Claudio Coccoluto

Emma Warren

Here is Claudio. Kind of the first thing I want to ask you really, is that Italy seems to be constantly a house nation. It seems to love a particular kind of house music. Why is that? And is that really the case?

Claudio Coccoluto

There are a lot of different reasons. The main reasons are: Italy was of course not the land where it was born. It was like a colony of Anglo-Saxon, London and New York. When I was young in my life, I looked at London and New York as the places where things are going on. That holds true until the ’90s. It is known that house music was born in the USA. Now, the scene is completely different. House music belongs to the world and the scene has completely changed. I think that house was not a musical genre, but a musical attitude. It’s a mood that you can use to be a DJ or a person that uses sounds different from rock, from electronic, from everything. In a mood that is house. House is just the way. But house music as a culture knows no nation, no sex, no race, no class. This is the main character for me. I think, in Italy it has been so popular and appreciated because in Italy the club scene is very important in a social context. It is not simply a place, where you dance, it is a weekly appointment for everybody. Go to the club, meet every other person, listen to music, dance – living the music. This is the only possibility to do so for young Italians.

Emma Warren

Clubs physically have developed in Italy. You have so many clubs, which are basically events in themselves. Very big clubs, very ornate with a whole load of architecture and stuff going on. How did that happen?

Claudio Coccoluto

It’s very difficult to explain. See, we started to copy. Like every other country in the world, we started to copy the scene and the clubs in London. Until a few years ago, the Ministry of Sound was very popular. I have seen people with my own eyes that had the Ministry of Sound logo tattooed on their upper arm.

Emma Warren

Those were Italians?

Claudio Coccoluto

Yeah. I think that’s because of the great power of the English press and what they do in marketing for their product. We were a victim in a way. At the beginning, everything from London was perfect, was brilliant, was the best. Now, it has completely changed because the relation is on the same level now. In Italy, we think that you need a sensibility of professionalism in order to make a club. A good club does not only make money and nothing else. It makes culture and some money, and this is the balance. It’s not a good club if there is only the market view. We try to do this in Rome with our club Goa. We do a program and a marketing plan that is OK, but we are true to our soul and our vision of the musical context. It’s like a mission. We need to explain to our customers and the people that follow us that a club is a place where a culture is involved and not where you just pay for the ticket and nothing else.

Emma Warren

You said to me a minute ago that your kind of philosophy is not about being a superstar DJ, it’s about the music. How do you do that with Goa? How does that come across with the kind of DJs you book or the kind of music you play at the club?

Claudio Coccoluto

This is another problematic question. Because, I speak about my person and I never asked in my life to be a superstar DJ. Everything that has happened, happened out of myself without my intention. I just do my job. Playing records and playing music – nothing else. If somebody comes and says, “You’re the best! We need to do a cover story, you need to go to Ibiza.” That is not the goal of my life. The goal of my life is to do it better every time that I play. Better than the night before.

Emma Warren

So this season at Goa, presumably, you were playing there very regularly what kind of music or records were very big for you?

Claudio Coccoluto

I don’t think in that category or of a particular kind of music. I try to feel the music in my life. Since I was a child, I don’t say, “What is pop? What is rock? What is folk?” I try to make the decision out of my guts. It’s very easy to be conditioned by the media or the scene or marketing [laughs] and I don’t want that to happen. I play what I feel to be good.

Emma Warren

And specifically, what kind of things have you been playing?

Claudio Coccoluto

Specifically, I think, I played modern electronic dance music with a lot of references to the past or to the future. But, it’s not so important because I think that house music is a spherical thing. You see a lot of different sides to it, but still the same sphere. I think that house music is a box, where you can put inside everything. From electro to techno to soul to disco. I love to mix all those elements and to say that in this record from Berlin or New York, I heard something sensational. It’s not a sound element or a particular kind of music or a particular structure.

Emma Warren

I noticed on your chart on your website that you had !!!, Alter Ego, the Orb and Hakan Lidbo were the top four tunes. Is that representative? Say, we going to come and see you at Goa tonight, is that what we will be hearing you play?

