François K

GERD JANSON

The gentleman to my right, some of you might have seen him last night at the club. Most of us were. He goes by the name of François Kevorkian. Grew up in France, lived in New York now for, I would say, 37 years. And he’s been there pretty much, almost from the start of the New York dance music scene. But he didn’t spend much time resting on his laurels at all, so please, give him a warm welcome.

[applause]

François K

How you doing, everyone? Thank you.

GERD JANSON

So, you said 37 years in New York City.

François K

Pretty much.

GERD JANSON

What brought you here?

François K

I was not very satisfied with the scene where I was. I was in the eastern part of France the last few years I was there. In Strasbourg, right at the border of France and Germany, and it was a pretty international town. Lots of people from all over; Switzerland, Netherlands, Germany, France, all that. Like, sort of one those hubs, you know? And I figured if that wasn’t good, then it was really not the place for me. I was a musician back in those days, and being a drummer, I just didn’t want to keep getting, like, everything second-fiddle. Getting little bits and pieces when bands were passing through and doing concerts. And I really wanted to go where the action was, where the stuff was being made and created. And in 1975 I was really crazy about Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis and a lot of jazz, and a lot of this sort of fusion and funk kind of music, and this sort of electronic jazz that was coming out. And some of the more interesting rock things, like Jeff Beck and Santana. And all that was really happening in the United States or some in San Francisco, most of it in New York. And I decided that if I wanted to really fulfill this sort of idea that I had that I was going to be playing in a band, I better go and find it at the source, rather than keep getting second-hand.

There was a very healthy scene, I guess, in Germany, with the krautrock and all that, but I wasn’t really into that whole [scene]. You know, I wasn’t speaking German, so it was difficult for me to hook up with these kinds of people. So, I knew English and it was really easy for me to just arrive in New York and start doing what I could do to get on with it, you know?

GERD JANSON

And what kind of city did you find when you arrived here?

François K

The city was about to go bankrupt, because I guess they had a fight with the federal government, or something. And it was just on the aftermath of Richard Nixon resigning and the Vietnam War finishing and all that. You know, a lot of very momentous events, but at the same time I think New York has always had a very special kind of energy – a drive. A lot of people that come here have this passion, this relentless desire to get ahead with what they do and achieve things and create. And, you know, it’s always been like that. And New York in those days was pretty incredible. It still is, but in a different way, they cleaned it up. Back in those years, it was much more sort of like raw. Real. Not Disney-fied.

GERD JANSON

So, raw in what ways?

François K

Well, if you went to the wrong places, you could get mugged. Because you really had no business being there, and if you didn’t know that, well, now you did.

GERD JANSON

How often did you get mugged?

François K

I didn’t get mugged. I didn’t go to the wrong places. Or if I did, I went with friends. Or I knew people from the neighborhood. But it’s just to say it was a different scene. But, you know, as a city, I don’t think that has changed all that much, to be truthful. Manhattan probably has, because it became very rich, and sort of a concentration of wealth that has sort of pushed to the outer parts all the freaks, the weirdoes, the bohemians, and the ones that don’t have work. Like in Berlin, you know, where in Berlin, you have, like, thousands of people who don’t work, who don’t do anything, and they go partying every night, and they’re having a great time, because it’s very cheap to live in Berlin. Here, for what they pay in a month for a flat in Berlin, you could probably get a hotel for one night. [laughs]

Well, I’m exaggerating, but you get the point. So, back in those days, maybe you had much more of that. It’s always been a very difficult city to make it in. Even for those of you who remember this old dude called Frank Sinatra had lyrics in the song “New York, New York,” “if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.” He was just trying to say that it’s a real struggle. And that’s, I guess, something I found out from the moment I arrived is that, in New York City, people don’t mess around. And if you can’t pay your rent, then they put you out in the street, ‘cause there’s plenty of other people in the street that you’re gonna join. [laughs] So you just gotta be really doing your best to get on with at least keeping a roof over your head and food on the table. And once you do that, then a variety of interesting options make themselves available to you. It’s like when you’re in a game, you know: get to Level 9 and you beat the first boss, then you can go to upgrades, Level 10. And New York is very much like that. And there may be cities that are much more welcoming, like, say, besides Berlin, I could think of Barcelona as being an especially nice place to spend time and chill and hang out. Or some places in Italy. But New York is hardcore, it’s intense. It’s, like, relentless twenty-four hours a day. Those are the things that made me love it.

And from the moment I arrived here, I managed to meet people that were just astounding people. They were people that were top of their fields and they were very welcoming. They took me in. They didn’t have an attitude or anything. It was just, like, it’s a real city. In other words, I think the point of it was back in those days, and still to some extent now, I think New York is a very real place. It’s not about your agent, about who your PR connections are, about your profile, or maybe nowadays, could be that anywhere it’s a little bit more of that. But I think back in those days it was just about, “OK kid, what can you do?” You know, these famous movie scenes where the impresario or producer is behind the desk with a big cigar and is, like, “OK kid, show me what you can do.” And then they put you on Broadway the next evening, or whatever. And I think that sort of sums up New York, is that anybody could come in and really try to do something. And back in those days, I’ve seen plenty of people do that. Like Madonna, she started in a church. Sleeping in a church. Homeless. Nothing. Just one leather jacket, one outfit, and she just would go and hang out at the clubs. And she hooked up with the right people, and that’s the kind of story that I’ve only seen happen in New York. Maybe it happened in other places, but I haven’t seen it. [laughs]

GERD JANSON

And who was the first boss you had to beat when you arrived here?

François K

The boss called My Rent at the YMCA. You know, ‘cause that song, “The YMCA.” Well, some of us, even if we don’t like the song, we did stay at the YMCA. I’m one of them. It was OK. I managed for a while.

GERD JANSON

And you looked in a newspaper for “Drummers Wanted?”

François K

Yeah, all that. I mean, I kept going, and I found some people that my friends had recommended, and they got me a job working at somebody’s house, doing, like, cleaning. Very glamorous, you know, from wanting to be a jazz drummer to doing cleaning and doing laundry. But at least I had a roof over my head and plenty of time to go practice and do whatever else and go to auditions and join bands, so that was good.

GERD JANSON

And what was the first band you joined? Do you remember?

François K

I don’t remember the name of it. But it was very difficult. Typically, for any audition where somebody wanted a drummer, I would face at least 75 to 100 people that I had to compete against. I did get some jobs and I started doing a little bit on that circuit, but it was really rough. And the gigs the bands were getting were not paying that much. It was so difficult. So, yeah, very different scene from what it is today. That syndrome of 75 to 100-people auditions is probably transferred to DJs now.

GERD JANSON

Or to actors. That’s how I would imagine it. And you mentioned DJs. That was kind of an opportunity for you then, right? As a drummer?

François K

Well, it’s just that I managed to get hired to play in clubs along with a DJ, by a club owner, and he wanted to have some extra entertainment besides the DJ just playing the records. It gave me a quick look at what the job of DJing was, I was just sitting there on the dance floor, playing six hours straight along with what the DJ was playing. His name was Walter Gibbons, by the way. And I got to understand really fast that it was a pretty easy thing to do. And instead of having to show up with a whole van truckload full of equipment, I could show up with a little bag with a few records and get paid. And, like I say, in New York, I guess back in those days it was very important to try to stay afloat. And that presented itself as a much better opportunity for me to get a steady income and lots of gigs than the drumming thing, which was really too difficult. So I just decided to do that instead.

GERD JANSON

And how was your workflow with Walter Gibbons, in the club?

François K

Well, he didn’t like me at all, because obviously there was a delay from my drums, which were in the middle of the floor, to the DJ booth. So whenever I was playing along, even if I was on time with the music, he would hear it delayed, and it was kind of mess up his mixing. So he was not very happy about it. But he tried to, like, throw me and put all these drums solos on, and I kind of knew all of them, so I could go along. [laughs]

GERD JANSON

So it was more of a fight.

François K

Well, you know, just like any fight, I mean, if people are able to stay on the level, then nobody wins. It’s just like a draw. I didn’t want to fight but he was like sort of annoyed at it, and then he got to accept it, and we became real friends anyway.

GERD JANSON

And just really quickly, who was Walter Gibbons, for people who might not have heard of him?

François K

He’s just one of those incredible early DJs from New York City. He’s the person who did the first commercial 12", which was on Salsoul Records, “Ten Percent,” by Double Exposure. He also remixed countless classics of those early disco years, like “Hit and Run,” by Loleatta Holloway, and so on. As well as more recent ones, like “Set It Off,” by Strafe, which got sampled thousands of times. He was definitely a big inspiration to me. His motto was, “drums for days,” and I guess, being a drummer myself, I could relate to that.

GERD JANSON

And was he also the person who took you to a studio then?

François K

No, not at all. He was just doing his thing and right after I met him, he got into heavy, heavy religion, and he decided to stop playing a lot of songs, because they were all dirty, or didn’t have a good meaning, lyrics, and [he] took a complete left turn with his career. And he was not interested in being involved in anything that had a bad message in the lyrics. And I was like, “Well, OK...” But anyway, being in the studio was just because I got hired, years later, in ‘78, by this record label called Prelude, and they wanted me to do A&R, and also to do remixes for them. They gave me my first chance to actually go in the studio.

