Session Transcript:
DJ Harvey
Red Bull Music Academy, Seattle 2005

The video stream for this lecture can be watched here.

DJ Harvey is one of those figures in the dance music world whose influence is out of all proportion to his own fame. Known to some as that bloke who did the early hours slots at Ministry Of Sound, and to others as the driving force behind the Black Cock re-edit label, he’s a cult icon to that crowd which looks back on the disco era as the birth of the dance scene. He was also an early exponent of the balearic sound, but it was as the prime inspiration behind London’s nu disco of the late '90s that he’s best known for. In this session of two he talks about his early days as a DJ and tells us the do’s and don’ts of re-edits.

RBMA: »So Harvey, you’re from Cambridge originally and you ended up in L.A.?«

DJ Harvey: »I suppose I spent my most formative years in Cambridge, between 9 and 19, although I was born in London and then moved back to London when I was about 19 and managed to get out to Los Angeles, Venice Beach, California, in my forties. My accent is my rough migration.«

RBMA: »You’ve been on the forefront of, not really the warehouse party thing, but the acid house movement with your Tonka soundsystem. Can you talk about that?«

DJ Harvey: »The Tonka soundsystem is basically a loose collection of DJs, engineers and party people. The idea was to have a group identity in a similar way to a Jamaican soundsystem, where you have like Java Hi-Fi. I don’t know if you know, but in Jamaican soundsystems it takes four people to play a record. You’ve got the guy that selects the record, the operator; the guy that plays the record: a DJ; a guy that talks over the record, and an engineer that’s tweaking the EQ. We wanted something like that so the guys that were lifting the speaker boxes and helping out with the day to day running would feel like part of the crew. We ran parties as a soundsystem, we were known as Tonka Hi-Fidelity.«

RBMA: »But you didn’t play reggae?«

DJ Harvey: »We played all kinds of music. At that time, in the early/mid-'80s, reggae was having a renaissance and we were enjoying that and playing reggae music. I grew up as a punk and The Clash and people like that were from Brixton. Brixton is a centre for the West Indian community in London, so they were heavily influenced by reggae. We liked The Clash and they liked reggae, so reggae was an integral part of my DJing or soundsystem life.«

RBMA: »You didn’t start out as a DJ, your first musical steps were as a drummer.«

DJ Harvey: »Yeah, in various school bands, local community centres. Kid’s gigs. I was in a band called Ersatz, which means cheap substitute, and we had a single out on our label Leisure Sounds in 1979, and John Peel liked it and played it a couple of times. I thought I’d made it, I was very happy at that point. We didn’t manage to sell any records and my mum’s bathroom was full of about 5.000 singles for as long as I can remember. But that was a good time, coming up through drumming. Although DJ culture was around and parties were around, as well as drumming in punk bands I’d go to school discos and listen to whatever was there. I didn’t really fall into DJing until I started hearing the first hip hop records, things like Electric Boogie Breakdance. I couldn’t understand why that record sounded like an underwear commercial. It was a record made from other records and the manipulation of the beats was fascinating to me. The turntables were another form of a rhythm maker, so I approached it as a rhythm maker rather than as a party DJ, which is what I consider myself now. As I took my place behind the decks I realised people didn’t want to watch me go (mimics scratching), they’d rather dance to a nice record.«

RBMA: »And a few years later on you got really into the whole acid house thing.«

DJ Harvey: »It just seemed a natural progression, really. Throughout the early '80s there’d been electronic dance music, uptempo dance music. Although rap and hip hop is predominantly downtempo these days, back then you had uptempo dance hip hop music. So… I’ve completely lost my train of thought (laughs).«

RBMA: »How did you get from the uptempo hip hop to the acid house parties?«

DJ Harvey: »That’s a good sign for you. Those years are such a damn blur, I was so busy having a good time. I started going to parties where people were playing dance music and the attitude and the vibes were really progressive, really exciting, so I started leaning in that direction. I was there when that movement was really coming up in Europe, so I rode the wave, went to the record shops and played them, and people seemed to like what I did.«

