The GGM Daft Stuff Area

http://ggmraw.org/Mixes/2007-09-21_Smurf_Interview_PureDanceNRGmp3.mp3

Mr Smurf. How long have you been DJing and what got you interested in making music?

I got my first turntable in 1990, played at a few parties, backrooms of pubs, disused warehouses and stuff, got my first proper gig in 1992, New Years Eve in Walker’s (used to be planet earth, think its been knocked down now.) My first ‘proper’ gig was judgement day 1994 at Whitley Bay, I was playing really fast gabber at the time, (when it was new) and since then I’ve played at parties all over the UK and recently all around the world. Its all very good!

Gabber is often seen as a talentless form of music by snobbish critics, what is it about gabber that appeals to you?

Gabber is one of the only styles of music where you can put any kind of sample in to it, you can have a punk sample, a comedy one, an orchestral sample, drills, hacksaws, anything! It can all sound good. I don’t think theres any other music that sounds like that, when it first started it was all about fun, funny samples, funny guitars, funny vocals and sounds. Over the years things have become more technical and clever. People like deathchant for example. I think its kind of coming around again though, especially with the ggm label: I’m trying to put more fun into it. Things like the pacman record by rigamortis, and the track I did which is a remix of male stripper by man parish…trying to put the fun back in to it basically.

You have been involved in the scene for a long time, how have things changed over the years? Are things different now to say, ten years ago?

I think ten years ago, things were pretty much the same… Its just like any music scene. It goes round in a ten year cycle and a new generation comes through. I suppose ten years ago, the whole hardcore scene sort of died. Happy Hardcore kind of took over and you got a load of young kids come in to the scene, taking loads of pills, getting wasted. They were more in to the drugs than the music…
Then around about 2001 it started getting better, a new generation of producers started coming through and happy hardcore died down. I suppose gabber just evolved. It started around 1992 and just got faster and faster, until about 97 when it slowed down a bit and the whole ‘newstyle’ dutch gabber thing kicked off. (Thats still massive in Holland) Theres also all the Techno gabber, Terror (which is like 200bpm type stuff) Speedcore which is faster again, a thing called splittercore which is about 400bpm and something called extra tone which just goes drrrrrrrrrr! So yeah, it just evolved and seems to be going in a ten year cycle.

Where have you most enjoyed playing, and why?

Everywhere’s different really. Newcastles good because it’s your own crowd and I don’t get to play up here that much. Scotlands always great because they are really in to their hardcore up there. Hollands good because the parties can be anything between 400 and 20′000 people so thats fantastic. I don’t know really, its really difficult to choose one place to be honest!

How to European parties differ from UK events?
European parties in Holland, Switzerland, Italy etc, its 100% gabber at all the big events, the main arena is normally slow gabber, like neophyte, angerfist and all the 160bpm stuff. The second arena is usually all the faster stuff, so your speedcore and things. Also the oldskool arena (which is usually harder than the main arena!) So it’s just kickdrums where ever you go. Over here the main rooms tend to be happy hardcore and the gabber rooms are just small, backrooms with shit soundsystems. Though that has been getting better recently, you have a few alternative nights popping up now, like Rollies for Mice for example, where the crowd that come down seem to like a bit of everything. (Thats the way forward in my opinion)

Some people associate gabber with very strong right wing political views, do you think this is justified?

I’ve heard this loads of times… When gabber first started it was kind of seen as the punk of the nineties because it was really fast, really hard and had loads of attitude. You did get a lot skinheads who were in to gabber but I think thats kind of died out now. I think the boots, the shaved head and the combat trousers are just part of the fashion, especially in europe. I mean, you see say 200 people in a venue all with shaved heads going mental and you might get a bit scared but they aren’t really nazis, they dont really know whats going on. There are a few who are like that, they do this daft goosestepping dance. To be honest they normally get kicked out. It is there but I think people try and make more of it than it really is. The majority of people aren’t like that.

You’re famous for playing hard, 4 to the floor gabber, what do you think of the emerging breakcore scene? People amalgamating breakbeats with gabber kicks?

It’s not really my cup of tea but I do respect people that do it. I quite like venetian snares, sickboy, those kind of people that use the breakbeat and the gabber kick with funny samples and things. A lot of it just sounds like pots and pans in a washing machine though! It does draw in a good cross section of people though, from drum and bass, gabber, breakcore, all sorts. It gets more people in to the scene so its all good. So I do respect it but I don’t think I’d ever play it.

Have you got any favorite artists?
For my sort of style I like speedfreak from Germany, the last promo I just got by him is really well produced…really good for mixing. It’s so fucking heavy. I like la peste from france, he makes really industrial speedcore type stuff as well. Promo is amazing, the kick drums he produces are just incredible. Unexist from italy is really good, quite different, really hard, angry sound. Also rigamortis of the geordie gabber mafia, he’s going to be a big superstar! Loads of people really, you get tunes every moth and it changes all the time, I hear things by new artists a lot and think “thats amazing!”

For those people that don’t know, what is the geordie gabber mafia?
Geordie Gabber Mafia is a collective of a few of us. At the moment its armaged:don who normally plays breakcore and speedcore. UEP who just eats pies. He’s more breakcore orientated now, but he still likes his gabber and all that. produces tracks as well. (He needs to get his arse in to gear and do some more for the label. We’ve got the new guy rigamortis who has been following gabber since it stareted. Every track he makes deserves to be on vinyl, theres also Dilation, he’s sent me a few tracks. So yeah, its me, Armaged:don, fat boy uep and rigamortis.

You’ve recently started a label, what can we expect from that?
Well, like I said before, I’m trying to put a lot of the fun back in to gabber. Recently its all been just ‘bang bang bang’ and nothing you can really remember so a lot of the stuff I want to put out on the label has got to stick in your head. I want people to get back the next day and be singing (sings the trumpet song/male stripper) and think…’whats that tune?’ Basically I want to release things that are good fun and that people will remember.

GGMRAW01 is available now and features tracks from smurf, rigamortis, the teknoist and mutante.

Smurf

We caught up with one of the UK Underground’s most respected DJ’s - Smurf!!

“………. Meanwhile, back in Holland, another birth was about to take place. In 1992 tempo’s started to go out of control, kicks drums got heavier and the hardest form of dance music, gabber, was born. Scotland created there own ‘Bouncy techno’ sound by weakening down gabber kick drums and adding happier sounds. The Dutch soon followed suit, except they kept the kick drums hard and crated ‘happy gabber’ which stayed around for a few years. Meanwhile, in 1994, in the USA & Germany, tempo’s reached over 250 BPM………

1. So how long have you been DJing?

I got my first Sound Lab belt drives in 1990, done a few house party’s and done my first ‘proper’ set in a club on New Years Eve 1992 in Newcastle.

2. What do you think of the way electronic dance music has evolved throughout its life, and how would U compare the UK scene to rest of the world?

I’ve saw it progress YMCA to NYC Speedcore ! I’ve been lucky was I’ve been into hardcore before it was invented, so I’ve been around during its evolution and its offshoots into all kinds of weird and wonderful genre’s. This is how I have saw its (hardcore’s) progression: Electronic music first came about in the 70’s with the disco movement, which then progressed into electro and hip hop in the 80’s. The Americans then created ‘house’ music which turned into techno and acid, then in 1990 we started to get our first taste of hardcore when the Belgium’s, Germans & Dutch created there own version of techno, speeding the beats up, making them heavier and adding hard sounds. Back in the UK, hip hop beats were added to house music which morphed into breakbeat and into drum & bass. Uplifting piano’s and melody’s were added to the breakbeat and as the tempo increased, happy hardcore was born. Meanwhile, back in Holland, another birth was about to take place. In 1992 tempo’s started to go out of control, kicks drums got heavier and the hardest form of dance music, gabber, was born. Scotland created there own ‘Bouncy techno’ sound by weakening down gabber kick drums and adding happier sounds. The Dutch soon followed suit, except they kept the kick drums hard and crated ‘happy gabber’ which stayed around for a few years. Meanwhile, in 1994, in the USA & Germany, tempo’s reached over 250 BPM, thrash metal guitars were put over manic beats and we all hailed the birth of speedcore. In 1998, in response to all the up-tempo tracks, ‘newstyle’ gabber was created in Holland, with the tempo’s going back to 160 BPM like how it was when gabber was created. The, happy hardcore tried to get rid of its kiddie image and re-invent itself as ‘UK hardcore’, but this just sounded as bad as it did 10 years ago. Nowadays it’s the French & Dutch that are the big players in the hardcore scene. Quite a nice hardcore history lesson there !

The main difference in the scene’s in the rest of the world, is that the UK seems to be the only place with happy hardcore. If you go to a big party in the UK, all the big arena’s focus on happy hardcore and recently a bit gabber. If your lucky, you may get a small room dedicated to hardcore gabber, which usually has crap sound and equipment to work with. In other countries in Europe like Holland, you will have the main arena all gabber (as we call it) or ‘hardcore’ as the Dutch call it and you get you speedcore or ‘terror’ area’s at most events. Hardcore is huge in Holland and is regularly on TV on the music channels. All record shops stock hardcore CD’s and on almost every street you will see kids sporting there Masters Of Hardcore, Neophyte etc clothing. The party scene is mental aswell with about 10 hardcore party’s across a weekend. Check out http://www.Partyflock.nl. Its in Dutch but fairly easy to follow. I’ve been over there and played at 4 party’s with about 400 people at each party. Each town has a big hardcore following, its bewildering and the scene over there still amazes me every time I go across. The people are very appreciative of what you do and the majority go out to party. In the UK, you find there are a lot of people who just go to party’s and hang around the DJ booths seeing what each DJ is playing or waiting for them to make mistakes so they can have a moan on forums. People in the UK tend to focus more on the negative things than the positives

3. Since you have been named in the billboard encyclopaedia of music as one of the major names of speedcore any views on how to get a wider ranging audience to start appreciating it?

