International news_Skrufff_31th May 2005

Pete Tong's Chaos Theory

1 programming any tracks before he DJs, even refraining from selecting his very first track until just moments before he begins his sets.

"I've only ever planned a set on a couple of occasions and both times it was a disaster," the Radio 1 tastemaker told the Observer, "Besides, what 's the fun in that (planning)? It's always about what comes next. It's about picking the right records and playing them in the right order."

His approach differed slightly from that of techno legend Jeff Mills who told Skrufff recently he always knows exactly how he's going to start each set.

"There's always a little preparation, typically I prepare the first ten minutes of the set," Jeff explained, "After that it's very much about reading the crowd and playing music or showing images based on what I see which I find interesting at that precise moment in time."

Breaks star/ Fabric resident Meat Katie, however, takes an entirely different approach, he told Skrufff last month suggesting 'you can't turn up and play cold and expect it to be blinding, you can't.'

"You have to do some preparation, if you didn't have to do the preparation everyone could just be doing it," he insisted. "I do a lot of re-edits, I rework all my tracks and I do a lot of post-production on tracks before I take them out and DJ. I've got a massive selection of tracks that I play and I chop up and rework into how I want to play them that night. I make a conscious effort to plan ahead. I go the extra mile for my DJing," he stressed.
(Jonty Skrufff / Skrufff.com)