Get Up, Stand Up, for your airplay rights!. A chat with Sam Redmore

“I handed Craig Charles a CD at a gig. The next week, he played something from it on 6 music”.

A year or so back, I looked at how the meaning of the word DJ has changed over the last 80 years or so. At radio, DJs have largely become 'talent', 'personalities', or 'presenters'. And they rarely play discs any more. Today's DJ is a club and studio beast: producing and mixing. Music knowledge, taste, imagination and production skills are now essential to craft a seriously good mix.

Sam Redmore is one such beast. He's increasingly picking up national airplay for his mixes. In particular, there's a fruitful relationship with Craig Charles at 6 music, who has given his work several airings. Sam is due to guest on the show next Saturday, 20th September. 

That moves Sam into a new position. He's recognised as a creator, an artist in his own right. He's releasing mixes on vinyl. Here's the latest in his own name – a limited edition vinyl pressing on specialist dance label Felt Tip.

Here's the thing: if you're an artist, you should get royalties for airplay. And mix artists should in turn pay royalties to musicians whose work they sample. That's the principle. It's also the law of the land. So, how does that work? 

Sam, what's the deal with rights to the original source material in your mixes, once they get a commercial release or proper airplay? Just curious....

There's no deal on them as such - I don't have the rights to the material, but the stuff on vinyl is pressed in such small quantities (500 copies) that we're unlikely to be taken to task over it. I've never received any money for 6 Music airplay.

 Wow. I figured that nobody's going to mess with small circulation material. But does that places a limit on ever making serious money? What is the route – is there a route - for mixer guys like you?

There's certainly not money to be made on sales in small quantities like this. Usually a reworking of a high-profile artist comes about for me with the intention of tailoring something to fit in better with my DJ sets (rather than creating a version to sell). If I get DJ bookings of the back of putting out these edits though, then I think that could ultimately be a way to make money from them. There's a DJ called Reflex. He has a huge re-edit release back catalogue. I don't know what he's made from sales, but his DJ fees are now a very decent amount. He's getting at least two bookings a week, so I guess it's working out fairly well for him!

The other route and the one that I'd like to move more in the direction of is making more original material, although obviously something that has 'Bob Marley' on the sleeve is more likely to get listens in the first place...

The interesting angle for me is that there are two copyrights in recorded works - composer for the song and mechanical for the recording. Both attract royalties. So, while you are sampling existing works, and so should cut a deal for commercial exploitation of these works - remember all that fuss over James Brown samples 25 years ago? - a creative mixer such as yourself is making work which needs both of these rights cleared. Especially the mechanical right, which is your creation, even if the building blocks come from somewhere else. 

I think that's why there's not too much of a fuss made over something which might get a play or two or get a limited run of 500 on disc - it's just too much trouble to go to court when the returns would be pennies. But airplay money on a national station is not to be sneezed at, and the mechanisms exist to collect royalties once you're in PRS. A lot of recorded work earns airplay fees that don't get to the creators. Money for one or two plays goes unclaimed for various... and flows into a general pool which is sliced up among existing members. And the big boys get the lion's share.When it's all your work, matters get much more lucrative, of course...

That's interesting, I hadn't really given it too much thought to be honest. I will be getting PRS registered very soon though, especially as I finally have some of my own material nearing completion.

As of publish date, the latest Sam Redmore remix on Soundcloud

It's pretty rare for a DJ mix to be picked up by mainstream radio. How did you get noticed by the likes of Charles and Stevens? 

Very simple - I went to a night Craig Charles was DJing at, and handed him a CD. I had no idea whether he would listen to it, or even remember to take it with him, but the following week he played something from it on his show. There were quite a few tracks on that CD that he went on to play, and then his manager got in touch (the CD obviously had my contact details on) asking if I could send him some more stuff. With most of the other 6 Music DJs like Huey Morgan and Rob Da Bank, their producers got in touch with me asking if I could send some stuff through. I guess they had probably heard some bits on Craig's show.

So it can work! Excellent. As you move more towards using real instruments to add texture to your mixes, is the role of mixer/creator becoming more important? 

