Canggu Creative Weekly #5 | If God Is A DJ, He'd Be Live Streaming Right Now
If God is a DJ, He’s probably Live Streaming right now.
If God is a Dj, She’s probably got a new mix to play to you, right here right now.
But, if God is a DJ, He’s also probably questioning His religion.
Second guessing Her mantra.
Playing the parties of the past over and over like a broken record.
Crystal Ballin’ the future with as many potentials as a disco ball has beams of light.
Heaven was playing for crowds, fan’s and followers - dancing, prancing, singing, drinking, chewing, praying - at the Alter of Fun.
If God is a DJ, It would be missing the loss of connection.
Sparing more than just a thought for the Party People who’s adoration was their Blood of Christ.
Now their audience sit and sip alone on their half full glass of wine, cheersing to the good times when bonds were made not on Live Steams, but live.
An entire culture eviscerated, leaving a vacuum of purposelessness.
If God is a DJ, He, She, They, It would be suffering right now.
But like all good Deities worth their Decks, through suffering comes enlightenment.
We’ve had many DJ’s, Music Producers and Sound Engineers come through the doors at Genesis Creative Centre since The Big Sneeze.
Here’s our chance to raise a glass to those who continue to fight for our right to party.
Halim has been a DJ in Bali for the last 7 years.
He was also one of the first people to be told about the idea of Bali’s first Creative Centre when it was just a twinkle in a Dreamer’s eye.
With residencies at Lost City and Omina amongst others, as well as playing every venue worth playing at, The Situation didn’t just halt the breaks on his profession.
It took away the tracks and pushed over the Party Lokomotiv with no inkling of when the next train would run on time, if ever.
Like every DJ, he’s done Livestreams.
But how to stand out from the noise-waves?
With his educational background, conscientious soul and try-anything-once attitude, Halim thought it was time to pull out those passion projects collecting dust on the shelf.
Club Conscious, his eco-conscious electronic music organisation, could finally get the long awaited attention from its lead Ambassador.
He would do a kind of Livestream unique to all DJ’s around the world.
One-on-one interviews with Bali’s most informed people, ranging from Bali’s situation and the creative industries, at a time when the only truth was panic (at the disco).
Liberated from the expectations of a saturated industry, unfiltered expression by client, venue and sponsor expectation, he fell back in love with his craft.
Usually the entertainer and Front Man of Hospitality, he is now lending an organisational hand to the Bali Hospitality Movement.
A charity for the real Front Line Workers on the Island of the Gods turned Playground of the Privileged.
Except, the front lines have been redrawn, forcibly retreated into the communal centre where food is plentiful but purchasing power is not.
Bali Hospitality Movement supports everyone in the industry, from the bartender to the janitor in the crippled tourism industry, aiming to prevent effected families from going hungry.
It also plans to help the government with much needed databasing of these now unemployed workers so the much needed aid can be delivered in a modern, efficient and equal manner.
He is now bringing hope to a club that not only appreciates the energy he brings, but his spirit.
Amongst all that, he still remains our DJ in Chief at Genesis Creative Centre, imparting his DJ knowledge to those who still want to begin their journey in the noble art of the Disk Jockey .
Mikey will go down in Island history as the last headline act to play at Ominia before The Great Party Poop.
Lil’T of PillowTalk and his wife made the conscious decision to see out their quarantine in Bali, rather than returning to the studio base in NYC.
A decision all the more inspired by the Big Apple becoming the epicentre of America’s pandemic tragedy.
Though, away from home doesn’t mean music has left his heart.
Mikey has been DJing and Producing music for the best part of three decades.
Out of this has come Housepitality and Touch of Class Records, as well as the globally renowned PillowTalk.
Musical creativity flows out of his every pore.
Just one problem… The Studio is on the other side other world.
Luckily, fellow DJ Halim introduced Mikey to the Island’s most accessible Music Studio, just in time for a festival Live Stream. (That’s where we come in).
