out now on vinyl is the new lofi stereo 12" "the source 2009" with stunning remixes by man of the moment reboot and the two swiss tech-house-gurus paulussen&cali. lofi #45 is distributed through kompakt. finally out on beatport, too. check the player below for the direct links.
the last weeks were really busy for me. besides playing gijon, cologne and of course cocoon in frankfurt i had an amazing gig at goa madrid for jimpsters freerange night. shouts to everybody at goa, we had a very good time and an amazing party there. another highlight was the local open air festival called "homerun" which suffered a lil bit of rain. however there were over 2000 people celbrating to the sets of butch, toni rios, tobi neumann and reboot. coming up the next weeks is the motorcitysoul-gig at "air" in tokyo (really looking forward to this one!) and my return to ibiza on july the 6th. saturday the 4th will see a revival of ricardos bridge-party in darmstadt (30 miles south of frankfurt) - a legendary venue with some really outstanding nights over ten years ago. not sure how long police will let us do what we do but it will be special no matter when they end it ;)
july 11th is big cocoon@matter night in london at the almighty o2 arena. no idea how this will turn out but presales are breaking all records and the aftergig at retox is planned yet, too. exciting weeks with amazing venues and line-ups coming up.
besides all the touring make sure you grab some of the rare and limited "rawsen" 12"s. my new release on stir15 with stunning remixes by nacho marco (loudeast, valencia) and nic fanciulli (skylark, london).
back in full effect and even more, back from a massive jetlag due to a quite mad trip from new york to vancouver over chicago. with a cancelled flight and a non-planned stay in chicago and of course a missed gig in vancouver. not to mention the story of the bag that was supposed to be in vancouver while i was still in chicago but in fact it wasn't (which i found out a day later after I arrived in vancouver). however i was able to catch my flight back to europe although i had only 40 minutes to look for my bag, talking to the lost&found guy, entering canada and talking to a border officer and then to the customs guys and then checking back in to my flight to london - without my bag of course. whatever, all good now, in a way, still trying to solve out what to do with the flightcosts as it seems the missed gig (thanx to united airlines) now means I have to pay the flight to canada, the hotel in chicago and lost the money for the no-show in vancouver. so, in theory, the jetlag is not 100% over yet ;)
however, it was a great trip and i have to thank everybody in the us involved in that tour. henry for the nice stay in miami, clarisse and will for inviting me to "electric pickle", brett and mike1 & mike2 and miss paige in dallas and last but not least michael and willie in new york.
march, 2009
find an exlusive interview for ministry of sound below done for my gig with will saul for his simple labelnight at m/o/s london (which was amazing). shouts to will and the nice guys at m/o/s.
thanks for sitting down with us ahead of you playing the bar this coming saturday. we're really excited to have you make your debut here at the club. for those of our crowd that aren't familiar with you, can you tell us about yourselves and what to expect from a motorcity soul set?
thanx, we're looking forward to. especially to hear/see that famous sound and light at m/o/s.
about the motorcitysoul sound, especially in a dj set it can be most likely classified as moody but hedonistic if that makes sense, well, it doesn't but that's what we try at least. house is the red line, deephouse if the crowd dig it, and more techy and minimal if the masses need more of a punch in the face ;)
we usually do not stick with just one sound in the set as we found that pretty boring. so there can be jazzy elements, old house, detroit techno and of course the actual hyped german house sound. if you stay long enough and if we got enough alcohol we do not even mind to play out some pop & rock classics to the end!
do you ever plan out a DJ set?
what's that? planning a dj set? If you mean bringing records and cds to a venue, yes, we do. if you mean playing by numbers I think this won't be real a dj-set. playing a pre-selected playlist is ok and before someone plays out crap music it's ok if he/she is doing so but no dj we admire ever does this. at least i hope so ;)
what does your standard dj set up comprise of?
we play vinyl and cds and use serato. If matthias and I play together it's 50/50 cds and vinyl/serato. if I play alone I tend to not play cds as I do not like them pretty much so I stay on the vinyl and serato side. cds are unsexy, unreal, harsh sound if they are be played with a pioneer cdj which is mostly the case. sometimes we extend the set up even by bringing our percussion player (heiko himmighoffen) and use some old analog synths such as a juno or jx-3p.
how was your nye? did you dj somewhere or did you party?
