Spotlight: We hear you've got a new residency at Ministry, tell us about that?
MW: I'm one of the new resident DJ's for Ministry and have been since November 2010. This is amazing because Ministry has always been one of my favourite clubs in the world, so to get to DJ there at least once a month with the likes of Roger Sanchez, Fedde Le Grand, Mark Knight is a dream come true
What's your release schedule looking like at the moment?
We've got one release per month lined up for Diffused, we've just released one of my latest productions "First Aid" which is the February release, for March we have a track called "Outset" by an up and coming artist called Clashback, which includes a remix from myself, then we have more releases ready which will take us up to July. Its getting pretty hard to choose which tracks to put out as we're receiving so many great demos from producers and DJ's.
Michael Woods - "First Aid" by michaelwoods
I saw you did a demo/tutorial for the 'Touchable' app. How do you incorporate technology into your sets?
Around the end of 2010 I moved over from playing on CD's to using Ableton Live. This came about because I stumbled across a great new app which allows me to control Ableton with my iPad and after trying it out a few times I became hooked. I want to expand on this and get some midi keyboards in live also and make use of my musical abilities whilst DJing. The advance in technology has allowed DJ's and producers to become so much more creative.
What technological change would fundamentally change the concept of DJ and/or clubbing?
I think that technology has completely changed the way clubs and clubbers have evolved since the explosion of acid house. Before, it was only records, then CDs and computers, now DJs are playing from their Ipads. Track titles are going straight onto twitter as they get played and sets are being streamed across the globe. Every year something new comes around that will have an impact on the clubbing scene, even mobiles have helped with clubbers asking DJs to play records, so who knows what's around the corner next!?
You're playing on a big line-up at Cream on March 5th, you must have played there at some point down the years, what memories have you got of playing there?
I played there once before in 2010 and it truly was a great night, I played with Chris Lake, Funkagenda, Afrojack and Laidback Luke and the crowd was one of the best I've seen. Cream always had such a good vibe about it and its an amazing feeling to play there, especially with such a great lineup.
Leave me a question to ask the next DJ I interview?
'When you first started producing / DJing what was the biggest thing that pushed you into making music and djing?' or 'Name one record that got you hooked into dance music before you were involved in the scene?'