That was a complete shock when I found out about that ! Sharkey was teaching kids in the USA about studio engineering and some one mentioned he was in an encyclopaedia as part of a music course. He phoned me when he got back to the UK to tell me about it and he was just as surprised as me to be in it. The only document I imagined myself being in alongside Kylie Minogue would be court documents prosecuting me for hiding in her toilet. I got a few copies of the book off the internet for Mama & Grandma Smurf.

With regards to getting speedcore across to a wider audience - There is a lot of snobbery in every music scene with everyone dissing anything that isn’t as hard, funky, happy, dark etc as there scene. The worst offenders are people into speedcore who tend to look down on anything that’s below 200 BPM or has any kind of a melody. They automatically assume everything else as being crap and I’ve known some people wont even talk to other humans who are into weaker styles. Don’t take it too seriously. Its only music! You generally find that these people eventually disappear and amount to nothing. I have been guilty of this in the past when I was first getting into speedcore and realised it gets you know where thinking you’re the hardest DJ on the planet and everything else is shite. I may not like happy hardcore, but I respect people’s opinions and the people who are in it for the right reasons. Im friends with a lot of artists in other scene’s which some of the extreme hardcore ‘elite’ don’t understand. I’ve got a great deal of respect for people like Scott Brown, Marc Smith, Sharkey who have stuck with the scene thru all its ups and downs. Once you show respect for others you get it back and they are more likely to listen to what you have to say or maybe even listen to your music and vice versa, that way you get people who have never heard it, listening to it, instead of trying to ram it down there mouths with the “Im harder than you” attitude. They way I try to get more people interested into hardcore gabba is to play a set full of different sounds that you wouldn’t necessarily here outside a radio or TV. Instead of banging out the fasted music on the planet just for the sake of it, I drop pop music and acapella’s over the top of tracks and throw in the odd Slipknot, Nirvana, Limp Bizkit track. The Dutch have affectionately named my style Smurfcore ! The beauty of gabber is that anything and everything can be sampled and made into a track without it sounding out of place and more like an acceptable pisstake. For instance, some of the gabbers out there mightn’t of liked it when I played The Crazy Frog or Girls Aloud and put a 250 BPM kick drum track over it, but then again, word gets about. If someone into happy hardcore or something else gets to hear about it, they may have a reaction of “Oo that sounds mad, I’ll check Smurf out next time” and you get an extra set of ears listening to what you doing and maybe liking it.

4. Who are your musical inspirations?

Musical inspirations have been oldksool hip hop, acid and early hard techno. I love gabber with rap samples and oldskool sounds and ear piercing acid. I mostly listen to oldksool techno sets in the car and not much speedcore. DJ/artist influences are Lenny Dee, Freak, Loftgroover, Producer, Speedfreak, Slipknot, Steps, Joey Beltram, Carl Cox, Bass Generator, Ruffneck and too many others to mention.

5. What would you be doing if you weren’t playing and making music?

I think I would still be a trainspotter and defiantly a virgin.

6. Have you ever gone to the wrong venue or wrong date?

Haha, that took me a while to think about that ! The only thing I can think off is being booked to play at a death metal night. I turned up with my records to find that they only had CD decks. A few years ago, The Butcher from Nordcore Germany was booked to play at Resistance in Edinburgh. He flew into Newcastle early on Friday afternoon and was left in the (in)capable hands of UEP & Stereo Mike, who took him out around Newcastle drinking Newcastle Brown Ale. We continued to get him drunk on the coach up to Edinburgh and by the time we got there he was completely sozzled and had to go and have a sleep in the back of a car. A few hours later he woke up, got out of the car and walked into a completely different club down the road. We found him wandering about outside at the end and he therefore missed his set.

7. Ever been beaten in public?

Nar, I’ve got quick little legs. 3 lads did kick the shit out of me in a taxi once after my girlfriend at the time spat in one of there faces !

8. Do you prefer playing at huge parties or the more intimate environment of a smaller club?

Hmm, bit of both really. Small party’s are cool as you get to interact with the party people more and meet many nice people. Some smaller party’s tend to have bad equipment, no monitors, dodgy turntables etc. Promoters should check these thing out as it makes our job a hell of a lot more difficult. I turned up to one party for a 2 hour set and there were no DJ monitors at all. The promoter said he forgot to get them in the afternoon and bought some coke instead. Great. Big party’s usually have perfect monitors and equipment and there is noting like the buzz you get when stepping up behind the decks and seeing 8,000 people in front of you at 6 o clock in the morning !

9. Most embarrassing DJ moment?

Hmm, many times during my unprofessional stage of getting very drunk before playing ! Putting the needle on the labels of the records, taking the wrong record off, striping off naked and operating the cross fader with me wadger then falling backwards of the stage and getting stuck Frank Spencer style between the gap between the wall & the stage. Playing place with no monitors and being unable to mix properly.

10. Explain the pre-occupation with clothes pegs?

Haha, pegmania is in Holland now. I hope that wasn’t my fault ! One Sunday morning after a Judgement Day, I went to the shop for more booze and saw a bag of assorted coloured clothes pegs. I bought them and took them back to my mates flat and sat for hours playing with them and pegging them onto different objects. We soon got fascinated by the different shaped pegs you could buy so started collecting and naming them, dollypegs, fishpegs, spacepegs, clippegs etc and started taking photo’s of them in strange places. We started a club called P.E.G.S. - Pegs Exuberate Greatness Society and made standard, gold & platinum membership cards. Lots of people started collecting pegs and when you had 10 different pegs, you got a standard card, 25 for gold and 50 for a platinum card. Word spread over to the USA and I got an E mail from the promoter of a big festival called Further saying there were 1000’s of clothes pegs all over the ground after the party. I got a phone call form the producer of a show on Channel 5 called The Jerry Sadowitch Show asking me about my peg fetish. I still don’t know how they got to know about it. They asked if I would like to go on the show and talk about pegs. The host, Jerry Sadowitch, some mad bloke in a had would ring a bell if he thought you were getting boring. When the time came to go on it, I couldn’t go for some reason so my mate went on and talked about gabber and got belled off after about 5 seconds. After this, we contacted The Big Breakfast on Channel 4 to see if we could go on with our collection. They asked us to have more material so we started planning a short Peg film and creating some booklets. While this was happening, people were getting PEGS shaved into there head and people would come up to me all over the UK giving me pegs. Once person even made a big marble one. We eventually decided it was getting out of control and burnt all the pegs on a fire ! My new fetish is belly buttons and elbows.

11. What tips do you have for any budding bedroom djs to ‘make it’?

Try to be original and play stuff that not many others are playing. Be yourself, don’t try to copy others and create your own style. Get yourself know by turning up at events on a regular basis that you want to play at. Hand out CD’s, upload mixes but don’t force yourself down people’s thoughts. Don’t think you deserve to play at party’s because you can mix perfectly in your bedroom. Mixing in a club environment is totally different. You will be used to the comfort of your own room with all the sound levels perfect. A DJ booth in a club can be a nightmare with distorted loud or too quiet monitors making it very difficult to here things clearly in your headphones and pull of perfect mixes. So don’t be so quick to judge other DJ’s who make mistakes as 8 times out of 10 we have bad equipment to work with. And be careful who you diss or talk about behind there backs, they maybe nobody’s now, but you never know what the future brings.

12. What part do you have in Judgement day now that it has taken it’s place on the forum with GGM? What styles are you catering for?

Bass Generator ran Judgement Day from 1994 to 1999 in Newcastle with a couple of party’s in Edinburgh. These party’s were massive and almost everyone was a sell-out. He brought some of the biggest names in hardcore from around the world into the UK, many for the first time: Ruffneck Alliance, Human Resource, Delirium, Rotterdam Terror Corps, Dyewitness, Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo, Nasenbluten, Laurant Ho, Delta 9, DJ Tron and many others. No alcohol was on sale at Newcastle Uni and it ran from 18:00 - 01:00. Towards the end, the age limit was reduced to 16 and it got full of little troublemakers getting off there heads, fighting & robbing people and eventually Newcastle Uni was lost as a venue and Judgement Day was gone. 2 years ago I could sense a scene bubbling away in Newcastle and something had to be done about it. I asked him if he fancied bringing Judgement Day back and he said he hasn’t got the time and didn’t want all the stress. He said I could have the name and go for it. Unfortunately Judgment day still has a bad name in Newcastle from the troubles 7 years ago so its been near impossible to get a venue in Newcastle. I could have had a few small clubs, but didn’t wanna disrespect the name by going into smaller clubs. I could of made a lot of money but it didn’t feel right. Judgement Day was a massive event and I wanted a decent mutli-roomed venue which I have found. Unfortunately its outside of Newcastle and at Room At The Top in Bathgate, near Edinburgh in Scotland. This is one of Scotland best clubs and has had a major refurbishment and has a capacity of 8,000 over 5 rooms. At the moment I only have the 2 as half of the club is closed off for a regular club night in the other 3 rooms. Hopefully this will chance as the night gets more popular. I’ve continued the legacy of Judgement Day by bringing in big names from all over the world, lots of which are making there first appearance in the UK. The first party in February 2006 was a massive success and had Endymion (Holland) & Sonic Overkill (Germany) making there first UK appearances and The Speedfreak (Germany) & D-Passion (Holland) making there Scottish debuts. In April I have Angerfist (Holland), Day-Mar (Holland), Peaky Pounder (Finland) and Stormtrooper (Austria) all making there UK debuts and very much looking forward to it. Over the next you can expect to see many more worldwide artists as I try to give it a more European music policy. There will be no oldksool as there has been an overkill in Scotland recently and happy hardcore has been replaced with hardstyle and MC’s have been dropped and are only used to introduce & close a DJ. Check http://geordiegabbamafia.org/jday/ for updates !

