The Dance Period

During the early 90's I started working part time for Loot the ads paper. The staff there were made up of young students, musicians and future artists. I met some great people there and ended up out and about a lot of the time. I started to get an interest in dance music at the time due to going to an Orbital gig at The Academy which blew me away. I was just starting to write at the time and was doing live reviews, interviews and basically loving the scene. During this time there was no internet so you had to get some kind of portfolio together to get into venues and prove you were not a blagger. I was writing the music review column for The Middleton Guardian, a dance magazine called Sweat and a Manchester arts magazine called Metropolis. I was quite lucky from the Fruit Tumor days to have quite a few connections in the music biz. My best one was Johnny Fairbanks (aka DJ Semtex). I went to school with his brother and at the time I was in my Hip Hop phase. Me and Andy used to be scratching on the decks and Johnny would always mither us to have a go (it paid off big time!) He was working as PR for Sony records and secured me an interview with De La Soul before their gig at The Nia Centre in Hulme. My first interview ever was held at Sankeys where I interviewed Justin Robertson from Lionrock (a great lost Manc band with MC Buzz B).

 This lead on to interviews with Death In Vegas,

 A Guy Called Gerald who released probably the best drum n bass album of all time,

 The Verve to name a few. I've found a few old articles which I'm shocked as I didn't realise my writing was actually good. I promoted a few new DJ's I liked with articles in my Class Of 1997 piece such as Perfect Combination (Jimbo). He wrote some excellent drum-n-bass tunes in his studio which was in an office block behind a pub called The Beer House on the outskirts of Shudehill. I used to sit on his couch under a cloud of ganja smoke on many occasions! Would love to track him down now. He's probably still on the scene DJing somewhere. I did pieces at Sankeys like Carl Cox, Carl Craig, Ninja Tunes vs Fat City Records, Daft Punk before people had really heard about them. I interviewed Bukem & Grooverider on my birthday at The Hacienda which coincided with The Hac's birthday! I was getting quite well known in dance circles and had a permanent guest list at The Hac and Sankeys for my troubles! I can't remember the reason for stopping other than I needed a full time job and just drifted out of it. It did me a favour really because I never got paid for doing it. I just got shit loads of free records and din't have to pay to see any band I wanted. I was and never will be in it to become a wannabe friend of the stars and if you have been reading regularly you will know this is all about the music and how I got to the point of writing this blog. I could tell you loads more but I won't bore you!