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When I arrived in Boston in 2005, finding electronic music venues on a weeknight was not easy. Now Boston not only has a full spectrum of DJ’s spinning all kinds of dance music every night of the week, but also has its own Together Electronic Music Festival to showcase the immense variety of talent here. I’m loving every minute of it! Every genre has its artists, promoters, and supporters to be grateful for, and Boston is no different.

For the latest acts and music out of Berlin, or a sweaty, intimate night of the newest techno, house, proggy, minimal, and smooth, I have come to rely on the Basstown collective and their countless groundbreaking events. One lady at the forefront of Boston’s changing electronic tides is Volvox, Boston’s self ascribed “art-techno party maven”. Volvox is a DJ, Designer, and Promoter, who with stand out style and cohesive artistic vision, has worked tirelessly with Basstown since its early days.

I sat down with Volvox on the eve of her one month music mining sabbatical to Sao Paulo. She will be heating up the dancefloors there for sure! (But don’t worry Boston readers, she will be back for the massive Thunderdome New Year’s event).

www.djvolvox.com

MARCIE: What’s behind your name, Volvox?

VOLVOX: Volvox is the name of a colonial algae. They’re tiny little cells that connect in globular colonies that roll around in the water. As they reproduce, they create smaller colonies inside them. So if you just imagine this green sphere with tinier green spheres rolling around inside it, that’s what volvox is. It’s really beautiful.

MARCIE: Tell me about the importance of Hearthrob, a Boston party that became known nationwide, and ended this past summer.

VOLVOX: Hearthrob definitely spearheaded the electro movement in Boston. Hearthrob was on the cutting edge of that whole scene. They got a lot of credit for being legitimately one of the most artistically cohesive, great electro parties in the United States. Everybody in the U.S. knew about Hearthrob, and only 135 people actually fit in the Middlesex at a time.

MARCIE: Why did Hearthrob end?

VOLVOX: Hearthrob held an extremely high quality of event for a very long time. At a certain point, that becomes a very intense undertaking for all the people involved. Hearthrob was seen as an art project, and executed with love by all the people involved. They wanted to give it an end, instead of letting it peter out and become something they didn’t really have the time to put all of their power into.

MARCIE: I liked your term ‘artistic cohesion’ for Hearthrob. Do you feel like you have that with the Basstown?

VOLVOX: I feel like Basstown has a broader message. The purpose of Basstown was to promote electronic music in Boston, and to a certain degree that has happened, and Basstown is wondering what to do next. We did it. There is electronic music in Boston. Tons! Every day of the week! The cool thing is that this is also something that is happening in our country, not just in Boston. It’s great that Basstown represented that in Boston to make sure we got it, and it didn’t pass over us. We have a great community of people that attend our events.

MARCIE: Didn’t Diplo play a private after party here in Boston when he first came through?

VOLVOX: Yeah! We did the Basstown party, and we did the afterparty in Chinatown! I remember people were like hanging from the ceilings. That was probably one of the sickest party/after party nights I’ve ever been to in Boston for sure.

MARCIE: Diplo became more than just one artist…

VOLVOX: He became a whole sound. Diplo represents that ‘world sampling guy’. There are people who have to mine the rhythms from the native cultures. That’s where dance music rhythms come from. It starts with cumbia, and it starts in Indian music. It gets sampled, and turns into house and electro, and all these different flavors of techno. Diplo and his crew are the kind of dudes that like to go there and find this stuff, and get the freshest they can.

MARCIE: I read that you would like to live in Berlin someday?

VOLVOX: Yeah, I mean everyone would like to live in Berlin. Berlin is an artist candy land. I love the atmosphere, the buildings, and the stone. I love that all the places have a lot of genuine character. It’s not invented character. My experience of Berlin is the east side, the artists, the old block kind of thing. It’s really interesting to understand techno culture in light of what happened to the German people. The Germans in East Berlin have a strong feeling that they were part of a movement, and their movement was going to change the world. A lot of the German techno DJ’s still talk about what they do in terms of a musical and social movement, that has spread worldwide. I think that’s what part of that rave culture, in Germany at least, was about: the Love Parade thing, the positivity, and the feeling that this is our own culture, a future culture.

MARCIE: Do you think that was in response to previous oppression?

VOLVOX: After WWII and continuing into the 80’s and 90’s, it was difficult for the German youth to have a proud heritage. The image that Kraftwerk crafted was this new Germanness that the youth could feel proud to be like. Before that [the youth] was embarrassed about what happened in their society. From my perspective, it seems like the techno culture gave an entire generation of kids a sense of their own German identity. I think it’s really important to them.

