I started DJ’ing in the mid 80’s. I was growing up in London, listening to people like Steve Devonne on Radio Invicta, Mastermind (Max, Dave and Herbie) and Westwood on LWR all playing hip-hop and electro so I taught myself to mix on a pair of very dodgy belt drive turntables and a cheap mixer that I picked up from Tandy’s in Walthamstow High Street.

Things just grew from there. In the beginning it was just mix tapes for people I knew but I teamed up with a friend from School (Brian Norman who later went on to run Fresh and Funky and various other nights in the West End) and we got a few spots in pubs and clubs around East London as well as residency in Club Yo! in the West End.
I got into radio in around ’89. I’d always wanted to start my own station and had sent demo tapes in to Kiss when it was a pirate, Centreforce and a couple of others. My demo was played on Centreforce one night when they had issues at the studio but that’s as far as that got, until Dance FM came along.

I was friends with Chris Energy and he hooked me up at Dance FM. I spent a good year, maybe 18 months on there before the DTI cracked down so hard that we couldn’t carry on.

As well as the radio, I ran a few raves in the local area. We had a good few weekends at an old metalworking factory opposite the Antelope in Church Road, Leyton as well as the Storm Seal warehouse on the North Circular.

I played Mr B’s on the north circular as well, the White Swan in Wood Street Walthamstow, plus a few other venues, and some of the notorious flat parties on the Boundary Road Estate.

Things fizzled out a little around 1993, my kids arrived in ’92 and ’93 and I needed a regular income so I concentrated on work.

Despite not DJ’ing at this time, I had invested some of my income from that time into a 16 track recording studio at my house in Farmilo Road, working on recording with Dave Dyer. We didn’t have a lot of success but we had meetings with a few labels including London Records. We also went to talk to Andy at Labello Blanco when they were based at PWL in Borough High Street.

No-one took us on though. I like to think that we were ahead of our time and they just weren’t ready for us yet. Some of those tracks recorded 30 years or so ago may be resurfacing soon. Watch this space 🙂

In the late 90’s, my circumstances changed and I got the radio bug again.
I called up my old friend from my Dance FM days, DJ EZ, and he introduced me to Dappa at Freek FM and I started to play on there.

I played for a year or so, but despite my best efforts, I couldn’t get any club work and was just spending all my money on records.

In 2000, circumstances changed again and I packed up my decks for good.

Apart from playing very occasionally for friends, I didn’t return to DJ’ing really until 2020. I was asked to put some music together for a friend’s wedding in Marbella in 2018. It was all vinyl then, I still hadn’t got the digital bug, but putting some recorded sets together was fun. I played at home just for fun and eventually got myself into digital. First with traktor, still using vinyl controllers and eventually getting myself a Pioneer DJ XDJ-XZ. In 2020, I got in touch with Mad B at Friends FM, who I sort of knew from back in the day, and asked if I could put something together for the station. It was just pre-recorded sets at the time so I sent one over, then a few more and when it came time for the station to go live, I was involved in the test broadcasts. I was the first DJ to successfully connect and go live, although there were still a few bugs to work out, and it has just grown from there.

I live in Milton Keynes now and it’s not easy to get DJ work up here, and being locked down, on and off, for 2 years didn’t help, but London is only an hour or so away. There are a few gigs on the horizon, keep in touch with what I’m up to through my socials, you can find them at www.linktr.ee/jtsmk