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Features
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| Mindbenderz talk ‘Lord of the Rings’ and fishing, as well as the creation of their new album ‘Celestial Gateway’! | | Iono-Music artists One Function, Eliyahu, Invisible Reality and Dual Vision talk Robert Miles, kids, dogs and vinyl, while we chat about their current releases! | | Luke&Flex talk influences, the Irish rave scene, why Flex wears a mask and Play Hard, their new EP out now on Onhcet Repbulik Xtreme! | | Lyktum expands on his new album ‘Home’ – talking about his love of storytelling, creating new harmonies and the concept behind his musical works. | | Pan talks getting caught short crossing the Sahara, acid eyeballs and tells us Trance is the Answer, plus shares his thoughts on his latest release 'Beyond the Horizon' - all from a beach in Spain! | | Miss C chats about living with the KLF, DJing in a huge cat’s mouth, training her brain and the upcoming super-duper Superfreq Grande party at LDN East this Saturday, 16th September! | | NEM3SI$ - I Live for the Night – talks superficiality, psychopaths, and bittersweet success, ahead of a plethora of evocative, emotional, and passionate upcoming melodic techno releases! | | Psy-Sisters Spring Blast Off! We talk to DJ competition winner ROEN along with other super talents on the lineup! | | Blasting towards summer festivals with Bahar Canca ahead of Psy-Sisters Spring Blast! | | Shyisma talks parties, UFO's, and Shotokan Karate ahead of his upcoming album 'Particles' on Iono-Music! | | SOME1 talks family, acid, stage fright and wolves - ahead of his upcoming album release ‘Voyager’ on Iono-Music in February 2023! | | The Transmission Crew tell all and talk about their first London event on 24th February 2023! | | NIXIRO talks body, mind and music production ahead of his release 'Planet Impulse' on Static Movement's label - Sol Music! | | Turning the world into a fairy tale with Ivy Orth ahead of Tribal Village’s 10th Birthday Anniversary Presents: The World Lounge Project | | The Psy-Sisters chat about music, achievements, aspirations and the 10-Year Anniversary Party - 18/12/22! | | A decade of dance music with Daniel Lesden | | Earth Needs a Rebirth! Discussions with Psy-Trance Artist Numayma | | Taking a Journey Through Time with Domino | | New Techno Rising Star DKLUB talks about his debut release White Rock on Onhcet Republik! | | PAN expands on many things including his new album 'Hyperbolic Oxymoron' due for release on the 14th April 2022 on PsyWorld Records! | | Psibindi talks all things music including her new collaborative EP 'Sentient Rays' on Aphid Records, her band Sentience Machine and 10 years of Psy-Sisters! | | N-Kore talks Jean-Michel Jarre, unfinished tracks and fatherhood! | | Celebrating International Women’s Day and Ten Years of Psy-Sisters with Amaluna | | A Catch Up with John Phantasm ahead of his upcoming set at the Tribal Village 4 Day Outdoor Event in Kent 6-9 May 2022! | | 'The Maestro that is Tristan talks barn owls, Shazamming and keeping it Psychedelic ahead of his upcoming performance at the Tribal Village 4 Day Event in Kent 6-9 May 2022! | | DJ talk with Psyrenzo ahead of his debut set at Tribal Village, the Steelyard this Friday 14th January 2022! | | TENZO aka Overdrive talks freely about launching his new act which will be showcased at Tribal Village, Steelyard on 14 January 2022! | | A long overdue catch up with JourneyOM ahead of his next Tribal Village party this Friday 14th January 2022 at the Steelyard, London! | | Goa based party animal and artist extraordinaire Nirmal talks punk concerts, metal sculptures, flying and rippin' it up on a High Tide! | | DJ Wired talks to us about the Rise of the Hope and parties, ahead of his upcoming set at Tribal Village on 14th January 2022! |
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Sam Townend gears up for The Gathering
Reported by The Gathering
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Submitted 22-11-06 21:45
Sam Townend has been educating dancefloors in his home town of Leeds for a good few years now, but until 2006 had only had a handful of gigs in the capital. Fortunately over the course of the year this has changed, with him hitting the big smoke to play at Insekt, Proactive and now The Gathering this Friday night at The Fridge.
Founder of the respected Shroom Records, he’s known for injecting some much needed funk back into the hard house scene. With his Fridge main room debut on the horizon this Friday night, we thought it was time Londoners got to know the man a little better...
Hi Sam, thanks for taking some time out to answer these questions for the HF massive ahead of your set at The Gathering at The Fridge on Friday night.
It’s a pleasure, fire away!
First, for those who don’t know you, where are you from and what got you into the dance music scene? Did you always want to be a dj or was it something you fell into?
Well I’m 24, from Leeds (The Las Vegas of England!) and I got into the dance music scene from listening to hardcore tapes as a teenager and going to school discos! I have always wanted to be a DJ even before I had got my own decks so I just sort of fell into it for some reason, I think it just sounded more interesting than being a plumber when we where at school!
When was the first time you played out? Did you find it hard to break into the scene?
I got my first gig at a night called ‘bounce’ about 5 years ago, it was a right dodgy hole to be fair, but I used to go every week as it was one of the only places locally that I knew of that played hard house at the time. There must have only been about 30 people there when I played and I was shaking like a leaf, couldn’t even get the needle on the record properly the first couple of mixes!
It did take me another year or so after that to get some more gigs and start playing out more regular. I just used to go to every night I could and blag the promoters heads until they finally gave in and got me a gig!
You were last interviewed on HF in July 2005 by Toomz, when you had six residencies in your home town and were launching quite a production career with tracks like ‘Underground Funk’, ‘Incoming’, ‘Get Down’ and ‘Pervert’. What have been the highlights of the last 16 months for you?
The last sixteen months have been pretty hectic, this last weekend was the first one I have had off in about 6 months but I really can’t complain! There’s been some wicked times (and some shit ones), but most of all I’m enjoying my self!
The highlights I would say have been getting made resident at Sundissential (along with my part time B2B partner in crime Deano). I used to be a regular there back in the day so its quite an achievement for me getting to play at the parties.
Getting a track signed to Tidy has also been one of my personal goals so having just had a release on the Tidy Tools ep3 is pretty cool, and also getting to DJ in Poland and Brazil as it’s a great feeling knowing people out of the UK want to hear your music! I also learned to tie my own shoe laces which was a great feeling as Velcro just ain’t cool anymore!
What do you hope to achieve in 2007? And beyond?
I just want to carry on enjoying my self and play music I love, since the funky side of things has come back into the scene things have started to pick up for me so hopefully I can carry it on and establish myself even more.
In a Housewives Choice feature by Toomz in May. Simon Paul called you “the man behind the funk revolution.” How would you describe the Sam Townend sound?
Haha, I reckon James Brown gets that title hands down, I’m pretty chuffed Simon said that about me though (although I did pay him to say it. My sound is definitely all about the funk, I play stuff from right across the board, house, breaks, techno, hard house, as long it gets arses shaking and has got a bit of attitude to it I’m game!
What were your key musical influences growing up? And now?
People might laugh but the first track I ever owned was DJ Quick silver — ‘Belissima’, (dunno if I should own up to that one) so the commercially sounding dance records of the late 90’s and as I said before the old hardcore tape packs got me into the whole clubbing thing. When I was growing up my dad used to listen to a lot of music by a band called Talking Heads so I really like them, and now I take influence from absolutely everything, as long its fresh sounding.
A lot of hard djs have jumped on the electro bandwagon recently. Has you music evolved much over the years? Do you ever see yourself playing a completely different style?
There is going to be a massive electro back lash soon I reckon, all the tracks are sounding the same and I think that scene I running out of ideas (much as the hard house scene did a few years back). I’m into all the house stuff though and do play it from time to time locally round Leeds and at the Tidy Weekenders and Sundissential, I think its good to keep your horizons open and also its nice to play about with different styles.
I would never totally ditch the harder stuff though, no music grabs me like a good hard dance build up!
Do you think the scene has changed much in the last couple of years? What direction would you like to see it going in over the next year or so?
The main change has been all the funkier stuff coming back in, which is defo a good thing as that is what made the scene so accessible to people back in the day, the filth has its place in a night but just not from start to finish. A lot of folk are coming round to that idea and remembering its all about fun at the end of the day, its not about being too serious! Filth also causes mental issues amongst young people!
I think the clubs have been good recently, hard house is gonna have its day again soon, you can see it building up a bit now, all this electro and dirty house is getting harder and harder, so it’s just a matter of time in my opinion.
What djs and producers do you admire the most?