MARCIE: It’s cool that you have such a deep understanding of the places that give us the music that you’re playing.

VOLVOX: You have to understand where things came from, who they came from, and the feelings behind that; especially in the situation with techno, where the feelings were very strong. Most kinds of music are like that. They come from a genuine place at some point. Once you can tap into the root of that feeling, it gives you total strength to grow from there.

MARCIE: Are you ever disappointed if you play for a crowd and feel like they’re not feeling it?

VOLVOX: I understand not everyone is trying to be a techno scholar. And ‘feeling it’ is something that a good DJ has to open up for a crowd. A really good DJ can understand where their crowd might be, and where they are, and be able to mediate that. What’s most exciting for me, as a DJ, is to get people to rock their bodies, freak out, and dance like they’ve never danced before. Sometimes if your crowd is more mainstream, the newest underground techno is not gonna be the answer.

MARCIE: What do you think happens to people when they ‘rock out’ and dance?

VOLVOX: I think that dancing in a large group of people in a club is an extremely therapeutic action. It makes people feel good, it makes people happy. I feel like the dance scene has that kind of sense of community. There will be that nuclei of people who are really tight about a certain style, or sound, and that really care. I think dancing is a very meditative activity. It just feels good. Why wouldn’t you want to do that? I love being a part of that process. I love opening that world up to new people. I think a lot of people are learning what dance music can do for them, by going out, dancing all night, and having a good time, and sweating.

MARCIE: The scene can be liberating and unifying, but it also comes with a fashion sense and style that can feel intimidating to some people. How do you keep the scene from becoming elitist, or exclusive, or do you feel the scene should be those things?

VOLVOX: I feel like dance music is for the most part pretty open. It’s very accepting, [across gender, religion, and income levels]. All types of people enjoy electronic music….once you’re on the dance floor, it’s hard to tell the difference. The dance floor as a location is a very unifying place.

MARCIE: What is the definition of selling out? Why does it make people in the underground so upset?

VOLVOX: The people in the underground have so much love and passion for what they do. They just love it SO much. That’s a beautiful thing. They’re very serious about the quality of what they do. In their perceived notion, when the quality is diluted, the power is diluted. In a way, when things get diluted, they’re not as strong, but they also reach more people. I like to think of this wave of electronic music, more as like a funnel. If ten people like hardcore electronic music, that’s great. They have their thing. But it’s harder for the average person to learn to love a very purist form of electronic music. Meanwhile, all these hybridizations are going on now, and all these teenagers are getting into electro, electro-hip hope, autotune, and everything.

MARCIE: And it’s all they know…

VOLVOX: And it’s all they know, but maybe in five years they’re gonna filter down to the good stuff. The cool thing is, because everything is basically free on the internet, there are a lot more kids that are into the purist stuff, because they can find it just as easily as everything else.

MARCIE: Sometimes revisiting themes that I explored when I was younger feels monotonous. Do you worry, as you get older, that you won’t have the same kind of passion for music, or be able to relate to a crowd in the same way?

VOLVOX: Absolutely not. When I am connected to the crowd, I really feel like that is one of the deepest, most spiritual connections I’ve ever felt in my life. When you’re dancing all night, and lost in that trance, being in this moment of energy…. There’s no way I could ever get sick of that. That could be the closest thing I could call to a religious feeling…ever. It’s like a euphoric nothing. That’s definitely the focus of my music, to take people to that point. I aim to take people to that level because I think it’s extremely therapeutic, and very freeing.

MARCIE: But, the scene is also very competitive. The business is cut throat. On one side, people are saying that the scene is about love and music, and on the other people are stabbing each other in the back.

VOLVOX: That’s true. There is the business side. It’s a huge scene, run by a lot of people. I wouldn’t say that all people feel what I feel. I take inspiration from a lot of Detroit artists, who were religious people who love god, and they transferred that feeling into a different kind of music, and made that music their kind of religion. I take a lot of inspiration from Jeff Mills, and people like that, who are absolutely dedicated to being futuristic, thinking in a new way, being new people, and being divine people, and being connected to that divine self. Not everyone in electronic music is dealing with that, and most people, I would say, are not that devoted. This is how I feel about it, and this is why I do it. This is what it does for me, and that’s why I keep doing it.

“

MARCIE: You seem really committed to your vision of how you want your life to be. Do you feel like you’re missing out on anything?

