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March 2008 One of the benefits of living in the part of the world that I do, (near Oxford,) is its convenient location slap in the middle of Southern England. It’s roughly equidistant between London, (where I played the previous night,) and Birmingham, where I span on Saturday 1st March. Initially, I was due in London for a second night, but got called on late to hold down the R&B room at The Works, a massive Gatecrasher-operated club in Birmingham’s Broad Street.
MD at The Works, Birmingham. For the second Saturday running, I experienced big sound problems. A set of speakers in my area weren’t working, and just as with The Bridge the previous week, the right-hand CD player, (a Pioneer CDJ-800) jammed on me twice. The embarrassment/ stress factor when this happens in front of a packed floor can’t be over-emphasised. As an analogy, imagine the autocue failing on Trevor McDonald just as he’s about to deliver the evening headlines, or the lights going out in the theatre as Chris Rock is about to deliver a killer punchline! Other than that, the night was well-attended and lively, with a diverse crowd resulting in many different tastes to be catered for, a main one being bassline/ niche house, still the dominant urban music in the Midlands. I emerged from the club to find some w*nker had smashed the glass in my wing mirror, marking the fifth occasion my BMW has been vandalised outside a club. It always strikes me as a pretty heavy price to pay for just doing a job. Until recently I had a pretty good deal when flying out of Heathrow. My in-laws lived in nearby Northolt, which allowed me to park at theirs, (and stay over in the case of early morning departures,) then take a bus to the airport. They recently moved out of the area, however, forcing me back to parking at Heathrow, or taking a coach up from Oxford. I managed to find a good on-line deal for Friday 7th, however, leaving my car in Pink Elephant Business Parking for little more than you’d normally pay for standard long-term.
Helsinki. I was flying to Finland with British Airways/ Finnair for a gig in Helsinki. Of the 50 or so flights displayed on the departures board in Terminal 1, only one was delayed. Go on – have a guess which. I was interested to see that security procedures have been relaxed slightly since my last visit. Laptops no longer have to be removed from bags, and there’s no need to remove your shoes, both welcome moves in my book. The delay, combined with Finland’s +two-hour timezone, saw us landing into Helsinki after 10pm, leaving only enough time to quickly check into my city centre hotel before heading straight to the venue. We Got Beef qualifies as possibly the most bizarrely-named venue I’ve played at, a bar/ club with an open-minded ‘anything goes’ music policy. Holding down the session was resident DJ Svengali.
Drew Myrie at We Got Beef. Midway through my first set, a character appeared at the DJ booth staring me out and I thought I’d attracted a psycho. Then it suddenly dawned on me that it was my old DJ mate Drew Myrie, formerly of Northampton, who I hadn’t seen since my wedding four years earlier. I’d completely forgotten that he’d recently moved to Helsinki to be with his Finnish girlfriend. He’d just happened to glance at my website that night and saw that I’d be in town, so hurried on down. We had a good chinwag over a couple of Finnish vodkas about the differences between British and Finnish culture, including the weather phenomena that sees Helsinki get only five hours of daylight in the Winter months, but stay light for the whole 24 hours in June - something I’d love to see. As the night got later, more crazy nutters arrived at Beef, and a wild mix of reggae and hip hop got played. Sadly, the lack of output channels on the DJ mixer didn’t allow me to get the minidisk recording of my set that I’d hoped for.