His set, projected over footage of an empty, post-apocalyptic Jakarta, blew the basement stages of his contemporaries out of the water.
Thus a famous friendship was born…
PillowTalk are an eclectic electronic band with real pedigree and 10’s of millions of streams on Spotify to prove it.
With exciting collaborations coming up, the prospects are there just waiting for the final collaborative connection to bring to fruition.
If only these almost completed projects were 3 months ahead of schedule, the world would be receiving the quality music it deserves at a time when it needs it most.
That said, fate has a way of flowing in the way that it always intended.
For Mikey, quarantine and isolation provided a chance to focus his mind:
“Launching my new solo project “Lil’T” has taken up all my attention. This new moniker realizes an uncensored and deeper side to my productions which allows me to be myself and share my true artistic inner expression. I’ve recently had a slate of releases on Soul Clap Records, Uniting Souls Music and Wolf + Lamb to name a few.
There are also some new and exciting collaborations that I will be debuting this year, Lil’T & Big $exy, MONOLEY, Tastemakerz, along with some new artists I’m excited to be producing and developing, Ntem and Hannah Noel. There are some high profile remixes for Francesca Lombardo and Lee Curtis that I can’t wait to share.“
We couldn’t be happier that he has called our Pioneer Music Studio his second home for the party recharge.
All the while, anticipation only grows around his new releases - curious to hear the musical concoctions he’s finalised on his Bali adventure.
When we first met Anthony after an emailed introduction, we knew we were in the presence of a truly multi-disciplinary creative.
@thearahant
Wearing his rhythm, stepping to his own fashionable beat and exuding a personalised creative spirit, he couldn’t decide which was his favourite studio.
(We love it when that happens).
Anthony’s been involved in Music Production, DJing and Music Education since 2003, with the intensity of his TOCSIN sound being inspired by the London Underground scene born in that era.
Alas, this sound and its metropolis source has dug itself so far down, it’s proving hard to reconnect.
Indeed, his DJ and Producer friends back in London have given up on this year and are already focusing on 2021.
Waiting, hoping and praying that the inspiration resurfaces once more.
It’s times like these - the unpredictable, the uncertain, yet inevitable - that passion across a range of artistic forms comes in handy.
Bali’s music scene may be on a soundless pause, but its rich cultural fashion tap continues to flow unabated.
Tailors and garment factories have been working throughout the shutdown, allowing Anthony’s unquenchable fetish for outlandish fashion going some way to being satiated.
His Fashion label, The Arahant, has been tinkered, tailored and soldiered on with to successful and artisanal effect.
All the while, his musical muse takes a back seat.
Biding its time for the inevitable return of the great club bangers.
It has never been a more challenging time to be an Entertainer.
Never more testing to be a Musician.
Indeed, the crowds that gather in their masses, on the un-concluded precipice of a Pandemic, are dancing with death against injustice.
Better to die on ones feet than live on ones knees.
These crowds - now locked out of the friendly gatherings with friends at clubs, bars and parties - are now expressing the very angst that entertainment used to quell.
So, have our Musician’s, DJ’s and Entertainers always been the unintended guardians of the status quo?
The distractions that made a servile system possible?
No.
It was their lyrics that first spoke a truth we couldn’t articulate yet.
Their notes that evoked the emotions we thought we couldn’t share with anyone else.
The beat for the march forward.
All these conversations began in the club.
The safe space at the back of the bar where anything goes.
With a world on fire, it will be the Musicians that calm the flames in our souls.
The Artists that paint a future we can call “habitable.”
In some parts of the world, it seems that God has left these neighbourhoods to burn.
Far from it.
God is a DJ.
Recording.
Imagining.
Producing.
Performing, the sounds of tomorrow.
Audio for a new dawn where we can celebrate in unity under one roof, inclusive of everyone.
Together.
Then, again, you’ll find us at the back of the bar.