RBMA: »So acid house was responsible for you being one of the first residents at England’s best ever superclub Ministry Of Sound?«

DJ Harvey: »I suppose my reputation was building by that time and the people with the power at the Ministry decided to give me a go. I was lucky enough to be the resident for Friday and Saturday nights for the morning, which was the graveyard shift, which was 6.00 am through to 10, 11, 12. The Ministry was the juice bar so they didn’t make any money on alcohol, so they didn’t worry about staying open. They hadn’t worked out that they had to pay the security guys more money. It went on until Sunday afternoons or Saturday mornings, it was a great time. It was like driving the Titanic, really good fun.«

RBMA: »So it was trying to be like London’s Paradise Garage?«

DJ Harvey: »Yeah, there was this guy called Justin Berkman who’d been to the Garage and had this vision of something similar in London. He’d done the work and the research and built his dream club, and initially things were absolutely wonderful in there. Fantastic soundsystem, sprung-belt dancefloor, purpose built room, the whole room was a pentagon, five walls, suspended like a studio, it’s a room within a room. The acoustics were amazing, it was really great fun to play there.«

RBMA: »Have you ever been to the Garage yourself?«

DJ Harvey: »I never have, I’ve stood outside and looked up. These days it’s a post office, I believe. I’m lucky enough never to have had a bad night at the Garage so it’s perfect in my imagination.«

RBMA: »But you had the pleasure of hosting Larry Levan?«

DJ Harvey: »I was very lucky, Larry became a very good friend. He stayed with me a little while and I picked up a good vibe and learnt some lessons.«

RBMA: »So he was really that great?«

DJ Harvey: »Yes.«
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RBMA: »And what made him that great?«

DJ Harvey: »Being gay and African and in New York City in the right time and the right place and having a feeling for music and a passion and the ability to communicate in the right way. Just by using the volume control he could really speak to you by bringing out the lyrics in a song. He would talk, you could hear him actually talking through the lyric, it was amazing. I tried playing the same way, you’ll never hear me play a lyric that doesn’t match the way I’m feeling at the same time, what I’m trying to say to the people.«

RBMA: »What did you try to do with Moist? It was obviously very different to everything else.«

DJ Harvey: »It was the first foray into what I call adult dance music, which is not necessarily the instantly gratificational, but a little more sex-orientated, a little more sleazy, a little more grown-up, rock-y, slower. In a lot of ways it was a little more Garage, balearic, cosmic kind of tribute. I was discovering how that music works.«

RBMA: »Could you actually define balearic?«

DJ Harvey: »Balearic music… there are some islands in the Mediterranean, one of which is Ibiza. Ibiza has been party central for about 2.000 years. The music which had become the signature sound of the slightly more sophisticated end of the Ibizan scene has become known as balearic music. And these days, with a wide range of sound - though I haven’t been there for five years so I don’t know what’s happening, but I’m sure it hasn’t changed that much - it could mean anything. It’s hard, I could play you ten balearic records and then you could have an idea of the vibe and the feeling. It’s slightly softer, more dreamy and downtempo, at the European end of dance music. But in general it’s music which had become popular in the Balearic islands during the '80s. Wake up and pay attention (laughs).«
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RBMA: »Maybe you could play us an example.«

DJ Harvey: »Maybe I could, let’s have a look in here (searches through records). Here we go, something Italian. Now this has a European flavour, electronic beats and it’s a little bit cheesy, which is one of the good ingredients of balearic music.«

(music: Margueritas - Margherita)

»You get the basic idea of the '80s thing. This is a German record by Supermax, this has lots of Euro flavour, electronic rhythms, a little bit downtempo. Let’s see if we can get the guy’s voice on here.«

(music: Supermax - African Blood)

RBMA: »Who were the DJs playing that stuff?«

DJ Harvey: »I suppose the greatest were Pippi of Pacha, Alfredo of Amnesia, there’s a bunch of guys. Someone like Alfredo would play seven nights a week, 12 hours a night. That guy was incredible, at the end of the night I saw a line of about 50 people just wanting to touch the guy, kiss his hand, amazing. He would DJ with no headphones, mixing off the beat flash of the LED, wonderful guy, wonderful programming.«

