This post is also available in: Nederlands (Dutch)
Raw Underground-DJ Jasper Wognum started his music career solo. His first gig took place in 1991. Of course, he remembers how the evening went. In 2014 he told me his story. “There I was. A teenager from Amsterdam in the middle of Rotterdam with my ESP and Go Bang! Records.”
“My first real DJ gig was in a club in the Rotterdam area in the summer of 1991. I can’t remember the name of the club. I was sixteen and on vacation with my parents. In those days, wherever I went, I dragged this flight case with records along. You never knew where you would end up.”
Seriously nervous
“It was our third night in the club and when we entered, we found one of the barmen quite helpless in the DJ booth. The DJ they had booked for the night was ill and they no-one to replace him. So, they gave me a shot for an hour. There I was. A teenager from Amsterdam in the middle of Rotterdam with my ESP and Go Bang! Records. Pff, I was seriously nervous.”
Piet Bervoets
“In the beginning I couldn’t get the needle on the vinyl so I just dropped it so I could spin backwards by hand. After a few hours, my replacement arrived. I believe that this was Piet Bervoets, who, together with DJ Misjah (Mischa van der Heiden, red.) formed Dye Witness and had released a track on Midtown Records. We made a great night out of it together. During the rest of the vacation, I was allowed to play there every night.”
“That’s when I learned: never leave the house without bringing your vinyl. You never know when and where you can build a party. And that’s still my motto.”
Wooferland Festival
“Now, 23 years later, Lukas Pauka and I are the duo Raw Underground. The world has changed. Where you could only play with vinyl in the past, you can be as mad as you like these days. Our first serious gig as Raw Underground was at Wooferland festival. I believe it took us about four hours to sync all our gear via MIDI.”
Cold beer
“I’m happy to say that our set went perfect. Except for the fact that we didn’t find out about the fridge with cold beer behind us in the tent until our gig was over. Quite a missed opportunity!” (laughs)
“We never prepare our live sets. We select about 8 hours of music: tracks, loops and samples. What we are actually going to use and when, we decide on the spot which direction we’re headed. The same applies to our DJ sets. You must be able to connect with the crowd at any given time.”
This interview with Raw Underground is originally published on DJMag.nl on February 20th 2014.
Who is Raw Underground?
Raw Underground is an Amsterdam based production duo consisting of Jasper Wognum and Lukas Pauka. These guys have been producing tracks for more than two decades. Jasper has made a name for himself as part of progressive act Snafu which nowadays lives on as 16 bit Lolita’s. Lukas has released remixes on Shanghai based tech house label Defuse. After collaborating on two remixes they decided to team up and start Raw Underground in order to share their love for underground house music.
Raw Underground has a strong connection with the early 90’s NYC/Jersey house sound and scene from the likes of Larry Levan, Blaze, Murk, Tony Humphries and Kerri Chandler. The guys try and take you back to places like Zanzibar, the Paradise Garage and the Loft, by using the gospel infused musicality of past times and enhance it with the techniques of today. Keywords are: Jersey, snares, bass lines, piano’s, organs and lots of vocals. In their first year Raw Underground have released tracks and remixes on Cosmic Disco, Underground Source & Cahoots (NYC) Records. Hot Temptation (Original & the Basement Remix) has done pretty well with chartings by Nick V (22Tracks Paris) & Hedkandi and a #11th position on the Traxsource house charts.
Expect a lot more to come for Raw Underground. Raw Underground loves to play bassheavy, big room DJ sets. They incorporate Traktor, Maschine and Ableton in their sets, which gives Raw Underground the freedom to create new sounds and live remixes every time they play.
