Andy Farley's Trade classics @ Xstatic!! Posted by Greg Lynn on Apr 11, 2007 - 4:15:49 PM

Not everybody will be old enough to remember the spiritual home of where Hard House was born: the legendary Trade @ Turmills, that’s why come the 28^th April a slice of nostalgia is going to be served up at Xstatic presents the “Deprived of Hard House tour’ @ The Venue in Nottingham. It coming courtesy of two of the genres most influential DJ’s the first Ian M the other……..

The man who loves music so much his property is struggling to contain 70,000 records, the DJ that pioneered Hard House back in the nineties, who has rocked it all over the world and has racked up an awesome amount of productions……it’s none other than Andy Farley!!

Andy the Xstatic night at the Venue is looking absolutely great, you’re going to be playing alongside other great names like Andy Whitby and JP @ Jukesy. What are you most looking forward to about it?

It’s going to be a great night and a great start to the Deprivation tour. I’m also looking forward to playing back to back with Ian as we’ve not played together for a while, plus Trade classics which makes it extra special.

You are going to be playing 2 hours of Trade classics alongside Ian M. Trade is of course engraved on the brains of just about every Hard House DJ over 30. What type of memories have you got of the place?

For me it’s rare to have the opportunity to go somewhere and let your hair down and have a good dance. Trade was the place where I could do this. I went to the birthday in October, was on the dancefloor at 6.30am and left it at 4 in the afternoon. The musical progression they have there is what I have always aspired to. Starting with tough house and progressing all the way to hard fast energy you can never get bored because the music is always changing during the morning. Peak time is always amazing. Being in   Turnmills which is an amazing venue,   low ceiling, strobes going, smoke, lazers and Ian or Tony cranking it out it was just the best!

The night is also at the state of the art venue………..The Venue, with a booming sound system, amazing computer programmed lighting and those spring boarded to get every body bouncing along. How do you reckon all that will help you as a DJ?

The Venue has hosted a lot of events so it is well known with clubbers so people know what to expect from the venue and it always gets a good crowd of up for it clubbers, and of course a bouncy floor always helps!

Xstatic are one of the Midlands top brands. What good stuff have you been hearing about them so far?       

I’ve played for them many times so have first hand experience of the events. The last one I played was their birthday last year and it was rammed to the rafters!

Over the next few months, you are going to be playing at some massive gigs like the essential festival Global Gathering, the Dutch phenomenon Dance Valley then   Creamfeilds. There is even a tour of Australia and New Zealand planned in August. How are you going to approach each date?

I always approach big gigs like festivals with a broader mindset than a smaller club say. With 10000+ people in the tent you can never keep everyone happy but I always try and play something that people wouldn’t expect from me. International gigs can differ from country to country so I approach each tour individually and take a mixture of new material and classics to allow for each situation.

You’ve got the ‘Andy Farley Experience EP   soon to be released on Tidy split over two discs with three co-labs with Olive Groove on the first one then another three with Colin Barret on the other. What can we expect from those?

Both Eps are different from each other. The Olive Grooves Ep is slower funkier hard house with 3 tracks Feel/Got Me Movin & Kinky Mover. The Colin Barratt Ep has more techier grooves and is a bit tougher. The 3 tracks are Crashed/Reprezent & Stimulate.

Your re-mix of ‘The Killer’ is due out any time now on Elasticman Plastic records. How does that differ from the original?

The original is a firm favourite with a lot of people so it was hard to decide what to do. As the original was done in 2000 it does sound very much of that time, and was maybe missing the energy that is in today’s harder music, so I beefed up the percussion and changed the breakdown adding a bit of extra drama!

Vicious Circle are going to release your other productions ‘Let it be//wotvUgot in May or June. Where did the idea for those come from?

I’ve not done anything for Vicious for a while so when Paul asked me about doing a track I jumped at the chance. Let It Be is pounding nrg with added melody! wotvUgot is still work in progress at the moment, as I need to make some changes to it so watch this space for more on that.

You’ve co-produced the track ‘Mezza 9’ set for release on Hardas Funk recordings, plus we’re going to be treated to re-mixes by Ali Wilson, Mat Smallwood and Paul James. How do you normally split the job on a co-production?

As I’m still not 100% up to speed in engineering, when I do a collaboration with someone, they do the hands on engineering part, whilst I will sort out and prepare all the samples. We then bounce ideas off each other till we get to the finished product

You have got a residency at a lot of peoples favourite promotion Party Proactive @ Turmills, London. That event always seems to strike a balance and provides a great atmosphere. What else do you think is so unique about it?      

