Paul Van Dyk was born in Eisenhuettenstadt in East Germany in 1971. He grew up in communist East Berlin, but had a keen interest in music from an early age and used to listen to house music on radio stations broadcasting from the other side of the Berlin Wall.
When the Wall finally came down in 1989, an underground club culture quickly evolved in Berlin and Paul started DJing around the city in clubs like Tresor.
He began producing his own records in 1992 - his first release was a collacoration with Cosmic Baby under the Visions Of Shiva monica (available on Transformed From Beyond).
Paul first achieved mass acclaim with his remix of Humate's "Love Stimulation" which was a big club smash in 1993. Paul went on to remix many renowned artists such New Order, Sven Vath and Tori Amos (on BT's "Blue Skies").
The release of Pauls second album "Seven Ways" really brought his music to the masses. It was very well received by music critics across Europe and sold by the bucketful, assisted it's big singles "Beautiful Place", "Forbidden Fruit" and "Words".
At the same time as producing some of the most melodic and exciting trance around, he was also gaining a reputation of being THE DJ to see live.
1998 saw him release one of the all-time great trance classics in For An Angel which went on to chart highly.
In the same year he remixed Blank & Jones' "Cream" and Binary Finary's "1998", both huge tracks in clubs all over Europe.
in 1999 Paul won a plethora of awards including Best International DJ by both Ministry Of Sound magazine and the 1999 Music Awards in London. He was also names Mixmag's Man Of The Year.
Paul released his third album "Out There and Back" in 2000 which was also gratefully received by an adoring public.
He released his fouth album, Reflections, in 2003 and the first single from the album "Nothing But You" was a massive hit across Europe with it's evocative Norwegian vocals.
Paul continues to DJ and record and is still one of the biggest names in dance music.
Aliases: Visions Of Shiva
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
The Roots of Nirvana
No band develops in a vacuum; every band starts out thinking, at least a bit, of other musicians that they want to take after or rebel against. But Nirvana was the first great band of actual music snobs: record fiends who wanted to make it very clear exactly what they listened to. They all loved Led Zep and Aerosmith and CCR and Black Sabbath and Kiss and then some more Led Zep on top of that. Mostly, though, Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic had grown up as Pacific Northwest punk rock kids. They hung out with the Melvins in Aberdeen, Washington, were required by circumstance to define their position with respect to K Records and the Olympia scene and carried Flipper and Bad Brains records like shields to ward off poseurs. (Dave Grohl had a roughly equivalent experience growing up in the DC area.) When they hit the big time, they covered their favorite bands, got them to open for Nirvana, wore their T-shirts every chance they got. Kurt even oversaw reissues of his beloved Raincoats' lost work.
In case there was any ambiguity left about who Nirvana considered their ancestors, it's all laid out in Kurt's Journals -- the scribblings of an inveterate listmaker who clearly loved even writing the names of his favorite records, like talismans of good luck and good punk rock karma. Certain discs turn up again and again in Kurt's pantheons of music: some are multiplatinum warhorses (Meet the Beatles, Aerosmith's Rocks), others are hopelessly obscure (Fang's Land Shark, the self-titled Tales of Terror album). Most of them, though, are remarkable American indie-rock and hardcore albums from the '80s, with a few artier European post-punk records and the inevitable Leadbelly album thrown in. They're worth investigating for anyone who loves Nirvana: these are not just the raw materials Cobain and Novoselic and Grohl transmuted into gold, they're what the band aspired to.
The Best Of Leadbelly
Artist: Lead Belly
Release Date: 2003
When Nirvana played their wrenching cover of Leadbelly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" (a.k.a. "In the Pines") on MTV Unplugged, it looked like an unexpected gesture toward the blues blood that still courses so powerfully through rock's veins. Actually, though, Kurt doesn't seem to have been so into vintage blues in general -- he just loved Leadbelly obsessively (and had previously recorded four Leadbelly songs with Screaming Trees' Mark Lanegan). This collection is a solid introduction to the "King of the Twelve-String Guitar," a roaring ex-con who miraculously pulled joyful music out of his personal horrors.
Surfer Rosa / Come On Pilgrim
Artist: The Pixies
Release Date: 1988
Kurt called this 1988 album "a die-cast metal fossil from a spacecraft," and some of the Pixies' favorite tricks -- endlessly looping riffs that had never quite been used before, tense clean-toned verses that bloom into explosive, distorted choruses -- showed up on Nevermind a few years later. Steve Albini's drumstick-to-your-skull engineering work here pretty obviously inspired Nirvana to hire him for In Utero, too. But most of what Nirvana got from the Pixies was an attitude: the sense of being off-balance and screaming while keeping one foot in tightly controlled structure.
