::: friends ::: dj hardedge

Velibor PedevskiI (DJ Hardedge)
with John Farris

The first DJ to spin at NUBLU in his very first such experience, Velibor had hosted many radio shows featuring avant-garde jazz in Skopje and Belgrade (the former Yugoslavia) since 1978 while working as a music journalist. A booking agent and manager whose clients involve the cream of the avant-garde jazz community-Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill, Butch Morris, Roscoe Mitchell, Sam Rivers, Andrew Hill, Muhal Richard Abrams, Wadada Leo Smith, John Lurie and the Lounge Lizards, Kip Hanrahan, Harriet Tubman, Val-Inc, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Reggie Workman, James Chance, ect.- Velibor touches a history of contemporary jazz at the New School University and was his own production company, recording many of the artists listed. He has been working regularly in dub with trumpeter Graham Haynes.

JF: So Professor Velibor...tell me something about yourself, how long have you been listening to jazz and electronica?

V: Not that long, to electronica. Jazz came early, you know, after the initial years when I got seduced by rock n' roll and whatever was around in the beginning of the seventies, I tried to check everything out and kind of by instinct I would always prefer to go to something that was more complex.

JF: How old are you? 42?

V: No. 48.

JF: God damn Velibor, you're getting old! So in the seventies you started listening to jazz?

V: Listening to jazz led me to improvised music.

JF: You're from Yugoslavia?

V: Yeah.

JF: And that's where you were listening to that?

V: Yeah, all kinds of stuff. Jazz, rock, fusion, you know, I was around 20 or whatever and you listen to that stuff because it was around you.

JF: And what did you pick for yourself? When did you say, "I like this, it really knocks me out?"

V: Well there was always something I would get excited about. When I look back at those years now (as naive as I was, and the scope of jazz was so enormous) it's something I should be proud of because it has not diminished at all. From years ago, buying records and listening to these people, working with them it has always been, uh, I have always been very grateful.

JF: Did you study jazz anywhere?

V: No, I've never studied jazz anywhere. I just played a little piano when I was younger, for some reason, I just didn't pursue it. But I never abandoned the quest for a new sound, or fresh sounds, or whatever.

JF: So, when did you leave Yugoslavia for the United States?

V: I think '89, '91. I came to New York for the first time in '91
.
JF: So you have your own label? When did you start your own label?

V: Actually, I have two labels. The first one is Braxton House, which I started I think in '96 with Anthony Braxton, which has released nine records, very different music, from ghost trance to opera to soul music to language music, I'm very proud of it, and still keep going somehow.

JF: And what's your other label?

V: The other label is the one I just started with Henry Threadgill, it's called Hardedge and we just released Zooid, it's a live album with Henry Threadgill's group.

JF: What does Zooid mean?

V: It's a microscopic animal, an organism. It's amoebae size or something.

JF: So how did you start DJing?

V: I started in some kind of naive way, when you look back on it, it starts because you find yourself in a situation like that when Ilhan was about to open this place and I knew him from before, of course.

JF: How'd you meet Ilhan?

V: I don't remember, I think it was through Butch (Morris). And I was booking Holy Ghost and some other stuff, I would see him and I would talk to him, so it was nothing new, so when he was ready to open his club, me and Butch were here, and that's how the deal was born. So it was either me or him that said "Wow, let's start something every Wednesday," I though I could just bring some obscure jazz stuff and play that kind of music, but I had no idea that in two and a half years, how much I had changed because I gave myself a chance to search for different things.JF: So, are you familiar with the music of Martin Feldman?

V: Yes, not very much, but yes I am.

JF: Scriabin?

V: Yes, all those guys.

JF: You sound like Feldman, or Scriabin with rhythm. It's funny, when I first heard you here at NUBLU

JF: As I started to say, when I first heard you playing in here, I felt as startled as a deer in headlights, I was waiting for something to bomb me or blow me up. And I felt that I wasn't alone, I felt a lot of apprehension, as did people who were here. Now, it's a lot more emotional, what you're doing is more emotional, it's more rhythm-based, and the rhythm is not so repetitive.

V: It's basically kind of soulless, but I try to find a way to inject some life into what is basically cold and soulless. Although it's made by the Germans, I can't change the music, when I'm playing Chopin, for example, you can't change the notes, because everybody would be crazy, they'd say "you're playing Chopin, and you're changing it." Because he was playing in an unconventional way. There was a guy who was playing Chopin's music, and he was playing it so good, it was provocative, that people let him get away with it. That was about twenty years ago.

JF: The drawback with electronic music is that the dynamics are weird, a lot of the music is just so mechanical.

