Interview with Meshkov of Nooncat and RTS.FM

Deutsche Übersetzung findet ihr hier

Q: I want to do a rather unusual interview with you. Most Interviews with DJs end up in questions like: “When did you start, what do you play, what is your equipment, what was your most interesting experience when DJing”. I hope this OK with you?

A: ok 🙂

Q: However, I have to start with one question about you. For how long did you play at Deep Mix Radio Moscow and what is your current role at RTS.FM?

A: I played at Deepmix for about 7 years. Since September’09 I am the Program Director of RTS.FM.

Q: I have a couple of Russian colleagues, which I meet twice a year. Every time we meet they put their arms into the air and say in German: “Bitte nicht schießen!”. According to my Russian colleagues it is related to a famous stereotype in Russian movies related to Germans. Can you tell us a few other stereotypes about Germans, especially post Cold War?

A: Ahaha, I can remember only one: common name for all Germans is “Fritz”, like “Ivan” for all Russians.

Q: Wladimir Kaminer, a famous writer, who has been living in Berlin for more than ten years now, says that one can identify his neighbor being Russian, when they have their lights turned on all day long. Energy prices must have been quite cheap a while ago in Russia. What do you think about the future of electronic music considering Peak Oil: what will happen with electronic dance music, if we cannot afford cheap electrical power anymore?

A: Maybe pocket atomic power stations will help us? Or mobile wind generators 😉 BTW., did you see this on YouTube: Wood Techno?

Q: Yet another Russian friend of mine likes to talk about his time as a student. They drank a lot of Vodka (of course), but in hard times they had to switch to Spiritus (grain alcohol). After promising that I will never ever tell it to his wife, he told me that there have been even times were Spiritus were hard to get and that they switched to Kölnisch Wasser (Eau de Cologne). Can you tell us something about Vodka and Spiritus or about other interesting substitutes? (Editors note: actually it was Trojnoj odekolon (70% Alcohol), because “4711 Kölnisch Wasser” was extremely rare and only available at 5 – 10 times the original price).

A: Thanks god, i can’t )

Q: A completely different question: in vinyl times traveling by plane was sometimes difficult. What was the most overweight you had when playing abroad?

A: 20 kg was always enough for me. Once I had ~50 kg, but I traveled by train, to the Ukraine.

Q: What is your current music project?
A: It is called Nooncat:  http://www.nooncat.com/

Q: Tell us a bit about RTS.FM. On the website we can read “The first interactive radio in Russia”. What does interactive mean in this context?
A: It was the first Russian (perhaps not only Russian) Internet radio project with a live  video stream, so everybody could watch artists playing music live, write in the chat,  publish pictures, etc. Also users could communicate between each other by internal  messaging system.

Q: Is RTS.FM looking for new DJs and DJ sets? How one can apply for being broadcast by RTS.FM?
A: Anybody can send us a demo mix and will be invited to play in anyone of our studios. Of course if we like their demo 🙂 But we don’t broadcast simply audio mixes, artist have to play live in front of a video camera. Or another solution, if there is no RTS.FM studio nearby: if you have proper equipment we can provide our “virtual studio”, so artists can broadcast their own show from anywhere or simply record the show and we publish it as podcast, offline.

Q: What does RTS.FM mean?
A: Nobody knows, except the RTS.FM owner, it’s a big secret I guess 😉

Notes: Interview was done via email by Hakan Küçükyılmaz 2011-03-25 and 2011-03-28.