Cyberphunk Party with Mike Maguire
Sunday 6th of November
Sundays are nice for a little home staying, watching TV and the likes, especially
when you already passed your 20s but when Mike Maguire comes to town some
things do seem a little different even in your early 20s. So after some minimal
thought I decided to go to the party despite difficulties...
9:00 pm and we are in the dancefloor which is actually looking not so packed at first
sight but things got a lot better by time Mr. Maguire got into position. Warming up
the crowd the first DJ played some typical Psy-Techno (mostly from Germany) and I
started to getting bored as I actually do not like this type of arrangement and drum
groove programming. The crowd seemed to enjoy itself though so who cares about
me moaning about experimentalism and progression.
Later on, ex one third of Juno Reactor (the other two were Ben Watkins and Johan
Bley for the record, of course now only Watkins is an active Juno Reactor member),
Mike Maguire took control, interesting enough on the same time some guys were
playing some sequences and live beats (I think it was an MC-303 groovebox not
sure though) and minutes later Maguire had full control over the sound system.
Starting in plain Maguire style somewhere around 125 bpm, things moved from
deep and groovy to funky and dancefloor mayhem and in typical Maguire style by
time you think things will break the 150 bpm barrier, Mike throws you in the mental
sofas for some brain relaxing as he instantly reduces the bpm to 125 and here we
go again, more like a journey than a classic DJ set, the only drawbacks by me is
that I do not like this kind of mixing Mike was trying to implement and that he didn't
push it too far, I have heard him playing more experimental stuff...
Anyway Maguire's set was a total success and the crowd was up for it big time,
especially when certain reworked or not Maguire classics popped out of the
speakers ("Feel The Universe" pops in mind now). Even the odd ManWithNoName
"Teleport" remix was heard sending the crowd to places of audio pleasure and
satisfaction. Overall I liked it, Mike Maguire is a big name DJ and a highly respected
one too so it was nice to see him keeping up to it with a good balance between
dancefloor pack and dancefloor clear vibes. I danced through the whole night and
certainly some funky dancing by the girls (there where a lot of birdies in place so
next time single nutters tune your antennas) peppered the dancefloor with well... girl
power or whatever.
After Mike's DJ set we had a talk with him about past, present (Mike seems to like it
the most) and future, the results of this talk are as follow next. Mr. Maguire started
playing and listening to funk and (rare) groove tracks, dub stuff and the likes that
where keeping sound systems alive in England in late 70's and early 80's, after all
believe it or not the guy is 40 years old. The motivation to actually starting making
music was music itself and the passion (not that he lost it now but 20s are not 40s I
presume) that Maguire had back then.
Mike Maguire is a really respected figure and a man of big history behind him he
invented psy-trance after all with fellow Ben Watkins. The album "Transmissions" is
THE album in trance's history and I will never forget my first encounter or contact
with "High Energy Protons", I was into hardcore and breakbeat back then and that
sounded totally different, nearly changed my life as it was actually the track that
brought me into the more underground goings of the dance scene.
Mike has his own record company named Qube Recordings which has a quality
over quantity policy and has released some nice gems through time like "Book of
Shadows" by Paul Jackson for instance. Qube has pipelined some good things for
the future too, as two long players by Magnats and Clown Thievery respectively, are
coming somewhere in March.
Mike is a man of moments enjoying the present and sailing into future driven by his
heart actually and sticking with what knows best. His advice for new commers is
stay with it, do not listen to people claiming that are dance music professionalists
suggesting to do this or that to gain success, just follow your heart and instincts.
True words coming from the mouth of a key player in dance music today.
Partywise he (as all) picked Tokyo as the place to really play what you want as
people are more open-minded there but he suggested London as the trance capitol
of the tranceworld and he didn't forgotten to mention our own little country saying
that we do not have to catch up anymore (I do not agree with it, I believe we need
some education regarding playing different styles of music, people and especially
DJs are afraid to take risks, to shake waters, they are too safe and fashion driven).
Finally Mike sees himself in ten years from now, as a family man, watching telly all
the time and films about New York and the Italian saga of moving up ranks in the
Mafia drome. For those into more gossip driven news Mike's favourite movie is
"King Of Comedy" and if you forced him to tell you an essential track by his opinion
this would be CJ Bolland's "Mantra".
That's all folks as the classic cartoons used to say (those where the times, now
Pokemon is the hype in childrens world, we used to laugh and dance with Willie "E"
Koyote and Donald... I am a bit disoriented at times I agree). Overall the night was
good, the party atmoshpere nice and the tunes O.K ish... Farewell till next time and
somewhere over here I would like to thank Andreas for just making it all happen.
Peace & Res PeCt Sequential-X for chaishop.gr
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