Anton Banks - The Vault Radio Show - Jun 2005

Biography of Anton Banks

By day, Anton works as an Engineer in the aerospace industry for a company that produces jet aircraft engines. He graduated from Central Connecticut State University in May, 2000 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering Technology and is currently pursuing a Masters in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Hartford. In his free time, Anton is a DJ and aspiring techno music producer.

In 1993 Anton Banks was a student at the University of Rochester and was into hip-hop and euro-dance pop music. He especially liked the beats and rhythms found in this music but became increasingly disinterested in the lyrics. Looking for something different, Anton borrowed a compilation CD from a friend. That CD was the seminal 'Moove Your Body' release on Tribal America Artists. Soon he was obsessed with all forms of underground dance music and broke all ties to the pop music scene. Anton found himself buying all the rave and house music he could find at a store called 'The Record Archive'. Also at about the same time Anton started going to a club in Rochester called 'Heaven' which was a stripped down version of New York City's infamous super club , the Limelight, as it was also built out of an old church. He only knew that he liked the music but it would be almost a year and a half later before Anton realized that he had been listening to early techno in it's heyday in the form of tracks like The Goodmen's 'Give it up', Jaydee's 'Plastic Dreams' and an assortment of music from early Detroit and Plus 8. The turning point came in 1994 when Anton first heard 'Psychotrance', a mixed CD by Mr. C on Moonshine Music. This CD and his experiences at 'Heaven' gave him a desire to learn to spin records.

In 1995 Anton transferred to Central Connecticut State University and joined the school's radio station, 107.7FM WFCS, as the student engineer shortly after that. As the engineer he had 24 hour access to turntables and an audience and used this opportunity to learn to mix records by taking advantage of dead air (which was and still is often at WFCS) to practice mixing. Through WFCS Anton met other people such as DJ Rockphonics- founder of Equinox and O.L.- the third hillbilly on 'Hillbilly House', who showed him the ropes and got me bookings. In 1996 Anton got his first booking at the now legendary Equinox weekly (Webster Theater in Hartford, CT from 1996 to 97). This turned into his first residency which gave him the opportunity to open for many touring DJs from New York City, Boston, and beyond.

Anton's first radio show, 'Spatial Distortion', was first heard on WFCS on January 18, 1995 and was on the air until May of 2000. In July, '99 Anton started a second show, 'Vault Radio', that now airs on 88.1FM WESU (Wesleyan University), as an offshoot of 'Spatial Distortion'. Anton is now one of a small number of people promoting non-commercial electronic music in Connecticut on a station that covers most of the state.

It has now been over 10 years since Anton began DJing and he has become one of the most versatile acts around. He has built up a musical repertoire of several thousand records that span from minimal house to techno to industrial and most styles in between.

Jamie Bissmire - The Vault Radio Show - Jun 2005

Biography of Jamie Bissmire

From one of the UK's leading DJs, producers and exponents of techno music Jamie Bissmire has pretty much done it all and got the T-shirt. As one third of Bandulu he has inspired a plethora of international artistes to take up the production baton and live audiences to lose their collective marbles on the dancefloor. As one half of the Space DJz alongside Potential Recordingz Ben Long he has cut, scratched, fazed and faded his way across the world's premier nightspots and with his Foundation and Ground labels has continued to prove himself at the cutting edge of loose-limbed techno minimalism. There are plenty who claim to have achieved half the things Bissmire has since he first unleashed Bandulu and The Thunderground in 1991 with John O'Connell and Lucien Thompson. Yet Bissmire just gets on with it. Neither seeking acclaim nor award in his constant quest to push himself both as a producer and DJ. Whilst all too often we are quick to hail those from distant shores as 'innovators' and afford them legendary status, we similarly often overlook the very same from under our noses.

Growing up through hip hop and electro in the 80s in Hornsey, North London Bissmire felt that, 'it was the first music that we could really say was our own. Electronic music for our generation'. Inspired to make ventures into making music, Bissmire and his soon to be Bandulu bandmates started making tracks in a make shift studio cum garage. Working as a carpet fitter during the week and in the studio at weekends, Bissmire had little idea at that music and DJing would become his full-time careers and indeed not many foresaw them to be much more than a hobby at the time - it was a far cry from the trans-global jet-setting DJ / club scene of today. Creation's Alan McGee and Chris Abbott saw enough potential in the three upstarts to form Infonet records for their output and the label witnessed a host of releases from their production powerhouse under all manners of pseudonyms: 'Escobar', 'Thunderground', 'Shyman', 'Sons of the Subway' etc but most notably Bandulu.

Bandulu really caught the world's attention on their debut album, 'Guidance' (Infonet, 1992). Mixing dub reggae sound ethics into Detroit techno and electro the album gave UK techno a voice (in the shape of John O'Connell) and a richness of sound and style that helped to define the UK electronic music scene as a separate entity to America and Europe. Nothing quite sounded like it and live nothing looked like it. Via front man Lucien Thompson, Bandulu engaged the crowd and created a vibe that embraced the dancefloor euphoria surrounding them. So legendary were their shows that it wasn't long before the trio (with Jamie at the controls) were gracing the stages of Glastonbury and the Festival circuit with equal aplomb as they already had in the clubs.

As the band grafted their way around the world's stages their second album 'Antimatters' (Infonet) was released in 1994, unleashing the band's massive club hit 'Presence'. Cementing their already ballooning reputation, the group are now widely credited as pioneers of the combination of dub and techno influences and, along with Basic Channel, they helped set up the blueprint for a sound that is still echoed to this date. Two more studio albums followed. 'Cornerstone' (Blanco Y Negro) in 1996 and 'Redemption'. (Music Man) in 2002 and a host of singles, their own Foundation label and remix work - whilst all the while Bandulu trod the boards live.

Since the later end of the 1990's Bissmire has mainly focused on his Ground label and DJing career alongside deck partner, Ben Long. As Space DJz, the pair would often warm up for Bandulu and the pair pioneered the DJ duo assault of playing on four decks and two mixers - scratching and cutting up untold amounts of vinyl across the planet. With the pairs every growing DJ reputation their recording partnership soon witnessed 12+ releases on Potential, Infonet, Novamute, Ongaku, Reload, Tortured and an album, 'On Patrol' for Soma in 1999. The Space DJz remain 'on patrol' to this day.

Towards the middle of the 1990's Bissmire began to experiment with new sounds and ideas that were to finally emerge on his own conceptual imprint, Ground. 'Off kilter mad sequences on strange looped timings - is how Jamie Bissmire describes the sound of his imprint. With artwork and run out groove scripture based on ancient English heritage and Anglo-Saxon ritualism, Bissmire hints at a deeper concept to the backbone of his label that runs along the ley lines of his country's ancestry. 'The label is based on the forgotten history and beliefs of the people of England and the rest of the world. Or to put it blunt. the geometrical patterns of universal growth and form.'

From the humble beginnings of 'Ground Zero', the label is now some 12 releases strong, primarily by Jamie himself and with appearances so far from Chris McCormack and Claude Young. Finally to bring us totally up to date, Jamie Bissmire is now set to launch his new label 50 Hz which will feature new and established artists as Jamie himself spearheads the vinyl onslaught with a series of new style bissmire tracks, and classic Bandulu tracks remixed and re-shaped for the nu style. On vinyl, on the decks or on patrol. Whatever it takes, Jamie Bissmire's on a musical mission and we're just trying to keep up.

http://www.myspace.com/jamiebissmire