Our site is probably more popular globally than locally. That’s why we’ve began promoting events that are going down in other parts of the world, starting with the parties that Lisa has been attending throughout her travels in Japan and Dubai.

Recently one our mates in Lithuania, Jokubas of Out To Lunch (Kaspius & Jacob Jeffs), passed on some info about a very special weekend he has upcoming with one of our favorites, Tom Morgan. Tom will be headlining back to back parties with Out to Lunch spinning alongside at each event.

I’ve heard amazing things about the scene in Lithuania. Every time Luke has spun there he’s had an incredible time and says the vibe is always spectacular. I’m sure it’ll be absolutely no different when Discoteca is once again on showcase this weekend.

Here’s some beats to get all of our Lithuanian friends hyped for the nights.

Download (left-click and unzip):
Tom Morgan – Ministry of Sound, London – April 18, 2009

Download (left-click and unzip):
Out To Lunch – April Promo Mix (Bed and Breakfast on Proton) April 9, 2009

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Also check out this awesome interview with Tom that Jokubas passed on. It offers some great insight into the DJ life of one of the underground’s most promising talents.

What have you been up to recently? From the look of your schedule, plenty of international gigs.
I’ve been lying extremely low for the last week since getting back from South America, just been camped in bed with the laptop looking for tunes. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed it more, was absolutely shattered by the time I got home. I did a fantastic club in Bogota on Friday, Cinema, and had a gig in Guadalajara, Mexico on the Saturday. Guadalajara was the first gig I played outside of the UK so it was nice to catch up with a few old friends I hadn’t seen in a while.

You started producing a few months ago, what inspired you to do so?
It has to be done these days doesn’t it? Hakim (Urban Breathe) was over in the UK for a few days and had some time to kill so we thought it wouldn’t hurt to mess about on something and Rising was the result.

Your first release on Baroque sounds like a great start. Any other tunes lined up?
Thanks a lot. I haven’t actually played the tune out and I don’t think Hakim has either, but we worked pretty well together. It was more of a learning curve to see how we got on in the studio but I think there’s definitely something there. He’s made a start on another one that we’re doing together so keep an eye out for that. I’m also going to do something with a local producer, K-Bana, when our schedules allow it. Every time I seem to be free, he’s busy and vice versa, but we’ll hopefully make a start on something in the next month or so.

You visited the Miami WMC again this year. How did you like it?
Miami was great, it really didn’t disappoint. Although it was probably a little quieter than in previous years, which is hardly surprising given the current economic climate, there were still a lot of quality parties. As usual, the SOS boat was the highlight of the week for me although our party on the Sunday was a lot of fun. I’m still kicking myself that I missed the first three hours of Howells at Bed though. We thought we’d take a 15 minute nap at the hotel and woke up at 2am – there’s definitely a moral there for anyone considering going next year. I actually ended up getting an extra week there, due to a mix up with my flight to Colombia, which worked out nicely. It gave me a few days to pull my head out my arse, catch a bit of sun, which was notable by its absence during the WMC, and even get along to the tennis, which was just along the road.

How’s Discoteca Music? What’s in a forthcoming list of the label?
Things are great with the label, we had a month or two off from putting music out but are back with probably some of our biggest stuff to date. We’ll be releasing a couple of tracks from Dana Bergquist next, and are delighted to have secured a remix from Jody Wisternoff which turned out really well. We’ve also got a remix from Lithuanian disco outfit Downtown Party Network that we’re all really happy with and one from Dutch producer Stef Vrolijk too. We’ve been working on a few parties all over the globe: I did one in Bogota recently, one in Miami and we had Luke down in Mexico too. Our website discotecamusic.com will be up and running soon as we’re branching out to incorporate a booking agency also, so there’s really not enough hours in the day at the minute.