What I had done before that is I had started doing some dubplates, like edits. Teaching myself to cut pieces of tape with a razor blade and an editing block and making little medleys and re-edits of stuff. This is like ‘77. And you go to this place and get it pressed up, where they made dubplates. And that was really helpful for me, because as a DJ, when I was playing those, it was like powerful, concentrated energy. And I was doing quite a lot of those, and they were doing pretty well for me. And from there, when I got hired by the label, I already had a pretty good idea of what this whole studio thing was about, so it was a pretty easy fit for me to start doing that.

GERD JANSON

And what was it about back then, as opposed to maybe what it is now, especially with the term “remix” that you mentioned?

François K

I think nowadays when people talk about a remix, they’re really talking about a re-production, which means you just keep a few elements of the original track and you completely twist them and change them around, until it’s unrecognizable. Pretty much. Back in those days, I think it was really not about re-doing everything, because most of the times the tracks that were there were recorded by professional musicians, and chances are that their stuff was usually a lot better than what you could do on your own. Or you’d have to hire new musicians to re-do what they did. Did it really make sense? Once computers came into the picture, it was obviously a very different thing, because it allowed people to be very lazy and get away with mediocre re-productions of things that just had enough of the flavor of the moment to catch people’s ears but doesn’t have the longevity, or the emotional value that maybe those older things had.

But when you talk about remix today, usually people will go, “Oh yeah, I’ll take a little piece of the vocal or I’ll take the bassline or a piece of melody and trash all the rest, because obviously people are expecting me to re-do the drums, add my own percussion, give it a different tempo,” and it’s really a re-production. It’s almost like you’re sampling the original and doing your own track. Back in those days, I think a lot of what we were doing as remixers was taking the same track but giving it a different structure, different parts, completely changing it but keeping the original elements that made it good in the first place. So, big difference.

GERD JANSON

Should we maybe listen to one of those tracks on Prelude?

François K

Sure. I don’t know what you have in mind. Wanna pick out one of those D-Train ones or something?

GERD JANSON

Yeah, should we go to D-Train right away?

François K

Yeah, sure, sure. I just wanna make sure people understand, all I did was I was in the studio, the recording was finished, the singing, the music, everything was done, all I had to do was mix it. That was my contribution to it, and the rest was done by other people.

(music: D-Train - “Keep On” / applause)

GERD JANSON

Do you remember the day you worked on D- Train “Keep On?”

François K

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, I can’t tell you the exact date, but I do, yeah.

GERD JANSON

Even in a career like yours? You still have memories of all the things you did?

François K

I’m sorry. What were you talking about? [laughs]

GERD JANSON

That’s what I meant.

François K

No, I’m putting you on here. Sorry. All pun aside, I think that I remember quite a lot. Some of these were pretty memorable times. Yeah, of course I do remember. This record was mixed at the studio that belonged to Jerry Ragovoy that later, same building, it became Quad Studios. I do remember that the engineer was so incompetent that I had to tell him to just go and take a break in the TV room or something. Ended up doing it all by myself, because the guy just didn’t know what to do. And, you know, we were getting a cheap studio, and the staff was not really competent. So I ended up having to do it with the producer. Now, just making sure you know, you guys, this was not a remix. Hubert Eaves, who was the producer, and myself went in with the idea of making an album version and a 12" mix. It was not a remix, it was just a mix. You know, like they just finished a recording, we just gotta go in to do the proper album version, single, 12", whatever. And, you know, that’s what that was.

Then, you know, a week later, or a few days later, I had to go back in to do the performance tape, a thing that they call the TV track. Which is basically the same version. I ran out of time, when we were doing the main mix. And we needed a performance tape so that the artist can go and do live gigs, which is the same exact mix but without the lead vocal. And then when that happened, I decided to run some additional passes and stuff. So, what you just heard before, this is what it became. I did this, like, in ten minutes.

(music: D-Train – “Keep On (Dub Mix)”)

François K

Anyway, this was just an afterthought. I was in the studio, back for ten minutes, I had some extra time. [applause]

And I decided to run a little piece. You know, like when DJs do like special versions for themselves. Specials. And I didn’t think anything much of it, but I realized that when I was playing it, people were going absolutely nuts for it, so we decided to release it. The whole thing was three minutes, but it still worked wonders. Those were the kinds of things we did back in those days.

GERD JANSON

But it wasn’t called “special version,” it was called “dub.” “The dub version.”

François K

Yeah.

GERD JANSON

So maybe can you talk a little bit about that term, what it means to you? “Dub” is, of course, a reggae term.

François K

Well, you know, it all has to do with Jamaican music. And the idea of dub is that you really sort of deconstruct first, and then reconstruct a track around very, very basic elements and use lots of processing and lots of delay, and things of that nature, to make it very sort of otherworldly and completely not like the original was, when it comes to the arrangement and the aesthetic of it. So yeah, that was something that we started heavily incorporating into our – at least some of us – really doing that quite a lot. And then in my personal case, that was becoming one of my trademarks. A lot of records that I did in those days were incorporating dubby elements. And the reason for that is because the audiences seemed to really thrive on hearing those. You know, at a lot of clubs, people would hear the original version or the main 12" vocal, and you play that for a few weeks and get bored, because it’s so plain. The dub allowed people to really go completely different places and spice it up and make it much more interesting in some ways. And give much more room for the DJs to experiment with that, going back and forth between the normal versions and the dub, and so on. This D-Train one I just played is more like almost like a DJ tool, where you can overlay it on top of another track, and you can do this, and be very dramatic about it, and set the mood in different ways. You know, it was something that slowly became a standard sort of staple of remixing.

GERD JANSON

And you were able to find that dub version on the B-sides of a lot of those New York dance 12"s, right? How long did you work with and for Prelude Records?

François K

I started in July of 1978 and I worked with them until 1982, so three and a half years. Something like that.

GERD JANSON

And what made you quit?

François K

I wanted to start doing productions of my own. Because I was working for them, and, again, very, very successful, I was highly in demand. They were at a bit of a quandary, because they were paying me a weekly salary, and they demanded that I start being exclusive to them. With remixes, they still allowed me to do a thing here and there. But with productions, they said, “Well, if we’re gonna let you produce things, even for Prelude, you have to be exclusive to us.” And I was like, you know, I love my job, and really appreciate [and am] grateful for the fact that they let me get a head start when nobody else believed in me. Unproven, you know, setting me in a studio when they had no idea what I could do. But I wasn’t going to sign away my rights just because I wanted to do productions. I could do productions for many more people than just them. So I was in talks with Chris Blackwell, who’s the owner of Island Records, and other people like that. You know, Sire [Records], Seymour Stein. And I could see from all of them that they wanted me to go and produce for them, so I decided not to sign my rights away by becoming an exclusive producer for Prelude, and as soon as I decided that, the logical step after that was to quit Prelude and to start doing my own independent production company.

GERD JANSON

And if you say you were paid on a weekly basis, that means no matter how many of these records were sold, you got the same salary?

François K

Yeah. I mean, that’s what you do when you get a salary. Except in the case of D-Train, the producer was impressed enough with my work that he personally decided to give me a royalty from the sales of the records. I mean, we’re talking about records that sold well in the millions. So it was a lot of money for me at the time. We didn’t see millions in sales reported, but at least hundreds of thousands, easily. But most times, Prelude was, you know... I was on salary. No matter how good or how bad the records were doing, they were paying me the same. But it was guaranteed money. You know, there’s nothing wrong with it. That was something for me to accept.

GERD JANSON

And how did it go for you after Prelude?

François K

Well, as I was mentioning, I really was digging a lot of what Island was doing. They had, you know, Grace Jones, Black Uhuru, Robert Palmer, U2, a lot of very, very cutting-edge kind of music. Some of that was sort of fusing new wave and dance and reggae and all kinds of stuff that was truly unique. So they were one of the people that I really wanted to work with. I had some meetings with them, and right away they sent me to London to work on some productions. It’s like one thing led to another. The year before I quit Prelude, I had enough of a track record. Besides the work that I was doing day and night for Prelude, I found enough time to mix other records on the side, like the Dinosaur L “Go Bang!”, or Yazoo “Situation.” It turned to be that ‘81 was a peak year for me. I had the most number one 12" remixes in the whole Billboard charts. So obviously that means I was very much in demand with all these other companies that wanted to get the guy that was getting all those number one hit records in the charts. And because of that, as soon as I decided to quit Prelude, I got hired by all these labels. A lot of them in the UK, but some of them in the US as well. There was no shortage of work, I didn’t even have to think about it. It was more “How many can I take?” [laughs]

GERD JANSON

And how did you kind of manage your time with that? Were you still DJing?

François K

Oh, you mean as far as sleep?

GERD JANSON

Yeah. And food and...

François K

Well, you slept when you could. I was still DJing, but not for long after that. I sort of decided that I had to make a choice, and I decided to devote my time fully to the studio, and the reason for that is because back in those days, there was no traveling for DJs. It was a homebound kind of scene. So in New York, if you’re a DJ, you play in New York clubs. I can’t be a DJ in a New York club if I’m spending three months in England, Australia, and Germany. So I decided that it was better that I just stop that part of my activity and focus on production and mixing.

GERD JANSON

Should we play something of the Island things?

François K

If you’d like, sure. You could play a Jah Wobble thing, since you say you have it. So this is a recording I did with Jah Wobble, and on this particular one, the Edge – Dave Evans, from U2 – is also playing guitar. And Arthur Russell wrote the lyrics for it.

