Friday Roundup: Q&A: Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich on Atoms for Peace

In the first of a new Friday series, we’re sharing some of the articles that we’ve found the most inspiring online this week. Bookmark them, add them to your reader, or just kick your feet up and give them a look right now! This week, Thom Yorke of Radiohead on the state of DJ culture, five big myths about getting on in the DJ/music business that just aren’t true, and how the classical rules of narrative can help you put together better DJ sets.

1. Q&A: Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich on Atoms for Peace, the State of Dance Music and What’s Next for Radiohead – Speaking to Rolling Stone magazine, the Radiohead duo give their view on the state of DJing and dance music. Is it now about turning up at a stadium, doing your thing, taking the money and leaving? Or is it still about a two-way communication between dancefloor and a close crowd, something intimate and spontaneous that can’t be practised, bottled or marketed? Or can it be both? Read more
2. 5 Music Biz Myths Debunked – DIY Musician has a salient if (slightly) tongue-in-cheek list of things that common wisdom holds to be true about getting somewhere in the music business, and argues that they’re not really the case. It reads like a list of excuses for failure. (As such, it fits nicely with the articles Mike Monday has been writing for us recently.) Anyway, replace “music business” with “DJ”, and the article still works 100%. Read more
3. Building An Arc: Bringing Narrative Structure To Your DJ Sets – On Digital DJ Tips we speak a lot about beatmatching, using effects to transition between tracks, and so on, but in this article Dubspot’s writer Rachel Dixon steps back and looks at programming a set as a whole, and from a different perspective to usual. Here, she talks about how once you’ve mastered the basics, you can apply the same narrative techniques used in writing or classical music to programme your DJ sets in an exciting and dynamic way. Read more

What are your views on any of these articles? Do you have a “must read” you’ve found online this week that you’d like to share with us? Please share your thoughts in the comments.