I've been DJ'ing on and off since 1984. In those days I was predominantly listening to R&B and Hip Hop. My first contact with a wider world of music came from Busta Brooker's saturday night R&B show on radio Orwell and copies of Blues and Soul. Eventually I managed to convince my parents to allow me to fit a massive FM aerial to the roof of our house so I could pick up Capital and BBC Radio London, DJ's of note back then were Steve Allen, Robbie Vincent, Dave Pearce & Tim Westwood. At the age of 15 I was making frequent 140 mile round-trips to the import Hip Hop specialist Groove Records in Greek Street, Soho, London to buy the tunes that were impossible to get from Woolworths in a small seaside town in Essex. My first live gigs were midday sets at a holiday camp in Clacton-on-Sea. I'd managed to stike up a friendship with the middle-aged residents, based on my lending them loads of upfront tunes, in return they vouched for me on my DMC membership application and I started playing for them on a no-pay basis. These progressed into paid evening sets where I often had the dubious pleasure of playing "Holiday" by Madonna on request but also got to sneak in a disco classic or two like "Jingo" by Candido (Salsoul). I later hooked up with some other local DJ's, they had a record shop and their own 40k mobile rig. The highlights of this period were playing Chicago house & R&B at annual Karate conventions, we always had a superb crowd and would use a 6 deck, 3 mixer setup to fully exploit the talents of the three of us who could scratch, cut and mix.
I played a few gigs for my college and took a break from it all when I went to University (I became a bit of a grunge fiend and to this day still appreciate rock & metal). In search of work I left Essex and moved to Swindon about 12 years ago. My biggest mistake at the end of all that was selling my entire collection of 12"s & Lp's to a mate for £100 (about 500 in all, ranging from original pairs of Hashim "al naafiysh" right up to Double99 "ripgroove" - I know, utter madness). This was at a time when I needed the space in my house and thought that my DJ'ing days were over.
I would probably never have played again if it were not for the group of friends which I shall refer to as da Swindon Massive. This group of funksters were true clubbers in my mind, up for music and able to go all night. The after parties follwed and a few of the massive had decks; I had to have a go, for old times sakes you know. Before I knew it I was hooked again. I went out and bought what must be my 4th pair of decks and started to rebuild my vynil collection... Shortly after I joined up with Simon Carson and together we formed KY in Feb 2001. We played both as residents and guests at various venues, including one of my old favorites Glasshouse in Blackfriars London for Juice.
Having built up a reputation and achieved what I wanted to on a personal level my drive to continue playing clubs died off and I stopped completely around 2004. This time I kept all my kit and vinyl though ;) I now live in Bristol, I will be 40 in 2009. I guess I can say - "Been there, done that, wore the needle out".