Storm in the radiowaves: David Moreno ^Featured

I heard a rumour that a recording of our live streaming from Tini and Loco Dice’s beach party is available on internet somewhere and that I sound absolutely taken away with the music and the crowd! Ha-ha!  I remember that I wasn’t inside the DJ booth but with the wireless microphone in the crowd dancing and commenting while streaming live to audience of millions of listeners around the world!

Was this an intense season then?
You see the intensity that we are pushing at Ibiza Global Radio is not only during the season. It is about the quality electronic music programming throughout the year and Ibiza is a fantastic place to learn how to keep this level really high.

We are trying to stay intense all the time by avoiding to play commercial music or what everyone else plays and trying to stay innovative.  We are educating our listeners with quality music and that is the ideology that we are bringing to the world – that you are what you listen to!

Throughout the years we have managed to educate a lot of ears here in Ibiza and changed people’s taste for better. We are proud to stream shows from highly acclaimed artists like Carl Cox, Tini, M.A.N.D.Y or Loco Dice, but in the same time, fifty per cent of the programming we leave in the hands of the new talent who broadcast quality underground music that is not so popular but has to be heard! 

Have been working in radio all your life?
Yes. Since I was a kid and living in Barcelona, I was always obsessed with radio and I think since age of 15 I realized that this is want I want to do – to be a speaker, to be a communicator for the public and to be a radio DJ. The passion for the music, of course, was a big part of it.

And in 1989 you moved to the Island of music  -  Ibiza.  Those must have been some good years!
The house music revolution around year 1984 in Detroit, New York and London reached Ibiza and it was the beginning of an incredible new musical movement and many mind-blowing parties. But…it’s strange that when we talk about Ibiza we always tend to talk about the great past and forget that the present is great too and that it is what matters most! I look in the past only to tell the anecdotes about it, but when it comes to my life or my work, I try live in today, in this moment right here.

There is good and bad in Ibiza and it has always been that way.  There have always been some double morals about who does what and why, especially because everyone loves music and partying, even if you are a serious professional.  Still, Ibiza has always been a very open-minded and free-spirited place to be.

I guess the most important for anyone who tries to make it here is to follow your passion, work really hard on it, learn every day and fight for what you believe in.

I guess you know the right formula for success then!
I don’t mean to be arrogant but I think it’s important to realize what your talents are. I realized it very young and I have been working on it since.

Most importantly, I realized that I am nothing if I don’t share my gift with other people, either as a communicator or as a DJ.

Now I DJ often together with my brother Tony and with him I also started to produce music. With production my goal was to understand more in depth how the music is created, not necessarily to make big hits.

How much freedom do you have in the radio to do what you want to do?
There are commercial compromises that I have to accept for the benefits of the radio, but then again, there are many moments and opportunities where I can put my own taste or opinion, that way showing my sweet or animalistic side of personality! Ha-ha!

You tend to bring the new DJ and producer talent to your radio shows a lot! There are so many people who want to be DJs these days, right?
I think I sense it very well when somebody has a talent, so I try to bring it to the people. Also, it fascinates me when a young kid can do something that I still haven’t managed to learn to do!

People think that DJ profession is very easy  - that you have to work only 2 days a week, and you get money for just having fun, which is absolutely not true!

As a DJ you are a constant music collector and researcher, even if it does not lead to any recognition. The most important is to stay constant with your work. I had some peak points in my career as a DJ, also when I was going on the world tour with Space nightclub for many years.
 
Are there any future travel plans in your schedule?
Right now with the Global Radio I am working on a tour that we plan to start in January 2013. It will take us to Ukraine, Japan, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, so I have to dedicate my time to this project every single day.

Not only I am searching, buying or selecting a huge amount of quality music but also keeping in touch with all the right people every day, so the tour would go well. Also, I am trying to work on productions at the same time! It takes a lot of hard work to promote ourselves because there are already so many talented DJs living in all the cities around the world that bringing ones from abroad takes serious persuasion and good marketing.

I suppose that without marketing you are nobody these days.
It is relevant, but we do not want to be like many DJs that we see these days, which have become famous just with the marketing tricks. Those ones who rise to fame with a ridiculous speed will fall quickly, because DJs like that have a very short expiry date.

If you are true artist and dedicate your life to it, you will never fall out of the scene. Maybe you won’t be famous but you will be constantly busy and working in your circuit.

Richie Hawtin’s contribution to the Global this summer brought a new wave, correct?
Richie re-invented a new formula for the radio. 22 years ago when I started to do the program “Ibiza Events”, it was not common that DJs would come to the radio.  Then slowly The Ministry and The Manumission started to bring their DJs to promote themselves through the radio. Today it is normal that the best top world’s DJs come to play live at the radio station, but still,  Richie took the whole formula to the next level!

As a visionary he saw an unused cabin in the studio and decided to use it for streaming, plus, he decided to invite a big group of his fans from Facebook and Twitter to watch, enjoy and participate throughout the live streaming. There I was with the wireless microphone commenting live from what was not only a radio show  - it was a pre-party inside the radio studio with Richie offering Sake to everyone and dancing together with his guests as Paco Osuna, Barem, Dubfire and others!

So every Thursday, from 20:00 till 21:00 we were in the radio studio with Richie and later, from 22:00 till 00:00 with the live streaming from the Sake Bar in the Space club. We did it all with a very little team of about 5 people and with help of Hugo and Pro-Audit equipment, and of course  - with a lot of passion! Ha-ha!

The passion is behind it all, isn’t it?
It is passion and the ability to relate to the listener in a very human way. It is so important to make the listener understand that we are the same and that he could be also there in the radio speaking in the microphone or dancing with us.

What fascinates me about Ibiza is that you will find a lot of grown-ups or so called adult public who are also fans of electronic music.
I always find pleasure in meeting meet someone older with a knowledge of who for example, Ricardo Villalobos is.

It is a fact that time passes very quickly in Ibiza because we live very intensively, but in the same time - the youth seems to be extended and people act very young for more years than they would traditionally.

Many of the events you were broadcasting live this summer were free beach parties. Don’t you think Ibiza needs more events like this?
Definitely, beach parties like Tini’s or the one we hosted in Talamanca last year created a very relaxed and free atmosphere where people could get together for the sake of good music. I think it is important that every party balances the business side with the feeling that this could be accessible to everyone. Why do you think Luciano got so successful? He played DC10, Cocoon, and then he suddenly decided to play at the free Ushuaia’s beach parties in 2009. Of course talent and hard work was behind it all, but that was the moment when everyone got crazy about him!

I think we should believe more in the amazing collaborations that this Island can bring and avoid the mass commercialization. It is really in hands of the clubs and promoters to decide what people, music and ambience we want to create on this Island!

Find out more about David Moreno's radio show and Ibiza Global Radio at www.ibizaglobalradio.com, www.facebook.com/ibiza.radio or listen to his sessions at www.mixcloud.com/davidmoreno.

Text by Liva Berzina