Winston Hazel
(Afro Art, The Forgemasters)AKA: The FMG (Funk Master General) Style: Versatile Freestyle Bashment.
2006 and Winston is in the process of reviving the project, that catapulted Warp Records into the limelight back in 1989... The Forgemasters! With partner Rob Gordon, the pair aim to continue where they left off but with all the acquired knowledge of the years gone by. Stay close, this is gonna be Fierce!!!
HIS-STORY
It seems only fitting that Winston Hazel should have started his career as a DJ at his school youth club as a teenager in the late 1970s. Winston, a.k.a.The Funkmaster General, has always been ahead of the pack in his comprehension of what tunes make a dancefloor move: a wise head on young shoulders and the natural leader of a generation of Sheffield DJs and musicians, his musical evolution may have had inauspicious origins, but then Winston wouldn't mind sharing that with you - he may wear his talent on his sleeve, but shouting it from the rooftops is not his style. Nor is it a Sheffield thing you see, and Winston has always remained true to his roots.The mid 80s saw Winston and Parrot spearhead a house and techno assault on the clubs of the North and Scotland which spawned such groundbreaking nights as Jive Turkey, The Steamer (with Graeme Park), Club Superman, Funky Precedent, Deep, Cuba and Occasions - and a whole generation of new DJs and producers including Asterix & Space (latterly RAC and now Swag) and a young scrap of a lad called DJ Pipes. These nights ran in tandem with the formidable warehouse and basement jams that were endemic across the city and served as the true driving force behind the reviving Sheffield scene. At the same time, Winston was further fanning the funk furnace with three shows a week on dominant pirate radio station SCR, setting the airwaves alight with the sounds that were firing the dancefloors.
So to the inevitable move to the studio, where Winston began by constructing the seminal funk of "The Forgemasters Track with No Name", the first release on Warp records and the shape of dance music to come. Further tracks followed - with fellow Forgemasters Robert Gordon and Sean Maher, and as The Step with Parrot and Sarah Jay.