The ‘Disco’ genre for me has defined my love of electronic music my entire life. I have ‘soft focus’ memories of being an energetic 4 year old dancing around my living room with my mother listening to Boney M’s ‘Brown Girl in The Ring’. I remember my teenage fascination with the electro synth sounds of Giorgio Moroder and his specific work on Blondie’s ‘Parallel Lines’ album. More recently I found classic anthem ‘Supernature’ by the mighty Cerrone and the subliminal beauty in the space disco beard stroking genius of Lindstrom. Disco has affected me like no other style of dance.
Push forward to 2010 and we leave ‘Tangerine Dream’ land and enter the darker gurgling noise that is ‘Disco of Doom’ aka legendary DJ’s and Producers Tom Real and Ben Medcalf. We featured DOD two years ago on Harderfaster and since then they have grown from strength to strength polishing their sound and destroying dance floors all over the world. They have already remixed Etienne de Crecy,The Chemical Brothers and current nu-disco fave ‘Fukkk Offf’ as well as having DJ support for the tracks from Fake Blood, Herve, Azzido Da Bass and Don Rimini with their track ‘Warpig’. They released in August ‘Engine’ & ‘Sex Face’ on Gung-Ho! recordings to wide acclaim and it continues to fly off the digital shelf.
I caught up with Tom Real in advance of their headlining slot at Lost Dawn’s 1st Birthday Party in Brixton on the 25th September to ask them about music and general doom-mongering.
Hey Tom how you doing? Glad you could take time to speak with Harderfaster
Hey guys, nice to be speaking to you again. It's been a long time!
So tell me how did Disco of Doom come about?
Disco Of Doom came about as a new project for Ben and myself to explore sounds we were being inspired by, both of us have musical 'pasts' and this was a vehicle to move forward with new sounds and crowds. So far the feedback has been quite strong so we're very happy with the way it's going.
What is the Disco of Doom sound? What are your influences?
We started off being influenced by big room electro and fidget like ‘Soulwax’, ‘Justice’, ‘Herve’ and the like and our first few releases definitely leant towards this sound. As we've progressed as has the music we're influenced by. Our inspiration is now more techno, not deep minimal sounds but artists like ‘Popof’, ‘Brodinski’, ‘Boy 8 Bit’, ‘Oliver Huntemann’, ‘D-Nox + Beckers’ as well as more housey stuff like ‘Marcello VOR & Gabe’, we still like to think we bring a solid UK thump to proceedings though!
Outdoor performance or indoor - what do you prefer?
I like doing it outdoors (fnar fnar) whilst Ben is more of an indoors type (arf arf) I prefer big festivals and outdoor parties whilst Ben likes his creature comforts and being able to get back to a bed after a night out.
Best DOD gig and crowd?
We had a great summer last year playing on the Arcadia Spectacular rig at Glastonbury, Glade and Electric Picnic. Anyone who went to these events will have seen the fire-breathing sound system. At Glastonbury you could not see the end of the crowd it was insane, Glade was great also as they gave us the sunrise set on the Sunday morning which was pretty special and Electric Picnic we played just as all the main stages finished and our crowd swelled to thousands! Best crowd, well any crowd you play to who are there 100% for the music is always good. There's nothing worse than being asked for Kylie single or some such crap.
Forgive me for being a bit techno geek here but technology wise, what are you using to create your tunes?
In the studio we keep it quite simple running Logic 9 via Alesis MKII monitors and pretty much 100% native Logic plug-ins, for DJ mixes we use either Ableton or Traktor with a midi mixer and recently the Kontrol X1 for Traktor and whilst DJ'ing we keep it simple and just use CDs, easier to man when you're drunk.
Tell me about your latest release and what is the feedback thus far?
We've just dropped out fourth EP 'Sex Face' & 'Engine'. Sex Face is a wonky techno banger that's been getting an insane amount of support from the likes of Brodinski, Fake Blood, DJ Zinc, Loose Cannons, Kissy Sell Out, Alex Metric, Etienne De Crecy, Mixhell and many more. We've been so chuffed by the support. Brodinski even sent us a video he'd found of him smashing up a fat festival with it. What a dude! 'Engine' is more heads down, balls out grinder. Keeping it filthy. Overall we've been chuffed by how we'll it's been received!
Sounds like you guys have been extremely busy thus far but what can we expect from you in 2011?
In all honesty we're still firmly focused on 2010! We're currently finalising some more original tracks, we've got four ready to go and potentially more in the pipeline. We're just getting initial feedback and testing them out in the clubs (as we'll be doing at Lost Dawn) and we're excited by the direction. Remix-wise we've got remixes still to come of Crookers, P Diddy, Silver Columns and an Australian act Art Vs Science. We're also going to be getting back into more remixes as soon as the next few singles are ready. Gig-wise, things are looking good! The diary is slowly filling up so we're happy.
