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The Radiophonic Workshop saw the sines

While its 1958 founders Daphne Oram and Desmond Briscoe imagined it as an outpost of avant-garde composing, to the wider BBC the Radiophonic Workshop was a source of handy sound effects and music for children’s stories. But as a refuge for musical mavericks like Delia Derbyshire and John Baker, a sound lab filled with the latest room-sized synths, the RW was at the forefront of electronic experimentation throughout most of its existence. Peter Howell and Roger Limb were there from the early ’70s until its demise in the ’90s, and key players in its subsequent rebirth; Peter, a mischievous musician with a string of semi-imaginary psych-folk bands to his name, and Roger, a TV announcer with a teenage musique concrete habit.

Interviewed by Bill, 6.11.2018

How did you each get involved in the Radiophonic Workshop?
Roger Limb: We both arrived in the first half of the ’70s. I landed on the doorstep in 1972; I was there on an attachment, which was a week’s work, and their way of seeing if they liked you. If they did, they’d give you three months. After the three months you might get lucky and get another three months or you might just go back into somewhere else in the BBC, because this was all internal. We were all on the BBC staff. When some vacancies arose again in 1974, I got one of them and Peter followed soon after. I think the person I replaced was David Cain.

Peter Howell: Yeah, I think I got the vacancy caused by John Baker, when he left. I’m not suggesting for a moment that I stepped into his shoes. His shoes are still there, as it were. He was quite unique.

What involvement had you had in studios prior to that?  
PH: Oh lots.

Peter, you were in [highly collectible psych-folk bands] Ithaca and Agincourt. And you had built your own studio at home, right?
PH: Yeah, we did five albums there. We thought they’d be so unpopular that we only had 50 copies pressed, for each of the five albums, but because we’d only pressed that amount they became collectors’ items. That actually enabled me to really get into audio.

Was that the fascination for you, the manipulation of sound rather than composition?
PH: Yeah. Prior to that I’d been in a rather bad Shadows-lookalike band, but with my friend John Ferdinando we got the chance to write the music to a local amateur dramatic production of Alice Through The Looking Glass.

This is in Ditchling in Sussex?
PH: Yeah. That was the first album we produced. And as you can imagine that subject was a gift for manipulation, and we played around with reversing the tape and using telephones to sing through, and I frequently went down to a music shop in Brighton to see if they had another cheap instrument I could buy to make a silly noise with. I think that started my whole interest in the thing.

What about you, Roger?
RL: I too had always been interested in sound. In 1958, the year that the Radiophonic Workshop arrived, I was a 15-year-old schoolboy, and I noticed the school had bought a tape machine to use in the modern languages department, so I begged the French teacher that I could take it home and they let me. I had a microphone and I’d crawl into the piano and bang the strings and record it and put the sustain pedal down and make all sorts of shrieking noises.

But I didn’t really follow it through. Having been at college, I spent a couple of years on the road with various jazz groups and then I applied to join the BBC as a studio manager, and did all sorts of jobs in the BBC for ten years before I arrived at the Workshop. I was a newsreader, a TV link man and all sorts. Then the Workshop thing came along and I got in and was there for 20 years. I did actually write some music for a school play once, but sound manipulation was not a part of it.

When you guys were starting, synthesisers must have been starting to come in and replacing tape manipulation as the primary means of making sounds at the RW.
PH: I wouldn’t actually say they were on the market. That’s probably jumping the gun a bit. There were synthesisers. The VCS3 was very expensive and there weren’t many of them around.

RL: At the time we arrived, yes, but it was a significant moment at the Workshop. It was a changing of the guard really at the RW. Delia [Derbyshire] left, John Baker left, David Cain left. Paddy [Kingsland] had already arrived. And at the same time there was a gradual phasing out of tape cutting. John Baker had done some wonderful work with it that still stands the test of time, and Delia too, but both of them were rather suspicious of synthesisers; they didn’t take naturally to them. That’s how that big changeover came in the mid ’70s.

Reversed chants lead the way in this 1968 track made for a TV drama about a robot uprising.

A handy DIY guide to making electronic music, ’60s-style.

What was their suspicion founded on?
PH: They were both suspicious, but not necessarily in the same way. John Baker was a fantastic jazz musician, and his compositions when you look at them musically are fascinating, so I think he was suspicious of synthesisers because they had a keyboard stuck to the front of them and to him musicality was not as instantaneous as that. He felt you either had a band of musicians and you added some electronics to it or you worked on the tiny minutiae of it with tiny bits of tape, as he did. Then along comes this thing that’s a bit of an easy option.

He felt it was cheating?
PH: Yeah, it was cheating.

But he certainly wasn’t unique among musicians feeling like that.
PH: No, he wasn’t and it didn’t stop there. When we’d been at the Workshop quite a while, there was a lot of distrust at how we were operating and the fact we were taking work from jobbing musicians. Although theoretically that might be true, if you compare the number of programmes we worked on to the number using BBC broadcasting, it was infinitesimal. Looking back. I don’t think it was as big a deal as they made out, but nevertheless it is true to say there was suspicion.

And what was Delia’s take on it?
PH: She had a very mathematical and almost scientific approach…

RL: Analytical.

PH: Analytical is the word. She liked to approach things where she had decided what she was going to do before she started it, and then along comes something that begs the opposite: which is saying, ‘Find out what I can do!’ And it’s a completely different thing. It was just not her bag, really.

RL: Also, it has to be said that when the VCS3 first arrived it didn’t actually have a keyboard. Although it did have one sewn on to it, it never really worked satisfactorily in a keyboard-y sort of way. It was originally conceived as a sound source rather than as a musical instrument.

PH: It was enormous fun. I came across my first VCS3 in the Cockpit Theatre just north of Paddington [we’re in the Paddington Hilton in Praed Street], where the BBC amateur dramatic group I belonged to the Aerial Theatre Group were doing a performance and one of the things we were doing needed some sort of musical accompaniment and someone said well actually there’s some electronic bits we use for the youth group upstairs and there were two VCS3s sitting there. It was likely to be 1972.

Had you come across electronic music prior to working at the Radiophonic Workshop?
RL: I don’t know if I’d had a serious experience with it, I was certainly interested in contemporary and modern music. I’d been to concerts for Boulez and Messiaen etc.

PH: And there was musique concrete too.

RL: Yes, although I don’t think I’d had a serious musical experience of that.

PH: I’d also listened to a few tracks of Varese.

RL: The one person we haven’t mentioned of course is Stockhausen, who was in the vanguard.

PH: Stands alone really.

So were they influential with members of the Radiophonic Workshop?
PH: It’s funny, people assume they must’ve been important, but it was certainly not the case. I have a background in instrumental guitar music; I’d realised what fun it was to manipulate sounds on tape, so I came in on a purely practical experience-led way. It was selfish in a way because I was in this little bubble and thought, ‘Ooh this is great!’ I said to a friend the other day don’t get the impression I had lots to choose from – I was bloody awful at everything else! I was delighted that I was so enthusiastic about this and I could do it quite well.

RL: Mine was similar. My bubble was playing keyboards and bass, and yours was guitar, and when I found myself at the BBC playing with the equipment, long before I was in the Workshop I discovered all sorts of things about feedback and loops that I discovered myself. I was just discovering the possibilities of a professional studio like that.

PH: I can’t speak for the others, but I know Paddy has a similar background. We didn’t imagine something and investigate it, it really was an experience-led thing.

Similar, I guess, to what Joe Meek was doing.
RL: Well, I actually did work in Joe Meek’s studio in about 1963 or 1964. I was playing with a jazz group at the time. I was going to say I went up to his studio, but in those days everybody did. My experience of him was he was a fairly down to earth bloke. We never got anywhere commercially with him, but he did show us his wonderful machine that he did ‘Telstar’ [by The Tornados] on, and he showed us his bathroom which had a microphone at one end. So it was a little bit of history but I wouldn’t say it left a lasting influence on me. He left an impression on me but not an influence.

PH: There were lot of parallel lines at that time but they weren’t really converging. And then we get into the BBC and if ever there was a hermit-like operation… the BBC was it! It outsources a lot of stuff nowadays, but in those days it was proud of the fact it could do the whole damn thing itself. It had a wardrobe department, it had everything; buildings all over West London. Everything was in-house. There we were, stuck in the middle of this giant bubble, and I’m almost ashamed to say this, but all that time I was in Maida Vale I never once went to Abbey Road Studios!

How far is it?
RL: A 15-minute walk.

PH: We were so heads down because a lot of projects were coming through the door all the time.

How did the work come in, was it generated by the BBC itself?
RL: It was producer-led. The Workshop grew out of BBC radio. They were preparing and inventing all sorts of new psychological dramas. And some of those producers went to TV and they took us with them really.

PH: Also, you’ve got to remember the biggest lucky break we had as a department was getting the credit on the end of a programme. The Radiophonic Workshop name coming up on the end of Dr Who, and it was very cleverly negotiated so it wasn’t just the department name but also the composer who got a credit. And so everyone could see this, including directors inside the BBC: ‘Oh they’ve done this weird stuff, and I need something strange, I’ll go to the Workshop.’

RL: And lots of people came to the Workshop. A lot of people beat a path to our door.

PH: [British experimental Composer] Jonathan Harvey was one…

Marc Bolan was another, wasn’t he?
RL: Well, I was in my studio working away and it was lunchtime so I opened the door to walk out and there was Marc Bolan with his ear to the door. And he said, ‘I’ve always wondered what went on in the Radiophonic Workshop.’ So I gave him my card and said if you want to come back and have a proper visit let me know. Mike Oldfield used to come around. Bolan said thanks very much. Two weeks later he was dead.

When did you realise that the Workshop had had this influence in the wider culture?
PH: Not for absolutely ages. I don’t think the penny actually dropped until [Producer, journalist and Gay Dad frontman] Cliff Jones did a little survey, because he was very interested in managing us as a band, and we’d never given a second thought to that being a possibility. So before he committed himself he asked a researcher to ask around a bit, and she came back and said, ‘Well actually there’s quite a lot of love out there.’

RL: I’m not sure how much influence there has been to be honest. I think it’s more apparent than real, if you know what I mean.

PH: I think people think we had a certain sort of cachet and I think they liked being associated with that.

RL: I don’t think composers would sit down and wonder how the Radiophonic Workshop would approach a score, but they might have unconsciously soaked up a few sounds.

PH: I’ve heard us mentioned in the same sentence as Pink Floyd, and I’ve listened to tons of Pink Floyd and I don’t jump up and down and go, ‘That’s us!’ It sounds like original material and I don’t think for a minute any of it was influenced by us. The rush to find influences is an after-the-event explanation and it’s not really true. I think your remark about parallel lines is much more what it was, and it took many, many years for those ideas to be compared.

RL: Also, it’s worth noting that it was by no means homogenous in the Radiophonic Workshop. Paddy had his style, Peter had his style, I had my style, etc.

How did it work? Did you each have your own studio space?
RL: Peter and I shared a studio for a while though. You came in the morning.

PH: No it was completely the opposite! I’d come in the afternoon and start at 3pm. My wife is still complaining that I still work like that.

How did your 2009 Roundhouse show come about?
In 2002 the Radiophonic Workshop did a concert called ‘Generic Sci-fi Quarry’ in a quarry in Oxfordshire. It was celebrating the fact they used an awful lot of quarries in sci-fi films. It was a playback of original music, over two nights, and they’d hired phenomenal projectors and an incredible sound system. It was a one-off and those people who turned up really enjoyed it, about 800 people.

RL: But in 2009 at the Roundhouse we had a cast of thousands: brass section, session drummer and bass player,

PH: Dave Gaydon from the venue approached us, because he was doing a festival called Short Circuit over four or five nights. We were approached and we thought. ‘Are they mad?’

RL: After that there was a pause, and then we reinvented the group and started doing festivals.

What was it like playing your music in that context?
RL: Well, you’re going to get two completely different answers, but I enjoyed myself immensely. Technically there were things that went wrong but it didn’t bother me particularly.

PH: I didn’t enjoy it. I wasn’t prepared enough. It did give me the motivation to get ready for the next time. I did enjoy bits of it and the audience reaction.

What are some of proudest moments as composers?
RL: It’s like asking which one is your favourite child. There was something I did for ‘Box Of Delights’ that I was quite pleased with. There are some pleasant parts of Dr Who that I’m not ashamed of.

PH: Of the Dr Who stuff I’m most pleased with ‘The Five Doctors’ because I loved the whole idea of that programme.

How much did sci-fi feed into the work you did? Most of my memories of the Radiophonic Workshop were of sci-fi stuff on the BBC.
PH: Not as much as you might think. We worked an enormous amount for radio schools programmes, and they were not science fiction by any means. A lot of them were for quite simple stories, things like Ali Baba’s magic carpet. The first job I did in the RW was a flying steak and kidney pie. That’s not very sci-fi.

RL: One of the things we dealt with at the RW was outer space and inner space. So a lot of the things we dealt with were psychological. Someone once said you should have a sign up saying you specialise in nervous breakdowns because there was a lot of that going on.

Is it true that they tried to limit workers in the department to three-month stints because they thought it was psychologically damaging?
PH: In the early years I believe that was actually true. They were actually suggesting you couldn’t hold down the job for too long.

RL: It might have also come from the fact that John Baker and Delia were wonderfully creative people but not exactly feet-on-the-ground. There’s no doubt that I think they suffered from that.

PH: To call them otherworldly is not to describe them as science fiction; they were just constantly absorbed in other things. That worried a people a little bit.

RL: Delia had a certain mindset to the whole of her life, which was not negative, it was very positive in fact.

PH: Yes she enjoyed her life. She was very bohemian

RL: She was a character with loads and loads of friends. John Baker was a bit more of a loner, I think.

PH: John Baker was the very first person I saw when I went on attachment there. He turned up early for work and hardly anyone else ever did. I went into his room and the first impression was cigarettes. He was a chain smoker and the nicotine hung down like stalactites from the ceiling.

RL: I spent a morning on attachment with him and although he was smiley and friendly it was also really obvious he would much rather be on his own in the studio and I was upsetting his routine.

Tell me about the Delaware [The nickname of the VCS3].
PH: It was a very, very big VCS3.

RL: They were Synthi 100’s really.

PH: Yes, that was its trade name. We called it the Delaware and it was the first one of its type. This is my controversial bit because I guess a lot of fans would say how could you say nasty things about the Delaware, but it had a very thin sound. It could make some lovely sounds and I used it almost like a condiment to add to other stuff. On the very few occasions I used it entirely for something I was never very happy and always felt it sounded a bit thin. And by the time you’d have thought there’d be a son of Delaware things had moved on. The ARP Odyssey was with us, with the fattest bass sound you ever heard.

RL: The Delaware did have the first sequencer I seem to remember.

PH: Yes, and a very large matrix selection programme on it. So in many ways it was very inspirational for lots of synths that came afterwards.

RL: You know how ‘Incubus’ starts? I did that with the Delaware.

PH: Oh really!

What were your favourite compositional tools?
PH: Paddy and I absolutely adored the ARP.

RL: I love it too. It was very much in demand and we only had one. And the Yamaha DX7.

PH: The DX7 was great and it came with a big fanfare, but not as versatile as they made out. This is almost harder than asking about your favourite piece. Although you’re in partnership with these bits of equipment, they did tend to come and go so you’d be using whatever you were excited about using at the time. It was very wrong to say it was the Fairlight, but at the time I did enjoy using it because it did things other machines couldn’t.

Was the Fairlight a quantum leap in terms of composition?
RL: It was the first time we got seriously into the digital recording of sound.

PH: It was the first sampler really.

And it would have coincided with the arrival of MIDI too?
PH Yes, it would, although I’m saying they’re part of the same stream. Again, parallel lines. It had a sampling time of 1.6 seconds, but boy you could do a lot with it when that’s all that was available. One thing it would do is literally morph between waveforms. I had a favourite sample which I’ve still got which is a mandolin and a choir, two almost completely different sounds and the sound of the mandolin pluck literally turns into the choir. I’ve yet to find anything that really does that. Also, the composer page was quite innovative, because there were no bar lines.

RL: One of the most significant moments was when we first started using sequencers – using a Mac with a sequencing program.

What were you using originally, Cubase? Notator?
PH: Performer to start with. Then something called Studio Vision, which was very good but sadly got bought out and discontinued, but now I’m on Logic.

How does it feel to know that the Radiophonic Workshop has had such a profound influence on British youth culture?
RL: I’m pleased to have been part of it really. At the time I could’ve done better but I was enjoying myself.

PH: Sounds like one of my school reports!

RL: I was lucky to be there. When I arrived there in the 1970s, the feeling was this was wonderful and it can’t possibly last.

PH: Yes, you felt like you were going in every day and thinking how can this exist in the BBC?!

RL: Yes but actually, it could only have existed in the BBC, paradoxically!

PH: That’s the paradox.

Was it John Birt that ended it for the RW?
PH: Well John Birt dug the hole. That’s not strictly fair, though everyone absolutely hated the producer choice system he brought in. But I think it would be unfair to blame him for its demise. I think it was natural evolution of the marketplace. When it started we were using things that nobody else had access to, and that’s what made it so mysterious. The only pity was that they didn’t have party and say thank you you’ve done a grand job.

RL: It went out with a whimper. It faded away.

PH: Our fans continued on, as did fans of Dr Who, we disappeared off the scene for nine years and then we came back for the concert and there they all were waiting for us to return.

Matthew Collin was wise to our Altered State

With its cover of a dilated pupil, and a title that promised to give acid house the social and political context it deserved, Matthew Collin’s book 1997 Altered State was a landmark. Here was dance culture taken seriously, and by someone who had lived it. Matthew’s writing career started in Nottingham on the city’s Duck Call fanzine, but went into overdrive when he moved to London in 1988, keen to document the exploding dance scene using what he liked to call ‘participant observation’. As editor of i-D between 1991 and ’94, he used his magazine to document the rapidly evolving culture and the exciting musical splinters flying off it. (He also took a punt on a rookie writer named Broughton.) And he continued a lifelong devotion to the intersection of music and humanity with a series of incisive books – like Serbia Calling, which explored music as political resistance, or Rave On which detailed house culture’s global evolution. His latest, Dream Machines, is a rip-roaring story of electronic music told from a distinctly British perspective. This interview took place on the 30th anniversary of 1988’s Summer of Love.

Interviewed by Bill in London, 7.3.2018

What was happening for you in 1988?
I moved to London in April 1988. I have to say that serendipity is real. I left for London the night after seeing Depeche Mode’s Music For The Masses tour in Sheffield and wanted to make it as a music journalist, and living in Nottingham that wasn’t possible then. Got the offer of cheap flat, in fact Sheryl Garratt’s former flat. Arrived at the right place at the right time. Not by plan. It was one of a train of events that sets you on a course for life over the next 30 years.

Had you been going to places like The Garage?
Yeah, we were lucky in Notts because we had Graeme [Park] at the Garage and Jonathan [Woodliffe] at Rock City, who were pioneers in acid house/electronic dance music. They were playing these new imports from Chicago, Detroit and New York. But of course, there weren’t enough house and techno records to fill a whole night, so they’d be playing soul, hip hop, as well. You’d get a hip hop section for a couple of hours, and you’d get a house and techno section, and in the middle there’d be electronic soul records: that Easy Street or Prelude sound and that was the bridge between the two things. At that time we didn’t really see it as a new form of music, but part of the whole same thing. You don’t know any different. Certainly, it was very lucky that my local club was the club where a DJ was playing this new music and trying to push it.

From then, Graeme Park went on to the Haçienda, so we were lucky to have that connection, that different interpretation of things. In the Midlands, you’re not northern, you’re not southern, you’re not really anything, so you don’t have this attachment to north or south, you’re just happy to be going anywhere out of your city where there’s going to be something good going on. And hitchhiking to gigs before that. You’d hitchhike anywhere within a reasonable – or unreasonable distance – to hear what you wanted to hear. This all comes down to scarcity doesn’t it? It wasn’t easily accessible and it was scarce, so you had to make a reasonable effort to find it.

Moving to London in 1988, what was your trajectory of writing jobs and going out?
I was lucky I had friends who were… well one friend, Sheryl Garratt, [writer and editor of The Face 1990-95], who I have to credit for everything. She was obviously well connected in club culture in London, and she knew John Godfrey [i-D editor 1988-90], who gave me my first job as an editor. So it was reasonably easy to get in anywhere you wanted to. Obviously you wanted to go to the most exciting places possible, which at that point were Shoom, Spectrum and Future in London and then I was lucky to have the Graeme Park connection, which opened up the whole Manchester thing as well.

Did it feel like something massive was going to happen? Was the change dramatic from 1987 to 1988?
In 1987 all the music was already there: house, techno and garage, and pioneering DJs around the country were already playing it. But this was a set of sub-cultural styles, it was not a mass nationwide movement. I think the early months of 1988, as acid house exploded, it felt like the onset of a psychedelic trip. Sounds and feelings and colours intensified and there was this headlong rush that swept you up, up and away into the unknown. It did feel like a dramatic change and a break from what had gone on before. Those first few years from 1988 onwards really did feel like the highest of high times; the kind of times where anything was possible, although obviously ecstasy played a massive role in all that, of course.

I suppose that’s the part of the recipe that was missing in 1987 that became evident in 1988.
Ecstasy was the accelerator. Ecstasy was the drug that bound people together. It didn’t create the music, but it did help to create this community around it. And it gave it that passionate intensity. Of course, there would have been an electronic dance music culture without it, but it definitely wouldn’t have happened in the same way.

What were the most exciting events of that year?
The Nude and Hot nights at the Haçienda, Spectrum, Future at Heaven, The Trip at the Astoria. Everyone’s got their own story to tell and what it meant to them. And then seeing it begin to explode in my hometown as well, that made it clear that it wasn’t just going to be some metropolitan hipster scene; it was going to be a major phenomenon everywhere.

There was this amazing sense of liberation and freedom which was compounded by the sheer innovative power of this incredible new music, which was so full of energy and passion and excitement. It did feel like something special was happening, and you did feel like you were part of some sort of secret society, all joined together on this incredible journey. It wasn’t at all clear where it was going. It certainly wasn’t clear we’d be talking about it as an important movement in contemporary cultural history thirty years later. By the end of 1988, there were even some people suggesting it was already finished and they were looking for the next trend. It was still relatively small in terms of numbers in 1988, and then the orbital raves of 1989 just took it to another level entirely.

When you went back to Notts, is that when you really noticed the sea change?
There was just this greater intensity in the air. People were wearing more colourful clothes. People weren’t going out to be looked at or to assert status, but to be involved. They were going to dance. They were going out to sweat. They were going out for the music, rather than any showing-off aspect of the culture, which really existed before. So the first time I saw it, I was like, ‘Bloody hell, the hometown’s got ecstatic!’ If it’s happening in Notts it’s going to happen everywhere else, and that’s exactly what happened.

In the Garage?
Yeah, but I can’t remember if it was called the Garage or the Kool Kat at that stage. That was the central point because Graeme Park could mix, he’d been doing it for years already. He had the records and he knew what to do with them. At that point I think there was also still some scratching! There was this weird crossover point where you still had hip hop records being played, like Mantronix ‘King of the Beats’, Chubb Rock ‘Ya Bad Chubbs’, they were still being played in ’88 and ’89. You can hear tapes in the Haçienda where they’re playing Public Enemy. It wasn’t house music all night long. You had these weird atmospheric records which would be quite difficult to get away with nowadays, like ESP ‘It’s You’, which is a Haçienda classic but you listen to it now and it’s so sparse and emotional. You can’t hear it now as a club record. It wasn’t just the fact we were so out of it we’d dance to anything; it was a kind of searching for a sound. At one point, Jon Dasilva, who played the Hot nights was using BBC sound effects records to give his sets a different texture than no one else had. People were experimenting with how to put this music together because there was no template.

And the UK was quite late to start mixing records, too.
In some ways that was a good thing. The way the culture developed, people needed a constantly evolving narrative. And a constant groove. The way the music was played before acid house wasn’t going to work at that point. There was so much energy. You’ve probably seen those clips from Quadrant Park in Liverpool on YouTube. That is the kind of acid house experience, the non-Balearic experience, instilled to its absolute essence. And anyone who’s been through the scene, seeing that will get emotional flashbacks. That is really how it felt every night you went out for a long period of time. That kind of intensity.

I remember weekends lasting from Thursday night to Monday lunchtime.
Yes, but I don’t necessarily think the experience of this for someone who got into it in 1998 is any different from someone who got into it in ’92 or ’95 in qualitative terms, because you do have this absolute passionate love affair with the whole culture when you first feel it. So that could’ve been true in 1988 or ’92 or ’95, and probably it could happen in 2018 as well.

Did it change your life in any way?
It completely altered the course of my life. Obviously other things go on in life that shape the way you develop and shape your interests, but the fact of moving to London in April 1988 set me on a course that shaped my entire social and professional environment for years to come, and I’m so thankful for it. It was an incredible experience and incredibly inspiring. And I don’t think I’m alone in this, but it wasn’t just going to parties, it was the whole culture that grew up around it which I was very lucky to be able to document and participate at the same time.

What’s the lasting legacy of acid house if there is one?
It brought what were previously the pleasures of the bohemian elite to the whole of society. In practical terms it brought about changes in licensing laws, it changed city centres through fuelling a night time economy, and of course it normalised drug-taking. Its do-it-yourself ethos also enabled the democratisation of creativity, which has produced this huge and wonderful body of amazing music.

Did it change society?
That’s really impossible to say because society is affected by so many other things.

What was its long-term impact on dance music.
Acid house clubs, more or less, are still the template for the global dance music scene that we have today. From Shanghai to Cape Town, Sao Paolo to Moscow this is now a worldwide culture, and in some way it’s still rooted to what happened in the UK in 1988, as well as the music of Chicago, Detroit and New York. This set the pattern for global hedonism. That’s the lasting impact.

Are there things we’ve lost from those early years.
We’ve lost our braincells and we’ve lost our hair [laughs]. Obviously, this thing about it happening for the first time means it can’t happen again for the first time.

In the thirty years leading up to 1988, we had rock’n’roll, mods, psychedelia, punk, jazz-funk and acid house. But thirty years after it there’s been no comparable youth explosions Why do you think that is?
It’s really, really hard to say why not. It would be a subject for sociological study rather than me.

Does the internet have something to do with it?
Nowadays all history exists simultaneously. Post-punk was a challenge to people to always create something new. And the same happened with acid house, the whole Chicago thing was a competition between a set of people, same with Detroit, same with jungle. We come from this time when the future was a kind of aspiration. We were socialised into looking for the new and expecting the new any time. We also came from a time of scarcity, so I had to hitch hike down to London to buy second-hand records from Record & Tape Exchange. It would be seen as ludicrous to do that now. This is the argument against these festivals with amazing line-ups, where you’re like a kid in a sweet shop. Scarcity and having to struggle to find something gives it more value.

Was there an anti-Thatcher element to acid house?
I don’t know. We’re talking about this first year, it wasn’t even a full year, because really it was only when Spectrum and the Trip started, these bigger venues, that it actually became a phenomenon rather than a sub-cult.

Will it ever happen again?
[laughs] Obviously nothing ever happens again the same way twice. Society has changed and it shapes cultural movements. In terms of a mass dance movement? Well, it’s now a global movement. I don’t think there can be anything like 1988 ever again, but that’s the same with all moments in history. I do think there’s something essentially primal in this need for humans to get together and celebrate and abandon their inhibitions and find some kind of transcendent bliss, if only for one night. It’s dreadful being nostalgic about 1988 because there were shitty things happening in 1988.