RBMA: »You would prefer [David] Mancuso over Q-Bert?«

DJ Harvey: »Very different, both incredible DJs, although I’ve only seen Q-Bert on video. I don’t know what it would be like being at a party where he was DJing. There’s places and spaces and generally the crowd decides and a professional DJ will play to the crowd.«

RBMA: »You’ve also been responsible for the first wave of disco edits been made in Europe on a little label called Black Cock.«
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DJ Harvey: »Black Cock is flaccid, so to speak. We haven’t been active for some time. We started in the very early '90s, as a direct result of my relationship with Larry. He played an edit of South Shore Commission’s Free Man, which I wanted to get hold of and then I worked out how he’d got the version, because there was a tape edit cut onto acetate. I looked into that and then my first edit was of South Shore Commission - Free Man, basically trying to make the version I’d heard Larry play. Then we – that’s me and my partner Gerry Rooney - went onto release seven volumes of the Black Cock edits, various disco stuff and obscure cosmic/balearic, whatever you want to call it music.«

RBMA: »Maybe you can play us some.«

DJ Harvey: »This is the first ever, even though it’s number seven. Someone actually phoned us up and asked where the other six were. This is the one that goes for the money, so we’ll play this. I’ve heard this has been up to $300 on good old eBay.«

(music: Black Cock #7)

DJ Harvey: »It goes on and on and on like that for three minutes and then I drop some vocals in around here.«

(music continues: Black Cock #7 / applause)

RBMA: »Maybe you could explain to them what a reel-to-reel machine is.«

DJ Harvey: »You get the record, record it onto reel-to-reel tape, run the tape off, mark the section before the beat to cut, cut it, run it through again to the end of the section. Then you’ve got a piece of tape which is hanging round your neck. Record another one, make two, then stick them together in a big loop with a cotton reel and a pencil, record that loop onto another. At the time I didn’t have two tape machines, I had a DAT machine, so I recorded that loop onto DAT, played that back onto the tape and so on and so on, then just build up and have different sections and cut them together.«

RBMA: »How long did it take?«

DJ Harvey: »Just one night, but all night.«

RBMA: »What do you think about computer mouse edits these days?«

DJ Harvey: »I think it’s really good that the technology is there but it doesn’t help make good records. It’s become an excuse, half the edits I hear ruin the record. People edit records that don’t need editing because they didn’t have the knowledge to know there was already a 12” or whatever. I think you’ve got to be very careful before you embark on the re-edit thing. Often I find the break section of a record is only the best bit because it precedes a shit part, so I honestly feel like taking Apache by the Incredible Bongo Band and leaving out the break, edit the chorus over and over again, so the break never comes and the crowd… that will really get people going. We listened a while ago to a Crusaders edit and whoever had edited it had taken out the middle eight, the bridge section, which, although it’s not the most happening section, it leads you into the good part, it’s what makes the good part good. Editing is not something to be taken lightly, you can bury yourself.«

RBMA: »It’s an excuse to make a record?«

DJ Harvey: »No, I think people listen to a record and think I’d love to have go at re-making that, but they’re not necessarily considering the people who are going to have to listen to the thing. They’re going: “OK, let’s make it ten minutes long.” That’s really boring.«

RBMA: »But some people make nice careers out of that.«

DJ Harvey: »Sure, there are some really good ones but there are some really bad ones as well. I don’t have a problem with the technology, I think it makes it easier, but it doesn’t help. If it’s not in there, it’s not going to be picked up by the technology.«

RBMA: »But don’t you use the technology yourself?«

DJ Harvey: »Yeah, these days. Well, I don’t, I get someone else to do it and I loop that, because I’m not really up on the technology, particularly. If I’m in the studio I’ll have a young engineer who understands and I’ll just be guiding. “Take all these parts, stretch them to 110bpm and I’ll be back after lunch.” Then I come in, programme a beat, put that to the beat and arrange rather than sit staring at the screen.«

