A child of the 80's Mark grew up in Windsor with his musical
influences mainly from his Dad and Brother. "Dad was strange with
music as he had this knack of making people listen to music rather
than make small talk, whenever people would come over to the house I
used to sit at the top of the stairs eaves dropping on Dad making his
guests listen to his albums like ELO, Buddy Holly, Elvis, The Beatles,
Stones, Sweet, Mud and so on... Then... Read more
A child of the 80's Mark grew up in Windsor with his musical
influences mainly from his Dad and Brother. "Dad was strange with
music as he had this knack of making people listen to music rather
than make small talk, whenever people would come over to the house I
used to sit at the top of the stairs eaves dropping on Dad making his
guests listen to his albums like ELO, Buddy Holly, Elvis, The Beatles,
Stones, Sweet, Mud and so on... Then there was Brother Vince - the
AxeMan! Lover of rock guitar - I had no choice but to marvel at Eddie
Van Halen playing "Eruption" at full blast to the delight of the
neighbours..." So I guess I had rock, blues and metal drummed into me
from an early age.
I first properly started listening to music for myself when Adam & the
Ants came onto the scene - I used to collect all the vinyl 7's and
even from the age of 11-13 wondered how you could make records last
longer by playing a tape recorder next to a record player and
continuing the flow so there were no gaps - had no way of recording it
but loved trying to join stuff together even if it didn't go. Then it
sort of happened - the film "Beat Street" came out and the birth of
hip hop - Public Enemy, Dougie Fresh, NWA, Steady B - all these guys
who were featured on the Electro albums 1-6 just rocked my world. I
managed to scratch badly along to tapes and wrecked my record player,
scratched all my 12" records but loved pretending I was a hip hop DJ -
not really knowing what a DJ was at that time. I did make sure I was
surrounded by music, played guitar in the school band in 1983 - wanted
to be the drummer but couldn't get on the drums because the drummer
was bigger than me! So just stuck playing the same 3 chords in
different order... As most kids did my age - used to listen to the Top
40 and record the songs and try and cut out the talking. Loved the
80's - liked the weirdness - loved to dress up and pretend I was an
Ant like Adam my hero...
1987/88 crept up and from my teenage confusion and horrendous lack of
understanding made some strange decisions when it came to music - best
I leave those to the imagination...then it happened - an Epiphany! - I
was working in Windsor and had moved around all of the clothes shops
from Next to the very cool and trendy "Greys" who sold Armani, had a
very cool Manager called Martyn Gore who was one of the first people
who introduced me and my mates to clubbing. We had been to the
Limelight a couple of times during the summer of 1987 - and we had
regular visits from very cool people telling us about these really
cool clubs in London playing this new music - Acid House and Balearic
Beats. Being into the hip hop thing and kind of finding my way around
the fact they used old tunes like James Brown to make these cool
tunes, I became fascinated with music and was ready for something new.
Revolution Records was a shop in Windsor which had all these amazing
strange records and also Our Price in Windsor, the guy behind the
counter always used to put stuff by for me and Martyn on the
recommendation from this chap called Andrew Weatherall. Andy used to
come in and tell us what he was playing and invited us all to some of
the nights he was doing warming up for Danny Rampling - and so the
story continued.. He told us of these cool records which no one else
was playing...
1988 - Summer of Love - I had my first holiday "sans parents" Andy
gave me and my mate Rich a couple of Boy's Own tee-shirts as we had
booked our holiday in Ibiza - the Hotel Hawaii in San Antonio bay.
Little did I know that this would change my life musically for ever!!
Thanks to Mr Weatherall we got into all the clubs and met all the
right people and had the most amazing time ever... That special moment
happened in Amnesia - This new thing everyone was going on about - I
had to try it and then it happened - Booom! Prince - Alphabet Street
was playing and all of a sudden it all made sense. It came alive! All
of the music I had heard over all of the years suddenly made sense to
me. Music was an integral part of life and I wanted to people to know
that. When I got back from Ibiza I started collecting records.
Absolutely anything which grooved - completely overcome by the
Balearic experience and that feeling of euphoria I wanted people to
feel it too...
Windsor was a hotbed of creativity and music all through the 80's and
early 90's - The Old Trout was a favourite venue for local bands and
also bigger bands - this became our little "Mecca" in Windsor - we put
on parties just for our friends, I managed to blag a few gigs at the
Slough Centre for "Pleasure Zone" playing with Trevor and Rob Fung,
House of Windsor at Mirage and Simpsons in Bracknell. The parties were
legendary and the music was just getting better and better. I met
people over these years who had a major influence on me, Scott James
was having a similar experience over in the Bracknell area - We got
together and somehow found ourselves DJing at "Guru Josh's" Warehouse
Rave - "Happ-E-House" pure mayhem & madness! I did a few warm up gigs
for Scott and did some great gigs with Moira at the Priestwood Centre
- these were called Eclipse I think...Then I had another life changing
experience - I found my faith and needed to get my head together. 3
years of partying hard started to take it's toll and I needed a more
serene existence and started playing drums - my dream since I was a
kid. I played drums with the "Irony", "Executive Hendrix" among other
local bands and sort of put the DJing on hold but only for a while...
1996 I was doing a few regular private functions at the Ministry Of
Sound, having my cousin Paula May the event Co-ordinator slipping me a
few gigs where she could I got a bit of an endorsement by Paul
Dakeyne, he was a massive influence on me during these years as he had
perfected the art of DJing and was very highly regarded in these
circles. He advised me and helped me with my mixes and although there
was lots of natural ability I needed something else and this was
really experience.
So residencies from the early years included ""Eat Yer Greens", House
of Windsor, Powder, Numerous appearances at The Swan and Royal Oak in
Windsor and the list kind has gone full circle and brought me back to
Windsor to "Solid Gold Presents..." which is really a collective of my
mates and all of my favourite local DJ's plus a chance for me and the
lads to book all of our heroes to come and play at Windsor's newest
hot spot - "Bar FiftyOne" - DJ's make up a who's who of UK Dance Music
- Terry Farley, Trevor Fung, Steve Proctor, Nicky Holloway. Rusty
Egan, Justin Robertson, Rocky, Jo Mills, Paul Dakeyne, Chad Jackson,
DJ Lottie, Brandon Block, Lisa Loud, John Kelly...Local legends
including Marvin Connor, Nick Hook, Scott D'Souza, Pete Walshe, Paul
Linney, Steve Nash, Jay Evans, Jaye MacKenzie, Elliott Nash, Rob & Si,
Ravs, Clint T, Scott James and of course Johny Rocca the bloke who
helped me kick start bar 51. The list and the amazing nights goes on -
weekly actually - every Friday and Saturday
and we are having it large again!!
If I have missed anyone or anything - apologies - this is supposed to
be a "bio" - bit more of a story - there are loads of gaps - it all
comes back to the music!!!
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