Monday Listening Club hosted by Martin Markeli
Special Guest: DJ em-o-dee

Mon 02.06., 18h l MQ Summer Stage, Main Courtyard
Free entry

The Monday Listening Club offers visitors a unique combination of vinyl listening experience, vintage flea market and live DJ sets.

Vinyl and analog vibes ...
The little record player was already in my focus when I was 4 or 5 years old and also my grandfather's old foldable camera. I remember discovering the sounds made by moving the record forwards and backwards and how it kept me busy for hours. Both devices sparked great interest and have shaped my life to this day - as a DJ and photographer. In the room I shared with my older brother, a Günther Schifter program would often be on the radio at night...  Jazz and swing music could be heard and I discovered a new world of grooves and improvisations that fascinated me and sparked a passion for jazz.
A little later, radio again... Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five... The Message, the 80s... revealed something exotic... Rap, breakdancing, graffiti spread and once again represented a milestone in my development. Hip hop as a fusion of the most diverse influences from different styles and sounds in the form of samples was an incredibly fascinating big bang moment for me. These loops... these grooves are always a reference to something else, even if only interpreted piece by piece and brought into a new dimension. This is what drives me and my enthusiasm to take a closer look at these components, to search for them, to develop a feel for them, to discover them and to bring them together in the form of my record collection. I still remember a flea market. I pulled a Donald Byrd record, a Ramsey Lewis record and an Aretha Franklyn Greatest Hits LP out of a box and these records were like a ticket to another world.
In my later life as a DJ, I always realized that there are ways to go back to the samples in a hip hop set. Integrating these references into the mix and using them flexibly to create a musical journey. This resulted in several “mixtapes” under the title “handle with care”, which always combine the origin of the sample with the respective track in a characteristic mix. Some of the old and rare records had to be handled with care in order to preserve the valuable material, so the title “handle with care” was very obvious.
DJs such as Kool DJ Herc, Grandmaster Flash and many others were the pioneers of this culture. The dynamics and energy contained in the breaks that gave rise to all this are simply captivating and magical in the form of a good mix. The magic that unfolds when you mix these breaks on vinyl and play around with them has never lost its effect.  The skills of a DJ don't just describe the handling of records and the mixing desk, mixing and scratching. But also the qualities of your own collection, how well you know it and what you can do with it.
This definition was very important, at least in the heyday of DJ culture, which of course now has to be viewed differently due to technological developments. Nevertheless, it has become clear that there is a growing interest in analog technology again, and that vinyl, the “good old record”, is loved and appreciated. Even if the record cracks, crackles or the needle jumps, I have never regretted playing only with vinyl.

Save the vinyl!

Image: © Christof Moderbacher