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Welcome to the show. I'm Scuba. This is Music Not Diving.

Okay, on the show this week, we have someone who has been on our list for literally years. You may be aware that we used to be an audio-only podcast called The Not a Diving Podcast, which ran for 157 episodes. I keep saying this, but it's still true—three years of that show. And Jane Fitz was on our list, I think, at the start, the very first list of guests that we drew up for that show, but for various different reasons, it didn't happen. But that's okay because she's here now, on a full video episode of Music Not Diving. So great to have her on. She is, I think, a DJ's DJ. Right? I hate that term usually, but I think it's true when it comes to her. She is someone who I think just is massively respected and has been respected for a long time now, having broken through, I suppose, relatively late in her career, as she often says in interviews. She did the rounds of playing many, many shows for a good long time, and you know that probably stands you in good stead as a DJ, probably more so than just being parachuted in off the back of some tune you've made or something, for example. Obviously, that never happens. Of course, that never happens. Anyway, as I said, highly respected DJ; everyone loves her. She's also very well respected for throwing some amazing parties, most notably Peg in the 2000s and, over the last 15 years, Night Moves. Now, I've never been to any of these parties, so I'm completely going on hearsay, but people say that they were absolutely amazing. They still kind of do Night Moves; they haven't done one for a while, but it's still essentially live. So we talk about the challenges of putting on parties right now, particularly in London, but also around the world, and you know the state of the scene and the kind of things we normally talk about. But Jane is a pretty cool person, and this is a really great conversation. I think you're going to enjoy it.

So, just before we get into it, a reminder that you can support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/crashcourse. There's a Spotify playlist as well that you can join, again linking the show notes. I think that's it. Is that it? Yeah, it is. So, without further delay, let's head over to the studio and talk to Jane Fitz.

Jane Fitz, welcome to the show.

Hello. How you doing?

I'm all right. Yeah, good. Nice. We've never—never met before. I've just recorded one of these—if I can just draw the curtain back a little bit—I've just recorded one with someone I know really well. Really, it's quite fun, though, I find. Anyway, recording podcasts with people who I've literally—know—strangers.

Yeah, right. Exactly. Le—he didn't pick me up from the street. So that is a—yeah. Well, I've never—but nice to meet you anyway.

Absolutely. So you just come back from Canada? We were just discussing—

Yes. I just got back literally. Um, I was in Montreal for the weekend, so yeah, that was cool. I played for Exposed Noir, and that was a really nice party.

What's that party? I don't know much about it, to be honest. They keep everything very mysterious, and you know, no phones and everything. It's very—yeah, it's very like—and it's super nice production, lovely crew, um, great crowd, good—very good sound. Had a nice Void sound system, nice monitors. Yeah, it was good time. Yeah, but I only played one gig.

Okay. Try and—you were saying, um, off camera, this is the one night of the year or something. They have 24-hour LIC?

Yes. I'm not sure whether it's just in Montreal or whether it's Canada-wide or how it works. I don't know—or Quebec-wide. I don't know. But yeah, they had a night where I think it was called White KN or dark Black Knight or something like that, and they can have—everybody can apply for 24-hour licenses. So there were a bunch of 24-hour parties going on, and I played on the Sunday night.

Good. Do you go over to North America much?

I don't really—I don't—expensive now, is it? It's crazy. I was like quoted like $10,000 for an O/1. Yeah. I play more—I play more in South America actually, and um, yeah, so if I'm going to cross the Atlantic, I'd rather go where the weather's going to be guaranteed good. It's definitely not guaranteed in Canada.

Yeah. Where's good in South America these days? I haven't been down there actually.

Yeah, lots of places. Um, I mean, I—um, I was in a relationship with somebody in Rio for quite—for a few years, so I was going to Rio a lot. And then I've played in São Paulo, which was—I mean, for me, South America is obviously—it's many different countries, but they're all—for me, I see everything is similar in a vibe. So when you go to the party, the party seems to be more about the party than anything else. And that means that when you get there, everybody's in good spirits. So that's a one thing I've noticed from top to bottom really is that there's always this fantastic vibe of people just being locked into the party. So maybe less train-spotty, or I was going to say hanging around—as opposed to the music—as opposed to—yeah—as opposed to people being there purely to see you, right? As it—you know, they might not know who I am or whatever. So, but I do find that people kind of support a party much more than they do it in other places where people support the DJ or the lineup. So yeah, that's my interpretation of the experiences that I've had in—but there's lots of different scenes, you know? Maybe less so in Uruguay; that seems to be a bit more focused and a bit more locked in. But um, yeah, in—in—in other places, it seems to be more about the party, and I like that because people then—they don't have any expectations and they're up for a good time. So—

Right. I mean, this is in common with—with your parties, which I've got down on my long list of notes to talk about. I've got way more notes than I usually have out.

Yeah, yeah, right. But let's—let's not start there. I actually wanted to start because I gave you a list of things—you asked me for a list of things, which is—which I normally do actually, but in this case, making an exception—what I was going to ask you about the term "underground," because in a previous interview of yours—or normally I prepare for these by just reading past interviews—and you talked about the term "underground" and how it was possibly a bit out of date and sort of irrelevant now. I've asked people this before, and people struggle to define "underground" as a thing anyway. So what—what is it? What does it mean to you anyway? Or what did it mean to you when it was a thing?

Well, you know, you can't look at "underground" without looking at "overground," so you have to find the ground, wherever that is. And I think for many, many years, the ground and what was under it was always to do with what was um, visible, you know? Because everything underground—you can't see, you know? So that's like the real literal turn of "under." So I would say it's all the stuff you can't see still, but what is that? Because nowadays you can see everything, right? You know, everything is broadcastable within seconds, and everything is recordable within seconds. So for something to be underground and not seen but still existing is so much harder. So that, for me—it's—there are scenes that are existing, coexisting in the—in the world without that kind of exposure or without being seen, but it's so much harder to find now and so much harder to—I don't know—even if you're intending to stay underground, for people to not just turn up and start filming you anyway. So I think, you know, and then it's—and then it's out there, and then it's exposed. So yeah, I think it's way harder, and almost—I don't know—is it gone? Is it—is it dead? Possibly. I don't know. It's much, much harder to be underground now, just because purely everything is exposed.

Sure. I mean, this is simultaneously true for music, but also for us—both the culture around it. For anything—underground culture used to be—I mean, you know, if we go back to—to—to 70s, '80s, '90s, when youth culture really had a boom, things could be underground easily because we didn't have um, the means or the—or the—or the handy media to—to record those things. So things could grow in secret, in, you know, in the dark very easily because people weren't traveling as much; we didn't have cheap airlines; you know, we didn't have the money to do that, or we didn't have the videos to do that, or the internet to do that. All of those things were easily able to grow away in the dark and be underground and maintain some kind of underground feel and exist for years like that. You know, underground scenes could exist for years. Now it's impossible.

Sure. So, you know, if anybody is doing something underground, I don't even want to know about it, because you know, that's—that's great if I don't know, because that means they—they're succeeding at being underground.

Sure. Sure. And I suppose like—so what this means is that things previously could develop without a kind of spotlight on them, right? And often—in an extremely positive way, right? Because I mean, if something is in its infancy, and quite often it doesn't need a spotl—it doesn't deserve a spotlight, you know? So what does this mean for music then today? I mean, like, can you—give me your thoughts? We could—we could always say that every person making music in their bedrooms is the underground right now, you know? We could say that if they—if they're not shouting about it or if they're not putting themselves on media or SoundCloud or whatever, you know? If somebody's really just cracking on doing their thing—maybe they've got their friends, and they're doing it too—maybe that's what we call an underground scene now, but it needs—it's a micro—you know, underground is probably now not joined up, you know? So it's probably individual micro-scenes occurring in little places.

That's interesting. Yeah. One of the things we've talked about actually on the—the audio version of the podcast—the previous—of the podcast was um, the way local scenes don't really happen in the same way anymore. MH—I suppose is part of the same sort of thing. And when music styles develop, it's often different people in different places—sing—gen—to each other and know—communicating online. But there is a—that's a slightly different relationship, isn't it?

Yeah. I mean, look, because of technology and just progress in—in—in—in the way things happen, for example, I mentioned like flights being cheaper and more accessible for people, you know, nothing is ever going to be like it was. So we have to deal—underground has to become something else and be appropriate as a term for something in—in today's society. So—um, I know that there—you could maybe call a global scene where—and I know this because I experienced it—DJs in—I don't know—the other side of the world and this part of the world and another part of the world, and they all join up, and maybe they see each other once a year at a festival somewhere or something, you know? Maybe that creates an underground scene, and it's underground because—yeah, it's not getting as much shine or as much hype as other scenes, or they're just not shouting about it, like maybe other scenes are. So yeah, you could call that the global—you know, a global underground now, or an underground—but yeah, we're kind of limited by—um—the fact that—yeah, everybody has access to broadcasting from, you know, their own bed, you know? You—you can—you can literally lay in bed with your laptop, make music and broadcast it, and you know—and have a—and have a following from without getting up. So all of th—all because of that, you have to work within what you've got. But yeah, I think it's possible there's—you know, there's lots of people that I know who refuse to be on social media, so they're not putting their output or any of their creativity in a kind of broadcast way, in a globally broadcast way that somebody just could find, you know? Um, they don't even have to shout about it, but if you're not putting something on social media, how's somebody going to find you now? That's a way to—that's the only way to stay underground is to not be on social media.

Yeah. Not shout, not film. But of course, other people will film you, and other people will—

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. No, I mean—keep the underground to yourself now.

Totally. Totally. I mean, I was listening to your appearance on um, the DJ History Podcast with Bill—Bill's been on this show too—um, I was fascinated by your discussion of um, obscure Italian deep house records, which—well, I thought I knew—knew a bit about deep house, but I didn't know any of those tunes. And you know that—that developed in—in such a—yeah—I mean, an underground way, but—but in a way which was underground unsold by outside tension, right? And is—is—is that spotlight inherently um, corrupting, if I can put it like that? Is it—is it necessarily bad, do you think?

