In the last quarter of 1993, a pioneering nightclub manager called Nodd McDonagh called me to say he’d been head-hunted to run a new venue in Dublin’s Temple Bar district, to be named, ‘The Kitchen’ - the owners of which, were U2. ‘Would you like to DJ for the opening night and see how you [...]
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‘Eight Zero’? It’s a club night, a concept, a retrospective musical journey around all that was actually bloody good during the 80s. I had the pleasure of hosting, DJ’ing and promoting this night back in 2005/6. Banished was the cheesy pop of the period, and welcomed with open arms was the cool ‘electronica’, the alternative [...]
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It was ten years ago in 1999 that I remixed Grace Jones’ seminal ‘Pull Up To The Bumper’ - a track with more sexual innuendos than you could shake a stick at. This post is a quick rewind on that and also to finally make public a short but very sassy unreleased Dakeyne remix of [...]
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The title? Well, it’s a track from the 80’s by the FunBoy 3, but in a cheesy radio style link, why not use it for last night’s shenanigans? Chris Moyles, my friend Comedy Dave, and the rest of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show team invaded the City of Hull last night. With me living in [...]
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W-a-a-a-a-y back in 1981, once a week, I used to gather up a group of friends for a trip to Leeds, and that amazing club ‘The Warehouse’. As Disco gracefully bowed out the exit door, a whole new musical sub-culture emerged from its ashes, with a sprinkling of post-punk ‘n Bowie thrown in: Enter the [...]
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One of the biggest R&B crossover records of 2008 was of course Flo Rida’s now classic, ‘Low’. To the best of my knowledge then and still now, there were never any officially released House mixes available. Sure, there were plenty of YouTube remix attempts, ranging from ok to plain horrendous, but nothing I’d feel happy [...]
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It’s funny how a sequence of events, and a theme falling together shortly thereafter can lead to a ‘mash-up’ almost suggesting itself. Taking a January winter break at my good friend (and ‘BackTrax‘ partner) Stuart’s Egyptian apartment, we all trotted out one night to Hurghada’s ‘Hed Kandi’ club for a night on the dancefloor. As [...]
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A few years ago I started doing music technology lectures for HE and FE students, where one of my most popular sessions was, ‘The Anatomy of a Remix’. During these sessions I would start with a blank Logic 8 arrange page, and take the students (over a two hour period) through the significant stages of [...]
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Last night’s sad news that Michael Jackson had passed away has of course tidal wave’d around the web today. My personal feelings on this great artist have already been expressed over at DV’s ‘Musical Notes’ blog, but it has brought to mind a ‘mix album’ I did very early on in my career. The ‘Michael [...]
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Here’s a fact - I was the first DJ ever to perform a live mix set on Technics CD decks, sometime around 1987. Of course, at a time when vinyl was king, some may have viewed this as sacrilege. Fast forward to 2005, and I was invited back by Technics and DMC to perform a [...]

