I’ve been writing ever since I was literate. Even when I was a kid, my mum would spot me scribbling inside an exercise book and say “Are you writing your memoirs?”. At the time, I wasn’t, but now I am. It’s actually the second volume I’ve written. The first was “Too Loud In ‘Ere”, my memories of 20 years of watching live music. But that story was a man-in-the-crowd perspective. It wasn’t strictly ‘my’ story, rather my view of someone else’s story. My epic-length festival write-ups, available to Facebook friends only as Notes, said more of my personal experiences, but I was still writing as an audience member.
Still, that and a rather lengthy blog relating to my day job sparked something inside of me. Long-form writing was my thing after all, and in an era when most people have the attention span of a Tweet when browsing online, or constantly re-used the same passages of text via syndication, I though it was time to revive it as a regular activity. I began with my series of “Listener’s Guide”, a step-by-step walkthrough the careers of various bands that I felt worthy of more attention than the regular music biographers would give them. These will still be written as and when I get round to them
But I took a break from those when my 10th anniversary as a DJ approached. I’d briefly mentioned the idea of doing a DJ memoir after I released my live music piece, but didn’t really get down to it until recently. Was there a story to tell? It’s not like I’ve got Wikipedia notability criteria. But then I realised that it’s all about spinning a tale, not about the worldwide significance of events. Picking out the key moments, and explaining why they mattered. There are people who have questioned my motivation for Djing with no hope of financial gain – it’s time to answer those questions – and then some.
In writing this story, I have chosen not to personally identify anyone who has had a negative impact on this story. I hope it does not ruin the impact of the piece – I simply have no wish to raise old arguments once more. However, I doubt any of those people will even discover that this story even exists. This story is for those of you have been part of the journey, and for those of who followed said journey from afar. They are people who click ‘Like’ on my DJ activity on Facebook despite never having visited of my sets, either due to geographical separation or just due to being into different things these days.
Every set I’ve played is mentioned at least in passing, though obviously I’ve picked out keynote sets to describe in more detail. Some of the events I played were a story in their own right, but I’ve told as much of the tale as I believe is worth telling. There are aspects of mixing technicalities and PA setup that I’ve skipped as they won’t be of interest to anyone but other DJs and sound engineers, but I’ve covered included enough details to make it count where it matters. Every story has it’s friends and foes, and a malfunctioning soundsystem is as much a problem as DJ politics or non-existent crowds!
So, let’s get on with it then….first my EOL-Era.
Intro / The EOL-Era / 2008 / 2009 / 2010 / 2011 / 2012 / 2013 / 2014 / 2015 / 2016 / 2017 / 2018 / The Last Word / The Facts / The Credits
