My initial interest in the house scene was started with a visit to 'Konspiracy' on my 18th birthday in 1989. From there I became a 'Hacienda' regular, as well as taking trips over the Pennines to the likes of 'Hard Times', 'Back 2 Basics', 'Up Yer Ronson' & 'Vague'. While doing this, I started playing lots of parties, getting my musical inspiration from
Graeme Park & Tom Wainwright at the Hacienda. I also started playing a lot of deeper UK tracks after hearing
Ralph Lawson & Huggy at Basics, plus Miles Hollway &
Elliot Eastwick at Hard Times. After the closure of the Hacienda, I have continued to visit 'Basics' in Leeds fairly regularly & this is evident in the style I play, which is very UK-label based, the likes of Paper, 2020 Vision, Drop, Shaboom, Soma & Classic etc. I also play a lot of the quality non-UK labels such as Doubledown, Brique Rouge, Robsoul, Tango, Detour, Bluem etc.
I promoted 'Pervert', which started at a bar called The Queens in Hull, in Dec '98. This ran on Fortnightly Thursdays & went weekly Fridays in Feb '99. I continued this until June, when I finished Uni & returned home to Stockport. I then re-started 'Pervert' at The Norfolk in Stockport in Dec '99, which ran on weekly Fridays until July 2000. During summer 2000, I also had three 'Pervert' parties in Manchester, the first one at Club Code on May 30th, with Miles Hollway from Robodisco / Paper Recordings as guest, the second with Matthew Roberts. The third was a 'residents only' party at Applejacks (the Princess Hotel), Manchester on August 4th. Each of the nights was a success, but unfortunately Martin West (the other promoter) discovered he was due to be a dad, so I was unable to continue to promote the night as fully as I would have liked! During summer 2003, I was promoter & resident DJ at 'Audiotonic' at Music Box, Manchester. This night was listed in the top 5 UK club nights in DJ Mag (Sep '03).
I have played at many one-off nights, such as 'Pure' at Stax in Stockport, 'Kickin' at Strand in Hull, 'Pulse' at Think Tank in Leeds & the 'Theme Magazine 5th Birthday' in London. I also played at 'Déjà Vu' in Hull where I did warm up for
Graeme Park,
Sonique, George Morel &
DJ Sneak. After moving back to Stockport I played at 'Warped' at Glass in Manchester as a resident & played the 'Warped' night at Music Box in March 2001, where Parks & Wilson from 'Home' played the main room & I played the back room on my own for 5 hours. During 2000 & 2001, I was resident DJ for the after-parties at the 'Theme Magazine' awards, which took me to London, Brighton, Leeds, Birmingham & Liverpool. In July 2003 I played for '
Chibuku', Liverpool's main house night, where I played alongside Miles Hollway & the clubs residents at a secret party held by the club. I also played for 'Tribal Sessions' at Sankeys Soap, in Manchester on Sep 5th 2003, warming up for
Hipp-E from Bluem Records & Siesta Music.
I now run my own deep house label, 3am Recordings, with my business partner Guy Williams. Our first EP was released in June 2003 & reached no' 30 in the dance charts. We held a launch night on Sat May 24th at Music Box in Manchester, the success of which led us to start a monthly night, the aforementioned 'Audiotonic'.