I love Devastating Dave the turntable slave, what a legend that guy is! Apart from him there’s all the obvious ones like Farley, Savage, BK etc, just because there the guys who got me into all this hard house lark. But the biggest respect goes to the turntablists like Yoda, Krafty kutz, Qbert etc, those guys just put people like me to shame!
I’ve only seen you play a couple of times, once at Byte at the Purple Turtle on a Sunday night where your infectious energy behind the decks had the Turtle dance floor going mad and once at Insekt, where you and the Housewives Choice gang had brought an entire bus load of clubbers to host a room. Do you think the London scene is very different to the scene oop nurff? Will you change what you play for a London audience?
There’s a lot more cottney’s and extras from Eastenders down London and for some reason people up north take there whippets out clubbing and insist on talking about coal mining, Weird really!
The scenes are more or less the same though, although London is a lot more 24/7, there always seems to be some after club cracking on till the early hours down your end where as up north we all conk out after a bit, we have to be up early to farm our fields on a Monday!
I never really change the style I play, I have worked pretty hard to get a defining sound to my sets so I like to always try push a similar thing
What, in your opinion, makes a good dj? Is it mixing skill, tune selection. energy behind the decks or something else?
It’s all of those things really, a good DJ is first and foremost an entertainer, so however you do it as long as you are adding something to people’s nights it’s cool!
You’re founder and manager of Shroom Records, which you started because you were “bored with all the music that was coming out about a year ago.” Over a year on, how are things going with the label? What new productions do you have on the horizon?
I have been pretty quite with the label in the last year as I have been concentrating on other things. I’m just putting the final touches to a series of new tracks which are going to be seeing exclusive releases on (legal) digital download sites soon. The arse has dropped out of the vinyl market recently so it’s hard to keep going when things are pretty bleak. But I am planning on hitting back hard with Shroom over the next couple of months so watch this space!
You’ve played at Tidy’s 10th Birthday at Magna, Sundissential and London’s Byte, Insekt and Party Proactive. What’s been your favourite gig so far?
Hmmm. There has been quite a few recently which have been wicked but probably the best one was opening the hard house tent at the Love Leeds festival, going from me and GRH (who I played B2B with) and a couple of bar staff to about 1500 people in 5 minutes was pretty surreal, then actually getting those people to stay in the tent with us was even madder!
You’ve collaborated with mates Chris Impact, Ben Stevens and Alex Calver in the studio. Do you have any more collaborations planned? Is there anyone our there you’d really like to collaborate with?
I’m planning doing collaborations with a few people in the future. I have been doing a couple of tracks with Paul Maddox that are soon to come out on Shroom, which are sounding really cool. I’m booked in to do a track with Steve Maynard this week as it goes, although he might not be able to make it as he’s got a dodgy rash that won’t shift! I’m also looking to do stuff with Kernzy & Klemenza but apart from that I want to concentrate on doing stuff by my self and getting this Hard jazz sound off the ground.
Vinyl or CD? As a label owner, what’s your opinion on digital downloads and the propensity for people to copy them?
I will always love vinyl (as any DJ will tell you) but you have got to move with the times. The flexibility CD’s and CD decks can give you is just in different league to vinyl. The digital sites are good for new artists to get there tracks out there without having to worry about getting tracks signed etc or having the money to put to start there own labels, however digital releases do lack in the sense that when you have a vinyl you actually have a physical product to own rather than just a soundfile on your computer, you cant beat going record shopping and getting home with a big bag of fresh new tunes!
You must get sent a lot of new tracks from up and coming producers. Who have you got your eye on at the moment?
There are a few people who are doing it for me at the moment. The more established ones such as Maddox, Digital Kid, Wid & Ben and Colin Barrat are knocking out some good shit at the mo, I wouldn’t always play what they make but I think there doing good things for the scene in general. Then there’s the new breed of producers to look out for in the future, Jon BW & Simon Paul and Morgan.
What are the top ten tracks in your record bag at the moment?
1. Sam Townend — ‘Funky Muzik’ (Shroom digital)
2. Eric Morillo feat P diddy — ‘Dance I Said' Tonka remix (Subliminal)
3. Budai & Vic — ‘Let it hit em' (Ego Traxx)
4. Morgan vs Digital Groove — ‘Kooky Wooky’ (CDR)
5. Wid & Ben — ‘Groove Damage’ (Tidy)
6. The Freaks — ‘The Creeps’ Townends loopz remix (CDR)
7. Sam Townend & Jon BW — ‘Scream For Daddy’ (Tidy)
8. Dj Urban — ‘You Work it’ — Chris Finke remix (Flux)
9. DJ Touche — ‘The Paddle’ — Steve Angello remix (Southern fried)
10. Colin Barrat — ‘Take Me Back’ (Tidy)
What would your dream club night and line-up be?
