Please start off with a brief synopsis on the history of 666gangstaz.
The name was spat up, as seen, straight from my subconscious- a piss take
on the painfully overused 90s band name
formula [number]+[word] = arbitrary bullshit that sounds cool.my name rolls off
the tongue very awkwardly, and is deeply meaningful... first take at face
value and envision an Ice Cube in blue
and purple Hoodoo warpaint, in much more macabre and gothic stylings- gangsta-rap culture giving a true
and spiritual embrace to the Satanic nature of it's obsession with death and
violence, materialist decadence and
hedonism of poetic extremity, and self empowerment to a god like
influence by wielding soul enslaving
alchemical substances... (ha ha the true power of rap is it's poetry) but my
relationship to the number is with it
it's true, Occult meanings... almost all figures and events in the modern christian mythos are perversions for more
disgusting than outright lies, or ridiculous faerie tales interpreted into justification of any base,
human whim- they are violent inversion of the gods and practices of the pagans and all the cultures
they have demolished and subjugated on the path total world domination. satan as the snake in the
garden is the demonifaction of the primal feminine energy- the yin, denying, at humanities point of inception the
sacredness of nature, and life- itself's inherent duality. Satan materialized
as a horned devil is the inversion of Pan and
Cerrnunos, the horned god, benevolent patron of the daylight and animal
kingdom, by worshiped pretty back to
humanities cave dwelling days. i personally connect to the Lucerfarian angle,
the fallen angel myth are of couse the
story of Prometheus- I am trying to bring a chainsaw of light and knowledge to
humanity so that we may severe the shackles
binding our spirit- this will happen though the realization of our dark,
inhuman, animal natures- Satan is real
as fuck, he dwells INSIDE the human heart. accepting that is the only way to
ensure we are benevolent in our live. so
the spirit of the project is to be a dark destructive force for us, fire to burn away the badness. my favorite
sentiment, and this is likely inaccurate in bible numerology or Cabala, is that "6 is the
number of man, and 3, 33, 333, are the numbers of god, so 666 is the number of a man making himself a
god. the 666gangstaz project evolved, bucking and clawing along with bleeding edge (and common
availability) i have cassettes from the early 90's of primitive ambient, techno and even jungle
tracks that were made with the first primitive wave editors on the earliest of the windows PC's. ha ha
the sounds i worked with were 8-bt 22kHz mono .wavs and a 3 minute track would filling the entire
harddrive, puzzling and infuriating my folks. once the laptop renaissance happened and we got the first
proper softsynths (rebirth, rubberduck) and sample sequencing studios, and effect plugging
(directx for cooledit) it was on. a sat down with Jeskola Buzz (still one of the best http://buzzmachines.com)
read the 10 min how to, pumped out an ill
techno track (which i still have), and quite a lot of the tracks i
finished (except for the first cd ) have
always been online at http://noiseusse.org.
Play (noiseusse co-founder) and i were making all manner of stuff, click n cuts, techno, weird
house, breakbeat, and IDM Hardcore and Breakcore, before we had ever really heard much HC/BC, i
didn't stumble on the term 'breakcore' or the net scene until a few week before i moved to cali
in 2003 (big ups to widerstand and c8) we were booking shops and tragging our desktop to clubs and
and bars in ann arbor, and it was COMPLETELY mind boggling to the public at large, they had
never seen or heard much electronic music at all, and we we playing some really out there shit even by
today's standards, ha ha ha....
what are your feelings about free tekno?
