I am Bristol, UK born & my passion is my family, friends and music. I'm a self-confessed vinyl junkie and have been collecting/dj'ing/enjoying great music for over 30 years. I currently play the first Saturday of every month at one of my favourite venues The Park Bar in Clifton, Bristol and bi-monthly Saturday's (see my blog for forthcoming dates) at Soul Fusion in Cheltenham which is a fantastic 3 room soul music venue. I love to guest at new venues that have a passion for good music, Modern & Connoiseur Soul, Nu Jazz, Soulful House, Funk, Latin, Rare Groove etc.
After leaving Ridings High School in Winterbourne, I trained as a Mechanical Enginner at Rolls Royce for two years before leaving the UK to live in Estepona on the Costa Del Sol where my parents had bought a bar in the port. We had a fantastic two years there before returning to the UK & Bristol in 1985. I had already been collecting boogie and electro for a couple of years and getting into mixing inspired by listening to Wild Bunch mix tapes, reading James Hamilton in Record Mirror, Froggy and taped shows from New York's Kiss FM & W.B.L.S. I got heavily into pirate radio, the first being B.A.D. Radio in Bristol ran by the Soul Twins (hi Leroy & Delroy!) where I presented a Sunday Soul show, then later S.P.E.C. F.M. Good friend Paul Morrisey who circulated with London's Soul Mafia DJ's (Oakenfold, Holloway, Rampling etc.) opened his Sanbourne's club on Prince Street, Bristol where I joined him as resident DJ warming up for big guests such as Chris Hill & Trevor Fung. This was the time for Washington DC's Go Go sound (a favourite of regular Nick Touchband), will there ever be a revival? Paul, Vince Thomas & myself also played a few other pubs and clubs around this time (The Coloseum, The Hatchet & Vadims) and for a while Paul and I went under the name of the "Rubble Brothers" inspired by the Flinstones (which one of us was Barney?). Now I was working for Time Is Right records based in London's Chapel Market, N1, running their Bristol store for ten years before opening my own bangbang which thrived for a further ten until closing it's doors in August 2006.I started work at Time Is Right in the mid-80's, an exciting time for Rare Groove sounds and the newly developing house music scene. After a two week buying trip to the U.S.A. my collection was swelling with lots of interesting & sought-after LP's of the day such as Tommy Stewart, Karin Jones etc. I continued purchasing soulful sounds, lots of 2 Step inspired by Pirate radio shows and trips to Caister & Southport or 'Upfront 8' as they used to call it back then. Southport also inspired me to delve further into soul music and more importantly opended the door to a whole new scene, Modern Soul. At this time I held a residency at "Players" in Bath (now Po Na Na) with Paul Dudbridge & Vince Thomas (RIP). It was the an amazing 5 years and we had an across the board music policy playing Rare Groove, Funk, Soul, Jazz, New Jersey Garage, Balearic and Acid House! Lot's of bandanas and smiley face T-shirts mixed with Flare Groove style cool was the order of the day. We promoted ourselves as the Fat City DJ's and went on to lots of other great gigs in and around Bath. Vince was a good friend who is sadly missed. Apart from being a great guy he had every single Cal Tjader album, over 80 I believe! I'm sure he's spinning these on rotation in a better place.The house music scene was getting stronger & dominitating dancefloors so bangbang concentrated on selling upfront house sounds and I found myself spinning mostly this style of music in club land and landing a resideny at Bristol's infamous Lakota club & Swindon's Brunel rooms playing alongside lot's of guests from the UK & U.S.A. (Sasha, Mike Pickering, John Kelly, Judge Jules (a funkier house DJ at the time), Tony Humphries, John Digweed (before his Sasha connections), Jeremy Healey, Boy George, Mike Pickering, Dave Seamen, Danny Rampling) for One Love, whom I remained resident DJ for nine years. International trips quickly followed with guest spots in San Francisco, Norway & Germany. The Rock club opened in Bristol and I became resident alongside Nick Warren hosting the world's biggest DJ's. I warmed up for Deep Dish, Paul Oakenfold and countless others, very happy memories. During these years I continued to enjoy & collect Soul music although there was no scene in Bristol to express this so this sadly took a back seat for the time being.I am pleased to say that I am firmly back in the saddle and promoting soulful sounds via my residencies in Bristol (The Park) & Cheltenham (Soul Fusion) and when the time permits I am thoroughly enjoying Soul/Black music events and the friendly atmosphere and friendship's I have made.
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I DJ at my residency "Hot Buttered Soul", the first Saturday of every Month at The Park bar in Clifton, Bristol with regular wax spinner Alex 'Funky Signalman' Seal. It's owned by old friend James Savage ex-1Love promotor (check out my blog for the next date) and as resident and part of the 'Soulfreedom' collctive in room 3 at Soulfusion in Cheltenham. For DJ bookings please contact me via Myspace - I would love to hear from you.Get Your Own! | View SlideshowCharlie Parker & Coleman Hawkins - Ballade (1950)
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