(music: Jah Wobble – “Hold on to Your Dreams”)

François K

Yeah, it goes on and on before the singing happens. It’s one of those real extended [versions]. Anyway.

GERD JANSON

So, the singing, you said the lyrics were written by a guy named Arthur Russell.

François K

Yes.

GERD JANSON

And Arthur Russell was also the person behind the Dinosaur L thing.

François K

Yes. Yeah, we became very good friends, and I really loved his sort of very quirky and abstract sort of sense of things, so I figured I should ask him to do something for this.

GERD JANSON

Did you work on more stuff with him?

François K

No, that was really it. I mean, I did the remixes for his Dinosaur L project. But this is what I asked him to do. That was it. Just write lyrics for me.

GERD JANSON

And what were some of the other people you used to work with?

François K

On this project, or in general?

GERD JANSON

Yeah.

François K

On this project, we had Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit, from the group Can. Had also Dave Evans, “The Edge” from U2, on this. And then keyboard player was named Olllie Marland. Had some of the people from the Island crew, because they had sort of an in-house little band. I think, not on this song but maybe on another song, had people like Dick Cuthell and Rico playing horns, and also some of them in-house percussion players. And on some other songs they had people from Public Image playing. Like, the drummer from Public Image on one of the songs, and different guitar players. It was all basically the people that Jah Wobble knew. Some of his mates from London, as well as some of the people that he wanted to work with. Or, in my case, I really loved the guitar player from U2, so I said I wanted Dave Evans to play, and they managed to make it happen. Because back in those days, obviously, U2 was not a big, super-popular group. They were just a great band [and] very approachable.

GERD JANSON

And Holger and Jaki, how did you talk to them? Because you mentioned those krautrock guys in Germany, and as you didn’t [speak German].

François K

They were truly amazing people. I mean, they were, like, so unique and weird and strange, and that was kind of the perfect ingredient for the EP what I was trying to do.

GERD JANSON

But you didn’t have to talk German to them.

François K

No, they speak English. No problem.

GERD JANSON

And from there on, you found your way also in the - if I may say so - kind of pop market. Were you working with more and more bands?

François K

You know, I was just being hired by anybody to do stuff. It just turns out to be that a lot of the big artists were finding out about what I was doing, and it’s difficult to say, like, sometimes how something happens, but one thing leads to another sometimes. Like, some very weird coincidences. Someone hears something that you did, completely unrelated, and decides to hire you, and from that, like, say, I did this remix for Bohannon, “Let’s Start the Dance,” which had been remixed several times already. It was a difficult job, because obviously I didn’t want to do the same things other people had already done. And it turns out that Kraftwerk really liked that Bohannon remix I did. And they hired me to do stuff for them. And from working with Kraftwerk quite a lot, Depeche Mode heard what I was doing for Kraftwerk, and they were like, “Oh, we gotta get this guy.” Then I started working with Depeche Mode, and so on. It’s really pretty much the same in life, I think one thing just leads to another. And the more things you have out there, the more opportunities you get to really connect, and every time you get that chance, you know, just don’t blow it, and you could really go places from that. I think that’s the lesson to be derived from this, is that it’s good to be open-minded and very proactive and make connections. I think that’s the story of what happened here. I wasn’t particularly looking for anything, but these people, they were actively looking for new talent to collaborate or work on their music. And that’s how it came about.

GERD JANSON

So you just went where the calls came from.

François K

Yeah, I didn’t have the luxury of really deciding. You know, I mean, I turned down a lot of work that I didn’t like. But in general, as long as they played me what they wanted me to work on, and I was able to sort of get a general idea of what it was going to be like, I’d do it. You know, there were times when, you have to understand, back in those days, a lot of rock bands, they were really against remixers and remixing. Had a very bad profile. Certain people made it a big sticking point, as far as rock acts, that they did not want to be remixed, or have someone touch their music, because it was destroying the artistic integrity. Say, for example, I remember...

GERD JANSON

The band from Manchester.

François K

Yeah, The Smiths. I mean, to me, it was just like another mix. They sent a tape, contract, label paid, booked the studio. “Let’s go and do it.” Twelve hours, done, finished. You know, it turns out to be that everybody seemed to have loved the mix we did of “This Charming Man.”

GERD JANSON

Except for?

François K

Years later, it turns out that I heard that the band was really annoyed at it. But then again, I think Morrissey made a whole career of being annoyed at things and depressed and just in a bad mood in general. So I guess it must have fit the general vibe of what was going on.

GERD JANSON

But do you think they made this “Hang The DJ” song because of you?

François K

I have no idea, and honestly I really don’t care. Because what they do is not on my radar, it’s not on my cultural periscope. I’ll be very happy to claim, right here, that I don’t have any kind of affinity with a lot of this indie rock scene. I’m into reggae, I’m into dub, I’m into, like, heavy funk music. I’m into lots of things, but the whole garage band, alt-rock indie scene is not my thing.

GERD JANSON

You don’t like the whining?

François K

Even though, once in a while, there’ll be something like Oasis or some other bands that come out there that are absolutely stunning. Stone Roses, whatever. I mean, lots of incredible stuff came out of the UK. Not even to talk about the person over there who’s got a Joy Division T-shirt on. But I think that in general, for me, I was not really into that whole... I mean, I worked with a lot of UK bands that I very much respected, like The Cure, they kept asking me to do things. I did multiple mixes for The Cure. I did mixes for U2. I did mixes for a lot of people that I really get along with. But occasionally some bands were just, like, they had this attitude, like, “Oh, mixing is bad, nothing good will ever come of it, and the way we see it is the only way it should be.” It’s not for me to say whether that was right or wrong but just for you guys to know that there may have been a time when doing these things was not so safe. There were good chances that you were going to go in the studio and do something and you thought it’d be terrific, and you spent all this money doing it, and then the label guy would come back and say, “Nah, the band hated it. It was, like, the worst thing ever done to their music, and they couldn’t live with the idea of this being released.” [laughs]

GERD JANSON

But you still got paid.

François K

Yeah. No, no, no, that’s not the idea. The issue is not about getting paid. Although nowadays, for those of you who may be interested in doing things like that, I’m hearing that more and more situations, labels, are doing what they call spec deals, where they send you the parts, they send you the stuff for the mix, or you have remix competitions. They let you do your work and do whatever you do, and then they decide if they like it. If they like it, they pay you. If they don’t like it, you don’t get a cent. So it’s a lot more of a cutthroat situation here, because you could be investing a lot of time and energy into a project and not see one penny for it. But in our case, when somebody was coming to hire us and say, “Look, we need you to do this,” it was like, “OK, well, this is what it’s going to cost,” approve the budget, have an advance forwarded, and then we take care of going in and doing it. So there was never any question about getting paid. It was more a question about the release. And, you know, I think those were new times, and a lot of people just didn’t know how to handle the dance market. I think even though the UK has far surpassed the United States, by the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, it really started coming into its own. Whereas in the US, pop music, the radio, and MTV and everybody dropped dance and house and techno, in the UK it exploded and became this gigantic [industry]. So obviously, they really got the point, but back in those days when I was getting a lot of calls, especially from UK labels, it always very iffy as to whether the stuff was going to get released or not. There was a good chance it might not.

GERD JANSON

And do you remember when Mute called you for Depeche Mode?

François K

Well, actually, Depeche Mode wanted me to work with them a number of times before, that I couldn’t do, because I was already busy with other things. Like they wanted me to do “Behind The Wheel” and all these, and I kept not being available. I don’t know why, it was really weird. Through the mid ‘80s, I kept getting calls from Depeche Mode and not being able to work for them, I mean, at least a couple of times, where I was really regretting it. But there was nothing I could do. I was already committed to working on some other big projects. So we finally had a big meeting in 1986, I guess. No, I’m sorry, ‘88. I met with the band. The times before, it was just through the label, and they would just call, like the usual, “Can you do this?” “Yes, blah blah blah, no, sorry, can’t do it.” But that time I went to meet the band in person and we hung out and we spent time and we decided that I’m going to come in with them and help them mix the first song from their new album, and then, if that worked out, I was gonna do the whole album for them. So that’s how it happened.

GERD JANSON

And what was that first song?

François K

“Personal Jesus.” So that had to be something we did in June 1988. ‘89, I’m sorry. Because it was actually when the Tiananmen Square events were happening on TV, in China. June ‘89 we did “Personal Jesus,” and obviously that completely took the whole planet by storm, and they were very, very happy with the results, so we decided to go in and mix the whole album.

GERD JANSON

And the album was called Violator.

François K

Yes.

GERD JANSON

And do you maybe have any special versions of those recordings?

François K

Well, I could play them for you but then I’d have to kill you.

GERD JANSON

No, you don’t. After we edit it out, afterwards.

François K

I don’t have anything special of Depeche Mode with me, no. But we worked really hard on some of these, and the final thing was the final thing. There was so much work involved, like, “Personal Jesus,” I think I took a good ten days to mix that song. Maybe more. [Maybe] 11 days. Intense work in the studio, and by the time there was the final mixes, I mean we did, like, four or five different versions, but they’re all released. So that’s what I have.

GERD JANSON

And why did you spend so much time on that one mix? Was it difficult, or was it your perfectionist approach?

