Day 11: Paul Oakenfold

Paul Oakenfold

Bio
"Legendary DJ, producer, remixer, and record mogul Paul Oakenfold contributed more than any other artist in breaking the house music scene in Great Britain. Considered the truest champion of the house/trance genre, Oakenfold, through his pioneering efforts, toured the world numerous times, manning the turntables at the most influential dance clubs and at major music festivals. In addition to remixing songs for artists ranging from the Rolling Stones to Snoop Doggy Dog, Oakenfold has also toured with pop groups like U2 and Björk. In the 1999 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records, Oakenfold was listed as the world's most successful DJ in terms of influence and wealth. Today, because of Oakenfold's vision, a style of music born in America serves as one of the most popular genres in Britain. Reportedly, turntables outsell guitars among a younger generation of aspiring musicians. "When I was growing up, it was about picking up a guitar and being in a rock band," recalled Oakenfold to Richard Harrington of the Washington Post. "Now, kids want to be a DJ more than they want to be in a band!"

Born on August 30, 1963, in London, England, Oakenfold turned to DJing after failures as an instrumentalist. "I was no good at guitar," he admitted. "I always wanted to play music.... I just wanted to play it on turntables. I'd seen [pioneering rap turntablist] Grandmaster Flash in a documentary and thought that was brilliant, what he was doing. It was unique and exciting. And at that time in England, rock 'n' roll was a little bit boring."

Thus, at the age of 16, Oakenfold began mixing songs, hooking with friend Trevor Fung to play soul and groove tracks at a basement bar in Covent Garden while earning a paycheck as a chef. But without any significant role models in England, Oakenfold decided to move to New York City in 1983, then the heart of the dance world, where he made a living by day as a courier. Here, in addition to experiencing American night life, he observed and learned from genre-spanning DJ Larry Levan, his greatest influence.

"I spent time in New York and I used to go to the [Paradise] Garage, and I could never figure out how people would stay up all night long," Oakenfold recalled in an interview with Dave "The Wave" Dresden for DJ Times magazine. "It took me about six or seven weeks to figure out that they were doing NO NO WORD!!!. My friend and I would come there at six or seven in the morning virtually collapsing, drinking loads of coffee trying to stay up and Levan for me was the DJ who was very open-minded. He would play the Clash and Queen alongside dance and disco records. I felt that where I grew up, you needed to be more musically open-minded and I was. So if there was any DJ that influenced me, it was him. No English DJ did that to me."

Upon his returned to the United Kingdom, Oakenfold worked as a club promoter for acts like Run DMC and the Beastie Boys. As for his DJing skills, after spending time in New York, he was decidedly way ahead of the game compared to other British DJs, landing him a gig from 1985 through 1986 at the Project, one of the first house music venues in England.

In 1987, during a visit to the island resort of Ibiza in Spain with Fung and another friend named Ian St. Paul, Oakenfold discovered a sound that would eventually cement his reputation. One night, he and the other DJs went to a club called Amnesia, where they experienced for the first time the Balearic sound--a colorful, upbeat mix of house, soul, rock, and Italian disco. As in New York, the music usually kicked off at four in the morning, and young patrons, often energized by a new NO NO WORD!!! called Ecstasy, danced until midday. "It was the spirit, the energy of the island," Oakenfold told Harrington. "We just wanted to take that back to England. There was no plan to do this or that; it was just something that we wanted to take back home with us."

During 1988 and 1989, the British DJs introduced the Balearic style to the United Kingdom at several highly publicized after-hours dance clubs such as Shoom, Trip, and, in Oakenfold's case, Future at the Sound Shaft and later Spectrum and the Land of Oz at Heaven. In the early 1990s, on the ever-growing British club circuit, Oakenfold inaugurated the London super-club Ministry of Sound and served as resident DJ at another big venue, Cream, in Liverpool.

Meanwhile, Oakenfold and Steve Osborne started working as producers with dance converts the Happy Mondays. The group's 1989 single "(W.F.L.) Wrote for Luck," produced by the Oakenfold/Osborne team, won the honor of Dance Record of the Year in NME (New Musical Express). After setting up his own label, the RCA-connected Perfecto, in 1990, Oakenfold and Osborne went on to mix, produce, and arrange for the Happy Monday's 1990 full-length set Pills 'n' Thrills 'n' Bellyaches, placing them in the same territory as other top dance producers like Andrew Weatherall, who achieved similar success for his production work on Primal Scream's Screamadelica.

Soon, record labels began lining up for Oakenfold to mix and produce for major pop acts. These included U2, Simply Red, New Order, the Cure, Massive Attack, M People, Arrested Development, the Shamen, the Stone Roses, the Rolling Stones, and even rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg. Other production work followed throughout the decade, such as projects with the Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, and again U2. Incidentally, in 1993, Oakenfold became the first DJ to perform at a stadium when he accompanied the Irish quartet on their 1993 international tour. Later, he became the first DJ to play the main stage at Britain's massive Glastonbury Festival. Thanks in large part to Oakenfold's presence, dance music is now an important part of almost every major rock festival throughout the world.

Also because of Oakenfold's efforts, house music crossed over to the mainstream in the United Kingdom. His Journey by DJ series of mix albums sold well, and his 1997 album Tranceport served as a seminal title in trance music, a movement which propelled house toward a more melodic and commercial direction. In 1999, Oakenfold retired from DJing at Cream, and Virgin Records commemorated his work at the club with the release of Resident: Two Years of Oakenfold at Cream. In 2000, the DJ returned with the double-CD for his new label, London/Sire, entitled Perfecto Presents Another World, a set that showcased Oakenfold's versatility. Elements blended here include film scores by Dead Can Dance, techno, classical, spoken word, and a surprise reworking of the Led Zeppelin classic "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You." This marked the first time Led Zeppelin allowed a remix of one of their songs.

"I was trying to do something that was new and original by licensing film scores and getting permission to get classic rock acts like Led Zeppelin," he explained to Harrington. "There's a lot of work that went into it because we were going into areas that no one has ever gone." Exploring new areas, insists Oakenfold, is crucial to the survival of dance music. "Sometimes, I look at the scene and try and figure out how I can take a productive step forward, what needs to be done, how can I enhance this," he added. "Sometimes, I just get on with it and try to enjoy it. The beauty of dance music is that it just keeps getting bigger and bigger."

by Laura Hightower"
- From musicianguide.com

Studio Albums and Essential Remixes


Live at Bonnaroo
In the spirit of bringing big name electronic artists to the farm (Sasha and Digweed in '07 and Tiesto in '08), Superfly have pulled their strings once again to get the original, oh-so influencial, big-time DJ Paul Oakenfold. Expect him to play a late night set (possibly Saturday night) for many hours, hopefully early into the morning. You'll hear loud, thumping bass, synths, samples and possibly some collaborations. It'll be the time to dance all through the night and you won't even need headphones and get odd stares.

Oakenfold played Coachella in '06. Check out some of the videos for a possible taste of what he'll bring to 'Roo. Oakenfold at Coachella Query.