Philippines-born Luke van Scheppingen took his DJ name and inspiration from the lyrics to Snoop Dogg’s 1993 smash hit Gin and Juice:
Laidback
With my mind on my money and my money on my mind.
“I was so into hip-hop back in the day,” the Dutch dynamo known today as Laidback Luke said. “The feeling hip-hop gave me was as if I could take on the world.”
Laidback Luke won’t be dropping hip-hop classics tomorrow when he plays at Luxy. Instead, he’ll be blasting the bass bins with his hybrid style of house.
“When I heard Technotronic’s Pump Up the Jam I converted to house music. Basically it was house music with that bad ass hip-hop vibe,” Luke said. “Hip-hop got more and more chilled and less of a danceable party type of music, while house to me kept that energy going. That’s why I switched at one point. I do still try to incorporate that feeling of taking-on-the-whole-world-type of badass energy in my tracks.”
Laidback Luke has collaborated with the likes of Diplo, A-Trak and men of the moment, Swedish House Mafia. His dream collaborations would be Timbaland or Daft Punk, and “I wouldn’t be mad to have Justin Timberlake on a vocal as well,” he said.
With the bleeps and synth-heavy beats prominent in clubs right now, Laidback Luke is one of the leaders of the dirty Dutch sound.
“I was doing the bleepy stuff a long time ago,” he said. “The next level Dutch sound should be about the same type of energy the bleeps bring, but in a different way. Hit people with crazy sounds and bring the same kind of freakiness with a different formula ... I think Congorock brings the next level. It’s a bit more distorted and with more bass lines, but the funky Dutch beats remain.”
Dancing Through Sunday presents Laidback Luke tomorrow from 10pm to 4am at Luxy, 5F, 201, Zhongxiao E Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市忠孝東路四段201號5樓). Call (02) 2772-1000 or 0955-904-600 for reservations (English service available). On the Net: www.luxy-taipei.com. Tickets are NT$700 presale or NT$900 at the door, which includes two drinks.
SOUL BROTHERS
An excited gaggle of fans edged up to the front of the stage on Wednesday night at Legacy Taipei as Parisian DJ Brodinski (Louis Brodinski) finished up his set with crowd-pleasers like Shutterbug (Jack Beats remix) by Big Boi and Hot-N-Fun (Boys Noize remix) by N.E.R.D. before Soulwax came on.
While attendance may have been lower than expected because of the NT$2,200 ticket price, a staff member from [comma,comma], the company that brought the Belgium outfit over, said, “Sometimes you have to pay a lot, and then you get more than you pay for.”
And Soulwax was worth every New Taiwan dollar.
Opening with a raucous version of E-Talking, Soulwax proved that saving a little chump change watching concerts on YouTube simply doesn’t compare with watching tuxedoed musicians at the top of their game live.
An atypical front man, Stephen Dewaele twisted and twiddled knobs and sang on a few tracks, but this show was all about the electro-rock beats produced by the band. His brother, David Dewaele, controlled two of the six Korg synthesizers on stage, while Stefaan van Leuven switched back and forth playing bass and keyboard. Steve Slingeneyer, who DJs under the moniker One Man Party, slapped the skins and even played a fiberglass cowbell at some points.
Four 3m-tall monitor screens provided a simple yet mesmerizing backdrop that displayed colors in Tetris-like blocks, with flashes of porn thrown in for good measure.
Soulwax debuted new songs, blazed through their back catalogue, and
covered their own remixes of LCD Soundsystem’s Get Innocuous and the Klaxons’ Gravity’s Rainbow.
After the show, the Dewaele brothers sat down for an interview with the Taipei Times.
When they were here in January as their other incarnation, 2manydjs, they knew they’d be back. Stephen Dewaele said: “We needed some warm-up dates for our Australian tour, so Taiwan and Jakarta were on the way.”
“Taiwan was very friendly to us last time because the people gave us handmade things like signs and shirts,” David Dewaele added.
Besides more staff, crew and band members, the difference between 2manydjs and Soulwax is obvious. “With 2manydjs, we play other people’s music,” Stephen Dewaele said. “With Soulwax, we play
our own.”
Recently on Soulwax’s Facebook page, fans complained that the band’s live show in Switzerland was only 35 minutes long. The Taipei show clocked in at more than an hour, with a nearly 10-minute encore. Was this a result of the criticisms? “Definitely,” said David Dewaele. “They had already taken the equipment down so we couldn’t go back out for an encore for that show. To make it up, we will play at least an extra 20 minutes the next time we are in Basel.”
The brothers have earned a reputation as workaholics. Is that an accurate description?
“I think that artists spend a lot of time making art,” Stephan Dewaele said. “We’re musicians, so we make a lot of music. If you are passionate about what you do, you work a lot.”
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