There's certainly a creative element needed with most of the work I do now that wasn't there a few years ago. The first tracks I did were mash-ups, taking a vocal from one song and an instrumental from another. Everything was pretty much there to begin with, and it's about trying to find existing material and parts that work with each other, rather than composing anything new. Most of the tracks I work on now involve building things from the ground up, and that can include writing original parts. On the other hand the stuff I did with The Bluebeat Arkestra was based around taking a song that they had written and moulding all the different parts so that they worked together as one. This involved much less creating, but lots of mixing to make everything fit. 

What about incorporating new studio techniques live? Or is live always a matter of live sequencing of pre-recorded material, as opposed to flying in your own instrumentation? Are you turning full circle, or meeting bands with DJs halfway? 

I think that the studio work influences how I play live in so much as I tend to listen to the arrangement of the tracks I play and look for that perfect moment to mix from one tune to the next a bit more closely than I used to. I don't imagine that I'll ever move to playing any live instrumentation, simply because I'm not proficient enough at any instrument to be able to do so. There are lots of options out there today to make your sets more live, but if the end result is that the music doesn't sound as good, then it's not necessarily the right way to go. 

Combining live performance with DJ techniques can be wonderful and highly creative when done well – Fingathing, for example, mix turntablism and sampling with live double bass to tremendous effect. One of the things I like about DJing is having the freedom to play any tracks from any artist, any genre and in any order depending on how the night pans out. Playing my own music for an hour or so seems a bit... tedious. I have worked with a very talented local beatboxer called Ed Geater, where he's provided live beats to pre-prepared beatless tracks that I was playing. It went down really well. It made the set more interactive, more of a spectacle, but it's not something I'd be keen to do for a full set. 

Links
Sam's facebook page

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Hang the DJ? Not much point any more.

It's a dog's life behind the decks these days...   

A radio pal - a complete hero, she programmed the best US gold station I've ever heard, back in the day - tipped me off about a fascinating blog post from a club DJ a few days back. Published last year, it's a scorching condemnation of new club DJ conservatism, written by a guy who uses deep repertoire to work the crowd. His beef? Less risk-taking, cynical venues, crowds who are into selfies, and globalised dance-pop have all brewed up a perfect storm of demand. The call is, increasingly, for surefire floor fillers. That's it.  

This is richly ironic to radio guys; they've already got that particular t-shirt. Mostly, radio doesn't allow any choice at all. Jocks wind up blanking out the music they play, which is deeply unhealthy. You would too if you had to play the same stuff every day for months on end.  

On being a DJ

The Buggles got it wrong. Radio killed the Radio Star; DJs now live somewhere else.

No, I didn't use this rig. Honest.
Thanks go to the Ableton forum.

Last week, I DJ’d a gig. Ruby Turner at the Crossing. 

I don’t DJ that often. When I do, it’s for serious fun and good reasons: because I like the idea, or the night, or the band, or the organisers, or whatever. 

On the way home from my stint, it struck me how the word has travelled, shifting in meaning from its radio origins. The noun DJ has become a verb. It has become a Title, a descriptor. Its meaning has changed, dramatically. Disk Jockeys often don't play disks these days.

Hey, when did it shift? Now we have DJ Culture. Now, you DJ a gig; or maybe you do a DJ set. Or you call yourself something like DJ Krooshal to tell people you’re doing a gig, fly-posting those traffic lights. Me, I’m DJ Urassic, I like that. But I don't fly-post. 

All this is a very long way from Make Believe Ballroom or the Geator with the Heater playing the Platters That Matter. The Geator's still going, still on US radio after well over fifty years. But that only takes us back to the sixties. You need to go back a further thirty years to when the term was coined.

Four club DJs - Sam Redmore, Marc Reck, DJ Switch and Karl Jones - talk. Off-mic, of course.

Hang the DJ! Oops, wrong century. Then, DJs were radio beasts, sometimes supporting music they believed in. Now, with a few exceptions, that role sits with club DJs.  

Photo courtesy djswitchbeatz..co.uk

What does the term DJ actually mean? I asked that in a radio workshop last week. Nobody thought it had much to do with radio; it was all about clubbing. 

