Way back in August we gave you the news that underground powerhouse Spectrum has found a new permanent London home at The Electric in Brixton – and is celebrating with an epic launch night! This year Spectrum’s arrival on the London scene has stopped the scene in its tracks, with three sellout shows, and so much more to come in November and on New Year’s Eve. And now Spectrum brings together a spectacular lineup for the launch of their new residency on Saturday October 1st– a true sign of big things to come. These guys don’t do things by halves!
On Saturday October 1st Japanese Popstars play their live festival techno show, which has drawn parallels to Underworld and also helped land them a major deal and appearances at some of the world’s best festivals. An electronic act from Northern Ireland, Japanese Popstars consists of Declan McLaughlin aka Decky Hedrock, Gary Curran, and Gareth Donoghue. In 2010 they collected the Best Live Act award at the Irish Dance Music Awards and were signed to Virgin/EMI Records (also signed to indie label, Gung-Ho Recordings in the UK, and Beatink in Japan, home of Underworld, Aphex Twin, and Cinematic Orchestra). Over the years they have toured with Basement Jaxx and JUSTICE in Japan and have recently colborated with the likes of Green Velvet and Robert Smith of the Cure on their new album. If all this wasn’t enough the band even have their very own brand of Nike trainers called JAPSTARS01!!! Ahead of their gig at Spectrum we met up with the 3 lads for a quick chinwag:
Yeah thats were the original idea to put together a live dance act came from, festivals were and are great fun but they were just getting so expensive, we needed a way to get to as many as possible without breaking the bank, this seemed like a good way to do it
Its mainly drivers that come to airports or hotels that find it most confusing, they are holding up a sign saying japanese popstars and they are literally expecting japanese popstars to appear. Alot of time in the early days people would think we were just trying to blag a free lift somewhere.
Playing in Derry is always fun and usually gets a tad messy. Thats where the bands home is, even though one of the member isn’t from there, we build all our early support and did the majority of our early shows in the city. We still get Derry folks coming to our shows no matter were in the world it is, its great to have that support.
Yeah there really is. We have so many friends that make great dance music in Ireland, both North and South and at literally every Irish show we always get demo’s given to us by upcoming new producers, the standard of these tracks are scary, there are so many good producers out there at the moment.
Massive fans. We decided to approach people that we really look up to, chancing our arms a bit but at the end of the day, the worst people can do it say no. Green Velvet has been playing in Belfast for Shine for years, I have had so many good nights on the floor to that guy, and when we started having the chance to do some shows with him he asked about doing some vocals, it was great. We are all massive Cure fans as well, Disintegration is still probably my most played album ever. It was unbelievable to get Robert on board
Hopefully a lot of energy and something that people can engage with and its something that they haven’t heard before. We try and change it up as much as possible live, plus we normally drop in some new stuff that we are working on just to try it out
Yeah it was. It was an absolutely crazy trip. Just to be on that tour with those guys was so much fun, we made some good friends
No unfortunately we haven’t had a chance. It was a scary time, we have family and a lot of friends out there, and at the time no one could get in contact with anyone. We were planning on going out to do some festivals shows in support of our new album but have had to change and probably postpone until next year
Yeah maybe it was. I guess I will know after album three. It definitely was tough at times, we were really pushing ourselves on this one. The first album was done at a time where we had no expectations, we had nothing to prove and we had a lot of time to come up with those ideas. For the second album all of a sudden we are now professional producers or musicians , whatever way you want to look at it, none of us have any real training at this and we are still to a large extent writing music in our bedrooms. But we also constantly on the road, and people have expectations , and we want to deliver something that we will be proud of. We definitely pushed ourselves very hard on this one
The one production tool that has been at the centre of the majority of Japanese Popstars tracks is Propellerheads Reason. Thats been our main platform from day one
We would all probably have deferent answers on that. Its a tough one, I am really liking the Arcade Fire album at the minute, a tie up with those guys would be great, Bruce Springsteen would be an amazing project, or what about getting big Frank on a techno cut
We have another two singles from the album to come out before the end of the year, Take Forever and Shells of Silver. We also plan on releasing a few EPs of more underground tracks
In a word, no. We know we are some of the luckiest guys in the world, we just want to keep working as hard as possible to try and make the best music and do the best shows that we possibly can
Interview by: Melissa-Jane Frost
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LWE Presents… Spectrum
Saturday October 1st, 2011
10pm-6am
The Electric, Town Hall Parade, Brixton, London SW2 1RJ
Jakwob
Japanese Popstars Live
Further headliner announced Sept 1st
Borgore
South Central
Bare Noize
Pete Jordan
Visuals by Blend
Room 2 hosted by Underground
Cookie Monsta
Torqux & Twist
Baratone
Duku b2b Sibla
TMF
Taki
Mr Whippy
Scratch Maestro: Rik Sinner
Hosts: Skara Mangla / Gavstar
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