Some say that it is just Russian bots who listen to the podcast but I did the number crunching and the votes are in. You love phonk and we love it too.
Here’s the playlist:
SCXR SOUL – BRAINWORM
Kaito Shoma – Sour Jam
MC ORSEN – NO TOMORROW
yatashigang – OVERKILL
DXVXLWXSH – Hellride
phonk.me – AID
Samantha Gang – Storm
Sinny – Kxlla Phonk (Slowed + Reverb)
Hensonn – Spacey supp
Dirrek – Cold Whispers
MVDX – DESTINY
NXKXNXPLAYA – PSYCHO KILLER
LIKEBSNS – WHAT
PHNKR – WIG SPLXT
AQUASPLIT – HYPER BEAST
SaintRxse – WHERE IS MY MIND
Tommy Soprano – EVOLUTION
Elijah Ghost – North Side Reppa
Dexndre – OH NO!
Phil The Void – Shinigami (feat Nxxses)
PHNKR – SXHARA
Grioten – BRXKEN
NØCTRIS – Gimme Phonk – slowed + reverb
*** brought to you by a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share-Alike 3.0 License ***
Do you confuse #house with #techno, #trance, #techhouse, #dubstep, #dnb and #progressivehouse? We are one of the top and best edm podcasts around for DJ’s and fans alike.
A talking podcast about EDM with an attitude and opinion! You like electronic dance music and don’t know what’s lit or douce? We’ve got you covered. We are bringing, news, reviews, and gossip directly to your ears. Come and say Hi ! Or even better subscribe to our podcast now.
Not so underground but still (almost) listenable. The 50 most popular mainstream dance tracks of 2022 in a rapid fire format to satisfy your serotonin addiction.
*** brought to you by a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share-Alike 3.0 License ***
Do you confuse #house with #techno, #trance, #techhouse, #dubstep, #dnb and #progressivehouse? We’ve got you covered.
A talking podcast about EDM with an attitude and opinion! You like electronic dance music and don’t know what’s lit or douce? We’ve got you covered. We are bringing, news, reviews, and gossip directly to your ears. Come and say Hi ! Or even better subscribe to our podcast now.
What is it like to rage as a disabled person? Have you ever seen how a disabled person navigates the festival grounds? How you even seen a disabled person in a rave? How do you deal with disabled persons if you are an event organiser? What can you do if you are disabled? We invited Brianna Paauwe who has first hand experience as a wheelchair user to share her story and experience and update us on what can you do if you are a disabled person. Whether you have an overt or hidden disability this episode is a must listen. This is an important episode about #diversity #inclusion #disability so please share to raise awareness.
Please follow her socials and more information on accessing disability friendly information below
Here is a link to the empowerment events that Brianna’s team are hosting soon as well. These events are free for wheelchair users and happen quarterly!
We are kicking off the seventh season of this podcast with an interview of our favourite artist of the past 3 years. Cam Lasky is a mysterious figure from Kyoto, Japan making the most exquisite deep dubstep. If you like your sounds dark and noir then join us on this aural journey into his mind but don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Cam Lasky, a mysterious man from Kyoto may be a by-product of his surrounding environment. Living deep in Kyoto’s ancient and mystical forests among bears, deer, boars, monkeys, spirits and ghosts one could not help but produce deep, raw, hard hitting, reverberating, mysterious and awe inspiring electronic music.
Winter view from his Kyoto studio
“Curse, Noir and Darkness”
This is how he describes himself in only 3 words. Cam Lasky (real name Cameron Laskowsky) is a dark dance music producer with a studio deep in the mountains of Kyoto being inspired from novels, manga and paintings that depict the darkness of humans and subhumans.
I became aware of his music in the summer of 2020 when everything was falling apart due to the insane government measures that were imposed around the world. It wasn’t the happiest of times and I personally felt that we needed a reset in dance music. So, I started looking towards the East for inspiration as I thought we needed new sounds, new heroes, and the absence of western politics to help us navigate the novel unknowns we were faced with.
Japan, Japanese artists and Japanese music was the natural destination for me since I wanted to venture east. I was always fascinated with the musical geniuses that come out of that country. In dance music we had and have techno idols like Susumu Yokota (R.I.P.) and Ken Ishii that offered and keep offering a refreshing take on stale ambient and techno paradigms.