The term DJ – originally, short for ‘Disk Jockey’ – has been around for nearly 80 years. It was never meant to be flattering, allegedly coined by a US Network News giant to describe a continuity announcer who happened to have an on-air records show.  My first mentor, the great Jim Santella, still on air at WBFO in Buffalo, New York after 40 years, described Radio DJing as ‘pimping on other people’s reflected glory’, and there’s a lot of truth in that. 

Now,  DJs with actual discs are pretty rare. And you could say there are few, if any, pure DJs in radio now. They’re presenters or talent. Or... pre-recorded voice links. 

Some things don't change. DJs are still overwhelmingly male, and there's a LOT of unjustified ego flying around. But today’s DJ is far more likely to work in studios or clubs, interacting directly and immediately with live audiences. Critically, Club DJs can also produce their own music and increasingly, they collaborate creatively with musicians.  I talked with four of Birmingham’s finest for this post. 

Sam Redmore has made a name for himself at Leftfoot and his Moseley Freestyle nights, and bangs out both inventive short treatments of songs, and some sterling extended mixes. Expanding Freestyle into a live music event has given the event a massive boost. He recently remixed Chris Tye's 'New York City Rain' single, which you can find below, along with links to some extraordinary other work, rooted in his respect for his original sources of inspiration.

Photo: Pit Photography

Karl Jones, aka Malicious DJ, played a critical role in bridging live music and dj work when he embarked on the discussions that led to the forming of Alternative Dubstep Orchestra. Karl remains a part of ADO, as well as the Brotherhood of Filth. Karl also does a lot of brand new work. There's several links to some of Karl's work down the post.

Phto courtesy DJ Switch website

DJ Switch is three time DMC World DJ Champion, the first DJ to play at the BBC Proms at the Albert Hall last year. He's also part of the Brotherhood of Filth, and an early member of the ADO collective. Again, there's clips and links further down the post. 

Photo: Rob Nicholas

And Marc Reck (DJ Narrative) has waaay too many projects on to describe fully… but they’re all interesting. 

This post has partly came about though lengthy chats Marc and I had about how the worlds of Radio and Club could work together, when we both worked in our different ways on Project X Presents. I'm still not sure they can, but Marc has some enterprising approaches, discussed below, as do all the DJs featured here. Check his website….  and see the links below

So give me a definition of a DJ….? 

Sam Redmore: He’s the guy who plays the music in a club! But it’s not the time you spend with the people on front of you, it’s finding the music in the first place.

Marc Reck: There's different kinds… someone who plays & manipulates recorded material to create something else - an atmosphere or collective experience - or a radio show, a mixtape, an audio journey… 

DJ Switch: It’s interesting that people resist calling DJs 'musicians', and this extends to DJs themselves. The exception is turntablism. 

Karl Jones: A DJ is there to musically educate and bridge the gap between the recording artists and the general public, whilst maintaining the desired atmosphere and feeling required for the event or show with the correct track selection and mixing techniques.

What’s more important: the creativity of the mix or the live audience? How responsible do you feel to your audience?

KJ: If the crowd is right I feel like I should be paying to see them. I feel a responsibility to share good music, to share the reaction and see what reaction it brings out. Good music is like a good joke. I build my sets up from one liners to knock knocks before dropping in some classic gems. It’s vital the DJ remembers he’s there to entertain the crowd and not just himself.

MR: I think the mix and the audience are equally important. Ultimately the audience's experience comes first. I've seen people talk about how cutting edge or uncompromising their musical taste is, and then see them clear a diverse party crowd dance floor. The great DJs are ones that can, in front of any audience, keep the whole place up and do something creative or unique.

MR: The reason I started DJing was to share music. Probably the biggest thing for me is to play a song that I love, and see people enjoying it. 

DJS: Audience, definitely. There's no sense in doing something mind-boggingly creative if the people you're doing it for can't appreciate it on some level. But don't take that to mean ruling out creativity by any stretch.

