The Music
I have been lucky enough to have grown up in the rave era, frequenting raves and dance events since the late 80’s and early 90’s in Plymouth, UK. The warehouse was my main stomping ground with my good friend Noddy. We used to make a right weekend of it back in those days, prepping with a full English breakfast on a Friday afternoon at the Gorge cafe on Royal Parade.
Going to a rave on a Friday night and then following it up with a night at Cultural Vibes! Dance Planet, Obsession, Essence, Helter Skelter were firm favourites in Plymouth in the early 90’s. Listening to such DJ’s as Sy, EasyGroove, Carl Cox to name but a very few, the scene was not to be missed and if you were there to experience this then you were lucky! Not only Plymouth but travelling to raves at the Cornwall Colosseum, Berties in Newquay, Lakota in Bristol and many more places across the UK was a right treat.
My 1st taste of mixing music was done using, believe it or not 2 tape decks where I would stop and start the tapes to create a continuous run of music using different tracks. I would use boom boxes and even full Hi-Fi units to create my ‘masterpieces’! I then progressed to using 2 belt driven decks without pitch control or anything so fancy, that was it! I had caught the bug and needed to get serious about DJ’ing.
I remember helping Noddy rig an event on New Years Eve and being asked If I could help bring a Sound System back from Cornwall to the event. This was my step into the world of sound engineering, rigging and most importantly DJ’ing! I soon moved to Cornwall to work for Exodus Audio Visuals where I had the mad few years rigging events such as Dance Planet, Obsession and Verbeer Manor to name a few. Sound engineering for top DJ’s all over the country. It is there where I picked up the decks and ran with it, having access to 1210’s 24hrs a day was something I had always yearned for.
Having worked with some of the best equipment in the business I learned how to use software tools to enable me to make my own music and to remix others work to make my own mashups of popular tracks.
I have been lucky enough to play some fantastic club night’s, some mad illegal raves, even pirate radio stations in my time. Nowadays I have a weekly set on Plymouth’s FCM Live Radio, Saturday night’s at 8PM – 10PM.
The Photography
Photography became a passion mine around 12 years ago using a point and shoot camera when I was lucky enough to visit India for 2 months. When I returned to the UK I invested in a Fujifilm Bridge Camera and got to know how to use camera settings and how to edit images. I quickly became obsessed with photography and set about creating images that would capture the unusual elements of the world around us.
I quickly learned how to capture images that would invoke thought in the viewers mind, not just taking snap shots but thinking about the subject matter and creating a story from it. Slow Exposure photography became something I loved and, I am passionate about to this day, I love the fact you can take a picture and turn it into something else just by slowing down the Shutter speed of a camera.
I still use a Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D DSLR along with a Nikon D3200 to create images that provoke thought. I now also use a DJI Mavic Mini to create Aerial Photography and Video’s