No, I don't think so. I mean, you know, I mean, if you wanted to be—I—I just think it's faster. I just think it's sped everything up, you know? If you wanted to be a punk in 1975, 1976, and then you heard about it through standard media, which was available then, which is the newspaper or the pop charts or radio, maybe you would—maybe find that out a year later or whatever, and then you wanted to be part of that underground and do your own scene and start your own scene. And that's how things happened in, you know, Germany or Chile or wherever you were in the world. Things just took longer to filter through. So it's the same process of finding stuff out, but it just takes—it's just really instant now. That's the thing. It's not—you know, even how I developed as a DJ without anybody knowing who I was for years. I was able to do it because I didn't have to shout; there was no media to shout on, you know? So it was easy to kind of do everything secretly or underground and people not know about you because there was nothing to—and I had no desire to shout about myself. So it—it was—was easy to do that, and now it's almost impossible to do that.

Well, I think people—certain people are able to—not become famous DJs.

Yeah, of course, it's a slight different thing, though, isn't it? Yeah, because—um—what—the—the scene that people are operating in now—yeah—is—is just—it's completely different in—in nature. But I suppose there must be people now—there must be talented young DJs who aren't at all known by anyone who are developing a style.

I hope so. I hope so. To—this is a—yeah, I'm putting a kind of like—um—yeah, a positive—um—spin on this, but you would—I mean, that must be happening, right? Because there—just because of the fact there were so many people—do—I mean, that, for me, that's—you know, like you just mentioned Italy—I mean, those things developed not because people wanted to be famous, but because they wanted to have a great time. And so people—there was a whole movement across Tuscany at that time, you know, in the early '90s, of different towns, you know, from the coast—from Livorno and—Port Ercole to—to Florence to—I don't know—further—further south going towards Umbria or whatever—that you had different areas where people would meet and go to a club, and then—"Oh, I hear this DJ"— "Oh, these DJs are from here"— "Okay, we're friends, right? We're going to make tapes"— "You buy the tapes here"— "Okay, then we start making the records." You know, those scenes just naturally developed because people wanted to have a good time, and they loved music, and you—and you know—this is a time—and unfortunately, I don't feel this is the time now—but people's relationships with music was much—was much um, undisturbed, you know? You had music—you had—that was your—that was your love for it, and you found every way you can to interact with it, whereas now music doesn't tend to be the focus for a lot of things; it t—it's almost like the background, you know? It's—it's—it's less of the drive, you know? So this is the—at—at that time, the needs of the people and needs of the youth and what was available to them created these scenes, and they were created naturally by a need to find your tribe, find your like-minded musical cohorts or whatever. And that's how it—and that's how it grew, whereas now I think people have so much more choice that that narrative can't almost exist for everybody because, you know, if—if your only medium for getting music was on records or hearing it was in a club or on the radio or in, you know, in the car or whatever, then everybody had the same path, right? So you either chose music or you didn't, whereas now you have so many different ways to get into things—gaming, videos, social media, clubs, you know, whatever is your choice—your relationship to music can take so many different directions now. So it's much harder, I think, for people to find the people who feel the same way that you do about something.

Right. We all get to the same point—the interconnectedness of everything.

Yeah. And I think that's why the scenes get diluted because they're not as—you know, they're not—it's not just a straight line anymore. It's not a straight line to music now; there's so many different angles you could be getting it. You don't even—the way that you consume music—there's so many choices—you can buy a record, you can go to Spotify, you can download it, your friend can give you a CD, you know, whatever it is—there's now multiple ways to get to the same point, and obviously those ways are never going to be the same, so it's harder for people to kind of synchronize, I think, right? You know?

Yeah, yeah. Um, I want to come back to Italy. Um, I've—

So do I.

Yeah, exactly. Actually, um, what you said about music being less important absolutely resonates. I've said a number of times on the show recently that music seems to be a prere—a prerequisite still in the music scene, but no longer weirdly the main—the primary focus.

Yeah, which is—is that—it's heartbreaking for me. It's heartbreaking, but it—but you recognize that, of course.

I see it all the time. I mean, but I'm lucky—I—I know that I'm lucky because where I go, I see people who are desperately into music—desperately into collecting music—on digital, vinyl, or however they want to collect it—going to gigs. I get to interact with people who love music, but I see that there's plenty of places or plenty of, you know, ways that people are not interacting with music as their first choice, you know? I see—I—I see videos—just like everybody else—of parties, and no one cares really about—no one's listening, you know? It's all visually stimulated now; everything's about the visual, you know? It's not about—you can't be in a dark room listening to just music because that's almost not enough for people.

Sure. Let me ask you—to what extent has that always been the case? 'Cause there was always some element of that, wasn't there?

Yeah. I mean, there was always a spectacle. I mean, you know, early raves—go around the M25—you'd always have your bouncy castles and all these kind of, you know, like—um—um, bumper cars and all that stuff. So yeah, there's always been stuff to—to keep you occupied in other ways. I mean, when The Ministry started, there was a cinema in one room, you know? So there—there's always been this kind of other element, but a—a club is not a rock show; it's a club, you know? It's a dark room. And I think obviously this is—I think all of this is a—to say this is—is—um—you could chart it with the rise of festivals, which are daytime—which are much more visual—which is—all about—at night, it's all about—night—the light and how it looks and everything. So people have developed—um—a vocabulary and an understanding of the language of visuals being there with the music. And so for some people, once they've learned that language, they are choosing that language more—so they want to be visually stimulated, whereas, you know, I'm in my 50s—when I was going out, there was no visual stimulation; it was just a dark—you went to a club, you know? And that—and that was it. So yeah, things have just evolved, and now—as with everything else—there's just way more choice. So people—like I say—they haven't got this pure kind of artery between music and—and the heart anymore; it comes from so many different ways. So yeah, I mean, for me, it's really upsetting because I only ever went out—when I first started going out, it was like 15, which was 1988, I think. I was 15, so I started going out.

Yeah. But I didn't go to any raves 'cause I was too young, you know? That—I was still too young then, but I did go to parties where—where those DJs were playing for like younger people—kind of—so I went to those things.

Oh, under-18s raves really?

Yeah. There were loads where I lived.

Okay. Yeah. Dave—Dave Clark told me about going to under-18—under-18s were—like for me, that was the—would be like Wednesday night in Romford, the Monday night in Dagenham. It was like—you from Essex then?

Really? From Barking.

So yeah, so Barking. My very first rave, if you like, was an under-18s rave on a Monday night in the back of a pub called The Robin Hood, which—which is now a little—in—in Dagenham. And the DJs playing there were like the guys who were playing at Rain Dance or whatever—LD or something—I—I don't remember, but I know that they would—like—they would do that on a Monday. So—and it would just be full of 15-year-olds going crazy, you know? So that—that—in fact, that started before acid house, so maybe it was '87, you know? Because maybe I was 14, because I remember the music changing when I first started going out. It was mainly—so rare groove that—and bit of early hip hop and stuff. So yeah, that—then it kind of changed. So I saw that all come in. But yeah, for me, music—that's why I was out. I wasn't out to meet people; I wasn't out to socialize; I definitely wasn't doing drugs at 14 because no one had heard of any—you know, other than a bit of puffer—no one had heard of any drugs in—so I was only out for the music, and that's—was always my—my drive—the thing that got me out of the house was I wanted to hear music. So, as somebody who comes from that—um—that direction, I do find it heartbreaking, but I'm just being nostalgic maybe—I don't—maybe—I mean, do you think that's—um—the current generation of young people—that sounds terrible—you know, I mean—people who are—

Yeah, exactly. Do you think they're intimidated by—places—dark rooms? I mean, there's al—always talk about like you kids being, you know, you plagued by anxiety and mental health problems, and—and actually my—my—um—memories of—of going to clubs for the first time was that they're quite intimidating places, right? They could be quite—you know—I certainly remember going to—the early jungle raves that I went to—you know, frankly terrifying. But like you—

Get you get used to it, and that's kind of like part of the fun, right? Do you think there is something to that? Do you think I? I honestly don't know because, you know, I have a guy who works for me; he's 25, so I guess he's not even that young anymore, you know, so um, but I know he's crew, and they love to party. And for me, I see them as like a bit as like a little crew of hope because I can see that they're all into records. They go out because they want to be with their mates, number one; they just want to have a party and stuff. So I know that there's a purity there and exactly the kind of motivations that I had at that age of wanting to go out, get high, go and see my friends, listen to music, play my records at home at an afters or whatever, you know. They're living the life that I lived, so I know that there's some kind of authenticity there. But um, I know for some people that that just doesn't happen, and I don't know why, but I don't I I'm not that connected to 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds. I don't know, really. I don't have kids, so I don't, you know, I really don't know. Um, so I I just kind of feel I would hope that the people who love music that it still means a lot for them.

And another thing is, you know, when I was growing up, the Indie scene was really massive, okay? So I went to just as many gigs as I did clubs, um, and go and see bands. And I always saw much more kind of passion with the people who came via Rock, you know, and the people who came via Indie. And and you could see that because kids were way more tribal in what they had their, you know, what they wore, how their hair was cut, you know, what albums they would have, be coming out a plastic bag, being identified with being a fan of a band is much more of a thing, right? And that was never the case when you a fan, but that was always about, you know, that's definitely music driven, and I, you know, I don't go to see that that kind of music anymore. I go to concerts, but I don't go to smashing Indie bands anymore, you know, like mhing or whatever. And so I I'm pretty sure that students or whoever is the the the um the demographic for that, they are probably still going for the music, I doubt, right? But I don't I don't know. I I mean, yeah, I mean you mentioned um, you know, a a club isn't a rock show, a r isn't a rock show primarily. I mean that you you referring I think to the the visual side of it there, well, just for the whole spectacle, sure. But I mean the the other difference is that when you go to a rock show, you'll pay and see a band, right? You pay and see a very specific act. And I think one of the other things which has happened is that that has been that has seeped into dance music quite a lot. I mean, I saw dbs1 do an interview about this, and he was saying exactly the same thing that because of festivals, it because DJs started appearing at festivals, they had to start appearing like they were a band because they were, yeah, but also because that was the technical side of it, you know. If you're in a if you're at a festival, you can't put a DJ in a corner where no one can sees them; they're going to be like, what, you know, where is the? So there's an element of staging that has then seeped through.

