DJ ULYSSES and the Italo Zeitgeist

A special treat for Italo and Electro music fans alike. Fakebeat's Mike Dextro has a long overdue sit-down with DJ Ulysses, an old friend, and New York dance music innovator since 1991. His NYC events Warm Up and Regressive Technologies are legendary, and his name is well known in dance music circles overseas after numerous releases and appearances in cities like Hong Kong, Berlin, and Paris. Ulysses has DJ'd alongside the likes of Arthur Baker, Mark Kamins, Alexander Robotnick, Miss Kitten and the Hacker, Ectomorph, Perspects, Adult, John Selway, DJ Unknown of Fisherspooner, Tommie Sunshine, I-F, and the Scissor Sisters. Dextro (aka Mikers from Rikers) pals around with Ulysses hitting on music old and new, his two labels, the state of New York music culture, and randomly enough Ulysses' personal opinion on topics such as trepenation and Paula Abdul music videos. Enjoy.

Miker: I was introduced to you in a long line outside MOMA PS 1 in Queens for their Summer Saturday Warm Up dance party in 2001. This is back when you promoted your Regressive parties.  You were with Inter-Ferenc, also known as I-F, founder of the Cybernetic Broadcast System and exposed me and New York City to Italo Disco.  How did you meet Ferenc?

Ulysses: I think I just contacted him out of the blue because I was doing the monthly at FUN.  I sat down with the Manager one night and brainstormed about who we wanted to bring to DJ, so I tracked I-F down through his website. 

Miker: Today, with new artists like Skatebård, CFCF and Kris Menace, do you feel you've influenced the international underground community to produce more Italo?

Ulysses: I think it was more that I was part of a Zeitgeist, and we were taking things to a logical conclusion.  Guys like Ferenc and I and a bunch of other artists we were into at the time were just finding old records and playing them. Some people were already making Italo influenced music, but not that many, then several years later a few others picked up on it.  I remember I was doing that sort of thing, and [John] Selway was doing that sort of thing.  A lot of other people in town were doing similar things, and that kind of critical mass has it's influences beyond one single artist. 

Miker: Would you classify what people were making Electroclash?

 

Ulysses: Well some of those people were considered Electroclash. In the beginning a lot of people were doing stuff that was kindred to what we were doing, even though it wasn't strictly Italo based or influenced.  Guys in Chicago like Tommie Sunshine. He was doing that when he was living there. The whole Ersatz Audio crew also had this retro electronic music outlook that we thought complimented what we were doing, even though it's gone in a different direction.  Adult, Perspects, Ectomorph even. The guys from Intuit-Solar were into that stuff too. There were people from various networks that were aware of where this music was popular originally.  Italo in the US really only penetrated New York, Chicago, Detroit, maybe LA and Miami.  It bubbled up 20 years later when people started paying more attention to the music. 

Miker: Do you think it's more popular now?

Ulysses: If you think about it in the strict sense, it's not more popular now, it's more that it's less 'new' to do this sort of thing.  There are certain songs that got big, like lets say Felix Da Housecat, where he sampled songs on all these Italo disco records per Tommie Sunshine's suggestions.  Or even nowadays, you have Justice, who's big hit is nothing more than an edit of an Italo disco song. 

Miker: Which one is that?

Ulysses: Phantom?


Miker: Really? I thought that was off a horror movie.

 

Ulysses: Yeah. An Italian horror movie from the early 80s.  Produced by the same guy who did Capricorn.  This Italian band called Goblin.  It was all Claudio Simonetti. He was the brains. He was the composer and he also produced Italo and this particular song was on the soundtrack, which was popular enough because it was released on a 12". In that sense, it's a pretty big selling song, but I don't think people are listening to it because it was Italo Disco.  I think people were listening to it because it comes from a hyped French record Label.

Miker: What is your production setup like these days?

Ulysses: Lately I've been collecting percussive instruments.  Stuff like tambourines, shakers and....

Miker: Cowbells?

Ulysses: No cowbell yet. I'm Looking for the right one.  I want to get an old cowbell. I don't want to buy a new one. I want one that's all beat up and bent.  You know? 

Miker: Yeah something that has that nice old warm something about it. 

