ECHASKECH – ARTIST PROFILE
February 13th, 2006 by rui
Echaskech at The Big Chill 2006
Biography
Summer 1983 and a chance encounter down the woods, Dom Hoare recalls:
"I was BMXing down the woods and getting some ace air off a bank when TWAAAPPING!! my brakes broke! The bike began to accelerate hard. I fought frantically with the controls, dodging branches and tearing through bushes, speeding up all the time. I thought my number was up for sure! Suddenly off to my right there came
a shout, "grab hold" it said, "GRAB HOLD WALLY!" It was another rider. "GRAB HOLD", with my last ounce of strength I clambered between the two streaking machines and onto his girly pannier. With me safe he locked the brakes, leaned into the slide and dropped us into a pile of leaves. My bike shot on, clipped a tree and span wildly into a thicket where it exploded with a thunderous boom! When I opened my eyes there he was, pointing at my burning ride and laughing, ‘Un-skills!’ ", He said.
"But I didn’t care, that boy was my hero. That boy was Andy Gillham."
The pair become firm friends and, unusually for the time, they discover a shared love of electronic beat music. Dom again:
"I remember hearing ‘Streetsounds Electro 3′ in 1984 and Kraftwerk’s ‘Tour de France’. I watched in awe as legendary dance maestro ‘Turbo’ made a broom appear to dance with him using the magic of ‘Electric Boogaloo’ or ‘Body Popping’. As an impressionable young kid that sort of thing makes….well… an impression on you!"
1987 and the rave scene beckons, listening to the music is no longer enough. They have to get involved. Both quickly learn to DJ and start amassing strange devices and tangles of wire. Soon they are helping to organise and performing at the ‘Madhouse’ parties. Dom:
"Them were the days, isn’t it? M25, roadside cafe partees, all nighters, UV backdrops, 8 k RAMP sound system, Strobes, Safe Security! All I can say is Big shout to Lord Nut Nut, The Original Orange and Apricot Flavor Ribena Man, and Dizzee, a big shout to yourself, thanks very much."
Andy Gillham: "Sorry about that, he gets flashbacks…..he’ll be OK…..yeah he’ll be fine!"
"Yeah I remember listening to a pirate radio back in the day, Dizzee D on S.L.R. I’d make a note of all the wickedest tunes then get the train to London the following Saturday and hunt them down."
Regular faces on the underground party scene, it isn’t long before our heroes (and some pals) start organizing their own night. ‘Information Party’ has been one of London’s best breaks & electro nights for the past six years. Dom:
"Information Party is all about fun, we like to party….as simple as that…simple formula, get the music right, not too chinscratchy, not too soulful/poppy, just a nice mix of fun and filth and then add a room full of smiling people, QED."
Echaskech
Echaskech (Etch-A-Sketch) is the combined fruit of lots of independent work by both Dom and Andy. Both have been producing their own stuff ‘on the quiet’ for years, but this is their first unified live set. The shift from bulky studio equipment and PCs to laptops means the live experience can be just that, live. Andy:
"Laptop ‘live’ used to mean: get on stage, boot up and press play! It’s totally different now though, with multiple channels from at least two machines you can do a genuinely live mix and give an audience exactly what they want. Its like good DJing but you create all the sounds… and it’s great fun!"
Echaskech are gigging all over London at the moment and building a good fan base. But admiration has come from even further a field. Dom:
"Icelanders seem to like our stuff, I keep getting emails through the website! I can’t explain it really but our tunes are melodic and dreamy with a little bit of filth that creeps up on you so perhaps they see something of themselves in it! Well who knows but I’m definitely not complaining"
Icelandic visits excepting the boys do have one stated ambition, Dom:
"We’d love to play at a summer festival, our music would be perfect for that laid-back-but-pumped atmosphere you get at somewhere like the Big Chill. We both go to at least two or three festivals every summer, can’t get enough of it."