François K

I guess the band wanted certain things. It’s not really a remix, again. This is a situation where I’m working with the artist doing the real album version, as well as the single and then we do 12"s. You know, sometimes we’d stop in the middle of mixing and say, “No, no, no, Dave’s gotta re-do [it].” In this case, we didn’t re-do any singing. But there may have been a couple of synthesizer parts Martin wanted fixed, or we were going, like, “Ah yeah, this is not really working like this, we gotta change that.” So then we switched to recording mode, where we started doing more, “Oh, OK, yeah, that’s better. That works.” Then I had all kinds of ideas on effects that I wanted to add to the track, where I recorded some of my own vocals doing, like, weird vocal effects. Like, you know, sort of “ohhhhh” kind of sound, or percussive vocal things that I added as layers. And that all took time. Because back in those days, you had hardware samplers and all this analog technology, and operating all of it was pretty time-consuming. It was a big production. I mean, obviously, the band was very big already. They just had done this 101 and become massive. One thing that’s interesting about Depeche Mode, which I think would be worth mentioning to you guys, is they own all of their own music, from what I understand. They fund the recordings themselves. In other words, instead of going to a label to ask for money to record, Depeche Mode decided they’re gonna use the money they make from touring or whatever, record sales, and re-invest that to support the next recording, and that way they own the music. Why is that important? Well, you’re not at the mercy of somebody else. Like, say, in the case of Depeche Mode, that catalogue was turned over to EMI Records, EMI Records is going bankrupt, or is in receivership right now. I think Depeche Mode still own their own catalogue, even though it was licensed long-term to EMI. Obviously, no matter what happens on the business side, if you still own your own copyrights and you’re a big artist like that, it kind of makes it easier to keep managing your things. But anyway, I digress.

GERD JANSON

No, that’s kind of interesting. Because I think some people to this day still haven’t understood what publishing actually is, for instance.

François K

Well, that’s a different issue, but related. But in the case of Depeche Mode, we just spent that amount of time because it was the new single from the new album and they wanted it to be perfect. A lot of that time was done getting the right balances for the vocal, for the single, for the album mix. We just wanted to have something that sounded great on any system, whether it was big or tiny, or radio, or whatever. We did a lot of testing in cars, in people’s stereos. We’d take the mix out of the studio, go somewhere else and listen to it, and decide, “Well, no, not that,” or, “This needs changing or tweaking,” and I think it really paid off. I remember some of the last days in that mix, I couldn’t even go back to the hotel. I just slept on the control room floor, or in the chair, and just kept going at it until it was done.

GERD JANSON

And speaking of “until it was done,” Malcolm Cecil told us a few days ago that the job of a producer is delivery, if you work with a band or musicians. So would you agree on that, if you work with a band like Depeche Mode, you are the one who has to make sure that things get done?

François K

Well, that sort of depends on the band. Some people are more organized than others, but yes, in general, that’s pretty much it. I mean, obviously you’re the point person. I think it’s like that for any project, whether you’re working on a TV series and you need to deliver X amount of episodes in such an amount of time. Whether you’re working for a gaming studio and you need to deliver that amount of code and that many levels to your game, you know, there always has to be someone who kind of oversees the whole thing and makes sure it gets done and approves the artistic direction of it. And that, for music, that was the job I had. I mean, I was the creator of the mix. Some of it could be very simple. Like, just myself in the studio doing it on my own. Other times I had entire teams of people that I was directing, between the musicians, the assistant engineer, the engineer, the bands, the staff, because some of the bands have staff that come, and so on, and I have to make sure everything was running according to schedule and determine what needs to be done. Of course, you have to manage all that.

GERD JANSON

And from there on, working with Depeche Mode, you told us earlier on that because you were so heavily involved into all these mixing things that you stopped your DJ career. When did you pick it up again?

François K

Well, it’s interesting that you picked that particular quote, because right around the time I finished mixing Violator is when I also decided that I was missing DJing too much, that I just couldn’t do without it. Even though I had started a recording studio commercial operation – we had a whole team of people, technicians and engineers and all that, and invested a ton of money into building multiple studios in New York. And that was also a business of its own, which I had people running for me; a manager, you know, operations manager kind of thing and all that. Every time I heard new records that year, ‘89, I can remember LFO making a particularly strong impression on me, that sub-bass kind of sound. And some of the releases by bands like Deee-Lite or Sounds of Blackness, it’s just too strong, and that music was really calling me. So I decided to start again as a hobby, since I had so much on my plate between the work I was getting in the studio, plus having to manage and deal with the studio, including continuous expansion. The studio ended up being a three-room commercial operation, and we had clients in there ranging from C&C Music Factory, Todd Terry, Madonna, Whitney Houston, all those people, at the same time, and lots of hip-hop bands as well. It was quite intense. But I wanted to reconnect with the clubbing thing, because I felt that, as far as my mixing and all, I needed to still be in touch with that. And what better way to do it than to actually play a few records? And I was just missing it, really, so I started doing it by just playing for free for people at parties and stuff. And a few months later, I was in Japan, doing my first overseas gig.

GERD JANSON

How did that come about, then?

François K

People found out I was DJing again, and as soon as that happened I got tons of calls. The market has changed, because in the early ‘90s there were a lot of traveling DJs already. People being invited to play here, there and everywhere. And [it] had become a very international market. So those people were constantly looking for talent that they could book. And I got calls. The UK, Japan [and] Italy were the first markets that really wanted me.

GERD JANSON

And that didn’t feel strange to you? Because you mentioned earlier you’d come from a time where the clubs had their resident DJs, and you stayed at one club to play for your kind of crowd there.

François K

I was traveling a lot for production. It didn’t really seem especially weird that I would be asked to go play at big clubs. You know, because I was representing a certain New York sound or a thing, and they wanted that, so I didn’t find it strange.

GERD JANSON

And how would you describe that sound for us?

François K

Well, I think for a lot of people it’s just based on the records I worked on. Some of it is obviously rooted in disco, maybe for the early mixes I did, and then branched out into some of that sort of fusion electronic. We’re all talking pre-house here, OK? Sort of electronic records, like, the Yazoo, or records like that. And the D-Train was sort of an interesting thing because it was sort of proto-house. You know, very funky, very soulful, but different from disco because it didn’t have the lush strings and all the syrupy arrangements that a lot of the disco had. It was much tougher and grittier and street-like. So some of it was like that. I was working on all kinds of projects. I don’t know if it was that easy to qualify or define what I was doing, because I was trying to be flexible. I worked on a lot of reggae back in those years. I worked with Black Uhuru, Jimmy Cliff, Bunny Wailer, lots of different bands like that as well. And, you know, doing proper dub mixing, and so on. So I was just trying to do whatever I could to help all the acts that were brought to me do a proper version of what they expected. As I mentioned, it was a 12" remix for club, and other times it was album versions, or singles. I was certainly flexible enough to be able to do it.

GERD JANSON

I was also kind of aiming at your involvement with a club called Paradise Garage and its DJ, Larry Levan.

François K

Well, I only played there as a guest. That was really Larry Levan’s club, and he was the only one who ever played there regularly. The few of us who got asked to play was when Larry was out of town, or sick, or whatever. So I only got asked to play at the Garage a few times, like maybe eight or ten times. I was just there to fit in his shoes and play for his crowd, so I did what I could to keep the party going for Larry’s crowd, which I knew very well because I spent a lot of time there. And I guess the same way David Mancuso would ask me to cover for him at The Loft when he was taking off, and Tee Scott would ask me to play at Better Days when he was too busy or taking off. So I guess you could say in those years, which I’m talking about ‘80, ‘81, ‘82, before I stopped DJing, I was the replacement guy. The go-to replacement guy when you needed to take off. ‘Cause I didn’t really have a big residency of my own. And the reason for that is because I kept being in the studio so much, I really didn’t feel I had time. So yeah, the Garage was just an absolutely amazing venue. Private-membership club, which means that you cannot get in unless you’re a member. Which means that there is hundreds of people outside who try to get in but can’t. Well, they don’t come back after a while. There were not hundreds of people outside. But it thrived on the fact that it was underground, private, no liquor, no alcohol. Might strike you as strange that you have some of the best clubs going on where people are actually not intoxicated while they go there. Well, they brought their own, OK? Whatever they wanted to do, they did it on their own and it was nobody’s business. But I would say that there’s a big difference with when I see some people’s comments today, like I’m reading some message boards where people are just comparing their clubbing experience, and they’re saying, “Well, I can’t remember one time I went to a club and I wasn’t drunk.” So, I guess in their mind there’s an associative culture going on, where drinking and clubbing go together. The Paradise Garage was not about that. It was about music, celebration of music, a very deep, spiritual, heartfelt, and very intense and powerful experience. I guess you may have heard about it, or you may not, but there really isn’t a club like that today in existence, at this moment. There are big clubs. There are great DJs. But, to me, what’s missing is that community. Really, if I may say what I think was really significant about it, it would be that community grew around the club and it was a really astounding, absolutely incredible community of people, and they’re the ones that made the club so magical. And for whatever reason today, I’m not really gonna try to figure out why, communities such as that one do not exist today. Private. Where it’s just people who are members and the general public is not allowed. I guess those were different times. It’s hard to say. Now today, with Facebook and social media, people hyper- connected and hyper-critical, I’m not even sure it would be possible. Although I do have a fantasy of a club nowadays where you actually would force people to leave any electronic device in a locker in the front of the club, so that once they go inside – just like when you go to the opera or you go to something very special – you just focus on that and not be distracted constantly by other things. But, you know, that’s just a personal theory.

GERD JANSON

On the moment instead of the memory?

François K

I think these kind of shifts in the patterns of how people behave collectively are things that are bigger than all of us, and it’s really hard for anyone to even want to change them. But what you can do, however, is if you can afford it – just as the Paradise Garage did, because they had money in the beginning. They had some wealthy investors, who decided to put money as a seed money to see what happened with it, with no strings attached, and let them do their thing and give them time to build and evolve. The same way today I’m sure a club could be made where it’s private, and they’ve decided that you’re not allowed to use electronic devices inside the club. No camera, no shooting, no recording, no texting, no posting updates on Facebook and videos and all that, which is all good. And it’s fair enough that people want to do that but I think in the process of doing that, it sort of takes them away from being totally immersed, letting themselves loose into the music. So it makes for a different experience. And I’m not sure that would be good or not, but I think hopefully at some point someone will think that maybe it’s worth trying out.

GERD JANSON

And was that something you approached with your Body & Soul parties?

François K

No, we didn’t think anything. In the mid-’90s in New York, competition was really intense for the big weekend nights. Like, you had the Sound Factory and the Tunnel and the Sound Factory bar and all these clubs and rivalries. I mean, not to say anything of all the feuds between Junior Vasquez and Danny Tenaglia and this one and that one. There were all these people sort of biting each other and fighting for the same crowds and this and that. I think, for me, back in those years, I was just looking for a place where we could do our thing, without people telling us what to do. I mean, I didn’t want to be involved in anything that was on the weekend nights, like Friday night and Saturday night, which are big revenue nights for the clubs. And there’s a lot of pressure, you have to play very commercial, keep the crowds going. I wanted something where I could relax and feel very much at home and not have somebody looking over my shoulder and telling me what to do. So I met this English promoter who was trying to do a Sunday party, which, in 1996, was unheard of in New York. No one had Sunday parties. And we found a club downtown that was willing to rent us the space for very cheap. I mean, the owner of the club was, like, “These guys are crazy! They’re coming to do a party on Sunday?” Like, morning. When we started, it was a Sunday morning. We basically wanted to be an after-hours for the other night. Or at least that’s what was thought about when the party started. So the owner was like, “These guys are insane. I mean, how you gonna get people to come?” And we were like, “Look, don’t worry. We’ll just pay you your rental fee. Shut up. Just take care of what you do, because we are gonna take care of what we do, which is bringing people in, music, programming, whatever, atmosphere, decorations.” We decided to make sure from the beginning - and the same way I was talking about Depeche Mode owning their own recordings - from the beginning, from the very first time we set out, we made it very clear with the club that we didn’t want any interference. We were basically renting their premises. So they are not allowed to tell us, “No, you should play like this. You shouldn’t let this person in. You shouldn’t do this. You should do that.” You know what? We wanted nothing. We just wanted to be left alone, at peace, as far as having a small group of people come and have a really mellow, kind of anything-goes party. Where, if I don’t wanna mix and I don’t wanna beat-mix, because the songs I wanna play are not mixable, I could do it and not have 20 people go, “Oh my god, he’s not a DJ, he doesn’t know how to beat-mix.” You know? We just wanted to share great music that was in our hearts with our friends and not have anyone telling us how to do it. And the point I’m trying to illustrate here is that, whether it was about the Paradise Garage, whether it was Depeche Mode, whether it’s about Body & Soul - which obviously, we just played the headliner gig this weekend, this last Sunday, for the Southport Weekender for a few thousand people, and we’re still going 16 or 17 years on - whether it was all these examples, it’s always control of your own destiny that’s important. And time and time again, don’t expect business people, who are better at number-crunching and keeping the books, to have the creative vision that you are feeling inside you, the things that drew you to do this. The things that pushed you to stay up sleepless nights and countless hours, because it’s your passion. And when you’re trying to express that and share it with people, time and time again you’ll find that those who just invest the money side and take care of business administration, while it’s good and they have their place and you really need to make sure that they’re there to help you and keep it all together for you, they cannot interfere with your creative vision, and they cannot put themselves in the midst of you trying to realize that dream. And time and time again, all the situations and people that I’ve seen who are successful are those who managed very, very clearly to draw the line and define boundaries as to what the business and administration people are allowed to do and the creative and general freedom that they have otherwise, to do as they see fit, to develop their project and make it come to fruition. So in the case of Body & Soul, the first week we had 30 people, or 40. And I had at least three major-name DJs come to the booth and tell me exactly why it wasn’t going to work, and that I’d better change, that I shouldn’t have my friends come and play with me and we play as a team. That I should play this kind of music and not that. And who’s gonna wanna listen to this, and at these hours? And everybody was criticizing everything. It was great. And I took none of their advice. We just kept on doing what we did. The second week we had 55 people. The third week we had 75. Six months later, we had a room with a thousand people. And suddenly everybody was just, like, going berserk about this little party we had. We never had any plan. The only plan we had was just we wanted to do our own thing and be comfortable and share the music we love with our friends. And that was it. I’m sorry, there was no grand design about it.

GERD JANSON

And who are the other persons in that team?

François K

So that was Danny Krivit and Joe Claussell. I decided at the beginning of Body & Soul that I didn’t want to play by myself. I wanted to play as a team and invite friends and people that I really trusted, to play together. Which means we’re basically playing one record each, or we’re playing at the same time, like one is doing this, the other is doing that. Sort of like fiddling with the music and working the system somehow. And it was a lot of fun. And it still is a lot of fun. The point about this is that was like the way I felt. I mean, I was certainly inspired by David Mancuso from The Loft, who used to have these things where, during The Loft parties, he would go one-on-one, because at The Loft there’s no mixer. You just play a record, you let it end, and then you play the next record. The crowd claps and shows a lot of appreciation and then you put the next record on. Because Dave Mancuso doesn’t like mixers, like those things here, because they degrade the sound quality. And being a real audiophile, and not wanting to have anything in the way of having the music reproduced in the best possible way, felt that no mixer was a lot better. And he also felt that beat mixing was very restrictive. So, being that beat mixing only restricts you to play songs that are in the same tempo, at The Loft you could hear songs of any tempo, because there was no idea that the song that’s coming next has to be automatically beat mixed to the one before, which really, if you think about it, limits your choices. So because of that, David Mancuso was able to invite people, his friends, to just say, “OK, play the record. Play the next one.” And then he would play the next one after that. And then his friend would play the next one. And they would have musical conversations, playing records off of each other. And that was really inspiring. I started doing that with Larry Levan a little bit. We went on tour in 1992 in Japan and we started playing like that together. And it was really, really a great deal of fun. So when we got back to New York after the tour, we were actually planning on doing a night together, on a Sunday night, at The Loft. And unfortunately, Larry had some real bad health problems, and a couple of weeks later went to the hospital and basically passed away a month after that. There was really not much I could do about it. So what I’m trying to say, it was an idea I had quite early on, that I wanted to do something like that with people that I deeply trusted and felt strong musical affinity with. And I have to say, both Joe Claussell and Danny Krivit were people who I held in so much esteem and I had so much admiration for various reasons as DJs, so they were the natural ones that I was going to ask to play with me. And it just worked out. I don’t know. There was no real plan, except that we didn’t want to have any interference in how we were going to express our musical vision and share it with people there. I think the significant point about this particular situation would be that it illustrates, once again, that time and time again, in order for you to accomplish something that’s really special, you need to be given enough room to develop it and have the patience to grow it and see it becoming something with people. And the proof is that we’re still going with it.

GERD JANSON

And do you maybe want to play us something that you kind of connect with the Body & Soul aesthetic? Or a song that always makes you think of it.

François K

It’s, funny enough, difficult to do. Because, being so open-minded with our music policy means that we were just as likely to play some real biting techno, like Aril Brikha “Groove La Chord” or “Night Of The Jaguar” by DJ Rolando as we would be to play like the deepest, most spiritual afrobeat, or some really powerful, strong house. I mean, I think, if anything, there is one thing that we had pretty much a year in advance of it being released at the party that was really a very special song for us. You could say this has become one of our anthems.

(music: Nuyorican Soul - “It’s Alright, I Feel It!”)

François K

Yeah, I mean, this was one of the songs that we championed very early on. We asked Jocelyn Brown to come and do a live PA of it. She said she didn’t have the TV track because nobody ever requested that song. We were like, “Please, make sure we get it from Masters At Work,” and sort of brought the house down. She was just astounding. This is one of the staple Body & Soul tracks that we played from the beginning of the party in ‘96.

GERD JANSON

So, it’s Nuyorican Soul, right?

François K

Yes.

GERD JANSON

“It’s Alright, I Feel It!” Yeah, before we open it up to have some questions from the audience, you also do Deep Space on Monday night, which is kind of the other side of what you tried to approach as a DJ, right? It’s very, you mentioned earlier on, “cutting-edge.”