I cannot remember how I came about Cam Lasky’s profile. But I fell in love with his music at first hearing ! Perhaps, it resonated with my dark and depressed mood at the time. Perhaps it was the quality of his fresh sounds I was seeking. Perhaps it was that I got disgusted with the glamour of overproduced and self-centred Instagram junk EDM that did not seem to resonate with the angst and trauma that 2020 brought to the world. Or perhaps it is because his music was simply awesome. Week after week I noticed a new release appearing from him on Spotify and couldn’t help but notice that the quality of each release remained unquavering despite a manic release schedule. I was immediately drawn to his unique artwork and the concepts that the releases were connected to.
Titles like Occulted Kyoto and Tokyo Hyaku meant that there was a deeper thread connecting his music rather than him dropping random meaningless releases. E.P. after E.P, week after week, release after release, Cam Lasky kept on releasing gem after gem drawing me more and more inside his dark, twisted world.
I asked him whether the pandemic affected his creative process at all.
I’m sorry for those who were unfortunate, but the pandemic has greatly reduced my interaction with people, which has greatly increased my production time. It has been very fulfilling.
This pandemic has also given me a good opportunity to revaluate how I interact with people and the distance between us.
His music did not fall in line with any of the known labels of contemporary electronic dance music. And that kind of bothered me because of my journalistic approach to labels needing these in order to communicate what we listen with fellow sonic seekers and listeners of my podcast. I just couldn’t label him and this frustrated me ! Sure, you could call his music Deep Dubstep (these days it is sometimes called Deep140), halftime (Drum and Bass’s subgenre) but was this adequate to describe the complexities of the sounds intermingling in his surgically crafted soundscapes?
If I were to define my music strictly in terms of current genres, “epic music with dance music (bass music) skeleton” might be close. However, some people call it “constructed noise music” or “Asian gothic music” so I don’t really define it. Except to facilitate stores to label it under one genre. We would be more than happy if people who listen to our music can call it whatever they want to call it.
That felt more appropriate. His music which is eerie and otherworldly could be labelled as epic gothic ambient bass. You just have to listen to the drums in most his tracks that sound like they have taken a new life being guided by the wings of a Shinigami.
His music is inspired by artists that you would not traditionally associate with electronic dance music. We are used to hear artists being inspired by the likes of Jean Michel Jarre or Kraftwerk. Pretty standard stuff. Instead Cam Lasky is inspired by artists as diverse or off beat as Peter Gabriel, Steve Reich, Harold Budd, Michael Nyman, and Trevor Horn (Sound Produce Works). These are some acclaimed names that have inspired mostly off the beaten path electronica artists. As he explains different artists showed him different aspects of music production, music technology and philosophy in sound crafting. For example in the case of Peter Gabriel he learned how to combine folklore and technology to make commercial music (rock or pop), and in the case of Michael Nyman how to make commercial music with a contemporary approach. He is inspired of how Harold Budd is able to build a “worldview” with one piano (as in one instrument). Steve Reich is one of his influences because of his minimalism approach. Finally, the almighty Trevor Horn showed him the relationship between commercial music and technology and musical marketing techniques.
Johny Walker: You occasionally incorporate faster breaks in very few of your tracks but this has never been your main focus. You focus on slower rhythm? Why?
I simply like slow beats.
Most of his work is hypnotic. Τhe slow shuffling beats put you in a trance and his tracks merge one after another into a mesmerizing amalgamation of drones, ambience, eerie soundscapes and tantalizing walls of sound. I can only hope for a 10 hours mixtape. The perfect lo-fi soundtrack !
JW: Your signature sound is moody and dark. Would you agree with that and why? Do you plan to record a “lighter” sound?
Cam Lasky: I have been making bright music since I was young (under various aliases), but I actually never liked bright music. I have always wanted to make dark music.
KWAIOTO Records (his own record label) is the place where I can make all the dark music I want. I’m not going to move from there.
The origins of my desire to make dark music goes back to my childhood. I was the kind of kid who started playing the piano (while learning the basics with a teacher) from before I can remember and became obsessed with expressing what I thought. (I was the kind of kid who would get so carried away that I would shit my pants.)
One night, I was struck by the score of a classic Hollywood horror movie (Werewolf or Frankenstein) on TV. I was probably 6 years old. I started playing old horror movie style songs on the piano as I wanted.
But the adults around him did not approve of a child making up a series of gloomy tunes. They said “Let’s make more cheerful songs. Let’s play more childlike and energic songs.”
By the time I was nine years old, I switched to jazz piano and was corrected while being tapped into the joy of session playing. The next time my desire for dark music was revived was when I graduated from music college, but more on that later (it is closely related to Kyoka Hyaku).
