|
|
Andy Interviews... |
Prepare for a journey into the world of bizarre names and strange song titles....for today top Edge hack Andy Extance speaks to MUCHO MACHO, who record songs like "Eric B Is On The Cat" for their record label Monk On Vinyl.
Bizarre names are something that Tim Punter, economics researcher and spare time rock and roll star, is used to. The name Punter, you see, is not just a crazy rock and roll deed poll number.
"I know it sounds like I'm taking the piss or something, but it is actually my real name," explains Tim. "You phone people up, and they ask your name, and they think you're taking the piss, but it is my real name."
The mind starts to boggle. Is he too Mucho Macho? Now Eric B has left Rakim, is he really stood on Tim's cat? They have a song called "Bring On The Gelatine", whose place in reality speaks for itself really, and it scares me. How about the Monks, you know, the ones that he does that are on Fire, and on Vinyl? Are they real parts of Tim's life?
"Well, that comes from where we started a club, Easter last year, called Monk on Fire. It's been running on and off since then. Monk on Fire comes from a book, but I can't remember which one. We had Jon Carter, The Jedi Knights, Depth Charge, which went fairly well, and the record label, Monk On Vinyl, was a bit of a spin off from that. The Monk thing just kind of carried on, it was quite a good name."
The clubbing thing is clearly central to what Mucho Macho do. As well as DJing at their own nights, when they can get the time off work, Tim and his partner in crime Neil Dunford like to lay it down on vinyl and get the top jocks across the country to cream all over it. Their first single "She Devils" was coveted by Pete Tong, Jon Carter, and many of their other contemporaries, and talked up healthily by the likes of Mixmag and NME. Their latest, "Rockley Sands", refers to the influence of the other side of clubbing on Mucho Macho. Rockley Sands is a holiday park in Dorset, where in 1987 Special Branch (top London club night of the time) settled for the weekend. Even more than that Tim and Neil were there.
"I dug out the program as we were doing the track and I said to Neil 'We've got to do a track, just about the weekend, or name it after the weekend, anyway.' It was a bit of a ground breaking weekend really. I think they did two or three there, and the first one was just after the big storms, October '87. It was quite mad, you drove into the site and saw caravans on their rooves and stuff like that, and we thought, 'What are we doing here!'. It turned out be a really good weekend, and a lot of the DJ's who played that went on to such bigger things. Special Branch went on and did stuff in Ibiza, Danny Rampling was doing it, Oakenfold. You had your people doing Acid House kind of stuff, then you had people like Gilles Peterson playing sort of latin and jazz stuff. It was a good mix from one thing to the other, and that's the kind of thing that we like to do. Diversity. They were saying that the term acid jazz originated from that weekend, playing the acid house next to the jazz."
The club scene has changed significantly in the time between, and mate! You're my best friend you are!" The high profile of ecstasy in clubs has heightened public awareness of all drugs and moved the arenas in which they are discussed from living rooms and bedrooms to the Houses of Parliament. Before the Conservatives lost power last year, they passed a law which gave the authorities greater powers of surveillance in clubs, and put the responsibility for cleaning the scene up more onto clubs. It caused uproar for its infringements of personal privacy, and along with the Government's policies on drugs, continues to alienate large parts of youth culture. How should they approach the issue, as it is seen through the eyes of a DJ?
"It's a bit of a two edged sword. You can't openly encourage clubs to encourage people to do things which are illegal. I think the crux of the issue is should it be illegal, that's the thing. You've got to make the assumption that people are going to do. People are always going to want something else when they go out. It's not good enough sometimes just to go out and have a couple of beers. It's just another level of enjoyment. You've got to look at the Dutch way of things, and that's the way forward. Maybe not legalise things, but making sure everything is safe. They have tried the current way of doing things, and it hasn't worked for what, 50 years? I think it's about time they tried something else."
As much club-orientated dance music, such as Mucho Macho's, is sample heavy, questions are prompted as to originality. Is the dance music scene today innovative, due to all the wonderful technological gadgets we now have, or is it derivative, because of all the rip offs of old tunes? What about Mucho Macho?
"You've got to be careful," warns Tim, "if you've got samples of seventies stuff, you can just sound like a poor cover band. You can end up just being poor versions of what John Barry and Lalo Schifrin were doing 20-30 years ago. You've got to bring something unique to your music as well, like David Holmes has done, where you can tell the influences are from that period, but he's added a new feel to it. You've got to think about what you're doing, and not just nick samples lock stock and barrel. I think nowadays you have to be a bit more creative, maybe five years ago you could have got away with nicking samples and laying a beat over it, but not nowadays. And I think it's a bit of a shame with all the nice stuff you can do in a studio, to come out with a bland 60's 70's sounding record."
So what not to expect from Mucho Macho: Derivative old pants with nothing new in it. Maybe this means they'll give us derivative old pants with new stuff in then. Or maybe not.
"Hopefully we finished our album last weekend, but it probably won't come out until mid-September, depending upon how well the singles do. It was done over about six months. It's got quite a bit of variety, you don't want to make an album that's too diverse, but you want to make one with more than one sort of tempo in the whole thing. It's got some tracks with female vocals, and one with Jim from Collapsed Lung rapping on one track. It's a nice sort of album, really."
A nice album from nice people. Maybe a little glam obsessed, but wide enough music taste to make it work. The variation across their have got something for you to dance to, and if not they'll just whip off their shirts and show you just how macho they are. So be warned.
Click Here to get more details about Limehouse Link; and other material produced by the group.
|
|
How to get back to our main pages Return to CoZmiK books & music |
Shopping |
& Views |