François K

Well, Deep Space is a party that started in 2003, as dub. Something that had to do with the aesthetic of dub. And trying to feature any kind of dubby approach to music. Such as, obviously the original Jamaican reggae, but not necessarily keeping at that. And trying to feature music that had mixes that really were in the spirit, as well as taking normal, regular songs and being able to process them and dub them out live, just like I’m doing in the studio but maybe in more simplified form. But very highly effective. Using a lot of different processing techniques to transform a song that’s pretty regular into something that can be quite spectacularly different. But not have it done in the studio beforehand; actually doing it in front of people. So that was the original intent. And it was, again, a very open music policy. I do remember playing Led Zeppelin the first party and had a whole bunch of people deciding that they’re never coming back. And that was fine with me, ‘cause I think in a way that was a litmus test. You know, there are a lot of people, whether they realize it or not, nowadays, even though we have all this technology and all these things available to us, for whatever reason, all these choices, all these options seem to restrict a lot of us to adopting much more conservative views on what they like, or what they listen to, or what they identify with. And Deep Space has always been about trying to unify all kinds of music through this common theme of having a dub aesthetic and sensibility, and finding the dubbing spirit in whatever it is that could be playing, whether it’s a vintage Euro-y track from 1975 in King Tubby, or whether it’s an Olivia Newton-John track. I kinda like the idea of not being bound by too much of the conventional wisdom that, well, people are one-trick ponies, they just do one thing and that’s all they do. So, in that spirit, besides setting sort of a general vibe of what I was doing with Deep Space, I also decided to invite a lot of different guests. Some people would be, you know, Detroit techno people, like Juan Atkins or Derrick May or Carl Craig. Some people would be people from the disco world, like Dimitri from Paris, or all kinds of DJs. I wasn’t trying to limit myself to one thing. I invited Brazilian drum & bass DJs, I invited Indian bhangra DJs. I tried to all bring it in to help people feel that, rather than looking at our differences, we should celebrate what it is that we have in common. And looking for an open-minded kind of crowd, and over the years of us doing that, we’ve been very lucky to have found such a crowd. Significant development of that was, of course, that around 2006, 2007, this new sound came out of the UK. Didn’t really have a name in the beginning but soon got to be called dubstep. And what was really significant about dubstep, at least from my perspective, is that as soon as I start hearing some of it, I was really up on that, Digital Mystikz and all these early kind of records. I started playing them, and I could tell right away that it was driving people mad. They were just not liking it. They were really reacting very violently against it. Like, I remember the first time I had Mala come, my light man quit. During the gig. He said, “I’m not gonna play for this. I can’t deal with it. Sorry.” And I had many of the people that are coming to Deep Space go, “Look, if this is the kind of shit you’re gonna play, I’m not coming back.” And I was like, “You know, in my heart, I feel that music is so strong, so powerful. It’s like bass as a religion. How can we go wrong?” And it’s like an extension of all the good things I like about dub. Exactly what the party’s trying to express. So, of course, for Deep Space, dubstep was a natural fit. And because so many people hated it, we were one of the only people in New York that wanted to book dubstep DJs. So by 2008, 2009, suddenly I could book Mala, I could book Joy Orbison, I can book Mary Anne Hobbs, or anybody pretty much I wanted, because nobody else is asking for them. And before you know it, little by little, the word got around that Deep Space also features sometimes a lot of dubstep, and we managed to really connect with those fans in that market and sort of help us gain a lot of new audience, so to speak. The same people that were hating dubstep five years ago are now coming back to me and telling me how great it is, but, you know? What’s the moral of the story with that? Well, again, stick to what you believe in in your heart. Don’t give up. Because sometimes being a bit early or trying to stay on the cutting edge will automatically mean that you’re gonna get slagged by people around you. Because they’re not looking for that edge. They’re looking for the comfort zone, for what they’re familiar with, what feels good now, not tomorrow. It all depends on what you wanna be. But I would just always encourage anyone to follow that intuition, follow that which is in you and tells you what’s really great and what you should be doing. That could be that you wanna do a retro disco night where you just play mid-’70s disco edits. All the same. But whatever it is you believe in, I think the most important thing is, at least from my perspective, that you should listen to that, and really try to coherently make it come to fruition and, again, have the patience to see it come. In the case of us, with Deep Space and dubstep, I think it’s a classic story, but come today I’m able to book Scuba. I’m able to book all these people who sometimes play much bigger venues, because we all made friends, and they understand that when it comes to Deep Space, they have a comfortable place to play in, and an audience, and they’ll feel great. So it’s really been a blessing for me. We, obviously now in our 10th year as well, so all very long-running events, which is also somewhat remarkable in a market that is very fickle and where there’s a lot of change and a lot of stuff that starts for a few months and just dies down. I just encourage anyone to stick to what you really believe in, because it doesn’t always come easy and sometimes it’s very frustrating, but the payoff is definitely worth having the patience and the determination to see it through.

GERD JANSON

And which Olivia Newton-John song would that be?

François K

Uh, Xanadu soundtrack. “Magic.”

GERD JANSON

I don’t know it. Do you have it?

François K

Sure.

(music: Olivia Newton-John – “Magic”)

François K

Sorry. I get goose bumps every time I hear this song.

GERD JANSON

Speaking of dreams, so questions from the audience, please.

Audience Member

Hi. How are you? What’s your advice on resting the ear and the brain when you go into an 11-day session of mixing a song? How do you refresh your ideas so you listen again with new thoughts?

François K

First of all, there are two different things. From working with a lot of professional engineers and other producers, I was lucky enough to realize early on that those who blast the music in studio usually don’t turn out very good mixes. And that all the really, really good engineers and mixers that are respected were all working on very tiny little speakers to do their balancing. Especially the vocal balance, but in general. When you work at a very, very low level - I’m talking about really low - it’s counterintuitive but it’s a lot easier to figure out if something’s missing from your balance. Like on a radio speaker or whatever, a very small [speaker], because if it’s missing, you won’t hear it at all. If it’s on a big, gigantic, $100,000 speaker system, it’s there. It might not be. And when you’re blasting anyway, everything, your ear sort of has this compression, where it’ll just bring everything sort of equalized to the same level. So you won’t perceive that it’s wrong and not quite loud enough, or too loud. So yeah, the secret for me is to work on very small speaker systems. I mean, obviously that’s not something you can do all the time, but if you keep referring back to those tiny speakers for a lot of your work, you can work much longer hours and not get ear fatigue.

The other thing to obviously do, which seems very obvious, is to take breaks, and to take the music outside. Listen to it in the kitchen, listen to it in your car, listen to it wherever you can, on headphones, on your phone, or whatever. I think, coupled to that, I find that whenever I do a decent mix, you really need to locate yourself. You need to give yourself a target. Pick three records that you think are really great-sounding records, that you’re very impressed with, and keep comparing what you do against those records. And it should become very obvious, very quickly what it is that you’re missing, or if you’re off-target a little bit. Just try to aim for something that’s coherent enough. That’s it.

Audience Member

Thanks.

Audience Member

Hello. Going back to the beginning of the ‘80s, it really feels like New York has a distinct and specific sound. Can you maybe talk a little bit about your maybe three biggest records that are representative of this?

François K

Well, I think one of the acts that we played earlier, D-Train, you know, to me what was really significant about D-Train is that it had this sort of electronic funk approach about it. Which was what many of the people who made house music later in Chicago acknowledge as one of their influences. So yeah, “You’re The One For Me,” by D-Train, could definitely define the sound for New York. Very soulful, but tough, gritty, driving. Then I guess the Dinosaur L, “Go Bang!”, is also pretty unique, because it’s completely in a zone of its own. I mean, you could argue that maybe there were bands like Rip Rig + Panic and other people in the UK that were sort of doing that, but I think Dinosaur L is also pretty unique. I guess, even though it might not be something that I’ve worked on, a record that I’ve always associated with the early ‘80s New York kind of sound would be “Planet Rock” by Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic Force, because when that came, there was nothing else that could touch that record. It’s like when you’re playing cards and you put the joker down, it’s like everybody else folds because that record was so strong. There was nothing that year that could top what “Planet Rock” did. So those three records right there, to me, would be a quick summary of three songs that defined early-’80s New York sound.

Audience Member

Thank you.

Audience Member

Hey, I was wondering if you could speak about your approach to the 12" mixes that you were doing in the studio and what you were thinking about would be happening on the dancefloor, and even if that was a consideration when making them.

François K

Well, I could write a book about this. I’m not sure I could summarize it in a few phrases. I guess, in general there were different approaches. Throughout the course of a career, obviously, things do change. Early on, I guess you could say, it was more about keeping the original music and just doing arrangement business, about figuring out a way to take the parts that I liked and feature them much more prominently in a record, which could involve changing the intro, extending instrumental sections, doing breakdowns, making the vocals appear at completely different times where they were and this and that. But later on, it became much more sophisticated, because I had the ability to sample or place everything anywhere I wanted, change the tempos, even change the key, whatever. I mean, it’s basically nowadays it’s a totally open, blank slate from the original tracks they give you, you could pretty much do anything you want. You could change a minor key into a major key, probably, even if you wanted to, and so on. So, I guess what it boils down to is just identifying the target audience that you want to please. I mean, you know, obviously if you want to make a dubstep record, you kinda gonna know what you set your tempo at. Because since you have that flexibility, you need to decide everything. You need to decide the tempo, you need to decide the key, you need to decide... you know, so on and so forth. And a lot of that will be dictated by what you decide you want to target your mix at. You can just do a standard house mix, you can make a downtown pull R&B / hip-hop kind of tempo mix, or Balearic. It all really is a function of what you’re trying to do. Say, if I was doing a techno record, I might want to strip everything down to a couple weird noises and set something that builds in a very hypnotic kind of manner. Other mixes, it might be vocal-oriented, obviously, you still wanna have sort of a song structure there. But you could also do a mix where it’s just a few vocal snippets here and there and just illustrate other things. It’s endless. I’m sorry. It’s not like I don’t wanna answer your question, but we could be talking about this for a month and I think everybody has other things to do.

