Short intro? My name is Yoel, I play music, make music, help at parties, also play in a band. Of course I like tekno, but I also listen to jazz, jungle, hiphop and breakbeat. It’s not really the style that attracts me, I usually judge it per track. I like melody, I don’t listen to the hiphop lyrics for instance, but I do like the hooks and samples. Some friends of mine took me to my first party, was hooked ever since :-)

A friend introduced me to gabber, and I started playing it, later dj-ing. After a while my uncle gave me an old drumcomputer, that was the start and after a while I started trying to make some music at the pc or at friends’ houses. Tekno is more for me than just the music. It also influences the rest of my life, especially because I go to a party mostly every week. But it is changing, not really as much underground as it was a few years ago. I like the fact that you can go to record stores and buy your records there, instead of only at parties, but I don’t think it’s very positive for the scene. When I got into tekno, all people told me was that at that time, the tekno scene was becoming bigger and bigger. According to them, that was not a good thing. Years ago, Mononom parties were given without the police ever knowing of it. That’s an impossible scenario these days, at almost every party sooner or later the cops show up.

I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I think some people are turning up at parties when they really shouldn’t. People that are only there to have too much alcohol and a good fight. But because I’ve been there mostly every week, I can’t judge on how this had developed in the last two years. The big difference now for me is that when I started, there weren’t as many producers, dj’s and people making music. That is one of the things I find truly unique in tekno: every one in this scene seems to be involved in music and also parties. Most of the time, two out of three people is a dj or has turntables, drumcomputers or equipment at home.

I don’t think commercialism should be part of tekno, but sometimes there are dilemma’s or difficult things to deal with. When you organise a party, you want to have a nice one, for the people and the music. But if you know in advance you’re going to lose money doing it, I don’t think a lot of people will be eager to participate. We don’t want to make profits, but we try to stay even. I don’t like entrance at parties either, but if you’ve lost a lot of money on previous parties, I don’t think it’s crime to let people pay a few guilders entrance. But that’s not being commercial in my book. Commercial to me is a very big setup, big flyers with the intention to make money, where the music is being pushed to the background, but I have never seen that with any teknosystem, certainly not in Holland.

I don’t know how far I’ll get with music. I’m busy getting a record out now, soon my second and third track on a record will be released. Sofar, I haven’t made a record completely on my own. I don’t think I ever will either. Not in the near future, that is. Lack of money is one good reason, and also I like it better when several people contribute to a certain record, not just one person. That way, different styles can be represented on that record. I don’t just make tekno, the first track I put out was electro/chill, the next will be more in the drum&bass area, and third up is tekno. I spend an equal amount of time on each different style I’m interested in. Just music I like.

I don’t intend to ever live off my music. I know that when I go sit behind my computer as a means of living, my music will lose the essence of why I wanted to make it in the first place. For instance, I made a track, not very good, but hey, I have to eat this month, I’ll have to put out this record. I think it would end up in records with one good track and three shitty ones, and that is the last thing I want. What I do now is fun, and it should stay this way. Maybe one day I’d like to have my own label on which other people can release their music, but I know I can’t make enough music to live off it, I don’t have enough inspiration to release a new record every month. I never finish a track the way I started it. If I start out to make electro, even though I’m not really in that mood, then it begins with something that slowly turns into something completely different, a 170 bpm tekno track for instance. But I cannot work on a track for too long. Some people I know can easily spend a month on a track, work bits and pieces, stop and continue again two days later, that’s not my m.o.

Once every while I get a big fat load of inspiration, sit down and make a track in one session, maybe correct it a bit later, but I can’t stay in it too long, no matter what other people may say.. My mind’s already set to different things by that time. A lot of tekno that comes out on record is merely music to dance to, but some music, especially Curley’s records and the older Mononoms, no matter the bpm’s, contain very much emotion. Records like Mononom 3, the Curleys have a story in feelings and emotions, they pass over a vibe of warmth and feelings…I like that very much. But I don’t know how to explain how it goes when I make music… I just have a certain feeling at the time, and unconciously, it slips in. So, when I’m having a good day for making music, usually what I want to put it also comes out in one way or the other. But on some days I sit down, and quit after on hour, nothing’s going like I want it to, so I’ll try again some other time.

DJ-ing is another story. I’ve been doing that for more than six years, and those records are the way they are, sitting in my case, can’t change anything about that., except for playing and mixing them, so in that case it’s a matter of picking the right order. I can’t put any more feeling in those records than there’s already in it, so a set of mixing records is not completely my product. I do try to create something new by mixing those different records, but when I’m making music, it’s much easier to totally put my message in that music. But on the other hand, when I’m making music, there’s really a lot I want to say, to convey, but it’s hard to do that all in six to ten minutes. When I’m mixing, provided I get the time, I have more space to completely "tell my story", create a flow. Making music askes for inspiration, a good mood, but mixing I can do every day, for that matter.

Maybe the fact that soon I’ll be trying out my first livesets will change things. First time I’ll just be giving it with some other guys. That will be interesting too, cause that will be not only my "story", but a combined one from the three of us. At parties of course music means a lot to me, but I think I’d be having quite less fun without the people I’ve come get to know. And at those times I listen I think in another way to music, dancing is then more important to me. But still music, those parties and it’s people, my friends have become an important part of my life.

I don’t think I’d ever want to live off the music I make. I mean this purely for myself, no offense to people who do choose to live by this, but if I’d do nothing all day, hang around, and live off the money the state’d give me, I’d think I’d lose contact with what I call reality. So for that matter, I think in my case it’s good that I have a job, at least a few days a week. I know the stories of the travelling sound systems, but I wouldn’t choose that way of life. Of course, the freedom seems great, but to be put in a situation where you’d have to give a party just to have something to eat, I wouldn’t do it. I like the way it’s going now in my life so far…

Yoel's tracks can be found on [zmk records] and [acidscars]