I get upset if I go to a club and and they've put me on a stage that I I go ballistic to be honest; I really I say please don't do it because I don't want people looking at my nose when I'm DJing, do you know what I mean? It's like that's that's what's the joy in seeing a 50-year-old woman mixing, looking up a no like that? It's it's not table; it's no fun, is it? Stick me on the floor, please; stick me in front of the stage, so it's not I mean as much else; it's not a good spectacle like, you know, if if you want to create a spectacle, that's yeah, yeah. I'm not a I'm not a fan of any kind of spectacle when it comes to DJing. I don't mind, you know, I really really kind of am envious; I have my own sort of nostalgic envy towards being able, you know, for Larry lean being able to play really really high up in the gods at the garage and just be able to see the entire floor, but no one could see him, you know. That in a way is is almost yeah, that you know, that taking. I never liked being in that situation though. I mean, as a DJ, I played a few clubs um which are like that; there was actually I can't remember the name of it; there there was a club in New York which opened must have been about 15 years ago, and they they specifically tried to do that, and you're right up in the gods, and and actually I found like I want to be I want to on floor level; that's where I want to be; that's the idea.

It's always very fascinated to think you to be able to see a dance floor and to command a dance floor from that high up is actually that's a dream because no one's looking for the DJ then. Well, that's well that's true, yeah, yeah. And I like that, and you can see you can watch everybody; that's the platonic ideal of the um DJ. I once DJed I once DJed for World Unknown in um in a in the basement of a pub in Camberwell, I think it was, and I was in a different room to the dance floor, literally in a different room; I had to keep; there was like a curtain, and I had to come out poke my head up to see what, and actually there was a little bit of a corridor as well, so I had to go around, and I just get I did it once; I was like, no. So I literally played to a wall, and but I could hear the party, so that's the most extreme, and that was pretty good, you know, right? Okay, um, so let's let's go back to the start, so you're from Barking? I'm from Barking. What was growing up in Barking like? Pretty grim? B it was fine. I mean, it's like a suburb of London, so it's on the tube, you know; it's not particularly um it's not it's not particularly uh inspiring a place, but it's it's a it was fine. It has its ghetto parts, and it has its nice parts, and yeah, the the thing about growing up there which I realized was was that I had London on my doorstep, so I get on a tube, one stop, I'm in E6 East, so then I can be into town, so it it wasn't long before I discovered the tube and going into town, and then and for me going into town was going to I don't know, go to Soho or whatever, and then I went to University in Soho, so um I what was the first music you got into? Like, first me? Soul, uh, rare Groove, Funk, Boogie, uh, primarily Boogie, I think, just from Pirate Radio and from my brother, my older brother um playing. My brother's 12 years older than me, so he would have okay music in the house; that's different, yeah. So I heard lot I heard lots of different things from soft rock and heavy metal to a lot of Bo and Queen, and then a lot of things like Chic and what kind of heavy metal? Sorry, this is a topic I mention. Well, he was a bit more well, he used to like Sabbath, and he used to like things, but he was more into things like Rainbow and Rush and Sticks and all these kind of sort of bit more s Rocky kind of things, but that's what that's but also Judith Priest and things, so that's what I would hear in the house, so I'd hear I'd hear metal and rock, and then I'd hear a bit of Reggae, like very accessible kind of third-world kind of Reggae, and then yeah, then lots of Soul, um, Earth of Fire, Stevie Wonder, uh, Frea P, you know, all this this was what I remember him buying and stuff, so yeah. And then on the radio, then that's what I what I heard listening to I don't know, Robbie Vincent, um, Pet Young, who else? Tony Monson, all these PE these were the gram gold when he was on um solar; these were all the things that I heard a lot. And at that point in my life, I'd say as a kid, I was bullied quite a lot when I was in my my say my early teens CU I went to a school cuz I was out of the burrow, so immediately you're like you're different, you know, you don't sound like us, so um that was my thing was I would just go and hide in my records and sit upstairs retuning to Pirate radio every night of the week; I would do that, so that's how I learned about music, and then I got did you play anything? Playing instruments? Ring? Uh, I did actually; I played double bass when I was at school, really, yeah. Good instr school, wow. And the recorder, obviously, the classic um, dou bases are enormous, yeah, yeah. When you had to go and do a concert, my dad would always be compl I've God bring that bloody thing; how am I going to get that in the car? And so yeah, that I did that for a while, um, uh, but yeah, I started, you know, I was playing; I had a I had access to my dad's uh music center shops music center, and I was already making tapes when I was like 10, 11, just taping things off the radio and trying to make compilations for myself, so um I was buying records from the age of 10, so I started buying at 10, and that was pocket money once a week down to Simons, which was um like a a I guess a pound shop kind of vibe, but it had a concession in the corner where they used to sell records, and it there was some good records in there, so then a record shop called Record Parlor opened in Barking, and I used to go there once a week, pay my £3.49 for my 12 in that I could just about afford for my fiver pocket running, and I did that for, you know, forever. Do you remember what well what was the F what's the first record you remember buying? First record I bought was The Sun Goes Down by Level 42, okay. It's on a 7 in. First 12 in I bought which I remember as well was Penny Ford, Dangerous. So there you go, underground input Boogie record from the from the West Coast, I think, okay. Um, so yeah, that's what I by that point by 11 years old I was already listening to lots of lots of uh music on the radio and, you know, every morning was obviously not when you at school, but every morning was Robbie Vincent, and he would he had a chat show on Radio London, and he used to play loads of sort of Sol and stuff, and at the weekends him and Greg Edward play loads of stuff on Capital and Radio London, so that was my that was my um my my teaching.

I've had a couple of good conversations recently with people who are lifelong record collectors, notably Mr G actually, who I think he's got he said at one point he had 70,000 records, which seems like a just a ridiculously large number, but but I believe your figure is about your fig about 12,000; that's what I've read anyway. Okay, so I actually don't know, and also as long as I've had records, I've sold records, right? So I always get rid of things if I don't play it anymore, I don't like it anymore; I never hold on to things, and I've probably sold at least, judging by what my Discord says that I've sold, and I know how many people have come around and dug and all that kind of stuff, so I've sold at least 10,000 records in the past 15 years, just just selling, but I've probably got I've got 12,000 records, almost 12,000 records cataloged on my discords, but there's plenty of stuff I never I started cataloging in 2010; every time I bought a record, I added it and went back and added a few things, so I started doing it then, but prior to that I I wasn't adding my collection, so there's loads of gaps; there's still gaps, so I'm guess there's at least two or three th000 records I haven't added. Has there ever been a period where you haven't been buying records? Maybe a little bit when I lived in Hong Kong, okay. And again, I think I there was a point in the early '90s where I got really into CDs and bought tons of CDs, um, so there was a but I was still buying records, but I don't I don't recall there was I was buying different things on CD to what I was buying on records; I was still buying 12s, um, but at that point I wasn't like I'm deejaying, you know, like that was my question; this is the this is the 80s, you know, so it wasn't like oh, I'm going to be a DJ cuz that kind of thing didn't even exist as house even happened, you know, so I was buying records like most people of my age were doing because we like the records, you know, there that's what you did, records, um, so I was accumulating, if you like, um, yeah, I was I was always buying records when I wasn't buying records, so yeah, maybe a period in the early in the mid-80s when I was in my teens and then when I lived in Hong Kong; I was still buying records, but it was harder to buy records because there was kind of a lack of record shops, but I still managed to buy records, or I'd come back; I went to New York and bought a load of records, went to England and bought a load of records during that time; that's when I really started DJing, so so the question was going to be since you've been playing out regularly, have you exclusively bought records to play? Yeah, I buy I mean, I buy I think this is why I have this turnover; I always have this turnover because I do sometimes buy things to play, and then after maybe a year, I'm like, I don't really want to play that anymore, so then, you know, I don't have that emotional connection to a record, but mostly I'm buying it because I love it, and you know, I never stopped buying records because I just didn't see the point, you know; never it never occurred to me to to go to another format, so right, it just just never did, and then when it did occur to me, I was like, it's a bit late, you know, it's a bit I've got way too much to upload now, so [ __ ] it, I'll just carry on.

Can you pin down what's so great about vinyl? I don't know; I just I there's something for me; there was like I had different if I think back to when I first started buying records and my personal attachment to a record, so say it say I'm years old; I've just got the tube into town; I've gone around the record shops at the time; it would have been probably Soul Jazz um that used to be on in guest repl before it moved to Sounds of the Universe um where else did I go? Let me see, maybe just re CL and and the Video Exchange; those those were my spots really when I was really young and first buying records and didn't have much money, and I would just I remember just getting like coming home on the tube or on the bus if I got the 15 or whatever, all got the tube having my record, looking at my record; that's all my money for the week's gone into that, reading the cover, reading everything on that record, you know, taking it apart, reading all the book all all the all the um lyrics, all the song whatever, and that part of me that interest is still there, you know; I still get that same BL one, especially if a record's sealed; open it, you know, so good; it's just such just amazing when you pop that it on your leg, pop it; that to me it never goes, and I'm I'm really happy that I still get the same buzz from that; I'm sure some people get that from opening a Cream Egg or something, you know, like the same thing, you know, but for me it's like opening a record; it's like wow; it's still really exciting. And then the fact that I've got to my age, so 40-odd years of buying records, and I still feel like that means it's never going to go away, you know, so why would I stop? Obviously, you have different arguments now about records, but now I buy so many; I do buy new records now, but I find it harder to find things for my sound, although I still commit to buying new records, um, but now I'm buying old records, so even that thing of like oh, you shouldn't buy records because it's, you know, it's for the environment; it's really bad; it's like well, I'm just recycling because I'm just buying old, you know, so so most of the records I buy are old now, but I I yeah, I don't think let me ask you about that, um, because obviously yeah, lots of music doesn't come out on V anymore; is how frustrating is that? And because do do you just play do you ever play? I've never played dig; I I I've tried, but I can't get into a flow like I I remember about eight years ago or seven years ago; I went to Australia, and I had a I really was like I can't take a massive record bag, and I had some really long sets; I was like, I'm going to make it special to play some digital, and that was probably the only time I ever did it, but subsequently I just rarely do it, even though I still get sent music or whatever; I just find it much easier with a record bag, and I think I get booked for places where people don't expect me to do anything else, so sure. Finally, you know, finally, well, it's become a thing now almost, hasn't it? It's almost like I'm a vinyl-only DJ, which I I I mean, I would never say that about I know you I know you would, but people think I also have this thing; it's like you can only be a DJ if you play discs, right? That's so everybody else is a US BJ; they're not; that's technically true, yes, and that's fine, you know; I'm not saying that is better than the other, but they are different, and you should look at them as different things, you know; it's like whether you're if you're a tennis player and you're and you're a t ping pong player, yeah, it's kind of the same, but it isn't the same; you're using different stuff. I know which one you're saying is tennis there and which one is Ping P, and I saw there was something came up on Instagram yesterday, um, I forget who what it was, a DJ I never heard of actually, um, and he was demonstrating how you play a record backward with your finger and how you look at the light, mhm, um, and and there's just like thousands of comments, and people go, wow, dude, just amazing. I mean, I feel like that when I see someone with a CDJ looping [ __ ]; I don't even know how to use a CDJ properly, right? It's more difficult to spend a record back in time with your finger than press a button, yeah, but I do but I feel I feel that, you know, we can coexist; we don't have to be we don't, but they're not the same world, but I think it's fine; I just wish people would stop trying to have arguments about it because it's like one is one is one thing, and one is another; you have all this technology at your fingerprint, great; do what do what you want with your technology and your loops and your whatever you can do with CDJs; I don't know, you know, but that's fine; let's do that, you know, do that world, yeah.

