Behind the Scenes with Kirk Degiorgio (Organized by SGMUSO)

Behind the Scenes with Kirk Degiorgio

26TH APRIL 
KYO
8PM

Moderator: Cherry Chan (Syndicate)

Kirk Degiorgio (2010). Source: Wikimedia Commons

Full transcript

Kirk: I’m a producer and DJ, and have written articles about Herbie Hancock. I’ve done many things, but everything I do is about music. I started DJ-ing in the early 80s, playing electro when it first came out in 1982. My friends used to breakdance – I couldn’t do that – so I was the DJ. One of my good friends from my hometown, Ipswich, was a professional footballer. Even though the wages weren’t like what they are today, you could still afford to buy two Technics. So we used to go to his house, and he would let us practice, and that’s how we learnt to DJ, with two decks.

Cherry: When did you start getting into producing?

Kirk: The same guy bought a Korg drum machine, and he did not know how to use it, and nor did I. I did not touch any other equipment for seven years, then I was invited by some more people from Ipswich, the Black Dog guys and Plaid, and they were break dancers in my hometown, to play with them. I went to the studio, and they had an 808 drum machine, mixer, sampler, and synthesizers, and that was when I first started trying to learn how to use a sequencer on a computer.

Cherry: As I understand, Plaid themselves can’t read music, and neither did you, so it’s quite interesting especially for those of us here who can’t play the keys. What was the process like for you?

Kirk: Firstly, in electronic music, when the first synthesizers were designed, they were designed without traditional keyboards. They had unusual touch controllers. Not only was it about a new electronic sound, it was also an untraditional way of creating music. So I was able to justify not being able to play an instrument like a traditional keyboard and just use sequences – no shame in that – I also think that it is to the advantage to anyone to learn a bit of music theory. I have taught myself some things on music theory. The biggest thing that I hear people ask me is that they can make a loop, but that’s about it.

Cherry: So when it comes to arrangement?

Kirk: Exactly, and a lot of that is to do with music theory, to expand that loop into a full arrangement and adding other stuff. I think it comes down to knowing a bit about scales and how you can add things that will fit the loop.

Cherry: Since we are talking about music production now, a lot of people when they first start making music, very often they will try to emulate the music that they like. From there, how do you create your own signature sound?

Kirk: I definitely have that process. I began by imitating Detroit techno records, and I think creating your own sound comes naturally. Someone at the Red Bull Music Academy, who is James Brown’s music director, said that the history of innovation in music can be traced down to bad memory. Everybody is trying to emulate somebody that they really like, but they forget or they get it slightly wrong, and that’s how you create your own unique sound.

Cherry: When you write, do you sit down and go like, “Oh today I’m going to write techno.”?

Kirk: Sometimes with techno, I would start with a particular bpm. I never sit down thinking that I’m going to do a melodic track today or I’m going to do a heavy, loopy kind of track. Never. It just goes wherever the music takes me.

Cherry: Once you finish the track, how do you know it’s good? A lot of producers will start on a track, and they might get it down to arrangement, but they keep meddling with it.

Kirk: Again, that is something that is very hard to explain, how you know when a track is finished. For me, it’s usually when I think the track is too busy, and there’s too many things going on and too many distractions so you start stripping it back, and that’s when you say, ok, if you start adding more, it’s too much. Also, when there’s not enough elements, you know that it’s not finished.

Cherry: When you were first starting out, do you send your tracks out to peers or people to get feedback?

Kirk: Yes of course. I didn’t send them to other people, I sent my first tracks straight away to Underground Resistance. I got a fax a week later from Mike Banks saying that they loved my tracks, but Underground Resistance is for Detroit Underground Resistance artistes only, but we passed your tracks to Carl Craig and he would be in touch with you. I didn’t think it would be true, but Carl phoned me and said that he loved the tracks and that was my first release.

Cherry: Since we are talking about getting in touch with labels, for young producers, what are the questions that they should be asking? How should they even be approaching the labels?