speaking for me in this case, nye was massive! I played at cocoon frankfurt together with sven, karotte, mathew jonson and reboot live and dj stoopid from berlin. It was an amazing night and one of the best nye club experiences I can remember. I had many of my friends coming over from all parts of germany and europe. so i left at 09:30 in the morning.
what clubs do you most enjoy playing at?
well, soundwise cocoonclub frankfurt and robert johnson are amazing. i also dig the vibe at moscows propaganda and the old club11 in amsterdam (r.i.p.). i also had really good nights at the week-wnd-club in berlin over the last years and look forward to this april and the motorcitysoul debut at cielo in new york. I heard so many good things I am sure this one will be great, too.
what are your musical backgrounds?
matthias is a classical skilled musician and he studied piano. he comes deftinely more from a jazz-backround. He is also the head of the "re:jazz" project.
i am coming from the dj/producers side with collecting early techno and industrial music in the 80s. wave- and postpunk and later on rave- and Indie-rock, too. to drop some names here that stands for our influences: prefab sproud, new order, depeche mode, stone roses, kraftwerk, milt jackson, grp, de la soul... just to name a few.
what did you both do prior to forming motorcitysoul?
as written above, matthias also runs the re:jazz project and has some other side projects such as his trio and a band called pinocchio theory.
i do also run two labels (stir15 & lofi stereo), but this has been slowed down a bit due to all the motorcitysoul work and the dj touring. however I released quite a bunch of c-rock records and remixes in the past, actually more than motorcitysoul stuff and still do. my next 12" will be coming on my label stir15 in the next couple of months including a remix by nacho marco and skylark. there will be also an old stardub re-edition of a track I did ages ago called "the source". it will come with remixes by ricardo villalobos and reboot. matthias just released a remix on urban torque and starts remixing a track for them after his return from japan.
you've remixed a wide array of artists, which artists have been the most flattering to get requests from?
abdullah ibrahim was an honour as he is a real hero on the Jazz side. lately the remix for terry's jbo revisited and his black science orchestra re-release was quite an honour, too. having remixed blaze is also something we look back with proud and even more our joint venture with chez damier.
you've had some great releases out with some incredible support from some great djs. do you ever get to see the feedback sheets? what comments and from who, have been the most memorable?
yes, sometimes we do and we are glad that in most cases the djs and producers we like do also like our stuff. however to be honest: the feedback we get on the floor by the crowd counts more. i mean, in the end, they are the ones that pay to hear our sound and hopefully buy our music. so the real smile on our face comes from positive feedback by dancers and listeners. we get mails from israel, marocco, russia, japan, the us, australia et al from people we do not know and they really worship our music, this is why we do this.
out of all of your productions which releases are you most proud of?
the kids In the streets "keep on turning" is a classic without any doubt. and also our releases for simple, lofi stereo and stir15. on the remixside we do really look forward to the next two remixes we have just finished. one will be for danish label "tic tac toe" label and the other one comes on another frankfurt based label called blackfish. we did not know this label before they asked us by the original track had quite something and the remix is definetly one of our best so far in terms of combining house, disco and techno elements.
who are your favourite djs?
hard question. Influential djs were/are of course sven. and speaking for me I was really thrilled by the early justin robertson and andy weatherall sets beginning of the 90s. currently ricardo still is one of the last shamen that creates more of a vibe than just playing music. up and coming are defintely federico molinari and benny rodriguez. I do also enjoy everything from Jus' ed and of course my man dj grobas from la coruˆ±a in spain. last but not least I will never forget matthias' set at my wedding party two years ago ;)
What tracks are currently big in your record bag?
currently I really do dj stalking on everything by skylark, reboot and all the lovebirds stuff by kneedeep sebastian. also Jimpster is making it again and again. i do not really fancy all the new hyped minimal house and retro classic from all the german young guns although I do respect what they do and appreciate they keep house alive. well, in a way. other than the current ones there are also "m5" by maurizio, "erotic city" by prince, "everybody needs somebody" by the masters at work and of course kraftwerk "numbers" that will never leave my bag.
what non dance music stuff is currently doing it for you?
i recently bought the prefab sproud remaster which still does it for me - now even more with that improved sound. i saw the kooks live the other day which was REALLY GOOD. I am a kid of the 80s so all that morissey, the smiths, cure et al is still in my car. at home it's more Jazz and the 80s synthpop that I have all on vinyl.
and finally a freak flood is hitting your house. you've rescued the essentials.. you've got 30 seconds to grab a few records from the collection. what are the first ones you reach for?
no chance, I either would blindly grab and just run or find a place to lay next to them and watch them getting under water. i might take some cool photos of all that and use them to announce qutting my facebook account.