There’s some interesting developments going on with all of you: longer mixes, which ‘feel’ like conventional radio shows, except that you’re not talking… it’s interesting to follow the flow of ideas 

SR: I guess you could say that. They tend to have a beginning, a middle and end, and the different styles of music represent plot twists. I like them to feel like they're always going somewhere.

KJ: People love to hear tracks they know and love, but when they don’t see them coming they seem to love them a whole lot more. With the software now available you can now put out any sound you have, instantly. That makes for speed and flexibility of expression – it’s much easier than ever before.

MR: I love the creativity that samples, binaural recordings, fx, and technology offer; how you can juxtapose these with music. It’s what made me learn turntablism and get into midi controllers. My first creative attempts at Narrative (DJ Narrative) were probably with the Fear & Love mix cd in 2006. Adapting the idea to performances made me find new ways to organise and play my music and sample library for maximum live DJ flexibility.

DJS: I often work with Bass6, who heads up the beatbox community and is one of the most energetic hosts you'll see. And, wonderfully, when he's not there, I have his intros & outros recorded from one of our joint live sets. If I don't use his voice, it's someone else's intro which I nabbed. I make sure I can intro myself if there's an MC there or not. 

A Radio DJ hopes that his or her show is listened to, but he or she can never really know. Radio listeners may let you into their lives, but you’re gone in a flash when it’s time to feed the cat or answer the phone. A live audience, on the other hand, tells you straight if it likes you or not. So if, at its peak, the essence of DJing these days is about working with an audience, and seeing where the collective mood takes you (and everyone else), it’s no wonder that for so many DJs, the club DJ experience completely eclipses the radio DJ experience. Smaller audiences, certainly… but they’re right there, in the flesh, and they talk back.

Best Live moment?   

MR: So many for different reasons... the first Project X, playing with 3 music stages, and an unforgettable vibe… the 2nd one for the string quartet & really exploring narrative via the Heroes Journey. All the Mr Elephant events for the diversity and interactivity. Birmingham Opera for the what it opened up for me musically. Shambala in the rammed out Kamikaze tent was incredible. Oh and the custom made events! - Especially the 2nd one which led to the Night times collaborations, and their very kind awards and gig of the year review. 

KJ: Performing alongside DJ Switch at a secret venue in London. 6hrs of non stop madness! I don’t think any record played for more than 1min.

SR:Tough to choose, but one that stands out was at the Garden Festival in Croatia a couple of years ago. Just as the sun was setting I played one of my all-time favourite songs, Sebastien Tellier's "La Ritournelle". The crowd was really into it, and at the end of the track there was a round of applause - something I've never witnessed during a DJ set before (apart from at the end of a set / night).

DJS: The first year I was at Glastonbury I closed the Shangri-La stage, which was epic. It was 4-5 am and pure ram-a-jam, the sun rose over the course of the hour and the crowd heaved like a single organism. That will stay with me forever. My 3rd DMC world title is definitely up there. It was the year I was most happy with performance-wise.

Just as with last week’s post, tech has completely transformed the tools a DJ has to play with. On the rare occasions I DJ these days, I take a laptop loaded with mp3s and play them out through the freebie version of  Virtual DJ, something most pro DJs might regard as little more than a toy. But any kit can let you down…

Worst moment?   

MR: Probably when the equipment fails just before the gig. A great example of where tech crew are legendary, sorting out the issue where there seems to be no solution. I’ve had a few times with promoters saying there’s enough space to setup… then finding there's none until your set, which can make smooth changeovers pretty tricky.  

SR: My laptop gave up on me one night at the Bull's Head. I managed to get one track going, but had to dash upstairs into the office where most of my records are kept and frantically try to pick out a few others that would work before the track that was playing ran out. The records are kind of scattered all over the place, so it's impossible to know where to look. I dread to think what I ended up returning with...

DJS: I got talked into trying out black cider one night, and ended up finishing off 4 bottles just before I started playing. I remember getting onto the decks and thinking "wow, my hands are a lot further away from my head than they usually are!" I don't think the set was that bad, but it's a moment that's kept me in check ever since. The promoter told me in the morning "oh I recorded your set last night" and I replied "never EVER play it back to me!"