It was important, but enjoyment and pleasure doesn’t end for young people
I think it’s massively detrimental to fetishise an object of the past and worship it like a god. It’s historical arrogance saying we had the best time ever. A guy at my FE college was always saying, ‘Oh, you should’ve been around in the ’60s; that would have been your time.’ I was always miffed about that. I’ve got 23 Skidoo and Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle and Clock DVA; why do I need your ’60s!

I also worry about this iconography of the past, whether it puts a weight on people’s enjoyment of the present, when there’s old farts standing around saying it was such better back in the day. In the end all that matters is the present. 1988 was a remarkable year that changed a lot of things, certainly British youth culture, but it wasn’t the only important year in history, and it should be seen as some kind of date that’s written in stone and handed down by the gods.

Outside of the club scene, you’ve got to remember – and acid house was really quite a small thing compared to even a year later or five years later – life went on as normal. It was the late Thatcher era and it was pretty dreadful, but that all contributed to how the culture developed. And it developed in that way partly because of what we imported from the US and Ibiza, and it developed because of the socio cultural and political climate of the time.

But it did reinforce this post-punk idea of DIY. Anything is possible. You may fuck it up the first time you try it, but it’s great to try and it may lead to something amazing. All those first DJ records. Do you remember that article in i-D: British Underground Music, where they got together Tim Simenon, Coldcut, Mike Pickering, Graeme Park, which is where they first met. Pretty much all the people who went on to be some sort of luminary in UK dance music, and these guys were just trying it, basically. I don’t think they would say they knew what they were doing at the time, but that was the spirit of the time. That was the spirit of 1988.

Read some of Matthew’s Dream Machine interviews here

Martyn Ware built Electric Foundations

Whether it was the Yorkshire Dadaism of Cabaret Voltaire, or the city’s backbeat of steel foundries, when punk told everyone to have a go, something about Sheffield encouraged bands to pick up synths rather than guitars. After a succession of ‘imaginary bands’ Martyn Ware formed the Human League along with Ian Craig-Marsh and Phil Oakey, with Adrian Wright as ‘Director of Visuals’. When the band split in 1980, Ware and Marsh formed British Electric Foundation, followed by Heaven 17, and everyone involved started having chart hits. This 2013 interview gives a great flavour of the electronic experimentation of the time.

Interviewed by Bill in London, 28.5.13

OK so tell me about growing up and getting into music.
Grew up in Sheffield in a very poor family. Lived in a two-up, two-down council house in Walkley. With my brother and two sisters, who were older than me, my sister was 20 years older so a lot older than me. I was listening to their record collection, early ’60s pop, Motown. That’s where I learnt my love of pop music.

In the fourth form in secondary school, I started going to this place called Meatwhistle, a sort of arts youth club, set up by Chris Wilkinson, who’s an actor, and his wife Veronica. It’s where I met Glenn [Gregory] and Ian [Craig Marsh] and loads of people I still keep in touch with. It changed my life. It was a council-sponsored project where you could live out your artistic fantasies. We used to have imaginary bands that would only exist for that day and we’d perform for our mates. We even had early video recorders that we could mess around with. We’d make plays

There was nothing to do in Sheffield. It was derelict. The economic situation was grim. So you had to make your own fun. Musically speaking I’d always had a fascination with futuristic sound stuff.

Where did that come from?
Good question. I suppose, futurism in the broadest sense. Looking towards the future. It was the age of space travel. And electronic music was what drove it all. It seemed so mysterious. It would just pop up on occasional records. Then when I got a bit older and started buying my own records I found myself gravitating towards that sort of thing.

About five minutes’ walk from our house was a secondhand store called Rare & Racy. It had every kind of music in there. I just couldn’t get enough stuff into me. I listened to everything from pop, prog rock and psychedelic rock, American stuff and on the other side of the coin, classical music and things like Computer Music by Xenakis. Fantastic! You’d put it on and it sounded terrible, but it didn’t matter because it sounded like the entrance to another world. I wanted things that painted a picture in my mind and that’s been a guiding principle of everything that I’ve done.

Did punk rock have an effect?
Yeah, we were all punks for about three weeks. Ripped T-shirts etc. And then we realised it was all just rock’n’roll. To be honest we’d had our punk phase in the early ’70s with T. Rex and glam and the New York Dolls. Punk all seemed a bit quaint to me. We were in a slightly different part of our lives. It wasn’t a big discovery of music to us, it was an opportunity for self-expression. We started a fanzine called Gun Rubber. It was the sudden realisation that you could create stuff, you didn’t have to live in awe of those that did. It wasn’t just music, it was art, publishing, and an explosion of creativity. It helped to visualise the possibilities. So that was much more exciting than the music which we soon came to realise was basically pub rock.

There was one epiphany, when one of our imaginary bands did a gig at the Salter Lane Art College, this was six months before the first Human League gig. We supported a Manchester band the Drones, who were terrible, by the way. God knows how we got the gig. There was a bunch hanging out together, us, Cabaret Voltaire, Adi Newton, 2.3, we formed a supergroup, before any of us had been famous or even in a group (apart from Cabs). Apart from Richard Kirk and Chris Watson we were all playing the wrong instruments. We had one rehearsal and most of that was spent deciding which songs we were going to do. We did a version of ‘Dr Who’ and ‘Cock In My Pocket’ by Iggy Pop. As we got halfway through this, the Drones manager came on and said. ‘Listen, the Drones want to come on now’, so this song evolved into a chant going ‘The Drones wanna come on now.’ The audience was looking on bemused. Unbelievably, we were terrible, but the Drones were worse. And they had a record contract. It really made us realise that everything was possible. So we did start taking it more seriously.

Was this a precursor to your band the Future?
I think it was just after the Future and before Human League. We got our first recording studio, it was a hovel that used to be a small engineering firm, a room in a derelict building essentially. I’d bought a Korg 700S monophonic synth on HP [hire purchase]. Ian had bought a System 100 on HP which was the basic tools for us to create.

It was basically synths, tapes and voices wasn’t it?
Yeah. We’d bought a Sony two-track which had sound-on-sound capabilities. Let’s have a real go at getting the tracks to sound good. This was me, Adi [Newton, later of Clock DVA] and Ian. We enquired around for someone who had a four-track recorder. And we found this guy who used to work for Radio Sheffield. He’d retired but he’d got this TEAC four track, which to us was like… my god, can you imagine what you can do with that. Ian and I were computer operators at this time so we had a bit of disposable income.

Anyway, we booked a weekend with this guy who lived in a typical suburban house with his wife on the outskirts of town. It was in his front room, with his wife making us cups of tea while we sang about Virgin Of The Time Dunes. It was just… bizarre. We weren’t musicians in the traditional sense. Our compilation The Golden Hour of the Future documents this. We did seven or eight songs. We liked them. There was something in them.

I was working on nightshifts at Lucas Industries doing payroll and bored to tears. I thought why don’t we try and get appointments with some A&R men in London. I made a punch card computer printout with the words ‘This Is The Future. This is your chance to meet the Future. Here are the two dates they will be in London. Don’t miss this opportunity’. And amazingly we got about 12 appointments in two days. We took these bizarre demos to everyone from EMI and Warner Bros. We’d never even been to London! We got there, and most of them took about a minute. But there were two companies, Island and Virgin, who, while they weren’t interested in signing us, showed an interest

Ian and I realised we couldn’t write songs with Adi because he was on a different path. So that’s when we decided to find another singer. I would’ve suggested Glenn but he’d just moved to London a month before to seek his fame and fortune. Initially as a photographer but he also he wanted to be in a band. He was in 57 Men which went on to become Wang Chung.

The original Human League: (L-R) Adrian Wright (Director of Visuals), Ian Craig Marsh, Martyn Ware, with Phil Oakey lying low

I said, I’ve got this mate of mine from school called Phil [Oakey]. We were still best mates. I said he looks amazing. Good-looking guy, funny haircut. I’m not sure he’s got much of a voice but we’ll find out. But what we wanted was someone who could help with the songwriting. So we gave him the backing track to ‘Being Boiled’. Asked him ‘Do you like it?’ He said he did and went away to try and write some lyrics to it. He brought it in and started singing, ‘Listen to the voice of Buddha, saying stop your seri-culture’. Woah woah, what you talking about here?! He said it was about how parents treat their children. The reason we got on so well was because we were so opinionated. I thought this is brilliant. You’ve definitely got the job.

What gear were you using?
The Korg and System 100.

And a drum machine?
No, all the rhythms were done on the hardware sequencer of the System 100. Every sound on that early stuff was created from scratch. Our new rule was it all had to be electronically generated. That became our manifesto.

It was a different world. I remember going into a shop called Musical Sounds in Sheffield. That’s where I saw the Korg 700S. I was considering learning to drive, but it was the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and the buses were 2p at that time. So I bought the synth. I still can’t drive.

When I went into buy that synth, everyone in the shop looked like they were in the Eagles and it was full of people doing Stairway To Heaven. It was pretty much the same when we started recording. Everywhere you’d go people found it hard to relate to it. We loved Amon Duul, Vangelis, Krautrock. Most rock fans didn’t have a clue. My girlfriend at the time that I did the Reproduction album, I played it to her and she was trying to wrap her head around, she said. ‘Yeah, it’s a bit like Led Zeppelin’. She was only trying to please me, but there was that inability to figure out with what was going on.

We recorded ‘Being Boiled’ in the studio we were in. That version was the first time he’d sung it. There were no second chances to drop it in later. Everyone to this day loved the first version much more than the second. For the first version you couldn’t bounce it more than four or five times it would have turned to mush. There something to do said for limitations.

How did you get the deal?
Paul Bower, whose punk band 2.3 was signed to Fast Product, said we should send it to [label founder] Bob Last. We honestly didn’t believe anyone would see it as anything other than a curio. But Bob loved it. We created the cover. My original version was very condensed and Bob thinned it out a bit but kept the central stuff. Next thing you know, it was getting played three or four times a week on John Peel. Over a period of three months we sold 5,000 which was astonishing. There was nothing else remotely like it. No one had taken on the rigour of only using electronic instruments and nobody was trying to make pop songs with inadequate tools. It was like electronic punk.

Did you do ‘Dignity of Labour’ before ‘Being Boiled’?
We were determined to show as much diversity in our music as possible… it’s almost like a self-destruct button in my career. So just when it looks like we might actually make a bit of money, we want to put out a 12-inch, purely electronic, with no vocals! To his eternal credit Bob said, yeah let’s do it.

Shortly after that you signed to Virgin.
Bob became our manager for that two-and-a-half-year period, with the first two albums. We did two tours with Siouxsie and the Banshees, we did one in Europe with Iggy Pop. In the UK we were playing to punk audiences. We were generally scared we’d get bottled off. I think the secret for us was bravery and the fact we had visual accompaniment, and we were at least trying to do something different.

We did one gig at Victoria Hall in Stoke and everyone was like, ‘Are you alright Martyn?’ ‘Yeah I’m fine. Why?’ ‘You’re covered in blood’. This skinhead had been banging his head on the stage, sucking up the blood and spitting it out.

We did some headline gigs in small clubs in towns in Germany. I can’t remember the name of the town, but we went on stage and I knew it wasn’t going well after two songs when they set fire to a Union Jack. Then they started throwing things at us. We’d always made a point of having the backing track on a reel-to-reel on the stage rather than hiding it. At that point in Europe they used to often use the Hell’s Angels as security. Well, they disappeared. And the stage got invaded.

So how did the deal come about?
After ‘Being Boiled’ came out there were several labels interested, people like Chris Parry at Fiction, EMI and a few others. We very quickly came to the conclusion that Virgin were right for us. There was no vibe at EMI. But Virgin we immediately got on with, it was like one giant brainstorm. You’d walk into Vernon Yard and there were people shouting from the top of the stairs. We lived in Notting Hill at the time and we were in there most days of the week. Bob lived in Edinburgh. We were in there even more later with Heaven 17 because we didn’t have a manager of any description.

How did the Human League split happen?
We had two albums out, both of which we were pleased with, but neither yielded a hit. There was a very slow inexorable pressure being put on us to have a hit. We released ‘Holiday 80’, which we were convinced was the one. We were convinced that ‘Marianne’ was a good song and would be a hit. But it wasn’t. So Virgin bribed someone to get us on Top of the Pops, even though we were about number 70 and you needed to be in the Top 40 to get on there normally. It helped a bit but the jury was out.

There were some electronic records in the charts by then
I can’t remember the exact chronology, but Gary Numan brought out ‘Are Friends Electric’, OMD came along, so everyone seemed to be having hits except us. It felt like we’d missed the boat. We were still living on £30 a week. We were preparing for a new tour in Europe. It was turning into a multimedia show. Bigger and better projections. I suppose because there was more tension going on, even though they had faith in us, the next album was make or break.

How were relations in the band?
Me and Phil would have the occasional contretemps, but no more than you’d expect when you live in each other’s pockets. There were no disagreements about creative direction.

Unbeknown to me – which Bob Last has since admitted to – he was conniving with Virgin to destabilise the group by a whispering campaign in Philip’s ear that he was the main man. So one day they called a band meeting. Bob’s there, Ian’s there, Phil’s there. They’re all looking a bit strange at me. Martyn we’re throwing you out of the group.

A complete shock?
Hard to comprehend because there was no reason for it to happen. More to the point, Phil had been my best friend since we were 16. So I was stunned. First thing I said, I think this is my group, you’re not throwing me out of my group. But it was all a fait accompli. They’d already figured out how they’d approach the new group, and who would write with Phil, which was Jo Callis, they’d already got someone to produce the album.

And they were going to get me to go up to Edinburgh to talk to me about setting up a production company, which they thought was right for me. But what they hadn’t bargained for was Ian joining me. I don’t blame Jo for this, by the way, he’s a mate and a really good songwriter. He was Bob’s best mate.

In short order I soon got over it, thought up a name for the new production company, British Electronic Foundation [BEF]. Bob reckoned he could get me a deal with Virgin. I said Ian has to be part of it. But the thing that really upset me was that Phil had said to various people at the record company that he didn’t want to be associated with the ‘un-aesthetic’ part of the band anymore. Which was me. But it did provide a great deal of impetus after.

So there was a competitive element after the split? Did it feel a bit like the Space Race?
Totally. Oh yeah. It was well known that we used the same studio in shifts, so they were doing Dare [as Human League] and we were doing Penthouse & Pavement [as Heaven 17]. And some of the backing tracks that me and Ian had been writing became the songs for Penthouse & Pavement.

The first thing that came out was the Music For Stowaways album wasn’t it?
Yeah they were sonic maquettes. They weren’t really songs.

‘Fascist Groove Thing’ was an instrumental on there wasn’t it?
Yeah. What was important was that we got something out quickly that showed the intent of the company, almost like a manifesto. Music For Stowaways was the arty side and the pop manifesto side was Music Of Quality & Distinction Volume 1.

You never managed hits together, yet once you split up you both start having them.
The weird thing is that as Bob Last tells the story now, he regards that as justification for what happened. There might be some truth in that. I don’t know, but the split was incredibly upsetting.

Do you have a relationship with Phil now?
There was a BBC documentary about ten years ago – maybe more – and the researcher asked if I’d be willing to do an interview in the same room as Phil and the girls. It was the first time we’d met in the flesh since 1982. He lived in Sheffield and I moved down here so we never bumped into each other. It was quite poignant in a way. Phil’s a lovely guy. He’s a bit angular if you don’t understand him, but he’s got a heart of gold. He comes across as a bit awkward but he’s also disarmingly honest and he genuinely thrilled to see me.

So when you produced the Tina turner album was that under the BEF banner?
Yeah.

And was Ian working on it too?
No, by that time Ian had had enough. He was involved in Hot Gossip, which was a bunch of covers of Human League, Heaven 17 and even a Sting song on there. He just turned round to me one day and said, I don’t think it’s for me this. Everything we did with the Human League was split three ways and the same for Heaven 17. But as soon as it turned into more traditional production, so it was a relationship between the producer and artist, it stopped being equal and Ian thought it was time to step out. I volunteered to train up Glenn, but he said no I can’t be bothered.

How do you feel now about electronic music being so prevalent, did it feel inevitable?
Well, like all innovation, as it proliferates it becomes less flavoursome. We’re now in the endless iterations of the diffusion of electronic music.

It’s 2013 and you’re releasing a new BEF album – Music of Quality and Distinction 3: Dark. What’s the reason for exhuming the series?
I always wanted to do a volume 3. I planned to do them every ten years but it came to the millennium and I couldn’t think of any exciting vocalists, so I just didn’t get round to doing it. Then in 2010 I was putting together the ten-CD boxed set for Illustrious of all the stuff that had never been released, which came out on Mute, and I thought I’d really like to do a BEF album incorporating the ideas I’ve learnt from doing all this ambient and sound design stuff.

How have your studio techniques changed?
A lot of the stuff on the new album started out as either real instruments or samples of real instruments, but then got so processed and chopped up and reordered, atomised and reconstructed. Something like ‘The Look of Love’ [Dusty Springfield] backing track. Started working on that in Ableton. I became obsessed with current processing techniques. Took some of the original backing track and chopped it up and chopped it up, slicing it and dicing it, seeing if there’s something in the essential DNA that could be incorporated into the new backing track. There are little tiny hooks which are fantastic part of Bacharach’s writing. There’s a tiniest hint of those in this ambient soundscape and it worked.

One day I listened to ‘The Night’ by Frankie Valli, and I really love that song. I was listening to the lyric, it’s almost like a stalker, a bit like ‘Every Breath You Take’ by Police. Then I thought maybe I could do an album of stalker songs! Then I thought of taking the northern soul backing track from Frankie Valli and put a more David Lynch style backing track. The second one was ‘Didn’t I Blow your Mind’, which is a very dark, vengeful lyric. The final bit of the jigsaw was finding people daft enough to have a go at singing this. There’s not much money in it, but whatever we do we’ll split the proceeds 50/50.

The Kim Wilde track was arranged by Brian Duffy from Modified Toy Orchestra. He picks up toys from skips and car boot sales, with chips in, Speak and Spells, Barbies etc, he picks them apart and turns them into instruments. Honestly, it’s brilliant. Next thing he sends me a Logi song session with 78 tracks of individually recorded tracks. Each chord has to be recorded separately. It’s been recorded on a non-MIDI monophonic synth with Kim Wilde sounding more contemporary than she’s ever sounded.

How do you work these days? Do you use soft synths?
Yeah.

What happened to your old analogue gear?
I sold it all when I was skint. Also where do you store all this stuff? You don’t need it now. I mixed the whole of this album on my computer. Apart from the vocals which were either recorded at Strongroom or the singers did them themselves and sent them over.

It’s all part of the virtuous circle of trust, that if you put faith in people, they will deliver. I’m an enormous believer in that. If you give people creative responsibility they will respond to it. I’m the opposite of a control freak.

Fred Deakin spent a life in clubs

Starting out as a student club runner in Edinburgh in the 1980s, Fred Deakin has built a formidable career as a DJ, producer, graphic designer and lecturer. This charity shop polymath was responsible for numerous clubs, including Misery, the self-styled worst club in the world, Thunderball, Blue and Impotent Fury, all of which he distilled into his award-winning Edinburgh Fringe show, Club Life (now about to show in London). Alongside Nick Franglen, he formed the humour-laced Lemon Jelly, who went on to be nominated for a Mercury Music Prize and BRIT Award. Subsequently, he has worked as a lecturer, though he still keeps his hand in looking for vinyl treasures in bargain bins and charity shops the world over. He is Britain’s leading Nana Mouskouri fan.

Interview by Bill, 02.11.20 and 11.10.2024

How was the Club Life conceived and then how how did you construct the idea?
Well I kind of had the idea in lockdown because I was just feeling isolated as we all were and I realised fairly quickly that we were all going to be stuck at home and in these little bubbles for the foreseeable and then when we reemerged clubbing was going to be the last thing on the list. It made me take stock and I remembered all the nights I’d run and all the nights I’d been to in my late teens and 20s and even 30s and just how special they were. They weren’t necessarily huge big name clubs that we all talk about, they were just the clubs that me and my mates put on for our friends and our community and that whole history had vanished into the mists of time. I just wanted to sort of pay tribute to clubbing

It’s a young person’s game to some degree. So, okay, Club Life is not a club. Is it me standing on stage telling a bunch of stories about clubbing? But does that honour the spirit of the clubs themselves? What about if I tell some stories and set the scene, describe my history of running clubs and then we have a little club section where we actually recreate some of the clubs at the time. If I want to get through sort of eight different club nights in the space of an evening, how’s that going to work?

So what about if I have a cast of young people dressed in the clothes of each particular genre coming on and representing those clubbers, and then if the audience wants to get up and dance with them and be part of that club, then they can. Well that’s an interesting idea, maybe that would work. So I had the idea and the big moment where it was going to happen was when I applied to Summerhall, an Edinburgh venue, who I’d been talking to. I teamed up with a great director and my old mate Davie Miller who was in Finitribe back in the day. I’d written a script and we put it on its feet in front of a bunch of Edinburgh people and it was a bit shambolic. It’s definitely a hybrid of club and theatre. DJing’s such a unique art form in many ways because you’re right there and you’ve got instant feedback. With something like this, though, you take it on board after each show. We did four scratch shows. I could only afford to do three day rehearsals. Then we had three days with me, Sita Piaraccini, our amazing director, and the cast of five where we basically had to go, ‘Okay, how does this work?’

Okay, so tell me about the Edinburgh run. How many shows did you do? And did it build up momentum as it went along?
Well, first of all, it’s incredibly competitive. It’s possibly the most competitive audience marketplace on this planet. You’ve got, I think, 3,000 shows and apparently the average audience is six people. So that’s a lot of shows that are completely empty. We had that classic Edinburgh experience where our first show in 100 seat venue, we had eight people. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is so painful.’

However, you can still put on a good show, whereas five people in a club is a shit club. It doesn’t matter who’s DJing. You, me and Jesus, it’s still a shit club with five people in it. So we had eight people on the first night and it was depressing, but they all stayed for the full two and a half hours and six of those eight people were on the dancefloor pretty much every time they could be. Then about halfway through the run, a reviewer came, the fire alarm went off in the middle of the show and we had a load of 17 year olds who were in celebrating a birthday party and I was just terrified. We had 30 people in total, the 17 year olds were half the audience, so I was terrified they were going to leave. Anyway, we then got a five-star review from the Scotsman, which was great. It started to get busier, but then we got a Fringe First, for innovation and outstanding new writing. It was an incredible thing to get because it was always a punt. Even in the scratch shows, I was going, is this ever going to work? Is this just another stupid Fred idea? But that was validation. So then people wanted to come and the last two weeks were sold out. So that is your classic Fringe journey.

What are the kind of things that you think that they’re learning from it?
Well, it’s a story of how somebody, in this case me, fell in love with clubbing and then found a way to have a sustainable mini-career in that world and also do some really interesting and exciting things without compromising. And that, to me, was always the gift of clubbing, because you get out of uni or school and you’ve got to support yourself and then you go into a job and nine times out of 10, it’s a horrible experience and you hate it. And you go, really? Is this the rest of my life? Of course, for the lucky ones, like you and me, you can find a way out. Doing what I loved and managing to generate enough money to be able to pay the rent and buy some records. That was all I wanted for my 20s, to be accepted, to serve the community of beautiful people around me, to have some fun, making stuff that I cared about. Clubbing gave me the possibility to do all of that. And I would argue, I learned a whole bunch of other skills that I could then turn into a slightly more professional career. I didn’t realise I was learning anything at all, but actually I was learning about audience interaction, I was learning about user experience, learning about creating a brand loyalty

How did your DJ career start?
I’d made the equation. A) I love records, I love music. I wanna spend all my money on records.
B) I do not have very much money.
C) If the records could earn me some cash, I could then spend the money on more records.
D) Become a DJ.
And at that point, again, as we both know, there weren’t that many DJs. It was quite unusual to be a DJ. And it took a certain amount of courage to step up behind the turntables. And I was just managing to dip my toe in the water. When I got to Edinburgh, I told everybody I was a London DJ, which was kind of true. I had DJed at my little sister’s 11th birthday in her primary school, which I rocked. I got a little residency at a club run by White Cube’s Jay Jopling, when he was a student. But ultimately, I soon realised that the only way to do it was to run my own night. So I gritted my teeth and found a mate, and we hired a venue, and started running a night. The first night we were too scared to charge admission, we just handed out free tickets. And everyone came and that was it. We were off to the races.

When did you arrive in Edinburgh?
I was there 1984 to 94. I started running clubs pretty much as soon as I got there. Initially there were only two clubs, two nights, when I first got there. There was Allan Campbell’s Hoochie Coochie, which was the big one that everyone knew about. I think he did that on a Friday and a Saturday and he put gigs on as well and that’s where all the Edinburgh contingent went. You had all the minor pop stars, like Fire Engines and Win, James Locke out of the Chimes and Paul Haig. Then there was a hairdressers’ night on a Sunday called Manifestos. I went to Manifestos on my 20th birthday and went: Oh these are my people. This is my tribe. These are proper clubbers. The fact that it was on a Sunday, because hairdressers had Monday off so that was their Saturday night. They played the good music (the Hoochie did as well) but it was much more into the dance side of things. It was a little bit casual and there were straight up trendies. I couldn’t tell you who was DJing, I can picture their faces, but can’t remember.

Yogi Haughton played there didn’t he?
He might’ve done but I don’t remember. Everyone was into the rare groove but Manifestos was more into the proto-house, things like ‘Sexomatic’ by the Bar-Kays, electro-ey stuff, Full Force, Prelude-y more than hip hop. They also played mainstream stuff as well like Swing Out Sister. The hairdressers’ couldn’t resist that bob. That was my first night. Hoochie Coochie and Manifesto were it and then Juan and Ernesto started up a latin jazz club called El Cambalache that was a big hit. Suddenly there was competition and the club scene started to grow. My first night was Blue and that was fun but then I started doing crazy shit like much more irreverent. Yogi used to call me Wacky Abba Fred. I saw Mark Moore at Taboo [in London] playing Abba and I thought to myself that’s the future cos it blew everyone’s minds BITD when everyone thought Abba was the devil. So I started breaking those boundaries. I was flirting with that, playing things like ‘Copacabana’. The nights I was doing explored real eclecticism, but also playing cool stuff like Malcolm X and George Clinton.

And then house happened and it was definitely a whoah what is this?! I was one of the first to play it in Scotland because we had the A&R guy who put out the House Sound of Chicago, he came to Scotland and blagged his way onto the guest list. We were doing a night at Stirling Castle. He gave me an armful of vinyl and in return he wanted to get him and all his mates in on the list. As a result, I had promo copies of the House Sound Of Chicago. The rule of thumb in Edinburgh at the time was I’d check out what was happening in London and then about three to six months later do it in Edinburgh when they were ready for it. So we were playing house as a background thing but we hadn’t really got it yet.

Now what was the big shift? I think it was Slam. They did a party and had the balls to charge £15. They were the first people to say, we’re putting on an event and it can’t be a fiver to get in, it has to be £15. At the time it was like, what the fuck are you talking about?! No one’s gonna pay £15. They had the balls to do it and got away with it. So what we were doing was running clubs on the same scale as those clubs and I was playing acid house but I wasn’t playing just acid house, whereas Slam were pure housers. So we were getting crowds of two thousand which was pretty good for Edinburgh.

So word got out in Glasgow that this club Thunderball was doing well so we and Slam sat down with Tennants and they sponsored a tour, which actually fell apart a bit. I think that was when Slam first started using the Arches. I think it would be fair to say acid house hit Glasgow in a proper way, before Edinburgh. The music was getting played in Edinburgh, but the whole cultural shift in Edinburgh didn’t happen until it had hit the same scale as Glasgow.

