The Goa Gil Petition: Play Those DATS!

The Goa Gil Petition: Play Those DATS!

24 January, 2008 | 11.55PM

• Section: Music News Topics: Beatport Blog
• Written by: PhilG

After the success of the Tantra collective’s Return to Goa room at their New Year’s Eve party here in San Francisco, the local 604 email list has been abuzz with discussion about old-skool Goa trance and DAT. The result: a petition to psytrance DJ extraodinare Goa Gil to play a set from his archive of unreleased DAT material. 

For those wondering about the medium of choice here, back in the 1990s DAT was the favored medium of many Goa trance producers, and DAT was the way in which otherwise unreleased material made its way into the hands of DJs.

Goa Gil, the godfather of Goa trance in the United States and a Bay Areas resident, is famous for having played DAT-only DJ sets during those days, and still has a huge collection of DAT-only material from the 1990s. Despite pleas from local promoters to play a set of this material, Goa Gil has, to this point, refused in favor of focusing on more recent material.

After being re-acquainted with the sound of early Goa at New Year’s Eve, however, many members of the local scene have gotten together and created an online petition to have Goa Gil play a DAT set at his annual birthday party in May. Comments in the petition itself are interesting, as they show a real split in the scene between those who favor the sound of Goa trance and those who are into the harder, more aggressive sound of recent psy-trance. As one signer put it:

Bring back the music that made us love Goa Gil. Today’s Goa Gil sets drive us away, and splinter the already fragmented scene. Let us all gather together again as one goa trance family and dance like we did in the good old days. We’ll trade his newer, smooth mixing style and nails-on-chalkboard music for the preferred GOA music and DAT mixing.

Check out the links below to see the petition and Goa Gil’s online mixes and tour dates.

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