How do you choose artists for your label?
Between the lot of us, we pretty much cover all the new releases on a weekly basis. Whenever a producer comes along that catches our ear, unless they’re already massive and out of our price range, we tend to hit them up for original tracks or failing that, a remix. That’s how we came across guys like Paul Keeley, Sendos Fuera and Urban Breathe. Collectively, we have quite a wide network of contacts so we try to utilise this whenever possible. It especially helps having someone of Luke’s stature on board, people are much more likely to sit up and take notice if they receive an email from him as opposed to one of us. We get a lot of stuff sent to us for consideration but haven’t snapped much of that up, if any. That’s not to try and dissuade any producers from sending us their tracks though – please do! We listen to everything that comes our way, so far the best stuff we’ve heard though has been stuff we’ve pestered the producer for, much the same as with Alternative Route.

How’s the London scene at the moment? Any plans for Discoteca nights there?
As it happens we’ve got a couple of dates coming up at Ministry of Sound, where we’ll be hosting the bar. The first one is this weekend (the 18th) and sees SOS and Spirit Catcher in the Box, with myself and Luke in the Bar. I can’t think of a better place to do our first nights here and here’s hoping we do the business and it opens a few doors. Either way, we definitely owe the SOS boys a few pints for getting us in there.

Can you name few DJs/producers who will break through in 2009?
Scope’s one who’s been bubbling under for a while now but I think this year he’ll properly blow up. He’s probably my favourite producer at the moment to be honest, I love the atmosphere he creates with his music. Vince Watson from Glasgow has been around for ages and has released on some of the biggest labels there is, but I feel he’s really taken his music to the next level over the last six months or so, I’m very excited for some of his new ones to come out. Oh, and Danny Howells as well. Obviously he’s a household name already and has been at the top of the game for as long as I can remember, but the stuff he’s producing just now is head and shoulders above anything I’ve heard from him in the past. He’s got one coming out on Hernan Cattaneo’s new label soon that’s easily one of the tunes of the year.

How do you imagine your life without music, label things, DJing ?
I’ve been spending a stupid amount of time on music stuff for as long as I can remember so I’d definitely be at a loose end and wouldn’t really know what to do with myself. One plus point would be the fact that I could renew my season ticket for Dunfermline. I miss that a lot, irrespective of results.

Do you go out a lot?
Not as much as I used to but that’s definitely a good thing for both my bank balance and general health. It’s funny though as I’ve got about ten times as many nights to choose from as when I was living in Glasgow. Thank god I didn’t move down here when I was 18, it would definitely have been a recipe for disaster.

By the way, what about football? You live in London for a year or so now. Do you still support Scottish clubs? What’s your favorite FA team?
Although I don’t make it to nearly as many games as in previous years, I’m still an avid Dunfermline supporter. It’s been a bit of an iffy season though; we’ve either been brilliant or terrible, so have ended up struggling a bit when many thought we’d be up there at the end of the season. Having said that though, we’re in the semi final of the Scottish Cup in a few weeks so I’ll be making the trip back for that. I’m not going to shoot my mouth off in interviews about it again though, the last time I did that a few years ago we ended up getting relegated and I ended up looking a proper tit. Lesson learnt. As far as English teams go, I can’t say I’m honestly too bothered. I love watching the Premiership as the standard is so high but I don’t really have much of an active interest in one particular team. I like to see Everton doing well as David Moyes is an ex Dunfermline man I suppose but I wouldn’t lose any sleep over their results.

