Virgin

Treasure Fingers, the name has been synonymous with great dance music in 07/08. From dropping his own gems, Its Your Turn and possibly electro track of the year, well for me anyways, Cross the Dancefloor and not to mention the numerous banging remixes that he continually drops. My personal favorites being Chromeo’s 100%, Empire of The Sun’s Walking On A Dream and even making Fergie’s Glamorous palatable. The man consistently keeps people shaking their asses whether its on the dancefloor or in the privacy of their own home. With that kind of resume we can definitely expect more hotness coming out in 2009 and it’s already started with Treasure Fingers remix of Miike Snows‘ Animal, heard here. In anticipation of him coming to Vancouver on January 23rd to Celebrities (tickets at www.blueprintevents.ca), we caught up with the man known as Treasure Fingers to talk about his remixes, plans for an album and for the gear heads, we touch on what equipment he uses in the lab.

KB: First off, thanks for taking the time to do this interview with us. So tell us a bit about yourself and how you got started in producing and DJing electronic dance music?

Treasure Fingers: I started with hip hop and experimental stuff when I was really young, 14 or so, on my dad’s drum machine and 4track. Around 16, I lost interest and started playing in punk/hardcore bands. I didn’t really get serious with dance music production & DJing until I was 17 or 18 and my band had broken up. I liked that I could fill the creative musical void by writing, producing & DJing solo.

KB: You have an interesting name, Treasure Fingers, and before that you were know as The Enemy, tell us about those names, what was the inspiration behind them?

TF: Some friends of mine and I just kicked around some names and Treasure Fingers seemed to be the most popular. I still wasn’t completely sold on it at first but I really like it now. It’s taken over me. The Enemy actually started out as NME-5, my first DJ name. I quickly grew out of that and changed it. I still use the The Enemy moniker for some hip-hop/extra production.

KB: Which musical genres as well as artists do you find gives you inspiration? And what kind of influence has coming from the south, Atlanta, had on your style of music if any?

TF: I listen to almost everything and it all influences me at least a little bit. For Treasure Fingers, 80’s funk and disco is the biggest point of influence. I think a lot of the R ‘n B and rap I listen to comes through a little also. I love southern rap, and the vibe of the Atlanta club music scene and (I) hope a little of that comes across through my music.

KB: How did you meet up with the folks at Fools’ Gold and A-Trak and eventually getting signed to the label?

TF: I had quite a few mutual friends but what actually brought it all together was A-Trak sending me a MySpace message saying something like ‘hey! I like your music and run a label, are you interested (in) releasing some records with us?’ Since then, I’ve become good friend with A-Trak, Nick Catchdubs and the rest of the Fool’s Gold family; they’re all really good people.

KB: Ok so straight up I have to say I love your track Cross the Dancefloor, when I first heard it I was quite blown away. The melodies and production work are ridiculous. What was the process of making that track?

TF: Thanks! It started out as just an instrumental filter disco house type track. Then one day I decided to try to put vocals on it. The next day I thought it might be cool to have some girl vocals responding back to my male vocals. The overall production is pretty simple, just a clean kind of poppy track. There’s a sample in there (the filtered disco part during the first breakdown), but I played the rest of the synths, bass, drums and built the track up around the sample just in case we couldn’t get it cleared. Luckily, it got cleared and I’m blown away at how well the song as done thus far.

KB: Recently you remixed Chromeo’s track 100% and they remixed your track Cross the Dancefloor, how did that partnership come about? Were you always into Chromeos’ stuff prior to Fool’s Gold?

TF: Yeah, for sure. I first heard of Chromeo from some DJ mix they had released years ago. Lots of old classic 80s funk, I didn’t know they were writing or producing their own stuff until I heard Needy Girl. I love their work, great guys too. I didn’t meet or get in touch with them until Fool’s Gold signed Cross the Dancefloor. A-Trak hit me up one day and said his brother and P-Thugg loved it and he wanted to get them to remix it. My remix for them came through some Bacardi promotion they were coordinating with Vice Records, I got asked if I wanted to remix 100% and of course agreed to it. 100% is one of my favorites off that album.

KB: As is mine, and that remix of yours is also bananas.

KB: For all the gear heads out there, what do you use to create tracks / remixes?

