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June 2007 Having only been home from Australia for a week, the first part of June saw my next long-haul DJing trip, in the form of a debut visit to Kenya. In an ideal world, the trips would have been more widely spread out, but it all provided a revealing glimpse into what life is like for the real superstar DJs who do this type of thing throughout the year. Although it was tough and lonely being away from Parveen for so long. The jaunt actually began in late May, as I flew with Kenya Airways out of Heathrow’s Terminal 4 overnight on Wednesday 30th. It was strange to think of my voice going out on the radio waves somewhere in the skies two and a half hours into the flight, as I’d had to pre-record that week’s ‘Just Buggin’. I didn’t have the good fortune of being able to draw sleep on this flight, and with most of the movies the same as what I’d seen on the previous week’s Singapore trek, I opted for some good mindless nonsense in the form of ‘Die Hard.’
'MD at Kiss FM, Nairobi' It was 7am when I emerged through immigration in Nairobi, where I was met by club contacts Arthur and George. They told me the rush hour traffic into the city was ridiculous, and we’d be as well to take breakfast at the airport to allow it to clear. While they took beef and sausage, I played it safe with Cornflakes and toast, which I was told was ‘a wise choice’, as most foreigners apparently get ill from the alien cuisine at some point. There had been a lot of medical considerations; I’d had to get typhoid and hepatitis B inoculations from the doc, and I’d started on a course of Malarone anti-Malaria tablets two days before departing. It would have been unfortunate to succumb to food poisoning after all that! Sadly, there was to be no sleep for a while,
as I had a programme of radio interviews to do to promote the
weekend’s gigs.
Nairobi was warm, dusty and bustling as we battled the morning
congestion. There’s evidently no such thing as emission
controls on vehicles, resulting in cars belching out foul clouds
of choking black smoke.
'MD with Italia at Capital FM, Nairobi' When I emerged to eat at 7pm, the skies had opened and torrents of heavy rain were crashing down. June being the rainy season, this apparently is nothing unusual. I’ve never seen as much water fall in five minutes. My driver George picked me up, and we navigated through the canal-like roads back to the airport for my late flight down to Mombasa, site of my first gig. Thankfully the weather had abated by the time we took off. After an hour, we saw the lights of Mombasa … then the captain announced that the lights on the runway were defective and we had to go into a holding pattern while they tried to fix them, and if they couldn’t, we’d have to fly back to Nairobi. Not an announcement that filled me full of confidence. Mercifully, the lights got fixed and we eventually landed at 12.30am. Nairobi could be described as ‘basic’ at best, leaving me wondering how best to describe Mombasa. With many roads little more than dirt tracks, and crumbling bunkers and tin sheds lining the countryside, ‘under-developed’ is probably the kindest description. My driver had been instructed to take me to Bob’s Bar to meet Badar, the owner/ resident DJ/ promoter, making me feel a bit like James Bond being summoned to a villain’s lair. The reason was that he wanted me to go on stage with the house band to show the crowd that I really was in town, and to announce that I’d be performing the following night. After fulfilling my obligation, I got dropped at the Bahari Beach Hotel and went straight to sleep.
' Bahari Beach Hotel, Mombasa' Waking on Friday, I discovered a lone internet terminal in the hotel complex, and quickly leapt on it for three hours to access my e-mails and Myspace. Nightime rolled around, and it was time to head back to Bob’s Bar. 1st June is Kenyan Independence Day and a public holiday, so people were in leisurely mode. Bob’s has a very cool layout; with very little of it indoors its car park has been converted into a seating/ eating/ dancing area, flanked by drinks stands and food grills. I was anticipating a great night, and despite a few initial teething problems trying to establish what a Mombasa crowd wanted to hear, it didn’t disappoint. As the vodka lemons kept on coming, I stayed and partied with some of the happy people until almost 6am. I got some great pictures which summed up the atmosphere; they’ll appear in the Gallery section of the site.
