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Features Introducing NEM3SI$’s new label Infinite Resistance! Mindbenderz talk ‘Lord of the Rings’ and fishing, as well as the creation of their new album ‘Celestial Gateway’! Iono-Music artists One Function, Eliyahu, Invisible Reality and Dual Vision talk Robert Miles, kids, dogs and vinyl, while we chat about their current releases! Luke&Flex talk influences, the Irish rave scene, why Flex wears a mask and Play Hard, their new EP out now on Onhcet Repbulik Xtreme! Lyktum expands on his new album ‘Home’ – talking about his love of storytelling, creating new harmonies and the concept behind his musical works. Pan talks getting caught short crossing the Sahara, acid eyeballs and tells us Trance is the Answer, plus shares his thoughts on his latest release 'Beyond the Horizon' - all from a beach in Spain! Miss C chats about living with the KLF, DJing in a huge cat’s mouth, training her brain and the upcoming super-duper Superfreq Grande party at LDN East this Saturday, 16th September! NEM3SI$ - I Live for the Night – talks superficiality, psychopaths, and bittersweet success, ahead of a plethora of evocative, emotional, and passionate upcoming melodic techno releases! Psy-Sisters Spring Blast Off! We talk to DJ competition winner ROEN along with other super talents on the lineup! Blasting towards summer festivals with Bahar Canca ahead of Psy-Sisters Spring Blast! Shyisma talks parties, UFO's, and Shotokan Karate ahead of his upcoming album 'Particles' on Iono-Music! SOME1 talks family, acid, stage fright and wolves - ahead of his upcoming album release ‘Voyager’ on Iono-Music in February 2023! The Transmission Crew tell all and talk about their first London event on 24th February 2023! NIXIRO talks body, mind and music production ahead of his release 'Planet Impulse' on Static Movement's label - Sol Music! Turning the world into a fairy tale with Ivy Orth ahead of Tribal Village’s 10th Birthday Anniversary Presents: The World Lounge Project The Psy-Sisters chat about music, achievements, aspirations and the 10-Year Anniversary Party - 18/12/22! A decade of dance music with Daniel Lesden Earth Needs a Rebirth! Discussions with Psy-Trance Artist Numayma Taking a Journey Through Time with Domino New Techno Rising Star DKLUB talks about his debut release White Rock on Onhcet Republik! PAN expands on many things including his new album 'Hyperbolic Oxymoron' due for release on the 14th April 2022 on PsyWorld Records! Psibindi talks all things music including her new collaborative EP 'Sentient Rays' on Aphid Records, her band Sentience Machine and 10 years of Psy-Sisters!

Simon Francis and the Visionaires bring Tonic to Shoreditch: your antidote to the Royal Wedding Reported by Tara / Submitted 26-04-11 20:13 Only occasionally are you lucky enough to meet someone who’s got music in their blood, who literally eats and breathes the stuff. Simon Francis is one such talented soul. Growing up surrounded by his DJ Dad’s dub plates and diverse instruments and sounds, he found his niche in dance music. Once Simon mastered DJing it was only a matter of time before he moved into promoting and managing his own events, with his PlinkPlinkFizz brand recently celebrating its eighth birthday at Ministry of Sound last September. This Friday night he’s launching a new event with his DJ/production partner in the Visionaires, Will Darling – Tonic, at the Workshop in Old Street. With the launch just two days away, it was high time he made his HarderFaster debut… You’ve been DJing for a good few years now. What inspired you to start mixing records? Did you always plan on being a DJ or was it something you fell into over time? Well funnily enough my Dad was a DJ, so I’ve grown up around music pretty much since I came out of the womb! My Dad and uncle had a sound system in the Midlands when they came over from Jamaica and used to play white labels and dub plates. Dad played various instruments so we had a piano in the house that I learned to play by ear. He gave me a guitar, so I learned to play that. Then I learned to DJ and started dabbling with electronic music. In terms of actual mixing, I learned when I was on the way to Uni in the mid-80s, just as the classic stuff really kicked in. I didn’t find it too difficult to learn beat mixing, as I had the music already. I’ve always enjoyed it and I never did it to earn loads of money, but loved the music and watching the crowd lose it on the dancefloor. So the fact I could make a bit of money was a bonus! As well as DJing you promote and manage events and produce, with your event PlinkPlinkFizz