Mike Paradinas

Uncompromising, ever-changing and always intriguing – that’s Mike Paradinas in a nutshell. Producing innovative and idiosyncratic music since the early 1990s, he has recorded under aliases, including μ-Ziq, Tusken Raiders, Kid Spatula and Jake Slazenger. His work – which takes in everything from hazy pop to breakcore – has been released by Virgin, Clear and Rephlex, and now he heads up his own eclectic and highly respected imprint, Planet Mu. In this lecture at the 2006 Red Bull Music Academy in Melbourne, the genre-defying auteur speaks about running a visionary label and his love affair with the UK rave scene.

Hosted by Nick Dwyer Audio Only Version Transcript:

Nick Dwyer

Right now, it brings me great pleasure to introduce you to a man who’s released many, many incredible records… and worn many, many, different hats. You might know him as Jake Slazenger, Kid Spatula, μ-Ziq – with the funny little symbol – and has released records on labels like Rephlex, Astralwerks, and of course his own Planet Mu label. Can we have a nice round of applause and holler for Mike Paradinas.

All is well with you, mate?

Mike Paradinas

Yeah.

Nick Dwyer

One thing’s sure, judging from your accent you’re a long way from home right now?

Mike Paradinas

That’s right, the UK. I flew in a couple days ago. Just getting over the jet lag.

Nick Dwyer

Whereabouts in the UK would home be for you?

Mike Paradinas

Worcester, which is just south of Birmingham, Midlands, the middle of the country.

Nick Dwyer

How long have you been based in Worcester now?

Mike Paradinas

About ten years.

Nick Dwyer

Nice, good city?

Mike Paradinas

There’s not much of a music scene in there but it’s quiet. Good place to bring up kids and the property’s a lot cheaper.

Nick Dwyer

Yes. I think, put it this way, to get a good introduction to what you’ve been doing for the last few years is to play something from the label. Obviously, a lot of production over the years but the main thing that’s been keeping you busy is Planet Mu. Tell us about Planet Mu.

Mike Paradinas

It was a label I started about eight years ago because I was signed to Virgin, and wanted to release my friends’ music. I set up a sub-label on Virgin, on a major label, but it wasn’t really working out. I wanted total control, myself, so I went to an independent distributor, and set the label up, which is a lot of work, but if you can do it, it’s well worth it to get total control.

Nick Dwyer

When you say it wasn’t working out, major labels, they’re great at doing big albums but ...

Mike Paradinas

Yeah, they want an immediate return on their money. If you’ve got a longer-term outlook, it’s better to do it yourself. You know that if you’re working with music you love, then you don’t care if you lose money so much, until you’ve lost all of it. Then you care.

Nick Dwyer

Was it hard to set yourself up independently?

Mike Paradinas

Yeah, it was at the time because a lot of distributors were changing at that time. There was one called RTM, which Mark [Pritchard] knows about, because your label is with them. They got taken over by another distributor. I had just signed a deal with RTM, then I lost it straight away, so I had to find another deal. I never put a record out with them. It took another year of work to get a distribution deal, but once that was set up, then it was all pretty easy.

Nick Dwyer

What have you got right here?

Mike Paradinas

This is a test pressing of a record that’s coming in November. We’ve started releasing grime and dubstep in the last 3 years. This is a Loefah remix of Pinch. I should stick it on, and see what happens.

Pinch - “Punisher” (Loefah's SE25 Remix)

(music: Pinch - “Punisher” (Loefah’s SE25 remix) / applause)

Nick Dwyer

Once again, the name of the artist on that is ...

Mike Paradinas

That is DJ Pinch. It’s a remix by Loefah, part of the DMZ crew, who are putting on parties in Brixton every couple of months. Digital Mystikz and Loefah are part of that crew. I’ve been going to their parties and trying to ... It’s the only interesting electronic music happening in the London at the moment, that seems vibrant. The parties have got a really good vibe, and that has been missing a lot in the last eight or nine years, since the rave scene fell off. Drum & bass I never got much in to after jungle stopped. Up in to, about ’98, I was in to drum & bass, but after that, this decade it’s not really been working for me.

Nick Dwyer

The vibe at the clubs ...

Mike Paradinas

Yeah, it’s a really good vibe there. There’s positivity I guess. I don’t know. The bass is good.

Nick Dwyer

Yeah.

Mike Paradinas

I like the music, mainly.

Nick Dwyer

What are the nights for you?

Mike Paradinas

There’s FWD>> and DMZ, really the two. I’ve never been to FWD>> because I can never get down to London for that but DMZ is on a Saturday, and I’m working through the week.

Nick Dwyer

A good sound rig is definitely a must with these nights.

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah. You need to be able to hear the bass and get the warmth, so they’ve been using reggae systems, reggae sound systems and putting them in. There’s a good one at DMZ, which is the only club I’ve been to for this sort of music.

NICK DWYER

You’ve got to look at the whole evolution of what was once known as UK Garage, and it will all kind of genre-fied and subgenre-fied. For a lot of people that weren’t keeping up with it so well, you can kind of lose track of what’s going on. I’m sure a lot of people do know that, but for people that don’t, some people still think a lot of this music is grime, dubstep. At one point do the split off, and what are the different ...

MIKE PARADINAS

I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. About 2002, it was hard for me. It was all still garage, UK garage. I started seeing a lot of MCs. It started off in pirates, really. The MCs were spitting over the tracks. It was only about then, 2001 and 2002, that I think the records started being released without MCs on it. I think the first one I saw was Sharky Major, and stuff like Wiley and Pay As You ... Pay As You Go at that time. I think Roll Deep started after that. They’re the main ones. Dubstep started at about the same time I think with the Tempa label, Vehicle. All that lot. I don’t know. I just bought some records and I was into them.

NICK DWYER

What was [inaudible].

