed a lift to the airport.

The previous night, Carl and I had only gotten to exchange a few words, so we were more than chuffed to get another half-hour in the car for some high-speed updates on each other’s lives. First of all, we tried to work out how long it had been since we had last met: We both seemed to think it was back in 1998, at a Danube Rave in Linz/Austria, sharing a floor at this all-night party. Eleven years! And Carl still looks as fresh as a daisy … some DJs seem to postpone the ageing process, the life they lead shapes their appearance.

During our airport ride, Carl told me that he still commutes between his two homes in Europe and Australia, with the winters always spent Down Under to make the most of the opposite seasons.

He seemed a bit envious of the A&R job I do for our three labels – after all, he had run his own label for a while, but somehow he hadn’t manage to keep it going without losing money in the long run. According to him, he really misses working with artists on their releases and making sure their music gets heard.

The highlight of our shared trip: his praise for my latest album! He told me he plays several of the tracks and especially loves ‘Dis’. When I told him who had produced the record, Thomas Schumacher, he wasn’t surprised: He had always loved Thomas’s phat and functional productions.

So, good-bye for now, Carl – and let’s hope it won’t be for another eleven years.

Monday, July the 13th, Helsinki

Hey guys – I hope you appreciate this: Today I got up especially early to treat you – straight off and while it’s still fresh – to what happened in Helsinki over the last two days and nights, before I have to board my flight. Helsinki meant yet another premiere after popping my Hungarian cherry at the Balaton festival last weekend: I had never played in Finland before!

Soooo – where to begin? Let’s start with my personal lowdown on the Finns. I really love them, they are a great people and really made me feel welcome and at home.

I guess I feel a great kinship to their mentality: They are quiet but friendly, restrained, passionate and ambitious and, as far as I can tell, very loyal, reliable and blessed with plenty more qualities I appreciate in my fellow humans.

They are people you would like to have around when it counts. And, most of all, they are huge music freaks. Not just on some superficial level, but all the way in: They are a nation of ardent eclectics! Unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet the man they call Lil’ Tony, the guy who had booked me to play two of his venues two nights in a row.

Apparently, he was abroad somewhere, spinning his own tunes. Instead, and as a consolation prize, I got to spend two days with his lovely colleague Katerina.

We already knew each other from this year’s Sonar dinner: This was a pretty memorable occasion because I had to jump up in-between courses to chase after a junkie who tried to steal my bag in the restaurant.

If a local at a nearby table hadn’t warned me, all my CDs, headphones and camera would have gone to fuel his drug habit. This moment had left its mark on both of our memories; now we can actually laugh about it, but back then, we were pretty shocked and shook up. This is something we are simply not used to in either of our hometowns – in Barcelona, crime is everywhere and it’s a real pain in the ass. I know at least ten friends who got robbed there this year.

But let’s go back to Helsinki and the present day: When we walked into Redrum on Saturday after midnight, my expectations dropped considerably – I expected a very quiet night. Like most Scandinavians, the Finns suffer from a well-meaning, but authoritarian government that curtails the nightlife to such an extent that any other Europeans would scale the barricades.

These poor souls have to close their clubs and go home when we are just about to warm up, downing that first harsh Jägermeister … in Finland, 3 am is the final call and often clubs have to close even earlier.

But I guess my judgement was premature. An hour later, the club was totally pumping and I found myself catapulted to cloud 9. It was great to play for such a crowd, taught and groomed by connoisseurs for many years!

Video: DJ T. spins in Redrum, Helsinki

I could go as deep as I wanted and still the crowd would follow me all the way, slowly but surely dancing towards their own beat-driven ecstasy. The last half hour of the set was just the way you want it to be, with a crowd that does whatever you want and even throws their arms in the air to one of your oldest favourites.

A crowd that will scream until their vocal chords give out and continues to cause a fuss when the strip lights come on … just to keep you going. What a great response, what an enthusiastic crowd!

On the next day, Katerina showed me around town. There wasn’t much time, but we made it to Helsinki’s historic centre near the harbour where everything happens. We were lucky with the weather; it was warm and dry unlike most other days in this rain-drenched summer.

The food we ordered and enjoyed on the patio turned out to be the perfect hangover cure, with salt-cured and raw Finnish fish specialities. Back at the hotel, I spent hours trying to fill CDs via an external burn unit that a friendly Finn had fetched from home – but no luck. I would still love to know where I went wrong.

Every time I tried, the computer pretended to burn the CD. And every time, the CD turned out empty. Well, I guess that’s part of my fate …

So – no new music for the next date:

Sunday’s party started the same – slow and subdued – but just like the previous night, there was a huge change around 2am when the club filled up in no time at all. Seems crazy, doesn’t it, for people to only come for that elusive, ecstatic final hour, with the night ending before it has really started?

Well, we ran over a bit on both nights, so I hope there is no serious club head in the Finnish government who might come across these fleeting statements.

This was also my second live stream for Awdio.com and it, too, went off without a hitch after spending another half-hour with the local technicians on setting up the web connection. The night finished on a similar high to the previous one. I guess it’s even more fun when something grabs you from behind when you least expect it …

Good-bye, Helsinki! I’ll be back in a flash if you call again!

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