My current obsession with dark music may also be my revenge against the adults who denied me the pleasures of my childhood.
His sounds are haunting with breathing rhythms and metallic timbres, shifting sounds occasionally using traditional Japanese organs. However, there are hardly any vocals that I noticed. And there is a good reason for this as he does not want to add his words to the words of other artists.
My music serves as a soundtrack to a novel (i.e., words), so I don’t dare to put words to music. Instead, my vocal partner, Korean singer-songwriter Samantha Gang, takes care of that. Perhaps in our new project “Whale,” she will add lyrics and melody to my songs.
Does he ever sleep?
I already alluded to how prolific Cam Lasky is with his releases. Prolific may not be the right word. For once, I thought he was a machine. I added all his releases from 2020 and 2021 in a couple of Spotify playlists for my listening convenience, and realised he released 178 tracks and 220 tracks in 2020 and 2021 respectively ! He is not doing bad in 2022 either.
But how is he able to record so much music? Perhaps he is insomniac like many artists? I just had to ask him…!
JW: Do you sleep at all?
CL: I sleep 7 to 8 hours. If not enough, I take a nap in my studio.
JW: You are very prolific in producing music. How do you do it? Please describe your creative process?
CL: I have a lot of music I want to make. But there are so few hours in a day. So, I developed a way to make music quickly. It is all about dividing labour.
If I was in charge of the entire music production process all by myself, there would not be enough time to do it all.
The first step is having a meeting with my collaborators. By having a fun and quick discussion, 90% of the music is completed. (This is also possible because of having the original novel as the inspiration source).
We first we structure the entire song from intro to outro (me and a few others). Next, we determine the key, scale and sketch the score. Then, humming (me) of each part is recorded and converted to MIDI data (data craftsman).
The beats are played on drums (the percussions sometimes on Taiko drums) and recorded (me). The synths, drums, and percussion (me and sound craftsman) are then selected and replaced (me).
After that, the engineer masters it and everyone involved in the work gives it a final review, and if it is OK, it is ready for release.
This division of labour allows us to share the joy and profit of creation with many people, rather than keeping it to ourselves. I have not been able to share enough yet, but we continue to create with the belief that one day we will all be enriched.
Finally, the real reason why I want to make a lot of music is because I believe that quantity is quality. I believe that if I make a lot of music, I will one day arrive at the best music.
With so much music one could think that his music all sounds the same. Throw some pre-made chord progressions from midi packs in FL studio, pick some ready made samples from the same sound libraries everyone uses, and hey presto…new tune out every week. But his case is rather different. Every track is a distinct breathable creation. Like a magician who creates distinct entities out of his imagination, Cam Lasky creates musical pieces that sound like no other.
JW: How do you ensure that your music does not sound the same?
CL: That is a very difficult and important question. I always ask myself. ‘Does this look like something I made before?’
If I think so, I immediately discard all data, even if it is a finished work.
Even after that, I still wonder, “Is this really similar?” No clear solution has been found yet. It may not be found until I die.
JW: Which are your favourite piece of plugin, software, and hardware kits that you use for music production?
CL: I’m sorry, but I can’t clarify about VST and DTM Software due to my sponsor.
My hardware synthesizers are: E-mu Emulator 2, AKAI S3000XL and Native Instrument S61 MK2 (MIDI Controller). For electric pianos I use a YAMAHA CP5, Roland MK-80. For constructing the beats I use Machine: Native Instrument – MASCHINE MK3.
A view from Cam Lasky’s studio autumn time
JW: Is it true that you play the drums for all your tracks live?
CL: Yes. To be precise, the first thing to do is to beat electronic drums or NI-MASCHINE and convert it into MIDI data. The purpose of this is to record ideas that have a live feel by playing everything from the intro to the outro as you think of it.
Then, based on the data, I change the beat pattern, alter the timbre, and replace it with real drums and percussion to finish it. This is the fastest and most satisfying way for me to finish a beat.
“My music is for the heart, and not the mind”
His music is truly unexpected. Almost improvised like jazz, the bassline is screeching in agony, the percussions echo in the frosty Kyoto night, the strings and piano jam with each other, twirl an collide in an ever lasting dance.
My music is for the heart, and not the mind. Because I make music from sensations that cannot be verbalized or scored. Making music from a musical score and for the mind is very boring work for me. Because I have understood the method of creating music.
JW: You are producing your music with several themes or concepts being inspired from books, if I understand correctly. Is there a connecting thread that links all these themes together?
