Like any successful DJ, touring is a big part of Kenny Larkin’s lifestyle. This month sees Larkin coming to Melbourne to play, fresh off shows in Berlin and Ibiza, and when he’s done working magic down under it’s off to shows in France and Switzerland. It’s a pretty hefty itinerary, and I’m curious to know just how much time Larkin actually spends on the road in order to make a viable career of playing records. “I travel all year,” he tells me, “but as I sit here right now, I have been on the road nonstop since May. All this travelling is nice, but also has drawbacks. I like to be home so I can work and take care of other things that are impossible on the road.”
Over the last two decades, there have been a lot of changes in terms of technology and the way music is made and played – the shift from analogue to digital being a big part of this, allowing pretty much anyone with a laptop to drag and drop samples around on a screen and instantly share their creations online. From Larkin’s perspective as a DJ, the biggest change has been the demise of turntables. “People got rid of all those and started using computers and controllers as a substitution,” he says. He’s not exactly sad about this, but it definitely means embracing a whole new worldview and way of working. “I actually have given up turntables for a number of reasons,” he says, “so I am no longer a disc jockey. I prefer the term music jockey, since I am not using discs anymore.”
Club music can be a fickle business – DJs and producers who were big stars a decade or even just five years ago can find themselves forgotten. Todd Terry, the superstar producer of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s recently acknowledged that youngsters on the scene are seldom familiar with his history, and whenever he plays shows he is always conscious of trying to win them over as new fans. Kenny Larkin has a similar attitude. “No one is exempt from this,” he tells me. “We all have to stay relevant by reintroducing and reinventing ourselves, over and over. Even all of the big artists are constantly staying relevant by releasing music all of the time. Fans forget easily – I go to gigs, and I’m sure that the kids don’t have a clue who I am. The idea is to make an impression on them with what you are doing now instead of relying on what you did in the past.”
In recent times, house has mutated into the mainstream, and become almost synonymous with pop – as one of house music’s key innovators in the early ‘90s, I’m curious to know just how Larkin feels about the dominance of dance beats on the contemporary charts, and the various hip hop-house crossovers that have taken over the airwaves in recent times. “No comment!” he says with a laugh. “That’s my reply. Everything is pop music today, even hip hop. I call it pop hop.” With that in mind, I ask him what he actually does like – some of the stuff he listens to and enjoys at present, be it artists, labels, or just individual tracks. “I rarely listen to dance music at home,” he admits. “The music that I do listen to on a regular basis is mainly jazz, or world music. Basically, I like to listen to anything that’s not on the radio!”
Larkin will be making his way to Melbourne soon to play a show at New Guernica, and I ask him the obligatory question of what we can expect from his show there. “Amazing music with soul!” he says, in cheerful yet circumspect fashion. Before the interview, I checked out Larkin’s rider on the Cadenza website and saw that it contains fruit juice and still water – nothing stronger than that. I take it, therefore, that he likes to take a professional approach and not drink behind the decks? “I don’t drink at all, besides a glass of red wine every now and then,” he tells me. It’s safe to assume, then, that Larkin’s shows don’t end with him carried out on a stretcher – unlike a certain dubstep DJ who will remain nameless but whose name may or may not rhyme with Brusko – it’s less about hedonism than it is quality, old-school sounds.
BY ALASDAIR DUNCAN
