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In this edition of MY MOST MEMORABLE GIG, my dear friend Daniel Englisch a.k.a. Diablo shares the one gig that still stands out vividly in his mind and left a huge impression. “The showers turned on, transforming the entire dance floor into a glittering sunlit rainstorm. It was pure magic!”
“I’ve played so many gigs in my life that it’s hard to pick just one. But one that really stood out was HQ (High Quality) at Eilat and Baraka, Be’er Sheva in Israel, back in 2001. That was a 48-hour rollercoaster ride!”
New club
“It went like this. I was booked for a techno gig at a brand-new club called Scoop. I played there alongside DJs Estroe and Ziv Avriel as part of a two-day HQ event in Eilat. The club was owned by two daughters of a wealthy man, and you could tell serious money had been invested in it.”
Booth on subwoofers
“The only thing the architects hadn’t properly thought through was the most important element for good sound: the DJ booth! They had placed it right on top of a massive stack of subwoofers. So naturally, I had to save the night by constantly adjusting the EQs to stop the needle from skipping. I managed it reasonably well in the end.”
Wodka Red Bull
“I’m convinced that one of the girls from the organizing team secretly spiked my drink. I suspect this because at 5 AM she came back to my room with me and I just couldn’t stop talking. Okay, maybe the steady flow of Vodka Red Bulls had something to do with it too – it’s a heavy drink after all.” (laughs)
Tripping
“The next afternoon I was scheduled to play another gig. This one was in Be’er Sheva, the hometown of my Defuse Records partner and dear friend Ziv Avriel. Around 10 in the morning, my buddies Guy and Avi knocked on the door while the girl and I were still partying. I took a quick shower and jumped in the car. We had a six- or seven-hour desert drive ahead of us. I was still tripping hard – it was an unforgettable experience.”
Military vehicle
“At one point, I looked over my shoulder and suddenly saw a military vehicle appear between the huge cement blocks lining the road. It started following us, so I tapped the driver – DJ Guy, with whom I was supposed to play later – to warn him. But when he looked in the rear-view mirror, there was no car in sight. Okaaay…” (laughs)
Past life
“I then described the vehicle in great detail and realized it was a type of army jeep last used during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Strange. I was born in 1974 – could I have been there in a past life? Who knows? When I asked a rabbi about it later, he couldn’t say. But one thing is certain: I’ve always felt incredibly at home in Israel for some inexplicable reason.”
Glittering rainstorm
“Eventually, we arrived at Club Baraka. The venue used to be an old Arab hospital and had been transformed into a club with a huge terrace. That’s where I was scheduled to play. Most of the crowd preferred psytrance, so I delivered a powerful techno set with lots of acid/trance crossovers. Let me tell you: the crowd went absolutely wild that afternoon. Normally, in clubs or warehouses, you’d blast the strobe during euphoric moments. But here, the sprinklers turned on instead, drenching the dance floor in sunlit raindrops. It was pure magic!”
Jack Daniels with cola
“Of course, I was exhausted – after the previous night, the afterparty in my hotel room, that epic desert road trip, and the mind-blowing open-air gig. And all without sleep. So I was more than happy that I could fly back to Eilat instead of driving, to play at the second HQ day at Dekel Beach. That’s where my friends JP, Dave Randall and Tom Harding dropped their signature hard house anthems. I sat back on the sandy beach, sipping Jack Daniels and cola, totally satisfied and overtired, while these guys blew the crowd away. No energy left to dance – but unforgettable memories!”
Producing techno
“Around that time, Ziv Avriel and I also started producing techno together, using the gear we had back then. Ziv owned a Roland TR-909 and an AKAI MPC-2000. I used a Future Retro Revolution (a 303 clone), a Clavia Nordlead 2 synthesizer, and a few other machines.”
Defuse Records
“In 2009, we founded Defuse Records to release our music. Since then, we’ve released tracks from [ WEX 10 ], Ritzi Lee, Jerome Krom, Dean Durrant, RUR, Rustig, Dave Mech, Re-Axis, Dee Marbus, Mechanic Slave & Tian, Lemon8, Stefano Kosa, Timid Boy, Raffa FL, Knobs, Juriaan Lisman, Sunju Hargun and many others. You can still find our very first releases on our Bandcamp page.”
“You’ll find our latest releases on Beatport, of course. And we’re currently working on a very special new project – but I can’t reveal too much just yet. Stay tuned on Facebook for updates!”
This interview with Diablo was originally published in February 2019 on This Is Our House.
Who is Diablo / Daniel Englisch?
Daniel Englisch (1974) a.k.a. Diablo was born and raised in Amsterdam. He comes from a very musical family. Diablo was drawn from a young age to new musical styles and art in general. It started in the early eighties with the introduction of electric boogie, break dance, hip hop, graffiti and the making of cut and paste mix tapes. In 1987 he got in touch with house music trough pirate Radio 100 and was sold for live as it seems.
In 1990 Diablo bought his first turntables, learned the fine arts of spinning from his soul mate Bas Wissink aka dj Wizz and started playing house and techno under the name Diablo. He played at many clubs like club Mazzo, Paradiso, Time, Melkweg, Lichtfabriek, Fun Factory, Graan Silo, the Catacombs, AMP studio’s, Trance Buddha, festivals like New Frontier, Hellraiser, Dance Valley, Wooferland, several radio stations and in countries like France, Yugoslavia, China and Israel.
Diablo also played drum & bass for some time under the name of dj Deadly D. He followed a studio course at the National Audio Institute in 1990 to gain some knowledge for his own music production, but it was only until early ’99 that he would bring this knowledge to serious use with Solid Fundamental, an electronic live act consisting of four friends: Bas Wissink, Joera Mulders and Karel Eggerding a.k.a. Rustig.
While working in the famous Groove Connection Record store, run by JP, Joost Bleeker (RIP) and later Vince (RIP), Diablo met Ziv Avriel from Israel who moved to Amsterdam at the time and offered him a spot in club Trance Buddha. Surprised by his skills and his great personality it did not take long for them to create their own techno organization. They called it Underground Heaven, with a residency in club Mazzo & Time and one off parties at Hempoint (illegal ware house party), Hotel Arena, Lichtfabriek etc. They played alongside artists like Steve Rachmad, Thomas Schumacher, Kazu Kimura, Estroe, T-Quest, Misjah, Bart Skills, JP, Shinedoe and many more.
In the end of 2003 Diablo and one of his old band members, Karel from Solid Fundamental, formed the live act Eclectric, with influences from techno, break beats & hip hop. They did a few live sets at parties and had their first vinyl release together with Solid Fundamental.
In 2005 Diablo went solo with his productions. Since then he played live at parties for Switch Music, Vaaghuyzen, Paradiso, Pand 14, Cue Bar, de Effenaar etc. From the beginning of 2009, Ziv Avriel and Diablo started their own techno label called Defuse Records which is still going strong. As Diablo’s musical choice was not only techno but house as well, he was looking for a new medium for his trax on the deeper shade of dance music.
That’s where Willem de Poorter a.k.a. Adjust came in. Willem invited Diablo for a live set on a festival in Eindhoven. Shortly after they went into the studio and decided to create the label Cosmic Disco Records. The main styles are deep house and tech house. Daniel and Willem also formed the new live house duo Zweistein. The label, Zweistein and their featured artists received support from artists like Francois K., Paco Osuna, Robert Owens, Michel de Hey, Maor Levi, Sunshine Jones, Guy J, Alexander Robotnick, X-Press 2 and many more.