anderswolleck

When I think of Jack Dangers I think of an old pulp hero who leaps from a crashing airplane onto the peak of a snowy mountaintop while losing his hat. But of course in many ways the real Jack Dangers is even more exciting. Hes the founder of Meat Beat Manifesto, the post-industrial dance music kings, which included programmer Jonny Stephens. Dangers has become an industry upon himself when he established the record label Tino Corp which has released a myriad of remixes and Meat Beat records.

Dangers latest album is Meat Beat Manifesto ...In Dub which takes the starting point and cues from several of the songs on last year's R.U.O.K? album, ...In Dub re-imagines and reinvents these, emerging well beyond the core ideas and with all the deep grooves, fx and rumbling basslines of the genre and then some! Five songs feature the one-take toasting talents of DJ Collage on the microphone, linking this ultra-modern music back to its Jamaican roots to express a unique continuum.

The CD also features four new tracks and two alternate versions for a full dose of shattering electro-dub. ...In Dub 5.1 Surround, finds Jack Dangers controlling the joystick on six channels of sound to juggle, pitch, and place against the visual backdrop of original motion graphics created by longtime Dangers collaborator and video director, Ben Stokes (DJ Shadow, Meat Beat Manifesto, Public Enemy, De La Soul, The Orb). Jack invokes true sound-clashing sorcery within this wholly new medium. The end result: sound unleashed and the listener placed at the heart of Meat Beat Manifesto music as never before possible.

Check out the website for Meat Beat Manifesto.

Daniel Robert Epstein: What made you want to remix those songs for the new album?

Jack Dangers: Im using surround sound. Im using DVD as an audio object rather than a visual. Just being able to have that technology and be able to move sound around six speakers is the main motivation.

DRE: What are you doing for the DVD?

JD: Its audio and visual. The guy I run Tino Corp with, Ben Stokes, has been doing videos for 15 years so he handled all the visual side of it. With the audio side of it DVD has been used for films or more recently live gigs and concerts reissued in 5.1 surround. But now Im using it as a new device. I think there have been only a couple of other people to do this and I think one was Pink Floyd and maybe Led Zeppelin. Even though the technology has been around for five years Im a bit puzzled why more people dont use it.

DRE: You are often one of the first people to use new stuff.

JD: I dont know about first but I like to do things, which havent been done before.

DRE: Is it tough to find new stuff to do?

JD: Not really because the way I hear it in my head I can recreate it. Thats why I can do stuff like Radio Babylon because no one had done anything like that before.

DRE: A lot of people say Radio Babylon is the first manifestation of jungle music.

JD: Yeah it had elements of it. To me jungle music would have a certain bassline to it. I did speed up the tempo of that track from 120 to 140 and made it sound faster. I think the first person to do that was Aphex Twin, which was about 160. Then the whole drum and bass, jungle stuff took off.

DRE: Are you out of it now?

JD: I dont know about that. I just like to do music. If people want to pull it apart and poke at it and say I did this before that then fine.

DRE: How did you start working with Z-Trip on this album?

JD: Ive known him since 1991.

DRE: I found an old quote where you said you started Meat Beat Manifesto to work with other people.

JD: Yeah, for instance on the DVD project I got to work with a guy called DJ Collage on the vocals. I also did some work with Not Breathing. I like working with other people.

DRE: How was doing the remixes with Jonah Sharp and Scanner?

JD: I didnt know all of them. Weve been sent remixes over the years from people like them and theyve been piling. Those albums I did remixes of havent been in print for five years so it was time to reissue them. For the first time weve been able to master them properly because we did them in 80s so it was half of what were able to get out of a CD now.

DRE: Are you always looking to work with people who are outside the mainstream?

JD: I think so. Thats the place where music is more industry. To get something on the charts is such a process that things get watered down along the way. I think music on the outskirts is more real rather than be part of a machine. You can sort of take it to a cheesy level, which I dont like to do. Tino Corp draws the line.

DRE: Would you ever want to sign a big act?

JD: I dont think so. Its not that sort of label. Were not doing it as a business. It just covers costs. We have no master plans other than to put out music.

DRE: What did you do for the new Moog documentary?

JD: Yeah its coming out sometime this summer. Ive always admired Moog and his equipment. For some reason the Moog has always poked through as being a rich and wellmade machine. Obviously he was the first to come out with a complete system and has business sense as well. He sold a lot of those units back then.

DRE: Do computers compare to equipment like that?

JD: They do in certain respects like sequencing and ProTools but there are certain things the old instruments have which cant be emulated in software. I dont think having a software guitar will ever happen.

DRE: You do know that there will be a software guitar though.

JD: [laughs] It will but it wont be the same as picking up a hunk of wood.

DRE: Do you have any kids?

JD: Im married but no kids. I dont think well be having kids.

DRE: If you have kids then when they get older youll put a guitar in their hands and they will be pushing it aside.

JD: They will be giving me the software. My mom was 45 when she had me.

DRE: I saw that you played at The ResFest. Did you have a chance to see any of the new stuff thats coming out?

JD: Yeah there was a new DVD collection that Palm Pictures put out. The Chris Cunningham set is amazing.

DRE: When is a set of your videos coming out?

JD: We are doing a DVD as we speak which should also be out this summer.

DRE: It seems like a lot of people you came up have fallen by the wayside a little bit.

JD: Thats the music industry for you. They wanted to do something with this kind of music in the 1990s will all these bands coming out of major labels. Then I saw it all go and nothing has changed for me. They moved onto something else.

DRE: How did you survive?

JD: By creating my own label and just doing what Ive always done. By not going off and following any trends.

DRE: How is it being a businessman on top of being an artist?

JD: Im not any sort of businessman. Im crap at all that. Ive worked with my manager Cathy Cohn for the last ten years. Ive been rogered and screwed in the past with contracts and shit like that because Im no good at it. I was crap at fucking mathematics too. The only thing I was ever good at in school was art and English. I can still use those things.

DRE: Did you get approached to do any more movies?

JD: Just for the first Matrix and the Animatrix. The last two films were taken away from having anyone like me on there. They stuck to things like Dave Matthews. I dont think there will ever be another Matrix film again because just the first one was good. What happened there?

DRE: I have no idea.

JD: I think it was the commercialization of everything. It was part of this horrible rot where not much interesting stuff comes out of music, art or television. The big thing is Janet Jacksons tit. There is a bloody war going on.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck