DJ MUNGO INTERVIEW

When did you start djing/producing? What got you into it/ why did you start?

DJ-ing, I don’t produce. I’ve never been opposed to it though and would like to have a proper go when I really get the chance to get into it. I guess the positive thing about that is that you’re not tied down to any particular genre in the same way producers are when they play live, everyone expects you just to drop the stuff you make and when nobody’s expecting any particular songs from you, you pretty much have the freedom to play what you want and what you see fit, it also allows you to be more spontaneous with what you play.

Only a couple of years ago when it comes to DJing specifically, but I’ve always wanted an excuse to share music I like with people and not having to force it on them.

Who/what are your major influences?

These days the stuff I play and really enjoy is based on that bare energetic take on bass and UK funky that people like Redlight, Lil Silva and breach are famous for and the darker side of Garage with people like Sticky, Ghost and Wookie even though my knowledge of that old school stuff is limited as I was a baby when that stuff was big . My original influences were Boys Noize, all my other friends were into indie and rock stuff.
 

Who would you love to collaborate with? (1 realistic, 1 fantasy)

Lil Silva is one of my favourite producers of all time so probably him, or maybe Roska, I met him a long time ago just as a gawping fan and got a picture with him but he seemed so friendly and happy I felt like he wanted a picture with me instead. Mine would Be Grizzle, he DJ’s but doesn’t produce but our taste is very similar and he’s been a very good friend of mine for over five years so we get on well.

Vinyl, CD or digital?     

Right now it’s digital, I’ve got a pair of Traktor S2’s at the moment. I gawp looking at CDJ’s and really want some but can’t afford them at the moment, that’s always been a problem, when I couldn’t afford a controller or even DJ software I used to be so desperate to DJ I would get tunes on my Itunes and tunes on Youtube and literally crossfade them very badly from one to the other. 

What’s the worst thing that’s happened to you on a gig?

Was playing at an event called P&B in Islington and during the middle of my set the sound cut out completely and the sound engineer was nowhere to be seen, we fixed it in the end but he didn’t turn up till the end of my set all sweaty and pissed ‘you played Night ahah!!’, he’d been at the bar the whole time.

Where’s your favourite place to play?  why?

I prefer doing sets for radio because I can make sure they’re perfect… that’s a properly boring thing to say, I’d like to talk about all the huge arenas I’ve played at and how crazy they were but I’d be lying, probably just where everyone appreciates or is really gets into the music your playing and isn’t being to cool.

Do you think anyone can learn to DJ and/or Produce? What’s your best tip for beginners?

Yeah, I was awful when I started but it was always something I really wanted to do so I stubbornly kept at it it, I was never a natural. I suggest getting the Traktor 2 demo, its mad if you’re a beginner because you can start off using the ‘SYNC’ button just focus on playing music you want to play and interoperating it in a way you can play to everyone else and worry about learning to beatmatch and stuff when you feel like it. They is a lot of snobbery in Djing, that your not a ‘proper’ DJ unless you use vinyl and beatmatch perfectly completely by ear which is all good but its much harder when you start off so it’s much less accessible for beginners, so I suggest Traktor 2 demo.

What do you listen to most in a track?

I think particularly these days it’s about having a healthy mixture of all the basic elements of electronic music in the right proportion, like deep bass, but not throughout all of the track so you appreciate it when it’s there. High pitched sounds but not to the extent that it becomes annoying winey, fun stuff like samples but to the extent that their overused, but it’s hard to boil music taste down to dinky little tick boxes; everyone knows what they like and nobody can really be wrong. Sounds obvious and ditsy ‘everyone is perfect and has different taste in music and we can all be right and just get along’ blah blah blah, but I think some people forget that it is just completely subjective what makes music good or bad.

What are you hoping to achieve in the long run/ whats your ambition?

To have a Rinse cd out that would be mad, to have my face there with a big banner and the Rinse logo, id get to meet Shaun Bloodworth, he did Benga’s first album cover, Skream’s and most of the Dubstep Allstars covers and he’s an inspiration to me. Ridiculously long way off ambition though. I mean, just could pretend and go round record shops picking up Rinse cd’s and sticking pictures of myself on the CD cases and write ‘MUNGO!’ over their names in Sharpie but it wouldn’t be very convincing and a lot of money to spend on printing and sharpie pens, then nobody would find it funny and I’d feel like a bit of a dick really.

Where will you be playing next/ what projects do you have lined up?

I’m playing Dingwalls on the 26^th of July and doing mixes for ‘Jacks House’ and ‘B Radio’ next month and hopefully doing Podcast for an event label I work with very closely called P&B which I won’t shut up about. I’d like to go out looking for more but its hard with A levels.

What are your favourite ways to find new tracks?

Blogs, friends and other people’s mixes, I always listen to the sets on Boiler Room and see the latest songs the Djs there are playing.

What’s the future of Dance music? Who do you think we should keep our ears out for?

There seems to by two main sounds emerging these days in dance music. Firstly, House seems to be undergoing a huge revival these days as people are finding Dubstep a bit stale but I think the mixture of house beats and grime snares and hi hats based sound that Night Slugs seemed to have really made their own is huge right now. Within that demographic that they seems to be a divide between the darker side that puts more emphasis on that grime Bass that producers such as Bok Bok seemed to have coined and in comparison to that more high pitched sound with rolling drums people such as Girl Unit produce that sounds almost reminiscent of the hip hop from sound from places such as Atlanta in which Brick Squad are collectively famous for. Or I could be wrong, I chat a lot of shit.

The other stuff that’s emerging isn’t really one to keep your ears out for as it’s the Post-Dubstep scene you could argue that the kind of people like Joy O, Pearson Sound, Koreless and Mickey Peace have pioneered as its already huge but I have even bigger expectations for in the future.
 

Why is music important?

To say why music is important I’d have to imagine life without it, which is weird, and an idea I don’t really like. Without meaning to sound pretentious, I guess it’s the way it brings people together and sharing it or going to see it can bring people together in a way that not much else can. Like, if you’re at a gig and there are loads of completely different people with different taste, backgrounds and lives, nobody even knows each other but there all in the same room hearing the exact same sound as you are and enjoying what you’re enjoying. If you say ‘aaah I love this tune’, they might disagree, but they know exactly what you’re talking about and it’s just weird to think that everyone else there does too.

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