I started DJ’ing 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 magazine. Somehow 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 n
ote back then were Mike Allen, Robbie Vincent, Dave Pearce & Tim Westwood. At the age of 15 I was making frequent 140 mile round-trips to the import music specialist Groove Records in Greek Street, Soho, 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 my very 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 (guilty) 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 mobile sound system. 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, went to some of the Caister Soul Weekenders but took a break from it all when I went to University. After Uni and in search of work I left Essex and moved to Swindon in the mid 90’s. Shortly after I joined up with Simon Carson and together we formed KY Nights in Feb 2001. KY Nights @ The Glasshouse. We played both as residents and guests at various venues, including the legendary Bagley’s Yard in Kings Cross and my old favorite The Glasshouse in Blackfriars. 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 focussing on my I.T. In 2010 I sustained a serious injury which left me off work for quite some time. To help me cope with the boredom I decided to buy a digital controller and, before I knew it I was back in the game as they say. Living in Bristol I quickly networked with local DJ’s and started to attend Southport Weekender where I made many friends who continue to travel the country and overseas in pursuit of their passion for music. In 2017 one of these friends was diagnosed with terminal cancer and asked me to organise one last big party for him, which I did. I wanted the sound at the party to be really punchy, so I went out and bought a PA comprising of two 15” subwoofers and two 12” tops. I also bought lighting. We had the party, but sadly our friend was too ill to attend. We took lots of photos and sent them on, and I played his playlist of favourite tunes at the end of the night. He knew we’d had his party when he passed away that next morning. That’s how I came to be in possession of a full PA system, to which I’ve added since. Playing events and festivals, loving the music, and now wanting to share that music with you under the guise of “Now We Dance”.