It is anger at the various forms of violence by those who have some kind of power (authority or monstrosity).
I would say that it is sometimes hard to follow the blitz of his release schedule because his releases are tied to different concepts and themes running in parallel.
JW: Could you give for our listeners the main inspiration themes behind your different series:
CL:
Occulted City is a series of music about ghosts, goblins, and monsters passed down from generation to generation in Miyako (Kyoto) and Edo (Tokyo).
This series is one of my longest running life’s work in my projects. As of 2022, a new release is still planned. Among them, the following two series were turning works for me.
The album and series are inspired by Tamaki Shino’s violent gothic novels “Cannibal Kannon”, which depict three generations of a family that are being played by “something” in the form of a beautiful woman who eats baby flesh and continues to live on, leading to their self-destruction.
This series was a turning point for me in determining the direction of “How to musicalize the 19th and early 20th century period in Japan with modern technology.
The album is based on David Peace’s noir novel (Tokyo Trilogy 1: TOKYO YEAR ZERO) about detectives investigating a real-life serial assault on women in Tokyo between 1945 and 1946.
KWAIOTO Records was established to create music from this work. Burnt ruins of air raids, the smell of decay, dust, blood, and death….
The album is not available for download service provider because some digital stores do not like it due to the 32 songs it contains.
OCCUPIED CITY Album:
Based on the novel by David Peace (Tokyo Trilogy 2), this is the story of the banker poisoning in Tokyo in 1948, the former Japanese Army germ squad and GHQ behind it.
This work has been made into a series twice before, but this time, three times more, it was completed by banging sticks and hammers on everything from small metal to steel frames.
This is another noir novel by David Peace. The final chapter of the Tokyo Trilogy, depicting three generations in 1964 and 1984, criminal detective journalists and the darkness of GHQ surrounding the murder of the president of Japan National Railways in 1949.
I produced 50 tracks for this album, reaching a total of 100 tracks for the Tokyo Trilogy. But the physical release (on SD card) is all on one disc, although this album is divided into three pieces because the store hates it when there are too many songs.
The project is a musical adaptation of 100 novels by Kyoka Izumi, a horror and dark fantasy novelist active in 19th century Japan.
In Japan, it is said that if you tell 100 ghost stories, strange things will happen. If I make 100 pieces of music, will something strange happen to me? (JW: Hyaku ひゃくmeans 100 in Japanese)
Forbidden:
This project is based on the biographical manga “Kijima Nikki” by Eiji Otsuka and Yoshinatsu Mori. Kijima Nikki” is set in Japan in 1936, just before the war, and tells the story of a top-secret organization to take care of “things that should not exist in this world” and the dark activities of the Nazis. This is my favourite work to date.
With so many themes, albums and releases I had to ask Cam Lasky to recommend some of his work as an introduction to new listeners, because that task may be daunting otherwise to the uninitiated. He recommends his most recent work, the Forbidden series and the Tokyo Year Zero album, a monumental piece of work from 2020.
JW: What is your favourite work and why?
CL: The FORBIDDEN series, because it is the culmination of my five-year career at KWAIOTO Records. It means that I was able to “do everything I wanted to do” in the first half of 2022.
Recording and releasing music since 2016 does not sound like a very long time, however most music artists peak by their second difficult or even third album. With 12 albums released to date Cam Lasky sounds unstoppable.
JW: Do you think you have reached your peak as an recording artist and musician?
CL: I may suddenly lose motivation tomorrow, or I may lose my hearing three years from now. At least I don’t know “at this moment” when I will peak as a “musician”.
However, the worldview I want to develop as “Cam Lasky” is still going to take time, and I would like to do it even if it takes 10 or 20 years.
As I previously mentioned in addition to his music what caught my eye is the carefully curated artwork for his different series and how these all tie together the different concepts and more importantly his music. In contrast to other dance music artists who release albums for the sake of marketing and branding an album in Cam Lasky’s hands is a discrete and meaningful concept with an impact imparted by the back story that inspired the artist. it is not a mere collection of disjointed tracks that have to be released for the sake of staying current.
JW: What is the inspiration for your awesome album artwork?
The label’s two art directors read the original book and participated in meetings to complete the visuals before the start of music production. The inspiration for their visuals came from the original book and the visuals are also a source of inspiration for my music.
