Sweet Headache

Sweet Headache feat. Swing League

The Electro Swing fever is taking my home city Cologne by storm right now. A few weeks after our own Swing United-party, there is a second party happening that is dedicated to Electro Swing and related genres: Swing League.

I am actually happy to see this happen. For me, this is not competition, but rather a sign of a growing interest in this sound. After all, a genre needs more than a few people to become big.

I talked to the two DJs behind the Swing League parties, Phonkmaster and Rautzi to figure out how they got infected with the Swing fever.

“I heard Electro Swing for the first time from a friend a couple of years ago. Normally, I play other styles like Dubstep and Drum&Bass, but this sound somehow stuck with me. Then, a couple of months ago I played a small gig in a bar, and I played some Electro Swing. I had inteded to just play some background music, but quite a few people and even the people who worked there came to me and told me how much they liked the sound. That was when I realized how much potential this sound has.” (Rautzi)

Both DJs still play other styles, but when I asked about their musical background, it became apparent that a big motivation for both was to play electronic music that was very dynamic, not monotone:

“I always wanted to play sets with peaks and depths. A good DJ set is very dynamic for me, and I find this in a variety of styles. For example, I used to play a lot of Nu Skool Breaks, Fidget House and similar stuff. One of the biggest compliments to me is when people say to me that they normally don’t like electronic music, but they love the stuff that I play. This is also true for Electro Swing: Many people haven’t heard about it yet, but love it when they first hear it.” (Phonkmaster)

Both are originally from southern Germany and have organized parties in and around the cities of Karlsruhe and Pforzheim. While Rautzi still lives in that area, Phonkmaster moved to Cologne about a year ago. While the potential in a big city like Cologne seems to be bigger at first glance, the smaller cities like Pforzheim also seem to have some advantages:

“People in smaller cities certainly don’t specifically look for electronic music parties, but you can still make this work. I used to organize a party series called Monkeystyle in southern Germany, and we noticed that if you just do it and make it rock once, then people will come to subsequent parties, too. In a way, this is a matter of making your party a brand, and that’s what we are trying to do with Swing League, too.” (Phonkmaster)

“The most important thing to us is to have a good time at our parties. I don’t know how this will work out and if we will be able to make this big, but as we have fun playing the sound that we like, we are happy.” (Rautzi)

The first Swing League event already took place at Prinzenbar (Pforzheim) last month – and from what I heard, it was a great success. The next one will happen on October 22nd at Coco Schmitz (Cologne). I will certainly be there!

You can also find the Swing League production “Bring the Swing Back” on the last Swing United-compilation.

Here is a current Electro Swing mix by the Swing League: