About Me
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I co run PointBreakz Sessionz a weekly radio show on both BreaksFM http://www.breaks.fm Thurs 5-7pm gmt and Fri 8pm - 4am gmt on PointBlank 90.2FM the U.K's longest running pirate fm Dance station (Circa Nov 94) http://www.myspace.com/pointblankfm
I co-host the shows with Dj's Andy Mac / Sparkie / Dj Lisa / Wax Equestrian / Dj Chippie / Dave Vice / Lady Hektik / Amber Dawn / Tina Sidetrakka / Clodhoppa / Duke Of Hazard / Richie Collins / Binners all the PointBreakz Allstars + Guest Dj's... PointBreakz is also a monthly London club night currently @ The Jam Brixton
I started out in the heady dayz of the M25 Orbital parties, circa summer 1989. Like everybody back in the day,i spent many weekends trying to locate the Biology, Raindance,Sunrise & Respect Raves sometimes successful sometimes not,the only guarantee with the mystery tours was a great time, party or not. You always ended up making your own party with your new found friends on the coach :) Most of the nights i cannot remember I wonder why :)!!
In July '93, a group of us started up a night called S.U.O.S.U.( Skin Up Or Shut Up!) @ a club in Reading called Frenchys. We had a full House on our 1st night (450 people) we were exstatic and could'nt believe it we quickly then begun to plan the next party, designed a cool new flyer,booked some wicked Dj's wrote & posted a news letter (snail mail as no e-mail in those days) to all our members from our newly aquired data base and collected props so we good theme the next party
We had planned for everything over the next month, well we thought we had!!.We got to Frenchys @ 1pm on Saturday 14th August 1993 to set up for that night, all of us convinced that we would have a repeat of the 1st night only to find to our horror that the club had gone bankcrupt and been placed in receivership,it had a great big chain & padlock round the front entrance to the club. To say we were stunned or shocked would be a ununderstatement as we all knew we had sold in excess of 300 tickets and 90% of all the people expected to turn up would be travelling up from London, which was'nt a 20 min journey, more like an hour plus :(
So there we were the 4 of us standing shell shocked outside the club all wondering wtf we were going to do with only hours to try & locate a new venue from scratch failing that we would have the nightmare task of trying to contact everybody & cancel the night.We initially thought of just breaking the chain and doing a squat party but that idea was quickly sacked as 1 of the team went round the back of the club and noticed that water pipes had burst and flooded the club.:(
We then proceeded to go round every bar & club in Reading town centre to see if anybody would let us rent their venue we tried loads of bars & clubs & got no response and our mood's were fraying amongst ourselves, which was'nt good. The clock was ticking fast,suddenly someone came up with the idea of going to 1 of the local record shops where we had placed our flyers a few weeks before to see if they had any idea's.It was a stroke of luck the staff of Basement Records(Reading)put us in contact with a venue called O'Reillys Snooker Hall which had a disused old cinema above its main hall,we quickly made it round there and immediately started to explain our problem and negotiate a plan much to the bewildement of the poor Manager on duty! We agreed terms & shook hands!
It was 6pm and we had less than 3 hrs to kit out this venue with props & a sound system as it did'nt have one , a bit of a struggle but we succeeded. A few of us went and stood up on Frenchys club door to redirect our clubbers to the new venue,we then partied to the very small hours and had a great night.!! The ironic thing was had anyone of us contacted Frenchys, which none of us did, we would not of had any of these problems. We learn't many lesson's that weekend like always have a plan B for all eventuality's LOL
After that near disaster we decided to stay in London and put on our parties.We established ourselves @ Prohibition in Hanover St W1 where we stayed for about 4 months then moved on to many clubs throughout the W1 area.