Hmmm, To be honest there are that many DJ’s and live acts I like it would be hard to put my finger on one line up. If I could choose it would probably be a mixture from loads of different genres. Maybe something like this…
In no order what so ever:
Annie Mac
Steve Angello & Sebastian Ingrosso
Chris Leibing
Wob master Bob
Fergie
Krafty Kutz
Qbert
Carl Cox
Andy Farley
Devastating Dave the turntable slave
Etc
Etc
Etc
You’re in London this Friday night to play at The Gathering at the Fridge. Have you played at the Fridge before? Why should HFers reading this come and watch you play and what can people expect from your set?
I have never played at the Fridge before so I’m really looking forward to it to be honest. I have been there many times before as a clubber and its always been somewhere I have wanted to play. I’m going to playing a mixture of Hard dance, techno and jazzcore on the night so people should come down to here something different mixed with the standard and to have a good old drink with a real life northerner!
Many thanks Sam! Looking forward to seeing you play on Friday!
Thank you, see ya on the dance floor, unless you think I’m shit then I will see you at the bar!
Photos courtesy of Sam Townend. Not to be reproduced without permission.
THE GATHERING
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On:
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Friday 24th November 2006
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At:
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The Fridge [map]
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From:
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22:00 - 06:00
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Cost:
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£6+bf ADV TICKET, £10 paying guest list M.O.T.D
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Website:
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www.gatheringpromotions.co.uk
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Ticket Info:
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For guest list : info@gatheringpromotions.co.uk
tickets on sale @ kinetic records (oxford circus)
Cyberdog(Camdem)
Pamela-07765966808(everywhere)
Miguel- 07886919940(everywhere)
Felix - 07900554509(everywhere)
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More:
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After the success of our last two parties. The first with techno party Torque and the 2nd with psychedelic party, Implosion. We would like to say a Big thank you to everyone that who has supported us through our journey. We are glad to be back in full force once again to bring you an oustanding party with a fantastic dj line up, plus our usual freebies and cds give away. The people's party brings u A NIGHT OF HARD DANCE/TECHNO/UPLIFTING TRANCE
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The views and opinions expressed in this review are strictly those of the author only for which HarderFaster will not be held responsible or liable.
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Comments:
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From: James Nardi on 23rd Nov 2006 09:03.12
Well done Sam, top bloke who deserves to do very well imo.
From: Toxigen on 23rd Nov 2006 09:14.49
Pooo Shooo..................... :-)
See ya there.
From: Norris on 23rd Nov 2006 09:28.18
Top DJ and top geezer too, well done Sam mate!
From: marcopilf on 23rd Nov 2006 09:46.16
Nice on fella! don't forget to change your jeans!
From: Steve Maynard on 23rd Nov 2006 11:22.49
dodgy rash.....
Top lad anyways
From: Lucy Fur on 23rd Nov 2006 12:33.42
hehe what rash steve!
Interesting read Sam!  I saw that Purple Turtle set and u played lots of energectic techno that has me and louise dancing like loonies! Its nice to see you get the recognition u deserve down south! 
From: steve obrady on 23rd Nov 2006 16:09.49
Nice one bruv, See you at sunnies.
From: DJGRH on 24th Nov 2006 11:50.01
Sam's one of those people you have no shame in giving blatent credit to.
Going beyond his musical abilities (reading the crowd so well, production, diveristy etc), you couldnt meet a nice bloke. A good laugh to be around.
Even a part-time liking for Leeds United FC can't seem to make me stop loving Sam!
It's a Wakefield-ting, ain't it geez?? 
Keep attackin' the dancefloor like a bulldozer mate!
Gary
DJGRH 
From: Matt Smallwood on 24th Nov 2006 18:29.21
Nice one Sam, top bloke!
From: Jolene Redtrip on 28th Nov 2006 12:58.42
Looks like your keeping busy, great interview.
From: kernzy and klemenza on 10th Feb 2007 11:40.50
Brrrrrrrrrrrrap!
From: Simon Paul on 26th Feb 2007 22:04.03
Thanks for the mention mate, We can call it quits now haha
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