December 2010
4 posts
Zed Bias - Part 2 (of 2)
Continued from Part 1
OK well that’s the downsides of the garage scene there, but what about the positives?
The club nights were amazing. Proper made clubland friendly again – in certain cases, of course; I can’t generalise because as with everything it varies so much from place to place. If you’re in some ghetto neighbourhood or a bit of a ghetto club, the likelihood is that...
Zed Bias - Part 1 (of 2)
I won’t do a long intro on this, because this time I can let the story, and the music, do the talking. Dave Jones – aka Zed Bias, Maddslinky, Phuturistix, ES Dubs, etc etc – is someone whose own journey through the music world is an excellent illustration of the inseparability of mainstream and underground, of the long and deep traditions that run through even the most ephemeral of club...
Kamal Joory - Part 2 (of 2)
© Brian David Stevens
Continued from Part 1
…And what about the fact you’ve done a lot of stuff with vocalists? That’s not really standard in dubstep, was it conscious on your part to give a particular appeal?
I am in some respects a bit of a weird music listener. There’s not many people I know, apart from Juliet [his partner at the time of the interview, now wife] maybe,...
Kamal Joory - Part 1 (of 2)
© Brian David Stevens
Kamal Joory is exactly the sort of artist I wish there were more of. I had known, and owned, the intricate electronica records he made as Geiom for some while – indeed, given both of our involvement with electronica through the ’90s, it’s maybe surprising our paths never crossed – but it was in 2006 when dubstep made its big emergence from the underground that I...
November 2010
2 posts
Cristian Vogel - Part 2 (of 2)
© Brian David Stevens
Continued from Part 1
OK so – bar the occasional release for DJs via Snork, and the occasional gig, your involvement in techno is now via this live cut method. What about your other music? Are you doing any rock music like you have with your Night Of The Brain band, or any of the complete abstracted and freed-from-the-beat kind of sound that you were doing with the Trurl...
Cristian Vogel - Part 1 (of 2)
© Brian David Stevens
I met Cristian Vogel at university some time around 1993. My friends and I used to go to his Acid Box club nights, which played the most uncompromising techno of any in Brighton, usually in a brilliantly back-to-basics setup with relentless strobe light and fog machine providing the only visual element. He was, I think, the first person I’d met who had put out actual...
September 2010
2 posts
Tony Thorpe - Part 2 (of 2)
© Brian David Stevens
Continued from Part 1
And when that change was happening, how did you feel about the change in atmosphere in the raves?
Right, right, yep, now we can start talking. OK, I found there was a point when you had that Spectrum, acid house thing, when everything was quite colourless, it wasn’t black or white, you couldn’t tell who the people were behind the...
1 tag
Tony Thorpe - Part 1 (of 2)
© Brian David Stevens
This is a greatly extended version of an interview that originally appeared in Woofah magazine, with some snippets up here. Since I conducted this interview I’ve been lucky enough to work more with Tony Thorpe, including one of his recent tracks on my Adventures In Dubstep And Beyond mixed compilation for Ministry Of Sound, and getting him onto a discussion panel for...
April 2010
3 posts
Link or you'll miss it III
Well a delayed link roundup this week, as I continue to learn exactly how much time babies extract from a routine no matter how much time you try to allocate to them, especially once the health scares kick in. All fine now, though. Anyway. My interview with Mala is up. A real shame we had to cancel Cosmonaut on Sunday after he had a disaster with his records & the Belgian rail system;...
Link or you'll miss it II
This week I have been busy dealing with DMZ/Digital Mystikz’s Mala. I am midway through transcribing a pretty inspiring interview I did with him for FACT, which will be done and online hopefully early this week. He’s quite the philosopher, talks about business methods, jungle raves and the nature of time and space with equal ease, and I think it will be a good read. I also have him...
Link or you'll miss it
As you may or may not know, I’ve been having some actual real life off the internet lately - that is, I’ve become a father - hence being slow to update the site. However I have truly splendid interviews with underground legends Cristian Vogel and Geiom in the can and waiting to be put up, some exciting new mixes being put together, and more from Tony Thorpe to come.
But as a new...
December 2009
5 posts
El-B's Mundo Musica Cumbia DJ Mix
© Brian David Stevens
I am very, very proud indeed to present this mix by one of the great pioneers of UK music - who in this case is leaving UK music aside completely.
Lewis Beadle - El-B - occupies a unique position in UK dance music. His productions with Noodles as Groove Chronicles crystallised all the potential of UK garage, and his own Ghost work after that was vital in creating the bass...
1 tag
Mary Anne Hobbs - Part 2 (of 2)
© Brian David Stevens
Continued from part 1. We left Mary Anne having just been headhunted by Radio 1, following a confrontational interview with the station’s Head of Production on her XFM show…
It’s hard to imagine an NME journalist nowadays not being so briefed in brand relationships and who they should kowtow to at Radio 1 that they would do that, let alone be allowed...
1 tag
Mary Anne Hobbs - Part 1 (of 2)
© Brian David Stevens
Mary Anne Hobbs is not without her critics. There are those who imagine that she must be a dilettante, a bandwagon jumper, having come from indie and rock journalism via the Radio 1 rock show (where, incidentally, she would cover some truly extreme metal) to a show dedicated to leftfield electronic music, and particularly – since she underwent a dramatic conversion around...
1 tag
Rob Gordon
pic courtesy of Toddla T
Rob Gordon is the man who made Britain’s arse shake. He is the man who put the bass into bleep’n’bass – the Yorkshire sound circa 1989-1991 which was in turn the direct precursor of hardcore, jungle and so much of the most vital British music that has come since. Several people at that time, as Rob himself says in this interview, were finding the...
About Very Very Much
I’m Joe Muggs. I am a music writer and reviewer.
The purpose of this site is self indulgence. That is to say, it is dedicated to things and people that have played a big part in my life – and it is also an excuse to sit down with some of the people I admire most and get down to some serious talk about why they do what they do.
It’s also a chance to indulge my belief in the idea of...