Indie Blog Archive 010: Craig Richards
Published October 2012
This was an extra special interview with someone who I greatly admire. Having the chance to sit down over a few beers with Craig was absolutely magical for me. This interview was arranged in conjunction wiuth fabric’s 13th birthday. Next year it will their 25th! Crazy. Craig hasn’t done a lot of press over the last decade or so, which made this one even more special.
Since this interview I’ve had the opportunity to spend more quality time with Craig, in particular at Burning Man in 2014, when we went for a lovely bike ride together to check out some of the art (both being visual artists ourselves, it was a very enriching experience). We had some real intimate conversations and I’ll never forget that time. Of course, I’ve caught him DJing many many times and the way he commands that main room at fabric, with grace and panache, is a joy to behold. Big love to Craig Richards.
Craig Richards: “I feel like the luckiest man in town”
As fabric prepares to celebrate its 13th birthday, I was lucky enough to spend a bit of time with the club’s resident DJ and music programmer, Craig Richards. The importance of Craig’s involvement with fabric goes without saying, having been there since day dot he’s grown with the club and become what one would call a ‘DJ’s DJ’, receiving universal respect from all and sundry. A keen record collector, painter, father and traveller (among other things) Craig is a fascinating man with a lot to say for himself – here’s the result of a recent chat we had…
Now, you haven’t done very many interviews recently have you?
Not for a while, but I’ve been around for a while and there was a point when I did do a lot. I stopped doing them because I didn’t feel like I had any more to say.
Yeah, it must be funny doing loads of interviews and being asked the same stuff over and over, then feeling as though there’s not much more you can talk about.
In a couple of them I was maybe drunk and maybe didn’t conduct myself in the way I’d like.. in terms of being positive, because I’d rather be positive than negative. Of course, most of us given half a chance can be negative.
Every loves a good moan!
Well, not so much a moan but in many ways I think you work out what you are and who you are by deciding what you’re not. That has been the case for me in many areas of my life, not necessarily knowing who you are but being sure of who you’re not. In which case it’s easy to be negative and it’s a funny old scene, dance music. Like lots of things, shit rises to the top and it’s easy to be bitter sounding and I think there were a couple of interviews I did where I sounded bitter because I was toasting people and it’s not really me. It’s not the angle that I’d like to take, because all those people that get to the top, and are celebrated on a commercial level, they create a shadow. It’s like a horrid sort of mountain they form and the shadow that they create is what we live in and ultimately, I’m really happy to live in that shadow. I don’t play big tunes… the bigger the tune the bigger the envelope and that’s never been the way I’ve operated, so there’s no use feeling envious or jealous, which one doesn’t, but it’s easy to be envious and jealous of peoples’ pay packets [laughs]. Which is a slippery slope in itself!
Indeed. So what stage are you at now? How do you feel personally about your career and how you’ve progressed? From my perspective you seem to have a universal respect from ‘the scene’…
That’s nice to hear. No matter how many people respect you… your own world revolves around self-respect and self-esteem. I’ve always been someone who is driven by self-doubt rather than self-confidence.
Me too…
That’s not necessarily a good thing. I think at least that way your approach is one of restraint, it may be a nervous approach in a sense. I’m happy with the way things are, as I said to you before there are other things I have in my life, my paintings are rising in terms of importance. I’m painting more each day, since I left London it’s really happening. I’ve realised a lot of things about myself and my creativity since leaving London. In London I was a bit over-distracted, now I’m under-distracted and I have time and space – I don’t have people ringing me up asking me to join them down the pub and so I’m actually getting a full days painting in. I’m feeling inspired by not being in London, I wasn’t initially, when I first left I hated it.
It must have been quite a shock to the system.
