Laurent Garnier: “I’m not going to play on CDs… fuck that, no way.” [1994]

Laurent Garner has always been one of techno’s more imaginative producers, following up early rave stompers with The Man With The Red Face and more ambient work such as The Cloud Making Machine.

This interview with Top DJ Mag from 1994 finds the Frenchman, sporting a Save Vinyl t-shirt, in playful form, particularly when it comes to his future DJ career.

“In two years time, maybe something else will be big, I don’t know what, maybe something new will take over from the DJs. In ten years time, there aren’t going to be any more vinyls, a lot of DJs are going to die. As soon as this is going to be dead, what are we going to do? I’m not going to play on CDs… fuck that, no way. I can’t mix from fucking CDs…no!”

Elsewhere in the interview, Garnier mulls on his early career in Manchester’s The Hacienda and Paris’ Rex club, and reveals how he caught the production bug somewhat by accident.

“In 1990, I went to a studio in England with a friend of mine, he was used to making records so he had a 24-track studio blah blah blah. I went there to do a jingle for one of my nights in Paris, just a 30 to 40 second jingle. And we ended up doing a track, and the day after we signed the track, funnily enough.

“So I thought I might as well carry on making music, and I got more and more into it. Even now, I’m getting very much into my production. Now I want to make it into more of a career, but first of all, it was just a laugh.”

The interview is also interspersed with the videos for Acid Eiffel, Planet Sex and Dark Comet, three of Garnier’s early classics, while the full video, running for an hour, also features a stellar array of early house and rave classics, footage from the Universe Global Dance Party in London, as well as an interview with Kevin Sanderson of Inner City.

[Thanks to www.laurentgarnierworldwide.com for the link, and Manu Charman for the Youtube upload]