The Dutch government is ready to begin its annual EDM DJ round up in advance of this month’s Amsterdam Dance Event.
Since ADE’s inception in 1996, eurodance, hard style and more recently EDM DJs have been a constant hindrance to the festival and conference, often causing massive disruptions to the event’s schedule.
With an ever increasing number of EDM producers now based in the Netherlands the government have been forced to take drastic actions and in 2009 parliament passed The No EDM AT ADE Act. The act gives authorities the power to round up all EDM producers and DJs and temporarily relocate them to makeshift concentration camps deep in the Dutch countryside.
The annual EDM producer round up has been met with mixed emotions by the Dutch public with some labeling the government “fascists” while other sects refer to them as “heroes”.
While the majority of EDM producers are happy to go to the camps, in case people realise they are are fraudsters when seeing them beside actual producers and DJs, every year a small number of the EDM community go into hiding during the event.
Frank Anneson, an EDM DJ and producer based in Amsterdam, spoke to Wunderground about the round up, “Every year in October the government goes around herding EDM DJs into camps like sheep. It’s not right, we’re people too, some of us might be of slightly lower intelligence to the rest of the population and make basic bangers for college kids to rage to and subsequently be embarrassed about raging to, but that’s no reason to treat us all like second class citizens.”
“I went to the camps in 2011 and I swore I’d never go back again,” explained a resilient Mr. Anneson. “The accommodation is actually quite nice, like a holiday resort with a pool, gym and lots of other really good facilities but it’s being stuck with no one but other EDM producers for company that really makes it hard to take.”
“It’s just constant bass drops, money counting and bare chests. If egos were visible you’d be able to see these camps from space,” continued an angry Mr. Anneson. “The year I was there Afrojack and Hardwell actually settled a dispute over who had most Twitter followers with a money fight. Normal people would have just checked Twitter but that’s the level of blind egoism you’re dealing with here. It’s just not fair that we’re all tarred with the same brush and carted off to camps like headphone wearing, hands in the air animals with these money spinning morons.”
“Now every year I just hide out in a friend’s attic while ADE is on,” explained the relatively unknown EDM producer. “It’s a good time to produce some music. The event lasts five days so I usually get somewhere between three and five thousands tracks finished. It’s not ideal because I have to remain perfectly quiet but you don’t really need sound when producing EDM, it’s pretty much just musical join the dots.”
Tourists visiting Amsterdam for ADE in recent years have heaped praise on the Dutch government for their annual EDM round up, claiming that “it’s a breath of fresh air” to see the authorities’ eyes on EDM DJs and producers during the event, making it almost “entirely risk free” to openly buy illegal drugs on the city’s streets.
