Thank you for the Music - An Explanation

When I was planning Kaffeine, one of the tantalising things about it was the fact that I would be able to play the music that I like and thought would be perfect. Music that made me smile, made me happy, kept me going, motivated me, or brought back memories.

I grew up in the 80’s in suburban Melbourne, so know all the words to Guns and Roses, Midnight Oil, INXS, Billy Idol, Bon Jovi, Pink Floyd and gangsta rap such as NWA and Ice T. But we were not going there.

Over the years electronic music has taken over, especially when I was living in London from 95 to 98, when it was all about house, rave, trance and chill out.

Through the 2000’s and life slowed down a bit, so it really was more about the quality, the beat, the mixing, the production and just a slower tempo overall.

But what to play? And how do we play it? It was very important. I wanted to it have that background beat, to be quiet in the mornings when we are quiet (the build up), to pick up during the day during service (the peak) and to drop down at the end as we are closing and we are a bit quieter (the chill out). Basically, an 11 hour long DJ set.

The first person I asked was of course Mrs K, and she suggested setting up playlists on the iPod that go all day long. Daylists, we call them. So that was easy. Now it was just a matter of building them. Easy to start with. The 20 or so playlists we started with lasted a while, but then just got repetitive and boring. The staff started asking for ‘better, more varied music please’.

Luckily, one of our baristas, Justin, was a music genius who loved the same style and he started creating playlists on his iPod in his spare time, now I am lucky to also have our lead barista and another music genius James doing the same. So we had a bit of variety.

We have gone through phases. Deep house to 80’s rap such as De La Soul, to current rappers such as Common and DJ Format, 80’s cheese, 70’s funk and soul to pop such as Jamiroquai and Groove Armada. For a while there we had Groove Armada on so much we banned it. Awful.

We have a c.d that when it comes on (J-Boogie – Dubtronic Science – Live in the Mix), we usually get really busy, seriously. We have c.d’s that will live on in the memory as Kaffeine legends (Cut Copy – Bright Like Neon Love, Whitest Boy Alive – Dreams, Mark Farina – Mushroom Jazz series).

I truly believe that music is such an important part of the ambience and style of the business, and we are as particular about it as we are our food, coffee and service. We adjust the volume as the peaks and troughs of service happen during the day, we plan our playlists to set the style of the day and to flow with the service, we do not let the music stop, it must always be on in the background, but not too loud, not too quiet, not obtrusive or offensive, just right, just there. It must also be, for our staff’s sake, varied and interesting.

Keeping these playlists going is a challenging but fun process, researching the artists/labels, getting recommendations, listening to samples, but it’s time consuming!. Here are only some of the albums/series/labels that we love and recommend, if you have/know any, please email me, we are always on the look out for new ones.

In the meantime, we say thank you to the music, and please enjoy our menu for this week

Om Records

(Artists such Miguel Migs, Mark Farina, Derrick Carter, J- Boogie, People Under the Stairs, DJ Chuck Love, Blue Six)

Series

The DJ Kicks – Stereo MC’s, Apparat, Motor City Drum Ensemble, Thievery Corporation, Kruder and Dorfmeister

Another Late Night – Rae and Christian, Zero 7, Fila Brazilia

Back to Mine – Groove Armada, Faithless, Nick Warren, Adam Freeland

Artists

Groove Armada

Common

Whitest Boy Alive

Cut Copy

Buzzin Fly series

Lemonjelly

Ben Westbeech

Booka Shade

Jurassic 5

Peter Dore-Smith
Director
Kaffeine Ltd
66 Great Titchfield st.
15 Eastcastle st.