Kirk: It’s much more difficult now. There’s almost too many ways that you can approach labels. Obviously, when I did it, Underground Resistance probably had the address on the label itself. These days, you can probably send it to somebody’s Soundcloud. I myself receive so many emails or Facebook messages with download links, and I would say that the best way is maybe to do it yourself, to be honest. Nowadays, it’s so hard. Maybe for the first release, do it yourself or with some friends, because if it’s good, DJs like myself will find it and it’s better when the label approaches the artist rather than the artist going to the label. That was also how I did it. I had more tracks, and thought that I was just going to do it myself. I think that’s the best way.

Cherry: So you had your own label, did your own promotions?

Kirk: We didn’t even do any promotion. During those early days, I didn’t know what promotion was. This was 1991, and all I cared about is making music and put it out. All I needed was money to manufacture, do the artwork, find a distributor, and that was it. No promos, I didn’t even send them to magazines for review. They just bought it and reviewed it anyway.

Cherry: Ok. But since nowadays the market’s quite different. I think with technology as well, we get a lot more music, just like how you receive a lot of download links. What do you look for in track?

Kirk: Again, I have a very individual taste. I’m finding the same for other labels as well. I get asked to do EPs for labels, and they have very particular taste. In the old days, maybe labels will take a lot of my tracks. Now they are like cherry picking instead, they are more particular than before, because there is so much stuff out there, and labels have to have some kind of definite sound, whereas when we started out, we released a whole lot of down tracks, club tracks, home listening tracks, ambient tracks, now the vinyl market, especially for other professional DJs, they are looking for something that they know will keep playing in the clubs.

Cherry: So it’s a good label for producers to have their own little label, and write for certain labels that they want to get onto?

Kirk: I would make that the second stage. The first stage is to try to do it yourself and some friends, and get a buzz going on your label. Then you find that you will be approached. That’s how I found some of them on my label ART, which is mainly to support new artistes. One of them is a new young Dutch producer called Stefan Vincent. He had one release. I really liked it, and contacted him to ask if he had any more tracks, so that’s how it works. We do check things, I do anyway, and I like to work with young guys as well.

Cherry: For many new artistes, they sometimes get caught in a genre or find it hard to switch genre without losing their current fans. I was talking to an artiste the other day, and he basically started out with a lot of love songs, but he really wanted to diversify and experiment with more styles. How would you mange this sort of situation?

Kirk: I’ve done everything from hard techno to pop, and I think it’s because no matter what style I do, I have a sound, and I think it comes across when I DJ as well. I think you can start doing that when you find your definitive sound. You can then apply it. Say the guy with the ballads, if he wants to do more experimental stuff, he could still apply some of the musical techniques used for ballads and incorporate them into more experimental things as well. When I do different styles, it still sounds like me.

Cherry: You have a lot of different names under different projects.

Kirk: Yeah, I’m trying not to anymore. Now I just put it under my own name, for about five or six years now.

Cherry: So that’s not advisable these days?

Kirk: Well, the thing is, we did it in the beginning for legal reasons, because it enables you to release under different names for different labels, because if you do it under one name, you won’t be exclusive. In those days, that was the normal thing. You sign with one label for five albums, and that was it. You couldn’t write for anybody else. So doing things under different names was one way to work, and I think techno and house producers pioneered that approach.

Cherry: Back to the RBMA shows, which spans a huge variety of genres from jazz to Jimmy Hendrix to 70s movie scores  to techno, which is an amazing collection of music. How do you go about manning the shows?

Kirk: Since I was eleven years old, I have been obsessed with music. It’s all up here. It’s all digitized now, it makes it so much easier. I digitized all of my vinyl collection. I just got so many ideas for shows that I can keep going and keep going. The latest one is a two part electric blues. It’s Muddy Waters, Johnny Walker, Howlin’ Wolf, that kind of stuff. It’s never been played on RBMA radio, so I’ve done four hours of this.

