![]() I was mainly pushing the house, and Jerry was mainly pushing the hip-hop and rare groove, but I used to play bits and pieces as well. At that point in time I saw no difference, but it was just at that time when it seemed to be that you had to play house, or hip-hop, or rare groove. Norman Jay, Shake & Fingerpop, Brand New Heavies were often in the crowd. The main room had a snooker table and table tennis. Lasted for about nine months, every Friday I think. I met the Bang the Party people, they were the only people into house that I’d met in London. Kid Batchelor came in on it, I met him, very luckily. ![]() I met everybody there because everybody wanted to DJ there, for the cause. There were some glass panels where the kitchen bar was and then arches. If you see Quadrophenia, there’s a youth club place at the start – that was it. Jerry found it and asked me to do it with him, and we wrote the youth club a letter, “Can we do a charity thing?” No alcohol, but people brought their own. The entrance was opposite Pineapple Dance Studio. It was a youth club which is now a restaurant. ![]() I started doing this three As club – Artists Against Apartheid – in Covent Garden. I always remember the “Hard Times” article by Robert Elms, and I thought, “I’m playing all the same kind of music, I’ve got my crowd here.” But I finally moved down, I was so lucky. I used to read The Face and thought what we had was a bit better. People were saying, “You’ve got to move, you should be doing music there.” I didn’t want to go. One weekend I did a guest spot from his garden shed playing jazz. He had his pirate radio station, his KJazz, in his back shed. Through Baz I met Gilles Peterson, all that time ago. Steve Walsh, he used to DJ at them as well. I met Tim Westwood first time I met him was at an all-dayer. The music wasn’t that different but it seemed more urban, more aggressive. I did one all-dayer in somewhere like Hammersmith, once. You’re talking 18 to 22 years old, it wasn’t so big then. So there was a big crowd in Coventry, they would follow me. If you could bring a coach they’d put you on the bill. I used to run a coach from Coventry to different cities. continued from the Northern scene, having a bag full of clothes, ’cause it was just pure sweat. One time, all the rugby lot started wearing cycling tops. Maybe 40% black, a young lot and each town had its own dressing thing going on. At least every two weeks, you’d do an all-dayer. It was a really great scene, once a month on a Sunday. Yeah, it seemed to be the same kind of thing. They took to the electronic stuff straight away. I saw Lonnie Liston Smith, Mantronix, Sharon Redd, Prince Charles City Beat Band. Good fun, horns, whistles and great live acts. Like the Coventry crew against the Leicester crew. They had the main room the crews in formation, dancing against one another. Yeah, all very good-natured, Brummies against the Londoners, or the Manchester lot. Still looking amazing, still doing the same moves. Amazingly, just last week I saw a guy from the scene, one of the jazz dancers. Then, in the back room they had pure jazz, and that’s where I started DJing. They threw out the Northern Soul and they put the jazz-funk and more electronic music in the big room. I used to go there dancing with Baz Fe Jazz, who was my main cohort at the time, from Coventry. The main room was Northern Soul, but it was fuckin’ empty, maybe 100 people in this huge room and in the back room was jazz-funk.ĭJs were Colin Curtis, Shaun Williams, Graham Warr, and Dave Till, really great DJs from the Midlands scene. Main room held about 1,000 people, and the back room about 400. Birmingham Locarno was a big, old, typical ballroom with two rooms. I started going to them before I was DJing. Jazz-funk all-dayers in Birmingham Locarno, Nottingham Rock City. I did them in the Polytechnic and the Hope & Anchor pub in Coventry. They were called Dance only Dance and Music Against All Odds, amongst other things. What was your night called where you were DJing? The bass player went to Dexys Midnight Runners, guitar player went into Special AKA, keyboard player went to Colourfield. Next gig was the Cornish Riviera, 5,000 people. I did one warm up gig at the Hope and Anchor and I was great. On the single I wasn’t singing at all in live shows the singer couldn’t always keep in tune so I said I’ll do it. We were The Swinging Cats, an easy-listening two-tone band. Yeah, but our things were the ones everybody came to. Was there much of a scene? Two-tone was starting. I’ve got a picture of me DJing when I was 12, so I was always buying records. Punk had just started, I was really into punk and reggae. Where are you from and how did you get started?įrom Birmingham originally, and I got into DJing while at Lanchester Polytechnic.
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