Yeah it was a bit, I never thought I’d leave London. I spent most of my teens wanting to live in London and moved here to go to art school in 1987. I never thought I’d leave, then all of a sudden I had and it took a while to get used to it. Now I realise it’s been positive for me on a creative level, I’m making music and I’m painting. I might have something to present soon and whilst I’m happy with the way things are going with my DJ… career, if you want to call it that, one thing I’m very aware of is that I’ve been under-productive in terms of making music and making paintings. Either because I’ve been DJing a lot or going to too many after-parties or rolling around on too many peoples’ carpets or whatever it is, but for one reason or another I haven’t been as productive creatively as I could have been. On a bad day I could be quite upset about that and regretful, but on a good day one thinks of the future and the only way to change it is to do the work and I’ve been working on my paintings and I’m hoping to release some music and show some of my paintings so I’m nearer to that than I’ve ever been.
Have you exhibited much of your stuff in the past?
When I was at college I had a couple of shows and some interest in my work, but organising parties, throwing parties and being at parties took over. Also I’ve realised that when I left college I had a studio and I was in the studio on my own all the time and, when you’re at college it’s a group activity and whilst you’re working alone, it’s in a group. I didn’t really enjoy being on my own after college, even though I enjoy my own company I didn’t think it was a good thing to be alone so much. I just felt perhaps I might have disappeared into myself a bit too much had I carried on painting and having shows. Also, the way you earn your money I found very difficult because I was going out a lot and I needed money in my pocket – at the time I wanted to buy clothes and I needed quick cash. I didn’t like the way you earn money, you might be potless for a year working towards a big show then you’ve got a big lump which you either get slowly or quickly, it’s very difficult. Then with commercial work… I sold a few drawings and did a bit of design work and did some book covers, you’ve got to wait three months to get paid, it’s terrible. At that point it was only me to feed but I found it irritating having to wait, so putting on parties was starting to pay me. Quite often, for one reason or another – you’ve got a family and you need to put food on the table or something… a lot of artists have to go the way of earning a living. I know plenty of people I went to college with who were very talented but didn’t necessarily make their way as an artist. I admire anyone who can make a living as an artist, whether you’re a watercolourist in Cornwall or a celebrated fine artist in New York, whoever you are it’s bloody difficult. It’s like the missing bit when you leave college, it’s like crossing the river and there are three stepping stones missing – I mean it’s easy being an art student, it was a wonderful period of my life, being in Soho and going to art school was fantastic. But actually holding your head up and saying, ‘I’m an artist’ is a big big thing, especially if you’ve got other mouths to feed – if you’re doing that, I take my hat off to you.
For sure. So are you going to be pushing your art a lot more now?
Yeah I want to have a show next year. I’ve started a label and I’m starting another one, a 7” label. I’ve always wanted to do a 7” label, I’ve got a few people who are going to do stuff for me, that’s always been an ambition of mine.
Taking it back.
Yeah, it’s how I first started and I still buy 7” records, mainly reggae. I’m a big reggae fan, it’s a big part of my life so I’ve always wanted to have a 7” record label. I’ve got a good name for it – Tuppence, I’m going to call it Tuppence. It seems like a perfect name for the label, small and you know [laughs].
It’s funny because I’m half-Jamaican, but I don’t know the Jamaican side of my family at all. My grandad (on the English side) was always hanging out with Jamaican dudes and playing reggae, so 7” records always remind me of him because he had this old turntable with the special bit you add for the records with the big hole in the middle.
I’m definitely doing it with a hole in the middle. They’re not producing vinyl in Jamaica anymore I heard. I don’t know if that’s true but I presume they’re playing off computers like everyone else.
That’s a crying shame if it’s true.
I know. The beauty of Jamaican 7s is that they’re often so badly pressed. What’s beautiful with reggae is it’s the only music that you would stomach taking the vinyl out of its wrapping for the very first time and it’s crackly as fuck. It’s the only music where the crackles add to it, it’s like a piss take almost but it’s ok. Any other sort of music you’d take it back and say it’s not right and the middles [of the vinyl] sometimes they move about [laughs]. No two are alike.
That is the beauty of it.
I just love dub reggae, it’s the lifeblood of everything. Wherever I go, I always come back to that. It’ll always calm me down, it’s like setting the clock back to nought. Like rebooting the computer, putting you back to reality and from there you can listen to other stuff again. I was lucky to listen to it when I was young.
That was my foundation, but when I was a kid I hated it. The bass upset me, it was too loud. It took me a while to get into it.
