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mechanical_messiah writes: Our first Noize Band of the Month artist is Atomly, a one-man-band hailing from Chicago Illinois. In a style most unflattering to my interviewing skills, Adam Lee has given us an insight into the Chicago techno scene and what drives him to create his music in it all. Beyond his own musical hobby, in 1999 Adam founded Atomiq records. Between his own musical interests and kickstarting a label of his own, Adam has made music a full-time career.
I went to my first rave ten years ago, when I was only twelve years old, thanks to my older brother-- he told my friend and me about it and said that if we liked "Zoo Rave 1" (a CD I couldn't stop listening to at the time) then we should go. I loved it and went to raves pretty regularly from then on, probably at least 3 a month on average over the years. The weird thing was that I kept going to punk shows the whole time, which I think was good because it kept me from turning into a candyraver.
Atomly MP3's:
720matt - altgeld - ask - i went to demf and all i got was this fucking ear infection
Go on to read more,
I decided to start a record label in late 1999, while I was still in Minneapolis, going to college and working as a computer programmer. I took my favorite tracks that I had written over the years (one of the tracks on my first record was from when I was 16) and crammed them onto a seven track EP. Actually, about half the tracks were written in my friend's house in Milwaukee one afternoon after I'd stayed up all night raving at a Drop Bass Networks New Year's Eve party, because I was particularly inspired by my friend Dica's DJ set he played. He got put on at 8AM in the hardcore room and everybody was already asleep, so he just played the most abrasive stuff he could, and for some reason it really struck a chord with me; went back to my friend's house and went nuts with SoundForge and Fast Tracker II.
My style was pretty much shaped by this; I make mostly experimental electronic music with a DIY attitude, I guess. I've pretty much made everything from really minimal house to very noisy breakcore, so I don't really have any one genre that I fit into. Most people tell me that they see a common thread throughout all of my music, though, and I agree with them- I definitely have a strong aesthetic that carries through all of my songs.
1: Electronic music: Does it take talent? Many people argue that it's something easy and automated: claiming the computer itself makes the music. What's your thoughts on that statement?
I think that's an excuse that people who are scared of electronic music make. That's like saying that architecture is easy now that they use computers instead of t-squares and pencils.
I had an old roommate who was a mediocre folk musician and he always went on about how electronic music was just "tapeloops and drum machines," which I assume is something he overheard somebody say once so he repeated it ad nauseum. Anyway, I think he pretty much typified the stuck-in-the-old and scared-of-the-new mindset.
Every time there's a major shift like that, be it in music, society, science, art, etc., there are going to be stragglers who don't want things to change and try their hardest to deride the new paradigm. It's particularly funny that a lot of people I know who like pop, rap and new rock music don't like electronic music because it's "so easy to make," but they're listening to some track where a producer used an Auto-Tune, an MPC2000XL and some mics to make the whole song while their beloved artist just sange some elementary lyrics that they may or may not have written into the mic in what may or may not have been the right key, but it doesn't matter anymore because the Auto-Tune can fix that.
Electronic musicians and their fans are just as guilty of this, though. I just wish everybody would get over themselves and realize that there's something good to be found in every genre and whatever genre they happen to like at the time isn't the pinnacle of human musical achievement. Mankind.
2: Being part of a upcoming scene, and being in a huge city like Chicago, do you feel a lot of competition among other artists? What effect does it have on your creativity?
If you would've asked me this six months ago, I would've looked at you like you were crazy, but now I've definitely started to notice this in Chicago. Chicago is such an indie-rock town that it took a while for the indie kids to
catch on to this whole new electronic thing, but now that they have it's pretty much all over. It's rather annoyoing being lectured on electronic music by a kid with a mullet and faded jeans who just last month discovered Jim O'Rourke and Adult.
Hundreds of kids who are obsessed with Dashboard Confessional have now started getting into electroclash and the whole Chicago hip-hop IDM thing (Telefon tel Aviv et al), which is cool with me, but it's also frustrating, because now most electronic music is relegated to either rather boring shows at indie rock bars or meat market ass grinding fests at big trance clubs.
I don't mean to sound so negative, but I guess it's just kind of draining to have everything co-opted by people who have no real interest in the music. It's frustrating to have club nights brag that the DJs don't mix because they
don't have to since people don't show up for the music, they show up to see fashionable people.
Luckily Chicago's jungle scene has managed to survive and actually thrive in all of this, so that at least gives me an outlet to go out and enjoy music in a friendly but loud environment. Unfortunately, though, the Chicago scene is
totally an old boy's club, which is kind of annoying to deal with, though better than braving the superclubs to see any decent techno.
3: Electronic music today is immediately associated with the drugs that flood raves. How do you feel about this?
I used to strongly resent this, since I started raving like ten years ago and didn't do a single drug at a rave until I was like 19 and still do almost no drugs beyond caffeine. I think, though, that the two really are inseperable not because of the music, but because of the culture.
Raves and clubs are so expensive to run because of the extensive decorations, huge sound systems and lighting rigs and the price of booking electronic musicians that most of them have to fund themselves by selling drugs. There are a lot of promoters that do this, but then there are also a lot of clubs like Limelight and Twilo in New York and all the old mega-raves in Chicago that were notorious for this.
