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Features Introducing NEM3SI$’s new label Infinite Resistance! Mindbenderz talk ‘Lord of the Rings’ and fishing, as well as the creation of their new album ‘Celestial Gateway’! Iono-Music artists One Function, Eliyahu, Invisible Reality and Dual Vision talk Robert Miles, kids, dogs and vinyl, while we chat about their current releases! Luke&Flex talk influences, the Irish rave scene, why Flex wears a mask and Play Hard, their new EP out now on Onhcet Repbulik Xtreme! Lyktum expands on his new album ‘Home’ – talking about his love of storytelling, creating new harmonies and the concept behind his musical works. Pan talks getting caught short crossing the Sahara, acid eyeballs and tells us Trance is the Answer, plus shares his thoughts on his latest release 'Beyond the Horizon' - all from a beach in Spain! Miss C chats about living with the KLF, DJing in a huge cat’s mouth, training her brain and the upcoming super-duper Superfreq Grande party at LDN East this Saturday, 16th September! NEM3SI$ - I Live for the Night – talks superficiality, psychopaths, and bittersweet success, ahead of a plethora of evocative, emotional, and passionate upcoming melodic techno releases! Psy-Sisters Spring Blast Off! We talk to DJ competition winner ROEN along with other super talents on the lineup! Blasting towards summer festivals with Bahar Canca ahead of Psy-Sisters Spring Blast! Shyisma talks parties, UFO's, and Shotokan Karate ahead of his upcoming album 'Particles' on Iono-Music! SOME1 talks family, acid, stage fright and wolves - ahead of his upcoming album release ‘Voyager’ on Iono-Music in February 2023! The Transmission Crew tell all and talk about their first London event on 24th February 2023! NIXIRO talks body, mind and music production ahead of his release 'Planet Impulse' on Static Movement's label - Sol Music! Turning the world into a fairy tale with Ivy Orth ahead of Tribal Village’s 10th Birthday Anniversary Presents: The World Lounge Project The Psy-Sisters chat about music, achievements, aspirations and the 10-Year Anniversary Party - 18/12/22! A decade of dance music with Daniel Lesden Earth Needs a Rebirth! Discussions with Psy-Trance Artist Numayma Taking a Journey Through Time with Domino New Techno Rising Star DKLUB talks about his debut release White Rock on Onhcet Republik! PAN expands on many things including his new album 'Hyperbolic Oxymoron' due for release on the 14th April 2022 on PsyWorld Records! Psibindi talks all things music including her new collaborative EP 'Sentient Rays' on Aphid Records, her band Sentience Machine and 10 years of Psy-Sisters!

Trousers, Caps and Trance Anthems - It's Dave Pearce! Reported by Steve Milton / Submitted 21-04-10 06:57 Some people really don’t need an introduction but the feature would look a bit daft without one so here it is anyway. The long time Radio 1 trance pioneer and for me personally it was that Sunday evening recovery in the bath removing the weekends grime and listening again to what had been played over the previous hours. He’s the man with more trance trousers in his closet than anyone else and supplier of HarderFasters very own trancecast. Ladies and gentlemen I give you, Mr Dave Pearce. Hi Dave, good to have you on HF’s features pages. You’re probably best known for your various radio shows from Kiss to Radio 1 but out of all of them which was the most fun and which do you think you’ll be best remembered for? From a fun perspective it’s really hard to pick between Kiss and Radio 1. When we launched Kiss, half of the records played during the day were ones that you bought in from home. So nobody knew what they were going to hear - it was all down to the DJ, there was a tremendous energy and excitement and the building was pretty much full of nutters and weird creatures of the night (who often looked far scarier in daylight!). When I was doing the Kiss breakfast show I would often come in after an all night clubbing session and go straight on air, we used to put on Raves at the Astoria and we had so many laughs and great people working on the show including my co-host Sarah HB. We pushed the boundaries a bit (but in a nice way, thankfully Ofcom wasn’t invented then so there wasn’t much censorship like today). Radio 1 has a lot of fun memories too, including all the random callers we got on Sunday nights ‘Dance Anthems’, from people who were still . . . er, a little worse for wear. I remember one guy who’d woken up on top of a bus shelter. Most of the callers we couldn’t put on air as they were still mangled. I think I’ll be best remembered for Dance Anthems on Radio 1 which is