Back in August of 1993 Col went to his first event which was “Rezerection – The Event” in Scotland. The day the music took a hold of him and started him off on this musical journey.
Mid 1994, shortly after finishing school and got his first job he got his first set of decks and started on his mission to collect vinyl covering many of the styles which were around then. As he could not decide which of the styles to stick to, many of his earlier sets spanned a variation of styles from Breakbeat to early Gabba. After sending out numerous demo tapes (under the name of Naffbeats) to a few local events he got his first break playing Breakbeat and Jungle sets at a small club in his home town of Sunderland.
late 1995 seen the transition from Jungle to Hardcore when whilst working abroad he was at a club as a guest and when one of the DJ’s had a bit of an accident (was hit by a pint glass from someone in the crowd) he was asked to fill in for the remainder of the set. After surviving the remainder of the set he was shocked to find out that it was a hit and the promoter was interested in possibly getting him to play at future events. This was when he decided to give himself an overhaul and change his DJ name. From early 1996 he was then known as DJ D.
From 1996 to 1999 he played at many clubs and small scale (legal and illegal) events over Europe, the Netherlands being his “Second Home”. Sadly with the music scene going through a massive shift and increasing pressure from home he had no option but to remain in the UK but the Hardcore scene in the Uk had pretty much died out so he decided to return to his roots and play Jungle/Drum & bass which was still thriving in many parts of the country. During this time he also started producing various tracks (again covering various styles) and tracks were released on very limited white label pressings.
Due to increasingly difficult home life he was forced to hang up his headphones in 2002 and put everything (or so he thought) into storage as he was given an ultimatum, the music or home life (which he was told he was about to become a father). As hard as a decision it was he felt he was making the right choice at the time but after events which followed over the coming years he deeply regretted the choice he made but it was too late. Hundreds of vinyl destroyed and the good decks he had at the time were sold without him knowing..
Fast forward to May 2017 when he happened to stumble onto a local event named Juggernaut which was trying to establish itself in the North East. As Col was now doing graphical work he approached the founder to see if they needed some help in the digital promotion side. During a conversation with its founder Darren, he mentioned that many years ago he did a fair bit of DJ’ing and got to play in some pretty exciting places to some really good crowds. He was asked to produce a demo for them to check out, it was at this time he managed to salvage a really old set of practice decks which were beyond worn out and what was left of his vinyl collection and started re-learning the craft again.
It was also about this time when he was starting to get approached by various streaming channels to do live streams for them and a few digital labels were eager to get him to start making music again.
In September 2017 he was back on stage again for the first time in 15 years at the second Juggernaut event doing what he thought he would never get to do again. This time, under the new name of D-Crypter (as he found out there were several DJ’s now called DJ D).
Now a partner in Juggernaut (who have just recently joined up with another North East brand Nocturnal Wizards founded/owned by the international renowned, DJ Smurf) he deals a lot on the planning, graphical promotion, digital media side of things as well as spinning the occasional set (one of which is a “back to back” set with his Juggernaut Partner ‘DJ Benny D’ warming up for Lenny Dee in March 2018.
He does hope in time he gets to play more frequently and maybe back in the Netherlands again but is more than content at the moment in being part of an ever expanding brand in the heart of the North East of England.
