Greg James is the man who brought mixing to the UK. He came over from the US to start a residency at the Embassy Club in London, a conscious copy of New York's disco palaces, which opened in April 1978. Greg later opened Spin Offs, the influential record store in Fulham and installed many sound systems including the Warehouse in Leeds. He's a great raconteur with an ear for scandal. Here's what was left after the lawyers finished with it...

 

Where were you born?

I was born in Argentina, during Peron’s days. My father was working there and my mother happened to be pregnant with me while he was there. I was brought up in Pennsylvania. A big vacation area called the Pocono Mountains. It’s full of honeymoon resorts ands ski areas and some of those places were where I started putting sound and lighting systems in.

 

How did you get into music?

I basically went to New York when I was about 17, to a nightclub.

 

What year would that have been?

1974. It was the Turntable on E 50th Street. Sorry the Roundtable.

 

What was it like?

It was a big supper club type of place, with a big-mirrored ball and some great music. Good sound system, great drag shows. It was a lot of fun. Then friends took me to Le Jardin on W 43rd Street and then the Hollywood.

 

What was your impression of Le Jardin?

I loved it.

 

What was so good about it?

It was the whole ambience of the place, it was just fun. There were all sorts of issues there of things that used to happen. They had an issue with the mob that night. I don’t know what they do now, but they did nasty things then.

 

What was it like as a club, though?

It was fun. It was full of black and white, gay and straight couples. Very mixed bag. They didn’t have a liquor license so they served beer and wine. It was included in your ticket on the door which was 20 bucks. You could eat as much fresh fruit and cheese and drink as much free drink as you want.

 

Was that a way of circumnavigating the license laws?

Yeah. What was that one next to the Hollywood… it was the Turntable…. Turntable was the first one and that’s where I met Richie [Kaczor]and then he moved to the Hollywood and I moved with him and got their sound and lighting system. I was already doing audio stuff. [Turntable was actually the previous name for Hollywood]

 

How did you get into the lighting and audio business?

Lighting was my actual expertise, I studied that in university. I did theatrical lighting courses. I knew somebody who did sound systems, big professional ones; I met him at a nightclub somewhere in PA. I had a portable sound system; I started off as basically a mobile DJ. I was also working as a food and beverage manager for Sheraton. That was the first club we put together, we did an installation there. Hollywood happened at just about the same time I was doing the Sheraton, I got their control board sorted out with GLI and a couple of good turntables, Technics, the old SL1100As, that’s where Richie I got really close. And then Richie moved to Studio 54 and things rolled on from there.

 

Did you know the main sound guys from those days, then, like Richard Long and Bob Casey?

Yeah, but I didn’t compete with them because I didn’t do any big work. The Hollywood was small. Most of the work I did was in the Pocono Mountains, I did six or so clubs up there and had them going; I was training DJs and stuff up there.

 

Where was the first time you heard people mixing?

New York. Did my head in. I loved it.

 

What did it sound like when you first heard it?

It was incredible. I was just very excited. It used to really excite me to hear one record blending into the other one and I wanted to know how it was done. I had good musical ears; I was a concert pianist as a child. I played in Carnegie Hall with three other students when I was eight. Polonaise Opus 53, all 13 pages of it. I don’t play like I used to, but I can still tinker around. I bought this one because it plays itself [he taps a nice grand piano next to us]. That’s really where my musical talent came from. So the timing was easy for me, because I’d studied it.

 

Could you see the musicality in what DJs were doing?

Yeah. Actually I don’t think some DJs knew what they were doing. I don’t think musically they were counting the rhythm and bars as well as you think. But they did it naturally which was amazing, and they did it very well. They just kept sounds that went together and the beats per minute and stuff, but they weren’t actually counting bars all the time. I actually divided it all up and made it work and when I went to teach other people and give them the reasons… the reasons were the 4/4 timing. That’s how I taught my students how to mix.

 

You said Richie was the one who schooled you…

I was close to him and I loved what he did, the different tricks. Basically I used to buy the same records he had and then go back to Pennsylvania and figure it out! [laughs] I did it. He didn’t actually sit me down and teach me, but I was always over his shoulder watching all the time. And I was mad for him.

 

What tricks did he teach you?

He was using two copies of the same tune and making it longer. He would just go straight across from one to the other and you wouldn’t even hear the mix. I started doing that and figuring it out. He was the one that really taught me that.

