Danny Kuperberg

Oliver Som, a talented mixing engineer and sometime producer who has worked with such international names as Robbie Williams and James Blunt sought Danny’s help with piano and keyboard playing techniques in order to aid his work. He works closely with celebrated producer Guy Chambers. This has fed into all of their musical ambition and creativity.

Wonderful privilege to participate in this authentic album project with these two ‘80s legends. I collaborated with them on the English Eccentrics album, providing the keyboards and some of the arrangement, but here’s the clincher. I didn’t even know I was! Suddenly I found lots of publicity with my name on it. ‘Keyboard wiz Danny Kuperberg contributes to the album featuring Suggs and Toyah. A pleasant surprise, for sure, but baffling! Then it hit me: the young guy who was dubbed a techno-wiz was actually a student in North London and I’d given him about ten lessons. Unbeknownst to me, I’d been collaborating with one of my heroes! Such is the music biz and it’s unexpected publicity jolts.

I do have wonderful memories of both ’It’s A Mystery’ (Toyah) and ’It Must Be Love’ (Madness), who I adore anyway. One of the main reasons I so wanted to play Camden’s The Dublin Castle, solo, just voice and keyboard, was because it was where they made their name. And of course, I’d hung out a lot in Camden Market weekends as a teenager. Still, the nostalgia feels great. The creative possibilities when you hear music like this, aged 11 on your Walkman (no vision), are limitless.

Danny in the middle. His students making him feel old!

I developed Amped for over ten years (2005 – 2017) into a showcase gig at authentic London venues for talented 16 and 17 year old musicians to really show off what they can do. They were from all backgrounds and performed all styles with true style, displaying real creative talent. The genres ranged from rock to R&B, from hip hop to soul. And crucially they played authentic gigs (no school halls or churches) in and around Camden Town and beyond. They played their instruments live – quite the opposite of the plethora of karaoke identikit celebrity wannabes sadly striving to make a name for themselves on TV talent shows nowadays.

Our young talent actually wrote their own songs, played actual instruments and, thank the Lord there were no manipulated vocals and certainly no Autotune to hide the fact that they probably couldn’t hold a vocal melody. No dance routines either! They gigged at venues which are the real deal. Yes, it’s nerve racking but also so very rewarding. Many of them told me that they would never forget the experience. I’m so proud of them all!

BEAT and Woodhouse College pick students, mainly from the London borough of Barnet, but also Camden, Enfield, Haringey, Islington and Brent London boroughs. They must audition and pass a music theory test, and the standard is high. We can realistically claim that we have some of the finest young talent potential in a large area of North London.

All of this is the absolute antithesis to the reality TV vocal talent shows that grace our screens so routinely nowadays.

Every student must produce and engineer all of their own performances in our state-of-the-art recording studio at Woodhouse College.

This afternoon gig NEVER takes place in a church or school hall. Most 16 year olds I’ve come across know that isn’t very cool. And I agree.

I want to give them an authentic, tough, realistic but above all fun experience. To show them how gigging can be both extremely nerve-racking, thrilling and creatively fulfilling at the same time.

If it goes well and they’re inspired by the experience, they’ll have the bug for life.

The BEAT contemporary music technology A-level department at Woodhouse College was headed by Danny Kuperberg (2005 – 2016). And our wonderful talented alumni have a lot of success stories to show for it, for example:

Sophie Hiller: main backing vocalist on all of Tom Jones’ international concert dates. Sophie studied Music A-level at Woodhouse.

James Turner: Works at The Dairy recording studios. James is chief sound engineer.  He’s mixed and recorded for Joss Stone, Nitin Sawhny (who owns the studio) and other international star names. He also helps on live sound and PA at Glastonbury. James is a talented guitarist too.

Michael Jablonka: Brilliant blues lead guitarist. Has toured internationally with countless acts including NDubz. His own band The Dark Tides, is highly respected within the industry and often plays backing for name acts.

