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Interview: Jess & Crabbe

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

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As we noted in a recent post, we are big fans of Jess & Crabbe. After a series of 12’s in the late 90’s as a duo they went their separate ways to pursue various solo projects. We are excited to announce that the hiatus is over! They are back in the lab working on new material and doing select DJ dates. The boys were kind enough to chat with us about the past, present, and future of Jess & Crabbe….

We have to admit, it was a bit of a heart breaker when the Jess&Crabbe records stopped hitting the shops and you guys went your separate ways. Can you comment on the reason for the time apart?

J&C:We had been living in the same flat and sharing almost everything for quite a while. We came to the point where we both felt that we had to experience different stuff. Inspiration is something you have to feed with personal exploration, so that’s what we did.

Some recent DJ dates and the Demolition Tape 5 mark a comeback of sorts for the Jess&Crabbe project. What inspired the reunion?

J&C:We never fell out each other. We have been stockpiling lots of records in different styles of music for the past few years but we didnt really look for any promoter to support us. The Fluokids encouraged us to reunite and participate in the Club scene again. They contacted us around this time last year to ask if we were up for spinning again at their 3rd birthday gig. That was something we both enjoyed doing and indeed we felt like maybe we still had something to contribute that scene.

The series of Jess&Crabbe 12′’s released on Fiat Lux continue to be championed by loyal fans and many of the new French producers who are in the spotlight today. Do you feel your sound may have been ahead of its time?

J&C:It definitely didn’t have the today’s sound. So hard to tell if anyone’s really been influenced by what we did until 2004. We notice that some of the electro-house scene today mixes rave, rock, hip hop, hardcore, jungle, clash reggae, disco, funk, punk… elements. That’s what we tried to do maybe a little earlier than most but this was on the way anyways…

Hip-hop, reggae, Chicago house, punk, rock….all influences that you can feel in your productions, remixes, and DJ sets. Tell us a little about the bands and producers that inspired Jess&Crabbe before you started producing electronic music.

J&C:As we don’t like to eat the same dishes every meal, we like to listen to a wide range of different styles, periods, scenes… Many styles of music have been influential to us, we both had different backgrounds and it might have been one of the catalyzer for our partnership

C:If I have to pick a main reason that ignited my burning passion to produce music, I’ll have to go back to that 1st De La Soul LP Prince Paul produced, which still is one of my very favs, or Todd Terry 87-89 circa.

J:I had been into punk hardcore and reggae before I experienced rave parties in 1992 and I realised that i had to join the movement. I think that Dead Kennedys and Lee Scratch Perry really wrecked the head of my parents when I was a kid…

Design has always played a role in the Jess&Crabbe branding (logos, records cover artwork). Are you still doing design work?

C:I do draw for interior architects, I did logos or websites for money since then but never advertised myself as a proper graphic designer. So I don’t get a lot of requests. I keep on drawing and designing stuff on my own when I got an idea or a picture in mind, but I’m not very productive.

America recently embraced French electro and house music in a big way. The buzz alone from Daft Punk’s live show in 2006 at Coachella inspired a world tour. Justice sold out Madison Square Garden in New York City. Have you been to the States? Any plans to come here in the future?

J&C:We’ve been in Miami WMC together a few times, more as tourists than dj’s actually lol. But we’ve never been requested by any US promoter, that’s the main reason why we did not come over a lot.

Who are some of the producers/DJs that excite you past and present?

J: Robert Armani, DJ Funk, Dj Deeon’s records are still on my playlist and I think that world music is going to take a more important place in dance / club music here. I like many Kuduro sounds from Angola and other african-influenced new styles. I have to mention DJ Nilcaps, Costuleta, Diplo, DJ Slugo, DJ MPC, Sandrinho, Radioclit, Bab Lee, Esau Mwamwaya…

C: My 2 all-times favourite djs are Harvey and Dave Clarke. In terms of production I expect big things coming this year from Sebastian, Proxy, Justice, Switch, CÈcile, Bloody Beetroots, Oizo, Petits Pilous, S.P.A., Huoratron, Pocket Checkers, Musique Large, Busy P, Qoso, RawMan, Ali Renault ,Discodeine…etc etc

What some records that never leave your box?

C: There are none particular that can fit any situation in my perspective.
J: Paris Mitchell Project: “Ghetto Shout Out” never left my box before I started spinning CD’s

Current top 5 records?

Mr Oizo - Lamb’s Anger
Prince Zimboo - Say Heh
Bloody Beetroots - Warp EP
MC Maiquinho - Prende Na Rave
Pocket Checkers - My Sharona

Finally, whats next for Jess&Crabbe? More DJ dates? New productions?

J&C:Many of the youngsters don’t know us. So we feel like starting all over again, slowly. We planned to produce together again so we’re gathering some equipments for now and have a few dj sets scheduled in France this year. J&C season 2 is just about to start…

Upcoming DJ Dates:

April, 18 2009 11:00 PM - Jess & Crabbe @ Astrolabe (+ Fulgeance + Rekick) Orléans (France)

April, 30 2009 11:00 PM - Jess & Crabbe @ Ambassade Lyon (France)

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Interview: 88 Days In My Veins

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

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“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” A lovely quote that taps into the heart and soul of a blog deserving of some recognition. Scrolling the pages of 88 Days you wont find the latest electro house banger or hipster fan fare. What you will find is editorial that expresses the mess of life’s frustrations, lust, love, sexuality and music. About a year or so ago (via Twitter) we got into a dialog with one of the writers (prior to 88 Days hitting the blogosphere) which lead to collaboration and friendships. They were gracious enough to give us their thoughts on the meaning of it all.

Where are you located in this small world of ours?
In London, Brighton, Barcelona and sometimes the great English Countryside! 

What were some of the first music blogs you started following?
Been reading music blogs for 4 years, can’t even remember where we picked up on the whole blog community - absolutely no recollection at all. We started reading Good Weather For Airstrikes, Strictly Social, Big Stereo, Pinglewood, and Disco Dust early on.

You both currently work in the marketing and promotion part of the music biz to pay the bills.  What made you want to jump into the blogging game?
We’ve always had music as the focus of our individual personal blogs, but in meeting it sort of made sense to have something entirely separate given we had a huge mutual love of pretty much the same music. In fact, the way the editorial is presented it’s often a juztaposed mess of life’s frustrations, lust, love, sexuality and music, all rolled up and analyzed. So in that respect, it’s a non traditional music blog. It’s very personal to us. We love 20jazzfunkgreats and Pinglewood but sure that neither would EVER write posts the way we do. And that’s fine by us.

Tell us how you came up the name 88 Days?
Its full title is ‘88 days in my veins’ which is a track by the jazz trio Esbjörn Svensson Trio . Unfortunately Esbjörn died a few days after we decided on the name but it’s as much an ode to him, as our love of jazz and progressive music. We’ve seen E.S.T. on a few occasions, and his death came at the peak of the band’s evolution. Utterly amazing live - suggestions of Radiohead (certainly the intelligence and emotion conveyed in their music is very true).


What type of music can people find on 88Days?  What criteria do you use when deciding whom to write about?
It’s pretty varied and that’s in the full sense of the word. There is typical indie and electronic but also lots of acoustic singer songwriter stuff. You’ll also get eighteen minute psychodelic madness and stuff that sounds like Steve Reich. We’re huge fans of Roxy Music so ‘el Ferry’ and pals get far too much love! We tend to write about things that truly excite us or find super smart and interesting. Music is after all, highly subjective but ultimately it all comes down to which emotions it enhances or fires. 

Give us your thoughts on the future of music blogging and its impact on the future of the music biz.
The major problem for us, is that we simply do not have time to listen to all the music we get sent. We also get sent a lot of music we’re NEVER going to feature because it’s either unfinished, badly structured/recorded, or just crap. Most people simply do not know how to deal with bloggers. The majority of us are good people. We want what’s best for the artist ultimately and the lawyers approach to attacking certain posts is absolutely ridiculous.  Blogs are incredibly powerful, we see the affect of this on a weekly basis working ‘on the other side’ but if PR companies don’t start learning to speak to the right blogs, in the right medium with the right message, the essence of blogs as a platform for artists will become less beneficial. It’s becoming harder to filter out the good stuff that every major record company thinks that blogs should be part of their marketing campaign even if some artists just don’t fit the medium. Yet often we see that when stuff is posted from majors, one of those DMCA takedown notices arrives. At the moment there’s a lack of consistency in the treatment of music blogs, certainly from major labels anyway, and frankly it makes us more resentful of them. 