RBMA: »So, you’ve actually got a project going on right now called Map Of Africa, which is some sort of dance music?«

DJ Harvey: »It’s basically a band. The studio outfit is me and Tom Bullock of A.R.E. Weapons fame, who was a DJ member of the Wicked Crew from San Francisco and is now a member of Rub‘N’Tug who are doing really well with their remixes and tours of the world. Our band that we put together is basically to write and perform some songs of our own and we’ve been working on it for two years now.«

RBMA: »And what kind of music is this?«

DJ Harvey: »It’s basically two kinds. There are songs that are written to be performed as a band, which tend to be stompy, rock-y, a bit like ZZ Top. Then there’s the other half, which is more cosmic, dancey, balearic, mellow, and they’re designed to be played in clubs, remixed by other DJs hopefully, just so we’ve got a wide range.«

RBMA: »You’ve got the new record with you, do you want to play it?«

DJ Harvey: »Hear me karaoke! This is the new record, which you can’t buy anywhere.«

RBMA: »It’s actually really hard to get.«

DJ Harvey: »Yeah, it’s impossible. Records are luxury items these days, so it’s more like a promo. It was released but there’s only 1.000 of them, so it’s only for record collectors, DJs and journalists.«

RBMA: »And what about the name Map Of Africa?«

DJ Harvey: »Map Of Africa is a sex stain that is left on the bed. I don’t know if you guys have ever encountered one of those. It’s on Whatever We Want Records.«

RBMA: »Which is a label out of New York.«

(music: Map Of Africa - Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys)

RBMA: »That’s some pretty shocking disco rock music.«

DJ Harvey: »It’s actually a cover version of an Eddy Grant record called Black Skinned Blue Eyed Boy, which is one of the first disco records out in 1969 and is a favourite of people like Nicky Siano and Francis Grasso.«

RBMA: »Who are DJs in New York.«

DJ Harvey: »Who were New York DJs at the time.«

RBMA: »And whose marvellous voice is that?«

DJ Harvey: »That’s me, that’s me on the karaoke.«

RBMA: »So what constitutes a good party in your opinion?«

DJ Harvey: »Just the majority of people having a good time. There’s so many ways that can be achieved: indoors, outdoors, small crowd, big crowd. Most people are enjoying themselves, as simple as that.«

RBMA: »And you’re trying to throw good parties now in Hawaii?«

DJ Harvey: »Yeah, getting onto the Hawaii thing, I’m partner in a spaced out there called 39 Hotel. It’s 39 Hotel Street, Chinatown, Honolulu. Basically, it’s a multimedia space and we have art shows, jazz nights, all kinds of different things going on. Saturday night is the dance night and we have dance DJs and various people coming and going.«

RBMA: »And you’re taking care of the soundsystem.«

DJ Harvey: »We’ve only been open a year and up until now we’ve only had a small simple JBL soundsystem, but as we speak I’m looking into buying something pretty fancy with a bunch of vintage '70s components and I want to build a world class soundsystem.«

RBMA: »Can you elaborate, what’s a good soundsystem to you?«

DJ Harvey: »A good soundsystem is something that has high fidelity so you can hear what’s on the record and some weight and power so you can feel it, that’s pretty much it. The key is to have a clean signal path, it all starts with the stylus. If your stylus is no good, your system is going to amplify something that’s no good. All the amps and preamps will amplify the sound from the needle. So you start with a good needle, which is a reissue Shure V15-II, they’re about $350 a pop. It’s a hi-fi stylus but they’re robust enough to withstand back cueing. Probably then run through Bozak, we have a custom Bozak in the club. A Urei mixer is a copy of a Bozak, Bozak came out a few years beforehand, very fine components which give a pretty smooth clean sound, a softer sound than the Urei.«