We did a night in the Fruitmarket Gallery, we managed to blag five nights in there and it’s a pretty amazing venue, right by the station and it’s huge. It felt like a rave cos it’s a big box with high ceilings. I was DJing with a guy named Peter Ellen who used to run Fopp and he did a night called Hoover that didn’t really work but was great. He was very adventurous with his music. He was a fantastic DJ. I’m a crowdpleaser whereas he was like fuck everyone else, I’m playing this weird glitchy house music. For a while he was persona non grata and the crowd didn’t follow him, but when acid house happened he was suddenly this prophet. He then did a night called Acid at Shady Ladies which was the big popular venue. Everyone went there on a Friday and Saturday, a reliable student night. He started it and it went through the roof. I remember going there the week after that front page tabloid story and of course everybody in Britain immediately wanted to go to an acid house club after reading that. Everybody had suddenly drunk the Kool-Aid, sweat was dripping from the ceiling and I remember seeing Juan, who was famous for running cool, acid jazz, Latin clubs, with a bandanna on and sweat dripping. It was at that point where everyone was thinking well, am I an imposter? Who gives a shit, this is too much fun to not do. I would say that was the first proper acid house club. But then Peter and his co-promoters had a visit from the constabulary who said: You cannot run a club called Acid and I will shut you the fuck down and put you in jail if this is still running next week. So they shut the club down and re-opened as Deep but it didn’t have the same naughty cache. That’s my memory of the start of house, but Slam were streets ahead.

What effect did the presence of casuals have in Edinburgh?
Well for me it had a massive impact. Thunderball was my big hit. Blue was me copying what was happening in London, whereas Thunderball was me doing my own thing with my co-promoters. We had all sorts of stupid stuff, casinos, bouncy castles, so it was very like a rave except it wasn’t acid house all night. Anyway we were getting crowds of two thousand and we ran it at the Assembly Rooms which is a big festival venue which they split up into about eight theatres but we took the whole place and rammed it. It was quite a big deal in Edinburgh at the time without wanting to blow my own trumpet. We didn’t do it every week but every other month. And then casuals came and bust it up. We were definitely targeted, I know it for a fact. At the last minute we were trying to get some bikers to bring some bikes to have on stage. The night was for charity. They said yeah we’d love to do that. But as soon as I said it was Thunderball at the Assembly Rooms one of them said oh we’re not coming. We’ve heard about the violence. I said, there’s never any violence at Thunderball what are you talking about? Anyway, on the night about 12.30, the violence started. We had security but they bottled it. They were using cans they’d bought from the bar as missiles. I was playing 2 In A Room at the time and I thought I’d incited them by playing house. It happened once, then the security tried to deal with it, then it happened again, and we thought fuck this, and shut the club down. Fortunately, because it was a charity night we didn’t have to give the money back because it would’ve bankrupted us. After that we promoted another event in the Corn Exchange which no one had used before. Having sold out the previous event we couldn’t sell tickets for this cos everyone stayed away because of the violence. So it ended that club stone dead and broke my heart because it was my first big hit. I carried on running clubs but never on that scale. One of the guys from a rival club Spanish Harlem, then said oh you should’ve had better security and better organisation and we’re glad the casuals came and did your club over ha ha. Everyone else had been really sympathetic because the Edinburgh scene was actually quite tight. The thing is acid house wasn’t as much of a revelation, in my experience, as it was in London because I found Scotland to be more egalitarian than London so it was less a revelation than it had been down there.

When did you move back down to London?
Well, I moved down to London to do a degree at St Martins, because I realised that clubbing was not necessarily going to be something that I could do the rest of my life. I was ill in my late 20s, I had leukemia. That was a wake up call, because when I went back to my old life, I discovered that I couldn’t indulge in the way that I had before. I’d had this escape, the luckiest and then continue to give my health a battering with stimulants and alcohol was undoubtedly a stupid thing to do. I made all these posters and flyers for my clubs. That was always my thing. And there was very much a DIY culture coming out post-punk as well. We just had this kind of thing, didn’t we? It was like photocopy, cut-up aesthetic that you made your flyers, you made your posters, you usually just stole an image from some book or something that looks interesting, photocopied it up, stuck some type on it. Bosh, there you go. So I did that for a while and then I started going a bit more intricate about it and also realising that this was probably infringing everybody’s copyright. I never studied design, I never studied art, but slowly through making all these flyers and posters I got my chops up. So I came down London to do a Masters at St. Martin’s, I moved back in with my mum and started working for Ian Swift, Swifty, so I got to know all the acid jazz lot and Gilles and everybody and I was designing Straight No Chaser and lots of record sleeves and that was fun and I met a lot of nice people.

The first time I ever saw your artwork was when I think your sister Camilla did a magazine, but I can’t remember the name of it.
It was called Gear. Gear was my idea actually because I had this, I was doing all my flyers and posters on a photocopier and there’s a thing called a colour cartridge photocopier which is arcane technology now, but you could change the cartridge from black to red and then blue and then if you put a piece of paper through three times you could get a black pass, a red pass and a blue pass. So I had been making all my posters and flyers on this photocopier. This was 1989 and ’90, and she was deep in it, she was right in the thick of things, really caning it every night and having a brilliant time. I could see that something very interesting was happening and whenever I went back to her flat, she had Boys Own, Most Excellent, and Herb Garden, and all the fanzines that were such a big part of that culture, so I said to Camilla, ‘Look, why don’t we make a house fanzine of our own, you can write it and interview everybody, because you know everybody on the scene, and I’ll design it, and then you’ve got a lovely piece of work to show to your journalism employers.’ So yeah we decided to do it and the first issue I did the whole thing. It 24 or 32 pages, A4 size, and I did 200 copies of it. I spent a week standing by photocopier just going kachunk kachunk kachunk. But it came out really nicely and we had a lot of fun doing it and everyone loved it and Camila got a job with The Face and The Face wrote about it. We did three issues in total.

So how did you parlay that into the design studio, how or when did Airside happen?
I was working for Swifty and it was a studio setup andI don’t think he wasn’t really that into it because it was quite a lot of responsibility. I don’t think he’d disagree with me on that one. So that to a natural end. I was there two or three years in his studio and I learned a lot and a great time, and he’s a lovely guy. Then I left, and me and Nat and Alex started up Airside in 1998, and we just had a go at it. It was the first dot com boom, so there were no websites. The email was just about a thing, the internet was a thing, but we basically were very lucky. We had a big party to open, and loads of people came, and then… suddenly the phone was ringing the next day from people who’ve been at the party went, ‘Oh, yeah, someone said to us you gotta get a website. What’s a website? Do you guys do that? What can you do for a grand?’ So yeah, it was just very organic we’re very lucky there was this sudden need for people who could integrate design into this new digital world and make things like websites.

Okay, so so Where does Impotent Fury falling in this sort of timeline?
My friend Laura was being a little bit cheeky saying to me these Lonodn hipsters they think they know about irony, they think they’ve got attitude, we should show them some of the Edinburgh style so we started Impotent Fury which was the club with the wheel and with 12 different musical categories on it and they were very wide-ranging – and we had drum and bass and hip-hop obviously but then we also had like power ballads and I think we had good old British musical at one point where I just play a lot of Morecambe & Wise and Max Miller. My mate Sally would spin the wheel and another mate from the Mutoid Waste, Wreckage, he built us this massive wheel. Every half an hour she spun the wheel and if it was two in the morning and we’d just been half an hour of techno bangers and in the wheel came up with power ballads, then I’d pay half an hour of power ballads and it would be suddenly be ‘Move Closer’ by Phyllis Nelson. The wheel’s the boss, not me, it’s not my fault.

So where does Lemon Jelly fall in all of this?
Well, the Jelly was also happening at the same time, I was very lucky to have several plates spinning at the same time. Basically, the Jelly started because I was buying a lot of car boot vinyl, a lot of easy listening stuff and just hoovering up record collections, random stuff. I mean, I wasn’t the only one. I think Fatboy Slim was there as well and of course, Bentley Rhythm Ace. We’re doing it too. I was a massive hip hop head. I mean, we were very lucky to grow up with hip hop and seeing how you have those ultimate breaks and beats albums with all the compilations. And you went Oh, crikey, that break comes from that track there. So you kind of got a little insight into how hip hop was made, how it was constructed and how some sample. culture changed the way the music was made. And then, of course, I started hearing these breaks in these unusual places, like strange different records like Nana Mouskouri. So going beyond, most hip-hop samples funk and occasionally rock as well, but there is a key genre pool that certainly the early hip-hop goes to. Sure, PM Dawn sampled Spandau Ballet. So there are exceptions, but that was basically the way. But my brain kind of went, okay, so what if you start sampling stuff from other places, from different genres? What if you widen the net? And again, this is 25 years ago, so this is very much common practice now, but then it wasn’t quite so usual.

Nick [Franglen] was a mate. I knew him from my teenage gang, and I hadn’t seen him a lot since I left London. But he was deep in music production, and he worked as a kind of session musician and an engineer and programming people’s work. He worked with loads of really great people like Pulp and Blur. So I went round to his studio one day and I said, ‘I’ve got a couple of things I think would make a really interesting sample, do you fancy having a go and having a muck about?’ and he went, ‘Well why not? The first session we came up with, ’In The Bath’ which was our first track. We both thought, ‘Oh that was fun’. So I said, ‘Let’s make another couple’ and then I’ll screen print a handmade sleeve because that’s how I roll and we’ll see what happens and that was the beginning of it.

We did three EPs that became the first album. XL were fairly quick off the mark to come come around and we were definitely talking to them before the third EP came out. It was very clear exactly what we were about right from the outset. We were about joy we had a bit of sense of humour and we weren’t super banging, but we were in the dance space and we had this very strong visual aesthetic as well. If you liked it, then great. If you didn’t like it then fair enough. No problem

Lemon Jelly – Soft

The one that I remember in particular that might not even have been credited to Lemon Jelly was a cut up of Chicago that had a denim sleeve. Is that right?
We did a couple of Breezebox sessions with Mary-Anne Hobbs. It was great fun, and I was a very already digging in the soft rock category, which is very much the flavour du jour these days, but back then it was like, ‘No you can’t go anywhere near that stuff.’ We’d included If You Leave Me Now’ in one of our mixes, but we chopped it up, and it started sounding really good. Originally, there was a vocal sample from a religious record over the top of it on the actual mix. But we took that sample off, and it sounded great on its own. So we thought, ‘OK, let’s just do a couple of mash-ups.’ Richard X had just done the Sugarbabes, and that whole mash-up culture had just emerged. It was very new. So we thought, ‘Let’s put one out.’ And then Laura, the aforementioned chum, I went to her with this stupid idea about the denim sleeve. I thought, you know, if we bought 250 pairs of jeans, and then you could get four sleeves out of them, one for each pocket. And then we put a lemon-flavoured condom in each pocket. It was super fun. She hand-stitched some of the sleeves as well. It was an absolute bloody nightmare for her. She said she had blue bogeys at the end of it.

How many copies were there?
We did 1,000 in denim, I think.

That’s up there with New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’ in terms of a loss-making venture.
It was fairly stupid. Most of the Jelly was operated on that principle. Because, we grew up with that. To us, Factory Records is like a golden icon, a blueprint of how to do things. And of course, that implied that you will probably never make any money. The Haçienda is another example of that. I think that you and I ran clubs for love first and foremost. And if the money comes later, then hooray. And sometimes it didn’t. And there’s definitely club promoters from a time I can think of where they were testing their business skills rather than their creative skills – and I don’t want to disrespect that. The older I get, the more I respect the business side of things. But I kind of feel the creativity has to have that priority. The ‘Soft’/‘Rock’ single was yet another example.

I’m assuming that it sells for loads of money on Discogs these days?
I haven’t looked but I think it’s three figures, certainly. There’s a lot of pressure on us to repress the the the Jelly albums and I think it probably will happen at some point but again I have to say I’m terrible because I like seeing them on Discogs for three figures. It gives me a little little boost of excitement when I see how expensive they are.

Obviously the other thing that happened was that you were on every gardening and cooking program for several years.
We were quite nervous about it at the time because we felt like we were being overexposed and there’s a thing called the blanket agreement which you can opt out of but what the blanket agreement basically says is anybody can use your any music you know 99.9% of music is under the blanket agreement and it means that if you’re a TV person you want to put a piece of music on the background you can just do it you don’t have to ask permission and pay a royalty, so we never really got approval of that stuff. Yet there was a part where we’re getting a little bit nervous about overexposure. Now there is no shame in anybody making any money out of music in any way they can because there’s so little money to be made out of any revenue stream so it’s interesting to see how the sellout notion is much less now.

“>Buy tickets for Fred Deakin’s Club Life here –>

Boy George broke all taboos

There is no such thing as a bad Boy George interview. Forever the iconoclast, there are few interviewees as happy to cause a commotion as this pop star-turned-DJ. We met George in 2002, when the stage production of Taboo was about to launch in London – it was for a feature in the Big Issue – but since it also coincided with an updated edition of How To DJ (Properly), we took the liberty of quizzing him about his DJ career too, while also dwelling on his occasionally fractious relationship with the gay community.

Interviewed by Bill, 07.01.2002

Whose idea was it to do Taboo as a play?
Chris Renshaw, who was the director of the King & I with Elaine Paige. He came to see me about a year ago on a freezing cold night on a barge on the Thames with Culture Club on Watchdog. And my manager said this guy’s got an idea about something that he wants to talk to you about so while we were having a break we sat down and chatted. I think the thing that excited me was that he didn’t want to do something like the Buddy Holly Story or Mama Mia. He said he wanted to include all of those people from that time, so it amalgamated with my book and Sue’s book and turn it into something. That excited me. To just do a show about Culture Club, when I’d just finished three years of touring with them… And also, he wanted me to write a new score. We are using some old songs…

How many new songs have you written?
We’ve probably got too many songs, about 18? They won’t all be in the show, some I’ll use for something else.

Did you write those yourself or did you collaborate?
I always collaborate. I work with mainly on the musical with Kevan Frost, who I’ve worked with for twelve years and John Themis, another collaborator, a guitar player, Richie Stevens. I’ve also written a song with Judge Jules and Paul Masterson. I actually wrote that outside of the musical, but then I thought, ‘this really fits into the show’ so I rang them and asked how would they feel about including it and they were very excited.

How involved have you been in the stage production itself?
Everything. Every little detail.

Were you involved in the decision about who was going to play you?
Yeah.

How many people did you see?
We did a workshop last year and the guy who is playing me now was playing someone else. And a very good friend of mine, Philip Sallon, who’s also in the show, grabbed me at the end and said, “That’s you there.”
I said, “Really?”
“Yes, no question, he should be playing you.”
So I watched carefully, and I thought yeah, he does look a bit like me when I was 17. He’s not an obvious actor in the sense of being too theatrical. He’s a real person. Now I’ve got to know him over the past year and he’s very much like me; it’s almost frightening. The day that I actually saw him in drag was probably the freakiest moment ever, because he was even behaving like I was.

Is it going to be nerve wracking this weekend?
No. It was supposed to go on in November, but I think the timing of it is really good. It feels right.

Are the songs coming out on a soundtrack album?
There’s an exhibition being done in Selfridges, so there’s a four-track sampler which will be given away. At the moment I don’t have a record deal so I can do what I want with the songs. I think they might have to buy something.

Taboo cast on Today show, USA.

Looking back on it now, was the 1980s a special time, in terms of music and clubs?
Well it was interesting from a political perspective because you had a really Tory government and you had all this creativity. I think in some respects you do need something to rally against. If you look at the current government, it’s sort of a nothing government so it’s really hard for people to have anything to rally against. I think at that time, you’ve got to remember that new romanticism was a follow on from punk and before that was the Bowie kids. So you’d come from all of that depression in the seventies to this very opulent decade of greed and right-wing politics, but really we were children of the seventies. There were lots of interesting musical styles in the seventies, it was a real pot pourri of styles, like reggae and disco. Punk was a reaction against all of those supergroups and new romanticism was a very small scene. We kind of made a mountain out of a molehill, because it was a small club with a handful of people. But they were very attention seeking and managed to get a lot of mileage out of what they were doing. But the roots of that go back a long way. It wasn’t something that just sprung out of nowhere. Why it happened I think was because punk had became this quite serious student concern. It got political. It was no longer this about showing off. It changed into something that I personally didn’t feel part of.

Does it feel weird that such a small clique of people went on to do all of these things?
I think all of those people that were involved were from similar backgrounds. Steve was from Wales, Marilyn was from Borehamwood, I was from Eltham. There’s a whole list of people who were from these disfunctional suburban families and came to the big city to seek their fame and fortune. So we had a lot in common in that respect. I mean, you had two camps. You had the art school camp, with people like Stephen Jones, Kim Bowen, Lee Sheldrick, Stephen Linard. Then you had the other lot who were kicked out of school, like myself, Jeremy Healy, and various others. At first we looked down on them, and they looked down on us. The fusion happened eventually when Jeremy Healy and Kim Bowen ended up having a love affair and that brought the two households together. It became like the Waltons. It was very romantic. The funny thing was Jeremy hated Kim and them. They were fashion students and their clothes were really well made and ours were sort of DIY Oxfam, all thrown together. Then something happened and they became lovers and the houses came together and created this new family of freaks.

Do you think that the music at the Blitz and those places gets overlooked bit in favour of the fashion?
I think the people who were there were interested in the music, were obsessed with music, whether it be Cabaret or Sound Of Music or Lou Reed, Bowie, T Rex or the electro sounds of the time, like Fad Gadget. That electro scene, like Cabaret Voltaire ‘Nag Nag Nag’ were very important records. I remember the first time I saw Human League, either supporting the Gang of Four or Gary Glitter, I can’t remember which was first. Just seeing this band on stage with no instruments.

Was it at the Marquee?
Yeah. It was the first time. It was like: this isn’t a band, this is performance art. That was a fascinating idea. The music industry was in its infancy in terms of ideas. If you look at it now, it’s polished and preened. It’s a money-making organism. Back then, they missed things. I think one of the downside of the information age is that news travels too quickly. The one great thing about England is that ideas, even back then, worked quite quickly. But at least there was a period when ideas had time to develop and have an identity. Nowadays, if punk happened, it’d be in a B&Q advert soon after. Like what happened with drum and bass and dance music. There was a slight difference between what you liked and your parents liked. My mother would never have dropped me off and picked me up at a Bowie concert. But then you had parents going to Take That concerts with their daughters. I talked to David Bowie about this and he said when he was into rock’n’roll, his parents told him to get a proper job. Rock’n’roll wasn’t seen as a job. Whereas now, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see ‘Pop Star Wanted: £30 an hour’. That’s the change, the romance as gone.

I agree with you, but a friend’s son wants to be a drum and bass DJ and he’s getting pressure to get a ‘proper job’…
Absolutely. I went to this thing recently in Romford, which was Young DJ Of The Year. I was one of the judges. I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz when she encounters the Munchkins. There were 4,000 kids face to face with a real life pouf and it was really scary. It was mostly white and they were all getting down to garage. And it was really interesting to see that up close: wow, this is what’s going on. At the moment the most rebellious thing you can be is black or into black music. If I go back to the seventies, I remember dating girls who would go to blues dances and wear all the uniform, pleated skirts and loafers, but it was quite rare.

There was a club in Peckham called the Bouncing Ball that I used to pass on the bus quite a lot and I always used to sink down in my seat in my punk gear shitting myself. People were very active with their aggression in those days. They’d get on a bus just to punch you. I think things have changed dramatically. We were listening to Bubba Sparxx yesterday and what’s happening in America is that black artist are taking white artists and manipulating them musically. If you listen to a lot of dance music at the moment, it’s very eighties influenced. It’s coming back.

Boy George playlist

Do you think the eighties will get reassessed positively?
I think you need distance from any decade to appreciate it. It’s a bit like your parents. You grow older and you think, actually some of the things my mother said to me when I was 15 were spot on. I remember my mother telling me not to go out with someone because ‘He’s a pervert!”. I was thinking later, actually she was right! Someone asked me today what I would say to the 20 year old Boy George and I wouldn’t have listened to what I had to say. I did what I wanted because I wanted to change the world. I think one of the problems with young people at the moment, which sounds really patronising, I’m sorry to sound that way, but they are really complacent. A couple of weeks ago, I went to Top Of The Pops with Philip Sallon. (They’re doing this thing where they’re inviting freaks along to make it look more colourful.) And there was Philip dressed up like a dog’s dinner and pretty much every kid in there came up to me and said, “Why’s he dressed like that?” For me, being a pop star (or ex-pop star) I have a reason to dress up. When I was 15 and I saw Philip and I was drawn to him like a magnet to a fridge. I had a girlfriend then and I said, “That man’s our new best friend and we have to find a way of manipulating ourselves into his life!” That’s how it was. It doesn’t happen like that any more because everybody wants to be the same.

Everything is packaged so quickly now, including rebellion…
Well, if you look at the gay community and their struggle for assimilation has meant that their sense of identity has been eroded so they’re actually more uptight than straight people in some respects. When I went on Frank Skinner’s show and talked about buggery and stuff, the letters of abuse I got on my internet site were all from gay people. All of them.

What were they saying?
Well, one said you’re running the risk of becoming like Kenneth Williams, this bitter old queen. My reply to that was that because I find a subject fascinating, which I do, I find the whole subject of sexuality so fascinating and it’s something that comes up almost everywhere I go. My reputation – like Jordan’s breasts – goes before me.

Do you think that certain elements of gays, since Aids, don’t want a fuss to be made about it?
I think there’s a certain element of gay culture that doesn’t like anybody to be too flamboyant or outspoken because it’s ruining their bid for respectability and that doesn’t concern me in the slightest. I know that people look back at me in the eighties and think I was a kind of clown, charming the pants off the establishment. Which I was, in a way. I did want people to like me. But part of that was growing up in an environment in which I was told there was something wrong with me. As I was growing up, I bought into that.

Who would you like to play you in a movie?
Euan Morton. Without make up he doesn’t look much like me. But there’s something about his personality, behaviour and attitude which reminds me so much of myself. The only weird thing about Euan is he goes off into corners and reads books alone. Which I never did. I was always in the thick of things. When my mother was in the kitchen talking I would be in there, trying to join in the grown ups conversations. I never wanted to be left out of anyone’s conversation. I was always the last to leave a room, whereas Euan has a reclusive quality. I think all actors are mad. Certainly working with them and watching them walking round the room talking to themselves.

Do you feel lucky to be one of the survivors of the eighties?
I was up early this morning and Kim Wilde was on a gardening programme and I’ve read stuff dissing her for doing that. Actually, I say hat’s off to her: she’s working. I’ll always respect anyone for working, whatever it is. The guy from Dollar, for instance. OK, so he’s running a hamburger stall. So fucking what! At least he’s doing something with his life. Good luck to him. When I get slagged off for doing this and that… I’m not motivated by money. I’ve made a lot of money, but I came from a background where money wasn’t respected. My father was a terrible gambler. He had six children. He would take the whole month’s wages, including everybody who worked for him, and put it all on a horse. So I grew up with this absolute disregard for money. And it’s only really been in the last ten years that I realised that you actually need it to survive. You need to pay bills. You have responsibilities.

Are you still friends with many of the people from the Blitz era?
Yeah. Princess Julia, Jeffrey Hinton. I was always friendly with Steve Strange’s mother. His mum was a great character and I always used to joke, “How did you end up with a son like that?!”. In the last few years, Steve – and he would probably say the same about me – has become a less bitchy human being. That comes with age. At the time we were all scrambling to get to the top of the heap and Steve Strange – damn him! – got there first. Part of what we talk about in the show is that he got there, and it really bugged the fuck out of us. We all hated him for it. And you know, Steve loved to lord it. He loved to stand on ceremony and tell people they weren’t good enough to come into his club. Turn away Mick Jagger, which I thought was one of the most outrageous things he ever did. But I understand what he was trying to do: he was trying to create this exclusivity which, to be honest, never really appealed to me. I wasn’t into alienating anybody. I come from a big family of extreme characters. I’m drawn to people with something to say, regardless of what they dress like or how cool they’re meant to be.

How do you think the general public perceives you now compared to 20 years ago?
There are gay people who refer to me as a pantomine dame, which I find quite offensive, because in my own way, I’m quite outspoken about what I feel and who I am. So I’m as far away from Danny LaRue as we are from Mars. So I find that insulting and it’s one of the things that aggravates me the most. But it’s the price you pay for having a style.

Do you think part of that is because you’ve refused to become a ‘mouthpiece’ for gay people generally?
I talk about it in a way that I feel fit. I don’t talk about it in the way that, say, Peter Tatchell would though I have a lot of respect for him. And Peter Tatchell is as hated in the gay community as I can be. I find it weird that gay people would be like that towards him, because in his heart what he wants to do is really positive. At the same time, the downside of that is that we end up with a community – if there is such a thing – where it has no identity.

What do you think that straight Britain thinks of you?
Well, judging by what happened after Frank Skinner which is the most sexually explicit I’ve ever been on TV. What tends to happen with me is that I operate in whatever mood I’m in. If I’m in a spiky mood, and I think it depends on what questions you’re asked as well. I mostly DJ in straight clubs, I rarely have abuse. Whereas in gay clubs, I have a fair amount. I’ve been in gay clubs in the past where people have come up and given me bits of paper with some really horrible things written on them. But then I guess in a straight club I feel special, but in a gay club I don’t really fit in the criteria of the perfect homosexual. That’s what was great about Leigh [Bowery]. You know, you’d see Leigh at the Fridge which was a Muscle Mary club and there’s this guy with a huge body with his arse out spoiling it for the rest of them. The fact that he would even go to that club, which was so body conscious, wearing a vagina wig, and a push up bra and his arse in everyone’s face. I can remember thinking that he was quite sexy because he was so brave. I admired him.

Do you think he’s more culturally important than he’s been given credit for?
He is to me, which is why it was important for me to try and tell his story. The most important thing about Leigh was that he was fabulous. When he got it together, he was a vision to behold.

Does it annoy you’ve not been fully recognised for your songwriting?
Yes, in a word. It infuriates me.

Do you think the way you dress has a bearing on it?
I suppose I have to take some responsibility for that. It does bug me. I’ve always said that I’ve never been driven by the desire to be taken seriously. I don’t take myself seriously, so I don’t see why other people should. I think there are people out there who get what I do. I get letters from them, they stop me in the street. But I am who I am. I actually think we live in an era now where people respect success more than they do creativity. So there’s not much I can do about that.

Which gives you the most satisfaction: singing, songwriting or DJing?
Songwriting. Because I’m a selfish writer and I write about my own shit, the stuff that happens to me and there are times when I’ve had four hours sleep and I’ll call Kevan and say ‘I’m really sorry, what are you doing? I’ve got an idea for a song. Something’s happened; I need to put it down’. I’m very much into capturing that feeling of what I’m going through at the time. For me songs are a diary. They’re my life. That’s what I write about. For me that’s why it was great to do a musical because I got the chance to actually listen to script, listen to the message of the dialogue and go and be very strict with myself about writing a song that went with the dialogue.

Was it a challenge doing it that way?
Not, really, Because to a point it’s stuff that I’d been dealing with. When I did Cheapness & Beauty right after the book came out, it was completely autobiographical which is why I used all the pictures and telephone messages and stuff like that. And it was really a history of all the things I’d grown up loving from folk music to glam rock. I think I’ve carried on in that fashion. I’m currently working on a record which incorporates some of the songs on Cheapness & Beauty like ‘If I Could Fly’, ‘Unfinished Business’ ‘Il Adore’ which is in the show, and stuff I’ve written about recently, about current situations and current lovers, one night stands, people I’ve encountered. What I love doing is using actual conversations with people, things that people have actually said and putting them into a song so the person actually gets to hear it and knows what it is. Like, for example, the song that Bob Dylan apparently wrote about Joan Baez ‘You’ve Got A Lot Of Nerve To Say You’re A Friend’. I tend to get quite bitter when I write.

