D.J.-ing and music production history and profile,

                   I started D.J.-ing in 1988 with Hip Hop and Electro, mainly bedroom D.J.-ing and making mix tapes for myself and the other breakers to practise to. I had been collecting Hip Hop / Electro and Soul since the mid 80’s but by ‘88-’89 I was collecting records more seriously, often taking record hunting trips to London.
   
             In 1991 with the started D.J.-ing Rave / Hardcore / Jungle and distributing mix tapes around the south coast, this quickly turned into a large operation and by 1992 I was shifting a large number of tapes through various shops and outside rave events and I even would go to London on Saturdays to sell tapes out of a box on Oxford Street and Carnaby Street (I once got arrested for this but not charged). These tape were known as ‘Junk Hardcore’ and I would make a new volume every month or so, I also did another series called ‘Bassrush’ and I did not put my name on these so rumours flew around that these tape were by Carl Cox or someone else big much to my amusment.
Whilst I would be going to London and other places to sell tapes I would pick up my tunes from all the different record shops I went to, getting loads of rare jungle/hardcore white labels, my favourite shops were Choci’s Chewns, A stall on Camden Market and Zoom also in Camden. Around this time I was also using tape profits to expand my collection of Old Skool Hip Hop and Electro, buying up stuff off the  people that no longer wanted their records, I would get them cheap before the prices of those records went through the roof in later years.
  
              In 1992 I was desperate to make a record, I knew a local rave group called ‘Tone Def’, in ’91 they had been signed to the fledgling ‘Moving Shadow’ label by Rob Playford and had released a 12” called ‘Hectic House’. Rodger from ‘Tone Def’ had a studio near me so I arranged to hire it for a week and with Rodger engineering and teaching me how to use the Akai S950 sampler, Cubase and the mixing desk we produced 2 tracks, first was called ‘Don’t Stop’ and had the Amen Brother breakbeat with a sample from ‘Vivaldi – The Four Seasons’, the second was ‘Rush Higher’ with a sample from ‘Rhythm Section- Atomic EP’.

               I got the record pressed onto a white label of 1100 copies, a few weeks later I saw Rodger who said that he had heard the record played in a club and he very excited and so suggested coming over to make some more tracks. The track ‘Rush Higher’ also got a play on Radio One by Slipmatt in a daytime show to the amazement of everyone I knew.

               Later in 1992 I followed up my first 12” with a 4 track EP, this did better than the first one and it got played everywhere, I sent one to ‘Mixmag’ for a revue and it got a 5 out of 5 revue by Dom Philips and was in the ‘Mixmag’ hardcore charts for about 4 weeks. After that EP I did a one sided white label called ‘Do It, Do it’ which sampled ‘Q –Mental Cube’ which was ‘Future Sound Of  London’ under a different name. I gave a copy of  ‘Do It, Do it’ to D.J. Carl Cox and he played it right there and then, after that Carl Cox played ‘Do It Do It’ everywhere, raves like ‘Universe’ and others.
               The fourth release had no title it was just known as ‘Junk004’ a 2 track12”, the b-side a different version of the a-side. It was dark and hectic with the Amen Brother breakbeat and a sample from ‘UTFO’ that goes ‘I’m sorry your scratching is up, please deposit another record or your party will be terminated’. ‘Junk004’ was massive, Grooverider played it everywhere for months and lots of other D.J.s played it as well.
               I did up to 12 of the Junk records but 3 and 4 were the biggest, these change hands for high prices today as they had very limited presses and were played loads.

               In 1994 started playing house and hard house/ techno under the name of Blister Sisters, produced a white label called Blister Sisters 001 which got a lot of club play, this was followed up with other volumes on the label ‘Completely Suitable’ which I created. Also on this label were a series called ‘The Mega Mix’ which were house anthems mashed up onto 1 track, there were 5 of these. The Blister Sisters tracks got a wide range of play including Pete Tong on Radio 1 and Judge Jules.

During the mid 90's I used to produce jungle / drum & bass, prefering the ambient style to the jump up style which was big at the time. I did several releases through the 90's, my favourite was 'Flesheaters' released in 1996.

              In 1997 produced an album called ‘Breaker Break Volume 1’ on my label ‘Second To None’ which was tracks using funk breaks, not really following a genre but similar to the old lessons 12”s which came out of New York in the early 80’s.

               The ‘Breaker Breaks’ series went well so continued with other volumes and other projects on the ‘Second To None’ label, this label is still going today and has released over 30 releases, due for 2009 is ‘Breaker Breaks Volume 6’. Tracks from this label have been licensed to other labels around the world – MZEE in Germany, Bomb in USA and others.

                The Completely Suitable label and Blister Sisters productions ended in 1997.

                Today I produce and D.J. under the name ‘D.J. Junk’ although I have released various other projects under various other names,  today I am playing a mash-up style of Old Skool Hip Hop / Electro / Funk / Soul / Disco / Breaks, most of the tracks I’ll play would have been remixed or mashed up by myself, taking the best bits from all kinds of genres and putting them together to make strong dance tracks. I dj around the country and sometimes abroad. Occasionally I’ll bring out the Old Skool Hardcore/ Rave when requested.  

                  For the future I’ll focus on making my dj style unique and building the second to none label.