Um, and I love the democratization of music that is given for people who live say in South Africa or, you know, Patagonia or whatever, and they weren't ever able they were never going to buy a record, and it was if they did it was going to be so prohibitively expensive, and now people can get involved and do that, so I think that's fantastic, but for me, it's just not what I want to do; I don't want to stare at a screen when I'm playing music because everything I do, I mean, people see me mixing sometimes; I got my eyes closed, you know what I mean? I'm really not looking at stuff; I'm all about feeling and listening and doing everything with different senses, and that's my senses is touch and here when it comes to music. From a musical perspective though, how frustrating is it that stuff doesn't come out on vinyl? If I don't if it's not if I'm not seeing it, okay, I don't know about it, but the other thing is as well; I mean, it's not that prohibitive because I know plenty of friends of mine who specifically do things like buy CDs, you know, from the '90s or wherever, um, or even get files now from Bandcamp or whatever which are never going to be on vinyl, and they press them; they press them onto du ples, you know; it's like quite a big and a big thing, so if you want to play that format, you can still play that format, you know, and Traktor as well; I mean, I see Andy Seed still plays with yeah with um with discs or whatever, so so he can do it, but he's playing digital, so it's not there's there's just choice; there's so much different choice; you can arrange it how you want, but for me, I'm just very simple, you know, so I'm very much like I am I see it as like I don't know your your CDJ world for me is like having a really fancy car with lots of things that it can do, and I'm still on a bike, you know, and I've got my two wheels; that's it. I mean, almost no one uses anything like the full range of features on those CDJs anyway; I mean, it's like almost, but maybe they do, and if they do, fantastic, but I haven't got a clue what any of those things do; yeah, it's like a flight deck for me; I was like, how do I fly this? I mean, they've it's become more and more complicated, and you know, yeah, yeah, they're weird.

When was your first ever DJ gig? Gosh, I don't define DJ, right? When was the first time you got paid for DJing? You remember that? No, I don't actually, no, because it was around a period when you probably went to the pub and got 50 quid, you know, like I that's that's a decent for a setting a pub, yes, maybe 1991 or something like that, playing things like playing yeah, soul records, playing things like I Can't Get No Sleep by M at Work, playing or, you know, I don't know, cross the tracks things, you know, my the M things like that, playing a mix of that kind of stuff, so yeah, probably around when I was a student, yeah, 92, 91, 92. First proper gig mixing with mixing would have been in Hong Kong because I couldn't mix until yeah, this is something you talked about with with Bill, yeah. So you were what just sticking on tunes basically before that? It just fade in, fade out, you know, um, so I was doing that, and for me that were the the clubs that I was going to at that point were not house clubs, so they weren't prominently mixing clubs; I was going to things like Dingwalls and Talking Loud and those kind of uh Bass Cleff and those kind of things, um, Norman Jay, the I and, you know, they were my party, so no one was mixing those; maybe Bob Jones, that was probably it, but I don't remember Patrick Forge or Kevin Beetle or Norman or Giles or any of them people mixing, and mixing wasn't the thing, you know, and actually me discovering mixing was a transformative, you know, that was a thing that really happened for me like whoa, this is what mixing is. So you you you um when you're talking to Bill, you said that you worked out your head before you had two turntables? Yeah, I got really I think was was it accurate what you yeah, okay, yeah. I mean, I was

Like, oh, I looked at the technology. I never had access to the technology until I moved into this flat in Hong Kong where my flatmate had two decks. He had one Vestax and one Technics. And that was my first opportunity to mix. But before that, I'd been watching DJs, and I was so—I just worked out what they were doing. So when I had the technology in front of me, I was like, “I can do this, man!” And it didn’t take long for me to get it. In you know, it was like, okay, it was very—it was pretty—it’s not that hard, is it? Really, to four and you know, splitting your ears—that’s it. That’s the only thing I think. Yeah, it’s learning to hear two things and like, independently. That’s—that’s—it’s like, but it’s not—how hard is it? It honestly probably took me a week to master it, not even. And maybe that’s just—I had a skill for it, I don’t know, or maybe it’s just not that complicated, you know.

So I’d seen so many people doing it up until that point that I—um—between that period of, say, like I don’t know, 93 possibly, when I—when did I graduate? 94. So maybe up around there, ’94 till 96, the end of 96 when I moved to Hong Kong, actually middle of 96 moved to Hong Kong. Um, that period was a real obsessive time for watching people mixing.

Yeah. Was there anyone—was there anyone in particular who—well, my—my—I—I—I have a KN in my head, which is quite odd actually. Like, when I was at that period, I was working as a music journalist and I worked for a magazine, and it was like Billboard, but it was for Asia. That’s how I ended up in Asia. And they used to—there used to be—um—a music conference called MIDEM that used to happen every January in the south of France, where all the industry—all the like the—when I say industry, I mean like the people who run the record companies, which in those days were, you know, lots of money—they had loads of money. So they could have these huge conventions—the days where proper parties actually happened.

Yeah. But also the most random things would happen. So I saw Jeff Mills play in the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, which is where they do the film festival—huge ballroom—huge ballroom filled with suits. Like, in another room there was something else going on, and in another room something else, and the most random things. And I stumbled across that during that week—Jeff Mills. And I was like, “What the what the [ __ ] is going on?” I didn’t understand—I could—I think maybe heard of him, but I didn’t know much about it. And he was just playing his normal set, and he was doing his normal set to like business people who were like probably been drinking all day, like, you know, had many salads during their day or whatever—loads of champagne—killing their company budget—God knows what else. So—and for me, I was just like, “This is madness!” And then maybe six months later—were people dancing? Some were okay. There were definitely some punters there, right? But it wasn’t like—like the lights were on, you know. That’s why it was so astonishing for me because I could see—but he was up on a huge stage. It was almost like he was about to deliver a speech at a wedding. It was—remember there being like curtains and ballroom?

Yeah. Was it—was it the buffet probably down one side or something? Yeah, it was really random. But for me, that was a super transformative period because the only DJs I’d ever really listened to were the—were soul and jazz DJs. And in those clubs actually, you couldn’t ever see the DJ. So that—so it’s definitely like you went there to dance, you know, like you weren’t looking for the DJ when you went to see—when you went out. So this was—that was a real transformative thing. And then a few months later was when I moved to Asia. Jeff Mills was playing again, and this—there was a night, I think it—they had an XMX series—they were doing a launch—and it was Derrick May, Fumiya Tanaka, Kishi, and I think Jeff Mills as well—in Hong Kong again. In this—it was again for—there was a MIDEM Asia—it was actually MM Asia, which it didn’t last very long. And again, I—then I—was then—the clubs were much smaller, and I could see what was going on. And by that stage, I was like, “Wow, what’s going on,” you know?

What years were you in Hong Kong? 96 to 99. Ah, over the handover period—must have been interesting.

Yeah, yeah, it was. I mean, nothing literally happened. You didn’t know, you know, tanks. Yeah, that was it. We were all waiting for the next day, like waking up or whatever. It was a three-day party basically. I remember that. And it pissed it down with rain, and I just went to party after party after party after party that weekend, ‘cause it was just this huge long holiday. But then after it, we were all waiting for something to happen—and nothing happened, you know. And it took another 20 years for them to actually do anything basically.

Well, yeah, by piece by piece, but you know, I mean, I just came back from Hong Kong, and for me it just felt the same really. Yeah, I mean, if you live there, I’m sure it’s different, but I have friends who have been there since I was there who still lived there, and they all came out to my gig kind of thing. So things didn’t really feel much different, but um, yeah, it was a—it was an interesting time to be at somewhere where history was literally taking place, right? Yeah. And I remember watching the bit when I think Chris Patten and Prince Charles got on the QE2 or whatever—we were all just still there kind of like—they got on the boat—said, “See ya!” But we were all like, “Yeah, let’s go to”—and then went to some party.

W. Yeah, it was pretty mad. Yeah, that was a—and so yeah, Hong Kong for me was the—was learning to mix and discovering DJing, and that was my time for all of that. And then getting immediately going, “I’m doing this, right? I’m—I’m going to do this.” So the scene in Hong Kong was—um—pretty vibrant. I—I—I remember reading about like in Mixmag would cover sort of those sorts of scenes a little bit and just read, “Wow, that must be amazing!” But obviously they were a few years behind.

