MUSIC

RIPTIDE

"[insert random dj-name here] played this track last night about riding a bicycle in Amsterdam, does anybody know what track this is, I need this track!"

This was the question being asked on countless Message Boards, Blogs and YouTube comment threads whenever dj's like, Aeroplane , Boys Noize, Erol Alkan, Fake Blood, or Switch (to name a few) dropped RipTidE's remix of Jennifer Delano's 'Amsterdam'. The tastemakers had spoken… Coming onto the scene with one of THE ubiquitous dance floor destroyers of 2009, he's about to make some bigger waves with his next releases and dj-sets, but where did it all start?

Max Bedeker (1984) fell in love with music whilst on holiday in the South of France aged 11. Hearing Sepultura's 'Roots' album for the first time he was hooked, his first act on arriving home was to buy that album quickly followed by those of Metallica and KoRn. From that short Holiday Romance a life long musical love affair was born….

Seeing one of his friends playing guitar a couple of months later, the young Max rushed back to tell his dad he wanted to play guitar too.

The next day his father took him out, bought him a guitar, amp and distortion pedal and off he went. Refuting any notion of taking formal lessons he gradually taught himself tablature, learning everything on his own, slowly creating his own style this way.

It wasn't until 2001, when Daft Punk's 'Discovery' album came out, that his interest in electronic music was kindled, for a while this was the only dance-album he owned, loving every bit of it, but still more interested in the loudness of bands like Slipknot.

Then he discovered illegal squat parties in Hilversum, his hometown.

It's a city that prides itself with being the 'media-city of Holland', but at the same time nothing interesting ever happens. He quickly befriended the owner of the squat, who passed him a copy of a compilation called 'I-Robots', fuelled by the sound of italo disco-classics such as Robotnick’s ‘Dance World Dance’ and Charlie’s 'Spacer Woman', he had to find and own more of this amazing music, seemingly from another world.

This squat is also the only place he dj-ed in for years, on a desktop computer running Traktor 2, with just old electro and italo records, slowly but surely his tastes began to broaden to many different electronic genres, from Acid House and Old Skool Rave to the latest German Techno, before he knew it Max was listening to more and different styles of music.

Moving to Paris to finish his hairdressing training with Toni&Guy, Max was in luck, the middle of the salon boasted a full dj-booth set up, and each Friday and Saturday dj's would come and play at such an ear splitting volume that talking to clients was impossible. One of the dj's played anything and everything, and slowly Max came to see that there were no real boundaries to what you could do as a dj.

The same guy that owned the squat also went over to visit for New Year’s Eve, and brought with him a copy of Cubase, a quick explanation of the basics and finally Max was able to record the ideas for all the Rock-songs that until now had just been ideas floating in his head.

Soon after he discovered VST-plugins and analogue synthesizers and realised that actually by making electronic music you could do everything by yourself, make any sound that you want, and best of all an end to all those band meetings that eventually all lead to nothing….

The biggest push however, came at the Benicassim festival, where he went to see 'this dj called Erol Alkan who did that Franz Ferdinand remix that's pretty good'. After a long long day, very tired, he still made it to the stage, and when he saw and heard him play Boys Noize's remix of Tiga - Move My Body, and then dropped Rage Against The Machine's Killing In The Name Of he knew that that's what he wanted to do: Become a dj.

After some investigating he soon discovered similar artists like Boys Noize, Justice, Switch and their contemporaries, it soon became his main love, his musical life partner if you like.

Slowly building up a studio full of analogue gear Max started delving deeper, not only listening to, but studying classic producers such as Giorgio Moroder and Patrick Cowley. Whilst at the same time concentrating on his own productions, making it his number one priority.

Continuing to play in the squat, learning how to work a crowd, Max became much more confident in what he was playing as more people kept coming every week.

Now finally, after the shock-success of his remix, he's ready to take on the world with his dj-sets and productions. Already he's got some releases coming up on Tommie Sunshine's Brooklyn Fire label, Boemklatsch records, and will be producing other artists as well.

He also operates under the name Art Vandelay, choosing a more classic disco & italo approach, produces together with a friend under the name Racket, and is also gearing up for the start of his own label ‘House of Sound’.

Not only that he’s worked with singer songwriters, bands and even recorded a song with Tibetan monks! There's no telling in what will happen next in the world of RipTidE…