Bastardo Electrico - 16 Tracks Through the Years
- Georgia Tbilisi
- Nov 1, 2018
- 8 min read
Welcome back to part 2 of our Bastardo Electrico birthday feature with label founder Jamie Behan. After chatting to Jamie last week and getting to know more about himself as an artist, this time we go back through the 16 years of Bastardo Electrico with a track that marks a certain time for the label and the evolution of Cork's techno scene, celebrating the bangers which remain pillars for each year of the long running imprint.
2002
A deep melodic masterpiece on Dublin's D1 Recordings. This track was an early night staple during our first year at Sir Henrys on Thursday nights. I still play it a lot in warm-up sets to this day. Although the sound of Bastardo Electrico from the beginning was
definitely more aggressive and relentless than that of D1, they were still a huge early influence for me, with some of our first guests including Eamonn Doyle and Rob Rowland, and in many ways they set out a blueprint for what Irish techno/electronic music could achieve with their night, label, record store, and DEAF Festival. It's good to see them back on the scene as well with their 25th anniversary compilation dropping soon.
2003
The raw nasty funk of jacking Chicago techno and labels like DJ-AX, Pro-Jex, and Knee Deep was very much at the core of our early nights and I could have picked any number of DJ Rush tracks but this one sticks out as one that I still play regularly to this day. By the start of 2003 the club night had really gained momentum and gathered a loyal following for local nights and Irish artists whilst also hosting a wide range of international guests from across the techno & electro spectrum. We had moved from our Thursday night slot at Sir Henrys to Fridays and were also running a second monthly night at another venue. For our 1st Birthday, we invited Adam Beyer over to play, and besides the fact that there was a queue around the block before we opened the doors and had to shut them less than an hour later as the club was full, I will never forget the panic over Beyer's flights which got diverted from Cork to Shannon, back to Cork, and back to Shannon again where he eventually landed. Cue a mad dash down the motorway with Beyer finally taking to the stage nearly an hour late and laying down an hour of power with 140 BPM pounders mixing on 3 decks with one hand whilst eating a hastily purchased burger from McDonalds with the other.
2004
At this stage Sir Henrys had closed down and the night had become nomadic flitting between small backrooms and upstairs rooms over bars. At the same time the music we were playing had definitely gotten a lot harder! This track reminds me of a party we organised out in the middle of the West Cork countryside, a rave masquerading as a festival under the auspices of a biker rally, with Sunil Sharpe dropping this and sending the crowd ballistic with bikers head banging alongside a mix of club kids and hippies.
2005
Unfortunately 2005 was somewhat of a desolate year for techno in Cork city with the closure of a number of smaller venues that we had been using. This was quite ironic seeing that Cork was the European Capital of Culture that year with techno - for no real apparent reason - becoming a dirty word. It was seen by most venue owners and managers as drug music. It was shocking how conservative the city had become. However, we still managed to get away with throwing a few dirty techno raves including a bigger instalment in of the infamous ‘Ballinhassig Biker Raves’ which have entered Cork music folklore. This one featured Ben Sims, Sunil Sharpe, and Chris Liberator alongside a host of local DJs with extra stages catering for house, drum and bass etc. I remember reading an interview with Ben some years later where he cited the biker rave in West Cork as being one of his most memorable gigs; “people were eating the speakers”. Back to the track though. This was one of the standout tracks of that year for me, aggressive, menacing, and mind-bending, which I remember finishing my set at that particular rave with.
2006
There is not much I can say about this track except wow! There is no particular association between this track and the year 2006 but I had to fit in somewhere in the list as it's something of a Bastardo Electrico anthem, one that I still play out loads, including the 16th Birthday.
2007
By 2007 Bastardo Electrico had been subsumed into another night that I had set up with some friends called Schmutzig (German for dirty). This ran from 2007 to late 2008 at The Tikki Lounge and The Liquid Lounge where I invited the likes of DJ Bone, Technasia, Vince Watson, Paul Mac and Sunil Sharpe coming to play in an intimate sweatbox which held 100-150 people. I was also hosting a Bastardo Electrico radio show for Electronic Ireland at the time and through the show, I got to explore a lot of different styles - more Detroit influenced techno for example. This is one which featured regularly on my radio show and when I played out.
2008
After talking about it for years I finally got around to launching Bastardo Electrico, the record label. The first release came from Sunil Sharpe with this beast of a remix from Paul Mac. Listening back to this now, I can't help but think that Paul was really ahead of his time bringing rave influences back into techno. All in all it's a really fun record which doesn't take itself too seriously and a release which I'm still very proud of.
