Top DJs coming to Sound Club and Stereo Lab
Phuket may attract very little in the way of famous musicians – the upcoming Blues-Rock Festival has a couple of biggish names, and the French big band JCB are heading this way soon, but the island is not yet on the international circuit trod by, say, Green Day, who were in Bangkok on January 12.
But where Phuket currently excels is in attracting DJs with international reputations.
Joachim Garraud - don't let the boyish good looks fool you; this is a clever man.
On January 20, for example, French deejay, composer and producer Joachim Garraud appears at Sound (in Jungceylon, Patong) for one night. Despite his youthful looks, Garraud has a musical history going back 21 years, when he started work as a DJ at The Boy in Paris, a club synonymous in France with the beginnings of techno in that country.
Just two years later, he was one of the DJs at the first rave in Moscow, the Yuri Gagarin Party, which was attended by an estimated 300,000 Russian ravers, and this was followed up in succeeding years by appearances at huge events in Manchester, at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt and at the Love Parade in Berlin in 2006, in front of a million people.
In the studio which he set up in Paris, he has produced, composed or remixed for the likes of Jean Michel Jarre, David Guetta, Kylie Minogue and David Bowie. He has, since 2005, had his own record label, F**k Me I’m Famous – a reflection, perhaps, of his astonishment at his own success. His website is here.
Meanwhile, on January 30 at Stereo Lab at the south end of Surin Beach, Hed Kandi make a welcome return – their third visit – with Sam Cannon on the turntables and disco diva Shena on the microphone.
Shena - her second album came out just a couple of months ago.
Trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Shena has since recorded dozens of singles, including The Weekend, which reached No 7 in the UK charts. She performed the song on the UK TV programmme Top of the Pops, following which it was nominated for a Grammy award. She has also released two albums, the most recent – One Man Woman – at the end of last year.
When she’s not doing her own thing, she’s in demand as a backup singer for the likes of Luther Vandross, Angie Stone, Chaka Khan, Mariah Carey and James Brown. Sample her voice ate her website, here.
Tickets to the Sound event cost B400 (which includes a free drink), while the Stereo Lab event is, as usual, free (but no free drink). The Sound website is here while Stereo Lab’s can be found here.
