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?

I grew up in Hillingdon, near Uxbridge. I grew up listening to my sister’s punk and disco collection. She’s five years older than me and was going out regularly; local places where they played disco and also going to gigs where they had punky bands playing. She took me to some parties when I was still young. She took me to a futurist night in Kingston when I was about 12, and that was all Kraftwerk and all that sort of electronic stuff.

When were your first excursions to clubs?

I remember me and my mate we were about 14 and we got the train into town and went to Le Beat Route and that was the first proper club in town. We got there about 10 to make sure we got in. We were there waiting for it to open and we were in front of the queue and we actually did get in, we were quite amazed about that. But we had the most amazing night there, brilliant music, a real mixture of funk, bit of disco and brilliant atmosphere. We read about it in the Face! Soon after that the WAG opened and the Friday night at the WAG took over from the Friday night at Le Beat Route so I was quite a regular down the WAG when I was about 15. I can’t remember the name of the night or who was playing. Then going to clubs on a regular basis would have been when I was 17 and I was working with Charlie Chester.

Was Charlie a clubber then?

Yeah. We all used to meet up at a local wine bar called Keats in Hayes. It was a nice little bar, a couple of guys played really good music down there, some funk, rockabilly, a bit of Clash, reggae, a real mixture of stuff. So we used to meet up down there on a Saturday evening and a coach would comne and pick us up and take us into town. One of the first things I went to was the Mudd Club when it was off Carnaby Street and it was some mad venue down there with Jay Strongman and Mark Moore DJing. That was early rap, electro, all sorts.

Then we started going to the Warehouse at the Electric Ballroom which was Jay playing as well. That was the night when I had a vision. I saw Jay Strongman playing and listening to his music and I thought: that’s what I want to do. After that I was seriously collecting amnd I bought some old turntables. I started doing a few parties, a few pubs that kind of thing. About a year later I got offered a gig at the Warehouse. Me and my sister went to a party at Dave Mahoney’s in Ealing on a Sunday afternoon. Dave used to run the Warehouse. Anyway, there was no music at this party so I gave him a tape I’d made of some tunes from my car to play and everyone started dancing. He offered me a gig at the Warehouse which was quite a result. We’d been outside having a barbecue but when we went inside everyone got a bit bored without any music, which is where my tape came in. I was about 17 or 18 then. So it would have been 1984-ish. I did a weekly spot down there and then the Warehouse finished but the managers of the club still wanted to keep a night going so they asked me if I’d be interested in carrying on playing there. So I started playing there all night on my own. I think Mark Moore had gone off to do one of Philip Sallon nights. That was called the Camden Slammer.

Were you doing enough to earn a living from DJing at this stage?

Well, as well as DJing I was working at Rayners Lane Record and Disco Centre. It was a great little shop. It sold a bit of everything but they were very hot on their imports. That’s where I got the first early house records in about 1986. House took off really quickly back then but it died down very quickly too until the acid house thing.

Was John Jules working there then?

Yes but he wasn’t running it then. Simon Dunmore started working there a bit later. I was still doing Electric Ballroom then and then there was this really crappy little place on the Uxbridge Road in Greenford by the side of the road. It’s now a McDonald’s. It was the only local place really. There was me, John Jules and Jagz Kooner. We decided to put a night on there. The original idea was just to play good music, you know, funk and house and hip hop. But everyone who came down on the first night had been to Spectrum the night before and all they wanted was house. So it turned into an acid house night. I remember bumping into Diesel at Spectrum and him saying, “Oh me and my mates just started DJing can we play at your night.” So I said OK. They started off with a Balearicy type set then John Jules would play the latest imports, Jagz would play full on acid house, Pierre that kind of stuff and I’d finish off by playing more wacky stuff like Yellow Magic Orchestra and George Kranz and stuff like that. It was a really wicked night. We used to get in extra sound system and get the old the strobe light and smoke machine and take over the place. It was packed every week. We only charged a pound to get in! We’d come out of it with £20 each and be happy.

What else was happening out there at that time?

