Sorry ladies...he's taken!
(Cool ass suit cases!)
By Conan the Destroyhhher!
Richard Cameron may not know this........but I've been a huge fan of Arling and Cameron since they started dropping their singles and albums through the now late "Emperor Norton" Records imprint, which is where I found them in the first place.
(If you've never heard of Arling and Cameron....you will most certainly
burn in hell!!)
Also on the Emperor Norton roster was The Fantastic Plastic Machine, 2 of these great acts would be the catalysis of my main musical make up....now this was around 97 to 98 when they released "All In". However prior to that I had The Fantastic Plastic Machine self titled album which to my surprise I found Richard Cameron's name in the cd booklet where he was credited for co writing "Bachelor Pad", the very tune that was in the movie and soundtrack to Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Now fast forward 7 albums, and many aliases later, Richard Cameron is still causing it with Mr. and Mrs. Cameron (Berlin's only reported Husband and Wife Djing duo) and Cowgum! We talk to Richard Cameron in this exclusive interview on marriage, music, industry politics and Shibuya Kei...........look it up, its on Wikipedia!
Hi Richard, thanks for doing the interview with us. So for those who are not familiar with your work as I am, can you give us a brief description what you do musically?
Trying to make a buck...ummmm, no don't worry, I'm not a cynic but of course when you're in music since for over 25 years, as I am, and when you can't do much else and it becomes your profession then you can't be too narrow minded as to what kind of music you want to do. I am very lucky that I am in a position that I can earn a living making music that I like.But since I like a lot of music I've been also making a lot of different styles of music over the years. From 'joy division' inspired new wave in the early eighties to torch and singer/songwriter music at the end of that decade.
Then in the 90's I explored easy listening and pop and later film music. After 2002, when I stopped with my main project Arling & Cameron, I briefly made soundtracks for real movies and I started making quite un-commercial music (as it turned out) that I couldn't fit into the A&C mold. I also started to make modern dancefloor stuff and worked as a musical director a.o. JOY a Tokyo theater show by Maki Nomiya, the Pizzicato Five singer.
Maki Nomiya!
JOY with Maki Nomiya
Then in the 90's I explored easy listening and pop and later film music. After 2002, when I stopped with my main project Arling & Cameron, I briefly made soundtracks for real movies and I started making quite un-commercial music (as it turned out) that I couldn't fit into the A&C mold. I also started to make modern dancefloor stuff and worked as a musical director a.o. JOY a Tokyo theater show by Maki Nomiya, the Pizzicato Five singer.
Maki Nomiya!
JOY with Maki Nomiya
I could go on about still other things I did and what I'm doing but it's already is a bit much, isn't it ? :) Oh, one thing more I want to tell; I'm working on a concept album with my wife to mark, or celebrate, that we are together 25 years...
By the way, I love "Hi Fi Underground" that lovely album you did under your well known groupings "Arling and Cameron", however I read somewhere that you were recovering from a back injury during the recording of "Hi Fi underground". Is this the reason why it took so long from Arling and Cameron's last release, "We are A and C"?
Well, we did have a bad touring accident with a mini-van in Spain in which I broke my back and that did have something to do with the gap between 'hi-fi underground' and 'we are A&C'. Basically we stopped as an active band after that accident. We just started an extensive tour with a brand new and very expensive live show when the accident happened in November 2001. It was the last nail on our coffin so to speak because we already had to deal with a throwback because our 'we are A&C' album was released in the week of 9/11 and went totally under as a result (very 'petit histoire' in the light of the bigger picture of 9/11 of course, but for us very important).
By the time I recovered from my injuries the window for promoting the album passed and we didn't have the money (and the motivation) to start from scratch again. It felt like a natural ending to a very successful cooperation of over 7 years. Arling and me did do things together after that and even this year we did a Playstation soundtrack together but as a active touring band we no longer exist.
(Yeah we know the gig is finished...We just love
the design of this flyer!)
By the time I recovered from my injuries the window for promoting the album passed and we didn't have the money (and the motivation) to start from scratch again. It felt like a natural ending to a very successful cooperation of over 7 years. Arling and me did do things together after that and even this year we did a Playstation soundtrack together but as a active touring band we no longer exist.
