The Wiseguys return

by Alias

The Wiseguys. Or should it be the Wiseguy? The latter seems a more apt description of the act. Theo Keating, aka Touche, handles the production duties individually, tours solo under the banner, and is in the studio with a cast of assorted guests presently preparing an album which by his own admission will blow everything else out of the water.

Sound confident? Well yes, even a little cocky, but Touche has every reason to believe that the future will be nothing but bright. 1999 has been an absolutely massive year for the Wall Of Sound stalwart. A UK top five, an Ibiza anthem, a "Top Of The Pops" appearance, consistent US touring, and a deal with the Dust Brothers Ideal label. Rather amazing considering Theo played to a half empty, relatively unappreciative crowd last February as part of the Vibes On A Summers Day tour.

'Since last February all kinds of crazy shit has happened' muses Theo down the line from London, 'over here "Ooh La La" blew up and gave me a UK number two single, so its all been pretty hectic at home. I did "Top Of The Pops" and I've been dealing with having my foot in the mainstream which has been quite fun and plus I've been going to the states a lot during this summer because I've signed to the Dust Brothers label over there, and that obviously involves trips back and forth to DJ and do interviews and hook up with those guys, so its been hectic yeah!'

"Ooh La La" certainly took its time to blow up over in the UK. Originally released as the lead off single for the 1998 album "The Antidote", it found favour amongst the UK tastemakers when it was used as part of a Budweiser advertising campaign. The subsequent success all seems a little odd to Theo even now.

'It was not expected at all, that's why it was such a laugh because it wasn't like anything was invested into it at all. It's not like a pop band where if it doesn't happen it's so disappointing because the label has so much invested; it's just like hey, fucking hell, look what's happening. Let's try and ride it and obviously capitalise on it as much as we can. But who would have thought, really. It was a laugh!

'Like here I was doing Saturday morning telly on "Top Of The Pops", and it's like never in a million years did I think doing that kind of stuff, and there I was.'

The appearance in question was even more surreal than the events leading up to it, as Theo explains.

'"Top Of The Pops" is always like miming, everyone lip syncs. And I was like "Shit, what can I do?" as obviously I couldn't get Sense [Live] and Season over from New York to play "Top Of The Pops". So anyway, I know the guys from Ugly Duckling, who are a hip hop group from America, who we were helping to put out here, and they happened to be around at the time doing promotion and touring, so I was like "Why don't I get them to do it!" So I started doing a couple of television shows with them, and on "Top Of The Pops" it just went mad! All the girls at the end rushed us, jumped over the barrier and started dancing around, fucking bananas!'

So while Theo may be renowned for his hi-energy breakbeat anthems, this producer is a b-boy at heart, with a love for hip hop that is as strong as anyone's. Check out the Wiseguys debut set "Executive Suite" or the majority of "The Antidote" to see the evidence. Both are chock full of Transatlantic hip hop gems. Theo believes that although "Start The Commotion" and "Ooh La La" found favour with the club kids as opposed to the hip hop headz, all his music is coming from the same place.

'For me hip hop has always been about varied speeds. I think now hip hop has come to mean music of a slower tempo usually with rappers and quite minimal and I think that's a very narrow view. I used to be a breaker, and you just don't break to music of that tempo, you break to fast music, and when you listen to old hip hop like the Jams you can hear the breaks they are using, quite fast breaks, and those give me a lot of energy. If I'm Djing I like to play uptempo funkier hip hop stuff early, just to build a set and get everybody rocking, and it got to the point where suddenly there were no records like that to play. So I started making them myself, with the same techniques that we would use to make the slower stuff, just upping the tempo and putting in a good hook, because there ain't nothing wrong with a good hook!

'I think hip hop got to a stage where it got too atmospheric and minimal and just plain fucking boring. It always has to have an edge to it, and there is a lot of amazing hip hop at the moment that has that. I think that when "Jurassic 5" came out people were like "Yeah! I can actually listen to this without standing against a wall, showing how much I'm really into hip hop, and the DJs were like "Thank fuck, I can actually play out a hip hop record without getting blank stares from all the birds'.' While 1999 has seen a small backlash against the sound commonly referred to as big beat (from such big players as Fat Boy Slim and Jon Carter), Theo still feels the sound of breaks has a lot of life left in it. 'I think there are a lot of people making really good records,' Theo enthuses. 'Just because these records incorporate breaks does not mean that it will go stale. On the other hand there are a lot of people making really shit records, and their days are numbered. I get sent stuff all the time, and as opposed to a year or two ago, there has been a dramatic increase in the amount of tunes that are actually useable, which is encouraging.'

Hopefully Theo will be playing out some of these encouraging records when he heads down to Australia to play a part in the larger than life Halcyon Knights Y2K festivities. Just don't ask him for any Nu-Skool breaks.

'That's not really my cup of tea,' he mutters. 'I think a lot of that stuff is just teenage boy bedroom music. It's just like I don't really have a girlfriend, I play computer games all night, and I sit here making tunes on my sampler while my Mum screams "Turn it down your tea's ready".'