Interview with Surgeon

Surgeon - Brutal, hard and minimal are often words used to describe his music and style but we'd like to add a few more - professional, attention to detail and a deep understand and love of what he does. Nothing is ever forced, nothing is rushed, Surgeon always lets the music speak. He's always pushed harder than most, not only with his "remakes" but also with the use of technology - not just because it's there but because it offers better options for showcasing exactly what he's about.

LD pulls up a chair, grabs a cup of tea and fires random questions at the master of darkside techno...

How the devil are you?
Kylie - Better The Devil You Know

Kylie or Holly Tony?
Kylie for dirty, Holly for stabbing and throwing off a cliff.

Sounds like a hobby I could get into! What are you working on at the moment?
Nothing right now. More British Murder Boys in the future. More solo work. I have some ideas for other projects as well.

Do you want to tell me anything about the new stuff, what can we expect and when?
Nothing is recorded yet. I prefer to take my time and not start a new project until I feel that I have something new to say.

What where the early days at HOG like? Isn't that where you got your name from?
Early days at HOG were the maddest, most intense night's I've ever experienced. Anyone who was there would agree with me. I remember times when the crowd noise was so loud that you couldn't ven hear to mix. I served my DJ apprenticeship at House Of God.

Didn't Paul Damage teach you the ropes?
Yes, I used to go round to his house and practice on his decks.

How did you get the name Surgeon?
Well, is it?
a.  My great Grandfather was the physician for the English royal family
b.  I just came up with a DJ name
c.  I have a medical fetish

Fave residency - House Of God or Tresor ?
I had a monthly residency at Tresor for 3 years; my House Of God residency is approaching 11 years! Playing Tresor was great for those 3 years, but House Of God will always have the top spot for me.

Is there much difference between the crowds?
Yes, House of God was much more intense partly because the night used to finnish at 2am so the experience is condensed into shorter space of time. The Tresor night was from 11pm - 6 or 7am so the intensity is a lot more spread out.

Rumour has it that you have an album ready for release, can you give me any info on that?
I don't have an album ready for release.

Any plans for one in the future?
There will be another one when the time is right.

Are you happy with what's happening in the techno scene at the moment?
Yes, it's like musical Darwinism.

I think it's going to get very interesting, the whole scene seems to moving back into the capable hands of the people who love the music, rather than some wanker from "marketing". Do you feel this is a good thing for the scene?
It will be interesting to see how things develop over the course of 2004.

Did the recent dissolution of Integrale affect you much beyond having to find new distribution?
Yes, that was a big pain in the arse for myself and anyone else who worked with them.

Have you got copies of all the masters?
Yes, I have the masters.

The Coil remixes, what's happened to them and will they ever be released?
Coil asked me to do a remix of anything from their first 3 albums (proper). I chose to remix 'Teenage Lightning' from 'Love's Secret Domain'. They approved the mix, but it's not been released. I believe they planned to release a special 3 vinyl box set of their first 3 albums with an additional record with my remix and a remix by Autechre.

What do you think of Autechre?
They are lovely lads, years ago I  DJed on their UK tour, that was a lot of fun.

Any cool or funny stories from the tour?
I was re named Dj Boozy and Coil were lurking about in dark corners at the London show. The date in Newcastle with Zoviet France was in the upstairs room of a pub, which was pretty mad. The pub staff shit themselves when they saw how many people turned up.

Have you ever played in Detroit and do you have any plans to play out there?
I've played in Detroit 5 times as far as I remember. Only one of those was good. The others rank amongst my worst ever experiences.

Really, why so bad? - I would have thought you'd have gone down a storm in Detroit...
It wasn't that, just every time I've been there some disaster happens, or just a really shit party. I had to be taken to the downtown A&E once, I thought I was going to die.

Shit! What happened?
it's too traumatic to go over that again

You and Claude Young where very vocally against  Final Scratch and Ableton  Live to start with, what converted you? And how long did it take you to get to grips with them?
I'm not sure where you heard that, but you have your facts wrong. I can't speak for Claude, but since I first heard about Final Scratch I was interested in trying it out. I don't recall being against Ableton Live either. However, I do hate all of the hype about Final Scratch; it almost puts  me off using it. People seem so bothered about technicalities these days that they don't  hear the music anymore.

