Anton Banks - The Vault Radio Show - Nov 2008

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.

Gayle San - The Vault Radio Show - Nov 2008

Biography of Gayle San

Gayle Sans career already began in the late 80s in her hometown Sinapore. She started as a warmup DJ for Bands such as 'Kool and the Gang' 'Earth Wind and Fire' and the 'Commodores' Leaving her native Singapore some in the early 90s, nobody expected such a massive success for Gayle in the music business. Gayle's first steps into the London clubs were via DJing at record company parties, various one-off guest spots and fashion shows. These slots soon led to Gayle being made resident at 'Reach for the Sky' at London's Limelight club, where she played alongside global DJs which Gayle describes as 'the steepest learning curve possible'.

Having honed her DJing skills and broadened her understanding of music, Gayle began to experiment with the harder side of dance music, particularly the lesser known techno sounds coming into Britain from Europe and the US. Her chance to pioneer this music in England came when Gayle became resident at Universe's legendary Final Frontier club, at Club U.K. in south London, which then moved on to become Universe Voyager at their new club, the Complex in north London. Widely regarded as one of the best club nights in the world, it was not long before Gayle had amassed a following of techno pilgrims who would make journeys from as far as Edinburgh to hear her play.

Gayle's reputation spread like wildfire over the techno centres of Europe, most notably a residency once a month at the legendary Omen club in Frankfurt, the socalled 'Mecca of techno'. Other European and American dates have included some of the most underground clubs in the world, like Bionic in Detroit, Pure Pleasure parties in Chicago, Soma in Montreal, Twilo in New York, Zouk Club in Singapore, Florida 135 in Spain, Fuse Club in Belgium and many more all over Europe and the U.S.A.

In 2000 she was voted number 6. of the most popular international DJs in Germany. Regaring the massive competition of the worlds DJs it was the honour of her hard work in the last years. DJing has naturally led to various studio work. Gayle has developed a sound that takes the intelligent beats of the underground, funky/hard/groove techno sound mixed with her very own style.

She has recorded tracks under the name Transmakus namely Universe Anthem and Violator which have been included on the Tribal Gathering 94 and 95 albums respectively. Gayle has also recorded a single 'Way of the Dragon' for Rainforest Records, mixed a live set for the official Tribal Gathering 96 album. On her own label Equator she released some solo Eps and collaboration Eps with Mark Williams.

In 1998 she mixed the CD from the Fine Audio Mix CD series. The success of this CD overwhelmed everyone who was involved in this project. The CD was sold out in just two months. In 1999 she released a new EP on Touch Tone. Again this release was sold out in a recordtime. In february 2000 she released her Brickliners EP on Fine Audio Rec. The first pressing was in a limited edition on white vinyl and after the sellout of this, the next pressing came in black and was sold out before the actual releasedate already.

In the beginning of 2000 she released her second Mix CD called Gayle San at the wheels of steel on the new label Galvanic. For that release Gayle went on a big Worldtour bringing her into more then 30 clubs in just three months. The tour went from the USA to Europe (Germany, Hungary, Czech Rep., Belgium, Netherlands, France) to Asia. This CD was votet the best Mix CD of the release month in many magazines. Also in the year 2000 she started a new collaboration with Jam el mar (Jam and Spoon, Dance 2 Trance) This collaboration runs under the name Jamsan The first release was released on the label Cry Baby and was highly rated in many magazines and recordshop salescharts. In March 2000 she released her Backbone ep on Black Nation from Kalamazzo, USA and in April her The Lab epon Primate UK. As if this would be not enough she mixed the Titan Edition Techno on the austrian Label XXX and did the official Compilation of the famous german rave Time Warp

In Summer 2001 she relaunched her own label Equator. The first release from the new series is a cooperation with Jay Denham and releases from Flatner Ingram, Justin Berkovi, Bryan Zentz, Cristian Varela, Keita Shinohara and many more will follow. Gayles idea is to give also lesser known producers from all over the world a platform to release their productions. It will be interesting what tracks Gayle will find for Equator. Next to her successfull DJ carreer and her busy studiowork her famous and popular DJ gigs, the future of Gayle San never looked brighter.

http://www.myspace.com/gaylesan