Adam191

Tune in this Saturday 1st August, at 1AM Pacific Time Zone to watch one of the scenes best loved producers perform a rare PUSH LIVE set from the awesome 1015 Folsom club in San Francisco, CA US. Watch vie this link: www.ustream.tv/channel/m-i-k-e-push PUSH (M.I.K.E.): Exactly 15 years after the first Push release, the legendary guise of Belgian producer Mike Dierickx returned with a new album on June 23rd 2009. Suitably called 'Global Age', this artist album kicked off a new phase in Mike's career. A career that has covered more than a hundred releases and 6 albums over more than 60 different aliases. Growing, aging and gaining more experience with every track he’s produced, Mike has grown out to be one of the most esteemed producers the dance scene has to offer. Though every release he's had is a perfect example of his versatile sound, it was the Push alias that left an everlasting footprint on the minds of dance music lovers. Time to revive and revamp this moniker. Push: "The time was right to bring back what everybody was waiting for. You’ve got the pro’s, you’ve got the con’s. But I just want to make music that I love without having the feeling of people telling me what to do! I don’t want to go back in time again and live forever on previous successes. I’m not in competition with myself; I just strive to a new global sound, trying to be innovative as much as I canâ€. To watch tonight’s show then please vist: www.ustream.tv/channel/m-i-k-e-push www.mike.be www.mike.be/globalage www.myspace.com/clubeliterecordings

