We often talk about it, and we all think about it, however very few individuals are able to describe the electronic music culture in a way that encompasses all levels of the scene in the same way that filmmaker Courtney James has done in his latest project The Global Groove Network. From the dance floor to the studio, from Ibiza to your iPod, the culture of this music is far reaching. This wide spanning network of electronic music is all around us and in his documentary, Courtney discusses the circular relationship which exists between the dance floor, the DJ, and the listener to create a positive community where we are all DJs in our own mind. We all have a soundtrack to our lives, and his is electronic music.
After leaving the scene for a number of years, he found himself going through record crates and rediscovering the music he loved when packing boxes following a breakup. He decided to start going out to parties again, and listening to his favourite DJs. He quickly learned that he may have left the scene, but the scene never left him. Courtney found a home within the music. The positivity that electronic music projected was what he needed during this time of his life. Realizing that he cannot be the only person that the music and culture touched in this way, as well as finding a void in the number of documentaries about Electronic music culture, Courtney decide to make a film to help showcase to the world the peace, love, unity and respect which existed within this growing group of people.
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Spanning over the course of six years, the film covers all aspects of electronic music culture. Covering the life on the Toronto dance floor in the 90s, to the tribal sensibilities of Burning Man, while including interviews from the likes of DJ Dan at Winter Music Conference to Sander Kleinenberg at Café Mambo in Ibiza, there is no electronic stone left unturned. Insight into Courtney’s own past as a young raver at Industry Nightclub in Toronto opens the film, followed with interviews between producers and promoters, which help in showcasing the levels of interaction existing within this intimate yet large scene. By covering the fundamental institutions to electronic music such as Miami’s Winter Music Conference, Ibiza and Burning Man, the importance of such places in the music’s history legitimizes the existence of there being an actual culture behind electronic music and leads way to his theory of these institutions being “places of worship” to many in this electronic world.
I sat down with Courtney at the beginning of his Kick Start Campaign, which marks the final stretch of fundraising and promoting the film on its road to its premier at Winter Music Conference 2013. Courtney provides greater insight into what the Global Groove Network is all about, the existence of this culture within the increasingly connected world of the ‘Facebook Generation’ and the need for positivity and cooperation between DJs and the audience for this music to continue evolving—the need for less talk, and more dance.
Featuring: Carl Cox, Pete Tong, Richie Hawtin, Mark Farina, Steve Angello, DJ Sneak, Nic Fanciulli, Armin van Buuren, Max Graham, ATB and many more
In your film you cover a lot of things that many people think and that many people have conversations about, but you chose to put it into a film. Why did you chose to do so?
It just happened in the moment, in terms of where I was in my life. I just came out of a long term relationship, about nine years. You know, you find yourself at the beginning of your life again…I started going through old music in the midst of packing, seeing some of my old records. I started looking online and rediscovering the music and seeing where some of the DJs I used to listen to were now, and then I started going back out to parties again. I hadn’t been to an event in close to 10 years because my girlfriend at the time was more into alternative rock. I hooked up originally with the Nocturnal magazine guys, they don’t do so much now but back in the day they used to be heavily involved with the electronic scene here in Toronto. I happened to be very good friends with one of their cohorts and they invited me to WMC. That was my first real experience back in the scene and WMC was the first thing I decided to film. I figured I could hook up with them, hook up in a bigger way with some of the DJs that I didn’t’ have any relationships with prior. I basically took my credit card, bought all the gear and headed down. I took a friend of mine down with me as a favour who was a cinematographer and we made it into a real film shoot. I got about 10 hours of footage, not all of it was good but some of it was. And that’s why this process has taken as long as it has. That’s