Of course everyone spell checks my DJ name as Fusion, something you have to either let go or point out & I know plenty more of you have the same thing.
Underground Central was a weekly DnB night from 1999 to 2000 representing Midlands locals in a quickly growing scene.
DJ’s on the night were Astro J, Hazard, Escape, Devize, FuZion, Radics & Switchback.
Not technically my first set played out, but my first set as DJ FuZion but I don’t remember flyers for this one. I guess flyers would be the last thing I think about leading up to the night.
Playing at the Blueprint Bar, Birmingham for Escapes new night, Second Strike was the first of mant crazy nerve racking experiences that comes with the territory.
My first set was at a place called, The Drum in Aston. A good mate, The Original Future, got me a 20 minute slot just to get a feel for club mixing. That was somewhere earlier in the summer. Also nerve tingling.
[Recorded]
Kool FM run a competition for an up & coming DJ to join the ranks Kool FM. I’d only been on the decks a couple of months but at the least, I could get some quality feedback.
This was the night they chose to give feedback to the entrants. Only just getting my entry in time, recording it on 13th May, I sent in my demo under the early handle of, Russ-T.
Astro J, Biggie & Hazard presented a pure jokes show along with live calls, mock adverts & later on review the demos pitching my intro style similar to a Devize vibe.
A couple more months of picking up on the feedback & keeping in touch with the Kool FM crew & I was invited to join the team at the end of the year.
Man I love this technology!
It’s like recording to CD, only smaller! No more rewinding tapes when a mix goes wrong again.
I’ve got this mix tucked away somewhere with plenty other archives that I may upload here one day. In fact I have a few older tape mixes somewhere too.
Hailed as one of the greatest Drum & Bass nights in Birmingham, mostly thanks to the Roni Size, Krust & Dynamite MC set, an absolutely storming line up gave Midlands DnB heads a reason to believe the scene was on the rise again. If ever there was doubt in joining this world, tonight was absolute confirmation of what I wanted to do.
On 10th April 1999, Astro J played this set live on Kool FM. And I managed to record the show too. Good catch!
[Recorded]
After mixing with a stereo & games console all year, for Christmas 98′ I asked my parents for a recorded deck. Just the one so I can pitch bend at least one tune.
Went out, bought some DnB as well as Garage vinyl to start testing the water. By pay day, January, I purchased myself the second deck & had stopped the Garage purchases. It just wasn’t as varied or exciting to me.
Here’s where I really started to put in the hours.
The absolute start of my journey is difficult for me to pin down to a date, but my guess it somewhere around early to mid 1998 at work. Tandy, Corporation Street, Birmingham.
My music taste at that point was heavily weighted towards R&B / Soul with a little Garage thrown in. My rock & dance favouring friends would give me a regular ribbing for my taste in sounds. A reaction I was soon to be even more exposed to. I was at work on the first floor chilling to my music on Choice FM (Now known as Galaxy), when a couple of young lads, mid teens I’d guess, came up to my floor. They were checking out the sound systems we had, I just gave a nod their way & left them to it.
They headed to the hi-fi that was playing the radio & changed the station. They didn’t turn the volume up, they didn’t even look back my way or try to see if they’d got any attention. They simply switched the station, walked back downstairs & left the store.
Ah man, I had no plans to move so I slowly walked over to the hi-fi, a good 20-25ft away, to flick Choice FM back on. They had put on Kool FM. I didn’t know this at the time & I’d never even heard of it. I knew of jungle, but never took the time to listen to it. Too noisy.
As I reached up to select my preset again, something stopped me about the music stopped me. I stood & listened for a few more seconds transfixed on the beats, turned up the volume a little & walked back to the counter. All day I listened.
Day after day I listened in the car, at work, in the car back & all evening at home. Sometimes the signal was perfect, sometimes not so. I’d got to know the name & over time I got to understand that this was a pirate station that only broadcast on weekends. When I caught it mid-week the first time, this was some sort of bank holiday thing so the station took a few more chances.
Throughout 1998 I developed an interest in the idea of mixing. My first non-mixed DnB CD was Sound in Motion from Origin Unknown, later came the Unified Colours of Drum & Bass & not long after was Jonny L’s Magnetic. I needed to mix these & so with the closure of some Tandy stores the same year, sales began. I bagged a 4 channel mixer for £30 hooked it up to a standard CD player with no fast forward or rewind & about a half second delay in playing the CD from a paused state along with an Amiga CD32 connected to a TV, output the audio to my midi hi-fi & started learning to beat match. What a set up!
You can now fast forward the through 1998 for my first DnB rave where I decided on a set of decks. Definitely.
My mind goes into overdrive when I try to work it out. Did those two random lads really cause everything that has followed or did they simply bring it to the fore?
Excerpts from the Kool FM Midlands Facebook Page:
Kool FM Midlands, the sister station to the mighty Kool FM London. It first broadcasted in January 1996 on 105.6Mhz. It was decided to start the station in response to the ‘northern lock down’ which was implemented by many DJ’s and MC’s refusing to travel beyond the M25 because of the trouble which occurred in The Institute, Birmingham. Subsequently, during late 1995 there was not a single DnB night in the whole of the West Midlands.
The first track to be aired on Kool FM Midlands was ‘This Style’ by Shy FX and the first live DJ set was broadcast by DJ Devize. The station would regularly commence broadcasting at 7pm Friday night’s and terminate early Monday morning (rarely being off air). Many DJ’s and MC’s worked every weekend on the station, cultivating their show so that each show had a unique selling point. This and the 15 – 20 backdoor staff allowed the Kool FM brotherhood to build up the Midlands DnB scene (who without their expertise the station would of never started). Some peeps that have broadcasted a show on Kool FM Midlands include Bryan G, DJ SS, Ratty, Fallout, Pugwash, Mc Spider, XTC, MC Det, Brockie, Skibadee and IC3.
By 2001, not only were DJ’s and MC’s willing to travel back into the Midlands but there were many successful DnB nights happening right across the West Midlands area. Nightlife was greater in the West Midlands than it had ever been in the entire DnB history. Additionally, the station was broadcasting live on the internet to everyone around the world, when broadband was limited and expensive too
Kool FM Midlands ran from 1996 till the Summer of 2002 when the station was sadly taken off air (the story of how the station got taken off air will be coming soon). The station changed the scene by putting the Midlands back on the map again and provided thousands of people entertainment for hours every weekend.
Who makes your weekend special ??? KOOL FM
N.B. Big up to the peeps who attended the Kool FM Reunion party in Jan 2012.
Of course, I didn’t know any of this at the time, but 2 years later I was to find out about Kool FM in the the most unplanned & random manner.