Wet Grooves, known for its annual marathon parties at Winter Music Conference in South Beach Miami, host its next massive show in what’s sure to become a spring classic. The popular party brand continues its reign as America’s Sexiest Pool Party on March 22nd by bringing its ‘concert-style’ production and vibe to Clearwater Beach, Florida for Spring Break 2009. Ahead of this year’s party at Shepherd’s Beach Resort we catch up with headlining act and multiplatinum award winning producer Darude.. Hi Darude, you recently released your latest artist album. Please tell us about the album and what your musical goal was with the album? - ‘Label This!’ is an artist album consisting of my own tracks mixed together like a dj mix. I did it this way instead of separate tracks because while I am an artist and a producer I’ve also been djing since 2003 in addition to live shows, and I've actually been mostly djing recently, so I wanted show that side, too. The djing has affected my production a lot, it’s given me a whole new angle to it, and also an invaluable chance to field-test my productions. I mean, nothing tells you better whether a track works or not than playing it to a live audience. I think the new tracks definitely have the same kind of energy, simple beautiful melodies, breakdowns and builds that the earlier albums have, but there is more variation in styles and sounds. The album starts with lower bpm tracks with some rocky elements like guitars and some real drums and advances to higher tempos and uplifting trance towards the end. There’s a chill out track in the end also, and throughout the album there are more vocals than on the previous albums. A lot of the old fans have been really excited about the new, but still somewhat recognizable sound, and that’s of course something that I’ve been really happy to hear. Do you have a specific concept in mind when you are preparing for an album? And what is the reason for the albums name ‘Label This!’ - If there was a goal or concept other than to get the album done, haha, it was to let myself feel free to do stuff that I hadn't done before, widen my horizons a bit, and enjoy doing it, not stressing too much about categorizing the music or thinking if it's "cool" or not. The album title 'Label This!' is a half serious stab at the people who are very eager to put music in small boxes and narrow categories and refuse to let themselves (or others!) enjoy music outside their approved genres. That's silly, music is just music, not that serious, it should be fun! That said, I didn't have a tight concept or plan for the album, nor does it have a deep meaning behind it... It's meant to be enjoyed wherever and however you please, but of course the best environment is a club where you can really feel the music, or maybe a pre-party before going out, getting in the mood for a great night out. First I made a number of tracks and thought a little bit what kind of tracks they are musically, and then made some more and when I started getting close to having enough tracks to be able to pick the best 10 or so for the album, I started planning a little how to order them, which mixes of them to put on the album, and the actual continuous mix, how it would be the best flow-wise and how the tracks fit together sound, key and tempo-wise. You recently teamed up with American Idol star Blake Lewis to work on some new material for example the popular ‘I Ran’ single. How did this studio partnership come about and can we expect more collaborative material from you two in the future? - I met Blake several years back in Seattle at a club where I had a residency, and I got in touch with him after the Idol via a mutual friend of ours because I needed vocals to a track and I knew he is into electronic dance music, and of course because the dude can sing, let alone do all those crazy noises with his mouth! To my happy surprise he was interested and available, so we did this charity track 'Selfless' for Dance4Life and after it turned out so well and we noticed that we're like-minded and liked working together, he was also kind enough to sing on 'I Ran' for me. Schedules permitting we're surely going to cook up something together in the future as well. Keep your ears and eyes peeled! You guys are both performing at this year’s Wet Grooves Spring Break, which is being lablled as the biggest spring break party ever (!!). What can the crowds at this year’s event expect from you and will we see a special back-to-back set, or is it strictly a live PA/DJ team up? - It's going to be a Blake Lewis dj/loop/mash up set and Darude dj set and around the transition and later on in my set there will be Blake doing live vocals on our tracks. Who knows what'll happen, we might end up playing banjo and harp around the campfire. Staying with the b2b theme for a moment, is there anyone out there that you’d most like to share a back-to back slot with? - Hmmm, that's a tough one... I'll give you a couple... Randy Boyer is definitely one, we've got similar tastes and styles, and he was on tour opening for me last fall and that was great, so b2b sets with him would probably be off the hook! Ferry Corsten is a very nice guy and I like what he plays, so it'd be nice to surprise each other and try to top what the other throws in... And my fellow countryman Weirdness, my buddy since we were kids, with him I have spun b2b before, but just goofing off, not at an official party, so that'd be super duper fun to take on the road one day! Dropping the four hands on deck talk and looking to the studio. What else does 2009 and beyond hold for Darude studio-wise? - I'm working on a couple of remixes for tracks to be released early on the year, one being for Randy Boyer's 'No Limit', out on Ultra Records now, and with Randy I'm also working on a co-op track. I'll keep on promoting my singles and album and I will start pushing my buddy Weirdness' trance/dance project that I'm overseeing and partly producing, to djs and labels, so I'm finally activating my label, Darude Digital Records, or DRD, this year. I'll also try and get some new Darude tracks started, and I have a long-term dream to go thru all my samples, organize them, make new instruments and loops of them, new material for new tracks, and this coming summer I'll take a couple of months off from touring and will finally do that. So in the future who would you like to remix? - My standard answer to this is *Madonna*, but there are several others, too. I've activated myself on the remix front lately, and I'm really enjoying it, so it's not that much about who I want to remix that I'm after right now, but about what can I do to make the track a killer remix. Remixing is fun, because someone has already made the track or song, and you just get to "play with it", but it's still not easy. If you want to really contribute to the whole single package, it has to be well thought-out and executed, but it does give you a change to kind of "practice", and be free of most of the creation pressure you might have when you start your own track from scratch. What has been the biggest risk you have taken musically? - In a way it was the decision to try my own wings with the latest album, 'Label This!'. The first two albums I made with my producer and friend JS16, and I dearly needed him back then, I was very much in the beginning of my career and rather inexperienced, but now I felt that I needed to prove myself that I can do it on my own, so we decided that I'll do it, he gave me his blessing and full support. So here I am, I produced and wrote/co-wrote all the tracks, recorded most of the vocals and instruments, edited, cut, copied, pasted, cried, laughed, panicked, enjoyed and under and overslept everything in it, and I reached my goal and I'm proud of it, it was worth the risk. Being my own producer allowed me to be in charge of everything, allowed myself to think a little broader, but the process also made me realize that making records is not just making the music and having fun, but there are a lot of administrative shit that goes into it, too, and a lot of pressure when you're responsible about everything, and only have yourself to blame if you miss a deadline or if the final product sucks. So all of that made it a great learning experience and it still goes on, and probably will never stop. That's the beauty of my profession, there are always new things to learn about making or playing music, and beyond that there's the business side of it, which is probably at least as challenging as the artistic side of it. Link: www.darude.com

Radio 1's Essential Mix is a legendary showcase of electronic dance music, with only the world's greatest DJs invited over the years to take their sounds to a worldwide audience of millions on the BBC. This weekend gone Sean Tyas made his Essential Mix debut when he graced the hallowed decks for a blistering two hour set of driving melodic trance. Missed it - well don't worry because you can listen again online using the BBC iPlayer for 7 days after the show, meaning you can catch the full two hour Sean Tyas Essential Mix until late night this Friday 20th February using the link below: www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/essentialmix