Claudio Coccoluto

Yeah. At the moment, that is the music that gives me the most emotions. When I listened to !!!, it’s something that has a link to something from 20 years ago. Music like this form the USA is very interesting because it correlates funk, disco and electronic in just one thing. It’s very similar to me. I need to explain that I’m not so happy that people recognize me as a house DJ. House is a very small term for the masses. House is a very small concept. [laughs] Thank you. !!! gave me the occasion to play something from the past that is very difficult to play in a straight electronic set. There are a lot of things that give me the occasion to do a diversion in my set and go around.

Emma Warren

I wanted to ask you about the American connection, but before that, talking about !!! in your position as kind of the biggest DJ in Italy, do you find it to be difficult to play the things that you want? Are you limited in any way by the fact that so many people want to come and see you?

Claudio Coccoluto

No. I think and I hope to be not influenced by my position. I try to use my position and do something special and something different. Because I think, it’s a duty for a DJ that has, sorry, a “name” to do something different and special. If you try to get applauded with simple records, the challenge is lost. The challenge for the DJ is, in my opinion, to get the crowd dancing to stuff they would have thought as impossible to dance to.

Audience Member

Let’s talk a little bit about the late ‘80s when Italy was a place where electronic music was widely appreciated and became a major production center in electronic music. Could you please tell us something about those times and how Italians actually started producing good electronic music massively and you heard Black Box and all that stuff?

Claudio Coccoluto

Everything is right, but not so, so right. Because, Italy in the ’80s was an adventure-land. There were many people doing electronic music with a pioneer attitude, OK?

Emma Warren

Who were these pioneers?

Claudio Coccoluto

For sure, people like Black Box, but also Kano, by Santiago…

Audience Member

Do you have something by them with you?

Claudio Coccoluto

Let me see. [looks through his record bag] No, nothing. You spoke about this with Metro Area, right? In the ’80s everybody who like me, used an 808 and the first sampler, was in a condition that, if he spoke to a musician, a serious musician, they don’t trusted any of us. This went on for maybe 10 years, 15 years. And Black Box and everything that you know so well because of their world-wide fame, was just a single experience and not representative for a scene. There was no scene! There were persons, OK, but Black Box as a person, 49ers as a person, but without any relation. Because I remember that everything that you just named was by two or three little labels without the power of marketing, just with the power of ideas and nothing else. That is not so different at the moment. There are no majors that support the sound of little producers or small labels. There is no structure.

Emma Warren

This brings us to something I was going to ask you. There was a quote from you in an interview where you said that the music was born as something avant-garde, not as something for business. Obviously, as we see and talk about, there was this sense of experimentation. Which kind of people are still doing that now in Italy?

Claudio Coccoluto

I think everything in Italy started from the ’70s, not in the ’80s. There was a club near Riccione named Baia Degli Angeli. There was Moz-Art and DJ Baldelli that started to play in a different way that was never heard before. This guys mixed with a great liberty everything from funk – James Brown, I don’t know – to Kraftwerk to everything that was new or different in the club. In Italy that is called “Afro.” Why, nobody knows… [laughs] No, “Afro” because there are a lot of percussion moments in the set, but that is not a reference to the music. It’s a nickname. But those are my roots. Today, I am a DJ because of Moz-Art and DJ Baldelli in ‘78 from Baia Degli Angeli.

Emma Warren

Did you go to the club?

Claudio Coccoluto

No, never. I received the tapes and I listened to them again and again for a long time in order to understand what was happening in those sets. What is mixing? We speak about ‘78. Probably the first ones to use the mixer in a creative way. I have to explain. This is Chicken Lips, DJ-Kicks. I think that you know this. And with a big surprise to myself, I found everything inside from the Afro and DJ Baldelli and Moz-Art from ‘78. Because stuff like Nina Hagen...