13. The world is gonna end? What you gonna do with your last couple of hours???

Swallow a box of Viagra and ‘watch’ my old Steps video’s, followed by some J-Lo then Kylie.

Q. Who is Smurf and were are you from?
A. I am Glenn Shearer from Newcastle, North East England

Q. Why did you choose the name “Smurf”?
A. Becuase I am small & blue off course ! Around 1990 when I was saving up for my first set of turntables, one Sunday morning I went to an outdoor market with my parents. We were stuck in a traffic jam as many other cars were leaving at the same time and listening to the radio. The Smurf theme song came on and I thought that it would be funny if a DJ played that song as the opening record of a DJ set as it would make people laugh. So, I decided to call myself DJ Smurf.

Q. What do you do for a living?
A. I am a belly button & elbow worshipper. When I am not doing that I am a Systems Administrator for a computer company working with UNIX & Oracle operating systems

Q. How did it all started?
A. Papa Smurf met a Smurfette in Smurfland. He took her behind a Mushroom and put his blue pipe into Smurfette’s hairy blueberry pie and then injected her with his blue goo and they gave birth to the evil terror Smurf !
I was into electro, breakdance & early hip-hop in the mid 1980’s and towards the end of the 1980’s I was listening to a weekly radio show on a Friday on Radio 1 called Jeff Young’s Big Beat. I was into rap bands like Public Enemy, Run DMC, LL Cool J, De La Soul, Big Daddy Kane etc and the radio show played all the latest hip hop, soul, RnB & house music tunes. Then I started hearing something called ‘acid house’ on this radio show and I thought it was crazy ! All the high pitched ear piercing sounds got me hooked, so I started seeking out these records and buying them with the little bit money I was earning from delivering newspapers. I discovered a specialist record shop in Newcastle and was buying 2 or 3 records a week and it was there I saw flyers for illegal warehouse & acid house party’s. So, I started going to these party’s in 1989/90 all by myself as all my friends were into bands like Erasure & The Pet Shop Boys. I always liked the harder or noisier type tunes that were played and the acid house progressed into the Belgium New Beat & early Detroit techno sound, so I started buying these records around 1991 - 92. Then all this ’stompy’ music came over to the UK from Holland. Hard beats & nasty noises which became know as gabber (or gabba as we English named it). In 1994 I made a tape of the craziest gabba there was and gave it to a local promoter & DJ called Bass Generator. He put me on at a party called Judgement Day playing after Lenny Dee. I mixed in slower techno records on the wrong speed with gabber and Smurfcore was born ! After that I started to play all around the UK and then the first European bookings came in 1999.

Q. What music style do you prefer?
A. My preferred style is noisy industrial speedcore/terror. But sometimes it is not possible to play all this style in 1 DJ set. It all depends on the location of the party and what time I have to play so I try to play a mixture of party terror/speedcore mixed with the noisy stuff and a couple of hits.

Q. Which music genres have your interest besides Terror and Speedcore, and why these styles?
I can listen to all types of electronic music and also a bit of heavy metal. Anything that has a lot of energy to it I can listen and dance to.

Q. How did your love for terror develop?
A. Just from what I said earlier. I’ve always like the crazier end of the dance music scene, progressing from electro to hip hop to acid house to techno to gabber to speedcore & terror !

Q. What is you’re desire in terror or speedcore?
A. To try & get as many people as possible listening and dancing to our music as possible. Educate people, ease them in gently from other softer styles of music without forcing the music down there throats.

Q. How do you explain the increasing popularity of terror?
A. I think the music is getting better. At one time it was just fast for the sake of being fast with nothing more to it other then a machine gun kick drum. A lot more thought and creativity is being put into the records and a lot more people are appreciating that and coming to a party to here the good records, rather than to jus get off there faces.

Q. Which good quality must a dj have according to you?
A. An ability to work and feed of a crowd and not just to play music to there friends or other DJs at the party.

Q. At the moment we experience an enormous boost in the terror scene. What is the possible cause of this sudden popularity increase in the scene on national and international level?
A. Everything goes around in a 10 year cycle. 10 years ago gabber was huge in the UK & the rest of Europe. As the music progressed it split into many genres & styles: hardcore techno, terror, speedcore, breakcore, experimental etc and people went there own ways and a lot wouldn’t attend parties of mixed styles which created a smaller scene. Now, there is a new generation coming into the scene. In the UK, the young kids get into hardcore usually by listening & going to happy hardcore parties and as they get older and they grow up, there music tastes change and hopefully they will come to the hardcore party’s.

Q. Which party will be in your memory for ever, and why?
A. The party’s that will stay in the memories are the few that I can remember where I haven’t been drunk ! hehe, no. It has to be Thunderdome 2004. When I first heard gabber & the Thunderdome CD’s I never thought I would be going to a Thunderdome party never mind playing at one! Thunderdome is the biggest hardcore rave on the planet and every hardcore DJ wants to play there. It was such an honour and a privilege to play there and that will stay with me forever.

Q. What was your peak and your depth point as a DJ?
A. After 10 years I would say Im at my peak now. With playing outside of the UK 1 to 3 times a month I have never been so busy. My lowest point would be in the late 1990’s. I was playing every 2 months at a club in Scotland called Nosebleed. It was an amazing place. Full of crazy Scottish party people. Excellent sound and DJ box. Whenever I used to play there they would buy me a bottle of whiskey ! Once time I drank almost the whole bottle before I had to play and had to get carried to the DJ box. Needless to say I put in a very bad performance and I never played at that party again for over a year. I was gutted. Now I only get drunk after my performance !

Q. What do you think of the new talent and do you think that these DJ’s should have more opportunities?
A. Like I said earlier there is a new generation coming into the scene now and hopefully they can bring some new idea’s with them. Its best for these up & comings to go to as many party’s as they can and get to know the pormotors and the people there. Make themsleves known and hand out demo’s. Dont keep asking for bookings. If the promotor wants to book you, they will book you. I get a bit sick of friends asking me to get them bookings at places. As far as I can remeber I have never asked for a booking. I beleive that people should pay ther due’s - attending & supporting party’s, that way yuo get to know the poeple better. If the promotor see’s this maybe they will give you a chance to show what you can do.

Q. How do you choose your records and do you imagine the entirely set in advance?
A. I usually plan my sets for each party in advance. As the tempo can range from 200 BPM to 400, it’s good to have a rough idea of what I want to play and at what point to play it. It’s also nice to know that the next record you are going to play will fit in and mix in with the one you are playing, so there are no clashes of sounds, words or melody’s. I like to mix in pop records with terror so sometimes this takes a while to find a terror record that will fit over the pop record perfectly ! if I have not planned a set in advance, I will have the records in my bag ordered by the tempo, slowest at the front and the fastest at the back. That way I can find record more easily and make a set flow.

What records I play entirely depends on the party, time I am playing and who else is on the line up. If there is someone one the line-up who I think will play similar records to me, I will play something that they would maybe not play and I won’t play any records that another on the line-up has made. If I am playing early. I wont play too fast so people don’t get too tired. If Im playing last, I will make sure the last 20 minutes of tunes are hits or tunes people recognise so they can go crazy for the last part of the party. And the last track has to be a big tune !

If I am playing in a party which has mixed styles, i.e. hardcore (new style gabber), I will try to play a lot more records with a melody or funny samples to keep the people who like the slower stuff interested instead of battering them with noise.

Q. Where do you prefer to turn and why?
I dont have a peference as I enjoy everywhere that I get to play.

I love playing in Scotland as the people are all out for a party and go out to enjoy themselves. Playing outside of the UK is great and its nice to think that people in other country’s will pay there money to come to see you and they appreciate it a lot.

I also love playing in my hometown of Newcastle as I can roll home when Im drunk and its nice to sleep in my own bed on a weekend !!

The only places I dont enjoy playing are where the DJ monitors are poor. A DJ’s job is to mix and sometimes it is impossible to do just that when we are given shit tools to work with. This makes us look bad to the party people when they here fucked up mixes when 70% of the time its not our fault. Alsom while Im moaning, why does almost every mixer in Holland not have a crossfader ??