Finnish nutters, We Got Beef. For air miles reasons, I travelled back with Lufthansa on Saturday, routing via Frankfurt. This made for a long day, and my 6pm arrival back at Heathrow made it necessary to head straight up the M4 to Bath ready for my gig there at The Second Bridge, (although there was thankfully enough time for a nice restaurant meal, making for a very bloated set.) The night was as lively as they always are at the venue, but there was more Second Room Syndrome to contend with; while the main room is now equipped with incense sticks to counter the rancid smell of farts, my low-ceilinged Vaults has no such luxury. Maybe I’m just fussy, but breathing in the contents of peoples’ rectums isn’t really my idea of a great Saturday night. I always seem to draw the short straw when it comes to PRS monitoring periods at radio stations, and on Wednesday 12th, my ‘Just Buggin’ show on FM107.9 just happened to fall in the last section of the latest bout. It’s instigated by the Perfoming Rights Society, aimed at disciplining stations into returning the correct artist/ song/ publishing details for each piece of music played out, so that the relevant people get the correct royalties. With the majority of music I play arriving as anonymous downloads with no label or publisher information whatsoever, I’m not sure how much help my particular return will be. I’ve heard all kinds of comments over the years, but the sheer blind ignorance of some still occasionally knocks me for six. At G’s in Bicester on Thursday 13th, a drunken white fool staggered up to the DJ booth and slurred, ‘are you gonna be playing this nigger shit all night?’ I was convinced I’d misheard him and asked him to repeat it. I hadn’t. I let him know it was an inappropriate comment and if he didn’t like what was being played he should fuck off to some inbred redneck shitkicker joint where he can listen to Billy Ray Cyrus and Kenny Rogers all night. In an attempt to justify the comment, he then went on to inform me proudly that he was in the army and that ‘I have to work with niggers all the time.’ It’s the type of comment that would have (rightfully) earned him a beating in a side alley somewhere like London or Birmingham, and paints a worrying picture of the small-minded ignorance that still exists in some backward quarters. More worrying still is that this is the quality of person we have defending our country. What a sorry state.
Edinburgh. On Friday 14th, Parveen and myself flew from Birmingham Airport to Edinburgh. It’s our favourite UK city, and we’re both happy for any opportunity to visit. On this occasion it was to spin at the Fabuloz Fridays event at Base. In the evening, we hooked up with Scottish urban music kingpin David Craig for a drink and catch-up chat in our hotel. He was in town to interview Taio Cruz who was performing that night at Massa nightclub; the previous week they’d had Joe Budden. Massa and Base are going head to head for the urban music crowd on a Friday right now. Fabuloz’ upcoming Easter events with Trevor Nelson and Shortee Blitz look set to shift fortunes in their favour.
MD with David Craig. The visit was forming part of Parveen’s birthday present, so we pushed the boat out and ate in the brasserie of the upmarket Scotsman Hotel before heading on to Base. Archie, aka DJ Fabuloz, has become ‘VJ Fabuloz’ these days, using a pair of Pioneer V-DJ1000s to mix videos off DVD throughout. It makes for a whole new interesting element, and it was the first time I’d seen a jock structure an entire set this way. I played from after 1am to closing at 3, dropping some intense hip hop and dancehall pressure, and supported nicely by some extrovert (if drunken) mic work from resident MC Flow. The crowd were lively and responsive, and it ended up as possibly my most enjoyable UK DJing gig of the year so far.
MD with MC Flow at Base, Edinburgh. Following the radio show on Wednesday 19th, the long Easter weekend kicked off the following night with a rowdier-than-usual session at G’s in Bicester. The Swizz Beats remix of Alicia Keys’ ‘No-One’ has become the new beered-up singalong anthem, with pints raised and slopping all over the floor to the ‘uh-oh-oh-oh-oh’ bit at the end. Kinda hip hop karaoke. But not in a good way. Halfway through the night, I had one of those tedious wrong-side-of-40-haven’t-been-out-in-at-least-a-year types come up to the booth and ask me for some 80s pop. I politely explained that that’s not what I do, but she wasn’t having it, asking to flick through my CDs so she could find something she liked. Normally I wouldn’t allow this, but on this occasion I knew it was the quickest way of getting rid of her. As I’d predicted, she hadn’t heard of any of the tunes in my selection, and soon scurried off. Result.
MD, Vince & Dale at The Apartment, Swindon. Visits to The Apartment in Swindon are rarely disappointing, and my Easter Saturday set there enabled me to dig deep into the tune collection and drop a wide range of styles, from 80s soul stepper tunes, through to upfront soulful business. There are certain venues that I just seem to get on with and which always bring out my best performances, and this is one of them. (The opposite is occasionally true as well!) Resident Vince M was recording the whole night on to a portable iKey mp3 recorder, which looks like a neat piece of kit, and one which I’m going to have to invest in. At present, I still record on to a minidisc, which wastes a lot of time dubbing down in real time afterwards.