(music: Nina Hagen – “African Reggae” / applause)

I asked myself, why the Chicken Lips chose this stuff for their album? What’s the link? And I found the answer. We had a DJ in Roma named Leo Young, who is very fond indeed of Afro and lives in London. I spoke to him about five years ago. He met guys like the the Chicken Lips, like the Idjut Boys, like DJ Harvey – people like that. And Leo taught them about this guys and what happened in Italy in ’78. And the Chicken Lips were like, “Wow, in Italy in ’78 happened this? This is it!” And then he showed them the tape of Baia Degli Angeli from ’78 or ’77 or ’79. I put an end to the story. The sound of the Chicken Lips is a perfect fusion of my roots and my future. The sound I actually love to play. This is the mission of DJing, I think. Producing music for the sake of music. We are not musicians, we don’t have an academic background to do something special. But we can bring together some elements from the past, from the future, from electronic things, from breaking glass, from I don’t know what into something else and something different because this is our goal in this business. I think it is so. We need to give pleasure to the people that are dancing on the dancefloor because this is the first reason, to be in this work. And I think the perfect mixing comes from mixing from memories and the fantasy. This is the real thing to do.

Emma Warren

So, the perfect mix evokes memory and fantasy?

Claudio Coccoluto

Exactly.

Emma Warren

I think this whole thing of Leo Young introducing Chicken Lips to this sound is quite interesting. Is that something you ever did with Basement Jaxx?

Claudio Coccoluto

Yes. I have a relationship with Basement Jaxx from the first time we met in the international scene. I met them - I don’t remember exactly – probably at a party in one of the worst clubs in London. At that time, they were really interested in Brazilian sounds incorporated in electronic music. And I was really attracted by this because it was the same I tried to do. And after “Summer Daze” came out and was the first Basement Jaxx hit, I said to Simon and Felix, “I do this too.” It was “Belo Horizonti” and I told them, “Guys, nobody wants this track in Italy. Nobody. I went around to every label, are you interested? and because of the similarity.” And Felix said to me, “Of course. But just one thing, the intro is a little bit long.” And I said, “Felix, please, the intro is perfect.” [laughs] “You press it like this or you don’t, please.” Felix and Simon believed in “Belo Horizonti.” I say that in this stories there is… When a little DJ does a record, it’s like your son, your record. But at the same time, when it makes money, it’s not your record anymore. Because then, everybody speaks about your production except yourself. It’s incredible. At some point, it’s out of control.

Emma Warren

I guess you must still be getting royalty cheques from that record?

Claudio Coccoluto

No. Because I remember, when I spoke to Basement Jaxx about the record for the first time, it was so romantic, you know? Everybody said to me, “Wow, good. It’s a great idea, great intention.” Then only money. How many copies? Where is it licensed to? In which part of the world? I was not interested in that. This is my relation to the record. Now “Belo Horizonti” is important in my career, but it’s not as dear to me as other things. It’s like a son that went away from you.

Emma Warren

Obviously, you DJ a lot, but how much are you producing now?

Claudio Coccoluto

I stopped to produce for a while because the record scene fell out in a horrible way. And I tried to save the credibility of my little label the Dub Records in a sabbatical way. To relax, to understand what is happening. Now, I’m ready because I really feel and really believe that the market is not so bad in the dramatical way the majors say every day to us. “It’s a drama, everything is lost!” I don’t think so. I think, if you look at the downloads on the web, there are a lot of people that need music. This is a fact.

Emma Warren

I don’t know if this might be record label dramatics but it’s got to be a strange time to be a dance music DJ.

