Goldie webchat – as it happened

http://www.theguardian.com/music/live/2015/may/11/goldie-webchat-timeless-heritage-orchestra

Version 0 of 1.

2.20pm BST14:20

This is it for today!

Thanks for all your questions and to Goldie for his time and answers. Until the next one!

Really appreciate the fact we're here after all this time. Yes, people get too deep with questions - I'm just a kid from the Midlands having a fucking laugh. I'm just blessed guys. I'll try very much not to give Derrick May the finger again.

I have a postcode on my window, it states: I have learned so much from my mistakes in life, I'd like to make a few more.

2.19pm BST14:19

guido656 asks:

There are some differing and often strong opinions on the emergence of ‘dubstep’, ‘dark step’ and everything in between - through the drum & bass scene all the way to pop music in the charts.

Do you think the sometimes negative opinions on the popularisation of emerging genres such as dubstep are justified, or should audiences and producers simply accept and embrace any new trend emerging from their scene?

Simply accept and embrace, but when a genre runs too far ahead without having the many years of its precious mastering years underneath it, it can be somewhat undermined by the gravitas or running before one can walk. It reminds me of the Family Guy sketch where Peter falls and hurts his knees.

2.18pm BST14:18

ID9595470 asks:

Who would be in your all time starting XI D&B galáctico team?

IC3 in goal. Frostie, Dbridge on the wing. Mampi Swift midfield. J Majik in goal too, so he can get the ball in his face. Paul Jubei in defence. Bryan Gee right back. Strikers: Dillinja and Calibre. And Burial serving ice cream. SP:MC polishing shoes in the boot room.

Updated at 2.19pm BST

2.17pm BST14:17

alfredooo asks:

That story you tell, in that documentary, about giving the finger to Derrick May as you left him to listen to inner City Life in your car, wasn’t that a little bit juvenile?

What is your opinion now on May and his influence on UK dance culture?

Of course it was. As me and Derrick are very close friends, and we speak all the time about this - do you not have a laugh with your mates, or have done over the years? Get a grip, you need to go out more. Too deep for my liking son.

2.17pm BST14:17

wcote1 asks:

What song was pre jungle and made you go “wow I need to up my game and find a sound I love”?

Demon Boys, Debt - a bad tune. Renegade Soundwave by Renegade Soundwave, huge. Do you want more? Are you not entertained? Dragonfly, Rage. Box Space, Ibiza Records. Slaves on Rum and Black, Shut up and Dance records. The Charm, Inside 4 Tracker EP. Tronik House, Kevin Saunderson. Straight out of Hell, Kevin Saunderson. Techno Trance, D-Shake. Goodnight!

Box Bass! [Goldie has just fired me, he said something about stairs??]

2.16pm BST14:16

OldRubberLips asks:

Hi Goldie, I met you once, anyhow, please tell us more about Rage at Heaven, we used to get down there Thursday nights, it remains my favourite club experience, oh my, don’t remember much detail but it was incredible!

I'm not going to remind you of how twatted I was if you can't be bothered to remember... what's the name of your dealer?

2.15pm BST14:15

DJCkay asks:

Hi Sir Goldie! I’m a Street Art Photographer and a DJ, knowing your background with Graffiti and DJing, would you ever claim a space on a wall somewhere in London and produce an artwork of your own? Would your Artwork be as an alias artist or would you let the world know it you? And for the DJ question, do you still get goosebumps when you’re behind the decks??

Yeah would love to! I've always wanted a space that I could fuck around with. Me and Tats crew did one a couple of years back, in Sidmouth Road. Always up for a wall if someone's got on. Just got back from Thailand where we hit a couple of walls really hard - painting out there illegally is like the 80s. No brainer. If you've got a spot let me know.

2.07pm BST14:07

fundam3ntalist asks:

To what extent are involved in choosing music/artists for the label nowadays?

To the hilt. To the point where I just bollocked my label manager Antony about a typo error. Every day my friend, I get involved in shaping this label. And to be fair Antony is a phenomenal label manager who thinks how I think about how we should move forward. Currently we have Dom and Roland's album in the workings, AI's album is complete and is phenomenal, Mikal is complete also. We have a great schedule for the next 18 months, and I'm happy to say that like everything we had to reinvent it - it suffered for a few years. And now it's back on all cylinders, and I'm completely made up with the artistic quality of work we have at the moment. So yes, the answer is: I'm all over it like a rash.

2.03pm BST14:03

Andy Hayburn asks:

Is it time for you to set up an arts project in Heath Town.