MIKE PARADINAS

At that time, we were just releasing electronic stuff. I was buying a lot of this because it was interesting me, and we were releasing ... At that time, we had just re-released Remarc, who is a junglist. We had re-released his records from ’94 and ’95, ’96. I was bringing a new drum & bass audience into the electronics, which we had been releasing. At the moment, we still release a lot of electronic stuff. Now, a bit of dubstep and whatever I’m interested in. If I get sent demos, I just listen to as many as I can. Whatever I’m into, I ring them up and talk to them and see if we can work something out to release it.

NICK DWYER

How many demos do you get in on average in a week?

MIKE PARADINAS

I don’t know. Maybe about 50 a week. It’s quite a lot.

NICK DWYER

Do you make a point of making sure you listen to all of them?

MIKE PARADINAS

No. [laughs] I would love to, but I did have to throw away a whole load which I hadn’t listened to because they were from three years ago. I had still never listened to them, so I felt a bit bad, but then it did clear a big space in the kitchen. I could cook again.

NICK DWYER

Going right back to you, when did your first forays into the musical world kick off?

MIKE PARADINAS

Probably listening to Kiss FM in London, was ... I had been in a band, playing keyboards in a band, and I wasn’t that excited about doing that, and when I heard electronic music, stuff like house and acid, on the radio, that got my interest back.

NICK DWYER

Blue Innocence, I believe, was the name of the band. Any good stories with your band days?

MIKE PARADINAS

No. That’s the end of that. It’s a dividing line. I was still playing with them when I was releasing stuff on Rephlex, which was ’93, but it’s not interesting musically. The singer wasn’t very good. There was no future with that. We did almost get signed, actually.

NICK DWYER

You nearly got signed?

MIKE PARADINAS

By ... What’s his name? Dave Stone or John Stone? The guy who ran SOUR which was a jungle label at the time. He had a rock label as well, and he did A&R for Parlophone and stuff, but our singer was just shit. I realized that, but he didn’t, so I had to leave. It was pretty sticky.

NICK DWYER

When you’re talking about KISS FM, for you, what were the radio shows that [you were listening to]?

MIKE PARADINAS

It was Colin Faver, really. I got into in 1990 and ‘91. He was playing hardcore and acid and stuff; and then Colin Dale a bit later on, who was playing Detroity stuff.

NICK DWYER

At what point were you going about your first forays into making music yourself, inspired by ...

MIKE PARADINAS

I’ve been making music myself since about ’85 or ’86 when I got my first synth. I had just been borrowing a four-track and doing little things myself all that time. I think I bought a four-track in ’88; in ’87, maybe, and was doing little experiments then; demos for the band I was in and little electronic stuff, little bits of guitar stuff. I had a drum machine then as well, so it was a lot of putting a drum machine through a delay pedal and pissing about with it, basically.

NICK DWYER

When the music project started, it was originally you and a partner from the band?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah. When I started doing electronic music with computers was probably ’91, and there was a guy, Frank, who was a bass player in the band. He had a computer. So basically, I had my synth and my drum machine, and I borrowed his synth, and we got together mainly because he had the equipment and he let me use it. We wrote a few songs together, but in the end, he had to go off to university in Wales. I stayed in London. He wasn’t that into doing it. He just wanted to do his own thing, so we split amicably. We’re still friends.

NICK DWYER

As you mentioned before, one of the big things that happened that got your name out there to a whole, huge audience, was the hook-up with Rephlex.

MIKE PARADINAS

Huge? It’s not huge.

NICK DWYER

How did that [encounter] with Rephlex come about?

MIKE PARADINAS

I sent him a demo, and he rang me up and said, “Can we release it?” I said, “Yeah. That would be great,” and it happened.

NICK DWYER

That was it?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah. After a few years, it happened. That was probably the beginning of ’92, and it did take about a year-and-a-quarter, or a year-and-a-half, to get the record out. By the time it came out for me, it seemed like ages and years because at that time music was moving pretty fast in the rave scene. It was techno or whatever, but running a label now, I understand a lot more about cashflow, which I think was the problem at the time. Putting it out takes me a good six months or sometimes a lot longer to get something out, but I try and be as quick as possible because I know how frustrating it is for artists to sit on stuff.

Nick Dwyer

For you, at that time, you were talking about Rephlex, and Aphex Twin, and all that. Was it fairly inspirational for you as a producer?

Mike Paradinas

It was because at that time people were making really inspirational music. Knowing Aphex Twin at that time, making an album with him as well, was ... Because I was a big fan of his stuff as well. It was exciting.

Nick Dwyer

How many collaborations have you done over the years?

Mike Paradinas

I’ve worked with a few people. Aphex was the first… I’d worked with Frank before that, and been in a band, and stuff, so I was used to working with people. I’d worked with Luke Vibert since, which some times it doesn’t work out, and in that case it didn’t really work out musically. Jochem, who’s Speedy J, a techno producer from Rotterdam. I’ve worked with him. We did an album together. I’ve worked quite a few of my artists on the label, just pissed about. Gone round to their house and done tracks together, like Shitmat, Tim Exile, and Vex’d, people like this. I’ve been around the studios, and we’ve worked on beats. Nothing’s been released.

Nick Dwyer

Maybe, possibly, at some stage in the future, some of this will see the light?

Mike Paradinas

Maybe. I doubt it.

Nick Dwyer

In terms of Richard Aphex Twin though, he actually hasn’t collaborated with that many people.

Mike Paradinas

Yeah, he’s collaborated with Luke Vibert and Squarepusher, but apart from that ... He’s collaborated with most of his friends, probably all of them. I think our one’s the only one that was released as an album. I think he did a track with Squarepusher that came out, and maybe Luke ... No, that didn’t come out.

Nick Dwyer

Did you learn a lot from him, working in the studio?

Mike Paradinas

No.

