Music Notes Roundup:
Haggis: Bagpipe World Order
Wierd Al - Nixon scissor pose
Aphrodite - drum & bass pleasure

Aphrodite brings love to The World

By Dan Marek

State Press Magazine

The lights have dimmed, the smoke has risen and the people have gathered ­ let the bass flow.

Like a rush of water the rhythm hits the crowd as they dance hypnotically to the beats.

Aphrodite is in the house and there is no where to go but the dance floor as he tries to collectively bring each member of the audience to the same biorhythm.

Aphrodite (Gavin King) began spinning Drum & Bass in 1988 during England's second "summer of love" when he opened his own club appropriately called Aphrodite for it's "Goddess of Love" atmosphere.

Since then he has mixed for the likes of Tribe Called Quest, The Jungle Brothers and Blackstreet, released countless standard singles world wide and opened his own record label - but it didn't start there.

"I got into mixing as an art form when I first heard it at about 14," said King, resting at his home in London after two shows in South Africa. "There was a guy over in London called Froggy. He was the first guy I heard do mixing. He was mixing up hour sessions on pirate radio ­ it was a lot of jazz-funk at the time. I always wanted to do that. I never imagined making a career out of it or it becoming my life."

Searching out new ways of making music was hard for King at first. The tools he needed were not as readily available as they are today.

"The first time I was mixing, 'the mix' didn't even exist," King said. "I don't even think that turntables existed at the time with a pitch control. Tape players had pitch control, but I was kind of confined to mixing things that were roughly the same speed and you had to keep the turntable at the right speed with hand control. Obviously over the years, bits and pieces came out."

Twelve years ago King opened a club with friend Adam Dyerson with the idea of catering to the rising interest in Drum and Bass. They called it Aphrodite.

"It was really when me and Adam started running Aphrodite that I got seriously into mixing and that was like seven years later," King said. "It was mixing and working a crowd. You're not really performing when you're D.J.ing, you're kind of working the crowd ­ you control the atmosphere."

It was inside the club that King began to perfect his "crowd-friendly" style. He looked at many trick artists for new ideas, but he also understood that the crowd wanted to dance.

"Scratching and doing all those things are good for about 15 minutes, but you're not going to do that for five or six hours," he said. "For starters, it's going to get really boring. For five or six hours, you want to be able to take a crowd to the highs and lows. You don't start slamming hard Drum and Bass at nine o'clock in the evening ­ you lead up to it."

When King began to tour internationally as Aphrodite he noticed unique flavors of dance music in other countries. Each place he visited he expected to find different approaches to the music, but by sticking to his roots -- he carved his own unique path.

"The most advanced (dance music) is obviously at home, here in England - that's the hometown. You see the crowds dance manically here and there is a special atmosphere here. You can throw down brand new records and you know when they are appreciated or not -- instantly. It's much more refined here. It's not an easy thing here ­ it's the 'old hat' so to say. The crowds are a lot more critical and can be a lot more appreciative of that they are hearing or seeing."

King said that feeling out a crowd from different parts of the world can be a challenge.

"Belgium goes back a long way in the scene as well," he said. "You only kind of realize that after you play there. The first time I played in Belgium I wasn't sure if I was playing the right thing or not after a two hour set. I didn't see the same crowd reaction that I was used to in England, where you drop a big tune down and you see the whole dance floor erupt. I was like, 'Hold on, am I laying the right thing here? Do they like it this way?' It wasn't until the end of the two-hour set ­ when I was finished ­ the crowd suddenly erupted. It was like they had been checking it out, dancing, then saved their appreciation until the end.

"It's quite easy for me now, because I have a sound and people know that sound," King added. "People know what to expect from me. I can take one box of tunes and more recent stuff. I don't have to play those 'well-known' records that have been out for a couple years and I can showcase some new stuff."

To mix in a bit of his own new stuff, King started Aphrodite Records in 1994. He produced singles under his own name, Amazon II and as Aladdin, which all became underground successes.

"Aphrodite Records is my own little baby," he said. "It's my own outlet for my stuff. Sometimes there is some experimental stuff on there, sometimes there are some obvious 'tunes' on there, but any track could be completely different. When I'm playing out there are often moments where I want to roll a simple rhythm for two or three minutes for mixing purposes. Those kinds of things don't really exist. So if they don't exist, I'll make 'em and put them out on my label. I'm basically filling in the gaps in my record box."

So what should you expect to hear from Aphrodite's record box at The World this Wednesday night?

"The set changes around in as much as I want to work up to the same thing in each place," he said. "I've got a vibe that I know a crowd can get to. It's my job to work the crowd to that point. It's those kind of moments, where everyone is on the dance floor, everyone is having a good time, no one wants it to stop and when a really great tune comes in and everyone just screams. That's the kind of atmosphere I try to gear up to."