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March
2005
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One of the aspects of my job that I love the most is that no two weekends are ever the same. I started March with a lot to look forward to, and the first was a US bi-coastal double-bill. The States is the only place I go to DJ where I feel nervous or apprehensive – particularly New York. The phrase ‘coals to Newcastle’ springs to mind. The Americans invented hip hop. Do they really need some dude from Britain coming over to play their own music back to them?! Nevertheless, the opportunity to go is always appreciated. First off was a much-anticipated return to New York on Friday 4th. Before this, however, there was the business of G’s in Bicester on Thursday night. This is my local pocket money gig, so it didn’t want to miss it. It had a highly unwelcome effect on my knackeredness, as I had to drive straight from the club to my in-laws’ house near Heathrow Airport, ready for my early morning departure. The only good part was being able to climb into bed beside my wife for the first time in almost a week! But soon, the alarm clock was ringing, and we headed, bleary-eyed to Terminal 3. The Virgin Atlantic flight touched down at JFK at around 12.30. After transferring to Manhattan I headed immediately to Rock & Soul Records on 7th Avenue to hook myself up with some hot new vinyl. Expect a fair bit of it to appear on the upcoming ‘Unleash’ mix CD – my first job when I get back home.
'MD & AK, New York' With only 19 hours in the city, my time was very precious. Nevertheless, a three-hour hotel nap was absolutely essential. This set me up nicely for my hook-up with AK Smith-Ford, manager of the hip hop soul artist Traedonya, and an old friend I always try to catch up with when in town. AK and Trae work harder than anyone else I know, and over a bite to eat near Times Square, we chewed the fat over many things, including record company politics, the rise of grime music in London, and the misconception that success in America is all about cracking New York and Cali. After filming AK’s piece-to-camera for my upcoming DVD, it was straight off to the night’s gig at Avalon. This is an impressive venue by any standards; it used to be the famous Limelight club, and is a converted 17th century church. House music dominates the main room, but the second, The Chapel, is all about party-style hip hop. Sadly, things didn’t run entirely to plan when I arrived to find no needles on the turntables. Despite the promoter’s promise that he would supply some, he never actually turned up. (I later discovered that his flat had been raided and turned upside-down by the Drug Squad just as he was about to leave; turns out his room-mate was a big-time smuggler, which he hadn’t realised in all the months he’d been living with him! Fair enough.) As a result of the no-show, I was left with no option but to play the small amount of CDs I had with me, which hardly made for a satisfactory set. My own ‘New York Anthems Volume 1’ mix of a few years ago came in very useful.
'MD with DJ Drastic' The night took on a different dimension when the resident, DJ Drastic and his crew showed up. Drastic went on to totally blaze it with a mindblowingly impressive set, which I managed to record on to minidisc, so we’ll try and upload a section on to the site very soon. The atmosphere was so good it actually left me feeling quite embarrassed. Daddy Yankee’s ‘Gasolina’ tore the roof off, and the sheer impact of the Reggaeton genre in NY right now should not be under-estimated. Strong! As was the home-made brew going around the DJ booth – something similar to paint stripper. I headed back to Kennedy Airport early on Saturday morning, with Rakim’s ‘New York To Cali’ going through my head. Next on the cards was a six-hour American Airlines flight to San Francisco – my first time in the city, (with the exception of a stopover at the airport en route back from Las Vegas in 2000.) As we descended, the pilot announced that we were heading into ‘the most beautiful city in the world’. He might just have been right. In contrast to Arctic New York, Frisco was basking in glorious California sunshine, but with a cooling Spring breeze in the air. The place put me in mind of Cape Town, (where I was due to be a fortnight later) - laid back, friendly and cosmopolitan, with a real coastal resort feel. Not hard to understand why the place was so inspirational to the Hippies in the 60s.
'MD with DJ Classic, Gravity' The York Hotel on Sutter Street turned out to have been featured in Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’, and I grabbed an obligatory power nap there before being collected for the night by local radio/ club jock DJ Classic. Gravity, in the Marina district, is a small and intimate spot with an across-the-board Saturday night crowd, and Classic and myself alternated throughout the night in an attempt to provide as diverse a music selection as possible. Mine went down well, my only mis-judgement being Mantronix’s ‘Got To Have Your Love’ – turns out nobody in San Fran has heard of it! (The weekend was notable for another reason; with New York and California, I’d found myself in two states where the public ban on smoking is now an accepted part of the culture. Both nights I’d arrived back at my hotel NOT smelling like an overflowing ashtray - an absolute luxury.)
