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Tuning In with Anne Savage

Author: Clare Dickins
Thursday, July 7, 2005
Think the genre box is for Anne Savage- If so, then you better rethink that belief. Like contemporary Lisa Lashes, Savage is breaking out of the hard dance mould and making waves in the breaks world. In January, the popular spinner teamed up with breakbeat producers Coburn to release the slick electroclash-styled funk of Sugar Lips. According to Savage, this is only the beginning, too!

Congrats on the new breaks release Sugar Lips you did with Coburn! Has the track given you a new lease on life in the industry- (i.e. being involved in something non-hard dance related)
Thanks for the compliment! I'm happy and relieved that it's done so well. I'm doing more breaks gigs than ever and, yeah, it's been a real tonic. There can't be many DJs that are happy only playing the one type of music their whole careers.

The breaks scene is known to turn its nose up at hard dance. Did you initially face any snobbery from the breakbeat massive when you released Sugar Lips-
Pete Martin & Tim Healey (Coburn) are genius producers and they took more of a gamble by working with me than I did with them, hence using a pseudonym. I had a pretty good idea that people wouldn't even give it a listen if I'd used my real name.
I've been doing a show on Ministry Of Sound called Freakybeatz for a couple of years now so a few people were already used to hearing me play music other than hard dance. I was slated on a few message boards until we released Sugar Lips but, since then, people have been really cool and supportive, especially the other DJs and producers in the scene.

How did your partnership with Coburn about-
Jay [hard dance artist Jay Pidgeon], my boyfriend, used to manage Tim - we went down to Brighton to stay with him and his family and realised we had so much in common. We both have a really broad taste in music and hit it off really well.

What's coming up next for the breaks project-
We've just signed the follow up called We Have The Technology to Great Stuff in Germany again - I prefer it to the last one. There's a 64 bar live Moog part which is truly mental.

It seems to be a growing trend in the UK, whereby hard dance stalwarts are moving away from the more conventional forms of the sound and experimenting with breaks and techno. Did you personally get a bit bored of hard dance-
Like I said earlier, there can't be a DJ alive who's been in the business as long as I have, and not wanted to keep moving things forward. You'd have to be pretty boring to only like one kind of music. I still love my hard dance - especially now the boundaries between it and other styles are being blurred.

Psychedelic influences seem to be increasingly creeping into hard dance productions of late. Are you a fan-
Yeah, haven't really got much of it myself but I like what I've heard.






Lisa Lashes and BK both joined big-time agency Nettwerk Ornadel Management last year. When I last interviewed Lisa she commented, "obviously Ben and I wanted more. We want this one to one service, we don't want to be second in line to a record label." Does what Lisa says resonate with you-

Well, unlike those two I've never been signed exclusively to a record label. I had 5 happy years with Serious Artist Management (Judge Jules' company) and was always treated as an individual.

You recently signed with Most Wanted DJ Management - a global management agency. How has being on a roster of such established artists effected your DJing career-
I left Serious mainly because Most Wanted have a better global roster and I felt I'd been done to death in the UK. So far so good!

Your boyfriend Jay Pidgeon is a respected and successful hard dance artist in his own right. Is there a friendly rivalry between the two of you-
Not at all. We have different styles and rarely fight over vinyl! I wish we played together more often if anything.

Every man and their dog seem to be starting up their own label these days. Ever been tempted-
I u
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