 The Cosmosis/Laughing Buddha Interview with Bill Last updated 3/97 by Mark_H, HTML by Seth Q. Where's Jez? Bill. Jez is in northern India, possibly Nepal by now, soaking up some Himalayan vibes. The last time I saw him he was dancing like a crazed lunatic to Chrisbo's set at a party in Anjuna. Apparently he was last spotted in the mountains in Northern India wandering off into a large field full of the same type of tall green plants. Q. What were you doing in the Antipodes? Bill. Well, on the face of it, touring. Which in the old rock'n'roll paradigm means promoting your music and earning a bit of cash, which we were doing as well. But in our case it turned out to be more of an excuse to have a blindingly good time by travelling and partying in stunning sunny locations, an opportunity to meet other producers, party organisers and people involved in creating the scene, and contribute to and empower this whole Global Party Network thang. Not forgetting of course, escaping the nightmare of another winter in London. Q. I heard that there was a gig in Sydney that you were going to play that you didn't. What happened? Bill. Er, it's a very long and boring story which might turn into a bit of a rant so I'll give you the 3 minute version. We were originally booked by our man Steve (D.J Baldy) to play this big party on the beach near Auckland. The word got out that we were planning a trip down under and we were contacted by a Sydney promoter and offered a whistle stop tour of cities in Australia. So being the money grabbing sons of bitches that we were, we agreed. It later turned out that she was a House promoter and as things panned out it became clear that it wasn't appropriate. She was doing her sums and found out that she wasn't going to make the killing that she thought she would on this 'next big thing' called psychedelic trance, besides Josh Wink was in town and he was guaranteed bums on seats. So after contacting us 3 months before we left, and continually leading us to believe that she'd arranged this tour of Australian cities, she quite simply blew us out. and it must be said, without a second thought or any degree of finesse. It was certainly a lesson for us in a number of ways, the most important of which was to realise that we're only interested in dealing with people that are into the scene because, like us, it's their passion and in a lot of cases their life. Sure, money is part of the equation, but when it's the only factor involved, then it's become cynical. That scene, whatever it is, has lost it, and no longer has a heart. Let me put it another way, if I want to sell my arse, I can go to King's Cross in London, and not have to travel 8,000 miles to King's Cross in Sydney to do it. Q. Do you think it's inevitable that the psychedelic scene will become cynical? Bill. Well if you define cynical as doing things exclusively for money then I think that on the periphery of the scene it already has. There's a few dodgy compilations around with old material sometimes of dubious quality, which have obviously been thrown together by people that don't know anything about the music to make a fast buck. Which I find annoying because it doesn't give people value for money for their £12 or whatever and it doesn't represent the music. Or you go to a 'party' and find out that it really is a club that has been packed so full of people, that it takes you 20 minutes to get from one side to the other, and that it's impossible to dance. I love dancing and as far as I'm concerned, there's absolutely no point in me being at a dance party if I can't dance. Having said that, we are talking about the periphery, and it really is just to be expected when something becomes more popular. You just need to know where the action really is. There will always be an underground, hopefully a dynamic, evolving underground. Q. How do you think that cynicism can that be avoided? Bill. There is a helluva lot to be learned and a lot of mistakes to be avoided by looking at the progression from the early days of acid house, the incredible revolution that was in terms of new music and new attitudes to life, and how cynical mainstream clubland is now after 10 years or so. I think that it's important to realise that things don't have to go down that tunnel again especially with the benefit of hindsight. We are all the custodians of this scene and this music, so it's down to us not to allow the same things to happen, to keep the music and possibly even the format of the parties evolving, to stay open to new sounds and ideas and not to let it become stuck in time. I'm sure that we've all had those moments on the dancefloor where it becomes obvious that nothing is fixed and static, that everything is constantly in a state of change or a dance, not only the music is flowing and evolving, but in fact the whole of reality and the universe is. That to me seems to be the obvious blueprint to follow. Q. How do you think