Do you not think that’s a more articulate feeling than being in love?
I think what happens is that songs go full circle and they become about you. If you think about John Lennon, everything you read about him socially that he was actually quite vile and quite cutting. And when you listen to what he sang ‘Imagine’, ‘Woman’, there’s so many beautiful things there and I think maybe he was trying to find that within himself. As a writer I think what you’re trying to find your own goodness or make sense of what you do, how you love and how you operate in relationships. I think you always know when you’re fucking up or you’re doing the wrong thing. When you meet people you know immediately when they’re right or wrong for you. But… there’s a part of you that thinks, I can change this, I can make it different. It’s always the same, but with music it’s always been my best lover…

You’re turning into a John Miles song…
Yeah, absolutely! You can say what you want to say. One of my finest moments of lyric writing was when Kirk Brandon was in the dock reading out the lyrics to ‘Unfinished Business’. I thought to myself, ‘Mmm, actually they’re really good.’ And it’s hard for to appreciate what I do. I’m hard on myself.

If you could have written any song which would it be?
‘Always On My Mind’, ‘Walk On The Wild Side’ by Lou Reed… One other one: ‘God Give Me Strength’ Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello… oh and ‘Man From Mars’by Joni Mitchell

Who’s been the biggest influence on your life or career?
Bowie and then my mum.

What’s the most thrilling thing to happen to you?
I think when someone says ‘I love you’. You never believe them, but it’s nice to hear it.

How do you feel DJing to rooms full of kids on E when you’re now clean?
I have no moral objection to it. We’re a Chemical Nation. We’ve embraced chemicals for many many years. There’s a kind of hypocrisy with drugs. I think if you’re a kid that’s got a job that’s shit and you hate, you’re treated with disrespect all week long. You go out on a Friday and Saturday and you get wasted, whether it’s with alcohol or drugs or cigarettes. I don’t think I’m in any position to point my finger or lecture. That said, I think the road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom is true. But nothing I say will make any difference. In the same respect, when I was growing up I knew about Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix and it didn’t stop me.

How do you think clubs compare now to when you first started going out?
I think people are less individual. Things are more genre based. Tribal, but not in a style way. More in a sound way: we like this type of music not that. I enjoy that, though. When I got to clubs, I deliberately play what I want to play. I don’t play for the crowd. I don’t believe there’s any merit in giving people what they want.

Why?
Because I don’t. It’s not why I became an artist. Rock’n’roll is one of the few artforms where you are constantly expected to repeat yourself.

What was it like going to the Paradise Garage?
I wasn’t really compos mentis when I went there! The one thing I remember about it was the gun detector on the door. Going through this, thinking is this a good idea. What was fascinating was that people weren’t interested [in me]. They didn’t give a crap. I remember being in there one night and seeing Diana Ross saunter in wearing a fur coat. Drop it to the floor, dance around and then leave. And it was just like, it was all about the music. What was interesting about it for me was it was so stripped down and raw, because the eighties was so excessive and so layered. You’d do backing vocals and layer them; you’d do strings and there was Trevor Horn and Steve Levine and then suddenly you’re in this club listening to ‘Set It Off’ by Strafe, which had nothing on it. If you look at some of the biggest dance records at the moment and of all time, there’s nothing on them. Some little noise or an EQ or the way the bass moves that makes it great. There’s no science to it, which I love.

Is there a record you always keep in your record box?
Yeah. China White Volume 2. It’s got this lyric that goes “I go out, I go out every night, to dance upon the ceiling”. It’s a stupid record, but I love it.

How does fame as a musician compare to fame as a DJ?
It’s weird for me because I get more hassle as a DJ because of my history. So people get very… they’re off their heads, they’re drunk. The most common comment I get is, ‘my mum loves you’ or ‘can you sign this for my grandma’. Or when people are being extremely witty, they’ll say, ‘have you got ‘Karma Chameleon’?’. To which I reply, I’ve only got the jungle remix. I’ve been in Moroccan bazaars and at the Pyramids and people have come up and sung ‘Karma Chameleon’.

What makes a hit record?
Radio play [chuckles].

Alright… how do you write a hit record?
Was it Bob Marley that said, ‘say what you mean and give it a melody’? You should always express yourself in the most honest way. The early part of my career, I was much more ambiguous. What I’ve learnt from listening to Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, especially Joni, is that there’s an honesty in her writing. She’s not scared of saying things that are very brittle and open and I think that’s something that I aspire to as a writer. I split up with someone recently and I decided to write a song using their name. One of my good friends was appalled. She was like, “You can’t do that”. Why not? If that’s what I feel. The name worked melodically, mind.

Do you remember a song you wrote, ‘Kipsy’?
It came out on an album Tense, Nervous Headache and it was about a real life person who went from trying to sue me to asking me for several copies to give away for Christmas! That was the beginning of me deciding to write about really real things in a direct way. Kipsy was one of the first people to be done for dealing ecstasy and I’d just met MC Kinky. I’d written this song that went, ‘If you know Kipsy you’re gonna get busted’ and then Karen came in the studio and did this seventies chat: ‘ecstasy, because I’m in ecstasy’. Then it started getting played in clubs.

Didn’t it come out on 12-inch in Japan?
It might have done. It’s one of those tracks that I’d love to remix. I’d love to get someone to do a real wicked dub to it because it’s a great track. People like Weatherall and a whole bunch of people at the time, like when I did ‘Bow Down Mister’ and ‘Generations Of Love’ ‘After The Love’. It was the beginning of me taking control of my musical career. Having been in a band. And I don’t play anything. I write everything in my head.

Was it quite liberating doing stuff like ‘Generations of Love’?
Well, when you’ve come up in a band, there’s that sense of we knew you when you were nobody. Who the fuck do you think you are? In Culture Club it was always: you don’t even know what key the songs are in. I realised after a while that a lot of production is just bullshit and a lot of music was just blagging. It was just about being confident. It’s one thing about being able to play instruments, it’s another to have ideas. I think working with Malcolm McLaren was a huge revelation for me, even though it was a brief experience. Malcolm’s an ideas man and completely erratic. I remember sitting with him in a flat in Bayswater listening to him write a song called ‘The Mile High Club’ and prior to getting there I’d been picked up from my squat in Goodge Street and Vivienne had bricked the window, dressed as a pirate, because she thought he was screwing Annabella. We arrived at this flat and there were all these people in the street, from the local restaurant [does foreign accent] ‘She crazy woman, she dress as pirate and how can she go!’. Malcolm cooked me dinner and tried to get me to sign this contract. One of the greatest things my father ever did, even though he knew nothing about music was to say, “Don’t sign anything with that man. I don’t trust him. I won’t ever to tell you to do anything but please don’t sign that contract.”

What’s the biggest crowd you’ve ever DJed for?
30,000 people in Johannesburg.

Is it weird DJing in front of that many people?
What was weird about it for me was there was only one black queen in the whole place. I noticed that more than anything. It was a huge auditorium. You go there thinking it’s changed. What I realised was that it’s changed in theory but not in practice. I was looking round thinking, where are all the black people? One black queen in this sea of white faces. My cousin’s boyfriend got battered by security. A heavy night. I didn’t enjoy South Africa. It was racist and homophobic.

What was the first time you ever DJed?
It was at Venus in Nottingham. I brought my records in a cardboard box. I DJed alongside MC Kinky, who was far better than I was, and Danny Rampling and Jeremy Healy played downstairs. I brought these vintage house records and some other stuff I thought would work.

What was it like DJing, compared to being on a dancefloor?
I’m actually a complete technophobe, so the idea of working equipment was like aargghg! But it was an education for me. A lot of the gigs I did in the beginning were in the North: Birmingham and Middlesbrough was a real learning ground for me.

The Empire?
That was where I really fucked up. I did things like if the record stopped I would just get on the floor, push the button and the residents would look at me with hatred: ‘Yaugh, you’re only getting this work because you’re Boy George’ and there was an element of truth in that. But you know, I worked at it. I practised. I got my confidence. I was playing with people who were veterans like Tony De Vit, Sasha and Carl Cox and it was like [sharp intake of breath]. I can remember the first time I played with Sasha at the Pier in Hastings [Bedrock] and thinking, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do?!’ It was so frightening. I remember reading his palm that night. It’s one of my stock chat up lines. He looks like the skinny one from Laurel & Hardy.

There are people I admire for their technical ability, like Carl Cox and Tony De Vit when he was around. He was a master. I remember giving him a track I’d just made and he put it on. And just watching him mix this record he’d never heard before, so beautifully and keeping it in for half an hour.

Have you ever spent time practising at home?
In the early days. I was very obsessive about practising and when I got two records to go together I’d call everyone and shout, ‘Listen, I did it!’ When I was doing Cheapness & Beauty I took my decks to Oxford because we were in a residential studio. And I just literally, any time there was a break, I’d go up and make tapes. But it’s a bit like singing in the bath. It doesn’t compare with singing in front of a crowd. Everything changes. So you can practise as much as you like at home and you can be spot on. And then you get in front of a crowd and you brought the wrong records, you’re playing with the wrong DJ… all those rules about respecting the night… they’re gone. You get stuck on between Fergie and Anne Savage on New Year’s Eve, so what do you do? What I don’t ever do is adapt to the night. I refuse to do that. I get shit from people and people come up, but I think the thing is you’re always playing to an educated minority. That’s why.

Did have musical experience help you in any way as a DJ?
Not at all. I watched DJs. I used to watch them doing that [licks finger and goes as if to hold against platter]. I used to think what are they doing there? But it’s a load of old bollocks! It doesn’t do anything! Once I’d decided how I would DJ, I DJed from the middle of the record [he motions as though touching/moving the label], pushing it. I used to watch other DJs and wonder what I was doing wrong. And I had all the beat counters, the machinery, and they never worked. I’d spend hours at home going ‘well, it’s 30 of that and it’s er…’ I bought every gadget you can think of. But really, it’s like learning to drive: you’ve got to get out there and do it. Fuck up. Make mistakes. The best bit of advice I ever got was from Jon Pleased in Manchester at the Haçienda. I did this real car crash job, like a drag queen falling down the stairs in platforms. I said, “Argh, I can’t believe I did that!”
And Jon went, “Well, at least they know you’re here!”

Was Karma Chameleon influenced by the Bewlay Brothers?
No. But we got sued by the guy that did ‘Handyman’ [by Del Shannon]. Do you remember that? I’d never heard it. I’d heard it after the court case. When I first played it to the band, they laughed at me. And, in fact [looks round to see if Roy Hay’s still there], Roy’s not here so I can say this. The guitar lick was a pisstake, a total pisstake. It was a diss. It was the last song recorded for Colour By Numbers and everybody was dismissive. They said, “It’s the worst song you’ve ever written”.
I said, ‘It’s a Number One record’ and I fought like mad to make sure it got recorded. Perhaps Roy was right, perhaps it was the nail in our coffin. It was one of those songs you just got sick of! But it paid for his house in LA…

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CLASSIC CLUBS: Taboo

Maximus, Leicester Square, London, 1985-1987

‘Taboo thrived in a period of right-wing politics, the Thatcher/Reagan years, and it’s proof of a basic human need to have something to kick against,’ said Boy George in 2002. ‘That’s what made it such fun. It completely upped the ante and convinced us that we were somehow being terribly, terribly naughty.’

By the mid-80s, the euphoria of the new romantic era had dissipated leaving its bloated remains to float in a sea of power ballads, alternative rock and Stock Aitken and Waterman. In actual fact, the truly radical phase of new romanticism had passed long before Duran Duran, Culture Club, Visage or any of the bands that followed in their slipstream even made it to Top of the Pops, forming a distinct lineage from those nascent days of enw romanticism through to the establishment of Taboo.

Let the dandification begin: stylist and ace face Trojan with Taboo promoter Mark Lawrence ©Derek Ridgers

It all more or less started with Steve Strange and Rusty Egan’s Club for Heroes night at Billy’s in Soho’s Meard Street – once the infamous Mandrake, soon to become Gossip’s and just two doors down from 69 Dean Street’s Gargoyle Club. But in 1978, it was still Billy’s and when the pair were unceremoniously booted out after just a few months, they took up Tuesday night residency at Holborn’s Blitz wine bar and their circle moved with them. This was a new artistic crowd, turned on by the sounds of Roxy Music, Bowie, and bored by the nihilism of punk. While theirs was very much a DIY attitude, it was one that embraced colour, decadence and queerness concentrated on the art and fashion schools of London and the legendary Warren Street squats. This was the world of John Maybury, Jeremy Healy, Princess Julia, BodyMap and Judy Blame. Lesser household names than their musical contemporaries but all of whom went on to have an immeasurable impact on fashion and art throughout the 80s and 90s. ‘It was a mixture of people there,’ Julia, Blitz door boss, Taboo cloakroom attendant, DJ and all-round People’s Princess, told 10 Magazine in 2023. ‘People from the punk scene, rockabilly scene, soul scene, the gay disco scene. It was people who lived at the Warren Street squat, students from various fashion colleges. It was all word of mouth.’ But once the media began to infiltrate and the wannabe stars hit the big time, Blitz became a victim of its own success, losing its edge and leaving this alternative artistic community searching for a new home. It was the inimitable Leigh Bowery, waving the flag for queerness, decadence and hedonism, who answered the call.

The inimitable Leigh Bowery ©Derek Ridgers

Australian-born Bowery landed on these shores in 1980 armed with a sewing machine and hoping to make his way into the fashion business. He soon realised that his modern-day subversive dandy aesthetic was at odds with the mainstream and instead entrenched himself in London’s underground club scene using the dancefloor as his catwalk. Having missed the heyday of the Blitz, Bowery arrived in a flamboyant burst armed with a selection of headpieces, thick make-up and ludicrously high stilettos. ‘When he was hanging around with his friend Trojan, I thought they were a bit naff,’ said George in 2002. ‘I’d been painting my face blue years ago, darling! But I soon realised Leigh was taking things a lot further. He’d missed out on punk, he’d just missed the Blitz scene, so he knew that he was going to have to be extreme in order to make his mark. Well, he certainly did that!’

Bowery was not in the least interested in keeping things on the downlow and placed his and Tony Gordon’s new venture in the epicentre of the West End taking over Thursday night at Leicester Square’s Maximus. ‘London was going through a bit of a lull in terms of clubbing. Then Taboo opened. Leigh Bowery started it in 1985,’ George told Mark Ronson in Interview in 2008. ‘The first few weeks were no big deal. Then suddenly it was the place to be. There were queues outside.‘ Fat Tony agrees. ‘People go on about Taboo being amazing. Taboo was shit for months,’ he told DjHistory. ‘First three months, it was rubbish. No one went. There’d be about 20 or 30 of us there. And then suddenly what happened was it got in the papers and that was it. It went boom.’

Taboo embodied the very essence of what Bowery stood for and his maxim was ‘Dress as though your life depends on it or don’t bother’. ‘Most of the people who ran the night were gay, but the emphasis was on looking special,’ Dave Swindells told Archer magazine. ‘The meeter-greeter, Marc, would hold up a mirror and ask, ‘Would you let yourself in?’’ This was the gatekeeper disco aesthetic taken to the nth degree as polysexualism, queerness, diehard drug-taking and music all went hand in hand.

New York royalty Suzanne Bartsch welcomes Leigh for a visit

Bowery was of course the focal point, and his appearance was crucial to the reputation that he himself was generating. In the end, Bowery became the performance – ridding himself of his hair, his head acting as a canvas while his outfits became more extreme. ‘There was one peLana Pellayriod when my favourite fabric was flesh. Human flesh,’ said Bowery. ‘I didn’t wear any clothes for a while”. His fellow clubbers of course followed suit. ‘[They] didn’t just wear mad outfits,’ says Dave Haslam in Life After Dark: A History of British Nightclubs and Music Venues. ‘They became new people.’ Princess Julia was no stranger to subculture, but she remembers that Taboo was on the brink. ‘Even at the time, it felt quite insane, and I had this theory that it was something to do with Haley’s Comet.’

The interior was tacky with ‘[t]atty red velour banquettes, mirrors everywhere, strange light effects on the walls, three bars and a central dance floor with several cheap lights and a mirror ball,’ according to performance artist, Taboo cashier and close friend of Bowery, Sue Tilley as reported by Sofia Vranou. Check out the music clip of trans artist Lana Pellay’s ‘Pistol In My Pocket’, which was filmed on the premises. Dancing was strictly encouraged. Choreographer Michael Clark and David La Chapelle could be found go-go dancing. ‘Space Princess, Mark Lawrence and Mark Time who used to be in Hot Gossip and Jeffrey would do these dance routines at home,’ Mark Moore told DjHistory. ‘Teach it to a few friends so once they got into the club they’d take over the dancefloor and do this formation dancing to anyone willing to join in.’ And part of the appeal was its egalitarian approach. ‘At the time, the people were just as important as the club, as the DJs, as the music, they were the stars as much as anyone else,’ says Moore. That’s not to say there wasn’t a degree of celeb presence though, Janet Street Porter, John Galliano, Martin Fry and Fiona Russell Powell, journo from The Face all to be found on the Taboo dancefloor.

And what about the actual music? ‘All I can remember is Jeffrey [Hinton] playing everything he could get his hands on,’ Tallulah told DjHistory. ‘Including the slipmat.’ No genre was out of bounds as Hinton, Rachel Auburn, Princess Julia and others all took to the decks. Progressive for a time when female DJs were not a common feature. ‘It was totally cheesy, hi-NRG, Italo, some of it great, some of it atrocious but once you’d been in there and you were drunk or on ecstasy, it was fuckin’ amazing!’ said Moore. ‘I think what made it so great was Jeffrey would do his own edits where he would elongate the best bits with these mad sound effects over the top.’ Hinton agrees. ‘I loved sound effects at that time (I still do) so I would chop and mix up videos (video scratching they named it, I didn’t though),’ he told Taboo descendent Dalston Superstore. ‘I edited everything together: porn, Abba, operations, TV and film from around the world and my own stuff. I would project it over the dancefloor and mix it in with the music. Also, I would have tape cassettes playing sound effects and mix that into the music as well. The music would be quite random too. The whole effects was nuts, but then the club was nuts too.’ It was the dancefloor’s answer to John Waters. ‘Taboo was kind of celebrating trash, the kind of records you secretly loved, like ‘Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’, by Baccara, things that you probably shouldn’t like,’ George told Mark Ronson. ‘They weren’t credible records, but they worked. A lot of Donna Summer and things that maybe weren’t trendy anymore or weren’t hip in gay clubs, but you’d hear them at Taboo.’

Ecstasy had also really begun to find its feet on the dancefloor. ‘I didn’t realise at the time it was so crazy because of the ecstasy, but in hindsight that makes sense,’ says Moore. ‘People would come back from New York – again a mixture of high life and low life – loaded with ecstasy and give them out to people.’ George agreed. ‘People were taking copious amounts of ecstasy, which had filtered over from New York,’ he told Ronson, ’and at a certain point you were more likely to spend most of the night in the toilets at the club’. Hinton himself was also a big fan of acid as he remembers one particularly eventful night. ‘I actually thought I was in my bedroom, I was easily believing the club was my home,’ he told Hero magazine. ‘I was playing the slipmat of the deck for about 20 minutes with headphones plugged into it – it was just making this awful grinding noise. Nobody batted an eyelid though! They just carried on dancing, they were used to unusual sounds and experiences on those nights.’

But alongside the euphoria of ecstasy came the blackness of heroin. There was a lot of self-destructive behaviour,’ said George in 2002. ‘It was all about extremes, outdoing each other. We tried every drug going.’ Fat Tony remembers how smack shut the whole thing down. ‘It was busy every week. Busy busy busy. Then it ended! Cos everyone was on heroin at that point – it was right in the deepest, darkest point. So Mark died who used to do the door. He died of a heroin overdose. Mark Lawrence died. Everyone who used to go there was popping off one by one.’ Aids was also really starting to hit hard. ‘I think we all went a little mad then, some people died after all that,’ said Princess Julia in 2010. ‘Aids was getting very ‘real’, death sentence, an air of inevitability. ’85, ’86. Drugs too, MDMA, heroine [sic] jack up.’

The book of the 2024 exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum

Eventually thanks to exposure in i-D magazine, the tabloids got wind of what was going on and drilled down hard on the drug use and what they deemed to be highly indecent behaviour. Management got scared and took away the key. Tony Gordon tried to move the party on, but Bowery wasn’t interested and so eighteen months after opening, Taboo was no more. ‘For me, Taboo had a major impact, not so much because of the music (though there were ace DJs) but because the collision of club cultures and personalities marked it out as a sort of highpoint of mid-’80s hedonism,’ said Dave Swindells. ‘They were happy to end up in a pile of vomit and booze at the end of the night. It was antifashion, in a sense,’ George told Ronson. Bowery died aged 33 of Aids but left an immeasurable legacy. Taboo was a bridge between the dying embers of the Blitz scene and a dawn of a new wave of underground alternative clubs including the Daisy Chain, Torture Garden and Kinky Gerlinky. And Bowery’s spirit lives on in today’s underground dancefloor culture with the words ‘if you label me, you negate me’ never more relevant.

Sarah Gregory

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Mark Moore was a true believer

House arrived in the UK amid a whirlwind of other styles: hip hop, go-go, new beat and electro were all fighting for attention, eclecticism was the order of the day, and few people saw it as anything more than another flavour to throw in the mix. But Mark Moore was a true believer determined to give house the focus it deserved. At Asylum (which became Pyramid) he joined fellow zealots Colin Faver and Eddie Richards and pushed the club to an all-house playlist, after which he DJed at many of the emerging acid house scene’s key clubs, including Spectrum, Shoom and some of the M25 raves. Inspired by the new sound, he made ‘Theme From S’Express’, one of the first British house tracks, an international hit and a UK number one in 1988. Having been switched on by punk and John Carpenter soundtracks, Mark began his clubbing life at The Blitz and Heaven, and established himself as a DJ in those heady pre-house years. In this interview he proves himself an astute observer of the shifting times, recalling incisively how ecstasy crept in to the London scene, arriving with a crash onto the giggling dancefloor at Leigh Bowery’s Taboo in 1985.

interviewed by Bill in London, 2.12.94 and 20.07.04

Was there anything about your early musical influences – in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s – that showed where you might be heading?
Everything was so mixed up. Everything was up for grabs and everything was played. You just went for good music rather than a genre. Looking back, we were listening to a lot of electronic dance music. What got me into it was this film by John Carpenter, Assault On Precinct 13. We went to see the movie and halfway through my friend’s sister said, ‘I can’t handle this,’ because it was too intense. People were leaving the cinema in droves. The music just blew me and my brother away: ‘What the fuck, this music is amazing.’

John Carpenter did his own music for his films, didn’t he.
He did. I remember my brother saying ‘Mark, Mark, they’ve released the music from Precinct 13. It’s called the Human League “Being boiled”.’ It wasn’t, but it was similar and the band was great, so we went to see the Human League everywhere. David Bowie would turn up to see them. There’d be people sat at the table reading Kafka books with a pint of beer. Before that, we heard ‘Warm Leatherette’ and ‘TVOD’ by the Normal. I was buying stuff on Mute. Later, electronic stuff from the States, Bobby O, the Flirts, Divine, we lumped it in with Soulsonic Force because it was from America. I remember hearing ‘Blue Monday’ and thinking, ‘What’s this rip off of Bobby O?’

And shortly after that, hip hop started arriving
The rap was coming in. I think I first heard ‘Planet Rock’ in 1982 and it would’ve been at Camden Palace, Steve Strange’s club. When we first heard it, we just thought ‘Ooh, what’s this remix of Kraftwerk?’ We thought it was something cool, but we didn’t think it was a new genre, because we’d been listening to the Human League and Depeche Mode. There was a time when it all switched over: some of my friends had been real stoners who listened to dub reggae and Lee Perry and suddenly you’d go round their house and they’d be listening to 12-inch Martin Rushent dub mixes, like the dub of ‘Happy Birthday’ by Altered Images, something ridiculously camp.

Where did you grow up?
North London, Hampstead, Golders Green. I was born in University College Hospital in London, in 1965. Perhaps! No one knows for sure and I’ve lied about my age since I was 12. My mother was from South Korea. She was one of the first people to come over here after the Korean War. All her hotel rooms were bugged by MI5 because they thought she was a communist spy. She set up a property business and we were living a lovely middle-class existence. She was the Evening Standard’s Businesswoman of the Year. Then she got divorced from my father and started losing her business and went bankrupt. Suddenly we were very poor. We had a nice house but no money and we were constantly hiding from debt collectors. Then she had a nervous breakdown and me and my brother were put into care. And then into a grammar school, Wolverstone Hall, the poor man’s Eton. A lot of people went there, like the brothers from Colourbox/MARRS, Martin Offiah, Ben Volepierre from Curiosity Killed The Cat. To me it was a safe place. I worked hard and got straight A’s.

My brother got into punk rock in early ‘77 and I remember staying at my Aunty Amy’s, bored, playing my brother’s records. I put on Patti Smith’s ‘Piss Factory’ and it totally blew my mind. Then I put on ‘White Punks On Dope’ by The Tubes, and it blew my mind. Then the final test was ‘God Save The Queen’ and by the end of it, no future! I was a punk rocker.

And that led to Billy’s and The Blitz
I met this girl at a punk party called Bowie Teresa, who looked exactly like David Bowie as he did in The Man Who Fell To Earth. She dragged me into the bathroom, and turned on the bath and took her clothes off and tried to get me to get in the bath with her, so immediately I thought, I love this girl. She was quite terrifying at the same time. I arranged to meet her, and she always seemed to be working late in Soho. In hindsight she was probably on the game. And she said, ‘We’re going to go to this great club, which is full of weirdos, freaks, rent boys and prostitutes. It’s called Billy’s. It’s a Bowie night and they play Bowie, Roxy Music, Kraftwerk’

It was Steve Strange’s first club, with Rusty Egan DJing, at Gossips. It was

Bowie ‘Heroes’, Roxy Music ‘Do The Strand’, ‘Editions Of You’. Rusty was definitely very influential for me. Very underrated. Along with John Peel, for the variety, and also this girl called Mandy who played at Marquee. Then Rusty Egan and Steve Strange opened another club: Hell, which was in Covent Garden, just round the corner from the Rock Garden. They opened it because Blitz was becoming quite well known, so it was a bit like the Blitz but more elitist, if that’s possible. We’d go there, and he’d be playing Grace Jones’ album where she’d switched from being disco to new wave and doing things like ‘She’s Lost Control’. And he’d be playing disco stuff like Change ‘The Glow Of Love’, which was cool, breaking down preconceptions.

My guru then was my friend Simon Green who was slightly older than me. He was totally heterosexual but covered in eyeliner and make-up looking really camp. ‘We have to listen to more Grace Jones and we have to go to more gay clubs! We can’t be punks forever.’ So we went to see Grace Jones perform at Heaven. The first gay club I ever went to. He arranged to meet me there. I went in actually petrified, I didn’t know anything – sexuality or whatever – still quite young. People were really friendly there. Went in the first bar, didn’t know the rest of the club existed, and just stayed in that bar all night. I remember seeing Amanda Lear on video there, ‘Geev a leetle beet of mmmph to me and I’ll geev a leetle mmmph to you,’ dressed in leather with a whip. But I didn’t see Simon so I went home!

My uncle and aunt moved out of their house in Finchley and let me and my cousins stay there. They were a bit older than me, but still young and from a hippie background. It was fantastic. We’d come back from clubs like Blitz, lay mattresses out on the floor and crash out there and listen to Kraftwerk and Psychedelic Furs’ first album. During the summer, rather than stay at my uncle’s I would go and have a holiday at the punk squats in Kings Cross. They were amazing. Every night you’d go to a punk gig. They were at the back of Kings Cross, towards Russell Square. There’d be loads of prostitutes in the area and they’d be giving you lectures about how shouldn’t run away from school.

