Applejam features in an interview talking about PsychoCandy with Paul Browne. Paul is also a DJ and runs J-Pop Go events across the UK!
Transcripted from interview, the dialogue runs as follows;
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Why did you take up DJing?
Myself and my partner live in Cambridge, there is a big geek contingency in Cambridge. There is one alternative club and the geek contingency and the alternative contingency kind of cross over, but there wasn’t anything that catered for geeks in this alternative scene. So my partner and I went “Hang on a minute, if there’s nothing to go to, why don’t we try and make our own?”
So we brought in all the types of music that we love to party to. We love pop and we love rock and we love electro. So with a smattering of internet memery and completely stupid songs and [80s songs from] Labrynth, Transformers etc, we threw together what is now known as PsychoCandy. PsychoCandy has being going for a year and a half now. [It is] Bi-monthly and we were very happy to DJ at CamCon earlier this year, which went down a treat.
Which J-Pop artists are you currently listening to?
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. Got to love the Kyary! I was lucky enough to see her when I went to Japan Expo to sell. She was really good. I thought it was quite amusing actually – very, very sweet girl, very into performing and audience interaction through a French translator. It does seem to be that a lot of J-Pop artists – well I say a lot, that’s a terrible assumption! *laughs* – some J-Pop artists sing over their backing tracks and I found that was quite unusual because I wasn’t used to seeing that in a live house. But whether that was singing or karaoke or whatever – the point was that Kyary gave a great show and it was really lovely. Great fashion style. I think that’s the only J-Pop singer I’ve actually seen live. But I’ve [gotta] listen to my old favourites The Pillows, Shonen Knife etc.
You like your rock!
I do like my rock, I do! So yeah, regarding recent J-Pop I think Kyary is top of the charts.
Do you think convention DJing has changed over the years?
Mmmm good point! Yes and no. I think ‘Yes’ in the sense that I remember back in the days when we didn’t have parties and I remember when…. I think it was Minamicon that may have done the first one? I attended anyway and I can’t remember who was DJing there but that was great for me because I love music as much as I love anime and manga.
And also I would say ‘No’ because there does seem to be a lot of the same DJs do it which is great and I always love when I see people do something different. And on a personal note as well actually, I don’t know whether this comes into any other questions, I do find sometimes Convention DJing can only cater for a small amount of people and I think personally, as a DJ, [I'd] like to see a greater party mix perhaps – so just a little thought to throw in there.
What are your thoughts on Western music vs Japanese music at conventions.
I love it! If anything makes you get up and go it should be played. From my experience a lot of J-Pop and Rock and just 80s, synth, everything can segue quite well. No one, I think, listens to one type of music anymore and one of the things that Psychocandy does well I think is to be like your mp3 player, to play a lot of things on shuffle but try and help segue it. [But] It’s a bit jarring when like Queen is followed by something like Kyary or something! it’s a bit odd! *laughs* but also amusing!
So yeah I think with [a DJ's] love of all genres, I think that can make for a really good party night.
Laura has provided DJ duties for CamCon and performs regularly at Club PsychoCandy .
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Read all the interviews that took place at AmeCon Japanese anime and manga convention @ Keele University, just a few weekends ago, here.
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