Interview with C-Rock - 11th Hour Technology

Coming from Greater Frankfurt in Germany, the STiR15 label is the of brainchild of long running DJ/producer C-Rock, and has been putting out deep sounds of exceptional quality for five years now, taking in all sorts of influences along the way. In 1997 Lofi-Stereo was established as a sub-label for STiR15 recordings, and features all sorts of electronic music ranging from dub, techno, minimal-house to ambient and even listening electronic and electro, claiming an "everything-is-possible" attitude...

11th-hour What musical background do you have? How did you fall into the electronic music scene?

C-Rock Well, (like all the others say) - I have always been into music... at least from the time when you start paying attention to music and stuff... around the age of 12 as I can remember.

Although my father was a biiiig jazz-fan and thought Milt Jackson and Jimmy Smith were super heroes (he even took me to some long and dusty jazz-concerts when I was pretty young - around 7 or 8) I did not get in touch with this music in the beginning of my "paying-attention-to-music-phase".

I felt pretty early attracted by electronic sounds and music - I dunno why but it touched straight from the first time I listened to - maybe it was the "bad" influence of a neighbours son who was pretty much into all that early german-elctronic-avantgarde-stuff like Kraftwerk, Liasons Dangereuse, DAF, Propaganda and many more. I explored by myself (by accident) the first Art-of-noise-12"s which really freaked me out, and later on to the almighty Depeche Mode... it's hard sometimes to admit that I am not the type of guy who got into house and techno by being a hip hop DJ and going through the old records of my father - when people see me spinning and scratching they never believe me when they ask if I have been into HipHop and I tell them that I haven't.

Step after step I got into the US and UK-Shit like for example Mantronix, Jellybean, Debbie Deb, Egyptian Lover, mid to late 80's Chicago records and later on Marrs, S-Express, Jolly Roger and all that minimal cheap acid-stuff... wow that made me insane - none of my friends really digged what I was into... some of them went up to my flat just to see what crazy stuff I was listening to, although many of them hated any kind of electronic stuff - it was the time when the Smiths were really big over here.

Due to the summer(s) of love I joined in the UKs north, the early Berlin-Dayz (Love-Parade, Planet, etc.) and several club-experiences in Frankfurt (early Omen-Nights, etc.) I've got more and more into house and deephouse...

C-Rock Well, it's simple... Nelson (Machado - one part of the Glissando Bros.) and me were jamming one night in winter 94/95 doing some tracks for the Playhouse label... after a while we found out that besides Playhouse there is no label in Germany for tracks like we did them (and still doing them - different from back-in-the-days of course)... so we finished our production for Playhouse and thought of doing our own label in the next step.

11th-hour What are the ideas behind Lo-fi Stereo, and why did you want to start it up?

C-Rock Because in the beginning we/me just put out everything we did like ... minimal DBX-style-Detroit-Techno-House, pumping DNH-like deep house, Mike-Ink-like tunes, groove & moody house stuff and so on... we thought it's cool to do so because many labels did it this way in the past (e.g. NuGroove, Nervous, Strictly), however after a while it turnded out that times have changed and you need a closer musical definition otherwise you loose "fans" and you will sell less and less from record to record... people want a special label for a different sound nowadays - however I think we are still quite "flexible" with our releases, which is bascially to make the thing interesting and new every time again. I do respect labels like NAKED, LARGE, JAZZANOVA (they are all absolutely favorites) and all the others who are doing just a very specific sound on their label, but I would loose some kind of variation in my boring life if we would come out with similar tracks again and again.

C-Rock There is no real mission, just the interest in getting out good music and expressing yourself through the music... maybe the vision not to live a boring "normal" life and to do something you find interesting the most... besides playing football.

C-Rock Besides our own stuff (which is getting less and less important on the label yet) we mostly got in contact with guys who we hung around at parties with, and friends... some of our artists got some tunes on the label by sending in a demo but mostly it's more like "hey, we also produce something... maybe you'd like to hear it?" Due to the fact that we hung out at the same music-events and records-stores we already had a similar taste.

11th-hour How would you describe the artists on your label? What sounds and qualities do you look for in a release?

C-Rock They should be just NICE, and maybe interesting (for lofi). We prefer deep sounds and tracks you can listen to in different ways (e.g. in the club, back at home, in your car, when the sun is rising, when it's snowing outside)... stuff that does transmit at least some emotion. We started remastering the tracks for the label a while ago and we are right now trying to develop something like a unique label-sound - in terms of sound-quality.

11th-hour Are you more dedicated to working with a small artist roster, or are you always on the look-out for interesting new artists' productions?

C-Rock We always look for fresh food of course, but it's hard to find many people that have a similar taste and experience in music. The second thing is that we like that family-style (hanging out, going out for dinner and maybe do a trip together to another city or stuff) - this way we and the artists know that we do take care of each other, and are not just doing it for the money or whatever. There are many cool guys from the UK, FRANCE and the US and it would be great to have them on the label, but it is almost impossible to pay them the much exagerated rates they want for doing something.

11th-hour Your labels releases are very musical and professionaly composed (from what I have heard), as well as being directed at the dance-floor. How important do you think actual musical content is in a release, other than just beats and effects that make the dance-floor move?

C-Rock We like both - however the perfect combination of both is the best to acchieve. On the other hand most of us have experience in doing both... minimal 4x4 stuff for the floor and melodic compositions... it's the same with (maybe) your taste of DJing... many people like minimal and dry STUDIO1 Mike Ink Stuff but do freak out for garage and deephouse tunes by BLAZE or the likes, too.

11th-hour Tell us about your own productions: Where do you get inspiration from, and how do you get your sound together?

