Animals Dancing is once again bringing us their next installment of non-stop-action dance parties that are thrown down in the Mercat basement, this time with a special live performance (606, 707, 303…) by Chicago-born-and-bred Tevo Howard.
I started to DJ at roughly thirteen or fourteen years old, putting us back to about 1987. After a knee injury in a skateboard accident (I wiped out) in 1987, I found myself sitting at home, bored, and with little interests other than skateboarding and music. With skateboarding out of the picture, I could only gather to mess around with the turntables that sat in the room my brothers and I all shared. I remember thinking that being a DJ was a hobby that wasn’t either illegal, or dangerous, and that it would be fun to DJ my own music as opposed to my brother’s music. I walked down to Gramaphone Records, which was about 10 blocks away, and bought one record. I had no idea what was about to happen. — taken from his bio on his official website; read the rest…
Tevo studied law and music for a period of ten years, then shifting onto music production in 2005. From that point onwards he has incorporated a unique blend of analog machines into his repertoire and beautiful melodies into his tracks that has led to a string of releases on labels such as Rush Hour’s sub-label Hour House Is Your Rush Records, Buzzin Fly, Rebirth and Permanent Vacation.
In 2007 Tevo started his own label, Beautiful Granville Records, featuring predominately original releases produced by himself, as well as a release from his father Rick (Poppa) Howard who currently resides in Berlin and plays in a blues/jazz band. One of my favourite tracks of this year is from a Tevo production “Do What You Have to Do”, featuring vocals from his father Rick. Such a simple and beautiful track – the breakdown gets me every time.
Rick “Poppa” Howard – Do What You Have to Do (Vocal Mix)
After the successes of Beautiful Granville Records (ten steady releases over a two and a half year period – quality, not quantity), Tevo has just launched a new label, Tevo Howard Recordings, which is set to expand the artist range of Beautiful Granville Records which was based mostly around himself and his father, with releases already confirmed from the likes of Robert Owens and Kate Simko. The first release on the label ‘The Drum Machine Man’ by Tevo has performed extremely well with the second release ‘Beautiful Granville Days Vol. 1′ soon to follow suite.
There is an excellent interview with Tevo up on the 5 Magazine website (Chicago based) that is definitely worthy of a read.
Tevo Howard – Systematic Journey (Short Version) {Tevo Howard Recordings, 2011}
Tevo Howard – Crystal Republic {HHIYR, 2010}
Tevo Howard – Passion Sound (Inner Beauty) {Beautiful Granville, 2009}
Tevo Howard – Spacial {Perm Vac, 2010}
Tevo Howard – The Age of Compassion (House Mix) {Buzzin’ Fly, 2011}
As a recommendation, one should purchase his latest release on HHIYR titled “Pandora’s Box” – this little beauty is worth opening.
Catch Tevo Howard {LIVE} tomorow night (July 15th) @ ze Mercat, with support from Andee Frost, Otologic & Andras Fox {Live}. Set-times to be released shortly. Tickets are $25 at the door or $20 presale (from RA or Moshtix).