VOLVOX: I’m on a path. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything right now. I feel like you live with less money when you’re young, so that you can develop your artistic self. I definitely have plans to move on soon, to bigger cities like New York. Because I’ve had all this time in Boston to marinate and grow myself as much as possible, when I go to these cities, I’m going to be ready. I’m going to have mixes, and look-books, and a reputation for running things. I run Make It New at this point, and take care of a lot of the business for Basstown.
I wanted to have a style that nobody could copy. People get ripped off all the time. I mean you could copy my style, but you can’t copy the things that I do.

MARCIE: I saw one of your posts about Lady Gaga, where you posted that ‘She took your style’.

VOLVOX: Dude, that has been happening to me my whole life. It’s the same thing over and over again. There are kids that are doing this style, and there are people that are styling celebrities from ideas they get from the youth. That’s just how it works. At least Lady Gaga is doing the shit out of it. For what it’s worth, she’s helping to make fashion interesting for a lot of normal people. I can’t hate on her too much, but sometimes it’s frustrating. I try not to worry about it. I just keep doing my thing.

MARCIE: You’re living a life of being who you are, whereas Lady Gaga is perhaps living her character for the camera. Your style has to translate onto the street, and on to your DJ gigs.

VOLVOX:Yeah, I look like this when I put on pajamas too.

MARCIE:: How do you feel about this comment from New York Magazine: Oct. 24th, 2010?
“The hipster movement did not produce artists, but tattoo artists. It did not yield a great literature, but it made good use of fonts.”

VOLVOX: I think the comment about the artists is wrong. A lot of people don’t see the artists that grew out of this movement. The people that are true artists that have come out of this movement are so fucking next level. They’re people who have understanding of marketing, advertising, media, and visuals, and they take five different things and do something totally new with it. People like Red Foxx. They do music, visual, and style. It’s all one thing. They take all those things, and they have their twist on it. Taking this crazy view of what mainstream and internet culture is, and twisting and aggregating it, and turning it into something new. It’s still happening right now. It’s literally what’s new right now. I think those people will be the ones that come to be seen as the artists from the electro era. These artists are the people that mold reality, take slices of existence, amplify them, and create something new that is sampled from old things.

Ryan Trecartin is taking these 90’s video styles and computer graphics, and making brand new music videos. DIS Magazine from NY. I would say those people are at the forefront of what these internet era artists are doing.

MARCIE: So Hipster art is not just disposable art?

VOLVOX: For a lot of people it might be. There are people that grew out of [the hipster movement] with something very serious to say, and a new view on the world. We’ve just spent the last ten years learning the internet….I think what we’re seeing now is that enough kids have had enough time to absorb the internet, that the ones that were really good at discovering bizarre and new things through the internet are combining very disparate and seemingly bizarre pockets of internet culture into something wholly new. It’s hard to describe because it’s not fully formed.
I think experiential art in the form of a party is growing. A lot of people have themes, and decorations, and are doing parties in bizarre venues. It’s nothing super new, but crafting experiences is a new kind of art that traditional art people might not get. They might think it’s just a party. It skirts that line.

MARCIE: Does having academic training helps you express yourself?

VOLVOX:Yes. I think it helps my art have a very solid meaning behind it. I feel like I’m at a point in my art, because of many specific things that relate to my life and are specific to my background. It’s really important for me for those things to be cohesive, and for there to be a path.

MARCIE: You can say more if you have the training that gives you the tools and language of the field.

VOLVOX: Once you understand any topic in depth, you’re able to understand nuances. When people say an artist has a style, it’s when an artist zeroes in on the nuances that are specific to them. Because I’ve had so much time to explore my art very in depth living here in Boston, I have a lot of those questions figured out for myself. I know what it feels like, and looks like, where my materials draw inspiration from, and what they reference. Knowing all those things is important to me. When I present something, I have a whole understanding of what this thing is. Some people make things and don’t understand what the materials say. Your outfit says rich, but the fact that your sweater is coming undone means cheap.

MARCIE: Can that be inhibiting? Do you then worry about appropriating, or your art being derivative or giving the wrong cultural message?

VOLVOX:I think that is what having a good understanding of what you do helps you with, so you can be sure your message is specific and focused.

MARCIE: I came out of my liberal arts background thinking that everything can be interpreted by somebody else to be the opposite of what you’re trying to do. I was trained to deconstruct everything, and sometimes that makes it hard to have a specific focus.

VOLVOX: I try to practice clear writing, so every word I use is specific to what I am trying to say. Once you learn to have very specific language, it’s harder to be misconstrued that way.

MARCIE: Or harder to counter your own thinking with conflicting feelings.

VOLVOX: The first step to clear writing is clear thinking.

MARCIE: For a long time, I was afraid to stand behind an opinion, because I could counter every opinion, even within myself.