DON'T FUCKING START ME OFF. I'm fed up of local authorities using the graffiti moniker which they hounded so badly in the 80s to come and cover up their building sites of unfinished business within the city. The least you could do, as I've always offered, is to fund the basic necessity of providing paint for some of these young artists, which will gladly brighten up your environment. This isn't a question of whether or not graffiti is illegal or not - from the moment you put graffiti inside the Moca gallery in LA, it's accepted. It's as much a part of our culture as a cup of tea.

We need to change the way that urban music and graffiti is accepted in this country. Why isn't yoga and parkour being taught in schools? The local authority is extremely out of touch with what the arts actually is, let alone protect it. I find it sad that there are many artists that have come through the hard slog of 30 years and learned the hard way with street culture alike that have experienced far more than academics - that could engage in their community with the help of the local authority who are still working out what to do, whilst there youth culture is imploding and slipping through their very fat fingers. Very simple in the UK: handball courts, parkour, music schools. Handball courts - you can play anything, you can paint them. Like Sidmouth Road - a grey area, local writers do it for themselves. This is something that should be built for us.

1.56pm BST13:56

Eric Yo asks:

-What is 1 piece of advice that you have received to which you live by and that you feel could encourage others?

-What are 5 key books you feel we should read, and why?

"When in Rome, eat lions." That was by a guy called J Pender. David Bowie's quote which was: "always blow the dust off the block of marble, the sculpture lies beneath." And another great quote I swear by is: do you slee? No, I'll sleep when I'm dead. One more, it's my own: "People always ask me about the future? There is none, what we do today creates tomorrow."

Stephen Fry once recommended me a book which stuck with me: Sum, by David Eagleton. Another fantastic book is the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. John Niven, Kill Your Friends. How Yoga Works by Christie McNally, a fictional book. Fuzz One, a graffiti book about a kid in the train yards of New York.

1.56pm BST13:56

Albert Shelton asks:

How does visual art influence your sound? – Albert of Realist Radio

I'm Dorian motherfucking Grey of breakbeat. He has a portrait hidden away, an ugly grotesque self portrait, however, I don't have one. What I have is a landscape picture, a surround landscape picture. Yes at times an ugly background, but beautiful nonetheless. I take all of my visual journey into my music regardless, always have done. I think if an artist gets to a point where you can play enough of your music, and paint and be creative, one then becomes its own paradox. I could throw a breakbeat into a harmonizer and it becomes its own music - the paintings will begat more paintings, more sound. Painting and music are very much the same.

People always ask me, I really want to do something on the label. I don't know what to do. It's not actually that hard? If you want to make something - go to an experience you have, and write what you want to achieve. Programming, engineering, these are things you can explore, but that's the difference - if you explore yourself as a character. No-one can judge individuality; if you produce something to sound like someone else, you're second best. Originality breeds contempt - you have to be contemptible, push the envelope. Being creative is not about being in front of the computer screen, like this fucking guy here who's tying so fucking fast his fingers are bleeding [namely me - Ed] it's about interaction, being open with one's idea, getting a notebook, writing ideas down. What's a vocal example? What do I want the drums to sound like? 90% of music is about not being shy of your inhibitions.

1.50pm BST13:50

Marziepan asks:

If you had to pick one of Reece’s Pulp Fiction, Dillinja’s Angels Fell or Source Direct’s Made Up Sound as Metalheadz’ finest moment, which would it be and why?

I'll play devil's advocate. There's only one record on the label that I'm not happy with, and I'm never going to tell you. There's one on the label, and one of my own making as well. Angels Fell has to be it though. Driving to his house from Brixton, and Carl will always quote Ghosts as being a big influence for him. Angels Fell has a special place in my heart and always will do - he was changing into a profound artist, but his sound had been the same for so long. He is the king of bass, no contest. But the moniker Metalheadz means you can shape an artist and get the best out of them - and that EP is one of the greatest ever made. Angels Fell allowed me to sculpt an EP into finite detail: Blade Runner, only I've seen what I've seen with me eyes. It was about a vision, trailblazing, and that gave this EP such a B-boy aspect, of taking things out. This was a thing for me: the b-boy attitude.

For the record, one of the things to understand as far as this culture is concerned... between Dillinja and Calibre, everyone else is in the middle. You've got two polarities of music, in terms of what drum'n'bass can be and how widespread. I always felt Timeless was the orbit - everything floats in the orbit of Timeless, and everything else, myself included, floats in the middle of that.

1.46pm BST13:46

LordSpacebar asks:

What motivates the presence of orchestral music in the claustrophobic urban spaces typically defined by your musical work?

Is the aesthetic of orchestral music something you moved away from consciously after the 95-98 Metalheadz releases, or do you feel that is still present in some way?