Thanks for sitting down with us. We look forward to seeing you on Saturday!
same same - looking forward to spend a lot of money in london and benefit of the high euro. so good you guys did not joing the euro-thing ;)
feb 24th, 2009
some weeks without updating again (and again and again...).
my trip to lovely salamanca was very nice but more like an in and out thing this time. I defintely have to stay longer next time!
also very nice but very extreme was the b-day-bash of dj maniac karotte last friday. i djed together with markus fix and have to say that markus performed xxl good that night. thanx to everyone that showed up - if you want to see more: i've posted the pictures of my trip to salamanca and last friday on my facebook site.
last but not least there is not only my facebook site anymore... i have to admit it, i've joined that twitter shit, too. no idea why and if i even will use it but deleting the account is always an option - well sometimes not as the latest facebook buzz showed, however i'll try the twitter thing for now and decide then. maybe it helps getting more frequent updates to the net from my journeys and gigs. stay tuned for more on this one.
jan 23rd, 2009
a quick and fast update before i leave playing at monza#2 in frankfurt: brussels last saturday was ace. actually a very nice party with an amazing vibe and top notch hosts - shouts to dirty dancing et merci beaucoup! please check the motorcitysoul group on facebook if you want to see more picts of dirty dancing in brussels.
friday the 23rd (today) will see my return to monza. well actually it's my debut at monza#2 however i was resident dj at monza #1 and had some really good nights there back between '99 and 2004.
on saturday motorcitysoul will play "be cool" in barcelona and i am looking forward to meet my friend and ecler tio jordi. and we will hopefully see mister shade of polyphonics recordings who will release my next single this spring.
jan 16th, 2009
wow, what a birthday celebration it was last friday. shouts to everybody who showed up and thanx for all the presents. even belgian chocolate from my brothers! a nice transition to this weeks gig in brussels where i will continue eating lots of chocolate and gaining weight like kirsty alley.
some of you might have already heard the update on our new york gig. unfortunately it looks like the cielo date is not happening. "for reasons out of our control cielo will not be open that weekend and therefore is the basis of the show cancellation in the first place" (cielo, 01/2009). we are working on an alternative date and hope it will happen in april. fingers crossed we will see/feel the magic of cielo asap. thanx for everybody who announced showing up. until then we enjoy kermit singing about ny ;)
if you would like to read some more detailed impressions from my gigs you should check out my diary-section. find my bahrain-diary entry here as well as the infamous afterwork party experience (in german).
playlist you fm sound 01/2009 (toni rios & c-rock back2back):
Dubstar - Anxious (Lofi Stereo )
Motorcitysoul - Hatohay (Simple Music)
Motorcitysoul - Vivid (Simple Music/Promo)
Quentin Harris - House (Unrestricted Access - URA 1001)
Radio Slave - K Maze (Rekids 024)
Audio Soul Project - Reality Check/Vincenzo Mix (Dessous Recordings)
Kink & Neville Watson - Full Flight (HHYR Records)
David Keno - Grutane (Kindisch)
Roach Motel - The Night/Livio & Robby Dub (Junior Boy's Own)
Stereogames - My Soul (Whitelabel/Promo)
Gruber & Nürnberg - Fractions (8 Bit Records)
Orgis Debris - G-Thong (Compost Black Label)
Jacuzzi Boys - Needed A Dance (Promo - Promo)
Nufrequency feat. Shara Nelson - Go That Deep/Dub Mix (NRK 146)
Toni Rios & J.W. Henze - Latino Track (Promo - Promo)
going deeper @ cocoonclub
*going deeper* c-rock's monthly clubnight at cocoonclub's housefloor (fridays). *going deeper* features a broad selection of housemusic, disco, classics and contemporary techno and house productions with guests like chez damier, charles webster, markus enochson, king britt, jef/k, vincenzo and many more.
sat // 08.08.09 *sonne, mond & sterne*
fatboy slim, sven väth, laurent garnier, carl cox, richie hawtin, deichking, peter fox, prodigy, just to name a few. check the full line up below sonne, mond, sterne saalburg (d)