With plenty of music at the ready and his awesome artwork to almost do the marketing effortlessly for him, will Cam Lasky be jumping at the latest Gen Z trend and start releasing his music on vinyl? It is only lately that artists realised that streaming will never produce a self-sustaining income and selling music the traditional way is the way forward
The Japanese vinyl market is for rich audiophiles. The market for DJs who use vinyl in clubs is surprisingly small. I’m interested in 24bit / 96kHz and above and Dolby Atmos, but unfortunately I’m not really interested in CDs. I’m not a big fan of CDs, because they fall apart after 50 years.
Vinyl, on the other hand, will last 100 years or more, so if I see the possibility of vinyl remastering, I may release it.
So he does not say no to vinyl releases ! Take my money meme goes here. And he does release cassettes. So, wholesome !
He is categorical and emphatic about his selection of working with other artists.
JW: Would you ever do a remix for money for an artist or song you do not like?
A job I would never like to do.
JW: Which are your favourite artists right now (any genre)?
Geoff Barrow, Ivy Lab, Gazelle Twin, Trent Reznor, Cliff Martinez. Ivy Lab is one of the most respected bass artists on the west coast, they move freely between hip-hop and bubblegum, but their roots are in bass music, and their constant creative evolution is a constant source of inspiration and learning for me. The other four are artists who are part of what we might call soundtrack culture. Auteurism that moves freely between commercial music, dance music, ambient, noise, and contemporary music, while still being soundtracks for movies and dramas!
And how about his future plans? Releasing all this music surely needs a live connection with his fans and audience both in Japan and worldwide.
Usually bass artists DJ more than actually producing music. In the case of Cam Lasky he does the exact opposite. Why?
I believe that in order to DJing, you have to listen to a lot of songs and understand the appeal of each one. I can’t do that. Because I want to spend that time on production.
Unfortunately, some health issues restricted his ability to travelling. Because of this gigs were held only in Kyoto and around western Japan. Osaka (in the neighbouring prefecture of Kyoto) in 2019 was his last live concert before the pandemic struck. You could get a taster of how he would sound live though. In 2020 he did a live music production mixed with DJing on Mixcloud that you can listen to here
We have no plans for live shows at this time, but we are considering Spotify Live and Metaverse (we are testing various platforms). Maybe I will do this style of delivery (video or radio or metaverse or something), but there are no plans right now.
Which is a shame because bass may be quite popular in the US and states like Washington, but in Kyoto, Japan he may be on his own.
There is no local bass music scene in Kyoto. Lots of great Japanese electro artists exist, but very few of them produce bass music.
Being isolated in his region probably forced him to make his own label as an outlet to his music and build up from the grounds. Kwaioto records is his own label, but he is not the only artist recording there. Babie Gion from Kyoto, and Samantha Gang from South Korea also record there.
Samantha Gang has been a regular contributor to KWAIOTO Records since the label’s inception, writing music, lyrics, and vocals for most of the early EPs in the Occulted City series. This December, she and I will begin a long-term project based on the novel “Whale” by Korean novelist Cheon Myeong-kwan.
I wrote earlier that his music may be a by-product of his environment. However, Japan is also a country of deep rooted tradition and spiritualism. Concepts that are hard to swallow in western logic-focused society are more accepted even in modern Japanese society. Did anyone mention Cam Lasky believing in ghosts?
CL: Rather than believing in them, they appear before me from beginning to end.
Sometimes it’s just sounds. Sometimes they move things. Sometimes they reach out to me. Sometimes they are indistinguishable from real people except for a slight discomfort.
I am not a psychic or a medium, but I have been one since I was a child. I think it must be due to my birth. My maternal grandmother was an Okinawan shaman. Because of this, ghosts have always been around me since I can’t remember.
Some of the songs on KWAIOTO Records have ghost voices in them, and I had many frightening encounters with ghosts during the production of the Occulted City series.
My ghost stories are included in two Japanese books.
JW: Wait, what? Like, which tracks?
CL: For example. Tokyo Year Zero – Asylum 4:15 – 4:18 As soon as the saxophone phrase ends at the above time, a woman’s singing voice can be heard saying “Wooooooo“.
I am happy to hear that the real rape victim girl in this story is pleased with the jazz music (dance music of 1946), as it was also a requiem that I wrote for her to listen. Please look out for many other songs with many clear voices of ghosts mixed in.
Cam Lasky is certainly putting the ghost back in the machines.
And my final question. It may be a cliché and not every Japanese reads or likes reading manga but in the case of Cam Lasky we know that this is is the case. So, I just had to ask !