KJ: Honestly......I’ve loved every single minute so far!

Personally, I’m particularly interested in how the intensity of the DJ’s performance with a live crowd could ever be ported into a radio show. It's like squaring a circle - you can get closer and closer, but you'll never get perfection.  I don’t really think you can achieve that perfection, any more than a live music show can completely transfer onto an audio file. 

So: do you think club mixing can work on radio (I don't, myself... but I’m open to persuasion)

SR: Well if by club mixing you mean extended DJ mixes, then definitely yes. It all depends on the DJ in question, but I've heard some great sets on things like the Radio 1 Essential Mix. It's no longer about interacting with the crowd in the same way that playing in a club to an audience is, more of a chance to showcase some great music and put it together in an interesting and creative way.

DJS: I don't see why not. I've always enjoyed going down to London and tuning in to Rinse down there. No idea who's playing but just vibing along to the tracks. I'm normally like that when I go into clubs anyways.
In terms of explanation, seeing the poster for the gig you go to gives you the context - it attracts your audience & tells you who's on. Radio has to give that context in some form - if it's not by listings, why not by announcer? Fills the same role as the MC at the gig.  Moderation...I was stunned by a recent act of censorship. I did a mix for 1Xtra last year and put in a track called "The Hip Hop War", which basically had a chorus going 'bredrin' and 'blud'. I think the mix went out at 9, the track came on and first they censored 'bredrin' - which was a bit stupefying - and then they cut out the rest of the track which had 'blud' in it. Considering the station carries quite a strong urban ethic in it’s' image, and they still took that rather bizarre step when the mix went out after the watershed, it felt very backward.

KJ: There is a place for continuous mixes to be played on air but on the whole I would rather learn something from what I’m hearing - not just learning if I like it or not. I want to know who it’s by? what’s their story? Radio taught me that music goes much further than just what you’re hearing. As a producer it’s great having your tracks played on air but it’s always better when somebody tells the listeners who it’s by and when it’s out etc. Radio without any dialogue is kinda like looking at the pictures of a comic but not reading the story, you miss out on half the enjoyment.  

MR:  I found that hosting the Mr Elephant Radio show (on Rhubarb Radio and elsewhere) as a whole mix with hosting presented different limitations. The goals were to share and promote the best new music while trying to represent where I was as a DJ. I found that the two don’t always mix. Hosting new records and connecting with the audience can take away from the mix itself. 
So my idea is to create a Dj Narrative Podcast. It launched last week. Among other things like tutorials and free tracks, it aims to share a well crafted mix but with narrative and no hosting, but labelled as either down tempo (or "Coming Home") and up-tempo / dance floor (or "Going Out"). I think  hosting isn’t something that people would really want to hear more than once. It's not really suitable for listening with friends, say. So I’m hoping the narrative side and the labels will help address the different times that people listen. I like the idea of putting it out as a newsletter & podcast so there can be more related content… but I’ve only just started. 

And that’s one of the critical areas. How do you, as a host, explain an emotion, a gut feeling, a burst of energy and inspiration, without ripping the guts out of it? My thanks to Marc Reck, Karl Jones, Sam Redmore and DJ Switch for their considered and patient answers to my questioning. There’s a lot more we all talked about, and some of it may emerge in a future post.

Now, here’s some more work from each DJ…

DJ Switch

"Generally when I put together routines, they start with an idea which a) excites me and b) I feel I can get a lot out of it. Here’s an example: 

The idea was to scratch the original sample on top of the final track. The audience are grooving when the beat drops, and I'm grooving by making a new chorus riff on top of it. It's melodic, and even if you're not sure what I'm doing, you still recognise the remix element."

There's a lot more at the DJ Switch website, including gig details.


Sam Redmore
Here’s Chris Tye's recent single 'New York City Rain' as remixed by Sam:
And here's a link to Sam's breathtaking SoundCloud pages.
And here's the Freestyle blog which carries gig details and more.

Karl Jones
Here's the Brotherhood of Filth SoundCloud pages
 

Marc Reck
Marc's  website  is here, including gig details and a great blog section

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