Q. Which record labels are qualitatively the best?
A. Some of my recent favourites are: Hangers Liquides, Canadian Speedcore Resistance, Kotzaak, Cerebral Destruction, Roffcore, 6HateU, Goddess Of Disaster, Noise Factory, System Corrupt and some of the harder stuff on Neurotoxic.

Q. What do you think of the present terror productions and what should change according to you?
A. Some of the terror party’s have too much speedcore. I love the music but sometimes it gets too much for me when you get battered with machine gun music for 8 hours non stop ! I think to make a party a success the music has to build up to the speedcore, maybe with Industrial hardcore (140 - 160 BPM) at the start for when people are arriving in the venue, metting friends, getting drinks etc. Build it up from there, 160 - 200 for the next hour and then 200 - 220 for a could of hours, then maybe a speedcore set, terror, more speedcore and classic terror/speedcore for the last hour.

Q. What was the first record you bought and do you still have it in your collection?
A. The first record I bought was Stand & Deliver by Adam & The Ants in the early 80’s. I was only about 10 and can remeber on the night time when I got it, Mama Smurf was in the bath upstairs and when I heard her coming down the stairs, I put the recor don and jumped from a chair shouting ‘Stand & Deliver’ wearing a zorro mask, cape and plastic sword. She nearly pooped herself.

Q. Which record is always in your record box?
A. Cuntface by Nasenbluten !

Q. What was the first party where you have preformed?
A. The first club I played in was a club called Walkers in Newcastle on New Years Eve 1992. I used to go there every Saturday and got to know the DJ. On this day 2 other DJ’s hand’t arrived so he asked me if I wanted to play so I had to go home and some records. I was so nervous. My hands were shaking and it was the first time I had used Technics 1200’s before. The first record I played was Everything Starts With An E by Ezee Posse !

Q. How many records did you collected through the years?
A. Gosh. I have about 2,000 in crates on my bedroom floor and have bought & sold many many more. Maybe about 8,000 in total !

Q. What kind of ingredients must a good record have and where do you pay attention to when you buy a record?
A. A funny sample, silly melody or noise that will stick in your head, something that people on the dance floor will remember.

Q. What is jour top 5 of all times with regard to records?
A. Oh, I hate these questions !!

Pleasure Game - Les Signuer Des Tenebres (Old Belgium oldksool track)
Joey Beltram - Energy Flash
Nasenbluten - Cuntface
Hardcore Fiends - Comply
Motorhead - The Ace Of Spades

Q. In which countries did you perform (turn) and what was the experience?
A. I have played in: UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Holland, Belgium, USA, Canada, Italy & Switzerland.

Im a pretty easy going fun loving person so I’ve had all good experiences everywhere. The worst experience was loosing my records in Germany. They were stuck in Berlin and didn’t get placed on the connecting flight to Hamburg so I had no records to play at the party !

Q. Do you prefer to turn on a big party ore a small party?
I like to think that no party is bigger than the other. I treat each party the same and practice and prepar for each one whether it be for 50, 500 or 5,000 people.

Big party’s usually have better equipment (DJ monitors etc) but sometimes you are away from the crowd and feel lonely in a DJ box. I get more nervous playing at a small party as more people are closer to you and watch wnat you are doing more closely, but its nice to have people around you to interract with them and for them to pass you beer !

Q. With which artist would you ever like to cooperate and why?
A. I dont get much time to produce records these days with having my regualar job and being away most weekends.

Q. How are you compared to the use of drugs at a party?
A. Drugs are part of the whole clubbing scene. If people are going to take drugs at a party I would say to them be safe. Don’t take too much. It only takes one stupid person to spoil it for 100s of others. Keep the trippy drugs that affect your brain for the after party or at home.

Q. What do you think of pogo at parties?
A. When I see that happening it makes me want to stop playing my records. I hate this entire Nazi thing. It is hard to tell if these people are real Nazi’s or if they are just following a clothing fashion. Let’s hope it’s only the clothes they are in to.

Q. What are your plans for the future?
A. I really need to make time to get some more tracks made. I’ve been planning on getting a record label up & running for many years but have never had the time to do so.
I also need to pay of all my debts to make this happen !

Q. What is your favourite drink ore meal?
Drink - diesel snakebite (lager, cider & blackcurrant). Jack Daniels, Parma Violet flavoured vodka
Food - Anything hot and, spicy

Q. What is, until now, your nicest (funniest) experience as a DJ?
Oh dear, there has been so many ! Every month we had Judgement Day in Newcastle in the mid to late 90’s. This was always one crazy drunken party and backstage was always a good laugh. I once was so drunk I took off all my clothes and DJ’d naked, dressed up as Smurfette (with a 6ft long wig, blue skirt & top) & 100’s of other crazy things.

The Industrial Strength European Tour in May 2002 was funny aswell. Driving around Italy, Austria & Switzerland in 2 camper vans for over a week was crazy ! By the end of the tour our van was a wreck. Tables were broke, the ladder to the roof had come off and someone had blocked the toilet with a massive shit, oops !

Every time my mad Scottish friend Boony has came with me outside the UK has been hilarious. We get so drunk and take over every venue we go to. Everyone in the party will know who we are by the end of the party. There are so many funny stories to tell. You’re best checking out the party Reports section on my website http://www.GeordieGabbaMafia.org

Q. How do you think the scene will look like in 5 years?
A. In 5 years time it will probably be quiet and then will start up again in another 5 years, but, it is mine and other artists’ responsibility to keep it going along as we can.

Q. To which persons in the Terror scene goes your respect?
A. I have respect for everyone in this scene who is doing something to keep it going and making it stronger.

Q. If you heard tomorrow that you only had several months on this earth, what would you try to realize in the last resort?
A. I would try to hide inside Kylie Minogue’s toilet so every time she went for a shite she would be shitting into my mouth.

Q. In the past years you often performed in the Netherlands, with Thunderdome as one of the peaks. What was it like to turn (perform) fora 15.000 people?
A. Thunderdome was like a dream come true for me. I said earlier that its the biggest & most well know hardcore party on this planet and every hardcore DJ would love to play there.
When I got told I had been booked I sat down for about 40 minutes just staring at my computer screen in amazement. When I spoke to the organisation, they said they wanted me to play for the last hour becuase they saw me perform before and liked the way I interract with the crowd and wanted me to send them home smiling i started to get really nervous. The weeks leading up to the party I was scared to leave the house incase something happend to me and I could make it to the party. On teh day of Thunderdome I was so scared. I had to take lots of tablets to help me stop shitting. When it was my turn to play, i climbed up the ladder to the DJ stage and looked out at all the people and must of had the biggest smile on my face that anyone had ever seen ! I was nervous until I had played my first 2 records then I just started going crazy and the response from everyone was overwhellming !

Even for weeks after I kept saying to myself “Fuck! Ive just played at Thunderdome!”

Q. What is jour favourite equipment?
A. I like to play the vagina and the boobies. Technics off course, decent monitors that can be controlled via the mixer and a mixer with a crossfader ! !

Q. Do you have tips for starting producers?
A. Try to make your tracks DJ friendly, ie, make them easy for a DJ to mix as we are more likely to play them out if that is the case. Nice intro with kick drums instead of strating off with something crazy.

Q. What do you prefer, produce or turn (perform)?
A. Always to perform. Thats when yuo see the finished product. I love to entertain and amuse the crowd.

Q. On which party would you like to turn (perform) and why?
A. I would love to play at Megarave, Masters Of Hardcore & Hellraiser as they are the other big party’s that hardcore DJ’s dream about playing for.

Q. Which equipment do you use and where did you start with?
A. I have a pair of Technices 1210’s and a Numark mixer at home. I started of with a HW Interntional mixer (I think) and a pair of belt drive Soundlab turntables. My adivce to anyone starting out Djing is to save for Technics. They are the clubs industry standard and are used in 90% of clubs & party’s. It can be difficuilt if you have been using other turntables and have to perforom on technocs for the first time at a party.

Q. What was your first encounter with Terror music?
A. I had never some across the term ‘terror music’ until I came to Holland. IN the UK it is know as hardcore gabba or hardcore techno. I have been into hardcore music since before it started so I have seen it progress from gabber into hardcore techno/terror.

Q. What is according to you, your best number till now and why?
Now afterwards, would you like to change anything about it if you could?
A. Do you mean record produced ?? It has to be the Fuck Me Geordie track that was on the Newcastle (Australia) v Newcastle (England) EP on Strike Records. The pressing isn’t very good and for some reason the first 8 beats of the track are missing ! When I get some spare time Im going to remix this.

Q. Who is your big example (Producer/DJ) and why?
A. Do you mean inspirations ??
Lenny Dee - this music wouldnt be here if it wasnt for him.
DJ Freak - he took industrial hardore to a new level,
Loftgroover - the first big name speedocre DJ in the UK, mixing speedcore with heavy metal
The DJ Producer - Amazing DJ everytime since the mid 1990’s.
Bass Generator - For my first gig and for Judgement Day.
Scott Brown - Stayed with hardcore even when it was at its lowest point (even though he’s a cheesy twat, heh)
Scooter - For being hilarious and not taking music seriously.

