Imagine this kind of person: the one who truly appreciates techno like a best friend; the person who actually knows who Warp Records are; the individual who implores the glowing warmth of ancient analogue drum mechanisms. Now imagine me, moving to Dalry, a small town in the middle of the Garnock Valley, and not knowing until after five or six years of living there that this kind of person had been living alongside me all along. You can picture the immense surprise I had to the discovery that the guy who worked in the supermarket up the street had been listening to the same records as I was, and following the same gigs and clubnights simulataneously to me. It's strange to think about what would have transpired differently had I not worn my Daft Punk t-shirt when buying my morning milk, and consequently not having the drunken "are you that guy who comes in to the Co-op with that Daft Punk t-shirt?" conversation at Pressure a month or two later. If it hadn't been for that, I never would have sat in on one of Dalry's Turf Inn's techno nights and never would have become familiarised with a number of lovable local and loyal techno-pledgers - including one Chris Duncan; the fun and famous electro-noodler, collector of many a dance label record. Here, I interview him about the music he makes under the "Beat Freak" pseudonym.
BP: Begin with the basics, please.
Name: Chris Duncan. I'm 25 years old, I'm currently working as a joiner, I like to make my music, buy records and play guitar.
BP: What do you think may have inspired you to start to make electronic music?
I started making electronic music when I was 18. Before that, I played guitar through a friend - I thought "well, if he play can guitar, so can I" and got him to teach me. I tried to write some song lyrics with guitar for my beginnings, but then I got into techno and thought I could make whole tracks myself if I got into producing electronic stuff. I didn't have to try and write lyrics which I've found difficult and never really knew what to write about anyway. So basically, I acknowledged electronic music as my new direction, as it were. I didn't need anyone else there, didn't need a band or a drummer or anything. When I was 17 or 18 and getting into dance music, I did buy a set of turntables - again, like the guitar, I was frustrated learning how to DJ, so decided that nevermind playing other people's tunes, producing my own music was I wanted to do. I got a copy of a wee program, Rebirth, for the PC - it was basically like using virtual instruments onscreen. Two 303's, an 808 and 909 drum machine. Also, I learned through eJay - a very cheesey wee thing - but seriously, I learned to structure my songs, putting loops together. So that's the basis on which I taught myself how to produce a range of music.
At the time, I was young and didn't have a great computer so I was always coming up against a wall. There were obvious limits on what I could achieve. That's when I looked into getting real solid hardware. I got my first bit of hardware which was a Yamaha RM1X groovebox sequencer. It was basically everything in a box that you could want to do. I've been building my collection of hardware since; I've got a classic Roland MC202 from '83 that I'm chuffed to have got a hold of though I've not used it as much as I'd like! But recently I've had a phase where I've ditched the analogue sound and gone back to creating music with software.
BP: What's caused this?
Laziness! Not having to set up loads of cables. That's the thing; I don't have a studio, it's all done in my room. You want to keep your room tidy and don't want to have to unplug and plug stuff when you're trying not to step on your hardware. But seriously, I wanted to get more involved with the production of particular sounds and I think I can achieve this better with software. With hardware, it's difficult too, you're limited in some ways. There's only so much I could connect up. I had plenty of good synths and things but trying to connect them up and get them running live, and trying to write stuff with them, it was difficult for me to sructure them and lay them down as tracks . Whereas with software, and something like Ableton, you can see it onscreen plainly and think more about the structure of the recording as a whole. Maybe before I was just making loops and stuff, and the advantage of that over software perhaps is the ability to change and create instantly with the push of a button - when playing live especially. Ableton is something I've never used in a live setting, I've always used it for helping build structures for my songs. There's definitely pros and cons for both avenues.
BP: What sort of genre do you think your music falls under?
I feel like I should have to say 'electronica' because that bracket covers so many different things! The songs that I think are my best, that I've maybe put on the MySpace page... there's electro and techno in there. Every song's a wee bit different. The sound of my songs really depend on what happens when making them and my sort of mood at the time. I've found my best songs are probably the result of setting out to make a song with a certain techno sound, I've then messed about with it, tweaked bits here and there, and produced something very unintentional. They're the best tracks. Generally speaking, my tracks are fairly influenced by all sorts of electronic genres - though I'm bigger on electro than techno so I've always wanted to use that sort of sound, and I always try and get in my 303 acid sound in there whenever I can.
