well you can now, cos there are loads of 'em. A proper mixed global fusion album with all the bells and whistles. We modeled the mix CD on Coldcut's Journey's By DJ. We called ourselves The Outernationalists and our manifesto was to show people that global dance music was just as hard hitting (if not more so) as mainstream club music, and that it didn't have to sound like exotic dinner party music at an investment banker's party. Simon and I did a mix CD for Six Degrees Records called 'Ethnomixicology'. I then joined forces with Simon Emmerson - one of the main men behind Afro-Celt Sound System.
very eclectic, clubby, but with a global fusion flavour. It had a brilliant, open-minded crowd, and that's certainly where I developed my DJ sound - i.e.
I became one of their resident DJs for a while, even though I lived (and still do) in Dorset, and it was based in North London. Necmi (Oojami) kindly asked me to DJ at a few more Hubble Bubble nights. Suffice to say I was like a rabbit in the headlights having pre-gig nightmares about the "play" button not working, or not being able to find the next tune as the clock was ticking down.Īfter that there was a little bit of a snowball effect. It was very surreal DJing in a church next to a pulpit pumping out oriental 4/4 beats to a lot of Arabic and Turkish dudes clapping their hands and jumping around between the pews. 9/11) I found myself at the Union Chapel in Islington (in London for you non-Brits) DJing in front of around 1000 people at Oojami's Hubble Bubble Festival. The answer seemed to be DJing, and so after a very surreal goth-rock birthday party on 9/11 (yes. AND I was starting to get involved in making compilations, so I needed more promotional avenues. I was also reviewing and doing features on a lot of global fusion and electronica acts, and I wasn't really getting much feedback about it (you'd be amazed how much you don't as a writer - unless you write something negative and then people get very animated.). I started DJing in the early 2000s (or naughties) because I was going to a lot of festivals and gigs as a music journalist and I wasn't really hearing the DJs play what I wanted to hear. Well sometimes you have to listen to your friends, and so I'm going to write this post to explain why I wanted to DJ in the first place, why you might want to hire me, and why I "might" not decide to do it. And for that matter, some of you may not be aware of what I've done, etc etc. BUT I (I, I) keep getting told by people that I don't promote what I do enough. I think it's a useful tool for that, and I certainly don't mind reading what people are doing, but it can be taken too far, and I'm all too aware of how annoying shouting "I, I, I!" can be. There is probably nothing sadder than people using social network sites and blogs to constantly big themselves up.