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Remembering Kenny Hawkes

June 11, 2011 · 1 Comment

Kenny Hawkes

When I started really seriously getting into house music in the mid-90s I found myself enamored with a small London imprint by the name of Luxury Service. After a few of its impressive releases permanently landed in the DJ bag I had declared it my favorite house music label. Luxury Service, though not well known today, was the home to some of the earliest works of music producers we’ve all become big fans of, including Rob Mello, Luke Solomon, and Justin Harris. Another producer who recorded for Luxury Service and really grabbed my attention was Kenny Hawkes.

There was something unique about Kenny’s music … it seemed deeper, but not in the sense of “deep house” but in that it gave the impression that there was something else going on here … like Kenny was trying to do more than just make “tracks,” actively working to move the genre forward even as it was still quite young.

So, I’m a bit fuzzy on the time period but it think it was 2000 and I’m regularly DJ’ing at Orlando’s Knock Knock (my favorite venue ever). My main weekly night DJ’ing the club was Thursday, as I was usually spending my weekends haunting airports at that time, but Thursdays became a nice, tight little night of cool tunes and forgotten bar tabs.

I caught wind that Kenny Hawkes was to be on the US east coast and was looking to DJ somewhere on a weekday for a small fee in between his better-paying weekend gigs. My night was tiny (we didn’t charge a cover, either) so the budget was minimal but Kenny was down, and he came to Orlando and tore apart the rickety Knock Knock DJ booth and undependable sound system with spectacular tunes mixed as only Kenny could. (side note: I have part of this set on a cassette tape somewhere, which I need to find)

We hit it off which was easy to do as Kenny turned out to be a warm and hilarious person, really into his music. He became quick friends with some others in Orlando as well and a nice little bond was formed, with Kenny returning to Orlando multiple times over the next couple years and DJ’ing at Knock Knock once again.

I would run into Kenny in my travels (he was also spending a lot of time in San Francisco in the early ’00s, as was I) and we kept in touch online, sharing tracks and remixes. The last time I saw him was a couple years ago when by chance I got booked to play a party in London with Kenny at The Egg. It was a great party and, gladly, though we were DJ’ing in different rooms our times didn’t overlap too much so I could hear most of Kenny’s set. He was on point … I hadn’t really heard him out live since those early Knock Knock sets (and never on a sound system as good as The Egg’s) and he sounded great. After he played we sat in the ‘chill out’ area of the club and talked for almost two hours as the rising sun pounded our eyes.

Kenny Hawkes passed away last night in his home town of Brighton, England. Such sad news … our music has lost one of its true troopers. There’s a lot that could be said here after all the reminiscing above, but I’m not really finding the words to say it. I have loads of friends who knew him much better than I did and my condolences go out to them. There is the cliché of “the music lives on” but here it really is fitting … as I said above, Kenny seemed to want to push the music forward and created tracks that, at least to me, spelled out where house music might be going. This was (and is) inspirational and has a lot to do with the sounds I’m making and the attitude I have when making them.

A lot of Kenny Hawkes’ music is getting posted around which is so great and moving. But I haven’t seen my favorite bit from Kenny’s oeuvre mentioned yet which is this remix for Toob:

There’s just something completely special about this. Such a sleek remix, very technical but also quite warm and melancholy. The build is so subtle but undeniably effective. To recall what I mentioned above it seems there’s “something else going on here” … Kenny wasn’t just going into the studio and knocking out a remix. It seems to me he was really trying to touch the future. Man, I’ll miss that guy.

(This post originally appeared on my Q-Burns Abstract Message blog.)

Filed Under: Musical Moments Tagged With: DJ, House Music, Kenny Hawkes, Knock Knock, London, Luxury Service, Orlando, San Francisco, The Egg, Toob, Tribute

Tony Wilson's Esoteric Cabal

August 20, 2007 · 2 Comments

Tony Wilson of Factory Records

Well, I hope that 2007 doesn’t turn into the year when my heroes start all dropping off (just as this other Wilson recently did).

Tony Wilson. Yeah, he was certainly a bit influential in the way I (and many others) view the presentation of music and musical artists. His Factory Records label wrote the playbook on how to develop an eclectic, boutique-style record label and yet maintain a homogenized image that practically sold the label as an artist of its own. The plots, techniques, and excesses are legendary … perhaps the most famous being how the elaborate cover art to New Order‘s “Blue Monday” cost so much to manufacture that Factory actually lost money for each copy sold. And it is generally recognized as the biggest selling 12″ in history.