fine by me. I put my life and soul into the show, I was really proud of the huge following we got and enjoyed every single show that we did. Radio shows and club gigs clearly require a different set of skills and of course musical styles. Comparing the two what are the big differences and how do the two styles of show compliment each other? The big differences are when you’re DJing in a club you are watching a mass of people and instantly analysing their reaction to the music, energy levels and a general vibe on how you think you should progress your set and as a result you change your set accordingly. The radio show feels very much like you’re talking to one individual person, so it feels like a personal communication but you tend to stick to a running order. The way the two compliment each other particularly in terms of new music (and this is something I used throughout my career at Radio 1) is that you can play a brand new record in a club and instantly tell if it’s going to be big. So I would use my club sets to road test records for my radio show and always knew that I was backing records people genuinely liked. I also found this a great thing when I had my record labels, we would try out new mixes and tunes in sets and see how they went down. Trance Anthems 2010 is you new CD and out this week, there’s a whole plethora of tracks both past, present and future on there but what goes into the process of deciding on a track listing for a release like this? The album is very much a personal collection of tunes that have been big for me in my career. Many of the tracks are records I helped break on my Radio 1 shows. I’ve tried to mix some of the all time massive classics like Binary Finery ‘1999‘, Ferry Corsten ‘Punk’, Faithless ‘Insomnia’ alongside tracks that were big for me on Dance Anthems that people may have forgotten like Chakra ‘Love Shines Through’, Solid Sessions ‘Janeiro’, the Push mix of Mauro Picotto ‘Back to Cali’ and Plastic Boy ‘Live a Life’. On the 3rd CD which is all new tunes I’ve placed tracks that have been favourites on my Trancecast pod cast and in my nu trance sets. Favourites include DNS Project ‘Mindful’ and Jochen Miller v Rank 1 ‘The Great Escape’. I’ve also included a track that I’ve just recorded called ‘Nulife’. So the album pretty much sums up what I do - a mixture of classics and nu trance. Like my radio shows I’ve tried to make the album accessible to lots of people and if it helps convert a few new fans to nutrance, then that would be cool. So once you have your listing what is the next process involved in putting it all together? The difficult part once you have your list is getting all the labels to allow you to use their tracks. You think it would be a piece of cake . . . nope! Bizarrely it’s taken me 3 years to be able to get tracks from DJ Tiesto so I’m delighted to finally have the Richard Durrand mix of Lethal Industry on the album. Last year I even had to track down Paul Oakenfold in L.A. to have him persuade Warner Bros to allow me use of his track (which he kindly did - he‘s a very nice man!). As the deadlines approach it’s quite nail biting as sometimes tracks only clear on the day you go in the studio. When I was doing a Euphoria album once, we had to stop because a track we thought was going to clear didn’t and I had to ring round labels to find a substitute. You’ve shown a longevity that’s very difficult to achieve these day. Do you think your generation of DJ’s had an advantage in respect to keeping a career going over those just starting to make an impact now? I think my generation of DJ’s were lucky in that so many styles and scenes developed over the years - from the early days of Chicago house music to rave and then for me trance. It would be good for the scene to have some new styles emerge. I decided to stick with trance despite the music press writing it off a few years ago, as I still love the music and that’s what I want to play. Maybe from a career point of view I should have jumped over to electro house but trance is my passion so playing what I love is where I want to be. It’s really hard to predict where things will go, but to have longevity you have to be prepared to work very hard. I think its tough for new DJ’s with the state of the club scene at the moment. With the obvious decline in venue’s in London and events being squeezed by the current economic climate and competing for shrinking crowds how do you see the future for trance and dance in general both in London and the rest of the UK? The honest truth is that it’s a very difficult time. Despite claims by the government that the recession is over my experience in club land