Louche: You know its really hard to pick interview questions for you.. you've done a fair few. Real in-depth intelligent questions too. If you could ask yourself any question in an interview, what would it be? And what would the answer be?
MCDE: Somehow i never got a simple "how are you"? Kind of miss that.
Louche: Where does the name Motor City Drum ensemble derive from? When I first went to see you play, it's fair to say I was expecting about 10 guys on stage from Detroit...
MCDE: I grew up near stuttgart, the city in which the automobile was invented and where mercedes and porsche reside. Everybody here knows somebody working in some way for these companies, a lot of people are obsessed with cars and technic, hence the terms "benztown" and "motorcity" were big in the 90s and 2000s in local hiphop and electronic music. For the guys doing House and techno, i guess it was a nod to the inspiring music from Detroit and i kind of fell for it as well, as both Detroit and Stuttgart had a big impact on me. The Drum Ensemble part comes from my habit of collecting vintage drummachines.
Louche: Tell us a bit about the raw cutz series. Pure vibes! Was there a concept behind the series? You got a lot of heat after that huh? Was this the time that stuff started getting serious for you?
MCDE: Definitely, would have never dreamed to reach such an audience with this type of music. The concept was to just keep it simple, stick to a certain flavour, finish the tracks in 2 hours and thats it.
Louche: You bought your first sequencer age 11 is that right? That's pretty nuts man. Was it just to mess around with initially? Or Were you playing the long game?
MCDE: I wouldn’t get to play Supermario in my parents house, so i kind of loed at it like a game at first, yes. I was pretty alone with doing music where i grew up, but this really encouraged me.
Louche: You remember the first house record you ever bought? The last EP you picked up...What was it? And what is your most prized piece of vinyl?
MCDE: That was probably either a bootleg of Mr Fingers - "Can you feel it" or "Moodymann - Silent Introduction". I was really lucky to have a store in my town with some good stuff and NO competition in records if you know what i mean. Nobody cared about black music so i basically had all the jazz, soul and house for myself.
Louche: You still go record shopping much?
MCDE: Going through records is my favourite pastime. When i wake up hungover or a bit depressed the best thing to do is going to hit a new store you've never been to, a thriftstore or a nice fleamarket in the sun. I found so much good stuff, especially "unwanted" house & disco stuff, as those records can still be found for cheap on the regular, but also jazz, soul, folk.. anything.
I don’t take this bullshit "vinyl is expensive" argument.. I've found loads of really good and desired stuff for next to nothing, and you can do so in many parts of the world. You don't need the latest stuff to be a great dj. And you will always remember when you find a special record in some cheeky corner of the city. The knowledge for music history you gain alone through this effort can't be downloaded, its something you have to achieve yourself.
Louche: What are some of your favourite record shops? like anywhere?
MCDE: In terms of "boutique" record shops, I'd say Disk Union in Shibuya, Good Records in New York, Groove Merchant in San Francisco, Records LA in Los Angeles, Vinylspot in Rotterdam and Secondhand records in Stuttgart. On the cheap side, i love "The thing" in New York, actually the dollar bins in a lot of american record stores are filled with good stuff. And I've scored a lot of really obscure and good jazz & psych records on a flea market in stuttgart, which i still always visit when i'm in town.
Louche: What’s your favourite release, or one that means the most? Or is it too early to say yet?
MCDE: Of my own stuff? Thats hard.. but the Raw Cuts thing hasn't really aged to me yet.
Louche: If you could release on one label that you haven't yet... what would it be?
MCDE: I'd love to do some kind of tribute like Dilla did for Blue note or another big jazz label, but I'll probably be so scared to touch those pieces that I'm not sure i would do it after all.
Louche: Have you got a good music crew? You know, like people you can geek out with?
MCDE: Yes, defiantly. In Stuttgart my boys from TDSVW, Pauls Musique/Philpot and my old home Pulver records are around, now in Cologne i hang out with some of the Kompakt guys, Marcus Worgull from Innervisions, Damiano from Ava Records etc.. there are lots of nice and inspiring locals. Oh and my girl is really geeky when it comes to disco, so we regularly end up fighting over certain Peter Brown records and all.
Louche: If you hadn't done music, what avenue do you reckon you'd have gone down?
MCDE: I like cooking, but i can imagine its really a tough job. I always enjoyed writing as well, maybe I would have focussed on that.
Louche: If you had the chance to sit down and interrogate one electronic music head figure over dinner, who you you choose, what would you ask them, and where would you want to eat?
MCDE: I'd love to ask some gear questions to Kraftwerk over a nice dinner. I would even come to their city, Düsseldorf, as some of the best japanese restaurants in europe are also located there.
Louche: Lastly we are really looking forward to your performance at Louche on the 18th? What can we expect from your set?
MCDE: I dug through a basement of a record store here in Holland, went through something like 8000 records these days. Lots of goodies, promised!
Words by Bruno Schmidt