Q. How is the scene in England?
A. The hardcore scene in UK has been up & down for years. It was at its peak from about 1994 - 1998. There were 2 or 3 big party’s every month, Rezerection, Helter Skelter, Fantazia, Judgement Day etc all with happy hardcore & hardcore techno area’s. The happy music got too cheesy and the hardcore starting getting faster and everything went downhill. The magazines covering hardore music dissapeared and others stopped reporting on hardcore as it wasnt cool anymore. The big DJs dissapeared or started playing techno or house. Only a few of the hardcore DJ’s remain from those days, these are the people who have a geniune love for the scene and have helped keep it going.

One of the main problems in the UK is finding a venue for a party. As soon as you say “hardcore” there is very little chance of getting the venue. So, most party’s are confined to small venue’s of about 100 people and it is therefore difficult to bring in artists from outside the UK becuase of travel expenses. And also because party’s are bigger outside of the UK, most DJ’s get paid a lot of money and promotors cant afford to pay what they are used too.

Also, most clubs have to close at 2 or 3 am so people from outside of the area sometimes wont travel.

But, things are looking up. Scotland has always been hardcore and there are lots of hardocre dedicated party’s there now, Twisted, Impact, Audio Autopsy and other small party’s bubbling away.

England is still much more happy hardore orientated. With hardcore/terror usually being catered for in a small room with a shit sound system at a happy hardcore party.. There are not many hardcore dedicated party’s for terror. Only the occaisional Species party’s, Sick & Twisted and also Live Evil.

Q. Is there finally something you want to share with the readers of this interview?
A. I would like to say a big thankyou to all the people of Holland who have given my such great support since my apperance @ Thunderdome. When you come out to a party, come to the party to party, thats what a party os for. Not to act like your the hardest person there and to cause trouble. Everyone stay safe, healthy & happy !

So Smurf? I think the question on many people’s lips are - Are you mad?
Ha-ha, Eh? Nar, why you ask that?

 

Well, every time I have saw you out DJ’ing, or story’s I’ve heard, you always doing something crazy, like putting coat hangers down your T-shirt, DJ’ing naked, spinning round on your neck, covering yourself & other people in dirt from the floor etc….
Ha-ha, nar, I’m not mad at all, everyone else is mad, I’m the sanest person I know.

 

Well, I’ve heard rumours that you were in accident when you were little, and that turned you a touch mad.
Eh? What the hell ? Who said that ? That’s the daftest thing I’ve ever heard about me. Once someone was on a bus and they overheard someone saying “here, yi nar that DJ Smurf, he’s mad, he takes coke everyday”. No idea where that story came from as I’ve never done anything like that.

 

No accidents then ?
When MamaSmurf was pregnant with me she dropped a kettle on her right foot and I was born with a birth mark on me right foot. That’s how you get birthmarks you know. Do you reckon Sonia of Eastender’s mother shagged a penguin when she was pregnant with her?

 

It could be that.

 

Rr, right then. So how do you explain your odd behaviour?
Its all an act really. The people that know me the most will tell you I’m a quiet, shy boy in real life. When I go out and DJ I do all these daft things just to hype the crowd up. The music I play is the music I love and I want to dance and go crazy to it myself. Thats why I go a bit wild behind the decks, coz every tune I play, is a tune I lick. I play music that reflects my personality, well, my other personality! I like to become the a showman when I perform, just like Chris Eubank plays up to the media and things. Oh, and I am also a perfect gentleman like him. You can ask that girl from the taxi queue the other night whose house I went back to, rr, what’s her name again ….. ? I even have sport a bowler hat a monocle every now and again, like Chris.

 

So you don’t have a girlfriend / boyfriend then?
Eh? I’m not a homo. I don’t do blokes. [ NOTE: I do now ]

 

So what about you dressing up in women’s clothes?
Bah, that’s just for a laugh aswell man. Although I do think I have overdone this a bit and some people may think I’m a bot pirate or some sort of transvestite (not that there’s anything wrong with that - Ed). I think I have freaked a few people out and I’ve been ‘Gabber Of The Week’ on the Rotterdam Terror Corps website ( http://www.rige.nl ) about 3 or 4 times wearing bra’s & that. Whose the whelk that keeps sending these pictures to them? I think everyone in Holland may think I’m a lady boy.

 

Yeah yeah ! So no girlfriend then?
knar. not at the moment no, I haven’t really got time. [ NOTE: I do now ]

 

What do you look for in a girl?
Bah, I hate questions like this. Anyone that will have me really, hehe, Nar, I don’t really know. I like cute chicks. I like nice elbows, you know the chub bit? Where when a chick bends her arm over her head to scratch her back, the bit where the top of the arm, meets the bend in the arm at the elbow and forms a chub, which I call an elbum, when this bit meets the top of the bottom part of the arm when its folded, ha-ha, does that make sense? That bit anyway, hmm, nice. Oh, and I don’t like pierced belly buttons !!

 

I like different accents too, I’ve always said I want to marry a Scottish lass like !

 

You plan your DJ sets? Don’t you just put your records in a box and play what you feel is right on the night?
Right on the night? You an MC like ?
I’ve never done that at any party I’ve played. The tempo & sounds in a hardcore set vary that much from start to finish I fell its best to plan a set before hand. I’m not saying this is how it should be done, its just what I do. That way I know I can fit in every record I want to play in a nice flowing set.

 

OK, so how long does it take you to plan a set and how do you know what you have planned will work?
Takes a couple of full days to plan an hours set I would say like. I put the tunes into pile’s of new releases, then tunes I’ve heard people mention or there is a buzz about, then classics (usually for the last couple of tunes).

 

I’ll put the new releases in order of tempo and in between them other tunes I want to play. Make sure the tunes mix into each other without any sound clash, then time the set, chopping and changing round, making sure it all fits within the hour, 45 mins or however long the DJ set is.

 

And this is what you will play? No other records will be in your box?
Nar, I will fill the box up with other tunes and obviously change the set around if its not working, or play more classics or tunes people know to get them going and that.

 

You should know before hand anyway what will & wont work at the party. I plan your sets around who else is playing, and what time I’m playing. For Instance, when I play in Scotland @ Twisted, Resistance etc. the party’s aren’t all hardcore. There will be gabba sets and maybe hard techno, so, I wont play too fast. Probably a dancefloor friendly 200-220 BPM Frenchcore set. Obviously I will drop the odd speedcore tune in the middle for the harder heads in the place.

 

When playing places like Species & Oblivion, is mainly a hard-hardcore crowd, and then I can really let it rip with some nasty industrial speedcore, starting off at around 220 / 230, finishing off 300 +. Hehe.

 

Even better when playing pure speedcore/terror party’s abroad in places like Austria & Switzerland, where I start off around 250 BPM, nice !

 

Where have you played abroad and who does the scene’s differ ?
I’ve played in Germany (2 Nordcore party’s), Switzerland (Hellgate, Hardcore Will Never Die), Austria (Goliath), Italy (Underconstruction, Hardcore Nation), France (Electrophones), Holland (Multigroove, Thunderdome), USA (Together As One, LA) & Canada (Cold War 2).

 

Next year I have bookings for Belgium, Holland, Germany & tour of Australia.

 

Hardcore is a lot bigger in places like Italy, Holland & Switzerland. Almost every weekend you have huge parties full of 1,000’s of maniacs in big arena’s.

 

New-style gabber is huge in these places, and that’s the main focus in the main arena’s, with speedcore/terror being in smaller arena’s & rooms.

 

Merchandising is also huge in Europe, T-shirts etc.

 

Sounds systems are mega loud aswell and the huge events have amazing production, similar to what you might see at big events like Godskitchen over here.

 

Ha ha, and the party people have there mad gabba dance that they do. Kicking there legs like there shaking dirt of there shoe’s !

 

Most of the guy’s have skinheads and can look a bit scary. The chicks (Gabbawrens) in Holland look scary! Mad piercings and have the sides of there head shaved !

 

What’s been your favourite place ? Any funny story’s ? There must be loads ?
Hmm, favourite place. That’s a tough one. I always enjoy playing in Italy as I’ve got a lot of friends over there. Probably the best venue I’ve played in is The Number 1 club in Italy, near Milan. This place was amazing. It was on a Sunday afternoon at the end of the 2 week Industrial Strength European Tour I done with Lenny Dee & Jappo. The party started at 2pm and finished at 12. Inside, there were 2 massive arena’s. The main hardcore room had about 8,000 people in it. All gabber with Rotterdam Terror Corps, Promo, Catscan, Neophyte, Scott Brown etc. A 2nd room, about the same size was oldskool & trance. Then another room, where I played in was bout 3,000 capacity and it was half inside and half outside ! Amazing. Outside was a swimming pool, and next to that was a Roman auditorium thing, which also had music blasting out of it.

 

Switzerland & Austria are also good as I can get to play total industrial Speedcore at the terror party’s !!

 

Canada was a great laugh as the guys over there were mad. Zooming around the club in little bikes jumping of the bar and that.

 

Funny stories?? Sacre Bleu, millions !

 

Usually when I’ve played abroad, I bring my sidekick, Boony with me. He’s a maniac aswell and together we have become world famous drunks and a double act ! We’ve done loads of daft things like.

