M&A #29: Kid Cowboy

Kid Cowboy's influence on the Cambridge nightlife landscape extends beyond simply mixing the tunes we dance to. Pictured here, already looking badass at age 8 (although he is now older than this), he's headed up the music team in ARCSOC this year, delivering an array of stellar parties with DJs spanning Cambridge's most popular scenes. Arty and political to the core, his taste brings something different to the series, with an hour of sexy 80s electro, conjuring up images of shoulder pads, big hair and technicolour everything. Let the brash snares and over-the-top vocals take you away, with inch perfect mixing and careful ordering complementing the equal parts rebellious and outrageous selections.


How did you record the mix?

Serato DJ Pro and my trusty Pioneer DDJ-SB3.

What were you trying to do with it?

I’d been having a really flat day so I decided to stop work early, fire up the decks and see what came out. I’d bought a couple of hours’ worth of new tracks a few days earlier so this mix is sort of the result of playing around with some of them. I did one run through where I was sort of mixing intuitively, just recording for my own records. That came out at about 75 minutes and tried to fit too much in – it sort of veered off into a bit of UKG in a way that wasn’t that satisfying. I listened back to that mix and literally straight afterwards got back on the decks and laid down a more intentional edit, which is what I ended up sending over. The .mp3 is called “Mental Dropout II” because I imagined quitting Cambridge and dropping it at Amnesia really early one morning in August 1987.

Your mix features a lot of quality old school electro house and pop tunes. This is a HUGE vibe, not one we hear on dancefloors very often. How did your interest/knowledge in this stuff come about? What’s led you to be into the music you’re into at the moment?

Over the past few months I’ve been writing a dissertation exploring the links between Acid House, football hooliganism and the Thatcher government, which has put me onto a whole load of super cool Balearic stuff from back in the day. It’s only relatively recently – we’re talking probably within the last 18 months – that I’ve seriously got into a lot of house music and other styles. At heart I’m sort of just a post-punk. My taste has been pretty old school ever since I started developing a taste of my own, and in many ways it’s probably informed by stuff my parents used to have on in the car and around the house way way back. I was reading some stuff a few weeks ago and came across this Alfredo Fiorito line where he talks about how he never says never to anything, and how being on Ibiza opened up all these musical possibilities. That sort of attitude – like a complete absence of prejudice – appealed to me a great deal. I try to work within it whenever I’m on the decks.

How do you find new music? And do you categorise the new stuff? Genre, mood, energy?

My default state is constant restless scavenger. I pick stuff up from all over and I have my headphones on 24/7. I like playlists put together by DJ’s whose tastes I trust. Bill Brewster has a really good one on Spotify where he’s collected hours and hours of really unlikely groovy tracks – stuff like Gilbert O’Sullivan and Liza Minelli. A couple of those made it onto my own mix. A lot of the tracks came from recommendations I’d found in the comments under those YouTube uploads where the thumbnail is just a picture of the 45. Old heads sometimes take the time to share what they used to mix with a particular track ‘back in the day’. I used to try to categorise stuff in my Serato by genre, but pretty soon I just had a massive crate called ‘house’ and a much smaller one called ‘garage’, and then like a whole load of Brazilian psych and old school Indie left over. (I live in hope that one day I’ll be able to put that stuff into a mix somehow.) Nowadays I tend to group stuff together by actually mixing things, seeing what flows in real time. Usually I go by a combination of bpm, key and general vibe. All my crates have really unhelpful names like ‘Smash the Fash and Burn the State’ and ‘Halloween Silent Disco 191101’.

All these tunes often have big melodies and vocals which can be hard to mix without directly clashing, but you’ve knitted them all together beautifully here. How do you look at mixing two tracks with those kinds of features? You use a few effects and the like in the mix, do you try to mix in key/find useful sections of songs, or just see where the mood takes you?

I sort of take a lead from guys like Larry Levan, although I guess with the benefit of all the tools Serato offers rather than just three turntables and your own god given ears. Selection is always where I start, and I sort of trust that if the selection is down then people will follow even if the ride isn’t always totally smooth. This being said, I’m also pretty tight about key changes. If the transition has the potential to be a bit bumpy, I start by making sure the keys are sympathetic. Then I play around with filters and cue points to sort of knit two tracks together. Usually I’ll try and isolate a bassline or a vocal – I think the transition from “Fashion” to “Reach for Love” demonstrates this sort of approach. It’s like a sort of stitching together. I also really love the moment in the mix where Dolly Parton comes in over the Kariya track. Listening back it’s like the wheels are about to come off the whole thing, but somehow the beat matching pretty much stays under control and it makes it over the line.