Audience Member

Thanks.

GERD JANSON

More questions? No?

Audience Member

Hi, François. I’ve been trying to come up with a question that would be a good excuse for you to play “Go Bang!”, but you kinda just answered it in the last one, so I was just wondering if you could play “Go Bang!”. [laughs] I mean, what would be great, seeing as that, you know, as DJs, your mix is always the definitive mix that everyone draws for when they play, like, I just wanna maybe, in regards to the question that you just answered just now, whether we could listen to “Go Bang!” and maybe you could talk us through the process of what you’re punching in and out or how you approach doing a mix like that. Or maybe just play the song. Is that all right?

(music: Dinosaur L - “Go Bang!”)

François K

I could only tell you that this was very painful. The way the production was done, he basically had 24 tracks of 16 melodies and 12 songs all together on one tape. There were so many different instruments playing, everything all at the same time. I mean, you could hear it in the original version. It’s just, like, so chaotic. I had a lot of trouble with this one, because I needed to make things come into focus and even though it sounds very smooth and seamless, the pieces you hear and the progression of it come from different sections of the song. I had to pick, well, this part here and that other part there, and sort of make them fit. The tempo kept changing a little bit, and, whatever. It was a real challenge. I actually did a mix and I hated it, and I decided to go back in and do it again, which was quite rare in those days. But it was a very challenging situation, because basically you have, like, all these musicians improvising and adding all these layers of overdubs and things that seem completely unrelated, and it was really a thing where I had to kind of compose the song from those elements, like the different vocals. For example, when we played the D-Train earlier – those were very structured, they were well laid-out, everything came in exactly when it was supposed to be, and there were very few choices to be made. Obviously, there was a lot of balancing, effects, and drops, and I still ended up doing lots of stuff, but this here was incredibly challenging, because besides doing all the other stuff I did on D-Train, I also had to first make sense of, musically, all these completely different flavors. It’s like, if you have a ragtime band and a calypso band, and a trombone and tuba section, and all these things all on the same record. And it’s like, “Why did this guy do all this?” It was very difficult for me to make heads or tails of it. I mean, obviously I eventually did, and I loved it, but it required a lot more involvement on my side, because literally you could take any single track on this tape and make a whole song out of it. They’d be completely different from the other tracks. Some of them may not even have been playing in the same key. It was just, like, mass confusion, this record in particular. So, sadly, I think, an example of something like this would be very rare today, because I don’t know of anyone working in that kind of way in the studio today. So you’ll be safe. Don’t worry. [laughs]

GERD JANSON

Last chance to ask a question.

Audience Member

Hi. I was listening all the lecture, and the main idea that I got is, like, follow your impulse, your brain, your wishes. And I was thinking that, you know, I came from Buenos Aires, Argentina. It’s a country that it doesn’t have the structure than the States or Europe for release your stuff, for make your music, and I was, like, listening your experience, to move from France to the States, and I was thinking about all those things, and I would like to hear you say something about that. The first lecture that we have it was Richie Hawtin and he told something similar. He came from Canada to Detroit.

François K

Ten-minute car ride.

[laughter]

Audience Member

Sorry.

François K

Ten minutes by car.

Audience Member

Ah, OK. Yeah. OK. I don’t know.

François K

It’s like coming from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

Audience Member

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I understand. You had a long trip.

François K

Yes.

Audience Member

OK. So I was thinking about the whole thing and I don’t know if it’s a question, but...

Gerd Janson

So you‘re asking if you should move?

François K

You want me to recommend a specific airline, budget package, or ..?

Audience Member

No, no, no.

François K

I mean, look, where do you want to go?

Audience Member

No, no, I was thinking maybe it’s just if it’s follow your dreams, or is it an economic problem, or...?

François K

You know what, let me just use your question as a jumping point, since this is for everyone’s benefit. I’d like to expand on this idea of “follow your intuition.” There are times when I play where I’ve made sort of a pact with myself. I’m gonna play whatever comes to my mind. So I’m playing a song. Whatever it is that comes to me – no matter how crazy, different, out-of- context it may be - I made this pact with myself that sometimes I should be able to play a DJ set where I’ll put whatever I just thought about on. So I started doing this quite a number of years ago. Maybe seven, eight years ago. And sometimes it had some pretty crazy results, and I think sometimes people don’t like it at all, because they more and more appear to be conditioned to a continuous, steady, seamless, flattened-out delivery of the same kind of music for hours on end. When I play like that I could play anything, because it just comes to mind. But the point is, by doing that I notice that even if it sometimes had poor or unexpected results, the good part about it is that it’s encouraged me and it’s made me become more in-tune and listening to that sort of inner voice that suggests to me things that I should play. I think there’s some people in the room, like this guy over there, Mathew Jonson, that’s seen me do that, when I was playing in Tokyo. It’s sort of like stream-of-consciousness playing. You’re playing something and bang, you just go like... because that thing inside you told you to do it, and by doing that years and years, I’ve encouraged it, I’ve developed it, I’ve allowed it to become more and more vocal and speak to me more. The point is that, whatever it is that your dream is, you should do whatever you can to encourage it, and to give it ground to grow on, and to take root and to blossom. And I’m not sure what that way is going to be for you, but I think you should try to be in touch with yourself enough that you know what it is that you want to do. And then it’ll become very obvious where you need to go and who you need to do it with. It might be sometimes by accident, but I think the process – the important part is about searching and seeking and being open to things that will be unexpected, and being fearless enough to take that chance and make the move. So I hope this can answer your question.

Audience Member

Thanks.

Audience Member

I was originally ask about the “Go Bang!” process, but you went through that already. But going back to something, actually, a lot less insane, your “Happy Song or Dance” edit, which was based on the old Walter Gibbons routine, what was the process like back in the days when you used to have to do tape edits? What was that process like? Like, how did you actually physically do that?

François K

Well, I had never seen how it was done. So I took a pair of scissors and I just, like, started rubbing the tape against the head of the tape machine and figuring out which head is it, because there are three heads. “OK, mm. Maybe this one. OK, let me cut here. Oh no, not that one.” So then I figured out which head on the tape deck was where the playback was, then I just took the piece of tape and just take a pair of scissors and Scotch tape, because I didn’t know there were, like, editing blocks and stuff. It was all self- taught. So that one I did like that, I kinda did it by trial and error. And then I was like, “Oh OK, I see, OK,” cut it. And I didn’t even cut it at an angle. I cut it, like, straight ‘cause I didn’t now. And that’s how I did it. I hadn’t seen anyone else do it. I knew it was being done. I more or less had an idea that you needed tape and Scotch tape and that’s it. So, you know, the important thing is not so much the way you do it. I think it’s, again, having a creative direction or something I wanted to do, and in this particular case, I had heard Walter Gibbons do these very specific drum sequences with the intro of that song, and it was easy enough to recreate, and that’s all I did.

Audience Member

Cool. That was my back-up question. I really wanted to ask the other one, but it got jacked. Thanks.

Audience Member

Hello. You sort of mentioned, like, two things that in my mind don’t really go together but at the same time I think they do, which is working on big pop records, or stuff like Depeche Mode, and then doing a club night, or a club on a Sunday morning, playing the exact same music that you wanted to play. So was the whole pop thing, like, ever a concern or a worry or having to make something that labels will like, or that something that people will like and a label will receive it and be like, “This is good, we can do something with this,” and then it goes number one or whatever. How do you manage that? How did you manage that whole, it’s like that pop trash, that thing that’s always like...?

François K

It’s a team effort. You’re coming up in a situation where you have people who spent months in the recording studio agonizing over every bar of every track, or how the guitar solo’s going to go and the vocals and the layers and this and that, and a lot of them they take a very long time and lots of money to produce these records. You need to come to that game prepared with equivalent sort of talent. In other words, on my end, whenever I did things like this, I had to hire top-flight studios, top-flight engineers [and] top-flight musicians if I needed to re-do anything. We’re talking about a time when things would cost a lot of money. I did a remix for Mick Jagger where he kept wanting to change things, and I think it took two weeks in the studio. Each day in the studio cost at least two, three thousand dollars, plus the engineer, which was at least a thousand dollars a day. Plus, we hired the Brecker Brothers, we hired Dave Sanborn, we hired all these world-class musicians. The remix budget must have cost something like $45,000. But Mick Jagger wanted it. If he has the money to fund it, he can do whatever he wants. For a lot of these acts, they have a massive following. First of all, they don’t want to disappoint their fans. And second of all, they want to make sure that it’s right, until they feel that it’s the product that they want to come to market with. So if you wanna play that kind of game, so to speak, – it’s not a game – but if you wanna be in this kind of activity, you need to step and rise to the occasion by providing an equivalent level of service. In my case, when I was working on acts like that, I would hire a top-flight engineer, you know, a mix engineer. Top-flight studio. Like I said, those didn’t come cheap. I mean, this was certainly thousands and thousands a day. And those people are highly skilled, and they are able to help me express my creative vision of what I think should happen. And take me away from the technical details on what’s happening and allow me to focus on the creative end of things. And really, in the end, sometimes the artist would leave me to do whatever I wanted. Other times, they were so heavily involved in trying to look over my shoulder that I couldn’t do anything, but I got paid anyway. It’s just, like, you know, something you do. If Justin Timberlake or Beyoncé or somebody like that is going to call you tomorrow to work on them, you don’t think you’re going to do it?