Parveen and Carl at Slug & Lettuce in Aylesbury. Easter Sunday’s gig turned out to be a family occasion. I was spinning at The Slug & Lettuce in Aylesbury, where I last played on Christmas Eve. The venue’s now run by Rodney Bennett, formerly a promoter as part of the Gigolos crew, who I worked with at Matrix in Reading in the early part of the decade. As Parveen’s parents now live in Aylesbury, we brought her mother along for a night out. Parveen’s brother was also in the place, along with a few of her work colleagues, and Reminisce Parties promoter Carl Awadzi, celebrating his birthday in extrovert fashion. I alternated with funky house DJ Ganya all night, flitting through styles and genres, and the venue stayed busy and buzzing throughout. At 2am, the time came for me, as the only sober and physically responsible member of the family, to get everyone home safely. It was quite a task. I can’t remember exactly how long I’ve been playing The Bridge in Oxford – it’s somewhere in the region of six or seven years – but it’s become my most consistent and reliable gig, and the way I generally end each month. The March session offered the usual opportunity to road-test some new sounds, with Grind Mode, Rick Ross, Ryan Leslie and the Mike D energetic remix of Usher and Young Jeezy going down particularly well. … and that was March.
February 2008 The Park End Club in Oxford figured majorly in my early DJ career. It was the site of my first weekly residency in the legendary ‘back room’, the place I first met my MC, Kid Fury, the place I staged my first promotion using Jazzie B of Soul II Soul, and, generally, the venue of choice for the city’s urban music clubbers. On Friday 8th, I got a last-minute call to hold down the R&B room for the night, which stood to be a major nostalgia trip. Lee, a guy who I remember as a glass collector back in the day, is still there – he’s now Assistant Manager! Sadly, the venue’s no longer known as Park End. It got bought up by the Luminar leisure corporation a few years ago, and just before Christmas got rebranded as one of their Lava & Ignite venues. Parveen joined me for a night out, which was all good … apart from the fact that my DJ booth was about a fifth the size of those in the other rooms, and came equipped with a pair of lame-ass Denon CDs with a play button that stuck intermittently on one of them, making for a very trying DJ experience. The fact that the alternative cheese and commercial dance areas were fitted with the industry-standard Pioneer CDJ1000s struck me as fairly short-sighted. Why is the R&B room always the forgotten corner of a club?!
The following night, I motored to Bath via a slight detour to Swindon, where I dropped off a quantity of ‘Tales From The Flipside’ books for DJ Vince M at The Apartment. Vince runs the Swin City comic book/ record shop in town, where he’s going to try to punt a few copies of the book out for me. Back on the M4, I listened back to the CDs that I’d burned of that week’s ‘Just Buggin’ radio show. This isn’t a vanity thing; for years I’ve made a point of listening back to my shows with a critical ear. You don’t get a feel for how it’s all flowing in the studio; that can only come with a later listen. I constantly use the experience to try and figure out how to better things for future reference.
I was in Bath to play my latest session at The Second Bridge, but it turned out to be a much easier night than I’d expected. It quickly emerged that the amp powering the sound output to The Vaults area had blown, and after an hour of trying to find a solution, manager Simon and I mutually agreed that it wasn’t going to happen and I might as well go, (fully paid up, of course!) This gave me the rare luxury of arriving home as early as 1am. If I’d been sensible, I’d have gone to bed early to wake up refreshed for Sunday lunch out with Mrs. D the following day. But of course I wasn’t; I stayed up watching TV til after 4. The last part of my weekly radio show spans the midnight hour, which meant that on Wednesday night, I went into Valentine’s Day. This gave an opportunity to slip into late night grown and sexy mode, (hopefully in a non-cheesy way,) and throw on some classic seductive slow jams. Wayne Marshall’s ‘G Spot’, R Kelly’s ‘Bump & Grind’, Jodeci’s ‘Freekin’ You’ and Lil Jon’s ‘Lovers & Friends’ all got dropped - in my opinion, four of the sexiest records ever made. I woke the next morning oblivious to the horrors that lay in store. Due to a monumental communications cock-up between service providers, my phone line and, more vitally, Broadband internet access was down, and after several tedious hours of trying to sort it out, it emerged that I’d have to open a new Broadband account, which could mean as long as two weeks without service. It’s not until you’re without it that you realise just how much we rely on 24-hour internet access these days. It’s now as vital a service, (to me at least,) as water and electricity. Downloading the many, many music tracks I get sent is going to require some creative effort over the next few days. I've discovered one solution. A local hotel has a wireless network, and I've obtained the login password. Fortunately, the wi-fi is so strong that I can still pick it up sat outside in the car. A bit naughty, but desperate times call for desperate measures!
