MARK FARINA: 3 Hours Mix + Exclusive Interview! (March 07)

01. As one of the most prominent DJs and with a history of more than two decades in the music world, how do you see the current electronic music scene?

The current electronic music scene is just ever growing, changing, day to day. New sub-genres coming all the time, new people getting involved. It’s pretty booming all over. It’s just the subtleties and the styles and different geographic areas are changing, you know, day to day, week to week. Certain countries, places, cities are into one thing, then into another next, and it’s evergrowing!

02. Does it weight for you to know that you’re one of the house music legends?

Uh, it’s an honor to be considered one of the uh, to be a house music legend. I just remember starting of, you know, I never thought that even house would be around, or thought 25 years, 30 years into the future, so … it’s pretty amazing! You know I always knew house was gonna be around, and never really sure I’d be a part of it, so yeah, it’s quite an honor I’ve been playing around for such a long time in the house music scene, and be looked upon among other artists for my DJ skills and my Dj sort of resume so to speak, and you know it’s not about how many albums I put out necessarily or how many tracks I’m making but to sort to be looked up as you know a house person, and a house DJ’s DJ!

03. We know that you are traveling in Europe these days, what differences you find between the USA and Europe scenes?

Oh, there’s many differences between Europe and the US. To start with a couple things, you know, in the USA, the drinking age is 21, which is sort of a big cutoff line in terms of age and difference, whereas in Europe it’s not a clean 21 and up thing, that most of the clubs are in. Another big difference, a lot of the venues in the United States tend to only stay open until 2AM, whereas in Europe things don’t really kick off till 2AM, so it’s quite a difference there and that’s not even getting into the music varieties, you know, Europe fits in the size of the United States, you know like within an hour flight in Europe you can be in multiple different countries, where in the States you know maybe you can get to Canada at times, or Mexico in an hour and that’s about it. All the cities in America are so large it makes it quite different, and just you know with so many countries in a small area you get a lot of different influences in Europe, from Germany, to England to Belgium, France … there’s a lot of different styles of DJ’s that are at a smaller geographic size of region in whereas in America things, I don’t know, things can be general and yeah, it’s very different.

04. Your series of albums called “Mushroom Jazz” where you compile Acid Jazz beats and DownTempo genres, have several volumes released (vol 7 in mid-2013). The order in which you place each track, does it have some logic in particular or is it a rather intuitive process in your particular case?

Uh, I mean, creating a tracklist or any sort of say tracklist that needs to be licensed is, you know, very different than just playing it. Um, that’s sort of a big factor when you’re creating a mix: do those tracks need to be licensed by all the artists or can you just place stuff at will? So you know, making a a “Mushroom Jazz” tracklist, there’s sort of, I’ve been doing it for so long there’s a hidden logic. It’s always harder, for me at least as a DJ, to create a tracklist for a mix that I’m going to do at a later time, as opposed to just playing stuff. My DJ style has always been impromptu, like you pick the song you are going to play next, while the song before it is playing. As opossed to a mixed CD that’s licensed, you have to sort of think ahead in time of what you wnat to do and then, worry about mixing things later, so it’s kind of a very different thing than just sort of playing at a club, or in my studio, you know making just a random mix like a podcast where I don’t have to have full licensing. So, but, you know, doing it for so long, there’s a logic behind it.

05. When you listen to the Vol 01 for example, do you find imperfections, wanting to change things or have them done in any different way?

Um, no. I mean when I listen back on “Mushroom Jazz 01” I don’t really want to change anything. Obviosuly, I would do somehting different today, than I did 15 years ago, but I don’t physicaly want to go back and change things. And you know all the mixes I’ve done have all been in real time mixing, no computer, no late night, or late after the fact adding of bits here and there, so it’s always about a flow that kinda happens spur of the moment, and um, I don’t know, you can always look back even wether it’s “Mushroom Jazz” or you hear an old club recording, sometimes you wish there could be something different like ‘oh! I would have brought this in 4 beats later” or ” I would have played this little bit a miniscule lower in volume” but … you know, you can’t
go back and change things so you don’t really spend too much time dwelling on that, you just sort of think about next time, and what you’re gonna do.

06. What gear do you use in your studio and what is your criteria when it comes to creating a track?

Gear in my studio: I’ve got all kinds of, um…I’m more of an outboard gear person, that’s where I come from. I’m still dabbling and learning how to use all of the sort of computer related software so you know, I got a lot of MPC’s, you know, maybe 5 MPC’s, from 1 thousand to 4 thousand, to things in between. Like a couple emulators, like the EMU-XL7 and MP7 and let’s see … a few Jomox drum machines that I really like their sound … let me think what else I got … I just got a Teenage Engineering OP-1 as my newest little bit of outboard gear that I really like. But yeah, I am a drum machine guy, I like all kinds of different drum macines, I’ve got kinda more than I need of that. So … criteria for creating a track is just, you know, I like to start with a funky hook, catch something, it could be one sample of somebody saying something and then you kinda just build from there, and you know, the track can start, it can start from the vocal, it could be a spoken word, it could be something really simple.