Cherry: How long does it take to do this?

Kirk: It takes a long time, so they’d really appreciate this, and I love doing it.

Cherry: So with touring, producing the music, running the label, creating radio shows, what’s your secret to time management? I asked that question because a lot of us here tend to hold a day job, and at night we would do music, and there’s just so many things to do, from promotion, to creation, and networking. How do you decide on your focus?

Kirk: You won’t believe this, but actually I’m quite lazy (laughs). I do all this stuff, but I’m a lazy person. I really don’t know. Working nights?(shrugs) I think it’s attributed to the fact that I do this and nothing else. I’ve done nothing else since 1994, I started making enough money making music to leave my job at a record shop. I was signed with R&S records. My label is doing well, and with DJ-ing…  It’s been quite hard for some other people who I think are very talented, and they say to me, “I never get the time”, but I would say to them, “Do you love the music or not? If you do, leave your job, and just do music.”

Cherry: Is there any particular focus that they should be doing first?

Kirk: The most important thing to survive as an artiste in electronic music now is DJ-ing and performing.  To do that, you have to have some kind of musical profile. I would say, making the music, making a name for yourself, and if you are a good producer, kind of work out how you can transform that from the studio into a good live performance. Only DJ if you are a DJ. There are so many producers and for some of them, it might be impossible for them to do a live performance. Their studio technique might not suit a live performance, so they DJ instead, but everyone is a DJ.

Cherry: Yes. Because what you write in the studio might not work for the floor.

Kirk: Exactly. And there’s equipment. There are some people who have so much equipment that unless you have some kind of touring crew with you, you couldn’t really perform it as it should sound. That’s the most important thing financially for a musician to survive at the moment is the live performance, because there’s not much money in releasing records.

Cherry: What’s the most exciting live performance that you’ve seen recently?

Kirk: It’s a band actually. I don’t know if anyone knows the American band called Midlake. They were amazing. Their music was Americano, in Austin Texas, so they had influences from Joni Mitchell, and maybe Crossby, Stills & Nash, but more up to date. They had synthesizers as well, guitars, drums and harmonies. They were amazing.

Cherry: How about electronic music? ‘Cause it can get quite tricky, when it comes to performing.

Kirk: Moritz von Oswald. I saw the three of them at Fabric. Moritz was nervous. They scheduled him in the middle of the night, and he said, “This isn’t going to work.” It’s quite a deep thing that he was doing, but everyone loved it. It was one of the best things I’ve seen recently, how he managed to pull off quite deep, but not necessarily full on dance music in a club. It was recently he had his illness, a stroke, and he had to sit to perform, but the show was fantastic.

Cherry: You make and play a lot of different types of music, but more for techno. What attracted you to techno?

Kirk: It had an energy, and the links to funk music, which I liked, like Funkadelic, James Brown, those kind of bands, it had that kind of black music element, and my history is black music, funk, soul, electro. One of them is Juan Atkins. I had his Cybotron record as a kid, years before I knew what techno was.

Cherry: Do you have any advice for musicians when dealing with media? Especially when they start putting their music out there, they start to feel vulnerable when they get bad reviews. In your years of experience, how do you deal with this sort of situation?

Kirk: Completely ignore them, whether it’s good or bad. It’s just somebody’s opinion. Never take any notice of them (laughs). Most of the time, they have only probably listened to it once, they have to think of something clever (to write). I have never enjoyed reviews, even if they are really good and they give you five stars – it doesn’t mean anything.

Cherry: What about working with collaborators?

Kirk: It’s not my preferred thing actually, because I’m not a musician, so I have my own weird way of making music and I prefer it if I’m on my own. Doing The Beauty Room was a real learning process. I learnt that it’s more other people’s egos and personalities that are much more difficult to manage than the music side of things. The music, people can understand and it just comes naturally, but you get all kinds of feedback, like “My instrument isn’t loud enough in the mix” or “There’s not enough reverb on my vocals” or something like that. It’s all about egos.