Claudio Coccoluto

I don’t think so. I think that it’s the right time. The right time because the DJ is about trust, or the people trust in DJ, because the DJ is a real operator. He’s not a rock star on the stage, far from the people. He’s in the people, in the dancefloor. And I think that if I choose this [holding record], I put my face on this, OK? If you want to say to Michael Jackson that the last one is shit, it’s impossible. If you want to say to me that I’m mixing like a dog, it’s possible. Every time, every day, every night. It’s true! That is a relation with people that give you some success, some popularity, because I think it’s thankful. It’s thankful by the people that say, thanks to do this for us in a right way. Because that’s an example of DJing that I don’t appreciate. I don’t understand. But I’m on the border. It’s so difficult to explain, because like I said before, I’m famous. It’s a great word — famous is an honored thing, because I remember that a great actor say, “You are famous when in Bangladesh, somebody writes your name in the right way. This is famous.” Not the DJ famous, [that’s a] little thing. But I don’t need this. This is only a reflection of my job. It’s OK, that’s a lot of funny things. But it’s not my goal. My goal is, two decks. [speaking Italian] This is my protection. I’m not so egocentric. I need this protection by the people. At the same time I need to relate to the people about my expression that is music. Music for me is, put the record in a way, the record is important. Chicken Lips is important. My productions can be important. But it’s little pieces in a patzo.

Emma Warren

Obviously a lot of people here are DJs, run clubs, play regularly. Are you saying that as far as you’re concerned, mixing and how you play the music is the most important skill a DJ has?

Claudio Coccoluto

Of course the mix is important becuase everything from production to other activities of DJing comes from the relationship with the crowd. Our great advantage is in real time, understanding what the people think, what the people feel. There is no musician can trade this in the same time. Because if a musician do a record, he must wait three months, four months for feedback. We have feedback in a while. I put the records, I see it on the faces and I understand if it’s good, if not, maybe it’s good. This is a background, very important when we come in a studio in relation with other musicians, because we can tell to the others what’s happened in the dancefloor.

Emma Warren

So, from your viewpoint from behind the decks, what does a dancefloor want right now?

Claudio Coccoluto

At the moment? [grabs a record] Maybe nothing from... I wanna speak about something that’s happened but is no good for me. Everybody knows Soul Central, but the original track is this.

(music: Rhythim Is Rhythim – “Strings of Life” / applause)

When I say that if you want to play this, play the original. Ten years ago Derrick May, I think 10 years...

Emma Warren

Maybe what I was asking there was what other records have you got in there that you think are so good that they shouldn’t be remixed?

Claudio Coccoluto

Sorry, but I have no experience by discussion like Red Bull Academy like this. I chose something with no particular order, but no, I want to listen something from Detroit, but 10 years later. This is Moodymann. Somebody knows? OK. Moodymann is a strange person, I feel so. I don’t know in person, but... He is a person that comes from the black music, for sure, with a blues attitude, with a deep attitude, that sometimes do something like...

(music: Moodymann – “Dem Young Sconies”)

That is very important for me. This is one of my favorite records at the moment.

(music: Black Devil – “Timing, Forget the Timing”)

Never a musician do this. No, never, because a musician started all the life for to put the right notes in the right place. If I produce it with my computers, and I play viola two octaves up or down, nobody say to me, “What fucking are doing?” It’s only my taste, to say to me it’s right. It’s a new sound. It’s an occasion for the fantasy. I don’t think that every musician is like this, but it’s very hard to speak with a person related with music in a strong way.

Emma Warren

I think that music’s always been moved on by people using their instruments or technology incorrectly, by kind of doing things that you wouldn’t do if you were trained. You wouldn’t turn everything up to 10. You wouldn’t play in a certain way. But with these kind of records, how often are you playing things like this in your sets at that moment?

Claudio Coccoluto

In what moment of the sets?

Emma Warren

No, no. Right now when you’re playing. How often will you drop one of those classics?

Claudio Coccoluto

Everywhere in my sets. My goal, my personal mission is to break the time barrier. I’m really bored about anyone that speaks about promo, last one, because it’s a great shame for the dignity of the DJ. What’s the meaning of last one? Every record should be a piece of art, probably is a piece of soul of the people that made it, OK? I use this with a lot of respect. This is the same reason, because I use only vinyl. Not because CD is devil, but just because... [speaks Italian] The path to arrive to something with a CD is very simple, so quickly. You have no respect about the people that made it. You go on the web, you download. In three minutes, you can play the track. If you found a vinyl, maybe that’s three days, sometimes three months, in other cases three years. But this is not worth time. It’s time to research, because research is a state of mind. If you are with research, you are with open eyes, open ear, and this is important. I need to try to find this. I spend three year of my life, but in the path I meet some other stuff. Similar, different, it’s not this, it’s like this. And my knowledge is evolved.

