PBR Streetgang at Brighton Music Conference

Image: PBR Streetgang

This year's Brighton Music Conference saw an impressive 69% rise in attendees from the previous year, highlighting the increasing popularity of industry-led gatherings. From talks to networking parties, demonstrations to DJ sets, BMC proved why it's more than worthy of flying the UK flag for these sort of conferences.

Not only were up-and-coming artists and budding DJs encouraged to attend, BMC also welcomed a selection of well-established names to discuss some crucial topics in relation to the electronic music scene. The two-day event saw PBR Streetgang, Yousef, Marcus Nasty, Crazy P, Cooly G, Applebottom and more speak their mind during some interesting and challenging chats.

At the end of day two, we sat down to speak to PBR Streetgang's Bonar Bradberry to find out more about the advantages of attending music conferences, the most talked about topics and the current scene. 

You've been here for both days of the conference, why do you think something like the BMC is important?

I think it's fairly vital actually. It's the first time I've been to something like this in the UK, I've been to ADE and Miami which are both great.  I think ADE is brilliant, it serves a really good purpose and you get a lot done when you're there.

I think it's really important to have our own here because we're always emailing and you rarely get to meet a lot of the people that you speak to. It's good to have a little bit of face time with people, make connections and also meet new people that have been on your radar.

This is the sort of place to connect with people and have some really interesting, frank discussions. I've just come out of some great talks, all of which were interesting and thought provoking. I think it's a really great beginning and it will just go from strength to strength. It's cool to see this many people getting involved.

A lot of the talks and exhibitions are geared towards budding DJs and young industry professionals, but as an established artist, how have you found the conference useful?

For me it's the meeting people you already know and being able to catch up and chat business but also the professional talks. There's been talks on stuff that's more specific, like the digital marketing and video marketing. It's really nice to be able to hear other experts in their field discuss things that you have a rough idea about but it opens you up to a whole new understanding. If you're willing to listen then you'll learn loads more.

You did a talk on the first day of the conference about building a DJ set, what were the key points that kept popping up there for anyone who wasn't able to attend? 

The main thing that everybody said was just about doing enough research and knowing enough about your records to make your sound individual, I think that's key to everything.

And the other thing that cropped up was that there's DJing as we know it as older artists then there's DJing now with this idea of the performer standing there putting his hands in the air. To an outsider they might look like the same thing but they are absolutely completely different. 

You mentioned the digital marketing talk before but what other ones have you enjoyed whilst you've been here?

The Sound On Sound stuff was good. I'm a bit of studio geek so I enjoyed all the stuff about engineering. It was nice to hear the editor and the deputy editor talk about it all, they're both really experienced in the studio and to be able to get a few tips directly from them was quite nice, that's something you wouldn't normally get anywhere else.

It was a treat to see some of the new products as well with some of the new kit and being able to get my hands on some of the latest equipment. 

And there's a lot of equipment here, some of it looks like it's from another planet. Would you say getting your head around all that stuff as an artist is this tricky bit?

Well we were saying before that very few people can make it now as a DJ just being a DJ. I could only think of Ben UFO and Jackmaster off the top of my head. I mean they have record labels and they are really successful but I think the key for me is to just know the records you want to play, know your sound and style, the rest of it will fall into place.

I wouldn't advocate using a ghostwriter but even if you do work with someone else to make the music then so be it, if you are really passionate about music then why not start a label or do more on the media side of things and use that to your advantage?

You guys have been part of the scene for a while, and there's tonnes of newbies here today and we've heard all these talks on social media and new technologies, how do you guys keep up with it all as artists? Do you think it's a struggle for DJs at times because there's so many new things coming through?

One of the guys in the video talk was on about DubSmash I think it's called? And I was just thinking, "Why would any credible artist use this?!" Going back to your question though I think it's really easy to become jaded, I mean, we've been DJing together for over ten years and we've been DJing separately before that and making music for nearly ten years.

It's really easy as you get older, once you've seen cycles of music and styles come and go then it can get a bit exhaustive . But I rode into the scene on the wave from the nineties house music boom, so when I look at these EDM kids I just think that's how they start, that's fine and then they grow older and they broaden their tastes, just like you do with cooking.

It's great that this sort of big wave is happening again in a sense, as ugly and grotesque as it might seem at the time it should generate loads more interest and breath new live into the scene. I think to stop yourself from being jaded though you have to do what interests you, as long as you're doing that and only doing things that excite you. It's a big cliche but you just need to stay focused on what you're interested in.

Check out upcoming PBR Streetgang gigs

Read more: Brighton Music Conference 2016 review

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