What do you see as the common thread between your musical and acting careers?

*To clarify the second question a bit, I’m talking about the movies and stuff. Sorry for sounding like a Guardian reader.

This is interesting. The aesthetic of orchestral music from a primal, cerebral level has always been in my music. Pre Timeless, Sun Ray 2 on J Majik's label, a daring attempt in how to flip a record from nice to nasty and back again, but to introduce an orchestral colour to my music. It's a very simple Mendoza break, but with an absolutely beautiful take on a pianist's note played by a five year old child - reaching out to create, wanting something better, a sunset, which is laden with this lullaby of a string sound. Which for me fast forward, something like Beachdrifter which was always designed for orchestral aesthetic. I just built a blueprint of music and hope the technology would be able to take me there. Whether that's Ableton, or Heritage Orchestra. Back then, the LSO could not have played Timeless or even thought to, in the way it can be spread through the orchestra. In a way that youth culture can now understand this blueprint.

It's not about whether or not the technology was here then but lets face it - if you begin the new Timeless project at bar zero, and say no-one play an instrument, begin? The room will be silent for two hours. There is no syncopation. This isn't about Ableton Live, this is about young human beings engaging in synthesisers, percussion, real instruments, with a different attitude. Just like Moore's law and the computer chip at the end of five decades, we are finally realising the beginning of something very special where the music from the 90s is a phenomenal blueprint that can be catered for in the modern age. And translated, changing cylindrical 3mm aluminium flat sheet blueprints into spherical chrome balls of colours. Reflective of a generation that needs to shine. And an aesthetic will better both worlds: this struggle of interacting with technology. We're at this point technology wise where music sounds like this now because they're just pressing buttons. We need to apply our souls to the music which has been left out a lot, which is why music from the 70s sounds so good - it's not laden down with technology.

1.33pm BST13:33

LordSpacebar asks:

What do you think about the splintering of musical culture and the changes in the way tribalism used to connect music to contemporary culture? How has it affected you?

The splintering of musical culture is inevitable. In the same way the many streets and mews and roads of this city have split into shortcuts, bypasses, overpasses, closures. Sometimes people seem to forget what culture means, in the dictionary. Metalheadz as a whole has its own tribal sound, its own place, that is synonymous with the sounds of heads - be that old or new, there is a motif there. I welcome change.

I don't think Metalheadz fits in the new culture - people grow into it. When we look at Metalheadz we've been here since forever. It doesn't have to fit if you want to listen to it. It's there, it exists. It's not about fitting for all, for us. It's about a transparency, that allows the listener to listen to it in the right environment.

1.32pm BST13:32

Cubano1 asks:

Drum & bass is shit these days, isn’t it?

Any idea why people gave up editing their breaks?

First and foremost, it; like anything else. Drum and bass like any other genre has fallen on it sword in many ways , but it's like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Every genre succumbs to gentrification at some point- as equipment becomes cheaper, as crowds become younger, there seems to be a sheepish attitude towards producers - how they can follow a mundane, linear sound, and make money. Craft is about leading, and this is obviously lacking in this day and age in the way people see the genre.

However, like any craft, a lot of craft goes underground and you'll find people making unbelievable music: great editing, great craftsmen. You just need to look a bit deeper, The one thing I can say after 20 years deep, is we have the ability to go back and forth in time. And when I got into really underground music when I was a kid, it reminded me... I'm talking 30 years ago, whether it was PiL, Steel Pulse, The Stranglers, these records were not pop records charting. Pigbag is another good example. These were records I discovered. I went back to find them. Same with Motown. THat's where Metalheadz and drum'n'bass is about - you have to go back to go forward.

1.32pm BST13:32

drumsdd asks:

Have you read John Niven’s Kill Your Friends? the DJ Rage character is rumoured to be based loosely on you, looking back do you see any parallels between the character and your younger self?

Yes it is, based on true events that happened. I phoned Pete Tong up one day, who actually recommended the book to me. And then called him back and said Pete, give me John Niven's number. Tongy was reluctant, as I'd just been read the riot act by the BA flight stewardess for laughing so loud I'd nearly pissed myself. I said I didn't want to beat him senselessly, I want to thank him. He then gave me the number, I called John Niven, and laughed for about 20 minutes. Remembering all the ghastly times and the hell we put him through, every time I rolled into his office my pitbull. The empathy I had for this man; I felt for this small geeked-out white boy in Pete Tong's office and how we abused him. I finally realised the empathy I had for him, and I forgave him for keeping me in a wheelchair at the end of the book. I've heard it's been filmed and done, and I'm waiting to see the outcome of who plays me.

