THE RAVE DAYZ

By 1993 the rave scene was in full flow in Scotland. I managed to get myself onto a few line-ups, but got nowhere near as many gigs as some other Scottish DJs, which boiled down to my musical choice. Although I did play some Techno and rave anthems just to prove that I was a much better DJ than half the clowns getting the work. But it was never really me and I never enjoyed playing those styles. You got to give the people what they want I suppose and in Scotland in those times thats what they wanted.

My attention focussed more and more on the rave scene in England, where Breakbeat went hand-in-hand with the rave scene. DJ's who were playing this style included Fabio, Grooverider, Carl Cox, Slipmatt, Top Buzz, and of course, DJ SS and Stu Allan. I found it really frustrating that when some of those DJs played in Scotland at events such as Rezerection, people accepted the music, but not when I played it.

The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was when I played for a promoter whose night, Hysteria, was staged in the Livingston Forum - a venue made popular by one of Scotlands biggest promoters at the time Awesome 101. The venue held around 3000, but due to bad ticket sales, there wasn’t any more than 500 people. When it was my turn to play, I stepped up to the decks with the now normal worries about how the tunes were going to go down – and I didn’t have long to wait! Within two or three records I noticed ravers, their faces all screwed up, heaving against the fence at the front of the stage. A few light sticks bounced across the stage in my direction, followed by loads of booing. I wasn’t up for that, and without hesitation I stopped the tunes, packed my bag and made my way off the stage. I grabbed up the microphone en-route and told the crowd to “FUCK OFF,” leaving the following live act in disarray - they weren’t ready to perform! Funny thing was I still got paid for playing and the press I recieved for shouting at the crowd still lives on to this day most notably in Brian Belle Forunes book on the Jungle scene All Crew Mus Big Up.

<Insert All Crew Mus Big Up> <Front Cover>


2004 saw Vision Publishing the company behind Knowledge Magazine re print five years after an update to the original book which is called 'All Crew'. I'm also mentioned in the new edition <Cover>  <Insert> To obtain further information or to buy a copy of the new book visit the following link www.knowledgemag.co.uk/allcrews/

The following Monday after that event I received numerous phone calls from people involved in the Scottish rave scene, telling me they had heard what happened. One caller proceeded to tell me they thought I would never play out in Scotland again. This did make me worry, but at the end of the day, I hadn’t been playing out much anyway. I made an apology for my outburst in a Scottish Clubbing magazine.Shortly afterwards, my name appeared in a night club’s newsletter of DJs not to book.<Poll>

For me something had to change, so I decided it was time to make my move, and my management at the time suggested I would have more success down south.

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