Pirate Snoop - A talk with Dj Snoopoid

Snoopoid is a German born Dj and Event Organizer from the area around Frankfurt in Germany, mainly influenced by the end 80s Acid House- /early 90s Rave.
He held his first residency in a small club called "New Time" near Wiesbaden at the age of 15 (1992) and after moving to Bavaria in 1996 he started the famous "Frankfurt Hardbeat Night"-Events in a club called "Baghira" in the interior of munich.

Returning to Frankfurt in 2003 Snoopoid held a residency for 3 years in the amazing "Moal Bar Lounge" in Offenbach in 2006 he established the "Monchichi Club" and the "UMM - Underground Music Movement and Also he has been one of the founders of the UNIQUE-Club Events where he played with DJs like Pascal Feos, D.Diggler, Heiko MSO, Frank Leicher, Matt Star, Franksen and many more.

Ready for a change, Snoopoid moved to Koh Phangan Island where he lives and works until now. Here he is playing on Parties like Jungle Experience, Sramanora Waterfall in Baan Tai, Backyard, Kangaroo Bar, Mellow Mountain in Haad Rin and and at Pirates Bar in Haad Chao Phao near Haad Yao, where he is Resident DJ together with Venus Vibes and Peter G.

Hi Marius. Thank you for making this interview.
How and when have you decided to become a DJ?
I started Djing in 1992 (when I was 15 years old) in a small club called “New Time” near Frankfurt am Main.

The resident DJ there left, so they were looking for a replacement. Back then I played music from KLF, EMF, Depeche Mode and so on.  I didn’t know much about the business when I started and mainly I just changed CDs, but as my passion grew I improved my mixing and finally got my first pair of turntables in 1995.

Why did you choose the name Snoopoid as your DJ name?
Well, my nickname has always been Snoopy as long as I can remember.
We all had our big Rave times in the early/ middle 90s and we all tried to be pretty individual regarding DJ names and as I have been a bit paranoid on some afterparties for some strange reasons so the result was clear. Snoopoid.

What is your style of music and who are you influenced by?
I have been mainly influenced by the end 80s Acid House- /early 90s Rave-Wave plus Artists like Bobby Konders, Ron Trent, Kevin Saunderson, Sven Väth and DJ Dag.
Also I have been really mad about Electro in the middle 90s. For a period of 3 years I didn’t play anything else. “2 lone swordsman”, “Depth Charge”, “Mekkon” and many more made such good music.

Also I really do love the slower genres like Downbeat, Ambient and Trip-Hop of course. There is so much good and far too underrated music out there and I think people should be a little bit more open minded again concerning different styles of music. It is true that electronic dance music went commercial somehow, which is ok as it reaches more and more people. But it is also true that because of this fact, the music itself lost a bit of its diversity.

15 years ago you went into a club to hear a certain DJ because everyone had his own style, own tracks and own build up for a set. Nowadays it doesn’t make a big difference anymore if DJ X, Y or Z is playing as most of them are pretty much identical with the choice of tracks (Exceptions to be made- don’t get me wrong!).

The DJs should try to start and “educate” their audience again and not just download and play the top 10 beatport charts.

Also we have this discussion going on within the scene between “DJs” (Discjockeys) and “CJs” (Computerjockeys), which I find is totally nonsense. I have been playing vinyl for over 15 years and I think I don’t have to prove my skills on this anymore. Playing with CDs was and will never be my thing and as there aren’t any turntables in the venues around (plus no recordshops)

I skipped this step and went straight to the laptop. Its just the normal technological progress. Its much more comfortable to build a proper set, your entertaining possibilities are nearly endless but still you gotta know your tracks and songs. Even if the mix is perfect, the choice of the content is what the people makes dance and not the fact that you are playing by Laptop, CDjs or whatsoever. In 5 years time nobody will care about it anyway, and yes, I DO LOVE VINYL more than anything else, but I just don’t have the possibilities here to supply myself with the records I want or need and carrying a 30kg bag of records through the jungle or across the beach with tropical temperatures is not that much fun either.

When did you first arrive to Koh Phangan?
I first arrived on Koh Phangan in 2008. I would say it was a typical “burnout-findparadise -fall in love with it and stay”-story. I owned a advertising company in Germany back in those days. So I stayed here for a 4 week holiday returned to Germany, sold everything and went to Phangan for living.

What you think about Koh Phangan music scene?
The phangan music scene is quite a difficult one I have to say. You gotta understand that the people that come here are not necessarily electronic music lovers. Of course they want to visit parties and for sure they do agree on house music but it’s gotta be a bit more commercial then if you play in a “true” club in Europe or Germany for example.

The music here has finally changed from psytrance to “regular” electronic music which was only a question of time from my point of view – things just take a little bit more time here, which is not too bad. So where does it go from here? I believe Phangans musical evolution has just begun and there is plenty more to come. People are getting pretty creative concerning party venues, like the Loi Lay Floating Bar. Nice idea, solid concept.

Good to see that things like this are still possible on Phangan. Tourism and People are changing constantly and I can just hope for this beautiful island that it won’t end up like Samui for example. The mass tourism over there has ruined the whole infrastructure and ambience. With an airport to come, more and more tourism alongside with it and even more money involved, I cant really say how the scene/ the island will look like within the next 5 years. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope the best for it!