I'm a record-digger and occasional DJ with the extended Vox Pop family in Manchester. My main interest is in turning up new old records - I'm really into the concept of discovery and all the politics that go along with it. The world is littered with suppressed and overlooked genius and sometimes archaeology is the tool that helps us remember this fact.
I've been collecting records since about as long as I can remember, which is kind of weird because I'm certainly not an urban sophisticate by background. I grew up in a tiny backwater village in South West Scotland where my nearest neighbour was a psychotic copper who lived a quarter of a mile up the road and whose wife and kid used to come and stay with us whenever Celtic won the Old Firm derby. The only shop in the village was a Post Office run by a friendly septuagenarian with enormous earlobes and jowls that sagged like a bloodhound, and my school had only around 30 pupils in total at any one time.
To be honest I blame it all on my Dad. It was in his modest record collection that I found Little Richard’s ‘Baby Face’ 45 when I was young enough not to have even thought about knowing better. Since then I have bought records with a fury, beginning with 50s & 60s Rock n Roll, moving on to guitar music, especially punk, New Wave and 80s indie, then for the last 15 years I’ve bought mainly funk and soul 45s despite excursions into MoWax-style beats and Hardcore/Jungle in the early 90s. I have worked for companies like Beatin Rhythm and BabyT Records, during which time I sold beats, breaks and other funk cuts to top DJs, Hip Hop producers, collectors and other music types. I DJ'ed with Shadow and Cut Chemist at the Manchester leg of the Product Placement tour a few years back and still keep my hand in the music scene despite now having grown up and got a proper job as a lecturer at Manchester University.
Nowadays I read a lot and write (I have a new book out), I collect strange antiques, support Liverpool FC (which always goes down well in Manc), I look after my beautiful kiddo Niamh at weekends and try to get out as much as I can and meet people who are into music, or who are just plain interesting.
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