Zone Magazine Issue 037 Spring 2023

Vinyl, Digital or CDJ’s and why?
Oh! now this is a topic that raises its head almost
weekly in PHC, I generally file it alongside the whos better?
Sasha or Digweed argument. You have to be neutral in some
things when your managing a group the size of PHC and I
don't generally comment however as we're talking here I
would say overall it doesn't really matter what the medium
is, its the music your playing that matters, that's what is
really important. Ive used vinyl, Ableton and Rekordbox. All
three of these mediums have their merits.. Rekordbox you
can carry your whole record collection around on a flash
drive. Ableton, the creative possibilities are endless, I used
this a lot when I was playing eighties/nu-disco gigs, radio
shows, and finally vinyl. There really is just something
magical about a box of records and a set of turntables plus
very little really that can go wrong, the worst you might get
is a needle jumping! as opposed to digital which when it
goes wrong, it goes wrong!
Do you think working in the record
store helped you in the music
industry?
Yeah 100%. I can categorically state that working
in music was hands down the best job ive ever had. I worked
for the UKs largest independent retailer – Andys Records. I
started there after finding myself between jobs and it was
initially just over the christmas period working behind the
counter in one of the flagship stores. I ended up getting a
permanent position and within 2 years became the company
buyer covering 40 shops all over the country. The company
was well known as a supplier of classic rock and chart at the
time, when I was offered the buyer postion it was like
working with a blank canvas, we ended up with 20 stores
that performed well with dance music and 10 of those had a
record deck and sold vinyl. I was given a budget and access
to all the major accounts plus the opportunity to source
independents, On a weekly basis I was dealing with
Universal, Virgin, WEA, BMG, Pinnacle, SRD, Vital, Unique
and Amato. My job was to presale all dance releases and
allocate out on a store by store basis. What that then ended
up doing was giving me access to contacts within the
industry which in turn opened up doors for promotional
material, launch parties and travel. I worked on instore
promotions for the early GU albums, Ministry of Sound,
Fantazia, Renaissance plus the S&D albums Communicate
and Expeditions. I've still got one of the window displays for
the first Northern Exposure album. Another really big market
for us were mixtapes the grey area of the music industry.
We sold bucket loads, literally hundreds a week. We stocked
all of the Boxed releases as they were released, all the big
tape pack rave brands and I had a really good relationship
with Stuart from Eclipse Coventry, those tapes were one our
biggest sellers and earned me a couple of decent bonuses!
Met and dealt with a huge number of people during
the 8 years I was with the company, dance went on to be
our biggest growth category.
How does the Acid house scene
differ from what followed?
Acid House was a reaction, its arguably the biggest,
most spectacular youth movement we've ever seen. Eighties
Britain was not a great place for the younger generation, a
lot of things were stale and people were miserable. Without
that explosion in music and ecstacy culture who knows
where we'd be now. I often wonder if we'll ever see anything
like that again?
Festivals, super clubs, small clubs or
house parties, and why?
Personally Ive never really been a fan of big
festivals, although I know the younger generation seem to
really embrace these which is great.. As for superclubs, they
had there place but I would say that my best memories of
the early nineties aside from acid house and early raves
would be the likes of The Eclipse in Coventry, Renaissance in
Mansfield and various nights in London, The Brain springs to
mind which was the precursor to the legendary Love Ranch,
visited The Wag and used to be a regular at The Astoria. I
guess you would class these as pre-super club. We were
really lucky where I lived we had a lot of underground
parties going on with some decent DJs. The Milky Lunch
guys in Norwich were one of the first to bring Sasha down to
Suffolk to a venue called the Waterfront that was an
amazing low key affair in a proper sweatbox venue. One
weekend you could end up on a Thames boat party and the
following week be dancing in a disused church yard. I guess
what Im saying is aside from some of the big raves I
preffered the smaller club setting events. What I would add
aswell is that you can't beat a good house party with a set of
decks, that really can be a very messy affair!
What years do you recon where the
best in the scene to date, and why?
Ha! I think you know what I'm gonna say to that..
It would be the nineties, after acid house we got to
experience the culture that exploded from the movement,
the evolution of the dance scene that followed was so
exciting. You can trace the influences for prog right back to
1990 with tracks like Age of Chance – Times Up and Djum
Djum – Difference, things moved along, evolved and genres
were created. If I had to pick specific years I would say
92-96 were my personal favourites, some of the music,
labels and clubs in this period were magical.
Oldskool, neuskool or a bit of
allskool?
As I mentioned earlier Ive not really listened to a
huge amount of new music, Wasim my partner in PHC is into
a lot of the newer stuff though. He'll always flag up bits he
thinks I might like and what I have heard recently has been
absolutely amazing so I am taking the time out to listen to
more of it. I make a point now of checking out DJs like Harry
Lemon, Anthony Pappa, Chris Scott, Steve Parry, Dave
Seaman, John Graham and most recently Sasha & Digweed
again. The thing about running a music group the size of
PHC is you discover new 'classic' tracks all the time and as
the group grows in size and the age demographic changes
your seeing tracks from for instance 2010 that younger
members are posting that to them are classics. Theres
always something new to be discovered in music.