Nick Dwyer

At the time? Not at all?

Mike Paradinas

Yeah, maybe. I liked the way he danced when he made music.

Nick Dwyer

There you go.

Mike Paradinas

That was pretty much most of what I remember was his attitude ... We didn’t really speak in the studio. It was pretty silent. We knew what we were doing. He would work on a mixer, I would work on the computer, and that’s how we did it. He would do one part, he would do a bassline, then I would do the next bit. It was like an Atari at that time. This was before the days of Macs. This was ’94, so it was all MIDI. I would do a bassline, then he would do the drums, or this bit. We didn’t have to speak, it was pretty obvious we did it 50/50.

Nick Dwyer

What followed the Rephlex thing, you got signed to a major label. Tell us a little bit about that.

Mike Paradinas

Yeah, what happened is I did these remixes for Virgin Records for an indie band called The Auteurs which were a jangly guitar band, or whatever. I knew their manager and he asked me to remix a track of theirs. I started remixing it. Each time I wasn’t happy with it, so I did another one, and another one. In the end I had these six tracks, which I’d done. I wasn’t really happy with them so I sent off to the manager. Tony played them to David Boyd, who was the A&R man for Virgin. He was really in to them. They came out, I got a bit of money. That was the first bit of money I actually got paid for ever doing anything for music. I moved out of my mum’s house and rented a place. That was good. It got released as an album in the end on Virgin. Then they wanted to sign me on the strength of the sales of that remix pack. They just released the six remixes. That was good.

Nick Dwyer

What kind of deal did they try to lock you in to?

Mike Paradinas

The bastards tried to lock me into a six-album deal for no money. No, I got an advance. That’s the thing about major labels is that you don’t get so much per unit, as they call them, but you do get an advance, so it’s worth ... If you want a big pile of money. I don’t know if they still sign people, majors. Do they? No. It’s all pop now, isn’t it? In those days, they did signs at underground dance things, or interesting electronic things, because it sold a fair bit. I think nowadays, it’s changing a lot. Stuff basically sells less now. [Phone rings in audience] Who didn’t turn their phone off?

I don’t know if it would happen now, but at the time, yeah. I got a nice advance, but then after that, it would never recoup. I did three or four albums for them, and it worked pretty well. I never had any problems with artistic control. They were always nice guys. I was with the same A&R man through however long it was. About seven years I was with them. It was all a pretty good relationship and everything. It worked out pretty well.

NICK DWYER

Did you have a lot of creative freedom during this whole time, or did you …

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah. Basically, they let me release what I wanted, so I was happy with that. In the end, they had to buy Mariah Carey out, and I got dropped.

NICK DWYER

It was Mariah’s fault.

MIKE PARADINAS

Yes. Totally. Everyone got dropped, except the Chemical Brothers… and the Verve.

NICK DWYER

The Verve. They stayed.

MIKE PARADINAS

Or Richard Ashcroft. He stayed.

NICK DWYER

You had many, many different aliases going on. It seemed like it was a lot of different projects happening. Tell us about what projects were going on at the time.

MIKE PARADINAS

Can I remember? Fuck. There was μ-Ziq. It was the name I was signed to Virgin under, so I carried that name on from Rephlex onto Virgin. I was writing those albums than with Warp and Clear, it was Jake Slazenger, which was a more electro-funk sound. I did a few 12”s for other labels under different names and stuff. That was it, really. It was just ... If you worked for another label, they wanted a different name, because they didn’t want to waste the money promoting different names, I think. Each label it was a separate name. That’s the reason behind it.

NICK DWYER

During that whole time, what was your approach to production? Would you walk into the studio and go, “Right. I’m feeling a bit Jake at the moment,” or, “I’m feeling a bit Gary,” or you just go in there?

MIKE PARADINAS

Something like that. It was just like, if you did a track, and maybe later, you would realize what you could put it out under. I was making loads of tracks on the Atari every day, and was pretty productive at that time, during the ’90s. Less so now because I’m running the label. It was a good time for that. I think the Atari, with MIDI, was a lot quicker to write tracks because if you turned it off you lost everything. There were no hard disks ... Well, there was a hard disk, but you couldn’t save onto it. It was all floppy disk. You couldn’t fit a song on the computer. Could you? You could. Not on the 1040.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

[inaudible]

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, You couldn’t fit audio on there. I don’t know. It was all on floppies for me. You couldn’t fit the sound. It was all MIDI, so you had to ... You fit the sequences on there, but when you reloaded it, it would sound totally different for some reason. I like to put it all onto that before the end of the day.

NICK DWYER

It was very much the situation back then, if you went into the studio you would tend to finish things off.

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah. You would have to finish that day; otherwise, you would lose everything, pretty much. The floppy disks were pretty unreliable in those days. You couldn’t guarantee you could load the song up again, basically.

NICK DWYER

How long would it take you to finish off a tune back then?

MIKE PARADINAS

At least 20 minutes. At most, three hours.

NICK DWYER

No more than that.

MIKE PARADINAS

Sometimes, it was a few days, if you were working later on cutting up breaks and stuff like that. You would have to spend days doing stuff; a few days to finish tracks.

NICK DWYER

Aside from Atari, what else did your setup look like?

MIKE PARADINAS

Back then, it was drum machine ... It was all the outboards. It was all MIDI. You had a sampler, eventually had a sampler, and a couple of synths, drum machines.

NICK DWYER

How long did you keep your setup as that, and at what point did you start …

MIKE PARADINAS

I got a Mac in about 1999 and moved over then. Before then, it was all Atari. It was a bit of a headfuck when I moved to audio sequencing because it was totally different. I had to relearn everything, so it took quite a while to get my head around it. I’m just used to one way of working. I’m not very into technology, actually, which isn’t the best thing when you’re an electronic musician. I just like what I know. Once I’ve learned it, I tend to keep to the same thing. It doesn’t really matter what I use. To me, I just learn whatever is about, and try to make music with it.

