Rising Digital Blog

Review - Ellen Allien @ The Mint Club, Leeds (25/07/09)

Techno lovers and Saturday night clubbers filled the Mint Club on the 25th to welcome the legendary, and gorgeous, Ellen Allien to Leeds. Read on to see what Rising Digital's Beth made of the night...

We were slightly miffed when we entered Leeds's Mint Club, firstly because of the Hulk Hogan inspired costume we were graced with in the queue. (Luckily the tanked up fool was told to remove his false moustache and wig before entering.) And secondly, because we'd paid almost £14 for advanced tickets, but the 'on the door prices' were cheaper, £10 before £12 and £12.50 after. Confused? Yeah so were we! Its just as well hard-core fans don't mind what it costs to see their favourite DJ's...



The club has recently undergone a £500k refurbishment. It boasts a FUNKTION 1 sound system and a cutting edge lighting system called a 'DISCO PANEL' which features in the 'Watergate' club, Berlin – it’s the first of its kind in this country. A rather more questionable feature is the 'mint-inspired' décor - polo shaped stools litter the smoking area. Necessary? I think not. And with a closed in smoking area, it was fair to say every attendee was donning a tell-tale sweaty glean, and a few over-enthusiastic ravers were left gasping for air as the night deteriorated into a sweat box.

It's just as well our lovely Ellen pulled it out of the bag with her amazing progressive minimal tech set. The club's atmosphere really came into its own around 3am once the general Saturday night clubbers had disappeared to pass out in the doorway of Dixy Chicken. There was a unifying feeling on the dance floor as every shoulder-shake and air-punch was carried out with pure passion and love for the lady on the decks. 



She had a very cool and sophisticated air about her as she grooved along to her own tunes and took a few cheeky puffs on a cigarette.

Her set deviated from her more well known work with Apparat and demonstrated a more general love of minimal, and although, technically it wasn’t the best set in the world, in terms of progression and construction, the enthusiasm from the crowd and DJ delivered a fully enjoyable evening and showcased some previously unheard material for those in attendance.

It was clearly a night delivered from one of techno's most confident producers. A fellow raver summed it up perfectly on his Facebook status this morning "Ellen - too cool for her own good, she completely killed it."



Building her DJ career over the past 17 years Allien has released six albums and created her own record label, BPitch Control in 1999, which includes releases from Sascha Funke and Tok Tok.

She's also branched out into the fashion industry creating two lines, which she describes as "the everyday quartett line and the rather elegant but nevertheless sexy and cheeky 
mainline." The new Ellen Allien fashion autumn winter 09 collection will be available online in august.

Her new single 'lover' will be released in August, in the meantime catch her in this cutting edge documentary about electronic music and the people who have become completely lost in it - 'Speaking in Code'. And don't miss the BPitch Control’s Ten Year Birthday Party at the renowned Berlin nightclub, Berghain on Saturday 8th August.

About time too!

So I thought it was time I said a quick hello to all the Rising Music and Rising Digital fans. In a rather clichéd Bridget Jones style introduction… “This is Beth, she loves all things Social Media and spends her weekends dancing hard to the pumping sounds that dominate the Leeds club scene.” I’ve been working in Social Media for the past 16 months or so. My journey began at a Leeds based SM company, Wolfstar , which is where my relationship began with Seb, MD and founder of Rising Digital Ltd. Upon finishing my degree in broadcast journalism and my stint at Wolfstar, I decided that Social Media was the career for me. Spending a year creating a Social Media department at a Yorkshire based Digital Marketing company, which involved running campaigns for Play.com, Argos and Comet as well as creating the over all business strategy required for any new department, has provided me with a proficient base of knowledge and experience. Once I was given the signal that Rising was set up and good to go, I took the plunge into the exciting and inspirational world of music marketing. Rising’s client list already boasts some of the worlds top DJ’s including Chris Lake Chris Lake, Sander Van Doorn and Steve Angello.

A week in the industry and my passion has increased even more. Filling my head with html and advanced audio coding doesn’t seem quite so tedious when it’s all for the illustrious cause of spreading the work of such prominent artists. I am a true advocate for dance music, making this my dream job. All that’s left (besides the continuous learning necessary when working in the business of social media) is to hunt out a wide variety of DJ’s, so bring on the Techno, DnB, DupStep, you name it… I want to market it : )

Letterman - Kevin Spacey Tweets with Dave...

Amusing as hell! "How much does it cost?"

We LOVE Facebook advertising – no more Air Wick sniffing bunnie

Ah, the world of advertising. The joys of ethically demanding consumers and the credit crunch. With a history in the sales industry (something I don’t like to shout about, so shhh) and an education in branding and art direction, my understanding and cynicism towards advertising was pretty impressive. Click through an advertisement on the internet? I don’t think so.

Then along came Facebook. This site, as I’m sure you’re all aware, is continually developing and offers the opportunity to advertise. As a company we have been doing this for clients for some time. Having never directly been involved with creating them, my time had come. So I produced my first Facebook advertisement this week for our client Steve Angello's label Size Records and was blown away!

