All that glitters…

Scottish disco producer Calvin Harris
headlines this year’s Neon Nights Festival,
but doesn’t see anything to celebrate

BALLS TO THE WALL: Calvin Harris

By JACK OATMON

This year, Neon’s annual Labour Day electro marathon, the Neon Nights Festival, features four distinct events, showcasing a variety of approaches to electronic dance music in four contrasting settings.

One of the headlining acts is UK flavour-of-the-month Calvin Harris. Though he may be a virtual unknown on this side of the pond, back home his latest single “Dance Wiv Me,” a collaboration with Dizzee Rascal, hit number one on the charts. His flippant, retro style and sometimes deadpan, sometimes lilting lyrics push the tongue-in-cheek image of a self-idolizing dickhead to comic levels, with a keen satirical take on youth culture and funky grooves accompanied by silly falsettos. He’s also recently worked with Kylie Minogue and various other sugary Top 40 Brit stars, but his pop bravado is in sharp contrast with his gloomy demeanour. In fact, he attributes the popularity of upbeat disco to a fragile economy and a crumbling music industry.

“I think it’s to do with the recession,” says Harris lugubriously. “I think people want to look back at more decadent times. The early part of the ‘80s encapsulates unbridled decadence, especially in the music industry. And obviously now it’s the complete opposite. Budgets are being cut all over the place. And I think people are really feeling it, so they want to have a dance and try to forget their worries.”

When asked whether he intentionally avoids serious content in his songwriting, Harris says his feelings about heavy issues aren’t something to share with the public. “I don’t necessarily avoid it, but they wouldn’t ever appear on anything I’d ever release. I don’t think there’s any call for me making depressing songs, or at least making them available for people to listen to. I think there’s enough that other people are doing.”

Furthermore, he says he regrets some of the things he’s recently had to do for press and promotion. “I’ve put myself in some uncomfortable situations in the past couple of years. I’m not looking to do that anymore. Like having to pretend I’m comfortable wearing the mask of someone important and worthy. It’s uncomfortable trying to pretend that you’re a fascinating character.”

Harris is currently working on a second LP, which he hopes to release next summer.

WITH ITALIANS DO IT BETTER, JORDAN
DARE AND BURNS AT TELUS THEATRE
(1284 ST. DENIS) ON SATURDAY,
AUG. 30, 9 P.M., $25.25, ALL AGES.

Midnight highlights >> More of what’s up at Neon Nights GOAL-ORIENTED: Mstrkrft Neon Nights also plays host to a gamut of other electronic artists. Steve Bug, the man behind PokerFlat Recordings, will be making a visit to DJ Mini’s Overdose, perfect for fans of spacey, gradual techno head trips. While he was in town last year, he described his DJing style for me. “I try to create a good atmosphere,” he said. “I love to take people on a trip from deep house to techno and everything in between. But sometimes it is hard these days. People seem to want to have an immediate party and instant gratification. They don’t understand that sometimes it’s important to take it down and then build it up again to get a boost.” Bug is presently touring the release of the third mix in his definitive Bugnology series, which drops on September 12. The mini-fest also features Toronto’s well-lauded louts MSTRKRFT, who haven’t stopped pounding out sanguine, teeth-grinding remixes and swaggering dancefloor bangers since 2005, when they popped out of the ashes of Death From Above 1979. They’re currently tinkering away at their anticipated second LP. One of the very finest performers of live, band-based electronic dance music is NYC’s intriguing, moody John MacLean, aka The Juan Maclean, whose intimate take on synth songwriting stands out like a beacon in the largely dehumanized world of club tracks. I caught up with the former Six Finger Satellite guitarist just as he was working on remix for, strangely enough, My Morning Jacket. He spoke about his recently completed album, The Future Will Come, which he describes as “a cross between Human League and disco.” It’s due out in early 2009. “There are a bunch of duets between Nancy [singer Nancy Whang] and I. It’s pretty intensely personal. It’s a lot of relationship-type songs and life stories. For me that was something that’s really important to bring over from the rock music world. Dance music, and electronic music in general around the early 2000s, was very faceless and personality-less. So it has been a concerted, direct effort on my part to be very personal in the music and in the presentation. The extreme opposite of what I’m doing is getting up there with a laptop. NEON NIGHTS RUNS FROM TONIGHT, THURSDAY AUG. 28, TO WEDNESDAY SEPT. 3 AT VARIOUS LOCATIONS. SEE WWW.ILOVENEON.CA FOR DETAILS.