(Yeah we know the gig is finished...We just love
the design of this flyer!)
We made 'Hi-Fi Underground' because we wanted to keep the interest in A&C alive. Our label doesn't exploit the albums, they are not even available on iTunes and it seemed such a pity. When we made 'Hi-Fi underground' a lot of people remembered us again and the interest in the catalogue was renewed. The old A&C albums are doing $60,- on eBay so there's obviously some people interested. We hope that, in time, we can get Rhino/Warner (our US label) to re-release our material. Keeping the interest in A&C alive makes that a more feasible possibility.
Can you explain the hinted Japanese element within your music and of course Arling and Cameron's?
Before A&C we (Arling and I) had a recording project with a dutch DJ called Eddy de Clercq. The project was called Popcorn and we made one album and some EP's. The album was discovered by Tomoyuki Tanaka (Fantastic Plastic Machine) in Tokyo and it was the conversation piece of the first encounter between Tanaka and Konishi Yashuaru (the P5 founder).
The Fantastic Plastic Machine!
Konishi of Pizzicato P5
Tanaka gave the album to Konishi and a year or so later when Konishi was DJing at the Popkomm in Cologne (Germany) he saw that album in my record box while I was DJing there and he asked me about it. That's how we got in contact. Quite soon after that a few of the Easy Tune records I made with Arling came out in Japan and we toured there. On the first or second tour we went into the studio together to record "arigato, we love you" for the Happy End of the World album that P5 was recording then. The rest is history :)
I love that term "pan-eclectic". Do you feel like that with music in general?
Not always. sometimes it's important to zoom in on a particular style but with A&C we generally are as open-minded as possible. The results should be pleasing to the ears and original.
In the early days we also always wanted a smile on peoples faces when the listened to our music but later we also allowed more emotional stuff to enter the A&C universe. really hard or negative or explicitly sexual stuff wouldn't fit though, it is and still remains a pop project.
Tell us about Cowgum? First of all its a very interesting project, and I do believe the Blah Blah Blah Djs have played one of Cowgum's tracks on our radio show in here in New Zealand.
(Secret meeting with Cowgum!)
It's a project I do with dutch DJ, Joost van Bellen. He's the best DJ in the world and his DJ colleagues all agree. But outside of Holland not a lot of people know him because he didn't make any records. I wanted to change that and suggested we make records together to make it more easy to get his name out in the world. We're still in the middle of that process but hope we can have an official record out next year. Untill now we released some 12 inches but nothing serious. Joost does some really amazing party's where all the coolest DJ's and bands play. Erol Alkan, Boys Noize, Larry Tee, Justice, Crookers, Edu K.
You name it they were playing at his party's. One of the party's he does is called RAUW (dutch for 'raw'). Another one was called Club Filth. Our first Cowgum release was called "filthy&raw". Karin, my wife came up with the title and ever since co-writes on the Cowgum lyrics, our secret third band member so to say.
You name it they were playing at his party's. One of the party's he does is called RAUW (dutch for 'raw'). Another one was called Club Filth. Our first Cowgum release was called "filthy&raw". Karin, my wife came up with the title and ever since co-writes on the Cowgum lyrics, our secret third band member so to say.
Tell us you opinions about the state of the music industry today? Because we're living in the age of digital technology where MP3s are practically everywhere which have affected the music industry gravely and now alot of DJs and consumers are now sourcing music from Mp3 shopsites (ie Beatport) and audio blogs like ours and Berlin Battery.
hmmm...progress is not always a good thing for everyone but it can't be stopped either so as a musician you have no other option than accepting it and trying to make the best of it. Maybe music is not the best way to make money anymore but is that really a bad thing ? It will definitely separate the men from the boys.
As far as the myth goes, now everybody can make music and unfortunately that's true but that doesn't mean everybody can make music that you want to listen to. Also getting attention for your music/band in a world with 30 million bands is becoming a problem. Bands with lots of marketing budget have an advantage more then ever so there goes your 'indie labels will destroy majors' myth. I'm not saying that majors will not perish but they'll be followed up by management conglomerates or things of the sort.
As far as the myth goes, now everybody can make music and unfortunately that's true but that doesn't mean everybody can make music that you want to listen to. Also getting attention for your music/band in a world with 30 million bands is becoming a problem. Bands with lots of marketing budget have an advantage more then ever so there goes your 'indie labels will destroy majors' myth. I'm not saying that majors will not perish but they'll be followed up by management conglomerates or things of the sort.
The status of music is also lower than it used to be because it around always and everywhere and for free. If you think about protecting the music (not the industry) then maybe you should find a way to make it special again; make it hard to get and/or make it part of something that's not easily reproducible like a live show or a work of art or a limited edition packaging. I'm still thinking about this but I want to see this time as a time of opportunity's and not as the end of an era. A 'crisis' usually gets the best out of me and the historical precedents show that big changes always produce interesting new opportunity's.
p.s. DJ Supermarkt (Berlin Battery) is one of my best friends and also our neighbor in Berlin :)
By the way Happy 23 years of Marriage Richard. I've notice that you and your wife (The lovely Karin Cameron-Ras) are Djing together at various gigs.......So whats that like DJing with a loved one such as your wife Karin?
it's 25 years actually :)
And DJing together is always better than DJing on your own, as all DJ duo's will confirm.
Oh and speaking of Marriages made in heaven, can you tell our readers about the new Mr. and Mrs. Cameron album?
It's going to be a concept album about our everyday live. The lyrics are mostly written by Karin and she's a wonderfully down to earth lyricist. Humor is going to be a big part of the whole thing but there's going to be some genuinely cool stuff on there as well. We have made 9 sketches and finished the demo's to 5 of them. 3 demo's you can hear in our Myspace player.
This month we'll hopefully finish the 4 other demo's and then we will finish the tracks over the course of the next months. We have no label yet but just started and we'll see what happens. We also commissioned artist friends to make video's and artwork to the tracks. A first video (by Marco Morandi) has been finished this week and we'll post it on our Myspace soon.
What artists, producers, or bands that you're feeling now that we should look out for?
pfff...different once every week, isn't it ? :) I'll name two:
Planning to Rock - she made an awesome album already but prepare yourself for a genius second album that will be released next year. And of course the best live show in the world. Das Pop - new album coming up, co-produced by Soulwax. Amazing live band!
MAN recordings does some amazing stuff but unfortunately I mostly find Brazilian singing hard to stomach. I also like some stuff from D-i-r-t-y and MGMT's 'electric feel' is awesome and I could name a whole list but I always find it a bit tiresome. In dance music there's so many good stuff but it's also so short lived and as far as bands are concerned it's also hard to put a value on it. It totally depends on my mood. I love Suicide but I could't listen to it all the time. I've been listening to Hildegard Knef (a German chanson singer) lately but I wouldn't want to put it in list.Anyways........
Whats on the cards for yourself, Arling and Cameron, Mr. and Mrs. Cameron and Cowgum? Will you be touring, playing gigs or better yet festivals?
Cowgum and Mr & Mrs Cameron....... no idea what will happen with that. We have no label and no immediate live show plans. I'm quite confident though that one of these projects will find a bigger audience next year.
Of course everything can be changed if the old A&C catalogue is going to be re-released by Rhino.
One of our songs ("dirty robot") will possibly be featured on the upcoming Lemonheads album and Kate Moss is singing on it. If that becomes a hit record then that might totally alter my plans for next year as well.
One of our songs ("dirty robot") will possibly be featured on the upcoming Lemonheads album and Kate Moss is singing on it. If that becomes a hit record then that might totally alter my plans for next year as well.
And I started photographing again lately. Who knows I will pursue that some more :)
Any wise words of wisdom for our New Zealand masses who have no sense of good music taste?
you're doomed and can never be saved !
And with that we thank you for talking to Nerdy-Frames Richard. I will be awaiting the day of the new Mr. and Mrs. Cameron release......I hope the "Giorgio Moroder is Dead" demo makes it in there!
Check out Richard Cameron at the following links!
http://www.myspace.com/mrmrscameron
http://www.myspace.com/richardcameron
http://www.myspace.com/cowgummusic
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