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Tim Paris Talks

 
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Je m'appelle Tim Paris

Introducing Record Label Boss, DJ & producer Tim Paris who alongside Ivan Smagghe form ‘It’s a Fine Line’! Tim carved his Career by building himself a solid reputation as a DJ on the Parisian Party network, knowing exactly what to play and when to play it. His infamous parties alongside Silver Network Label Boss Jef K soon led them both to develop the impressive Crack & Speed Record Label. 
In 2004 Tim landed his first breakthrough remix entitled “Future now” which was picked up by Ralph Lawson’s 2020 Vision label and went on to become one of the biggest underground tunes of 2004. 
One year later Tim started the label 'Marketing Music' with the ethos that underground music can be enjoyed by everybody. Marketing Music gained much support to date including the likes of Roman Fluegel, Tim Sweeney, Eric Duncan, Optimo, Trevor Jackson and more.

Saturday November 3rd will see Marketing Music throw it down at East Village, London and will showcase the launch party for the labels latest release 1694 by The Draughtsman aka Alex Egan. 

We caught up with Tim ahead of his gig to discuss time travel, memory loss, how the French like to relax and his top 5 tips for a dirty stop out in Paris…  
While you're reading it have a little listen to Grow Up on Drummond

Tim thanks for taking time out from your busy schedule for the interview. I hear you've finally made the move to London… how have you found the transition to the big smoke and what were your reasons behind it?
Actually I moved to London 6 years ago after I went for a gig at The End and was blown away by the energy of the city. Moreover I had been in Paris for 25 years and I was craving for a change. London’s music scene just seemed ideal for someone interested in all music genres at once.

We’re hurtling towards the end of 2012 what have been some of your highlights this year?
Working with MyFavoriteRobot crew has been fantastic : after an EP and a remix for their label, I just signed there my first album to be released april 2013. Other breaking news is that we finally have started the first It’s a fine line album with Ivan, it should be ready in a few months too.

Tell us about the Parisian Party scene back when you were hosting with Jef K, Chloe, Ivan Smagghe and Alex Kidd 
It has been a defining moment for me as all the people I met during that time have accompanied me until now. Actually I have recently found back some old flyers where I was playing alongside Ivan for our party in Paris called ‘Politics of Dancing’, date is 2002 !!! 

The scene was really vibrant and a lot of great DJs and producers have emerged from this period. But we really lacked support from the public, parties were quiet small… When you compare to Paris today it’s really amazing how healthy the scene looks now, so many more quality events and maybe 10 times more people concerned by the music.

Do you have any crazy memories? 
Certainly hundreds of them… when I started working with Jef.K to manage the Silver Network and Crack&Speed labels we were actually living and working together at the centre of Paris. We were hosting a lot of regular parties and the house become some sort of Hotel for ‘International’ DJs… can’t even pick a particular crazy memory from that time as it was mad every weekend !

Do you still have much of a memory left?
I wish I had more… But truth is I never had a very good memory anyway. I can’t remeber artists and label names for instance, there are just too many it’s ridiculous.

I don’t know the names of half the music I play, no disrespect I truly love the work but it’s just too many records out there now.

Do you think DJ’s Should educate or entertain? You're not allowed to say 'both'.
Well it has to be a bit of both… but if I had to pick only one then I’ll go for ‘educate’. There are already so many DJs that entertain people anyway they don’t really need some extra support from me.

But in my opinion ‘education’ is ‘entertaining’.

Tell us about the labels new release 1694 by the Draughtsman
It’s been such a long project to achieve, Alex Egan (The Draughtsman ) came to me with some demos more than a year ago. Since then we have been working on production and remixes, it will be available on beatport in a few weeks with remixes from Cosmo Vitelli, Roman Fluguel and I. That’s really a record I deeply love, it really displays the many elements I like to find in a record: inspiration, creativity and meaning.

Keeping in with the theme of the Draughtsman new EP 1694, if you were to travel back in time to 1694 what piece of technology would you take with you and why? 
Without electricity you won’t go very far with a computer in 1694… But I had this thought one day of going back in history with some machines and computer in order to introduce today’s electronic music to great composers like Bach or Beethoven. I wonder how a genius from that time would have reacted to such a shock !

As a producer you must have written a fair few drum patterns in your time. But are you a kick drum, hi hat or a snare? And why?
I’d say I am definitely a hi-hat since to call yourself a kick or a snare you would need to have some great production skills which I haven’t. But since I started producing I have always took great attention to my hihats’patterns, trying to avoid the ‘obvious’ boring grooves. It is certainly one of the reason why my beats aren’t the most effective ones to play on a dancefloor 

What's the most techno thing you've ever done?
It has to be my decision to become a professionnal DJ 17 years ago… It was something quiet mad at that time !

Living in a fast paced city such as London, DJ’ing, Producing as well as running a record label sounds like a lot of hard work. How do you like to take time out and relax?
You don’t want to know about that, do you ?

What would you say were the ingredients to a great party and which 4 people (Dead or Alive) would you ensure was on the guest list and why?  
A great party needs a nice venue and a good soundsystem, that’s the basic requirements. Then it’s all about ‘connection’ between people which is pretty unpredictable. Dance music is all about connecting with a crowd, sometimes it works better than others. Here lies the main difference between a ‘musician’ performance and a DJ set: the first one is connecting with his piece in priority whereas DJs are interacting with the crowd before the music.

Tim’s guestlist:

-Arthur Rubinstein
-Jacques Tati
-Will Ferrel
-Lance Armstrong

Can you tell us 3 things we should do when we go to Paris?
Have lunch at ‘Le Marche des Enfants Rouges’

Take a drive alongside ‘La Seine’ during night time

Visit as many bakeries as possible

And lastly, What’s your answer to everything?

Je ne parle pas l’anglais…

Cheers Tim! We’ll be seeing you on the 3rd! 

The Draughtsman’s 1694 EP is released digitally on the 15th November on Marketing Records and 2×12 green vinyl will be out in December on ‘How The Other Half Lives’ with a bonus remix from ‘Daniel Avery’

In the meantime Marketing Music will be hosting the launch party for the EP on Saturday 3rd November at East Village, 83 Great Eastern St, London. DJ’s on the night include Tim Paris, Cosmo Vitelli, Alex Egan, Neil Thornton & Jac The Disco
Exclusive special offer £5 advance tickets from RSN Tickets here.

Jay Rossi