El Diablo’s & Chris Massey head to head – ARTIST TO ARTIST / MIX TO MIX

El Diablo's Social Club have been throwing supreme parties for over a decade, helmed by the disco don Neil Diablo and hosting the likes of Maurice Fulton at their Manchester based bash's as well as giving birth to the EDSC label and releasing lovely balearic, disco chugginess into the world's unsuspecting ears. 
Mr Chris Massey has collaborated with Ajello aka DJ Rocca for a release on El Diablo's. Ahead of said release we ask Neil (Diablo's) and Chris to go head to head on the mix front and on the question front. Here are the results…

 

El Diablo's Recordings to Chris Massey;

 

How did the DJ Rocca collaboration come about? Did you fly to Italy everyday to work on it? Any other tracks with him in the pipeline?

 

The collab came about as I was a fan of the Ajello stuff and had looked into booking them for Electric Elephantit was only when approaching AJello that I discovered that Rocca was one half of them as well as Erodiscothique! Weird as I am a big fan of all 3 but never actually realised he was responsible for all 3! Anyhow, I dealt with him directly and said I loved Ajello's Crystal babe track (see question 3) and would he be up for doing some stuff together as I had a few finished/semi finished tracks. I sent these ever and we just got each others vibe in an instant. Some stuff I had was finished and just need tweaking and other stuff was only a few bars of the basics which I would send to Rocca and he worked it, sent it back to meI said "yeah thats good, what about this." and so on, back & forth until we reached a final stage. It  was a great working relationship!

 

I'd love to say I flew over to his studio in Italy but the reality was I sat in rainy Bolton in my studio only venturing out to grab a pasty & Yazoo chocolate milkshake from the corner shop. Hardly a fine wine & fresh made pizza in Italy but hey ho!
?defo have plans for some new stuff toowe just need to clear our schedules. I have a great track to send him but I still need to do a lot of work on it first of all.

 

Do you have any other collaborations with other artists in the pipeline?

 

Yup! A collaboration between myself & Flash Atkins called Dirty Protest is dropping on Paper Recordings soon and me & Joe Morris of Clandestino have been saying for ages we'd do something together which is finally seeing the light of day and also i've been working on some more psyched out/spacey type disco with Danny Of Oosh which is still in the early stages yet but sounding good so far. Oh i've also got a collaboration project coming out on EDSC Recordings with some right weirdo called Neil Scott.

Top 5 all time favourite tracks?

 

Ah the dreaded question! Hmmmmmm, seeing as you've not specified styles then it gives me more scope 😉 so in no particular order:
 

1. Ajello – Crystal Babe: first heard this on Weatherall's Masterpiece cd and I instantly repeated it about 5 times in a row. Never leaves my cd wallet and has been on numerous mixes i've recorded. Fucking brilliant.
 

2. Oliver $ – Doin Ya Thing: Derrick Carter dropping this at the last Electric Elephant in Petrcane is cemented on my memory. Amazing track that just plods along nicely and still now gets people running up asking what its called.
 

3. College & Electric Youth – A Real Hero: Everyone knows itace film, ace track that still sends shivers down my spine.
 

4. Donna Allen – Serious: Just an amazing tune that stomps along like a heard of rhino. Amazing snare splash with tons of 80's  gated reverb and also that amazing "baby I don't know what I would do" line that was sampled by Strike. Essential
?

5. AC/DC – Shook Me All Night Long: The greatest song in the world ever. Nuff said

 

Which DJ has kept you interested over the years?

 

Definitely Pete Herbert. He is someone who for me really does have the midas touch when it comes to music. His productions are absolutely flawless and work on so many levels from banging dance floor destroyers to more nice laid back, bar vibes. It was great to have him play at Electric Elephant last year where he did an amazing job. He's a proper dude too.

Check Mr Massey's mix as you read on…

So you're a resident at Homoelectric now. How does that compare to other gigs you do? Is it more tops off?

 

I've played a few times for Homoelectric (not sure i'm yet classed as a resident but fingers crossed!) but each times i've played its been amazing! Their tagline of being "for homos, heteros, lesbos and don't knows. Sexual orientation and music genres are irrelevant on our dancefloors. Into our melting pot we throw disco, house, techno, garage, rock 'n' roll trash, outsider pop, dirt, and glamour with no pomp or pretension" sums it up perfectly and for me that is the ideal scenario for a clubbing experience!

 

Is it more tops off than other gigs? Most certainly! Tops offride a horsezip upwade in

 

Any embarrassing dj moments?

 

Prob the worst was back in the early days when I was using vinyl and I was getting pretty carried away and jumping around like a loon which resulted in twatting the deck..thus sending the needle flying across the vinyl with an almighty "scccrrraaaattthhhhhhhh" followed by deathly silence in a packed venue. Well good 😉

 

You've recently joined EDSC. How did that come about?

 

At the back end of 2013 I sent the Rocca collaboration over to yourself for consideration to which I remember you saying "oh man this is gonna go triple platinum"seeing as that was a promising start I remember then saying that i'd love to get involved in what is a Manchester institution and that together we could easily create the next Stiff Records 🙂 The rest (as they say) is & will be history!

 

Tell us about your involvement with EE.

 

I started working at Electriks as a work experience placement many moons ago through college doing 1 day a week answering the phone, brewing up etc (I think there had only been 1 Electric Elephant at that stage) then over the years I began working there more & more until you fast forward a few years to now where i'm still answering the phones & brewing up but also look after bookings and also promo too (amongst other bits!).  Its been amazing to work for the guys and its put me in touch with so many people that have been instrumental in my work. I would not be sat here answering these questions now if it was not for those guys so massive props to Luke, Justin & definitely Moggsy!

 

Vinyl or vinyls?

 

A while ago i'd have said vinyls but after you recently said that Philippa at Piccadilly Records would "cut my nuts off" if she ever heard me say vinyls I am pleased to now refer to the collective of record's as vinyl.

 

Rolls, muffins, baps, barms or cobs? 

 

Pffft! Barms all the way! I'm northern through & through!

 

Balearic or nu beat?

 

I'm a bit of both? Nu-beat Balearic I think covers me!

 

Whats coming up release wise for EDSC this year? 

 

Next thing up is a great collaboration between Mike Simonetti of Italians Do It Better and a guy called Secret Circuit. Its proper out there and pretty dark yet quite psych too and will feature remixes from Seahawks & Ruf Dug. Its exciting to put something out thats a bit left of centre for the labelshowcases the versatility of what we're about ;). Also coming up is an in-house El Diablos Social Club from myself & you although we probably need to work out who's going to provide remixes for that! And we also are in the stages of sorting an Italian All Atars & a Manchester All Stars release which will each feature tracks by producers we favour as the label.

 

Describe your musical education by way of 5 visual references.

Sorry could only come up with 4! (The images throughout this half of the interview)