That was the sort of time when Queens started iup. I remember Phil asking me to play at Queens. “On a Sunday? That’s gonna a be a bit mellow…” I walked into this place and I couldn’t believe it. It was mental, seeing all these people just going for it at one o’clock on a Sunday afternoon in a dark place, cos all the windows had been blacked out. Do you remember the Evil Acid Baron Show? Well Rhythm King licensed Humanoid and he basically did this mad acid visual stuff. They asked me to do the soundtrack for it, like a half hour soundtrack so I went in the studio with Jagz and took all the bits of the big records of the time, combined our own stuff with it and did half an hour soundtrack mix. I stuck this on a tape and took it to Queens and just stuck that on for half an hour. I didn’t need any records, I just stuck this on.

Did you start playing there?

Not really. Occasionally. I went down there quite a lot. Don’t know if you ever went there it was on the reservoir. I had a few messy days there.

How did you first meet people like Charlie Chester?

Charlie was a hairdresser and I was a trainee. I never got into it, but I had the best time there goiung out with the people I worked with. I remember him asking me to do a warm up at Queens as well. And I kinda played some mellow Balearicy stuff at the beginning and that’s when he asked me to play out in Ibiza. That would be for the 1990 trip.

The one documented in the Short History of Chilling?

Yeah. I helped them do the soundtrack for that, too. I was working in Zoom Records by then. This guy came in cos he was doing the documentary because he wanted some of the big records of that time, so I played him the records and he used them in the soundtrack. Ibiza was brilliant then. It was still a mixture of music which is what I liked about it. I remember going to Ibiza in 1989 and I played at Amnesia with Alfredo and I just loved what he played. You’d get Soul II Soul, the Cure and going into full-on acid house.

How did you get a gig there?

I went out there with just a few records and I went to Amnesia on the first night and I bumped into an old mate Ricky (Ricardo Da Force) who was the rapper for KLF. I knew him from Rayners Lane & Record Centre. He was hanging out with Alfredo and doing stuff there so he asked me if I wanted to play some records which I did, which was great.

It must’ve still really been happening in 1989 too?

Yeah, it was brilliant. Really good mix of people. Amnesia was a very small club then. I haven’t been since but I’ve seen pictures of it and it looks massive. It was all open air. It was really special being outside on warm evenings.

Was it still predominantly European clubbers?

Yes. Very. Spanish, Italian, Germans. Then I went out in 1990 with Charlie Chester and a few hundred English people. And I had a bit of a result, actually. I went down to the Café Del Mar on the first night. I missed the sunset and it was empty. I went there the next night, I missed the sunset, and it was still empty. So I got chatting to the owner and I said, “Look I’m here with a load of English people, if you want me to play some records we can try and keep them here.” So he said OK. So I played there the next night and everyone stayed. And it got busier and busier and busier. Everyone met there before they went on to the clubs, so after the sunset I used to play about 10 till 12 every night.

When did you first go in the studio and try and make records?

Well me and Jagz Kooner started fiddling around with studio stuff in about 1988. I remember him reading an interview with Marshall Jefferson and Marshall talking about the 303 and Jagz found one really cheap because no-one knew about them. We started fiddling around with that. We made a couple of acidy tracks, but nothing ever came of it.

Do you remember Outstanding by Kenny Thomas? Anyway, his manager came in the record shop and said, “I’ve got a white guy who’s got a nice soulful voice. He wants to do a cover version.” So I said, “What about Outstanding?” He liked it so he said, “Do you wanna go in a studio and co-produce it?”. So I said, “Yeah”. I’d never been in a propr studio before. We just sampled a load of old beats up and some musicians came in and played all the parts and then Kenny came in and did the vocal. Didn’t think much more of it, but next thing I know it’s in the Top Ten of the charts! That was the start of it.

Was it a fluke?

I guess so.

Was that you and Jagz?