celebrating its eighth birthday at MOS last September. That’s one hell of an achievement! Can you remember the first PPF party? And do you have any PPF parties planned for the future? Yes it’s quite an achievement in clubland! I can remember the first one. I’d been doing a few parties in London DJing for other people, but there were always restrictions on what I could play or they’d put me on at a crap time and no-one was there. There were a few of us who were going out and there were loads of things going on at London and loads of money around in the middle of the boom. There were lots of people putting on parties to make money, but they weren’t concerned about the quality. I came up with the name based on your Alka Seltzer dropping into the water after a big night out. We found this great venue called the Mantis Bar just off Camberwell. It’s now a Latin restaurant. We did our first one there on 28th September 2002 and got about 160 people. We did loads of flyers and got really good crowds in. The bar had a great sound system but not much else and we turned it into a really cool house party, where everyone could come together and have a good time. You didn’t feel you were outside the clique, so long as you came with the right attitude you could come and have a party. It was house-based, but we played right across the spectrum – vocals, some girlie house music, break beat, some trance stuff – but it was all very much aimed at the dancefloor. The next party is meant to be on 25 June but we’re still looking at venues, so watch this space. It’s hard to find a good venue in London isn’t it? There’s some good venues around, but you have to look around and get in early. We’ve been doing events at MOS and they’re so professional and well run, they tend to pack the place out. In terms of other venues there’s the Lightbox in Vauxhall and lots of places around Shoreditch where we can get small intimate spaces, the only problem is they tend to be quite expensive. We just want to put good events on and if they make money it’s a fantastic bonus. PlinkPlinkFizz are known for their legendary boat parties. What’s your favourite party from over the years? Oh god! We haven’t done one for a couple of years and we do keep getting asked about them. I think next summer we’ll do one. The best one was our 3rd party on a boat called the Golden Jubilee. It’s wicked − the guys who run those boats are awesome. The party sold out 300 tickets well in advance and we had house in one room and soul and funk in another. We’re pretty lucky every year with the weather, but that party was just mind-blowing. The first one we did was a smaller one, 150 capacity and we sold it out pretty quickly, so the following year we took on a bigger boat but got our dates wrong, so we lost a bit of money. Then the next year we weren’t sure if we wanted to do it because it’s quite stressful. The guys were asking and I said, “Well if you want to put in some money and help with promotion…”. They said yes and everyone just smashed it with their sets, the weather was awesome and it lead to a few more parties that sold out. We don’t book loads of high paying DJs, we work with a few DJs who come and have a good time and I think out third party was the best one. A majority of the people come to rave, but some just come to see London at night so we’d always stop off at midnight so they could get the tube. But most would stay and you’d have to find them an afterparty afterwards. What DJs and producers have inspired you over the years? And now? Crikey! There are quite a few. Lee Scratch Perry, the old school reggae producer, he’s unbelievable! He still DJs. King Tubby also used to do dub and reggae back in the day. It was incredible they way they’d make records. Then in the ’80s people like Martin Rushent, who used to produce The Human League – there was lots of good stuff around then but they were awesome. In terms of house music a lot of the American guys like David Morales, Roger Sanchez, Frankie Knuckles and Satoshi Tomiie – that whole Def Mix sound is so well produced, with brilliant vocals. They had a good influence on me, in terms of what I was buying at the time. Now there’s loads of really good young guys like Russ Chimes, he’s brilliant. Michael Woods does great stuff at the moment. Ana is also doing good progressive house and tech house. I’m always interested in what Joey Negro’s doing. Krafty Kuts is amazing to watch. I could be here all day, because I’m involved in quite a few different types of music… Another guy that’s been around for a while is Pete Jordan, he runs Spectrum, a really good breaks-based