IT'S TONIGHT! ELECTRIK! BREEZE INTERVIEW INSIDE

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Jon-Brown
Starting Member

United Kingdom
19 posts
Joined: Dec, 2006

Posted - 2010/01/22 : 03:38:42

Wahey! It's here, Electrik is TONIGHT so as both a gentle reminder and to celebrate here's another copy of our Breeze interview from earlier this week! Hope to see you all tonight and enjoy...

Ground Breaking Production? It's A Breeze For This Electrik Headliner -The DJ Breeze Interview
Mark Breeze is an original in every sense of the word, his latter day tours around numerous venues across the UK and abroad - be they rave based or of a more commercial and international nature are widely documented across the raving community as a thing of legend. In essence, Marks work as both DJ & Producer on many of todays more successful clubland creations is recognised not just by this present following of the art of rave, but also by the old school generation that came before it.

First working in dance music back in 1985 at the age of just 15 and securing a string of residencies not long after it, Breeze was a passionate lover, like many of his hardcore colleagues such as Marc Smith and Ramos, of the acid house movement and quickly prided himself upon becoming an avid member of rave culture as both DJ and aspiring Producer. Injecting an original, inventive and creative style to his creations; his art as both engineer and performer spoke volumes among many of the 90s and later the millennias promoter collective seeing him hold down many residencies at a legion of fondly remembered nights such as Taste, Fruit, Sweat, Godskitchen, Hardcore Heaven, Fantazia and countless others.

His first hardcore heavyweight hit created with Mickey Skeedale Your Love Hits Me sent a shockwave through the then infantile rave scene and brought much success by way of the at the time Hixxy & Dougal pioneered Essential Platinum label. This led to a busy, full time production schedule and paved the way for not only two decades of infamy producing not least some of the finest rave anthems in the genres history, but also, with long term friend and production partner Darren Styles, a series of commercially recognised radio smashes too.

Now, with all of this as well as a continuing reputation as an all star entertainer, established crowd reader and regularly booked headlining artist at both raves such as HTID, Hardcore Heaven, Fusion, Electrik and big arena Clubland events all safely logged onto his CV and no less a regular and celebrated working relationship with All Around The World and Clubland nicely in place affording him the opportunity to be resident compiler (along with Darren Styles) of the Clubland X-Treme Hardcore compilation album series, now on its sixth edition; its very safe to say that Breeze has earnt his Gold stars.

Today, I speak with Breeze ahead of his forthcoming headlining appearance at this Fridays Electrik event, whereby he will be joining Ultrabeat and Whizzkid amongst others to celebrate the brand's first major event of 2010 at an even bigger venue in Southampton.

Mark, are you well? I trust youve had a great Christmas and New Years? Did you get much chance for a break over the holiday season or was it all work, work, work? What went down?

Hi Jon, yeah I had a great Christmas & New Year thanks, I actually took some time off this year as it was a busy time running up to Christmas so I took a few bookings and that was it for a change, was nice to wind down a bit.

You are of course fresh from the back of another winning instalment of the Clubland X-Treme Hardcore compilation album series. How has it fared in comparison to the previous releases in your opinion and what in answering that do you feel you did to step up the game for this edition?

I always think we pick the best tracks that are current at the time of compiling it and sometimes these are tunes people dont get until they have heard it a few times or raved to them. I kind of find it hard as the album is only once a year and some big tracks get used on other comps in the run up to ours and the ones you wanted have already been used.

It is fair to say known or not, theres a fair few belters on your disc, will we hopefully be seeing these get a release on your Futureworld label? How are things with the label presently?

I think most record labels will tell you how hard it is at the moment with vinyl sales, its pretty bad, I have recently gone digital with the label with iTunes, Track It Down, Juno, etc, etc so Im hoping the Worldwide sales will show a better return then the vinyl has to keep things going.

I have just recently brought in a colleague who now runs it for me, so I can concentrate on making more music and A&R for new artists and tracks. His name is Rob C and he deals with the day to day running of things, he has come from a marketing background and has bags of experience with national marketing / promotion and sales.

I must say its given you an opportunity (both label and album) once again to work with some old friends and a few new faces too, for those that havent had the pleasure, give us a rundown of some of the talented people youve been working with over the last year and in saying so, not just the legends but as a seasoned veteran of the scene who do you tout in your vital opinion as some of the big hitters for 2010. Who in your eyes is really doing big things on the breakthrough front?

