|
 It's
a cold wet windy day in Manchester, England (it's always a cold
wet windy day in Manchester!) - and I'm driving round and round
the Oldham ringroad trying to find the pub where I'm supposed
to meet up with Liam Swarbrick, the man behind
LHK Productions. We've arranged to meet
up to watch England vs Finland in the World Cup Qualifier and
to talk about house music of course!
I'm lost and it seems hopeless as rain pours in from the Atlantic,
hits the Pennines and throws itself against the Mancunian skyline.
Then I turn another corner and there's the pub - at last!
I pull up outside, notice the police parked across the road and
duck inside the pub - stepping across the threshold I notice many
eyes turn my way; definitely a locals' bar - so much for an inconspicuous
entrance, and to be honest it's a bit rough in here. I've got
my answer ready should that worst of all challenges be thrown
out "Are you lookin' at me?" - no, but I'm not ignoring you either
:-). Then a guy who looks decidedly more switched on than anyone
else in the place raises an eyebrow in my direction - I make my
way over and introduce myself. First contact - someone in this
bar knows me, so I'm OK & hopefully I ain't gonna be eating knuckle
sandwich this afternoon.
So we settle down to get a few pints down our necks and hopefully
see England stuff it to the Fins - Liam & a couple of friends
& me. Of course, England go on to win the game with goals from
Owen (Liverpool - arch enemy to all Mancunians, whatever colors
they wear) and Beckham (Manchester United - mortal enemies of
Manchester City; and there were a few Blues supporters in attendance,
not least Dave - Liam's friend & drinking buddy).
Well, you know what they say "the best laid plans of mice & men
gang aft aglay" (!) and what should have been an interview with
the impresario behind LHK turns into a discussion of the merits
of various footballers, whether England will qualify for the World
Cup, why women have to make a point of making life so difficult
(sorry to the half of the human race that this offends, but we're
well confused about that one ya know! And Dave's girlfriend had
that very day trashed his record collection in retaliation for
him having a night on the tiles).
Later, after the game we make our way back to Liam's studio and
I try to pick up the threads of the interview - but we are all
so trashed that it just ain't happening - my camera's decided
it doesn't want to play & I can hardly remember how to speak,
never mind what questions I'm supposed to be asking! Records play;
Liam gets on the decks & pulls out some phat grooves - demonstrates
silky skills on the decks and a producer's ear for the interplay
of grooves, harmonies & bad-assed funkiness. We shoot the breeze
about the Rurals, Migs, Moulton Studios, the Manchester scene,
various other stuff that I can no-longer distinctly recall from
the haze of memory - then Dave spews his ring and it's pretty
clear that the time has come to relocate!
A few days later Liam & I hook up on-line & I run some questions
by him
How's Dave? Recovered I hope! It was great to
met you guys and I'm really looking forward to hooking up again,
maybe in London for some serious party action and to hear you
play out ;-)
Dave's allright, took me ages to get him round to my girlfriends
and she's wasn't too happy :) I will let you know when I am gonna
be down in the smoke.
OK, down to business. Here's some questions. If
you could mail me back some answers it will help to put structure
on the interview.
Cool...
Your first house record was "Alright Alright"
by Todd Terry right, which came out in '87 or '88 - so I reckon
that means you got into house when you were about 13? (Wow, that
seems young!) But before that you were into hip-hop. Can you give
me some examples of hip-hop stuff you were into then?
I was listening to a lot of hip-hop, Marley Marl etc. and I used
to listen to Stu Allan's "Bus Dis" on the radio and that's where
I heard a lot of Todd Terry's stuff which in turn got me into
House Music. I continued to buy hip-hop until early 1990, you
know all the PE, EPMD, Stetsasonic etc. but after that I was just
buying house music. I still like listening to some hip-hop but
not all this shit you get in the charts.
How old were you when you started making your
own tracks? And who were your main musical influences at that
time?
About 24. MAW, Todd Terry, DJ Sneak etc.
You say that you sent off a demo to KM at Glasgow
Underground, and that was your first break, right? Had you been
sending stuff to labels before that?
I had been sending stuff out to other labels in the UK with some
success, but some labels sign stuff and then for some reason don't
release it.
Did you find it difficult to get a contract?
Not particularly, but some people where amazed when I told them
that I had stuff released and that I got paid.
 In
one interview you said that you'd like to play out more - and
now you seem to be booked out quite a lot (you mentioned Trondheim,
Portugal, Bristol, London) - can you give me any details for club
dates over the next few months?
Yeah, and I would still like to play out more!! This year I have
done so far - Kerma, Finland with Jori Hulkkonen at his F-Comm
night, Sublime in Trondheim, Norway, Rocket in Exeter and Fruity
Antics in Bristol... Coming up I have dates being confirmed in
Portugal, Barcelona, Edinburgh, and South Africa.
Also, it would be interesting to hear your best/worst
experiences as a club DJ.
My best experience as I club DJ would be that I don't think I
have had it yet and the worst is playing to an empty club in Glasgow
last year, but I still got paid so it wasn't all that bad.