C-Rock Right now - I don't (boo!). I'm the type of guy who can jam around doing up to two tracks in a nite or work on something for ages... and sometimes I even leave my machines switched off and don't do anything because I do not feel like I can - this can last up to months - it's a bit like an author tries to write a new book and just waists one sheet of paper after the other... I did not figure out yet what to do to make myself feel inspired - I hardly believe I ever will.

C-Rock I am DJing for almost 12 years now and started buying (cheap and minimal) gear around 1991/92.

C-Rock Hard to say... many things that inspire me ... like a warm and friendly mixer - I always used Mackies and a Roland M16E (some years ago)... my current one is a Mackie SR24.2 ... my Mac gives me inspiration sometimes by jamming around with some new programms and Plug-Ins... my DBX-Equalizer is something that makes me feel cool due to his very warm and pumping US-Sound. The E-MU Vintage KEYS is cool too - and the Yamaha YS200 (FM-Synthesis) and the Roland JX-3P are all-time-favourites and have been used in almost every production I've done. I like sounds that people feel familiar with without recognizing them right away - well, with the exception of the 909.

C-Rock Thru the years we found some nice guys all over the world who supports us - Fabrice Henry and Phillipe Egger (DJ Serafin) in Switzerland, Ricardo Villalobos (Germany/Chile/Ibiza), Phil Darimont aka DJ Philharmonix (Belgium/Netherlands/Luxembourg), Dean DeCosta (Cal/USA), Chris Gray (Chicago/US), DJUL'Z (Paris/F) and many more people in Canada, Spain, and even Japan - thanx guys! After the release of the Glance-Album Danny (LTJ Bukem) called me up (we never had contact before!) and gave me pretty strong props for the album

11th-hour Other than yourselves, who else do you admire/respect in the scene at the moment, and why?

C-Rock Chris Gray is one of our favourites at the moment... the MAW-Guys really did it back to our cases with their latest dubs, too. Rasoul (he is doing a remix for us for about six months from now) and Miguel Migs are cool producers too. Derrick Carter and Kerri Chandler are still big although they have been basically doing the same thing for years now.

11th-hour Germany is more often associated with techno rather than house. What is the deep-house/house scene like out there, how is it viewed by the natives, and do you see it growing?

C-Rock Well, the sound we do on STiR15 is still standing outside the rest of the labels, sadly... however I have to admit that intelligent but decent and deep sounds are coming up more and more over here... Techno and Trance (at least for us "in the scene") is over yet - really. I am still waiting for the "break-thru" of what we are doing here... Perlon and Playhouse recently "did it" however I wouldn't define their stuff as Deephouse - with some exceptions of course.

11th-hour Especially with the rise in popularity of the Internet, the scene has become truly global. Where in the world do you perceive as the most exciting place to be, with regards to the deep-house/house scene?

C-Rock Santiago de Chile, because they really respect new forms of house-music and get excited about it, maybe it's because they do not have many good recordstores so they'll freak out everytime they hear something new and good ... I think Barcelona is the other nice place to be although I feel that most spanish people don't know the deal about deep-house, but this is honestly the same over here and everywhere too.

11th-hour Some would say that the British are abject to listening to new underground sounds, unless they are being championed by the more famous and commercial DJ's. How has this effected any presence you have in the UK?

C-Rock Well, I think it's true (hoping not to spoil anybody on the island - especially after 0:1 in wembley) and even if you get the respect and attention by some of the UK DJs it is still hard. We once had Chris Duckenfield wanting a special 12" from STiR15 but he couldn't find it in the stores and they/or the distributor did not order it although we had enough of 'em in stock - this is somehow insane. Maybe it's because of the many good labels they have in the UK, but on the other hand even these labels sometimes get out some "just-average-house" tunes but these 12" still sell more than a good quality house record from Germany (or Portugal or Spain). However due to the many e-mails and calls we get, we know that the UK-kids do like our stuff so we keep on doing it and try to keep the level high.

11th-hour What are your plans for the future, both for STiR15 and as a producer?

C-Rock I would feel happy if we can keep the level as high as we do right now with STiR15, so that's basically the main-goal: not to get down in quality and quantity and maybe try to reach more people who respect what we are doing by improving our distribution, promotion and network - we'll see.

For myself: I might get out a collection of the minimal-house/techno-dub-tracks I produced over the past three years (for KOMPAKT, LOFI, and others) with some fresh tunes next year on a cool designed CD - this should go on lofi-stereo. Besides that I still work on a band-project by the "famous" singer CLAIR DIETRICH who did BUSHES with Markus Nikolai (perlon/classic)... the project is called DIET and we have a 10" out already and will get out another 12" next year and hopefully a longplayer-CD following.

I still have in mind to get out a solo-record (c-rock) end of 2001 featuring deep house shit and soulfoul stuff with some vocal-tracks, too... well, let's see what happens.

The next plans on STiR15 is another GLANCE-12", the third BOOBJAZZ 12" and a new artist named PINO SHAMLOU with some deep but pumping housetracks. If everything works out with our studio we should get out a dj-mix-CD in the first half 2001 on stir15 and the secong volume of the cityslickers-series.

11th-hour How would you advise anyone who can't find your releases in their local store to go about getting hold of them?

C-Rock That's a hard question, basically it is like the old American slogan "WHEN YOU PLAY IT - SAY IT" so we need people who aren't afraid of going up to their local store and order the record through the record-dealer... we are living in the f****** 21st century and the WWW is becoming the shop of tomorrow, so every record store and distributor who wants to compete with the www-outlets and direct-selling-labels should go for the rare stuff and try to satisfy their customers because this is the only chance for them to survive.