DIRTYBIRD: CLAUDE VONSTROKE

This August Bank Holiday sees the return of Hyponik favourite warehouse party brand Eastern Electrics, take to London’s Union Street Car Park for another rave of epic proportions. Bringing through 6 of the cities finest promoters, the Saturday show sees Nuke Them All, Neon Noise Project and Trailer Trash pump it up, before Sunday’s show has Mulletover, Need2Soul and Resident Advisor tie things up. This means over the course of the 2 days you can catch the likes of Drums of Death, Radioclit,Yuksek, Alex Metric, Riton, Hannah Holland, Shir Khan, Anja Schneider, Damian Lazarus, Patrice Scott, Trevor Jackson and of course, Claude VonStroke.

Heading up the Resident Advisor stage on the closing day, Claude VonStroke will soon celebrate 5 successful years for his much loved Dirtybird label, churning out the very best tech-house on the face of the planet, and doing it with panache, skill and a damn fine sense of humour. We caught up with the head Bird to chat about Bootsy Collins, jungle and mayor molestation…

Hyponik.com: Hello Mr Vonstroke, how’re you?
Claude VonStroke: I’m great except my foot is trapped inside a giant gumball machine. It’s going to take years to get all this gum off my shoe.

H.com: Beware of the Bird was a massive, massive release and propelled an already burgeoning career into the stratosphere. You’ve got a new album out soon, can you tell us a bit about that?
CVS: The new album is called Bird Brain. It’s more of a cohesive album this time. The tracks are a little less in your face, a little more vibey but there are still some bombs to be dropped. You can hear a little bit more of San Francisco and hip-hop maybe in this one.

H.com: You run two of the best and most consistent labels in the U.S, Dirtybird and Mothership. What inspired you to start up these up, and what are your plans for their future?
CVS: I want to get a permanent marker and tattoo the mayor’s arm with our logos while he is sleeping. After that i’ll probably have to do a little bit of jail time and some community service but then we’ll get right back on track. Actually, we have a 5 year dirtybird birthday this year in January so i’ll try to be out by then. We will do a triple cd for that birthday as well with all the classics, a new mix and some new tracks.

H.com: Which other labels are doing it properly in your opinion?
CVS: The most “on it” label as far as music, art, forward thinking, management, etc. has always been Ghostly/Spektral for me. that is who i look to when i start to think…what the fuck am i doing? They are real trailblazers on so many fronts. As far as music i like some things from everywhere. I like the new Danish Tartelett label, some things from Frankie, Souvenir, Kindisch, Made to Play, etc. but there isn’t any one label that i really feel is totally destroying it 100%.

H.com: The name Claude VonStroke came from a late night session making up European sounding DJ names right? Can you remember any of the others that got thrown into the equation and didn’t end up sticking?
CVS: I used some of them already here and there. My Italian name was Burnto Bertolucci & my Spanish name was Pedro De La Faydro.

H.com: There’s a noticeable hip-hop and jungle influence on your music with warm, percussive bass and inspired sample manipulation which somehow sits perfectly with the tech-house tempos and structures. What sort of music really moved you when growing up, and what’s been inspiring your studio output more recently?
CVS: I’m a hip-hop / junglist at the core. Maybe i’m not following those scenes with a microscope any more but that ass moving stuff is what moves me. Bass moves me. But i do have to say that some of this waaay over the top stuff coming out all over the place is not what i like at all.

H.com: What’s your favorite piece of studio kit? We’ve seen videos of you demonstrating the awesome capabilities of Reason in the right hands, but what about hardware?
Tough one, but i always reach for the Moog Voyager first when i need something gnarly.

H.com: You’ve been working with Justin Martin on Beat That Bird, which is an unmistakable piece of pure Dirtybird booty moving goodness. Is it good to have him back in the fold?
CVS: Totally amazing to have him back with us. I like to think he was lost and now he is found like a born again Dirtybird. Justin is the most naturally talented producer I know. That track is on my album as well, so thanks Justin!!!!

H.com: You’ve got Catz n’ Dogz on the roster for Mothership and they’re churning out some spectacular stuff at the moment, but are you a cat man or a dog man?
CVS: Dog man all the way. I like to sniff people’s butts.

H.com: Which new musicians are you particularly excited about at the moment?
CVS: J Phlip just blew me away with her last two remixes. You will hear them soon on DB. She is really coming into her own. Not a ton of new new people are doing it for me but i AM excited about people like Justin getting back to making Db stuff. that’s really exciting to me. I also have to say the Voodeux album was really great on mothership. It was thematic, futuristic, cool, and it sounds amazing.

H.com: What was it like working with Bootsy Collins, is he as mad as he comes across on his recordings, or is it all just a rouse?
CVS: He’s exactly like the recordings all the way. He is pure funk. In fact, he puts my funk status to shame.

H.com: Are there any plans to bring the Dirtybird and Mothership parties over to this neck of the woods?
CVS: We had one DB party there in a warehouse but it was like 200 degrees in that place but we will try again. We’re also doing an album release party, dirtybird room 1 at Fabric on Dec.5

H.com: What would you be doing if you weren’t making music?
CVS: I’d be an egg analyst at the Food and Drug Administration. I would be deciding which eggs were Grade A and which were not.
Then i would stockpile a bunch of eggs on the side and make endless pancakes for all the children in San Francisco on Sunday mornings. This would lead to me opening a restaurant called
“King of all Pancakes” and President Obama would make a visit and we would get on the front page of USA today. Then i would sell the restaurant to Gordon Ramsey for 2 million pounds and i would move to Bora Bora and go fishing every day.

Catch Claude VonStroke along with Trevor Jackson, Matias Aguayo and Lakuti on the Resident Advisor stage at next weekend’s Eastern Electrics. Tickets are £20 and are available HERE.