At the time, did you ever think DJing was a career option?
Later on, when I dropped out of my job and I was DJing my mother was like, why don’t you get a proper job, why don’t you do something with your life?’ In the back of my mind I thought, ‘I will be discovered.’ Someone will come up to me and say we want you to be in our movie or we want you to be in our band. Even though I couldn’t sing particularly, I assumed this would happen, someone would realise you were a star and would sort it out for you. At that time everyone thought that: ‘Yeah, we’re on the dole and we don’t do anything, but we’re stars!’ Boy George was a star, even though he was doing absolutely nothing. Then he realised, hang on a minute, if I’m gonna be a star I’ve actually got to do something.

How did you get into DJing?
Back then anyone with an artistic bent could be on the dole and go clubbing all week and somehow survive. It was easy for artists to thrive, bands to thrive. I got myself a bedsit and they were gonna stop my dole so I thought I’d better get a job. I found the cushiest thing I could find on their noticeboard, dressed up all punky thinking they’d never give me a job like that, and they gave me the job! So I was suddenly working for the Jewish Welfare Board looking after old people and the mentally handicapped. All my money went on paying the bedsit, whereas previously all my money went on records and clothes. No one wore designer clothes then, everyone made their own. You bought second hand stuff and jazzed it up.

The Mud Club had opened, I’d been going there regularly, every week. Jay Strongman was doing the downstairs and Tasty Tim was upstairs, playing schoolboy disco, glam rock. I’d take him mad things to play, some electronic stuff and then stuff like Rupert the Bear. People would run on to the dancefloor to dance to Rupert the Bear and this whole anti-cool thing came up where it was like are you gonna dance to this or are you gonna pose and look pretty? And everyone would just let their hair down and go completely crazy. So there’d be Stingray, Captain Scarlet, Julie Andrews’ ‘Lonely Goat Herd’. And people’d be dancing to it! He asked Philip Sallon if I could DJ with him. Philip said yes but completely panicked and rang me every day saying, ‘You’d better not fuck it up!’ Anyway, I did my set and everyone went completely crazy. So he said I could DJ there every week.

The Mud Club used to do one-off balls at Heaven, which were fantastic, and they saw me DJing and got me to do their club Asylum, which turned into Pyramid. So suddenly I was DJing with Evil Eddie Richards and Colin Faver at Asylum. First it was called The Asylum, and then to reinvent it they called it Pyramid. I started there in 1984, but I can’t remember when it started, maybe ‘82. I think it was on a Wednesday. Again, it was that alternative scene, very mixed, lots of straight people, very dressy. Most of the gay scene was very generic handlebar moustaches, listening to this cheesy Eurobeat. We were definitely the black sheep of the gay scene. I remember seeing Ian Levine in print saying, ‘Oh yeah, we thought that was the freaks night’.

We started playing house music very early on. We didn’t know we were playing it. It was just another electronic import thing we were playing along with Koto and the Italo disco stuff. ‘Hypnosis by Void. Or Void by Hypnosis. Yello, ‘Vicious Games’ was huge. Klein & MBO was massive. We were playing a lot of industrial stuff like Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb, Cabaret Voltaire ‘Yashar’, and then the more poppy stuff like Pet Shop Boys, obviously New Order, Soft Cell… So the house stuff started getting slotted in as well. It was a while before we realised, ‘Wait a minute there’s loads of this stuff!’ We actually had Jamie Principal down to play, early days. Must’ve been ‘87.

What was he like?
He was cool. Very camp, quite Princey, vulnerable looking.

And were you playing anywhere else?
The Mud Club and then loads of warehouse parties.

Were you playing the off-the-wall stuff at Mud Club and more orthodox elsewhere?
Yeah, exactly. But even the Mud Club, it started to get more electronic. I’d come on after Jay Strongman who’d do the funk and hip hop, but I started incorporating the electro. The Mud Club went through so many changes. I remember after a while it became known as a hip hop and go-go club.

How long did you play at Pyramid?
I left in ‘88 because of S’Express, but it was still going then.

I remember seeing you guest at the Fridge in Sept ‘87 and it was the first time I’d ever heard anyone play only house music. It was very confrontational, like you were on a mission. Did you feel that way?
I did. Because most people hated house music. The whole of London was into rare groove and hip hop. I was known as a hip hop DJ in those days. I remember thinking the mixed gay crowd are really into house ‘cos it’s a progression of disco, but the straight crowd are never going to get into it, ‘cos they all smoke spliff, the main drug of London, so they want slower beats. Loads of my hip hop friends were like that. Took them to a club. Gave them an E. ‘We get it, this is amazing’. I remember when S’Express took off, in my first interview they asked me why they thought house hadn’t taken off in London and I said it was because the drugs were all wrong.

All my friends at the Mud Club were like, ‘Why do you have to keep playing this house music?’ They didn’t get it and it took ecstasy for them to get it. I was on a mission, I thought, I’m not gonna give in. I’d play ‘Strings Of Life’ at the Mud Club and clear the floor. Three weeks later you could see pockets of people come on to the floor when I played it, and dance and go crazy to it. And this was without ecstasy. And they turned out to be people like DJ Harvey. I remember at the Fridge many times thinking, ‘This is hard work, I hope no one shoots me!’.

What was the crowd at Pyramid?
It was 70 percent gay. A lot of straight people who wanted somewhere to go where they weren’t hassled. Racially it was mixed, a lot of black gay guys went, they loved the house music and they also loved the soulful electronic stuff like Janet Jackson’s ‘Control’. I also had a big hip hop following from the Mud Club. A lot of the main homeboys and breakdancers went there because they were bored. First time they came they were terrified, and then one of them would go to their mates, ‘It’s alright, it’s safe,’ and then more of them would come along. And they’d be breakdancing to the house music. They even asked LL Cool J to come down one time and he came. He loved it, thought it was freaky.

Drugs weren’t that important. Maybe a bit of speed or LSD, but not huge amounts. It was more a case of have a beer. Not a lot of people would do cocaine: it was still considered a great luxury in those days, although Pyramid was very Euro jet set, very rich people would fly in from Italy. It was a mixture of rich types, rent boys, debutantes and strange axe murderers! The Pet Shop Boys would always go there, Jimmy Somerville, and one time Liza Minnelli came down, so it was a strange mixture of high life and low life.

When did you do your first E?
I first heard about it when friends would come back from New York, saying, ‘We’ve had this new drug and it’s like, you feel like you’re not off your face at all, but you are totally off your face at the same time.’ What’s it like? ‘Oh, it’s like a constant orgasm for six hours.’ I remember, they’d always come back with about ten Es, and they were like gold dust, they’d sell for about £30.

I heard things about Cindy Ecstasy on the Soft Cell record, and seeing the Soft Cell ‘Non Stop Erotic Dancing’ – you know, the compilation video, and that was very drug-orientated. It had all things like ‘Sex Dwarf’ and ‘Memorabilia’, which would start off ‘Trip, trip, trip, trip, tripping.’ At first I thought they’d written it on LSD, but then I realised no, it’s this ecstasy thing.

I heard rumours that Stevo was on it all the time, and he’d go into meetings on ecstasy and come out really on top with a brilliant time. Kevin Millins, I remember him saying he got his first one off Marc Almond. Tony Gordon used to have quite a few Es in Taboo days. I remember buying one off him for £30 and it didn’t work.

My first one was at White Trash. Noel Watson was DJing and the music was a mixture of the Jackson 5 and Skipworth and Turner, spiritual and uplifting soulful stuff. I thought this was the perfect ecstasy music.

So here and there I’d take it. And then I guess I didn’t have it for a little while, just here and there it would crop up. I remember having a conversation at White Trash with George Michael about it. He said, ‘I’m sick of people in London who are on ecstasy, thinking they’re so cool, and don’t they realise it’s been around in America for years.’ He was in a corner being really miserable. I remember thinking maybe you should take one yourself George, but he was going through a lot of stress in those days.

Tell me about Taboo, then?
Taboo was great. I had to finish my set at Pyramid and run over to Taboo. It was really fantastic – again a mixture of high life and low life. I didn’t realise at the time it was so crazy because of the ecstasy, but in hindsight that makes sense. People would come back from New York loaded with ecstasy and give them out.

Who were the high life element, was it pop stars like George?
Yeah, Boy George, [TV producer] Janet Street Porter. I think she was going out with Tony James then [of Generation X]. There were up and coming designers like John Galliano, and ABC would be there, in their freaky cartoon phase, fresh from their success with How To Be A Zillionaire. And Fiona Russell Powell, the writer from the Face. Everyone remembers her TV appearance on the Tube with ABC where she took off her coat and she had this belt with dildos stuck all around it; it was live so it was too late to do anything. She’d be there. And the ecstasy would be dished out and somebody would just fall on the floor, and someone else would go, ‘Yeah, good idea,’ and fall on the floor as well, and then the whole place would fall down in unison, this mass bundle of writhing bodies. And that would happen every week at Taboo. It was a lame night if that didn’t happen.

You had great people like Space Princess, who was this lovely guy: Mark Lawrence, an amazing six-foot black model from the north. He used to go to northern soul clubs, then decided he was gay and came to London. Jeffrey Hinton, who was the DJ, along with Rachel Auburn. I think Princess Julia did the cloakroom. Mark Lawrence, who started DJing later at Daisy Chain.

Jeffrey, Space Princess, Mark Lawrence and Mark Time who used to be in Hot Gossip would practise these dance routines at home, with Malcolm Duffy. And once they got into the club they’d do this formation dancing with anyone willing to join in. Suddenly the floor would be taken over by people doing formation dancing. And they’d do this move with a kick and a turn and everyone would fall over in unison as part of the routine.

At the time, the people were just as important as the club, as the DJs, as the music, they were the stars as much as anyone else. The week after Pyramid there’d be a fashion show and people would be chosen out of the crowd to appear, or people would be asked if they wanted to do a drag act, a mime or weird performance art, which they’d do next week at Pyramid. It was so inclusive. I totally missed that in the ‘90s.

It was that performer-consumer dynamic wasn’t it?
Yeah. I think it’s back now with the small electro clubs.

What music was played at Taboo?
It was totally cheesy, hi-NRG, Italo, some of it great, some of it atrocious, but once you’d been in there and you were drunk or on ecstasy, it was fuckin’ amazing! I heard Taffy ‘Step By Step’ played to death there by Jeffrey Hinton. The Taboo anthem was ‘After The Rainbow’ by Joanne Daniels, and when you listen to it now, you think how could we have liked something so tacky? Weak electronic production, but it was so fucking brilliant at the time. Jeffrey would do his own edit where he would elongate the best bits with these mad sound effects over the top. Very underrated DJ, Jeffrey. Very trippy and some of it was completely out of beat, but it didn’t matter. It totally suited Taboo. Sometimes he would let the records clash for a full two minutes and everybody would be like, ‘Woaargh! This is fucking crazy and amazing!’

Jeffrey also used to do the music for Bodymap. In those days they always used to have fashion shows, have the models come on in freaky clothes, and one of the models would collapse and suddenly all the other models would collapse on them. That was Bodymap, which came from Taboo.

How long did Taboo run for?
It must’ve been a year. About 1985, you’d go to the club and people would be missing, and you’d be like, ‘Where are they?’ People started disappearing. And you realised they were suddenly becoming ill or dying. Aids suddenly became very there. It went from this thing you talked about that was happening in America, to something very real. A lot of the creative people started dying out. You’d be wondering, ‘Where’s Space Princess? Is he just staying in tonight, or is he dead?’ Then you’d hear months later that so-and-so had died. It became a very bleak time. People started dressing down more, they didn’t want to look freaky, they wanted to look healthy, they didn’t want to be associated with this disease. So everything started falling apart and the fabulous parties started to become less fabulous.

Just when acid house was about to make an entrance.
There was a void and into this void I knew there was something waiting to step in. I remember taking Philip Sallon to the Future which was in the back of Heaven and just saying ‘This is the future, literally the future. It’s what’s gonna happen next.’ He said ‘Don’t be silly they’re just kids from the suburbs.’ He just couldn’t understand what I was on about.

Had you noticed ecstasy being used in Asylum or other clubs you’d been playing in?
I only noticed it at Taboo. I knew there was a New York scene where people were doing it. And then nothing for a few years [after Taboo], and then I went to Paul Oakenfold’s Future and Danny Rampling invited me to Shoom. Previous to Shoom, ecstasy never took off big-time apart from Taboo. It didn’t spread across the alternative gay scene or the trendy clubs.

I remember the gay scene being really late to pick up on the whole house revolution, besides the Pyramid. The generic gay scene was a good year or so slow to pick up on it. They stuck with their Eurobeat, but then they got stuck into it with a vengeance and made up for lost time. I definitely think The Pyramid was the first house music club in England. I’m not listening to anyone else about this!

Tell me about S’Express. How did that come about?
I was living with my mother, staying on the sofa in a council flat in Harrow Road, and Rhythm King had opened up across the road, in Mute Records. I’d go and hang out in the offices and see if I could get some free imports and stuff. And I’d be like, ‘You should sign this’ or ‘Sign this, it’s great!’ I got them to sign Renegade Soundwave, I got them to sign Baby Ford. And of course, I got them their first hit with Taffy, and I got them another hit with Beatmasters and the Cookie Crew ‘Rok Da House’.

I didn’t particularly ask for anything but they said, ‘Oh you better have some money. You’ve done so much for us, can we do anything for you?’ So I said, ‘Yeah, I’ve got some ideas, can you put me in the studio with a producer. They hooked me up with Pascal Gabriel who I got on with instantly. He had the same musical loves as me, and we did ‘Theme From S’Express’ and ‘Superfly Guy’.

I made a conscious decision that even though it was a house-influenced record, I didn’t want it to be a copy of a house record, so when you compare it now it doesn’t sound very typical. Not only influenced by house, but all the other things I loved, like Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder, Philip Glass, punk rock. And I wanted it to be ironic as well, so it goes ‘I’ve got the hots for you’ which was definitely a comment on the crassness of disco lyrics. At the time disco was still a dirty word. I remember thinking, I’m gonna get crucified for bringing disco back.

So did you go in there with a big bag of samples?
Yeah, but I wrote other bits for it like the bassline and got my friend in to do the ‘esss expresssss’ bit. We cleared everything and people hadn’t heard of clearing samples in those days. You could clear samples for £250 in those days.

How many were there, I know the Crystal Grass one?
Plenty. I’d rather not say. It was early days when things were signed on backs of toilet roll!

What were the early reactions?
I wondered what the DJs would make of it. I thought I’d play it at Pyramid and that would be it. I remember playing it to Kid Bachelor at an i-D Magazine shoot for all the up-and-coming DJ talent. Coldcut and everyone played their new stuff and Kid said yours is the best one there. Rhythm King pressed some up on white label, but it took ages for it to come out because of the clearances, so people had these white labels for months and months and magazines would say, ‘When is “Theme From S’Express coming out?”’ Finally, it did.

And you were thrust into a whirlwind of promotion.

I was making a comfortable living being a DJ by then. But I had to stop and promote it around the world for about a year and a half.

Doing PAs?
A few, and a short tour, but it was more TV and interviews around the world. They’d film for TV while we mimed. S’Express was too early. It was breaking down the doors for dance music and people didn’t get it in a lot of places. It would’ve been easier a few years later where I could’ve just gone and done a DJ tour to promote it.

There was a lot of resistance from the powers that be, Radio 1 didn’t want to support it. Someone wrote a letter to the Musicians Union saying that Mark Moore was being interviewed saying he was a non-musician – I was quoting Brian Eno – and they said he should be thrown out of the MU and not allowed on Top of the Pops. Rumour has it this letter came from a very famous producer. But it was cool. It opened the doors for others.

I remember Derrick May being really excited that S’Express had done this. Derrick May said to me, ‘It’s like a party and you’re the only ones there and you’re waiting for everyone else to come to the party.’

How did you end up DJing at Shoom?
Danny Rampling used to come to Pyramid, ‘cos that was the only place in London to hear house music: Pyramid, Jungle and possibly the Mud Club, which was a mix of hip hop and house – though it was a battle to slip in the house stuff. And when I got a test pressing of S’Xpress, Danny came running up, shouting, ‘What’s this record? I have to have one. My name’s Danny and I do this club called Shoom, and DJ at Kiss, and I have to have one!’

Can you describe your first time at Shoom.
Everyone told me it was such a friendly place, but I walk in and there’s smoke everywhere, and when it cleared everyone was walking around like Night of the Living Dead, and I thought, ‘This isn’t a very friendly, happy place, what are they talking about?’ Then, about an hour later, suddenly people are coming up and hugging you and ‘What’s your name?’ ‘I love you, you’re great!’ I thought, ‘Wait a minute, they’re all on ecstasy!’

The first time there were only about 100 people. Straight away I met some guy who was the Shoom dealer, I think there were only two dealers in those days. He just came up and said, ‘Oh I’ve seen you DJ, I think you’re really cool, this is for you mate, thanks for the music.’ And when Spectrum opened he got arrested, he was probably one of the first guys to get arrested for it.

What did you think of Shoom?
I’d been playing house for a couple of years, and I thought, at last a straight crowd that gets it, that understands the whole music (I’d never been to Paradise Garage). Although they had to go to Ibiza to get it, and take drugs to get it, it was another club that was doing more or less what I was doing – which was mixing up alternative stuff which they called Balearic Beats. I thought wow, I’ve found the perfect place, and then Danny asked me to DJ. It was perfect timing. S’Express was pressed and I remember Colin Faver saying, ‘I don’t know if I can play this at Shoom, ‘cos it’s really discoey, and then he played it and they went completely insane. I remember the Shoom newsletter listed S’Express as one of their top records.

How much did you get into the scene?
Totally. It was totally what I was looking for. I already had the gay scene. They understood the records, but they wanted more of a garagey vibe, and I was playing a lot of acid stuff. Whereas this scene totally understood it when you dropped something like Scarlet Fantastic ‘No Memory’. The Shoom scene was so open-minded, you could drop anything that was danceable. And people’s attitudes. Just coming up and shaking your hand saying, ‘I’ve seen you on the telly mate,’ Not being all weird: ‘Oh he’s a pop star’. They were really down to earth and I could just be myself with them.

Were there a few people there you didn’t expect?
I remember seeing a few people from punk days who I hadn’t seen since then. Going to Shoom and seeing Boy George, Paul Rutherford, Patsy Kensit.

Do you think ecstasy genuinely changed things?
I remember you’d hear people saying, ‘Oh all the football firms are here at the Trip, it’s going to kick off, it’s going to be a blood bath’ – and it never happened. A lot of people had their minds opened up. I’ve always come from a spiritual background, with my mum being a Buddhist, so it was great to see these people discovering spirituality and things like that – and it was great talking to them. It was like a door had been opened to a lot of these people, and they realised about acceptance and tolerance.

Did E bring people out of the closet?
Yeah, I think it’s true. A lot of people who were having problems with their sexuality, took an E and were set free of their inhibitions. I think it’s a great way to come out, dealing with it in that way. I think it’s done a lot of good for those people who were unsure about their sexuality.

How life-changing do you think it was?
Was and is! It was very life-changing. It’s changed music. I’ve always lived by ‘Everyone is my friend until they prove they’re not’, and that was strengthened by the Second Summer of Love. I guess nowadays it’s a naive way to be. The first wave of ecstasy opened up so many people’s minds, but the constant caning of it merely helped to close them again.

You didn’t talk about that scene in interviews.
S’Xpress wasn’t from that scene – it was just me listening to the house music I was playing, and Shoom was starting round about the same time so it all tied in nicely. The reason I never talked about ecstasy in the early days of S’Xpress is ‘cos I didn’t want the scene ruined. I knew if I was to mention ecstasy in interviews with the national papers, they’d jump on it – and that’s what happened. People would ask me from The Sun and the Daily Mirror, is acid house anything to do with drugs, and I remember just lying.

One day, I think it was in the Mirror, it said, ‘Next week we expose the evil face of acid house’ – and there’s a picture of me there. I got on to my lawyers straight away. When it came out it talked about the evils of acid house, and Mark Moore from the band S’Xpress who doesn’t take drugs and is a good boy. They chickened out, ‘cos they were obviously thinking to put it all on me as the leader or something.

I didn’t want to be the one responsible for putting this wonderful scene overground.

When the Trip opened that’s when it it became totally massive – roadblocks outside – the police car would come up and turn the siren on and everyone would start raving to it, dancing to the siren. I remember talking to Kevin Saunderson at the Trip, and saying, after this everybody will go to the car park, and he thought it was the name of a club. But we ended up in the car park, and he says, ‘Oh I see what you mean now,’ with everyone dancing round this one car with a tape on. He was amazed.

Before that, Paul [Oakenfold] opened up Spectrum, and round about that time the record had come out and it had been a hit. And I remember going to the first Spectrum, and there were about 200 people there – empty but such a brilliant atmosphere. We went off to Europe to promote the record, and when I came back a few weeks later, I went back to Spectrum and the queues were all the way round the block – it had exploded. There were all these trendy faces I knew from the trendy scene, who were there, and I thought yeah, it’s going to be massive.

Paul asked me to do the odd DJ spot at Spectrum, and I remember seeing Leigh Bowery turn up in a completely mad costume, and people were just off their heads going, ‘Wow what is it?’

After that came the big outdoor raves. I used to go to those things, but I can’t remember the first one I DJed at. My first impression was it was like a ‘happening’. You’d go up the motorway, and all you could see was a huge line of cars, everyone off their face in their cars.

What memories do you have of that period?
I think you fell in love with your friends, which is the way it should be. It was a total love affair with your friends, without the sexual side of it. I remember it as one of the happiest days, years, of my life.

Although punk rock was fantastic, and New Romantic. I’m lucky enough to have memories of different scenes. With punks and New Romantics, you couldn’t imagine them doing everyday things like shopping in Tescos – it was like, how did they live, how did they eat? The New Romantics it was de rigeur to be bitchy, one minute you’d be best friends with someone, the next minute you’d be total enemies. I have photos of people I used to know in the New Romantic days – they were there on the Shoom scene looking totally laddy, and I have pictures of them from the New Romantic days with lip gloss and blusher. They take me aside and say please don’t show those photos. It’s like they lived two different lives.

Why were you such a campaigner for house?
I knew that house music would take off. Eventually.

Why, though?
Because I loved it! I thought it was so fucking brilliant and I couldn’t understand why no one else did. I just thought, ‘This music is fucking great!’ But no one else agreed with me at the time. At The Fridge in ‘87 I told them to put a sign up saying ‘We play house music here’. That way, if you had been warned, you couldn’t complain. In theory!

Which dancefloors in particular did you clear with house music?
Mainly at the Mud Club. Luckily it wasn’t a constantly cleared floor. I’d clear the floor with Strings of Life and bring them back with Dead or Alive or James Brown. If you’re playing someone else’s club your job as a DJ is to entertain while still being dangerous, taking risks and retaining your own identity. However, if it’s your own club I think that gives you license to do what the fuck you want. I’m actually proud of the times I’ve cleared dancefloors. My attitude was this: the people who left didn’t matter to me whatsoever. What mattered were the one or two people that stayed on the dancefloor whose lives were changed. And those people would go on to do something else.

Like who?
Pete Heller, Laurent Garnier, Trevor Jackson, Daft Punk. I get people coming up now and saying, ‘You changed my life. You played this at that club and I saw the light!’

Fat Tony doesn’t take requests

Push hedonism too far, too long, and you’re either dead or a survivor. Fat Tony has been responsible for some of history’s greatest extended bouts of carefree craziness, but thankfully he stepped back from the edge in time, and can now regale you with ripping yarns of epic star-studded misbehaviour. From a Battersea council estate, Tony Marnach used his silver tongue to talk himself into an international DJ career across the ’80s and ’90s, putting himself in all the right places at all the right times, until he was playing a host of the most significant clubs in both London and New York. Today he’s an author, activist, fundraiser and a given at a fashion party. Thanks to his gilded circle of friends, few DJs can give interviews this rollercoaster. Whether he’s falling asleep in the Concorde toilet or DJing with Kate Moss at Harry and Meghan’s wedding, famous faces are never far away.

interviewed by Bill in London, 20.11.2018

How did you get started as a DJ?
When I was 16. I was very loud and precocious, a most annoying little queen, and I worked on the door of a club for Rusty Egan and Steve Strange at the Playground, which was at the Lyceum, where the Lion King is now. And every week I complained about the music, saying, ‘Oh my God this music’s atrocious.’ It was Ian Dewhirst. Then one week Rusty said, if you think you can do better, you do it. So the following week I turned up with four records – literally four – and that was it! Within two weeks of that I had a residency there, a residency at the Wag, we started our own Tuesday night there called Total Fashion Victim. Then I took over Saturday nights at the Wag. Then they made me musical director at the Limelight at 19! A fucking fortune! I was travelling the world within six months.

How did you go from four records to that?
It was all about the mouth. London was much smaller then, and the club community was much smaller. Everybody went to the same places and the West End clubs were our social media. So it was about who you knew and how you got there.

I was the first person to bring Frankie Knuckles to London. I had a residency at the age of 18 in New York at the Palladium. [Palladium and Studio 54 co-owner] Steve Rubell was like, ‘Oh my God we need you in New York’. He used to fly me over. Fucking loved it! Used to go every other week. Sometimes I never even played, I was so out of it. But they loved that whole attitude. They bought into that rock’n’roll thing that I was E’d out of my head and falling off the back of the stage. I remember Steve Rubell picked me from the airport the second time I went over and he was like, ‘Today you’re big news but tomorrow nobody’s gonna give a shit about who you, just remember that.’ And I was like, ‘Oh thanks!’

Were you resident at Nells too?
Yeah, that came after the Palladium. I was doing Cafe De Paris on a Wednesday night, another one of those great London clubs that paved the way: this guy Albert from Paris, and me. Beautiful French music like ‘La Vie En Rose’ and stuff like that. Anyway, Nells, they wanted me to recreate the Cafe De Paris in Nells. And I said, you can’t recreate something in London just by bringing over a DJ. A tiny little venue with curtains! I gave it a go, but I just hated it. It was too pretentious and it wasn’t fun. But I have done some pretty amazing residencies over the years.

What’s your favourite?
Probably the Wag on a Saturday night. Attitude at the Wag. We did it for nine years, it was fucking amazing. I gave Tim Simenon his first job, I gave Mark Moore his first job, they all used to come and play for us. The Wag was so straight by that point and I started doing Saturday nights and turned it into the gayest thing ever, but really mixed. Neneh Cherry used to come on the Saturday. That was a great residency. Trade Lite was amazing cos it was another one of those places where you could do what you wanted. XXXL now, love it. Men only, quite controversial. They’ve been turning away trans people.

All that from just those four records!
I never wanted to be a DJ. I’ve always loved music, always had a thing for it, and all my friends were in bands, so a lot of my friends were doing Top of the Pops and stuff like that. So music was always in me, but I never ever thought, ‘Oh I’m gonna be a DJ. I’m gonna practice’. I must’ve been around the world four times before I even owned a set of decks. It was all about, ‘Oh he knows these people, everyone’s talking about him let’s get him.’ It rocketed from there.

What were your real musical passions?
Always disco. First time I ever went out was to Heaven. It had just turned from Global Village into Heaven and the music then was hi-NRG disco so that was always my passion. First record I ever bought was ‘Streetlife’ by the Crusaders on 12-inch and that set the precedent. I love anything that moves me, anything that touches the soul. So when garage came along on the tail end of disco it changed everything for me. Those house beats were everything.