All the Dubstep & Riddim you need, you freaks. Straight from rehab territory because those necks need some fixing. Episode comes with a free pair of walking sticks. Enjoy the crunchy basslines and make sure you vote on Spotify for which style we should focus next ! Playtime Effin (Disciple) | Gom Jabbar SampliFire (Disciple Round Table) | Maliketh Hostage Situation (Ransom Records) | Protocol Dion Timmer (Subsidia) | Creep Killa (Ft. Nika D) Samplifire X Virus Syndicate (Disciple Round Table) | The Machines Zeds Dead X Blanke (Deadbeats) | Brute SampliFire X Muerte (Disciple Round Table) | Name Drop Excision X Wooli (Subsidia) | Laserbeam Ray Volpe (Disciple) | Heave Marauda X Scarlxrd (Malignant Music) — Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/freakbeats-edm-podcast/message
If you like techno you are in for a treat. A best of this week’s (October 1st) releases. Enjoy the filthy beats.
Do you confuse house with #techno, #trance, #techhouse, dubstep, #dnb and #progressivehouse? We’ve got you covered.
A talking podcast about EDM with an attitude and opinion! You like electronic dance music and don’t know what’s lit or douce? We’ve got you covered. We are bringing, news, reviews, and gossip directly to your ears. Come and say Hi ! Or even better subscribe to our podcast now.
Here’s the most hyped and played tracks for this week of September 2022. Diversity proof; inclusivity enhanced.
The intro is allegedly an actual clip as recorded from BBC Radio 1 Dance although this has been officially refuted.
“A viral video is doing the rounds of BBC Radio 1’s emergency broadcast interruption announcing the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday.
The short clip buzzing around shows a Radio 1 Dance track being cut into with a short note about the late monarch’s passing, before getting right back into the tunes.
While the announcement did come during one of DJ’s Pete Tong’s dance and electronica mix, the national broadcaster continued their eulogy for longer, before leading into ‘God Save The Queen’.”
For the time being we are all grooving to the bourgeois beat
Me and mami doing drugs in a penthouse suite Way to good and way too free So we live like the bourgeoisie Me and mami doing drugs in a penthouse suite I’m the one I love you mami You and me to the bourgeois beat
Felix Da Housecat; Dave The Hustler; Lenka Paris | Go Hard
deadmau5 | XYZ
Flux Pavilion | (Never Gonna) Be Alone
Röyksopp; Karen Harding | Unity – Edit
Tritonal; Sarah de Warren | Signals
Mike Dunn; LOA. | When The Dust Clears (feat. LOA.) – MD MixX
DVBBS; Kideko; Haj | Ride Or Die
MJ Cole | You Got Me
Bob Sinclar; Stadiumx | I’m Still In Love
Jon Hopkins; ANNA | Deep In The Glowing Heart – Night Version
Here’s why this is the best EDM podcast out there. We are a talking podcast about EDM with an attitude and opinion! Do you like electronic dance music and don’t know what’s lit or douce? Do you confuse house with techno, trance, tech house, dubstep, d’n’b and progressive house? We’ve got you covered. We are bringing you news, reviews, and gossip that matter. Come and say Hi ! Or even better subscribe to our podcast now.
Have you heard of the phrase you will own nothing and be happy?
If you have this is exactly what happened to me
This is Johny Walker and l am coming back to you with episode 210. On this occasion I’m just going to tell you a story and in particular my personal experience about what happened to me buying a festival ticket. And stay tuned until the end because I have an action item and I need your help
Buying electronic tickets or e-tickets has now been the fashion for a few years. Prior to that you had a paper ticket as proof of purchase, occasionally with a fancy feature like a hologram to prove its authenticity. Later on, a bar code was introduced and in the last few years this was substituted in the majority of the tickets with a QR code. Of course, both these are machine readable features that proves to the festival organizer that the ticket one is holding is an authentic issue and not some copycat.
But what about electronic tickets? They also have a barcode and or a QR code but does this prove anything? How does this prevent copying? After all it is just a jpeg.
In late january 2020 I decided to buy a few tickets for the coming festival season.My number one choice was the Awakenings festival in the Netherlands. I managed to get one while in the online queue as they were sold out in an hour. My second choice was EDC Las Vegas 2020 and managed to secure one fairly easily. My third choice was the Dekmantel festival in the Netherlands. I have been previously in Dekmantel and it was one of my finest and most intense raving experiences ever. Highly recommended.
Unfortunately when Ii checked in late January 2020 all 3-day weekend Dekmantel tickets were sold out for the August festival. I therefore decided to buy a ticket from an official reselling vendor called Ticketswap.nl. Ticketswap is a reselling service, imagine a service like eBay connecting sellers with buyers. In addition to that the buyer can resell their ticket via their platform if for any reason they cannot attend.
