Letter To The Editor – RE: Mixmag Article (Jan 15th).

[Anonymous]

The hardcore lot may well not like the misrepresentation that this article brings. But I think overall, they will feel that any press is good press, given the lack of coverage hardcore has had over the last 4 years or so.

Forget the nonsense of Mixmag, we all know the score. All that needs to be remembered is that both the hardstyle and hardcore scenes are amongst the freshest and exciting styles of dance music left in a dying genre. Let's be positive.

Ad.

[Anonymous]

Mark i think more the fact that Dirk was'nt prept properly about Mixmag & wishes he had said more. He has shown concern that he may be branded without being able to defend him self.

If the article is about three clubbers then why are you inteviewed in the first place. Could you have said no? then this whole thing would never of started. The focus would still be on NEO and MIXMAG would be none the wiser as to the music played there.

As to being constructive.
I'm here defending what I believe
Your here defending what you said.
And we are all here now having to defend our scene.

And as for Ha HA (looking at the big picture MIXMAG will have done realy well out of this. and as for Neo well if they want that kind of clientel then fair enough.) they dangeld a carrot and you took a bite.

Mark for some one who has been writing for Mags for over 10 years and at one time commented on a brand of music your self, you must have known what would happen. The logic just does'nt work.

ITS DONE NOW AND TIME TO MOVE ON AND FINE A NEW SOUND.


I used the name guest to gain faster acces all though Username guest is not all ways me, them comments & views left by guest may not always come from Me or be mine.

M-Zone

[The Teknoist.]

From Andy Vortex..

not being funny but I was relating this to Neo which is your brum event not Cypher... I obviously know you've put the Cypher events on for a while... & obviously I know you from octarine days etc etc so to give me a history lesson was a bit pointless... If mixmag had contacted me which they did (re hardcore) as I mentioned I could have ran down the same lines as you going through self promotion pushing North as much as possible but with the experience I have of promoting & you say you have then you should have realised how this would go mixmag have no interest in hardcore or hardstyle they have no or very little knowledge of the scene... It was obvious from what they asked me that they wanted to pin this as something new so they could control it & get ads back from the hard house promoters that are slowly falling by the wayside..
so to answer your question YES I would have & did turn down promotion from them.. If you want your night to suceed try workin harder try being innovative try not taking on gods kitchen in a far superior club just round the corner... try not wasting £0000s on foreign djs that played in birmingham at much bigger events a few weeks earlier.. Try not putting nights on when similar nights are running in the area...
All these things have to be taken into consideration...
try not moving to an area that is already saturated with similar events..Either decide you want to put on a commercial night or an underground one as trying to mix it up really isn't going to work..

[MARKEG]

Hey Mick

'You could have said no' and 'They dangled a carrott and you took a bite'........??????

How many times do I have to tell people the reasons why I went totally mental and wrote an e-mail of quotes they could use about hardstyle? It was nothing to do with a carrott.... absolutely nothing to do with 30 pieces of silver and nothing to do with anything for my own gain. You know that. Hardstyle was a word I really liked when I first heard it, a few months later Toby @ Cypher told me that Mixmag were on it, and I wanted it represented properly. I'll never know whether it did any good, but my whole feeling is that the main focus of the article was originally going to be Neo and their new 'hardstyle' music policy.

After I flipped and went out of my way to explain it properly to the jouno in an e-mail I was actually told the whole article was re-written from a different perspective. I can't say for sure what it was originally but I'm sure they had written it from the perspective of hardstyle is the new hardcore. Now, even though the article is completely musically wrong, it focuses on 'hardcore is the new hard dance'. Well, at least that must be better than 'hardstyle is the new hardcore'. If that's the case, I've done something right. I helped take the focus off hardstyle. Besides, there's absolutely no way I'm sitting on the fence when someone from the press writes a load of bullshit about my music.

Anyway, what's done is done. I know what I did was for the right reasons and you can throw the accusations about as much as you want, but at least I'll know in my heart that I tried to do something positive for our scene. The fact with this one is that I didn't have the control over what was going on to steer it in the right direction. There is definitely a way you can manipulate the national press but you have to have total control over what's being said. Most times I've ever been interviewed in the press, I've had that control. That, I didn't have in this case.

PS Dirk would definitely have said more if he'd have known who Mixmag were... We need to be represented! That's why I did what I had to do! The fact that the only thing they used from my three paragraphs worth of quotes is a mish mashed made up sentence about hardcore is my own fault for not having control. All is not lost, but it's been a very very big lesson learnt for the future...