Ulysses: I want to get one of those boards that's covered in seashells that you shake that makes a shaker noise.  I have a carved wooden frog that makes an interesting noise.  Just random shit.  I have a couple of outboard synths. I have a Korg Poly-800 and a Yamaha TX-81Z.  I run it all through a Soundcraft FX 8 [Mixer], that has a built in Lexicon effects box. I either use Logic Platinum or Live, and a variety of software synths, with Event 2020's for monitors, and a MOTU 2408 interface [for recording]. 

Miker: You are in the Neurotic Drum Band. What is it like working with John Selway?

Ulysses: It's great! John really knows what he's doing.  I often have very specific musical ideas, and he can actually make them sound the way they sound in my head.  One thing about my own music, is that I'm a pretty poor mimic.  I have some ideas in my head, or I hear something I like and I'll try to replicate it, but I'm usually really bad at that. That's fine because the end result is something interesting and I'll go in a new direction.  But with John, I'll say lets make this like an 80s electro record, and he'll make it sound like an 80s electro record.  He's got the right ear and know how to make the right sounding melody, or use the right kind of synth sounds. 


Miker: Are you guys working on new stuff?

Ulysses: We have an EP coming out on Abe Duque records...no idea when....we just finished it up.  That should be out within the year.  Otherwise, we've been slowly collecting songs for an album release and have been shopping around a few other things as well. 


Miker: You run two record labels.  Scatalogics and Sodium.  right?

Ulysses: MmmHmm.


Miker: Does eating poop and sodium together increase human consciousness?

Ulysses: Actually, is not a corprophilia reference.

Miker: No?

Ulysses: It's sort of a joke of those pseudo-scientific names that were around when I first started DJing and throwing parties.

Miker: Like Breakbeat Science?

Ulysses: Yeah and Physics and Logics and all that kind of stuff. It sounded like a word.

Miker: It almost sounds like the science of skatting.

Ulysses: Right, well Scatology is the study of fossilized excrement...


Miker: Right.

Ulysses: ...which is uh, you know, interesting to be grouped with. 


Miker: Yeah, but to me, it sounds like skatting, like MC Skat Cat and Paula Abdul. 

Ulysses: What did Paula Abdul have?


Miker: Well she did that song with that cartoon cat. 

Ulysses: Oh that's right. I had blocked that from my consciousness, but now you've reminded me.

Miker: I think now is a really good time to bring back 90's guilty pleasures more than, I guess, 80's.


Ulysses: I don't know if MC Scat Kat is really a pleasure.

Miker: Hey! I was young! I was just starting to buy tapes, and was impressed that she could sing and dance with a cartoon who has his own album and tries to bang her. 

Ulysses: So, why don't we bring back New Jack Swing? Teddy Riley could always use more work.

Miker: Yes!!  So is there a difference in sounds that you are aiming for with both labels?

Ulysses: Somewhat. Scatalogics is more about the music happening in and around New York, and all the stuff that influenced the music me and my friends play.  Sodium is a bit more worldwide in scope, because my partner brings his own connections out in Paris. So it's more of a French/American club sound meeting on similar ground. Our musical tastes converge in such a way that we become influenced by the same things. The soul and funk of the US, with the mechanical precision of Europe. 

Miker: A lot of American people think Parisian people are rude.  Is your silent partner like that?

Ulysses: So do a lot of the rest of France. He's not originally from Paris though. 

Miker: Do you believe Trepanation increases consciousness?

Ulysses: No. I believe it increases infection.

Miker: Do you understand how I came up with that question? Because I have no fucking idea. 


Ulysses: I don't know, you were looking for some kind of medical term for drilling poop down the hole in your skull?

Miker: ...who knows?  What countries have you visited to DJ lately?


Ulysses: I played in Korea over New Years. Before that, I was in Spain, Germany, Austria, Scotland, and France. 

Miker: Why do you play more in Europe than you do in the US?

