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Hard Dance Awards

international news _ 16th October, 2006

Hard House’s Even Harder Dance Awards

Text by Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)

Hard dance hedonist Ed Real chatted to Skrufff this week about the upcoming annual Hard Dance awards and insisted the much maligned genre is ‘after a tough and sometimes traumatic adolescence, flowering’.

“The hard dance melting pot in 2006 includes; techno, trance, electro, hardcore and psy influences which makes for a really interesting DJ set if you're an adventurous spinner,” said Ed, ‘The boundaries are blurred now and it's an exciting time.”

The physically imposing renowned party animal also insisted hard dance fans are no harder than those of other genres though conceded some of the DJs and producers could occasionally step out of line.

“Ours is one of the most friendliest of scenes in terms of vibe and interaction between artists and fans, though there are certainly a few characters though who have had episodes that they'd rather forget in a physical sense,” said Ed, “But unfortunately I'd probably get my head kicked in if I mentioned any names.”

“Needless to say after a weekend working the decks and driving up and down the highways and byways of the UK it'd be fair to assume that most spinners get a little tired and tetchy. Late nights and overindulgence sometimes brings out the worst in people. It's a fact of life,” he said.

He also insisted few in the scene begrudge the large numbers of hard dance DJs developing parallel careers in breaks or electro, declaring ‘dance music has gone dirty in 2006 and naturally leaders in our scene are turned on by anything with some bollocks. Hence the attraction of the new crop of electro house, breaks (or drum & bass in my case) to our ears.’

“It takes real dedication and perseverance to get any kind of DJ work and to cross boundaries and play events in another genre is even harder to achieve because of the tribalism associated with dance culture,” Ed added.

“But this also brings back new ideas and sounds to the hard dance melting pot which can only be a good thing. I've been dancing to 'hard dance' since Final Frontier at Club UK in 1993 and will no doubt be doing so in 2013. It'd be a boring world if everything stayed the same,” he concluded.

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