a Favourite Musician - a New Discovery - a Story or Two ~ Spreading Vibes

Like a day of youngsters (late teenage, early young adult style): 'Why Not?','Why Sleep?', 'Carpe Siem', ...

Sleep, Awake, Shower, Metro, Aeroplane, Train, Drink, Powernap, Dinner, Powernap, Taxi, Club, Taxi, Breakfast, Powernap, Lunch, Taxi, Club, Train, Aeroplane, Taxi, late night Dinner, Sleep

All this in about 30 hours with the result...

Rested, Revived, Re-Energised Mind !

ps The body is a little less re-energised, but after 2 good nights of resting on Sunday and Monday nights, the flesh was back in business as well. A little slower than when I was a youngster myself, but still, not complaining, since am still able to deal with 'Jet Lagging'. Though not sure if the term 'Jet Lagging' is the correct one since I never moved between timezones. I did travel with a jet 🙃 Maybe it should be called: 'Club Lagging'? 😂

All this was about a week ago, 12 days being exact. A techno adventure 'pur sang' (Dutch for 'purebred'). I hinted at this in my last Spread the Vibes (StV) blogpost. A music event I went to about a month ago resulted in my trip to the Mecca of Techno, Berlin. Interested in the 'WHY'? Please click the post link given before and let your eyes dance over the words and your mind absorb the story 😉

Why this Post?

Easy...

• My Urge to Bring You yet another New Discovery I made: DJ Maria aka Maria Fujioka
• My First Response to the New 'Meeting Your Favourite Musician' initiative in the Q music corner
• New Contribution to 'Spread the Vibes - Challenge not Challenge'

ps I must admit, the new 'Meeting Your Favourite Musician' finally got me into writing this post. From the point I returned home from Berlin, I wanted to follow up on my adventures but needed to do some music listening first. Done that last weekend. A listening session of about 2 hours turned into 10+ hours 🥳

Meeting a Favourite Musician

As you can read from my previous post, THE reason for me to head over to Berlin was this duo: 'Speedy and Steve'. The first live act they brought to us in a club setting, made me soooo excited, I wanted to hear them in my favourite club in the whole wide universe, 'Berghain' in Berlin. And what can I say: It was worth it! The travelling and the two days of body revival I needed afterwards. The live show at Berghain was a little less melodic than their performance at Tivoli (Utrecht) in early February, but it was at least as good. Perhaps deeper. For sure a bit faster. And, a lot longer, 4 hours instead of the two hours at Tivoli. The act never got boring! They even went as far as going into silence mode. Almost completely silent for a minute or two somewhere in the middle of their performance. Something like that I never heard in Berghain. It's kind of an unwritten rule not to do so. But Speedy and Steve don't care. They do what they feel like doing. Not what others expect them to do. And again, Speedy and Steve showed they are perfectly 'reading' each other. Both in their improvisation mode, both in harmony, and both in super concentration mode.

...and now: 'Meeting my Favourite Musician'

Those who read more of my music-oriented posts may know Steve is perhaps my most favourite electronic artist around. Those may also know that I met Steve more often in the past. I can write a lot around that, but I won't. If you like to read, just check this, this, this, this, this, this and this post.

The musician that is subject to this invite, is Speedy J. Speedy in the formation with Steve. Jochem Paap in real life. One of the early birds in European techno land. First generation artist. Started his career already back in the late 80s early 90s. And still going strong! Like Steve. Started in the same period as well.

Can't say Speedy is my most favourite artist, but in my book, he for sure belongs to this small top of the pyramid of artists. In short: Speedy J is one of my favourite artists. Throughout the last decades, I heard him play and perform many times. Mostly he does these live acts. Not using records but hardware (drum machines and such) to create sounds on the spot. Like Speedy and Steve are doing. Live shows, no preparation, no tracks, just sounds they select as they go. As I've been told, they do not even have samples with them. Anyways, back to Speedy. Started kinda in the hardcore style of things, before it was called hardcore. He moved away from that style in favour of Techno sometime mid to later 90s. Sidesteps into ambient and experimental weren't uncommon for him. Love most of what he created in the last 3 decades. Three what? Pfffff 30 years already. Does feel like this lifetime though 😆

Funnily enough, have spent so much time at events, a lot of hours listening to Speedy, but I never ever exchanged words with him, hugged him, nor shook hands with him. That changed when we met in Berlin. Though we didn't exchange a lot of words, I remember most of the words that came from my mouth were my attempts to be funny. Not sure if he was of the same opinion though 😂 Anyways, I couldn't have been too obnoxious since when I met him again last Friday when he and Steve were about to start another gig at some remote place to the north of my home city, he was the one who started our second mini conversation. The content? Well, that's for you to guess and for me to know 😉

Please don't start guessing, since I'll keep my mouth (oops: fingers) shut!