Ulysses: Because there's less of a market for dance music in the US, and people aren't as willing to pay money to fly somebody out to play. There's also less money to be earned by doing so here.  Mostly, I think it's because dance music has always been a small fragment of the nightclub industry in the US, in terms of what appeals in the mainstream. Dance music appeals to a limited number of people [in the US], and there's only so many people to go around.  There are more DJ's than there are gigs here.  In Europe, where there's a lot more money to be earned to be doing it, there is a lot more demand, and they are a lot more willing to fly you out and book you.  They also have a better understanding of the celebrity of the record label's that artists have recorded for.  So, in the US, Carl Craig is famous, but if you have a record on Planet E, his label, there is no guarantee you'll get a gig.  In Europe, Carl is famous, and because you've recorded for Planet E, chances are you can get a gig too, because they think it's relevant.   I've recorded on a variety of popular European record labels, and that is all the proof they need.

Miker: What about tapping into a younger demographic by playing at towns in the US? Doesn't that develop a young fan base?

Ulysses: It might, but it depends on what they're doing for entertainment.  They're probably not going to nightclubs.  They may rely on the radio, or word of mouth.  If word mouth from their friends has them listening to dance artists, maybe they'll go to nightclubs and track them down.   But, I don't know, I'm not young anymore.  I don't know what interests these people.  I'm tired of telling them to get off my lawn.

Miker: What is your favorite city to DJ?

 

Ulysses: Hard question.  I'd still say Berlin. It sounds corny to say so, because that's where everyone and their mother has moved to DJ, but they do have the best audiences.  People come out in big numbers.  I also like places like Chicago and Detroit, because of the same reason.  They still care. I think New Yorkers are too caught up in looking good than really paying attention to the atmosphere.  It's more a hyperbole, than substance.  Whereas [in cities other than NYC], there are some people who feel that way, but for the most part people are less concerned about [appearances].  They're more interested in the music itself and they really know how to have a good time, without being so self conscious. 

Miker: Yeah but we live in New York, and the first things happen here for those particular reasons.  People get sick of things quickly and are hungry for the next big thing.


Ulysses:  It wasn't always like that.  Back in the 80's when some of the music I was playing was new, everything that was happening then was because of people who grew up in New York.  That attracted a lot of peexclusion of everything else. 

Miker: What do you mean?

 

Ulysses: Like, if you were doing Hip-Hop in the 70's that was kind of like because you had no place to go.  If you were playing block parties and people were having a good time and dancing and it was an escape from whatever you were having to deal with...Hip-Hop might not be the best example. Lets say you like Drum ople from out of town to then come out and try to be a part of it.  It's been going on for a while, since the whole 60's and folk music thing in Greenwich Village, when the people from the area had no other place to go, so they did what they were interested in where they lived originally.  These days people just think that New York is a big magnet for talent, that people are going to come and try things out.  You don't have the same foundation that you might have had in the past, because in the past, you had people from here doing things that they liked, and their friends liked, and their friends friends liked.  Now, you have more people from out of town trying to do what they do and seeing if it sticks.  Some things do, and then get popular, at then Bass, so you play Drum n Bass, and you go to NYC to play DnB because NYC is this big magnet for dance music. Maybe the only people here who like [Drum n Bass] are a few english expatriates, so it becomes a new thing. It gets popular, and some people pay attention to it. It gets hyped for a little while, then after people get tired of it, it dies down.  I don't hear of that happening as much anymore.
Miker: Well, the DnB guys I hear are doing B-more, grime, dubstep whatever. I found an old tune of mine that was just a 115 BPM and added the 5 to the floor and threw on a side chain bass synth because that's all I hear.  Seems to be a trend in drums in electronic music, and particularly bass lines nowadays, specific kind of singing, and now rapping is sort of the thing.


Ulysses: I think that whole scene is in the same situation, where a bunch of people who heard people doing house in Baltimore, and said "that sounds cool. I'm going to do it here".  They get a couple of people interested, it gets trendy and good, and people will move to it, move on and forget about it. 

Miker:  What do you think electronic dance music will sound like in 10 years?

Ulysses: In 10 years there might not be any electronic dance music. 

Miker: You don't think so?

Ulysses: Who says there has to be?  If it didn't exist 20 years ago.  Why is it going to exist 10 years from now? 

Miker: Trooooooo

 
Download Ulysses - Toucan (demo mix)
Toucandemomix.mp3