Ray Roc: Fighting Terror & the Music Business: Don't Give In

"My motto is to keep on going and hope that the world settles itself down, but don't give in to what the terrorists are trying to do- they're trying to repress us and I'm not going to get repressed; it's bad enough that I have to deal with the music industry."

Alongside his contemporaries Todd Terry and Masters At Work, Ray Roc (real name Ramon Checo) remains one of New York's greatest modern day musical ambassadors, carrying his Latino based house sound to all four corners of the Earth. Unlike Terry and MAW ,though, Roc isn't exactly a household name, despite a 15 year career that's seen him launching New York's first DJ mix albums and his own globally popular fusion of Latino music and house, via his group Numero Uno. Shortly about to release a wide range of records under a plethora of personas (including the Roc Project, Ray's Latin Groove and Ray Roc Presents) he looks like remedying his relative anonymity imminently.

"I'm taking house music a lot more seriously, it's about building up a concept and developing it," he told Skrufff's Jonty Adderley.

"I've got my alternative, my underground, and my project in the middle, though everything I do is based around dance music, or rather house music."


Skrufff (Jonty Adderley): You're involved in lots of different projects through lots of different labels, how easy is it for you to switch between different records and tasks-

Ray Roc: "I write my songs so my inspirations come from whatever vibe I'm feeling at the time. Usually I produce house music and make records for the underground but I've also been building up a catalogue of more crossover style pop tunes for about ten years now. I've also signed to BMG Publishing which has allowed me to expand my horizons. It's simple for me because it's a production issue- I make the record according to what the song's about."

Skrufff: Your Ray's Latin Groove operation was previously signed to New York's best known house label Strictly Rhythm, who recently closed down, how do you see the health of the house music in New York right now-

Ray Roc: "In New York, dance music seems to be on the up whereas in Europe it appears to at a standstill or even slowing down a little. Strictly closing down wasn't linked to the American market, they had a deal with Warners and as I understand it ,the closure was linked to issues with them. It doesn't hurt me at all, because the less dance labels that are out there flooding the market the better. At one point Strictly Rhythm became a machine, releasing 20 records a week. I'm actually glad, because music will go back to being about quality."

Skrufff: You produced a seminal New York house project in 1988, the War Party, featuring tracks from Todd Terry, Bobby Konders, Lil Louis Vega and others, what did you do on it specifically-

Ray Roc: "At that time Warlock the label were experimenting a lot with New York's house scene and they were trying to get all the talents together in New York and building on them. I happen to have been a big time bootlegger at the time, ('just kidding', he chuckles), a big time editor, so I was working on a lot of big mainstream records. I edited New Order, Sheena Easton and loads more records for big name acts. My partner worked for Arthur Baker at his studio Shakedown so he always had work and I started coming in and helping."

Skrufff: how was an edit different from a remix-

Ray Roc: "Back then edits were basically arrangements, you'd do about three or four hours of passes of a song, then you'd edit them all together to get your radio edit, your club version and so on. A pass was a different take of the same song, you'd have one instrumental version, another with lots of delay on the vocals, that kind of thing. Back then there wasn't automation, so bands would do lots of different live mixes and the editors had to arrange the song, in different formats. For example a radio version would always bring the vocal up and fit into a right 3 minute mix, Tags

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