by RAF KATIGBAK

The heat is unbearable. The enormous concert hall is packed, sweaty and anxious for the first star to take the stage. Just as the crowd is about to get ugly, the curtains part, the lights flash and the capacity crowd roars its approval as ’70s prog-rock supergroup Emerson, Lake & Palmer rip into a rocking rendition of “Peter Gunn.” At the same time, Basement Jaxx are singing the lyrics to their recent dancefloor smash “Where’s Your Head At.” Just then, as the temperature in the concert hall reaches critical mass, electro sex-rapper Peaches (backed by the Velvet Underground, of course) joins the fray completely blowing the roof off the joint.

Is this the scene at some surreal Band-Aid-style relief concert for the endangered pine weasel? Or perhaps this twisted musical smorgasbord is just the delusion of some music journalist after one too many hits of the “brown” acid? The answer is neither (especially not the latter).

This magical world where Destiny’s Child and Dolly Parton sing side by side over the Cramps and Felix Da Housecat was created by Belgium’s Dewaele brothers (Stephan and David), otherwise known as 2 Many DJs. Their first mix CD As Heard on Radio Soulwax blends tracks by these and 34 other artists from disparate music styles, into an hour-long, party-rocking mix of “fucked-up pop culture.”

The style is called bootlegging, or bastard pop or mash-ups, and typically happens when the vocal track of one pop single is combined with the instrumental of another (usually without concern for copyright), creating a strange, twisted and insanely appealing pop music hybrid.

Although hip hop DJs have been mixing vocal tracks over different beats since 12-inch singles first included a cappellas in the 1980s, what sets these bootlegs (or boots, for short) apart is the dissimilarity between the vocal and instrumental tracks used. For example, “Smells Like Bootylicious” is a 2 Many DJs underground bootleg hit that sees Destiny’s Child join forces with grunge legends Nirvana. Likewise, their remix of Skee-lo’s “I Wish” features music from Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” and the Breeders’ smash alt-pop hit “Cannonball.”

The growing bootleg scene is a result of two recent technological forces that have been revolutionizing music-making and the record business: cheap computer software, and Internet file-sharing services allowing any teenager with a PC and a high-speed connection to mix and match their favourite pop stars. Now, thanks to club nights, radio play and the plethora of Web sites dedicated to the burgeoning movement, bootlegging has become an overnight sensation in Europe and the U.S.

Seen as pioneers of the sound, 2 Many DJs, have set a legal precedent (or as they like to think of it, an illegal precedent) for bootleggers with their top-selling, fully authorized mix CD on PIAS records. The Mirror recently caught up with David Dewaele, over the phone from his studio in Ghent, Belgium.

Mirror: So how did your mix CD get started?

David Dewaele: The mix was modelled after our radio shows on [Belgian national radio station] Studio Brussels. I have to admit, though, the whole idea of doing the mix CD wasn’t really our idea. The incentive to do it came from the label. The record company asked us if we wanted to do a compilation and musically, we thought it would be interesting, so we said, sure—if you can clear all these tracks.

M: That’s when you handed them a list of 187 tracks to clear.

DD: Yeah, we never actually thought this comp would be made. But then the first time they came back to us, they actually had quite a list of a few tracks they had cleared and we said, okay, we can work with this. Then the list grew and then we started working on it.

M: I guess they weren’t really planning on doing a bootleg as such.

DD: They asked us to do a compilation just as DJs, which would feature something like 14 tracks crossfaded into each other. But we came back to them and were like, no, we don’t want to do it that way, we want this amount of tracks, and for some reason they did it!

M: So, according to your Web site, “three years, 865 e-mails, 160 faxes and hundreds of phone calls” later, your mix CD finally came out and was a smash hit.

DD: Yeah, actually, we never thought this 2 Many DJs thing would be as big as it is now. We literally thought it was gonna sell like 5- or 10, 000 copies in small record stores, but it just blew up. Right now the numbers are something like 130- or 135,000. It’s really amazing considering it’s only officially out in Belgium and Holland. It was really cool that we found success bypassing the music industry

M: Bypassing the music industry?