Really? I reared my daughter on it, with really sparse dub like Scientist or Mad Professor it’s perfect for a baby because it’s got gaps. Not that she has a particularly great love of it now, but she will eventually. I’ve got pictures of her when she was two years old dancing to reggae in her nappy. Also I was living in Portobello for sixteen years and, not so much now because it’s a different manor, but back then there were a lot more black people and it was a really special place to be. I’ve got these photographs on my walls of sound systems from the eighties – just before everything changed – people were just turning up with sound systems [for Carnival] and running the power out of peoples’ houses. I just love those homemade cabinets, it’s fucking brilliant, wooden cabinets… just piling them up to create this sound. Really really cool.
Yeah one my friends, his dad was involved in a sound system and he got to help with building the stacks. I was quite envious of that…
When I was a kid I used to go to Bristol quite a lot. I grew up in the New Forest, the nearest town was Bournemouth which was certainly very white, but there was a lot of reference to black music because there was a soul scene there. A lot of my friends were into soul and funk and I had another mate who was into ska and rocksteady, we used to go up to Bristol quite a bit. We once went there and somehow ended up at a party in St.Paul’s. I think when you’re younger, you can get away with lots of things. We were the only white kids in there bounding around and the only thing that got us through is our knowledge of the music and confidence, just bowling in there pretending we knew what we were doing. I remember that was the first time I’d really heard reggae loud, in a club and been around black people and being close to the flame. For a white kid growing up in the New Forest and being into this thing, it was like going to Mecca! [laughs] It was very very very exciting to hear reggae music loud, very fucking loud and deep low bass, I’d never heard anything like it – the sound systems that I’d heard at the time were club sound systems and they were alright but those home made cabinets which were tailored for that sound and the music was made on those type of cabinets. That’s the other thing, when you’re hearing reggae through those cabinets there’s an authenticity about it because that’s how it was made, it’s not being coloured in any way, that’s it, that’s the truth, which is very exciting. There’s probably no other music like that, certainly not from that time anyway. You had Lee Scratch Perry making music in The Ark, if you see any pictures from there it’s the same rough old cabinets, so it’s just transferring it perfectly – not tainting it. So you really are hearing the truth and that’s what dub is for me, it’s really is one of the start points.
For sure.
I have other start points as well – pop music. I find comfort in pop music, I’m being introduced to all kinds of pop by my daughter, it’s a strange thing with pop music because, if you’re honest and true, some of it you like. Whether it’s ABBA or Wham!.. any of the obvious pop references you might make, or whether it’s now with the stuff my daughter’s throwing at me that I don’t even know the name of – a good pop tune’s a good pop tune. I would certainly have to say it’s another start point for another side of my musical interests.
Pop is pop for a reason.
Yeah, when it’s good it’s really good. I recently DJ’d for my daughter’s birthday, there were no boys there – I think she said, which was wonderful, she said, ‘They complicate things’. Little does she know! So I DJ’d in my studio for ten girls…
Did she give you a playlist?
Yeah, but we managed to sneak in a few things that appeal to children like Parliament and Prince, Michael Jackson and things like that, so at least there’s a little reprieve from Jessie J. But I still managed to clear the dancefloor, I turned my back and they all buggered off into the kitchen. I looked round and only my mum was dancing, still supporting me! [laughs].
That’s brilliant, it must have made such a change from your regular club gig.
Yeah fortunately I don’t clear the floor often, not knowingly anyway. But it’s a similar thing, without the playlists, I’m not someone who likes requests. I’m someone who plays what I play, and that’s that. I don’t mean that to be arrogant, it’s just the way I do it. I remember another DJ said to me when I was first starting out, ‘Never play something you don’t like’.
Never compromise.