Free Tekno is a much faster (150 - 180bpm) and bouncier style of techno,
very trippy and some of it works it's
self up to basically being hardcore. the
were some french free tekno kidz staying with
us at the 5lowershop wherehouse ,
one of them was dj-ing and i was like "i know this track, i
have this record, you guys are just
playing techno records on 45!" and they said " if its not on 45,
it's no techno man" but it's more
than that , Free Tekno it is a a lifestyle, a philosophy... for a more
in depth look into it check out the Spiral Tribe wiki... the name
"free" comes a hardcore DIY, grass
roots, i guess
"anarcho-socialist" ethic- throwing FREE parties, usually out doors
in cali we call the them 'renegades our
brethren on the eastcoast call them out 'outlaws' in the city we'd do 'break-ins' in europe the movement is so big
the have tons of free outdoor festivals ,"Teknovals" a bunch of crews bring huge soundsystems out in
the middle of nowhere (very commonly with school busses, because of their availability) setup
shop and party for a weekend, a week or
however long the supply of of drugs and
fuel for the generators last. we have
one here annually called the Autonomous
Mutant Festival, it happen in varying locations in the pacific northwest, from northern cali up to washington. always in a completely
different location, so as not to destroy to the local ecosystem, this is important because we do
AMF in lush, beautiful forests, where are connecting to nature -this is in direct ideological
opposition to burning man- we leave the city to connect with nature, as opposed to a lifeless and brutal
environment which can accommodate grandiose and frivolous displays of america's wealth of energy
resources. our festivals are free, based on autonomy and communal sharing where as burning man is commercialism
consumerism and political social structure
(ticket are incredibly expensive and the money goes to for instance
their own police force ha ha) we always
find a place with large stream, so people can keep clean and cool, build water
filter so we can use the water, people i know have had one working yet but
there are lots of attempts to covert
industrial generator to run on straight veg (filtered scavenged
vegetable oil) most people's buses run
on veg. some of my friends trying to get a grant to build green (or at least
sustainable) generators for burning man-
they were modified to run on some algae product they have the tech, and the infra structure to create the machines
and the fuel, do it up- burning man wasn't interested, they gave them 500$ to bring one ... (haha
why am i ranting about BM? i guess it's to illustrate what free techno in not :) ) but that idea- a
festival run on algae generators- THAT is fee
techno... ha ha while i'm at it, S.P.A.Z. (sister crew of 5lowershop et
al, who i proudly claim association to)
was the first soundsystem to show about at burning man, back at the
beginning... now how they do it in europe that varies of course, i've heard and
i'm assuming how most of those crews get
thecaptial to power the cycle is just
straight up selling drugs. which makes perfect sense, you bring the drugs as well as the
party ha ha.. we do this to but in much less of a direct sense, whether we are more cautious or more
timid, we aren't the one distributing pills and what now to the public en mass, at our parties, but a
good deal of the people in our network on the westcoast make a living growing or seasonally trimming
green- so ost of us exist off the grid, in the shadow economy , the under ground... Freetekno is
very political, non-violent, anti-war, anti-big brother, for community autonomy and equality, for
environmental protection, ANTI-RACIST this isn't such a big deal in the states but in europe there's a
huge plague of neo-nazism in the electronic scene, particularly with hardcore/gabber :( yep...
there are tons of huge nazi hardcore raves (makes me shudder). when the love parade move from
berlin to san fransisco we, of course, imported Fuck Parade!!
now the first year we did it while we were promoting for it online the
people doing fuck parade in berlin
notice and some how got the phone number at the 5lowershop where house,
called international.... and
miraculously the phone got answered and someone who could speak for our crew
was put on the line... they wanted to
make sure we weren't nazis (! :) ) ... we're like oh fuck no!! an were give their official blessing. in
5lowershops earlier days they did a lot of political activism, some of them went to iraq as human shields,
which is pretty HC, and bringing soundsystems to street protests, which is super fun!!, breakcore
never sounds better than when yr facing down a wall of riot gear clad cops, but you got to come up
with a portable equipment setup that you'd be willing to lose, bike soundsystem is a very powerful
weapon in those type of scenarios it a great way to direct (and accumulate and catalyze) a giant mob.
there's a great spiral tribe dvd about a crew of them driving some box trucks
fullup with a shit ton books, of every
kind, from france all the way into africa into some impoverished city, they
hung with the people there and made
music with the local drummers, and threw and huge dance party centered on the performance collaborating with a bunch of
the drummers, dancers and other local performers, there's vinyl a CD and a dvd from that
venture. that's FreeTekno.
-INCREASE THE PEACE!!-
how did 5lowershop influence you?
they were my introduction to soundsystem culture, mutant culture, urban
sustainability, a slew of new sounds and
aesthetics, and the total awesomeness of school busses. i moved to cali in the beginning of 2003, knowing only 2 people. i
knew from them, and every anecdote i had heard
that the bay area is where i
belonged, along with any kind of freak, artist, stoner and queer. it is the american counterculture mecca. along with new
york it is always at least 5 years ahead the rest of the US in creative trends, constantly
spawning the and importing them from other countries. all this is important as context. the socially
progressive regions of the west coast (and NYC in the east) are the only places that have a
"soundsystem culture". so within a
month of moving to oakland i get
my first invitation to party. we
go to SF guessing it's a metal show by the flyer. we go into the big shady wherehouse. jaws dropped and eyes
popping. i was like like this is it! exactly what i moved out there, and more... next level shit.