V: The DJ doesn't pay total respect to the artist who has created it, because they do many things outside of what's already there. I don't try to mix things, or cut the pieces in half or fade out. I don't do that. I always try to go to the very end, to how a piece sounds in the room, whatever the room is. In some ways it's cool, but in some ways it's not cool, somebody created this, so now you have an opportunity to play this stuff for somebody else. How do you present it so that this artist, if he's in the room, so he doesn't feel like "Damn, what is this guy doing?"

JF: You teach music at the New School, right?

V: Mm-hmm.

JF: You teach jazz?

V: Yes. Contemporary jazz.

JF: Contemporary jazz, so you teach people from Braxton, from the Chicago school.

V: You know, it's been changing, over the course of eleven years already, maybe the twelfth is coming, I got a chance to grow, you can imagine how much or how less experienced I was eleven years ago. Language-wise, and knowledge-wise, and wisdom-wise, so this is like a process. So what I'm trying to say is, I've been changing, trying different things, it's a very large class, maybe fifty, sixty, there's no other class this size, so it's very hard to deal with young people who come with certain ideas about music to the school and then you hit them with something that's shocking to them, in some instances, too shocking because it has so little to do with sometimes what school teaches you. Fundamentals of jazz, and bebop, modal music, and what I'm talking about is something else, all these original guys who are the most creative people on the planet, making any kind of art. Braxton, Ornette Coleman, Wadada Leo Smith, Butch Morris, Cecil Taylor, Andrew Hill, those guys. So I've been concentrating on different people, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, beginning with Ornette Coleman, people like that. Starting in the fifties, and I go through the entire period, you only have so much time, so you have to run through this, so now I'm concentrating on less and less people so I can go into depth as much as my knowledge allows me to.

JF: You have a band with - a duo - with Graham Haynes.|

V: Yes, that's something else altogether.

JF: What do you go for when you play with Graham?

V: I see all this stuff as the process of growth.

JF: What music do you spin when you play with Graham?

V: Well I see this, I became aware of a process of growth. I have been blessed, or fortunate or whatever, to be around some of the greatest minds of our time. When I went into electronica, I went into different phases, you could hear how I was developing at this place, at NUBLU. Then I started thinking at home, "Oh, maybe I can do something, so here I am, at the very beginning of something, so I give myself a real chance, it could be something really interesting for me to do in the time that's coming."


