Interview with Jolyon Green & Matthew Burgess

DS3 - It’s true to say that two words spring to mind when your names are mentioned, Balearic and Lowlife. But we’ll come onto that later. Lets rewind the clock, where did this passion and obsession with music come from, and tell us about some of your earliest influences?

J - An older friend introduced me to House stuff when I was about 15 (1986) and by the middle of 1987 I was sneaking into clubs in Leeds like The Warehouse and Rickys (and some other pretty bad ones!) and slowly building up a record collection. I guess there were four or five of us at school who were into it and we used to take it in turns to buy the latest Chicago imports. The passion for music probably comes from my Mum. She teaches the piano and I played it too when I was a kid so I've been pretty musical from a young age. By the late 80s I was out clubbing most weekends and buying too many records, then bought some decks.

M - Maybe growing up without a TV had something to do with it. I used to listen to the radio obsessively during the early 80s, which was a brilliant creative time for pop music, and always loved 12 inch singles with their "extended versions." The first music that felt like it belonged to me though was electro. I remember walking past the school hall where someone had a ghetto blaster playing "I'm the Packman" - and just being hit by the sheer futuristic brilliance of it all. I just had to find out what it was, and so wandered in and took a sneak peek at the tape box while the big kids were practising their caterpillars. Little did I know that I was establishing a lifelong precedent for surreptitious trainspottery - and indeed any records that sound like they were made by spacemen with synthesisers.  I'm a latecomer to dance music really. I didn't have that drugs and music epiphany thing until I was in my mid 20s. My friend Chris used to run this great party called Medicine, which was at the Clinic on Gerrard Street for a while, then at various venues all over the city and that was where it all started for me. I also remember them taking me to New Hard Left at the Blue Note for the first time - telling me I had to hear this Harvey guy who plays mad records for 8 hours -   as well as the Basement Jaxx parties, Come Shake the Whole – all those amazing eclectic Brixton nights in the mid 90s. I didn't buy decks until about 1998. Back then, all the records I owned could have fitted in one box – bloody hell…

DS3 - How and where did you both meet? Was it love at first sight?!

J - It was love (of disco) at first sight. We met about 7 years ago when I sold Matthew a 12" of Mother's Finest 'Dis Go Dis Way' far too cheaply on ebay. We exchanged it in a pub, had a few drinks and a friendship blossomed.

M - I'd seen his jolyon@jolyon name (long since changed...) on ebay bidding on records I liked, so figured he was a man of taste and discernment. We knew as soon as our eyes met that we'd soon be sharing cramped dj booths together – though I didn't realize six years on I'd be playing City Lights at his wedding (and watching his mum get down alongside his wide-eyed mates) 

DS3 - Balearic music. What is it? It’s a terminology that seems to carry it’s own individual identity with everyone it meets. Can you describe it to us in your own words?

J - You can't really describe it so I'm not going to try. It's a feeling, like House. You have to be really balearic yourself to know instinctively what a balearic record is. And that takes years of training I'm afraid! Other than the Spanish originals like Alfredo and Jose, there are really only about four or five what I'd call truly balearic DJs around these days - Phil Mison, Moonboots, Kelvin Andrews and Mike Smith spring to mind. It annoys me that the word gets bandied around a lot by people who don't really get it. I suppose I'm balearic but I don't think Matthew would describe himself as "a balearic DJ" at all. He's disco, baby!

M - I have balearic moments every once in a while, but I'm not a balearic DJ. It's a handy word to describe a music with a certain unquantifiable feel and Jo, along with the guys mentioned above, seems to have an instinct for finding such records   - which is also balearic.  Frank Tope's description of it as being pop music that sounds good on pills cuts straight to the point I think.

DS3 - Can we have 5 desert island discs from you both please?

J - Tulio Di Piscopo - Stop Bajon (by far the greatest record of all time), Marvin Gaye - What's Going On LP, Seigen Ono - Julia, Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Broadcasting From Home LP, House Sound Of Chicago Vol 2.

M - Are we on the same desert island? If not, I'll have Stop Bajon too. When you watch the video I reckon you can see that Tullio knows he's made a good tune, but he's not quite aware of how transcendentally brilliant it is. Also, Faure's Requiem (a recording with the soprano parts sung without vibrato of course), Bert Jansch – LA Turnaround LP and Pet Shop Boys – Pop Art comp (which contains the tracks that remind me of my two best friends) . I'd need a record to give me Lowlife flashbacks too, and while strong cases could be made for Bill's edit of Coming Up and Greg Wilson's Teenage DJ…  I'll probably go for the Wrenchman ep – which would also remind me of Rob J - who gave me the record - and his giant disco grin.

DS3 - When did your association with Lowlife start, and what does it mean to you to play there?

J - I think it was cosmic karma or something. We both knew Bill separately and used to trade tapes/cds with him of our latest disco purchases. This was a few years before the whole message board thing. He liked our tapes and asked us both to DJ at a Lowlife party, not knowing we knew each other. Handy really. That was six years ago and we keep getting asked back every time. I guess we're part of the Lowlife family now.
Lowlife is an amazing party. The best thing about it is the crowd is really open-minded. The second best thing about it is Bill and Frank let you play pretty much what you want. As long as you keep the crowd dancing, you can be adventurous. It's a real privilege to be involved to be honest. Nobody puts on a party like Bill and Frank - there's a really magic, family feeling to their nights. The last 2 years have been absolutely amazing and atmosphere wise they're up there with the best nights I had out as a young clubber in the early days of House.