[djjaym]

this is all going a bit crazydont you think,one article is not going to be the end of the world and a style which i love,it wont make me move on to another style (i will still play hard trance/style.dance whatever you want to call it) and im sure Mark and Mick that you wont change your styles you will style play what yous believe in and the style you love.
The only thing mixmag has achieved out of this has been to cause some uneeded friction in the scene and at the end of the day we should all be supporting each other and not slating each other for doing things and saying things which some people dont agree with.

Lets stand by each other and keep it as the best scene in the world- Hard Trance

[Anonymous]

To be honest amongst all the scrabbling that's now going on, on here the only real fact is everyone to some exstent was shafted.

Neo never invited mixmag. They rang up like 3 days before and said they were coming. now the options were A: tell them to go jump or B: let them.

It's a young night which whilst people may level at them they arn't doing anything new, they are in birmingham. does anyone here think that Skelter would be booking european hardstyle dj's if Neo hadn't done it first? Look at the code line up's... it's a ****ing mess. They are attempting to do what neo's done with the slight diffrence that is the main room miss's 90% of the time on which dj's should be in it.

It's maybe nothing new to us but to the crasher/god kitchin crowd it's a whole new ball game and if we can attract any of thier's it's gonna be good news for all of us.


If mixmag were told to go jump then this article would still have happened. Just it wouldn't have happened with one of the smaller promoters. It would have been skelter or the slammin boys and to be honest these guys don't understand what hardstyle is let alone would make any effort at all to push it. As marks said all the way through this would have been bad for us anyway no matter who was interviewed. And it would have been. The was some outside chance that this article was gonna be well written and would give the much underepersentive scene's which we are all a part of a chance to get some mainstream publicity. And it's this outside chance that everyone thourght was worth the risk.

Everyone involved in this went in with the best intentions i'm sure (and having spoken to most of them before and after the event i truly belive this) and all that happened was that mixmag proved itself to be an even bigger joke than we already throught it was.

Neo may have got some publicty and hopefully it will do what everyone wanted and bring in some new punters from other scenes. They will hopfully understand just what the lads are trying to do and want more. Andy as much you dislike mixmags tactics the mere fact that this opens up a new market to flyer and attract towards north has to be a bonus. when people discover a new scene they want to exsplore and those punters who have been locked up in Gk's for the last 3 years just might come out of the next neo wanting to try some other clubs. The first flyer in thier hands will no doubt be a north one.

Mark i surpose you can only take some consolance's that being a true underground dj then everyone who has ever heard you play will know what is written in there is bullshit. The only one's that are gonna belive it are kids who will proberly never get to exspriance one of your set's anyway. Once again the plus point is that as the neo resident the one's that do venture down are gonna wittness one of your sets. It's a rare occurance that anyone who's seen you play ever walks off not smilein.

They might come for the fluffy bullshit that mixmags laid on but end of the day the music speaks for itself.

[Dj Velocity]

Fair play mate. I agree with you. I'm well into my hardcore, and ur def hard trance. But hardcore is getting heavly influenced by the hardstyle sound at the mo.

Btw hixxy aint softcore, his new stuff is hardcore ;) The cheese has left the hardcore. which is why it aint called happy hardcore no more.

[Kaine]

The long winded post two above under the name guest would be mine then.

Not quite worked out how to log on....

heh

:D

[MARKEG]

I was about to close this post, as it had the potential to deteriorate into a slaggin match, and I don't want that on here BUT:

Those last two posts by DJjaym and guest are totally spot on. Exactly the type of attitude we need about the forthcoming article and our scene. If we can pull as many positives out of this as possible, then great. Even better if it could bring us all together.

I know we all have the heart and soul to keep hard trance going in the right direction, so we need to stop any type of arguments between any of us who decide to do things that little bit differently:

Neo decided that Mixmag were a good thing for them. North decided they weren't.

Mick thinks it's a bad thing to talk to the press. I don't.

Who's to say who is right or wrong.? The fact is, we all can do with a little bit of publicity along the way and this has achieved that. It's what we do musically in the future that will speak the most.

Oh sod it, we're all a bunch of c**ts. Hehehehe...

Look if we really care about our music, let's try to find as many +ve's as possible from this as we can eh???

In fact, sod it again, I'm closing the post anyway and I'm going to create some new, more interesting topics... Everything has been said that has needed to be said here.... Let's not get bogged down with 600000 different points in one topic!

Any new topics on any unanswered question's here much aprreciated! Please keep it constructive :=]