News Round-Up: 15/03/2019

A New York rave scene pioneer has passed away. The streaming wars heat up. Oxford’s The Cellar closes its doors. DVS1 calls out commercial festivals. Win a copy of The Secrets Of Dance Music Production.

RIP Jason Jinx. A pioneer of the New York rave scene has died. With the Storm Rave crew, runby Frankie Bones, Jason Jinx was part of the earliest wave of DJs in New York City’s electronic music scene, playing parties like the NASA events at Shelter as early as 1990. The Long Island native, whose real name is Jason Zambito, began his production career in 1995, releasing house, drum & bass and trance on labels like Sm:)e, Subliminal and Strictly Rhythm. His family is asking for donations for funeral services via GoFundMe, writing, “We are at a loss for words finding out our dear friend Jason Jinx Zambito passed away. We lost a titan of creativity whose kindness touched many here in NYC and whose music had a far reach the world over.” Donate here.

Jam for the planet. Ahead of Earth Day 2019, DJs for Climate Actions will once again launch the Earth Night fundraising party series and compilation. The compilation, available April 19th, will feature tracks from The Revenge, Cyril Hahn, Marcel Vogel, Fish Go Deep, Till Von Sein, Justin Robertson and House Husband, while the first of the party series will also take place on the 19th at New York’s House of Yes with Sander Kleinenberg. Other fundraising shows will follow in Berlin, Barcelona and Detroit. Last year, Earth Night raised over $25,000 with an event in Brooklyn. Soul Clap headlined, and donations came from clubgoers and artists like Dillon Francis, Mija, Jamie Jones and A-Trak. To find out more about DJs for Climate Action, head here.

Streaming vs. songwriters. In a blog post that has been widely derided by songwriters and their representative groups, Spotify defended its decision to forgo a pay rise for songwriters on its service in the United States. Last week, Spotify, along with Amazon, Google and Pandora, appealed a ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board, which would increase songwriter royalties from on-demand streaming by at least 44% over five years. CRB states that this ruling would give “songwriters only their second meaningful rate increase in 110 years.” Spotify claimed the pay raise would hurt consumers and scare away first-time subscribers, though it is “supportive of US effective rates rising to 15% between now and 2022 provided they cover the right scope of publishing rights.” Apple Music, meanwhile, did not object to the ruling. For more on this complex yet important topic, head here.

Spotify vs. Apple. In a blog post, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek layed out why his Stockholm-based company is filing an antitrust complaint against Apple with European Commission, a regulatory oversight committee responsible for keeping competition fair. Ek is hoping to fight what he calls the “Apple tax,” a 30% fee on purchases made through Apple’s App Store, including upgrades from Spotify free to premium. Ek complains this “tax” artificially inflates Spotify prices above Apple’s, making his company less competitive. Apps like Uber and Deliver are not subject to the tax, Ek states, and he goes on to call for the “same fair rules” for all companies. Read the full post here.

Farewell Cellar. On March 11th, Oxford venue The Cellar closed its doors for the last time. The beloved club hosted acts like Shanti Celeste, Sunil Sharpe, Josey Rebelle, Shifted, Steve Davis and Peach in 2018, but has been under threat since last year, when the venue’s landlords revealed plans to turn it into a retail space. That never happened, but further complications with licensing and finances have made remaining open untenable. “After crunching the numbers, a thousand times over, the Hopkins family, who have run the independent music venue, for nearly 40 years, have sadly come to conclusion that they cannot continue,” a statement on Facebook reads. See the rest of the statement below.

Grayscale Supercell. While the highly popular Clouds Eurorack module from Mutable Instruments was discontinued in 2017, designer Olivier Gillet left his digital modules open source, giving others to port or elaborate upon the original code. Enter the Supercell, an expanded version of Clouds from Grayscale Modular, which brings Clouds’ granular processing engine to a larger 34hp form factor. The Blend parameters — Feedback, Panning, Mix, and Space — now have dedicated knobs and CV inputs and inverting attenuators, and audio inputs and outputs now have mute switches, VCAs, and separate VU meters. An additional +6 dB of gain has been added via a stereo output gain control, compensating for low output levels when using certain parameter combinations, the Pitch is now controlled by two separate inputs. The Grayscale Supercell is available in matte black or aluminium for $465. Read more about its specifications where, and see it in action below.

DVS1 gets real. In a video interview that is making the rounds, DVS1 gets honest on a variety of topics with The School of House. Real name Zak Khutoretsky, DVS1 made his name in the nascent ’90s Minneapolis rave scene, and these days is a regular at clubs like Berghain. In the 30-minute interview, DVS1 most notably rails against commercial festivals, which he says are “destroying the culture.” “It’s affecting the culture is so many ways,” he says. “The audience is losing the perception of value, attention and respect for the experience. The DJ is finding it harder to be an artist and be creative. For the culture, its affecting clubs and the independent promoters who take a lot more risk for smaller audiences.” The entire interview is worth a watch. Check it out below.

Win a copy of The Secrets Of Dance Music Production. We’re giving away ten copies of our book The Secrets of Dance Music Production. For your chance to win simply enter the prize draw. The deadline for submissions is March 18th 2019 at midnight. More information here. Good luck!

You’ve been warned. Following the cancellation of this year’s 7001 festival, which was supposed to take place outside of Berlin this summer, the festival’s founder, Melanie Pressler, has been accused of blackmail and dangerous working conditions by former employees. Those employees say Pressler, who also founded now-defunct Her Damit, still owes them tens of thousands of dollars. And during one particularly intense weekend at 7001, she reportedly forced a group of employees to hunt down unknown perpetrators who had started several mysterious fires around the festival grounds — which were likely attributed to disgruntled security firm whom Pressler never paid. “[She] is a highly manipulative, sociopathic and pathological liar… She was chased out of Munich for doing people wrong there, and she does the same thing now here in Berlin,” one employee told RA. Read the rest on Resident Advisor.