RBMA: »What actually is a Bozak?«

DJ Harvey: »It’s a rotary controlled preamplifier for turntables and whatever else you might have. It also has phono-in’s and line-in’s and it’s the first commercially available DJ mixer and still the best. Urei’s are good, they have a little tighter sound, but a Bozak is like sprinkling icing sugar on the cake. From the Bozak, it tries to run through as little processes as possible, gates and compression and so on. It protects the system but it doesn’t help the sound. I’ll have an idiot-proof button so if there’s someone there who doesn’t know what they’re doing, I’ll hit the button that holds everything in place. But anyone who knows what they’re doing will have full headroom with no compression on the system. So a simple signal path from the Bozak through a simple EQ and then I’ll split a five-way system, I have a Richard Long three-way crossover where the middle sections are full-range, the tops and the bass. It’s not like the modern three-ways, which tend to be a mid, high and bass, this is a full-range, which is everything, and then with support at 10k and 80 for the bass. So I’ll run a three-way system through the full-range and then have subbass support and a bullet tweeter array for the highs. I’ve been chatting with Nicky Siano about some prototype Klipsch cabinets and stuff.«

RBMA: »Klipsch are pretty legendary.«

DJ Harvey: »Yes, Mancuso runs a Klipsch horn system with Levinson amps and it’s a very clean lovely system. But it can be a bit frustrating because it doesn’t have the weight, the punch that I’m looking for for my system. His system is very soft, easy going, but a little too easy going for my liking. You could stand there listening to it for 12 hours and not have any ear fatigue.«

RBMA: »Have you ever been to The Loft?«

DJ Harvey: »Yeah, I’ve been to it at a couple of different locations. Once in Alphabet City in the early '90s and more recently he plays in the Ukrainian Centre in Manhattan. He brings his system and it’s a great party.«

RBMA: »He’s the master of not mixing records but having a great party.«

DJ Harvey: »He leaves gaps between the records, which gives people an opportunity to applaud or have a chat about it for five minutes before the next record comes on. But I think it’s good, he has a very different pace to the whole night, nothing’s forced, the records speak for themselves. It takes a little while to get used to but once you get the idea, watch what everyone’s doing and go with the flow, it’s a great party.«

RBMA: »Why Hawaii, is it the up and coming dance music centre of the world?«

DJ Harvey: »I don’t think Hawaii will ever be the dance music centre of the world, there’s too much to do during the day. You can go to the beach and go surfing, there’s not really any reason to lock yourself in a dark club for 12 hours. It’s a very musical place and you can enjoy the culture, enjoy the arts, but as far as a destination for European hordes to go out and claim it as the next Ayia Napa or something, it’s a long way from Europe, it costs a lot of money to get out there and it’s expensive to stay. Everything’s an import so it’s an expensive place, but we’ve had some wonderful parties in the last year.«

RBMA: »Hawaiian won’t become a genre like balearic?«

DJ Harvey: »It may well do if I can hold down the identity of the movement. I had the idea of doing this little flyer that said Loft, house, Paradise Garage, hotel, and I’ve got the hotel. Just another one of those “Oh, I’m into hotel music."«

RBMA: »Be honest, you just picked a place where you could enjoy yourself?«

DJ Harvey: »Hawaii was a very exotic destination for me ever since I was a kid. I’ve always been into skateboarding and recently got into surfing, so Hawaii was a natural place for me be able to enjoy surfing. It was the natural step and having DJed there and got on with the locals who enjoyed what I was doing, I’ve become established there. It’s great.«

RBMA: »Maybe you could play us another one of your Black Cock things.«

DJ Harvey: »Let’s see what we can find.«

RBMA: »And why Black Cock?«

DJ Harvey: »I thought, what’s the most potently sexual thing in the world? It’s got to be a black cock. Everyone remembers it, it’s like: “Ooh, ah, ee!” It hurts to think about that kind of thing.«

RBMA: »Are there any new records you like?«

DJ Harvey: »Yeah, loads but I can’t think of any right now.«

RBMA: »Sometimes one gets the impression that guys like Lindstrom and the Idjut Boys, for instance, are just making records for you to play them.«

DJ Harvey: »That would be nice. Idjut Boys are a case in point, they’re making great new music. Lindstrom seems to be very prolific, he’s making ten remixes a week. Lindstrom, stop it or you’ll wear yourself out, dude!«

