For a living I essentially press play on songs other people have recorded.
There is – as I’m sure you imagine – a LOT more to my job than that, but no one wants to read about the Machiavellian intricacies of choosing which T-Shirt to wear, and how I schedule my toilet breaks.
One of the challenges, then, to Djing, is to try keep the exact same one trick interesting; not just over the course of 4, 6 or occasionally 10 hour sets (I once played 16 hours but I don’t really like to talk about it because by the end I thought I was a humming bird of some kind) but ideally over the course of a 45 year long full-time career (WAIT – they’ve moved the retirement age back again haven’t they? God, make that 47 years, leaving me with another 18 years yet of standing there thinking I can go for a wee in 15 hours).
How do you keep the fine art of pressing play on old, old tracks new, fresh and invigorating? Tough right?
Imagine then, that instead of trying to keep things interesting when you are playing records from 31 years ago (Happy Birthday “No Limit” by 2 Unlimited, 2nd best selling single in the UK, 1993) the thing you are trying to keep fresh, relevant and contemporary is playing music written O.N.E.H.U.N.D.R.E.D. and T.H.I.R.T.Y.O.N.E. years ago (here’s looking at you, Debussy, with your absolute banger “String Quartet on G Op.10”).
That’s what The Gildas Quartet are going to attempt when they play The Spiegeltent at the start of July.
As a dj, my options to spice things up are as wide and varied as waving my hands during a different point of the song, or perhaps doing that thing where I make a love heart shape with my arms over my head and point at an arbitrary place in the crowd as though I’ve actually recognised someone (in my defence, I don’t do any of that charlatanry, instead taking the highroad by just standing there looking confused that I still get to do this for a living), but ACTUAL MUSICIANS who can ACTUALLY MUSISH have a bit more in their armory and a lot more imagination, so The Gildas Quartet are – on Monday 1st July – getting off the stage and OUT ON THE FLOOR into the audience to play.
So how’s that going to work?
The first half of the show is a “control” set, if you will – with a traditional seated arrangement and the artists on stage, where you’d expect them to be… Then at halftime (do they go backstage for orange slices and a pep talk from their manager?) they will be back, but in a “surround sound” setting. Spaced out round the already quirky venue, the players invite the audience to walk amongst them throughout the venue, and to experiment in their own way with the sonic balance.
If you’ve ever been at a gig and wanted the guy in the cargo shorts on the sound mixer to turn up the guitar a bit, this is like that, only instead of leaning over the sound desk and spilling half a pint of lukewarm lager over a £175,000 mixing desk before telling someone who’s trained for years to do this that you think you know better, you can simply find your own “sweet spot” for the sound levels you want to hear.
By the end of the night the audience will have worked out which works best for them, a traditional seated, or a more on-your-feeted experience.
The Spiegeltent is an interesting space to play anyway – from my experiences there playing Jimmy’s Reunions (there’s one of them coming too) – I know that the mixture of shabby-chic showbiz and glamorously bohemian-boudoir vibes adds an intangible edge to things I wish I could put in a can and spray paint onto all the venues I play; there’s something charged in the air inside The Spiegeltent, and the idea of being able to actually move round to get the best from the sound really intrigues me – even if I imagine for some of MY gigs the best way to get the best sound is simply to leave.
I’m sure The Gildas Quartet won’t have anyone wanting to leave; their award winning shows have garnered critical acclaim from actual Classical Music critics (who probably don’t spend half their articles talking about their own DJ sets) and they’ve specifically won first prize in audience engagement at the Franz Schubert und die Musik der Moderne International Competition. These are artists going out of their way, above and beyond the expected role of musicians, to grab the listener by the ears and propel them in unexpected and exciting directions.
The thing is, this really is something you might expect more on the DIY Punk scene or underground Thrash circuits. The more experimental bands on those scenes sometimes leave the safe* confines of the stage (*safe being a relative term in the world of Heavy music) to set up in the midst of the audience, often to unbelievable effect: I’ve seen Baby Godzilla turn a sideroom at Slam Dunk Birmingham – back when Slamdunk was a lot more edgy – inside out and back to front, to sonically destroy the crowd.
At the other end of the Rock spectrum I’ve seen Coldplay emerge from the crowd mid gentle riff in Hampden Park to amaze people who were suddenly not only stood next to one of the biggest recording artist in the world, but stood next to them whilst they were actually performing; both of these examples really threw people and completely changed the live dynamic. I was the other side of the stadium for Coldplay – I was 3ft away from the erratically scything guitarist of Baby Godzilla, and both wildly different experiences connected me with the performance in a way I am still thrilling over at least eight years later… but this kind of experimentation is not without risk. There’s a reason we have stages, and blurring the lines between audience and artist is a challenging thing to do safely, and even harder to achieve well.
I think that rather than it being a Hardcore Punk act or a Stadium Phenomenon getting right INTO the crowd to play, a Classical Quartet doing it goes to show that innovation and pro-activity has no limits within music, other than what you are prepared to risk. Bear in mind that something described as an “intermediate” viola can cost the thick end of £4000, beyond the material value of equipment, the players needs to maintain the concentration and focus needed to nail a quartet in – let’s say five movements – without any visible cues from their fellow performers.
They’ve got to remain in tight formation, as it were, whilst being completely out of formation. The audience are not only stood between each musician, but are actively encouraged to move around; each physical movement will change the acoustics of the venue, and surely the vibe of the entire event is going to be – much more than usual – created as much by the audience as it is by the performers.
Will the audience engage? Will they remain static like a rabbit in the headlights? It’s surely the most exciting thing about performing not knowing what will happen, and working out how you respond to an unlimited amount of variables. Honestly, I love having a DJ stand to hide behind, so I’ve nothing but admiration for artists who can get out there and into other people’s comfort zones.
To (for an unbelievable ninth time) refer this back to my own job as an entertainer, it is a cliché to say that an artist is only as good as the crowd they are playing to, but just because it is cliché doesn’t make it any less true; at The Spiegeltent I feel it is more appropriate than ever. I certainly can’t wait to get back there for the Jimmy’s night, and whilst I am about as artistically different to a Classical quartet as it’s possible to be, I imagine The Gildas Quartet feel the same: what will the crowd bring to this night? How exactly is is going to work? WILL it definitely work? There is – of course – only one way to find out, and that’s by being there.
Use TREV20 at the checkout to claim your DJ Trev Discount for The Gildas Quartet!
Dj Trev is – as repeatedly mentioned – playing 2 Unlimited’s magnum opus “No Limits” in A major (2nd movemnt E minor) Op. 1, (a ternary A-B-A piece, arranged for CD Player by Ray Slijngaard) and other retrospective works at The Jimmy’s Nightclub Reunion on Saturday 29th June, and he promises not to leave backstage a mess for The Gildas quartet who are there 2 days later on Monday 1st July.