Yeah, I mean, I missed the start of kind of the rave scene there, if you like, but not by much, you know. It kind of—I think what happened was at that point Hong Kong was such that you never needed a visa to go there because it was a British territory. So what would happen is you would have—backpackers would go on their round-the-world trip; they would run out of money and they would go to Hong Kong to get a bar job or something to earn some money to carry on their travels, and then they just didn’t leave because it was so much fun there. So you’d have all these people who were like, “Oh, yeah, I was on my way to Australia and never made it,” you know, and they would just be—or they’d come back and do the same thing. They were like, “Oh, we loved it on the way here; we only had a few days—we’re gonna stop.” So there were loads of people there my age, in their 20s at the time, who were just had like shitty jobs, and you could live there pretty cheaply—um—and that was the party scene. And so those people my age were a little bit older; they were probably the same as me—they were just—they just missed the very beginning of acid house or they just had a bit of it maybe. And by the time they got early ’90s to—to Hong Kong, they were like, “We need to recreate this scene.” And so that’s kind of what happened, you know. Even like the local DJs there that I knew of—some of them had been to England for their schooling or university and come back and started DJing in Hong Kong. So by the time I got there, it had been going for about five years and really was—pepping, you know. If you imagine UK in 93, 94, it was the same there—Hong Kong 95, 96, 97.

What were the key clubs at the time or venues or whatever? Well, there wasn’t really a club that was the thing. It was mainly—they were doing events. It was—there were big events. And—but there was an after-hours scene, okay? So you’d have these big—you’d have big parties at places like Bar City and Jimmy’s Sports Bar, which was in the Hong Kong Stadium—like a big—just looked over the Hong Kong Stadium—as a big bar. Um, there was like the place called The Godown, which was underneath a hotel in the middle of Central. There was—there was venues, and people would then do a party there, but it wasn’t like every week you go to this club—that didn’t exist. But an after-hours scene big began to spring up around 93, 94 I think. And what happened—you’d have these bars in Wan Chai, which is like the place where all the girly bars—where you’d get the horrible gray old men trying to pick up their Filipino maids or Thai maids or whatever—and that would be the place that they went. And you had a lot of those kind of bars, which were not really a strip club, but they were a bit fruity, you know. Those places would close—or—or I don’t know how—I still don’t know how it actually began—but they would close at 3 or 4 AM. And then some local DJs started were like, “Well, can you stay open longer?” Hong Kong, for me, is the only 24-hour city in the world—it definitely was then. You could do whatever you want any time of day or night. And so they would start these parties.

Was that—sorry, if I can interrupt you—was that legal? Is it just a case of just like—I mean, who knows?

Semi-legal, I think it was legal. I think that they don’t have licensing hours in Hong Kong, so why would you—would be illegal. So—and you would get—and at that time it—so you had the kind of energy of those kind of already seasoned clubbers from the UK and specifically UK, you know, specifically a lot of Brits because—and also at that time they were building the convention center—you had a lot of builders from the UK there earning a shitload of money. So a lot of—as in the—in the party—so they were—they—that was—they were building the airport; they were building the convention center—two massive, massive construction things. So you had a lot of people, again predominantly British blokes there, and you had the army were there as well, you know, we’re still stationed there—a lot of—lot of geezers—a lot of geezers in Hong Kong. But anyway, so you—you—you had these parties started that would go from four till midday, right? Midday they would shut. And whatever party had been going on around the island or in Kowloon, everybody would end up in the same after-hours. So by 5:00 AM or 6:00 AM for sure, everybody you knew in Hong Kong would be at one of these after-hours every week, and they went every week. So I learned a lot about partying in those places as well. That was my—what music was getting played? Terrible music. Okay, terrible—like it wasn’t—when I think back to it, I had a great time, but when I think of the tunes, I was like, “I was dancing to that?” You know, like—know what.

Give me an example—a terrible tune? Well, I don’t know, just like very kind of pumping kind of “Meet Her at the Love Parade” kind of stuff or, you know, “Siser, let me show you” stuff—the stuff that people like—again, these days basically.

Yeah, exactly—worries me. But also things like Todd Terry—“Something’s Going On,” you know, that kind of thing—just big—like big tunes. Yeah, big 90s—there was a lot of big tunes. I remember this one track, “Joyride,” with a big baseline in it, which I used to love. I don’t—it’s probably some Dutch house—right—tune or something like that. So like, big tunes of the 90s—when you had those big E tunes, you know, like full of rushes and those kind of things. So nothing spectacularly underground, but every DJ had their thing that they played. So like Lee Burridge was massive then, and he was playing a lot of progressive—that’s where he started—so he was playing a lot of progressive. You had another guy, Christian—he liked to play breaks. Joel Li—he was a bit more kind of house, techno—deeper sort of stuff. So they all had their own take; they would all play the big tunes, but then they also had their own sound as well. So yeah, you—so I heard a lot of stuff, but at that point I was into—when I just started really buying records for mixing—I was really deep housey then. I’d just come from a kind of—for two or three years have been really into Scion.

And going—I wanted to ask about Scion. I went to loads of Scion—like, ‘cause you’re talking about early go-go parties of thing and I—this—this is almost certainly [ __ ], but what I’ve seen pictures before, I like—should I know that person? And the only—the only thing it can be is from early Go-Go parties—Pen Dragon. Yeah. And return to the source and we—to the—um—I never went to Samsara, I don’t think, but I used to go to a place called The Imperial Gardens in—in Camberwell, and they would have like Scion in one room and then deep house in the other room. So that—for me—that was like—that’s—I was basically—that’s what I play now—deep house—um—but yeah, I did used to go to those and previous to going to Hong Kong—Hong Kong. Yeah, that was literally the time that I was going—I was buying records in Chuckie Tunes in—so—and I would go to those parties, and my—and I had a friend and her boyfriend at the time was—was in the Playhouse—um—label, and he was really good friends with them—DJing for them. So any party that they would put on—private party. Yeah, private parties or kind of—um—warehouse parties—or I remember they did a night of Subterrain in Amersham Road once—just those kind of things—I would go because I was in that crew of people—they weren’t my friends, but they were the friends of my friends, so I would go. So yeah, but then it was exactly in that period that I went to Hong Kong, right? So that was like 96 I went. So—and then—but—but when I—I actually first went to Singapore—that was the first place I landed—I didn’t—I was going to go to Hong Kong, but I liked Singapore, so I went there first, and I stayed there for a few months. And the first people I met were a crew who were really into Scion who owned a shop called Trip-Tick Records, and they were amazingly French and Singaporean. And through them, I heard—I—I was really into it; I got really obsessed with it. And then I—and then I don’t know what happened then—I moved to Hong Kong, and it wasn’t big there, right? And I kind of—I think I went—I don’t know—it’s around the time that I kind of discovered really lots and lots of deep house, and then I just kind of went, “Yeah, I’ve kind of heard this now,” and stopped completely.

I mean, Scion is a very specific thing, and it was over a time, you know? I totally agree with you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was—it was—it was great. I—I mean, the parties were awesome—like the atmosphere at the parties—just—yeah, amazing. But I was never like into wearing all the clothes—no questionable fashion choices were made at those—a lot of those—a lot of those early parties—were never pure Scion either that I remember. They had a lot of acid techno—things were going on—a lot of crossover, you know, with that sound. And when I got to Asia, it was much more purist—there wasn’t—I wasn’t hearing the techno—I was just hearing the Scion. So I think especially like Return to the Source and that—I don’t remember ever being pure Scion—there was always like Obon, Mar Sinclair—those guys—they were not just playing Scion; they were playing techno as well. Stu—so there was definitely a mix. But when I got to Singapore, it was pure Scion. So I think that’s why I kind of was like, “No, now I’ve kind of heard it.” And also it was kind of the end of it being good, yes—like 97—by that time it started to drop—98 it was dropping off a little bit.

Yeah, it just became basically a cliché, didn’t it? It just—like the same thing as—as genres sometimes do, to be fair. But um—so yeah, so—so that was where you first started playing out?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was playing out in Hong Kong—playing for small parties—playing for—start—yeah, learning to mix—that’s how we got—we got to this point. Yeah, saying like, “Okay, yeah.” And then when I came—when I left Hong Kong because I left because of visa basically—I was—I was either like, “I can stay here now on the visa that I’ve got,” or you could keep leaving—you could go to Macau or somewhere—I don’t know—Taiwan and come back in and get a restamp on your passport for another six months, but it wasn’t official—it was always a tourist visa. So I was like, “I’m going to have to get a proper job,” and I’d—don’t have a freelancer—and I was like, “I don’t want to get a job here now—what’s available to me,” you know? There was very few—so what you doing—you’ve working for that magazine—is that you said?

No, I started there, and then—um—actually that magazine collapsed and when—just before I went—because of those kind of industry conventions I mentioned—I knew some other journalists from Music Week, and they were like, “Well, we have this other magazine—Music Business International—if you go to Asia, do you want to run the bureau there?” So that was like, “All right.” So they paid me a retainer—a couple hundred quid or 300 quid a month—just to check out what stories were there or if they wanted a story written—I would be there to write it, you know. So I started stringing for those, and I kept doing that the whole time I was there. And then I got some freelance jobs working for magazines in Hong Kong, and then I was DJing—that’s when I started DJing. But to be honest, I was partying so hard then it was like very hard for me to keep a job down anyway, so I was—it was really an adventure time for me. So—and then I—yeah, then I came back and I—I think I was unemployed for a whole year, and I was just started to freelance in the UK around—this is around 99—and—and then I got a job—full-on—my first proper full-on journalism job back in the UK.

Music journalism? No, that was—um—that was working for—they relaunched a magazine from the 60s called Nova—um—around 2000, and I worked on that for a few years at IPC. So that was my first—and I was—I was a new recruit there, so it was all the new stuff—new fashion, new music, new TV, new whatever. So—but yeah, that’s—that’s how I kind of came back and started doing journalism in the UK and DJing. And I started as soon as I got back—I started—I played for a couple of people I knew from Hong Kong. And then I was going out—that’s when my friends here were all going to the End, and I used to go to the End before I left. So they were all going to Subterrain on a Saturday, and our friends were DJing in—were like the residents in the lounge and stuff. So we used to go to Subterrain, and then from that I started to going to Wiggle and going to Whoop Whoop and all these kind of tech house parties that were going on there.

