|
 Sam Townend is one of the leading figures in the Hard Dance Scene today. He’s one half of the acclaimed DJ team The Tidy DJs, head of music at Tidy, a solo artist in his own right and holds residencies at Sundissential, Parlez-vous? and Twist. Sam has been handpicked by BK to feature on his new collaborations album BK presents “The Nu Wave” out now on Riot Recordings...
In addition to Sam, BK's new album features the most exciting new producers and DJs from the scene each producing a track alongside BK. Storm promoter Garbo, Polysexual promoter Mark H and Teknikal, appear alongside more established new comers Andy Whitby, Alex Kidd, Kutski, Cally Gage and Vinylgroover plus bonus tracks from long-time BK friend and collaborator Lisa Lashes and the good lord himself, BK, making this album an essential snapshot of the scene in 2008.
Here Sam takes time out of his hectic schedule to talk about the new project, how he got involved with it and his thoughts on the current state of Hard Dance.
LP: Hi Sam. For those who are not aware of you, please give us a brief introduction to who you are:
Sam Townend: I’m Sam Townend, I’m a DJ & producer from Leeds. For my 9-5 day job (although it’s more 24/7) I’m head of music at Tidy, I’m one half of the Tidy DJs, and I don’t like spiders.
LP: You have recently collaborated with BK as part of new album ‘BK Presents ‘The Nu Wave’’ – how did this come about?
Sam Townend: Obviously being label manager at Tidy means I’m speaking day to day with all the producers from the scene. I had spoken with Ben quite a bit on various different projects and we shared the same views on the music and scene as a whole. My style is geared towards the funkier end of the scale with a lot more house elements in it and Ben wanted a good opening track for the album that more or less summed up the kind of thing I do so he gave me a call! I’m more than happy with the result as it really does combine both our styles perfectly!
LP: What’s it like working with BK?
Sam Townend: Working with BK was pretty inspirational, I have worked with a hell of a lot of producers and Ben is deffo one of, if not the best around today. His attention to detail is outstanding and it’s always good to work with someone who is as enthusiastic about trying new ideas and concepts as he is.
LP: What’s your track like?
Sam Townend: We took Inspiration from the track for a number of different places, I’m a big fan of tough funky house vibes, so we wanted to incorporate elements of this and kind of go down the route of bringing the old Trade sound up to date as we both feel that this kind of track is lacking from the modern scene. I’m also a big fan of vocals in tracks as they are the key to really getting the dancefloor going in any club, so I wrote some lyrics especially for the track and got the session singers in at the Tidy studio’s, then me and BK worked on the arrangement and production and hey presto, we had a right little romper stomper of a track on our hands!
LP: What is your opinion of the hard dance scene in 2008?
Sam Townend: The hard dance scene in 2008 is definitely seeing a bit of a resurgence, I really do feel that big things are about to happen with the music genre as a whole again. There is more and more quality music about, the clubs are busy and there is a good vibe surrounding the whole scene at the moment. Music comes and goes in cycles and I think it could be that time for hard dance to become prominent again! Fingers crossed….
LP: What inspires you to do this?
Sam Townend: My inspiration for doing all this is just a love for the music. I live, eat, breathe and shit dance music. It’s my passion and my life really. I have tried to get into other hobbies or interests but nothing else grabs me like the music does, it’s a bit like an addiction really!
LP: What is your dream gig?
Sam Townend: My dream gig… that’s a tough one, there are still so many things I want to do and achieve that its hard to put my finger on just one thing that would by my ultimate gig. If the crowd and venue are right then every gig could be a dream one. Near the top of my list though would definitely be playing Wembley to a sell out crowd (might have to join a band to realise that one though, lol!)
LP: If you weren’t doing this job, what would you be doing?
Sam Townend: If I wasn’t doing this I don’t have a clue what I would be doing, my whole working life has been geared towards working with dance music, so I don’t really know anything else! I have done some really shit jobs to make ends meet in the past and I really wouldn’t fancy going back to any of them any time soon! When I was at school I really wanted to join the Army for some reason, so maybe that’s what I would be doing!
LP: You’re organising the ‘end of the world’ party, who’s on the guest list and who’s not coming in?
Sam Townend: Guestlist – Family, friends, anyone I have ever shared a joke with or had a drink with at a club or a party.
Blacklist - George Bush
(He’s probably the twat who caused us to have an end of world party!)
LP: What’s next for you?
Sam Townend: I have loads of projects in the pipeline; I’m busy with the production work with new tracks coming out on the forthcoming ‘Inspirations For a Harder Generation’ album with Tidy. I have done my own re-work of the 90’s club classic ‘Make The World Go Round’ and also appear as my alter ego double act ‘The Tidy DJs’ on our remix of ‘Strings For Yasmin’ which is out now as a pre album sampler! We have also done a Tidy DJs collab with Paul Maddox called ‘Rave Cat’ on his new EP, which is released as part of Tidy Music Library Issue 03 on September 8th. I have another collab planned with Tidy producer Guyver before the end of the year and me and BK have already been taking about ideas for a follow up single to ‘Allnight’ so watch this space! DJ Wise I’m really busy with the Tidy DJs stuff, our calendars are nearly full for the rest of 2008 so expects us to pop up in a disco near you soon!
|
![[i:Vibes]](i_pic/ivibes_new.jpg)
Frontpage
News
Reviews
Interviews
Party Reports
Artist Profiles
Label profiles
Diaries
What is...
Tutorials
Links
Radio-info
Forum
Chat
User Stats
Crew-info
i:Vibes Info
Related Links
Tell a friend