Over The Edge
Artist: Wipers
Release Date: 1983
Kurt's "Top 50" list ultimately included three albums by Portland, Oregon's Wipers: Is This Real?, Youth of America and 1983's Over the Edge. Singer-guitar monster Greg Sage's band was ferociously chugging and deeply into its own alienation -- and operated independently of the music-business machine -- years before anyone else in the Pacific Northwest caught on to their techniques. Nirvana and Hole both eventually covered Wipers songs; "So Young," from this album, could very easily be mistaken for a Cobain original.
Singles 1-12
Artist: Melvins
Release Date: 1997
If you were a punk rock kid in Aberdeen, Washington in the mid-'80s, the Melvins were IT: they spiked their hardcore with brutal metal, they could play scorchingly fast or tortuously slow, they got to play in Olympia and Seattle and their practice space was the locus of the local punk scene. They also had a knack for doing screwed-up things on their recordings, and the 1996 series of singles collected here is classic Melvins -- tributes to the Germs, Flipper and Butthole Surfers, corrosive audio experiments and straight-up blasts of the grunge style they helped to invent.
Jamboree
Artist: Beat Happening
Release Date: 1988
In some ways, Kurt never quite fit in with Olympia's K Records, their flagship band Beat Happening and the "love-rock" scene around them -- too much tummy-rubbing, not enough gut-punch -- but he loved it enough that he got the K logo tattooed on his left arm, and its fascination with childhood fed his own. 1988's Jamboree, evidently his favorite Beat Happening record, is half pastel nostalgia, half savage dread, a la-la pop album that collapses into a puddle of screeching noise at the end.
Bayou Country
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Release Date: 1969
Like a lot of other punk bands, Nirvana adored classic rock; unlike most of their peers, they embraced it -- one of Cobain and Novoselic's first attempts to play music together was a Creedence cover band. Kurt cited this 1969 album as a favorite of his, and you can hear a lot of John Fogerty's throaty bellow on "Born on the Bayou" in the way he taught himself to sing; you can also hear how Creedence's sturdy chording and simple melodies resurfaced in Nirvana's music. What Nirvana might also have picked up from Creedence, though, was the art of self-reinvention and presentation: remember, Fogerty's really a Cali kid, not a bayou native.
LiliPUT
Artist: Kleenex / LiliPUT
Release Date: 2003
"Anything by Kleenex" was the way Kurt usually put it on his lists of favorite records. The young Swiss women who recorded first as Kleenex and then as LiLiPUT between 1978 and 1983 had a garbled discography, and this compilation of everything by them didn't appear in the US until 2001. So start with their delirious, glorious singles "Split," "Ain't You" and "Eisiger Wind," full of shrieks and chirps, and powered by the rhythms of people who are determined to play their way and nobody else's.
Kill Rock Stars
Artist: Various Artists - Kill Rock Stars
Release Date: 2003
In the summer of 1991, Nirvana were just another well-loved Washington band, and the other bands compiled here -- on the anthology that launched the label of the same name -- were their contemporaries and scenemates: their old pals the Melvins, Bikini Kill (featuring Kurt's ex-girlfriend Tobi Vail), label owner Slim Moon's band Witchypoo, Steve Fisk (who'd recorded the Blew EP), Heavens to Betsy (with a very young Corin Tucker, later of Sleater-Kinney) and a duo of Lois Maffeo and Pat Maley that went by the name of Courtney Love -- no relation... or almost none.
Extended Play
Artist: The Raincoats
Release Date: 1995
In the liner notes of Incesticide, Kurt told the story of how he'd tracked down "that wonderfully classic scripture," the Raincoats' 1979 debut album, in England. Songwriters Ana da Silva and Gina Birch reformed the group in 1994 to open for Nirvana on the tour that never happened. They did, however, tour America, and recorded this EP for a BBC radio session: two new songs and two early favorites, performed with the sure-footed power and fresh-minded re-conception of the proper language, subject and sound for pop songs that had drawn Cobain to them in the first place.
In case there was any ambiguity left about who Nirvana considered their ancestors, it's all laid out in Kurt's Journals -- the scribblings of an inveterate listmaker who clearly loved even writing the names of his favorite records, like talismans of good luck and good punk rock karma. Certain discs turn up again and again in Kurt's pantheons of music: some are multiplatinum warhorses (Meet the Beatles, Aerosmith's Rocks), others are hopelessly obscure (Fang's Land Shark, the self-titled Tales of Terror album). Most of them, though, are remarkable American indie-rock and hardcore albums from the '80s, with a few artier European post-punk records and the inevitable Leadbelly album thrown in. They're worth investigating for anyone who loves Nirvana: these are not just the raw materials Cobain and Novoselic and Grohl transmuted into gold, they're what the band aspired to.
