Interview with Dealer de Musique

Hello! Can you introduce yourself? Where is Dealer de Musique from and when was it created? 

Hi! First of all we’d like to thank you for thinking about us for this interview. Dealer de Musique is a French music blog, created in Paris in 2012. Thomas, the founder, managed the blog himself, the Facebook page, and the Soundcloud page during a year. But as he saw the number of fans and followers increasing, on July 2013 he asked Sam for help to research and promote music; Charlotte to manage all the events and partnerships; Camiel who takes care of the interviews and finally Alex who makes awesome visuals and prepares our mixtapes. 

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Liminalondon: A Sonic City Profile by Dai Watts [INTERVIEW]

Hello Dai! Can you give us some background information about yourself? When did you start creating music? 

My first musical experience was learning the flute as a child living in Australia (I was born in Melbourne and brought up in Sydney). I then took up the piano and taught myself guitar and bass before studying music at King’s College in London. After leaving University I worked as a piano and keyboard player, and also as a Musical Director, working on a number of shows in London and around the UK. I’ve been writing ever since I started playing music, and decided to concentrate on that in the last few years, building myself a studio at home and spending long hours learning and developing recording and production techniques.

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Under The Red Windmill: Interview with La Machine du Moulin Rouge:

Bonjour! Can you give us quick history of La Machine du Moulin Rogue? You don’t do cabaret, do you? 

La Machine du Moulin Rouge is the old Locomotive, a mythic club from the 80’s and 90’s. In 2010, the Moulin Rouge bought the location, particularly exceptional for Paris with 3 levels, and wanted to relaunch it, giving it a dignified artistic direction on par with the biggest European venues, yet still keeping with the rebellious spirit of the neighborhood: Pigalle. 

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The Charcuterie Musicale: Interview with DJ Halouf

1. Can you tell us about your musical personality? When the turntables are hot, what are you playing? 

My name is Omar and I am a Muslim but as I love irony my stage name is DJ Halouf (Halouf means pork in Arabic). 

I created The Charcuterie Musicale de DJ Halouf. It’s a blindtest activity that tours festivals, bars, or private parties. The idea is to go from funk to rock via world music and electro, etc. There are all the major titles that everyone has danced to and knows by heart. The atmosphere is very festive and convivial thanks to the proximity and back and forth between the players and the DJ. The level of difficulty is adapted to each party so that the players find the response (be it the title of the track, or the artist), then, it’s a question of speed! 

The same idea for the blindtest is to chop up the tracks, so I don’t wait for the end to switch to a completely different track. That’s why it’s called Charcuterie Musicale, plus it goes well with DJ Halouf! 

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A Boston Music Project: Interview with Music Savage

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Yo! Can you give us the backstory of Music Savage? How did you get it off the ground and who is behind it? 

I started it back in 2009 as an outlet to start talking about music, I never really expected anyone to listen to it, and I had absolutely no background in journalism, or music. I was just passionate about finding new music. I spent the next few months posting as much and as consistently as I could, but I’m not sure I had a voice at all. Eventually that consistency - around 4 posts per day - started to get noticed, I started to get emails from bands, from labels, from PR companies for me to demo their music, and write about it if I like it. It was really surreal, I never thought anyone would be interested in reading, in sending me to shows. It was a confidence booster, and helped fuel the fire to keep going. 

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Echoes and Dust: Interview with Music Bloggers and Therapists

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Quite a few people contribute to Echoes and Dust, how did you create something so large and how do you orchestrate that today?

I have no idea, to be honest, how we’ve created something this large! We now have about 70 writers in 20 odd countries around the world which is amazing but that certainly wasn’t our objective from the start. In fact, for the first 3 years or so it was pretty much just me. I’ve been incredibly fortunate in the last few years to have encountered (largely through Twitter) a group of people who are passionate about music and have wanted to dedicate their time to covering it for us. I can’t thank them enough. 

I think what attracts a lot of people is that we have managed to build a real community of like-minded music fans (obsessives!) who want nothing more than to have other people around to share their passion with. We have quite a visible presence on Twitter and I think that sucks other people in. It’s a real family now and increasingly different groups of people are meeting up, going to gigs with each other, staying at each other’s places abroad, etc. Personally I’m probably prouder of building this community than of the website itself. 