Well I have been working with Darren on the usual stuff we do and a few tracks for his new album, co-writes on X-Treme 6 and some Clubland remixes. I have also been working with Jason UFO & Chris Unknown, but I dont get that much time to do many co-writes which is a shame because I prefer working with others to bounce ideas about.

As for talent, there is a guy in our camp as it were, called Jamie Ritmen. Im hoping he pushes on this year as I know how busy he keeps himself and the tracks he plays me are really getting of a standard now, the other who has impressed me is DJ MOB.

MOB is certainly a talent weve been touting to do big things too and its great to see you working with Chris, Jamie and also with old friends UFO & Supreme again, is this something well be seeing more of?

Yeah I should think so; me and the very under rated UFO go back many years, as do me and Supreme. I recently did a few hardcore things with them and MOB and they featured on X-Treme 6, I have done a lot of tracks with Jason over the years and find it easy to work with him, so we currently have a few projects on the go.

Legends indeed and nice to see someone else agreeing with many of us on the fact that UFO is under rated, he does deserve far more widespread acclaim for his efforts! Moving onto studio matters, with technological advances ever bettering themselves, it seems it gets easier and easier to make a track these days. However, when you first starting cutting tracks it wasnt that easy was it? Tell us of your first experiences with producing music and on reflection how thats changed in your opinion now?

Well my first experience of making any kind of music was back in 87, I rented out Double Troubles studio for a hip hop / hip house track I was doing with a friend who was a DJ and a rapper. It was reel to reel recording and to arrange the track you had to drop the channel buttons on the desk in and out to cut elements in or out, so its gone leaps and bounds since then. When I first got my own studio, it was on the top floor of the record shop I owned with Mark Lambert from 'HTID', the shop was called Essential Vinyl which was in Northampton.

A lot of people who are still in music scenes came from the shop, the original 'Sidewinder' crew, 'Random Concept' crew, MCs, DJs and producers alike. We had the studio for rent during the day and the engineer was Dave, who is the now dub master Zed Bias and during the evenings I got in there and learnt my trade by training myself. I was running an Atari ST with Cubase on it and AKAI S2800 with a desk which was Seductions previously. Now Im using Cubase 5 / Logic Pro 9 on Mac and Im blessed with most of the major plug-ins available and UAD ones too thanks to U-Audio who kindly supplied them. Studio pics are on my website with kit listing.

Now theres some interesting history for the ravers, especially those that are fond of their producing, you learn something new every day as they say!

It can also be said for DJing too, were there as many hardcore parties out there when you began as there are today? Do you feel now its become saturated, or can you never have enough hardcore?

I think there were a lot more in 2008 then I would have said in 1996 when hardcore was at its peak. I was a busy up and coming DJ in 1996 but never considered my self to have made it until I got that first Helter Skelter booking, then things really changed for me with Slammin Vinyl at Bagleys and 'Dreamscape', etc. I dont think its saturated now, maybe for some areas where a lot of parties are going on you feel maybe they dont have enough rest between events and choose a lot of the same DJs, so you feel its a bit much. But, last year and this year I have been a little more sensible with what bookings and areas I have done or will do, I used to be in Bristol like twice a month and I found that pointless so I have cut down on playing in certain areas too much so I dont get boring.

Its not fair to ravers for me to turn up and play a set I played two weeks ago down then road, I need time to make some tunes and freshen up my set before Im back in the same area I think and theres plenty of DJs to choose from and hopefully will make promoters experiment a bit more with other DJs.

Your work also takes you onto the bigger forums of trance, commercial dance and so forth with the Clubland and All Around The World connection. How are things progressing on the commercial front and how were your Clubland tour experiences?

Although I do other music styles and have been lucky to be successful with them through AATW and Clubland, its never really been an intentional thing to make a commercial dance track. When Your Shining and Heartbeatz both made top 20, it was because we were asked to do a slower version of the hardcore track, so it was the hardcore version that made the record label sit up and listen.

Although things have changed now for myself and Darren, we are seen widely across both scenes and its helped us express our selves more with music. Touring with Clubland on the arena tours has been awesome and over ten nights I got to play to around 42,000 people and thats some stage to have your music on, which kind of makes me the Paul Oakenfold of hardcore! Ask yourself has any other hardcore DJ played to an arena crowd who were there to see the likes of Cascada, Scooter or even N-Dubz? Maybe not

It certainly helps bring hardcore to a much bigger platform, thats for sure. Moving forward though, 2010 marks the beginning of a new decade in music, what does the brilliant Mr Breeze have lined up for us as part of this new decade, what are your plans for a fresh new decade and indeed year?