					Brazilian Girls Butch Norris Chantal Ughi Charles Stella Clark Gayton Dj Hardedge DJ Renochild Eddie Henderson ElodieO Erik Truffaz Jochen Rueckert John Farris Juini Booth Karina Zeviani Kenny Wollesen Malik Burke Marla Turner Martin Ogolter Petar Santiago U-roy	Velibor PedevskiI (DJ Hardedge) with John Farris The first DJ to spin at NUBLU in his very first such experience, Velibor had hosted many radio shows featuring avant-garde jazz in Skopje and Belgrade (the former Yugoslavia) since 1978 while working as a music journalist. A booking agent and manager whose clients involve the cream of the avant-garde jazz community-Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill, Butch Morris, Roscoe Mitchell, Sam Rivers, Andrew Hill, Muhal Richard Abrams, Wadada Leo Smith, John Lurie and the Lounge Lizards, Kip Hanrahan, Harriet Tubman, Val-Inc, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Reggie Workman, James Chance, ect.- Velibor touches a history of contemporary jazz at the New School University and was his own production company, recording many of the artists listed. He has been working regularly in dub with trumpeter Graham Haynes. JF: So Professor Velibor...tell me something about yourself, how long have you been listening to jazz and electronica? V: Not that long, to electronica. Jazz came early, you know, after the initial years when I got seduced by rock n' roll and whatever was around in the beginning of the seventies, I tried to check everything out and kind of by instinct I would always prefer to go to something that was more complex. JF: How old are you? 42? V: No. 48. JF: God damn Velibor, you're getting old! So in the seventies you started listening to jazz? V: Listening to jazz led me to improvised music. JF: You're from Yugoslavia? V: Yeah. JF: And that's where you were listening to that? V: Yeah, all kinds of stuff. Jazz, rock, fusion, you know, I was around 20 or whatever and you listen to that stuff because it was around you. JF: And what did you pick for yourself? When did you say, "I like this, it really knocks me out?" V: Well there was always something I would get excited about. When I look back at those years now (as naive as I was, and the scope of jazz was so enormous) it's something I should be proud of because it has not diminished at all. From years ago, buying records and listening to these people, working with them it has always been, uh, I have always been very grateful. JF: Did you study jazz anywhere? V: No, I've never studied jazz anywhere. I just played a little piano when I was younger, for some reason, I just didn't pursue it. But I never abandoned the quest for a new sound, or fresh sounds, or whatever. JF: So, when did you leave Yugoslavia for the United States? V: I think '89, '91. I came to New York for the first time in '91 . JF: So you have your own label? When did you start your own label? V: Actually, I have two labels. The first one is Braxton House, which I started I think in '96 with Anthony Braxton, which has released nine records, very different music, from ghost trance to opera to soul music to language music, I'm very proud of it, and still keep going somehow. JF: And what's your other label? V: The other label is the one I just started with Henry Threadgill, it's called Hardedge and we just released Zooid, it's a live album with Henry Threadgill's group. JF: What does Zooid mean? V: It's a microscopic animal, an organism. It's amoebae size or something. JF: So how did you start DJing? V: I started in some kind of naive way, when you look back on it, it starts because you find yourself in a situation like that when Ilhan was about to open this place and I knew him from before, of course. JF: How'd you meet Ilhan? V: I don't remember, I think it was through Butch (Morris). And I was booking Holy Ghost and some other stuff, I would see him and I would talk to him, so it was nothing new, so when he was ready to open his club, me and Butch were here, and that's how the deal was born. So it was either me or him that said "Wow, let's start something every Wednesday," I though I could just bring some obscure jazz stuff and play that kind of music, but I had no idea that in two and a half years, how much I had changed because I gave myself a chance to search for different things.JF: So, are you familiar with the music of Martin Feldman? V: Yes, not very much, but yes I am. JF: Scriabin? V: Yes, all those guys. JF: You sound like Feldman, or Scriabin with rhythm. It's funny, when I first heard you here at NUBLU JF: As I started to say, when I first heard you playing in here, I felt as startled as a deer in headlights, I was waiting for something to bomb me or blow me up. And I felt that I wasn't alone, I felt a lot of apprehension, as did people who were here. Now, it's a lot more emotional, what you're doing is more emotional, it's more rhythm-based, and the rhythm is not so repetitive. V: It's basically kind of soulless, but I try to find a way to inject some life into what is basically cold and soulless. Although it's made by the Germans, I can't change the music, when I'm playing Chopin, for example, you can't change the notes, because everybody would be crazy, they'd say "you're playing Chopin, and you're changing it." Because he was playing in an unconventional way. There was a guy who was playing Chopin's music, and he was playing it so good, it was provocative, that people let him get away with it. That was about twenty years ago. JF: The drawback with electronic music is that the dynamics are weird, a lot of the music is just so mechanical. V: The DJ doesn't pay total respect to the artist who has created it, because they do many things outside of what's already there. I don't try to mix things, or cut the pieces in half or fade out. I don't do that. I always try to go to the very end, to how a piece sounds in the room, whatever the room is. In some ways it's cool, but in some ways it's not cool, somebody created this, so now you have an opportunity to play this stuff for somebody else. How do you present it so that this artist, if he's in the room, so he doesn't feel like "Damn, what is this guy doing?" JF: You teach music at the New School, right? V: Mm-hmm. JF: You teach jazz? V: Yes. Contemporary jazz. JF: Contemporary jazz, so you teach people from Braxton, from the Chicago school. V: You know, it's been changing, over the course of eleven years already, maybe the twelfth is coming, I got a chance to grow, you can imagine how much or how less experienced I was eleven years ago. Language-wise, and knowledge-wise, and wisdom-wise, so this is like a process. So what I'm trying to say is, I've been changing, trying different things, it's a very large class, maybe fifty, sixty, there's no other class this size, so it's very hard to deal with young people who come with certain ideas about music to the school and then you hit them with something that's shocking to them, in some instances, too shocking because it has so little to do with sometimes what school teaches you. Fundamentals of jazz, and bebop, modal music, and what I'm talking about is something else, all these original guys who are the most creative people on the planet, making any kind of art. Braxton, Ornette Coleman, Wadada Leo Smith, Butch Morris, Cecil Taylor, Andrew Hill, those guys. So I've been concentrating on different people, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, beginning with Ornette Coleman, people like that. Starting in the fifties, and I go through the entire period, you only have so much time, so you have to run through this, so now I'm concentrating on less and less people so I can go into depth as much as my knowledge allows me to. JF: You have a band with - a duo - with Graham Haynes.\| V: Yes, that's something else altogether. JF: What do you go for when you play with Graham? V: I see all this stuff as the process of growth. JF: What music do you spin when you play with Graham? V: Well I see this, I became aware of a process of growth. I have been blessed, or fortunate or whatever, to be around some of the greatest minds of our time. When I went into electronica, I went into different phases, you could hear how I was developing at this place, at NUBLU. Then I started thinking at home, "Oh, maybe I can do something, so here I am, at the very beginning of something, so I give myself a real chance, it could be something really interesting for me to do in the time that's coming."