 

Hmm, getting stuck inside a washing machine in Winnipeg, Canada. Having a shit in the middle of the street in LA. Going outside of a party in Zurich and buying 10 cups of beer then standing on a long seat to drink them, which then fell over and me with it. Me & Boony going to a nightclub in Zurich on a Sunday by ourselves, doing mad dances on the dancefloor, getting lost on tramcars & getting pushed round the streets of Zurich in a shopping trolley and nearly getting arrested by Police with guns. Entertaining air stewardess’s with a potato & spoon construction. Getting many flight times wrong, missing flights, shitting every 5 minutes in Italy, Boony falling of a stage, spending a fortune in lap dancing clubs, shitting in a camper van. Downing bottle’s of wine @ Hardcore Nation and going missing for 5 hours. Fell asleep having a crap on a toilet @ Hellgate in Zurich, woke up 2 hours later and didn’t wipe me bum, many many more like

 

Your best out checking my website in the Party Reports / Weekend Report section !

 

What’s the biggest crowd you have played in front of ?
25,000 at Thunderdome. I wasn’t DJ’ing, but Me & Boony do the stage show for Jappo’s Lethal Insanity / DT6 live PA. We were dressed in boiler suits with Hannibal Lector masks on and our faces painted white, running about on stage kicking sh!t out of each other. We had 2 girls dancing for us to, in skimpy clothes, Cat & Kez. At 1 point I bent over and told Cat to kick me in the face. She did, right in the side of the face, had a good bruise. I told her to do it again and I split a fake blood capsule over my forehead. Crowd looked shocked ! Then Boony smashed some records over ma head. All good fun !

 

For the ast track I lay on the floor and told Cat to sit on me face,she miss heard and jumped on top of my stomach. I had about 15 free Heniken’s before tht and started feeling a bit quuezy. I told her to sit on me face again but she jumped on me again and I had to run backstage to be sick, hehe.

 

Most people I’ve DJ’d to would be around 2,000 @ Electrophonies in France, which was in a football stadium, or maybe the Number 1 Club in Italy.

 

What’s your favourite place in UK?
Favourite all-time place was Nosebleed in Scotland in the mid 90’s. The crowd were amazing and the sound system & DJ box was perfect.

 

Judgement Days were good as they were in Newcastle so it didn’t mean any travelling and was nice to play in front of ya home crowd.

 

I still enjoy playing in Scotland as the people are more into partying and having a good time. I find that some people in England are to circle and take the music too seriously to enjoy themselves.

 

North is good as you get a lot of exposure. Species & Oblivion are also good as I can play a lot harder then I do in Scotland.

 

I enjoy playing everywhere really. There is no where big or small I wouldn’t play.

 

Where’s your worst place you’ve played ?
Oo, there’s been a few. Once played in Dundee for NYE, There was no electricity in the hardcore room, so just sat around bored all-night. Eventually got to play 1 record in the main room for the last tune. Played my Shitter tune, Rather apt I thought !

 

Once going to Hamburg in Germany, my records got stuck in Frankfurt so I had no tunes to play at the party. Had to play back 2 back with a German dude and didn’t know any of his tunes, which were mostly Deathchant. Got me records back on the Sunday, never been so happy to see anything in me entire life !

 

What’s the scene like in Newcastle now? Years ago it was the gabba capital of England ?
It all went downhill when Judgment Day ended in 1997 or something. It was overrun by daft little kids, coming in, getting off there heads, fighting, robbing people & that. So, in the end, the owner of the Uni said there couldbe no more. Once that ended there was nothing for hardcore. Some happy hardcore cheesy places opened up and the young kids went there and the older people into hardcore just seem to disappear or into house/techno scene’s.

 

We tried to keep hardcore going by putting on our Fuelled By Hate party’s, but, with no record shops selling hardcore in the Toon, and no events to flyer to the right crowd, they never really became a huge success, still, we had fun !

 

Earlier in the year you joined forces with Oblivion to put on a Fuelled By Hate Event. Planning on anymore?
Hopefully yeah. That night was a huge success, apart from Passanger of Shit getting refused entry into England by immigration ! We will hopefully do another joint event with the Oblivion boys next year.

 

When we put on a FBH party, we always try and get guests that have never played in the UK before or lesser known artists and people you don’t get to see often (La Peste, Animal Intelligence, Passanger of Shit, Lenny Dee, Jappo, Ely Muff) often, at very great expense ! Its impossible to get a club for a hardcore party in Newcastle, so we have had previous FBH’s in some strange places. Your usual backroom of pubs (I accidentally broke a toilet and lost a shoe at one), a long boat and the last solo effort was in a big barn! There may be a possibility of another odd location next year. Watch this space !

 

What about the other GGM boys? UEP & Armaged:Don. What do they play ?
Armaged:Don likes the more experimental & breakcore side of things.
UEP plays a lot of nu-skool breaks and still likes his hardcore, but more breakbeat influenced.

 

They play a lot of party’s around Newcastle, and together run a night called Filth, where they play a mix bag of 70’s, 80’s, pop records, rock records, mixed with oldksool, car boot sale records, anything that goes really !

 

These guys should have a lot more exposure, and hopefully with these FBH collaborations with other party’s should give them that. I keep telling them to put more input into the website too. Hawhere chaps, pull yi socks up ! !

 

You mentioned oldskool there. Don’t you play a lot of oldskool party’s?
Aye. Me & UEP are residents at a night called Influence’s which is monthly in Newcastle. Addie (UEP) plays oldksool breakbeat while I usually play 2 hours of oldskool, with my oldksool selection following on from the last one, like, the first party I played 1988 acid, 2nd party 1990’s warehouse tunes, next party Belgium techno etc. I’ve got a massive oldksool selection, love the stuff, mainly the techno sounds of Belgium, Germany & Holland, rather then UK breakbeat & that.

 

I celebrated 10 years of DJ’ing in July by playing a 10 hour oldskool set in Newcastle.

 

10 hours ! How did you manage that ?
Heh, it was quite easy ! I was really nervous before hand and had some Immodium anti-shite tablets to stop me going to the toilet. The night was excellent, loads of people turned up I hadn’t saw for years. Once the 10 hours was up I didn’t want to stop !

 

When was your first gig?
The first time I played in a club was on NYE in 1992. I was out at a club called Walkers in Newcastle and one of the resident DJs didn’t turn up, so the other resident asked if I wanted to play. I went home and grabbed some tunes. I was papping myself. I had belt drive Soundlab decks at the time and had never used Technics. My hands were pure shaking trying to put the needle on the record. Think I only played 30 mins.I remember kicking of with ‘Everything Starts With An E’ then playing ‘Energy Flash’ by Joey Beltram. It felt great hearing a record that you are playing loud in a club and seeing people dance. From then on, I knew this is what I wanted to do.

 

I played a few small party’s in college’s and houses after this. Mainly playing Belgium techno, which tuned into gabba in 1993. Bassy G had just started Judgment Day and I gave him a mix tape of 170 - 200 BPM gabba and he put me on Judgment Day 4 alongside Lenny Dee on 2nd March 1994.

 

Then he put me on at the Fubar in Scotland after that, then, 6 months later, Nosebleed started and the promotor had heard my tape from Judgment Day and booked me in 1995 and it just spread fromthere really.

 

Who has been your influences and how did you get into hardcore ?
Hmm, I suppose I’ve always liked alternative music. I can remember being small and remembering that every song I heard on TV or the radio was about love. Then I heard Adam & The Ants, and they were a little but different and bought Stand & Deliver as my first record. I can still remember the day ! On the night time, my Mam was in the bath and I was downstairs. I put on a cape and a Zorro mask and when I heard me Ma coming down the stairs, I put the record on and jumped of the settee in front of her shouting “Stand and Deliver”, hehe, she nearly pooped herself !

 

After that I got into early rap & electro, progressing onto hip hop like Public Enemy, Run DMC, LL Cool J, Bid Daddy Kane, De La Soul. I started tuning into Jeff Young’s Big Beat on Radio 1 on Friday nights for the new hip hop, then started hearing all this mad squeaky music called acid. I thought this was the maddest thing I’d ever heard and started buying all the early acid stuff with my paper round money, about 1 import 12″ a week ! I was going to school and all ma mates were listening to The Pet Shop Boys & Erasure, while I had all this mad high pitched noise coming from my walkman !

 

After I left school I started going to warehouse party’s in 1989 by myself. I couldn’t get into clubs coz I looked dead young, so when I was 18 I got one of those Prove It cards and started going to a club in Newcastle called Walkers by myself. Eventually met up with some old school mates and started going to raves like Rezerection in Newcastle in 1990. Then to places like Raindance, Amnesia and mad big outdoor events. I didn’t really like the breakbeat stuff, much preferred DJs like Joey Beltram, CJ Bolland & Dave Angel. Go into there techno sound, which gradually progressed into gabba and that’s it !

 

My influences DJ wise have been Carl Cox, Bass Generator, Producer, Loftgroover, Freak, Lenny Dee & Steps.

 

Ha ha, Steps. What’s the story with these ?
The Greatest Pop band ever made these I tell ya.
Been to see them 10 times, 10 times 10 times, 10 times, 10 times 10 times, 10 times 10 times, 10 times 10 times yi nar.

 

Why?
Brilliant man, Pure total cheesy pop with there funky dances, catchy lyrics and the lovely Claire, hmmm.

 

Saw them 3 times in 1 week. Sunday in Manchester, Tuesday & Thursday in Newcastle.