When I was in New York, I used to go to Paradise Garage literally every weekend. I was talking about it the other night with Ultra [Naté] because me and her went to the closing for a day and a half. We were among the last to leave, E’d off our nuts, lying on the roof. I loved house music because it came from that era of Hi-NRG disco.

House is just disco on a budget.
Totally. I’ve never been a DJ that only plays one genre. It’s bullshit, I’m really eclectic. How can you say you’re a DJ if you don’t love all types of music? If you only play this, then you’re a cunt. But my career, it just went up and up and up. Of course, I got caught up in it and so did the drug intake.

You went to Ibiza early on, didn’t you.
First time I went to Ibiza was in 1983 and I went every year after that. I played for Brasilio at Ku in 1983. Me, Steve Strange and Rusty Egan flew over. We did a night called No Sleep Till London. Only went over for one night, I ended up staying there for four months, courtesy of Ku! It was chaotic. In those days we didn’t have roofs. Amnesia was amazing and Sandro and Jose who owned Amnesia, I lived with them in their house.

What was Ibiza like in that pre-house period?
It was an incredible time, cos it was on that tail-end of disco. The insanity they try to portray now was the insanity then. It wasn’t about sexuality, like it was thrown in your face, but you could go and be whoever you wanted to be. It’s a beautiful island, but they let Liverpool and Manchester and everyone take over and it kind of ruined it. You could feel the spirit of Ibiza back then.

Have you been recently?
Yeah of course! Listen, I still love the island. I went over to DC10 a couple of months ago and I played someone’s party over there, but I don’t go to the big clubs. If I wanted to do that I’d hang out in fucking Billericay!

When did you first hear house music?
At Heaven. It was that crossover period from Hi-NRG into house. Straight away I was hooked. Oh my god! It didn’t have that intensity of what everyone else was listening to and it just changed my life. That was it for me: this is the way forward.

Then I did the first house night in London, called Jungle, Steve Swindells night on a Monday. I was resident with Colin Faver. At that time I was still playing a few disco records but kind of taking it into house. All that early stuff by Marshall Jefferson and then turning into acid house.

When I do my corporate things and fashion parties I play half these tracks, they all want it, because it’s euphoric. In the past year I’ve worked with anyone from Prada right the way through. Tonight I’m doing the opening of Richard Caring’s Brasserie of Light in Selfridges. It’s a dream job, I get to play all my favourite records cos they all come from that era.

You had a residency at Fred’s didn’t you?
Yeah, I was a resident there. It was one of the first private members’ clubs. They brought me in while I was running Limelight. I was in charge of the music in the VIP. But by that point I was in the total grip of my addiction. So of course, if you offer me a job where it’s free alcohol I’m gonna be there. By then Trade had just opened [its second room] Trade Lite. I ran up a bar bill of like £170 grand. So every week I’d be playing for fucking nothing, to play my bar bill off, which was hilarious.

Fred’s was amazing. That’s where I met Kate [Moss]. She used to come when she was 15 in her school uniform and get changed in the office. I used to give her long Island ice teas. She’d say, ‘Oh it tastes just like tea!’ An hour later I’d have to put her in the office under the desk asleep on the floor. It was another one of those places that everybody went to: everyone from John Galliano to Lee McQueen and we all went out clubbing at the same times. Nights like Taboo had just finished, and then Fred’s opened and it was the place to go.

Dave Dorrell told me about getting chatted up by Francis Bacon.
Oh yeah Francis was always there. And Dave always played with me there. I was resident on Fridays and Saturday. It was such a cool little place. It was one of the first private members club and you kind of felt special. It was so debauched. Whatever went on behind closed doors, stayed behind closed doors. Good times.

Tony (L) with Boy George, Jean-Paul Gaultier and friends

You did a lot of Lighthouse events too, didn’t you, to raise money for AIDS charities.
Of course. God you’re going back now, aren’t you? At that time I lost most of my friends. I lost my partner Tom. I was 22 and living in Old Compton Street when he died. When AIDS came it wiped London out. It completely annihilated our town. I lost probably 40 or 50 of my peers within a year. So it was a priority that we did something about it. They introduced this drug AZT which was killing more people than the disease itself. No one knew what to do, no one knew how to cope with it. It affected everybody. To be involved in those early AIDS parties, we all had to play our part.

Have you got any memory of these parties?
I kind of do and I don’t. I was addicted to cocaine and everything else for 28 years. First ten of those years, I can remember everything. And then after that it got really messy and I stopped travelling. I’d get booked and I wouldn’t turn up at the airport, or I’d get to the airport and think, I’m not going.

Why?
Because I didn’t have a rider at the other end. One of my turning points was, I went to Hong Kong I to DJ and I couldn’t get any coke. There was a shortage. I went everywhere trying to get it. So I ended up doing E for the whole trip. I end up setting fire to my hotel room. When I came round I was in hospital, painted orange, they’d covered me in iodine, because of my burns. I came back to London and thought I’m never travelling again.

When was that?
I’ll be clean 12 years on 12th January. So this was 17 years ago, 2001. When you stop turning up to places, people stop booking you. And that world is so small. I’d be booked in Paris and I wouldn’t go and I’d be booked in New York and I wouldn’t go. I went back to New York this summer after 20 years. I just couldn’t face it because of the carnage I’d caused. So bad! The drama I caused was off the fucking scale. I felt like I had to repair everything else before New York came into play. And I went back and I’ve fallen in love with it again. I’ve got an agent out there now. Just got my work visa granted. It’s all or nothing with me. It always has been, it’s part of my addiction. I’m an addict I know my traits. Yeah, life has got a lot better.

Did you go to [singer and club face] Vaughan Toulouse’s funeral?
He was one of the first ones to die. It was a really big thing. Let me show you this picture, cos Vaughan’s in the background of it. I can’t remember much of it. Sue [Tilley] was there and everyone. I can remember [artist, stylist and nightlife star] Trojan’s funeral. I went with Leigh [Bowery]. I remember it being the most heart-wrenching day, because by that point it was one away from everybody. It was just around us. Everybody was really drowning in it.

What was it like going to Taboo?
It was shit. People go on about Taboo being amazing. Taboo was shit for months. First three months, it was rubbish. No one went. There’d be about 20 or 30 of us there. And then suddenly it got in the papers and that was it. It went boom. It was busy every week. Then it ended! Cos everyone was on heroin at that point – it was right in the deepest, darkest point. So Mark [Vaultier] died who used to do the door. He died of a heroin overdose. Mark Lawrence died. Everyone who used to go there was popping off one by one. It was in the middle of the AIDS crisis. Taboo on a Thursday night used to be the most uplifting part of it. Then it got ruined and full of people wearing kind of cardboard clothes.

Knock off Leigh Bowery?
Yeah and there was only one Leigh. Leigh was incredible, we used to have so much fucking fun. Then it got too busy and died out really quickly. It was a victim of its own success. They moved on and Leigh and Little Tony [Gordon] opened Sacrosanct on Shaftesbury Avenue, downstairs next to the casino, which was on a Thursday as well, similar to Taboo but a bit more pretentious. It didn’t really work. Taboo was our social media so if you went there that was how you got to see your friends. Jeffrey [Hinton] played and Rachel Auburn and Princess Julia. It was just a fun place to be and Maximus was a great venue.

What about your night, Abba?
Me and Dave Dorrell?! [laughs] We really wanted to work together and we started it on a Tuesday night cos no one went out on Tuesdays. Dave came up with the name Abba. He said they’re going to make a big comeback soon. The whole idea of it was that we could play ’70s and disco and early Wham! and all of that stuff that people were too scared to fackin’ play. It was at Double Bass in Earls Court Road. Then we moved it to Bar Industria in Hanover Square.

My friend Anna Goodman used to do the door there.
Oh, I know Anna, she lives round the corner from me! She looks exactly the same, with a black bob! Then George Michael used to come and DJ on a Tuesday night. I remember one night it was him and Linda Evangelista DJing. I don’t keep press cuttings and things from the past. I live for today. It’s part of my recovery. Today is my past and tomorrow is going to be even better. My boyfriend found all these press cuttings in an envelope and there were these front page covers from the Sun about me beating George Michael up at the Wag!

Did you?
Yeah, on New Year’s Eve. Me and Leigh Bowery did a party together at the Piccadilly Theatre on NYE and Curiosity Killed The Cat and Neneh Cherry played. Oh my God. I hadn’t seen that clip for 100 years.

There’s a famous photo of you in the Face…
Naked? That was with Sue Tilley.

But with a dog or something?
Oh, no, no, no! When I was 15 I did a drag act called Diana Dog. Princess Julia was in it, Sue Tilley June Lawrence, Leigh, there 16 people in it, we used to do it at Camden Palace and Heaven. It was massive! Lily Savage used to come and see us. We did this massive show and they asked me to be naked in the Face. So I said, I’m not doing it on my own, I want someone fatter than me to be in it, so I got Sue Tilley to be in it so I did it with a wig on.

What do you think is the most important British gay club of all time?
Shoom, because although it wasn’t gay, it had no gender. You had these Boys Own parties and stuff like that going on and everybody went there regardless of sexuality, and I think that was important, especially for that time. Jungle was really important because before that gay clubs were really like poppers and fans, and suddenly this new breed of gay club opened and it totally changed the world. Also important was Trade without a doubt. Winner hands down. Trade changed so many people’s lives. It was one of those first places you could go and be who you wanted to be regardless of anything. Primarily out of all of them, though, Heaven. Heaven back in the day. It was revolutionary – this fucking gay mecca in a place of hatred, and you could go under those arches and your world changed. It was the first place I ever went. Cha Cha’s on a Tuesday night behind Heaven. They all have a part in who we are today. Cha Cha’s was run by Scarlett and it’s where everyone used to go. It’s where I met Leigh. The beauty of it was it was so small and nobody went out on a Tuesday, but it was so amazing because it was pre-drug, so it was poppers. Dave Swindells has loads of good pictures. Heaven was the one that changed the world. On a Saturday you would see Nancy Nova, you could see Sylvester. I saw Divine there, I saw Earth Kitt there.

Nancy Nova was Bob Holness’s daughter right?
Yeah, her record ‘The Force’ is one of those records that set the pathway for today. I got to see Sylvester play live. I went out clubbing with Freddie Mercury. I hung out with Andy Warhol for a year in New York.

What was a night out with Freddie Mercury like?
Freddie was the first person ever to give me a line of cocaine! At the time I didn’t think anything of it, because I wasn’t a Queen fan, to me it was just a party sex thing. I met him the same night I met Marc Almond at Heaven. Then Freddie took me to my first leather club.

Where was that?
The Soundshaft. And we went to one in Earls Court as well, like downstairs in a basement of a hotel.

What’s the best club you’ve ever played in and why?
I’d like to say, size-wise and feeling, The Palladium [New York] because it was just insane. Where else would you have Studio 54 come down from the ceiling on to the dancefloor. So many clubs within a club. Trade Lite: loved it. Changed my life. I used to turn the music off and say, ‘No K, no play!’ People brought me drugs and I’d put the music back on. They used to joke that DJ stood for Disco Jesus because I could turn 12 records into a 12-hour set and get away with it. My records used to crackle because they were covered in cocaine. I stole the acetate of Alison Limerick’s ‘Where Love Lives’ from the studio where they did it. I was the first person to play it. I was besotted with that record, probably the only record I ever took care of, the rest I didn’t give a shit. Towards the end when I was resident at Fiction and The Cross, The Egg and all those places, that was the tail end of my addiction, so that was a means to getting more drugs. It got really dark. I didn’t look at a dancefloor for four years, I didn’t look at anyone in the face, because I couldn’t cope.

Were you still buying records when you were in that state?
People were sending me them. That was the only good thing – I was getting sent music. I never went out. Why would I spend money on records? Everything went on drugs. The last ten years… I pulled all my teeth out on crystal meth in the last year or my addiction. I was psychotic. I wanted to kill myself. I wanted to die. Every day all I ever thought about was my own funeral. I’d sit in rooms rocking backwards and forwards digging out my gums because I had a thing called meth-mouth where my mouth would get infected and I thought they were running alive and insanity took over.

The very last night of me and clubbing was at the Cross at Fiction on a Friday night and my partner walked in. For months, years even, he’d been saying, ‘You’re going to find him dead on the dancefloor one day, you need to stop employing him.’ I’d say, ‘He’s mental he’s trying to get in the way.’ All he was trying to do was save my life.

He came into the back room and just said, ‘What happened to you?’ And I looked at him and couldn’t answer the question. That was the breaking point that changed my life. I weighed seven stone and I had one tooth and one pair of trainers. And the trainers weren’t even mine.

All I’d thought about for the past year was who would be at my funeral, who I didn’t want at my funeral. I was going to be brought in with ‘Teardrops’ by Womack & Womack, and was going to be burnt to ‘No More Drama’ by Mary J Blige. I used to listen to that Mary J Blige album word for word and cry my eyes out.

Today I think about life. I love life. Another song that changed my life was ‘Believe’ by Soldiers of Twilight. If you believe you’re halfway there. My hairs stand up when I hear that song. That’s the power of music. Listening to Ce Ce Rogers ‘Someday’ changed my life. That’s the beauty of doing what we do – and what music is. Six years later I was working with Mary J Blige! I told her that story and she said, that person was never you.

What helped you get through it, was it something you did on your own?
No. No I could never have done it on my own. I took drugs on my own. I got clean with other people. Because it’s about acceptance of help. When you ask someone for help that’s the biggest step. When you say I’m an addict and I need help; that’s the start.

You took my friend George to his first NA meeting.
George really needed it. He’s now 11 years clean. Kate is now 13 months clean. Naomi. I’ve got so many sponsees, seven young kids. I keep my serenity and freedom by helping other people. However busy my life is it’s never too busy to pick up the phone. There’s no greater gift than seeing someone get that glint back in their eye. People say, ‘Don’t you miss it?’ I’m like, ‘Are you fucking mental?!’ Today I have everything I’ve ever wanted. I can go and do and be and see everything I want. I’ve taken it back to what it always should have been and that’s music. I moan all the time about having to go to the airport, but how blessed am I that I can lay down at the airport and not have to sit by the bogs any more! I’m blessed and doing it sober.

Is it true that you’d fly Concorde to play at the Palladium?
Yeah, I went on Concorde five times. I was meant to go on it a sixth but I missed it! I had to come back on BA first class. I was gutted. First time I went to New York for my 18th birthday. It was a birthday present. I went there then I flew back with [Boy] George. DJing was one of those jobs where I thought I’d do it for a couple of months, and I’ve never worked a day since. They asked me to be in a documentary about Concorde and Bose headphones, because everyone use to steal them off the plane. I remember once I was asleep in the toilet on Concorde. Passed out. And they were waiting to take off. I took a McDonalds on to the plane with me and I was eating a burger and I woke up. They’d had to force open the door and I got up and walked down the plane and everyone was booing me. I remember sulking for the whole flight not taking in the fact that I was on Concorde. Again. I was more concerned that people had booed me. I’d been up for three days.

Tell me about your Instagram account.
I get more attention for that than anything else. I’m walking down Oxford Street and people stop me and ask if they can take a picture. It’s not even like I’ve got 500k followers it’s because of who I am. I’ve got everyone from Paris Hilton following me, David Beckham following me. I DJed at Meghan and Harry’s wedding, right. At the end, Harry came up and said, Your Instagram is the funniest ever.

What was it like playing at their wedding?
Boring. It was mad. Idris [Elba] was on before me. It was the private bit at the end. It was like playing at Annabel’s. It was fine. I had to sign an NDA. Wasn’t allowed to talk about it before or after. This is the insanity of what I do now. I did Mykonos in the summer, the opening of Nammos.

Is this the one you did with Kate Moss? Fat Moss?!
Yeah so we do Fat Moss for big budget things. We did one for Grace Jones. Me, Grace Jones and Kate.

What does Kate do?
She dances and DJs. She’s got great choice in music because she comes from that era. I do it with Naomi as well.

Fat Campbell?
No, we don’t have a name for that one. There are a few made up names for it but I won’t go into that! [Whispering] They book me and Naomi because they can’t afford Kate, cos it’s £150k.

Really?!
Well, thereabouts, yeah. For Nammos, they flew us in by helicopter and landed at our villa. I was just laughing the whole time. Some of these things you get asked to do and I’m like, ‘OK, fine by me. What? For an hour?’ I can buy a house in Manchester for that! Funny as fuck. But it’s amazing. I get to do what I want to do. I play what I want. I do XXXL once a month.

Is that in Vauxhall?
No. I don’t do Vauxhall. The clubs are awful.

Has Grindr killed the gay scene?
It did for a long while, yeah. A lot of places like to blame Grindr for their demise but it’s more because they’ve not moved forward. When it first arrived it took out the going out and meeting people part. But now people go out and have sex and then they go out. The clubs that haven’t moved with the times, they’re the ones feeling it most. Things grow and become big and beautiful and then they die. And then small things come, and right now we’re at the small thing stage. We’ve got major clubs like Sink The Pink, Kinky Gerlinky… That should be in that little list of gay clubs that changed the world. Michael and Gerlinda, they changed London. They were the first clubs doing it on a mass scale, you know, at the Empire in Leicester Square! Catwalk shows!

What’s the funniest thing to happen to you when you were DJing?
One time when I was at the Palladium, my friends met me at the airport with little bottles of MDMA and we were doing the five dots on the thumb. I got to the club and I was DJing and I bent down and I was like, ‘It’s not working, give me the bottle.’ I bent down and when I came back up I was like the Cookie Monster, with one eye hanging shut. So I was like, ‘We’ve gotta leave.’ I’d only played two records. So I left the record playing and just left. The next day they rang me, ‘Oh my God your set was amazing last night!’ To this day I don’t know what happened or who went on after me. But it wasn’t me. Things like that used to always happen. I’d always do those society parties. I played one and got Mick Jagger dancing, you’ve got Noel Gallagher dancing to ‘Vogue’ by Madonna. That’s funny, moments to cherish.

Do you take a different approach to a celeb party to playing Dalston Superstore?
Oh, totally, yeah. I’m still me, though. If I’m playing a driven, techy-house set at XXXL, or a society gig or celebby gig or fashion, my job is to read that crowd. A couple of weeks ago, I went to Paris for Maison Margiela, John Galliano. Before I went on it was all hip hop and I thought, how am I going to go on after this? But you know what, you have to be you. I went on, the place went mental. They’d enough of that other stuff. It’s about taking the risk and reading the crowd.

You’re very much back in the game, now.
I’m more relevant now than I’ve ever been. It’s mad. In that Tony De Vit documentary I was saying I hated Tony De Vit because everyone else loved him and there wasn’t room for two Tonys at Trade. And when Trade Lite came in, I came in and took it over from the Sharp Boys and I had this war with them for years. Stupid banter because I was so unhappy within myself that I hated everyone else. George and Stephen, they don’t DJ any more but they were fucking brilliant. They were amazing, Sharp Boys were incredible. But I spent most of my time hating them because I was jealous. Thanks god I’m in a place now where I’m not thinking everyone’s trying to steal my job. When I do my party Private Life, we put on so much new talent, cos they’re the future. So many kids who are incredible that don’t get a chance to play.

David Morales feels it

In 1999 David Morales won a Grammy for Remixer of the year, only the second time it was awarded (his friend and Def Mix Productions compadre Frankie Knuckles won the first). This was a major milestone in the rise of DJing, industry recognition that a remixer could play a huge role in chart success. At the time a Morales house mix was a surefire way to get R&B and pop artists played in the clubs, and through the ’90s he was in constant demand to create dance smashes like Mariah Carey’s ‘Dreamlover’, Alison Limerick’s ‘Where Love Lives’ and Jamiroquai’s ‘Space Cowboy’. At the same time he was making sumptuous underground music under his own name and in his Red Zone dubs. Morales now has over 500 remixes to his name, the bulk of them big-name stars. A Brooklyn DJ fired up by visits to David Mancuso’s Loft, he joined New York clubland’s inner circle in the early ’80s, when he was Judy Weinstein’s assistant at her record pool, from which he was chosen in fairytale fashion to replace Larry Levan at the Paradise Garage, followed by residences at Zanzibar, Red Zone, The World and Club USA. In this brilliant 1999 interview, conducted in the Times Square studio where he was mixing the Pet Shop Boys, he remembers his rise to fame, gives us an insider’s view of the evolution of remixing, and describes the passion which defines DJing greatness: the musical love, instinct and emotion that lies at the heart of his success.

Interviewed by Frank in Manhattan, 4.2.99

What was the music you heard growing up?
Born in 1962 and raised in Brooklyn, grew up in Flatbush, parents are Puerto Rican. I guess I liked music from when I was really little. I remember taking this record from a friend of my mothers, ‘Spinning Wheel’ on RCA Victor [by Chet Atkins]. I must have been three, four. I always liked black music, I didn’t like the Spanish music. There used to be a social club downstairs, and I was free to roam around. Once the morning came the door was open and it was ch! I found myself in the craziest places. As a child you just wander.

What clubs did you go to?
I mean real like ghetto neighbourhood clubs. Painted black with black glow paint. I mean real primitive shit. And that’s when ‘Mr Big Stuff’ [Jean Knight] was out, I remember. ’68, ’69? I remember ‘Want Ads’ [by Honey Cone].

How did you get into DJing?
I used to be the one appointed to play the music. We all be hanging out and I be the one hanging out by the stereo. Picking the tunes. And this is with just one turntable. It wasn’t about two turntables at the time. I never saw that yet.

When did you take it to the next level?
When I was 13 there was my prom. And this is when ‘Ten Percent’ [by First Choice] came out, that was the first time I saw two turntables, and a guy mixing, and this was outside.

Who was that?
I think the guy’s name was Grandmaster Flowers. He was doing black block parties, people hanging out in the park and then they be playing music, and I was like, Wow!

When I first started mixing with the mixer and headphones, I was about 15, and ‘San Francisco’ was out by the Village People. And I remember we was in my friend’s sister-in-law’s apartment and the decks were in the kitchen. Forget about having monitors, the monitors were the speakers in the living room way over there. I put on the headphones, and I’m sitting there looking at the mixer ’cos I never worked one before. The first mixer I tried was a mic mixer, where there’s no cueing. And you’re sort of doing shit backwards because you’re not supposed to really plug a turntable into a mic mixer. Anyway, it worked and that’s how I used to phase shit in and out. So that’s how I started without headphones.

How did things come to another level?.
After doing house parties I started going to a club called the Loft, on Saturday night, probably like 1980. The Loft was Saturday nights and a lot of people from my neighbourhood used to go. I used to hang out and dance. I used to be there for like 12, 15 hours, dancing. I was one of the ones who got there early and I was one of the last ones to leave as well.

What was that like for you?
It was amazing, ’cos up to this I was what you’d call a commercial DJ, I bought the hits, I bought the records you bought in the mom-and-pop shops; that’s what I knew. When I went to the Loft I heard all this different music. I thought wow, I like this. Then it was all about where I could buy these records. That’s when I went to Vinylmania. And I was going to Downtown records since I was 14. So that’s when I started going to stores to collect music.

There were a lot of people there who would go on to be part of the dance industry
Well, people I saw, I saw François [Kevorkian], but I never met him at the time. David Mancuso, Steve D’Acquisto. Those are really the people that I remember from the business, ’cos I was going there from such an early stage, and I wasn’t in the business.

It was after Frankie and Larry had been hanging out there.
Larry would come after The Garage, because the Loft stayed later than the Garage, and he used to bring certain records. I used to go to the Garage. I went to the Garage as well, a couple of times on a Friday, and the reason it was only a couple of times was I was doing my own parties. I started doing my own parties in 1981.

As a mobile DJ?
No, no, no, as a summer resident DJ. I was mobile from the minute I started, I went everywhere.

Where were you resident?
I started at a place called the Ozone Layer in Flatbush. I use to do it on Friday nights, somewhat based around the way the Loft did stuff: I gave fruits away and tried to make it a party. But it was a smaller venue. My girlfriend at the time, her girlfriend was going out with one of the owners from the club. She had asked to do a party of her own, and asked me to play. I drew the invitation, cos I was a graffiti artist, and at the end of the day the people that really came out were my friends, people who I had invited, people that I used to invite to house parties. But the house parties were free, whereas this was pay.

Then I approached the owner and asked him to let me do some parties on my own. I just wanted to play records so I would hire other people to promote the parties, to be co-host, and I just asked for a fee for playing. And they wanted to give me some sob story they weren’t making money at the bar, at the door, all this kind of nonsense, they give me some bullshit trip. So anyway, after going through that a couple of times, there was a core audience, and that was my audience. And I started to realise that I didn’t need these folks. People were coming for me. They’re coming for my music. So I said, I’ll run this. I got it together with my girl. She handled the front, I played the music.

What kind of music were you playing back then? Were you picking up on records from the Loft?
Yeah. The Loft and the Garage. Plus the new stuff, the underground stuff, at the time. Of course with some other commercial records.

Were there any which were really your records, that weren’t being played anywhere else?
I was the first guy to play ‘Set It Off’ [by Strafe] at the Garage, because Larry wasn’t playing it.

How did you get in with those guys?
That’s the funniest story. I had been to the Garage five times.

Just to hang out.
Yes. I come dressed up, trying to get in out there, ’cos it was a private club. ‘Yo get me in, get me in…’ And I’d be the last one out. I’m always one of the last ones out. Not to mention the kind of stuff I used to do to stay there! But anyway, it was part of growing up, like everybody else.

How old were you?
I had to be 20 so it was ’82, ’cos I didn’t play there until 1983. I was one of those kids that sat there and looked at the booth and was like [whispering reverentially] ‘Oh my god…’ Just fantasising. This room was incredible. Even before I went to Garage, I heard stories: four turntables, the guy’s incredible, and all of this, you know.

I used to go to the Loft but the Loft wasn’t about mixing. David had two decks, but Mancuso, he’d play the record from beginning to end, the way it was made. And that was his philosophy: no artificial flavours, no MSG; and that’s the way his sound system was too. Everything was straight. No processors in between, no crap. Just pure, you know. It’s like eating organic food.

Whereas the Garage was the monster system. It was a showcase for [sound engineer] Richard Long. It was his room. So anything new that he built, it was here. It was Larry’s house. He had a carousel for the record bin that schwoooo, spun around. I mean… You see pictures of Mick Jagger and Grace Jones. The Garage had a booth unmatched by any booth there’s ever been in the world.

Even now?
Even now.

The first time you went, did he really impress you, did he blow you away?
Naaah, he didn’t. I mean, the music was ch, incredible. Couldn’t say anything about the music, but you know, as a DJ I had this vision, I thought I was gonna hear science. And at the time I didn’t get the whole picture, because to me the mixing part, I wasn’t impressed by the mixing. There were some mixes that were awesome, when I first heard him do the acappella of ‘Love is the Message’, which he was the first one to play, that shit was like…

How did he play that?
Well, that was when they started doing acappellas.

So he would just kill everything and play that?
No, no, no, he would play ‘Love Is The Message’ over ‘Don’t Make Me Wait’. That was it man. He would play some of his productions of Peech Boys at early stages, just ideas, and people would go wild.

He could be quite temperamental.
He could be SHIT for seven hours, and then he could take 15 minutes, and kick the shit out of you, and that made your night! That’s what it was about. There was nobody that was able to do that. And he didn’t care either. You be like ‘Aww man, what is this guy up to today?’ I actually think I caught him on a bad night. Which was alright. Second time I went I thought, ‘Oh, caught him on two bad nights’.

Tell me about how you got to play the Garage.
Here comes 1983. I joined the record pool. I got in because of this DJ, Kenny Carpenter. He was playing at a big club called Bonds International, which was a huge club, six, seven thousand people it used to hold, right in Times Square. They used to have people like the Clash there, and Planet Patrol, Soulsonic Force, all that shit. And Kenny lived in my neighbourhood. I had met him through a mutual friend, and Kenny took me to the record pool, which is For The record, Judy [Weinstein]’s pool.

