It’s odd GYBO Finally coming to an End: Dsico interview

Bootlegs are dead. The first person I remember saying that was Luke Dsico way back in 2004 (I think). He was a really high quality bootlegger from Australia who moved to London. But he could also come across as quite prickly, so I dithered about contacting him. But I shouldn’t have been such a wuss.

1. How the devil are you and what’s the weather like in E8?

I’m doing ok and actually have moved out north a bit, currently residing in N4 (Finsbury Park) as it happens. E8 (uber-trendy Dalton) was getting rather pricey. Still in London though with no plans to head back to Australia.

2. How did you get involved in bootlegs/mash ups?

Same way as most in those days – I”d heard some of the Soulwax and Freelance Hellraiser tracks in 2001 / 2002 because of all the hype in the blogosphere / the WIRE / Boomselection, whenever it was and they were strangely absurd and compelling. I think it was a very different time then though. Dance music was very serious then or the music i was into was: Micro House, glitchy stuff. Mashups seemed to say “fuck that ” but did have a kind of serious theoretical side to it. It was fun but subversive and allowed people to from the Alternative / Dance scene to play / appreciate mainstream pop music. At the time, there was this new embrace of pop music in the alternative scene though and so perhaps it was part of that.

There was just a lot of talk at the time about copyright in general. Lawrence Lessig and Copyright Commons and stuff was all being developed. The world seemed to be obsessed with Intellectual Property. So its not difficult to see how mainstream interest in mashups would come out of that.

3. How important was Boomselection / GYBO?

Well, I think that they were a locus for the action internationally – and their existence meant that someone like me (living in Sydney at the time) could have mixes played on UK Radio / UK Clubs. I think the scene initially was really centred in London via XFM and Bastard – but that the existence of Boomselection / GYBO were good for generating hype. I was shocked when I first came to London and discovered Bastard was just this tiny little club and just how small the scene was in London. Actually, it really opened my eyes to the undue influence of cities like London / NYC in fashion / music / art. Really, it was just a bunch of people in a bar the size of a living room… but because that living room was in London it would get written up in WIRE or the NME etc.

4. What made you do the synth covers on the fantastic Punk as Pussy EP in 2003? Did the covers become a millstone for you?

I’d got more interested in the notion of Bastard Pop more generally and doing ‘radical’ covers of very classic songs seemed to be an interesting part of that. And I’ve always loved the sound of Vocoders – I learnt a lot about using them during that period. It was amusing. But some of the covers were a bit shit. [I beg to disagree]

5. You were one of the first to insist that bootlegs were dead. Why did you feel that?

Pretty much all of the “pioneers” of the scene had given it up after a couple of years. There’s just no point doing yet more mashups after a while. I thought of it as an investigation. Similarly, an artist night explore a singular idea and develop a body of work until it seems to have exhausted all new possibilities. I felt that I’d produced bodies of work within mashups, mangled pop, covers respectively and that was enough. Why re-write the same album again and again.

I don’t know why people are still doing mashups. I guess its like any art form; there still people producing art that looks like a cheap Monet copy, so I guess its the same with mashups.

6. What are you up to now?

Actually taking some time off doing music at the moment. Selling some gear, you want to buy a second hand synthesizer?

Seven Nation Army (7 Synths Mix)

Smells Like Electro

Jon Whitney Housten (ft Kevin Blechdom)

http://lukecollison.com/echoclerk/

http://lukedsico.bandcamp.com/

~ by acidted on November 8, 2012.