night that does everything from hip hop through to drum ’n’ bass. They had a night at Ewer Street Warehouse recently. He’s great as a DJ and producer. You’re also involved in getting bookings for other DJs. Who has caught your eyes and ears recently? There’s a great young DJ/producer Tim Cullen, who’s brilliant! He’s done a lot of main room sets at MOS and Pacha. He plays right across the board, house music and also proggy stuff, so I think he’s going to blow up quite big. He’s a great guy to work with. Someone else who does good stuff is Lizzie Curious. She’s really making a few waves at the moment as a DJ and producer. As a DJ she’s got a lot of energy and I’ve got a feeling she’s going to really blow up. There’s Felix Leiter, who’s resident at Digital in Newcastle. He’s been DJing a while and he’s just done a remix of the Utah Saints’ ‘What Can You Do For Me’ and he’s got his own single coming out on Hed Kandi, ‘Sky High’. The first opportunity we can we’re going to get him down to London to DJ. Has it been a difficult journey learning to produce music? What software and hardware do you prefer to use? Yes it has! I’m still very much learning about the software and everything else. I’m very lucky that my studio partner [Will Darling] is a bit of a whiz at that sort of thing, otherwise we’d be there forever. We’re currently using Reason and I’m planning on using Logic later this year. In terms of hardware we’re using Macs, then we use some plug ins. I’ve got Ableton as well, so it’s going to be a combination of different bits of software. I’m really lucky because Will does that side of it. He’s twiddling the knobs and I’m more artistically directing it and often bring him the melody lines, then we work from there. So we both have a hand in creating the songs but he does a lot of the engineering stuff. My aim over the next few months is to be as comfortable about stuff as he is so I can get tracks to a more progressive state before we actually meet up in the studio, so I can take them to him and we can make them into a killer tune. That’s often how a lot of DJ/producer partnerships work. One will have the creative ideas and be musical in some way but not technical, but a combo of the two gets the right result out of it. But I don’t want to depend on Will to process my ideas, we are on the same wavelength but every so often he doesn’t get what I’m saying, so we have to work it out. But usually he’ll say, “What about this?”, and I’ll say “How about this?” and we’ll take it to the next level. You’re half of the Visionaires with Will Darling and have released a couple of epic tunes: ‘Keep Movin’, ‘Gaudete’ and your bootleg of Human League’s ‘Love Action’ – one of my favourite tracks from back in the day. What other productions do you have in the pipelines at the moment? We’ve done two more original productions that we’re polishing up at the moment and should hopefully be ready for our next night to road test. There’s a couple of tweaks I want to do before we unleash them on the public. We’ve done a remix for Westway records, a track by Pete Jordan called ‘Step out’ featuring a rapper called Joe B, that’s coming out soon. We’re doing another remix for Soulfire records which is a more progressive number and will be out later in the summer. We’ve also got a couple of other projects which we can’t talk about yet as they’re still hush hush, we spoke to someone last week and they’re waiting to clarify the legal situation on a couple of things before we can go ahead and work on the project. So fingers crossed we’ll be working on a really big track over summer. We’ve got quite a few things we want to do and a few remixes going on too. Because we’ve done a couple of tracks that are getting really well received by other DJs, people are asking us to work on their tracks. So we’ve been saying to people we’re up for doing some remixes. We know the stuff we’re working on is good or people wouldn’t be asking for us to do remixes – so we’re obviously on the right track! How would you describe the Simon Francis sound? And how is it different from what you play in the Visionaires (if at all)? It’s not different from what I play with Visionaires – the music’s gotta have the funk in it. If it’s not got some little funky groove to it then I’m probably not going to play it. In terms of the music I play it’s very wide range. A typical set will have prog house, techno and breakbeat but will be aimed very squarely at the people dancing. But we also play a mix of classics as well. We want to entertain the crowd that have paid to come and see us. When you get to a certain level you can be more