NICK DWYER

Do you think to a certain degree that it’s the best way to approach production, especially with electronic music? It doesn’t matter how many bits of gear, or plugins, or whatever you have. It’s how well you know what you’ve got.

MIKE PARADINAS

It depends what sort of person you are. For me, it confuses me to have more than three things in front of me, whatever I’m doing. I like to keep things simple. I like one screen. At the moment, I’m being confused by the four channels on the mixer. For instance, we’ve got the CD and the turntables and two computers.

NICK DWYER

[inaudible]

MIKE PARADINAS

That’s why it’s out of view. You’ve taken it out of my vision.

NICK DWYER

It’s to calm things down a bit. Should we listen to another track from the label?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, we could. That was a dubstep thing, so that’s one of the latest. I don’t know.

NICK DWYER

Have you got any of your music from that whole period? No?

MIKE PARADINAS

I have on that laptop.

NICK DWYER

Is there anything you’d like to play?

MIKE PARADINAS

There’s a Venetian Snares. Where is that? That could be a bit more of a ... breakcore sound, which is big in Europe. And a little bit in America, I don’t know. Is breakcore big in America?

Nick Dwyer

Again, it’s one of the biggest problems with electronic music, with everything genrefied, and sub-genrefied.

Mike Paradinas

Yeah.

Nick Dwyer

For people that don’t know, how would you describe breakcore?

Mike Paradinas

I’ll just play it, I think…

Nick Dwyer

And whereabouts is Venetian Snares from?

Mike Paradinas

He’s from Canada.

Venetian Snares – “Twirl”

(music: Venetian Snares – “Twirl” / applause) 22:46

NICK DWYER

So Venetian Snares?

MIKE PARADINAS

That was Venetian Snares. He works in different time signatures. If you actually listened to that, you might have realized it was five beats to a bar or ten or something. That’s his gimmick. It’s sort of jungle in weird time signatures.

NICK DWYER

That was one of the most exciting things about what was happening with jungle and everything, was producers actually spent a lot of time cutting up breaks and gave it a certain kind of energy. Is that, to a certain degree, what was happening with the UK hardcore thing and the energy of jungle, something you were trying to keep alive?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, it’s part of what I got into in music and hardcore was sort of the nuttiness of it, that anything goes, all the samples and the breaks as well. So it sort of mixed up a lot of things in UK music like sound system… and reggae sound system-type lineage and then hip-hop as well and techno, I suppose, was sort of speeding up of all this with taking drugs, I suppose. So it all got, you know, I was really into that sort of mix-and-match sound and then when jungle came along a couple of years later, it was like really sort of a new sound. You couldn’t have predicted it, really. What they were doing with breaks was pretty original, so I was really into that, yeah.

NICK DWYER

Your music’s always kind of been on the periphery of all these different scenes taking influence from them but, I don’t know, I guess kind of twisting it into some mutant hybrid.

MIKE PARADINAS

I just steal. Yeah.

NICK DWYER

Did you ever see yourself releasing more or making more kind of conventional music that you would see played at these kind of parties?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, sometimes. I wasn’t very good at doing it, though, so I just prefer to make the stuff I was happy doing, which always sounded a little bit more idiosyncratic or whatever.

NICK DWYER

Yeah.

MIKE PARADINAS

So, I just carried on doing what I was doing really, and it didn’t ever really get played in the jungle parties.

NICK DWYER

Yeah. At what point did the Planet Mu start kind of taking a life of its own?

MIKE PARADINAS

When I started up independently, it was ’98. A life of its own, what do you mean?

NICK DWYER

In terms of, I mean if you look at...

MIKE PARADINAS

I have to be there to run it.

NICK DWYER

If you look at the output of the last, kind of, few years, it’s been huge.

MIKE PARADINAS

Right. At what point did I start releasing more records?

NICK DWYER

Yeah. At what point did you focus your intentions more on the label?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, probably in about 2001 or something, I think, I started spending more time doing that. I suppose... I didn’t think about it, really. I suppose I must’ve spent more time doing that and less on doing music, and it sort of all...

NICK DWYER

And it’s still happening now? You’re kind of less in the studio and more…

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, I’ve been making a bit of music this year. Not too much, you know, but I sort of make a bit occasionally. I do tend to work nine-to-five on doing the label, so that’s the main thing for me at the moment.

NICK DWYER

Tell us, what would a typical day at the label look like? What’s involved?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, I sort of go onto the Internet and sort of talk to the artists really on AIM and iChat, and I have to do accounts like pay them money and work out how much you sold. Talking to distributors is a big part of it, occasionally listening to demos and sorting out what you’re going to release, sorting out art work. It’s a pretty diverse thing. You have to do every part of it: ringing up manufacturers, getting the best price, sorting all that out.

NICK DWYER

You’re running everything by yourself at the moment?

MIKE PARADINAS

Pretty much, yeah. Press is done by someone else, and obviously, distribution is as well. But yeah, I do pretty much everything myself.

NICK DWYER

Right. Who’s distributing your records at the moment?

MIKE PARADINAS

SRD, which is Southern Record Distributors out of London, and Revolver in the States.

NICK DWYER

Right. You’ve been with SRD for how long now?

MIKE PARADINAS

Since the beginning, for eight years. They’ve been really good. Also, MP3 distribution is the new thing really, so you got iTunes doing that and Bleep because everyone just downloads it for free anyway, so a few of them are starting to buy it now.

NICK DWYER

Right.

MIKE PARADINAS

Getting a conscience or whatever.

NICK DWYER

Tell us a bit about Bleep.

MIKE PARADINAS

Bleep is run by Warp Records, which is a UK label which I was signed to for one album in the ‘90s, and they started up the MP3 download company I think three or four years ago. We were like one of the first labels on there, and it’s been growing slowly. It’s starting to do quite well now.