It's like some sort of identity, a funny signature, amongst all my songs - the 303 basslines. You should need to try and find something that folks will recognise you with. It also means that if you're trying to gather a collection of tracks to put onto a demo or a release, it means all the tracks have some link between them. That's not really always that important, especially in electronic music, I know - but it's nice to give listeners some one thing to identify with in all the tracks on a release.
BP: You've made demos?
Well... not demos as such. I think of my music output in terms of EPs; that comes from buying electro and techno records and stuff. You obviously get LPs on vinyl but they're more expensive and often not every track is what your looking for; you're more likely to want to spend a little less on a good EP with four or five solid tracks. I don't really have the tracks to substantiate an entire album at the moment so I'd like to stick to making EPs as you can change your style a little and have something that fits together. I've luckily got two EPs on Dedpop (netlabel) so I find it works best to send the guy there a few tracks, and what he likes I try to create other tracks to fit with and get 5 or 6 tracks on it.
BP: What made you choose the name Beat Freak, by the way? Really?
Haha yeah. I'm just plain rubbish at picking names. I think it was just one day maybe I think sometimes I'm a bit of a freak, and you know I like beats! And not all my music's quite the same so I just thought since I'm crap at picking names, I'm just going to stick with Beat Freak. Don't get me wrong, maybe it's a bit cheesy. I don't know what other people think of it as a name but nobody's said anything about it so far so I'll stick with it for the meantime. I was told that there was a pop group called the Beatfreakz, and I did think "oh no, that's too similar" but didn't know about them until after. To be honest, who cares? Haha.
BP: How do you think your music has evolved since the start?
... Not as quickly as I've liked.
BP: Well, how many years have you been doing it?
How many years?... Well, technically I've been dabbling since I was 18 so you're talking nearly 8 years. Obviously there's a huge difference between now and then, and you don't start off making full songs coz you need to learn. Definitely, the first kind of stuff I made on my RM1X, like I said, the box had everything I needed and had great effects. At a push, you could produce a whole record or a single with it but as a novice at the start, you're never going to have that knowledge or experience initially. The stuff that I've released on Dedpop not long ago, I'm very proud that I managed to make that actually. I can't believe it sometimes - so my music has come along since.
BP: I liked the stuff you put out on Dedpop. It actually reminded me of something by the likes of Orbital. Hope that makes you feel good.
Orbital? That's a great comparison there. Haha, that's really good thanks. You see some musicians can be all "my track's great so check it out". I'm a bit more modest. I'm my own worst critic. I do enjoy my music but depending who you're talking to, you're not convinced that everyone's going to like it. But then you've got some mates who are into it who obviously know I'm just a guy making some music, I'm not trying to push them into buying a record or anything like that. At times I listen to my music personally, and can think it's great, at other times you kind of get the feeling that it's too basic or nothing radical's happening. I think a problem is that when I make a song and like it, I'll listen to it and listen to it, and eventually dismiss it for a long while. It was only recently I gave that Dedpop stuff a revisit, and I think it is quite good. I'm quite pleased with it. It's that big thing; if anything's your own work, you can never tell whether it's any good or not to other people and you can feel frustrated and left asking what am I actually doing with this piece of music, you know? Also, I find that if you listen to your own stuff, because you've arranged the structure of the track and know it inside out, the different elements of the song are not surprising. You know every aspect of the track from start to finish so listening to it becomes a predictable excercise. I wonder for somebody else listening, are they the sort of person tapping along with the beats in 4/4 time, expecting the song to change after exactly 16 bars like in a lot of dance music, or are they not?
BP: I think a symptom of modern dance music is when one goes to a club or a rave, and say they're playing some sort of house music - and it's all 4/4 beats and even if you've never heard the track before, you can often pre-empt how the music might change, and know that it'll change on every 4th or 8th beat.
That can't be a completely bad thing though. You enjoy it I suppose. Some music that follows this pattern obviously becomes generic but great dance music doesn't need to be doing a lot. If you get the combination of sounds right, that's the most important part of a dance track. Well-produced sounds can make or break a track. There's a lot of music I listen to where I think "that's not actually that complex" and probably, if you tried to work out the drum track and emulate the bassline, you could do exactly what they've done or something very similar but you might never achieve the quality of the pproduction which makes the track what it is.