It was a privilege to be in that pool, all the big guys were in it, a serious roster. There was a waiting list to get in at the time. I’m talking to Kenny Carpenter, and another friend of ours, late friend of mine, Larry Patterson, my mentor, who used to play at Zanzibar and Better Days. I gave them some tapes, and the pool director at the time was David DePino, and they were looking for somebody new, so they referred me.

Then we’re in my house listening to some new records and I get a phone call: ‘Hi, my name is Mike Brody, I own a club called the Paradise Garage, I’d like you to play my club.’ I was like, ‘Yeah?’ and he’s talking: ‘You’ve been highly recommended.’ He said, quote, ‘Our DJ’s been playing like shit lately, and we’d like you to come in and do a spot.’

So by now I’ve sunk to my knees and I’m trying to write with a pen and a piece of paper to my friend, who I’m speaking to on the phone. He’s like [excited speechless noises], and I’m like ‘Yeahh’, and he says, ‘I have two dates available.’

How did it come about? Did he hear your tape?
Didn’t hear nothing. Totally recommendation. From Judy and David Depino.

Was she managing you then?
Naww. There was nothing like that at the time. No, she had her record pool, that was it. I was 21 years old. I was not making music, I was working at a restaurant… and doing parties… I had my Friday thing going now, full-on, every single Friday. So it was me taking off from my own night, and at the same time, worried about losing business from my Friday night, you understand?

Taking people with you…
I had people come to me and say ‘How did you pull that off?’ because there were other people that were a lot more worthier of playing in that room, before me, that were incredible DJs. But anyway, they picked me, a guy from Brooklyn, it was my first New York club. I play in a sweatbox in Brooklyn, and here all of a sudden I’m playing at the mecca of the greatest club in the world. At 21 years old. And this wasn’t about doing two-hour sets, this was about eleven-hour sets. beginning to end, 12 to 11. And you had to beg me to stop!

Can you remember how it was the first time?
I had never played for a gay audience, either. And I thought that playing for a gay audience you had to play different music. ’Cos I played for a straight audience, and when I went to Garage I went on straight night. So when he asked me if I wanted to play Friday and Saturday I said I didn’t think I could handle the Saturday, I’ve never played for a gay crowd before. He said just come here and do what you do best, that’s all I want you to do. The rest… You’ll love it. And man, I can’t tell you…

And I never played on Thorens turntables, that’s another thing. I only used the Technics. The 1200s were out at the time. I asked, can I put in some 1200s, but I had to play on the Thorens. This was belt driven, the Thorens was a whole ’nother beast, altogether.

So I’m playing at the greatest club, and yet I’m playing on turntables I ain’t never played. It’s like I’ve been driving a Volkswagen and all of a sudden I’m given a Ferrari to drive. I’ve got this fuckin’ major machine goin’ on here. I remember doing my first mix, and it was like milk.

Can you remember what it was?
It was my first two records was, one was ‘Encore’, I believe, which was Cheryl Lynn, and I can’t remember the other record. I remember going to all my friends saying it was gonna be slamming tonight, cos I just felt it. The greatest thing was that I wasn’t part of the politics, at all. I was naive to anything. So even the people that didn’t like me, the pro-Larry Levan people, because of course his people, they got their favourite DJ, come to hear him, he ain’t there, ‘Who the fuck is this guy over here? Why is he here?’ And then you got those that feel that, ‘How come I ain’t playing? How come he is?’ You know what I mean. I had people throwing darts behind my back and I had no idea. They just bounced off because I wasn’t part of the politics, I didn’t care.

A young Morales with Judy Weinstein, Liza Minnelli and Frankie Knuckles

So how many times did you play there?
About ten times. I did the Friday and Saturday, October 13th and 14th, 1983, I’ll never forget it. I still got the invitation, it’s framed. And they asked me who I could pick for my artists to sing on my night. I picked Jocelyn Brown, and the other one was Captain Rapp, at the time I think it was ‘Bad Times’. And then I came back the following February and played two weekends in a row. Friday, Saturday, Friday, Saturday. ’Cos Larry was gone for two weeks straight.

And in between you’re still playing at Ozone?
No, I wasn’t. I had Kenny Carpenter playing. He was taking over the whole night, cos we split the night by then. ’Cos I took him from this big club to play this little hole in the wall, and it was like culture shock to him but, it was great. at the end of the day the vibe was great so,

What did that lead into?
All of a sudden I was the new kid on the block. There was a new sheriff in town, so then clubs in New York approached me and I had a residency at a straight club called the Inferno, run by Vito Bruno. On 31st Street I believe. Right off Sixth Avenue. After the Inferno, I played at 1018, which is the Roxy now, and then my next residency was at a place called Lovelight in 1987 right after the Garage closed, which was on 33rd Street, and I had a residency at Zanzibar. That’s where I met Larry Patterson and Tony Humphries. Tony was Saturdays. Zanzibar was like the Garage of Jersey: tough sound system, people went to it. I had a residency there for about a year. I was doing Fridays and then I had my own night which was Wednesday. And then in 1988 I worked at The World for about a year and a half, and after the World I went to the Red Zone, in 1989.

And the Red Zone again, was your place.
Yeah. The Red Zone was where I really made a statement for the new age. I think the Red Zone was definitely the turning point on the maps for music changing.

Why do you say that? For you personally?
The only person that was really playing different stuff was Mark Kamins, ’cos Mark used to travel and bring these imports. He was at Danceteria years before, but at that time he would play at Mars, and Red Zone on other nights, which was where I had the residency on Saturdays.

In 1989 I took my first trip to England, and I brought back a lot of records. We were playing ska. ‘This Is Ska’, and ‘Ska Train’. Nobody was playing those records, and they used to lose it. I was the first one playing KLF, ‘What Time Is Love’. That was one of my biggest records. People used to run up to the booth saying, ‘What are you playing?’ ’cos it was this whole different sound that wasn’t the New York house sound. And when I started doing mixes, the Red Zone had its own sound, so there was a fusion.

Did you do any remixing before the Red Zone?
Yeah. In 1987 I did ‘Instinctual’ by Imagination, I did some more deeper stuff. But when I started doing Red Zone I started branching out away, away from pure soulful. The Red Zone dubs, that’s when I stepped away. The core mix had all the soulful stuff, the songs, and then the Red Zone dubs were more on the daring side, going somewhere different.

What were you trying to do?
It was mostly experimentation. I was making records for somewhere between here and abroad. Which was what the Red Zone represented.

With his Def Mix buddies Satoshi Tomiie and Frankie Knuckles

What was the crowd like?
Very mixed. It was a dance crowd. It had a great sound system, the lighting was incredible, and we used to put on a show. Sometimes Satoshi Tomeii would play keyboards while we were playing. We used to go off in that place, it was severe. Everybody who got to experience the Red Zone will tell you it was one of the last places of its kind. And then came Sound Factory. The big Sound Factory was the afterhours to go to. You went to Red Zone first, that closed at five, and then you went to Sound Factory.

Was remixing a natural progression.
I made remixes back in 1983, ’84, before I even thought about it. I knew guys from the pool, like Steve Thompson, or Bruce Forrest, and they used to come in and say I just mixed the new Madonna, or I just did the new Rolling Stones. Bruce Forrest he was the resident at Better Days. He introduced me to the world of samplers and drum machines and keyboards, ’cos he used to bring them in the booth. We were doing this back in 1985.

You were doing it purely for your dancefloor?
Yeah.

There was no commercial thing
No. In the club, three decks, bam! David Cole would come in, play around on keyboards. At that time it was the Chicago house sound, so it was great for all the synthesiser stuff that was going on, and it was all live: live remixing, we did it on the spot.

So anyway, from my club Ozone in Brooklyn which I had for about four years, I bought myself a keyboard and a drum machine. Even though I couldn’t play anything to save my life. Then in 1985 I remember hiring Steve Silk Hurley when it was JM Silk: him and Keith Nunnally, and I hired them to spin at the club. And that was round about the time when I started to play around with the Casio CZ101, that was my first keyboard. So anyway Bruce invited me down to the studio. I liked it, it grabbed my eye. Bought myself one or two pieces of equipment, I tried to make my own drum beats and things like that.

And then I did a record with David Cole and Robert Clivilles called Two Puerto Ricans, a Black Man and a Dominican, and we cut that at Judy’s office. I was basically mixing records, David played keyboards. It was just something we did on the fly, which was very successful. And then David and Robert went and turned it into something else, C&C Music Factory, which is a whole ’nother story.

So that was the start of you having a name as a remixer and a producer?
Yeah. I really got a lot of profile when I did ‘Instinctual’ by Imagination. That was my first real hit. I remember Larry Levan telling me, ‘Great, great job.’ I was like, Wow, Larry told me I did a good mix. I was originally an Imagination fan, from ‘Illusion’, ‘Changes’, ‘Burning Up’, and then when I heard this record that was done by Phil Harding at PWL, it sounded like a Rick Astley record. I was like, ‘Yo dude I can’t play this, this is not even Imagination, what happened here? Let me remix it.’ He was like there’s really no money to mix it, only to do promotions, I said let me do the record. Anyway, even though it was off-key with the vocals, it worked. The second one I did right after that, was Whitney Houston ‘Love Will Save The Day’, and they rejected it, it was too housey.

Really?
Of course. It wasn’t bubblegum enough. And I was traumatised, I was devastated. Because it would have meant so much to my credit at the time. I remember they had Rick Wake mix it. I was running the record pool at the time, and the promotion guy asks me, ‘How do you like the new house mix on Whitney Houston?’ I said, ‘You got to be kidding me, you call that a house mix?’ It was what those pop cornballs thought house music was. What I did was house music, that was the difference. But I think that’s what it was, it was too cool.

Do you find there’s a compromise when people hire you as a remixer? How often is there a real conflict between what they want for commercial reasons and what you want to do creatively?
Well, not too much, but sometimes it does happen where they expect a certain style. And sometimes that’s not the style I want to give it because I don’t want to have one particular style.

And sometimes the song isn’t right for that.
Right, and sometimes it don’t work for the song. What some A&R man hears in his head is totally different from what can actually work. So, I mean, I’ve had moments when they’ve said, ‘But I wanted this style, I wanted it like this and like that!’ because I don’t normally ask them what style do you want it, I want to go about it the way I hear it.

’Cos remixing started as a DJ’s tool to feed his dancefloor.
The remixing thing. It’s totally leftfield now. It’s totally in another place. I mean, let’s not even call it remixing any more. In the beginning of remixing you remixed the original tracks, existing tracks. You used what was there to create the intro, your body, your break, your tag – the end of the song.

And then it started changing: OK you change the bassline, added percussion, or you added some things, but you still had the song. You still had the artist intact. Then it came to the point where you just got rid of the original music. Now you started to put new music…

So you’ve only got the vocal track left.
And all you got is the vocal track. So now people expected to hear something totally different. Now the expectancy was: ‘Well, did he change it?’ Now they wanted to hear something totally different. It’s come to a place where now you’re changing the music and what you do to it makes the record successful. You only getting a one-time fee. In reality you’re sort of like becoming a co-writer, but you’re not getting a writer’s share.

So that’s why remixing fees went up so much?
So that’s one whole thing. When I started mixing there wasn’t too many guys, number one, and number two is if you noticed, when it comes to guys mixing songs [ie vocal tracks], there still aren’t that many. Now remixing has crossed over into R&B now which is great, there are some guys that really deserve, I think in hip hop, in remixing in the R&B is the most creative, more than the dance remixes.

Why do you say that?
Because they’re redoing the song. They all redo the song. There’s no time-stretching, you understand. they’re recutting the song. They’re adding rappers to it, so they’re producing. They’re all productions. Which is where I’ve taken remixing to now: production. I started that with Mariah ‘Dreamlover’. We said no time-stretching [digitally changing the tempo of the vocal].

You want to keep faithful to the tempo of the original
It used to be that you had waves of music, different tempos through the night. So you were able to enjoy yourselves in a club without hearing a constant four-four pounding. But now there’s no up and down tempo, now there’s just straight across, full-on. When time-stretching came around there was no more downtempo records. Everything had to be club music; they didn’t care if the vocals sounded bad. I believe the reason why I even still get a lot of work is, I do vocals. because I work with the song. You have tons of other guys…

…who just take just a tiny sample of the vocals
And not even that. It’s gotten to the point that there’s no respect for the artist any more. You’re selling the remixes, that’s what you’re selling.

Is that how you approach it, you want it to come out recognisably the same song?
Of course. That’s what the challenge is. What guys are doing today, it’s not even a question of mixing the record, or the vocals, verses, choruses – no fuckin way. They put a slamming track together in the studio. Somebody says, I need a remix of Tori Amos. So you take a piece of a vocal: ‘Bla’ and drop it into your own track. That’s a remix? That represents the artist? That doesn’t represent the artist, it represents you. And you’re giving up publishing, because you’re giving up a whole track. You’re giving it to somebody else’s name. That really doesn’t represent them. And they’ll never perform it, either!

Why did it get so out of hand with the money. It got quite crazy a few years ago?
It’s still crazy. It’s crazier. I can’t explain why you can spend so much money on a record and could have a great song, with like everything and not do anything, compared to something where there’s no effort, that’s put together in two hours and for some reason the thing just hits and that’s it! I mean ‘Stardust’ [‘Music Sounds Better With You.’] How much work you think went into Stardust? It’s sampled. Whoever went into the sample, that was where the work was. When those musicians did that, that was where the time was spent. But you know, and look how huge that thing was.

I believe you have the privilege for having the highest fee for any one remix. Michael Jackson’s ‘Scream’
Probably.

Didn’t they fly you over to LA rather than send the tapes etc…
They wouldn’t give me the masters. They flew me to LA, money was no option. It was a lot of work. It wasn’t like that was my fee for one mix. I must have did three different mixes. I mean I spent a week in Michael Jackson-land. But now hip hop guys are making that kind of money, regularly.

Do you know what the highest is ever?
Probably Puffy. Who knows.

What does he get nowadays?
I don’t know., It would be interesting. You can’t be surprised at a guy like Puffy probably wouldn’t do it for less than a hundred grand, between 75 and a hundred maybe.

’Cos you got 80 for the Michael Jackson, is that right?
Nahh. It was, I can’t say.

Did that feel a bit crazy, all that Michael Jackson-ness.
You know what, It was definitely a moment, with Michael Jackson.

Did you meet him?
No I didn’t. I should have for all of the security I went through. You would think he was coming. I mean they were guarding those tapes like it was their life. It was the first track off the album.

That’s why it was so secret.
Mission Impossible. And I felt that I compromised my sound. I went to another place. I took everybody out of a familiar environment, and we tried to recreate that somewhere else and it just didn’t work. I don’t feel like my best effort went into ‘Scream’. ‘Scream’ could have been a much better sounding record…

Do you think the DJ is an artist?
Sure

What makes the DJ an artist?
The way he puts on music. Not all DJs are artists, It’s something that has to project. It’s not something that has to be present all the time. It’s something that comes on when it’s supposed to come on. It’s like ‘Put on this show’. Most top guys, they don’t plan their records, they don’t put them in a certain order. I take more records than I need, I don’t know what the first record is, or my last. Or my second.

And you need the people on the dancefloor to make it happen
As great stuff as I have in my studio, I can’t turn it on for myself. I can’t. I got a great sounding studio, but when I make my show tapes for the radio, I can’t turn it on. I don’t come up with the creative things that come on when you’re playing live to an audience. I can’t duplicate it.

What do you get from the audience?
Well, you get the live feedback. You’re working records, you have to present them in different ways, and it’s how you present the mixing, the technical aspects of it; it’s a whole combination of things.

How do you feel like when it’s going really well?
Ohhhh man, it’s like jumping out of my skin. I dance in the booth. I jump up and down. I wave my arms in the air, you know. It’s that feeling of knowing I’m in full control, I can do anything I want. And the thing is, I like to entertain myself. It’s important to me to keep me going this far. I have to get something out of it. I can’t just do it for the money, otherwise what makes you different and special is that you give it that extra something.

Does it ever feel sexual or spiritual?
Oh for sure. For me, absolutely.

How does it feel?
Pure sex…

Yeah?
Sex and… oh absolutely. For me it’s sex.

Really?
Totally.

So you’re having sex with all the audience.
Absolutely. It’s spiritual sex. classic, spiritual sex, oh my god. A great night man, sometimes I’m on my knees in the middle of a mix, just feeling it that way, and then when you play a record, you can bring it down, you can just turn everything off and the people going nuts. And you stand back, you just wipe your forehead and, ‘shiit!’ Everybody just going nuts and just knowing that you’re right there. You could play whatever you want. Whatever you want. You got ’em from there.

And that feeling must be what makes your DJing so powerful
If I wasn’t doing something like that I wouldn’t still be one of the top players in the game. I feel I’m actually, in all of my years, at the top of my game. I’ve played at some incredible parties, before the travelling and all of that. I go back to the Ozone to Mirage, to Zanzibar. I got to experience some incredible moments, of music, that have enabled me to carry that on, that a lot of people, the new kids, haven’t experienced.

And to me the fundamentals from those days still apply. My experience comes from back then. My experience is not a new generation’s experience. My experience is an old school experience. And I do things the old school way. Now I understand records more because I make records. And that just makes you all the more better because you understand.

When you talk to the old guys they say the DJ doesn’t have to work as much nowadays, because records are made so precisely for the dancefloor, whereas in the old days… you had to change the record every three minutes.
So the 45 stage was one stage, then you had to work, and be a lot more creative, because the intro was like this [snaps fingers], Then they started doing those first mixes in the late ’70s. Tom Moulton and Walter Gibbons, when he did ‘Ten Percent’, which was the first 12-inch edit. And before the 12-inch it was albums. And it was all live drums, so you had to work, you really had to be creative. There was no such thing as blank drums for 16 bars and you got enough time to ride that beat in, hell no! You had to be creative and go up down, up, make that shit sound real smooth.

Is DJing a dying art then?
Nah, no.

Will there always gonna be people who put body and soul into it?
Yeah, absolutely. In whatever kind of music, whatever style it is, the most important thing for all the DJs that are successful is that they feel it. They have to believe in the stuff they’re playing.

The worst scenario is playing it for the sake of playing it. It’s like me playing drum and bass and playing something progressive, because hey man I need to make some money to make ends meet, and because I don’t have a name, this is what I gotta do.

The real connoisseur, whether he’s working or not, this is what he‘s doing. Even if he’s a bedroom DJ all his life, nobody’s gonna take away from him that he loves music. No matter what. So even if I wasn’t working I’d still be trying to put some records together. Even if I’m not playing out anywhere, I’d still be in my office trying to put some practice tapes. Because when I started buying records there was no two turntables, there was no clubs. Nobody ever told me I was gonna get a job as a DJ one day. And I never thought for a moment that that’s what I wanted to be.

How do you feel then when you go to places like England and Italy and everyone treats you like a superstar?
I laugh sometimes. Because you know what I mean it’s the treatment, the honour, the money, the fame, I don’t ask for it. Even if I stopped making records tomorrow, I’d still keep playing records, and I enjoy doing what I do. I get a lot of passion from it, and to be paid, and to be put on a pedestal for doing something that I love doing naturally, is mindboggling.

Has the adoration and fame ever got out of hand?
One of the most incredible times I had was in Japan, a place called Yellow, and they literally wanted to climb over the walls, up to the box, and I was like wow… and when you see people standing around in the booth, just like every space, waiting for you to do magic, and “I’m just playing records. I’m not doing anything. You can do this” If you felt it. But you mean, I’m not doing anything to learn from. It’s all here [thumps heart]. It’s here and here [heart and ears] Cos that’s what its all about.

I have a party in Mykonos in Greece in August every year for my birthday. It’s full-on, it was 3,000 people last year, I’ve been playing for 20 years now, but I walk into the place and my heart is pumping. My heart is coming out of my chest. All these people here for me. I’m in the booth and the minute people see me they’re going ballistic, nuts. I started out with this record – ‘Joy’ by Kathy Brown – and the original has an acappella, and it’s this beautiful thing, and I start to break down, I’m crying man, and I’m trying to mix a record and my tears are coming down, and I’m trying not to let people see me. [He mimes keeping his head down and secretly wiping a tear. He’s speechless.] I’ve had some great experiences, It gives me the reason to still keep doing it.

Tony Smith did it Barefoot

Tony Smith was one of the original cohort of DJs who were instrumental in defining what a DJ did in the modern era. Starting out playing at block parties as a teenager, before progressing onto the tiny, but influential, Barefoot Boy as a resident through most of the 1970s. He went on to play at commercial disco – and Studio 54 rival – Xenon. We talk about his early colleagues and heroes and the records they championed in an era that changed dance music forever, including his friendship with Larry Levan and the Larry impersonator who used to hang out in the DJ booth at the Garage. Sadly, Tony passed away in May 2021, having caught pneumonia during the pandemic.

Let’s start at the beginning…
I was born 20 blocks from here, in the projects, lower Manhattan. I loved music since I was a kid. My brothers and sisters had a group, you know in those doo-wop days? So I was always listening to music.

These must’ve been older than you.
Yeah, they’re like 14 years older than me. A brother and two sisters. I’m the baby, by a long shot. I’ve known music since I was little. And that whole R&B, Little Anthony & The Imperials, that whole sound. I started a band when I was 13 and we played in the projects, in schools and colleges and talent shows.

What was the band called?
Soul Sound Explosion. It was good, until we kept expanding, because you had to have a bongo player, then we had a vibe player. I taught myself guitar. It was the only instrument people didn’t learn in school. And then after ’69 we had about 12 guys in the band and we were making no money and during the band breaks, I used to play the music for the party or whatever. Not calling it DJing then, just playing music.

How would you do it?
Using the PA system and two volume controls so there would continuous music. It wasn’t mixing, it was more blending. So what happened was the band broke up because everybody got greedy and, you know, personal things and I just started playing music outside. I got harassed to play music outside. Because that was before the police knew what was goin’ on; disco wasn’t out, so we could do whatever we wanted.

You say outside. Where exactly?
Right out in the park. You could hook up your system in the lights sockets; in the street lights, in places like Pierce 1 Park and the park right in the middle of Smith Projects. But then I went all around lower east side. Most people don’t know, but there’s project after project after project on the lower east side. All along the east river edge.

Was that an unusual thing to be doing with two turntables?
Oh nobody knew what I was doing. Until I had a competition. There was a battle of the DJs. There was a Puerto Rican kid and his brother who started doin’ the same thing. And we would compete for the crowd.

Do you remember his name?
Yeah, Spanky and Ice. I was just me, but I always had people watching my records, watching my sound system things like that. We started competing. I was still 16 then. The whole thing then was to get records he didn’t have and him to get records I didn’t have, just so we would draw the crowd towards us. Probably when I was like 17, I went to a gay club like in the West Village. Totally freaked me out. I didn’t know that existed. It was called The Limelight, where David Rodriguez was the DJ and he just blew me away. Before then I used to go to black straight clubs, but it was a totally different thing.

What were black straight clubs like?
In the old days the Mafia owned the real clubs, so they had the gay clubs. Most black people’s clubs were either recreational centres or restaurants in the day and they would turn into a black club at night. Or colleges like Hunter College, NYU, they would always have parties for black straights, so that’s all I really knew till I was 17.

What was the clientele at the black clubs; all ages etc?
Yeah, we were goin’ in there when we 14 and underage. No ID, no card, no alcohol, you always brought your own, they always had BYOBB. The music was… everything. I call it black music but it was all in those days. They were playing Chicago in those days, Rare Earth, Steve Winwood, Boz Scaggs, a lot of white groups mixed in with the black, James Brown, Dr. John. There was a lot of white groups that had maybe one club or R&B song and somehow or other the word would get around about it. There was maybe about four DJs who rotated around: Flowers, Maboya, Plummer and the Smith Brothers. And whenever you went they had really loud sound systems and they had a lot of exclusive records. So what happened to me was I was always around the DJ booth and I finally found out where they went to buy records, because they always had records that none of us had and that was Nicky at Downstairs. I finally got to Nicky’s in the train station and that’s when I finally wiped out everybody in my area, because I had the music that nobody had and it was like my secret store! No one knew about Nicky’s. And while I was there I got to know other DJs, because I didn’t really know that this was going on.

What was Flowers like, because everyone says he was the best?
He was the best, but he was most egotistical, too. He was a bastard. He just wasn’t nice to you. He wanted to be so exclusive. He wanted to be the best and I guess and he thought that’s the way he had to be to be the best.

So if you went to ask him about a record he wouldn’t tell you?
Yeah. In those days that was the one bad thing with straight jocks. As a matter of fact, they used to cross the records out so if you looked you couldn’t even see what the record was. I started doing that as a teenager, especially exclusive records. Maboya and Smith Brothers were definitely more friendly. Flowers had the best music. He had a really great sound system.

Were they mixing back then?
It was more blending, it wasn’t mixing like say when I heard David Rodriguez. That’s when I knew I had to do some work because in black clubs it wasn’t about mixing, it was about programming. You could mix horrible, but if you played the right record everybody’d keep dancing. With the gay crowds, it was more about programming and mixing. You had to know how to mix, too, or they’d walk off. They might come back on but you’d still have a reputation for not being a good mixer. Straight clubs like that it was definitely more about programming than mixing. Finally one black disco opened up called the Cheetah.

It wasn’t the one around 18^th Street was it?
No, it was different. Hey had Latin on Thursdays. They had all the groups playin’, like Kool & The Gang. I found out later that the DJ there was David Todd, which freaked me out because I was a kid then and I didn’t know there was a DJ there. I remember the strobes, because it was the time I’d seen strobes. We went every week. I was definitely underage, but I looked older for my age, so I got in.

Describe to us your first visit to the Limelight?
I was scared. Scared shitless [laughter]. All these guys are staring at me and I just wanted to hear music.

So how did you hear about it?
I walked by. This is how I was in those days. Any time I heard music and it was something I’d never heard before. At that time I think he was playing things like Everyday People’s ‘I Like What I Like’, so that draws my attention. I used to just stand outside and listen to the music. Finally I got the courage to go in. Come on! I’m 17 and I’m scared. I didn’t know there was gay clubs. I had no clue. I stood right next to the booth. Until he got to know my face. Every time I went there I’d stand next to the booth and tell him how great he was. He was my first idol. My second idol was Richie Kaczor who worked at Hollywood. And that was like on 44^th and…

It was what had been the Peppermint Lounge wasn’t it?
Yeah. Once I’d heard about Limelight, I knew they existed so now when I go to Downstairs I’m gonna ask about other clubs. Some clubs I liked, some I didn’t. Bobby DJ was good at Le Jardin. After that, I started going everywhere!

What was it that struck you about David Rodriguez. Was it the mixing?
The mixes.. but the one thing I took from him was enthusiasm. Some DJs don’t look like they’re having a good time. David always looked like he was having a great time in that booth! So that’s how I always felt when I was DJing. I always connected to him because he looked he was having a ball up there. Always smiling, always in a good mood and his music always showed. He never played filler music – you know that stuff you play to get to other things? – he didn’t really play that. He wanted you to always dance. Even if they didn’t always he wanted you to dance. He was the type that wanted to educate the crowd, which was another thing I learnt from him. You know, you can play it safe, play everything they know. But David was the type that wanted to expand their taste in music because he was playing like black club stuff, gay music and just these different styles but blending them so they went together.

