In case you hadn’t already heard, February 24th sees the 5th annual Hard Dance Awards! What better opportunity to catch up with the man behind the magic; Ed Real!
First things first Ed, this year there have been a few changes to the voting system and the awards on offer, most notably you have dropped the prestigious “Message Board Hero” category! I think I speak for the whole world when I ask; what on earth have you done that for?!
For the 2nd year when the Message Board Hero wouldn’t turn up for fear of retribution from members of the community they had flamed… we decided that this award was a waste of energy. The Hard Dance Awards is a celebration of our scene and this became a negative, which is a shame but indicative of the culture we live in today. Young people don’t know when they’re born etc!
On a more serious note, as every year goes by the Hard Dance Awards appears to grow in stature and has become very slick and professional. Is it a constant struggle to refine the awards or are there always things that you want to change and improve each year? Are there things you see in this years awards that you already think of changing next year or have you achieved perfection?
The most exciting thing about dance music and the culture surrounding it is that it evolves constantly. Look at the line-up now and the winners on the night and a percentage wouldn’t have been in the public eye even two years ago. This means we constantly revise what we’re trying to achieve. Primarily because we want to profile the new school to ensure that we’re celebrating the future as much as the last 12 months.
This year sees the inclusion of some big name sponsors like Red Bull, Pioneer & MTV! Clearly this is a sign of the rise in popularity and importance of the awards?
Clearly! We welcome any organisation that will help us shout louder about the scene we all love. The players on both sides of the decks are generally quite charismatic and gregarious people, so any medium in which we can promote this to new fans the better it is for everyone; more events, more records, more fun every weekend!
The awards are also going to be recorded and shown on MTV; a massive step for the Hard Dance scene. I assume this means you will be making an effort to remain sober and in control in front of the cameras?!
Not at all! Why change the habit of a lifetime!
It seems every man and his dog is going to be at the awards, including every big name in the scene. One notable absentee will be Proteus after a very public show of displeasure from his management over being booked to play in the second room and not the main stage. Are the Hard Dance Awards people disappointed at this rather public argument? Do you think it’ll detract in anyway from the awards?
I think it highlights just how seriously people take the awards and I guess that’s a good thing. On a personal note, I’m obviously upset that Harri decided to throw his toys out of the pram. His management were contacted a number of times to rectify the situation and I even emailed to donate my main room set. Perhaps the agenda was to try and get the public sympathy vote to ensure another top place… we’ll see on the night whether this has been successful. The only people who suffer from him not turning up are his fans and that’s a shame and a little selfish if you ask me.
Have you ever refused a gig on the basis of what room or time a promoter has asked you to play?!
Nope. Whatever room I play I endeavour to make as much noise as possible so that my set is talked about for time to come. We’re DJ’s who get played to entertain people and really that’s the bottom line. Fatboy Slim DJed in the toilet at Manumission and if he thinks that the party is more important than egos then I’m not one to argue.
To commemorate this year’s ceremony there is also going to be a double disk CD mixed by you and the Tidy Boys. Details are still a bit thin on the ground so why don’t you explain it in a bit more detail to the readers of tidy.com…
My disk contains tracks that have been voted for by the fans in this year’s awards. I took a selection of the 20 most popular tracks and chose the ones that fitted the programming of the disk. Whilst mine is all the anthems from the last year, the Tidy Boys have selected their future anthems making for a balanced and sturdy package! I’m really chuffed with the tracklist – it’s one of the favourite albums I’ve mixed and this is my 12th compilation so that’s saying something!
Away from the Hard Dance Awards and onto all matters “Ed Real”… Your professional life seems to take on three guises at the moment; promoting, djing and selling mp3s. Quite a difficult balancing act; do you think it makes you the hardest working man in the industry?!
It feels like it sometimes! I have a saying ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’. It’s not possible sometimes to tick everything off the ‘to do’ list but having a great team around you helps to keep the show on the road; BK at Riot! / Fakt Recordings, Nolan and the Trackitdown.net gang, Most Wanted & Music Factory with the Hard Dance Awards all help to spread the load. I love it and can never top myself up with enough projects. It’s really about learning to say no though as not all opportunities are good opportunities…
For those that haven’t seen it, Trackitdown.net has undergone a few major changes in the past year, making it fair and away the most advanced MP3 portal on the market. You were one of the first people to take on the MP3 market, long before rival sites had even thought of it. How are things going with Trackitdown.net and would you consider yourself a bit of a pioneer in this market?