So far so good. But then a pandemic was called by the science and all festivals got canceled.
Basically, all festivals were canceled for summer 2020. Most of the festivals offered the possibility of reusing the ticket for the next year’s edition rather than offering a refund. EDC LV initially postponed to Sept 2020 from the original May date and then got canceled again, listen to BREAKING: EDC Las Vegas 2020 IS canceled | Episode 158 https://anchor.fm/freakbeats-edm-podcast/episodes/BREAKING-EDC-Las-Vegas-2020-IS-cancelled–Episode-158-ehiqrg for more details. EDC did the right thing at that point and offered ticket holders the option of swapping their ticket for 2021 or getting a full refund. Me being suspicious of the science and how long this craziness will last for I opted for the refund at that stage.
As I was an original Awakenings ticket holder I had nothing to worry about. However, things were different with Dekamtel as the only thing I had in my possession was literally a jpeg with a bar code and another person’s name on it. I contacted both Dekmantel and ticketswap. Dekmantel said they can do nothing as the legitimate ticket holder was the original buyer and advised me to contact Ticketswap. Ticketswap reassured me that the ticket would remain valid for 2021 or I could resell it instead via their platform closer to that date.
Next year comes and Dekmantel advises the buyers to reapply for newly issued tickets for the 2021 edition. Here comes the kick. I could not do that despite being a legitimate buyer as the ticket is issued in the name of another person, even though that person has sold it to someone else. I sat waiting to see what may come out of this and as expected the Dutch government announced that no festivals could go ahead for the summer of 2021 and it would therefore subsidize festival organizers who could in turn offer refunds to ticket buyers.
But what about my ticket? I contacted Dekmantel again and they offered me no say in this option (selling or using it for 2022) as I am not the original buyer. Furthermore, they could not put me in touch with the original buyer due to data protection issues. Ticketswap continued to reassure me. In the meantime I obtained a refund from my Awakenings 2020 ticket exercising the option offered.
This sounds like a real raving saga, right?
One year goes by and now science decides that festivals can go ahead even though there are allegedly new variants that continue killing people. Go figure. In June I knew I would not be able to attend the Dekmantel festival and decided to resell the ticket.
Logged in, followed the procedure, named my price and lo and behold the ticket was not recognised as valid !
Was I surprised? Not quite, as I knew this could very well happen. Was I angry and frustrated? You bet I was. In my case though I owned nothing and I was quite unhappy.
Back to the email I go and recontact Dekmantel and Ticketswap. Dekmantel claims again there is nothing they can do. Ticketswap found this unexpected and were willing to help me find a solution. Meanwhile, days are passing by and I am anxious to get a decent price for my/not my ticket in case I manage to resell it. There is every possibility at this stage that I will resell it at a loss. Bearing in mind the raging inflation of 10% this year alone in the Eurozone would I be getting anything worthwhile?
After a week of silence Ticketswap puts me in communication with the original buyer
So here is how this went down on the platform. Let’s call the original buyer Nicki for the sake of it, although that is not her real name.
Hi Johny and Nicki, We created this conversation because something might be wrong with the ticket Johny bought from Nicki for Dekmantel Festival 2022. We put you in a conversation so we can hopefully fix the issue in time. Johny, please explain in detail what you think is wrong and how you think it can be fixed. Nicki, we would like to ask you to leave a response as quickly as possible. If the issue can’t be resolved it might have consequences to the validity of the sale. When you find a solution, the buyer can click the ‘Solution found’ button on this page. If help from TicketSwap is required, you can request this through the ‘Get help’ button.
Hi Nicki and Johny, From the organization of Dekmantel we have heard that the original buyers of the tickets received new tickets for 2021. Could you please provide Johny with this ticket?
Johny
Dear Nicki. I bought your 3-day dekmantel ticket from you in January 2020 via ticketswap.nl. As you know the event was canceled in 2020 and 2021 and it is now happening in 2022. I tried to sell the ticket via ticketswap.nl but an error message appears. Ticketswap.nl staff cannot explain the error to me, but suggested that it may be that you already requested a refund from Dekmantel festival (since they were offering refunds for canceled events). Please confirm if that is the case as soon as possible, as I am anxious I will not be able to sell the ticket in time. Many thanks in anticipation of your response.
