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| quote: | Originally posted by DJ RANN
I actually remember J00f playing tiny venues (and I'll say him talking about playing turnmills as some underground value is a rehash of history as he didn't make that grade for a long time in the circuit. That was one of the biggest clubs in the south and the main floor (trance on Saturdays, hard house on Sundays) was 1000+ people, with people like Oakenfold and Tall Paul regularly headlining).
Some were basically glorified squats in dingy parts of north or west london. Great times, but honestly j00f struggled to get out of that lower circuit; there was nothing really apart from a novelty name (they always spelled out john "00" Fleming in those days) and there were several other guys killing it production and DJ wise, especially when the dutch sound exploded in to the trance scene.
I honestly think a lot of John's eventual success was just plain perseverance where a lot of guys just quit as the scene died or evolved and he just kept playing "that" trance in smaller venues. I remember guys that were actually doing better than him on the circuit just eventually packing it in as they were never going to make it all the way as things consolidated with the death of superclubs in 00's and the rise of ASOT etc. He was kind of the last man standing in a way and his recent stature was really a result of hanging in there while endlessly promising a return to a glory of former years.
I will say if anyone has the right to profess that, it's him - some of those venues were literally 80 people in a dark room with a strobe or disused railway arches, and he kept plugging away.
I'm not sure if the Armin link now serves two purposes; it gives J00f a bigger platform to finally cash in (he must be tired of it all by now) and it somewhat gives Armin some credibility from a DJ that's actually playing something that resembles the music that Armin came up on but long abandoned in the pursuit of money.
Those defending Armin on a creative basis (i.e. clown that makes kids laugh) need to wake up; You just likened him to a clown. The guy's a lawyer, in charge of a massive entertainment corporation> sure he might get a kick out of a massive crowd, but there's no way a guy that made the tracks he did, DJ'd and lived through a scene that we had in the 90's actually thinks anything coming out of his ASOT speakers now isn't complete tripe.
It's valuable tripe in terms of income. But It's tripe. |
Apologies DJ Rann (I like how auto correct turns this to DJ Rant) , we must be very close friends that speak every week as you are talking on my behalf, but I don’t recall ever speaking to you once?
Let me refresh your memory of when I was resident at the legendary Zap club in Brighton for 8 years (1500 capacity) with Techno legends Dave Clarke and Eric Powell. At the same time resident at Sterns in Sussex (3000 capacity) and The Manor in Bournemouth (2500 capacity). In fact I held a handful of residencies at the same time, Bagley’s films studios every Friday in London (4000 capacity), Sunny side up at SW1 London (1800 Capacity), World dance club Angel London (1000), Colosseum London (2500), when signed to React records was resident weekly at their Wildlife nights each week at the legendary Heaven London (2500), then every other weekend at Trade Turnmills, London (1800 Capacity), Return to the source, Peach, Camden Palace and the list is endless.
I don’t ever recall playing at dingy squat parties in London, because I didn’t have time. That was probably due to my career expanding when the legendary Golden club made me resident in the Midlands, the same promoter ran Cream in Liverpool, so I was there once a month. Same story at Gatecrasher. Oh lets not forget my long residency at Gods Kitchen, I also compiled and mixed all their mix compilations, but never put my name to them.
International was same story, resident for Spundae at 1015 San Francisco and LA (club now called Avalon), and every month at Government Toronto (9,000 capacity). The list goes on.
That was probably something to do with me selling over 10 million mix compilations?
Yes I made this tone sarcastic, only to highlight that most of you here are second guessing whats going on and creating the now famous term fake news. Instead of contributing and rebuilding the Trance scene, you are contributing to the demise of the genre by being keyboard warriors and policing this forum and pointing the finger of blame. I personally know a handful of legendary producers that have given up due to forums like this because they couldn’t handle all the fake stuff going on. So there’s your contribution to the scene right there. Somehow I’ve learned to hardened up to it.
Armin isn’t responsible for fixing the scene, we all are. But it can’t be done by armchair forum police puling people down. I’ve been so close to leaving Trance many times because of this, it's a horrible eviroment especially here and why no DJs come here anymore and its slowly becoming a ghost town.
Trance is currently very healthy and growing in size, theres a massive underground scene thriving you just need to find it, I’ve been investing a lot of time meetings with Beatport, DJ mag, festival promoters, producers and they all identify this too and are looking to support it.
If you spent time researching, instead of being lost in your own bubble here, you’ll all find it and contribute and enjoying. But your negativity’s has created this lonely ghost town, a quick read through topics only highlights none of you see what we are seeing, hence why you are disconnected with reality…just like DJ Rann was with my history.
Finally for the record. I’ve been very good friends with Armin for well over 20 years. Its not suddenly a new thing. Same story with many other DJs from various genres.
Last edited by John 00 Fleming on Feb-28-2018 at 13:41
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