BC019 - DJ Q&A: Matthew Hawtin (January 2013)
A 2013 talk about Windsor, Detroit, ambient music, ambient rooms, raves, busts, and his big brother Rich.
Matthew Hawtin; via Facebook
Matthew Hawtin’s 2010 mix CD Once Again, Again (Plus 8) is, by some distance, the ambient mix I’ve listened to most. It’s definitive, a deep starscape that’s accompanied me to sleep more times than I can count. (The digital versions I see about tend to have the full length versions of the many songs Hawtin mixes on the CD, and prefer the latter’s brevity—one-third the length of the full bounty.) He was certainly in the right place at the right time: He and his brother Richie Hawtin (two years older) were early and avid fans of Detroit techno, across the river from their home in Windsor. While Rich became a star in that realm, Matthew manned the side rooms, playing pillowy ambient at otherwise berserk parties that have become legend. It stood to reason he’d have some insight into the whole thing, as well as the role of ambient music in general. So, a decade after it was conducted, here is an edited version of our discussion, concentrating on his time playing records for reorienting ravers.
Has Windsor always been home? I know that you moved there as a kid, but I am curious if you have lived elsewhere yourself?
MATTHEW HAWTIN: From about 2002 to 2010, I was in Europe, actually. I was in London probably until 2008; 2008 till 2010, I was in Berlin.
That might be a good place to start because one of the things that I am going to be talking about in the book is the migration to Berlin of a lot of US dance artists over the 2000s, essentially after raves got killed in America. But you went to London first, and you are primarily a visual artist, so I am wondering if maybe the London move had to do with galleries or what not?
Yeah, that was it. We have always retained our UK passport, so it was easy; it was an easy move to go to London. Initially I was going to go to Berlin, but I had a bit more of a support system in London. Rich wasn’t in Berlin then, he was still back and forth, so it seemed like a more natural move for my art.
Obviously, you and Rich have worked together quite a lot. Did you listen to music together as kids?
I guess we did. My brother was always more fascinated than I was in terms of stereos and hi-fi's and electronic stuff. My dad always had a high-end hi-fi. There was always music playing. It was hard to kind of get away from it.
When did you start to want to DJ? Was that independent of Rich?
It wasn’t independent. I think it was a natural development, being in the scene together before he was DJing, being in the Detroit club scene, and then electronic music taking hold. and then Rich starting to do parties and then the idea always to do a techno room and then chill out ambient room. My brother was collecting dance records; I started to build a collection of ambient records.
What was catching your ear, particularly, that drew you to ambient? Had you liked that stuff before you were going to parties?
No, I can’t say I did actually. I always felt like ambient was more emotional, more relaxing, more thoughtful, and we have always tried to have a contrast in the events we did in Detroit, so it was always that intense room and then that room where you could just kind of take a break, chill out.
My sense is that for you that was a really fertile period, almost like a pop explosion for ambient?
Yeah, for sure.
That’s the period covered on Once Again, Again, but were you buying those kinds of records prior to 1993? When did you start to do the chill out for the parties? Or is “chill out” the wrong word?
We called them chill out rooms or ambient rooms. The first party I actually DJed was in 1993. Actually, Rich did two parties before that, and that was the first time we did an ambient room. It was never my intention to DJ—it was like, “We can do this extra [thing]. This could be something different.” I always looked at as just playing records. That may have kind of evolved into something else, but it was just a way to share I guess what I thought was interesting, maybe beautiful music to a new crowd.
Jonah Sharp told me that an ambient room largely did have beats, but it didn’t necessarily have to . . .
Yeah, sure. It could easily be a soundscape for an hour and then it could go into some beaty stuff. I did the mix CD, and I tried to give that sense that there were beats involved in it, but it wasn’t necessarily the place you would go to dance.
Talk to me about the parties themselves. Have you attended the first two that you did not play up?
I didn’t attend those two, no.
Were you going to [Detroit club] the Shelter when your brother was playing?
Yes. In ‘88-’89 was when we started to go out clubbing, and the Shelter was a part of that scene. There was the Majestic, there was the Music Institute, so the Shelter was part of that, and the Shelter was obviously the place where Scott Gordon gave my brother the opening set, and that’s where my brother started to DJ, and that’s where he learned some of the skills. Between 1990 and 1994, I was away in Toronto University, so my visits home were weekends to go to parties, to see my parents, to DJ; most of my time was during my summer breaks. Also going to parties in Toronto: I did a few events there, ’93-’94, always playing ambient. It was very fertile.
