Bio
OK, here's the story so far. Started listening to dance music around 1989/90, listening to Megabass albums, taped shows from Kiss FM (couldn't pick it up in deepest Kent), & stuff that DJ Venom (my Dutch nutter friend) had found & recorded. The stuff that found its way into the mainstream music media led me to track down rave and the likes of SL2 & The Prodigy. Then in the summer of '92 I discovered tapes of Fantazia Summertime & was hooked on the stuff that Ellis Dee, Slipmatt, Ratty, DJ Sy, Easygroove & others were banging out. I wanted to be part of that scene but was only 16. Finally in Feb 93 (still 3 months off 17) I managed to get into a clubnight at Atomics in Maidstone called Dreamzone - Slipmatt, Ratty & Devious D were playing. I was in heaven! I went again 2 weeks later (Carl Cox was playing). For the rest of 93 I saved to go to raves & went 2 my first allniter in the summer (Reincarnation). By the time I had been to my first World Dance rave at Lydd in October 93 I was a fully fledged raver. I saved up what I could for decks and a mixer and got help on my 18th birthday in 1994 with the rest of the money. Started out on Soundlab belt drive decks before using other people's Technics SL1210s when I could.
While studying in Sheffield I discovered a record shop with my mates (DJs Kismet and VorTechS) and saw an advert for a local pirate station (long since shut down). I put in a breakbeat happy hardcore demo tape and got accepted - sadly only for 2 shows before the station stopped transmitting. In 1996 I was playing at a house party that my flatmates and I were putting on (we called our parties Lighten Up!), and got spotted by a regular radio DJ on another pirate station. Got a guest slot one week while DJ Kismet got a guest slot a couple of weeks later. I kept plugging away with my demos and entered Fusion's search for up and coming hardcore DJs - only losing out to guys who had produced tunes and performed at other rave nights (I had only ever performed at house parties, illegal raves in fields or abandoned warehouses, or on pirate stations). Disillusioned by the knock-back (and beginning to get tired of the way happy hardcore was going) I decided to switch to house and trance music. Eventually in 2005 I stopped DJing altogether while I started a family.
It was only really in early 2012, after attending Raindance's 2011/2012 NYE rave at The Apollo in Hammersmith with Kismet, that I decided to try and get back into DJing. I had noticed at Raindance that Slipmatt and Billy Bunter weren't using vinyl or CDs, but these weird computer-looking things. Having been out of the scene when the digital age took off, I didn't know much about DJ controllers. That soon changed and I picked one up. Having foolishly sold a very large amount of my vinyl in 2005, I had to try to build up my collection again, but realised that it would be easier to do this digitally. I've now got a lot more tunes, covering more genres and a wider period of time than I ever did when I only bought vinyl.
Coming right up to date, I started producing podcasts in the style of a hosted mix, like a radio show, with the view to actually getting back onto radio, and hopefully for much longer than 2 weeks in a row. The hard work was worth it and I now have a regular slot on Nu Perception Radio every Saturday between 3-5pm (family commitments permitting). Harking back to our old house parties I present The Lighten Up show, which is not just about great house, hardcore, drum n bass and jungle music from the mid 80s to mid-to-late 90s, as well as ravebreaks and newer releases, but also having fun, a bit of banter with the listeners and the occasional studio guest (mainly my DJ mates!) Have a listen and let me know what you think. Get involved in the chatroom on the website, on Twitter and on Facebook. Thanks for reading, and yes I can still mix on Technics!
Maidstone United Kingdom
Member since: 09 Jun 2014