BP: Could you tell us a little bit about your live presence, maybe?
The first gig was through college, I played the Barfly in Glasgow and, incidently, it's probably been the busiest gig I've played at - I think 200 people. The only bad thing was that the other acts were college bands doing an assortment of covers and there was me back in the day with my little electronic RM1X box thing. Unfortunately, it's not much to look at guy sitting on the stage with a little blue box when the people come to see bands. Now, I wouldn't say the gig went great coz folk weren't actually there to see me, but I was quite happy because at the time, I'd made this song. It was inspired by Aphex Twin's "Quoth"; I'd found these kind of noisy drum sounds and I made this pounding beat with them. I was just sitting there onstage with a smile on my face, coz I'd spotted some grannies in the crowd there to see their grandson play and I'm there blasting out this mega beat for no less than five minutes so that was a very pleasing moment.
After that gig, really, my friend put on a house and techno night at the Glasgow Uni. That was quite busy actually, I knew a lot of people from my bit who went. Again, I was put on first with my little blue box, but the guy who organised it really liked my stuff and wanted me to play. That was much better in that I was playing to a dance-orientated mob. It obviously wasn't like a swish DJ set playing well-produced records, it was just me, rough and ready, with my box busting some mad basslines, haha. There was also the feeling of having all these drunk folk out on the dancefloor shouting your name; which is still a highlight to me to this day. We've tried some techno nights at the Turf Inn in Dalry after that; me and my mate organised them. Obviously all those gigs were just a bit of fun, and having only the wee machine early on, I couldn't compete with Glaswegian club DJs when trying to do live sets up there. The technology didn't allow for me to have a continuous mix so I wasn't confident enough playing alongside the standard of Glasgow club DJs I'd been seeing.
As for upcoming gigs, I will be playing at my mate's clubnight Loop at La Cheetah on Queen Street and I think I'll maybe try to play sometime in the Summer too. You're asking me about playing live and it's not always like a straight-forward repertoire of songs; I've got my loops that I've developed and I often just improvise with them and make a song on the spot out of them. A good bassline; that for me isn't groundbreaking but hearing it on a set of speakers and people who are there to have a good time and hear some cracking beats is fantastic. If you're making electronic music and your audience is reacting to that and rocking out, you're halfway there - a crucial thing if you're a live act is that you need control over your instruments. Being able to fiddle with your filters and instantly manipulating the sound, that's the best way if you want to play with the crowd - just bringing things up or toning it down to suit. It's great just to kill all the sound right down to a bassdrum briefly and then just kick it all right back. I'd really like to get back to playing live regularly if I can.
BP: What's the ultimate direction for Beat Freak?
I don't want fame. I'm being realistic here; the chances of me making a huge amount of music and cranking out a world tour out of it is not something I see happening. That first release they put out on Dedpop, it took ages and ages trying to get the mix and production just right so it is a struggle just trying to finish an EP. Something else I know from the past and trying to spend any free time I had making music, it takes a lot of effort to produce even small things. I'd be happy in my lifetime, if I could have one or two physical releases produced. Something that a DJ could buy; and someone could hear in a club. I must stress, especially in this day and age, money doesn't come into any of my decisions. If I could improve my live set, and get a few releases out, I'd felt like I achieved something. But it's just time; and I never seem to have any of it.
It's not about fame and money, especially with the type of music I'm making - it comes from the underground. I prefer it that way though; groups like Underground Resistance, all this faceless techno, they come out playing with fake names and masks. It's like a big fingers up to the masses. There's no need for a name to the music. There are instances where legendary techno artists are releasing music under unknown pseudonyms, nobody knows who's who, coz the point is about pivoting it on the music. This Top 40 mass-produced stuff, I hear it a little too often at work or college, and the fickle public around me calling it 'great music'. They don't even write the music, it might be that they can sing, maybe they can't, you don't know what the producer has had to work with. Some people have too narrow expectations of music and think that the top 40 is the only music that's acceptable. If you played anything else, they're like "that sounds weird, what are you listening to that rubbish for?" and they don't open their eyes to anything outside manufactured pop. The idea that someone can go on a reality TV show and result in a Brit award-winning album is ridiculous. There's a quote from someone recent, can't remember who exactly, that's along the lines of "when money gets involved with music, give up" coz when you're concentrating on the money in front of the music, that's unwanted. There's too many bands that have compromised for the money, and their debut sounds amazing, but their albums become commercialised and increasingly lame over their career.
