international news _ 16th October, 2006
Hard House’s Even Harder Dance Awards
Text by Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)
Hard dance hedonist Ed Real chatted to Skrufff this week about the upcoming
annual Hard Dance awards and insisted the much maligned genre is ‘after a
tough and sometimes traumatic adolescence, flowering’.
“The hard dance melting pot in 2006 includes; techno, trance, electro,
hardcore and psy influences which makes for a really interesting DJ set if
you're an adventurous spinner,” said Ed, ‘The boundaries are blurred now and
it's an exciting time.”
The physically imposing renowned party animal also insisted hard dance fans
are no harder than those of other genres though conceded some of the DJs and
producers could occasionally step out of line.
“Ours is one of the most friendliest of scenes in terms of vibe and
interaction between artists and fans, though there are certainly a few
characters though who have had episodes that they'd rather forget in a
physical sense,” said Ed, “But unfortunately I'd probably get my head kicked
in if I mentioned any names.”
“Needless to say after a weekend working the decks and driving up and down
the highways and byways of the UK it'd be fair to assume that most spinners
get a little tired and tetchy. Late nights and overindulgence sometimes
brings out the worst in people. It's a fact of life,” he said.
He also insisted few in the scene begrudge the large numbers of hard dance
DJs developing parallel careers in breaks or electro, declaring ‘dance music
has gone dirty in 2006 and naturally leaders in our scene are turned on by
anything with some bollocks. Hence the attraction of the new crop of electro
house, breaks (or drum & bass in my case) to our ears.’
“It takes real dedication and perseverance to get any kind of DJ work and to
cross boundaries and play events in another genre is even harder to achieve
because of the tribalism associated with dance culture,” Ed added.
“But this also brings back new ideas and sounds to the hard dance melting
pot which can only be a good thing. I've been dancing to 'hard dance' since
Final Frontier at Club UK in 1993 and will no doubt be doing so in 2013.
It'd be a boring world if everything stayed the same,” he concluded.
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