No it was me and Richie Fermie. He ended up working with Gabrielle, I think. He used to come down to the night at Barbarella’s with his 303 and 808 and do live acid in this little shitty club in Greenford. We did that and then made the first Street Corner Symphony track, which is the unreleased version. That was in 1991. We went into Jagz’s place and got all these ideas down and he went off to have some dinner. I sat down with the mouse and just started clicking things on and off, just to see how it sounded. It wasn’t supposed to be a mix. But I was really pleased with the end result but because it was on tape I couldn’t do anything with it, really. But anyway I shopped it around and people were interested and then they weren’t. I got mucked about loads and then forgot about it. Then there was a guy called Woody who worked at the Ministry of Sound when they started Open Records. Woody was the first person there I played it to and he was interested. And then he kind of wanted it, so we went back into the studio to re-do it because we only had a cassette. They re-mastered it the tape and did it as best as they could – it sound ok – but we really needed to do it again.

So the first time you did it, it was you and Jagz?

Yeah. And another guy called Gary Burns who was in Sabres of Paradise with Jagz. And then went back in, Harvey in percussion and Pete Z did the keyboards on it.

How did you come across Pete because he wasn’t so widely known then?

He’d done stuff previously. He’d played with Soul Family Sensation. I didn’t know him but somebody said there was a guy named Pete who played keyboards and I think he’d played on a few Idjut Boys records by then. So he came in as a session player but he did such a good job so we started working together from there really.

How did you meet Harvey?

Well at that time I think I was playing at The Gardening Club… I was playing at Flying at the Soho Theatre Club. I’d moved from Zoom over to Flying in Kensington. And I was playing there every Saturday night. And I got asked to play at Ophelia at the Gardening Club. Harvey was doing Moist on a Friday and I was doing Ophelia on a Saturday, so I went down to Moist quite a lot on a Friday. I’d heard he played percussion so I invited him in to play. I remember Jim Masters calling me from Miami and Tony Humphries had played it at some night out there and Masters At Work, Todd Terry all came rushing up to the deck to find out what the record was; which was great to hear after all these years of waiting for it to come out.

I really like the Unreleased Version, because it’s interesting to hear it as a work in progress, but the finished version is so much brighter and stronger and beefier.

Yeah, I agree, but I do really like the other version. Then François played it at the Ministry which was brilliant.

Did you do any more records for the Ministry?

Yeah we did Symphony For The Devil. It didn’t do as well as the first, because it wasn’t as housey, it was more funky. Then we set up Street Corner Records. Got a call from New York which was great. Body & Soul had just started and it was actually empty when I went there but François was playing some brilliant brilliant records on that amazing sound system. I remember walking into the club and hearing Gwen Guthrie’s Seventh Heaven on that immaculate sound system and just thinking, “Yeah, this feels like home”. It was an amazing feeling.

So you then did the Block 16 project. How did you meet Dave Hill [from Nuphonic]?

Well I remember him saying he really liked the first Street Corner Symphony track and he asked me if I’d be interested in doing stuff for Nuphonic. I did play him the Symphomaniac but he chose not to release it so I set up my own label. I was actually sharing a flat with Jools Butterfield who used to work at Nuphonic and he played it to Dave who liked it and that’s how the ball started rolling. Block 16 was me, Pete and Raj (Gupta). I did this remix for Charles Schillings No Communication, No Love, we actually did that in Raj’s studio and I was really pleased with the result. Before that I’d been using Can Can, Ben Mitchell’s studio which Faze Action and Idjut Boys also used. It was great but I was living out in East London and he was in Uxbridge so it was a long commute and Raj had a place in the centre of town. So we did the remix at his place so I mentioned about doing a project together. It took ages, a couple of years, got some amazing musicians in and that came out on Nuphonic and it looked like it was going to be a big and getting amazing reviews nut the sad news arrived: Nuphonic went bust. It made me have second thoughts about it all…

Did it come out properly?

Yes it did. But that’s when they went bankrupt. That’s when I thought this business is not going to pay the bills. But I’m not complaining, I had a brilliant 20 years travelling the world and having fun.

© DJhistory.com

Interviewed by Bill Brewster in London, Nov 11 2008

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