 

What was it about him that inspired you so much?

He was an excellent DJ. He enjoyed what he did, he loved it. He had a natural talent for it. Richie had a good side about him. He was a real person. I had a lot of respect for him. We all had our phases where we were wild and crazy but he was always a good guy, underneath it, no matter where he was working or who was pestering him or who was on his arm. He was still Richie underneath. He had a heart of gold.

 

When he moved to Studio the programme changed slightly because it was a bigger club…

Yeah, the music changed. The 12-inch single became more predominant. Gloria Gaynor was playing there. We had three different copies of I Will Survive in French and Spanish and English. We were mixing them (I was up in the booth with him). The coke spoon was going back and forth and Liza was on the floor.

 

What was it like? Can you remember specific memorable nights?

The nightclub that impressed me the most was the Saint. The rest were all [emits 'so what' sound]. They were fun. At the time they were brilliant. But the Saint as a conception was actually the cleverest thing I’ve ever seen. The layout was like an arena – it was a former studio – so it had a dome on it. I loved what they did with the bass cabinets; they were built into the tiers. The high frequencies were all behind the dome, the mids were too. You couldn’t see them, you could only hear them. Every now and then the hatches would open and the lights would descend. And then a mushroom would come out of the floor, with a projector, and it would freak you out.

 

They had a planetarium projector that used to take your feet from under you. Suddenly it would come up and you’d get these stars. So the DJ used to stop it at about 2 in the morning and this thing would not come out of the floor and about two he music would come to a grinding halt and there was Bette Davis from some film and the last thing she says is ‘and we have the stars!’ and suddenly this thing would light up and all the whole place would light up with stars – look the hairs on my arms are standing on end! – And then the music would start again with a slow beat. And it would pick up and then suddenly this thing would start moving. And the whole room was turning and if you were stoned your feet would come from underneath you! [laughs]. It was brilliant! And then hatches would open from all sorts of places and mirror balls would drop down and another spot would come out from another hatch and it was amazing. It was so simple; they had all the props and pulleys from the studio.

 

I actually think in some ways it was better than Studio 54 although it didn’t have the glamour of Studio. Studio was right there, Broadway was right around the corner, so it was easy for stars to walk there from the theatre. It was all there. It was easy. It was the right place at the right time. The publicity was incredible.

 

The guys at Studio 54, to make the front look busy, used to call the limousine companies with different stars names and they’d be waiting for hours outside for Liza Minnelli and they weren’t even in the building! Then they didn’t let you in unless you arrived in a limousine. You didn’t need an invitation you just needed to pull up in the right car.

 

Did you hang out in the booth a lot with Richie at Studio?

I was at Studio maybe two dozen times total. I was in the box all the time with him when I was there.

 

What was the atmosphere like compared to Hollywood?

Hollywood was more of a pick up bar. A dance pick up bar like Barefoot Boy. It wasn’t a place for straight couples it was a gay place. Studio 54 was more of a mixed bag but the atmosphere was electric. It was great. A little bit more commercial, the music.

 

Were you DJing at the time?

Yeah.

 

Where?

Here!

 

OK. Tell me how you came here.

I flew over here in 74 or 75 just after I graduated from high school. My grandmother left me 1000 bucks inheritance. I was 18. I’d already been to Paris so I came to London. And in a bar here I met the owner of Burke’s Peerage publishing company. His name was Jeremy Norman. He was one of the three owners of the Embassy. Derek Johns of Sotheby’s was one. Jeremy and I just became friends, but we didn’t sleep together. He came to New York to promote his book All The Presidents Men. He was being interviewed on talk shows and everything and he came up to Pennsylvania and saw what I was up to. And he was really impressed because the three or four clubs I had on the go were really nice, almost like New York style, except there were no New Yorkers. Not enough of them! [laughs] And no gays [laughs again].

 

We went to New York and we went to Fire Island for a couple of nights. We were lying on the beach there and I said to Jeremy, “You know it’s about time someone opened a New York style disco in London,” because here they were awful! Christ, Chaguarama, do you remember that dump in Earl’s Court? And they all had these little Citronic boards and Roger Squires and you couldn’t hear through the distortion. He said, "Well, you know I’ve been thinking about it and talking about it with my friends. When I find the right property will you come and DJ and help me put it together." So I said, “Sure”. Three years later, I get a letter from Jeremy:

Dear Gregory,

I have signed the lease on the most exciting premises imaginable on Old Bond Street. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor…

 

And he went through the whole thing with me. Within a month I was over here. We put together the design for the audio system and the lighting. Illusion Lighting I’d met at a trade show in New York, so I was friendly with Tony Gottelier. Real nice guy.

