Miguel Migs creates some of the most soulful, lively and catchy house music this side of Chuck Love. So, why on earth did he let his latest full-length of original material, Those Things, get the remix treatment for Those Things Remixed? Find out the answer to that and get a few other fun facts in the final part of this two-part interview.
THAT'S MY JAM: OK. When I was doing a little bit of research, I saw that you were in a band that did kind of like reggae, Caribbean-flavored stuff.
MIGUEL MIGS: Yeah, kind of reggae, kind of rock influences. Yeah, it was when I was a teenager.
OK. How did you make that transition from doing that to the soulful house you do today?
Well, I was actually living down in a town called Santa Cruz, Calif., which is about an hour and a half south of San Francisco, and it was like a reggae, dub band. We were playing ― I’ve always loved reggae and dub my whole life and we had a pretty cool, like very culturally diverse band, you know? A lot of people in the band were from different parts of the world, like from Africa to Europe to, you know, the Caribbean and whatever. So, it was a really cool experience to be able to have all those minds and talents come together, and we were just writing a lot of original material and performing on the weekends, and things were going really well, but at the same time I was coming up to San Francisco a lot to go to these sort of underground warehouse parties and events. I was really attracted to this sort of communal vibe in the music, and right away, sort of the sounds of the more deeper, soulful side of the spectrum of house music is what initially like caught my ear and grabbed me. Just being more hands on and creative, coming from, like, writing and playing music, I just right away found it interesting and bought a keyboard and started experimenting with, you know, throwing down sequencing and beats and arrangements. And when my last band ― when that band that I was playing with at the time broke up, it was sort of a natural transition, because I was getting really into electronic music and just sort of channeled and focused all my time into experimenting more with writing and creating electronic music. So, it all just literally kind of went from there. And then I moved up to San Francisco and started mixing tracks in the studio, before you know it, it kind of spiraled, you know, rolled into what it is today.
OK. Do you think you’d ever want to get back into doing live music or even bringing some of that live music into your sets?
Yeah, actually last year I started ― I’ve wanted to do a new live project and a new band, but more doing the kind of music that I do now, sort of a cross-blend of funk, soul, electronic and dub all sort of combined. And actually, I started a new band, an eight-piece live band called Petalpusher. Actually, Petalpusher is a name that I used to go by, a moniker I used to do a lot of the music on a label called Naked Music, which I did a lot of material for in that late ’90s and early 2000s. And basically, what it is is an eight-piece band where we’re sort of learning a lot of the material from my album, for instance, and one of the singers, Lisa Shaw is her name, we’ve collaborated and worked on a lot of stuff together through the years. She’s been singing and we’ve pretty much been doing her material and a lot of my material from Those Things, and we actually played 12 shows and it went pretty well. We also played an event with Lenny Kravitz and, I mean, it’s definitely diverse kinds of events because the live element opens it up to be able to perform in all sorts of different scenarios. It was actually a great start to get this thing rolling, it’s just very time consuming, you know, dealing with so many people and rehearsing, and all that between my already full schedule of running my label, Salted, and DJing full-time and touring, and also writing and creating music in the studio. It’s just been a time issue more than anything, but if so, I’m definitely going to continue and move forward with it and keep trying to push. And actually, next week we’re doing a couple more gigs up in Seattle and Vancouver, and then we’ll just sort of see what happens from there.
Nice. Do you have a preference for doing one or the other? Like, do you have a preference for maybe doing live stuff or doing the DJ stuff?
Hopefully I would never have to choose one. They’re both exciting forms of entertainment and music in different ways. Of course the DJ thing is pretty convenient, you’re one guy going on the road with your bag of music. It’s pretty stress-free for the most part, and I’ve been doing it for a pretty long time now, pretty much full-time. I do love playing live because of the fact that there’s a certain spontaneity with it all, and every night’s sort of a different experience with it when you’re playing with the band and performing live. And I really love the way it just sort of comes together when there’s so many people contributing their talents and efforts into a show. It’s a very exciting process for me, as well, a whole different rush in itself. But hopefully I’ll just continue to do both, but I definitely want to push this live thing forward, there’s no question about that.
OK. And I was also curious, too, about your current thoughts on, I guess, the state of dance and electronic music in general right now. I guess it’s been kind of dead on the radio for the most part, but I was kind of interested in your thoughts just on the scene and maybe the places where people play this kind of music, and the people that are listening to it.
Well, look, this thing is so global. It’s a small sort of niche in the big spectrum of the music industry, yet it has such a massive, global sort of fan base. It’s always surprising to me, you know, because basically through all the touring and constantly being on the road and playing everywhere in the world, from Iceland to Brazil to Russia to Asia to Australia, it’s totally global. You find these places all over the world where people have the albums and come to the shows, and they know all the songs. It’s pretty interesting, yet of course, it doesn’t get a lot of support from anything in mainstream radio. It’s always been sort of a more of a connoisseurs market, or people that are really into it follow it and then come to the shows and all that. It’s really very global. I mean Europe is always really strong, and I play out there a lot, and they obviously have a lot more support for it on the radio. It’s always been a part of their lifestyle, you know, going out to clubs and dance music and all that. Of course, in the states, it’s extremely strong as well. I’m constantly on the road out here and seeing the support from Miami to New York to Chicago to L.A. to Seattle to San Francisco. I mean, it’s definitely not a shrinking market by any means. Where one place might slow down, there’s always another place or city or country where it’s becoming popular and growing. I’m definitely seeing that in South America at the moment. We’re getting a lot more people going down there and more CD sales going down there, as well, as a lot of requests [come] from there. And Asia, as well. Those are a couple of the places I know of starting to become a lot larger. So, it’s just one of those things that’s ― to someone who doesn’t really know about it or is not really following that, they wouldn’t really see that. But from my perspective of traveling and being out there all over the world all the time, I’m seeing the masses and the massive amount of support and people that are into it, and coming out for all the events and all that. You know, it’s really strong, like I said, in Europe, parts of Asia, and Australia. Every year I tour, I go to some festivals down there that are pretty off the hook. So yeah, I mean there’s definitely a lot going on with it globally.
www.myspace.com/djmiguelmigs
www.saltedmusic.com
Look for "The Musicality of Miguel Migs" in the premiere/June issue of the San Francisco edition of 944 magazine.
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