The plot thickens next…
Johny
Hello Nicki, Ticketmaster.nl has advised that you received new tickets for 2021. Dekmantel contacted me with the following message: “The 2020 and 2021 tickets have to same barcode as the new send 2022 tickets, only the lay-out changed.” It maybe therefore that you have 2022 tickets instead. Please provide me with the latest tickets that Dekmantel has given you. With every passing day I am losing the chance of selling this at an appropriate price.
Nicki
Hi, Actually yes I don’t have dekmantel tickets anymore… I don’t know how this happened because I didn’t have your tickets anymore since I sold it to you.
Hi Nicki, Could you please search in your email if you received anything from Eventix or check if you have tickets available through this link? link deleted on purpose You should have gotten an email, could you please check? You are the seller of these tickets so you are still responsible for getting the right tickets to your buyers or we will need to roll back the sales, as we need to conclude that you received a refund for these tickets, Please let us know as soon as possible!
Nicki
Hello, I’m sorry but I don’t have no more the tickets … It’s been a long time and I forgot that I sent it, I thought ticketswap was automatically proceeding for a refund when a event is canceled. So I have to reimburse Johny unfortunately 😦
That’s the whole conversation and yeah I finally got the money from Nicki. Although at a loss as I originally paid for the ticketswap fees and the associated tax that really Nicki should not be paying me back for (or perhaps I was too stupid not to argue further).
So, Nicki got her 20% premium from “selling” me the ticket and I assume still went to the festival.
I lost 20% of what I paid and did not make it to the festival.
So, electronic tickets…Jpegs or something more?
Here is my advice. Do not buy an electronic ticket from anyone other than the original festival. Read the terms & conditions first. But, if you missed out that’s it. There is always another festival and another year. Do not despair.
If this was a physical ticket that would be another story. They could still be forged, although less likely if they have a detailed design feature or they are a token or bracelet as Tomorrowland.
My experience I know has indeed happened to others in some way or another. Too many people are worried year in year out buying tickets for Tomorrowland from others because their name are not on it. It would be pretty hard to forge a TML bracelet to be honest unless the buyer doesn’t know what that year’s bracelet looked like.
Another possibility would be to risk buying a ticket face to face outside the festival or club site. However, that would mean flying or traveling to the place of the festival trusting that you will be buying something legitimate or that the seller will still be there willing to sell on your arrival. I did this once at Ultra Miami and had to convince the seller to walk behind me just in case the ticket was not genuine. Everything was fine of course. I got in, he got in as well, having sold the spare ticket to me. Too many variables there to consider which is why those platforms make sense.
But I would like to take experience one step further and with your help reach out to promoters and reselling agencies highlighting the difficulties buyers and sellers face. These electronic tickets are not fit for purpose. Even if the cancellation didn’t happen Nicki could have walked in the festival ahead of me and still be able to use it and of course mine would then scan as invalid.
The industry needs to sort this out and support the buyers and sellers. There must not be angst or frustration; after all it is just a party we all want to go to, not arguing about and reading terms & conditions to decode the legalese..
So please email us your experience, tweet to us at freakbeats_cast or leave a voice message if the same has happened to you or you had a bad personal experience and see how we can take matters further as a community.
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A talking podcast about EDM with an attitude and opinion! You like electronic dance music and don’t know what’s lit or douce? We’ve got you covered. We are bringing you news, reviews, and gossip that matter. Come and say Hi ! Or even better subscribe to our podcast now.
You probably all know who TyDi is. Through his extensive discography, which includes five full-length albums, countless singles and remixes, and numerous EPs across diverse genres on various labels from Republic to Armada, TyDi has topped global charts, toured the world and made an indelible mark on the music world. The prolific Australian producer/DJ made waves with his acclaimed collaboration with Grammy-winning composer Christopher Tin, resulting in the epic album Collide. The album also received accolades in DJMag, The LA Times, as well as placement on Friday Cratediggers and New Music Friday USA Spotify playlists, and hit both the Billboard dance and classical charts. TyDi has also collaborated with the Grammy-nominated singer JES, trance music legend Andy Moor, producer Matt Fax and many more.
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A talking podcast about EDM with an attitude and opinion! You like electronic dance music and don’t know what’s lit or douce? We’ve got you covered. We are bringing you news, reviews, and gossip that matter. Come and say Hi ! Or even better subscribe to our podcast now.
Thomas Bangalter is the one half of the famous duo Daft Punk; the other half being Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. Thomas’ first solo release was “Trax on da Rocks” on the French label Roulé in 1995 and had all the hallmarks of the later unmistakable Daft Punk sound.
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FreaKBeatS EDM podcast 