Groove Armada - Richard Johnson

Big hands are useful. Especially to a DJ. Andy Cato, the tall half of English dance duo Groove Armada, blesses his big hands every time he scratches that vinyl. "But I'm also 6' 8", which means I've got further to bend down to reach my decks. And if I DJ all night, I wake up with backache." At the insistence of his girlfriend, Cato met a slightly shorter DJ, Tom Findlay, in his mother's attic. To complicate matters, the attic had a low ceiling. "And I had my decks set up on an incredibly low table," says Findlay. "I remember watching Andy trying to remix Candy Statton. I was stoned, and all I could think was 'My God, that man is massive'."

Findlay and Cato don't look like DJs. They aren't troubled by too many designer labels, and smile way too much. But then these aren't your natural disciples of techno. They haven't got a gritty urban past to point at. And they are proud of their musical accomplishments - even if Findlay is jealous of Cato's reach on a keyboard. And the way he can make a trombone cry. Cato learnt the trombone in a small mining village in Yorkshire. It was like something from Brassed Off. "Trombone is all about diaphragm control, and the first 30 minutes of the lesson would be me - lying on the floor - with this wizened old coal miner standing on my chest to improve the strength of my diaphragm. It helped my breathing. It didn't help him. It was the coal dust that killed him in the end."

Findlay and Cato launched the Groove Armada club night in London in 1996. Their disco/funk thang tapped into a wave of nostalgia, and was a success. But they always wanted to make their own music, and released Northern Star in1998. A big beat album of Balearic styles and jazz funk, it was all but ignored. To make Vertigo, their second album, they rented a toll cottage in the Lake District in the North of England, with 15-ft walls and a conservatory that looked on to mountains- or what pass for mountains in England. The only distraction was a village shop that sold bargain-bin CDs. Cato and Findlay picked up a K-Tel compilation featuring Patti Page's 1957 hit "Old Cape Cod". They mixed a smart sample from the record - and Cato's mournful trombone - and came up with "At The River", the soundtrack to the English summer of 1999.

The subsequent success of the Fatboy Slim remix of I See You Baby made sure Vertigo was such a success when it was released in the UK. It relied on more original material than Northern Star. "Nine times out of ten, when you're sampling something, says Cato, "you think 'I wish that cowbell wasn't there. But it always is." "And Elton John loved it" says Findlay. "When Interview asked him to play at their birthday party, he requested we played too. He had listened to the album really carefully. He didn't just talk about songs- he talked about bars and chord progressions. Apparently he bought 200copies for his friends. And when he bumped into Madonna at the airport, he just said 'Have you got Vertigo?' She smiled and said 'It's in my fucking bag, Elton."

Vertigo is an aural mosaic - ideal for before and after the club. Hell, maybe even at the club. But Groove Armada want to prove they aren't just a studio duo. They intend to get down and dirty - for us all to see. They have played live, but want to be the best live dance act on the block. "Which isn't that difficult," says Findlay, "because there isn't much competition. With the exception of Faithless." That doesn't mean they will stop the sampling. "We'll just sample weirder things," says Cato. "Like the American Paper and Board Association promoting careers in paper-making. Or this Vet, down on his luck, that we heard in New York. He just started singing. Absolutely mesmerising. Before we'd come round, he had gone. It would have been a great sample. Now we carry a mini-disc wherever we go. That won't happen again."

Manumission is a huge club in Ibiza that incorporates a live sex show. Tom and Andy were staying in the same hotel as some of the strippers, and one of them offered to do a personal show just for them. They were a bit dumbfounded. She did the strip, but I think they would rather have had a nice cup of tea.



		Groove Armada Big hands are useful. Especially to a DJ. Andy Cato, the tall half of English dance duo Groove Armada, blesses his big hands every time he scratches that vinyl. "But I'm also 6' 8", which means I've got further to bend down to reach my decks. And if I DJ all night, I wake up with backache." At the insistence of his girlfriend, Cato met a slightly shorter DJ, Tom Findlay, in his mother's attic. To complicate matters, the attic had a low ceiling. "And I had my decks set up on an incredibly low table," says Findlay. "I remember watching Andy trying to remix Candy Statton. I was stoned, and all I could think was 'My God, that man is massive'." Findlay and Cato don't look like DJs. They aren't troubled by too many designer labels, and smile way too much. But then these aren't your natural disciples of techno. They haven't got a gritty urban past to point at. And they are proud of their musical accomplishments - even if Findlay is jealous of Cato's reach on a keyboard. And the way he can make a trombone cry. Cato learnt the trombone in a small mining village in Yorkshire. It was like something from Brassed Off. "Trombone is all about diaphragm control, and the first 30 minutes of the lesson would be me - lying on the floor - with this wizened old coal miner standing on my chest to improve the strength of my diaphragm. It helped my breathing. It didn't help him. It was the coal dust that killed him in the end." Findlay and Cato launched the Groove Armada club night in London in 1996. Their disco/funk thang tapped into a wave of nostalgia, and was a success. But they always wanted to make their own music, and released Northern Star in1998. A big beat album of Balearic styles and jazz funk, it was all but ignored. To make Vertigo, their second album, they rented a toll cottage in the Lake District in the North of England, with 15-ft walls and a conservatory that looked on to mountains- or what pass for mountains in England. The only distraction was a village shop that sold bargain-bin CDs. Cato and Findlay picked up a K-Tel compilation featuring Patti Page's 1957 hit "Old Cape Cod". They mixed a smart sample from the record - and Cato's mournful trombone - and came up with "At The River", the soundtrack to the English summer of 1999. The subsequent success of the Fatboy Slim remix of I See You Baby made sure Vertigo was such a success when it was released in the UK. It relied on more original material than Northern Star. "Nine times out of ten, when you're sampling something, says Cato, "you think 'I wish that cowbell wasn't there. But it always is." "And Elton John loved it" says Findlay. "When Interview asked him to play at their birthday party, he requested we played too. He had listened to the album really carefully. He didn't just talk about songs- he talked about bars and chord progressions. Apparently he bought 200copies for his friends. And when he bumped into Madonna at the airport, he just said 'Have you got Vertigo?' She smiled and said 'It's in my fucking bag, Elton." Vertigo is an aural mosaic - ideal for before and after the club. Hell, maybe even at the club. But Groove Armada want to prove they aren't just a studio duo. They intend to get down and dirty - for us all to see. They have played live, but want to be the best live dance act on the block. "Which isn't that difficult," says Findlay, "because there isn't much competition. With the exception of Faithless." That doesn't mean they will stop the sampling. "We'll just sample weirder things," says Cato. "Like the American Paper and Board Association promoting careers in paper-making. Or this Vet, down on his luck, that we heard in New York. He just started singing. Absolutely mesmerising. Before we'd come round, he had gone. It would have been a great sample. Now we carry a mini-disc wherever we go. That won't happen again." Manumission is a huge club in Ibiza that incorporates a live sex show. Tom and Andy were staying in the same hotel as some of the strippers, and one of them offered to do a personal show just for them. They were a bit dumbfounded. She did the strip, but I think they would rather have had a nice cup of tea.

		© Richard Johnson 2000 - 2009