2009
The second release on the label came from Detroit legend DJ Bone. He had been over to play a number of times over the previous 3 years and we had become good friends so it seemed natural to ask him to do it. This is such a killer and prime example of what Bastardo Electrico is all about. Punky alien space-funk techno for want of a better description!
2010
My first ever release, which came out on a various artists EP on Bastardo Electrico featuring three friends of mine; Glenn Keohane (amazing Cork techno producer who I need to drag out of retirement), Trish Van Eynde and Klaina. At the time I was producing a lot of house and Detroit influenced music. Possibly because the club night had finally returned to the scene properly with monthly events at the legendary Pavilion (which re-opened this year as Dali) and I was playing a lot of this kind of music in my early night warm-up sets. It was a good time, we were getting great crowds and it felt like techno had finally shed its unwarranted reputation in Cork as simply being music for drug addled freaks. We had become respectable!
2011
This release from Conan O'Donnell, an Irish producer who now goes under the alias Xerophx, was the standout from the label in 2011. It featured this killer remix by Belgian producer Ozka which really fitted the deep, dark and chuggy vibe we were on at the time, with both the label and the club night. This was another good year which saw the beginning of a series of legendary bi-annual shows by Sunil Sharpe and the likes of James Ruskin and Rolando making their Cork debuts.
2012
The record that kick-started things for Sunil, bringing him to the attention of a wider audience, with an equally amazing video by Ocusonic to accompany it. If Sunil ran for President this could be our new Irish National Anthem. Just a thought!
2013
This collaboration between James Kumo and Roberto Bosco was the best received release on Bastardo Electrico to date at the time. Unfortunately after a massive mix-up, the record was released on the 21st December instead of the start of November as planned and anybody in the business will tell you that putting out a record a few days before Christmas, when most stores are not buying in stock, is just asking for trouble. Pretty much financial suicide. The distribution company also went bust. So in spite of rave reviews and support from techno cognoscenti, not that many people bought it and I ended up with a load of records in my cupboard and a rather large hole in my bank account. But enough crying over spilled milk, at the end of the day it's still a damn good record though as far as I'm concerned.
2014
For some reason we forgot to hold an 11th Birthday party the previous year so we decided to hold two in 2014 with DJ Bone headlining one and Ben Klock the other. I remember Klock played an uncharacteristically fast and banging set that night including this old classic from Scottish techno legend Stephen Brown. Unfortunately, our home The Pavilion closed its doors shortly after this and the club night was forced to go on the move again.
2015
It wasn't long until the Pavilion reopened under new owners. I remember we advertised our first night using the tagline "techno is back in The Pav, techno is back in Cork'. We weren't quite prepared for the outpouring of sheer joy that this created so the opening night in there was completely nuts. I played this monster track by Truss and Bleaching Agent towards the end of the night and people were losing their shit. The 13th Birthday that year also saw myself and Sunil do our first back to back set, which we also reprised 2 weeks ago. I must admit going up against one of the best techno DJs in the world was quite a nerve-wracking experience!
2016
Tripeo dropping this at the end of our 14th Birthday was an emotional moment for me. The Pav had closed its doors again, I had moved the night to another venue and to be completely honest I had ran way too many parties that year. People simply got tired of going to the same place week in, week out and it showed in the numbers. So I was really nervous that nobody would turn up for the birthday party and had said to myself that if this happened, I was going to throw in the towel as far as promoting was concerned. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised when we had a full house, with the friendliest crowd going bananas to an epic set from Darko. It almost brought a tear to my eye!
2017
This track is collaboration between me and my good friend, Dublin DJ/Producer Stephen Mahoney as 'Flexure'. It was written in two hours during an afternoon jam with a bunch of hardware set-up on my kitchen table and became the basis for our new project. It was my first ever vinyl release and the first release on my label in 4 years so it's fair to say it's a bit of a highlight for me! Big thanks to Kevin from the29novfilms for the killer video for it as well.
2018
This track is a collaboration between me and DJ Flush which was released on the '10 years of KilleKill' compilation earlier in the year. KilleKill also invited us to host our first ever night outside of Ireland at Griessmuehle in Berlin as part of their Summer Camp series of events. That night got properly sweaty with Manni Dee, Scalameriya, Bleaching Agent and myself playing. It was definitely one of the standout moments of this year for me. 2018 also saw the re-opening of the Pav in Cork under the new name Dali and with a very distinct focus on underground electronic music. The people responsible really love techno & house and amongst other things, are after installing one of the best soundsystems in the country. The last 5 months in there has witnessed some amazing nights so I am quietly confident in the future of the Cork electronic music scene.
The next Bastardo Electrico night is happening in Cork this weekend with Stranger for Under the Rose x Bastardo Electrico: Stranger at Dali.
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