it evolved my music and art enormously in a couple months, just by exposure. ha ha i totally
fucked my way into the inner core of the s.p.a.z. and 5lowershop community. not generally my MO,
but it happens. it was kind of bad, a gave a cd with my to one of the performers, just being
friendly. she emails me within a day, like "hey stranger..." and i'm like awesome! i made a friend! first
evening we hung out got way more than friendly... and week later her roommate comes to look at a
room, and that girl just my heart out of my eye balls and we were getting it on within 6 hours or so...
the rest is history, me and dj megabitch were in it together for the next 5 years. not knowing
anything about these kids or their relationships a bit of
drama ensued, mostly because the lady who initially picked me up had a
boyfriend. best way to get jumped in...
how do you incorporate dj'ing and live performance together (ableton,
gear)? are they separate art forms?
well once computers got powerful enough, and people finally got working
beat detection algorithms. ableton 5, as
i recall, and traktor 3... i immediately was all up in hybrid-dj/live remixing,
in all possible permutations. i'll
probably end up reiterating this: djing (mostly with decks) IS a "live
performance" very much so! - to the
point that it's way more "live" than 98% of the ableton sets i've
ever seen, it's a hands-on art, a
science. the good stuff is highly improvisational, you have to have a mental
map of all your tracks, especially the
tempos which vary ridiculously in half of the styles. sure you can plan out your whole set ahead of time, but
that can bomb, you miss the most important point- working with the crowd, you can literally feel the
energy of the dance floor- it a feedback loop- all those people full immersed, excited, interacting with the sounds, moods, beats and
each other- all that energy feeds right back into you, increasing
your abilities, it will lift you up to different, higher level, you can tell exactly what the
audience needs to hear ha ha play something that alienates the vibe and you feel it right away
in your bones, nasty feeling. a it requires a lot of skill, people who have never tried to
beatmatch would be astonished by how difficult it is. to a non-dj its just looks like you just standing
there nodding your head. it's not a theatrical
spectacle, it takes to much concentration to put on i big show of
yourself (unless you a turntablist, they
tend to ignore the groove continuity. its flashy but not often imaginative,
its like a non-stop cockrock guitar
solo). and then we come to ableton which
is an amazing program, with limitless
creative possibility, super intuitive. unfortunately, the most common way it's
used in a "live" setting is
lazy automatic beat matching of pre-determined tracks. to get that
"live" feel, you can bang your
head and grimace, jump around, spout inanities or lipsync, pretend to be
fucking up the tracks on your keyboard
or controller (lol i could drop a huge list of names and offenses from the breakcore scene but what's the
point?). many prefer to just stand there staring at the screen. some dick around with effects a
little. a suprizing number just hit the space bar and pound beer, this my favorite ableton trick-slamming
down a ton of liquor and rolling spliffs. lol
what innovations would you like to see in live performance technology?
well in my dreams- a direct cybernetic link into the mind/body. we are in
the happy babysteps stage of mind
controlled computers and tablets! but for performance i'd like to see and
integration of body gesture... a great
simple example is the Powerglove. but extrapolate into a system to today's resolution and flexibility, and by dancing
and gesturing you would have a huge amount of potential data with an unprecedented amount of nuance.
it would take full advantage of your natural dexterity way beyond the way traditional interfaces and
instruments do. people are all ready doing all kinds of thing in this vein but they are just super
geeks experimenting. eventually we get a easy to use, flexible and widely available system.
how do you feel about breakcore and its development?
this will sound strange to the younger, laptop generation- for me
personally, laptops killed breakcore.
for me, the foundational stuff has a lot more visceral impact. was darker,
grittier, and groovier, having been a
direct spawn of the darker dance styles- the creators, label like ambush, praxis and DHR, were adepts of other styles
first. the sounds were more varied, unique and focused. a lot of it involved political activism. so
that was the mid to late 90's. the past ten years the style largely becomes
more and codified. silly movie sample get pretty obligatory, as does plunderphonic, which is both good and bad.
the use of elements from any and all
other styles of music is both one of the best aspects, and also it's
downfall (at least for me, people have
horrendous tastes in music). once the god awful "mashup" thing gets
popular, you have people using so much
crappy pop music it's functionally just an excuse indulge your inane
cheese, made more obnoxious with
adolescent sped of amens. there is great stuff, unique stuff too, don't
get wrong, but i guess for one thing i'm
just burnt on hardcore/breakcore, after living in a almost nonstop hardcore rave for 6 or 7 years,
pushing the extreme factor as far it would go. i actually got sick of the really, really chopped up
stuff a long time ago, people are so obsessed with constant glitches and edits the continuity
gets totally lost, and i think you need that, and a bit of a coherent groove for the stuff to be
compelling.
