The Dutch DJ, party and festival organizer and musical director Joost van Bellen (1962) has been one of the cornerstones of Dutch nightlife for over thirty years. He was resident DJ and artistic director from 1991 to 1997 at the famous Amsterdam club RoXY. Afterwards he started up numerous influential club nights, such as Speedfreax and Rauw. From 2002 to 2005 he was night mayor of Amsterdam, as a part of the collective De Nachtwacht. In 2003 and 2006 he made a controversial remix of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Matthäus-Passion. Van Bellen’s taste is flexible and broad and his DJ sets are innovative, cheerful and eclectic. Through all the different things that he has done his innovativeness and his love for subcultures are a constant factor. In 2014 Van Bellen reinvented himself once again, this time as a novelist, with the publication of Pandaogen, a novel about the dark side of fame. Van Bellen was nominated in 2008 for the title of Amsterdam Inhabitant of the Year by Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool and in 2013 for the Amsterdam price of the The Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.
DJ and label owner Michiel Thomassen a.k.a. Mike Mago founded the Amsterdam record label Bmkltsch Rcrds in 2010. Since 2012 he is also active as producer of his own tracks. His track ‘The Show’ was picked up by several Dutch radio stations and international DJs like The Magician and Josh Wink, and then gained a huge international audience after being rereleased by the renowned dance label Spinnin’ Records. He has made remixes for various major international acts, including Charli XCX, Foxes, DJ Tiësto and Laura Welsh. In the summer of 2014 he scored a hit in the Beatport chart with the track ‘Outlines’, a collaboration with singer Dragonette.
Max Bedeker (1984) aka RipTide combines diverse genres, from electro to rock to pop from the 80s. Thanks to his eclectic dj-sets RipTide was discovered by the New York DJ Tommie Sunshine, after which the legendary Amsterdam DJ Joost van Bellen appointed him as one of the house-DJs for his club nights ‘Rauw’. RipTide made remixes for acts like Aeroplane, Kensington and Bade and made tracks with Tommie Sunshine and DJ Bart B More under the alias Horsepower. RipTide also worked with Joost van Bellen and the duo Baskerville. Currently he is working on his debut album, which he will bring live on stage after its release.
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