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    Club Ready Radio Dance Freex Radio

DJ

Smoggy

Background

In 1990, aged 14, it was impossible to escape rave culture and music. Artists such as The Prodigy regularly graced the national charts, and that was it, I wanted in!
I soon found there were plenty of parties to attend that weren’t especially bothered about licensing and age restrictions.

So that was it, I became a vinyl junkie. I got my hands on my first set of decks in 1991, a pair of belt-driven Pro-Vision 150s, and a Made to Fade GM35 mixer. Man it was a labour of love getting good on those things! But I wanted to be like the mighty DJ Sasha who was my hero back then.

Then in 1994, I moved to London where I fell into the newly emerged London Acid Techno scene. It was the scene that got me, it felt so good to be back in warehouses and squatted buildings just like it had been at the start a few years earlier. I had the bug then, and played anywhere that would have me, mostly on the free party scene, until 2000 when I left the UK.

Fast forward 22 years, and a few of the old crew got back in contact. Reminiscing one evening, we realised that now the world had moved into the digital age, we could get all those white labels and tunes that were previously only available to the DJ fraternity. I’d had a go on a mate’s digital controller, so early this year after a big life change, I bought myself a set and it didn’t take long to get the hang of mixing again.

It felt so good digging for tunes again, and finding all these new genres, especially of techno! Many of the producers my age have been remixing and using samples from a lot of the old-school rave and hardcore tunes of the early 90s, and I love it! The familiar vocal samples and riffs take me back to those halcyon days.

My first gig since being back on the scene was Easter weekend this year at a small yearly memorial weekender, Weztival, on the Somerset levels. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was playing alongside some of our local scene’s big names in techno, and I played well enough to be noticed.

Mark Neenan, DJ and boss of Filth Infatuated Digital label even picked up one of my hard and acid techno sets to play on his Filth cast show on Fnoob Techno radio.

Which leads to the present, and being introduced to the Club Ready Crew. The standard of mixing from all the DJs I’ve heard so far has been top-class! And what a great little tribe of people all supporting each other and helping each other to grow. I’m excited to be a part of it!

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