Park & Wilson shake the tables at Musro

Park & Wilson shake the tables at Musro

Joseph Mangga, Contributor, Jakarta

Compared with most pop stars, your average DJ is a very odd creature indeed. On stage, the only instruments they play are a CD player, two turntables and recordings of someone else's music.

In the studio, they are the ultimate musical mad doctors, brutally dissecting various songs and sounds with computers and samplers, before stitching them back together Frankenstein-style into funky mutations of truly monstrous hit potential.

Then, while most recording artists try and keep the same name for their entire career, these schizophrenic identity freaks will change their name and collaborators at the drop of a record needle!

Prime examples of this are Michael Wilson, Mike Parks and John Graham -- three top UK progressive house DJs, often collectively known as the production team Parks & Wilson. Parks and Wilson played Musro in the Borobudur Hotel in Jakarta on March 7, while cutting-edge DJ John Graham (Quiver) is scheduled to play Musro on April 17. Indika 91.45 FM Radio is the main sponsor for both events.

Either alone, collectively or as the Parks & Wilson duo, these three well-respected DJs have produced an impressive collection of club hits under an ever-changing potpourri of names, including Odessi, the Ritmo Rivals, Rapscallions, Elysium, Analogue City, Blood Brothers, Ritmo De Vida, Stoneproof, Kanna, Mixed in Kilohertz, Freestyle FunkBoogie Maneuvers and yeah, of course, Tilt.

"Tilt is our sort of pet project, we keep it close to our hearts. When we want to do something bigger and more exciting, or a bit fresher, we go for it. We don't ever use it unless we're 100 percent sure it deserves to be called by that name. Otherwise we use something else," Parks said.

Wilson added that the Parks & Wilson projects were more of an underground thing, basically what the audience hears them play in the clubs.

The three house music lovers all come from Coventry, a rough and tumble industrial town right in the heart of England, about 50 minutes north of London.

"It was once voted the most boring city in Europe, so it's not a very cultural place to come from. Some good things happen there, but it never lasts because of the violent element," Parks said.

Recordings of their tracks can be found in the record bins of virtually every major DJ in the world, with many showing up in major remix collections by superstar DJs like Danny Tenaglia, Sander Kleinenberg, Peter Tong, John Digweed and Sasha.

But the three got their big break with a string of club hits that included Dream, Spirit and Places on Paul Oakenfold's Perfecto label.

"Oakie, as far as a DJ entertainer goes, you're not going to get any better than him. He gets the crowd going absolutely mental. He might not be the best mixer in the world (or) musically what we like, but as far as getting the crowd going, he's the best," Parks said about Oakenfold, who is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's most successful DJ.

Toward the end, we just had to ask the boys about a few of their more memorable road stories.

"About five years ago on New Year's Eve (we played) a massive warehouse in London. Paul Oakenfold was on before us, so all the lights were off when we got there -- pitch black. Then when the lights come up there were like 24,000 people there in front of us. Just a blur of heads. Incredible!" Parks said.

For Wilson, it was his 30th birthday, when the boys flew to Ireland after a two-day sleepless weekend club-bender in London.

"We hired out U2's penthouse in their hotel. They got a hot tub on the roof you hear about all the time in the magazines," Wilson said.

Parks said that Robert De Niro was there the week before, and they were in there with all their scabby mates.

"We set the record! We had the most people in their hot tub and room, since anyone's ever had it!" Wilson said.

So you broke a record, in U2's own hot tub?

"That's official!" Parks said.

For more information about DJ John Graham at Musro on April 17, call 384-2050/380-5555 or listen to Indika 91.45 FM Radio