Our students mainly gig in Camden Town, legendary hub for much of the UKs pop and rock talent.

They also gig in Crouch End where Danny lives. Crouch End is very much a part of the London studio and musician scene. Konk studios, owned by Ray Davies of The Kinks, still hosts name bands, and over the last forty years, has been the home for some of music’s most legendary recordings. Our base here was The Music Palace – now trendy indie cinema The Arthouse.

The Church state-of-the-art recording studio in central Crouch End was formerly owned by and was the studio home of Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox of The Eurythmics. It later belonged to David Grey, the piano singer-songwriter. Now it is the creative hub for Paul Epworth, the multi-grammy winning key songwriter and producer behind Adele. He also composed James Bond’s Skyfall theme.

Coincidentally, Dominic Betmead, a Paul Epworth collaborator and signing with his new Wolf Tone signings, is one of Danny’s clients.

Here is an example of some press coverage for our Music Palace Crouch End gig all the way back in March 2011:

Simon Marlin and former member Max Reich make up The Shapeshifters. They are one of the most successful UK dance acts of all time, currently with well over 1,250,000 Spotify monthly listeners.

I’d worked with Simon Marlin (otherwise known as The Shapeshifters) showing him music theory, riff repetition and keyboard techniques to be utilised in his sophisticated Ableton and Logic masters. Simon’s a great guy and deserves his success. The course was an intensive two months; similar in many ways to the musical mentoring I’d given fellow dance music sensation, top international DJ/Producer Jamie Jones who attracts huge numbers to his raves across the globe.. Simon had a worldwide Number One smash, Lola’s Theme, now one of the best-selling dance music singles of all time, certainly from the UK.

The year was 2003, and quite unbelievably, Lola’s Theme was Simon’s debut release. The lifestyle of these hard-working and creative musicians is very lucrative, very competitive and very international. They deserve every penny they earn for the almost super-human work rate they somehow manage to maintain.

Anyway, all this took place at his then-wife Lola Marlin’s North London home, around 2013. I was surprised to discover that the key sample that underpins Lola’s Theme was in fact taken from vinyl sitting in a cabinet directly below where the piano stood! Definitely a story to dine out on for me. Lola, who I’m still occasionally in touch with was the song’s inspiration. She’s pretty impressive herself – and her pet dogs were the friendliest I’ve ever met. They used to prance in excitement to the music. In fact one might say that they’d bark to the beat!

Trevor Horn; absolute studio and musical hero of mine. It was a real pleasure to meet him and discover that I have a near neighbour (and great sound engineer) friend in common who he had worked with. 

Trevor’s recording studio Sarm West is where some of the greatest music, certainly of the eighties and nineties was produced. For example, it is where the stars gathered for Band Aid to record Do They Know Its Christmas. He produced ABC, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, The Art Of Noise, Seal and many many more. His own Buggles classic Video Killed The Radio Star was the first video to be played on MTV.

There really is no stopping Jamie Jones

Jamie, now with over 1.2m Facebook and 575,000 Instragram followers, is still considered the most influential and important dance music producer / DJ working in the world today.

And believe me, he deserves it. I should know.

I showed and played Jamie basic harmony, chord voicings as well as some structural songwriting techniques during our period working together.

Following our first session, I could tell he had an exceptional talent for melody, writing riffs on the fly, arrangement skills for building texture. This despite the fact that his keyboard technique was at a very rudimentary level.

I have long wanted dance music, or EDM as it is now known, to adopt a more musical, melodic and interesting harmonic structure rather than the robotic grooves that so often dominate. I poured this aspiration into our sessions.

It was an intensive learning curve for Jamie I’m sure. More techniques than I’ve ever crammed into regular hour long sessions. And no doubt an eye-opening cornucopia of creative possibilities was opening up for Jamie, which he’s later confirmed with me.

Essentially it was a crash course in music theory and music making; based around keyboard and synths but covering arrangement, harmonic progression, riff-making, bassline construction etc.

