It’s now been weeks since Bestival and Hectic still hasn’t really recovered (see the festival review), I asked if he was a Bestival ‘virgin’. “Yeah, never played there before and was looking forward to being part of the legendary ‘Fat Tuesday’ vibe. My set time on early Friday evening coincided perfectly with a rather splendid sunset, and there was a good mix of those lounging in and outside the tent, those getting their cocktails on and those warming up their dance moves for the weekend! After my set I did a quick stint on Bestival FM in a kinda original-pirate-radio (Radio Caroline) style, playing a load of soul, funk and bluesy stuff, which was good fun.

News of Dr. Rubberfunk supporting Gwen Stefani seems to have been misplaced, “I’m afraid it appears that was down to an over-excited press person somewhere… I think someone has got their wires crossed. I heard that it made it onto the Bestival site though; whoops!”

Did anyone else impress? “I caught a few other sets. Mark Ronson (with Doc ‘Citizen Smith’ Brown) was pretty cool, despite the obvious sound nightmare he was having, but I had to leave late on Friday night to catch the ferry home. Would certainly love to play there again next year!”

News of Dr. Rubberfunk supporting Gwen Stefani seems to have been misplaced, “I’m afraid it appears that was down to an over-excited press person somewhere — it wasn’t me who supported her, it was the Fort Knox Five guys, so I think someone has got their wires crossed. I heard that it made it onto the Bestival site though; whoops!”

You never know, he might drop ‘Hollaback Girl’ on his next DJ set gigs (Friday 17 November, Half Cut Club @ The Makumba, Leicester) and at the ever-popular Jelly Jazz (Wednesday 22 November @ The Quay Club, Plymouth). So, what can you expect to hear? “Probably ‘party-style’ sets. I’ll play quite a mix of styles; hip hop, funk, jazzy beats, disco type stuff — all in new and old forms, but I try and keep the vibe from becoming too trainspotter-ish. I’m more interested in seeing people dance than anything else, so the crowd and the venue will dictate how ‘deep’ I can get.”

As I write this, Simon is in Holland at the Amsterdam Dance Event (now that sounds like one hell of a party) but getting back to records, why did it take 3 years to follow up The First Cut? “Well, there wasn’t really a timeframe for it, and I spent a lot of 2004 working with the label to get The First Cut distributed more widely around the world, so it wasn’t really until 2005 that I started pulling together the many ideas I had for tracks. I was doing a lot of remix and production work last year too, which was great, but obviously ended up delaying work on my own tunes and for every track that made it onto the new album, there’s probably another one that didn’t for one reason or another.”

Any plans for the ones that didn’t make it? “Some of those ideas may well resurface in the future, some won’t. We’ve spent a lot of time since the early part of this year fine-tuning a few tracks to really make the album hang together, but despite the inevitable frustration that arises when things get delayed, I was conscious that the record would be ready when it was ready, and that was fine by me. I’d like to see if we could do the next one in under 3 years though.”

I’ve been a big fan of tracks previously released on 12”, ‘Watch The Tables Turn’/‘Live Wired’ and ‘Riding With The Ratman’/’Theme For A Latter-day Lothario’. Does that leave any room on My Life At 33 for any more great tracks? You bet there is; full review coming soon. Some tracks are typically Rubberfunk and others are not. Not as diverse as an average John Peel show but enough to say, My Life At 33 is a Hectic favourite at the moment.

Links:
www.funkydown.com
www.myspace.com/drrubberfunk
www.myspace.com/amsterdamdanceevent — 3 NIGHTS, 30 CLUBS, 300 ACTS/DJ’S 19-21 October 2006, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
www.soxan.co.uk “Lothario was a character in Nicholas Rowe’s 1703 play The Fair Penitent, who seduces and betrays the female lead. The name has come to mean any lecherous individual, especially male”. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothario