Weiser is a kitten!: Act of Dog Interview Pt 2

Second part of Act of Dog from Phil n’ Dog. This time we talk about my pet irritation of the unfinished More Than A Feeling remix, being wasted on a Friday morning and dildo jousting at Bastard.

6.Are there any other bootlegs of yours that you think have withstood the test of time (don’t say, none)?

I can genuinely only think of one of my own mashups that’s ever really been popular, which is a cheeky little blend of Lemon Jelly and Enya, which I’ve heard played out at various nights here and there, so I’d say that ‘Ducks Sailing’ is my most successful and popular work.

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7. You did a remix of Boston’s More Than A Feeling which was fantastic but you never quite finished it off saying it was just an experiment. Why was that?

I was just messing with recreating the more laid back vibes of the Lemon Jelly bootlegs that Fred Deakin produced, like the ‘Rolled Oats’ and ‘Soft Rock’ EPs, mixing classic rock tracks with chilled out drumloops etc. and I thought I’d have a crack at it with the Boston track, which even had a nod to Lemon Jelly in the remix name. I always intended to follow it up, but never got around to it. I’ve heard it played out a couple of times now, which still surprises me.
8. Were you involved with the club Bastard? What was it like?
Ahhh, Bastard. Responsible for many a wasted Friday morning, many a quizzical look when you explained that you’d been out at London’s smallest music venue, under a newsagents. That place was special. You can’t put your finger on it, it wasn’t one thing that made it, it was everything. The place was tiny and I do mean tiny. People would hear about Bastard, speaking of it in hushed tones and they’d look almost mortified when they found out it was no bigger than the front room in someone’s house. The atmosphere was properly mental. The night we first went, there were people crowdsurfing to ‘Gay Muppet Bar’. Crowdsurfing in The Asylum! The spirit of the place was what made it. The people, the stupidity, the music, Ming the Merciless and his bar staff, the whole thing. I’ve never been to another place where each month, the theme got more outlandish. Pope hats, paper hats made from hardcore gay porn, dildo jousting, bread, ‘Rich’s Dad’ playing harmonica, poledancing and the ‘Specials’. It was that and a lot more. I was there for the last one at the Asylum, right up until the end. When it moved to Shoreditch, it never really recovered. Something was missing. It seems strange, but even now when I’m in the area and can see The Asylum, I still think back fondly to the many nights I spent rammed into a small, sweaty room, bouncing with a load of other lunatics, wearing god knows what on our heads whilst people up on the street wandered past, oblivious to the fact that we were having the best night in the world.
9. It all seemed to exciting and vibrant in 2002/03 to hear mash ups. What marked the start of the end?

Damn, that’s a tough one. I suppose personally for me, it was the fact that I found myself forcing too many ideas together, trying to make them fit and it really wasn’t happening. I think the scene got incredibly crowded too, with some of the old guard moving on, some selling out to the corporates and some just stopping altogether. Music became more disposable too and there was an influx of crappy, cheesy and frankly dire mashups hitting the scene with too many people wanting to get in on the act and not actually paying attention to the stuff that they were making.
10. And what is music’s role for you now?
I still sit here at my PC with Reason, Ableton Live, ReBirth etc. and produce my own material, download the odd remix competiton stem files now and again just to play with music that I love, but I’ve not had any thoughts about releasing any of it. I’ve done a couple of remixes to play out at parties etc. when I DJ, but even that is a rare thing these days. I still sit here and bang out the odd 2 hour mix in Traktor now and then, just for fun and I’m buying a lot of music still, because it still drives me and excites me. I’m still listening to bootlegs/mashups, but I think the scene has become very commercial now. It’s crawled out from the underground and gone mainstream, demanding cash for what was once free. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just not the scene I knew and loved.

Oh and one more thing… Weiser is a kitten!

To end, have an Act of Dog remix for The Prodigy remix album

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~ by acidted on October 21, 2012.