Side effects

>> The many faces of England's DJ A-Sides

by KRISTA

 Aside from spending countless hours confined in their studios reconstructing beats, do drum & bass DJ/producers do anything for fun? As many as I've interviewed, I always get the same responses to that question. "Too busy," "Not enough time," "I don't like anything else." B-O-R-I-N-G. But I think I may have finally found the exception to the rule: Essex native DJ A-Sides, aka the Vagrant, owner of U.K. d & b labels East Side, Fuze and new imprint Diagram, mountain-biking enthusiast and avid fan of Tom Green, Canada's number one wacko comic/MTV star.
 "Do you know who Tom Green is?" he asks me over the phone from his new home in Essex. It's Sunday night in England and A-Sides is removing rococo wallpaper from his bedroom. "Know Tom Green?" I shoot back. "He's the funniest guy ever--and he's Canadian." "I'd heard he was from Ottawa, but I wasn't sure. I love that guy. I've been introducing his videos to all my mates. He's mad!"
 A-Sides has suddenly become very excitable. I start to get the feeling that he probably knows his Tom Green videos back to front. A-Sides, who has releases on many labels, including Metalheadz (under the name Sci-Clone with friend Nathan Hanes), has been producing and DJing for about 10 years. Like most Brits who make d & b, he grew up listening to a lot of hip hop.
 "I still listen to hip hop more than anything," he tells me, "but early on I was heavily into Frankie Bones and Lenny Dee, Frank de Wulf from R&S and that sort of thing." A-Sides even borrowed his moniker from a series of compilations by Frank de Wulf called B Sides.
 So then, where do the Vagrant and Sci-Clone come from, and why the need for so many sub-labels and pseudonyms? "I named myself the Vagrant when I was in between homes, staying with my mom and kind of wandering, but the Sci-Clone name comes with a much better story. Nathan [his partner] comes from a trained, musical, jazz background, and I used to play the drums. Three years ago Nathan and I got caught in a cyclone in New Zealand. Putting jazz and
 d & b together is like the cloning of two sciences, and so there you have it."
 
 

At the Session at Jingxi, Wednesday, May 31, 10pm, $8