Crawley, just along from Gatwick Airport, was the destination for Saturday night’s DJ travels. I’d never considered whether levels of politeness had regional boundaries before, but it was inspiring to be asked nicely for tracks, and to get a respectful ‘OK. No problem then, thanks’ if I didn’t have a particular tune. In Bicester, the conversation would go roughly along the lines of: ‘oi, geezah, play some drum ‘n’ bass now, yeah? … what d’yuh mean you ain’t got any? You need to sort it aht, dun’t yer? Call yerself a DJ?’
An extended weekend of five gigs kicked off on Wednesday 20th, as I span an early set at the opening party for The Regal, Oxford’s newest venue. It’s part-operated by Kieran Hayes, who I’ve known since we both DJ-ed at The Park End Club back in the early 90s. The venue’s away from the city centre, in cosmopolitan Cowley Road, and dates back to the 1930s when it was a ballroom and dancehall. It was more famous as a Mecca Bingo Hall in recent years. The main arena’s still under construction, so Wednesday’s party took place in the foyer section. There’s a wide variety of nights lined up, with Norman Jay due the following night, (which was rammed and rocking,) From The Regal, I dashed across town to do my radio show. As ever, G’s in Bicester followed on Thursday. A few years ago, it was fairly common for me to play two gigs in separate cities on the same night. I used to do crazy things like start a Saturday night in London, before driving to Cardiff to spin last set at The Forum. It’s a long while since I last doubled up, however, with Friday 22nd bringing back the buzz of it all. First off was the opening session of Essence at the aforementioned Regal. I kicked things off, before being joined by fellow FM107.9 stablemate Kid Fury, which marked the first time we’d played together in about eight years. Fury used to come out on the road as my MC, but now confines himself to DJing. The night was a little quiet, but everyone concerned understands that new club ventures don’t take off overnight and need time to build. I stayed true to the ‘essence’ idea of the night, only playing quality, soulful, heavy tunes, and none of the regular commercial pap.
Londoners often make the mistake of thinking Oxford to be far. In reality, it’s only a little more than an extension of West London. I covered the Oxford Ring Road to inside of the M25 in just over half an hour. It took double that to weave my way into the West End, park, and battle through the tourist revellers to Bar Rumba for my 1.30am set at Front 2 Back. The night’s a replacement for the previous Get Down sessions, but still run by DJ/ promoter Sharma. Bar Rumba’s regular problem is that it becomes a sweatbox, and the ceiling dripped all over me and my CDs throughout my set. On this occasion, that wasn’t the only problem. The DJ mixer was misbehaving as a result of mistreatment. I ended up delivering a below-average set that was very sloppy in parts. It would be easy to blame the equipment for throwing me off-course, but the responsibility has to lie with me at the end of the day. I can only hold my hand up and use the experience to try harder next time. In the house was Ipswich DJ Karl Cross and his girl. I correspond with Karl regularly, even though we’ve only met once, so it was good to catch up in person. Predictably, I beat myself up on the drive home over my shabby performance. I’m surely not the first DJ to react in such a way. I tried to redeem myself at The Bridge in Oxford the following night. The session started off well, but I ended up being plagued with more sound problems, as the right-hand CD player stalled mid-track at least three times, and the array of speakers in my area overheated and cut out temporarily about every twenty minutes. When these mishaps occur, punters automatically assume it must be the DJ’s fault, turning round to give you an accusng glare, which doesn’t exactly make for a great night. Ah well. Maybe next time.
Diary Archive 2008 2007 2006 2005 |
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