Audience Member

No, no, yeah, I’ll do it. For me, it’s just complicated, to know...

François K

OK, but here’s the thing: Are you gonna do it with your set-up at home, on your little computer or whatever, or you may have a studio and I may not know, but the difference is that the situations I was describing to you, I was, as a producer or as a mix producer, going to professional facilities with people, like sort of making a team. I was just putting that team together to put the project into a situation where I could deliver a real high-quality product. If Beyoncé or somebody like that is going to call you today, do you know who to go to do that, or do you need to, or do you feel confident enough that you can do it all at home on your computer, and you’re gonna get the same results I was getting?

Audience Member

No, no, I will definitely get people, and I know the people that I want. Yeah, I think so. But my question’s a little bit more like.. [If] you‘re working on a mix or something, and adding an element, like a kick drum or whatever, how do you realize, what’s the point where you’re like, “OK, I’m gonna stop this, because the only reason I’m adding this kick drum is ‘cause I think somebody’s gonna want it here. I don’t really want it here.”

François K

It’s a very open question, in the sense that it depends on who you’re working with, and depends on the context of what you’re trying to deliver. In other words, if you’re hired to do a tech house mix or something, or is it that you’re hired to do an album version for the artist? What is your question about? The album version? Or a remix? Those are vastly different things. I mean, it’s a matter of context. In other words, you, as the producer, you obviously have to know what the market wants and what the artist may want, and what you want. You have to reconcile all these different things and figure out how to make it work. And the reason I was talking about the intuition before, on the other question, is because in a way it relates to something which I think is very deep, which is a lot of times you already have the solution in you, but getting it out of you is the hard part.

Audience Member

When you were talking about some of your mixes went to number one, and that kind of stuff. Obviously, you had a club night, and it was very underground, and you guys were just playing whatever you wanted. How did you manage the integrity being number one...

François K

That was not at all at the same time.

Audience Member

That wasn’t the same time?

François K

Not at all. Fifteen years apart.

Audience Member

OK, fair enough. So when you was getting those mixes that were going to number one...

François K

I mean, I was still playing at underground clubs, but it was not my own night. I was just guesting at other people’s.

Audience Member

So when you was doing a mix that got to number one, or got that kind of attention, did you go into the studio with the idea to get a mix that was gonna have that commercial appeal, or was it just a situation that it just happened?

François K

I’m sorry. I never, ever work like that. In other words, there was a very definite audience that I was targeting my work for. Which was, like, say, maybe the Garage and Loft and general New York dance crowd. As long as those people were OK with it, then I was fine. But you see, the thing in those days, the radio stations, like WBLS, Frankie Crocker, they would keep going to all the clubs during the weekend, and, like, say, he would go to the Garage and he would hear Larry play something really hot. It was on the radio six hours later, on heavy rotation, ten times a day. Now, this doesn’t happen anymore. But in those days, you could have something happening in the club that literally could be on the radio hours later, played for millions of people. And what I’m trying to say is there was this link between the underground, real raw kind of private clubs and all that, and the mass market. And then, from that radio play, of course there was an incredible demand and the labels had to rush- release the stuff. And they would go on to sell millions sometimes. Hundreds of thousands or millions. And that influenced the public’s taste. It kinda swayed the general public to really like something. So, you know...

Audience Member

Sounds like a good time. It’s not like that now, for sure.

François K

Because of that, then the bigger pop acts and the established artists were taking notice and going, “Well, for my record, I want to get the guy that did this.” That’s kinda how it worked. But doesn’t it sort of still work like that a little bit?

Audience Member

I mean, I’ve done some mixes myself, and in terms of getting a mix, like you said, in this time, sometimes you do it on spec. And if you’re gonna deliver a mix, then it has to have some kind of appeal to a certain level of the market. Well, where I come from right now you would have a certain market in mind when you’re doing what you’re doing it, and it probably would be beyond just the underground at times.

François K

The thing is, if you really want to look at – since you’re asking me about something that happened in the early ‘80s, you’re coming up against a different element today, which is what I would call market fragmentation. In those days, as a DJ, as a working DJ, I would go to the record store. If there were 20 or 30 new records a week, that was a lot. Records would stay in my playlist for months. And many DJs would be playing the same records. When many DJs play the same records and we play them for a long time, that means that there are hit records being created, because everybody’s listening to the same thing and it creates popularity. And I think the way this relates to the situation today is completely different, because there is such an incredible amount of new releases and new stuff coming out through the pipeline that, as working DJs, we can easily listen to two or three hundred records a day and still not go anywhere near the amount that’s being made. And it’s making us play records for much shorter periods of time. Like, I think nowadays, on the average, if I have a good song, maybe I’ll play it for three weeks and then I move on to another song. It relates back to the old question, “Is the human brain really capable of following such an incredible, break-neck pace?” I personally always thought, even back in those years, that in order for things to stick to people, they have to hear it a certain amount of times, to get familiar with the melody, to really absorb it, understanding and deeply feel it. You don’t necessarily like something the first time. But because of this fragmentation and the incredible amount of competition, it’s given rise to people making tracks that will be easy to access. They don’t have maybe as much depth as the old ones did, because the old ones took time to absorb, and it required weeks and weeks to get used to it, and finally understand, like, even like “Go Bang,” I can tell you, the first time I heard the thing, I was like, “You want me to work on what?!” Like, it was such a mess. You know, I did it as a favor. But whatever. The point is, nowadays, because people seem to have, collectively, very short attention spans, and there’s so much choice and things available, and there’s so little time slots available in your playlist to keep playing the same recurrent things, you don’t give people a chance to absorb it, for them to become familiar with it. All these factors converge, and they make it a lot harder to cut through in the same way that I might have. So I’m trying to say this for everyone’s benefit, but I think we’re discussing things that happened 20 or 30 years ago. The situation was vastly different from what it is today, and even though I was very successful back then with the things I did at that time, I personally harbor doubts as to whether I would be successful today in the same way, just because there would be so much more competition. And to be honest with you, and I’m not gonna mince my words about it – I was a drummer, and I decided to shift gears and change directions and do a DJ thing because it was so much easier for me to do. And when I went from my drummer auditions being standing in line with 75 other people, when I went to the DJ audition there was only three people. And of course I beat them hands-down because I was a musician, and I knew how music’s supposed to mix, and all that. But if I was in that situation today, I wouldn’t want to go into music. I would create videogames. I would do 3D mapping, modeling. I would do other things that are, where there is less competition. I can hire a thousand musicians to do things for me. Because they’re all dying to get any opportunity to do work. But I think it’s clear that, career-wise, everyone needs to identify what it is that they’re trying to accomplish. And in my case, even though it broke my heart not to be able to keep going as a drummer, because that’s really what I was originally about, I still found a way to, like, sort of channel all my energies towards other activities that were closely related to that. But it was just a matter of trying to go around the obstacle rather than keep trying to hit it, you know, head-strong. And I think I would’ve probably, I don’t know, maybe I would’ve made it that way, but I don’t think so. And I think if I was in this situation today, I doubt I would try to be a DJ/producer. Because, like, I go down outside my apartment, the laundry guy is saying, “Hey, listen to my CD.” And then the taxi driver will say, “Hey, you know, I just made a new track.” And I was, like, “Whoa.” I mean, I respect that it’s great that all this technology has given us access to so much power and so many tools to do stuff, but what I’m trying to say is that at least some of you, even though you’re all passionate about music, obviously, at some stage you kind of have to reckon that the way something’s gonna happen for you is going to be by doing something that makes sense, makes you unique, in-demand and so on. If I was in that position today, I would design software. I don’t really have time to get into the theory of why I think that, but it’s a matter of layers. It’s like the food chain kind of layers. Like, it used to be that music was made by musicians and that was the final link in the food chain, but then DJs went above that and used music to create new raw material and make new stuff out of that. That used to be the final link in the food chain. Now, I don’t think DJs are the final link in the food chain, either. Now it’s people who create the software that DJs use. So I think you need to realize that and keep moving up that food chain as it evolves. And for anybody who’s really looking to make a career in that, it’s very important to be mindful of that. I’m not suggesting that you give up music at all. I’m just saying that people be honest with themselves and see what opportunities are really out there for them. I mean, if you have one chance in ten, it’s better than one chance in a thousand. It may be slightly different for live bands, because they can go touring and get their own audience and fan base on their own, but for DJing, I see it as something that’s incredibly difficult to achieve as far as differentiating yourself from all your competition, and making, or remixing and all that, making a product that is that different, and that much better than other people’s. And the reason why that is difficult is because I think the consumers, the customers, are getting inundated with such an incredible, endless flow of free stuff that it’s difficult for anything to really impose itself on the market as it used to do when there weren’t many hit records. So, food for thought, and things that maybe some of you might want to reflect on. But even though this is Red Bull Music Academy, and I’m very conscious that we should stick and limit ourselves to music, I personally would recommend that anyone who’s really seriously thinking about this should find new and innovative ways to design software systems that thousands of people can use, that include music, and that deal with musical things, but will allow their app to be sold on Apple App Store or things like that. To me, is what I would do today if I was looking to get [successful], but still related to music, but not the old way.

Audience Member

Thank you.

GERD JANSON

All questions answered? Good. Then, Mr. François Kevorkian, thank you very much for being here. [applause]