Cherry: But you do have some nice releases which features collabs like The Beauty Room…

Kirk: I think I’m quite tolerant. But I feel more relaxed when I’m on my own. Right now I’m working with another artiste, on her new album, and I’m really doing it the way I prefer, and she takes time in the studio and sends me tracks, and then I work on them and send them back. It kind of nice because I can really take my time, experiment a bit more, and it works well because the technology allows that.

Cherry: A bit about Ableton. You are pretty much one of the first artistes to start using Ableton as your DJ set in 2002?

Kirk: Around that time. I don’t know how many of you remember that the late 90s, maybe a bit earlier, when CDJs first came around – I hated them. You put a CD in, and it would either spit it out because it didn’t recognize the tracks and I couldn’t get off using vinyls after so many years, so I just felt like it was going to run away. So CDJs are not for me, but I wanted to do something different. When Ableton first came out, I was looking to do a live show. It was called Ableton Live, so obviously it was geared towards live performances. I bought the software. The first thing I noticed was that it had a yellow cross fader on the channels. Cross fader is a mixer thing, it’s a DJ thing. And I realized, hang on, this thing recognizes where the beats are. If I put a track here on A, and another one there on B, maybe I can mix and you can switch A on B. I thought, “Oh my god, it works.” I’m not beat matching. This is weird , then I thought “Hang on a minute. Maybe I used the cross fader, I can put a loop on track number three and place it underneath them and mix them like three deck mixing. Or maybe I could filter out the kick drum of that track and put my own kick drum on track four.” And then I knew the future of DJ-ing. It was right there.

I did some practices, and I also took it with vinyl. For the first couple of times, I was mixing vinyl alongside with Ableton, so it did look weird to the crowd. Then, I decided to just take a laptop and nothing else. The only negative comment were from a few other vinyl DJs. The crowd was like “Wow! What’s this? How are you doing this? How are you mixing three or four records? How did you put the melody from one onto another?” They were really open minded. Vinyl DJs were like, “You don’t need headphones? You’re not mixing? That’s cheating.” This was just something different. Some people like Surgeon or Ritchie Hawtin picked it up, but this is my boast. I emailed Ableton saying I don’t know if you meant it for this, but I have been DJ-ing with it. And they said it’s the first time they’ve heard someone just using it for DJ-ing. They said it was truly interesting, and I kept sort of giving them little ideas. The really big acceptance of it came when Sasha started using it as well.

Cherry: So it has become quite common to use it for DJ-ing now.

Kirk: It’s not as common as Serato and Traktor, but yes Surgeon still uses it. What you see now is that a lot of people are using Ableton to do hybrid DJ-ing and live shows as well, whereas I use it solely for DJ-ing.

Floor: How important was the scene and community to the development of your career? Because in Singapore, we tend to have a more limited market. How would you deal with that?

It’s really important actually. The way we got together was in record stores. Obviously that’s disappearing these days, but people now have their equivalent online. I think music forums… I surprised there’ not a more dedicated one. I mean you have Resident Advisor, obviously, but it’s not a tight forum. There used to be a one called Little Detroit I think, but once Facebook came on, it killed all these little ones off. I think social media is the equivalent of how we used to do it. We used to meet at record shops, and just stand at the counter and be the guys talking about every new release, and the guy behind the counter said, “Buy this, buy that.” That’s how we did it. Those days are probably gone.

Floor: Do you have any opinions on the iPad apps scene?

I only use the iPad for controlling. I’ve only tried the Lemur controller, and I’ve messed around with Animoog, which I really love. But I find touch controllers quite difficult. It’s why I prefer to use an APC Akai controller. I like to slam faders and have that kind of tactile thing. I’ve seen live DJs use the original Lemur and they tend to do things very gradually, so I haven’t really used the iPad much. I don’t have a media deck or anything much yet, but it makes sense because they are going to be so powerful. It’s just like having another laptop I guess. So I’m going to watch it, because there are a lot of innovative things that don’t make it to the computer for some reason. Is that something that you’re involved in?

