DJ Interviews

Bob Blank

Cowboy — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:32:32 +0000

Where were you born and when?
I was born in 1951 in Manhattan, but I was raised in the suburbs in Hunington Long Island. There was a lot of what you’d call white flight from the city and that’s where people wound up, the first thing I wanted to do as a pending adult was to get out of there.

Dixon

Cowboy — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:22:02 +0000

Dixon might have been a footballer, long distance runner or a high jumper, but luckily for house heads worldwide, dodgy knees and disillusionment towards solitary training methods meant he ended becoming one of the leading lights in Berlin clubland just as it grew beyond its techno heritage.

Victor Simonelli

frank.talisman — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:14:24 +0000

Glenn Gunner

ladyboygrimsby — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:13:56 +0000

Glen Gunner is from the generation of suburban soulboys who were turned on by house music and helped change the course of dance music in this country. Raised in Hillingdon and schooled by a disco and punk loving sister, Gunner was DJing at the Warehouse in Camden when he was 18 and went on to make the hugely influential Street Corner Symphony records, still some of the best British house records ever released.

Where did you grow up?

Afrika Bambaataa

frank.talisman — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 12:47:36 +0000

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DJ Shadow.

ladyboygrimsby — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:59:39 +0000

Californian DJ Shadow made his name as the sample-auteur of the trendy Mo' Wax in London with his debut album Endtroducing in 1996. Since then, he’s forged a reputation as both a collector and DJ who stays one step ahead of the pack in his constant quest for new and interesting records. We asked him about his career as a digger.

When did you start collecting?

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Kenny Carpenter

ladyboygrimsby — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 20:50:30 +0000

Kenny Carpenter is a survivor. He’s a DJ who has gone through from every part of nightlife from doing the lights with Walter Gibbons to DJing at Studio 54 and, finally, addiction to crack cocaine and has come out the other side grinning. He’s an old-fashioned entertainer who knows to have a good time, is as dapper as they come (he does a great line in fur-trimmed coats) and can still rock a party. We love him.

Where did you grow up?

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Nicky Siano

ladyboygrimsby — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 15:58:22 +0000

Nicky Siano was dancing in Manhattan clubs at fifteen and by the age of 17 was resident and co-owner of the hottest club in New York: The Gallery. He mentored Frankie Knuckles and Larry Levan, worked in the studio with Arthur Russell and was set to become another high-profile drug casualty until he got his life back on track with campaigning work for people with AIDS. He came out of retirement in the late 1990s and these days DJs all over the world.

How did you get into records?

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Tom Moulton

frank.talisman — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:30:18 +0000

Though never a DJ, Tom Moulton was instrumental in creating some of the essential tools and techniques of the craft, being responsible for the first remixes, as well as the accidental invention of the percussion breakdown and the 12-inch single. His name appears on hundreds of classic records.

When did you start collecting records?

Before you were born. The first record I asked my mother to buy me was ‘One O’clock Jump’ by Count Basie. I was five years old. That was 1945.

A 78?

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Henri Belolo

frank.talisman — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:01:14 +0000

A young DJ in Casablanca transfixed by African drums, a dapper regular at the first nightclubs in post-war Paris, a disco mogul who slipped supergay caricatures into middle America. You probably know Henri Belolo (shown here, centre) as co-creator, with Jaques Morali, of The Ritchie Family and The Village People, and producer of a raft of French disco artists including Dennis Parker and Patrick Juvet.

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