As early as childhood I was bitten by the music bug . Watching my mother perform on stage , and record vocals in the studio was a huge impact on me.I always bought records with my dad throughout jr. high and must have rented out the entire edmonton public library , in order to tape the tracks i liked. Needless to say i spent many a day just listening to music while my brother and other kids were outside playing .I continued my music obsession into high school , making daily trips to buy records and fuel my appetite , making mix tapes for friends and various cute girls . I also ended up djing for a few functions with my friends for fun, but it turned into more than that.When I was around 17 we were all sneaking into clubs, and one club in particular "Flashbacks" was very influential , They played HOUSE music , had a huge no requests sign on the dj booth, and also had a record store "Hot Tracks" inside the club. Which was awesome cause you could hear the dj play a track and then go into the shop and buy it. the crowd was off the hook every night. And because it was a private club they could stay open till 6 am
perfect for a music obsessed kid with a head full of acid.I eventually got my own weekly residency in edmonton , but also wanted to make music as well. After meeting my friend Chris Dempsey at Vic high school for performing arts , and he had several pieces of gear , we decided to form a project/band. We entered a battle of the bands contest (the only electronic entry) we suprisingly won second place . Eventually Chris moved to vancouver, and in order to pursue music i shortly did as well.In Vancouver I quckly found out where all the record shops were ,soon getting a part time job at one them to fuel my monsterous craving for vinyl ,as well as working on music and meeting more like minded producers. Our friends Dan and Christina started Outer Sanctum records , and after writing a few tracks with them , i managed to get 4 of them on the compilation cd , and one track on an ep. around this time i also picked up a weekly gig at the twilight zone in gastown. Later getting a residency the WORLD an after hours club. With Rave culture just emerging, and wharehouse parties cropping up everywhere, it was a good time to be a dj , and i was fortunate enough to get to play at a lot of them.Things were great I loved my job at the record store , we had a monthly magazine for the shop and i got to do a lot of record reviews, plus i was playing lots and writing some cool music, i felt geniunely fortunate. My fortunes would soon change as I became a victim of the drug scene , living the party lifestyle for years. The hard partying and lack of sleep had me looking like a skeleton. and feeling worse than shit . MY Friends and family were concerned back in Edmonton as I hit as close to rock bottom as I ever want to , unfortunately a few of my friends werent so lucky.So i pretty much decided it was best to pack up and reluctantly move back to Edmonton , and regroup basically starting from scratch again.It was 96 when i moved back to Edmonton , and there was a small scene at the time , but it grew pretty fast as was the case pretty much everywhere. So i was Playing lots of local parties as well as some Calgary and Saskatoon gigs in the rave heyday . I also had a number of residencies The longest of which was a solid 5 year run at Therapy/Y afterhours . As well as the very successful , and memorable majestik thursdays with my ex gf the lovely Dj Sweetz . WILD CHERRY WEDNESDAYS is headed into its 3rd year and a new location . Ive also had the privelege to open up for such producer/djs asMIGUEL MIGS, KASKADE , LITTLE LOUIE VEGA , JAY J , PAUL JOHNSON, FELIX DA HOUSECAT, DJ DAN , ANDY SMITH (portishead) , JOHN JULIUS KNIGHT , DAVID MORALES , DONALD GLAUDE , SOULSEARCHERS , MARQUES WYATT , PARANOID JACK and many more....Since being in Edmonton some years Ive got back into production and have a track on CAPITAL CITY FUNK RECORDS , And am always keeping busy in the studio writing new stuff , improving my skills . and becoming wiser.More recently I joined forces with Steve Velocity as the newly formed DUBBUSTERZ (
[email protected]), a ragga breakbeat style venture. I am still producing my own tracks , and making my own mash upz and remixes.In between that spending time with my beautiful daughter , and work , I am fully focused on writing/producing music .
