Supplied by Derrick JohnsonIt was a serene Sunday in July as Refuge Music YEG held their second outdoor event, bringing the underground techno and house music scene to Louise McKinney Park. People were playing Frisbee, slouching hard in the grass having picnics, or up on the platform before the DJ booth under a massive umbrella dancing themselves clean. Strangers, youngsters and those unaccustomed to electronic music could judge honestly and fairly under that dry summer sun. This was, to a few Edmontonians, their first exposure.
Carl Trautman, alongside Eric Fraser, Josh Gibbons and founder Derek Lee, run Refuge YEG, a event production company focused on promoting underground electronic music. Their public events include Refuge in the Valley at Louise McKinney and Refuge in the City at Churchill Square.
They’re the young group of DJs you see behind the booth with milk crates full of vinyl records, sifting and shifting their covers to read them for their sound. With a lack of venues, reinventing “venue space” — and our city’s underused public spaces — was a big driver behind Refuge undertaking this experimental and bold endeavour, as well as getting electronic music out in the open. The events allow people to observe or participate, a chance to see that electronic music is not merely someone with a computer and pre-assembled beats. It all happens in front of you, in the moment.
A liquor license would have been prime (me being a wino and in my mid-twenties), but the all ages event brought a family-orientated vibe to that outdoor techno show — shows usually relegated to late nights in sweat-drenched venues or clubs, associated with an almost unshakeable aura of drug use still lingering heavily in many minds. The only thing lingering that evening was my pipe tobacco’s raisin-bourbon perfume. The relaxed atmosphere was intense. Old folks rode by on bicycles wondering what the hell was going on, and so did we for that matter. Deadmonton was alive and well. A spell might be breaking.
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Trautman speaks fondly of vinyl for DJing and a local musical past that largely stems from movers and shakers of the ‘80s. He mentions Edmonton’s long history which largely began in a place called the Dance Factory, and Flashbacks on 104 Street Promenade, back when the Cecil Hotel was in operation attracting a tough crowd of sex workers and needle-pushers. One element of the past that is still very much alive can be found on CJSR on Saturday late-afternoons. Catch the Beat is Canada’s longest-running electronic music program, echoing the sounds of underground dance music on radio waves since 1986, and now online reaching an even wider audience.
His love for vinyl in its physical format is what presses and moulds that relationship as a DJ. This isn’t your Daddy’s vinyl, but a record containing the rhythm and beat behind every track you hear: basic drum beats or bass lines. Layering and folding these records over one another gives you a thickness and full sound that produces your end product, which is different every time.
A great swath of digital files that are out there ready to be consumed have unknown levels and assurances on their quality. Getting a hold of those tracks leaves you swimming in a cloudy haze of digital uncertainty when they hit your PA system, whereas vinyl leaves the DJ cozy. Each press is a press of love from the label; costs are high, so quality is paramount. Trautman gets passionate as he mentions vinyl’s emotive connection, both personally up on stage spinning and one that can be easily given to his crowd, keeping the flow and mood in synch.
“I can read the emotion and feel of that record by the cover,” he says. ”I can go, ‘that’s the sound I’m looking for,’ or ‘this is where it’s going,’ just by the cover.”
The emphasis and resurgence of vinyl records has grown out of the niche hipster stigma, and is increasingly being seen as a more “music first” approach that focuses on quality of sound and production, and personal connections, both physical and emotional. Clicking “play” on your computer or MP3 is flawless, but slipping a sleeve from the shelf and seeing a large artistic cover that represents what you’re about to hear before you lay down the needle is a <em>connection</em>.
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Bart Petrus of CJSR’s Catch the Beat and co-founder of local label Heart to Heart Records, has slipped down to Refuge in the Valley with friends who gather the dogs and kids for an evening out.
This new style of non-bar venues is what electronic, vinyl-only labels like Heart to Heart are striving to get at, he says, opening up the music to new listeners. Petrus adds the increased turnout to electronic shows in Edmonton lately has driven demand for quality live performances, as well as general interest in the genre. Edmonton already has a strong reputation for large international touring acts, but building and solidifying a musical base for the local electronic scene still needs work.
