North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
First stop of our research journey for The Art of Memory: Dub Music and the CCTV Tower: Katzensprung Festival, North Rhine-Westphalia. Dub Club Area. The gig of legendary Mad Professor is on, Sunday night, prime time. Fog is rising. People are thumping their feet to the beat of a past of different places and realities; echoes and reverbs in the German province. More people are dancing on the techno stage, its sound faintly audible when the beat of the Dub-soundsystem suspends. With only few people really knowing who is Mad Professor, we have a chance to experience this brilliant pioneer and engineer of Dub music up close. Unfortunately, we had to witness two festival guests interrupting his performance to take a picture with him. We preferred observing a child equipped with noise-cancelling headphones who stopped in front of the stage asking Mad Professor repeatedly for his name. Mad Professor answered whilst jamming verbally over a beat. Question: “What is your name?” Answer: “Six Million, Six Million…” Wait a minute – wasn’t that a short Mad Professor sample dug up by some DJ from Cologne, which we heard from the direction of the techno stage?