experimental. Someone like Sasha, people expect a certain experience when they see certain DJs. It’s OK for someone at that level because they’re experienced enough to know they’ve got to entertain the crowd and I think a lot of DJs do forget that. They think they can’t miss a beat when they’re mixing and have to play loads of cutting edge records and never look up from the decks and see what the crowd is doing. That’s the way I see it… You’ve got to love what you play but it’s very much getting some kind of relationship with the audience, because if they trust you, you can take you anywhere you want and then you can give them what you want! What have been the highlights of your time in the music industry so far? And what goals do you still have for the future? There’ve been quite a few highlights. Playing at MOS for the first time was really cool. We spoke to the club for the first time last year about taking over one of their smaller rooms and played the same night as Benny Benassi. That was a special night as the atmosphere in the club was phenomenal. To get to play at a club I’d frequented and worked at, but I’d never DJed at, was awesome. There were opportunities to DJ before but we wanted to do it on our own terms and taking over the room and doing what we wanted to do was pretty cool. Getting our first record signed was a pretty big highlight because in terms of production I hadn’t been doing it that long, so getting one of our first tracks signed made me feel particularly proud. In terms of what we want to do in the future, I’d like to get a reputation of making really good club music so people see the Visionaires brand on something and know it’s a certain quality. Obviously money and travelling the world comes with it, but you’ve got to get the respect of your peers. Wherever that leads is a bit of a bonus really! In the time you’ve been DJing and doing events, technology has totally changed the way we play, produce, promote and distribute music. Do you think that overall it’s evolved for the better? How has is changed the way you work as a DJ, producer, promoter and event manager? Technology has good and bad points. I love not having to carry massive crates of vinyl around to gigs anymore but the digital revolution means there are far more tracks out there and the quality control isn’t there because it costs nothing to make and release tracks online, relative to pressing records. In terms of promotion and distribution, it’s the same situation – costs can be lower but it means you can get inundated with spam for music, events, venues, services... you get blind to it after a while like we used to with posters and flyers! We still use some old skool promotional tools like flyers and posters as it has become a point of difference in some ways. We need to embrace the advances in technology, just have to use them properly is all! If you won the lottery and could put on an event anywhere in the word, where would it be and who would you book to headline it? Wow! If I could go back in time I would go back to the Hacienda in Manchester, as that was my favourite club ever, – but now it’s flats so it’s not possible. I’d probably go outdoors to a beach in Australia. I’d have Roger Sanchez playing and Fatboy Slim, as he’s the ultimate party DJ, no-one does it better really! There are a couple of DJs that I work with all the time that don’t get the acknowledgement they deserve so they’d get to play too. If a movie was made of your life, who would you choose to play Simon Francis? Oh my god, that’s a difficult question. I’m too young to get someone like Denzel Washington to play me, he’s a bit too old. I suppose I’d get Noel Clarke, the guy who made Kidulthood, he’d be really good! What advice do you have for the up and coming DJs and producers reading this? My advice is instead of trying to always go and work for some other club promotion and get stuck on the bottom of the bill and only get paid if you bring 100 people – which is one of the biggest problems in clubland right now, promoters should be more concerned about promoting and getting the night right! But it’s often something that happens to DJs, they get stuck trying to get gigs, so I think a DJ should get a collective of people that share similar ideas and start their own thing, then they’ve got more control over the direction of the night. They’ll make mistakes but get more out of it. In terms of producing, don’t try and copy anyone. Try and make music that’s yours. If the music is of a good enough quality people will hear it for what it is. You’re starting up a new promotion, Tonic, and will launching