 

One time I went with me mate Rod on a Thursday. Spent over £100 on T-shirts, cups, bags, stickers, glowy things & that. Afterwards we went to a pub and I left all the stuff I had bought there, so, on the Friday we went back to go to the merchandise stall to buy all the stuff again. I asked the wife if there was any tickets left, she said eye, so we got 2 and went again. Think that was another 3 times in a week.

 

Other times Ive been twice in a week because I’ve been so pissed the first time I couldn’t remember nowt.

 

Did you cry when they split up ?
Oh, I remember that day well. It was Boxing Day 2001. In the afternoon I got a few texts & emails saying that Steps had split up, was I OK and that. I took no notice. I had a pint of beer in me hand in the house and the news came on and they announced they had split. I got a fright, dropped the pint on me toe and bruised it. Gutted like.

 

Stupid Boy. Haven’t you played Steps and other pop records in with hardcore sets. It seems to be a trademark for you. People always expect something silly to be played ?

 

Yeah, I’ve played a lot of funny stuff like. Like I said before, I play music to reflect my personality. I will play a pop song people will recognise, but drop a kick drum over the top, usually twice its speed. Its fun to see the hardcore-hedz dancing to something they would probably never dance to. Off course, you get the odd person who just stands and thinks “what the fork?”. Ha.

 

Tunes I can remember playing are Mr Bloody, Crocodile Shoes by Jimmy Nail, Fog On The Tyne by Gazza, Tragedy by Steps, Cheeky Girls, Spice Girls, S Club 7 trax, (I’ve saw these live too) and a Jane Fonda workout LP.

 

Its all about entertainment and putting smile’s on faces. If you cant make people dance, make them laugh is what I say.!

 

Well, you certainly do that form what I’ve saw of you ! You’ve been in some state’s, what’s the worst you’ve been in and the stupidest thing you’ve done?
Mange tout ! there’s been a few !

 

In the mid 90’s I had Bass Generator as my roll model we used to get in some mad drunken states. I would never be able to remember any of my DJ sets or records I had played. When tapes came out of me sets there were always shite ! One time at Nosebleed I had a bottle of whiskey before I played and had to get carried to the DJ booth. What a state, I was putting the needle on the labels of the records, playing the same record 3 times and that. After that, the promoter wouldn’t let me DJ there anymore and that really hit me hard as I loved that place and it really made me think. Nowadays I don’t get pished before I play as am I professional you see.

 

I’ve done some daft tings whilst drunk like. Mostly at Judgment Day with the free beer backstage. DJ’d naked, drank a bottle of flem, snorting whisky, fell down the back of a stage, dressing up in woman’s clothes, dressed up and Sj’d as ‘Smurfette’, millions of other daft things.

 

You’ve certainly get up to some crazy shit ! Do you think you will ever settle down ?
I don’t know ! I wanna be the world first hardcore Granddad. Playing speedcore in a wheelchair with grey hair in my pyjama’s.

 

W ho’s the most interesting/outrageous person (i.e. DJs etc) you’ve ever?
Outrageous? Probably me in the mirror.

 

Most interesting guy is probably Lenny Dee. Really nice guy, always listens to what you’ve got to say. Lots of funny stories and he is well focused and into his music.

 

So, how would you describe your music style?
Smurfcore? Fun-kore ! Dunno? I like to play hard, fast and noisey. I tend to play a lot of stuff with funny samples in it. Tunes that will stick in your head, therefore, people remember you more.

 

And what about the rising popularity of breakcore & IDM?
I’m not really keen on breakcore. Never really liked breaks. Its all good stuff and sounds well evil, but its something I’d never play. I do play the odd Doormouse type track if there are some funny samples, or pop tunes in them.

 

Its good that places like Oblivion & Species are gradually bringing this sound in and a lot of people are into it and Its always nice when fresh sounds & idea’s make it into clubland.

 

What’s your favourite record labels?
Hmm, all-time would be Industrial Strength. That label unleashed the hardest sounds onto the world and set the standard in ultimate hardness ! !

 

Some of the early releases like Caustic Visions were the noisiest things I’d ever heard. They weren’t exactly fast, 160 - 180 but this is where the term ‘Industrial’ definitely originated from. Mad squeaky machine noises, I thought it was incredidible. Then when we thought things couldn’t get harder, DOA were unleashed upon us and New York City speedcore was born. Hard as fork beast & noises, mashed with thrash guitars. Zing ! Musical viagra ! And then Nasenbluten after that. Definitely the no 1 hardcore record label of all time.

 

I would love to have a record released on Industrial Strength!

 

What records have you & the GGM had released ?
UEP has the first release on HMS’s Screwface Records - the GGM EP in 1997. The main tune being ‘Relegated’ which took the piss out of Scumderland Football Team being relegated back to Division 1 after 1 season in the premiership, ha ha ha.

 

Then we had the GGM v Extrement release on DJ Freak’s Hard Of Hearing label. This gave us a lot of exposure and then when we done trax for Noise Creator’s Suburban Trash Industries compilation LP’s, Killout Trax Vol 2 & 3.

 

Then probably our most famous release GGM v Bloody Fist - Newcastle (UK) v Newcastle (Australia) on Strike Records.

 

We have plans to start out own label, GGM RAW, but we have ran into so many difficulties and mishaps I think its doomed !

 

We had the trax done, the DAT machine went missing for 6 months, it turns up, then the plug gets lost for 4 months, a new one is bought. Nowt happens for a few months. UEP gets the DAT machine from Don, nowt happens. We record the trax to DAT. Send it away. It gets stuck in the DAT machine. We record another DAT, nothing happens. The DAT machine is broke. That gets sent away to get repaired, another couple of months. Re-record, send away again, recording levels are crap, re-do the tunes. I reinstall my PC an cant load the modules back into SoundStudio on my PC, so I have lost everything I’ve done ! I have MP3 copies of the trax, but they need redoing from scratch to get the EQ levels correct !

 

Nightmare eh? Maybe we will try & release the trax as they are at some point !

 

Whats your favourite records?
Hardcore Fiends - Comply
Nasenbluten - Cunt Face
DOA - NYC Speedcore
Pleasure Game - Le Signuer Des Tenebres
Precious X - Dukkha
Hmm, many many more

 

What’s your favourite producers ?
La Peste - Really cleverly done industrial speedcore trax. Fresh new weird noises & the likes
Speedfreak - Nice hard & fast party hardcore, DJ friendly tunes for mixing.
Producer / Hellfish - I don’t like most of there tunes with the breaks in, but they are really well produced and they created that new ‘Deathchant’ sound that the French have picked up on.

 

Hmm, so many more out there. I try to stay away from ‘whose your favourite & who is the best’ type questions.

 

What’s your 5 favourite things?
Ha-ha, twat.
Sounds like question you would ask someone from a boy band. Oh, I fell like I’m in Steps…

 

1. Sleep
2. Pie eating
3. Belly Buttons
4. Elbums
5. Pumping

 

Ask me some more questions like that

 

Favourite vice?
Eh? One of those tool things? Waah, imagine getting your wadger stuck in one of those?

 

Err, doesn’t matter. Favourite Chat Up Line
Do you like jewellery pet?
You can suck me cock, it’s a gem

 

Ahh, good old Sid The Sexist.

 

if you could contact anyone (alive or dead) who would it be?
Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy.
Laurel & Hardy are my hero’s. I’ve got a massive video collection and I’m in there fan club.
I’ve got these 2 Laurel & Hardy masks above my decks. I’m sure they have possessed me in someway coz I’m always doing mad clumsy things.

 

What would you talk about/ask them ?
I think I would just sit there and laugh at there faces.

 

What Annoys you ?
Selfishness, thieves, chix that wont suck ya root (ha-ha)

 

Would you prefer warm beer or cold beer?
Eh? Cold man

 

Warm breasts or cold breasts?
Hmm, warm breasts on a cold day coming in from a hard days work.
You can have fun warming cold breasts up aswell like.

 

Are you really Alan Shearer’s cousin?
Aye

 

Are you related to Fat Boy Slim or Jimmy Somerville?
Ha-ha, twat

 

W hat’s yer fave sexual position ?
I cant answer that, me Mam might read this.
Rr, chick on me face !

 

Where’s yer most unusual spot for sex
Rr, a tractor cab, train bridge, club toilets etc

 

What did they used to call you at school?
Rr, nowt I don’t think. Me Grandma used to call me John McEnroe, coz I heard curly hair.

 

What was/are your ambitions?
Just to keep on entertaining, the millions, and millions, of Smurf fans, heh
Nar, I would love to be a WWE Wrestler, call myself The Spatula.
I’ve got 1 share in the WWE, got a share divided for 4p the other day

 

What kind of car/house would you buy if you won the lottery and where?
Some mad mansion in Edinburgh. Lots of different themed rooms. One would be full of every Start Wars toy you can get, all decorated like different scenes from Star Wars, little ice planet in one corner, sand in the other, forest in some part. Mint.

 

Defo a fetish / bondage room.

 

4 poster beds, hammocks, penguins outside and a room full of monkeys and baboons.

 

Who’s your fantasy woman?
Kylie Minogue

 

Why?
Ever since I was a young boy she has fascinated me. All those hankies I’ve gont through
Also Jennifer Lopez. She has the most amazing belly button ever like.

 

What would U do with her if you ever met?
I would stroke Kylies face and eat pot noodles out of J-Lo’s belly button while balancing spoons on her elbum.

