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Frankie Knuckles:' Techno & Trance is 'Soulless'(Extended interview)

Author: Skruff
Thursday, March 22, 2001
Living legend Frankie Knuckles, along with his best buddy Larry Levan, invented house music in the late 70s during New York's final orgy of hedonism and decadence. Honing their new DJing styles at notorious gay sex club the Continental Baths, Levan ended up at the Paradise Garage, where he pioneered the genre later called 'garage' while Knuckles hit Chicago's Warehouse, where his own unique style became known as 'house'. Two decades on, Levan is long dead, while Knuckles remains a world famous DJ and unsurprisingly, one of the greatest authorities on house. Mezz's Angie Ng caught up with him in Kuala Lumpur the day after he'd performed (and danced) before a massive KL audience.

Mezz: You played a 5 hour set last night and are well known for spinning 8 to 12 hour sets, where do you find the energy-
Frankie Knuckles: "It's how I started in the business. In the beginning (late 70s), in New York City, one DJ would be hired to play in a nightclub for up to 5 days. If you started at midnight then you'd always play until noon the next day. Because there was no time restriction and no ceiling on how long the audience was going to stay, if you got them hooked in, they weren't going to leave, so you'd keep on playing."

Mezz You described your musical selection as being good spirited music in a recent interview, ,what makes one record spiritual and another soulless-
Frankie Knuckles: " There might have been a time when I'd have said the lyrics, but there are instrumental pieces of music which are very melodic, which speak 'loudly' and always appeal to the same spot in everyone; records of the heart. One of my own songs that I'm so proud of is 'The Whistle Song' and there's not a word spoken on it. The thing about the kind of music I write and produce is that I'm not thinking about the dance floor, I'm just thinking about the music itself and how sensitive it can be. I don't consciously try to appeal to certain senses in people; I just go with what feels good to me and just hope and pray it appeals to other people in the same way.

Without dissing (disrespecting) anyone, I think a lot of the electronica / techno / trancey stuff is soulless: stuff which has no real 'balls' to it, for lack of a better expression. But I am very selective in what I play, even with the limited amount of really good material that's coming out these days. . So, when I do find something, I latch on to it. It can live in my record box for a very long time.

Mezz: You're recognised as the true inventor of house, how much does today's scene have in common with the Warehouse days of the 80s-
Frankie Knuckles: "Probably the only thing in common is the idea of the DJ and the music that's being played. But there's been so many different styles of music in the past 10 years, which had nothing whatsoever to do with anything that was Warehouse related or garage related, either. Most stuff you hear whether it's electronica, trance, techno or jungle, would never be played at The Warehouse or at The Paradise Garage. Most of these DJs don't really have any knowledge of sound. I think if they studied sound a bit closer, they would probably get a better 'rise' out of their audiences and come across sounding a whole lot more unique. I'm never one of those cookie-cutter DJs, following what everybody else is doing. I can't do that, it's just not me."

Mezz: You were best friends with Paradise Garage legend Larry Levan back in the last 70s, what drew the both of you to DJing -
Frankie Knuckles: "DJing wasn't something we were looking to do initially, we just had loads of energy and we hung out at places like The Loft and The Gallery with all our friends. We were easily recognised by David Mancuso (who owned The Loft) and Nicky Siano (The Gallery). When we worked at the Gallery we were doing everything from cleaning the toilets to dishwashing in the kitchen, then towards the end of the night, we'd get to hang out with eit
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