You’ve been around the scene for a while and have witnessed its various trials and tribulations. What do you think of the current club scene?
From a DJ's point of view it's certainly effected things as there's not the same middle ground there used to be where mid-range DJs would get serious amounts of bookings, now it seems promoters only want to book headliners who will guarantee to fill the club or keep it low-cost. From a production point of view there is less money for advances and remixes but this is not so much because of the economy, rather the onset of the internet and digital age.
What can we expect from your headlining slot at Lost Dawn? What attracted you to the promotion and venue Dex?
The promoter is an old friend so it is nice to be invited to come down to smash up his party! I (Tom) played at one of their Summer Sound System events and it was great to see so many old faces from the London club scene partying away so it's a double bonus of playing for a mate to a friendly crowd... brilliant! Dex is a great venue and it's the first time we've played there so looking forward to rinsing out that sound system. I live in Brixton so it's nice to have a local event to play at ...and much easier to stumble home from!
Thanks Tom for taking time from your schedule, its been a pleasure chatting and I look forward to seeing you on the 25th.
Really looking forward to it mate, if the last party was anything to go by, this will be a blast!
LOST DAWN returns on Saturday 25th September with our unique take on electronic music. Our one year voyage into dance and arts had led us to discover some of London’s leading DJ’s and producers and aspiring contemporary artists. Our birthday party continues this tradition with a very special line-up and a brand new venue as we move from Cable in SE1 to Brixton’s DEX club.
Headlining our 1st Birthday night and rising up from the gurgling belly of the underworld comes Disco of Doom AKA DJ and production duo Tom Real and Ben Medcalf.
Their first release, EP1 was released in 2008 on Passenger Records and saw support from the likes of Etienne De Crecy, Alex Metric, Meat Katie. Their second release Warpig / Spawn Again dropped this summer on uber-cool New York label Coco Machete home to artists like Fukkk Offf and Azzido Da Bass.
2010 has seen the duo launch their own London party; How’s My Raving? The first event was a roadblock featuring rave-legends The Ratpack and Zomby whilst the second featured Bolton kings of Donk Blackout Crew and DJ Guy. DOD are also residents for Out The Box at The White House in Clapham which has seen them play with Toddla T, Detroit Grand Pubahs, DJ Zinc and Shadow Dancer. We look forward to hearing some Doom mongering from the boys at our party so don your disco shoes.
We also welcome for the first time Welfare For The Digital AKA Ben Francis and Martin Holden. DJs, producers, promoters and musical evangelists, they are two men on a mission to ignite dance floors wherever they play. In 2001 they launched Supafunkt at Café en Seine in Peterborough and later moved the event to The Bomb in Nottingham.
As their technical skills developed so did their ambition and Welfare for the Digital made the move to London. A new party Innuendo was conceived and the opening night was held at the Ministry of Sound in 2006 with Pete Tong and Tom Novy headlining. Their debut single, 'In the Machine'/'Doha', released by Italian label Le Club Records in September 2009 was supported by DJ’s D.Ramirez, Luke Dzierzek, Popof, Judge Jules and Mario Piu while Eddie Halliwell included 'In the Machine' on his radio show.
Welfare for the Digital have now came to the attention of respected dance labels, Gung Ho! Recordings, who will be releasing 'Flight of the Navigator'/'The Rat Race' in July 2010. This is just the start for WFTD and more dance floor bombs are being lined up for future release and we just can’t wait to hear them drop in September.
Our last guests are Alan Banks & Miles Gorfy. Alan has warmed up Brixton Academy for Paul van Dyk as well as Judge Jules’ Judgement Sunday’s. Alan’s ability to mix up through house, techno and trance has made clubbers and promoters from all genres sit up and listen.
Miles Gorfy has played for Frantic, Sundissential and Polysexual and is an established talent in the hard house scene. Miles has a newer style for us at Lost Dawn so expect big basslines, crazy samples and filthy beats for filthy minds.
The Lost Dawn line-up would not be complete without our ‘Residents’ supplying party tunes with the melodic driving force that is ADAM SYMBIOSIS and our resident house-disco diva CRAIG GUNN
The Arts Space Returns
The Lost Dawn arts space continues to morph and thrive and we have now given the role of curator to past artist Ellie Hawkins to give the evening alternative entertainments in our specially commissioned private rooms with paintings, shoe art with Theon Marcel, magic with Sam Cookney, reflexology with Kate Heilsa much more to be announced.
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