VOLVOX: A lot of people don’t have enough opinions. We need people with opinions to lead these other groups. If you really believe in any particular thing and you can illustrate that to other people, it will help people have clarity in their lives.

MARCIE: A song can represent and preserve an emotional moment and opinion in time. If it was true in that moment, that’s what makes it genuine, even if you, as its writer, don’t agree with it later.

VOLVOX:: Even though that moment and opinion in time might not be valid for you anymore, when you create something like a song, (which is a piece of art), that someone else can experience anytime after that, who knows when that emotion will connect with the next person. That’s what art is about.

MARCIE: That’s probably why artists are never settled. We leave these creations behind thinking we’ve settled something, and then we’re a wreck about something new. Do you get frustrated by anything artistically?

VOLVOX: Seeing the art that is personal to you become popular and get filtered out. In reality, the people who create a scene and look are hardly ever the ones that legitimately benefit from it. How on earth did the goth look become the biggest look in the world now?? All these fashionistas…

MARCIE: Yeah, they have angst. Vogue has angst.

VOLVOX: I bet they do (laughs). I remember ten years ago, when teenagers were ridiculed in high school for doing this. Now upper crust, upper west side ladies are trying black nail polish and black lipstick. But that doesn’t give them anything. They’re not taking anything from goth culture. They’re not taking any of the openness or sexual exploration, or appreciation of dark whatever.

MARCIE: They’re just trying on a costume…

VOLVOX: Without understanding the actual lessons to be learned from that. That’s the most frustrating part. Usually what gets disseminated is the picture of art, like a cartoon of something. Not the actual thing. These are women ten years ago who probably wore regular Burberry. Now even Burberry has studs on it, and tries to rule over the young, the nouveau riche.

MARCIE: It devalues the reality of the separate experience when people only try on costumes and posture without understanding. Perhaps one group borrows from another’s vocabulary to fill the missing pieces in their own.

VOLVOX: For the most part, a lot of those people are very well educated. They just don’t explore the same realms of reality that artists do.

MARCIE: What are your current favorites?

VOLVOX: Sandwell District is my favorite techno label of all time. There couldn’t be anything better in the world than Sandwell District. All these old school, post punk, creepy, on the dark side tracks.
It’s what informs the Sandwell District feel. I’ve also been digging deep into the 80’s vinyl for my own inspiration.

MARCIE: Who is your favorite female Producer and/or DJ?

VOLVOX: Respect to the girls that do it in the United States. I love Lauren Flax. I recently met Bloody Mary who played at Make it New. I haven’t met a ton of female DJ’s….

MARCIE: I don’t know if believe that female DJ’s have something different to say than male DJ’s, I just know there’s a lot less of them.

VOLVOX: There are a lot less of them. What people say to me is that female DJ’s are a lot more focused on the party, and that emotional quality, and playing what makes people feel good, as opposed to playing what’s newest and cool. I feel like the male DJ’s are more focused on [one up-manship]. I think the women are more open to their emotional state, and that translates to their DJ set. I think women are more naturally prone to express their emotional state and share them through art.

MARCIE: I think it’s a lot of social influence. Guys have grown up with more exposure to the technical and computer side of things.

VOLVOX: I was lucky because my dad was an early adopter of computers. I learned about computer art specifically from a very young age. My father gave me the technology, and digital art, to utilize all those things to be creative and explore the world out there.

MARCIE: Do you have a favorite drinking game?

VOLVOX: I don’t really drink too much. There are two kinds of DJ’s. DJ’s that party their goddamned faces off, and DJ’s that are more moderate than normal. I’m more on the moderate side now. I used to drink when I was younger and in college, but you just kind of hit a wall….I do enjoy a quality cocktail.

MARCIE: What’s the most annoying sound? The best sound?

VOLVOX: I really really hate the beep of the new atm machines…ding ding ding the whole time you’re trying to go through your thing! I love the sound of lightning, thunder, and extremely heavy rain.

MARCIE: It’s cold in Boston! What’s your favorite winter apparel?

VOLVOX: This hat/scarf. I just discovered it at the goodwill the other day. It’s just a scarf that has a hood sewn into it. It’s Hanes Her Way from the 80’s. It’s literally a piece of crap, but I love it. I wear
it in this priestly way. I’m thinking about making these and selling them on my website.

MARCIE: I had one years ago, but it never looked as good as yours!

VOLVOX: That’s the difference material makes, the difference of subtle. If I were to sew this, the fabric would fold, and it would be pointy. But because it’s knitted, and soft and slouchy, it has a completely different message.

Volvox live on NYE:

Visit Volvox: www.djvolvox.com

Posted in: Interviews | Posted on December 10, 2010 by MarcieJoy