it this Friday night at the Workshop in Old Street. What’s the ethos behind your new event and who will be DJing? We chose the Workshop because it’s a nice intimate venue where Will and I can develop the Tonic brand and use it to road test new music that we’re producing. It’s very much about having a few drinks, enjoying yourself and partying til the small hours, there’s a great sound system and we’re looking at having some live acts in future. We’re into making it a really cool little dance party that people want to come to. DJ-wise at the first one, the Visionares will be playing alongside DJ Sonic who’s one of the PlinkPlinkFizz DJs who’s done a few tracks and plays everything from house to Goa trance. We just want to play a selection of great new music, some club classics and we want the atmosphere to be like you’re in someone’s lounge, where you can have a really good boogie. Finally, why should readers come to Tonic this Friday night? Well it’s post all the Royal wedding nonsense and it’s a great place to come and have a good time. It’s a lovely venue, the bar prices aren’t OTT for that part of town and we’re trying to make it into a really cool house party that people will want to come to, a fun little party in Shoreditch without the attitude, so that people come and get the spirit of what we’re all about. We just want to have a really good party – hopefully that’s what we’ll do on Friday! Images courtesy of Simon Francis. Not to be reproduced without permission. TONIC On: Friday 29th April 2011 At: The Workshop [map] From: 23:00 - 05:00 Cost: £5 B4 Midnight (£7 after). Facebook guest list £3 B4 MIDNIGHT. Website: www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=186969441347727&ref=ts Ticket Info: simon@plinkplinkfizz.com More: Fridays are about to change in Shoreditch! Launching on Friday 29th April (the date of the Royal Wedding) TONIC is a monthly party playing the best house, electro, breaks, progressive and disco with a sprinkling of classics designed as the perfect pick-me-up after the demands of the working week! It's all about good music and party vibes without the attitude. DJs on the night will be residents THE VISIONAIRES and special guest DJ SONIC! THE VISIONAIRES are Simon Francis and Will Darling. Currently causing mayhem on the nation's dancefloors with their club hits 'Keep Movin' and 'Gaudete' plus their bootleg mix of the Human League's 'Love Action', the guys have two tracks coming out on Mofo Hifi and Studio 45 records. They also have a batch of official remixes about to be released as well as their new material. Fresh from spinning at Ministry of Sound in March, they can't wait to bring the party to Shoreditch! Guest DJ SONIC is PlinkPlinkFizz resident and a recording artist of note himself with tracks and albums released on Rumour records and Planet Dog. His mix of funked up house will certainly keep the dancefloor pumping! This party is taking place at The Workshop, downstairs at Roadtrip bar on Old Street! A fun chilled out venue with a fully stocked bar and a fantastic cocktail list, this intimate venue is perfect to create the vibe of a house party - exactly what TONIC is about! The party begins at 11pm and goes through till 5am! Entry is £5 on the door before midnight (£7 after) but if you add your name to the Facebook guestlist it will only be £3 before MIDNIGHT!! So, what are you waiting for? If you are celebrating a birthday or other special occasion, please get in touch as we can also organise group deals - please email simon@plinkplinkfizz.com for details. This is going to be a great fun party. Watch out for special guest mixes and giveaways over the coming weeks. See you on the 29th!! Flyer: Region: London Music: House. Deep House. Funky House. Prog House. Tribal House. US House. Vocal House. Soulful House. Tech House. Breaks. Electro. Disco. Soul. DJ's: THE VISIONAIRES - Simon Francis and Will Darling DJ Sonic Who's Going? (1) : Tara  Share this :: : : : Follow HarderFaster :: Other Features By Tara: Blasting towards summer festivals with Bahar Canca ahead of Psy-Sisters Spring Blast! Turning the world into a fairy tale with Ivy Orth ahead of Tribal Village’s 10th Birthday Anniversary Presents: The World Lounge Project A decade of dance music with Daniel Lesden Telling Cosmic Tales with DJ Strophoria Tom Psylicious aka EarthAlien takes 50 Spins Around the Sun: Raising Awareness Through the Power of Music The views and opinions expressed in this review are strictly those of the author only for which HarderFaster will not be held responsible or liable. Comments:

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