Karl Puschmann on how a new vinyl release and a sudden passing link a previously defunct Kiwi record label, a famed Swedish producer and Wellington’s influential music scene of the 2000s.
Vishal Vasan laughs gently and says, “You know, it sounds awfully dodgy, a chance meeting in the Jazz Cafe toilets …”
It certainly does. We all know the sort of illicit party-going carry-on that takes place in the bathrooms of popular clubs in London’s hip borough of Camden. But in this instance it was legit.
This makes the toilets in the iconic music venue an unlikely bridge between a globally recognised Swedish beats producer, an upstart New Zealand record label and the influential, mid-2000s music and DJ scene here in Aotearoa New Zealand.
The link running through them is Vasan, a Wellington DJ, self-confessed vinyl junkie and man about town. Back in the day he was DJ-ing club nights, was involved in the famed producer MPC battles of the era and lived with DJ Mu and Dallas Tamaira from Fat Freddy’s Drop in a flat on Ghuznee St. His bedroom must have had the best acoustics in the flat as the pair recorded the early, pivotal Freddy’s track Midnight Marauders in it.
When Freddy’s took off and booked their first European tour, Vasan travelled with them as their tour DJ. He played a lot of electronic-based hip-hop like DJ Krush, DJ Shadow and the stuff coming out on labels like Ninja Tune and Mo Wax, making him a perfect complement to their sound. It was after a Freddy’s gig in Camberwell that his life would change.
“This guy comes up and goes, ‘Man, I love what you’re playing. Do you want to work in my record store?’ I’d always wanted to work in Soho, on Berwick St, where all the record stores were, so I ended the tour with the boys. Fourteen years later I was still in London doing the music buzz.”
At the time it was the music hub of both London and beats culture, its narrow streets filled on both sides with indie record shops, the offices of indie record labels and DJs hustling to get their hands on the limited amounts of new releases landing in the crates each week.
“Back then, you’d miss out on records. You’d have five quid left and be like, ‘Should I get this record or that record?’. Then you’d go out and someone would play the one that you didn’t get and you’d be like, ‘Ahhhh s***. I should have bought that one! It’s an absolute stonker,’” he says, laughing at the memory. “You’d go back the next day to try and find it and it’d be sold out. And then your mates would be like, ‘Hey Vee, I’ve got that tune. You really like this one, eh? Shame you can’t play it.’”
Because of this friendly rivalry and competitive desire to have the tune, Vasan explains that DJs would tend to have a signature record.
“You’d want to try and get these secret weapons, a little anthem you’d thrash and people would know, ‘Oh, Vee’s playing,’ or, you know, Mu would have certain ones. Obviously, when Mu played anything it was way cooler than any of us.”
Vasan’s sonic signature was a track called Running from Love, a reggae-tinged, head-nodding hip-hop joint out of Sweden by producer Freddie Cruger, with guest rap vocals by his fellow countryman ADL. It’s not surprising to learn the tune resonated with Vasan. Listening to it today it sounds like it could be a long-lost track from Wellington’s glory years.
Freddie Cruger and Vishal Vasan.
When it was announced that Cruger would be DJ-ing in London supporting a band at the Jazz Cafe, Vasan was first in line. Shortly after Cruger’s set, he went down to the bathroom.
“I clocked him and I was like, ‘Bro, are you Freddie Cruger? I’m a massive fan of yours. Running from Love doesn’t leave my record box and I came here from New Zealand,’ and he goes, ‘New Zealand? Crazy.’ And we got chatting and I said, ‘Hey, do you want to come to an after-party bro?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, man. I’d love to.’ He was just so bubbly and friendly.”
To say the pair hit it off would be an understatement. While at the party, Cruger - real name Fredrik Lager - invited Vasan to visit him in Stockholm. A week later Vasan was on an EasyJet flight to Sweden to stay with Cruger and his girlfriend (and future wife). It was there that he told Cruger about his dream to start his own record label. He explained how he had the location and the network. He just needed an artist to put out. Vasan said he wanted him.
“He was like, ‘Cool, man, just choose what you want.’ We sat there listening to tons of unreleased music that he’d done and I selected two of my favourite tracks.