07. What would you recommend any aspiring or beginner producer, to achieve the best possible sound in their tracks?

To aspiring producers, advise I would give is, if you have, you know, if you are not playing at a club regularly, it’s great to make your tracks in the studio and then bring them out to a club that you like and hear them there, and then you can go back and tweak things out accordingly if you didn’t like the way it sound, or you did. But you know, like thinking where you want it heard, and then listening to it at other places like, I like to make a track and then go in my car and listen to it, or put it on a completely different sound system in my house, you know, some different speakers, and listen to it. Yeah, you know, like I said, and also you know of course at the clubs, since you know, at least a lot of the stuff I am making, or you know, like, you want to be other DJ’s to be playing and also you want know how it sounds at a club. And it’s also OK if you make something, you don’t do anything with it, you put it out, it’s just for yourself to sort of experiment with and hear and then you tinker with it, you do a new idea. That’s the great things with electronic music, you can make so many bits and bobs, you don’t have to hire a bunch of musicians. You know and of course, if there’s somebody’s tracks you like, there’s a friend of yours, it’s great to watch other people make music and see how they do it cause there’s so many different ways to make a track, it’s like any input, to watch stuff being done is great.

08. The music that you usually play at clubs differs quite a bit from the one you compile for Mushroom, how do you get along with that versatility? could we say that they are your Yin-Yang?

Yes. The difference between “Mushroom Jazz” and house can be very different. You drop one sometime and another time you won’t drop the other, so … But it also opens up doors, if you are playing just house, 120 to 125bpm’s stuff that’s, you know, you are only limiting your styles,  or what you can play. I like all tempos, and also of course with new disco now, it sort of fills the gap in between, which is “Mushroom Jazz” runs around hip hop being the speed at 100bpm’s and like I said house being 125 and it fills the gap in between that all kinda “newy” disco sound, so … and there’s just different times of the day when sometimes a different tempo than a house speed fits well, like an early morning sunrise thing, you know, you can drop a different tempo or style and it opens up doors to try different stuff, you know … early evening after dinner, and you are playing for a different crowd, or you know, there’s just different situations, and sometimes a 4×4 house set might not be the greatest option available.

09. Have you ever played in Latin America?

Ohh favorite Latin American show! It’s always hard for me to go back and say “what’s your favorite shows?!”, but … I mean, if someone stands out, it would be like, uh … Skol Beats in Brazil. Around, I wanna say… Sao Paulo 19 .. what was that?  maybe around 2000ish? Playing the Edge for the first time in Sao Paulo. Playing in Colombia, Bogota, like I don’t know, like the 30th floor of a sky scrapper type thing, 30th-40th floor, it was great. I’ve had some great shows in Mexico City. Creamfields in Buenos Aires, it was a great, great show.

10. Have you ever played at some event that you remember above all others?

Recent events or old events that stand out, there’s always so many it’s hard over so many years … opening for Kraftwerk at Coachella was amazing and just to be on the same stage as one of my icons and greatest influences, Um … let’s see! like a sunrise set in Maui with the old stompy crew back in the day. Playing Sub Club in Glasgow, or Fabric in London. Um, let’s see … I don’t know, it’s always so hard to pick some of my favorite, favorite ones, of course, going to Smart Bar in Chicago which is the place I played for 25 years, everytime it’s always amazing and I just love being back with my Chicago peeps. And then the old Loft party days when I started, where awesome! when it was Derrick Carter, and myself, playing you know like you know like it just used to be lofts on Milwaukee Avenue and different parts of Chicago that were underground, you just bring a couple kegs of beer and $5 to get in and you go till the police come.

11. Is there still a place where you haven’t played yet and that represents for you a pending issue?

A place I haven’t played which still for some reason I have not made it there after all this time is Germany at all. And you know, being in Germany, I haven’t been to Berlin, so Berlin I’ve been wanting to play. I don’t know why it hasn’t happened. I had a recent offer coming up to maybe do Watergate with the Jesse Rose’s night but unfortunately, being a Daddy I can’t get to Europe every weekend like I might like to so it was a difficult gig to get to, but I’m hoping it won’t be the last opportunity to be playing in Berlin.

12. A message for our listeners around the Globe please:

Um, gee! a message for listeners would be just: thanks for tuning in, I’m always trying to promote new sounds and the main goal I’ve done this whole DJ thing for is to share all these new sounds that I am lucky to get. And now as time has gone by with Djing, you get to share new and old tracks that maybe, you know, some of the old bits that I’ve been fortunate to be around for years that you know, go missed in this new day and age, so it’s a combination of yeah, the newest goodies mixed with the oldest gems and sharing them for all the listeners. so, thanks for listening!