Floor: Yeah, I’m exploring that. I think the current iPad Air is at a performance level that is suitable for live and for studio, with the interapp audio and Audiobus 2, there’s labels that built around iOS music and I think with the multi-touch gestures, it can really expand its potential.

Kirk: With the gestures, I think that could the way to get over the tactile problem. They could become more sensitive and you could do those dramatic gestures when you DJ. You need those things for the crowd. (laughs) Surgeon uses Faderfox. Those little things, they are too small for me. If I did that, it would end up somewhere in the dance floor.

Cherry: One interesting app is Konkreet Peformer: after you load in everything, you can port the screen onto your visuals.

Kirk: One of the things I like about the iPhone, is an app when you have the headphones with a little microphone, and when you play the music, it would change as your environment changes. If you’re running, it would sense your body movement, and the music would get more intense, so it’s really interactive.

Floor: You use Ableton for DJ-ing. Do you use it for production as well? Do you start with the beat first, or a melody first?

I don’t follow a particular rule, but it helps if you start with a certain bpm. I usually start by having a kick drum just as a reference, and then it could be adding more drums and working on drums, or it could be a bass or melody. I don’t have any methods, and I don’t save any of the sounds, because I usually use a modular synth, once you’re on touch the sound is gone anyway. I save the Ableton sessions in case I’m going to take it on the road, I don’t have a library of sounds. If I come up with a bass on Reaktor, I don’t save them. I don’t like saving sounds because I don’t want to use them again and again like a formula where you become lazy and say “Oh yeah, I liked that bass sound that worked in that track, so I would just use that.” That could work for some people. They might have a big hit, and might want to do something similar, but that doesn’t really inspire me musically. I like to come up with new sounds for each track.

Floor: How do you make your live performance physically interesting?

It’s down to visuals at the moment. I can’t see any other way with electronic music. When I saw that Moritz show, the visuals were the only thing to look at, really. I think that’s where new technology would come in and be able to sync visuals with bpm. I’ve used this guy, who doesn’t do visuals now because he’s gone pretty big, signed on to Rush Hour, so now I need to do my own now, as he’s too busy DJ-ing.

Floor: Any favorite program for visuals?

No, I do everything with Final Cut, and you can sync it to Ableton. I would pre-render it, and it would probably be synced somehow. I’ve done TV work, so I know about scoring and having key points. It’s going to be an old school approach.

 BEHIND THE SCENES
A brand new SGMUSO initiative, is a series of workshops/talks designed to give members exclusive access to key players in the music industry. Our special guests will provide an insider's perspective with crucial insights on a variety of relevant music industry matters.

KIRK DEGIORGIO
A cornerstone of UK techno, Kirk Degiorgio (aka As One) is one of the most sought-after mixer/producer/DJ in today’s eclectic dance music scene and has been tirelessly delivering Detroit’s original message to British crowds for years. Regarded as a heavyweight producer with a unique electronic sound that combines elements of jazz, soul, techno and funk, Kirk’s also lectured extensively at Red Bull Music Academy and is a famed user of Ableton. 

Kirk Degiorgio Red Bull Music Academy lecture: 
http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures/kirk-degiorgio--planetary-folklore

CHERRY CHAN
A pioneer in the Singapore electronic music scene, Cherry Chan’s accolades includes championing Singapore's first all-girl DJ night- PopMyCherry and co-founding the FFF Girl DJ Bootcamp and Syndicate.SG, In 2010, Cherry was handpicked to attend the exclusive Red Bull Music Academy in London. In that same year, she co-founded Syndicate, Singapore’s first audio-visual label aimed at growing a culture of visual & sound making, encouraging audience exposure to original experimental content.

This session was transcribed by Emily Haw. Reach out to her on Twitter @emilyhaw