'MD & friend at Bob’s Bar, Mombasa'
Although the flight back to Nairobi only took an hour, (passing Mount Kilimanjaro en route,) the whole of Saturday was swallowed up in transit. The flight was delayed, then the suitcases took an eternity to arrive. By this time, Arthur had departed on a weekend in ‘the bush’, a popular Kenyan pastime, evidently, where you go and lose yourself in the wilderness for a few days, miles from running water, electricity, mobile phone reception, or any other such luxuries. Good for him, although it’s far from my idea of a fun way to spend a weekend! I was picked up again by faithful driver George who gave me a brief tour of some of the city’s ‘hoods, before delivering me to Carnivore, where I was to play later that night. The irony of a 19-year vegetarian like myself performing in a venue of that name was not lost on me. It’s a sprawling complex whose main claim to fame is as a nationally-celebrated restaurant specialising in cooking game meat on a spit over an open fire, then carving it at the tables. Beyond this, it also has several bars, terraces and gardens, a kids’ play area, and, most impressively, a massive field with a dedicated stage, given over to concert and festival events. After a quick tour of the Simba Saloon nightclub and a quick (non-meat) meal, George dropped me back at the Jacaranda Hotel for a brief sleep ahead of the gig.
'Pic of happy clubbers at Carnivore, Nairobi' I was back at the Simba Saloon at midnight, and dropped a two-hour set to a crowd that differed radically to the one in Mombasa. This time there were few Kenyan locals and loads of international visitors. Canada, the U.S and Australia were in the house, along with a contingent of 45 teachers from Ireland, visiting on a voluntary mission, and evidently keen to let their hair down. The crowd were loud and responsive, and the night was a lot of fun. Annoyingly, my flight back to London didn’t depart until ten to midnight on Sunday, giving me a whole day to kill. I kept my hotel room for the day, eventually hooking up with George for the airport run. On the way, he told me about the warring tribal factions in Kenya, and a horrific tale about how a drugged-up group of thugs recently hijacked a van and beheaded the two occupants. Plus how he himself had been carjacked at gunpoint four years earlier. I was relieved he was telling me this as I was heading out of the country, rather than on the way in. Back on B&S business the following week, I found myself heading to City Hall in London. It’s the weird and striking building overlooking Tower Bridge that looks like a space-age version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and is home to the GLC, and Mayor Ken Livingstone’s offices. The occasion was the press launch for the new Don’t Trigger campaign aimed at raising awareness of the gun crime problem in Britain, and trying to devise some solutions. Among the speakers were a number of parents who have lost kids to pointless gun violence, including reggae singer Blacka Dread, which made it a very touching and emotionally-charged event.
'Tower Bridge, London' On the way in, all City Hall visitors are required to put their belongings through an airport-style X-ray machine. Ahead of me in the queue were three skanky looking youths. I made the mistake of momentarily forgetting to pick up my mobile phone. It was only ten seconds before I realised and went back, but in that time it had already been swiped. I wonder who…???? I found it kinda ironic that I was attending an event concerned with reducing crime and became a victim of it in the process. I immediately alerted T-Mobile, resulting in my handset becoming instantly worthless to the crims, which makes you wonder why they bothered in the first place. (And to those that know me, I’ve managed to retain my old number in my new phone, so you can still contact me as usual!) G’s in Bicester on Thursday 7th was my only gig of the weekend. On Saturday 9th, Parveen and myself set off a brief holiday to Scotland to mark our third wedding anniversary and to make up for all the recent time we’ve spent apart. We flew to Edinburgh, picking up a hire car at the airport and transferring to the Holiday Inn in Glenrothes for our first night. On Sunday came the real highlight – two nights at the Old Course Hotel and world-famous golf course in St. Andrews. We made use of all the attractions – pool, gym, spa, treatment room with full body massage, etc. For a change, it was a blissful, stress-free couple of days, and without a tiring late night in sight!
'St. Andrews, Scotland' First job back at B&S Towers was to interview upcoming UK hip hop artist Spida Lee at the Vision Music offices in London. I’ve featured his track ‘Getting Worse’ from the ‘Foundation’ album on my radio show a lot lately. Spida hails from Huddersfield and represents his ends right down to the Emmerdale-style heavy Yorkshire accent. Thankfully it was back to the busy and varied type of schedule that keeps life interesting the following week. My radio show on Wednesday night featured the long-awaited appearance of Royal Priesthood live in the studio. I first got turned on to their music when I heard the track ‘Champions’ a few months ago, and the subsequent album offered more of the same. It’s very loosely hip hop, but with all kinds of soulful vibes and spiritually-inclined lyrics and sentiments. What’s equally unusual is that the group consists of a husband and wife team, Femi aka Smooflow, (production and rapping,) and Roucheon, (writing and singing.) The third member is Silas, Roucheon’s brother, who didn’t make it – although the pair’s two-year-old son did! I got a great live freestyle session out of them, and I’ll be posting up a link to the audio on the homepage of the site soon for anyone who wants to hear how it went down. Vast hordes of the music I’m sent weekly do little to impress me. Royal Priesthood’s output, by contrast, is refreshingly different, and the sort of thing to really make you sit up and pay attention. Remember the name!