who is your favorite breakcore dj?
mark n, of nasebluten/bloody fist records. he's a world champion
turntablist.
how do you feel about the move away from vinyl dj'ing?
ha ha well there is no "move away from vinyl dj'ing" what you are
referring to is the growth of a whole
generation of talentless morons they believe they are djs, due to the dissemination
of tech that's finally good enough make
make a bunch more morons believe it. dj
means "disc-jockey", the arcane turntable and mixer setup has been
reverse engineered to control virtual
decks or anything else. vinyl djing- beatmatching takes time, discipline and
dedications to learn, and style and
creativity to produce something interesting. learning to beat batch is hard!
at first it's a total head fuck to learn
to split your minds hearing into independent thing parts, like a lizard's eye. through the technique you get
this deep relation ship the beats, and the way dance music works, that you won't find any other
way. now that said the evolution of the tech is amazing the new possibility are used marvelously by
the creative, and while i stress the benefits or learning the old schools ways for the sake of being a
better artist, i love how the effectiveness and
availability of our current tech level, makes the medium accessible to
countless people who wouldn't have
otherwise gotten into playing around with sound and music. beginners can often
come up with the coolest things.
what inspired you to produce?
i don't really remember a time before i was obsessed with music... i've
always been like haunted by the beat its
was really painful waiting around for the future to get here so i could get my
hands on stuff that could make the
sounds i heard and heard in my head. there were always guitars and piano and casios around but they were forever
frustrating because you can't manipulate the sound. as child i was all about hip hop, then when i was 12
or 13 i discovered industrial, electronica, techno jungle etc. there was really good stuff even
on the pop/alt rock stations at night, being in close proximity to detroit. on the weekends they
would broadcast from the night clubs, the on the rap/soul stations this meant
booty bass every thursday, friday, and saturday. listening to booty really
stone was a big influence.
outside of electronic music, what music do you like to listen to?
jazz, classical,k all manner of "world music". i hate rock and "pop" at large. can't stand
blue grass, but there is some SUPER bad
ass appalachian banjo recordings from the beginning of the 1900's, the song banjo's and harmonies were all in
these great Modal tunings called things like the "claw hammer" and "sawmill" tunings-
super dark and brooding check out Dock Boggs on archive.org. Steve Reich is amazing and a big influence.
can you play any traditional instruments?
played jazz saxophone, and electric bass, studied throughout child hood and
highschool, guitar in bunch of bands
have done any of that for like 15 years so id be pretty sloppy and slow now but
the way jazz and improv works that stick
with you as a fundament. "if you like music, jazz is the teacher" i can play the didgeridoo
circular breath is great technique that other applications in yoga and the occult arts.
do you think traditional instruments can have a meaningful role in
electronic music or do they dilute the
style?
which style? unless you can use them in an interesting sonically
explorational ways that melds into the
sound and style, they are just props for
ego posturing and tend to be played in tired western conventions that is if you are some space bar
ableton breakcore dude playing at a rave. but i LOVE massive attack, muslimgauze, all manner of
stuff like that...
what is your current favorite production trick?
first and foremost is, simply:
suprize. and change. i'm trying to create new and mindbending experiences one important way of doing this
taking established conventions and twisting them, using familiar sounds in unexpected ways etc... but
to real blow and reward minds takes a advanced and subtle use of songcraft (something that
definitely is getting lost in evolution and dissemination of software) you need to cleverly lead people's
expectations to play a good trick. my stuff lends itself well to this because i write in a
narrative style, as opposed to any conventional or codified genre structure- tracks frequently end up in
a different style with completely different elements than they start with.
but if 'you are looking for a more technical or usable answer: layering
sounds, one big way is layer
subharmonics on them to give them big physical impact a lot of music
gets made in absence of good subs and
this entire aspect of music is neglected. very often you are tweaking and
effecting a bass sound and once it's
good its not putting out low frequencies, you then mirror the with clean
untouched sine wave, usually several octaves
lower... super simple but people always ask me how to do this. to get really
tripped out sounds, up into recent years do a ton of Granular Synthesis
and grainbuffer effects, timestretching
and pitchshifting (generally) are simple grain synth stuff. now, with faster computers- now i'm in FFT - fast
fourier - block processing, more descriptive know as spectral bock processing, and these new
additive synth, that are basically "spectral" synths.
what is the basic way that you set up ableton for live performance?