TF: I use a PC running Cubase SX 3, I know I need to upgrade to 4, as my main sequencer. As far as instruments, I use a lot of VSTs, some hardware synths (Roland JX3P, Roland Alpha Juno-1, Yamaha DX100, Korg MS10), a couple guitars (Gibson SG, Fender Strat), Heil Talk Box, MPC 2000xl, Fender Rhodes mark V, and a lot of other smaller fun things.

KB: In an interview that I checked out between you and Kill The Noise you mentioned that you wanted to move towards more of a live show by the end of the year, is that something that’s still in the works?

TF: Definitely! The live show won’t be ready for a while though. I’m concentrating on finishing the album now, but once it’s done I’m going to focus on putting the band together and hitting the road.

KB: So staying on topic with the album, when can fans expect it? Or has touring been taking up a lot of your time?

TF: Touring and remixing has been taking up all my time lately. Next year will be the time for a full-length album. I have a lot of tracks half finished & demo tracks already, I just need to pick out the best and finish them.

KB: What are some of your upcoming projects and collaborations that you can talk about?

TF: Not too much I can talk about right now really. I just finished a bunch of new remixes that should be coming out over the next several months. You can check my MySpace or website and see the full list of remixes I’ve done to date. I’m currently finishing one for Miami Horror Don’t Be On With Her for Virgin/EMI in Australia.

KB: So with your busy schedule are you still involved with or plan to work with Evol Intent?

TF: Yes, we have a live show we’ve been doing at bigger events and festivals. We’re working on new material now, and also doing a couple new remixes. One is for Shiny Toy Guns Ghost Town and the other is a dubstep remix of Tech Itch & Kemal The Calling.

KB: Dope. So changing course, what are Treasure Fingers current top 5 tracks that you can’t stop listening to?

TF: Drop Out Orchestra Gibbon, D’Stephanie Rock the Disco, Van She Kelly (Breakbot remix), JR Disco What Cha Going To Do, Matt Hughes Can’t Talk Now

KB: Thanks again for taking the time to do this interview.

TF: No Problem, Thank you!

• Treasure Fingers website
• Treasure Fingers MySpace

The soul drips from her lips, she takes another sip of her bourbon and I ask her what to expect from her upcoming gigs. Casually, she relates her desire to “just get up there and hopefully give y’all a great show.”

She carries herself with a classic elegance, time has not wearied her, as they say. The burden is always on her, however, to keep things interesting, new.

“Each year the pressure be up on you to do something different. I have a part in my show where I talk about my ancestors. I usually do that to a song from the first album, Work it Out. Maybe this year I might just figure out a way how to put it out there, still talk about my ancestors, do the thing but with different music. Just a little difference going around. But then again a lot of people still haven’t even seen my old show.”

I light a cigarette. Exhaling slowly, I break the news that I haven’t actually seen her perform. She looks somewhat surprised. All I’d heard was that they were some pretty wild times. People would tell stories of admirers rising to the stage and dancing alongside her.

“I just pick people out the audience who look like they want to dance. Some people are petrified, some people don’t and some times I get some crazy ones. Couple of times they’ve been too drunk.”

“Some of them jump on the stage and I have to sit ‘em down, you know, let ‘em know this is my stage. But it’s fun.”

There is a knowing touch to her words. She has a kind of comforting wisdom that I just can’t escape. What does a woman like this do in her downtime?

“My downtime really was for me to catch up on doctor’s appointments, getting scared half to death. It’s scary you know. I’m fifty two, and all these things start happening. I have to get myself checked. Yeah, so that’s what I’m going through now. I thought that I would have these weeks off, just relax, but no I’ve been running between doctors and we’ve also been rehearsing.”

Inevitability has plenty of time to wait. She isn’t distracted. She’s always working on something else. She keeps herself going. “When me and the Dap Kings aren’t doin’ our funk stuff, I’m doin’ some other stuff.”

“I wanna make sure I’m in good health. I’m even going to the gym, I’ve got me a personal trainer so I’m tryin’ to get my body together.”

An old Gladys Knight song starts playing on the jukebox in the corner. Smoke curls towards the roof. I take another drag and listen.

“We’re working on new songs for the album. And some of the songs will probably get thrown in while we’re on the road. I’ve got other projects. We’re doing something with some rapper, Doctor Dre or somethin’.” She palms the words off as if they mean little. It’s all in a days work for Sharon Jones.