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Live from Caen: Interview with Radio Phénix (92.7 FM)

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Hello! Can you introduce yourselves? Who is behind the team at Radio Phénix? 

The association Radio Phénix was born ten years ago from a group of students who wanted to bring new sounds to the FM radio of Caen, France. Since 2008 we have been on 92.7 and we have around 2,000 listeners each day from the Caennaise agglomeration. 

We have two true employees at the radio, and about 40 volunteers each year.

Tell us about the music content, is it varied or do you follow specific styles in particular? 

The musical color of the radio goes from indie hip-hop to electronic, passing by pop and rock. It is varied but we try to keep a clear musical identity for the people who know Radio Phénix from the moment they hit us on the dial. We follow a lot of music blogs and certain labels, we see trends and watch how they morph over the years. We have integrated more electronic music for example. Our influences come from the volunteers as well, members of Concrete Knives or Superpoze or Fakear have come through here, and today they are on the rotation! 

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What is the spirit? Is it radio for the students, or is it students creating radio for a larger audience? 

The radio is animated in part by students and we are in the Radio Campus France network but our listeners are anywhere between 15-35 years old. People recognize the music and the young identity of the radio. We are ad-free and are far away from the top 40 that other radio stations put on repeat. We have more than 500 tracks that rotate in our playlist. 

Do you have any news for the end of the summer? 

We are working with a new communications agency “Murmure” and we are launching a new visual campaign, changing our logo, and working on a new website by the end of the year! 

Follow Radio Phénix on Whyd to keep up with this cutting-edge radio station! 

Stay Ahead of the Curve: Interview with AlbumStreams.com

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Hello! Can you introduce yourself? Who are you and where are you from? 

Hi! Thanks for giving me the opportunity to introduce my site. I’m Thomas from Cologne in Germany. I’m 34 years old and I’ve been blogging about music for - I think - a decade now. My first album ever what the Star Wars soundtrack (I know!) and when I’m not listening to music, I’m also composing a little myself (check out the independent projects Souls of Zen & Shangdown by Jakob Montrasio). 

Why did you create albumstream.com? Where did the idea come from? 

Oh man, I just love music and I listen to so much of it - no matter which genre. If I like it, it’s in the playlist - be it pop, rock, metal, hip hop or classical music. I’ve been running several music blogs for years now and the think I’ve always loved most is collecting streams of upcoming songs and albums to be able to listen to great new music before anyone else :D

But it takes time to browse all the awesome blogs and magazines out there, so I decided to start albumstreams.com and aggregate new and officially streaming music in a cool and nice looking format for everyone else to listen to very quickly - to spend less time searching and more time listening! I’ve always paid much attention to unknown bands as well and I just love giving newcomers a platform where they can exist just right next to a La Roux or Linkin’ Park stream. If a stream is submitted by an ambitious band, it’s in the chronological albumstreams.com timeline. It happens not rarely, that a band with 50 Facebook fans finds itself between Coldplay and Bon Iver. I love that! 

What types of music do you cover? Who should come and check out albumstreams.com? 

There is no limitation in genre. If you like pop, check out the pop section, if you like rock, head over to the rock section, and if you like movie soundtracks, be my guest in the soundtrack section. Great music needs to be heard and I just love to broaden my musical horizon and be surprised by sounds I haven’t expected a minute ago. You know that moment, when you’re just utterly stunned by something, that triggers something in your hear that you don’t understand, when you just let that moment take control of you and you can’t breathe anymore? Music still does that to me even though I’ve already heard so much of it. I can’t live without it and I can’t risk to leave out a genre and miss any of these moments. 

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What are your plans for the rest of the year? Anything we can look forward to? 

First of all, you can look forward to great new music, I guess! But in terms of albumstreams.com I’m planning to launch the possibility to log in and save a stream into your personal profile and keep track of the artist. I talked to some fans and they really miss this possibility. You listen to a great track or album, which comes out 4 weeks later and maybe you forget about it in the meantime. This must not happen and my mission is to make this pain go away. I would also like to see, that the cover art of an album gathers more attention. I collect vinyl and I love checking out the huge covers in detail. It’s part of the art and it must be recognized as such even in the days of streaming. 

Thank you Thomas! Like albumstreams.com on Facebook and get to their Whyd page to find your next favorite song!