To be able to target such a specific audience is incredible. I find that I have even clicked through once or twice on advertisements. Was I disappointed? No. They were specifically targeted at me based on my profile information (age, where I live etc) and fan pages. They were advertising things I was actually interested in.

Whereas when sitting in front of the tv this rarely happens. By watching a particular programme at a specific time I am instantly placed in a group with many assumptions made about myself and my interests. People who watch Coronation St eat chocolate. Emmerdale? Well they all have issues with vile smelling houses obviously – in come Air Wick with rabbits. Does that mean we like rabbits? I’m not sure. Anyway, I digress. Occasionally, after a particularly demanding day and a true moment of weakness I may watch Emmerdale. So I am instantly thrown into the house smelling rabbit loving group. Don’t even get me started on The Bill.

My partner will groan if we have to watch a film on ‘normal’ telly channels. He can’t stand all the breaks and advertising. Put them tidily down one side of Facebook, with things that are actually of interest to him and he has no issues at all. They’ve got it right. They don’t pop up and annoyingly cover your screen. They are there for your choice. Even if you don’t click through, you have seen a particular brand. It’s been placed in your mind.

So after checking the stats of my ad before even the 24 hour mark it has had 26,565 impressions. His name has been viewed by that amount of people. All for the princely sum of $8. Revolutionary.

All I’m dreading now are the words ‘Babe? I’ve just bought ……..’. Fill the blank in as you see fit, you may soon be in the same boat on far too a frequent basis.

Morgan Stanley - soon to be recruiting research staff

I hope Morgan Stanley provide better financial services than they do insights into the world of social media habits of teenagers. I was in fact dumbfounded by the article I read reporting that Morgan Stanley has used the insights of one, yes ONE teenage boy to publish as research notes. They didn't stop there, oh no, they then went on to describe them as "one of the clearest and most thought-provoking insights we have seen".

The above quote was from their executive director of their European media team. The article I read on the guardian website has had 169 comments in less than six hours - proving many other people are also in disbelief. I can't wait to see how this story progresses.....

To see the the 'report' click here

Strongbow, Summer and Sick tunes

This is the first time i've ever done this so here goes... 

My name's Jessica Husband and this year I have finally completed the magical three year journey of my degree. I studied Music Management and Live Production at Buckinghamshire New University where uni life was unbelievable! 

As I couldn't afford to live in the south I have made the decision, or rather the decision was made for me, that I should move home for a while, home being Nelson, Lancashire (though I always say Manchester as it's just easier, rather then explaining where you live to someone who has no clue of their way past Birmingham and lost interest about 30 seconds after I started speaking). So here I am, back up North trying to make it in the big world! 

Somehow or another, I've already landed a dream placement; working as a researcher and junior account executive at Rising Digital. So far I've already been helping on projects for Chris Lake and The Swedish House Mafia, and just yesterday was told trance big shot Sander Van Doorn had been added to the roster - GET IN! 

Not only am I working in the music industry, dream come true, but i'm working in my favourite genre of the industry, HEAVEN. So heres to a summer of mad dirty beats, sunshhhiinnee (manc style), strongbow and scaring boys! Scoff Scoff!.....x

Policing Personal Privacy

Privacy settings. A very important aspect of life online, as our soon to be director of MI6, John Sawers, has discovered. Following his wife’s lack of Facebook knowledge some rather embarrassing media coverage has ensued. Who knew you could still buy speedos if you're not an olympic swimmer!? Worrying...

I've been working in this space for a while now, but still manage to educate myself on pretty much a daily basis. Most people wouldn’t be aware of the ethics and codes of conduct that should be acknowledged and in some cases adhered to... obviously as they probably haven’t the faintest idea they exist. As technology continues to advance at superspeed, the general public always seems at least three steps behind. With landmark decisions in courtrooms continuously being made, even the law has trouble keeping up.

We have been warned those dodgy photos on Facebook may not make a great impression on future employers. Many of us are well versed in the post weekend 'de-tagging' ritual, but we now have to look to the actual job we do. With a recent ruling the identity of the detective constable behind the blog NightJack was revealed. His employers were not best pleased. It won an Orwell Prize for political writing, but alas, is no more. So our presence online can extend our freedom of speech, as long as we are willing to stand up and assume responsibility for it. Yet to do so, dependant on our employer, could endanger our job. This is a debate for another time.

With Facebook such a huge phenomenon, as a police officer how would they engage with such a network on a personal basis? There is no room for anonymity on such a site. I have it on good advice that although they are not ‘banned’ from using it, they are warned very heavily regarding content and presence. Yet what would make a police officer have a better understanding of privacy settings than the wife of John Sawers? There isn't a workshop you can attend. So as Mrs Sawers has experienced, would an education in said settings come at a price? The experience could easily be something far more serious than a picture of their partner in budgie smugglers smeared across newspapers. With so much information being available on Facebook, without the correct privacy settings, it may not be only themselves and colleagues they are endangering, but their own families.

Luckily for Mr Sawer it seems only his reputation has been dented. When it comes to our police force though, whose relationship with the public can be somewhat tentative at times, it could be irrevocably damaging. Even more seriously though and not as far fetched as some may think, it could endanger lives.