| Steve Bug: The Quest To Express Something New Words: Amanda Connon-Unda |
| The experience of making music may be something indescribable, as it's impossible to fully convey with words that which is intuitive. To artists, music seems difficult to take out of the context of personal, emotional realms of human understanding. But, to many of these artists, the music is the language. Steve Bug, a popular producer and DJ at the head of Poker Flat Recordings, has been a longstanding linguist in the regional dialect known as the German tech-house sound. |
| Though Poker Flat continues to be a mainstay provider of quality music (of which Bug's new mixed CD, Bugnology, is a perfect example), Bug's own choice, to express his emotions through music, has been a non-linear route of ultimate accession. |
| "I was recording music from radio stations like a lot of kids", says Bug as he begins to explain his developmental process toward his profession. "I also tried my own shows, and I tried breakdancing, but I was never playing an instrument. When I was really young, I entertained people in trains by telling them jokes. I remember playing a guitar I made of paper."; He laughs, naturally, and continues, "Making music seems to be easy for me, sometimes. I just love grooves and sounds, but sometimes it can be a hustle if you are trying to find new ways of producing music, so that you don't repeat yourself. I just love it." |
| Even Bug contends that it's a challenge to describe, by linguistic convention, what makes his seductive, gritty and danceable music productions so exciting. "Talking about your own music and trying to describe what kind of music you are making is even more difficult [than making music" he says. "Finding words about music has to do with how the music touches you and what you feel. But another person may feel totally different." |
| "For my first album, Volksworld (1997), I worked with some Rhodes sounds from deep vocal house and brought them into the context of minimal house with cool bass sounds, because I liked the sounds of the instrument" Bug reveals. "Then I moved to Berlin (during the making of The Other Day album in 2000) and I think it influenced me in the music I did. It was in the beginning when people picked up '80s influences. I felt a lot of good things coming from those influences, and I tried to set them up in my music. Then it totally exploded and I saw most of the music go in the wrong direction, and I didn't like it. For the last album (Sensual, released in 2002), it was about getting back to the old-school Chicago and Detroit tech-house with funky bass lines and very simple grooves, and I added my own vocals. Now I am in the studio working on the next album and playing often. |
| "There are a lot of good tracks coming out with ('80s) influences now, but I think everybody is hearing them. So, I am looking for something new, but I don't know what I'm looking for. It's a process of finding new things. I don't want to do ''the next big thing', I just want something that makes me happy. My music is a lot of things that I feel" |
| Music can be linked to sexuality, in that it evokes emotion and sensuality. Just as music influences a space where it is played, subcultures and settings might also cultivate certain types of music. The passionate Bug talks about what has been vocally championed in club culture " the essence of musical sensuality. "House music always had to do with sex and funkiness,Bug wagers; &"if that's not happening, it's not a really good party. If the music doesn't have sexiness, then it's not worth being in the club." |
| Through a progressive impetus over time, Bug continues to hone his skills and his understanding of DJing as relational. "I got a lot more secure about playing for a crowd with knowledge and the gigs" admits Bug. "I've always tried to do my own thing. I took risks, and would never play music just to make the crowd move - even if I had the records to do it. Playing in a club has to be a communication between the crowd and the DJ, and the better this works, the better I am. The next tracks come almost by themselves. Using Final Scratch, my mixes get tighter and I have a lot more music to choose from (than if using the usually limited supply of records). So every night can be very different, depending on the atmosphere and sound system." |
| Despite all the enthusiasm within the tech-house music industry, there are still people with concerns about the technology of Final Scratch (which is currently Bug's exclusive method for DJing), and its propagation of the downloading trend. '"Illegal downloads suck, but I don't think they really affect the underground labels. Record sales went down, because there are too many labels" Bug says, matter-of-factly, "and most of them are not special. Most record buyers are DJs anyway, so if you release good innovative club tracks, they might sell. A lot of labels doing great at the moment do not all have big-name DJs." |
| "About the crashes (of Final Scratch)- the software is young. Final Scratch 2 just got released, and it seems that they fixed a lot of those problems. If you are traveling with records, there is always a big chance to lose them on connecting flights!" |
| Like people's mixed reception of technology, Bug contends that music is also a subjectively interpretive process. "People (or their work) don't inspire you" states Bug. 'All the music that you hear is going to inspire you, and you're going to take it for your development." |
| A particular artist of inspiration also using Ableton Live, which Bug used to cut and craft Bugnology, is RobagWruhme (of the Wighnomy Brothers). Another person by whom Bug is really motivated is Guido Schneider. His tracks don't use many elements, Bug explains,"but they work so well." |
| It would appear that, stylistically, Bug retains a passion for simple techno productions. "A reduction in equipment: staying with one thing and learning how it works, and then getting as much as you can," theorizes Bug; "maybe that works. But there are no rules." |
| Without a path of predictability, it is hard to tell what card Steve Bug may have up his sleeve, but it will be worth the time to wait, and find out. |
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| Published originally in Klublife Magazine 2005 |