SEPTEMBER 24, 3002 Spreading the garage gospel DJ Deep Six brings fresh sounds from the U.K. By Chris Dart, Brock Press Music from the United Kingdom has traditionally never had trouble breaking into North America. Be it the British variant on punk rock or the staple club sounds of drum n’ bass and techno, being imported from across the Atlantic has historically given new forms of popular music a pre-approved level of cool. U.K. garage has, at least so far, been the exception to this rule. Since the mid-1990’s, the genre has been born in the clubs of London, had a huge commercial explosion, been declared ‘played out’ by the British music press and undergone an _ underground renaissance, all without registering as more than a blip on the screen of North. America’s pop culture tadar. Hamilton-based DJ Deep Six, known to his parents as Sen-Foong Lim, is tying to change. all that: Since 1998, Deep Six has been spreading the garage gospel across North America as a DJ, a producer, and the mind behind the Rinse It record pool, a service that provides fresh wax from the U.K. to garage DJs across the continent. A brief conversation with Six quickly reveals how much he loves his music. A single question leads to a torrent of excited speech. Although Six admits he enjoys his day job as an occupational ther- apist, it’s obvious that he eats, sleeps and breathes U.K. garage. Six says he discovered U.K. Garage in the mid-’90s, after becoming disillusioned with the existing sounds in electronic music. “I love house, and I love jungle, but I was buying a lot of drum n’ bass because, at the time, everyone seemed to be playing a lot of house and I wanted to be different. But then came that Ed Rush and Optical sound where everyone wanted to be dark as fuck,” says Six. “I said ‘Screw it, jungle’s got no soul any more.’ I stopped buy- ing drum n’ bass cold, when my local record store guy said ... ‘Why don’t you try this out?” For Six, garage, which he describes as a fusion of jungle and house, had much of the soul and funk that he felt had gone missing from drum n’ bass. “For me, music and DJ-ing has always been about getting people to dance, not about getting people to nod their head and say ‘Damn, that’s a dark tune,’” says Six. “So I delved into the history of the music ... and became one of the leading forces in garage music on the continent. I’m not saying I’m the best DJ. I’m not, but I was pret- ty good at getting connected with the right people at the right time.” Instead of hoarding his connec- tions, however, Six has decided to let other North American DJs ben- efit from his connections to British garage labels through the Rinse It record pool. The pool gives North American DJs access to British labels they wouldn’t otherwise be able to get. “It's a record pool strictly for U.K. garage DJs - working Djs who are playing out, either play- ing residencies or doing radio shows. They pay a subscription fee and I sort them out with promo- tional records from the labels,” says Six. “It’s not supposed to be lucrative and it’s not supposed to do anything other than big up the sound.” In Six’s mind, U.K. garage has met several obstacles on its way to North American success, almost all of them related to marketing in one way or another. In North America, garage has been market- ed to electronic music audiences, but in its native England, it’s viewed as hip hop’s more dance- able cousin. “The way garage is marketed over there is as an urban sound, not as some sort of ravey, electron- ic thing,” says Six. “It’s a good Answers to last issue S crusty sheets crossword blend of house and jungle, but there’s also a lot of reggae and soca ... It! s the sound of London séet culture, London youth culture, and ... London black culture.” Another problem, according to Six, is North America’s lack of garage producers. Drum n’ bass was an oddity from overseas until North American underground producers like Toronto’s Freaky Flow and New York’s Breakbeat Science Crew tried their hand at creating the sound. For garage to be taken seriously in North America, Six says the same thing needs to happen. “The production lends credibili- ty to the sound,” says Six. “When people start making tunes that other people recognize, that gives the scene credibility both locally and world-wide. That’s when the rest of the U.K. garage culture will say “There’s some real hot shit coming out of Canaéa.* " The other major barrier to garage’s success in North America is a lack of marketable personali- ties, according to Six, although he can name several U.K. artists that could help put faces to the sounds. Topping his list is The Streets, whose North American debut last year got massive critical acclaim. “Electronic music is kind of nameless and faceless. You need to have a name and a face and a frontman. The Streets is a good example of a band format in garage music. MJ Cole would be another one. He’s a great looking guy and a great producer,” says Six. He is ultimately convinced that the diversity that makes U.K. garage so hard to market in North America will be its greatest strength. “There are so many different sounds under the broad banner of garage,” he says. “You open Pandora’s Box when you have U.K. garage in your hand.” Photo Marlon Francescini Students beware! The vending machines in residence now stock a large- variety of overpriced school supplies. This CD costs a wopping $2, but. if you had bought a 10 pack at a local retailer, you would probably pay only a little over a dollar for the same CD. Reaching into Vivaldi's past Ospedale della Pieta: one of the original music therapy centers By Dave Weatherall, The Link Micky White became obsessed with Vivaldi after reading a book about the composer six years ago. Hoping to i apparent gaps in his biography, she ended up on the steps of the Ospedale della Pieta in Venice, where Vivaldi worked from the early 1700s to around 1714 as a violin master. She has spent the last six years studying the archives there. The deep-set wrinkles around White’s eyes are perhaps testa- ment to the turmoil she endured while sifting through stacks of muddled files at the Pieta. As she is the only known person to have closely studied the Pieta archives, music enthusiasts would be stunned to know that White - now in her late-fifties - seems slightly uncomfortable talking about the 6 years she spent acting on her “obsession.” The Pieta first opened in the early 1400s and provided a haven for any children who passed through it. Once the abandoned male children reached the age of 16, homes were found for them. The women, on the other hand, rarely left unless they wed. The children’ s time was mostly spent learning music from Vivaldi and others who wrote music for their apprentices. The process, said White, undoubtedly had therapeutic benefits for the students. "There are many records of women living until they were 90, 98 and 102 at a time when the average life expectancy for women was 65: So the music not only helped them overcome their abandonment, but also seemed to keep them alive." Many women stayed because the Pieta allowed them to earn money by working as nurses and teachers to the younger children. In an era when women had few rights or freedoms, the Pieta was a very attractive place to be, said White. To date, White is the only per- son to study the 600-year-old archives of the institution. The Pieta is the oldest shelter for abandoned children in the world. It still operates, albeit in a much more limited capacity than when Vivaldi worked there. "The Pieta used to take in about 11 children a day,” said White. "Today it takes in about eight a year." It also doesn' t pavide the same services it once did. The Pieta used to take in abandoned chil- dren (there was a hole in one of its walls which parents could pass their children through) and teach them music when they were older to help heal the wounds of abandonment. Vivaldi was one of those teach- ers, and, according to White, he needed them as much as they needed him. , "On the one hand you had a ‘ wild child’ composer who hz been asked to leave the priest- hood several times and who needed focus and grounding in order to compose serious works," said White. "On the other hand you had these perfectly trained musicians and vocalists who could basically play and sing any- thing. So it was an ideal situation for both of them; he provided a role model and wrote pieces for them, they gave him a channel to focus his musical genius."