Turnmills for a start, for me it’s one of if not the best club in London. Proactive do what Trade used to do, a proper musical progression in the main room from house through techno to hard grooves at the end. The line up is never the same and is very fresh and different. The great thing for me is getting the opportunity to play different times which means I can play different styles. For example at the party in November last year I played the last slot back to back with Pete Wardman, whilst last month I played second slot so followed on from electro and minimal techno djs into funky techno warming up for Axel Karakasis. Next time I’m on I’m doing last set again so that for me is really stimulating as no event is ever the same

You’re Friday night/Saturday morning Ministry of sound radio show, where between 04.00-06.00 you knock out everything from Techno, Hard House, Electro and a bit of tough House, has got off to a great start. There are even special guest mixes. What else can we be looking forward to?

This has been a great opportunity for me. I had always considered doing radio and was more than happy to help Anne Savage out when she asked me to cover for her on her show on dates when she wasn’t available to do it. At the start of this year I was then offered my own show, where I can play what I want, and this gives me the opportunity to express myself musically. I start of the show with tough electro grooves and techno and finish with tech trance and hard house. It’s great to be having an opportunity to give radio exposure to hard music which is sadly overlooked most of the time. It’s also a great opportunity to give exposure to djs from the scene with guest mixes and competitions etc.

Your new revamped website www.andyfarley.com is looking absolutely fantastic with comprehensive information and mixes to download. But Ben Thomas (the sites designer) seems to be in the habit at the moment of using imagery with the DJ’s eyes censored out! What’s that all about?

Ha ha! Well firstly a big thanks to Ben & Toby for the new design, it does look amazing. I like the crossed out eyes it’s kind of punky funky!

When ever they get a gig at a club where they haven’t played before, a lot of DJ’s like to spend time seeing what the mood is like, what sort of crowd they’ve got, what people are wearing etc. Ever find your self doing that?

Definitely there’s nothing worse than walking into a club 2 minutes before the start of your set then playing a record that the dj before you has played maybe 10 minutes previously, so I always try to get there about half an hour before my set time, to have time to say hello to people and soak up the atmosphere. Especially when doing a new night for the first time, it’s good to see what the crowd are into.

In your massive record collection you’ve got lots of rare stuff from the 70’s and 80’s like Rare Disco, Italian and new wave tracks. What’s the weirdest place that you’ve ever found your self hunting down that elusive rare gem?

To be honest it’s mostly from internet sites that I track stuff down now. My best moment has to be a record I sold on EBay recently. It was an Italian record that I bought for £7 from a shop in Birmingham in 1988. I sold it on EBay at the end of last year for $670! Needless to say I was rather pleased with that

Up until the year 2000 your career looks to have been on quite a steady climb, then you left your day job at British Airways and things really took off. At that time did it seem like you were taking a big risk, or was it quite exhilarating going into music full time?

Definitely, I was shitting myself when I left my day job as I had been with British Airways for 13 years and it was kind of like stepping into the unknown, even though my Djing work had gone really hectic. However, I had started to get a lot of international gigs and was flying off somewhere at least once a month, and I’d used up most of my annual leave entitlement by July of 2000, so I decided that I would either have to turn gigs down or leave, and wasn’t about to stop things just as they were beginning to happen for me.

You’ve been in music for 18 years now from the days of playing alongside Tony De Vit at the Nightingale club, experimenting with new music at Tin Tins, then your long residency at Sundissential. What has been the biggest change that you’ve seen?

It would definitely be the explosion of dance music over the last ten years. In the Tin Tins days the music was still pretty much an underground thing, then around that time more and more big tunes crossed over and became chart hits which for me isn’t a bad thing. Yes sometimes some of your favourite tunes ended being ones you hated because of hearing them everywhere, but it did introduce more people to dance music and helped clubs to grow.

You’ve also played a very wide selection of music in your time from pumping House and Trance through to Techno and what we now term as Hard Dance. Is having that real variety something that you think is really important?

Definitely, I hate being backed into a corner musically. I’ve grown up with a very broad musical taste, from what I listen to at home, to what I have played out, and my ethos has always been that a good tune is a good tune; it doesn’t need a label to dictate who should play it.

And finally what type of preparation is going to go into your set so that only the real magic tunes find their way onto the decks at Xstatic?

Lots of crawling around in my garage for a start! When pulling out classics I always try and get a balance between tunes that are really well known and tunes that people will remember when they hear them but don’t get played that often anymore as classics.

Remember to catch Andy Farley spinning the classic Trade tunes alongside Ian M at Xstatic presents the “Deprived of Hard House tour” @ The Venue, Nottingham Saturday 28^th April!

©Greg Lynn 2007

Feature by Greg Lynn