Right now the dangerously-hospitable Manumission office in Can Negre is a whirlwind of media enquiries and last minute bodice-sewing. Meanwhile others from Meganite, also opening at Privilege this week, are relaxing on the terrace of their Jesús apartment.
Of course despite sharing their host venue the two operate on a quite different scale. Manumission have been in operation for more than a decade, possess more degenerate friends and associates than could possibly be accommodated even into the 10,000 capacity venue they call home, and have expressed a desire to incorporate yet more chaos into the 2005 ‘Mish edition.
Meganite opens two days later, only utilises half the club and is rather less costly.
Chris Liebing (left) is the resident and business partner of Meganite’s progenitor, Mauro Picotto. The solidly-built German dj/producer met the Ibiza Spotlight 24/7 Media Hospitality Team last night over dinner at a famously dj-friendly hotel to recommend strongly the warm chocolate cake and the concept of a good value night out.
“One of my interests was we don’t do the night too expensive,” he told us. “It’s ok for other nights which are established and which by now even offer a super huge program with super mega decorations and super super mega acts and artists jumping up and down where it’s really justified to pay like 40, 50 euros to get in. We wanted to start out by presenting the music we do, which doesn’t mean we don’t want to grow. And that’s why we thought let’s do a decent price which Privilege the club and we all can live with, so people can come and check it out.”
In person Herr Liebing has that sincere, slightly haunted look of all djs when describing a musical project into which they have invested precious grams of their soul. He dearly loves the music he creates in his studio and plays out. On Wednesday he’ll be unveiling a couple of extra-fresh collaborations.
“Last week Ben Simms was playing on Friday with me in Frankfurt so he came early and we spent two days in the studio. Yeah I told you the chocolate cake was great,” he says, as we are interrupted by the arrival of the reputedly delectable desert. “We spent two days in the studio and did two tracks. They’re not finished but they’re playable. That’s something I look forward to playing because I think these two tracks came out quite well. And I have some new remixes which I hope people will have a good time to. I did a remix for Mauro Picotto. Mauro did a remix for me about a year ago and at that time we said we’d do a swap deal sort of thing. At the beginning of the year he gave me a track and I remixed that. I did a remix for Henrik B and a band called Motor on Novamute, that’s a real acid track, a very machine gun-like track. Industrial acid maybe. Phil Kieran, a remix, but that’s sort of more like an edit because it’s not going to be released. And I have some more edits of other people. I always try to do like little things to have a more unique music.”
How did you feel on July 7 last year when you had the opening party for Meganite?
Chris Liebing: We were totally nervous. When you start a new night there is no precedent for it and you cannot compare it to anything. And so you’re standing there at one o’clock and there’s maybe 40 people inside. And you’re like ‘Is that it? Is not anyone else interested in coming tonight? Or is it gonna go off at two?’ And you can’t ask anyone. Also it’s techno. How do techno people go out? What’s their cycle of partying? Do they go early, or do they go much later, or do they go out at all? Are they even existing? We didn’t know. But then from 2.30 I noticed the dance floor was happening. I was like ‘Whoah – alright! Even if it stays like this tonight I’m happy because everyone is dancing.’ And then it ended up even more people. There was one in August with Ben Simms that was around three and a half thousand. That was really good. We opened up areas which we never intended to open up.
Why do you think Meganite worked where so many others have bombed in Ibiza in general and at Privilege in particular?
Maybe it’s a little bit the right time for the music. Maybe it took a long time and a lot of work by Cocoon for example. The music is a little bit different to other kinds on the island. And I think Cocoon has done a really good job since five years ago daring to promote and bring this different vibe of music. It’s always easy to come here with like a super commercial night and and if you have enough money you book the most commercial djs and hope its successful. But I think the time is ready now that we can play our sort of music on the island. People have extremely lot of fun to this energetic music. And also the combination with me and Mauro works well. Mauro being from the famous side, known world wide sort of dj, and I brought in the credible part. And people who came to the night wanting to hear me or Mauro ended up hearing us both hopefully enjoying us both and saying ‘Wow that’s cool. That’s opened up our minds as well.’
Why are you here three days before you have to play?
I was in Barcelona and it would have been a bit stupid to fly back to Frankfurt. I would have enough to do in Frankfurt like studio work and things but I’ve been working very very much in the last three, four months. Like every day. I don’t want to come here stressed.
What are you planning to do between now and Wednesday? Manumission?
I’ll probably check out the opening and Manuel already told me I should come by and check it out and especially to check out the new sound system at Privilege. It’s apparently very good. They have a completely new GBL system. That’s the main system in the club now. So probably I will check out that and I definitely want to check out Cocoon at Amnesia. When I was here last year I always went to Cocoon, because I have a lot of friends there and djs that I know and it’s just fun to sit there and hear the music.
Who’s playing?
James Holden and Sven Väth.
And Tuesday?
These three days is a sort of holiday for me. I like to work, I love it. And I really feel bad if I take a day off because I really like to work in the studio and do things. So I forced myself to take two days off in Ibiza. But this season in Ibiza is really important to me, and I definitely want to do a good job.
Are all the other Meganite guys staying in your apartment?
