Modern music, to a large extent, is bullshit. Major labels spend millions on elaborate press campaigns that are forgotten about the minute the album they deal with is out, and there’s more emptiness than ever.

Sure, there’s always been this sort of thing about – people have fucked their way to record deals since Rockabilly, but the internet’s tilted the focus further towards image and away from the music than ever before. Controlled leaks, viral campaigns, false economies on Twitter and Facebook and the rest of it – sure, they can be fun, and there’s no denying that FACT have been suckered into this sort of thing hook, line and sinker, but more than ever, we need throwbacks. People who have no interest in the bullshit, put out records they believe in, and DJ records that they genuinely love. Jack Revill, without sounding too wet, is one of those people.

Glasgow’s a city full of hometown heroes, some of whom get their due, and some of whom don’t. Revill has worked at the city’s Rubadub record store since he was 14, and despite racking up more than enough DJ bookings to make a living, still works for their distribution arm. In 2007, he started Dress 2 Sweat, a vinyl label focussed on Baltimore club music that also gave Rustie, Bok Bok and Piddy Py some of their first releases. The next year, he formed Wireblock with Calum and Neil Morton, and at the end of 2009, both labels coalesced, along with Stuffrecords, to form Numbers.

But the labels don’t seem like the focus here. More than a label boss, Jackmaster is a DJ, and in the tradition of fellow Glaswegians Optimo, he’s a DJ who plays whatever he wants, with zero commitment to what’s “on trend”. On any given night, you could see his sets lean on techno, bassline house, grime, disco or Toto.

Fabric have commissioned him to helm their latest mix CD, and although I’m sure his involvement in Numbers is a big reason for their choice, he hasn’t picked a single record from any of his labels – in fact, there’s very few modern records here at all. In his words, it’s a mix that’s “honest to his musical upbringing”; something more DJs should take note of when they’re trawling Beatport for the latest disposable digital release to start their sets with. But whatever. This is the biggest interview Revill’s given to date, soundtracked by a zip folder of music that’s inspired him. You should’ve skipped my intro about three paragraphs ago to read it.

“I heard this track on the house system and it really blew me away. While it was obviously retro sounding it was like the soundtrack to the year 3000 at the same time. Like music made for robots. The tune was Model 500′s ‘The Chase’”

I feel like there’s a ton to ask ’cause I don’t think you’ve given many in-depth interviews. So let’s start at the beginning. Everyone seems to cite the fact you’ve worked at Rubadub since you were 14 or a similar age. Was that work experience, or what?

“Yeah, it all started as work experience. When I was at school I had a fairly clear notion in my head of wanting to be involved in music. I played in orchestras and stuff on the cello but I had been getting into more and more electronic stuff so when the time came for work experience I thought ‘yeah, I’ll try working in a record shop’.

“Honestly I had never even bought a record in Rubadub at the time I applied to do the thing. Firstly because it was one of these scary record shops, especially when you were that young and smoked a shit load of weed, and secondly because my musical taste was pretty far removed from the stuff they were pushing in the store. I mean I had obvious techno records like ‘Knights of the Jaguar’ but I was more of a house kid, and at the far cheesier end of the spectrum. Loads of French stuff mostly but also your Defected, Subliminal, etc. Those were buy on sight labels for me at that time. So anyway I got this work experience stint and I turned up like two hours late on my first day. I couldn’t believe I had managed to fuck it up. I was shitting myself going in there but they just laughed at me. Anyone who knows me will recognise this as a pretty familiar scenario in my life.

“My first job was to stock-check the whole of the shop floor and arrange every record in its pertaining section into alphabetical order. I think this was a punishment for being late. It was an absolute mission but it probably taught me a great deal because I hadn’t heard of about 99% of the stuff in there. It was daunting but exciting in equal measure.

“A couple of days into the week I heard this track on the house system and it really blew me away. I was so timid then that I almost didn’t even ask what it was but I’m glad I did. It had this incredibly catchy lead melody and sounds which I hadn’t heard in dance music before. I later realised this was because they were all analogue. While it was obviously retro sounding it was like the soundtrack to the year 3000 at the same time. Like music made for robots. The tune was Model 500′s ‘The Chase’ and on the Friday when it came to say goodbye, that record was given to me as a reward for my hours.

“So then I was asked to do a Saturday job, alternating weeks with Calum a.k.a. Spencer. They used to call us the Blazin’ Squad. We got wound up something mental. I managed to get myself fucking sacked after a month because I used to stay out well late every Friday painting graffiti and I didn’t turn up one Saturday morning so I was swiftly replaced. But I wormed my way back in somehow. Again, anyone who knows me will be familiar with this kind of bullshit [laughs].”

“We spent that full summer buying music, chasing girls, smoking weed, taking those decks to house parties and subjecting people to some terrible music.”

How comes you’d been buying records pre-Rubadub? Was it an older brother had decks kind of deal?

“Yeah, it was all Calum really. He was like the guy in the year above me in school who had all the tunes first and would moan at me for buying the same records as him [laughs].

“We became pretty good pals this one summer after my mum passed away. Looking back, this is probably why I was just immersing myself in music at the time. It must have been the summer of 1999. Yeah, it was. I met him one day and he had been record shopping and I thought that was so cool man. So he taught me to DJ up at his house on some old Gemini decks and we spent that full summer buying music, chasing girls, smoking weed, taking those decks to house parties and subjecting people to some terrible music.”

And it was working at Rubadub that first got you into techno?

“Like I said earlier, it all started with Model 500. Then my boss at the time Barrie, who was more like a musical mentor to me when I was young, started passing me other bits like Optic Nerve, UR, Carl Craig, Jeff Mills and all that. Calum and I got really into the more electro influenced stuff too. You know the likes of Drexciya, all the Direct Beat bits, UK guys like Weatherall, Tenniswood and Ed DMX, Booty / Ghetto stuff, Dexter, the Clone label, Italians such as Passarani, Lory D.

“Rubadub was one of these magical places where you’d be handed records that you just didn’t see or hear anywhere else. A store that could shift 100 copies of an obscure as fuck electronica record, just because Martin would play it every week at 69. That rare kind of shop that wouldn’t stock a shit record just because they knew it would sell.

“I’d go in there with all the money I could muster and would never have enough to buy everything I wanted. I didn’t even get paid to work there either because I preferred to work on the rate of 1 free record per hour’s labour. My appetite for music at that point was insatiable.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 17th, 2011 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.