You’re the head honcho when it comes to organising ARCSOC events this year. How have you found it? What have you learned from stepping into this part of the Cambridge scene, and taking over the reins of something that’s been going for so long?

ARCSOC is sort of strange because it’s got this great battle of identity going on in that on the one hand it’s just a party, and on the other hand it’s a vital source of income for our self-funded end- of-year show. Thanks to this there are always people around bringing it back to the money. I wish we didn’t have to deal with that fact but it’s always there. I’m incredibly fortunate to have a team of people around willing to pick up the slack when I decide I just want to deal with sorting out the lineup, so I am sort of insulated from that side of things. But it’s always in the background. I think also there is this mindset where people think of ARCSOC and think of the ARCSOC of like three or four years ago. The Cambridge nightlife has changed so much since then, even in the last year, and suddenly there are all these really cool newer crews injecting a whole load of life into the scene. A big part of my job this year has been just getting across the idea that we can’t keep operating like we have done for the last few years, putting on three nights a term and expecting them all to sell out instantly. Because of this there was a worry quite recently that ARCSOC had maybe had its day, but I hope this year has dispelled that. From my point of view we’ve put on some really sweet parties, and I think there are a lot of talented people coming through who’ll do good things in the ARCSOC name over the next couple of years.

  

In addition to promoting, you’ve been involved in DJing and the odd bit of political activism too (right?). Do you find these interests crossover? Promoting can be a very different skill to being involved in music in other ways, do you find both scratch the music itch or would you say they occupy different parts of your mind?

Promoting is a really gruelling world. I think it’s one of those things where maybe you’re like, ‘I love parties, how cool would it be if I could put on my own?’ But then you do it and it’s not really about the party at all, it’s about the logistics and the money. And speaking from personal experience there’s a danger this just kills the whole thing. I got to the stage a few months back where I just began to resent the idea of going out because it was becoming too much like hard work – like how you hear about cordon bleu chefs who just go home and eat microwave meals because they can’t bear to cook for themselves. The antidote I think is just getting back to the music and the love you want to build up. That’s sort of where the politics comes in. I’m under no illusions that any of my mixes are going to do much in the fight to dismantle white supremacist capitalism, but I sort of remain hopeful about the connections people make and the solidarity that can grow. During the last wave of strikes I tried to do a guerrilla party to raise some money for the UCU strike fund, but it didn’t entirely go to plan. I haven’t abandoned that dream though.

What’s your musical guilty pleasure?

No guilt whatsoever but I do maintain that “Love It When You Call” by The Feeling is a great song despite being profoundly uncool. I would say “Everybody’s Changing” by Keane but that is a genuine diamond hard classic.

What’s the last song you listened to?

“Love It When You Call” by The Feeling.

Who is your favourite producer/performer at the moment?

I want to say Sherelle or someone like that but honestly there’s this guy on Twitter who did a 12- second club mix of Zadok the Priest before the New Year and it slaps so goddamn hard. Also I’ve got to say peace out to Andy Weatherall, an absolute legend of the culture gone far too soon.

What is your go to tune to bring a party up/banger?

J. S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Failing that, all 16 minutes of Cerrone’s “Love in C Minor”.

What was the best party you’ve played?

I once finished up a Queens’ bop with “At Last” by Etta James and people came up to me on the decks in actual tears. That was a fun set. I played this house party over by Jesus Green last term, which was great because it vindicated my habit of always carrying around a USB full of songs in the hope of being invited to play around on someone else’s controller.

What’s coming up for you in the future?

The last thing was Queens’ bop last Friday, but ARCSOC Cabaret at Junction is on Saturday 29th. In the meantime I’ll be working tirelessly on my diss, and singing a selection of classic strike songs on every picket I can find until Corporation Cambridge is brought crumpling to its knees.

Kid Cowboy's Tracklist:

Roxy Music – Love Is the Drug

Cristina – Disco Clone

Vicious Pink – Cccan’t You See (French Extended Mix)

Mark Imperial – J’adore danser

Art On 45 – Royal Family and The Poor

The Children – Freedom

Steve “Silk” Hurley – Jack Your Body (Original Club Mix)

Shura – religion (u can lay your hands on me) [Gabe Gurnsey Dub]

Gang of Four – To Hell With Poverty (The Loaded Remix)

Cher – Take Me Home

Blurt – Puppeteer

The Hood – Salvation! (Nitromix)

Kariya – Let Me Love You for Tonight (House Club Version)

Dolly Parton – Potential New Boyfriend

David Bowie – Fashion

Marcel King – Reach for Love (New York Remix)

Streetlife – Act On Instinct (Hot Swedish Mix)

House People – Godfather of House

Raze – Break 4 Love (Extended Mix)