GYBO wasn’t one for that dumb boys club vibe: Eve Massacre interview
When I started this series, one of the people I definitely wanted to have was Germany’s Eve Massacre. A GYBO stalwart from the early days and a talented bootlegger and musician, her work was rarely straight pop mash ups, there was always a dark twist. I’m therefore really pleased she’s agreed to participate.
1. How the devil are you? And what’s the weather like in Germany?
Thank you, I am fine, as it’s fun to write about the good ol’days of bootleg mixing. Two glasses of Rotkäppchen champagne with Cassissée might also be take some blame. Outside it’s bloody cold and rainy but I guess the UK isn’t much better off.
2. How did you get involved in music?
Passively – I can’t even think of a time when I wasn’t enthusiastic about music. I annoyed the hell out of my family with endless repetitions of playing flute, when I learned it as a kid. I also loved taping my favourite songs from radio shows and singing and dancing along. Later, I loved going to shows and buying records and going to clubs. For a long time it just didn’t appear to me that it was something I would dare to take an active part in.
Actively – well, some friends inspired me to start playing in a band, actually pretty late; I think I was already 19 when I started but I loved it from the very first moment and ended up playing bass and singing in several bands for quite a few years. All self-taught, I’m afraid I have no proper music education (I guess the flute lessons don’t count.). But having lots of fun with it anyway. After a final six week tour through Europe my last and favourite band, The Flamingo Massacres (named after a chapter in Irvine Welsh’s ‘Marabou Stork Nightmares’, and it’s also where the eve massacre ‘massacre’ comes from), broke up. As for a long time it had been ‘the’ band for me I wasn’t in the mood to start something new with strangers. Through the community radio I had just started working for I got my first experiences with music editing software and so instead of looking for new bandmates I turned to making electronic solo stuff which at first meant mash ups. Or bootleg mixes as we used to call them.
3. I don’t know what you think about mash-ups these days. But how did you get involved in doing them?
I’ve got to confess that these days I am not such big fan of mash-ups any more, although I guess there are still exceptions out there.
I got into mash-ups back in 2001 or 2002. I had this semi-ironic 80’s party going with a few friends and one of them, René (who nowadays makes music as Pillowdiver), played ‘Destinys Kennedys’ and told me about boomselection and I was hooked. I had always had a soft spot for intertextuality, collages and pastiche, and I have always loved to make mixtapes for friends that were a bit more than just a ‘favourite songs’ compilation. Somehow the mix of silliness and cleverness of the first wave of British mash-up scene hit a nerve with me.
Mash-ups were a wonderful way to learn working with music software and gain some production skills that helped me later with my own music. And of course it was fun to share them and listen to those of other people and give each others opinions and help. Sharing was big back then.
4. What role, if any, did Boomselection or GYBO (in any of its various guises) play?
Boomselection only was the gateway drug but GYBO was the addiction. Even in its first version, when it was a really small community, it stuck out as friendly online music community full of people with a great sense of humor and little ego. Compared to other message boards, it was really surprising to see that for years it didn’t even need mods and board rules. Someone once phrased it something like ‘come for the music, stay for the banter’. It was no place for people who only wanted to show off but it was perfect for people who wanted interaction – be it about the tunes or about what to feed your hamster. It was nice to have your latest bootleg mix loved or blown to pieces but the real core of GYBO was off topic chat. Message board culture is hard to explain to people who never used them but the way you meet and chat with the same people online everyday for years makes them slowly turn from strangers into friends no matter if you ever met IRL.
As for mash ups: The whole way of sharing these slightly illegal tunes with others via the internet for a laugh and not for money was what mash-up culture seemed to mostly be about. Of course it also was fun to place one of those tracks in a dj set every now and then but I’ve always thought of it as a web culture thing closely tied to the rise of mp3s and filesharing. GYBO was the big heart of the mash up scene.
5. My memory says there were often heated debates on GYBO that seemed on the verge of destablising it and you were a voice of reason. How was that?
Haha, was I? I guess it depends. When a newbie went crazy because people dared to criticise his out-of-tune mash-up or when some hiphop dj had dissed mash-ups and people were about to go off in cross-board flamewars I was one of the voices of reason. If it was about monetisation of mash-ups or sexism or if people were only about self-promotion, I rather was the fuel in the fire. I bet Grant only made me a mod so I had to be more neutral and kept my mouth shut about some things. 😉
6.Are there any bootlegs of yours that you think have withstood the test of time (don’t say, none)?
Oh, definitely! As much as I dislike some directions in which the scene has grown, I still have a place in my heart for not only mine but also quite a few bootleg jewels by others and still play them out from time to time. I have made some truly horrible ones but here are three that still stand out for me for different reasons:
“Sweet as neurotic indie boys” (Trans-X / Moldy Peaches / Chicks On Speed / Die Goldenen Zitronen / Bloodhound Gang)
This was one of my really early mash-ups and I was quite proud of it having just learned how to work with Samplitude.
“I wish I knew how to talk loud and clear” (Nina Simone / OMD / Dead Prez / März)
This one is special to me as it was one of the few slower, more fragile and sadder mixes I have tried and which even got me Pitchfork praise.
“Fuck the kids” (MGMT / Soulwax / Yeah Yeah Yeahs / Peaches)
This one is special to me cause it was the track that got me the most diverse feedback: The biggest disses (I’m afraid some people read the title as paedophiliac which of course is ridiculous). The biggest praise (lots of people sending feedback, heavy dancefloor cheers and it even got to no. 1 on Hype Machine (back when HypeM still was cool – as a friend of mine always hastens to add)). And from GYBO it only got a puny ‘it’s okayish’ – one more of the reasons why I loved GYBO: It so often was wonderfully hype resistant.
7. You were one of the few women bootleggers on GBYO. Why do you think that was so?
That is one of the big mysteries in so many parts of music. I really don’t know. On some other music message boards I would have blamed blatant sexism but especially in its first years GYBO wasn’t one for that dumb boys club vibe. Compared to others it could almost be described as a gender neutral board. So I guess it’s all those tiny reasons that keep many women from getting started in so many areas of music or as djs. Or other male dominated fields.
8. Were you involved with the club Bastard? What was it like – I never went.
Sadly not. I only followed the before/after threads on GYBO.
9. It all seemed to exciting and vibrant in 2002/03 to hear mash ups. What marked the start of the end?
As with so many things: Greed killing the innocence and friendships and honesty of the early days. People who wanted to make it bigger, to make it a movement, to earn money with it through MTV, through official releases, through large-capacity parties like Bootie, through video games like DJ Hero. All those things made mash ups more and more popular and the more people started making them the less creativity went into them and the more people with big egos became part of the scene. It seems a natural thing though and I understand if people try for it. It happens to almost every lively underground scene and I think we can count ourselves lucky that it was so much fun for such a long time.
10. And what is music’s role for you now?
To quote Hidden Cameras: “Music is my boyfriend”. Or girlfriend. I still love making music although this year I got so caught up in my work in a promoter collective putting up underground shows and club nights that I hardly found time for it. I still love discovering new music and putting up shows for exciting bands or help with underground club nights. I still love djing and planning for club nights. And answering these questions I have even gotten in the mood to try and make a new bootleg mix.
Huge thanks to Eve for doing this and for specially uploading the three bootleg tunes above.
ACID TED 
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