Armand Van Helden On Noel Gallagher

DJ and producer Armand Van Helden has responded to recent comments made by Noel Gallagher relating to EDM acts headlining festivals.

Gallagher recently made headlines by dismissing "DJs pressing play on a CD player" during their performances.

The former Oasis man also told NME of Swedish DJ Avicii: "I don’t know anything about Avicii. I don’t wish to know anything about Avicii. It sounds like an artist from the Renaissance period."
With Avicii replying by labelling Gallagher a "bitter old time rocker", fellow EDM producer Van Helden has hit back at the veteran musician's remarks.

"Any real musician is going to look at a DJ or an EDM artist and be like 'What is that and how did that even work in the first place?'. If you're out there on stage and you're a drummer, a guitarist a frontman or whatever – you're a band, that's just raw talent being exposed on a stage," he told Gigwise.

He added: "With the chemistry going on, that's just a magical moment. With a DJ or the EDM thing, they don't get it. It's a completely different thing – the youth is always supposed to piss off the elders. The youth will always find a way to make sure that their parents don't like their music. To me, EDM, dance music and DJ culture is just following in this path that we've been in forever."

Van Helden, who has worked with Dizzee Rascal, Daft Punk, Bloc Party and more, added: "When jazz was brand new, all of the people that first heard it called it 'cacaphone' - 'That's just a bunch of noise, that's not real music'. Jazz is the music we're talking about right now. Jazz now is considered the most musical you can be."

Watch the full interview with Van Helden below.



EDM producer Deadmau5, on the other hand, recently spoke out in defence of Gallagher.

In a blog posted to Tumblr, Zimmerman took aim at CD-ing playing DJs: "Are you or are you not a guy who can use a computer to make music? Because you're making in upwards of 200K to play a fucking CD…. so… wait. why?

"With all the resources you have attained in the past X years of getting to where you are now…. WOULD IT FUCKING KILL YOU, to be able to add some sort of modularity, performance, showmanship BEYOND putting a fist in the air, telling people to make noise, and or playing the top line on an invisible keyboard in the air to show the crowd 'HEY! EVERYONE! THIS LEAD GOES HERE! WATCH MY HAND. IT GOES DOOT DOOT DOOT DOOT.'"

He added: "Do with an inexhaustible amount of income from all the good fine folk who gave you way too much money to be up there…. you couldnt even be fucked to plug in a keyboard to play 4 fucking notes from time to time?

"Look, you MADE the fucking track, you HAVE the stems (at least you BETTER have them fucking stems) DO SOMETHING. ANYTHING. You're a fucking act. You're beyond a CD player. At least YOU FUCKING BETTER BE if im going to pay 100 bucks to watch you.

"So you can't play a keyboard? COOL! ME NEITHER! MIDI bro. It's been around since the 80s which is about 11 years before you were even fucking conceived. And it STILL works great.

 "Please, stop fucking up 'EDM' with your fucking bullshit lazy CD playing and get to fucking work like the many others who are… then, the people who do put forth the bits when they can, don't look as fucking stupid as you."

Deadmau5 concluded: "I think this hits the core of what Noel Gallagher was hinting at. Not EDM in general."

Source: www.nme.com

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