Do you remember the kinds of things he was playing?
He was playing Bohannon’s first record with ‘Stop And Go’, he was playing ‘Girl You Need A Change Of Mind’, ‘I Like What I Like’ and ‘Hum Along And Dance’ by Jackson 5. It was a wide range. That was the best thing about him. He was never boring. Some DJs are boring and I can’t really hear them more than once or twice because I know what they’re gonna do. One thing I learnt with David was that every night is a different night and you don’t know what you’re gonna do. He was totally spontaneous. He would see someone he knew and feed off of that. It was like a science to him, but at the same time he was having a good time. Then I went to Richie Kaczor. Richie was more technical than David. He was a better mixer than David. I can’t say a better programmer because they were both really good. Richie could blend much longer. Now there’s a new skill I didn’t know about.

Blending for more than five or ten seconds. For that you gotta memorise the record since all these records have different drummers and different beats so you have to know each record, because a lot of DJs would try and make mistakes. With new music you can do it, because it’s all programmed for that. Richie was good at things like ‘Newsy Neighbors’, which came out around that time. It wasn’t really disco yet but it was almost; on the cusp before disco. He was playing Blue Magic, ‘Dance Master’ by Willie Henderson; he was going into imports and all that stuff. That was when I first went towards the imports. Now Nicky’s making a mint off us, because imports were costing so much more. I don’t really remember David playing imports. You could tell Richie was hunting out for records. His range was wider. I listened to him for at least a year, didn’t want to miss him. Come to find out later that they came to hear me play, which was my biggest thrill. My four idols at that time were David, Richie, Walter Gibbons and Nicky Siano, because I was younger by five or six years…

David Rodriguez mix of Candido’s ‘Jingo’.

What was Nicky Siano like?
He was just crazy! He got famous even younger than I did. Nicky was like really young and his style was like… just crazy. He could throw anything on, he had such a rapport with the crowd. He would take any chance, that’s what I liked about him, he was very courageous. He’d play the most insane things, like soundtracks, not disco soundtracks, just soundtracks. I didn’t know whether David or Richie were takin’ drugs, but I knew Nicky was [laughter]! He could throw anything on it would work.

Can you think of any of these things?
I can remember him playing the Carrie soundtrack and then going into Love Hangover. Which is just totally bizarre, but it worked! That’s what I learned from Nicky was get your crowd to know you and then you can get away with more stuff than you can if you’re just a guest DJ. So the one thing I really wanted was to get a club. A friend of mine told me there was ads in the Village Voice for clubs. There was a club called Barefoot Boy before it opened, and it said: “DJ Wanted”. I thought, I know I’m not going to get this job. I’d only worked in straight black clubs and this was a gay white club and I only watched DJs. I hadn’t really played. So anyhow, I auditioned for this and I got the job. It still amazes me. It was like seven days a week, $25 a night.

Would that have been considered a lot of money then?
It was for me! I was getting paid for something that I liked to do. I would’ve done it for free. Once I got that job, I’m in the record store every day because now I’ve got money to buy records.

Tony Smith playing Barefoot Boy classics.

Where was Barefoot Boy?
It was on 39^th and 2^nd Avenue. Barefoot was open every night and it was packed every night. So there’s this packed night and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing! This was 1974 and I was 20 years old. There’d be a lot of people in the bar and a lot of people dancing, all gay, white. Which I knew I had to integrate, which I did eventually. I knew that to get to play all the music I wanna play I couldn’t just have all gay white. I already found out certain records that I couldn’t play. Like I couldn’t play James Brown.

Even though the gay scene was relatively new then was it already that segregated? Did you go to any black gay clubs?
I guess Nicky’s club, but it was mixed but at least blacks could go and feel comfortable.

What about David’s crowd?
That was mixed, but it was in the West Village so it was predominantly white. They all had a little mix, but there was one black club and when I went there I was frightened out of my mind! It was Better Days and Tee Scott. I wanted to expose myself to everything so when I do finally get this job I’d be prepared for everything. A friend of mine took me to Better Days. Tee was just unbelievable and the crowd just scared the hell out of me because it was all black men staring at me and I just wanted to get into the music. But I made friends with Tee. I know how black gays are really harder to play for than white gays, but he could do that. I couldn’t do that. Mainly because I had white taste in music, but I also didn’t wanna play in a club where I was restricted. That’s why I like Richie and David and Nicky’s clubs, because they had a mix and they could play anything. I didn’t want to play just black gay music or white gay music, I just wanted to play music.

So you had a strategy then?
At the beginning I had my straight friends come down, totally offsetting the whole thing! Straight black friends from Little Italy. Finally, the Latins came in. Once Latins come in, then everyone can come in. I don’t know why, but that’s how it is. Then my music widened even more. Barefoot never turned black, but there was always blacks in there. In the beginning, all the bartenders, busboys, coat check, waiters, everybody was white except me.

Do you remember the first night?
I couldn’t wait until it was open. I just wanted to give a good impression on my first time, and it was packed and I really didn’t know what to play so I’m playing safe. So my inner soul has to do something crazy so they remember you, otherwise it’s just like, ‘he was okay’ which I didn’t want to be. But after the first night the owner came over and said, “You played good”. I stayed there three years. In the second year there, I got offered Garage and Studio. I turned them both down.

Who offered you the Garage?
Mel Cheren. And Steve Rubell used to come to Barefoot. Rubell was in there all the time, he had a club called Enchanted Gardens. I used to guest there, Nicky used to guest there. I got some award from something like After Dark, I thought it was hokey, but you know, it was top ten and I was in it and so were my idols. This was when I knew Barefoot was big. I had started to find out on Mondays that Nicky, David, David Mancuso, all of them were coming to hear me on Monday nights, but I didn’t know it, they were downstairs at the bar. One day I’m going down to get a drink and I see them all at there, Richie Kaczor, all of them listening to me, at Barefoot! And Monday night was like my boring night, so now I gotta make it a better night! I felt like I was a peer to them who were totally my idols. And in Barefoot, too, which was such a dumpy little club, but there used to be lines outside the club. That was the other thing, it was free to get in, but maybe £2 at the weekend. So it’s always packed, now DJs are coming to watch me play and promoters are coming. All of a sudden I’m getting ‘Free Man’ on white label, Mel Cheren’s bringing me ‘Doin’ The Best That I Can’. I was totally overwhelmed. I was getting everything and I didn’t even have to go to a record store.

Do you remember what you were playing at Barefoot Boy?
I’d play everything from Deodato to Yvonne Fair’s ‘Should’ve Been Me’. I used to play what I called sleazy music; slow but not boring. The only thing I really couldn’t play there, still, was black urban music. But I still got away with ‘Doin’ It To Death’ by the JB’s but I couldn’t get away with ‘Give It Up Turnit Loose’ or ‘Sex Machine’. I was playing Fatback Band’s ‘(Do The) Bus Stop’, which was a dance. I could play African music, I was playing Osibisa’s ‘Music For Gong Gong’, Latin-sounding music, but I couldn’t play a lot of the stuff I was playing outside. That stuff was a bit too progressive for gays at that time, but they really liked female vocals.

So were you still doing outside parties [meaning block parties]?
I did Fire Island, I used to do Ice Palace. Since I was working seven days, I didn’t wanna give a day up because I knew I’d get backstabbed. After a while I knew I couldn’t work seven days I started giving a day to friends I knew like Wayne Dixon and Walter [Gibbons]. The one who backstabbed was Jerry Bossa who used to work at Buddah. I gave him the job and he undercut me. I tried to give it to Walter but he was too progressive for that crowd. Walter worked at Galaxy 21. The first time I heard him I think it was my first year at Barefoot. He blew me away. More than Nicky, Richie, all of them. Walter was just way ahead.

François K tribute edit to Walter Gibbons.

In what way?
Mixing. See, everyone else knew how to mix, but Walter, he could remix a record live and you don’t know he’s remixing it. I never saw anyone do that. Most of the time you can hear when someone’s remixing it and I couldn’t believe he was doing it. First of all I couldn’t believe it was a white guy that was doing it and somebody I didn’t know, because he was really somebody who was unknown then. What happened was the bartenders used to bug me to go out and I was always exhausted. I was like alright I’m gonna go to Galaxy. I heard him remixing ‘Girl You Need A Change Of Mind’. You know the remix that you hear? It’s on a bootleg that loops the bongos? Walter used to do that live. And he would come out with records that no one else was playing, like Doc Severinson. He had unbelievable programming, unbelievable mixing. But he was really a bastard. He was really stuck up. He drove everyone crazy, but somehow I became friends with him and I was let through that barrier of Walter’s. Most people don’t really know what a nice person he is. He didn’t trust nobody. Come to find out later, he was smart not to trust anybody, because everyone stole his stuff! ‘Girl You Need A Change Of Mind’, ‘Erucu’, which Walter invented, Rare Earth, ‘Two Pigs And A Hog’. He used to do these live! And they used to be really hard work. I don’t know if you know how small [the part from] ‘Happy Song’ by Rare Earth is.

It’s tiny!
He used to do this live, with GLI mixer, which was just amazing.

Really what he was doing was like hip hop DJs wasn’t it?
Yeah, and what was funny was that everyone was going to buy ‘Happy Song’ not knowing it’s like 12 seconds long! So what he did – because after a while there was just too many songs – he did quite a few Eddie Kendricks songs but the best known is ‘Girl… ‘ What he did was he went to Sunshine Sound and next thing you know everybody had his music. Nobody knows what happened.

Well François went down there and did some stuff for them didn’t he?
Ah, François was playing the drums at Galaxy. He probably didn’t tell you that!

Yeah, he did.
He didn’t know any English or nothing. He was just this annoying guy – who we all got to love later – because he didn’t know how to play drums. But he knew the owner and the owner let him play drums right in the middle of the dancefloor. It used to drive Walter crazy. Every once in a while he’d be on beat, but with Walter’s mixing he’d be – Da! – but he was a friendly guy. We came to find out later that people were recording Walter secretly. There was a wire we found and we followed it all the way up. And this is when Walter became even more distrustful and went into God. He kind of alienated me and everyone else because he didn’t trust anyone. But he was such a genius. I remember he used to talk with me on the phone while he was editing ‘Ten Percent’ and asking me should I make it three times or two times – [mimics the stabs] – he used do things so easily whereas with me it would have been a struggle. Once I met him, I knew I gotta practise some more. The one DJ skill he had that most DJs don’t know how to do and I still freak out people when I do it. It’s the drop mix. To mix like hip hop DJs do where you have to just let it go and it was on beat. It was amazing and it used to fuck up the whole crowd. This volume is up and this volume is up and he would do that continuously. I told everybody about Walter. I told everybody about Nicky, too. My big mouth was telling everybody at Downstairs, “You gotta got to Galaxy, You gotta go to Hollywood…” Then Garage came out and it was totally different to Walter.

Just before you go on to the Garage, do you have any experience of those really early guys like Francis Grasso, Michael Cappello?
Oh, I forgot about that. Francis I heard at Footsteps. I didn’t know he was there till afterwards. You know Union Square? It was right around the corner, maybe 18^th & Broadway. You’d have to go up 200 steps, that’s why it was called Footsteps. There was no elevator and it was a long walk up to the club. I never heard him at Sanctuary. I always heard he invented mixing. Then I heard that Alfie Davison invented mixing, then I heard Flowers mixing, so I don’t really know who invented it.

Who is Alfie Davison?
He was this really big DJ at the time and I know he probably hung out with Francis. He was a black guy, gay, he even made a record on RCA later on. Who I never really heard DJ, but the word of mouth I heard when I was young was it was him and Francis. Gays and straights always argue about who invented that stuff. I don’t really know. But I remember straights when I was 15 or 16 who were mixing, so there was no pause. I remember when there was a pause and I remember when Flowers and them came out there was no pause. There wasn’t any mixers yet. My first mixer was two mic amps with two pre-amps connected with them. So I don’t know who did that first. Michael Cappello was a good friend of mine, but I’m just trying to remember where he used to work. I’m thinking it was Queens. I only heard him once, but he was like Joe Palmienteri. You know they were good, but they didn’t do anything for me. Walter I would go every week. Sometimes, later, I would find out he had been tripping when was doing this stuff. I can’t even smoke and do this stuff! Kenny Carpenter was absorbing all this stuff, because used to do the lights. And he’d be amazed, too, because he’d be looking over: how can he do this? And he rarely made a mistake despite doing all these crazy things. The only bad thing about Walter was you really wouldn’t want him to come near you, because Walter was critical because you couldn’t live up to his skills. You’d do your best and Walter was still going to diss you a little! He did it live, in front of 1,000 people, on acid, and never made mistakes! But, for some reason, once he left Galaxy, he never got big.

People say when he got religion he lost a little something.
Yeah that’s true. Then he started working at a record store. I got him a job at Xenon, which was like a really big mistake by me…

That was quite a commercial club wasn’t it?
Yeah and he tried to put this religion thing and I’m like “Walter, I’m trying to get you back into the flow of everything, you can’t do that. Xenon’s competing with Studio”.

And they don’t want to hear gospel music all night!
They don’t wanna hear gospel or Salsoul all night, because he did a lot of Salsoul records. So I was like, “Walter, you gotta play the list” meaning you heard me play there you know what this crowd wants. And that was when it was mostly all-white. I hadn’t integrated it yet. But he influenced me so much I wanted to try and help but he would not… once he got into religion it was over.

CJ & Co doing the devil’s work.

So is it true that he really wouldn’t play anything unless it had a message?
I’ve seen him break ‘Devil’s Gun’. I’m like “Walter, that record’s hot!”. There were certain records he would not play. And I said to him if you listen to the words it’s not really saying what you think it’s saying. He wouldn’t play ‘Bad Luck’ by Harold Melvin, either. ‘Bad Luck’ wasn’t a bad song either. But I think it was the titles. When he went into the extreme religion thing, we fell apart. When he didn’t keep the job at Xenon he kinda blamed me. I said, “Walter, you’re playing gospel and it’s not gonna work in Xenon!” I wish he had’ve stayed because I knew how great he could be because I gave the job to Jellybean.

How did you first meet Larry Levan? Did you go to Reade Street?
I went to Reade Street once. I thought Larry was really good. He was a programmer. He knew what to play. Mixing was secondary to him, sometimes he mixed good, sometimes he didn’t. But that wasn’t the priority. The priority was the next record. He liked to play with words, so sometimes his records connected with the words, which I used to love, because you had to think about it. He was more cerebral than most people give him credit for. Nicky was just crazy. Nicky could think of words, but maybe just for a couple of seconds before he was somewhere else! I got to know Larry really good at the Disco Convention in California because we were like New Yorkers in California.

What year was this?
I guess ’79. Even though I knew him, this was the first time we really hung out and acted like normal people rather than DJs. We were New Yorkers in California. And we were black guys in California. I didn’t know that Larry was like cool and funny and all of these other things you don’t get to see when he’s working. It was cool for him to see me when I wasn’t working, too, because I was working in a white club and he was working in a black club, but we both still had the same musical heads on. A year or two later we spun together at Area, which was just like the best times, with Gwen Guthrie. It was a birthday for Gwen Guthrie. One other person I gotta bring because I haven’t brung him up yet and he’s one of my best friends. He didn’t influence me DJing, but influenced me musically and that’s Danny Krivit. We’ve known each other so long it’s ridiculous. Danny influenced me more in black music and I influenced him more in disco music because Danny knew black music… I remember as a 16-year-old kid, I couldn’t believe this white kid could know black music so well. We met in a music store and we were both going for the same record and I got the record. I think it was ‘Yellow Sunshine’. We became friends after that. When I went from Barefoot to Xenon there was this weird transition where Xenon was tryin’ to compete with Studio. And Ray Caviano – I’m gonna tell this story, but I don’t know whether it’s totally factually true.

But it makes a good story!
Ray Caviano gave a list to Xenon of seven top DJs. They were going through DJs every month. He gave them all the white jocks like Roy Thode, Jonathan Fearing and I was the last person on the list. Every two weeks they would try a new DJ because none of them worked but they didn’t wanna try me. Finally Howard Stein gave in. I happened to be there one night and the music Jonathan Fearing was playing was so bad they said I could have the job, right there. Just because I was there! I told them no, out of respect to Jonathan and also I was working someplace else. I remember the mix I did that just blew them away and next day I had the job.

Patrick Labatte’s tribute to Tony.

What was it?
The mix was Patti Brooks’ ‘After Dark’ with, in the break, ‘You Keep Me Hanging On’ by The Supremes, just in the background low in the mix. It was one of those things I learned from Walter: no voices crashing. Because Walter, if the voice’s clashed, he’d give you a look! And the keys matching, too. I also did it with Inner Life’s ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ and ‘When Doves Cry’ in the background. Everyone was blown away and was asking me to do it again, but the old school way is not to repeat it but think of something better! Once I got the job at Xenon and now I’m playing for 1,000 people. At Barefoot Boy it was only 200 dancing. I love challenges and this was a challenge. But they want me to work seven nights a week. I can do that when I’m in my early twenties, so I also had to find DJs. I wanted Wednesday thru Sunday. I went to hear Richie at Studio so I could know what kind of stuff he’s playing. I was always trying to do my homework.

What was the difference between what Richie was playing at Studio compared with Hollywood?
He had to play more commercial, which was understandable. But I did, too, unless it was a special party, which I loved special parties. But what I did was – and Richie didn’t do – try to make the crowd last longer so it would have a reputation of staying open longer, after the bars had closed. In the beginning the owner resisted that, but I’m telling him if the people start coming in at 2 in the morning, they’re gonna drink until four and they’re gonna dance and come back. I’m trying to tell him this is going to be better in the long run and he didn’t have to be here, just let me play till I wanna finish. I don’t want no extra pay, I just want control of the crowd, because that’s what most DJs want. And I finally had it, I didn’t really have that at Barefoot, but I did at Xenon, where I could play anything I want. I brought my whole collection, eight thousand records, so whenever I had a whim I could go with that and I had a tremendous time.

When did you play from and until?
From ’79 to ’82. That was one of the best years of music because you could still play all the stuff from 1973 on. There was a lot of great music in that period, new wave, rock, reggae, disco, club. Anything.

You played at Xenon around the time that disco was collapsing, really. Did that make a difference in the kinds of records you were playing? Was that Disco Sucks feeling prevalent?
What I did was play new wave.

But did you feel resistance to disco from certain sections of the clientele?
No. I could feel it in other clubs, but as I had my crowd trained they accepted what I played. I learned that from the older DJs that I watched. If you had the crowd on your side they accept what you’re doing. Because you’re right, when the music changed, at one point, that was one of the few points I didn’t like and that’s why I went into new wave, you started to play more oldies because the new music is not as good or creative and you put more oldies in your programming to compensate for the bad music.

Telex – Moskow Disko

What new wave were you playing?
It was English imports. I was playing ‘Pop Muzik’, Gen X, ‘Moskow Diskow’, ‘Jet Boy Jet Girl’. Plus they’re still hearing ‘I Got My Mind Made Up’ and ‘Disco Circus’.

Was it a regular crowd?
There was a hardcore crowd. As a matter of fact, it was a mescaline crowd!

A mescaline crowd?!
Yeah. They would have the sticks, they would have the tambourines, they would really give the crowd excitement. They were usually Cuban, from New Jersey and they weren’t supposed to be in the club because they were from New Jersey, but what they did was, they used to have a bag of clothes and they would change once they were in. Meaning they would dress like Xenon people on the outside.

So they’d come in in suits?
And then change into shorts, outfits and take mescaline. You know the rest of the crowd was taking coke and coke don’t make you dance it makes you talk. Mescaline makes you dance!

So these kids knew each other?
No, but they got to know each other week after week.

That must’ve felt quite subversive.
It was the best.

Because even if the crowd’s a bit lacklustre you can turn them?
I know! You turn them on and you turn the crowd on! I focused on them and the good thing about them was that their taste was as wide as mine. As a matter of fact, they turned me on to some new wave stuff that I wasn’t up on, like ‘Moskow Diskow’. At that time Americans wasn’t playing this music. The cokehead crowd, they like the commercial disco, but the regular dancers who were the ones who were always gonna be faithful if you please them. There was never this fear of making the crowd angry at you. Since the music was changing, at one point I was playing rock. That’s how bad disco music got. Really bizarre stuff, ‘Secret Agent Man’.

What was your relationship with Larry Levan and the Garage? You said you were offered a gig there…
That was one of the few times Xenon hated it… Because I could decide when to close early and if something was happening at Garage I would close early. And they’d all know, too: Tony’s going to Garage! Bobby Shaw I took the first time and he was totally resistant. It had this connotation of being too black and too raunchy or whatever. And, of course, once you go you’re addicted.

Bobby said the first time you took him he didn’t like it.
But he went back! He’s used to me mixing and Larry’s not that kind of technician, so I’m telling him you gotta forget about all these things you have in your head and go and listen to the music. Once you do that, Larry’s gonna be incredible to you. You just gotta let go of all this stuff you expect. Bobby was addicted to it! Then he got to know Larry and since he had the booth – which was the ideal booth for any DJ. It was as big as this… bar! It was two booths. One for us and one for him. We could look out and see the crowd. You’d be happy just hanging out in the booth, but sometimes you just had to go out in the crowd, because even though some records would sound good in the booth you gotta hear ’em on the dancefloor because of that system. There was never anything like that system. There will never be anything like that system. Records that would sound adequate in your club, they would sound tremendous in the Garage. So you have a whole new outlook on the record. You play it in your club and wonder why the reaction is lacklustre and then at the Garage they’re screaming and stomping to it. That’s not Larry, that’s the system and how Larry worked the system. David Mancuso’s system at the Loft was crisper and clearer but it’s not heart-rending.

What kind of records do you remember him playing?
I remember what records he wouldn’t play! He wouldn’t play too much commercial. He’d play commercial, but once they came out he wouldn’t play them. So he always wanted to be exclusively first. The best thing we all liked about Larry was how many records we heard there that never came out.

Really?
So many of us DJs were salivating, oh can’t wait till that comes out and then when they came out it was a totally different mix from the one Larry was playing.

Was this stuff he’d mixed himself?
Sometimes. Sometimes it was just stuff people gave him.

Do you remember any examples?
Well, I always wonder who has all this stuff.

François is supposed to have a bunch of things.
Really? Well, how come when I went to Body & Soul I never heard any of it? I would notice! Most of the West End stuff, Peech Boys, ‘Is It All Over My Face’, what happened was that Larry would have like several drafts. Like Colonel Abrams records? We would hear versions you would not believe then when it came out it was so commercial sounding. Larry’s versions would sound so raw. There were records like ‘Stay Free’ by Ashford & Simpson and ‘Razzamatazz’, you’d hear them in there and they sounded like number one records. You play them in my club and they sounded tinny. You know they sounded cute and you liked the song… Another one is Labelle’s ‘What Can I Do For You’. You don’t know how many DJs tried to play that in a club and the crowd would just be like phht. But you go to the Garage and it’s a 20 year old record and they’re still singing it like it was number one. You say it’s Larry but it’s the system, too. But without Larry there is no system because when he had guest DJs there, he would take out certain things. There was also a Larry lookalike.

What?!
Somebody who looked like Larry when he wasn’t there and there’d be a tape playing!

No?!
Oh he fooled a lot of people. He would do it when he didn’t feel like spinning or he was pissed off at the crowd. I always wondered how he got this guy, because when you were on the dancefloor, he looked like him.

Surely they’d have rumbled him?
Oh he would never get close up and he did look like Larry! Ask Bobby Shaw about this one. In the old days Larry used to live in the Garage, so he might have been sleeping or he might have been pissed off with the crowd which he did.

So Larry would come back later?
Yeah. But you would know when he came back. He made sure that you felt it. The lookalike was definitely a fact. We definitely knew it existed. You could tell it was a tape in the Garage.

What did you do do after Xenon?
It was a down point in my life. I went to Magique. Tee Scott used to call it Tragique! [laughter]. It was an East Side club which was already a no-no and an Upper East Side club… I got fired from Xenon for not playing ‘Happy Birthday’ for Bianca Jagger. It was the middle of the night and I just did not want to do it. She was a Studio person, I was like why are you sweating it, she’s not coming back anyway?! I was pissed but… if Bianca got me fired so what! The whole crowd didn’t know. Then they got a Tony lookalike! I swear to God! Everybody came and tell me, because they could tell it wasn’t me. It only lasted about another month and then it closed. Every club I went to closed after I left. After I left Xenon I had all these offers and I wanted to transform Magique, because Magique was a bridge-and-tunnel crowd, very John Travolta. I love a challenge so I thought if I can do Xenon then I can do this. It didn’t work. This crowd was so bad. If you didn’t play a radio song…. This was 1982 and new wave is the hottest thing, Thompson Twins, Ian Dury, everybody. They said they wanted to hear Xenon music, but Thompson Twins and Ian Dury weren’t on the radio. The only time I had a good time at Magique were the porn parties, with Ron Jeremy and a few of the porn stars used to give a party about once a month and there’s naked girls everywhere and I can play anything I want.

How long did you last?
A year. I took a vacation for a month or two. I knew I was going to lose it., You never go away if you’re a DJ. From there I went to Limelight (which Tee used to call Slimelight). I hated that, too.

The original Limelight?
Yeah. Then I went to the Palace which is Palluccio’s restaurant on 14^th St. It only lasted a year but that was a lot of fun. New wave was hot, but I could play anything I want. What I didn’t know was that on 14^th St they had it advertised as a disco and on 13^th St. they had people coming in the club who thought it was a new wave place. Double whammy: Why you not playing disco? Why you not playing new wave? After that I went to Funhouse. I wasn’t really a rap fan, but I liked it, so I had to evolve my DJing style to accommodate this. Some of the music was creative, but there wasn’t eight hours of good rap music to play. I liked variety. Jellybean, you know, if a record was a hit he would play it four times a night. I didn’t like to do that. The one credit I give to Funhouse is discovering Set It Off, which nobody knows about.

Walter Gibbons’ mix of NYC club classic Strafe.

Which was the first version, Strafe?
Yeah, because Walter mixed it. Walter brought it to Jellybean two or three times, but Jellybean wouldn’t play it. The whole sound then was the Roland drum and Arthur and Shannon and it’s totally the opposite of that. I was doin’ a guest spot and Walter didn’t know I was gonna be there or that I was tapin’ the night. I taped it when I played it. It cleared the floor. All of us in the booth goin’ crazy! This was at the time when even Loleatta was doin’ that drum sound and I hated that sound. He gave me two versions, a vocal and another one. Walter takes the record and he’s totally disappointed. A month later he comes back and they’re screamin’ to this record! They were callin’ it ‘On The Left’ because they still didn’t know the name of the song: “Tony, play the On The Left”. He didn’t know I’d taped the song! It was just so different for the time. So now Strafe wanted to do a PA at Funhouse but I didn’t know that Strafe had this thing against Walter. He didn’t like his mix. Even though Strafe’s mix was like puke. At this stage nobody’s playin’ it. Not radio, not Larry. Finally I’m telling Walter you gotta go take this to the radio and Larry. He was still skeptical because no one would give Walter the time of day. If I can get these 16 year old kids to like it, don’t worry about everyone else! Strafe came and did it and the crowd went ballistic. Then he tried to do a new song, I think it was ‘React’, and he got booed off stage. Kids are very reactionary like that. But then I got undercut again but a friend Randy. He’s not a friend any more. Then I went to an all-girls club. I had a new challenge. I’d played for all men, all black, all straight, all gay. Networks it was called. 84 or 85. Now I’m like this guy who’s a total threat to these women. If I could play for them and learn about what they like compared to men.

What do they like?
They like a lotta meaningful words. Not just party down. They liked a lot of female vocals. What I find out, once I got to know them, they liked everything that everybody else liked. There were a few things I played there that I didn’t play anywhere else, like Pat Benatar and Stevie Nicks. That lasted two years. The last club I played in was the opening of the Palladium with Jellybean. And that was because Jellybean hadn’t DJed in ages but his name was still big so he got me to play with him. Even though I’d retired, he knew I still kept up with the music.

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