tends to suggest the complete opposite. I think the future may temporarily be smaller venues. However, another factor is many venues rely heavily on their bar takings. Most trance fans don’t come to have a pint - they come to dance. I’ve recently had several fantastic trance nights where the venue has moaned that despite being really busy they haven’t made much money on the bar. I would love to do more events in London. Dance music and drugs have been intrinsically linked since the birth of the scene in the late 80’s. Without condoning the use of illegal substances do you see the change in club drug usage as a factor in the falling numbers and do you think the Government has got it wrong with their stance on recreational drugs considering the resignation of some of their advisors? I think the government advisors who have sacrificed their positions to try and highlight the lack of logic in this administration’s policy towards drugs is highly commendable. It’s such a hard topic to discuss rationally for fear of being lynched by the press, that’s why most MPs run away from it. It’s fair to say that the effects of binge drinking in today’s youth culture will cause far more death and serious illness and violent crime than any of the ‘summer of love’ ecstasy days. It’s sad to see people who would rather stay at home and get annihilated on cheap booze rather than go out and interact with others. The cheap supermarket booze has led to a whole raft of young people who either just stay in and get pissed or head out after getting pissed and then we can’t let them in the club because we don’t want people in that state. I think the increased popularity of drugs like cocaine have also been detrimental to clubbing as they produce fairly antisocial and introspective behaviour. Having been around the block a bit, my opinion is heavy drug use always leads to misery so there needs to be some sensible debate. Getting back to the lighter hearted now, apart from your trance trousers you’re well known for never being without a cap. I’ve been told that you’re pretty fussy when it comes to when you get them from so where do they come from? I used to collect them on my visits to New York and now I tend to get them from skate shops. How many do you have and is there a favourite hat that’s old and shabby but holds too many memories to throw away? I’ve got loads and loads shoved in a cupboard. My fave one was made for me by a baseball cap company in America called Hyp and it’s falling to bits but I can’t bear to part with it. I’ve still got a really manky one from a radio station in New York called WBLS where I did a few shows, its actually rotting. I’m the Imelda Marcos of baseball caps! Everyone knows the public face of Dave Pearce but who is the Dave when you’re not playing out in one way or another, do you have and secret and slightly geeky past time you like to indulge in to take you mind off the music business? I’m an avid reader and find it a great way to relax. My slightly geeky obsession is political biographies from over the years, OK it could have been worse, it’s not gardening, although I quite like that but I’m too lazy and our cat eats all our plants anyway! I also sometimes secretly watch the Parliamentary Channel when they have those special select committee hearings. I know . . . I’m scaring you now, its time to go. Dave, thanks for your time. Trance Anthems is out this week, to find out what we at HarderFaster think check the review here and don’t forget to tune into the Dave Pearce trancecast in association with HarderFaster. See you on the dance floor. Dave Pearce Trance Anthems 2010 is available from all HMVs and supermarkets nationwide, or order online from: www.ministryofsound.com Photos courtesy of Dave Pearce and the HarderFaster Archive. Not to be reproduced without permission. Share this :: : : : Follow HarderFaster :: Other Features By Steve Milton: The Final Zoo The Death of Clubland? Boom Box, Bulldog Breaks and V1 - It's Time to Reload with DJ-X(lab4) Clubbers Guide to Photography: Part Two Clubbers Guide to Photography: Part One The views and opinions expressed in this review are strictly those of the author only for which HarderFaster will not be held responsible or liable. Comments: From: Slink. on 21st Apr 2010 20:17.57 Good interview. Used to love Dance Anthems back in the day. From: ~deleted12163 on 28th Apr 2010 00:26.04 I remember when he 1st started dj'n @ Cinderellas in south Croydon years ago. How he ever landed a job on radio 1 beats me, but good luck... you big fat letch.... From: K8-e on 6th Jul 2010 22:16.08 Good interview!

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