We have the biggest selection of dance music downloads on the world-wide-web and that’s a great achievement for us. Our competitors are all owned by bigger corporations whereas we have built up our service with the passion of music lovers, not deep pockets! This has meant that innovation has been our marketing and certainly since we added new features at the start of February we’re experiencing another level of growth which will allow us to invest more into dance music retail – this is better for the producer, the label and most importantly, the fan who wants to be kept abreast of the best new dance music.
Our service was the first dedicated dance download store to launch in Europe and this year we’re celebrating our third year in the business with a great big rave at Turnmills on Saturday 21st April! As soon as we launch new services though we already have another round of development planned so by then prepare yourselves for the next level!
Riot Records is still going strong with releases cutting across all genres of dance music at the moment. Whilst other labels seem to be struggling it seems Riot is going from strength to strength… what is the key to the success you and BK are having at the moment?
At the moment it’s impossible to make money from hard dance music. There just isn’t enough volume in sales of singles or albums really. That’s just the way music cycles go. The key to our success is that we don’t care! We make and release music to fuel the scene we love and to be able to have the best tunes when we DJ every weekend! Luckily that music will also be available to fans too after we’ve had the chance to play it on the road so hopefully everyone wins… Our job is to showcase and support existing and new talent and that’s what we’re doing. Digital sales means that the traditional method of only releasing tracks if they are going to achieve sales targets is over. I sign and release records now that are dead certs but I also look for the marmite tunes and give them a chance – people might hate them, but they also might tap into the clubbing zeitgeist and become the next big thing.
What’s going to be the biggest releases planned for the coming months?
RIOT026; Kanagawa ‘The Wave’ – tough electro techno from Chris Hoff featuring a wicked vocal from Lucy Clarke. It’s been Judge Jules’ Tried & Tested on Radio One.
RIOT027; Trevor McLachlan vs Brad Thatcher ‘Imagination / Sequential’ – pounding hard trance with nice bubbly psy basslines.
RIOT028; Lee Osborne ‘Reborn Digital EP’ – Eddie Halliwell style tech-trance with a tasty European flavour
RIOT029; Airspace vs Brad Thatcher ‘The Truth / The Day Comes’ – biggest hard trancer in the box for me. The Truth reminds of classic DJ Kim style euphoria!
RIOT030; BK ‘It’s Just A Feeling’ – BK covers the classic Terrorize anthem from 1991 in a follow up to ‘Playing With Knives’, our biggest seller to date.
RIOTCD002; BK ‘Under The Influence’ artist album – 2 disks; one of brand new material and collaborations with; Lisa Lashes, Judge Jules, Sentience, Ali Wilson, Vinylgroover. Disk 2 was recorded live at Global Gathering and is all the classics from BK over the last ten years. Mega!
Check www.riotinlondon.com for more info on all recordings
And are there plans for any more Riot club nights in the future?
We’ll be taking the Riot! road show on tour from end of April when we’re launching the BK ‘Under The Influence’ album. The tour really kicks off on 6th May at Ministry Of Sound in London with ‘Polysexual presents BK - Under The Influence’. We’re very excited!
Djing is obviously the glue that connects all the aspects of your life. How are things going with that? Do you have anything massive planned for 2007?
*flicks through diary* there seems to be quite a lot going on this year which is obviously very encouraging! Highlights include; playing Friday main room at the next Weekender, headlining the 30,000 capacity In Qontrol event in Holland (thanks to everyone who voted!), Gatecrasher Summer Sound System, Torture Garden birthday, Tidy Extreme Ibiza, Psy sets in Plymouth and Drum & Bass sets in Oxford and the Trackitdown.net 3rd Birthday at Turnmills on the 21st April playing alongside 14 headliners from Holland, Gernamy, Sweden and the UK. I’m also on a mission to do the Burning Man festival in Nevada desert this year. My friend runs a lunatic asylum there and I’ll fit right in…
Your djing seems to be taking you across the globe these days with trips to Australia, Holland and Brazil all under the belt. Is there anywhere else you are hoping to get a trip to in 2007?
Burning Man in the Nevada desert is one ambition. 20,000 naked freaks in the desert for a week. Two things are banned; money and guns. To survive you got to use your guile and charm to barter and exchange food and other supplies. I’m gonna be king of the desert. Or die trying…
Sorry to blow the lid on this but another big name DJ who has toured with you says that your key to surviving jetlag is to just not sleep for the entire duration of your tour…some achievement given it was a three day trip to South Africa! I see the party animal in you is as strong as ever!
I’ve mellowed quite a lot over the last six months and sometimes enjoy a little disco nap. Melatonin is the new hardcore drug I’m into… great visiuals! Hahaha
Well, we look forward to seeing more of your party animal antics at the awards next week! All the best!
I’ll be the muppet on the main stage looking for the bar! Come and give me a wave!
www.trackitdown.net
www.riotinlondon.com