 

What sort of sound was it?

It was all GLI. With BGW amplifiers and Technics turntables. Then I became the GLI distributor.  Installed Régine’s [in London], reinstalled Tokyo Joe. I sold a lot of control, mostly boards. You know if you had a crap system and you put in a GLI the whole sound would change. Everything sounded good once you put the GLI in and a decent EQ. Basically, I did about 20 or 30 clubs that we were servicing.

 

Anything out of town?

We had them all over the place. Squire became a distributor; GW Parker was one, REW Electronics… People started buying equipment up north and asking me to do installations. The Warehouse in Leeds that was a big one.

 

Do you remember the opening night at Embassy?

All three of them! They couldn’t get everyone in on the first night, so they had three. It was April 1978. They were pretty amazing. The paint was wet on the first night. There was a lady that used to be around the West End, probably dead now, but she was a sweet old bag, her name was Princess Alai Alakhan. She was just another one living off her title. She’d come to the grand opening of an envelope and she came to the opening of the Embassy. She was there the first night, the first hour the place was open the walls were still tacky. And she leaned up against the walls with the Daily Mail taking a picture of her with Michael Fish, the clothing designer who was our PR, and as she stepped away from the wall her wig stuck to it! [laughter] And Steven Hayter gave the photographer $500 for the roll of film! I was sitting in the DJ booth watching this thinking, ‘Huh that’s fun.’ That was our opening night.

 

Christ, Bianca Jagger came, Elton John and John Reid, his manager. Everybody. I used to party with Ringo in there. It was good fun. It was an amazing place. They used to stomp on the floor for one more. One night I thought they were gonna break the place apart. Steven came up and said, "Mary, you’d better play another record or they’re gonna break the whole place apart and we can’t afford to fix it!" He’s such a flamboyant queen.

 

Was it exclusively gay or mixed?

No it was mixed. At the end they did different things, but I wasn’t involved in it. It was like Studio 54, it had the same crowd. I had the greatest pleasure one night: I kicked Tatum O’Neal down my ladder. She came up the ladder, and nobody was allowed up that ladder – we don’t take requests, forget it! She said, "Haven’t you got anything but this disco music?"

I said, "Get down the ladder."

"Aren’t you going to listen to my request?”

“No, get down the ladder”

“My father’s Ryan O’Neal”

“I don’t care who you’re fucking father is, now get down the ladder” and kicked her. And she went down the ladder squawking to Steven. “Mary, Mary, do what you like but don’t upset the stars – and their children!”

 

I had Keith Moon and Sid Vicious both threatened to kill me because I wouldn’t play their music. It was at the end of the night, too, and people were leaving. Beer bottles were thrown up at the booth. Vicious smashed a neon light. He threatened to kill me. I gotta tell ya I was happy when I heard that they were gone. When the first one died, I thought that’s one vendetta gone, and then when the second died, there was nobody left! I was always worried I’d run into someplace else, not that they’d remember me they were so fucked up. It was very serious incident, we had to have the police in for Keith and with Sid the bouncers threw him into the street.

 

How long did you DJ at Embassy?

I was the DJ for six months from when they opened. Started in April and left in October by mutual arrangement. Basically my business was taking off and I was invited to do Régine’s. I had another nightclub up in Manchester I was putting together, quietly. They found out about it. They didn’t want any other club with the same American style audio; they didn’t want any other American style discotheques. Steven Hayter was very protective. But I wanted my business to fly. Then came Hong Kong. Disco Disco on Hong Kong Island and another place called Grammy’s in Calhoun. I always wanted to go there. It was very exciting and it really this that made me leave the Embassy. I was only there [HK] for a month. I had to get the system working and teach the DJs how to mix. And I had a nice write up in the Hong Kong Standard. Steven said, you have a choice you can go to Hong Kong and when you come back you don’t have a job anymore. So I said, right I’m going to HK. Then they wouldn’t let me in the club for almost a year.

 

Did you train anyone to replace you at the Embassy?

I had assistance in there but I didn’t really teach anyone to mix. There was a guy named Chad, but he didn’t really have the ears for it, though. I taught a few people. There was an engineer called Chris Hawkins. Does his name crop up?