People all over the world will read this interview
(I wish!), so could you say something about the British house
scene for their benefit.
Too much cheese!!
People outside the UK seem to see this country
as the place to be for electronic/dance music. Do you agree with
that? For instance, you seem to be booked out to play in European
countries a lot more than in the UK - then also you were saying
the Manchester scene is really cliquey...
Yeah, it is and it isn't; all the people involved in the so called
Deep House scene that I have met have been cool, but when it comes
to getting DJ bookings there is this mentality that you have to
book overseas DJ's even if you have a good DJ on your doorstep.
I think it's that local DJ syndrome!! Do you understand what I
am saying??
You've started doing remix work, (recently?).
Which artists have you remixed? What remixes are you most pleased
with?
I have messed around remixing my own tracks and they have been
released on GU, but I really want to get into remixing some good
house stuff. I am doing a couple of on spec things at the moment
and if they do get accepted I will let you know in a follow up!!
Your first release with GU came out in '98, and
since then you've had about 10 singles released - mainly on GU
but also 20:20 Vision & 83West - that's about 10 tracks over the
course of two years - quite prolific, really! (Well, I think so)
But you seemed really laid back about it. Do you find ideas come
to you all the time or do you have to work really hard to find
musical inspiration?
Well, sometimes I go in the studio and a track comes together
in a couple of hours, and sometimes it takes weeks! I tend to
find that when I am skint and need to get an EP done I work better
under pressure cuz I tend not to think to deeply about it.
You have loads of equipment in your studio - could
you give me a quick run down of what you're using & why (this
will be helpful to all those aspiring producers out there). Apart
from the Mac & a sampler, what is the key piece of equipment in
your setup?
Power Macintosh G4, Motu 2408 Audio system, CubaseVST, Recycle
etc. Soundcraft Ghost AU mixing console, Emu E6400 Ultra with
output expansion, Emu Proteus 2000, Kurzweil 1000PX module, Novation
Drum Station, Lexicon MPX1 Multi FX, Lexicon MPX 100 Dual FX Processor,
Lexicon Alex FX Processor, Zoom Studio 1204 FX, Behringer Composer
Pro Comp/Gate, Alesis 3630 Comp/Gate, Event 20-20 studio monitors.
I am using the Mac for stability reasons :) The desk I bought
cuz I needed one and I heard they where nice and I got a good
price!! The sampler I was going to buy an Akai S5000 but there
were SCSI problems with it and I needed something that I could
hook up to the Mac straight away. The rest of the stuff I just
use :)
Actually, there were loads of questions I wanted
to ask you about production, like what do you think is the minimum
equipment that someone needs to start making their own tracks?
Do you use compression and how do you use it? How do you make
bass sound nasty and dangerously funky instead of a deep fart
out of a fat arse? When you are building the percussion elements
of a track do you use a programmable drum machine or do you sample
beats and loop them up through a sequencer? I got the impression
that you use sampling & editing pretty extensively, correct?.
Minimum equipment Sampler, Atari ST, midi controller and some
kind of mixer!! Yeah, I use compression but I like u am not that
good at it. I used to have a DBX compressor which was great for
fattening up bass and it was a piece of piss to use; just one
control and that was it, just slide the knob and the bass instantly
sounded better. I think I am getting better with compression but
then again I m not sure, hehe.
A lot of the time I stick a bunch of drum loops in recycle, and
then make the slices and then send them back to the sampler and
then reprogram into different patterns in VST. I also use the
drum station as well. I use sampling a lot. Yeah, but like I said
above on the drums I only use the individual hits unless I am
taking some nice conga loops off some old disco tracks. I do sample
and filter things but I like it to sound rougher and more trippy
than just your average disco track!!
OK, I'm gonna nick your whole record collection
(you should never have let me know where you live, haha) but I'll
let you keep two records - one released this year and any other
from your collection - what two is it gonna be (and they can't
be albums neither and what is so brilliant about them?)
Your fuckin' not!! :) This year, Pepe Bradock's "Life" on Atavisme
and from the organized chaos that is my record collection Phase
2's "Reachin" on Movin Records.
If house music didn't exist what do you think
you'd be doing now? (inventing house music does not count as an
answer!)
I haven't got a clue. I have had two jobs in my life one was
in a record shop and the other was as a bakery operative which
was mind numbingly boring :)
OK, finally (for now at least) what are your future
plans? What releases are in the pipeline? You said you wanted
to do some vocal stuff? Also what about an album, any plans?
I am working on some new material for GU and 83West at the moment,
and I am gonna start something for 20:20 soon. I have a remix
12" coming out on 20:20 entitled LHK "Dancin Remixes" featuring
mixes from Step Time Orchestra, Snow Monkey and myself but I am
not sure when that is going to surface and at the moment I have
a 12" out on GU entitled LHK "Candy/I Can." At the moment, I am
starting to have keyboard lessons so that I can do more musical
stuff, and then I want to start doing some songs and maybe an
album.
Thanks for the interview Liam, I look forward
to hearing more from you soon :-)
For bookings etc. please contact Liam at: liam
at glasgowunderground.com
BuddahNature
April 2001
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