Focus on the Netherlands: Rush Hour

Focus on the Netherlands: Rush Hour

11 October, 2010 | 2.57AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Music News: focus on, netherlands, rush hour

Continuing our coverage of the Netherlands, we do a 180-degree turn away from the charts and the superclubs and delve into one of the choicest corners of the Dutch underground: Rush Hour.

Rush Hour began in 1996 as a mailorder outfit trafficking in rare and hard-to-find vinyl. At first, cofounders Christiaan Macdonald and Antal Heitlager’s ran it out of their homes, but the following year they expanded into an actual retail space—which today remains one of Amsterdam’s choicest sites for crate-digging—and a record label. (The name is an homage to a track by Terrence Dixon’s Population One project, which the label reissued in 2007 to celebrate their 10th anniversary.)

Rush Hour has never stuck to any one sound; with a roster including locals like Aardvarck, Rednose Distrikt, and Tom Trago as well as compatriots like Kenny Larkin, Carl Craig, Anthony Shakir, and Daniel Wang, they run the gamut of house, techno, and disco, emphasizing the deeper aspects of the genre, and unabashedly indebted to the legacy of Detroit and Chicago.

We asked Macdonald to give us a tour of Amsterdam’s less traveled byways. 

Which local clubs, DJs and record labels were most significant to you when you were first getting into dance music?

When I started going out in the early to mid ‘90s, the most important club was Roxy. This club started in the late ‘80s and burned down in the late ‘90s. Its creative peak was in the early ‘90s and they did all kind of crazy and wild parties and really took their crowd on a mission. It also housed a Thursday night called High Tech Soul Movement, which was a night hosted by Dimitri. He was for many, including me, the most influential DJ at that time. He could really tell a story. Amsterdam was popular with the Detroit crowd at the time, Derrick May lived here for a year, and Dimitri was their main man, so he would get all the good stuff early. I think he has been instrumental for creating my love for Detroit techno and Chicago house.

Another DJ who had been most influential to me is KC the Funkaholic. His choice of music was a crossover between hip-house, house and disco, etc. He is also the one who gave us a break by giving us a night at Paradiso in the late ‘90s as he was, and still is, a programmer there. The night was Paradisco2000 and is now running as Disco3000.

I also had the fortune to go out in Amsterdam when there were a lot of weird, illegal and one-off parties which created a lot of excitement. House and its culture were new to the city government, so at first they didn’t know how to act. This quickly changed when house became more mainstream and problems with drugs, etc. started. There were also more vacant buildings—for instance the harbor was a desolate place where a lot was possible. All that has changed into apartment buildings. Amsterdam was more of a free town than it is now… Special times.

What sets Dutch music apart? Is it possible to define a Dutch sound?

Other than trance and gabber or hardcore, right? Haha. I think the sound we are trying to push isn’t one that is easily pigeonholed or branded. It’s a mixture of different genres we like from around the globe, and we take that and process that into something of our own. You name it. A lot of kids here are raised on a steady diet of hip-hop, as we have a diverse ethnicity here; I think that’s how this whole urban house thing kicked off big here and seems to be Holland’s next big export product. I have to say that the only Dutch export product I like is cheese; I don’t care too much for the rest.

Which artists and labels from your country should people be looking out for, and why?

We are a small country, but big in music, so there’s always people around doing the good do. As far as labels go, I enjoy the output of Kindred Spirits, Delsin Records, and Clone Records, mostly. There are a bunch of smaller ones, but these three are the most consistent ones I enjoy.

As far as artists, there are always people bubbling up: right now I can recommend to watch and mostly listen to Aardvarck, Awanto 3, Newworldaquarium, San Proper, Tom Trago, Young Marco, and I’m sure I’m forgetting someone. Why? Because they make good music, just go and listen!

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