Cape Town<\/a>, but I think this is borne more out of the proliferation of gimmicky prog being played by DJs, with the same tried and tested bells and whistles (triplets, chants, cheesy samples, simplistic melodies etc).<\/p>\nMost of what I heard was consistently psychedelic music with artists intent on taking people on a journey; so that inspired me!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Is music at festivals returning to a more psychedelic sound?<\/h2>\n
From what I saw at BOOM, people want layered psychedelic music. Even the Alchemy Circle (tech stage) played a lot of Zenon-style psychedelic music for the first few days.<\/p>\n
On the main floor it didn\u2019t seem to matter if it was night-time music, daytime music, forest, full-on, progressive or whatever. If the set was good, people responded. The Dance Temple at BOOM offers almost all styles of psytrance except the super bubble gummy \u2018Brazilian-style prog trance\u2019 (not sure how else to describe it without mentioning names or labels).<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s also a definitive split in Europe, as one can see by the success of Modem festival, where the music focuses on very specific sub-genres.<\/p>\n
With regards to festivals, what are we doing right in South Africa, and what can we learn from the global scene?<\/h2>\n
We needn\u2019t be too hard on ourselves. The market is NOT massive here despite what people think.
\nPromoters have to try and cater for an ever-changing demographic to keep their numbers up, to not lose money and that\u2019s not always easy.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re doing way better than we maybe give ourselves credit for; international artists are not lying when they say ours is one of the best dancefloors to play to.<\/p>\n
What we can learn from the global scene \u2013 or at least from the European scene is \u2013 less alcohol, more psychedelics! You will be amazed what a difference that makes to the mood of a party.<\/p>\n
I also think local psytrance producers need to expand their sound and stop trying to cater for JUST the SA market if they are serious about getting booked at the biggest events overseas.<\/p>\n
Deliriant and Contrast, in my opinion, are two SA producers who really could\/should play overseas more often (I know Shane does already). I played tracks by both and they were very well received.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Are you looking for more international bookings?<\/h2>\n
I admire those who do this as a full time or even semi-fulltime occupation. It\u2019s a tough and uncertain lifestyle for most, with a select 10% taking the cream of all the international bookings.<\/p>\n
I had a taste of it in the early to mid-2000\u2019s and made the decision in 2007 not to actively pursue the international circuit, mainly for family reasons \u2013 not to say I would have cracked it as a career \u2013 but the thought of spending a lot of time in airports and hotel rooms\u2026 alone, did not (and does not) appeal to me. People don\u2019t fully appreciate what many of these guys give up by doing this week in and week out.<\/p>\n
But, if the occasional awesome opportunity like BOOM comes along, I\u2019d do it again in a heartbeat.<\/p>\n
Do you have any other goals in your music career?<\/h2>\n
You asked earlier if I was inspired in any way after my BOOM experience\u2026<\/p>\n
Well, I have been threatening (myself mainly) to get my home studio going again and to write some new music and that is exactly what I am going to do; write some \u2018kiff trance tracks ek se!!!!\u2019<\/p>\n
Collabs anyone?<\/p>\n
How has the equipment used for your sets evolved?<\/h2>\n
When I started most DJs were playing off DAT machines and vinyl.<\/p>\n
In fact, I think I was the first psy DJ (in Cape Town) to own a CDJ100.<\/p>\n
I started on vinyl and CD and played off both formats for a few years until vinyl became difficult to acquire. Then it was just CD for many, many years. Traktor actually got me back into DJing after a 2-year hiatus, around 2009.<\/p>\n
But now I am back on CDJs and USB flash drives<\/a>. Got tired of lugging a laptop to gigs<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
What industry secrets do you have for upcoming artists?<\/h2>\n
As a newbie DJ I suggest you record all your practice sets and listen to them over and over and be hyper critical of yourself. You can only get better that way.<\/p>\n
Also, the top DJs spend many hours finding the right tunes for their sets. If the tune is a 50\/50 then don\u2019t use it. Only play what represents your sound and style and think about where the tune fits into your set.<\/p>\n
As a producer, copying your favourite artists is not a bad thing, but you do need to create your own signature sound that goes beyond just good production and clever tricks.<\/p>\n
Thanks for the interview. Any last words?<\/h2>\n
The psytrance scene in South Africa is unique and one of the best in the world, which all of us who have been a part of can be proud of. Let\u2019s not fuck it up by fighting with each other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dave Mac has been at the forefront and behind-the-scenes of not only the psy scene, but Cape Town’s music scene as a whole for over 20 years now. In July, Dave performed at Boom Festival in Portugal, arguably one of the biggest psytrance dance floors in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":576,"featured_media":44251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5452],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psymedia.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6685"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psymedia.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psymedia.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psymedia.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/576"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psymedia.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/psymedia.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136389,"href":"https:\/\/psymedia.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6685\/revisions\/136389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psymedia.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psymedia.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psymedia.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psymedia.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}