DJs appear to have spent their pandemic doing a number of different things – and none are remotely interesting. Sasha spent it baking bread. John Digweed’s was so dull that he didn’t even bother to tell us what he did – and now we’ve found out what Carl Craig did.
In between bouts of trying not to talk about his police chief cousin, it seems he tidied up his studio. And the story goes he found the parts for “From Beyond”, which was one of the first records he put out all the way back in 1989. They’re now available to download on Loopcloud for the purpose of a remix contest taking place on the site now. Feel free to have a go yourself if that’s your kind of thing.
But I personally can’t help but wonder why a so-called visionary like Craig can’t just make something new, instead of rehashing 32 year old ground. Indeed, isn’t it curious how little new music all of the so-called originators of techno create? They seem to think they can just rely on stuff they made decades ago.
The other bit that grates here is Carl Craig can easily afford to pay for remixes. Craig is a multi-millionaire with a house worth over $700k. He could comfortably cough up some money for new perspectives on his old work – yet here he is choosing to waste the time of hundreds of producers who won’t be able to do anything with the versions they create. And all so he can save himself some money.
Curiously, a source who knows Craig reaches out to say “I was speechless when I saw this. Carl would never do a remix for nothing. He used to boast that he wouldn’t do any remix for less than four figures. If you’d have contacted Hagi [Craig, his manager and wife] and asked him to do a remix for nothing, she’d have told you to f*** off.”.
Perhaps if money is tight, he could, for example, send it to Derrick May? Rumours have circulated on and off since 1993 that he’s going to release new music soon, and given all the allegations surrounding him, it’s not like he’s got a great deal else to do.
It would be the perfect opportunity for May to demonstrate his self-declared mission of “saving the world from bad music”. Not to mention he could do some videos of him making the remix – proving he’s got skills in the studio and creating social media material. Heck, he could even demonstrate his theory that you can have different instruments playing in different keys on the same song.
Or is it the case that Craig knows his friends wouldn’t do anything for him unless it came with a hefty pay cheque? It’s a mystery…