The Best Of Leadbelly
Artist: Lead Belly
Release Date: 2003
When Nirvana played their wrenching cover of Leadbelly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" (a.k.a. "In the Pines") on MTV Unplugged, it looked like an unexpected gesture toward the blues blood that still courses so powerfully through rock's veins. Actually, though, Kurt doesn't seem to have been so into vintage blues in general -- he just loved Leadbelly obsessively (and had previously recorded four Leadbelly songs with Screaming Trees' Mark Lanegan). This collection is a solid introduction to the "King of the Twelve-String Guitar," a roaring ex-con who miraculously pulled joyful music out of his personal horrors.
Surfer Rosa / Come On Pilgrim
Artist: The Pixies
Release Date: 1988
Kurt called this 1988 album "a die-cast metal fossil from a spacecraft," and some of the Pixies' favorite tricks -- endlessly looping riffs that had never quite been used before, tense clean-toned verses that bloom into explosive, distorted choruses -- showed up on Nevermind a few years later. Steve Albini's drumstick-to-your-skull engineering work here pretty obviously inspired Nirvana to hire him for In Utero, too. But most of what Nirvana got from the Pixies was an attitude: the sense of being off-balance and screaming while keeping one foot in tightly controlled structure.
Over The Edge
Artist: Wipers
Release Date: 1983
Kurt's "Top 50" list ultimately included three albums by Portland, Oregon's Wipers: Is This Real?, Youth of America and 1983's Over the Edge. Singer-guitar monster Greg Sage's band was ferociously chugging and deeply into its own alienation -- and operated independently of the music-business machine -- years before anyone else in the Pacific Northwest caught on to their techniques. Nirvana and Hole both eventually covered Wipers songs; "So Young," from this album, could very easily be mistaken for a Cobain original.
Singles 1-12
Artist: Melvins
Release Date: 1997
If you were a punk rock kid in Aberdeen, Washington in the mid-'80s, the Melvins were IT: they spiked their hardcore with brutal metal, they could play scorchingly fast or tortuously slow, they got to play in Olympia and Seattle and their practice space was the locus of the local punk scene. They also had a knack for doing screwed-up things on their recordings, and the 1996 series of singles collected here is classic Melvins -- tributes to the Germs, Flipper and Butthole Surfers, corrosive audio experiments and straight-up blasts of the grunge style they helped to invent.
Jamboree
Artist: Beat Happening
Release Date: 1988
In some ways, Kurt never quite fit in with Olympia's K Records, their flagship band Beat Happening and the "love-rock" scene around them -- too much tummy-rubbing, not enough gut-punch -- but he loved it enough that he got the K logo tattooed on his left arm, and its fascination with childhood fed his own. 1988's Jamboree, evidently his favorite Beat Happening record, is half pastel nostalgia, half savage dread, a la-la pop album that collapses into a puddle of screeching noise at the end.
Bayou Country
Artist: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Release Date: 1969
Like a lot of other punk bands, Nirvana adored classic rock; unlike most of their peers, they embraced it -- one of Cobain and Novoselic's first attempts to play music together was a Creedence cover band. Kurt cited this 1969 album as a favorite of his, and you can hear a lot of John Fogerty's throaty bellow on "Born on the Bayou" in the way he taught himself to sing; you can also hear how Creedence's sturdy chording and simple melodies resurfaced in Nirvana's music. What Nirvana might also have picked up from Creedence, though, was the art of self-reinvention and presentation: remember, Fogerty's really a Cali kid, not a bayou native.
LiliPUT
Artist: Kleenex / LiliPUT
Release Date: 2003
"Anything by Kleenex" was the way Kurt usually put it on his lists of favorite records. The young Swiss women who recorded first as Kleenex and then as LiLiPUT between 1978 and 1983 had a garbled discography, and this compilation of everything by them didn't appear in the US until 2001. So start with their delirious, glorious singles "Split," "Ain't You" and "Eisiger Wind," full of shrieks and chirps, and powered by the rhythms of people who are determined to play their way and nobody else's.
