SCREAM QUEEN
Jun 1, 2002 12:00 PM, By Lily Moayeri
Offstage, Reid Speed looks quiet, reserved and not unlike most petite 23-year-old women. But as soon as she gets behind a pair of decks, she starts shouting at her records as if she's at war with the vinyl. Going through her record box, flinging wax every which way, she screams at the records at the top of her lungs.
“I know what I want out of my records,” says Speed. “I practice hard to learn my records so I can help people have a good time. Even though I have fun, I'm very serious, and I concentrate on the music and the energy I'm getting from people. I yell at the records because they skip or I'm upset about details I've missed. I buy so many records every week that it's like memorizing a new book every day. You forget a single detail, and you're going to be mad because you missed that drop or that break, that opportunity to mix at the point you know sounded really good. Records are my tools. If they're not going to give me what I need, they're going to get yelled at.”
The New York City native has verbally abused her records since the age of 17, when she first purchased turntables. Exposed to electronic dance music at 15, Speed knew that drum 'n' bass was going to be her main style by the time she had decks. Drum 'n' bass fit in with her high-energy, high-speed personality, hence her DJ moniker. However, drum 'n' bass is just one part of her repertoire. “I started playing speed garage in 1997,” she says. “I made a tape and no one would book me, but I stuck with it. When it turned into two-step in late '98, people started catching on. I was one of the first people that was into it, so I got a lot of respect from people later on. It's something I enjoy — the fun antidote to drum 'n' bass. I also buy breaks, house, trance breaks and techno records.”
A self-taught mixer, Speed began making her mark in New York through gigs at Camouflage and later through residencies at the weekly Stuck on Earth (1997) and Direct Drive (1998) events. Her day job at North America's premiere drum 'n' bass outlet, Breakbeat Science, helped her expose her talents to the shop's discerning clientele via the mix tapes she made and sold at the store, as well as at Satellite Records down the street.
Breakbeat Science's in-house record label is releasing Speed's first mix CD, Resonance. A lively selection of material that runs the gamut from funky and happy numbers to hard and dark aggressive ones, Resonance features a smooth, fluid mix from one mood to another. It seems she didn't yell at the music too much while putting Resonance together.
You are associated with more than one crew, which is unusual in drum 'n' bass.
I'm friendly with people. I don't take sides or try to be part of a clique. Guys will make enemies. Girls can play every side because they are girls and they're dealing with guys. [Guys] can be friendly and get along with everyone, and it would be okay. But they think they have to ally themselves with one clique; that's what they represent and all this nonsense. I represent what I think is good.
Do you chase unreleased material?
Not at all. I don't care about that stuff. I'm interested in playing good music, but I'm not interested in the politics of the scene. In some ways, you have to be involved in it. In other ways, you say, “This is where I draw the line.” I don't need to hang out with UK DJs who I don't know. I don't need a whole set of friends on another continent that aren't really my friends. It's cool when you meet people and you're into what they're doing, and they're into what you're doing. That's a great business relationship.
Do you get unreleased material given to you anyway?
I get CDs, but I don't cut dub plates. I play so many types of music, it doesn't make any financial sense for me to waste money on something that's going to come out anyway. I spend $300 a week on records. I don't have enough money to cut a bunch of dub plates. Only 10 to 15 percent of people know if you're playing dub plates, and I'm not there to impress [them]. I'm there to play good music and do a good job with my taste. It's cool to have stuff that's not out; it definitely gives you an edge. But it's only an edge with the other DJs and the 10 percent that are really into it on that level. I play a lot of stuff that people overlook, and they think I'm playing dub plates, and it's just records that people slept on. If I was rolling in the cream, maybe I would go for it, [but] dub plates are terrible. It's a waste of money. You cut a tune, and you can play it, like, 10 times before it sounds like shit.
What is your ideal DJ setup?
A Technics SL-1200 M3D with the pitch reset button — but I'd have to turn the pitch up to 16 — and a Pioneer DJM-600 or a Vestax PMC-25, because it has knobs and a fader. I need a mixer with strong EQs on it. I wish they would put those Pioneer CD players in the clubs, because I would like to play all the stuff that people give me.
What was your objective with Resonance?