Well not so much compromise because, if you’re that kind of person anyway, it wouldn’t be a compromise as such. Because if your aim was to make people go mad and get 100% success ratings, then it wouldn’t feel like a compromise it’s just a different way of operating. One is occasionally in a situation where you get sent something and it’s a big tune and you think, ‘This isn’t for me, I won’t play it. I’ll let someone else play it’. Especially someone else on the same bill, on the same night – I’m playing with them, I know they’ll play it, so they can play it. Not in a sense of not wanting to get your hands dirty. I play pretty deep and dubby, or whatever, and I’ve always thought, if you’re going to play a big tune, the only way to follow it is with another big tune. I’m not a big tune kinda guy really, it’s not how I tell the story I suppose.
So, fabric’s your residency – how did that come about?
I was doing a night in a place called the Soundshaft, at the back of Heaven. It’s a small club, a great little space. Terry Francis and I were the residents, it was probably the beginning of my DJing really – I’d gone from being a bit of a mess of a DJ, playing in back rooms and stuff, to getting a second deck and mixing, putting together some of the things I was interested in in a more cohesive way. Instead of being in a back room and not having any pressure, just being drunk and putting records on. When you start to mix you start to realise it can be put into half an hour sections and you can blend everything together to make more of a story, which I was never interested in before. But I started mixing, what became ‘tech house’. I was very influenced by a lot of things that were going on like Wiggle. I used to go to The End a lot there was a certain sound that was deep, a bit tweaky and twisted, but still housey and not techno. Given that techno at the time was very banging and rolling, Jeff Mills, Luke Slater… they were playing techno and we’d go and listen to these people but I didn’t want to play that sound. I wanted to be trippier, groovier and I guess I was listening to a lot of music from San Francisco and LA, there was a sound that was coming from there, it felt like it was coming with love, but serious and interesting. The guy that owns fabric, Keith Reilly, had seen us play at these nights and he was opening a club, which is fabric, and he asked us to be residents – at the time, it was just a proposal of a venture and, thirteen years on, with our collective efforts, it’s become a significant force. I’m very proud of what it’s achieved. Especially when I go around the world, like last night in Rome, and people are very complimentary and tell me how much it’s affected their understanding of electronic music – it’s very heartwarming to know that. I certainly didn’t expect it to be thirteen years, it’s the nearest thing I’ve had to a job.
I think it’s biggest achievement is that we haven’t wavered from the original plan, it’s never been decorated, it’s never changed, we’re just tracking the music, playing the good stuff all the way through. From bongos to glitches to clicks, playing the good stuff, presenting it right on a great stage. At the time, the underground parties were… because they were underground and because of the scale, the depth of the cut could only be so much. I think what fabric did was present underground music properly and on a really amazing sound system in what is really, a posh rave. It’s got proper toilets, loo roll, a bar with ice… at the time, these parties could be a bit dirty – as they still are sometimes. It was presenting it properly with a greater significance, that is our greatest achievement in helping the worm to turn in terms of pushing what was the real stuff, the essence, to a bigger audience. Every week for the last thirteen years, 2,000 people are in there, always, and the music defines their enjoyment because there’s nothing in there, it’s just brickwork and flashing lights, and it appears to be a success.
A massive success.
A massive success, yeah. It’s a success for the music, not for us. I always feel, as a DJ and as a club, you’re just a conduit for the music, you’re just communicating it. I never understand DJs that get so excited about themselves that it becomes about them, maybe it’s because I’m not really a stereotypical DJ – I still see myself as a music collector, my DJing came from collecting records. I went to America, and I had a lot of records, rare groove, funk and disco and that’s why people would ask me to DJ. Back then that’s why anyone would be asked to DJ, it was about having a record collection, there wasn’t any real skill in DJing, for me it was putting on an old suit and turning up. There wasn’t any skill in the technique of DJing, especially with those old tunes, in a way one goes after another, they went together anyway – having the tunes was the thing, I’m still trading on that. I’m pretty obsessive about having tunes, I graft hard to have music, I forage and search. That side of my work comes from those days of unearthing things, hearing about things. Before the internet information itself was so hard to come by, it was bloody hard.
You know what, I’m really glad that I didn’t grow up with the internet.