'Golden Gate Bridge' The following day gave just enough time for a whistle-stop sightseeing tour, so I opted to take a cable car to Fisherman’s Wharf, then a boat trip around The Bay, under the Golden Gate Bridge and around the island of Alcatraz.
'Alcatraz!' I finally dragged myself away from a sun-drenched harbourside lunch having fallen in love with Frisco, and wishing I had more time in my schedule to absorb it. By 4pm, I was aboard my AA flight back to New York, touching down at JFK just before midnight. From there, I transferred to the nearby Howard Johnson Express for less than four hours of shut-eye – so barely worth it. At 8.30 Monday morning I was on the final leg back to Heathrow, touching down at 9pm London time, to be greeted by the welcome sight of Mrs. D waiting to pick me up. Flying back through the day had been only way to get me back in time for my next trip – to Poland the very next day! (Incidentally, I was pretty unimpressed to retrieve my suitcase only to find the padlock had been broken off and thrown away by U.S Customs so they could have a snoop inside. All I got was a note explaining that I’d been selected ‘at random’, and that they weren’t liable for a replacement lock. I’d say I got a bit of a shit deal there. I was pretty unimpressed with AA as an airline, too – kinda a long-haul version of Ryanair. But that’s another story!) My strategy with overseas trips has always been to keep them as brief as possible. That way, you keep costs down, and you get to cram that many more visits into a year. Plus the fact that I’m married, and most of my visits are without the wife, (it was her birthday on Saturday 5th, and the news that I’d be in the US didn’t go down too well!) Nevertheless, this was one great excursion where another couple of days away would have done me well. With barely enough time to unpack and download my photos, Tuesday 8th saw me back at the airport – this time Luton – to head off on a 24-hour trip to Krakow, Poland. Easyjet launched a route there recently, and I managed to secure a return flight for the absurdly cheap price of £23 including tax, which was too good to pass up. Krakow is an intriguing and attractive city. The fact that it was in the midst of an ice-covered Winter spell added to the ambience … but it was almost as cold as I’d been any time in my life. I ended the evening with a beer in a warm, friendly bar/ club called Prozak.
'Auschwitz' The next morning, I got up early and caught the train to Auschwitz, where the former concentration camp is now a museum and memorial to the atrocities that went on there. It doesn’t feel evil. It just has an air of bleak sadness and despair to it that I’d not felt anywhere else. By the time I got back, I was almost starting to feel guilty for all the time I’d spent travelling, and a return to serious work was required! Besides magazine work, the weekend’s agenda comprised of my Thursday spot at G’s, two Friday gigs in London, Saturday in The Lake District, and Monday in Newcastle. The London double-bill began at Rococo, (formerly The Shh Rooms – where the hell do they get these names?!), in Leicester Square. On before me was a female DJ by the name of DJ Stylus, and she was kinda nice, (on the decks, you understand!) There are too few girl DJs in this male-dominated game, and I’ve got respect for all those who go out there and do their thing. The night was organised by enterprising promoter Daniel Azure, and after my hour, we headed round the corner to Moonlighting in Soho, for a heavy and full-on old school-tinged set. All in all, a fulfilling night. A long-haul road trip beckoned on Saturday 12th, as I returned to play Mint in Kendal, Cumbria. As previously mentioned, this place is a real best-kept secret, DJ Bligeness and MC POW having worked hard to establish the most loyal and knowledgeable of crowds, and the night was every bit as fun as before.
'MD & DJ Bligeness' The only practical benefit of another four weary hours at the wheel on Monday, and another four the following morning, was the opportunity to catch up with an immense stack of promo CDs. These provided the soundtrack up to Newcastle, (highlights being new stuff from Truth Hurts, Vivian Green, Brooke Valentine and The Herbaliser,) where I was playing that night’s Vodka Island party at Tiger Tiger.