Within a remembrance in Momus’ blog (and highlighted in the Metafilter thread on Wilson’s passing) he states, regarding the “Blue Monday” debacle:

Sure, Blue Monday’s lozenge-cut sleeve cost so much to print that the label actually lost more money the more copies they printed. But even that isn’t bad business. It’s an investment in mystique, and a bold statement that lavish elegance counts more than profit. “Some make money, others make history,” is how Tony put it.

I suppose that’s what Wilson showed me … that the choice exists to go that commercial route and create ‘art’ by committee, thus improving chances towards an accelerated yet temporary monetary success. Or you can live for your art and let it envelope every part of your being, to where the message of the music or writing or whatever comes through in every aspect of what you do. The creative life. Being satisfied with solely making ‘history’, even if it’s exclusive of its own.

Here’s something interesting: I totally remember my first exposure to Factory Records. My grandmother used to live on the beach in Melbourne, Florida, and as a young ‘un I would stay with her two or more weeks out of every summer. In addition to the pleasures of being stationed mere yards from the ocean and in the vicinity of my ever-spoiling grandmother, I looked forward to these visits for two other reasons: the really amazing college radio station WFIT which completely ruled in the ’80s (and is now light commercial jazz or something else sinister) and a little hole in the wall record store called Play It Again. I would find myself at Play It Again at least a few times each visit and, though I would rarely have the money to buy something each time, I would spend a couple hours just looking through the racks at the cover art of the LPs.

Now, because at the time Melbourne was blessed with a great college radio station Play It Again had quite a healthy ‘import section’ (as we used to call it in those days). I was around twelve years old and oblivious to the cooler happenings in the British underground at the time (I was into new wave synth-pop that you’d hear on top 40 radio circa 1980) but I dug the ‘import section’ because the covers were cooler and a bit mysterious. And, wouldn’t you know, the only covers I remember seeing at the time were two odd Peter Saville designed LPs: New Order’s Movement and Everything’s Gone Green. It was probably a couple years until I’d actually even listen to New Order but for some reason, the striking starkness of these covers, the absence of band photos or information beyond what was absolutely necessary (song titles, producer name – Martin Hannett! – and label info) really hit me as if I were looking at a moon rock in those record racks. I remember thinking “New Order” was an ominous band name, and it was as if this wasn’t a record album but an invite to some esoteric cabal. I didn’t buy anything from the shop that day but those covers and the name New Order stuck in my head until a couple years later when I finally gave in and bought a vinyl copy of a new album called Power, Corruption, and Lies.

So I guess my point is that this was what Wilson pioneered: his modus operandi so infected everything he was a part of that even a twelve-year-old kid looking at an album cover in Melbourne Beach, Florida, could pick up on his intentions and be affected. Of course, he didn’t design the covers or produce the music but Wilson was the glue that put all of this together to fulfill a master plan. He put up with Martin Hannett’s legendary studio tantrums and Peter Saville’s constant missed deadlines because he knew the result was more important. Everything had to perfectly fit into the Factory paradigm and there was no budging. Wilson believed early on that, through this, he’d be one of the ‘others’ making history. That’s pretty groundbreaking and important and we’re all still trying to catch up. Thankfully he left behind one hell of a playbook for us to follow. (Now if only more labels today would follow it … but that’s a different rant entirely)

Here are some other related Tony Wilson links that you should check out:

– 24 Hour Party People … an utterly fantastic film by the prolific Michael Winterbottom chronicling Tony Wilson’s life during the heyday of Factory Records and The Hacienda. It was stated a few times in the Metafilter thread linked above that a good way to remember Wilson is to watch this movie. I added to that thread that I think an even better homage (after watching the film at least once, of course) is to watch the film with Tony Wilson’s commentary track playing. His thoughts on how he and his history is cinematically represented give you even more of a feel for the man then the wonderful film does.
– From Joy Division To New Order … an excellent but somewhat hard-to-find book that, despite the title, is mainly about the history of Tony Wilson and Factory Records. It’s written by a close friend of everyone involved so it’s filled with tons of insight and juicy tidbits.
– Paul Morley, who was there in many ways, pays tribute to Tony Wilson in the Guardian
– How Tony Wilson changed the face of pop culture in Slate
– The always interesting Bob Lefsetz on Tony Wilson
– Factory Communications Ltd. – A Chronology
– Melody Maker article on Factory Records at the New Music Seminar in 1990
– Factory Records Image Bank … the inspiring early Factory-related design work of Peter Saville.

(This post originally appeared on my Q-Burns Abstract Message blog.)

Filed Under: Musical Moments Tagged With: Blue Monday, Factory Records, Martin Hannett, Melbourne Beach, Metafilter, Momus, New Order, Tony Wilson, Tribute, WFIT

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8sided.blog is a digital zine about sound, culture, and what Andrew Weatherall once referred to as 'the punk rock dream'.

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