So am I. I’m glad it’s happened, I’ve learnt more about music in the last five or ten years than I have in all the rest of the time, because going to record fairs as I used to do, or record shops with grumpy old wankers who didn’t want to share information, it was like swimming through glue trying to feed what was a burning love. And going to gigs to hear music… we used to have a thing where we would always train spot with the DJ, only early on – later on we’d always be too drunk – me and two friends would only be allowed to go up to ask the name of a tune three times each, so three times multiplied by three, you’d go home with nine tunes that you loved, that you could then buy. If you didn’t ask what it was, it was like kissing a girl and never seeing her again, two years later you might hear that tune again and be like, ‘Fucking hell, it’s that tune! I’m gonna go up this time’. But that, being deprived in that way, makes you hungry, we were hungry. We wanted to know what was going on, we’d drive all over the place and I’m glad for that, it’s almost like a jumble sale mentality.
Do they even have jumble sales any more?! I haven’t heard about one in ages…
They must do in different parts of England. I’m sure they do. But we grew up with jumble sales, we were all into second-hand clothes, in those days you could buy clothes from the forties and fifties for 50p, we all used to wear stuff that didn’t fit us. I remember having this pair of brogues that didn’t fit me, I wore them for years. They were so good I just wore them. My mate had a pair of shoes that had holes in the heel where the person had calipers, we always used to laugh. We used to wear all sorts, suits… you can’t get away with it so much when you’re older but when you’re younger you just buy it. Like that film Stop Making Sense where he’s got the big suit.
Yeah, you definitely have a lot more leeway when you’re a youngster don’t you?
Totally, because you’ve got the confidence you just bluster through. As you get older, you get more paranoid – not in a paranoid way, there’s the self-doubt thing again.
Now I have something I need to take up with you… when I was in Miami, a lot of people said that you’d played the best set they’d ever heard at that notorious villa party. What happened that night?
I dunno. It was funny situation because I’d played at Electric Pickle and, when we left there, we got invited to this house on Star Island – where P.Diddy and all these people live. It’s a wonderfully ‘Miami’ kind of thing, just going to this place is the invite you always wanted to get because it’s so ‘Miami’. So I took my records and there was a sound system there so someone said, ‘Why don’t you play?’. I can’t remember how many of us there were in the beginning, ten or fifteen, we asked the owner if we could invite people… I don’t how many turned up, 70 or 80. I ended up playing for nine hours and I think what it was, was I just played disco records I’d recorded on to CD, 1) because I don’t want them going through airports and 2) they’re heavy and I’ve only got a certain weight allowance. So anyway, I’ve burnt a lot of them on to CD. I played disco, soul and funk, no house at all, and I played for nine hours so that was probably one of the reasons why people enjoyed it, because it was solidly one thing. Beyond that, I can’t really say much more than I just played my records and people enjoyed it and it appears to be a legendary night. People keep telling me… it was a hell of a night. We sort of took over really, the people who had the house all went and sat in the kitchen and, at eleven in the morning, the owner came over to me and asked, ‘Do you mind if we finish soon?’. It was a great night, we all danced a lot and the sun came up – you don’t often get the chance to play that sort of music, solely and people enjoy it and don’t start moaning about it. It was a lovely opportunity to play for that amount of time and… I have got a lot of records!
You can dig deep when you need to.
Yeah, so it was a chance to do that. The rest is down to what other people say.
I really enjoyed your set at Get Lost as well. We had such a gruelling morning because we’d been at Vagabonds until 6am, went back to our hotel on South Beach, showered, changed, had breakfast then went straight to the Pickle. It was our first time there and we walked into the pitch black room downstairs, but headed straight out to the terrace where you were playing… it kind of brought us back to reality.
It’s a bit much at that time of the morning, you need to be outside. It’s like being in Trade or something..
Did you ever go to Trade?
Yeah I went there a lot. There wasn’t a lot on at that time, it’s funny how Sunday became this day – it never was before. Sunday almost became the day six or seven years ago. With Trade, what we would do is go somewhere, someone’s house or something, then go there at six, seven, eight or nine in the morning. I don’t remember going there specifically because I was into Trade, there just wasn’t a lot on on Sundays, we’d go in there because it was a club and it was banging. People were pretty wild in there. The thing was, from the first time I went to London we only ever really went to gay clubs, gay clubs were the best place to be and mixed gay clubs… most of the good things that were on in London were mixed gay or completely gay. Patrick Lilley used to put on High On Hope, which was a fantastic place, he brought over all the Americans. That was the first place I saw Tony Humphries, Terry Hunter, Timmy Regisford – all those DJs, the first they played in London, to my knowledge, was High On Hope, which was at Dingwalls initially. It was safe in there, the girls felt safe and the straight guys had no fear of getting clouted. In those days you might have got clouted for wearing a pink T-shirt, it’s very different now. Anything that was out of the norm you could get clouted for – before ecstasy, violence was very prevalent in England’s clubs and pubs. Before you’d get clouted someone might say, ‘Who do you think you are?’ [laughs].
When I was first in London Taboo was on, which was Leigh Bowery’s club, awful music but fun, wild – very hedonistic, very different. We used to go to all those different places. London’s such a brilliant place. When I moved here, eighties London was incredible… it’s still incredible now. One thing I’ve learnt from moving away from London is, at first it was like a girlfriend I wish I’d never split up with, but what’s actually happened is that it’s ingrained a real deep love. By the things I have missed and haven’t missed, I’ve worked out everything that I love about London, that love is very, very deep now and I’m sure at one point I’ll move back to London.
Oh yeah?
Sure, I love London. Half my family are from London, my mum went to school around Spitalfields and I always came to London a lot. My love of this place is so much deeper since leaving, the place itself I love it – the streets, the whole thing. Life’s not as edgy as it used to be, because of information. In terms of defining trends, movements, the future, London is so important to the rest of the world. It leads the world in so many ways, in mutliculturalism, in integration, in creativity it’s just a wonderful, wonderful city. By being a part of it, you have a right to feel proud of it – so today as I flew into Heathrow I felt like I was home, there’s nowhere else like it.
So what does the future hold, have you made any firm plans apart from the painting or are you just taking it as it comes?
I’ve been DJing quite a lot this year, I’ve had the residency at DC10.
Oh yeah, how’s that been going?
It’s alright. I’ve been travelling a lot more, but I’m lucky because I’ve got the fabric thing. I’ve never been a resident in the sense of a 11-12 type of resident, I’ve always been able to do what I want and invite who I want – to some extent, without sounding pompous, everyone who’s there is my guest. That does sound pompous, but it’s not meant to. Back then, a lot of people who are big names now weren’t so well known, I just liked their music and invited them to play. I always had full rein on who came over and who would play so, if I go somewhere else, I’ve always got that to beat. If I go somewhere else and it’s shit, I think, ‘What’s the point in playing here when I’ve got the residency?’ It’s been thirteen years but I’m not bored, why would I be? I buy records every week and I still get excited about hearing them loud, for me that was the big thing about DJing, hearing the records outside of my home on a proper system, with a rotary mixer. Increasingly it’s difficult to play records. They’re like old people we’re being horrible to, people use the decks to put their CDs on or their coats on – that’s the lifeblood of what we do. Personally, I’d rather be somewhere in comfort where records sound like they should. The only justification for playing records is if they sound better. If you go somewhere and it’s been set up for CDs, or digital or whatever people are doing and the records sound sludgy then there’s no justification for playing them. In an environment where records sound way better, and if you’re playing on a rotary mixer, the valve mixer I play on – it sounds way, way better and believable. When you’re playing Basic Channel – deep sparse, stripped down techno, it’s really believable on a good system and you’ve got that warmth and crackle. Vinyl is really a dishonest representation of the music, a WAV is the absolute truth, when you cut it to vinyl it’s been coloured by the medium. You’ve got that crackle and the needle traveling through the groove, it’s a gorgeous thing. For me, it works, I like buying records, I like playing them and, thirteen years on, I feel like the luckiest guy in town. I don’t think there’s any other residency that’s gone on as long, I’m not suggesting it’s more significant because it’s gone on longer but I made it my home and my life, and it works as a system. I think the older you get the less you want to change your system, it works for me because I believe in it. At five in the morning, on a good day, it’s the only place to be.