BP: Your influences; rattle them off.
When I was first conscious of my love for music, it might have actually, unfortunately or maybe not unfortunately, began with Oasis. Before them though, I loved the Cranberries and I loved Donovan as they were both in my tape collection. I still love them to this day.
BP: Haha, well we all have our starter bands. I started with the Prodigy.
I'll tell you what, my first cassette tape was Prodigy. "Jilted Generation".
BP: Mine was "Fat of the Land".
Right so, I was only a little boy and I was into a few different types of music and I got "Jilted Generation" and I loved that. That was my first cassette tape, and apart from my first vinyl which was the single from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie, that was my sort of start in music awareness. Later starting secondary school, I was listening to Britpop chart stuff like Oasis, Blur, Pulp as well. That was my kind of thoughts at the time, it wasn't deep or anything - just good chart music at that time. I was more into mountain biking so I was never really in the house to listen to music. I later got into skateboarding and through skateboarding videos which always have great soundtracks, I was introduced to a sort of hip-hop phase. When I got older, about 17 or 18 when I started the guitar, I got sort of back into the indie side of music. Listening to groups like the Verve, Primal Scream, the Stone Roses and cool music like that from my mate's brother's record collection. Then of course, I heard techno, and dance music, and I'd found my sound. This mysterious futuristic element that always gets people into that sort of music had got its hold on me!
Bands like Slam and the Pressure night were the kind of names that impressioned on me nearly ten years ago. Coldcut, Slam, Richie Hawtin, Polygon Window. Those were kind of my first CDs. I went onto labels like Warp Records from there; once I found out about Polygon Window, and found out about Aphex Twin, "Come to Daddy" was another big thing. For me, that was like a standard at the time, watching the video for it and thinking wow, this is a whole new world of music. And knowing the mad video with the music, when I finally listened to the CD, track 1 is a sick, sinister thing and then going from that unhappy song to this delicate lovely track 2 "Flim" was a magic thing. That was really important to me because it showed that there was more to electronic music than just something to swing about to on the dancefloor. In my live set, Legowelt has been a huge inspiration in making want to play - seeing him several times, and hearing him onstage, playing onstage with just hardware - and going to Monox clubnights and seeing electro guys with hardware, that's maybe what pushed me onto the hardware route.
I obviously can't finish this question without Pink Floyd unmentioned, as they were probably one of the first bands I was obsessive about. I wouldn't say they've directly inspired in making music as such because it's not like I'm trying to make 70s rock and I've never thought of Pink Floyd specifically when sculpting a sound. I suppose I still do play a bit of that guitar, and I have tried to sample my guitar on tracks. I still am into alternative rock bands and now I feel like they're inspiring me somehow now, especially Mogwai, because now I'm thinking of how I could use a guitar as an instrument - but not necessarily for the classic guitar sound. I've tried my acid basslines in the past, and right now when I'm making music like that I don't feel as inspired. I think it's better to keep moving things along until you find something that's good for you with how you feel at the time.
BP: What advice do you have for people who are starting their own music projects?
Be as open as you can be at the start, don't be tied down to something specific right from the start because it might not be for you. If you've got instruments and you don't know for certain what you want to do with them; experimentation is key to finding out what's good for you. Learn how to use your instruments and make your own sounds without giving yourself a strict agenda. The DIY approach is fail-proof, because nothing is technically wrong. You can do whatever you want and I'm sure some of the greatest music of the 70s and 80s were a result of experiments and artists just doing what they wanted without restrictions. When I'm spending too much time trying to make a track sound like a specific idea, it just causes needless frustration - you should let the tracks take paths of their own. Be prepared to put in the hours and don't expect overnight success ever.
BP: Any last words?
Be creative!
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Here's a free download of Beat Freak's first release "808 Beats in my sleep":
http://dedpop.co.uk/808
And here's another free download link to his "Our World" EP (BP approved!):
http://dedpop.co.uk/018
The Beat Freak myspace page (where a number of non-EP tracks can incidently be streamed for one's listening pleasure):
http://www.myspace.com/duncanbeatfreak
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