Refuge’s outdoor shows are a response to a lack of venues of adequate size and that are available to the electronic scene. Regular joints like The Common, The Bower and Starlite Room/Brixx host a fine array of local and international DJ’s and local label release parties, but each establishment showcases their own genre.
The chilled-out house music that swings though our prairie river valley at Refuge parties isn’t quite a wild pant-less Blondtron twerking on her DJ booth — both, though, compete for the same venues. Even heavier still, is a local act has to compete for these small spaces with DJ legends like Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson.
Heart to Heart was founded by Petrus and Bryan Wells only a year ago and is already making a big splash on the local electronic scene, grabbing artists from Alberta and British Columbia and orientating in mainly house music. Today, both men are behind Catch the Beat’s Saturday listening pleasures, but Petrus knows reaching global audiences are behind a label’s success and growth. With today’s “borderless” business caused by the Internet and globalization, one’s wares are a click away.
While Heart to Heart only releases on vinyl, Petrus mentions that they’re not “purists,” but and aim to share their love for the format and aesthetic.
“We have record stores and people buying our music in countries like France, Germany, UK, Japan,” Petrus emphasises, noting it has never been easier for a local label to press and promote local music to a global audience.
Nik Kozub, member of Edmonton band Shout Out Out Out Out, is a co-founder of Normals Welcome, a local vinyl-only label. With their label’s name originating from an inclusive musical environment, Normals’ success also stems from a global outlook on markets. Normals Welcome began with full-length albums in both CD and vinyl formats, busting their buns and pocket-books on extensive marketing campaigns and tours. The music was different back in the mid-2000’s, however, and today, is harking back to their original intent: releasing 12” vinyl singles for DJs.
“Vinyl feels to me like the last tangible physical format for music,” Kozub mentions via E-mail. “Vinyl is still the format that all of us at Normals Welcome play when we DJ.”
Normals Welcome, and fellow vinyl labels like Heart to Heart, are definitely creating an awareness of the local electronic music scene outside of Alberta and Canada. That entrepreneurial spirit Edmonton garners of “it isn’t there, create it,” speaks to what Kozub sees in these electronic parties.
“Get off your ass and create it. It’s been this way the entire time I’ve been involved … whether it was renting a community hall to put on an all-ages punk show, or releasing records and throwing house music parties,” Kozub stresses.
For the folks behind local record labels Normals Welcome and Heart to Heart, the physical and personal connection to vinyl carries into their business models. As DJs themselves, it’s what they know and love, releasing their love for the format onto the next generation of music fans, and fulfilling the energy and demand that’s there for it already. Blackbyrd Myoozik recently replaced almost all of its shelves of CDs with vinyl, displaying a physical shift in music buyer’s preferred medium. Along with Edmonton record shops like Listen Records, Freecloud or Permanent Records, vinyl swaps and meets fill the void.
“There’s quite a healthy vinyl community here, for example with Dead Vinyl Society organizing regular events,” Petrus mentions. The event brings all kinds of collections and seekers together every month or so, with their latest event on Nov. 30 at The Black Dog Freehouse.
“When people buy vinyl they have to be more selective of their purchases, and that makes us more selective about what we want to release for that reason.”
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Recently a viral video of the band Five Knives “fake DJing” at Red Bull’s Amp event circulated Facebook. The two band members were filmed pantomiming DJ movements alongside a pre-recorded track.
This reinvigorated notions of a disconnection from the music and the deceit taking place at shows and clubs. Fans, and even deadmau5 and other notable members of the electronic scene, began calling the group out and raising the issue of the real talent being left behind. When groups like Five Knives are seen as highly supported with financial and legal backing from Red Bull, the masses are fooled into what they perceive a DJ does and how they conduct their music. It’s a disservice to those that spin and grind to produce the music you are hearing live. In the moment. Right now.
Vinyl appears to be that last vestige of raw sound manipulation, that frontier where skin-on-wax meet and the pressure, haste, and crucial organization skills are required as a DJ flips through their box of records and seamlessly transitions. The diamond is in the groove, and the music’s on.