Remember those too—the late 90s? And so that was my—that was my thing. That’s when—then I was like, “I’m going to start my own party,” and that’s when I did—I started—that was Peg. Yeah, that’s when I started Peg—just like—’cause my music was—’cause I came from the deep house thing rather than the tech house thing. And for me, I used to love those parties—again, I used to love the vibe, but I wasn’t 100% with the music all the time. It got a bit blokey for me—a bit repetitive and a bit blowy—bit simplified. And I think when they started, they were much more complicated—the music-wise—a bit more different scenes all making this one sound. But around that time it started to get—people actually made tech house records before they—they didn’t exist before you.

Yeah, right—before it became—

Well, did a similar thing to—

On dead. Exactly. But I think when that happened, I was still more on the deep side—like Glasgow Underground, DIY—those kind—paper—that kind of sound. So I mean, I’ve definitely seen you at parties before—that’s definitely the reason why.

Yeah. Uh, yes, let me ask you about—putting on parties generally speaking. I was going to go back—I was going to go on this when talking about the underground thing—um—because obviously—yeah.

So Peg, and then Night Moves is the other one. Yeah. I mean, I did Peg 99 to 2009. Yeah, I actually listened to your set from the 10th birthday—oh, my—old—old—old—um—yeah, I did—I—yeah, that was—and then I scanned it—I was like, “I’ve had enough now—10 years is enough.” What venues did you do Peg at? Oh, many. Yeah, okay. I did—they were always illegal ones. So I—I got into doing things that—um—I worked out that if I did them at recording studios, you would always have a sound engineer—good sound. So I got—I got massively into—I used to do The Premises, which was three rooms actually. So I used to do The Premises in Hackney Road, The Fortress Studios, which was amazing actually—that was in—just off Street—um—where else did we do Peg? Gosh—AP, which is a photography studio on Hackney Road. I swear I did the last one, and then I—we actually ended up doing Night Moves in that place as well—from the second one. So I was going to say—so I mean a feature of this whole thing is that you don’t use pop clubs basically and you—I suppose try and transplant the vibe to different places. But obviously like the physical space is really key, and in that conversation with Bill you’re talking about—you hav—you haven’t done a Night Moves party basically because you can’t find a good space to do it. So talk a bit about—yeah, physical spaces—parties—J—and—let me ask you though—why—what’s—what’s bad about clubs? Is it just because they—you don’t control the door at clubs? You—you don’t get—you don’t get to say who comes and goes, which for me is—that’s non-negotiable—I want to be in charge of my own door. So that’s the number one reason.

How much of a door policy do you tend—have you tended to run? Well, we haven’t really needed to do it too much because—um—generally we were doing—when we—when we really were doing Night Moves—we never—when we started doing Night Moves—so 2012—um—we were only selling to our friends. And at that point, none of things like, you know, Instagram hadn’t happened, and—um—RA hadn’t really happened as a ticket place. So we were selling on RA, but—but at that point nobody looked to find a DJ on that, you know. These things just hadn’t happened 12 years ago or 13 years ago. So they weren’t available. So the way that we did things then is probably the way that we do them now, but just no one really knew about it. So we were selling tickets—the thing which is the reason why I wanted to put in the first place—so we could—we could do it, but we—you know, when we—when we started doing—

Nightmoves. We were doing AP studios in Hackney Road for a while. We didn't do any listings; um, it was like an—we just tell our mates, really. Um, so I'm really don't know how other people found out about that party. So it it's it all started as friends, as friends. And then um, and then we moved to Wembley. What was the—that's that's the any I want to ask about—about what was the capacity roughly when you first started doing the party?

About 150, right. Okay, so it was—you could have got more into AP, but it was—they had one room which was like their photo studio room, which was tiny, but that was the room for music because it was the only soundproof room. Everything else kind of hit the street, so people could hear it. So you had like an outside bit and another room which was a big bar at the back, but you couldn't put music in there because there were flats literally outside that door. So we we didn't do it there. Then we moved to Wembley, and that came about because our sound guy, George, was storing his sound system stuff up at this big warehouse in in Wembley. It was above a Porsche garage in next to Wembley Stadium. So where we stadium is, you have the car parks, and there's a whole like industrial thing. And the guy who ran it um, he ran it with Erin, who used to be part of Santa Panza and the Source and all of that. So they these guys, they had a big history of parties, whatever, and they ran it as their own personal party space since 1986. They had a massive F1 rig, didn't they, or something? They had the F1 because they were really good friends with Tony from from Function One. So he he—it was an—it was installed in there the whole time. It was like four points, you know, so the whole room was like Function One. So everything was like—we couldn't believe it when we found this place. We were like—I mean, to have missed out on these parties—they were—and you could go to whenever they went on for, you know, there was no—and there was—they had one guy who would go on the door, which was like their Giza basically, who would just know for trouble. And then we had our guy inside who was like some guy I know from—he's a friend of a mate from football kind of thing, you know. It's like a football GICF guy kind of thing. He was doing our door inside, and every—it would—you—there was never—I think we threw out one person once for being—who came with a girl who was drunk and started misbehaving. He went—and I think that's the only time we've ever thrown anyone out of—

Okay, a Nightmove actually. I threw some boys out once with guns. Okay, that was in Hackney Wick in about 2006. We did a squat—we did it—a mate was living in a squat; we did a party there, and these like boys all turned up to see what was going on, and they were literally like 21 or something. And somebody came up to me, running up to me at the party—"Jane, Jan—someone's T'd up in it." I was like, "What?" So I was like, "Who's—who's that? That's so disrespectful." So I just went and found them, and there was like one guy who was like the leader, and then it was one of his little kind of things was T'd up, and then another one was hassling girls in the toilets. And I just went up to this guy and had a go at him, like his mom. And by the end of it, they were like, "Yes," so we miss—so we miss—and they all left. They were just probably—SI—if anyone was slinging pills or something on their patch or whatever, and then they could see it was just this fluffy party, you know, and they left it. People were like, "How did you do that?" I was like, "Yeah, I used to have bigger balls in 2006 or 20 years ago than I do now, probably," so didn't bother me at the time. But the only times we've ever thrown anyone out of a peg—but yeah, that—that—I mean, yeah. So Night—so Nightm was was great in that in that venue, but eventually—

How big was Avenue? Uh, you could have got 400 in there. We we used to cap it at 330, cuz we—I—I had this thing where I used to hate being, you know, squished up when I was going out, so we always used to cap it. Me and Jade would be looking at the tickets like, "This has got too many. Yeah, should we stop it?" Yeah, so we we we'd always stop it, and that was two floors. So downstairs you had like a smoking area, but was sort of in a garage, so it was sort of seated sofas everywhere. So yeah, you were saying that the ability to sit down at a party is extremely important.

My gosh, the time. So it's always—I'm lazy, right? I want to sit down at a party, but like, you know—but this—this to me—and I—I played it in France at this new club, SL recently, and they had sofas in there, and I was like, "Brice, I can't believe you've got sofas in a club." I was so happy, you know, to see some sofas. That's always been my thing. If you can't—whether you're gouged out, you know, like Bree from—from—he run Concrete. Yeah, his new—their new club. So I didn't—real—had new thing. Yeah, they've got an amazing new spot in Paris, and um, yeah, they've got sofas in. I was like, "This is fantastic." Yeah, the fact that clubs don't have anywhere to sit down now—just—I don't—that's why I don't go out, right? I can't sit down. And I've always wanted to sit down, you know. The chill-out room is an important—even not even a chill-out room, even like plastic people—you had the bench along the back wall kind of thing. You could always chill—there's always somewhere to sit, you know. So these—these are—to me, it's integral. If you can't have—if you can't let people just chill for a minute, especially they've been dancing on pills or something.

Yeah, right. Let them have a sit down, you know, just for a bit. So that would—that would always be my thing when I went out. It would be like scoping out the place to see where I—where I'd sit down later. All right. Okay, bit right. But places like that—by like the Wembley venue—I mean, and even more so now—I have a—I have a venue—I did a party last year—first time I've done a party not in London for years because I—KN—I knew a guy—or know a guy—who—who is a woodworker, and he has a—he has a big space, and in this space he's kind of turned it into his own kind of party venue. And it's got a sound system in there; it's got places to chill; it's got a kitchen; it's got out the back—he's got a sauna and a hot tub and and a fire pit and all the—yeah, he's a woodworker, so he can make all this stuff. But I did a party in there—that's was the first time I'd done a party that felt like an old-school party, you know. I did it with three other DJ friends of mine—none of whom live in the UK, so they definitely never been to a party like that—and we had—I kind of—we didn't advertise it at all. We just did word of mouth and secret ticket link so people could buy tickets. Uh, I think when I did one post on social media about it—that was it—just a story—and—and—and we tried to keep—and again it was like 150 people—TR—to keep it as underground as possible—secret—secret—secret, you know—and that was amazing. People were like—I had 25-year-olds there or 23-year-olds come who'd come from like Manchester or Sheffield or whatever, and they were like, "I've never been to a party like this—never—didn't know this existed." So for me, I was like, "Yes," you know, you can still do it, and people still want it, but you can't shout about those things for it to happen, right? So there's no way I'm going to like—we'll do another one this year, but again, I'll probably just email everybody who came last year, cuz I have all the contacts now, right, and say, "Do you want to come again?" Okay, I'm not going to advertise it, cuz as soon as you—ad—soon as people know—everybody wants to be part of it, right, you know, and then it's like—then you have to think of bigger spaces and paying more money and all of this stuff, right? I felt bad charging money for that party, but I had three—three—four flights to pay for other people, so we had an accommodation to buy, so we had to do it like—so it was, you know, it wasn't a money maker, but it was like 300—that is the kind of the most that ever should be—you think—thing. I guess it depends on the SP—like if you had a beautiful dance floor for 2—300 people, then you'd maybe want an outdoor space for 50 people to have a smoke or 50 people to chill, you know—have a nice chill-out. So you could have more, but I think at any one time on a dance floor—because you can't smoke on a dance floor now—yeah, anywhere—this is—you have to really understand what happens when people go to have a cigarette, you know, because people do—do that still, you know, or a spliff or whatever they're doing. You can't—you can't imagine that they're all going to always be in the party. So when they're not there, they need to be somewhere nice, I think, you know.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, of course. Can't just be standing up. I mean, I don't know—maybe that's the way of getting people back onto the dance faster. There is that too. Yeah, I mean, I have this thing where people, you know—there was a—maybe a couple of years ago—everybody was moaning—me included—about, "Oh, there's no chill-out rooms anymore." And then I really thought about that, and the chill-out room—when I was going to places—and you—it was a chill-out room—that was where you went to skin up. Well, that's when you went for a sit down with your mates. And now you can't smoke indoors, so no one is going to skin up in another room. So the—the actual, you know, the concept of—one of the reasons that filled a chill-out room—it doesn't exist anymore.

