A Night with Graham Gold and Some Honest Advice

Phanganist catches up with our good friend Graham Gold to talk about his new night at Phanganist Hostel and his legendary career in the industry...

Hi Graham, how was your New Year here on Koh Phangan?
Well New Year seems so far away now! Had an awesome NYE at Samsara-was brilliant and the set btw is up on my ">Mixcloud site. It's a bit different as I lightened it up a bit with some disco remakes as was NYE after all! Got some good sleep before heading back to Haad Rin to get a boat in those dangerous waves-almost didn’t go. And wish I hadn’t. The waves slammed the Macbook Pro down onto the bench in the boat and damaged the drive, and it crashed 3 times during start up at Guys Bar, which I had been so looking forward to playing and it was busy.

So I was screwed!  It’s the only place where I play off laptop! Luckily Joe Rickard was on hand to play my set but I hated missing out.. Then it was onto backyard later in the night and was good to have Roni Kush dancing all the way through my set! Wasn’t so busy but was fun!
 
And what were your highlights from 2016?
Getting engaged, another great tour back in Europe, going to the Hacienda Classics event at the Royal Albert Hall and getting huge goose bumps and even tears when the Manchester Symphony Orchestra played Strings Of Life and Promised Land!  

Joining ThaiVisa Radio 1 and putting together the Big Weekend in which meant signing Gods like Todd Terry, Roger Sanchez , Paul van Dyk and Ferry Corsten to the station, and also presenting a daily weekday show, finding out my weekly Esta La Musica show gets a quarter of a million people listening across all the networks, joining Moon Island records alongside Rob Gritton, Listening to virtually all of Carl Cox’s closing set at Space, (even though I wasn’t physically there - which was a right fucker cos I should have gone!) - upgrading to Ableton Live 9 Suite and finishing some productions I could actually be proud of! Oh and I thought it was a shit year but when I see it like that - not too bad!

Tell us what direction you're going with music at the present moment?
I only play what I love, like is not enough - could be Deep, could be Techno, could be Funky, could be Tribal, could actually have some words in it as well, you know, like a SONG!

I want to be making tough melodic Techno, but not dull not boring, not something that peeps just stand about to, but REALLY move to, you know as in actually DANCING!

And although that’s what I want to produce, I still couldn’t play a whole set of it - well I would if it was just an hour - but House music is this huge umbrella isn’t it, there is so much awesome music across all its subgenres!

You're starting a weekly event with Phanganist Hostel on Wednesday the 1st of Feb'A Night with Graham Gold’, what can we expect from this?
I think DIVERSE is the word. It would be great if peeps came at 9 and stayed till 2am, then I could really do a ‘journey thing’ but that probably won’t happen. So we will play each week by ear, see who comes, see what they are into - let’s just make a good party!

What do you think of what we've done here so far?
Good!!! I came last week and listened to Rob, It’s such a great easy to get to location and right in the middle of everything.

Inside looks nice, clean and CHEAP - cheap is good! I don’t mean it LOOKS cheap, I mean the bar prices (and the beds) are cheap!   

And the swimming pool will be great when the sun finally will come out - a perfect Songkran place methinks!

So what will be your main projects for this year?
This year, we are on course to sell out Peach on Easter Thursday at Koko in London, getting the show to an even bigger audience and producing more and more!

No big plans, let’s see what happens!

And what are you doing when you get free time?
Free time does not seem to be in abundance even though I don’t play out every week, but late evenings watching some TV like Designated Survivor, House Of Cards, Homelands! I MUST get back to the gym, not been since my carpal tunnel op last summer, I miss it!

You've had an amazing career as a DJ, one only people dream of, what would be your advice to DJ's wanting to make it?
Yes It was incredible, and of course a huge part of me wishes it was still the same but it’s not so, life moves on!!  

Advice for dj’s – be inspired but don’t copy anyone, don’t rip off other people's sets track by track, Shazam tracks you like if you hear them out at a party - buy them and then listen to ‘people who bought this bought that’ it will constantly evolve your world into new producers, and that IS the fucking point isn’t it!

Cause I don’t care what you say NO ONE can know every great track out there, it is physically impossible unless you SIT ON YOUR PC FOR 24 HOURS A DAY AND SEARCH EVERY SITE THAT SELLS NEW MUSIC.

And you know what, even if you did, you still would not hear everything! Do NOT play for free. Learn to play on CDJ’s, have aspirations - what’s the point in being a big fish in a little tiny itsy bitsy pond when there are oceans out there, produce music, even if that means going to college and taking Music Tech lessons, causes you will NEVER make it without producing – FACT!

And sorry, but don’t take drugs, at least when you are playing!!! Can’t think of anything worse than watching a DJ so fucked he hasn’t got  a clue what he’s doing.

And sum up your DJ life in 5 words for us....
Fulfilled, exciting, mind blowing, magical awesomeness

Keep your eye on our events listings for the announcement of ‘A Night with Graham Gold’ at Phanganist Hostel!