I get the idea that people in the Detroit area would sometimes road-trip up there.
That’s the thing about the Midwest, it was such a unique place, because you could road-trip. Rich probably wouldn’t have got as popular as he was without road tripping. You could do Chicago on the Friday and then Indianapolis the next night, or Toronto and Detroit, Detroit and Dayton, or Akron or Buffalo. There was really good cross-pollination between the US and Canadian scene. It made it easier at that time because the borders were lot more relaxed. Post-9/11, it changed the relationship between the two cities.
Were you with Rich when he got booted out of the U.S.?
We did a tour called the “Fuk Tour” in ’95. It was Saint Louis, Lexington, Milwaukee, and then the final one was supposed to be in New York. The gig was for April 22, 1995. We were traveling over the border with a bunch of equipment, which we had done before. There was a lot more than usual—but it was a couple of days after the Oklahoma City bombing, so the border was a little more on high alert. We were two white guys, we had shaved heads at the time, and they pulled us over and they separated us and asked us many questions and they actually went through our car and they found a piece of paper with some of our dates on it. We weren’t legal to work in the States, so that was our downfall.
How was that tour handled? Was that basically the two of you in a car?
No, on that tour it was always a hard room and an ambient room. There was myself and another Detroit ambient DJ, and then Rich who, was [playing] live. John Acquaviva was on the bill, and usually Terry Mullan and a couple of locals. That was just something that we put together at Plus 8. We proposed it to promoters in those cities and we bought a crew of eight people over to help set up.
That tour was totally DIY. We put together a mini-rider about what we wanted, because we basically wanted to transplant our idea of parties, Detroit parties, into these other places. A lot of it was aesthetic, really. We wanted the main room to be covered in black plastic. There was like minimal lighting, like pin strobes, a big-ass sound system, and then in the ambient room it was white parachutes, oil lamps, a DJ setup which was low to the ground, where we would sit instead of stand. That was the idea, and that’s why we took all the guys who we work with here in Detroit, we took most of that crew with us. It was about fifteen to twenty people.
How did you all travel?
Just car.
Like a caravan?
For sure. Sometimes there were five cars in a row going down 75 South. Sometimes it was, “We will meet at the service station,” or “Meet at this house.” This was pre-internet, so it was telephone calls. I think maybe Rich had a mobile or a pager. Mainly it was all very analog, I guess you could say.
How much equipment were you bringing with you?
There was never much equipment, it was basically records and CDs. Nobody was playing computers back then. Like, regular road trips, just a gig in Chicago, it would just be your records, some clothes, and whatever. The Fuk Tour, we took parachutes, we took some pin strobes, we took a little more. We told the promoters what we wanted: 2 mil black plastic, three hundred yards. The people who we contacted were all promoters that Rich had played with, that had come up to our parties, that we had a relationship with. There was usually some drama, but we trusted that the promoters would find a lot of space. I guess at that time in the U.S., you could do more illegal parties in old industrial buildings.
Did you know in advance where you were going to be throwing these parties?
Not usually, no. There was definitely a lot of driving looking for buildings, people knowing the owner. There was always a challenge for sure. It was an adventure, it was exciting. There was the anticipation to find that next space, that virgin space which no one had used, because a lot of the times we would find spaces and in those spaces they would host other parties until they got busted or the owner came to their senses. We always tried to use spaces which no one had used before. Definitely what we always tried to do is that, whatever you experienced in that building, if you went there again in the week, you would not know that you [had been] in that building. We didn’t use that many spaces repeatedly, especially in the early days. Probably in the late nineties, that’s when we used the City Club a few times. But in terms of illegal spaces, there was a big crackdown in ’96, ’97, with the police, so finding illegal spaces or using illegal spaces was much more difficult and risky.
Talk to me about the parties themselves. Have you attended the first two that you did not play up?
I didn’t attend those two, no.
Were you going to [Detroit club] the Shelter when your brother was playing?
Yes. In ‘88-’89 was when we started to go out clubbing, and the Shelter was a part of that scene. There was the Majestic, there was the Music Institute, so the Shelter was part of that, and the Shelter was obviously the place where Scott Gordon gave my brother the opening set, and that’s where my brother started to DJ, and that’s where he learned some of the skills. Between 1990 and 1994, I was away in Toronto University, so my visits home were weekends to go to parties, to see my parents, to DJ; most of my time was during my summer breaks. Also going to parties in Toronto: I did a few events there, ’93-’94, always playing ambient. It was very fertile.
