I started producing music in 1995 and had two releases on London based Earth records before attending a City and Guilds Sound Engineering course at Bridgwater College, which led to the rise of my own label "Junkie Vinyl". This label had six releases with varying levels of success. By 1997 I had played for the majority of the countries most renowned promoters, including reappearance at the "Tribal Gathering" in 1997. I was booked to play a warm up set but took delight in Vinyl Groover's misfortune when I got to play his set as well to a packed tent. This was owing to the fact that Mr Groover had snapped his car key off in the petrol cap not too far away and could not get there in time! At the end of 1998, I decided to take some time out from DJ work to concentrate on perfecting my studio skills and to sit back and take a view of the situation. By now the majority of the Happy Hardcore music coming out had gone a bit stale and boring. This is when it finally dawned on me that there must be something else out there, hence I discovered Hard House. To which I became hooked very quickly. It has been a struggle to convince promoters that I do not play Hardcore anymore but I think I am starting to get somewhere now. Writing for Implant has helped this in a big way.
Web Site: http://www.djvinyljunkie.co.uk/
Vinyl Junkie
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The first gigs came at the beginning of 1991 at a night I put on myself at a small club in the Shirehampton area of Bristol called "Fairways". These nights were always rammed and I soon picked up a good little local following. Around this time the free party scene was massive in the Southwest and I managed to secure a spot as a regular fixture for party organisers like "Free Party People", "Circus Warp" and "Sweat Sound System" along with other DJ's like Easy Groove, Donovan "Bad Boy" Smith, DJ Die (now of Full Cycle) and DJ Jody (now of Way Out West).
It was at the end of '91 after lots of one-off slots at various clubs round Bristol that I landed my first residency by sending a tape to "Vibes Alive" who were at the time probably the biggest event in the Bristol calendar. They held events about once every three months in a marquee tent within the grounds of Bristol Polytechnic. Over the next two years bookings came from promoters like: Ektos, Total Kaos, Obsession and Quest as well as lots of local club promoters. Vibes Alive packed it in at the beginning of 1993 and "Sutra" took over at the same venue and fortunately, kept me on as resident for a while. I also played in the main arena at the Universe's first ever "Tribal Gathering". By this time my music had evolved from early rave/house music, through the Belgian techno thing, through the Suburban base / Moving Shadow breakbeat stuff, into what we now call Hardcore, which in turn became Happy Hardcore. In April of '94 came a fortnightly residency, which would last for over two years. This was at "Sketch" at Pawlett Manor near Bridgwater. Here I really started to get a name as a hardcore DJ and soon the bookings started flooding in from all over the country including a regular monthly spot at one of the countries best known hardcore clubs "Kinetic" in Stoke-On-Trent.