Although I had been a loyal follower of the rave scene through both its peak in 1992 and its commercial demise in the mid 90's, i didn't even think about DJ'ing until about 1996.
A friend and myself were both into Drum & Bass and Hip-Hop at the time, and decided we wanted to learn how to mix, just as a hobby. After practicing at friends' houses, I got my first set of turntables in 1997. I never even thought I would ever play in any clubs or get paid for doing it, I just wanted to learn how to mix and scratch, after being inspired by DJ's such as Hype, Shadow and Sy.

I started off collecting new Drum & Bass records, as well as the old Hardcore and Jungle tunes I had grown up listening to. These days, we would call this music Old Skool, but back then it was merely out of date and confined to bargain bins. I picked up many classics for a pound or two. Little did anyone know that 10 years down the line, Rave records from the early 90's would be highly collectable and valuable!
I picked up the art of DJ'ing very quickly, simply by buying mix tapes, tracking down all the records on them, and trying to copy the mixes. One that springs to mind is DJ Hype's 1997 Moondance CD, at the time I knew every mix, cut and scratch on the whole album!
All of my records were bought from Atmospheric records in the Dalkeith arcade in Bournemouth, which later turned into Destiny Records, and is still running true to the scene to this day. They also put on some of the most legendary South Coast parties ever, but I'll come to that later.

Wheras most people spend years playing house parties before getting any kind of recognition as a DJ, I was extremely lucky. Another school friend and I used to practice together, and early in 1998 we managed to get a back-to-back set at a friend-of-a-friend's party, at a pub in Poole. Little did we know, at this event were two local Drum & Bass event promoters, who were looking for new DJ's. They heard Alex and myself play, and we were very surprised when they offered us a slot at one of their events, at a club called Eden on the waterfront of Poole Quay.
We were only 16 at the time, so although we were really excited about this offer, it was probably more likely that the promoters saw us as a couple of kids they could take advantage of. But that didn't bother us - how many other teenagers had residencies in an over 18's nightclub?!

We were known as Jedi & Kuttz, and were residents at their events, called "Strictly Drum N' Bass," for about 6 months or so. Although we had contracts, we rarely got paid and often ended up having to walk home lugging loads of equipment with us, but we were keen to stick with it, until the event stopped at the end of 1998. Although we were sad about this, it had given us a taste of professional DJ'ing, and we'd even established our own little local folowing, so we promptly set up our own under 18's event at the same club, which did quite well.

Prior to this, I had never been "clubbing" before. In fact I was only allowed in Eden while I was DJ'ing. Having been a regular customer in Atmospheric/Destiny Records for a couple of years, they finally convinced me that, at the age of 16, I looked old enough to go to one of their events - Destiny @ The Manor. The first one I went to was in October 1998, and that night really changed my life.

 

Before then, I had only known the rave scene by the music. But now I had experienced what it was really all about - the atmosphere, the friendly faces, even the drugs. I now found myself turning into a full on raver, and for the next six months or so, I concentrated on going to raves every weekend instead of DJ'ing. These were great times, I'd say the last great days of the UK rave scene.

 

As I had now been a regular customer in the shop for a long time, I eventually got given the odd warm up set at the Destiny events. This was great as I didn't really put much effort into DJ'ing at this time, but it kept my interest in it alive.
Then came some bad news; In October 1999, it was announced that The Manor was to be closed and demolished. As sad as this was, it gave me and Alex the motivation we needed to get back into DJ'ing.

Shortly after this, our next big break came. Having changed our names to Jedi & Stormtrooper, and deciding from now on only to play Old Skool instead of new music, I had sent out a few demo tapes, and I managed to get us a warm up set at Raindance in London. We were well received and this led to yet another residency, which we held for a few years.

From this we started getting a lot of bookings all over the country, pretty good going considering we had both only just turned 18! Over the next couple of years we played at most of London's top venues, including Brixton Academy, SeOne, and Bagleys. By 2002 we were well established as probably the most well known "new" Old Skool DJ's (considering most of the DJ's we were playing amongst were the scene's original pioneers - the likes of Ratpack, Ellis Dee, Phantasy, and Slipmatt to name a few.) I even got mentioned in Minsitry of Sound Magazine alongside some of my idols as one of "todays" Old Skool DJ's. You can see this article here.

We also started dabbling in music production, spending all of our money on a few hundred pounds worth of Studio Equipment. We had a few records out between 1999 and 2002, none of which were hugely succesful but they did get a bit of major DJ support and air-play, so we were happy. Alex has since gone on to bigger things as a producer, having tracks included on several major compilation albums.

During this period, the scene in Bournemouth had really dried up. Destiny did not return to putting on monthly events - there just wasn't another venue like The Manor. So we decided to do something about this, and along with a few more friends we put on an event called "Anthrax" at the Millenium Club in Bournemouth. This was around the time of the September 11th atrocities, and the name of our event caused quite a stir. We were banned from promoting it, but this somehow worked in our favour. The event gained quite a lot of buzz through word-of-mouth, and was a huge success. I believe we even made a tidy profit on it.

After this success, three of us continued putting on monthly events at the Millenium Club, under the name "Friction." We put on ten or so events throughout 2002 which were all successful, until the summer when sadly this club shut down too.
This also brought on the end of Alex and I's four year DJ partnership. He had always been keen to keep up to date with the music, where as I had started to grow apart from the hardcore sound of today, and was more interested in playing Old Skool, the music I had grown up to. So pretty much from then on, I have DJ'd on my own.

As Bournemouth had no other rave events, I was eager to keep promoting, so I teamed up with ex Destiny DJ, Cliff (or DJ Nexus.) We started putting on monthly events at the Showbar in June 2002 under the name "Oblivion," and over just a few months we began getting large crowds in, which was a huge achievement considering that the club only had one arena, and was twice the size of anything I had put on before.

By the winter of that year things weren't working out for various reasons (partnerships in promotion always seem to end in tears.) So I took the event on myself, and carried on for another successful year at The Showbar. In May 2004 Oblivion moved to Club Destiny where it was on monthly for a year or so, and since then there have been a few one-off events at club's including K1 in Bournemouth, and New Yorks in Southampton. I no longer promote events on a regular basis, and prefer to just DJ these days, so keep an eye on the diary page to find out what I'm up to.