 

Never heard of him…

He was such a tosser. But I tell you who was a real help: Ian Levine. He was a good friend to me when I came to London. He knew it was the right thing what I was doing there. And he wanted to see the industry change.

 

I found a piece in a magazine and he was really defending mixing.

He took me to every office of every major record company and introduced me to the PR person and said, “Come to the Embassy and listen to this guy. Put him on your mailing list and make sure he gets everything fresh. If you’ve got 12-inch singles coming over from New York and you’ve only got a couple, this is the club that needs it!” It took a little while but they all opened up their eyes and I got friendly with them all. And I still belonged to the Philadelphia record pool, so I’d get big boxes sent over every month. But Ian pumped them and followed up. He was like a little angel sitting on my shoulder. He meant well.

 

He was very successful at Heaven wasn’t he?

He was. I said to Jeremy, “This is the guy that believes in the music, he knows how to mix and he’s the right guy to go into that club. He’ll do you well.” They gave him the job. I was pleased I was able to do something for him, for a change, because he helped me. He was very helpful. I feel like I repaid him a favour.

 

Did you go to Heaven?

Yeah, I hung out there a lot. I loved it at the beginning, it was fun. But as the monkeys all altered the sound system and the lights it got tacky and the sound got sloppy, sound-wise. I didn’t like Ian’s music particularly, at the time, either. After that, I went there to get laid! [laughs] At the beginning though it was just like a New York club. It was so big and it was packed and it was the right timing. And then Virgin bought it.

 

How did the hook up with the Warehouse happen?

Mike and Denise found me at the Embassy Club. And they told me they were building a place in the north. It happened after the Embassy. I left Embassy in October. I went to Hong Kong, did Régine’s and finished the Manchester club. I can’t remember the name but it was off Deansgate, Jimmy’s I think it was called. I hope it’s gone and the owners, too! Horrible family. Mike and Denise had this property on Summers Street, in Leeds, and it was an old warehouse. Finally secured it and got their brewery loan, as people do. And they invited me up in February 79. Sorted out the sound system with them, worked with Tony Gottelier on the lighting again. It opened up in March 1979 and it was just like the Embassy Club all over again. Exactly same thing. Same enthusiasm, people queuing down the street. You could do anything and they would’ve loved it. They had a ball up there.

 

I DJed for about a year, playing four nights a week. Mike was American and his wife was British. And they had a chain of restaurants, hamburgers joints, called That Damn Yankee and they sold them and rolled everything into this nightclub. I left the club at the end of 1980. He started changing the music policy; I trained up a couple of guys. Marc Almond was our coat check girl. I used to put on his make up then. He was nice then.

 

I remember him being a miserable bastard in the cloakroom!

Well, he was nice to me, but I was living with the owner! Do you remember Roxy, that guy that used to turn up to the Roxy once in a while. He had a plastic clear dress on. He had a hat and a cape, he had nothing on underneath so you could see straight through to his body. He looked like a fairy godmother. He used to turn up on a Saturday and do some really strange things. Smoke used to emit from under the stage and Roxy would squat over the hole where the smoke was coming from so it would look like it was coming from between his legs. And he would flap his wings so the smoke would swoosh around; it was the most amazing thing. We brought out all the eccentrics of west Yorkshire! It was so much fun. Then they did something completely different, they sold the club and bought a nursing home in Ilkley! Then they moved to the States to Denver and then divorced. She’s back here; she owns an apartment in this building. We’re very close friends now.

 

There was another place called the Warehouse in Glasgow, a black DJ, can’t remember his name. He was the only black guy in Glasgow at the time! Then I dropped the DJing, kept going with the installation business. I was sitting with my bank manager one day and he said your cash flow is terrible; it’s all or nothing. Why don’t you open up a little retail store for some regular cash. So that’s how Spin Offs opened. Greg Edwards named it. He said that was the best name for a store. Greg and I were always close. We spent a lot of time with each other. We met at the Embassy Club. He was curious to hear the American who didn’t speak.

 

He was very anti-mixing, wasn’t he?

Yes he was.

 

Did he soften his view?

We never discussed it but we got on like a house on fire.

 

When did you open Spin Offs?

1984 and closed in 1989.  Greg’s a good lad. He was right for this market. He had the right voice.

 

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Interviewed by Bill Brewster in London, 2.06.05