DD: Sure, there was no marketing, no promo, no video, no single and almost no interviews. It was almost all word of mouth. But it still hit number-two album for five weeks here in Belgium and Holland. We’re selling more here than Céline Dion. It made us realize that we don’t need to follow the mould that was there.

Everybody dance now

M: Were you surprised when the disc got compilation of the month in Ministry, DJ and Mixmag?

DD: It’s funny, for us the mix was a big “fuck you” to dance and DJ culture. We were frustrated. Y’know, what’s up with these guys showing up with three hours of deep house? It’s boring us to death! Then all of a sudden we release this mix album of mash-ups and all these institutions that we kind of rebelled against embraced us.

M: Why do you think people reacted so well to your bootlegs?

DD: Like I said, when I go to a club and there’s a DJ spinning a three-hour set of tech-house, I just grow bored. Unless you’re on drugs all the time, there’s no real way for me to enjoy that. I want stuff to happen in music. A lot of kids of our generation have short attention spans.

M: So you think the music industry and DJs don’t give listeners enough credit?

DD: People are streamlined into thinking, oh, I am into new metal so I can’t be into Dolly Parton, but in reality people don’t think like that. There’s no one out there eating only Egyptian food everyday, y’know what I mean? If you only do one thing, you become a very boring person. So I think that if people are exposed to different things, then they’ll like it instantly. It’s in even the most dedicated of people. All of those hardcore hip-hoppers? I bet you if you give them one ecstasy, they’d love the Chemical Brothers. One of the things that I’m a bit proud of with this album, even though it’s not what we intended to do, was to bring a lot of rock people into dance music and vice versa.

M: You guys don’t really identify yourselves as bootleggers.

DD: We’ve never identified with any scene whatsoever, mainly because we’re in Belgium. All of a sudden now we’re getting lumped into a different scene, the bootleg scene or as I saw last week, we’re getting lumped into the electroclash scene.

M: How would you characterize the bootleg scene?

DD: For them it’s like a sport, putting an a cappella over an instrumental. Most of the bootleggers out there are not as adventurous as I want them to be—basically nine out of 10 are shit. Missy here and Eminem there, I mean it’s all good, but it’s just one of the things we do. Our main thing is our group Soulwax. That’s quite big in Europe, especially the U.K.

Honour among thieves

M: As both bootleggers and musicians, it must be strange being on both sides of the MP3-vs-music-industry debate.

DD: There have been so many people who have come up to me saying, “I love the 2 Many DJs! I have a burned copy!” And we’re like, “Thanks—I think.” As Soulwax, I know that we could have sold two times as many albums, and maybe would have been able to live off of it, if there weren’t that much MP3 downloading. But having said that, as 2 Many DJs, we’re probably even more guilty than the next person. We do it all the time. If you think about it, it’s public domain.

M: That’s quite the dilemma.

DD: As a user-consumer, I think it’s one of the best things to happen in years. As an artist who should get paid—something has to give, something has to change somewhere. But it’s not really clear what it is. In the end, though, it’s not about money, because if it was about money, this CD would never have been made and we wouldn’t be here. We get so many people saying that they could have downloaded our album but bought it instead, just to show support. What’s cool about the mix album is that it also showed the music industry that there are still albums out there that people will go out and buy if you give them an incentive to.

M: When you guys first hit the scene with your bootlegs, record companies gave you lots of flak. You got sued in Belgium and you won twice. Given the growing popularity of your mix CD, have record companies since changed their tune?

DD: Apart from one major label, all of the others have contacted us offering their whole back catalogue that we could do with what we want—and we’ve refused every one of them.

M: Wow, that’s a bold statement. A lot of bootleggers would kill for access to their favourite instrumentals or a cappellas.

DD: I know that if we made a second 2 Many DJs mix, we could get pretty much whatever we want. But I’m not really sure that’s a good thing. What I learned from the past is that economy makes for good records. If you have to struggle, if you have to look for clearance, if you have to look for solutions, that makes you more creative than just having everything at your hands, and taking what you want. We had to be inventive and that makes for interesting results. Right now it’s a struggle and maybe that’s the best way to do it. •

With Tiga and Solvent vs. Lowfish at SAT
on Saturday, Nov. 2, 9pm, $18. For more
info on 2 Many DJs, check out www.2manydjs.org

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