NICK DWYER

Right. So you’re starting to see a healthy percentage of your overall sales through theMP3 thing?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, yeah. That’s right.

NICK DWYER

You know, one thing I remember reading something about two or three years ago that I always found quite interesting was in an interview you said about one of the albums that ended up on Soulseek… Do you want to tell us about this?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, that was a joke. I put it on the promos, I put, “If you sell it, if you put it on the Internet, I’ll never make another album.” But I haven’t made another album. It wasn’t for that reason.

NICK DWYER

Before the album came out, you said, “If it ends up on Soulseek, there’ll be no more music.”

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah.

NICK DWYER

And...

MIKE PARADINAS

There wasn’t.

NICK DWYER

Yeah.

MIKE PARADINAS

It’s a good excuse.

NICK DWYER

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

MIKE PARADINAS

It was done as a joke but everyone took it really seriously, especially the Germans.

NICK DWYER

Yeah.

MIKE PARADINAS

So I went along with them.

NICK DWYER

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, I mean, when it started, the MP3 downloads back in about, I think it was 2003, 2004, when Bleep was set up, that was the first company we went with. Now we sort of sell them through an agent to all the download companies. It was a bit disheartening because there were really hardly any sales at all, so it’s good that it is starting to grow a bit. Vinyl sales are starting to grow as well.

NICK DWYER

Oh, really?

MIKE PARADINAS

12”s as well.

NICK DWYER

Yeah.

MIKE PARADINAS

So it’s all looking quite positive, for us anyway.

NICK DWYER

Right, I mean …

MIKE PARADINAS

A lot of labels are going bust, though, so it’s not great for everyone, but…

NICK DWYER

Musically, are there any particular strands that are a strong point to the label?

MIKE PARADINAS

I don’t know. I mean, yeah, the dubstep stuff is starting to sell quite well. It’s quite encouraging. But a lot of stuff is disheartening. Loads of stuff just doesn’t sell at all.

NICK DWYER

In terms of the dubstep stuff, I mean, obviously, it’s a very… well, you know, it originated as a very London and now a very UK form of music.

MIKE PARADINAS

Croydon.

NICK DWYER

Yeah, very Croydon.

MIKE PARADINAS

Just Croydon.

NICK DWYER

How’s that stuff going outside…

MIKE PARADINAS

Little bit of Norwood.

NICK DWYER

Little bit of Norwood?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah. South London.

NICK DWYER

Any in Worcester?

MIKE PARADINAS

No.

NICK DWYER

No.

MIKE PARADINAS

No.

NICK DWYER

How about in terms of, you know, places like America? Are there scenes starting to emerge?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, there are some people like Secret Agent Gel doing dubstep in… I think he’s in New Jersey or something. So yeah, it’s spreading around the world, so there’s pockets of it. I think there’s a New Zealand guy doing, trying to do dubstep…

NICK DWYER

Yeah.

MIKE PARADINAS

… Who’s annoying everyone on the forums? What’s his name again? Do you know who that is?

NICK DWYER

I do know his name, but I’d feel bad if I said it right now.

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah. No, no. His music’s not bad at all. It’s just the attitude. Forums are great to sort of find out who’s... Instead of being sent loads of CDs and stuff by post, it’s sort of good to look on forums and seeing who’s sort of big demos and stuff because they always sort of try and big themselves up really. So, it’s interesting to see who bigs themselves up is usually... they spend more time doing that and less doing the music, so it’s usually pretty shit, and then the people who are quiet are doing the best stuff.

NICK DWYER

Yeah.

MIKE PARADINAS

That’s not always true, but I tend to find it generally is true in some sorts of music.

NICK DWYER

I mean, you’ve got a forum yourself on your website. Is it a blessing and a curse?

MIKE PARADINAS

What?

NICK DWYER

Is it a blessing and a curse? I mean, you know, with any kind of forum there’s…

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, I mean, there are good people and bad, you know, so it’s... Sometimes you get annoying things up, but … We got hacked last week, so...

NICK DWYER

What did the hackers do?

MIKE PARADINAS

They put up a photo of a Lebanese girl with her feet blown off. No, a video actually. It was anti-war. But I’m in favor of that, so it didn’t come down for a day.

NICK DWYER

Right. Do you want to listen to another track now?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, whatever. Which? What do you think?

NICK DWYER

Well, tell us about the compilation of the Sacred Symbols of Mu.

MIKE PARADINAS

Oh yeah. We put out this compilation this summer. It’s got 24 of our artists on there with... It was released at mid-price to try and sell it, you know. It’s just to sort of promote the label, and we did a party in London with twenty-one artists in three rooms, and that went pretty well. Trying to introduce some of the new artists who had signed to people and just make a good party really, that was sold out and went down pretty well.

NICK DWYER

I mean, for you, you’ve got about what, 80… How many artists do you have on your roster now?

MIKE PARADINAS

80 or so, yeah, I think.

NICK DWYER

Whoa…

MIKE PARADINAS

Past and future. You know, not all of them. We don’t work with all of them anymore. At least we put out records of them or whatever.

NICK DWYER

Yeah. I mean, for you, who are some of the artists on your label at the moment that are, I don’t know, exciting you a lot at the moment?

MIKE PARADINAS

We just played Loefah there, and then we got Soundmurderer who’s one of the other people helping out here. We’ve released a record of his which is on here. Actually, we’ve probably got the 12-inch of that. Have we? I don’t know. [Digs in record crate] Yes. Here it is. Should we play that? Because this is Todd, who’s been... did he give a talk the other day, last week?

NICK DWYER

Todd Osborne. So this record’s under what alias?

MIKE PARADINAS

Soundmurderer & SK-1, which is him and the other Tadd, Tadd Mullinix.

