"Acid House was what got me on the decks. It made me get involved rather than just being a spectator. Full respect goes out to Stafford DJ Jon Caine in a town where I spent my latter teenage years after moving there from Watford. Doing the mobile disco thing, Jon would battle it out, squeezing in such classics as Adonis and Armando, much to the dismay of most, but to me it was wicked and like nothing I’d ever heard before. Some smoke and a strobe in a darkened basement, and I was well and truly hooked.

College meant a re-location to East London. This was 89 and a fantastic time. An electronics student built me a transmitter and for 6 months we were blasting out on the airwaves. This all came on top, but fortunately I got a slot on Pulse 90.6FM. Things were going really well, but looking back, maybe 3 shows a week was pushing it, because one Tuesday night it all abruptly came to an end. The DTI bust through the door, taking all my tunes and slapping me with a hefty fine. I stayed clear for a while but Pulse FM kept getting hit hard and eventually closed down. But the radio created exposure and I started getting regular gigs up and down the country.

I got a few sorted residences. I’ve got many happy memories from doing Slimetime and also Labrynth when it was down at 4 Aces, Dalston – one of the most unique venues ever - it has to be said. Plenty of the big raves were happening, and I was getting slots at places like Helter Skelter, Interdance, Universe, Elevation, The Eclipse, Quest, Kinetic and 2000AD to name a few. This was the heyday of Hardcore and it was slammin. But before you knew it, the chipmunk vocals and nursery rhymes were giving it a bad name to what was an otherwise original emerging UK movement. It was time to find a new direction.

This was around 93 and there was a new wave of industrial techno coming through. You would often catch me spinning down at Knowledge and Eurobeat 2000. Both were pushing the new sound and Knowledge was becoming such a pivotal club. I’d be there even if I wasn’t playing. I was resident at another legendary night, VFM. There I had the opportunity to really experiment, since the organisers and their audience were all so into their music. A spin off from VFM was the uncompromising Zero Tolerance label. I put out several releases as one half of Lorenz Attractor, and also as Integer and Noetic Movement. ‘Dead by Dawn’ was another cult moment in this era. A small basement in Railton Road Brixton and a night put on by Praxis records. Spiral Tribe were putting on a lot of free parties and I was doing that circuit too. I recorded one of my first tunes with them before their dispersal round Europe.

It was at about this time I got a job at Kickin records. For a couple of years I was there as A&R and learnt a lot about the runnings of a label. I got to put out some great records from a roster including DJ Hell, Bushwacka, Bam Bam, Colin Dale, Surgeon and Damon Wild and put together a lot of the albums. Techno Nations and Underground London/UK were a couple of them.

I was playing some of the leading nights of the time. Analogue City, Deep Space, Sativae Edinburgh, and gigs abroad, but all too soon, the music literally got stuck on a loop and lost its sense of innovation and its will to develop. About the same time, I left Kickin Records to pursue my own productions with a view to getting my own imprint of the ground. I was starting to spin the new Electro sound, early breaks stuff and dark D&B around the late 90’s, but by this time I was getting despondent with everything. Great music I knew should have been blowing me away just wasn’t moving me at all. It was time for a break. I put everything on hold and went travelling abroad for a couple of years.

I returned in 2001 and had regained my enthusiasm. I got back on the case. Combining forces with long-time dj, Stacey (now known as Noyeahno), we put our studios together and laid plans for Rag & Bone. We had both been through similar genres and wanted to do something with it. The label has evolved into a melting pot of dubstep, breaks and electro, with the occasional hint of old skool and techno. Its ended up being a bit uncompromising as an imprint, skirting the fringes of several scenes and sounds but not really getting stuck, trapped or defined by any particular one of them. Probably not the best way to go about things, but the label is about putting out what we like, what moves us and releasing music that pushes things to another level.

And that's how I'm spinning - I just like to mix it up and make people move with edgey forward thinking beats. The last few years have been good. Playing here and abroad at a range of underground events like Dead Silence, Wang, Haywire, Delta 9, Unsound, Yardcore, Toxic Dancehall plus places like Uglyfunk, Rebel Bass, Colony and Interakt. And when there's been time, putting on our own events under the Rag & Bone moniker with a policy of good underground music, new and old.

Having the opportunity to put out my own material on Rag & Bone has led onto several other projects. Tracks have been included on two releases for Blackmass Plastics cutting edge Dirty Needles label, and there's also a new release imminent for 2007 on Thorn Industries. Skint records gave us the opportunity to cut a Rag & Bone remix of Roman Flugel's 'Gehts Noch?' and I've just completed a mix for Si Begg's 'New Style'. But the story doesn't end there. A new sub-label is in the pipeline focussing on an alternative dubstep sound plus there's more remixes and collaborations on the way. As long as there's good music, I'll be there."

 

 

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