Ralph Lawson Interview: The power of the selector

Hearing how passionately Ralph Lawson talks about Manchester, one could be forgiven for thinking he'd been born there, and in a way he was.

Having been inspired by the acid house explosion that kicked off during the ‘Madchester’ era back in the late 1980s, Lawson has gone on to become an internationally renowned DJ, producer and head of the 2020 Vision family.

The label boasts releases from the likes of DJ W!ld, Stacey Pullen, Maya Jane Coles and Motor City Drum Ensemble over its prolific two decade run in the game (check out his 2020 Mixmag take over below)

Having announced his triumphant return to the Rainy City for Tussle’s much anticipated Easter extravaganza March 27th, we thought we would catch up with the amiable Londoner to find out how both he and his label have evolved, and why he's still just as in love with house and techno as he was when he was started out all those years ago.

Hi Ralph, it’s been quite a while since you were last in Manchester. How important does the city remain to you as an artist? There are those who feel it’s no longer the cultural hub it once was…

I’m really excited to be heading back in Manchester. You’re right, I haven’t  played there in a while but it has and will always remain a really important city both for me personally and the UK scene.  

Back To Basics was created out of people from Leeds driving over to Manchester to go to Eastern Bloc to buy our records and then the Hacienda to go out. I’ve always been very much inspired by the city, from the Madchester scene right through to Sankeys.  I think it’s fair to say, that without what was going on there, we probably wouldn’t have done half the things we ended up doing in Leeds. 

In regards to the second part of your question, of course it’s still an electronic music hotspot and with so many new nights and venues springing up, exciting things seems to be really happening again.

Whilst I think the Warehouse Project was and still is a really good thing, it did knock out a lot of the smaller things going on for a while. That’s why I’m so excited to return and check out some of the new venues and crews that have sprung up that are doing cool stuff. It’s an exciting time.

I’ve also just been part of a new documentary about the music scene in Manchester, tracing the roots right back to the pre-Hacienda days; from Colin Curtis and Greg Wilson right through the explosion of acid house to the current day. It’s been made by a Spanish film maker called Javi Sens. He’s just completed that and he’s spoke to a fantastic selection of people.  It’s called ‘Manchester Keeps On Dancing’ and will hopefully be arriving at some point next year.

We’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for it. Having cut your teeth with a number of now legendary – and we don’t use that word lightly – residencies, do you feel like the role of the resident has become slightly undervalued in the age of the superstar DJ?

Well for me, you’re not a true resident unless you’re playing for the same club/event at the very least monthly. Ideally you’d be playing weekly but the reality is, there aren’t that many weekly clubs out there any more. It has become much more one off event focused. You can only think of a handful of clubs now which fall into that category: Fabric, Sub Club, Panorama Bar and Berghain.

Obviously there are others but even within the few examples that remain they seem to have lots of very different nights within them over the course of a month. 

Weekly club nights are a rare thing now and I think that’s a massive shame. I can understand why people are drawn to these big bespoke one off events. People want to go to events in one off or rarely used places, they want to see big name line ups or what new a promoter can bring to an existing club. 

People were going out every single week for over 20 years after acid house exploded in the UK and then it tailored off. It became more seasonal and date based, with ‘bigger’ events based around bank holidays and quiet times around January and February. It has become increasingly difficult to run a weekly night and so this has had an effect on residents.

For me, residents at something like Krankbrother or Mr. Saturday Night are the modern incarnation and they’re the guys still flying the flag in that regard. Those parties have built their own community and whilst more sporadic, it’s nice to see them sell out in seconds without having to fly someone in; to have that level of trust in their own selections from their audience. It’s massively healthy for the scene in terms of uncovering new talent and so that’s a trend I’m hoping to see more of this year. 

I’d like to see people rely less on guests as for me that’s a fairly boring model to see in action. You end up with a small selection of DJs that sell tickets that all the promoters want, repeatedly playing a handful of nights. In that sense things have become a bit generic.

As a long term resident, I am a bit biased but for me they’re still key to setting the theme of a night, playing the warm up set and often closing proceedings, which is essential. If you want people to have a truly memorable night then you want to send them home in the right frame of mind.

That’s what we did at Basics. The residents would top and tail with the guest playing in the middle. The guest DJ may have done a great job in the middle but sometimes they would have in all honesty  totally fucked up and you’d be expected to make sure the night still ended on the right note. 

We couldn’t agree more. It’s good to see DJs finally starting to be booked on track selection rather than studio ability again. We’ve been excited to see a number of promoters having less names on the bill and letting innovative selectors really stretch their legs. 

Oh definitely. I’m delighted to see the focus has returned to the selector. I’m always happy to see people booking longer sets, allowing DJs with eclectic tastes – you know the guys who can really take people places – playing for four or five hours and being given the chance to show what they can do.  

I’m sick to the back teeth of producers becoming DJs and talented selectors having to produce to be a DJ. I thought Ben UFO was a massively healthy progression away from that. A guy who was just a selector placing so highly on the RA DJ poll without putting out records was a huge step in the right direction, albeit with the backing of a very cool label which he’s affiliated with.

Jackmaster is another great example, it is possible, these guys are out there and should be encouraged. There’s no point moaning saying it isn’t possible to succeed solely as a DJ because guys like Ben and Jack have proved it is.

That said, bookings are definitely still far too producer led in my opinion and people need to realize and appreciate that being a producer and being a DJ require very different skill sets. There are a number of great producers I could name that are terrible DJs, yet they still get booked. It’s ridiculous. 

That’s not to say that there aren’t great producers who are also fantastic DJs, I’m just saying that I would like to see a return to appreciating DJing as a skill in itself and judging it by its own merits. 

Now somewhat of a veteran, do you feel a responsibility to nurture younger artists and showcase their talents? Many labels seem to primarily serve as vehicles for their founder’s productions nowadays…

100%. The job of any good record label should be to uncover and support new talent.  At 20:20 we’re constantly on the lookout for new artists. I devote a large proportion of my time to A+R.

 Yesterday I realized I’d listened to over a 100 new track submissions. Naturally I can’t listen to them all but much like a DJ skipping through tracks in a record store I try to listen to as much as I can.  You get used to listening and knowing what you want quite quickly but it’s still very time consuming. Obviously I’ve made the odd mistake but after 25 years I’ve found I’m usually right! 

As I say id it’s very labour intensive but it’s not only the only way of finding new talent but just as importantly finding fresh talent that hasn’t already been snapped up by other labels. There are plenty of other labels out there that are also really good at A+R, which keeps us on our toes. It’s healthy for the scene as it means much less quality material gets overlooked and if you’re not on it, then it’s you that is going to miss out. 

So who has caught your ear of late then? Who should we be looking out for in 2016?

There is a young producer from France called The Mekanism of whom I’m a big fan. He has some really exciting stuff coming up on my label as does Whitesquare, who I think will be having a big year.

We’ve also split  2020 into two imprints now. 2020 Vision and 2020 Editions. The reasoning behind this is because we want to continue doing the experimental, slightly left field we always have done on 20:20 Vision whilst retaining the ability to release more straight up, for the floor club music. That kind of fare will be coming out on Editions from here on out and we wanted listeners to be able to clearly differentiate between the two outlets.  

Then in addition to supporting new talent – which we obviously love - we’ll also never forget about our core artists, such as the likes of Audiojack. They’re returning to 2020 Vision but with a much more experimental sound than they’d push on an EP for say the likes of Hot Natured.

We’re always pushing our artists to be a little more leftfield on the main label and I think some of the releases we have coming out this year will surprise people, hopefully in a good way! 

We’ve also efforts coming up from a whole number of  other new producers who unfortunately I can’t name check right now as we’re not at that stage wherein everything has been finalised. Watch this space. 

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