Yeah, absolutely. So to have that room—will be—if you can't smoke in there—where you're sitting around—it's going to be—it's going to be harder. And then people just chat, you know. So um, when the smoking ban came in, what were you doing at the time? Doing Peg, right? Yeah. What did that um—what kind of effect did that have—question? Well, I think—I think actually we had so many illegal venues, it probably didn't matter, but there were always places with a little courtyard or something. And I think—I think that happened, but I don't—I more remember how it affected clubs. So I remember going to Fabric first, you know, really soon after the smoking ban, and number one—it just stank, cuz all you could smell was people—because wow—people—you were dancing—then amazing, you know—sweating and dancing. So—right—exactly—could—yeah, you could—you could smell the sweat, but yeah, that's all I remembered is like—but when I left there, I didn't smell myself—I didn't smell of smoke, you know. So but that's what I remember the most is the smell—not the amount. And also these big periods where people would just disappear from the—

Yeah, yeah. Dance floor was just empty—everybody was outside. So I mean, now we're used to it, but there must—I would love to watch a sped-up kind of—I don't know—like a security film of—of motion on a dance floor—just to see whether there's like periods of—seed of people going to the—going to the smoking area or not. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I mean, I was in the sort of early dubstep scene at the time, and obviously smoking weed on the—I mean, obviously it's always a thing, but like particularly in that scene—yeah, it was—killed it—it did—absolutely did—yeah, it had a really fundamental effect on things, you know, and very bad way to be honest. Yeah. And um—I—that was also around the time I moved to Berlin, and obviously, you know, Germany as a country just ignored that whole ban until quite recently. And even now you can—you—it's—it's largely battered away administratively, but I mean, I—I think it's—I think it had quite a significant effect on the British club scene generally.

Yeah, I think so. And I think—I think the way that it had the effect because it just created this—this um—void in a—in a night—it obviously gave the DJ way more anxiety than they ever had because they kept wondering why they were losing the floor, you know. They didn't—they didn't know why. And that lasted for a while, I think. Um, it created way more kind of headaches for people who had existing venues—"What are we going to do with the smokers?" So that was like a big thing. And I think that also had a knock-on effect in terms of the fact that you're bringing people out in the middle of the night to—for a good 15 minutes to sit outside—maybe there on drugs—so they're going to chat more—um—louder—or they're drunk and they're going to chat louder—that had a big effect of um—alerting residents to what was going on, you know.

Yeah. Okay. I've never considered that before, but you're—because everybody was outside making a noise, you know, whereas before they were all contained inside. So I think—yeah—had lots of negative knock-on effects—healthwise obviously—not—but in terms of the way that a business ran—all these other things that you wouldn't—yeah. And I'm just to—yeah—to flash it out—the—the problems that of small venues in particular are faced in—I think everywhere—but I think—man—really a strong example of it—like has been at least partially driven by residents moaning about it, right? Like I mean, there's obviously other factors that play too, but—absolutely—yeah—never really occurred to me that that was—that that must have been significant, but absolutely—yeah, it must have been. Yeah—suddenly there's all these people—3 in the morning—outside your house. I mean, you would complain about that when they weren't there before—you—but I mean, I—I know in London there was a—I only recent—I only found this out a few weeks ago that there—okay—so this agents of change law thing—where you can't—where you move into a venue—where you move into a new development—a new development has been built next to an existing club—you're not—you—you—you can't complain about noise if you chose to live next to an existing club. So the license is protected. I only recently found out that that is not enshrined in law—it's only a guideline, right? And so you can—if you want to—if you've got the means—you can get that club closed down. So it's not enforced—that law—unfortunately. So even though they made a—Hu—I remember when it came in because there was lots of things in—shage—that were getting closed or people losing their licenses—maybe 15 years ago—and people like—"No, we've got this law now, and they can't do it"—d—d—du—but it isn't a law—it's actually just a guideline. So you can shut places down. It's just happened to The Pickle Factory. So that's—yeah—that's never coming back because of exactly that reason—really—because of resident complaints—resident PLS—in an area where there was nothing—it was just gometer and a canal and warehouses—now all of that got—you know, the gasometers are still there, but the—all the warehouses got knocked down—got turned into posh flats—and then somebody with a lot of money started complaining—they didn't want a club outside their door—and—and—and now the Pickle is just—not—that sucks—it's not coming back for that reason. So yeah, that—you know—that's another—that's another thing that's been closed down by noisy residents. So you do—if you're going to—I don't know what the deal is with councils giving people licenses, right? So I just heard last week that—I live in um—in Silvertown, which is uh—East London—very—very East London—where nobody lives really—but—cting town—which is like still my postcode—so Starlane Pizza Bar just got a 24-hour license. So the councils are still—there's no residents there—there's literally nothing there—there's a—a station and some—I don't know—like a builder's yard or something, you know, that kind of thing. So there's—there's no one to annoy at the moment in that area of London—those businesses seem pretty established that they're not going to turn into flats yet—um—and I'm—was so happy just to see that a council would go—"All right, you're not going to annoy anyone—you carry on—you do what you want"—it's like—"Allelujah!" So by—you know—that was a—Newham Council is not exactly known for being the most NTI-friendly council, but I was really happy just for them to be able to go—"Wow, you did it—you got a license because no one can complain about it—so why would they turn you down?" And the fact that they didn't turn them down for me is really—sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the—the small clubs thing—I think is—it's an issue just about everywhere, I think—basically because everyone's got the same kind of broad social and, you know, economic trends going on.

Have you seen that reflected in the—the shows that you played of—in a kind of aggregate, you know? Like—obious—there still—yeah, I do still get invited to play small places, but um—it's now—for me—it's just like—"Do I want to play in them?" Because um—I did it for so many years—that was my—that was my territory—was always tiny places, you know. So but yeah—I—I get—if you're running a small place—"Who—who you going to book? You know, who—who can you afford to book? And should I be playing?" So every year I say there's—maybe I'll do two shows at a tiny place, you know, and take a big cutting fee and just do it. You—okay—this—this is a—a thing which has been discussed before—so do you think that there is a moral obligation to do that? Look, I've been doing this for 25—30 years—I've played everywhere for no money—no—I'm not morally obligated to do it because I've done it for 20—I didn't get paid for 20 years—why the hell should I not get paid now? You know, like—I'm CEO of my own company if you like—I'm in my 50s—I want to—I don't want to earn what I was earning at 20. Yeah, you done the yards, right? Yards out of everybody I know who started when I started, and I'm still doing it, and there isn't many, you know. If I've got an opportunity to earn more money, then why—why wouldn't I do that? Sure, I don't need to, but I don't sell out to do it, right? You know, I'm—there's certain things that I just turn down because I'm like—"I'm not playing at that—it doesn't make sense for me to play at that." Okay. Look, the DJs though—in the—in the hle—do you think that the—there is a—it depends where you came from—like for me—that's—that's how I grew up—playing in—yeah—warehouses and recording studios and also playing for sound systems, you know. Used to play a sound system in Kent on a beach, you know, for free—or in the woods—or I'd go up to Midlands and play a sound system in—in a field or something. So I played so many free parties and so many—so this—to me—is part of who I am. So morally—for me—I have to still play those occasionally—I have to—that's why I did a party on my own with no—with three friends—and the only money that we—that we made went straight into paying for all their flights and everything, you know. So with a hundred of people—how much money is that as a budget, you know? So I don't have to earn money from a small club—I'll earn my money somewhere else—so I can do those parties. And I think—yes—you should do—you should at least make some space to do something at least once or twice a year because that club is going to have such a great night if you're popular and you're going to fill their club for them. So yeah—I'm—I'm totally up for doing that. There's a couple of parties in London—I'll play for literally nothing—I played—there's an amazing party called Free Movements, and you know—their budget is so tiny—in the end I was just like—"You keep the M—it's probably more important than—you have the money than I do—I don't need to earn—I'd rather not earn anything—but you can spread it out more among your other DJs kind of thing, you know. It's like that." So I—I—I will still do it, but if people don't do it—maybe they never did it, you know. For me—that's my history—and I did it—I know it inside out—that's why I never—absolutely—it's completely legiate perspective—absolutely—no—I do—but I think it's important as well—but I—I don't think I need to—I don't think I need to—it's me choosing to do it, you know, because I did it for so long. But yeah—to come back with a bigger profile and to be able to help kids or to help um—a small festival or help—yeah—I'm always going to do that because I—and I'm connected to those people still, you know. I'm connected to that—so I will do it—but if you're—I don't know—if you're some massive DJ and you've never done it—why would you do it? It doesn't make any sense to you to do it—maybe because you feel some kind of social responsibility towards—who really feels—I can't see any DJ out there showing me that they have social responsibility to anyone except their accountant.