If I go on the web and download in three minutes something about Talking Heads, I don’t know nothing about Talking Heads. I know nothing about the cover. I know nothing about the credits. Why? Music is culture. Respect for the people that made this. Arts, non-arts. Every opinion, it’s OK, but I think it’s a serious position to take. My serious position is use vinyl. Yes, it’s more comfortable going around for the world with small bags with a lot of CDs, sometimes DVDs. I saw in Ibiza a lot of DJs, they come with three DVDs.

Emma Warren

That’s not really worth getting into.

Claudio Coccoluto

You’re a DJ? Probably, I’m 40 from the old school. But I don’t speak about the vinyl or CD or something else. I speak the spirit of this job. I think it’s important that save this spirit around the possibility of technology give us. This is a remix by Chicken Lips, that is come three years ago.

(music: Tango & Cash – “Dance Her (Morris Corti Cash Mix)”)

If go with a production like this now to a major, an A&R, that is 16, 18, not much, it should be said to me, “That’s three or four ideas for three or four records.” This is the limit of modern music. The limit is the major attitude to say, to view in every sound, every different thing a possibility to gain. It’s not. This is music and that is not, is my opinion.

Emma Warren

Well, I just wanted to ask you something about this record. Obviously disco influenced Italian music, but how much did Italian music have an effect on disco?

Claudio Coccoluto

It’s very strange by an Italian DJ speak about Italian music. It’s very strange because we don’t feel this scene like a concrete thing. From the beginning, I tried to explain my perception is a single experience by person. There’s not a scene. Everybody does something without any relation with the world. Just listening to some records from USA, some records from UK, but without an... In this moment we are related through, me and you, probably somebody listen Gino Soccio remains something in the air and tomorrow comes some production by you that is similar or with an idea or with a feeling directed by this record, and that’s happened in Italy.

Never has been two person that we must manage the way to do something. No. Very, very adventure-ly everybody produced stuff with... In a single way. Now it’s changing because it’s changing the media relation. I can publish my stuff on the web and I can receive the feedback from all over, but until 10 years ago, there’s nothing similar.

Emma Warren

I think one of the things that’s interesting about the disco period is the amount of second and third generation Italian-Americans who were really important in the scene: Francis Grasso, Nicky Siano, David Mancuso. Is there something about being Italian that makes you predisposed to disco or to house or to this kind of music?

Claudio Coccoluto

No.

Emma Warren

How come so many of those guys had an Italian background?

Claudio Coccoluto

I don’t think it is the same period. I think that’s a delay of four, five years.

Emma Warren

I know. Definitely, but what I’m saying is those guys who started disco in New York, many of them had Italian backgrounds. How come?

Claudio Coccoluto

I don’t know. [laughs]

Emma Warren

I was hoping you could shed some light. I’ve always wondered about this. You read a lot about these people.

Claudio Coccoluto

I’m sorry.

Emma Warren

No one’s every solved this Italian disco mystery from a New York point of view.

Claudio Coccoluto

Maybe my opinion about the research is true, because the research can put your goal everywhere. You start to find something, to looking for something and you find another thing. I think now Italian scene is interesting, and this is complex because now it’s changing everything like all over in the world. Everything about the technology that is the first thing. Now, the technology is democratic. Everybody can do music without great expenses. Then everybody can publish its production without a great...

Audience Member

Can I interrupt for a second? You said that technology is democratic, but what happens when the price of the machine is different in the U.S. or maybe eastern Europe or Africa or Australia? It’s not the same.