 

Have you any extraordinary skills (i.e. juggling etc)?
I can make transformer toys with me fingers, dog things, dinosaurs, aeroplanes. Bridges, space rockets, tree’s, rocks and cannons

Geordie Windows (Word Document 87K)
Geordie version of Windows

A map of the Tyne & Wear Metrp system

Print this out before going for beers on Newcastle

 

But be careful, as you could end up with one of these ..

Geordie Mr T

Mr T learns to talk like his favourite GGM superstars

 

Geordie Mr T Toy

New Film - Y I Robot

A call to Argos Superstore

A gerodie guy calls the Argos helpline complaining that an Argos catalogue has been thrown through his window - hilarious (MP3)

A page dedicated to Sunderland Football club
(mostly from the Peter Reid era)

A meeting of the Peter Reid look-a-like club

Peter Reid outside Sunderland’s ground

Sunderlands new badge

Peter Reid, naked, outside there Football Stadium

Sunderland fans

Peter Reid

New Sunderland Credit Card

Scumderland Oxo Cube

New Sunderland Movie, Black Cats Down

www.monkeys-heed.co.uk - A space invader game, help Sir Bobby destroy the invading Monkeys Heeds.

Sunderland Pie

To the tune of America Pie, all together now….

A long, long time ago
I can still remember
When football used to make them smile,

And I knew when Ratboy had a chance,
He could make sad Mackems dance,
And maybet hey’d be happy for a while

But Wilkos words, they make me shiver,
With every sound bite he delivers,
Bad news for the black cats
They’re going down and that’s a fact.

I know for one that I won’t cry,
Their hurt will cut them deep inside,
As they are stripped of all their pride,
The day, that Sunlun’ died

So…

Bye bye to all Premiership ties,
Driving the team bus to Grimsby and the Mackems will cry
Long ball football as they launch the ball high
Singing “Where is all the money from Sky?,
Where is all the money from Sky?”

Did they really sign Phil Babb,
And can they really be so very bad,
Their league position tells us so.

Now do you believe in hoof ‘n run?
Watching them is no real fun.
And can you teach them how to pass to Flo?

Well I know that they’re still going down
With a Smoggies smile and a Mackems frown
Lets break out the good booze
Man, I dig those Sunderland blues

With millions in red in the accountants book
Their financial position has come unstuck
But I just couldn’t give a f***
The day that Sunlun’ died
I started singing…

Bye bye to all Premiership ties,
Driving the team bus to Grimsby and the Mackems will cry
Long ball football as they launch the ball high
Singing “Where’s all the money from Sky?,
Where’s all the money from Sky?” _

Currently on sale in the Sunderland AFC shop…

Sunderland Tablecloths - suitable for any occasion but tend to slip down the table after a short time - £4.99

Sunderland Videos - All the highlights from the last 20 years action. This 10 minute video, including lots of re-runs, is a perfect gift for any fan - £9.99

Sunderland Banners - Come complete with interchangeable slogans e.g. “Reid Out”, “Murray Out”, Mc menemy Out”, “LET ME OUT” etc. - £15.00

“OUR LITTLE HERO” KEY RINGS - Come complete with model of Bobby Kerr (our hero) attached - £0.50 each

Sunderland joke book - A must for all fans. This 900 page book full of all the best jokes ever told about the club - £25.00

Sunderland Condoms - Come in any sizes from “Little hero” to “BIG NIALL” Ideal for the pricks in the Fullwell End - £0.75p for life time supply

Sunderland BRA - One the ladies. This bra, in team colours, comes with good support (debatable) but no cups - £14.99

Sunderland ‘Ladies Towels’ - The Niall Quinn sanitary towel, complete with instructions, “In for a week, out for a month” - £1.00 each

Keepers gloves - A must for any fans at the back of the stand, or near the corner flags to catch any shots our lads may have at goal. - £8.99

League directory - An item for the more discerning fan. This quality publication gives detailed directions to every ‘Nationwide’ league ground in the country. A snip at just £25.00

Mackem Lipstick - Ideal for kissing goodbye.(to the premier league, as worn by our players.

Bargain Basement - Don’t miss the annual clearance sale of players. These come in all ages,
(many are free of charge, spares or repairs).

—————————————————

A Sunderland supporter walks past a shop window and notices a video for sale entitled “Sunderland the Golden Years”.

The supporter asks the shopkeeper “how much for the cassette?”. The shopkeeper replies “£200” - “£200 for a cassette?” says the fan?.

“You’re having a laugh” “Oh no” the shopkeeper replies. “The cassette’s only a fiver, but the Betamax player will cost you £195.

—————————————————

Babies Ward
Four men, a cockney, a Geordie, a makem & a Jamaican, are sitting in thematernity ward of a hospital waiting for the imminent birth of their
respective child. All of a sudden the doctor bursts through the doors saying, “Gentlemen you won’t believe this, but your wives have all had
their babies within 5 minutes of each other.”

The men are beside themselves with happiness. “And”, said the Doctor, “Theyhave all had little boys. But we do have one slight problem. In all theconfusion we may have mixed the babies up getting them to the nursery &would be grateful if you could join us there to try & help identify them.”

With that the Geordie raced past the doctor & bolted to the nursery. Once inside, he picked up a dark skinned infant with dreadlocks saying, “There’s no doubt about it, this boy is mine!”

The doctor looked bewildered & said, “Well sir, out of all the babies I would have thought that maybe this child could be of Jamaican descent.”

“True”, said the Geordie, “but one of those little c*nts is a makem & I’m not taking that chance!”.

For Smurf’s Birthday, Doll Kylie & Doll Britney put on a show for the birthday boy….

“Hello Doll Britney” says Doll Kylie

“Fancy a dance Doll Kylie”, Doll Britney says

“Are those boobies real?” Doll Kylie asks

“Can I have a feel ?”

“Hoy man Doll Kylie!” says Doll Brit

“You’ll get a slap for that”

“Oh, I love it when your rough Doll Britney” says Doll Kyle’s

“Oh yeah” says Doll Britney, “Sniff my boots”

“Sniff my panty’s Doll Kylie”

“Hmm, just like school girls fresh cotton panty’s” Doll Kylie does say”

“Oh, let me see if those panties are fresh Doll Britney”

“Oh yeah Doll Britney, they are fresh as daisy’s”

“YOU want more Doll Kylie? do you? do you?” asks Doll Britney

“Oh please, oh please Doll Britney”

“Lick my pussy you wench” demands Dolly Britney

“Oh, your thighs are so smooth Doll Britney. Do you use a Phillips Lady Shaver?” Dolly Kylie says.

“No, I use a Flymo 2000 Kylie. YOur cheeks are so smooth, you must use Gillette M3 Power just like David Beckham” remarks Doll Britney

“Now, let me feel your boobies Doll Kylie”

“Oh yes, squeeze them tight Doll Brit”

“Oh, what a lovely pair, just like ripe tomato’s” sighs Doll Britney

“Oh Doll Kylie, your hair is lovely, I’m going to ride your face like a pony” shouts Doll Britney

“Ride Me like a bucking bronco, oh yeah, bucking Britney, bucking Britney” screams Doll Kylie in immense pleasure

“Don’t stop now you tart, I was about to cum” Doll Kylie says angrily

“Oh, hit me baby one more time” says Doll Britney

“Cum on my face” pleads Doll Britney

“I’m cuming I’m cuming you plastic whore!” screams Doll Kylie. “It tastes like toy fish” Doll Britney observes.

“Hmmm, that was the best plastic orgasms I’ve ever had” says Dolly K

“Let me give you a kiss, just like Madonna did that time. I was so jealous you know” says Dolly Kylie
 
“Don’t be a silly dolly” says Doll Britney. “She’s a wrinkly old plastic bag”

“Show me your tits Doll Britney”

“My word, what lovely Brits you have” chuckles Doll Kylie

“tee hee, you are a funny dolly aren’t you?” laughs Doll Britney. “Now, let me see yours”

“Phwaorr, there lush like, your Kylie Minato’s, ha ha”

“HAHAHAHAH” both Dolly’s laugh

“I must go for a shite now” says Doll Britney

“Ohhh, just me and you now Doll Smurfy” says Doll Kylie.

“Oh what a big blue nose you have Smurfy” purrs Doll Kylie

“All the better to smell you with dolly wolly pop” says Doll Smurfy

“Touch my big red end Doll Kylie” orders Doll Smurf

“Oh, its like a big throbbing lump of jelly” says Doll Kylie

“Wurrrr, let me at you lovely Kylie Min-ato’s” drools Doll Smurfy

“Oh Doll Smurfy, your small hands can easily get into my tight knickers” moans Doll Kylie in pleasure

And what happened next shall remain private !!!

Doll Kylie gets in her box along with the GGM ammunition.

Nuclear Bass. Emmen, Holland - Saturday 30th October 2004

They happy couple - back 2 back

Stunners. Utrecht, Holland - Saturday 30th October 2004
  

Doll Kylie try’s flirting with Kit Williams

Old Sundays. Disc-o, Haarlem, Holland - Sunday 31st October 2004

Doll Kylie comes out to play

The lovers

Doll Kylie teasing the crowd with her botty.
     

Doll Kylie waves at the gabbers
 

Rave On Doll Kylie