Shotz

Its me

DJ, promoter, partner in Radical Beats & PlanetDnB brands, fixer n mender, hurdy gurdy player, part time lesbian, hit man and general layabout from east London

A STORY or THE STORY:

It all began when I was abducted during the Falklands war and taken to a secret government laboratory, where I was forced to listen to the repeated sound of mice being smashed with a wooden mallet. This took its toll psychologically and over time I found that I was unable to listen to any type of conventional music without getting an urge to strip naked and run through the street shouting "STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO!"

After spending 6 years recovering in a Thai monestary and refusing both food, water and air for most of that time, I managed to purge myself with the use of daily floggings, petrol enemas and rubbing lemonade into my earlobes. It wasnt untill late in 1989 that I discovered the medicinal benefits of electronic music. Acid house, of course being the forerunner of this genre, I found made my teeth turn powdery. This was ok for a while as I managed to sell most of the powdered teeth as cocaine to a group of gypsies I knew that lived on the A12 near Colchester. In the early 90s a new sound called jungle emerged and this was great for a long time. I used to go to darkened rooms full of like minded individuals and pull faces and sweat all night, sometimes for more than 16 hours at a time.

However, in the mid 90s 2 things happened:

1 - I was cornered in one of these darkened rooms by a group of 4 seriously pissed off gypsies demanding their money back, and
2 - I heard of something called drum and bass.

Anyway, to make a short story even longer, I started going to similar darkened rooms that were playing this "drum and bass" music and they seemed relatively gypsie free. So I stayed. And the rest, as they say, is a mystery...

ALTERNATIVE VERSION:

It all began in the mid eighties as a teen listening to tapes of acid sets, through the acid house and old skool hardcore era listening to artists like Phuture , Fast Eddie , Altern8 , 808 State , Mark Imperial , Bam Bam and loads more.

I got my first taste of raving on the 24th October 1992 - it was Raven 7 @ Colchester Uni and I vividly remember the sweat raining off of the ceiling (more than I've ever seen since - I think they have different laws about aircon etc than they did in the early 90s) and all these people coming up to me and shaking my hand, giving me hugs, telling their girlfriends to rub vicks vapour rub on my back and face - it was great!!

Then something new happened, it was jungle. Artists like Phantasy , LTJ Bukem , Aphrodite , Grooverider , DJ Hype , Andy C , Ed Rush and Zinc were making music that was defining a genre. This was around 92/93 and everyone I knew, including me, had got jungle fever!! The music got under your skin - and it stayed there.

Through the 90s I watched the music progress and drum and bass came into existence and the scene grew into a thriving industry. In the late 90s I began promoting small DnB nites in and around Essex but this fizzled out as I had family and work commitments. These also put the kaybosh on my raving activities for a couple of years.

Shortly after this I began putting nights on again and with the help of Unix , Andy and MRD, I was putting on a DnB night every month and House, Garage & Hip Hop nights throughout the rest of the month. These worked well but the club I was using changed hands and DnB was no longer welcome there.

Then I moved to London new years eve 2005/06 and shortly after started work with Unix and KT on Radical Beats based at a club in Ipswich called Zest . This ran really well for about a year and we had a big night arranged for Boxing Day. But 2 weeks before the night the club got closed down due to some aggro from a funky house nite. We had to make a decision whether to move the night to another venue or cancel it - we took a gamble and moved it to the Mass in Brixton . the 2 weeks leading up to that night was possibly the most stressful I've ever had. Sticking stickers on the 10000 flyers that we managed to get back was not heavy !!. But it paid off and the night was a success and we stayed based in London .

Also around this time I took over the day to day running of PlanetDnB and brought about significant changes including 24/7 radio &, PDnB TV , I also brought in a lot of new artists from Europe the States and Canada expanding our links overseas.

Since the middle of 2006 we had been working on launching our label and around Jan 2007 we were pretty much ready to release RB001 . Also at this time we joined forces with MC Fearless and since then we have gone from strength to strength.

With a bit of luck and lots of hard work 2008 could turn out to be ok...

For more info check
www.radicalbeats.co.uk
www.planetdnb.com