Never had the business sense to make any money: Nick Foster interview
Yesterday’s interview was with Richie Deluxe. His partner in crime on Prank Monkey Records was Nick Foster, so it seemed right to talk to him about the label and the releases of London Booted and Whistler’ Delight.
1. How the devil are you? I’m very well. Thank you for asking.
2. I don’t know how you feel about mash-ups these days. But how did you get involved with them? Ok, now to make a very short story needlessly long and over blown *takes deep breath* ….. I used to listen to The Remix on XFM after being a fan of Eddy Temple Morris’s [interview here] show on MTV (where Zane Lowe had a little reporting bit part, fact fans) about the same time I got my first copy of Cubase. I had been in quite a few bands up to that point but had never turned my hand to producing however the Remix were running DIY remixing competitions at that time, so I thought I’d have a go and started entering with my own cobbled together oddities. To my surprise, I won one of these competitions and was featured on The Remix 2 LP . I went along to one of the Remix nights off the back of this and had a short chat with Eddy’s then sparring partner, James Hyman, about these tunes they had been slipping into the show where a couple of songs were mashed together to create a third. James pointed me toward Boomselection, Bastardpop.co.uk and of course GYBO.
3. What role, if any, did Boomselection or GYBO (in any of its various guises) play? I started to put together my own ‘bootleg’ tunes (as they were called at the time – do I sound like Grandpa Simpson??) and posting them on bastardpop.co.uk but didn’t really know what I was doing so eventually found my way to GYBO where there was a whole forum about how to make ‘mash-ups’. I also found out about the monthly club Bastard in London and started to frequent that.
4. How did Prank Monkey Records relate to GYBO? Which release are you most proud of and what is this about it being brought out of retirement? I loved the whole DIY culture of the scene which had a kind of punk rock feel to it, there was really nothing like it at that time and eventually thought I’d try my hand at putting out a white label with a couple of acts from GYBO.This then led onto helping another Nick (Deep Disco Force) release vinyl on his International Bastard label and DJ’ing (badly) at a couple of his International Bastard nights in Germany. There I met Richie (Brown) Deluxe from Culturedeluxe.com and we started hatching a plan to release a remixed version of the Clash’s London Booted by various GYBO artists, that Culturedeluxe had already put out as download only, as a double vinyl LP … and so Prank Monkey Records was born. We used GYBO talent on most of our releases from the producers through to artwork that was usually supplied by the extra talented mixer and artist Pheugoo.
I guess we are most proud of releasing LB and sorting out a Japanese only CD release with a distributor was quite a surreal experience. However, I think our high point was with DJ Riko’s Whistlers Delight that had set the Radio One specialist shows alight leading to the director of our distributor calling me to say that he thought we had a hit single on our hands and could we get it out as a digital release quickly … to which I had to explain that the single consisted of 45 separate samples of which none were cleared!!!
FREE download: DJ Riko – Whistler’s Delight http://www.djriko.com
More on London Booted via the excellent Radio Clash here.
To date we’ve released twelve different singles, EP’s and LP’s through Prank Monkey /Culturedeluxe and we are proud of them all…. just have never had the business sense to make any money (I blame the banks). We’ve been quiet for a couple of years as we have been working out where Prank Monkey / Culturedeluxe (or any label) actually fit in with Music Industry these days. Putting out digital only releases is so boring compared to creating vinyl ones. However after taking little time off I feel that the time is right to start putting out music again and after hearing the potential new release from Andy Dunproofin’s [interview here] Ejitz project (with Richie Deluxe) I started thinking about resurrecting Prank Monkey Records (via Culturedeluxe).There are a couple of releases that I was hoping to put out this year (including fantastic live recordings from always brilliant club night Wireless at Watford’s Chachacha) …although realistically it may spill over to 2013 now.
5. It all seemed to exciting and vibrant in 2002/03 to hear mash ups. What marked the start of the end? Over exposure and lack of imagination, like most music trends when people start making real money from it then it tends to start getting stale very quickly.
6. And what is music’s role for you now? I play in an acoustic band called Bong Torrez which is fun. The label will get going again either at the end of this year or the beginning of 2013 and I am waiting to see how the Younghusband LP does (who’s early releases were through PM /CDX) as it is meant to be absolutely fantastic.
Bong Torrez – The Place
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