 The G-Force caught up one-on-one with Danny Howells at Ku De Ta on the afternoon before his anticipated return to Double Six and got down to the real nitty gritty on his musical styles, philosophies, and origins.
BALI: This is my second time to Bali and my second gig at Double Six. I came here about 4 years ago and we did a similar thing. We had 4 days in between weekends, had a villa, etc. The only difference last time was that we came with a load of friends from Hong Kong so the whole thing was totally insane, but this has been the opposite. This has been relaxing, I’ve been chilling out on my own and really, really enjoying it. I had an amazing time [playing here] before. I was at the end of an Asian tour and I was really, really exhausted and had been at the villa for a couple of days, but hadn’t really recuperated. Got to Double Six feeling a little worse for wear, but the whole thing turned around. I had such a great time that I didn’t want to finish playing. I played for hours then.
THE SET: If it’s a big, mega stadium style event, I like to play for 90 minutes because the thing about me and what I do best is really to try and get a connection with the crowd and at some of these huge events, I just can’t do that. I can’t really take people where I want to take them musically. So at some of the clubs I play at, I like to play from anywhere from 4 to 12 hours – New York, 10 hours; Montreal, 12 hours, minimum. I have a lot of limits to my music and a very large range and there are only a few places where the people can appreciate that kind of range. My talent is in the longer sets. I like opening a club, I like closing a club and if it’s a good night I feel pleased with myself, if it’s a bad night, I feel very guilty, but I like to take full responsibility for the whole night musically. I find that with me doing all night long, I can go from playing downtempo, ambient music, going into deep house, taking it up, taking it down, throwing in some surprises. Maybe even going into some drum & bass or some hip-hop. But the only way I can take those “left and right turns” is by being in control of the whole night. Now, as with all my life, I’ve always bought as much music as I can. I buy everything from folk music to jazz to pop to rock to experimental music. So with a lot of the long sets, it actually gives me a chance to play some stuff that isn’t strictly dance music. For example, at my last set at Arc in New York I played a John Martin record, instrumental ambient folk type of stuff in my set. I want to have fun. I want to be able to play all my different kinds of music. I want to be in charge of the whole night. I’m a greedy b$%*ard!
In England, a lot of people were raised on the rave scene where the whole thing was about how many DJs could you get on a flyer. Somewhere like New York or Montreal is different. They’re raised with the concept of one DJ all night long. Tenaglia’s been a good influence on me and so has playing in Holland. A lot of my early sets were in Holland and that’s where I learned that a night doesn’t have to escalate in energy all night long. You can peak and then come back down. When you’re on a roll and connected to the crowd and they’re in the palm of your hand and they trust you, then it’s the most exciting thing. Sometimes when I would play in NY and I would go off on a tangent or become self-indulgent and suddenly start playing 40 minutes of drum & bass or hip hop and some people wouldn’t like it, but they wouldn’t leave because they want to see how that whole section fits into the whole picture. I find that quite exciting.
LIVE AT DOUBLE SIX
DANNY HOWELLS!
Danny Howells’ hyped second visit to Double Six in 4 years on Thursday, the 23rd, was heavily advertised, highly anticipated, and honestly eclectic. The Hastings, UK DJ known for the infamous 10+ hour sets of trademark “deepsexyfuturistictechfunkhouse,” animated booth antics, and dress shirts louder than most PA systems, is on the tail-end of an Asia/Australia tour in support of his recently released Global Underground series mix.
Opening DJ Jefree handed off the reigns to Howells, later than expected at 2:30 a.m., with a remix of the Murk classic, “Reach For Me.” With this cue, Danny followed suit with a funkhouse joint that brought a welcome response from the excited crowd who also cheered on the exuberance he exhibited during mixes, breakdowns, and EQ tweaks. From that point on he rallied with an assortment of acid trax, deep tech, prog house, funky breaks, and various other future jams.
The pre-high season crowd, comprised of a number of locals, ex-pats, and tourists, seemed a little lighter than would have been expected for a DJ Mag Top 20 DJ. And those in attendance often appeared unsure of Danny’s selections. Known best for his longer sets where he is able to stretch his musical legs and explore a greater range of peaks, breakdowns, and tangents, the 3 1/2 hours at Double Six may have forced him to compress his normal spectrum of eclectic tunes. A difficult position for a DJ playing to a crowd used to the straight-ahead-thumping-hit-blender that defines Double Six sound.
As he stated in The Beat interview, “I want to rock a club with tracks they don’t know.” Judging from the hot-cold response from the crowd that night, Bali may not have yet evolved enough quite yet to accept this daring idea. // G-Force
[not sure why he didn’t come on earlier, as billed, if he likes playing longer sets. Ed]
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