About Me
Live on Chicago House FM MONDAYS 9PM GMT - Click here to listen!
Growing up in the Carracas household, in Los Angeles CA, Esteban was exposed to Pavarotti, Perry Como, Three Dog Night and the Beatles. Not normal for a child of the 70s. Once Esteban attended school and found out his parents taste in music wasnt all that cool, he began to embrace Hip-hop with a passion usually reserved for tangoists the world over. Not that he began to dress all hip-hop or talk that ghetto jive; he found his inspiration in beats and rhymes and most of all through the expressions of the scratch. He can remember the first time his ears heard that sound. I was comic book shopping at JJ Newburys in Santa Monica when a top 100 countdown was on. The DJ played Brass Monkey by the Beastie Boys and that first horn scratch! I was like what was that sound? So I got more and more interested in MCs and DJs and took it from there. KDAY (West coast hip-hop radio station) was still on, so I could hear new stuff and live stuff without even leaving the house. But all that was about to change...
In 1989, Esteban and his family moved from LA to a remote-ish part of Scotland where his music tastes began to evolve according to his surroundings. No more KDAY and no record shops for miles and miles, Estebans weekly trips to Glasgow were a chance for him to sample some new genres and meet new people. After hearing the Stone Roses it all seemed to make sense - genres were an illusion - it didnt matter if I was listening to hip-hop or the Happy Mondays or even Jungle. Styles were irrelevant - if a song had the funk then it would get me off! After seeing a few DMC Championship videos while bunking off school, Esteban decided that being a DJ and sharing his music collection with the world was what he wanted to do. Enter two Memorex turntables (no pitch control), a Realistic mixer (the one with a row of cheesy effects) and a big old amp and speakers and he was ready to conquer the world of the school/youth club disco.
After a few years of playing all the latest sounds of the jungle, which was a reaction against all the Happy Hardcore that was sweeping Scotland, Esteban began to drift away from breaks and once again began to embrace the funk. It was a crazy time, all my friends were listening to stuff that was like 200mph Paul Elstak tunes and I wasnt enjoying it too much, so I moved on. As the years went past, releases from DJ Shadow, Daft Punk, The Chemical Brothers, Laj & Quakerman, DJ Q, Mateo & Matos, Slam, H-Foundation, Alex Reece, I-Cube, Roule, Crydamoure, Bob Sinclar, Africanism, Moodymann, Carl Craig, Beastie Boys, Portishead, Whiteout, Playgroup, Norma Jean Bell, Metro Area, !!!, Paul Johnson, Agoria, reissues of older albums from Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Mongo Santamaria, The Late Great Cream, Rufus Thomas and James Brown all received plays at clubs and pubs such as the Subclub, Liquid Lounge, Basura Blanca, The Art School Union, Soundhaus, The Honeycomb, Bar Ten, Times Square, The Warehouse, McChuills, The Unit, Revolution, Vault, The Halt Bar, Arta, and The Hetherington Research Club to name a few as well as countless houses, sheds, barns, caddy shacks, a gig in a shop window and a heart-warming set at T in the Park. Esteban always said he would never play a wedding, but when his friends Rufus and Fiona asked he obliged and all had a brillaint time, but he wouldnt want to make a career out of it.
You can catch Esteban Carracas at the following venues:
@ Bar Ten with Chris Mac every second Friday
@ Audioicecream @ the Hetherington Research Club the first Saturday of every month