'Happy punters, Revolution, Swansea' The following night I braved more torrential rain (and a £5.10 Severn Bridge toll – just why is crossing this thing so damned expensive when the similarly-sized Forth Road Bridge in Scotland still only costs a quid?!) to play alongside local Swansea hero Evo at his weekly jam at the city’s Revolution. Although the foul weather had clearly kept a few punters away, the venue still had a good vibe and rocked to my two-hour set. In the midst of some throwbacks I dropped Sporty Thievz’ ‘No Pigeons’, and a guy came to the booth to say he’d never heard it before and to ask what it was; he was clearly too young to have been clubbing when it came out in 1999. It’s always fulfilling when people take the trouble to ask about the music you play - it’s what a DJ’s job is all about. By this point, there were two more nights to go before England finally got its public smoking ban, but in Wales, this had already been in place for a few weeks. Evo’s view echoed that offered by DJ friends in Scotland and Ireland, that the ban hadn’t really had any noticeable effect on attendance figures, with partygoers quickly adapting. The only problem it did create was that the venue stank of farts all night. Just goes to show what other smells cigarette smoke has been masking all these years! To save the strain of driving back the same night, I took a Travelodge at nearby Bridgend. In fact, this turned out to be right out in the sticks, and very close to a creepy cemetery, which didn’t make for the most comfortable of settings. I drove home on Friday morning, then prepared for a full evening’s activities. First stop was The New Theatre in Oxford with Parveen to see Ricky Gervais. We’d originally planned to catch him there on 3rd June, but my Kenya trip ended up preventing it. So I was well chuffed when he announced an additional date later in the month. This dude makes me laugh just to look at him, and his show didn’t disappoint, having me creased with hysterical laughter throughout.
'Dancefloor action at Nexus, Milton Keynes' After the show, we headed back to the car ready to move on to my gig in Milton Keynes … only to realise that Parveen had been pickpocketed on the way, and we’d had our digital camera lifted - the second time I’d been the victim of theft in a month. Needless to say, this put a dampener on the night, and Parveen was so pissed off that she opted to stay home rather than come clubbing. I was in need of some serious cheering up after this, and thankfully I got it in the form of the excellent Dancefloor Fillaz gig at Nexus in MK. Promoter/ DJ Andy Brown aka Furious, has been running this for a few weeks, with Westwood, Steve Sutherland and DJ Swerve having already guested, and Trevor Nelson due the following week. On the bill for my night was a live PA from Lethal Bizzle. By 2am, he still hadn’t shown, without a word from his mangement, (who failed to answer the mobile when the club called to chase them up.) I’ve witnessed this type of situation countless times before from London-based acts and their managements, labouring under the delusion that they’re so important they can just decide when, or whether they show up to an agreed, (and pre-paid) booking, and everyone else can just fall in around them. It’s an ignorant and unprofessional attitude, and the club were quite rightly unimpressed. What often turns out to be amusing is that, within a couple of years, many of these acts have fallen right off the radar, and are desperate to find PA bookings then, only to find that nobody wants them any more.
' DJ1E' What was impressive was Andy’s cousin, a DJ by the name of DJ 1E, the night’s resident. Her performance was spellbinding, and I stayed for an hour after my set to absorb it. She’s got the lot – tight tune selection, chopping and blending skills, great mic presence, good looks; she even does some neat little dances behind the decks. I can honestly say she’s one of the best DJs I’ve ever seen – period. Watch out for more from this gal, not least the profile I’ll be putting in B&S magazine at the earliest opportunity! Saturday 30th was a momentous date - the last night that smoking would be allowed in English bars and clubs, with the curfew coming in at six the following morning. I’m going to save myself a fortune in washing powder through not having to fling my clothes immediately into the wash basket upon getting in from a night’s work! It was slightly ironic that I found myself at The Bridge in Oxford for the occasion. For the past few months, I’ve fallen victim to the mid-level DJ booth being situated directly in front of an air-con vent, resulting in fagsmoke being fanned into my face the entire night. I just had one last night to endure this before the problem became history. As ever, I used the night to road test a stack of new tunes, an interesting cut-and-paste mash-up I’d been sent of Jay-Z’s ’99 Problems’ over the beat from The Cure’s ‘Close To You’ going dpwn especially well. … and that was June!
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Diary Archive 2007 2006 2005
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