RBMA: »Maybe you could talk about Idjut Boys and the whole nu disco explosion in the late '90s? You are being held responsible for that.«

DJ Harvey: »I have problems with the whole genre thing, I think that just helps journalists write about stuff. I suppose there’s a loose group of DJs and musicians that championed the slightly more sophisticated dance music sound towards the end of the '90s. It’s nothing more than that, really. There was nothing contrived about it, it just happened we were enjoying that kind of music so we made that kind of music.«

RBMA: »Can you tell us about Japan, where you’re a bit of a cult hero?«

DJ Harvey: »Japan is always a good time, I’ve been there many, many times over the years. The kids really know their stuff, they do the research. They’ve got the mania. They do their research and sing along to records and I wonder how they know them. Japan is really good, I’ve toured all over and had a great reception. It’s an amazing place to hang out, the food’s amazing, the people are really friendly and they’re enthusiastic. If you’re passionate about what you do, they’ll give it back.«

RBMA: »And Japanese trainspotters are the craziest?«

DJ Harvey: »Pretty much. They’ll take a photograph of every record I play and then hold their phone up so they’ll have a photo and audio recording as well.«

Participant: »A friend told me you have something to do with Moton re-edits.«

DJ Harvey: »I was involved in the launch of that label, the name was my concept, which relates back to the Japanese thing. The Japanese have a strange grasp of English and when they name things they often use English words. Say, they were going to build a CD player, they wouldn’t call it Pioneer, they’d call it 'Oneer'. They take a few letters off here and there and make a new word that kind of relates to what they want to do, like Evisu is just Levi’s with the ‘L’ taken off. So I was thinking of using that as a concept, we’ll have Motown, but with the ‘W’ taken out it becomes Moton. I think these days they’re a straight bootleg label, but the first three or four releases that I was involved in were remixing end editing tracks. I enjoyed that side of it but I’m not too interested in the business side of running a label, so I let them get on with it, Diesel and Jarvis.«

Participant: »Did you ever pay sample clearance on the Black Cock records?«

DJ Harvey: »In a word, no. I thought I could get away with it and I have done but there’s a grey area, which is allowed to exist in the sampling world and they won’t come after you for money unless you’ve got any money to give them. If someone came to me and said: “I want the profit from Black Cock.”, I’d say: “You owe me $10 for promoting your arse, we didn’t make any money.” If there was any chance to make some money then few artists want to turn that down, few artists will say: “No, I don’t want to relaunch my career.” It’s: “OK, let’s make this thing happen.” A lot of the time, especially in hip hop, these tracks are made and then licensing isn’t paid until the album is released.«

Participant: »So you’d be willing to give money back?«

DJ Harvey: »Yeah, there isn’t any money anyway, but if we’d made some money and someone came to me and said: “We want a percentage of the profit,” then great, no worries. Any more?«

Participant: »So it seems there’s a red line running through your career, a Black Cock that is only re-edits and now you have a band that makes only 1.000 copies of your record. You’re asking for it, man. What are you going to do, bootleg your own records?«

DJ Harvey: »These days money is made in music by people downloading mp3s for a buck a go and buying CDs. Nobody buys records anymore.«

Participant: »Except for these guys (points to audience).«

DJ Harvey: »Except for these guys. That’s good, that record is for you people and I’m sure there are still some copies out there somewhere. But they’re really just promotional luxury items for DJs journalists and collectors. On this record, the paper part cost more than the vinyl part because we really wanted a nice print.«

Participant: »So it’s like New Order - Blue Monday, you’re losing money on every copy?«

DJ Harvey: »Yeah, I think we’re losing money on those. But when it comes to it everyone will be able to get their hands on the music. I’ll do a limited gatefold vinyl for the album, there’ll be CDs and downloadable mp3s and I’m sure people will be able to go on Kazaa or Limewire and get it for free. For me, I pay my rent by being a professional DJ so it’s the making of the music that’s important to me. I enjoy the process of realising an idea. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have an Arab dude on the cover, blah, blah, blah.” And then to see it actually happen, that’s me happy, I’m done. I don’t really care if anyone buys the record or not.«

