
I have been DJing since
88/89 around the time of the Acid House era. The
thing that inspired me to DJ was when I was still at school I was going
out
to the illegal raves such as
Energy,
Sunrise,
Raindance,
Perception and
the
infamous
Braintree Barn with
Mr C,
Matthew B,
Lenny D and
Frankie
Knuckles
etc. I used to look at the DJ who was playing i.e.
Sasha, Matthew B,
Lenny D
etc and think to myself "I could do that", the way that the DJ was controlling the crowds in the rave's really appealed to me. I went out
and
bought two second-hand Citronic decks, a crummy mixer and a tape deck
and
all this being totally new to me I didn't even know how to set it all
up!
After asking my science teacher! at school what wires went where I was
finally mixing it up day in, day out, driving my parents mad! After
around
six-nine months of practising I made my first tape and gave it out to a
few
friends, thinking back now the mixing was terrible but at that time it
didn't matter so much as people were just listening to the tunes rather
than
the mixing.
After numerous DJing at local house parties it was a couple
of
years before I had my first proper booking at a rave called
Innovation back in 1992,
although a small venue I found myself DJing alongside
LTJ Bukem,
Ray
Keith
and the local elite DJ's of Ipswich. It wasn't long before I was
gradually
getting more play outs at events in my local area of Ipswich, and then
Ipswich Community Radio started with a four week licence in
September
93. It
was my first time on the radio and I was asked to DJ on the Hot Mix Live
slot-the DJ Challenge.
During the time of
93-94 I was partying HARD,
going
out twice a weekend and during the week, and I was building a good
reputation as a DJ in the area, playing at mostly all of the local
events.
It wasn't until
June 94 that things really picked up for me after I won
the
"Tape Of The Month" for Jungle in the well respected
Eternity magazine,
of
which they sold through the magazine and gave me a write up. Soon after
this
I was approached by a promoter and asked to play at an event in
Kings
Lynn
called
Olympia, the Speedway Stadium in
September 94, this was my first
major big play out at a massive venue and was also co-promoted by
DJ SS
and
his
Total Kaos promotions co. I was DJing alongside
DJ SS,
Grooverider,
Randall,
Kenny Ken and
Ratty as well as numerous Happy Hardcore DJ's
like
Slipmatt,
Vibes etc.
The next event I played at was
Olympia 2 at the
same
place and I was playing in the same arena (Jungle) as before this time
with
DJ's such as
Bryan G,
Ray Keith etc, after the response I got from these
two
events I knew that this was the one thing I wanted to do, to DJ. With
these
two big events behind me I found I had more confidence DJing in front of
a
big crowd, it was totally different playing on a 20k rig rather than say
2k
or smaller (as in house parties), I was also getting more involved in
the
in-depth side of things in D&B. By this I mean I was beginning to see
the
behind-the-scenes workings of how events were put together etc. I was
also
beginning to mingle in with the "inner-circle" of DJ's, Producers etc
and I
was beginning to get some recognition/advice from
DJ SS after the two
Olympia events but I knew I still had a long way to go.
Now after many
years
of playing out I have DJ'ed at many raves including
Desire (which was my
first major break to play at a massive venue i.e. the
sanctuary in
Milton
Keynes
1995, big up the
Phil/ Mick), the legendary
Raindance,
Best of
British,
Helter Skelter (I won a competition to play at the
Energy 97
Festival.) Also i have had long term residencies on various Pirate radio stations such as
Flex Fm, Re-Load Fm, Rude Fm & Internet Radio Stations InterFace Fm, Gaia Live, UkRumble.com, planetdnb.com, worlddancefm.com & i am currently on
www.dnbradio.com every saturday 9pm - 11pm GMT.
I
have also made several Drum and Bass tracks which were engineered by
Cool
Breeze for
Dj Raps Proper Talent
& Unique Muzique
labels
& Desires S.U.S
Recordings label back in
1996/97.
It has taken a long time to build up the studio (we are still adding
things..slowly) and learn the ropes but determination is the key. With
the
birth of
Default Recordings we aim to produce music that will catch the
attention of the listener incorporating styles that myself &
Cool Hand Flex have
experienced from the early Acid House era & Hardcore days right through
to
the present D&B scene today.
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