I’m still trying to remember the details of this one.
I’m 99% sure it was 28th December 2002, definitely at Bar Academy, just like Part 2 & you know the usual suspects were in playing. Hazard, Escape, Devize, FuZion, MC’s Biggie & Accapello. I’m also pretty sure this was the night where Daft Punk or someone that big played at the academy & the Bar Academy event for H’s birthday bash was RAMMED.
Good night.
On this day (Well, near enough anyway) a start up radio station called UK Bass Radio broadcast its launch show. Little did the station owner, DJ Overload, along with DJ CJ know that their 3 listeners (Including parents) would eventually become a worldwide station & home for hundreds of listeners daily.
UK Bass became the home of the Deceptive Audio show in 2006.
A bad day in history.
It’s just gone 4:10pm & I’m about to drop the third tune of my show, a Devize & Three A dub plate called Sherbet, when I notice something to my left. Dutche is banging the studio door trying to get my attention. When I look his way, he’s looking pretty frantic & pointing at the security monitor in the studio to my side. I see 2 police officers, a guy in plain clothes holding papers & a handheld battering ram winding up.
No time to think.
Headphones off, stop the deck & run. There’s no way out but that same way in. As I leave the studio the plain clothes guy shouts stop. I respond with, ‘no thank you’ & dart downstairs with Dutche. We spend the next few minutes thinking of ways to explain this since it’s only a matter of time until they find us.
… This was the day that Kool FM Midlands was raided. On my show. My birthday show. Kool FM Midlands rolled played on for another couple of months but closed its studio doors for good after the DTI pursued everyone they could, including heading to the Music First store in the Custard Factory where Hazard was also dragged into the court case.
Personally, the rest of my 2002 remained pretty low with more of my stuff being taken in the summer after playing a set on Broad St, Birmingham.
One of the first times I questioned whether I wanted to continue to DJ. Devize didn’t let me stop.
Influenced by the Astro J mix down hour 3 years ago, just before I joined Kool FM, this week was the first of a new feature. The first show of each month was to start on usual territory for the first hour with the mix rolling out for the second hour of the show, a pure mix down only stopping in parts to give you the tracks played.
This same format I use in my latest Drum & Bass Seview Show, Mix Sessions.
Welcomed into the 3D Mode camp, FuZion joins Devize to begin a run of bank holiday 3D Mode Special Shows to deliver freshness from the crew, banter from start to finish & a little interaction from our listeners.
Birminghams Underground Central got itself into a full flow back in 2000, throughout Jan & on 17th Feb 2000 I returned to the decks at The Gallery. This was my first (Lots of firsts at this point in my DnB history) gig out as a Kool FM DJ.
Hooking up with the 3D Mode crew, I had been spending time in the studio with Devize & cutting dubs. Here’s where I first dropped my first dub plate, Lansee, which became 3D Modes first release. I eve remember the day Devize came to the Kool studios for my show with a CD & asked me which tunes I wanted to cut. Still got the dub today.
The tune turned a few heads that night I tell ya!
On 24th Feb, Devize was representing the 3D Mode crew again. His show had a massive following & this night was highlighted by the Home Made 3D Glasses I made. A highlight for me at least, D thought I was a little mad but it raised a smile.
Good times ahead!
Into the new year we go & I head into my first B2B session. Straight after Escape has dropped an old school special with Accapello, the airwaves are taken over by FuZion, Escape & MC Biggie.
This is the day I played my very first live radio show on Kool FM.
Man I was nervous. Did I know how to talk in the mike? No. Was I fully proficient in the arts of mixing & beat matching? Questionable. Did I have the potential to grasp these? The Kool FM management seemed to think so.
It may have been the graveyard shift from 1am to 3am but with friends & family listening as well as people that I’d stood next to in the scene as ravers now becoming my listeners, I had to give everything I had. My cousin, being good mates with Threshold, text me after a particularly shaky mix telling me I’d broke his tune! Haha. I get there.
… Me? A DJ on Kool FM? Take that non-believers!
I may put the recording up one of the days. If I’m brave enough.