“And Michael Buble. He came to DapTone studios and I did a duet with him.” She struggles for a moment for the tune, then starts to sing a Diana Washington song. “You Got What It Takes. I did that with him and also a Marvin Gaye song.”

I seem to remember reading in the local rags that the Dap Kings performed on most of that Whine-house album too. There’s no slowing down for this one.

“You know, everybody’s having their babies and doing their things and they wanna stay home. You know, I’ve gotta keep going. I’m getting’ old here. I keep tellin’ ‘em I can’t afford to be home two or three months. I can afford to be off a few weeks, but any more than that I gotta work.”

For more info, check this. And this.

Musicfeeds - Spanish for awesome!

“I think it’s a bit of a junkie mentality in a way. You’re constantly chasing a high.”

That’s not really as incriminating as it sounds. King Farook are toying with metaphors as they attempt to describe their enthusiasm for touring.

“Man you know what it’s all about? This is our dream, what we’re doing right now is our dream. We all work day jobs and to be able to just get on the road and play to a whole bunch of new people who have never heard us before is what I live for. I love it.”

Chasing the highs from gig to gig has even left these musical junkies unaffected by the inevitable lows that accompany them.

“You’re in a van with three other smelly guys for ten hours, but it all disappears the minute you hit the stage and you rock it. It’s about constantly trying to feel that way. It keeps you going. So far so good. Hopefully that’s what keeps happening.”

Besides touring manically, King Farook recently released the Four Piece Feed Ep.

“It’s available in all record stores actually. If they don’t have it they’ll order it in. We’ve got distribution through MGM. We’re selling it at gigs as well and just pumping it. A couple of stations have given it a bit of a run so it’s been alright, slowly but surely.”

While only out for five months, it seems this release is already starting to show its age as the band develops.

“Kinda looking forward to some new stuff but the Four Piece Feed is our thing for a little bit. To be honest, it’s not really the sound we’re going for at the moment because we’ve changed members again.”

Line up changes in the band have seen them shift from a five piece to a four, losing and gaining different members along the way. The Four Piece Feed even includes some guitar tracks, when no one in the band plays one any more.

“The reason it was a bit of a dead end is because we actually included guitar. I played guitar on there as well as the bass but tried to keep the guitar to a minimum so it wouldn’t be missed live and it’s something that I’m trying to produce on the bass as well as guitar.”

“So we kind of sound like that, but I think in the future it’s not gonna sound like that because we’re gonna steer away from that kind of sound. We’re gonna write more in terms of what we do on stage. We wanna try to get what we do on stage on to a record. That’s obviously become the forte of what we do as a band. The more people tell us that the more it makes it obvious that’s what we should do on the next album. Not necessarily a live album, but cater the album more to the dynamic of what we do.”

Translating the raw energy of a live show to record successfully is not without its difficulties.

“It is really hard to capture that in the studio. That energy level isn’t necessarily there that you get from a crowd being in front of you all dancing and losing their fuckin’ minds. That’s the challenge for us: to get that energy, that liveness while still having the polish of a nice studio recording.”

With this challenging new direction, King Farook have a positive outlook on their next release.

“We feel pretty confident that the next batch of songs, the next batch of Farookness is gonna be the real shit. Not that the other stuff wasn’t, but we feel a lot more comfortable now.”

“In saying that, I don’t think we’ve hit our stride yet. It’s gonna get harder and we’re gonna be harder working in time to come.”

The next couple of months will see the band working hard on finishing their tour before taking some time off to write and record. There’s no question as to their most anticipated gig in Sydney.

“Romp is the big one for the Sydney market. It’s the 5th December at the Factory theatre. It’s a mini-festival with nine bands on two stages. We’re gonna headline that.”

For more info, check out http://www.myspace.com/kingfarook

Words: Dan Clarke, Interview: Mikey Carr. Musicfeeds - Spanish for awesome!

Leopard Lady’s first stop at Parklife was at the Earth Stage and the deep funk of The Bamboos. Featuring Kylie Auldist on vocals they emitted style and groove. Leopard Lady is always partial to a horn section and these suited up horn players did not disappoint.

The Bamboos are a seven piece hardcore funk institution who work with some fine jazz voices, like Kylie Auldist and, on their latest record Side-Stepper for their cover of Kings Of Leon’s King of the Rodeo, Megan Washington. Megan is originally a Brisbane girl and now she’s based in Melbourne.

