Okay, after a busy couple of days, here's part II of the Mike Paradinas
interview on CBC Stereo's Brave New Waves originally broadcast some time
this past winter.
PS = Patti Schmidt, host(ess)
MP = Mike Paradinas
SP = Sherman T. Potter
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PS
Now you did some remixes that got you in trouble with fans of The
Auteurs but other people consider them to be brilliant remixes. Can you
tell me how exactly this project happened and what exactly you did to
the Auteurs?
MP
Right the project was down to an idea by Tony Beard who is the manager
of The Auteurs. I met up with him (and my press oficer knew him) and he
suggested that I remix The Auteurs cause they'd listened to a coupla
tapes of my first two albums and Luke Hanes was quite into it. He heard
some other remixes I'd done and quite liked them. They sent me the
album, I sampled a few bits of the album, sent him the remixes, Luke
quite liked them, so we cut them and put a record out.
PS:
And reaction has been split. [laughs]
MP:
Well, I haven't really heardany reactions from Autuers fans. Everyone
out there quite likes it. There was some good reviews in the UK and um
the only bad reaction was when I went to Belgium and the Virgin Belgium
bloke, whatever his name is, said he didn't put it out in Belgium cause
he thought it was crap.
PS:
[laughs]
MP:
Can I say that?
PS:
Yes. You've done some other remixes as well. Chris and Cosy?
MP:
Yah, that was fun.
PS:
And how did that turn out exactly? What is their new material like?
MP:
Well it was a remix of an an old track off a remix album called _Twist_
with remixes by various people: Fred Gianelli of Plus8, and Connection
Machine who've done something for Planet E I think. I did a couple of
remixes on that. One of Credit Sequence which is an old 1983 track off
the Elemental 7 album and another track called Voodoo. One of them
turned out quite stringey with weird drums and the other was quite a
hard, acidic number...
PS:
Yah. Is there any remixing project you won't take on?
MP:
Well I've turned down quite a lot actually.
PS:
Is it just a time thing?
MP:
If I like or if I think I can do something to the track then I'll remix
it. If there's nothing I can do then I don't. Sometimes I just don't
like the track.
Ps:
Richard James has said he only remixes music by people he hates so he
can take them out of it and put him in to make it better.
MP:
He said that cause he was sick of making remixes and didn't want to get
anymore so he said,' I'll only remix people whose music I think is
shit.'
PS:
[laughs] Did it work?
MP:
They still kept coming in.
PS:
Jungle in Britain, its just starting to leak over here a bit, has really
set people on fire. A lot of crossover and stuff which of course makes
problems for people who are purists in the old hardcore scenes, but I've
read that drum and bass is really exciting you and may have already
integrated itself into some of your work.
MP:
Well it already has. If you listen to my first album it was hardcore
influenced. If you listen to all the stuff that's got influence of
rhythms which is what basically jungle, jungle's main thing. So yeah.
Everyone listens to jungle here just like everyone used to listen to
hardcore in 92 or 93. Which is what it used to be called!
PS:
Yeah.
MP:
So, ummm, yeah everyone I know just listens to pirates and buys jungle
12"s.
PS:
And are you a freak about collecting 12"s?
MP:
Umm. I don't _collect_ them but if I hear a good album I buy it.
PS:
Do you tend to be one of those people who listens to something over and
over again or just very quickly gives everything one or two listens?
MP:
Well in a shop I give it a couple of listens, but once I get a record if
there's something I like I listen to it quite a lot.
PS:
To the point of driving everyone around you crazy?
MP:
No.
PS:
Okay.
MP:
I just listen to it a fair amount. I usually if I've got spare time
I'll just write a track or something.
PS:
There's a lot of funk and soul and jazz stuff that leaks more into the
Jake part of your personality. Where does that come from?
MP:
That's the sort of music I'm really into. Apart from Indy and Techno
and stuff I used to be a lot into funk and soul influences and I try to
put that side into Jake Slazenger really. Its that simple really. I
used to be in a band playing sort of funky stuff.
PS:
What did you play?
MP:
I played keyboards. Usually use piano sounds or organ sounds.
PS:
There's some talk of making a techno-jazz record as well?
MP:
Yah, I did make one in 1994 and um it still hasn't been released?
PS:
What did it sound like?
MP:
I can really think of anything out know that's like it. Its sort of
more jazzy than Jake Slazenger. I did it around the same time as Jake
Slazenger and I was hoping to release it on Virgin but there's a lot of
samples on it that haved to be cleared. It was a lot of vibraphones,
squelchy, acid sounds, breakbeats....A lot of soul and Brazillian jazz
exotica. Not easy listening...quite fast and breakbeatty.
PS:
You have so much stuff in the can waiting to be released. I guess the
most obvious question is: Do you actually have a personal life outside
of whatever comes out of the headphones?
MP:
Well I haven't been recording much this last year. I've just been
staying at home with my girlfriend and sorting out our lives. I've been
playing live a lot. When I was recording a lot I had more of a social
life then than I do now because I'm so busy doing interviews and press
and gigs.....
[ my tape ends. Interview ends soon]
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Hope you enjoyed it.
Dave.