Following this, we had intermittent sessions as Jamie was abroad touring, such was his draw. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that house and techno have become more musical in recent years. And all critics praise Jamie’s melodic and harmonic invention.

During all of our sessions, he was like a sponge, soaking up ideas. Better still, he had a receptive, modest and mature attitude. This, despite the fact that he was already enjoying major success even before our sessions.

That is VERY unusual, as in most cases, success goes to artists’ heads and they behave in an arrogant, ‘know-it-all’ manner.

Jamie and I are still in touch and text occasionally. These days he’s based between Ibiza and LA, and has told me he misses London.

He told me recently that if he comes round, he’d like another session or two.

Do you think maybe we could again nudge EDM into becoming just that bit more musical? Or at least get the music critics to notice it again? Listening to his music now and comparing it to how it sounded before we met, I know I have played some part in his work sounding more arranged and flowing. Lee Foss, his DJ compadre, even confirmed this to me in an Instagram post later! Quite how much part is debatable, but ultimately it doesn’t really matter. Dance music has been nudged forward both more melodically and harmonically. And that’s all that matters.

Here is Jamie Jones live, doing what he does best. Overlaying parts, synth and drum. And slowly working his savvy crowd up, taking them to whatever place the music dictates.

Kevin McKay owns and has developed Glasgow Underground Records, a hugely influential dance music label which has produced many successful dance musicians, DJs and producers, the most notable being Mylo and Grum, both top and in-demand global dance stars.

In the ultra-competitive world of dance music, Kevin McKay is both a taste-maker and a trend setter; a rare combination.

I taught Kevin performance and keyboard skills. Both Kevin and I think his remixes, original work and production on his labels’ famous dance musicians work have all improved no end.

Like the world’s top DJ, and most successful Danny client of all, Jamie Jones, Kevin acknowledged early on that without keyboard, melody and harmony skills, his work would always be a pale imitation of his real potential. And that’s in my view why Kevin, like Jamie, is successful. He’s humble enough to acknowledge openly where his limitations are – and then to work on them

Tastemaker, record company founder, major underground dance music player, accomplished producer and now new dad. Much respect Kevin.

Below, he discusses digital formats in his capacity as a record company boss. And it’s in The Sun newspaper!

The year was 1996. It was in a Gospel Oak terrace, not far from Hampstead Heath in North London. Britpop was in full force, where me and a flatmate would be mastering, mixing or generally tweaking our ’kit’ or cool studio gear that we’d covet. Vaguely, these days we’d be known as Gear Sluts (www.gearslutz.com) on account of us doing anything to get, swap, buy or barter for synths, drum machines, samplers, mixing desks, not to mention microphones. Even our floppy disk sample library (orchestral sounds, bass and vocal samples etc) were in demand and advertised in Sound On Sound. (See my Bernard Butler / Suede post #3 Danny’s Brush With…). The samples would be loaded onto my Akai S900. These days, the equivalent are just plugins installed into one’s DAW.

It was here that I met Steve Diggle, The Buzzcocks’ (www.buzzcocks.com) lead guitarist who wanted to remaster their Live In Paris album with my flatmate. Pete Shelley, who sadly passed away, was the lead singer and main songwriter and their hit was ’Ever Fallen In Love With Someone You Shouldn’t Have Fallen In Love With’.

Anyway, we hit it off immediately with our similar music tastes. They were really a seminal punk band. They helped define the punk ethos too, plus they put Birmingham on the musical map.

Steve Diggle: what a talented guy and guitarist, not to mention great musical taste. We smoked and drank a lot well into the night. I was mildly surprised to learn that he didn’t have the passion for punk style music that I’d anticipated. He was heavily into classical electronic music. This is complex music with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Edgard Varese (musique concrete) and Pierre Boulez amongst those brilliant mid 20th century composers. The Buzzcocks experienced some pretty cool and funny escapades which Diggle enjoyed telling me about.