the psychedelic scene differs from other dance scenes? Bill. For one thing, being away in a tour situation where you travel from one place to the next to the next, certainly brought the global nature into much sharper focus for me. We've played a fair few parties around Europe and a few other places too, but in that situation we travel out and then come back to base, and we don't stay long enough to hang out and really get to know the people involved in going to, and creating the parties. And there's some incredible people out there creating this whole global counterculture or whatever. Dancers, D.Js, sound and lighting crews, travelling fluoro hippies, freaks, space cadets, philosophers, jesters, jugglers, jokers in fact the whole circus, everybody is doing their piece. The funny thing is, wherever I go, it looks the same; the fluoro backdrops, people dancing, the U.V. even the soundtrack to the movie is the same, actually that's all just to be expected, the interesting thing is that the vibe is the same. People's way of being is the same. But something's different , for example I found myself staggering out of a laser be-beamed warehouse at 5 a.m., smoke billowing out of the door to watch container ships sailing up the channel in Auckland harbour. Or as the sun rose, finding out that the dancefloor that I'd been dancing on through the night was a dry riverbed on the edge of a small waterfall in a eucalyptus forest. Which wasn't bad, I can tell you. Q. So you did get to Australia? Bill. Oh yeah. It turned out to be a total success after the small hiccup at the beginning. We ended up kind of blagging our way around. We just put the word around that all we needed were plane tickets a place to stay and whatever they could afford, and fortunately this scene being what it is, people invited us to play and put on parties just for us. People in general I found to be incredibly generous, hospitable, welcoming, friendly and accommodating. In fact I was absolutely blown away by how we were treated generally. Which confirmed what I already know about this scene, which is that it holds so much promise and has so much to contribute and that it's still in it's infancy in almost all parts of the world. It's sometimes easy to forget that living in London, which seems to be where it's at it's most intense, certainly in terms of pace. Q. Earlier when we were talking I heard you mention that you and Jez have been D.Jing. When did you get into that and why? Bill. Jez has been D.Jing for quite a while now on the quiet, whereas it's more of a recent thing for me to do. Although there's very little difference between playing a bunch of DATS of our tunes, and a bunch of DATS with some of ours and some of someone else's' tunes on them. The only real technical difference between doing a 'live' P.A. and a D.J.set, is that I don't play any live guitar or synth over the top. As to why I got into it, well, DJ's are responsible, or should be responsible for quality control. What I mean by that, is that in my opinion, by far the most important skill of a trance D.J. is to be able to tell the good tunes from the bad ones, to sort the wheat from the chaff. If they can't do that then they don't know enough about the music to be representing it. Without that, it doesn't matter whether they can mix like a demon, or put them in an appropriate order, it's still going to sound like a pile of cack, because the sound that is coming out of the speakers are the records that they've chosen and nothing more. Obviously personal taste comes into it because Tsuyoshi's sets sound quite different to James Monro's, but the music that you hear them playing is the cream of what is around. You don't hear them playing badly produced or cliched music, or those dodgy tunes that go on and on for ages with no new ideas coming in to keep you entertained. And another thing, because a tune is new, really does not mean that it's a good tune. I think I'll get off my soapbox at this point, because as you can hear I'm really quite opinionated about this. Once I sat and watched a D.J. with a wicked selection of records, consistently pull out and play the naffest tunes and ignore all the good ones all night. I think that was the point that I decided that I ought to get involved in D.Jing., in the quality control. I love this music too much to stand by and watch that happen. Q. What are your plans for the future? Bill. Studiowise, finishing off the Laughing Buddha album, which should come out on T.I.P. records around the end of this year. And completing a new Cosmosis album that'll come out on Transient around the end of this year or beginning of next. Also finishing the 12" release that'll come out on Transient in September. Also contributing some music for a 11 part T.V. drama about dance culture, centred around a radio station. As well as D.Jing, doing a few live P.A.s, and of course some serious partying myself. © 1998 Cosmosis & Innerverse |