Claudio Coccoluto

I think you’re right. I agree. It is much better than in the past.

Audience Member

It’s the same.

Claudio Coccoluto

Sorry?

Audience Member

There’s the same imbalance.

Claudio Coccoluto

I don’t think so because if you think that until 10 years ago the only way to do music was go in a studio, thousands, thousands thousands dollars. Rent something or pay musician, what’s the occasion for a DJ to be a producer? Just spend money. Now with a PC and a software like, I don’t know, Live, or software like Reason, very cheapest price, you do that. It’s not so democratic like we can hope because tomorrow I hope so all over in the world it should be possible. No, I’m agree.

But think 10 years ago. Do a records probably... I think I remember in ’80s, to do a record, do a mix in Italy, costava, around 10 million Lira, around 5,000 Euros. In the ‘80s. One track. Now, I think it’s democratic because the concept of democacry is not political. It’s about the possibility that you have to do music without any particular study. I’m not a musician, I don’t know any note, I don’t know what is a pentagram, but I do music. This is democratic. In older historical period I can’t do that.

Emma Warren

I suppose there is some basic inequalities in the world that any amount of cheap technology isn’t going to solve, but I guess your point is that now if people want to make music in the kind of countries where it’s possible to do that, then they can. That’s a good thing.

I wanted to ask you, you started DJing when you were 13. You’ve done all these records, had all these hit records, become a very popular DJ. People throw around figures saying that you’re a 10,000 euro DJ to book, all these things. What’s next for you?

Claudio Coccoluto

The next goal is my next gig. Because I think that’s a strange paranoid for everybody that do the DJ seriously to follow the perfection of the set. The perfection don’t exist, OK? Because there’s too much variable things in a night, your moral, emotional, and immaterial things. Every time that I have a gig I think, “The next time, I’ll do it better.” The next time don’t finish, never. My wife is very disappointed about this because she has waited that I stop to go around.

My goal is follow my idea of a perfect DJ. A perfect DJ is a DJ that don’t follow any pressure by the external and secondary thing. Not from the money, not from the people, not from the media, but just from the feeling. It’s like utopian idea, really pure, really probably utopical idea. I think if you choose a target, you must choose very high. I try to do the best, my best.

Emma Warren

You’re basically saying, “Aspiring DJs of the world, aim high.”

Claudio Coccoluto

No, I think but I don’t say this.

Emma Warren

You’re saying the aim is to aim high.

Claudio Coccoluto

I feel that every DJ in this room say, “I’m the best in the world,” and this is important because... [speaks Italian]

Emma Warren

It’s a self-belief is good for you...

Claudio Coccoluto

Auto-charge is very important, no? But it is not so nice to tell.

Emma Warren

Well listen, do you want to finish up by playing us one more tune maybe that sums up perhaps one of the reasons why you became a DJ in the first place?

Claudio Coccoluto

Yeah. With great pleasure I want to play something that for me is very modern because that’s a lot of elements that Carl Craig, Pépé Bradock... I put in this record.

(music: Cesaria Evora – “Angola (Carl Craig’s Mix)” / applause)

I love it because it’s a travel, a real travel, a travel of mind, a travel of ideas. It’s like an adventure in a forest, you know? You start from high grass, then forest, then animals, then I don’t know. This is the right spirit of the dance music because it is not only to dance, but it is good to listen. I really appreciate this is a work of... Where I find the roots of Carl Craig comes from Detroit too. But Pépé Bradock from France with probably African roots and Brazilian rhymes everything, yeah, great. It’s great. Any questions?

Emma Warren

Yeah, that’s right. Does anyone have any questions?

Audience Member

Which label is that?

Claudio Coccoluto

Sorry?

Audience Member

The label?

Claudio Coccoluto

Di questo? It’s from France. If you want to... Se vuoi prenderti i credits.

Emma Warren

OK, any other questions from around here?

Audience Member

Are you still producing music? You said you haven’t produced anything for a while. Are you still with your label, and still making music? What kind of music are you making at the moment. You’re a DJ and you’ve been DJing but you also say that you produce music yourself?

