Yesterday, the annual Electronic Music Conference (EMC) wrapped in Sydney with a mini-festival in the form of EMCPlay, which followed on from two days of panels and masterclasses featuring local and international leaders of electronic music. Naturally, we learnt plenty along the way, and here now are 15 such things we learnt over the last few days from people who know a lot more than we do…
- Carl Cox is still the man. But that should go without saying.
- Sometimes a festival won’t announce a band until after the festival is sold out “to avoid the fans of that band from overrunning the festival and ruining the vibe.” The particular example mentioned was in regards to Wolfmother booked at their peak at Falls Festival.
- “Coachella is the devil. It has the least engagement on site that I have ever seen. 200,000 punters who don’t see any music.” – Steve Moffat
- “Festivals will always be sustainable. It’s engrained in our culture. The end of BDO etc. wasn’t a bubble bursting. It was an evolution.” – Adam Lewis
- Paul Mac on making Itch-E and Scratch-E’s sound: “We were trying to sound like the music we were loving from Detroit but getting it completely wrong, and we made our own sound because of it. Like the British stars trying to sound like music from the American South.”
- Presets gave us insight on “My People”: “If you want to write a hit single, you probably aren’t going to write a protest song. But ‘My People’ was about boat people and the way that the world perceived how Howard was dealing with it. We were ashamed… and we were able to fit it within this anthemic way that connected whether they understood the meaning or not.” Oh and it sounds like they’re working on a new album – exciting!
- “I’m such a gay, I just started crying” – Paul Mac on when he found out he was #1 on that In The Mix list of The 100 Greatest Australian Dance Tracks Of All Time.
- “The artist is a brand”, we get it.
- “As an artist, you learn a lot more from negative feedback” – Slumberjack
- “This is the golden age of the Australian electronic scene. It’s fucking awesome to be a part of it.” – Hot Dub Time Machine
- “Anyone can be taught to DJ. Not everyone can make music like Flume or Tool. Focus on production. Does anyone go to a Flume show and ask “is he a good DJ?” Nobody cares. The music is there and that’s all that matters.”
- Raph from The Meeting Tree delivered his rules for a great DJ set: “The most important thing you can do is giving everyone a good time. As long as you get paid at the end of the night it’s a good night.”
- “No matter how easy the technology is to create music, the cream will always rise to the top.” – Joyride
- “It doesn’t matter who the label is. It’s who the person is and how hard they’re willing to work for you.” – Slumberjack.
- “Australia is an accelerated market. The US market is making the same mistakes we have already seen end festivals here. (The demise of well regarded festivals like Big Day Out) will happen there too.”
For more on the conference, head here: electronicmusicconference.com
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