I first got into raving about ten years ago, at a free party in the middle of nowhere in Wales. So I decided to try out a big organised event and decided to go to the Que Club in Birmingham. After queueing for three hours and paying £18 to get in, I figured I needed to find a way to get in free and without queueing, so I started writing reviews for a dance magazine of the time... This enabled me to go to big raves, get in free, not have to queue,.. and best of all, get the backstage pass in order to watch the mega DJ's working.
Having a musical background, it didn't take me too long to figure out in my head how this dj-ing lark worked. Course, it took a year before I was any good at all, having started mixing happy hardcore on borrowed horrible old belt drives! On telling my friend and mentor, DJ Easygroove, that I aspired to be a good dj, he asked me what sort of music I was mixing. I replied 'happy hardcore', to which he curtly said "only quarter of a dj then". I accepted the challenge and began mixing as many styles of music that I could get my hands on. At that time my one goal was to get onto a flyer with a few well known names. Around this time I started getting confident enough to play out at free parties, small festivals and little clubs. I went to a big event, the first Hysteria at Milton Keynes, and got the jungle bug big time. From there on in, I decided to concentrate on being a good dnb dj, mainly because I loved it so much but also because when you're starting there's no way anybody (without immensely rich parents) can keep up with the record acquisition for every style of music, much though I wish I could.....
Every now and then I'd get together with my mentor dj and he would give me a new challenge, so I'd go off and master whatever he'd set me...
I'd have the odd bit of luck, kind of being in the right place at the wrong time, or the other way around.... I played for 15 hours at a Pendragon party in Wales and from that made friends with DJ Sharkey from the Spiral Tribe, he got me a few gigs in London, at Bagleys and I got paid, which was a novelty.... but sadly he died of meningitis two years ago... we taped his ashes to the side of a 100 quid firework and sent him off at Exodus 3 Day Festival just outside Bedford...nearly took out a police helicopter, and did take out the side of the p.a. truck!! Shortly after this I achieved my little ambition and ended up on a flyer with The Ratpack, Nicky Blackmarket, Hype, Ellis Dee, Easygroove, Dougal, Vibes, Clarke, Ray Keith, Swan-e, Gappa G and Penfold!! AND IN THE SAME FONT SIZE !!!!! By this time I was thoroughly totally through and through addicted! Then I decided I needed a small p.a. of my own and now have a small 2K p.a. in my kitchen for practising (hee hee, it's great with no neighbours!).
Circumstances got me into live sound engineering for about two years, I ended up taking a 10K p.a. out on a 7.5t truck, setting it up myself, then doing f.o.h. and monitor mixes for three bands from one 52 channel desk. I've worked with lots of live bands, most not very well known, but some real gooduns too. I didn't ever do a course or qualify but doing it gave me a tremendously good background knowledge that would enable me to blag a set on most large sound systems, just on the basis of the fact that I knew how NOT to blow the system up!
Now my goal is to be able to earn enough dosh to start to get the equipment together that I'll need to start producing, and to actually make it onto an obscene amount of good mailing lists so I can mix anything I want (even just one would be good...)...... Oh, and of course, to travel the world doing what I love doing - making people dance and smile... the biggest and best buzz the world has to offer...right, fellow dj's?!
Much respect to everybody that's keeping this whole scene alive, s'hard work innit!
Places I've played (that I can remember, didn't ever realise how important flyers would turn out to be!)
Theatr Mwldan, Cardigan
Students Union, Aberystwyth
Arts Centre, Aberystwyth
Students Union, Lampeter
Arts Hall, Lampeter
Sanddancer, Barmouth
Bagleys, London
Legends, Northampton
The Fish and Fiddle, Cheltenham
The Depot, Bristol
The Maze, Bristol
Easton Community Centre, Bristol,
Easygroove's 40th Birthday Party, Bristol
Rhythm Factory, London
Kadinski's, Amsterdam!! (no clues there eh!)
Radio Ceredigion twice (ever heard of it??!!), loads of pubs and house parties, but most of all, several hundred free parties all over England and Wales.
Smallest audience - 1 hippy with young child...largest around 1500 (Exodus Festival, 2000)
There's probably a few more relevant bits of information, but accessing the memory cells is occasionally restricted. This is not a medical condition!