Kill Rock Stars
Artist: Various Artists - Kill Rock Stars
Release Date: 2003
In the summer of 1991, Nirvana were just another well-loved Washington band, and the other bands compiled here -- on the anthology that launched the label of the same name -- were their contemporaries and scenemates: their old pals the Melvins, Bikini Kill (featuring Kurt's ex-girlfriend Tobi Vail), label owner Slim Moon's band Witchypoo, Steve Fisk (who'd recorded the Blew EP), Heavens to Betsy (with a very young Corin Tucker, later of Sleater-Kinney) and a duo of Lois Maffeo and Pat Maley that went by the name of Courtney Love -- no relation... or almost none.
Extended Play
Artist: The Raincoats
Release Date: 1995
In the liner notes of Incesticide, Kurt told the story of how he'd tracked down "that wonderfully classic scripture," the Raincoats' 1979 debut album, in England. Songwriters Ana da Silva and Gina Birch reformed the group in 1994 to open for Nirvana on the tour that never happened. They did, however, tour America, and recorded this EP for a BBC radio session: two new songs and two early favorites, performed with the sure-footed power and fresh-minded re-conception of the proper language, subject and sound for pop songs that had drawn Cobain to them in the first place.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
The Verve Intellectual Property Case: A Bittersweet Example
Intellectual property's tentacles are long and strong. Maybe the largest battlefield in IP is the music industry. Composer, producers, interpreters and license owners might get unexpectedly involved in legal battles regarding the misuse or abuse of a song of their property. Sometimes it is just something as little as a sample of the song but are legal frictions can deal with millions and millions of dollars.
Time is not an issue to underestimate when dealing with Intellectual Property. If by any chance, you use a song that was written forty years ago, and one of its owners is still alive, he/she can claim unfair use and suddenly, legal lawsuits can flood your desk. When working with someone else's work, you should be extremely careful, no matter if you already got permission to use it.
In 1997, the British band The Verve sampled an orchestration in one of their songs, "Bittersweet Symphony", from the Rolling Stones' "The Last Time". Prior the release of the album, the group did the proper negotiations concerning the license agreement with the Rolling Stones to utilize the sample. When the album came out, the song was a complete hit and reached number 23 on the Billboard Charts. After the sudden success of the song, the Rolling Stones argued that The Verve violated their license agreement because they use too much of the sample in their song. The Rolling Stones ended up collecting 100% of the loyalties of the song. Members of The Verve argued that the Stones got greedy when they noticed the sudden success of "Bittersweet Symphony"
As a result, the Rolling Stones sold the rights over the "Bittersweet Symphony" and it became part of many commercials and publicities. Allen Klein, Rolling Stones' manager licensed the song to Nike and to Vauxhall automobiles. Both brands utilize the melody for multi-million dollar television campaigns. Even worse, when the song was nominated for a Grammy, The Verve was not named as a nominee, but Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were. This is just a little example of moral rights dealing with intellectual property. The song hit top of the charts and not one members of The Verve enjoyed a cent of its success.
If these types of situations happen with amazing groups, who supposedly are not interested in more money, anything can happen to regular people who may get exposed to these inconveniences. Get acquainted with the respective regulations and laws so that no economical issues may come up in case you are planning to use someone else's inspiration!
Time is not an issue to underestimate when dealing with Intellectual Property. If by any chance, you use a song that was written forty years ago, and one of its owners is still alive, he/she can claim unfair use and suddenly, legal lawsuits can flood your desk. When working with someone else's work, you should be extremely careful, no matter if you already got permission to use it.
In 1997, the British band The Verve sampled an orchestration in one of their songs, "Bittersweet Symphony", from the Rolling Stones' "The Last Time". Prior the release of the album, the group did the proper negotiations concerning the license agreement with the Rolling Stones to utilize the sample. When the album came out, the song was a complete hit and reached number 23 on the Billboard Charts. After the sudden success of the song, the Rolling Stones argued that The Verve violated their license agreement because they use too much of the sample in their song. The Rolling Stones ended up collecting 100% of the loyalties of the song. Members of The Verve argued that the Stones got greedy when they noticed the sudden success of "Bittersweet Symphony"
As a result, the Rolling Stones sold the rights over the "Bittersweet Symphony" and it became part of many commercials and publicities. Allen Klein, Rolling Stones' manager licensed the song to Nike and to Vauxhall automobiles. Both brands utilize the melody for multi-million dollar television campaigns. Even worse, when the song was nominated for a Grammy, The Verve was not named as a nominee, but Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were. This is just a little example of moral rights dealing with intellectual property. The song hit top of the charts and not one members of The Verve enjoyed a cent of its success.
If these types of situations happen with amazing groups, who supposedly are not interested in more money, anything can happen to regular people who may get exposed to these inconveniences. Get acquainted with the respective regulations and laws so that no economical issues may come up in case you are planning to use someone else's inspiration!
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