Not really. It depends if they want to stay in the hotel here or if it’s people who feel comfortable staying with us. Like Therese and Adam [Beyer, playing on Wednesday], It’s more fun to stay together. You can sit on the terrace.
Would you ever buy a villa here like Erick Morillo or Pete Tong?
If I had the money I would consider it.
Has Mauro got one?
Mauro has an apartment here. Last year he bought an apartment in San Antonio.
Is he here already?
He’s in the States, still. I think he’s gonna be arriving tomorrow night or Tuesday morning.
Who books the djs?
Last year, we basically made the decision we do Meganite again. Two months later we met and sat together decided together the line up. Everybody put in his thoughts, but it was pretty easy because we both agreed on the same thing. This year we tried to do system different to that which usually happens with guest djs on the island. Usually the club has a guest dj who plays like once and that’s your guest dj and the next night you have another guest dj. But we thought since it was possible for us to book the likes of Adam Beyer or Marco Carola, we decided on have them come back two or three times.
What is it you like about Adam Beyer?
We just have a good history together. We’ve always had a lot of fun playing on the same gigs, from the first time we met when we played at the Omen together, maybe ’96, ’97 in Frankfurt. And it resulted in more mutual interest in each other’s music. I was always interested in his music and I was happy to get to know him one day in Frankfurt and then we ended up playing at gigs together all over the world. And at some point we even hooked up the mixers and we found out it works really well to exchange the music not only in private times but also when we dj. When you have a dj coming back to play in Ibiza you already have the vibe a little bit more. That’s what I learnt for myself. I was only playing one time at Cocoon and I was like ‘I’m playing in Ibiza, what am I gonna do with the people?’ And you’re worrying and stressing out what records do I play, and after the night is over thinking about what records you should have played to make it even greater. It’s good but you shouldn’t have worried too much about getting people on the dance floor, because they come in and they wanna dance anyway. It’s a big difference, people are here on holiday, they wanna have fun. You don’t have to make them forget a crappy week in the first two hours of the warm up. I think it enhanced the quality of the party. I think because we know each so well for a long time, and also the other djs, you just create a different vibe from behind the dj booth. It’s like you are here together in order to have a good time together with the people in the club. I think people notice that.
Can you tell me what time you guys are playing?
No, we haven’t really sorted it out but we will sort it out in a way that everybody plays at a good time. That might mean that everybody only plays an hour each, because we have to close at 7.30 or 7, but at least four to five hours the club will be full, so everybody plays a good time. We sort of play spontaneously so it may even be that all four of us play at the end together going wild and crazy and that’s the good thing about it. So we’ll leave it a little bit to see how the flow goes, how everybody feels that night. There’s no-one who will sit down and go ‘Here’s the line up’.
Carl Cox says it was his idea to put his head on an Ibiza billboard first. Would you agree?
Did he say that? I think Carl we need to have a discussion about that. He put his face on there I believe as a cartoon or a drawing. It’s like a drawn face. But honestly we did not have ever that in mind when we did the billboards last year. It was actually Mauro who came to me. I wasn’t that keen on putting my face on some billboard but Mauro explained it to me. It’s a good combination with Mauro because we come from different angles but it’s sort of a cool combination. He explained to me that if you’re here in Ibiza and you wanna have a good night and we want to get close to the people and we should show our faces so let’s put our faces on the bill board. We never even thought about that Carl has something like this going. So this year are faces are even bigger and maybe next year you see only our noses it’s so close up.
What’s with the Meganite boat in the marina in San An? Do you own that?
That’s actually Mauro’s boat. He put a big sticker on the side of the boat. It’s a really cool boat. We have had two or three trips to Formentera last year and it’s really nice. Being on a boat here in Ibiza is really great anyway.
Mauro gets on the forums on his own site (www.meganite.co.uk). Do you?
Mauro is much quicker in answering his forum emails than his real emails. I’ve sort of my own website, www.cl-rec.com. I’m actually quite in touch with my guest book. I always read what’s on there, make comments if it’s necessary.
What web sites do you like?
I’m not a super big surfer. I mostly use the internet for technical websites, like Ableton live to get the latest updates of some software. I try to inform myself about the technical side of things but I’m not really a big surfer when it comes to parties, what’s happening here and there. I mostly can’t attend anyway, so it’s not so useful me.
Magazines?
Not really. I don’t get too many English magazines in my hand in Frankfurt, and when I’m on the road I don’t think about going to the magazine store to get the latest things. German magazines we get sent to our office, I take a look through and moan if they wrote bad things about me and I am happy if there’s nothing about me.
Is there anything else you’d like to add about anything at all?
I would say let’s enjoy the chocolate cake. I can add that I have a mix CD out. It’s gonna come out in the summer. We’ll probably try and hand them out on Wednesday night. It’s live recording of a mix I did in Belgrade in March this. It’s just called ‘Live In Belgrade’. After the set I just decided I should release that one because it was sort of special night with everything what happened around that night. And Belgrade is a sort of a crazy place as well, has always been a crazy place, and that’s why all these things make me think I should put this into a mix CD. And so we took this set and release it exactly as it was. I think we will definitely take some copies on Wednesday night. We will release it on my own label.