Soundmurderer & SK-1 – “Toronto VIP”

(music: Soundmurderer & SK-1 – “Toronto VIP”)

NICK DWYER

A lot of the music on Planet Mu is, you know, fairly diverse. Do you find that Planet Mu fans are pretty accepting of a large, kind of, percentage of the output on the label?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yes. Pretty much. I mean, it’s good because you get a different audience into – I mean, the drum & bass people might be fans, might be into this, or whatever. When we released Remarc, it introduced a lot of people into the label and same with the dubstep stuff. It sort of brings a lot of things together. I don’t know, it might alienate people. Some people… no one likes all of it except for me probably.

NICK DWYER

Yeah yeah. And you’ve been rereleasing a lot of old-school jungle and all that kind of stuff with the Remarc stuff?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, we did that with just the Remarc stuff. That was it.

NICK DWYER

You’re working on another…

MIKE PARADINAS

We are going to be releasing Bizzy B’s old hardcore stuff. I don’t know when, but maybe in the next couple years. And we’ve been putting out his new stuff as well.

NICK DWYER

Yeah yeah yeah.

MIKE PARADINAS

He’s an old junglist. He produced hardcore into sort of ’91 and is still releasing jungle now, and drum & bass.

NICK DWYER

With the fact that you’re kind of releasing a lot of this whole jungle and especially dubstep stuff, is it... Have you been kind of working with any of that kind of production yourself?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, I did. I’ve done a few tracks like that. Trying to…

NICK DWYER

Right. Will we be seeing anything in the light of day yet?

MIKE PARADINAS

I don’t know, probably not.

NICK DWYER

I mean, is it kind of... I don’t know, is it a conscious decision to maybe move away so much from the production side of things? Has the label got busier or are you actually --

MIKE PARADINAS

No, it’s just conscious. It’s just I get less inspired as I get older. I just feel tireder and less like making music. I don’t know. It depends, you know. When I was a young teenager, I was more inspired by, you know, frustration and angst and all that shit, which I don’t have now.

NICK DWYER

Yeah.

MIKE PARADINAS

So, I guess I don’t make any music anymore. Well, I do, but maybe it’s shit. I really don’t know. It’s hard to tell with your own stuff. I just play it to friends, you know. People tend to like my early stuff and say my latest stuff’s shit, so... It’s the same with everyone, isn’t it? “I loved your first album. What happened?”

NICK DWYER

I mean, how much time are you kind of spending in the studio at the moment?

MIKE PARADINAS

Well, it’s all the same. It’s just, I’ve got one computer and that’s it. So, the studio is the office is the bedroom is... You know. I haven’t got a studio, basically.

NICK DWYER

For you, what are kind of the hardest things about running a label in this kind of modern age?

MIKE PARADINAS

The overbearing loneliness.

NICK DWYER

Yes. Does it get lonely out there?

MIKE PARADINAS

I just sit in front of my AIM on the computer all day, and the human contact is on iChat, which is AIM or MSN. That’s it. Occasionally, you have the weekend when I go out and do gigs. That’s it at the moment. Go out and DJ.

Nick Dwyer

Are you playing out much at the moment?

Mike Paradinas

Yeah, I’m playing out when I get back. I’m playing Technicality, which is a drum & bass night out there. They’re starting a dubstep label, so I think I’m playing the launch for that? Although I’m not quite sure which room I’m playing in. That’s at Mass in Brixton. Looking forward to that. Then we’ve got the launch party for the Mary Anne Hobbs album. It’s compilation coming out on our label of Mary Anne Hobbs, who’s a Radio 1 DJ. That’s got a lot of good tracks on it.

Nick Dwyer

Tell us a bit about Mary Anne Hobbs for people that don’t know. She’s been pretty supportive of this.

Mike Paradinas

Yeah she kicked off dubstep being big in the UK with her Dubstep Warz show. She had it on Radio 1, this year. She contacted me over AIM actually and we got to know each other, met up a few times at parties. I was really honored, I never say that word, when she asked me to release her compilation or came up with the idea of a compilation. Most Radio 1 DJs, are like Gilles Peterson release, compilations of ... She’d never done it. She wanted to represent the UK underground, so it’s got JME, and Terror Danjah on it, Kode9, Burial, plus a few drum & bass things like Amit and ... I can’t remember ... I’m sure I’ve got a copy of it here somewhere. I did have ... Someone’s stolen it. Was it you?

Nick Dwyer

I did see it before on there.

Mike Paradinas

There we go. That’s it. Right.

Nick Dwyer

So it’s not all dubstep stuff?

Mike Paradinas

No, it’s got ... Yeah, isn’t it? It’s all dubstep. It’s got Andy Stott, which is like techno, four-to-the-four, techno from Manchester, Digital Mystikz, which is dubstep, Terror Danjah, The Bug, which is dancehall, or digital dancehall, Spor, which is drum & bass for Renegade Hardware that sort of harder, twisted sound bass lines.

Nick Dwyer

And Amit who’s doing quite a ...

Mike Paradinas

Which is sort of ...

Nick Dwyer

… very dubstep-influenced.

Mike Paradinas

Yeah some of his stuff is. This track, which Mary chose is pretty straight-ahead. It’s a really good track. There’s one called “Immigrants”, which sounds pretty ...

Nick Dwyer

Yeah.

Mike Paradinas

You know the one. That’s the one I always DJ out. I wanted to get “Immigrants” on here, but Mary Anne wasn’t having any of it. That’s the one I wanted.

Nick Dwyer

Should we listen to something off there, then?

Mike Paradinas

Yeah, we can. Who’s that? How do you eject a track? I don’t know.

Nick Dwyer

OK. So the Warrior Dubz is out ... when will this be out?

