What is it about producers?  What is it about Angel?
1996 vs 1999

On the right-hand corner of a worn check stub stands a date.  December 18, 1996.  Now if you were Angel Alanis -that's the payee's name that appears on the left-hand corner of this yellowing paper- you probably would have been a happy camper the day you received the check.  Correct?   Well, not exactly.   When that supposed hefty check was cashed there was still the bit about the thousands of dollars in gear money owed.  The unpaid credit cards.  The inability to have adequate car insurance from lack of funds.  Few return calls from record labels.  Debt collectors.  Migraine headaches.  Allergy attacks.  Stress.  Stress.  Stress.  Horrendous and inescapable.  The kind that resides underneath your pillow and follows you to your dreams.  Ah yes, all the glorious, glamorous, and fabulous insecurities of being a dj/producer.  Because of these and many other things, the money represented little reward.  The only satisfaction would come from the two pieces of black vinyl hanging on his bedroom wall like trophies, suggesting the beginnings of momentum.

And this is how it started.  Well sort of.  Because to trace it back to the real beginning, whatever that may be, one might argue to include the moment when a certain baby picture of his was snapped.  It depicts a chubby Buddha, big puffy headphones wrapped over his ears.  "Don't you wish we were like that again," he once mentioned, "with no worries."  Perhaps, I thought.  On both counts.

Now it's 1999 and Angel's roaming Chicago's rush hour traffic in some foreign-made car.  German?  Yes.  But not the one with the three-letter initials.  "I wish," Angel seems calm, grabbing the steering wheel with one hand.  Almost peaceful.  Pimping softly, so to speak.  He understands that what's he's currently driving is more than adequate.  Even if it isn't the one with the three-letter initials.  At some point you almost imagine a few German words spill from his pursed Mexican lips.  Not today.

"I needed to treat myself for all the work I've been doing," he mentioned earlier that day, before going to pick up the car from the dealer.  "I've been working my ass off  like a dog bro',"  pacing frantically over the floor in his room; ridden with record sleeves, fax paper, and an assortment of cables and what-nots.  "Don't I deserve something?"

Yes, indeed he does.  Especially when his musical sessions usually consist of a daily routine of 12-20 hours.  Sleep is a luxury.  And for this highly-charged, restless musician, nearly impossible to get.  Those deeply involved in the economic corners of the industry understand that he is the epitome of a fine-tuned machine.  Cranking the music out in high-quality fashion of course.  But along with producing, there is the extra work that he does at Chicago's Mix Connection Multimedia - where he's currently under contract.  There are of course meetings at MCM.  Remixing jobs.  Mastering assignments.  Booking schedules to handle.  All the planning and hustling it takes for this player to make a dollar out of fifteen cents.  Basically.  And we can't forget all those what-nots that get in the way of the walks in life (which paradoxically, keep it all going it seems).

The car has a sunroof.  It's summer in the Windy City and one wonders if he'll even get to enjoy the sun.  The weekends are obviously out.   "I'm going to Rochester in a couple of weeks on Tuesday and then right to Toronto.  I won't be back until Sunday," a ring breaks our communication.  "!#%*!"  More business.

He returns.  The pulse in his artery jumps from the side of his neck.  He had just finished discussing last month's phone bill.  Over five-hundred dollars.  A month's worth of calls.  The rates are outrageous of course.  But it's part of the package.  "I have to get rid of this company," plopping the cellular on his lap like a boy tired of his toy.  "You want it?"  The answer is no.  With a smile.

Two years ago, you could see the Alanis story unfold.  The credit cards were nearly paid off.  Record labels were eager to put anything out by this hot-seller.  (Who is still a hot-seller.)  A few extra pieces of equipment had even been bought.  Oh, by the way, he doesn't talk gear talk.  Too busy making the music.

"You know there's people out there who have all this equipment," he once commented at the studio.  "They keep getting more and more of it and don't do shit with it.  They just let it sit there," shaking his head in frustration as if an international incident had just exploded on CNN.  "What's the point?  To collect dust?"  He sits down behind his desk.  "And then there's people who think that all of us (dj/producers) are high-rollers.  Do they know how much my computer came out to.  The programs?  The synth?  The MPC?  The compressor?"  The list goes on.

Once, the frightening topic of a profession without pension was raised.  Health care.  401Ks.  The basics.  All these things have to be taken care of on their own.  The things you don't think about when you're in your early 20's and trying to survive in the music industry.  And just like the tide rises in this business, the tide falls.  The bottom line:  the risks are high and with such a fickle consumer driving your life who really knows where you'll end up.  Future uncertain.  And future is today.  That why the one's who really work make it.

And last.

But back to the last two years.

Some stability was finally secured when he signed on to MCM.  Earlier on, his releases on the Chicago record labels -Underground Construction and Jasper Stone- gave the angel wings.  Alanis, at most, re-invented the Hardhouse sound and in the least, brought back the punch on that specific genre of dance music.  The main reason he landed his first gig across US lines in Toronto was based on those banging beats that had grabbed the attention of a couple of Canadian promoters.  But it didn't stop just there.  His overseas house release of Chi's Revenge on Laidback Luke's Subspace Records gave him flight.  Coincidentally, it's being re-released this summer on a double album E.P. - The Subconscious State of Techno (Contaminated Records).

So what did this house track do?  Well, it brought him nothing short of international recognition and eventually the breathing room to produce his beloved techno.  His first attempts to go that route came with the help of a particular Samoan, known to the masses as DJ Hyperactive, who released his first two works on the now defunct Contact label.  Remember Advanced Therapy E.P.?  Of course the stints with UK's very own Tim Taylor on Missile Records didn't hurt either.  Nor did...

But wait just a second, it's not the size of one's portfolio we're talking about.  Nor hype.  That would be far too primitive.  It's the quality.  Angel's tracks are, in brief, multi-layered adventures in musical landscape.  His genre-crossing does little to hurt him.  An Irish rock star once made the comment that the wonderful thing about the advance in technology is the bouncing of music from continent to continent to continent and back.  This would, according to that particular artist, eventually only add to music and improve on style and technique.  And this is perhaps what Angel's jumping does for the music he produces.  Develops it in unique complex fashion.  The people want more.  Give them more.

Of course there are the cynics and purists who argue about keeping it "real."  "What's underground?" flinging his hands up one day.  "People don't even know that the stuff they're listening to is played commercially all over Europe like nothing.  Bro', you walk into an elevator over there (Europe) and what do you hear?  Drum and Bass.  People are trapped in this mentality here that because I make Hardhouse that I'm selling out.  Good music is good music.  No matter what you call it."

It doesn't seem at all too far-fetched at what he's getting at.  Is America really ready for any of this?  Just consider how long it took for this American subculture to give proper recognition to another innovative artist:  DJ Rush.  Many here in the U.S. are still unaware and unappreciative of his contribution.  While those in Europe found him out much earlier.  1991-1992?  It's ridiculous when an artist has to migrate to Germany to get respect.  But it happens all the time.  That's another dilemma.  That and a congested market that has way too much...junk.

Luis Gabriel Aguilera is a freelance writer and is currently anticipating the release of his first novel, "Gabriel's Fire" under The University of Chicago Press.  The work is scheduled to appear some time in mid-February 2000.  Questions or comments on this article may be sent to < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >.  Oh, he also spins...