In through
the Output

Trevor Jackson of Playgroup on the disco-punk insurgence, the bad rep of the '80s and the genius of brain-dead blockbusters

by RAF KATIGBAK

Variety. Some say it's the spice of life. For U.K. graphic designer/ producer/DJ/label head Trevor Jackson, it's the air he breathes. Jackson, after all, has made a darn good living off of being different. Never mind his iconic look (his head of explosive curls is most often photographed in oversized, wraparound, mirrored shades). As a graphic designer in the late '80s, he brought a fresh new style with classic covers for Stereo MCs, Jungle Brothers and Eric B & Rakim. As producer for the Brotherhood, his esoteric choice of samples and beats gave a fresh twist to the U.K. hip hop scene and his critically acclaimed band Playgroup brought live electro to the club long before ironic mullets and fauxhawks became de rigueur. As a label head, his first imprint Bite Me! became a jewel of U.K. hip hop and now, in his mid-30s, his current imprint Output has put out some of today's hottest acts, from the Rapture to the soon to be massive Colder. But being namechecked alongside seminal U.K. labels like Warp and Factory is all in a day's work for Jackson, who throughout it all has managed to stay ahead of the game by daring to give people the one thing he thinks they really want: a choice. After a quick game of phone tag, the Mirror managed to track him down at his East London flat to talk nerd-dom from robots and video games to Michael Bay and rocket science.

Mirror: So what have you been up to today?

Trevor Jackson: Today I'm working on a production for a well-known British artist that I can't talk about, and I've been up in the office working on some of the new stuff for the label.

M: Just heard the new Output release Circlesquare. It's really nice. Canadian, too! Represent.

TJ: Indeed, man, Vancouver. Actually they were supposed to come and play with us at the MEG but it fell through, which is a shame. But we're playing with Tiga and he's a really good friend, we're really looking forward to that gig.

M: Yeah, I talked to Tiga today and he said you were working together on some crazy new shit.

TJ: Crazy new shit is the word. I'm sitting at home on about 200 tracks with nobody singing on 'em, so I sent a bunch down to Tiga to play around with.

M: He called you a visionary.

TJ: Did he? That's very flattering. I bribed him. I bribed him with robots.

M: Well, actually he said "visionary" and "huge nerd."

TJ: Huge nerd! Well he can just… huge nerd, well… I suppose the Neptunes have made "nerd" a cool word. But to me, nerd evokes big glasses and no success with women.

M: I don't think anyone's questioning your success with the females, but you do collect robots.

TJ: I collect loads of shit.

M: I collect New Kids on the Block action figures.

TJ: Okay, now that's nerd, man, without a doubt. I like to think the things I collect now have genuine cultural value to them - records, lithographs prints, video games, arcade games.

M: Video games, huh? Like old-school Pong-type shit?

TJ: Yeah. I got a Vectrex, a proper Tempest stand-up machine, Defender - all those things are beautiful iconic little embryos of the technologies we surround ourselves with today. I find it amazing that, within my lifetime, we went from kind of bleeping LED light things to fuckin' Xbox. It's amazing.

Bad boys, bad boys

M: What about movies memorabilia?

TJ: Well, I shouldn't be telling you this because people are gonna hate me, but I'm a huge Michael Bay and Joel Schumacher fan.

M: Really? Nice!

TJ: Man, the thing is that people don't get it, right? Believe me, I loved Raising Victor Vargas, but at the end of day I thought Bad Boys II was genius. If you want choreographed mayhem -

M: There is something epic and operatic about those slow-mo car explosion sequences.

TJ: Exactly! I had a rough day once, I was really pissed off 'cause shit can get really on top of you sometimes. I went to the cinema, I saw that film and left there feeling - this is terrible - I fucking felt alive. That's the whole thing, I can sit here and intellectualize about things left, right and centre and people can call me a trendy fucker or whatever, but at the end of the day I just like going to the cinema and watching popcorn movies and shit like that. If I was to make a movie, I wouldn't make an art film, I'd make a film like that, with choreographed mayhem so operatic it's ridiculous.

M: Okay, so robots, video games and Michael Bay films huh?

TJ: Yeah, man… aw, fuck it, I suppose I am a nerd. But in my defence, most of the things I like are aesthetically interesting.

M: Which makes sense since your bread and butter is doing graphic design.

TJ: I'm lucky that because I do graphic design and make music, the label is not the only way I make money, so I can afford to take risks. The problem is a lot of labels are financially led. If you go out on a limb and try to put out music that is different, you also put yourself at financial risk because you're not guaranteed to sell loads of records, but I'm quite happy to do that. Now, people like the diversity of my roster, whereas a lot of other labels are strictly hip hop, drum & bass or electronic labels. I put out every genre of music in my label, barring hip hop.

M: Which is interesting since you got your start in hip hop. Even that Playgroup Party Mix album [a limited-edition one-hour early-'80s megamix] was full-on Grandmaster Flash and the Wheels of Steel.

TJ: The music I make all stems from hip hop culture, from sample culture, whether it's visual sampling or sonic sampling. The referential type of thing is what excites me. So hearing a sample and knowing where it came from, the way of taking something and twisting it, I love that in music. That Party Mix album was a cathartic thing. I was sick of everyone talking about the '80s and thought, I'll just get that whole period out of my system and move on.

Hating the '80s haters

M: It seems like a lot of people are moving on from the '80s.

TJ: The best stuff is music that's inspired from the past but has its foot in the present and future. The most cutting-edge music is referential to some point. For me, the '80s were a part of my life I was really interested in and when I was focusing in on that in my Playgroup record, it was seen as being naff. You had les Rhythmes Digitales doing that, but a lot of the other guys were doing stuff that was almost ironic, kind of Rock Steady Crew, almost naff '80s stuff. The one thing I hated was the fact that it was a period of time that was kind of laughed at and yet for me, that whole era spawned music that inspired the whole of club culture, if not the whole of pop music culture. I just wanted that to be represented. The bands I grew up with, Human League and Kraftwerk, had relevance to me and when kids listening to Dave Clarke or Underworld would dismiss that period of time, I just thought that was wrong.

M: And now with the success of labels like DFA, people are all over this disco-punk-funk thing. After you released the Rapture and LCD Soundsystem, you put out Colder, DK7 and 7Hurtz, stuff that was completely different from the Rapture. Were you afraid of Output getting pigeonholed?

TJ: My label is not a purist label. For me, putting out all forms of music wasn't contrived. I think if people listen to the first release up till now they'll see a logical progression. The first thing I ever put out was the Fridge record, an electronic dance record with live drums and synths. I always loved that amalgamation of sounds and I always loved rock music that you could dance to. I already made my statement on that when I released Playgroup, when no one was making live dance music. When I heard [the Rapture's] "House of Jealous Lovers" a year later, I connected with it completely, but I never expected it to spawn a whole bloody new genre. At the end of the day, I find what I do quite easy - find good bands and put them out. It's not rocket science. I

With Fischerspooner, Tiga, Colder, Blackstrobe and Drama Society at Métropolis on Saturday, Oct. 25, 9pm, $45

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