I get the idea that people in the Detroit area would sometimes road-trip up there.
That’s the thing about the Midwest, it was such a unique place, because you could road-trip. Rich probably wouldn’t have got as popular as he was without road tripping. You could do Chicago on the Friday and then Indianapolis the next night, or Toronto and Detroit, Detroit and Dayton, or Akron or Buffalo. There was really good cross-pollination between the US and Canadian scene. It made it easier at that time because the borders were lot more relaxed. Post-9/11, it changed the relationship between the two cities.
Were you with Rich when he got booted out of the U.S.?
We did a tour called the “Fuk Tour” in ’95. It was Saint Louis, Lexington, Milwaukee, and then the final one was supposed to be in New York. The gig was for April 22, 1995. We were traveling over the border with a bunch of equipment, which we had done before. There was a lot more than usual—but it was a couple of days after the Oklahoma City bombing, so the border was a little more on high alert. We were two white guys, we had shaved heads at the time, and they pulled us over and they separated us and asked us many questions and they actually went through our car and they found a piece of paper with some of our dates on it. We weren’t legal to work in the States, so that was our downfall.
Matthew Hawtin’s 2010 mix CD Once Again, Again (Plus 8).
Tell me about the first ambient room that you spun for Rich.
There was a series of three parties: Hard, Harder, and Hardest. It was a place called Roma Hall, which has been knocked down since. The night is a blur really. In those days, the party started at 12 and ended at 6, and I would usually play all night. My DJ booth was always low to the ground; I had a stool. I just sat there and played music.
Was there a lot of freaking out?
Freaking out in good ways. I am sure there were some bad trips in there too. If you want to pick one of the parties a lot of people still talk about that would be Spastik. That was certainly one of our biggest productions, it was in the old Packard building. We went all out with that one. It was obviously the unofficial first Rich live show. There were a lot of UK journalists over for it. It was one of the biggest spaces we used. We blacked out everything. There was no fire escapes or exit lights. Everything just got covered. We had a tunnel of black plastic from the entrance into the main room and then from the main room into the ambient room. It would have taken a flame somewhere to cause this black stuff to go up in smoke. The ambient room was, for that occasion, our biggest production. We had six inches of white foam. It was all white, white parachutes, some white over lamps, wheels. We bought it in bulk [from] a carpet or a mattress place and laid it down in sheets.
If we would use the [Packard Plant] space again, we would definitely try to reconfigure it, maybe putting the DJ booth somewhere else. Later on, we started to use the orange snow fencing, and for one party we bought reams of it. So, we started stockpiling this stuff, and it was reused at other parties, whether it’s for the entrance or the lobby or the ambient room. In the ambient room, there were light projections.
The party called Heaven and Hell: Was that at all similar in that dynamic? Did you cover the walls in white there too?
No, I don’t think it was in white, actually. That was black also. That was definitely a darker party. That was a space where Rich played downstairs and I played upstairs; that was the concept of Heaven and Hell. That was a dark party for sure.
Obviously, there’s concept out the wazoo going on in these parties, so I am curious if you discussed all of this? Were there meetings? Were you guys talking about how you might do the next one?
Yeah. I think we always tried to learn lessons, and each space came with new challenges. My brother was the driving force. He had the concepts. A lot of them were centered around Rich and what he was doing musically.
What was your job at Plus 8? Obviously, you did cover art for them, but did you do other things as well?
John Acquaviva and his wife Carla, who were in London, Ontario, took most care of the financials. Down here in Windsor we were doing the creative side. So we were marketing the record label’s artwork, we took care of some of the press and promotion. For us, parties were a huge promotional part of it.
Were you playing anywhere outside of the Midwest outside of Rich’s parties?
I did some Chicago gigs, Toronto, St. Louis; I was also doing European gigs: London, Germany. Ambient was definitely bigger; people were more receptive to it at the time; it was part of electronic music. But I think it’s been sidelined over the years.
Tell me about going to the Music Institute. How often did you go?