Mike Paradinas

A couple of weeks I think… 23rd of October… three weeks or something. You could play this one…

Milanese ft. Virus Syndicate – “Dead Man Walking”

(music: Milanese ft. Virus Syndicate – “Dead Man Walking” / applause)

NICK DWYER

And the name of that track is…?

MIKE PARADINAS

“Dead Man Walking”, I think. It’s a Milanese remix of Virus Syndicate.

NICK DWYER

I mean, you’ve had a bit of experience getting music on the radio before. Is it really hard to get music on the radio in England?

MIKE PARADINAS

It’s just luck, I think. If the right people like it, then it’s going to get on there, I think. There’s nothing you can do. I mean, if you get pluggers, it can help, but sometimes it’s a waste of money. But I think the main thing is if... It’s pretty obvious if the track’s going to be the right track because everyone is going to be into it, and it’ll sort of run away with itself.

NICK DWYER

What is this whole notion of radio plugging, and what do these people do?

MIKE PARADINAS

They take money off labels.

NICK DWYER

They just steal money off labels.

MIKE PARADINAS

Yes. And they say they’re going to give you everything, and they give you nothing. Same as press.

NICK DWYER

Yeah, yeah.

MIKE PARADINAS

A track’s usually got a life of its own, I think. It’s going to be pretty obvious if it’s going to be big or not. Sometimes you think something’s going to be big and it just completely flop. A lot of it can be luck as well. You can’t really pay for a track to be big. Actually, you can if you’re a major label.

NICK DWYER

Yes, yes.

MIKE PARADINAS

But an independent label can’t. We haven’t got enough money, so it’s just… We put the tracks out there. If people like them, that’s great.

NICK DWYER

Obviously, the last thing you want is to be left with a whole lot of copies of records. How do you know what is the right amount to kind of press up?

MIKE PARADINAS

Experience.

NICK DWYER

Experience.

MIKE PARADINAS

Yes. You just look at your sales notes, see how much the last one sold or something similar might have done, or ask the distributors, really. They’ll say, “Well, we think we can sell this much,” and I usually sort of underestimate and then re-press if need be so we don’t waste money.

NICK DWYER

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Should we have a look at this... We’ll play this a bit, but should we have a look at the website?

MIKE PARADINAS

Sure, yeah.

NICK DWYER

Is that quite a large part of the Planet Mu operations, like a lot of people are checking the [website]?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah.

NICK DWYER

Have we got the camera?

MIKE PARADINAS

The website, since the beginning, has been a pretty big part of it, I think.

NICK DWYER

We did have a camera set up at some point.

MIKE PARADINAS

We did have a camera. If we do it in a minute, he’s going to move it over. Maybe we should listen to another track while... This is Digital Mystikz. This one’s pretty famous.

Plastician – “Cha Vocal” feat. Shizzle, Fresh & Napper

(music: Plastician – “Cha Vocal” feat. Shizzle, Fresh & Napper / applause)

NICK DWYER

So yes. The Warrior Dubz got to get in the shops. Great album. Warrior Dubz.

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, yeah. Out soon.

NICK DWYER

Out soon.

MIKE PARADINAS

Please buy it.

NICK DWYER

So how important is it for you as a label to have a comprehensive website?

[website shown on screen]

MIKE PARADINAS

Well, we had an old website, and I could never update it. The main problem was if I wanted to put up some information, I’d have to contact the guy in Canada who set it up for me and sort of email him all the information, and he’d put it up when he got a moment. Actually, that’s his girlfriend…

NICK DWYER

That’s a holding page.

MIKE PARADINAS

Right. So, this one, the new website which we’ve just put up – this isn’t actually online yet – is totally, I can alter everything basically, I just log in. I can add a new artist, add a new release, put all the news in, whatever I like.

NICK DWYER

You’ve got complete, like, for every single artist on the label, you’ve got complete bios?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, everything is up now pretty much… everything except the... well, contact details and the forum, the message board’s not up yet. But it will be coming online soon.

NICK DWYER

In terms of... So pretty much the whole of the catalog is up there on audio?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, in clips. Not the full tracks, but there’s clips of pretty much everything, yeah. So that’s the Virus Syndicate artist page there, and ... So yeah, we just go to that release, that single. You can just click on the title and play the MP3. I mean, it’s good. The old website had samples as well, but it’s hard to find them. This one’s a bit easier. So people can know if they want to hear something from the label, they just go to the website, click on the release, click on the title and you can hear it.

NICK DWYER

Is it much of a cost to have something like this set up and kind of keep maintaining?

MIKE PARADINAS

No. It’s free because my friend does it for free for me.

NICK DWYER

Nice.

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah. Attila. I thank him very much. I just send him all the records, and he’s happy.

NICK DWYER

Yeah. That’s brilliant.

MIKE PARADINAS

Now there’s the server costs because we’ve just updated to a new server, which is … it’s less than 70 quid a year. So, that’s really cheap. It’s good that he’s a friend who does it.

NICK DWYER

The other thing with the label is, obviously, if anyone’s seen any of your covers, you like to kind of get some nice artwork in there.

MIKE PARADINAS

Sometimes, yeah.

NICK DWYER

Sometimes. Is it much of an outlay to…

MIKE PARADINAS

To manufacture a record?

NICK DWYER

Yeah.

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, I mean something like this... [looks at art work on vinyl sleeve] That’s nice art work. It’s a cow being either dismembered or killed or something. That cost us 500 quid, the cover.

NICK DWYER

Right.

MIKE PARADINAS

The artwork, and it’s all digital, done in Photoshop by a guy in Miami, Arnold Steiner. That was one of the more expensive ones. Usually, you spend about three or 400 quid on art work at the most.

NICK DWYER

Yep.

MIKE PARADINAS

I remember doing something like a 12”, like this. The template’s already done, so we did a load of them like this and then just changed the color. So that’s 20 quid or something, you know? You just have to type the... Choose a color, type the barcode in, and it’s done.