“These were I Love to Rap, which featured a rapper called Swing Fly and a tune called Take Me to the Limit, which follows the blueprint for what we now call the Wellington sound.”
As well as it being the first record issued on his newly formed, vinyl-only label The Elephant, Vasan would become a distributor for Cruger’s other releases including those he put out under his alias, Red Astaire. With his label, Vasan focused on 12-inch single releases, the DJ’s format, rather than albums and wanted to “shine a light on Aotearoa music” from his home base in London. To gather attention he’d ask his array of friends to do remixes.
“Through the record store, I got to meet all these interesting people. The Next Men were my first flatmates, I met DJ Vadim and Luke Vibert … all these heroes we kind of grew up with listening to and DJing their music. I had the creative platform and could get someone cool to do a remix.”
It was a golden era but times changed. CDJs and then Serato software saw turntables being replaced in clubs. For a vinyl guy like Vasan, it held little appeal.
“I’m old school,” he grins. “Two turntables and a mixer.”
The sea change saw his interest drift and he began getting involved in promotion and putting on parties and events. He eventually returned to New Zealand and got reinvolved with our music scene, albeit in Auckland. He’s currently promoting events with his company W1, a nod to the London borough he called home for so long and Wellington, and has plans to open a vinyl-only whisky bar in Commercial Bay early next year. He’s also busy working as showrunner on a new live music show called Noise Control, which is streaming online and features performances from local artists like Troy Kingi, Coterie, Paige and There’s a Tuesday among others.
Wellington DJ Vishal Vasan. Photo / Nick Paulsen
Meanwhile, Cruger continued releasing tunes under his various aliases and getting bigger and bigger, becoming a force in the underground scene and gathering fans like DJ Jazzy Jeff, experimental R&B singer Erykah Badu and the influential DJ Gilles Peterson.
“In 2003 he was getting all this traction with a tune called Follow Me. I was like, ‘Dude, we’ve got to do a tour to New Zealand.’”
They teed up a small tour for Cruger through Australia, then gigs in Wellington and Auckland and a headline slot at the Splore festival. Cruger made friends everywhere he went, hanging with the Freddy’s crew, becoming close friends with Ladi 6 and her partner DJ and producer, Parks, and hanging in the Piha sun listening to tunes with Submariner at his house.
When asked why Cruger’s music resonated so strongly, Vasan answers quickly.
“It had a distinct sound that touched on the Kiwi style,” he says. “And our soul.”
Last June Cruger was suddenly rushed to hospital in his hometown of Stockholm after a suspected heart attack. Three days later he passed.
“It hit me really hard,” Vasan says, the emotion still visibly raw. “It was a shock. For everyone.”
He got the call during a friend’s dinner party. After processing the news himself he realised he’d have to be the bearer of the bad news and start calling Cruger’s New Zealand friends.
“There were all these people that he touched. Everyone he met in New Zealand from Auckland to down South. He built these really strong connections. It was real tough, because, he was one of us, an honorary Kiwi.”
To honour the legacy and raise a glass, Vasan is resurrecting The Elephant for one more release. While going through some old laptops he found a whole lot of music, including a remix tune that he, DJ Vadim and Cruger, under his Red Astaire alias, had planned to release before vinyl fell out of favour. Subsequently, it’d gathered dust on his hard drive. Until now.
Vasan has just launched a pre-order for a 12″ release of Red Astaire and DJ Vadim remixes of Future by DRW on limited edition red vinyl. In a first - and only - for The Elephant, it will also be available digitally. This is because Vasan is sending 100 per cent of the profits from the release straight to Cruger’s two teenage sons.
“It’s a love letter to Freddie,” Vasan explains. “It’s a way for me to say, ‘I love you, bro,’ and tell the story of what an amazing human and producer he was and how he touched so many people in Aotearoa. Julian is 16 and Elijah 14. They’ve lost a dad which is pretty tough. They really want to come to New Zealand now and check it out, because Freddie spoke so fondly of it here. So even if this release could go towards a little fund for them to one day come and hang out, that’d be quite nice because everyone’s got a beautiful story about our beautiful friend Freddie to tell.”
* Red Astaire & DJ Vadim remixes of Future by DRW on 12″ red vinyl is available for pre-order and digital download now at theelephantrecords.bandcamp.com