M - Blame it on the Brewster.  The first one I did was actually his wedding reception, which was at the Fortress, Lowlife's previous venue. Frank had got Osibisa  - all 8 of them - over from New York to play in the basement. It was absolutely amazing and certainly a hell of a way to start married life! I think the next one was the one Jo and I did together and we started playing back to back pretty much straight away. They're just the best parties ever - you look forward to them and then lose yourself in them.
I think Lowlife - and by default Frank and Bill - has totally driven my DJing and taste in music, as well as making me part of a huge beaming family who get as excited as I do when each party comes around. There have been some fantastic guests and it's great that Michael Cook is more involved now - he played an absolute stormer of a 2-4am set last year. I can only echo what Jo said - it really is a total privilege to be involved.

DS3 - If Balearic and disco were boxers, who would they be and who would win?

J - Balearic: Ray Leonard - classy. Disco: Ali - flamboyant!

M - Disco is Ray Jackson from (van Damme epic) Bloodsport – mighty punch and a fine beard. Balearic is a lover not a fighter

DS3 - Tell us about some of the early gigs, where you cut your teeth, there must have been some terrible/memorable moments in years gone by?

J - Started with school discos, playing hip hop, house, disco, pop, indie. Moved to Manchester in 1990 and DJed out a bit. Moved to London, did a few things but got out of the habit for a while. Met a guy called Richie Rundle who used to run a night in Exeter called Le Chunk and wanted to start a branch of it in London. We played for 2 1/2 years Sunday nights at a place called Inigo. Rammed every week with people dancing on tables and climbing the walls. It was absolutely fucking mental. From there I did a lot of bar gigs, fashion gigs and then 2 year residency with Ben and Andy Boilerhouse. Memorable nights - a Paris loft party for i-D magazine, playing off a crazy old B&O sound system with Roland Mouret trainspotting my Linda Di Franco records ... Tracey Emin asking me for Bowie at a Boilerhouse party ... playing Visage's Frequency 7 at Inigo and watching the room go insane...Lowlife...

M – A few years ago, I got to DJ for a month in India on a tour sponsored by Castle Lager. I figured they'd hired me to play what i play in London, so got to the first club, droppedthe first disco record and promptly cleared the floor. People didn't even stan there looking bored - they just walked off. It was realy embarrassing. Fortunately the resident came to my recue and gave me a CD. "Play track 7," he said. I swiftly did so and was rewarded by a masiv cheer as everyone recognized the chattering bhangra beat that came out of the speakers. There was an even bigger cheer shortly afterwards when the guitar riff came in - it was a remix of Bryan Adams' Summer of 69...
India was amazing though - I had taken my laptop so spent the next few days feverishly making cut ups of R&B tracks with the Hindi pop and Punjabi hip hop that they liked out there. I ended up staying out for an extra two weeks.I was interviewed by newspapers and TV shows and everything - it was ace. When I came back, my best friend sent me an article on Yahoo about how the worlds top DJs were being flown over to India by drinks companies.Bacardi had taken Fatboy Slim and Judge Jules, while Castle Lager had Matthew Burgess, who they had billed as the 7th best DJ in the world. An enterprising Yahoo reporter had looked me up on Dj Pages, which was a DJ ratings site, and found out that I was in fact ranked in the low thirteen thousands But still, that meant one person had voted for me...

DS3 - Vinyl. Dead man walking, or will it still be strutting in 10 years time?

J - Hopefully it will still be going. It sounds better than CDs and forces DJs to make more of an effort to find good stuff. MP3s make DJs very, very lazy and other than crappy bar gigs I don't hold with them at all. CDs are OK I suppose, but sound so flat a lot of the time and can discourage you from digging for stuff. Compilations are cheating. I think it was Frank Tope who said “if you can't be arsed to carry a big box of records around to gigs, you need to stop being a DJ”. Spot on. You don't see David Mancuso playing off CDs do you?

M - Vinyl to me has an extra meaning that goes beyond its physical / aural aspects. It represents the fact that you've made an effort. It takes time, dedication (and luck) to find good records, especially if you don't want to play what everyone else is playing and are not willing to pay ridiculous ebay prices. I think this sort of care is going to make a better DJ than someone who's just downloaded all their music or bought loads of bullshit bootlegs. Compilations are a great place to learn about music - but then again, if all a DJ plays is compilations then they are effectively borrowing loads of other people's record collections. A great record collection does not make a great DJ - however, behind every great DJ is a fucking good record collection.

DS3 - Parties such as Lowlife and Bam Bam really seem to encapsulate the vibe that you create when DJing. Why do you think this is, and what is it about the Green/Burgess tag-team that seems work so well?

J - I think we bring out the best in each other and make each other dig a bit harder, mix a bit better and pull off surprises. I'm balearic, he's disco and that seems to work well. Plus if one of us is too spannered, the other can hold it together while we sort it out. Occasionally a problem at Lowlife and BamBam.

M - It not so much that we've got different tastes - I've never heard Jo play a record that i didn't like - but we certainly come at music from different angles and that's a real asset when DJing together. It's the sort of thing that works well at parties like Lowlife and Bam Bam where you don't know what the DJ is going to play next.

DS3 - Sum up Jolyon Green and Matthew Burgess in 3 words.

Words deepsoul3

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