What is your strongest side, as a DJ: music selection, mixing technique, interaction with audience? What is the most important for house DJs?
I was brought up under the premise that first and foremost, a DJ should have and play the best music available so have spent such an unhealthy amount of time over the last few years ensuring that applies in my case also. Although all three are important in their own way, if I was prompted to choose one I suppose it’d be tune selection. I can think of quite a few technically adept DJs who mix impeccably but if the truth be told, their music often bores me to tears. I suppose beatmatching isn’t as important as back in the day, before the invention of programs like Ableton, which enable anyone to knock together a semi coherent set. Likewise, I’ve seen quite a few whos skill doesn’t lie in their music or mixing, but in mincing about behind the decks, slavering nonsense on the mic. The only person I’ve seen who can pull that off so far is Tenaglia, his patter’s tremendous. I’d love to be able to carry it off myself but I can’t see it, haha. But yeah, give me a couple of hours of really good music not mixed very well over these two any day of the week. I’ve spent the last few months going through every Juno sample from the last few years with Desyn (Masiello), which has been a bit of a test of character. He wrote a program to grab them all and it works out at close to a million in total. Safe to say that the Mrs is pretty much climbing the walls with it all, I wouldn’t wish having to listen to that amount of samples on my worst enemy, especially given that 99% of them have been absolute drivel.

What do you think about the masses in electronic music? Is it a bad thing? Should it stay in underground?
I think the commercial side of it all is something of a necessary evil; without it the underground wouldn’t really exist. There’s always going to be nasty music out there that’s watered down to appeal to the masses, that’s the case for any genre around. However, it provides an accessible first point of contact for people getting into it all for the first time, kids especially. How many people can honestly say their first dance CD was something by Sasha and Digweed or the like? I know I can’t, there are a fair few skeletons in my closet that I’d rather not go into, haha. Maybe we can go into them next time.

What would you advise to the newcomers? As we know nowadays there are lots of people who want to become DJs.
I think you need to bring something different to the table from all the other DJs out there. Unfortunately, with the way the scene is currently, it doesn’t tend to be enough just being a really good DJ, with the odd exception. Times have changed significantly from when DJs like Desyn broke through and it’s something of a prerequisite to produce these days. It also helps if you can get the attention of the DJs above you, this has been the case since day dot. Look at DJs like James Zabiela, Des, Luke Fair – they’ve all been given a leg up by more influential DJs further up the ladder than them. I think ultimately, if you’re good enough, you’ll get there in the end, although the whole ‘who you know’ aspect is undoubtedly there.

Can you name some bad sides of the DJing? Because everyone thinks that is all about going to different countries, playing what you love and getting money for doing the best thing in the world. Tell us about disadvantages. Are there any?
I never like to moan about the job as I feel so privileged to be doing what I’m doing, although it does take it out of you, especially if you’re quite easily led like myself. It’s always quite hard to say no to an afterparty, even with a flight a few hours afterwards. I’ve had a few hairy moments in airports, largely due to a language barrier somewhere down the line, they do tend to toughen you up a bit though. I remember going to Monterrey in Mexico when I was 19 with no connecting flight from Mexico City, no credit card, no battery in my phone; just a wad of Scottish notes in my pocket which I later found out noone would even consider changing and an extremely limited grasp of Spanish. I wisened up a bit after that one, it was a bit of an eye opener. When I’m away, I don’t always eat or sleep very well – that’s easily remedied upon getting home though. Overall, that’s about it just now – the good points undoubtedly outweigh the bad ones. Ask me again in a few years when I’m a bit more jaded and cynical and we’ll see what the outcome is.

How was your first visit to Lithuania? And what could we expect from your second visit here?
I loved the last gig in Klaipeda, would be delighted with more of the same. The venue had a real industrial feel to it and the crowd seemed pretty open minded. I went along to Global the night before my gig last time, so know what to expect. It’s a really nice looking club and can imagine it having some atmosphere when it goes off. Siauliai’s something of an unknown quantity for me – I’m still struggling with the pronunciation of the place. My mates over there tell me it’s really good though so safe to say I’m looking forward to it. Musically, I feel a lot better prepared this time around as I’ve definitely been putting the hours in lately and our label’s output is a lot closer to where I want it to be. So you can hopefully expect a slightly better version of last time for anyone that made it down. For those that didn’t, just (in my eyes anyway) some quality house and techno, I’ve got a bit of everything burnt so we’ll see how it goes on the night.

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