When I started working on it in October 2001, there were a lot of things going on in my life and in the world. I wanted this to be something people could relate to in a musical way and feel something from. It's a story; it's not a party record. It isn't meant to simulate what it would sound like hearing me in a club. It's a range of different emotions. I knew the first track (Orion and Math's “Desolate Plains”) would be a starting point, because it sounded reminiscent of days past — sad but nostalgic for a better time. I wanted to end on a positive note, so there's hope for the future even if it's tough. Like the Liquid Sky slogan says, “Music can save lives.”
There are a lot of domestic artists on the CD. Was that intentional?
It was what I needed to tell the story. I asked everyone to give me tracks, and people who had them did. In the end, it came down to, “I need a track that goes between this track and this track.” That's why some of the tracks, like Ming and FS (“Dream It”), we had to make. The one I made with DJ Seen (“Picture This”), we made to go in a certain place on the CD, even though we have another version of it that's more finished. It's very important to me that everything goes together perfectly.
What do you have in your home studio?
(Apple) Macintosh G4 with (Steinberg) Cubase and (Propellerhead) Reason, E-Mu E4 XT Ultra sampler, Korg Prophecy, Yamaha 01V mixing board, Mark of the Unicorn MIDI interface, CD burner and Alesis powered monitors.
What is the top item in your studio?
My sampler. It does the best things for drum 'n' bass. It has the sickest bass sounds and amazing filters.
What do you use the most?
Reason. That's what I can do the most with given what I know right now. It lets me explore ideas. I'm a visual person. I like drawing things, making collages and putting things together. Drums are my favorite things to make. Anything you can get on CD, you can sample using (Propellerhead) ReCycle or (Bias) Peak and bring into Reason. It has the Redrum drum computer and lets you get up to 64 bars making eight different patterns. You can do a lot of stuff with it. You can make a pattern and send it to the track. You can start playing that and make patterns over it. It gives you so many options: You can make a note hard, medium, soft; change the volume, level, pitch; put reverb on it; change the length of each drum. You can slow it down, speed it up. It changes the quality of the sound you hear — amazingly intricate beats I never expected from a computer program.
I used to say the only way you can do it is with equipment or with a sampler by cutting up each beat and programming it individually. For me, Reason works better because it lets me do exactly what I want to do in real time. When I was trying to program drums with the sampler, there were eight million steps, and, here, it's right in front of you. The steps are all still there, but it's in one place. You can do what you're visualizing in your head.
Do you have a hard time finishing ideas?
When I work on music, I want to devote time to it in order to keep the idea fresh. I can't say I'm going to work on it for two hours today; then, I'm going to DJ for four days; then, I'm going to go away for three weeks; then, I'm going to come back and finish it. I don't even remember how I wanted a song to sound by the time I come back to it. I have millions of half-finished tracks that never get anywhere. But it's good practice.
Who would you like to collaborate with?
FS (of Ming and FS) and I made our first track “Simplot” for Jungle Sky Volume 7 (2000). He is such a good musician; he's superpatient, and he believes in my ideas. When he's there, it's easy to learn stuff. I didn't understand how good he was until I started working with other people — not to say that they weren't good, but other people don't think anything of using loops and breaks — Ming and FS make everything themselves. My standard is set. I strive to make it all myself.
Who would you like to remix?
I'd love to remix popular artists, like Britney Spears — not just pop, but metal and rock. If we're going to have this music that we have to listen to on the radio, it should be good. If dance artists [work with] major-label artists, maybe we can make something that changes the way radio sounds.
Do you think drum 'n' bass will sustain itself?
There are always going to be disenfranchised kids who need drum 'n' bass. Drum 'n' bass is very emotional. It resonates with people. It'll hit a note, and they're hooked on it forever. You hear Ed Rush and Optical; you have to have a need for that, a hole in yourself that it fills. Music finds its way out because it's done for the love, not for money-making reasons. Music like that is going to flourish in the underground because that's what people are really feeling. If there are people to put it out, there are people who are going to need to hear it.
What is your ultimate goal?
I'm going to buy a laptop so I can work on beats anywhere. When you get to hear other people DJ, you're inspired to write music, but you're stuck in a hotel, and the inspiration is gone by the time you get home. I'd love to DJ all over the world. I'd like to produce serious music that makes people feel. My ultimate goal would be to replace DJ Skribble on MTV. When MTV realizes they need a dance-music show, I want to be the DJ. I'm talking about a show where there's a DJ and hot people dancing. I want to see the face of the music industry change so that there are outlets for dance artists to do mainstream work and get recognition without having to sell out and make corny music.
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