Claudio Coccoluto

I think that my job is to be DJ, and produce is my hobby.

Audience Member

Ah, OK. Do they feed off each other?

Claudio Coccoluto

Sorry?

Audience Member

Do they feed off each other? One feeds the other?

Claudio Coccoluto

Yeah. The other I open in the winter time, but it’s so difficult because at the moment in Italy it’s so difficult to found somebody to do the distribution of vinyl records of dance. Nobody wants.

Audience Member

What is the market...

Claudio Coccoluto

What?

Audience Member

What is Italy looking for on the dancefloor? You say they’re not interested in dance records, but I think Italy, for me, is very interested in dance records.

Claudio Coccoluto

Yeah, but there’s not the structure, you know? The market in Italy is so few. Nobody say to me, “OK, I’ll spend my money for your product.” But, if I want to spend my personal money for my product, it’s not possible again because I need to...

Audience Member

Distribution.

Claudio Coccoluto

Distribution my product in the world. In Italy there’s not a good situation.

Audience Member

Do you think there’s enough DJs in Italy?

Claudio Coccoluto

Sorry?

Audience Member

Do you think there’s enough DJs in Italy?

Claudio Coccoluto

There’s a lot of DJs. Too much.

Audience Member

Too many DJs. Do you think maybe the problem is not the fact that there perhaps is not enough record stores.

Claudio Coccoluto

It’s a cultural problem.

Audience Member

Solely cultural?

Claudio Coccoluto

No, I think so. Nobody knows the business to invest on the DJ music. There was in Italy until a couple of years ago UMM. Somebody may remember UMM or Media Records. There was the only record labels come from the dance that operated for the dance, and now are finished. Because the market, the rules of the market are the money. If you don’t make money, you don’t exist, simply. This is the reason, because I looking to the web like a resource, because it should be a great occasion for the dance music, electronic music. Because now the DJ is like a little media. The DJ is not like a musician. The DJ is important... This is so difficult to explain.

I think that every DJ, everybody is a little radio, a radio station. I manage myself, I play myself my music, but I am free and credible, and credible, because nobody pay for, “Play this record, or not,” except somebody in the... OK. Not in every case. This is a complex system, so different from the past. The major label and the money system don’t know like manage the state of things. Now, the market is fall out because it’s compeltely new. There’s no concert, there’s no rock star. That’s Fatboy Slim with 200,000 people. This is a fact that changed completely the scene. The A&R, behind the desk, say, “What fucking is happening now?? Where I can put my money? On you? On you? On you?” Everybody can be the next rock star. Everybody. In this confusion, the market is broken completely. But that’s a great occasion for everybody, and this is my dream. Because, sorry if I repeat myself, 10 years ago, just 10 years ago, no way. No possibility. Just for Frankie Knuckles in New York or I don’t know, or Paul Oakenfold in London. Because this person was in that system of money that permit to them to do his project. Now, everybody is the owner of his life, of his project, of his career. This is historical, completely new thing in the world of the music.

Emma Warren

We’re just basically saying, “Bring it on being independent, and bring it on doing it yourself.”

Claudio Coccoluto

Sorry, bring? Si, si si. Fai da te, si. I think that it’s okay until a certain point. Then, you need somebody else, because when the game is not a game, but a great business, you need to save your soul. To save your soul, you need some person that do other things to leave the mind free to think only to the music. It’s very hard. It’s very hard. Because it’s very hard to come from a place where the flight is in delay, you arrive and the room in the hotel is not ready and then you go straight to the restaurant and then to the club like a box. When you arrive behind the desk, you must ready to do your job. Because your face, the face is your... The people don’t know that you are in delay with the flight. People know that you are Claudio Cocolutto, you must play the better set of your life, and nothing else. I do that.

Emma Warren

That’s an insight into the life and times of a DJ by Claudio Cocolutto, so thank you very much. [applause]