The Secret DJ - The Secret DJ

I have had an interesting life, and unlike a lot of my peers I have made copious notes along the way, perhaps in the full knowledge that much will be forgotten. I certainly never set out to be a DJ. No one did in the 1980s, unless you wanted to get on the radio and dubiously close to children. Then it was literally to be a Disc Jockey, a radio term about a radio job. Sure, Mobile DJs existed and we all had the school disco in the 1970s, but even if you took the thing out of the radio studio and into a church hall, the DJ still spoke between the records as if he were on-air something, I still have to explain to old folks, that just doesnt happen any more. One thing they do understand is how much more important a record was back then. People would sit in a room together in silence and listen to a record with reverence. The idea of background music was unheard of. Compared to today even easy listening was paid attention to rapturously (the clue is in the name). It was as crazy as the idea of making reality TV that isnt designed to be watched. Imagine a time when there was nothing digital in the home and the domestic sound system meant more to many people than the rarer television. Most of the first-generation DJs you revere come from a time when very little came in through the eye and everything that mattered entered your ears. Today the job is very much about a deep love of the self, instead of the music. Music itself has been devalued almost to the point of zero. It is merely fuel for the careers of DJs, the soundtrack to something, not a thing in itself; content for your totally awesome life, and disposable content at that. I come from a time when it was everything, rather than nothing. It was an object, a highly fetishised totem that didnt come to you and wasnt available all that regularly. You had to leave the house and find this thing, using nothing but your physical senses. I dont say this to alienate young readers I owe you everything! Every week I work for you. Its just by way of context, to help you understand. This book is for you, after all.

For me, like I imagine many others, music was a connection to something ephemeral and deeply glamorous that happened to other people very far away. Many of the very successful can be born into an industry, either directly to industry parents or in a major city where the industry is conveniently located. Some of us, however, watched from such a remove that it was comical, somewhere radio waves barely reached, never mind the latest vinyl or current clothing fashions. But for all of us it started with radio empowering nerds. Wherever you were. However nerdy. If you are younger than me, just replace the word radio with internet.

The Swinging Sixties and modern dance music have much in common. Both started as a counter-culture and both were in large part protest movements. They were driven by a love of music and centred around the rave. Drugs, lights and sounds were the church. Staying up all night was what it was all about. However, the 1960s have been incredibly well documented, maybe even a tad overglamourised. Indeed, it could be said the northern soul or punk or heavy-metal scenes have received almost as much reverence and documentation as modern dance music. The dance music scene has lasted far longer than any other thirty years rather than a mere decade but has enjoyed very little coverage other than a couple of frankly awful films and a handful of books. Id like to redress that a bit. Id like to see more. Because dance music is simply fucking huge, mate. Its big. Its larger than Jupiters codpiece. Its the worlds biggest youth movement bar none, and unlike its grandfather, the 1960s, its still getting bigger. America stuck its flag in the 60s as if the decade never happened anywhere else, and now they have finally arrived at the rave. Again they are claiming it for themselves, long after the rest of the world. But Hollywood feature films and huge global magazine sales are just the tip of the iceberg amid the vastness of the dance scene. A newcomer might be forgiven for thinking it started very recently in the US. Indeed, many believe that to be the case. Its simply not true. Weve been raving hard since the Second Summer of Love in 1988, and were still at it.

My aim is to tell the true story of DJing, to be an authentic voice speaking from and to this scene, to give hints and guide newbies on their pilgrimage and to tell it as it really is. It is my story, however. For that I am both sorry and unapologetic. Its the only story I know. Im no statistician, fetishist or collector. Im just a working DJ. So, in the absence of knowledge and an education, the only way I can be an authority is to present my experience. Its all I have.

Its not an instruction manual or a history book. Shall we just agree to call it a cautionary tale that may illuminate? Just for the record, I could write a manual, OK? Yeah, and it would be amazing. Totally. But a book cant instruct upon something as simple and intuitive as playing records. House music is a feeling. Anyway, you just want the rock n roll dirt, dont you? Naughty.