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Originally Posted by Walker  If I recall correctly (but I might be mistaken), there were only demo pressings of the Doug Banks track in existence at that time. |
That's highly likely, I know that was the case for a few of the NS classics.
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Originally Posted by Walker He sounds like an incredibly down to earth guy given the circles he must mix in. Many of the better known House DJs who appeared at my father's (pretty well-known) nightclub in the 90s were arrogant, coke-addled dick-heads. Maybe that says more about the House scene in this part of the world though. |
Nah, not just your part of the world, it was often par for the course in the house scene over here. Except our greatest house DJ, funnily enough, He's shy and modest as hell. They were the kind of people I looked to as role models, and it really worked for me. It's amazing what you can do with a crowd that knows you, know you're approachable and is on your side. But a lot of my colleagues could be pretty arrogant, and "fuck you, I'm the DJ". Most of the American guys I met were pretty cool about stuff though.
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Originally Posted by Walker I miss all of the youth sub-cultures visible at that time really. There were so many to identify with (mods, rockers, punks, psychobillies, rude boys/girls, etc., etc.) that you learned a lot if you got sucked into one. That level of diversity just seemed to evaporate in the 90s though.  |
I miss that diversity too. The first club I started going to when I was about 15, because we were a small city, and house hadn't arrived yet, it was the only club that wasn't mainstream, other than the one gay club, with which there was a lot of exchange, and it gathered all the various tribes in one spot. It was amazing. Mods, Punks, all the rest, the real old school b-boys, and it was open 7 nights a week, so a real culture formed there, that was the catalyst for what arrived later with house. Everyone was something unusual.
Out of that one club, came so much talent, so many industry people, because over here, to be into that stuff, meant you really were into it, because you really had to seek out that kind of thing. We basically got our information in snatches, from things like The Face, and there was this one tiny little import store that we used to race each other too to snatch up the tiny shipments of new vinyl. We often had to make or bootleg our own clothes and stuff, which is actually how I started out in the industry. I set up a shop and used to draw up clothes and stuff and get suburban housewives to sew them up, stuff like bondage trousers, strait jackets, all kinds of gear, I'd import stuff from Cavern and places, then started getting the some of the first house oriented fashion and hip hop gear, and that became a focal point for the club scene by day. Some of those people from that club have gone on to do amazing stuff, and a loose collective of us following that set up the first house clubs, the first raves, magazine, etc. I wouldn't trade growing up then for anything. Then in the 90s it started becoming much more homogenous, never to return.