Participant: »You were just saying nobody buys records anymore but the impression I get is, it might be it’s selling less but it’s growing to be more loved day by day. It’s become almost mystical so what would your reaction be and how would you feel if someone released a White Cock of Map Of Africa re-edited?«

DJ Harvey: »I suppose, initially I’d take it as a compliment but it depends. If I was starving and couldn’t pay my rent and someone else was doing well selling my work, then I’d probably contact them and ask them for a licensing fee. But apart from that it wouldn’t bother me.«

Participant: »Another thing I want to ask you, you’re easily traceable to Black Cock, so if, was it the Pointer Sisters with the Cookie?

DJ Harvey: »If the Cookie Monster comes knocking on my door: “Where’s my money?”«

Participant: »If the Cookie Monster wants his money he knows where to call. How come you’ve dodged that?«

DJ Harvey: »Like I said before, there is a grey area that’s allowed to exist where people are allowed to sample, and as long as no money is being made people don’t mind. Any money made from Black Cock went back into the label. In fact, with this particular record (holds up record), I didn’t even collect the money from the distributors, I let them keep it because I couldn’t be bothered to go and chase a few bucks.«

Participant: »But obviously, if the album was to sell 5.000 copies you’d have enough money to pay them for that?«

DJ Harvey: »Yes, exactly.«

Participant: »OK, I see.«

DJ Harvey: »If someone was to come to me now, there’s no money made in the first place for me to pay them. So, to take me through the courts, it’s a pain in the arse.«

Participant: »But now, if you were starving you could print 10.000 copies of the Black Cocks and they would all sell out for a reasonable price.«

DJ Harvey: »I could do that.«

Participant: »I was just talking to Jason last night. I like music as much as anyone, but sometimes it is a bit nerdy to go after this like it is a religious object or something. But since you have got to this place, if you take time and as long as you got a good publisher and so on, you could.«

DJ Harvey: »Sure, we have thought of doing a box set and if that was the case it would be a lot more official. Black Cock is so wrong. We used Foghorn Leghorn who’s a Warner Brothers thing, I know I made him black. But Black Cock’s been and gone, it’s a done thing and the people that own them can enjoy them.«

Participant: »And they also have been bootlegged.«

DJ Harvey: »Have they? Do you know who’s done it? I’d be interested to know. Can you get them?

Participant: »On eBay, yeah.«

DJ Harvey: »Wow.«

Participant: »You can also get t-shirts, a lot of Black Cock merchandising.«

DJ Harvey: »Oh well, someone’s doing well. I think I know who’s doing t-shirts, I don’t know about the records. That’s interesting, I’ll have to check it out. I heard someone say they were thinking of it, there’s only a few people who would do it and there’s only a few pressing plants. I’ll send out some beams and get to know. It’s one of five people.«

RBMA: »And speaking of being a professional DJ, you’ve been DJing, what? 20-plus years? Will there come a point when you’ve had enough?«

DJ Harvey: »Not really, I still enjoy playing records. I suppose, I could just end up in a little bar in Samoa and have my vintage soundsystem, playing records to my customers. But I don’t really see myself growing bored with it, as long as people accept me, then yeah.«

RBMA: »Maybe, if there aren’t any other questions, we could end with some music.«

Participant: »Just one more question. Is this yours, did you take part in this, Stars with Sylvester?«

DJ Harvey: »What about it?«

Participant: »I just bought it this morning.«

DJ Harvey: »You just bought it? Has it got my name on it? Maybe someone stole it off me.«

(record is passed forward)

»Oh no, that’s not me. This is a wonderful record, though.«

RBMA: »Let’s hear the other Harvey.«

DJ Harvey: »Let’s see what the other Harvey can do. There’s an instrumental of this somewhere. Is this my outro? This’ll be a good outro for me.«

(music: Sylvester - I Need Somebody (To Love Tonight))

»Are we going to call it a day after this? Are we all going to go record shopping now, bring everyone along, just bumrush the record stores (laughs)? OK. Thank you very much for having me.«

(applause)