1.23pm BST13:23

Jordan Williams asks:

Aside from the UK, where else have you found a thriving drum and bass culture? Of course drum and bass is globally recognised but where else does it enjoy an engaging following?

Also, what other genres do you really like at the moment? What do you think of Dubstep today?

In Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Japan, Russia, Germany always smashes it. New Zealand is probably the biggest though. They've got great scenes, and we go there year after year - internationally they're really recognised. You go to places like this and you have to be on your A-game.

1.21pm BST13:21

djroca asks:

Does the Metalheadz logo have any connection with the Wolves football club logo linked to your time in Wolverhampton?

Yes it does! Finally after 20 years someone's got it. It does. I used to squeeze my pitbull's face together, and he used to look like a cross between the Wolves logo and what's now become the Metalheadz logo. Bravo!

1.21pm BST13:21

Eric Yo asks:

-What is 1 piece of advice that you have received to which you live by and that you feel could encourage others?

-What are 5 key books you feel we should read, and why?

1.20pm BST13:20

allcrews asks:

How did you manage to extract Timeless as a musical arrangement living inside your head into an actual album via Rob Playford’s programming and production. Did you find Rob’s own musical ideas meant the album evolved into something greater. Did the two of you ever conflict over the album’s direction?

Rob Playford is a phenomenal engineer, but he doesn't have his own ideas, he doesn't make his own music. But what he does have is a fantastic width and berth to throw loads of creative ideas at him. Within his own label he was never really a producer, he had lots of artists creating for the labe. It has its own advantages - having a ridiculously creative engineer and producer is a great team. My thought was: can I create it like that? Can this computer do this? A great example would be what if I make Timeless - if I take Inner City Life, Pressure and Jah, and make this into a masterpiece which we could gel together, which became about 16 minutes. At that point that's when my creative process kicks in another gear - right Rob, can we link these things together, extend them? The envelope got pushed into 21 minutes.

1.20pm BST13:20

acidjordan asks:

Your fabric mix a couple of years ago was excellent. How do you find new tunes and how much time do you dedicate to listening to and seeking out undiscovered gems?

I think music from Metalheadz has an archetype and always has. There are rules within the chaos of tunes for me: arrangement, structure, and motive. In the simplest of tunes, ie Pulp Fiction, there was a simple sax motif, but it's where that's placed in the simple mechanics of the tune which makes it work. Something like Adam F - Mother, which is a B-side to Metropolis, it's just a beautiful ambient journey which I almost see as an inversion on a ballad. We can write ballads within electronic music if we try a little harder, but you wouldn't arrive it through the way you've got it it. Adrift, and a Letter of fFte - they arrive in a very sculptured way. Those records wouldn't have been able to arrive at that state, as ballads, without getting through those beats.

1.13pm BST13:13

And we're off!

Here’s a picture of Goldie at Guardian towers:

And his first answer was to tonyroma’s question:

Do you compose your music using notation, or rely on a producer to interpret the sound you want?

No, I conceptually make that happen. I don't use producers, I am the producer. I use an engineer as a tool, vicariously. The idea is already there - I'll sketch it on cardboard. If it's a vocal hook I'll record it on my phone, then set up the mic, then hum the melody and gear everything around that. Programming for me, I don't give that to the producer or engineer - this isn't hip-hop! I will sing the pattern. Songwriting for me is about zooming into the canvas, not songwriting in a typical sense. The same is for vox, beats - they're all instruments to me.

9.42am BST09:42

Post your questions for Goldie

Emerging out of Jamaican soundsystem music, but forged in the pirate radio stations and claustrophobia of London, jungle was a revolution in 1990s dance culture and Goldie was its figurehead.

Producing and DJing as the leader of the Metalheadz label, the music he championed was full of skittering, quicksilver breakbeats and dystopian moods. He shepherded its evolution into drum’n’bass, ending up on coffee tables as well as grimy clubs, and made ambitiously symphonic tracks like the 22-minute Timeless and the hour-long Mother.

Still DJing today, he’s become equally well-known for his acting career, with gangster roles in EastEnders, Guy Ritchie flick Snatch, James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, and most recently in the play Kingston 14, where Goldie was praised for his “dominating taciturnity” by Guardian theatre critic Michael Billington. There’s also his frequent reality TV appearances in the likes of Celebrity Mastermind, Maestro and Celebrity Big Brother.

His next project is a pair of performances of his album Timeless with the Heritage Orchestra at London’s Royal Festival Hall in July, and ahead of them he’s joining us to answer your questions. Post them in the comments below, and he’ll take on as many as possible from 1pm BST on Wednesday 13 May.

Updated at 11.18am BST