It didn't take long to get used to either application, but longer with Ableton Live.

[Editor: As Tony pointed out, this information/question was totally incorrect, neither him or Claude have ever been vocally against FS or Live - Doh!]

Sure, but the techno crowd are now very knowledgeable and it changes the playing field a little, I think both apps open up new and interesting possibilities but I wouldn't see them as the be all and end all, while they help the creative process - they don't make you more creative, would you agree?
That's right, they aren't the be all and end all and they don't make you more creative. If a DJ plays bad music it doesn't matter if they play it on 7 decks, EXF, FinalScratch and the spoons, it will still be bad music.

A few people have accused you of having a chip on your shoulder, but I don't think they understand that you are quite introverted and they  just read you wrong, would you agree?
The chip on my shoulder is to go with the egg in my face.

People do expect you to sometimes to be the life and soul of the party, they forget that you are actually working. What's the funniest or strangest thing someone has every said to you while mixing/working?
Maybe about 7 or 8 years ago I was DJing at 'The End' in London. There was a row of trainspotters in front of the DJ booth while I was playing and one guy who looked really fucked up kept waving a £20 note at me.

I just ignored him thinking that perhaps he wanted to buy the record that was playing as that's happened before. He kept waving the £20 note at me and ended up throwing it at me, I threw it back at him. He started putting his hands on the records that were playing like he was trying to pick something up. By this time the promoter saw what was happening and pulled the guy away.

Turned out that the guy was on acid, thought he was at the bar and was trying to order a drink.

What's the best rumour you heard about your good self?
That I'm heavily into satanic worship.

Ah, that old crock of shite, that's what you get for liking the dark stuff fella. I remember in the days of Thee Temple I used to get accused of it all the time - people still find it hard to believe that even Satanist's don't believe in Satan as a entity. What do you make of groups like The Church of Satan and Temple of Set?
I don't know too much about them.

What process do you use to approach writing a new tune?
Different approaches depending on the project.

How did you approach the BMB stuff?
Karl and I discussed the project and what we wanted to achieve for a long time before we started work in the studio. In that way it's the most pre meditated project that I've ever worked on.

You once made a limited pressing of 50 copies of an ep in 96, any spares kicking around?
I made 2 records that had only 50 copies pressed around that time. Partly to try out some new tracks, partly as a piss-take. And no there's none left.

Have you really been bitten by a badger?
No, but my wife once threw a plastic badger at me.

How's married life treating you, has it changed you much?
Not much, but it has put a stop to my after gig drug and sex orgies.

Is your tea on the table when you get home from a gig?
Sometimes

What's your favourite? Mines meat and potato pie with loads of Henderson's sauce and a large pot of tea.
Chinese home cooking

Top 5 all time albums
Coil - Love's Secret Domain
Suicide (first album)
Faust (74 minutes of)
Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen we are floating in space
Psychic TV - Dreams Less Sweet

Top 5 all time techno tracks
Fix - Flash
Vainqueur - Lyot (Maurizio Mix)
Aphex Twin - Digeridoo
UR - The Seawolf
Teste - The Wipe

Top 5 none techno tracks
Miles Davis - In a silent way
The Beatles - A day in the life
Whitehouse - Wriggle like a fucking eel
Hashim - Al Naafysh (the soul)   [is that techno?]
The Bonzo Dog Band - Canyons of your mind

And finally… I have in front of me the clinical file of a 9-year old child, suffering from Mucopolysaccaridosis I (Hurler). Her symptoms  include progressive nasal obstruction, deafness, pulmonary hypertension, restrictive, obstructive respiratory insufficiency, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and primary atelectasis.  She has been on Aldurazyme for 6 months, but the pulmonary hypertension and respiratory insufficiency continue to worsen progressively. What's your advice?
I'd test in vitro the correction of the enzyme defect in the Hunter syndrome, using an amphotropic retroviral vector containing the human IDS coding sequence. Transduce her lymphoblastoid cell lines with the vector and expressed high levels of IDS enzyme activity, 10- to 70-fold higher than normal human peripheral blood leukocytes or lymphoblastoid cell lines. The transduced cells should fail to show accumulation of (35)SO4 into glycosaminoglycan, indicating that recombinant IDS enzyme participated in glycosaminoglycan metabolism.

Links:
http://www.dj-surgeon.com