NICK DWYER

In terms of the label, is it a pretty busy time in the next while? Obviously, you’ve got the Warrior Dubz thing, but what else is coming?

MIKE PARADINAS

I shouldn’t really be here, yeah…

NICK DWYER

Yeah. You’ve got iChat conversations to have.

MIKE PARADINAS

I know, but if I ever turn it on, I’ll be talking to loads of people asking for money.

NICK DWYER

Yep. Always good to figure out [inaudible].

MIKE PARADINAS

Or thanking me for money.

NICK DWYER

Yes, yes, of course.

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah, I am pretty busy. I’ve got- well, the parties are sorted out by promoters, so that’s... I pretty much had to sort out everything before I came, so I had a pretty busy week just before I came out here just sorting out all the manufacturing of the releases that are coming out in the next, up until November. Just making sure everyone had all the parts for everything, all the art work was there uploaded to the servers and wherever the printer is and all that sort of thing. Yeah, you’ve got to keep your head screwed on, but only three things at a time.

NICK DWYER

Yes. You’re going to be around for the next couple of days?

MIKE PARADINAS

Yeah.

NICK DWYER

So, if people want to, in terms of, ask you anything about label stuff, and I mean if anyone has any questions now, by all means, put your hand up. Do we need a mic?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

What does Planet Mu mean?

MIKE PARADINAS

I don’t know. Actually, Tom Middleton came up with that, which is... When I went down to Exeter to meet Mark [Pritchard], Mark was the first person to want to sign me before I went to Rephlex. I went down and was sort of wondering about what name to choose, and that was one of the things that I’d come up with. It was μ-Ziq, and Tom liked it and said, “Yeah, yeah, you’ve got to do that.” So... I can’t remember. But Mu. .. I think it means something in Japanese as well. I’m not sure. It can mean whatever you want, really.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Do you see dubstep as some sort of mystical music?

MIKE PARADINAS

Mystical?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Yeah. Do you think that ...

MIKE PARADINAS

I get into it, when I go to the clubs, but not really mystical. I’m not sure what that means. Maybe if you smoke enough, or... I don’t know. I don’t really take drugs, so... Mystical. I mean, it’s, for me, mystical is like a little part of your brain which is giving you signals, so... I can get pretty in to dubstep, yeah.

Nick Dwyer

What I was going to say before as well is you’re going to be around so if people want to get you on to some production stuff…

Mike Paradinas

Yeah, production stuff as well.

Nick Dwyer

But do you want to tell us a little bit what’s going on this realm? [Points to laptop]

Mike Paradinas

Yeah, well you were talking about cut up beats earlier, I had a cut up beat on here, which I prepared earlier.

Nick Dwyer

Here’s something I prepared earlier.

Mike Paradinas

I wonder if this is turning on. Yeah. I make my own tracks as well. I still play live and DJ and stuff. I just opened this track, which can give you an idea of what you can do with… This is jungle, so if you put the amen break in here, you’ve got the waveform. Then you cut it up. This is Battery, which is this little drum machine you load in your sounds, I just loaded in the Amen break. It hasn’t even got the cymbal at the end. Wonder where that is? I just move the start point along, then stretch it. [Plays drum machine] You’ve got all these different sound effects, reverses, and stuff, pitch it. You can do all this within the program by ... If we go to the break here, you can tune it up, or down, and then effect it and stuff. Make it really grainy or something. [Plays grainy break] If you want it to sound like that, it can. I don’t know if you would. Sounds a bit like that Milanese thing. Then you put it all together and you can program something in. [Plays music] There… you can see that it’s got ...

audience member

What do you use when you’re playing live?

Mike Paradinas

This is what I use when I’m playing live, which is Logic with Battery and various plug ins and stuff.

audience member

How much is pre-prepared? Is there anything improvised?

Mike Paradinas

Anything I can improvise. Basically you can loop stuff, you can mute stuff, and you can piss around with plugins. For instance, I’m going to loop a bit of this break here. [Plays break loop] I can go in on that. I’ll fuck around with that on the funny little plug in thing. You can do that. You can ... It’s mainly structured. I’ve got loop-based tracks as well, where you can have loops and mute them on and off. I’m used to working with Atari, which used to be a lot more live. We used to trigger the MIDI stuff. You could almost write tracks on the fly, while you’re playing live, because you’ve got the keyboard there to input stuff. With this I’m not playing with a keyboard, so the only way to input notes is with a little pencil or whatever. It’s not something you can really do live. You could. You’d have to stop and then do it. It’s not very good for dancing.

audience member

[Inaudible]

Mike Paradinas

I used to. Sometimes. Yeah, I do. In this case I did. Yeah. You can map them on to the keyboard in Battery. If I open it up again, I don’t know, it’s not set on the screen is it? You can map each of those breaks and the different start points to different notes on the keyboard. Then you can play them like that. Which, I think, sounds a lot better than if you’re putting in by pencil. Then sometimes I do put in the notes in the sequencer and I just move them around a bit and get it sounding a bit more ... That’s a C-sharp one for example. I’m not really sure. I prefer playing it on the keyboard, so you get a little more musicianly feel to it. You get in to it. Then this year I’ve only been writing on the computer with no keyboard, just to restrict myself.

audience member

So it’s all just penciled in?

Mike Paradinas

Pardon?

audience member

You’re just drawing things on, using the mouse?

Mike Paradinas

Yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing this year. I don’t know why. I’ve been limiting myself.

Nick Dwyer

Any more questions for Mike? I was going to say, we’ve got some stuff happening upstairs for the rest of the evening, if anyone wants to come up and ask you anything.

Mike Paradinas

Yeah sure.

Nick Dwyer

Then by all means, they can. Thank you, Mike, for taking time out to chat.

[Applause]

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