Stevie Nicks told the Associated Press”I believe that computers have taken over the world. I believe that they have in many ways ruined our children. I believe that kids used to love to go out and play. I believe that social graces are gone because manners are gone because all people do is sit around and text. I think it’s obnoxious.”

I spend 10 hours infront of a computer every weekday working ,socializing on facebook,myspace,twitter,writing articles for my site ,emailing etc.You can’t really socialize on these sites ,can you ? When I see my dj/producer friends they are nearly same spending too much time in front of a computer.I feel like I am really loosing my socializing skills.

Also I personally think the music created in 60′s ,70′s ,80′s beginning of 90′s were much different than the music being created today . In terms of quality,production and the songs itself. Do you feel internet is blocking creativity in some ways ? How about if we shut down the internet for a while and lets see what will happen in music quality.
What are your toughts?

I think you mix two thinks up here.Do people loose their skills as a result of their computer addiction? Yes. Was the music better or more creative back in the days? No.

To judge the quality or the creativity of music you have to put it in context. What has been produced back in the days was great but to be creative as a producer/songwriter you need to look forward. Producing a track like in the 60ies – what for? It was done. It was great but there is no need to do it again.If I wanna listen to music like The Doors, The Beatles, The Jacksons – its there. it has been done.

But especially the electronic music was always an attemp top create something futuristic that breaks with the rules that excist. The argument you stated above sound like an artcritic from the early 20th century saying that everything before picasso was so much better in terms of quality, production and the painting itself.

Also – these days their is ten times more music released then in the 70/80ies. Therefore its just harder to find the good things. times are so fast these days that music has no chance to grow on you anymore. Before you even get used to it there are already one million other songs released. If some of the best music in history would be released for the first time in 2009 – only a few would make it into the ears of the majority of the people.

1. There are more then enough labels in this world. if none of them wants to release your music – thats maybe a hint to produce better music. dont think u need to found a new label for that reason.

2. If you run a label – think twice about every release. Dont release too much. Give every release time to breathe.

3. Do not copy! Do your own thing.

4. In the popworld the label as a branding is not important. or do you know on which label Coldplay or Rihanna are releasing their music? This companies invest so much money into the marketing of the music itself that the name of the company disappears. Underground dance lables have no marketing money so they need to find other ways to push their products. One of the best ways is to build a strong identity for the label. Thats why I think this is the main goal of a label so it has the power to push the music the label is believing in.

Are you happy with the label’s image that you created in people’s head?

I am happy with the label itself.

When you are all collaborating together on a song, how is that different from how songs are written when you are writing with other producers or on your own? Will there be any more projects together with Ame and Henrik Schwarz ?

Especially with Henrik and Ame its different to all my sessions before. In the past you were always sitting with someone infront of ONE computer and some equipment but basically one person was handling the computer (wich is the sequencer). Therfore it was always boring for the person beside the one at the computer. if you work on the sound or the arrangment then its mostly a single minded thing to process the certain adjustments. Meanwhile the second (or third or fourth) person was reading, eating phoning….Now with Henrik and Ame we finally work as a group in the original sense cause we connect our computer and use them as instrument to jam with each other. That means if Henrik is working on the bassline I meanwhile can work on the drums. Thats a much faster process and it actually is so much more fun.

Mike Monday recently stated us : ”At every point of the process or writing songs I tried to revisit how I write and think about music, which is probably why its ended up sounding so different. This is incredibly exciting for me as I think I’ve found a way of writing music which has the potential to be truly unique and original. Unfortunately in order to this, the other thing that does stand out in my mind is the hard work, because the process I went through in order to write some of it was particularly tortuous and long winded.” Do you feel your song writing skills have changed during the years? If so ,in what ways

I dont have a skills in songwriting in its original meaning.I am more a producer in its original meaning because I mostly work with/for other people (Georg Levin, Henrik Schwarz, Ame) that have songwriter skills and I bring into the collaborations my engineering skill, arrangment skill, precise ears, focus on details and my very critical look on the material. People that know me call me the “pusherman” cause I never stop forcing us to push it further. Referring to mike monday – in the tortous and long winded phase i am always the one to push everyone not to loose the focus and patience.

How do you determine or evaluate success of a dj +producer ? What do you think it takes to be successful in djing career ? How do you determine or evaluate success of a dj/producer without prejudice whilst there are so many PR agencies pimping their djs?

To have the balls to be different.

As a simple example – the rise of the european music/producer scene started when european house/techno producers were not trying to copy their American idols anymore. as for the djs – if you dont take risks – why should a club book u again if everyone else could play the same stuff? Whenever I am in the situation that I might not be the perfect match for a club i decide not to try to hard to adjust to the situation. even if people afterwards maybe dont like what i was doing – at least they have an oppinion about me afterwards. thats so much better then me trying to adjust and afterwards the people dont remeber it cause it was like every other weekend.

Sven Vath stated in one his interviews that : ”I stopped cocaine 16 years ago when my daughter was born. Now I have a 16 year old daughter and she is trouble. I remember the days of the Love Parade in the 90s when we were all crazy like hell. It was fun, it was very enjoyable, I think drugs helped the whole dance scene grow, but there were too many people who saw the money in that and then the whole bad thing started” Do you think that drug scene helped the dance scene grow?

It helped to create a whole lot of extraordinary achievments in music, art and sport.

What was the initial idea behind Innervisions ? Has it changed through the years ? What is it now ?

It was harder and harder to release music i liked on sonar kollektiv, because they wanted to focus much more on artist lps then on single tracks. but dancemusic is hardly a genre for artist lps. its much more about the eps. single tracks., so i decided to do a label with ame that is focusing on dancemusic instead of artist lps.

Nowadays we opened the label up. We dont feel like doing only 12″ nowadays. We want to release other things also that are connected to us. That reflects what the people behind Innervisions are feeling, thinking, wearing, reading, playing. so we produce music, we release 12″, we produce laptopsleeves, shirts, some compilations, and soon there is gonna be a book released on innervisions. all of these things are strongly connected to Ame,me or the music we love.

How do you approach remixing?

I choose tracks that have certains aspects I really like and transform them into a format that works better for me as a dj.

Can you please tell us about your and Innervisions plans for 2010 ?

Like every year we gonna release some new music. But other then this  some new t-shirts, one new laptopbag, some shirts and some other gimmicks.We just released a book called ”Lost and Sound” written by Tobias Rapp.

We have started a subcription system for people the get music directly from the label and most importantly we opened our webshop also for other music then the innervisions releases. Kristian from Ame is selecting the content. He has a own recordshop so he knows whats coming and whats good. That a key difference to other online shops that mostly just offer everything that is available. We actually select carefully what to sell and therefore  only add approximately 2 new records a week.

***Innervisions Recordings will soon release a 12” with material played at ”A Critical Mass ” live performances.Listen to Ame’s new set below !*****

http://www.innercityvisions.com/

http://www.myspace.com/innercityvisions

http://www.myspace.com/justdixon

ame 2009 listening mix by ame