Our music policy was House/Progressive and we had many of the big dj's of the day like Nick Hook (Loosen Up),Ian James (Drum Club),Moose (F.P.I.Project) and Charlie Hall (Drum Club) to name but a few, we also gave a platform to many new dj's like Chris Georgi, Chippie, Uncle Al and Kris Woods, who all in their own right went on to bigger things.During these times we also put on combo-partys with other clubs like Loosen Up + Elephant which were always good on so many levels with all our crowds :)
S.U.O.S.U. had 12 great months of club nights including a huge wharehouse party on N.Y.EVE 1993 / 1994 (Islington) with a crowd of over 3,000 but by late spring 1994 we took a different direction from club nights as many of the clubs started to really increase their already high rents so we decided to team up with a few of our mates from Spiral Tribe on the Free Party Network and put on squat/warehouse parties in empty office buildings throughout Nrth London. We look back on this period as our Militant Phase the music policy was Techno, dark fast & hard and we loved it and thankfully so did all our normal crowd. The ethos of the time was free parties & fuck the authorities this led up to all the Anti Criminal Justice Bill protests and marches through central London in May 1994
I have memories from all 3 of the Anti Criminal Justice Bill marches that will stay with me for life.The Criminal Justice Bill Legistration of 1994 was a series of many new laws the Tory goverment of the day brought in to effect.It was the biggest reform of U.K Laws in over a 100 years..There were over 150 new laws that effected everybody but the Law that most effected the Ravers was section 58 which loosely translated, made all outside partys and or gatherings of more than 9 people with more than 60 watts of sound or repetitive beats illeagle with the threat of a prison sentence if convicted of breaking this law, absolute hardcore police policy with regards to ravers & parties.The media of the day stated there was only 15-20,000 people that converged on Trafalgar Sq when the real truth was more like 115-120,000 people who marched on down to Traflagar Sq to protest against these sweeping new reforms in Law.Nothing like big numbers to scare the goverment in to lying as they did then & continue to do now whenever they feel their power is questioned by the masses!!
I will always remember the lorrys with all the big sound systems on them represented by Spiral Tribe, Bedlum and Vox Pop just driving round & around Traflagar Sq pumping out banging Techno much to the annoyance of the Metroplotian Police who could only stand in a great circle and witness this spectacle of many thousands dancin and jumping in & out of the big water fountains on a hot sunny afternoon,better than all the nutters who jump in in the middle of Winter on New Yrs Eve!!
There were so many different people in attendance from all walks of life speaking out those days, Nurse's Union's complaining rightly so of bad pay, the Birmingham 6 who were all wrongly convicted & imprisoned back in the 70's for the IRA pub bombings, Human Rights officials, Amnesty International and many more speakers who all stood up on the Lion in Traflagar Sq and told the masses of all the wrong doings the Tory goverment of the day were doing & the new laws they were proposing to bring in under the new Criminal Justice Bill Legislation these people ultimatly led 120,000 people stomping on down to Traflagar Sq to Protest & to Party on these 3 sunny days through the early Summer of 1994.We all fought for our right to Party & what a Party it was.
We continued putting on parties under the banner of S.U.O.S.U. right through to 1997 playing all over London and a 6mth residency on the sunny Mediterranean Isle of Malta, but the core of the group ended up breaking away and going down seperate paths.
I went on to get involved in the pirate radio world with GreenApple 88.4FM(West London)I stayed with them for a few years where i honed my knowledge of all things Pirate be it hosting shows, D.T.I. & everything else that comes, good or bad, with pirate radio and adopted the dj tag of Skin Up Or Shut Up
I am currently involved with PointBlank 90.2FM and have been since 2002 helping with the transition of bringing the Breakz sound to PointBlank 90.2FM as the main music policy from Nov 94 was House of which PointBlank was widely respected for & still is. Over the past 6yrs Breakz has been a sounding growing success with the audiences so much so that the station is now 50/50 Breakz / Electro House this is down to the the dedication & talent from the PB Dj..s Andy Mac / Sparkie / MR XS / Wax Equestrian / Dj Lisa / Dave Vice / Lady Hektik / Honest John / to name but a few. PointBlank 90.2FM is now officially the longest U.K running Dance Pirate Station..
At the time of scribbing this blurb, PointBreakz has done its 1st outside Broadcast @ London Calling Earls Crt (29/30th June 06).Broadcasting on the Intergroove SoundStage alongside a master class of Dj's from the Breakz World including Rennie Pilgrem, TCR,Elite Force,Soul Of Man, Fingerlickin Records and The Stanton Warriors. PointBreakz Sessionz passed its 1st B-Day club night (20th Oct 06) and celebrated Xmas Party night with Rogue Element / Jimmy Mofo / Mc Ken Mac / Mr Reload & all the PointBreakz Allstars.
Jan 07 PointBreakz Sessionz began hosting a new weekly radio show on www.Breaks.fm and has been live broadcasting many other club nights like CityBreaks & Sunrise for the Armchair Clubbing Series,and May 07 saw the launch of the Breakz'n'Bitches night