Basic... ha ha... well basically as many different dynamic and
improv-oriented devices as the
processors can handle, a of instances of reaktor synths for playing,
synths with a million midi clips that
with program change, a heavy duty custom modular drum machine, a bunch little
glitchy rhythm and sfx thingies that
play the selves, audio tracks of loops, an audio track of loops that constantly change, a track of fx loop that constantly
change, track of long single track sequences,
some finished tracks, some acapellas. i don't use a hole zoo of vst fx
any more, just some basic live fx racks delays and filters for fast control
of the auxiliary channels dynamics. On main tracks i use different keyboard triggered
grain/buffer multi fx- these really put put the freestyle power right in your hand. i use really old remote
25 controller, a kaos pad. and sync up what ever live gear i have, electribes, another laptop, etc,
the best one that i possessed for a spell was a nord modular.
what is your ultimate goal musically?
long term collaborations... have taken it all so far solo that I can't do
it anymore, can't see the point. I love
working with rappers and vocalists, I want to be a cyber-shamanic Timbaland to
a wiley alien Missy Eliott. i have
played prolly hundreds of sets of all kinds at the dopest underground parties i've ever been to, we
threw them ourselves, totally
noncommercial (frequently free)
every other underground party i ever went into in the bay area was completely
whack (at least 20 bucks a pop), after a
couple of years, me and dj megabitch just gave up,, and we never lacked
for action- ha ha when i say our crew-
I'm referring to big network work and community mad up pf like 8 or so soundsystem crews + friends and family...
known as the "mutant" scene. in terms of creative works i wrote about a dozen albums in in decade or
so. I've totally actualized the fury of
the hardcore vision- there's a plateau
there, handful of tracks and patches i made were just so brutal, in a soul satisfying way, that there was no higher
level. even in the producers that had inspired me.
did dubstep hurt or help electronic
music as a whole?
which scene? dubstep exploded into a scene of its own, in it's elements,
they are great and they've had good
influence on the other genres. at this put since it went mainstream and
codified into monotonous lizard brain
crotch grabbing, the creative minds have kept soul of evolving into a bunch
of of new styles. most people are
completely unfamiliar the original style of the scene that coined the term.
is it important to you that experimental electronic music is danceable?
yes.
in what states or country's have you performed? Which place was your
favorite?
michigan, illinois, california, oregon, washington, new york, pittsburg,
canada- toured with nommo ogo and
katabatik soundsystem, we drove all the from washington to alaska! favorite-
definitely the bay area, people say LA
is really fun, but the only time i played down there, the party was a
total fail, on the promoter's behalf,
but at least we got payed decently, while he lost a shit load of money. since we have such a big and motivated
net work of crews- at least 7 soundsystems with a huge network of friends, djs, producers, artists,
vjs, homebrewers, dedicated fans, etc... when do a large indoor event it's huge
and it's off the hook on an uncommon way. beyond that we have serious notoriety in the area, have big name
to draw the public, just reputation. at the 5lowershop wherehouse and the mini 5lower loft up the street, there's always people that
don't even know who we are or what kind
of music they might hear, they just find somehow there's a party. anyway
that's the type of event that i really
get into, and people are properly experience my stuff- banging a huge soundsytem to a sweaty 100+ (hot)
freaks, more than 1/2 of the female (omg), totally bumpin-n- grinding (ha ha
ha) to speedcore. so this, granted, is a very high standard, it would very hard
to get something this in scenes else
where, especially the with say, hardtechno, let alone breakcore. nonetheless
the Shows i've played elsewhere have been consistently limp, mostly due
to nonattendance which garners lack of enthusiasm. i know its hard to get
something cool happen and get people to
care, but i've been booked at to many "shows", along side more
awesome talent, that obviously weren't
promoted to the public, and some where people didn't even bother to tell their
friends! tiny broken soundsytems, I've to play on broken stereo speakers and
blown guitar amps. this is just the
breakcore scene, so a lot of people have been to a good dance party, by an
large oblivious subass. or dancing at
all. what i've see in modern breakcore is that all events are "shows"
as opposed to "parties". i
hate the traditional concert format- every one just staring
"performer" and not talking to
each other. the only thing less interesting or insightful that watch dj cueing
up track is watching a dude stare at a
laptop. which why a lot of breakcore producers pretend to rock out on a controller. its a fake performance
so it is just ego stroking. i know that these cities have something cool to
offer... how can they not? they are all
metropolitan enough, progressive enough for all the dj, producers,
artists, queers, witch and what not to
be a connected enough community for a general night life scene... it's
partially just misfortune that i go
there and i don't see it in action.
