Mido.
The joy has to reach the room.
From Cape Town to the McDonald’s Rave: Mido on shared ideas, Connected and the freedom to rethink every room.
Mido
An email to a McDonald’s in Bruck an der Leitha, a studio day in Cape Town, a set at an airport: Mido seeks situations where an idea becomes something shared. On Dropstar’s recommendation, we talk to the Austrian DJ and producer about All In My Head, how Connected began, and why the enjoyment behind the decks has to reach the crowd.
Mido is a DJ and producer from Austria. His DJ repertoire ranges from house and RnB to hardstyle, drum and bass, and techno. With Connected, he carries forward the shared idea behind the McDonald’s Rave.
48 hours in Cape Town
The Infinity Artist Award took you to a studio session in Cape Town. Take us back to the beginning of those 48 hours: how did you get to know each other musically, and what was the first idea that brought you together?
Being alone in an unfamiliar country, it wasn’t that easy to find a “rhythm” at first. When Jody picked me up from the hotel and took me to the studio, I was definitely nervous! We were accompanied by a camera and microphones the whole way, and everyone in the street was watching – it felt a bit like reality TV.
At the studio I was introduced to the other producers and the team around OTB Studios, and we pretty much got straight into it. First we talked through possible ideas and tried out a few melodies and sounds, then moved on to the arrangement. On the first day we spent around eight hours at the mixing desk. By the end, the track was almost finished, but everyone involved had heard it to death. Anyone who produces knows the feeling: eventually you can’t listen to the song any more, and you’re almost at the point of saying, “Okay, let’s start again, it doesn’t sound good.”
We decided to end the session and continue the next day. That’s what we did – after a few finishing touches, we moved on to mastering and the song was done. We spent the rest of the time exchanging ideas about projects, talking shop and recording various bits of content.
What stays after the studio
That session became All In My Head. Which decision about the track would have turned out differently without the people there? Was there a rhythm, a sound or a way of working that you took home with you?
I think the track would never have had the vibe it has without the people there. All that combined know-how was like fireworks that just made the ideas explode. With more time, we could easily have got another two or three tracks done.
What was different from usual was that we communicated entirely in English. That’s basically no problem, but when you get into the technical detail, you really start to reach your limits. The typical South African slang didn’t make communication particularly easy at first either, but that quickly became a minor issue.
I definitely picked up quite a few arrangement tricks. Various plug-ins I hadn’t known before are now helping me enormously too.
Only when you’re enjoying yourself will the crowd enjoy themselves too.
One email. One rave.
According to your account, you spent around nine months planning the McDonald’s Rave. What was that first conversation like, when an unusual idea became a concrete project? And what ended up being very different from what you had imagined?
I saw a video on TikTok of someone doing it and just thought, “Fuck, I want to do that too!” So I looked up the email address for McD in Bruck an der Leitha, attached the video and wrote, “Would you be up for doing something like this together?” Two days later, the reply came: “Yes, let’s sit down and talk.”
The first meeting went really well. We were already able to put together a rough framework and a cost breakdown. Everything was going quite smoothly until McDonald’s Austria put a bit of a dampener on it. They set requirements that changed our plans somewhat: no alcohol, no admission tickets, and so on.
We had to restructure things, which also put pressure on the budget. In the end, though, we still managed to make it all happen successfully. We had a feeling it would be a great event, but we hadn’t expected THAT MANY people or that people would still be talking about it for weeks afterwards.
We talked about a 2.0 for a long time. But after McD announced its own “Summer Beats” series, the idea was put aside for the time being. BUT we’re still in touch, and we’ll see what the future brings. 😉
What Connected brings together
What do you want to bring together musically with Connected? Tell us about a night or a booking that shows what matters to you as organisers, and what you have learnt from it for your own DJing.
“Connected” is, so to speak, the result of the McDonald’s Rave. The concept worked so well and can basically be transferred to all kinds of other locations. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t attach importance to genres. Every DJ should play what they enjoy, because only when you’re enjoying yourself will the crowd enjoy themselves too. Nothing is worse than having a genre forced on you that you don’t like and having to play through it – you won’t get an atmosphere going that way.
What matters most to me is that everyone goes home feeling good, falls into bed and thinks, “Seriously, how good was tonight!” The name says it all. “Connected” means meeting people, exchanging ideas and having a good time together. That doesn’t require elaborate decorations, complicated technical setups or an expensive line-up. It just takes a team that, above all, enjoys what it does and communicates that. Visitors in particular notice and feel it immediately when the atmosphere is forced.
Rethinking each room
You play clubs, festivals and places such as an airport. In an unfamiliar space, what helps you decide how to begin your set? Has there been a gig where you completely changed your planned opening once you arrived?
At the very beginning, most of my bookings were resident jobs. You were simply the first to arrive and the last to leave. In my opinion, those nights only work when you’re young. You play across the board for six to eight hours, and you can’t really prepare for that. You have your repertoire covering all sorts of styles, from house through RnB to hardstyle, and work your way through the night.
With bookings of one or two hours, it’s different. Planning ahead makes sense then. You know which event you’re playing and roughly which direction it should take. You can condense your set yourself and shape it with peaks and calmer moments.
Unless I have several bookings close together, I pretty much change my set before every event. It’s always a little different, and because my musical taste is very open-minded, the bookings aren’t always from the same musical corner either. You play a very different kind of set at a gig in Ibiza than at a Verum Gaudium event, for example. I’ve also played a drum-and-bass event in Slovakia, but I’ve had the main-time slot at a techno event too.
For me, it’s exactly that variety that makes it fun. Preparing afresh each time is a little challenge too. I love challenges, and if it stopped being one, I don’t think I’d keep doing it!
Mido
Interview by email · Editorial and image art direction: SCENE:ID. Flo Schöny · Gregor Kampl