'MD at Tiger Tiger, Newcastle' Having done the Manchester one on a few occasions, I knew what to expect – well over a thousand rowdy students, giving Monday night a serious kick up the backside. For some reason, a continuous flow of pissheads started wandering bewildered through the DJ booth door, thinking it was the Gents, forcing me to lock it after a while. Good to catch up with DJ DNO, anyway, and retrieve the B&S banner that he’s been keeping in his garage ever since I left it up there five months earlier! On Wednesday, it was long-haul flight time again, this time to Africa! More soon. Parveen had accompanied me to South Africa in 2003, and had been looking for an excuse to return ever since. When she learned this year’s itinerary included Cape Town, it was double tickets all round. We set off from Heathrow with BA on Wednesday 16th, touching down in Johannesburg at 9am Thursday. My mixes continue to air regularly on the Metro FM breakfast show, which keeps my profile alive in SA. Despite this, however, there was no Jo’burg gig on the agenda this time. Thursday was to have involved a return trip to Botswana, but promoters don’t tend to be the most reliable in that part of the world, so when the plans fell through, we settled for a day and night to ourselves at our regular spot, the Park Plaza in Sandton. It was new territory time on Friday, however, as I headed Northwards to Mozambique, one country up from SA on the East coast. The event was set up by Nic Regisford, the guy who put together my first few visits to SA. He told me how the Jo’burg party scene has fallen right off, largely due to lack of promoter funds as as result of increased nightlife competition. I was told that the wild party scene in Moz would more than compensate. Due to the short timing of the trip, and to keep costs down, sadly Parveen couldn’t come on this leg, so I left her chilling at the Park Plaza as I set off to meet Nic at Jo’burg airport for our 7pm flight. We arrived into a dead humid Maputo an hour later. Moz is a Portuguese colony, so every sign you see appears in that language first, and English second. The airport is little more than a shed, which was kinda shocking considering this is a capital city. Maputo crowds party late, so we arrived at the venue at 1am. This had been changed at the last minute from the Coconut Club to a spot called Mambo’s. Despite having multiple music rooms, I was chuffed to find my set was going to be outside, DJing from a raised gantry looking out over a concealed courtyard – a real Notting Hill Carnival feel, and my favourite kind of set-up.
'Mambo, Maputo' The crowd was surprisingly mixed, clearly excited that an overseas DJ had come to their town, and the energy levels remained at fever pitch throughout. About midway, the heavens opened, pouring a tropical shower down on the crowd. Instead of running for cover, they just stayed right there and reached for the sky. A special moment, and with the possible exception of February’s gig in Zagreb, the best I’ve played so far in ’05. It’ll be interesting to see how these two rank in my assessments at the end of the year. Frustratingly, I was unable to get a flight back to Jo’burg in time to connect with our original flight down to Cape Town, so Parveen had to take that one alone while I flew first from Maputo to Jo’burg, then on a separate later flight to CT. As we left Moz, we were hit with a 60 Rand Departure Tax, having already spent 170 Rand on a temporary visa – a little steep for a 12-hour visit, but clearly a major source of revenue for the state. Cape Town was as sunny as ever as we were picked up by promoter/ DJ Ricky D and wife Zulpha, and fully justifies its place as one of the world’s top tourist destinations. Rather than a hotel, Ricky had put us in a luxury self-catering apartment near the V&A Waterfront, and the place really started to feel like home after a couple of days. Saturday’s gig was at 169 on Long, my seventh time playing there, and the atmosphere was as buzzing as ever. DJ Gee Spot, aka Gaolathe, (a regular contributor to this site’s Chat Forum,) had made the trip from Port Elizabeth specially, so we invited him to hang with us in the DJ booth before he had to set back off for his 7am flight home.
'MD & Geespot, Cape Town' Parveen kept forgetting his name, and there were a lot of references to ‘Gandalf.’ Sorry G! With all of Sunday at leisure, and all of Monday spent flying home, we touched down at Heathrow absurdly early on Tuesday, in time to spend the rest of the Easter period back in the UK. Some good news on the Thursday was that Rodney P and Skitz were performing at Hobson’s Choice in Banbury, less than 20 miles from my front door. The bad news was that I was committed to playing my weekly spot at G’s, so was unable to check it out. Good to have my DJ friend Adam aka Puffy there to field the endless glut of requests for ‘My Neck, My Back’ at least. Good Friday was to have involved a double-bill. On the day itself, I learned that the Mothematics gig, already re-scheduled from NYT in London, had now been cancelled at its new home of Cirque too, due to some venue-related politics that I found too tedious to bother taking an interest in. That just left Bring The Noise at The Brunel Rooms in Swindon. Better luck at this one. Following my hour’s set in the main room, I headed to The Amphi just in time to catch the Beats N Rhymes crew from Oxford showcasing Skinnyman, who proceeded to ignite the intimate crowd with a totally spellbinding show of beats and freestyles, and I got to meet the dude and chill with him and DJ Flip backstage. (Check out the smoke-laden photo!)
'MD & Skinnyman' I ended the night getting totally absorbed in a freestyle battle between a bunch of white boys dissing each other up on stage. Pure entertainment! The weekend’s DJing was rounded off on Saturday with the regular end-of-month session at The Bridge in Oxford. And that was March! Diary Archive 2007 2006 2005
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