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Who: Dekoze
What: artist interview (Q&A)
Where: Sizzle Nightclub, 25 Hess St. South - Hamilton, ON
When: Thursday August 13th

Michael "Deko-ze" Babb began his career in the club scene in 1993, with the inception of the Plastic Puppet Motive. PPM was a Saskatoon based events company who created themed events for people wanted something different.  These 3 day events had people bused in from Calgary, Regina and Winnipeg to bringing everyone together. In 1997, he moved to Toronto to pursue bigger opportunities and since has become a staple in the Canadian dance music scene.

Tell us a little about PPM and how you guys began.
Plastic Puppet Motive started because there wasn't really much for options to hear good quality dance music. I mean, in bars you might get a mix. You get some rock, you get some pop. A couple of R&B and a couple of dance tracks. The dance tracks were more 2unlimited and that sort of thing.

There was one company (in Saskatoon) that through some one off events every now and then but there wasn't anything consistent. So we started up our own club P.P.M, which stands for Plastic Puppet Motive. A place for the gays, the Goths, the Ravers, the clubbers, the hard cores; You know the people that weren't part of the main stream, the people that wanted something different. You know we also incorporated a lot of the art community. They were constantly putting up shows and doing works. We had performances at each of our special nights. So we did this on Saturday nights. We also did a rubber event, a lust event, and a water event and they were all called "Pure". Like it was "Pure Lust", it was "Pure Water" and "Pure Rubber", to do something a little different, to spice things up.

Then after doing that for while we decided to take things up a notch, that's when we started putting on our three-day events. Where we brought out people like dj Misha, West Band, Electro Sky Church, Robert Olasik, Chris Liberator, Dave the drummer, Christopher Lawrence, John the dentist, all of them bring in different styles, different flavours.

My favourite was having Union Jack playing because they've been one of my all time favourite producers, remixes, artists. So it was really cool to bring them to Saskatoon. We would do these three-day parties but we would also bring out these busloads of people from Calgary, Regina and Winnipeg and bringing everyone together.

So we did that for a couple of years and then it got to the point where for me personally, I needed to move somewhere where there was more opportunities. So that's when we did our final "United" party that we did at the very first place I started djing, which was Club Diva's.

It got to the point that I was really, really happy, but it just got to the point where we all needed to move on and try different things. I was very happy to do what we did.

From seeing the country from coast to coast on a regular basis, What's your thoughts on the current state of the Toronto Scene as well as the Canadian Scene?
I'm really, really proud of what we have going on in here in Toronto. It's really cool to see that a lot of Canadian artists are being represented already at an international level. Even just here in Toronto there is so much talent here a lot of people don't realize some of the major producers that are making waves are right from here. You've got people like D Unity, Adam K, Soha, Chris Vench, Jelo. You know we have Mark Mendes, M1, Deadmau5, who are all really, really tearing it up.

When it comes to the club scene itself, I always find the scene is always changing and mutating over time.  There was a time when the scene was a lot bigger, but not everything can last forever. You usually find that when something really explodes, it gets to a point where it's a bit too over the top, a bit too commercial and a bit too accessible to people. So when it explodes on that much of a level you have to get to a point where it is going to return to the underground. The people that really love it, need It and hunger for it. Those are the ones that you are going to see out at events, and you know were just at that point again.

You can go to the East coast where they have smaller scenes, I find much more dedicated people. Because you're in a smaller place, there aren't thirty international dj's playing every month. You might get a special event once or twice a month. I find when you come out to events like that people are a lot hungrier for it. You feel a different sort of enthusiasm than you would in a bigger centre.

Already being a staple in the Canadian dance music scene, what are your future goals with djing?
I am currently signed to high bias records. I have two compilation cd's out so far and I am looking forward to getting more music out and have been working really hard in the studio. My latest track Explosive with Kid Massive and the Ram Lover mixes just came out last week so I am really happy about that. My goal is to keep doing my thing but take it outside of North America even a bit more then I'm doing now. It's a lot of hard work but I am ready to do it.

You used to write for Tribe Magazine when it was being published. What type of stuff were you covering?
I always found was where ever I was traveling or even just playing you know locally I'd always find that I would end up seeing these crazy over the top situations. So I started my article just to document all the ridiculousness and craziness'. People keep asking me if I'm going to resurrect that, and I think there might be a possibility. Sometimes I will be telling a story and people think "are you making this up?" and I'm like "there is no way that I can make this shit up."

Finding a live Dekoze set is a pretty tricky task. What's the reason for not recording and releasing them?
With having a couple compilations out and with cd sales, in general, being so poor, the label would prefer I don't have any other mixes floating around. People can come to get this one. However, I am excited about the idea of at some point doing... HAHAHAHAHA... I'm sorry. I'm laughing because I just got flashed! HAHA this is so typical of my life. I'm just standing here looking out the window on the phone doing and interview and I get flashed. HAHA wow and I'm not even at a club or anything like that.... Anyways where was I? So the one thing I am excited about doing at some point is a live mix. I'm really happy and really proud of being able to put out a couple of studio mixes. However on that same token spontaneity is very, very different than sitting in my studio and thinking about exactly when I want to bring in this track and when I want to work this and when I want to work that. That might be something to look forward to.

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