I mean, saying that drugs and electronic music are inseperable is a pretty useless statement, though. It's like pointing out that Trakl killed himself with cocaine and trying to argue that says something about poets. You can't try to insult a music because of the culture that surrounds it, because underground music has always been tied to counter-culture and because of that has always been "tied" to drugs. Jazz didn't need heroin and disco didn't need coke, those just happened to be the best drug to fit the music, so people who wanted to do drugs anyway chose that as the drug to do at the time.
4: What would you say to someone just starting out making music?
Simplicity, patience and confidence are the key. Practice a lot and always try to get better. Make sure you allow people to critique your work without getting overly defensive, because most people are really trying to help you, but at the same time don't let other people stop you from making the music that you want to make.
I've learned over the years that if I make a song and play it for people that I know and they don't like it, I can press it to vinyl and still sell out of it. There's somebody out there who will get what you're doing, so just be patient.
Oh, the most important thing. Every time you write a song, let it sit and come listen to it the next day- you're guaranteed to have a much different perspective on it than you did the day before.
5: What's the farthest you've traveled for your music? (to play a show or to meet up with other musicians)
The farthest I've traveled to play a show is probably either New York or Portland, OR. I'm supposed to be doing a European tour this fall/winter, so that will definitely be farther than any show I've ever played, but I have
been to Europe to work on tracks and meet musicians (the trip spawned my Marumari remix and my track The Metric with Eye-D).
6: You program, and we're part of the Box Network... i can only wonder if you ever visit any of the Box Network's computer resources?
Yea, I've been to linux.box.sk many times in the past.
I unfortunately don't have an internet connection at my place right now, though. I live in a 10,000 square foot warehouse that's in the middle of the ghetto, so every time we try to get a connection they pretty much laugh at us when we tell them the address.
(mechanical_messiah: w00t!)
7: Let's face it: we're in a digital age. How do you feel about free music trading?
I'm all for it. I have every one of my songs up on my website as 128kps MP3s and I encourage people to download them. A lot of people wonder why I do this, especially my friends who are musicians or run record labels.
I think that the vast majority of people are going to distribute music anyway, and I support that, so why try to make it harder for them.
I have a bunch of old raver friends who spent countless hours copying mixtapes and trading them. This turned out to be the best promotion that DJs could've ever asked for, since it allowed them to spread their music much wider than they would've been able to just by phoning up shops and putting ten copies in them on consignment or something.
If people like my music, they're going to buy my vinyl so that they can hear it. If I ever release a CD, the sales might, in the short term, be hurt by MP3s but then half of my fans are people who heard my MP3s and then bought my records and came to my shows, so it all really works out in the end.
8: Has your music been a large monetary investment for you? Are you happy with it's return? (both monetary and results)
Yea, I don't really realize how much money I've spent on it until I sit down and start adding numbers in my head, but it's a lot more than I expected to spend coming into it. By that same token, though, my music has gotten much better response than I ever expected and I've been afforded a lot better opportunities than I could've imagined. I probably wouldn't know half of my current friends if it weren't for the music scene, and they're great people who I would hate to have missed the opportunity to get to know.
9: As a non-mainstream artists, are you planning on continuing making music forever, or will you probably give up soon if it doesn't pay off?
Well, I'm doing music full-time now, so I'm hoping that it at least pays my bills, but even if it doesn't I'll still definitely do it in my spare time for as long as I'm interested in it.
10: What's your favorite musical group?
Damn, that's a tough choice. I don't even know what my favorite genre is right now. I guess if I had to pick a favorite musical group ever, I'd go with something old like Jawbreaker or old Smashing Pumpkins.
With electronic music, I wouldn't even know where to begin. I couldn't tell you if I like Doc Scott better than Ed Rush, much less if I prefer him to Surgeon. Mostly I've been listening to jungle lately, though. The whole current revival is really getting me back into it in a big way- it's really great to be able to go out to a jungle club and hear music that I like again and it's especially nice that the crowds are so enthusiastic again.
I went through a phase for about a year where I mostly wrote really chill, minimal techno but I never released any of it. The music was mostly very personal and something I was into making for me to listen to. This was mostly influenced by the whole Raum/Basic Channel type sound, particularly this one track, "Prada Overdose" by Kingsize XS, which is really the thing that got me making techno. My friend Matt put it in a mix he made and we used to listen to the CD of the mix on the way to work. I couldn't get that song out of my head for months, something about it just really worked with me- so I guess
that Kingsize XS is up there.
11: About the label you're currently getting started, Atomiq, do you see yourself branching more into production and shying away from actually making music yourself?
No, I don't get into the day to days of running a label. I can't wait until the day when I can afford to pay people to do some of the work of running a label for me. I love it in the abstract sense, but I hate coordinating all this stuff through snail mail, faxes and phone calls. Synchronous communication is a bitch. Heh.
Seriously, though, I guess I would like to release more stuff once I can. As I said, I'm doing music as a full-time job now, so I'm at the point where I have to release one thing at a time and roll the money from sales of one record into the manufacturing of the next for the time being.
12: Any Greetz to friends?
All of my friends rule. Konfused 4 life.
Thanks for your time Adam!
Atomly MP3's:
720matt - altgeld - ask - i went to demf and all i got was this fucking ear infection
Atomly Links:
Atomly.com - Adam's Online Journal - Atomly's Online Music Index
last updated: 2002.11.04.0336
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