The first University Philosophical Society (the Phil) honorary patronage of the year saw Patrick Topping, award-winning British DJ, to the GMB in conjunction. An intimate gathering of techno fans and music lovers alike, it was a very engaging discussion which served to cast light on the life of a DJ.
Opening with jokes about how he hadn’t set foot inside a university in years, and hadn’t expected to be competing with the puppy room being held by the College Historical Society (the Hist) one floor up, Topping was a fun and charming guest. When asked about where he shopped for his fashionable look, he confessed after a few rounds of laughter that he just bought what he liked online.
With the discussion initially being led by DUDJ, Topping spoke of his approach to festival sets. Usually being only an hour long, a DJ like Topping can be almost forced into playing their more recognisable tracks rather than showcasing the diversity of their own music tastes.
Having begun DJing while studying in Edinburgh before moving back to his home in Newcastle, Topping discussed how formative that time was for him as an artist, making music whilst living with his mother the most enjoyable time in his career.
When asked about his dream collaborations, he noted legendary producer Sven Väth as the person he’d most like to worth with, adding with a grin that he wouldn’t mind collaborating with Kanye West should the opportunity arise. He again referenced this when asked about how a DJ’s song-writing process could differ from other genres. He explained how he only has experience with the tech-house process – finding a good beat, adding musical ideas and building around them – so he couldn’t be sure, but would like to branch out into hip-hop production at some point.
Topping gave some wonderful insight into the life of a touring festival DJ. He told the story of his set at Life Festival this year: when setting a song to 200 beats per minute before fading in a second song, a technical issue caused the new song to be sped up too. Noting how this marred the rest of the set for himself, he was relieved to inform us that no one else had even noticed.
The most interesting part of the talk was when an audience member asked Topping about Facebook ID pages. Set up to help fans of techno and house identify the names of songs DJ’s are playing, it flies in the face of the traditions of the genre, whereby a DJ will keep the names of tracks, and especially the different samples used in these tracks, a secret. Topping told the anecdote about how when a video of one of his shows ended up on an ID page, the video was viewed over a million times with thousands of fans asking about the song – the pride Topping said he felt is understandable to say the least.
To the Topping fans in the audience, this was certainly a dream come true, getting to discuss his dream residency (Panorama Bar), his current residency (DC10), and how he only used Ableton music software for two days before moving to the Logic digital audio workshop. Getting pictures with Topping afterwards, I am sure the audience can agree it was an interesting event for fans of techno, and music in general, and will be delighted to hear Topping perform with DUDJ’s at the Pav from 4pm until 7pm.