I dont really sit down and think Right this year Im going to make sure this track does that, because it just doesnt work like that. I get in the studio and just bounce off whatever the vibe is at the time. I would like to do a few different things as well as hardcore and dance, it always gives me a few ideas for hardcore then bit like when me and Darren did Futureset, it was totally different at the time as we were both into trance.

Well I for one certainly look forward to seeing and hearing more from you Sir. In closing, you are headlining Electrik with Ultrabeat and MC Whizzkid also on Friday, which sees a return for Marley & Scandals infamous South Coast party, now on a Friday and at the all new Oceana complex marking a first for hardcore at the venue, looking forward to breaking it in hardcore style?

Yeah really looking forward to it, it should be a good night and its nice to go to new venues and see it progress on. Its my first set since NYE at Slammin Vinyl so I got a few new things to play from me and some new ones from other artists, so I will be looking forward to getting a good vibe going.

Superb! Mark thank you for your time, I know you are a very busy man so well ask in closing to leave us with your all your release dates, gig dates, tour dates, web links and other such information you wish to share with your more than appreciative following

All my information is on my website http://www.markbreeze.co.uk and you can follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/markbreezeuk

Thanks guys and see you out there!

Thanks Mark, well see you Friday. Mark will be headlining Electrik THIS FRIDAY alongside Ultrabeat, MC Whizzkid, MC Marley, Geos Crew, Odyssey, Scandal, Casper, Petruccio, Chapple Brothers, DJ Waltza, Skatty, Oggy and Red Eye Knight at the illustrious Louisianas, part of the Oceana Complex at Leisureworld in Southampton.

The event runs from 20:00pm 03:00am and is just 10 in advance, more on the door. Full ticket outlet information, online outlets, Coach Packages and discounted ticket offers can be found in the official Press Release listed in the links section below, with a full flyer. Be swift, tickets are selling fast!

Words: Jon Brown
Picture: Cleared and supplied by Breeze, used with permission.
Video: Supplied by Electrik

With thanks to Mark Breeze, MC Marley & DJ Scandal

Video Trailer Here:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXlPfzXC03Y&feature=player_embedded

Electrik Events Presents Ultrabeat, DJ Breeze & Whizzkid
ELECTRIK returns, this time at a new venue - Southampton's epic Oceana

THIS FRIDAY 22ND JANUARY!

LOUISIANA'S (Part Of Oceana)
Leisure World
Southampton
Hampshire
SO15 1RE

20:00pm - 03:00am

http://www.electrikevents.co.uk

FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=197402559133

DSI EVENT PAGE
http://www.dontstayin.com/uk/southampton/oceana/2010/jan/22/event-226404

FULL LINE-UP

BREEZE
ULTRABEAT - DJ SET
GEOS CREW
SCANDAL
PETRUCCIO
CHAPPLE BROTHERS
DJ WALTZA

MC's: WHIZZKID, MARLEY, ODYSSEY, CASPER, SKATTY, OGGY, REDI KNIGHT

TICKET INFO
Tickets: 10 + BF, more on the door, on the night.

TICKET OUTLETS
The Ticket Sellers 08448 700 000
Lucid - Southampton - 02380 233 533
Tripp 2 - Southampton - 02380 223 982
Innervisions - Southampton 02380 555 165
Standout - Salisbury 01722 411 344
Frolic - Bournemouth 01202 290 308
Withit - Portsmouth 02392 874 300

ALSO AVAILABLE ONLINE AT
http://www.dontstayin.com
http://www.theticketsellers.co.uk

COACHES
South Coast Club Tours
Picking up from Portsmouth, Chichester, Fareham, Poole, Bournemouth, Ringwood. Contact Ernie on 07973 55 11 71 for more information, price quoted will include Coach & Entry.

DISCOUNTS WITH INNERVISION HAIR & BEAUTY
This event is fully supported by Innervision Hair & Beauty, 118 Portswood Road, Portswood, Southampton. SO17 2FY. Contact them on (023) 805 55165 and get discounts on selected cuts, when you buy your Electrik Event tickets through them!

MC MARLEY UNCUT INTERVIEW
http://www.dontstayin.com/uk/southampton/oceana/2010/jan/22/article-11728

INVITE ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS TO THE EVENT PAGE HERE PLEASE! THANK YOU! :)
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=197402559133

USEFUL LINKS
http://www.electrikevents.co.uk
http://www.markbreeze.co.uk