I only went a few times, to be honest. We still have our membership forms that we filled out for the Music Institute, Rich and I. I remember it being this black box, strobe, loud music. It was always great music and it was always a mixture. It was mostly black but it was definitely more diverse. The Shelter was diverse but it was whiter. It wasn’t as underground as the Music Institute for sure.
Who brought you there the first time, if you weren’t members already?
I think we went with Kenny Larkin, actually, who took us in. It was just part of club circuit. It wasn’t somewhere you would go to, [like] the Shelter, earlier in the night thing. The Music Institute was definitely a place you would go later. It would be the post-club thing. [Pulls up database and looks at Music Institute membership cards.] It’s dated 03/03 of ’89.
To be honest, for the Music Institute, I remember the last night, I remember Derrick May playing and I remember him playing “Strings of Life” as one of his last tracks, and that has always stuck with me. It’s a blurry memory. I can’t say it was jam-packed for being the final night, but I just remember it being a really intense energy and really just being about the music.
For the Jak parties, was the Music Institute the model for them?
Yes, I guess it was. I know Rich was obviously going out more than I was, because I was away at school, but I would say his days at the Music Institute were definitely a template for creating an environment which just really focused everybody on the music, just giving people an intense experience audibly.
Are you an audiophile yourself at all?
Yeah, I guess I [am]. I think that obviously comes from my father’s influence. The best sound system in Detroit that I really remember as being really good was at a gay club called Heaven. This guy Ken Collier DJed there, and it was this thumping sound system which just got right in you. I think a place like that, the Music Institute, the influence with my dad—sound was such a big part of what we did, because that’s why everybody was there, and we refined that as the parties went on to specific [lengths]. We knew we had a sound system that was specifically used every time and we didn’t deviate from that for a long time. It was the one that had the most power; it wasn’t the cleanest sound but it was the most real.
Where were you getting the sound equipment from for the Plastikman parties?
For the early parties, there was a couple of places in Detroit that we used. I can’t remember the names, but later on a friend of ours, Sam Fotias, from Paxahau—he was part of the early crew for us. He also worked for Plus 8 in late nineties, and his brother Mike Fotias had a sound company; it later was called Burst, and they did a lot of the parties in Detroit. But we used a company in Toronto called Shakedown Sound, and they specialized in doing big reggae concerts.
So, they knew a lot about bass?
Exactly, yeah. We used a Cerwin Vega system, and that was our sound of choice. It would come down from Toronto, four hours; we would have paperwork to get it across the border, which obviously customs people thought was crazy, and they’d set it up, do the party, pack it up and then drive back.
Let’s talk a little bit more about the Fuk tour: Did you work with Drop Bass in Milwaukee?
We did. That’s who we used in Milwaukee.
What was different about each of the promoters? I’m guessing that you guys had really specific instructions so there wasn’t a lot of deviation that way.
Yeah, there wasn’t much deviation. The point of using the promoters was to have people you trust, people who knew how to run parties, people who had a good following, a respected following, but people who believed in our vision, believed in what we were trying to do, because we didn’t want them to throw one of their parties; we wanted them to throw one of our parties. And we wanted to bring our parties to Milwaukee and Lexington. We wanted, I guess, to take Detroit on the road.
It was almost a payback for the people who might have driven to see you guys in Detroit. Was there a lot of people coming in from out of town for those?
Yeah, there was quite a few, but obviously there was still the people who couldn’t travel. There was a lot of people who got around. I think it’s surprising, even now, when Rich just did this CNTRL tour and there’s still people who pop up and say, “I saw you at Spastik” or “I was at Jak’s Back” and it’s amazing.
You said that you both had shaved heads back then. Was it important to maintain that look just for the sake of image?
No. I don’t think neither me or Rich really thought about image back then. I think my brother—at the time he was Richie Rich or Rich Hawtin, but he wasn’t the Rich Hawtin that he is today. He made a move when he stepped into the limelight. Back then, he wasn’t in the limelight, in a way; he was more comfortable just having his persona out there I guess. It was just about the music in a way. And I think because of our age we just didn’t really get into that so much at the time.
What would other promoters do that you wouldn’t like?
Maybe give out glow-sticks, have 10 go-go lights going off, and just making it a rave.
Did you consider what you were doing, throwing parties instead of rave?
We never thought of them as raves. We just threw parties and in the end they became labeled as a rave, as more parties happened, a place where people gather and dance, and an industrial building with lights and loud music was considered a rave.
Were you against the concept of rave, per se?
I think we were, yeah.