We met via Twitter about a year or so ago and you continue to be active participants in the platform.  The music blogger community has really embraced Twitter this year.  Your thoughts?
We adore Twitter. It stimulates so many discussions from various groups and individuals across the world. It’s a great way of swapping music thoughts, ideals and listening to key opinion leaders. We wouldn’t agree with the majority of things these said ‘experts’ say, but it’s interesting all the same. It’s been a huge 12 months for Twitter. Initially it was just a bunch of early adopters (really tech enthusiasts) before December/January when the entire world joined. We assume it was a pre-programmed wake up call for the entire world to leave the redundancy of Facebook and race onto Twitter.  We’ve found lots of people coming to us in various forms for information, advice and even made some pretty key work contacts through this channel. It’s just an amazing platform for people in the music industry to communicate on an open platform.

What are your top 10 records right now?

YYY - Heads Will Roll
Goldern Filter - everything i can find!
The Big Pink - Velvet
Gold Panda - everything he does
Roxy Music - for your pleasure
Phoenix - wolfgang amadeus
Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
Jensen Sportag - Cocktease (max tundra remix) - yes, still!
Pulp - Different Class
Ellie Goulding - Black and Gold (Sam Sparro cover) 

Any last words?
As soon as the love stops. Do something else. 

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STRICTLYSOCIAL interview on NYLVI

Saturday, January 10th, 2009

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A big shout out to the good people at NYLVI and James at 88 Days!

Hello Morgan, please tell us a little about yourself.
Morgan Witt. Live in San Diego, California, USA. Entrepreneur, marketer, and musicologist.

What was the inspiration behind Strictlysocial.com?
Strictlysocial.com was launched in the summer of 2006. Just prior to starting the site, I made the decision to go back to school to get my MBA. With school and a full time job I had to scale back on the DJing/promoting I was doing at the time. This left a void. I was still buying a lot of vinyl and wanted to at least be able to talk about the music that I found exciting since I wasn’t able to play it out. I came up with the name, bought the domain, and taught myself the ins and outs of Wordpress.

How do you see Strictlysocial evolving??
Timely question. The future of the site has been top of mind lately. There is a new version in development as we speak. Doing a bit of redesign, expanding the site for more interactivity, and placing more focus on providing readers low hassle ways to preview music and support the artists (digital downloads, tickets to gigs, merchandise, etc.)
I am what you would call a “cool hunter.” I have passions for art, culture, design, and tech. All of which are synergistic with the music obsession. So I don’t think its a far stretch to say that strictlysocial.com will expand beyond just music at some point.

You’ve been a DJ in the past - what set-up did you use and did you use vinyl?
Prior to using Serato (about a year ago) I used vinyl. Technics decks and various Vestax mixers over the years.

Where do you see vinyl fitting into the music mix of 2009?
Vinyl sales are on the rise again. I would love to see labels put out records (vinyl) including inserts with a link to download a digital copy of the music as well. The true value is in the physical copy of the music along with the artwork/packaging. Especially if the vinyl is colored, limited edition, etc. To receive a digital version as well as part of the purchase would be great for consumers to easily upload on their iPods and for digital DJs to play out on programs like Serato and Traktor.

What are your favorite records right now and ever?
Its no secret that I have a deep affinity for the house music that came out of France in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. One that stands out for me is a record released on 20000st in 2001 by Nicholas called “Wanderungen.” On the B side there is a tune “Silvering” that gives me goose bumps every time I listen to it. Its a beautiful piece of house music.


Emotional. If you can find a copy of it, buy it. Another would be Aphex Twin’s “Windowlicker.” Genius.


What is the music scene like in San Diego?
The music scene in San Diego is growing. Many big names are making their way here as a stop between Los Angeles and Mexico. Beginning in February we are starting a monthly event under the guise of strictlysocial.com where DJs/producers from around the globe will be invited to play.

If i say music and technology, who or what springs to mind - and why?
The digital DJ movement comes to mind. I cant remember the last time I saw a DJ play out using vinyl. CDJs and Serato have quickly become the standard.

What role does music play aside from promotion in 2009? I’ve always seem the music blog as a tastemaking opportunity and pre marketing, as well as an opportunity to bypass traditional media and their barriers of entry (based on label and spend) and promote music for reasons of love?
It will be exciting to see how the music blogging evolves in the next couple of years. Consumers have more ways than ever to discover new music. Blogs are playing an integral role. I would love to see music conferences like SXSW place more focus on helping to facilitate an open dialog between the music bloggers, artists, and labels. I hope to get to interact more with other music bloggers from around the world and help to build community around what we are doing.

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