While Leopard Lady got her groove on with The Bamboos, guitarist and band leader, Lance Ferguson, announced he was about to frisbee a bunch of cassettes into the crowd and Leopard Lady was ready to pounce! Snavelling a classic tape of The Bamboos was a nice start to her Parklife journey.

Next stop: Dragonette!! Stay tuned…

The most interesting music is often the most diverse. Some bands might be content to pigeonhole themselves in one genre, one style of music but that only really works if they can pull it off well. The true virtue of much music is the ability for it to be created and shaped as artists adopt, assimilate and experiment with different ideas to create something they can truly call their own.The vocal harmonies of New Zealand band Kora bring a uniquely Pacific feel to their music, but as lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Laughton Kora explains, it’s not easy to attempt to classify their sound.

“I couldn’t even begin to tell you. It doesn’t really matter what genre it is as long as it’s sick, and heavy. We haven’t tried to fuse them together, we just try out an idea and we go ‘oy yeah man, that sounds fat.”

“We’ve got five heads bouncing ideas together and I think that’s what makes the sound of Kora, you got five guys who all like different genres of music but at the same time we know what sounds fat and what sounds heavy and we just pick that out.”

It’s that kind of fluidity, that free-form thinking that has seen the guys try some pretty ballsy moves on stage.

“What we used to do was come up with a riff before we started playing. Never even rehearsed it before and we’d just get on stage and do it. If the audience moved to it, we’d go’ oh yeah it works’, and if it didn’t we’d go through and change things add new parts and stuff and try it again. An audience is a great way to sort of reference if something is working or not.”

Their traditional reggae influences flow through notably sometimes, while other times they scream more of a modern rock sound fused with spacey samples and a harsher, experimental edge. On stage, they have an eclectic mix of instruments and musicians.

“We got, a synth, a keyboard and MPC sample, drums, two guitars and bass and our drummer has sampling stuff as well, and yeah five vocals. There are so many instruments in certain songs we just swap. Just mix it around a bit and make it entertaining for ourselves you know.”

Two of the four related members of the band, Laughton and brother Brad began playing together in the early 1990s in a band called Aunty Beatrice.

“It was my dads fault, we didn’t really have a choice you know. He’d just crack the whip. We started playing pubs when we were really young you know, hiding behind the speakers and stuff, those were the real young days.”

It wasn’t until 2001 that Laughton began collaborating with the ‘token white guy’ in the band, Dan McGruer. By the next year, remaining brothers Francis and Stu were recruited to form the band proper but Laughton credits his performing origins as a strong influence on the bands sound.

“My dad was a real driving force about that, the way he saw it he didn’t want to limit us by just playing one genre. And growing up, getting work playing we had to play in a bunch of different venues. So you’d have to play at weddings, you’d have to play at pubs and every different venue had a different genre.”

The boys have had a pretty successful touring schedule as of late, travelling as far afield as the UK, although the first time around they had some trouble getting the locals to attend.

“The last trip we did our goal was to play to as many English people, people not from New Zealand as possible. It’s really easy to go over there and just play to a bunch of Kiwis. You know in London 80 – 90 percent of the audiences is from New Zealand. You know you don’t want to travel all that way and not play to English people.”

“But this trip was really good, we played to like crowds that were 80-85 percent English. And they’d never seen us before so that was a really good reason for us to go back in November and do the same thing all through Europe again.”

Their eclectic sound seems to have taken off with their newly found European fans.

“It’s been a really good response over there. The sound is so versatile you know, there’s something in it for a whole bunch of different people you know, people can just pick and choose what they like best.”

“I think it was the show itself that really blew a lot of people away. And these were people who’d never seen us before and by the end of the show they were sold.”

Their debut album shot straight to the top of the New Zealand charts upon its release in October last year, and the boys show no signs of slowing down.

“We’re going over to Bali on Monday for a little surf trip over there and then we’re coming over to see you guys [in Australia].”

For more info on the band, head over to their official site @ Kora.co.nz (where the band has been re-invented as Superheroes for the cover of their new album, among other things…)

For this and plenty more on the live music scene in Sydney, head on over to musicfeeds.com.au. Just when you thought Drum Media was the be all and end all of the independent street press in Sydney… (btw it isn’t… check the link, you’ll see what I mean)

Words: Dan Clarke, Interview: Michael Carr