That's probably fair—but also—if you're from—if you're from—I'm from the UK, and that's—that's how the scene existed here, you know. That may be not the case if you're from Paris or you're from—I don't know—somewhere, you know—somewhere else that never had a squat scene or a small club scene or whatever—if they only had the omen or something—what—right—what—what does it—it doesn't even make sense for you to do it because you—you don't even know what that is, you know. You—so yeah—I think there's—you know—everything is—I think—I think it's good to do small things and to show people that you're there for the music—not for your ego—I think that's very—very important. I think that's important—but small clubs come with their own problems, right? You know—especially DIY clubs—so if I know that somebody's literally gone—found a space—I'm like—"I know this is going to be difficult"—especially if you've got no history of setting up record decks and things like that—"I don't want to be in a bad mood, you know. I don't want to—I don't want to come and bring—and be pissed off at something and then bring that mood into it. I'd rather just come and bring the best of myself and do a good show kind of thing." So I don't—I don't—sometimes I'll just say no because I think this is going to be a nightmare—but which is a totally reasonable reason to say no—but I still do them—you can catch me in a couple of places, you know. You can always—if you look hard—you'll find me in a couple of those places every year for sure. Okay. And I never stop. But where though? Yeah, that's the thing—where—where do they—right? Yeah. Listen—push for time—there's an area that we haven't talked about that I wanted to cover, which is the dance press—um—the music press generally speaking—the dance press is a special area of—I mean, I don't think it exists anymore.

Does it really? I mean, they do exist. Mixmag exists; DJ Mag exists. That's a good point. I mean, the institutions certainly exist; whether actual anything of interest happens within them is a matter… okay, well, that's interesting because I know Mixmag went through a terrible time. I used to—I didn't work for Mixmag, but I used to freelance for DJ Ministry, Music… um, Sky Scene, all… what kind of stuff did you write for those?

Features and yeah, everything; features, news stories, reviews, everything. I was… I was doing them all, um, specifically around the early 2000s. And then it got to about 2003, 2004, and I was, you know, they were paying very little per word. I was spending a lot of time doing a feature and have not… and I couldn't even pay my rent, so I actually went to start working in record shops at the same time. And then I moved into kind of internet because that was like a boom for that, so I started doing internet for TV. So that's… so I did that for years, right? Um, but the… I know around that time, I mean, music… all the… all the magazines collapsed, so they all disappeared.

Update. DJ Ministry, Mixmag kept going, but it went through this huge… L W… and then it kind of… I think it got bought by this… development hell… this company. And then it used to be Natmags; Emap used to be Emap, and it got sold, so then it went completely independent. And then slowly, I guess, over the last, say, 14 years or where it’s kind of come back to being a… a decent thing. But what I love about Mixmag now, actually, is they have these local versions. So I just did an interview for Mixmag Asia when I was… and I read it and I was like, well, this… I mean, there obviously there’s no physical magazine, but the way that they were doing it, I thought that’s really cool, the way this can even exist now. So that’s very exciting, I thought. But in terms of what’s available now, there’s not… you know… and and again it’s that thing of what’s people’s relationship to print media. Who goes out and buys… I… I buy magazines because I’m an old-fashioned person, but not everyone still subscribes, you know? But do people even do that anymore? Do they go to W. H. Smith and look at all the magazines and say, “What am I going to buy?” I don’t think they do. They get their information online for pretty much everything. So people… I don’t think they’re going to journalism school and going into online writing. I just don’t think that’s the… I don’t think that’s what you do. You know, if they are, then standards at journalism school have definitely declined.

Exactly, because the people working mainly at… people mainly that I read who are working… off… maybe they’re music fans or maybe… and this was the thing I always used to hate about journalism… they just want to see their name in print, you know? That’s why I stopped being a writer and… and became an editor because I was just so sick of, like, by people scuffling around for bylines. I was like, “This is not my world.” I went to… and then I did all the background stuff for magazines for years, you know, for a long time. I stopped putting my name on things. So, um, when I see what’s written now, I get… I don’t know… I just go… I go through stages. At one point, I was really, really excited by Resident Advisor because they had journalists working there, you know, good journalists: Todd Burns, Will Lynch, Ryan Keeling… all these people were like… they were editorial people. Yeah, and you could feel it. And as a journalist, that’s why I could feel it. So the features in there had substance, and they didn’t seem to be pushing the journalist’s… um… narrative; they were always about the person. Whereas now, I don’t see that, right? And I see that… to me, it feels like the intern’s got control.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. But I do see… I, you know, I’ve noticed a few features that are… conspicuous now in RA where I can see that a journalist wrote them, but there’s not… but they’re not many, you know? They’re not many. And the news stories are definitely all just copied and pasted from Twitter. That’s why they’re appalling, you know. Yeah. Uh… or… or not even just… just nicked off somebody’s Twitter feed or something, which is… I’m sure if I’d have been a journalist and needed news stories back… back in, you know, 30 years ago and Twitter was around, I could have done it myself, but it wasn’t the way you… stories… um… but now I just… I don’t know… I don’t even look now because I know I’m not… I’m going to get annoyed within the first paragraph by something that the journalist wrote, and it’s probably about themselves, right? Okay. You know, it’s not about the person they’re interviewing, right? So that immediately… I have got bored, so then I just… so the quality of journalism and the ability of journalists to maintain a critical aspect has disappeared, right? You can feel like everyone’s on a jolly now, and they’re kissing the ass of the PR or the label or whoever paid for their jolly, you know?

Do you think there is space for proper journalism? I would love to think so. I don’t know, Ian. I wish I read more online, but I… I find… why I don’t… you know, I’m not going to read a feature online. So just kind of felt like… um… people writing now are handicapped due to the fact that everything is online, and just the… the experience of reading off a screen is just inherently inferior to reading a magazine. I mean, the reading of a magazine is… is actually one of life’s great pleasures, really. I mean, I still do it. I have a big pile of magazines next to my bed, you know? It’s something I do, but I’m not everybody, you know? And… and actually, during the pandemic, that was one of the things I considered to do… to… when it started to drag and I was like, okay, this… this world is over for me now. What am I going to do? Um, I spoke with a friend of mine about starting a… a magazine… about starting… do… not one that was news-driven, more of a kind of like a long-form… long-form stories or whatever. And I kind of regret that we never even got one issue off the ground, but things just didn’t last as long as I thought they were going to last. But yeah, I was really, really keen to do it, you know? I was really keen to… and then the fact… the last magazine of music that I… that I was buying was that little Record magazine, and I bought every one of those, but then obviously they… obviously ran out of money. And… and actually the format didn’t change, and it got a bit repetitive, and the journalism inside was not journalism; it was literally a cut and paste of a Q&A. So for me, I started to get annoyed by bad spellings and non-fact-check things… just all the things that I… you know… that I would look for. Yeah. But I would love to see that again. And I don’t know… maybe I’m getting old now, so I can’t tour as much, you know? I don’t want to tour as much as I was touring. And… um… if I tour… even if I get to a point where I’m going to tour much less, then I will definitely start looking into doing something like that because my heart is still in magazines 100% %, you know? It’s still something that I really, really care about. And the quality of journalism, the quality of how you present words on a page… all of that’s really important to me, and it makes me sad that it’s not important to other people.

To what extent do you think the absence of it has a negative effect on music… the music scene generally speaking? I mean, this is a… this is… this is something that you could drag out into a wider thing about media now that people are distrustful of the media, but people are afraid to criticize, you know? It’s very… it’s very… it’s almost impossible to criticize anything now. You have to… even in school, you know, you have to do it in a very positive way. People aren’t used to… people to having the piss taken out of them anymore, you know? It’s just like… even satire is dying, you know? So I think… yeah, it’s almost like when you criticize something, you put yourself on one… one side of a line or the other… or the other. It’s… no one’s open to be criticized. So… and one of the beauty… if… if you grew up when I grew up in the… in the ‘80s and ‘90s reading NME or Music Week or Mixmag or any of those things… everybody had their tongue firmly in their cheek, you know? There was a lot of things going… you’re in something ridiculous; let’s take the piss out of it. Even the fact they used to have a… a column in Mixmag of… “Cunt of the month” and stuff like that, you know? People would happily get the piss taken out of them. Now people have a meltdown; people would have a meltdown if you started to pick up things about them, or they wouldn’t know how to cope with it, you know, of having the piss taken out of them. So in a way, that was… that was the beauty of it because you had people who loved music who were totally invested in the scene… going out every week… um… writing about something that they loved with knowledge… who probably were a graduate from journalism school, and they could be funny. Where is that? You haven’t got an opportunity to do that anymore; there’s nowhere to do that.

Yeah. I mean, like, especially since Vice went downhill because… was a bit of a kind of… kind of a thing, but they absolutely had that kind of… yeah, they nailed… they nailed the… the humor… they… like… house style, which was very kind of irreverent and kind of like… I don’t think they were knowledgeable enough for some of the things they talked about for sure, but in terms of… yeah, being sort of like… youthful fun media, right? They got that… that worked, and they worked on a worldwide level. But this is another thing when we talked earlier on about globalization. I mean, media has become globalized as well, and what we think is funny is not going to translate in America, you know? They don’t… they will be massively offended by us taking the piss or something in the UK. So it’s… it’s because your audience is now global; you’re always considering the needs of the global audience. And what’s the need of a… of a magazine reader in France and the magazine reader in Spain and the one… one in America? You know, they’re completely different. So it’s almost… you have to be all things to all people, and that’s just… led to blandness, I think, unfortunately. Oh, that’s a bad note to end on. Bring back mags! Bring back magazines! Bring back magazines totally! So… um… we didn’t get back to Italy, but just to finish off, yeah, tell me some good Italian early Progressive House records… go… people… people can look up… I don’t know… well, the entire… the entire… um… uh… back catalog of Interactive records, which has pretty much been rinsed in terms of reissues now, so you can find those records… you can find those records easily. I don’t know… uh… look… look on labels… those old labels which were house and then they got a bit more Progressive, like… uh… DFC and… um… Out, which had millions of other labels… or Disco Magic, which was a distributor, had millions of other labels. You can find little small labels like Area… gosh… who else? Noise from the West… the West was a club in Tuscany and Al’s Club; they had a label… um… I don’t know… get digging… this is my gatekeeping answer to that… get digging, everyone.

Jane, thanks so much for your time. It’s… you… thanks for being nice. That’s what I try and do… not giving me anything expectations and being nice.

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Jane Fitz on raving in 90s Hong Kong and the mystery of the underground

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