confessions of an irish redbull eater

so i am back in berlin trying to come to terms with and take in the events of the past two weeks that i spent at the redbull music academy. it was an amazing and somewhat surreal experience. from the moment we were picked up at the airport we were taken care of completely. each day we had lectures in the morning and afternoon(more like early afternoon and late afternoon) which lasted on average about two hours each. the lecturers were amazing, my favorites were chuck d , john dent (mastering legend), sly and robbie, moritz von oswald (basic channel), joel martin (quiet village), wolfgang voigt (kompakt), i-f, tom oberheim (synthesizer pioneer), marco passarani and dennis coffey. the academy took place in a disused textile factory which was refurbished especially for the academy. the structure was pretty incredible and was full of great art installations from local artists like jordi ferreiro. the building also contained eight studios which we were free to use after lectures finished each evening. the equipment in the studios was great, i especially liked the analogues synths like the tb-303, tr-909, sh-101 and the juno 60. i think im going to have to buy a juno...


apart from all of this though, the most important and interesting thing about the academy for me was the people involved, the participants and the team behind the academy. each of the participants were really talented and interesting people who were exceptionally good at what they did. each night there were gigs on and i was consistantly surprised by the talent that was on show. i played two gigs while i was there, one in moog which is a lovely little club with nice sound and one in fellini where i played back to back with the other irish participant, rory d. we did ourselves proud, particularly in the jaeger meister drinking stakes...


the studio team at the academy were also really talented individuals and it was great to be able to ask people like russell elevado, benji b, mark pritchard, tony nwachukwu, dj zinc, Erik Breuer etc for advice... they were really knowledgable and more impotantly approachable.

all in all it was an amazing experience and one i will not soon forget...

for a more indepth account of goings on at the academy including videos of the lectures and photo galleries, check out the website at www.redbullmusicacademy.com