New Discovery: Maria Fujioka

Back to Berghain. While the promoters of the club booked Speedy & Steve as the special guests of the weekend and wrote about them in their monthly paper booklet, the same promoters wrote about DJ Maria. I liked what they wrote, and had my mind set to listen to her set. But she was doing her thing when we (my friend and I) had some rest, back in our hotel, in preparation for our late afternoon 'second run' before heading back home to Amsterdam. Upfront, I already felt I would miss out on something special. And then, when back in the club, someone told us she was more than interesting! Shizzle! Here you have it! Missed something great 😓 Well, her music I suppose. But maybe as a person as well? 🤷‍♂ She looks nice and friendly, for sure. But that doesn't say anything about attitude and behaviour. But let's assume she is a great person 😉 I do know, I do like the music I heard so far. A Lot! Therefore I know for sure I have to listen to her work in a live setting. Hopefully, she will come to my country sometime soon. Or back to Berghain. I consider going for yet another quick in/out adventure when that happens 🥳

By the Way: I must be having some mind of today's youngsters, the new generation of electronic music fans. Since the outbreak of Covid, when most clubs were closed for two years (on and off depending on the country), many techno artists returned to the clubs and festival grounds with a mucho faster style. While 120 to 130 bpm was kinda the standard for a decade or more, 140 bpm is the starting point these days. Similar to the pace of techno back in the late 90s and early 00s. I never really had thorough in-depth thoughts about it, thinking "music is always changing". Then I read this super long and interesting article with interviews with a bunch of electronic artists. All of them gave their views and reasons why the music pace (amongst others) is speeding up lately. A common returning reason given: "The youngsters want this."

The Article: by MixMag (source)

That said, I can't agree with everything in the article though. The title itself I already disagree with: 'HARDER, BETTER, FASTER, STRONGER: HAS DANCE MUSIC GOT HARDER AND FASTER?'

• HARDER: Yes
• BETTER: Not necessarily (to say the least)
• FASTER: For sure
• STRONGER: Depends how you look at this, in combination with BETTER; Than not 😉

Some to all artists interviewed for this article believe the youngsters, the new generation fans, go for this sound. Nightlife electronic music, and scenes, are new to them. Something to do with not having any reference material due to 2+ years of no club events and festivals. Could be a valid reason indeed. Funnily enough, this faster and harder sound was shit on by the masses two decades ago. Now it's more or less mainstream. Maybe not as big as EDM (the Tiesto, Armin van Buren, Afrojack, David Guetta kinda EDM I mean), but maybe a close runner-up. And that is what we can hear these days. Yes, it's faster and harder. But that doesn't mean it's better. Some are better, for sure: Like the Speedy and Steve sound, and the DJ Maria sound. But much of the techno produced and played these days are what they are, for the masses. Don't shoot me, but my take is: When music is created for the masses, music becomes 'straight' and 'easy'. Am not saying the music loose in quality, but for my ears and mind, such music becomes boring quickly. And yes, sometimes loose in quality as well. Sometimes just a little bit, but more than rarely by a lot of points. No judgement from my side. Everybody has their preferences. When a large number of peeps prefer 'straight' and 'easy', who am I to judge 😉

...but but but: I do like the harder sound of today; I (kinda) do like the faster sound of today; And I do like the resulting 'products' of some artists very much (whether these are tracks, albums, or sets played in clubs or at festivals).

Do you like bending rules and guidelines? I don't, but I do it anyways. Again! 😂 While Spread the Vibes guidelines say things such as 'react to some other music post and invite users', I say:

• Reaction to another music post: I kinda did by reacting to the 'Meeting Your Favourite Musician' one by our own MiPiano 🙇 🙃
• Invite others: I invite ALL of YOU! ✍️ 💃 🕺

It is this new initiative within the Q corner where music and stories come together. Love to read your contributions 😍 Thanks MiPiano for driving this one and inspiring all of us here at HIVE 🙇