Sly One

Blog intro: let’s start with excuses

Inspiration for hours of typing

So at some point in the last few days, it started to occur to me that I’ve got a lot to say about producing dance music. This is not the same as having a lot to offer, you understand. I’m English, I feel I need to make a disinction between the two. It’s easy to be paranoid that the amount I have to say far exceeds it’s usefulness or accuracy, and in even typing this shit I am succumbing to a geeky arrogance.

The only reason I’m pushing on is because so many of you write such very kind emails, with congratulations, thanks, pleas and requests. After a while, a pattern emerges, the same questions recur, and I see the beginning of a kind of Sly One FAQ. On top of that, there are the hazy memories of a hundred drunken conversations where I have responded to a polite request for sound engineering help with a 30-minute diatribe on compressor release characteristics. I think it was interesting for them; I certainly enjoyed it, and they kept smiling, in a this-is-interesting way, rather than a save-me-he-keeps-talking way. I reckon I could write a series on making dance music. Why not? Things, they tell me, are about to kick off for myself and Jurrane, so I intend to make best use of the time while I still have some to spare

Now, you may have spotted that I overthink things, and I’m a bit of a geek. Much of the reason this blog is a realistic prospect is because the website can now be updated from my iPhone, so I’m sitting here on a car journey to Glastonbury (we’re helping set up one of the stages, I know I’m a week early) tapping away and boring my girlfriend to tears. The radio doesn’t even work. Poor girl. Anyway, I like technology, especially music technology. And anything that lights up, frankly. I hope this enthusiasm comes across in the forthcoming postings.

Please, please comment on these articles, and refer to them if you find them useful. It’s never going to have the comedy value and Z-list uber-star insight of John Askew‘s wickedly funny blog, and I suppose insights on sound engineering and production are a relatively niche interest, but I wouldn’t be doing this if I thought people wouldn’t find it interesting, and I need to know people out there are getting something out of it!

Now, on with the blog.