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Fade In Fade Out Only 4 more sleeps till we Never Grow Up @ Fluid Bar! We are putting the final touches to the best laid plans. Finalising the visual line up we now have VJ Psycho Monkey (rejectbeats), Subpixel and TransOpacity joining our resident VJ; A Beautiful Mess and the live AV show from the really exciting FADE IN FADE OUT. We caught up with the lads from F.I.F.O. and talked the talk from Pro Evo to SoulWax, Festival plans to Brandon Block …. We’ve also got an AV show reel for you to see what you can expect from these guys! What have you been up to today? Andy: Spent most of the day in weekend traffic coming back from seeing the family on the south coast, then saw Terminator Salvation, it's not so bad, but I was probably just blinded be all the great effects. Chris: My only aim today was to play Pro Evo on the ps3. (Which I managed) A relaxing end to a busy week. Nice, Coops is a bit of a Pro Evo fiend too!... Next question, What made you jump around like a loon when you were a teen ... who helped forge your mind musically? Andy: The prodigy always made me get excited, I would say they were where my love of dance music and rock came from originally. They were the first ever live gig I went to, at the BIC (In Bournemouth) in 1996. I took quite a lot of my musical influence from my older brother; he was into the grunge and indie scenes in the early 90's. I would often be in trouble for 'Borrowing' his cassettes. Chris: I started off with lots of metal and grunge. Lots of Metallica and Nirvana. This soon turned to britpop which led me to my first real musical love (obsession) Manic Street Preachers. For me growing up they were the most important band ever and broadened my musical horizons. First record you ever bought? Andy: Um, I want to say something cool, but I think it was Kylie. No that was on cassette! It was the 'Ghostbusters' by Ray Parker Jr, on 7" from oxfam or something. Chris: My first 7" was The Frog Chorus by Paul McCartney which is better than my first cassette which was something shocking like Ace of Bass. We like that question! Where are you from? Andy: I grew up in the Dorset countryside, just on the outskirts of Bournemouth, a lovely seaside town. Chris: I'm originally from Hastings in East Sussex. Home of the most famous battle of 1066. What do you love most about London? Andy: The ability to do just about anything you want, the variety is huge. Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, every taste is catered for. Chris: I love there is always something to do. There's always an art exhibition to see, the latest 'next big thing' to catch live or the current 'best pub' to see what the fuss is about. Or if you just want a quiet afternoon there are plenty of open spaces to escape to. Last Big Night out? Andy: We both went to the Radio Soulwax show last friday at Brixton Academy. Met up with a load of friends from uni and got mashed to Zombie Nation, James Murphy from DFA, and 2 many djs. The set by 2 many djs projected animated artwork from the tracks they were playing, so even those guys are getting into the visual scene now. Chris: As with Andy, It was the Radio Soulwax show at Brixton Academy. They were amazing, the best I've ever seen 2 many djs. They are proof that when djing musical choice is far more important than talent. We really like the concept of the VJ/DJ in one act. How did it come about Andy: We were getting sick of the crappy house music being played at our student union. I had been DJing a few years before uni, and Chris was interested in actually using his music collection that spanned different international time zones. We put on a night called 'Electro Indie Rocks', which went down well, and we were soon doing a monthly slot. By the end of our 3 year Graphic Design Degrees, we had added the vjing element as it was only natural for us to combine our love of music and time based design. Chris: Andy persuaded me into djing with him at our Student Union. At the time our union was the canteen with the lights turned off! Both doing a Graphic Design Degree we decided to bring some life (and much needed excitement) to the SU so the vjing started. We began by using the biggest, heaviest, most powerful machine in the Design department with an external monitor. Luckily we've progressed to the far easier to carry laptops now. And now you’ve VJd for brandon block and Eddie Temple Morris! how did this collaboration come about? We got offered to VJ at Sellindge Music Festival on the Headroc Dance stage, and got given the choice of acts we wanted to cover, which doesn't often happen. Eddy TM has a very similar music policy as us, so our visuals fitted really well, so that was a natural choice. Brandon Block is a complete legend, so we jumped at the chance to witness the skills of the God Father of Ibiza. Tell us a bit more about Sellindge festival It's only in its second year, but doing extremely well. Fantastically organised, and more of your boutique festival than just camping and bands like Reading or Leeds. What was your stage / set up be like there? We were just off to the side of the stage, so we could see what the dj's were doing, the crowd’s reaction and the main screen behind the dj. We took our usual set up of two Mac laptops running arkaos vjing software, a video switcher and we had a live camera running to mix the dj and crowd into the visuals. We control all this with a Korg nano keys controller and a BCD 3000 Midi Mixer. Tell us about any visual acts you really rate. Worked with / seen ? United Visual Artists (UVA) are probably the most ground breaking visual artists around at the moment. Their work is awesome. The set they did with The Chemical Brothers in Trafalgar Square was mind blowing. Very simple graphic techniques but executed so well, and completely synced with the music. Also their on going collaborations with Massive Attack on their live shows. UVA wrote a completely new piece of software for them, producing randomly generated 3D geometry. Again very simple in terms of graphic look, but worked outstandingly. Your visual material is vivid, bright and exciting. Where do you get inspiration? Andy: Inspiration comes from all over, quite often I'm thinking about new styles and techniques whilst listening to music. Visualising the individual sounds and beats in my head, asking myself what would these sounds look like? We try and stay away from using film/video footage, and create everything ourselves. This means we have complete control of the colours and graphic style. We try and use current graphic trends, things we've seen online, in advertising, fashion, music videos etc.. Chris: As a designer I like clean, simple, easy to understand graphics so this just came across in the visuals we create. The way our visuals are evolving more typographic elements and basic colours are being added. I remember when we started we had a 4 colour palette we worked from, now we've a bit more variety. I think working as a designer day to day means you want to express yourself more with what you do outside of your day job. Any Festival plans for the summer? Andy: Think we are both gonna head to Bestival at the end of the season. I have been to Secret Garden Party for a number of years now, but missing out this year as I'm moving house that weekend. Chris: My regular festival is Truck in Steventon, just outside of Oxford. I worked there last year and it has such a great atmosphere and a lot of small bands to enjoy. I'm hoping to make Bestival this year as it has such a stellar line up, then I'll be rounding out the year with ATP in Minehead. How has 2009 been panning out for you and what else is in the pipeline for the rest of the year? We started the year off in style, VJing at Bristols O2 Academy for Propaganda on NYE. Following that a live AV set at Cafe 1001 at the Electrovision night run by our good friend and VJ, Dr Mo. It's been a steady flow of gigs this year as promoters have started to embrace the visual side of things more and more. Where can we catch you after Never Grow Up? We will be at Brixton Windmill for 'Best Laid Plans' on June 26th and at 'All Star Lanes', Brick Lane on July 5th for a night of Raving and bowling!!! Sweet! You looking forward to the 20th? Let the good people know what to expect from you.... Yes we are defiantly up for a big one at 'Never Grow Up'! People can expect an eclectic mix of electronic indie rock and rave, bright colours, explosions and strobing!
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