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Frank Broughton

Frank Broughton

Frank Broughton learnt how to get paid for words while living in strange parts of New York. He interviewed every rapper known to science for Hip-Hop Connection, moved on to profiling celebs for magazines that couldn’t afford air tickets (i-D, Mixmag...), and had some heavy nights after squeezing dance music pieces into big-paying US mags (Details, Rolling Stone...). He then fell in with Time Out who let him write a hymn to his adopted city in the shape of their 1996 New York Guide and made him Clubs Editor of Time Out New York. Frank took to this position with the dedication it deserved and was fried in no time.

He returned to London and started writing books with Bill Brewster, another Lincolnshire New Yorker. The duo raided their hard-drives for The Manual a coffee-table dance culture history for the Ministry of Sound; cooked up The Time Out Book of Interviews and then got serious with their calling-card opus 1999’s Last Night A DJ Saved My Life. Amazingly, no-one had written a decent history of DJing and they resolved to see off all-comers. Following this, they extended the Broughton-Brewster franchise with the best-selling DJing manual How to DJ (Properly) and there are more titles in the pipeline. They also collaborate to throw some very fine ‘Low Life’ parties.

When magazines sold themselves out to bikini covers and microcelebs Frank sold himself out to copywriting. He got a good price and can now hold his own in brand development and market segmentation meetings. His imperative tone has been appreciated by such clients as Toshiba, BT, Seagrams, Playboy TV, One 2 One, T-Mobile, Britannia Music and boo.com. Frank lives in Elephant & Castle. He has no pets.

FREELANCE (since 1990)
Face, i-D, Details, Guardian, Hip-Hop Connection, Rolling Stone, Mixmag,
Mixmag US (now Mixer), Time Out, Time Out New York...

BOOKS
Last Night A DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey (1999, 2000)
The Manual (Ministry of Sound) (1998)
Time Out Interviews 1968-1998 (1998)
Time Out Guide to New York (1996)
How to DJ (Properly) (2002)

STAFF JOBS
Clubs Editor, Time Out New York
Deputy editor, i-D,
Deputy editor, Mixmag USA
(briefly) Editor of ill-fated style mag Blah Blah Blah

Click here for DJ History

Click her for Total DJ

List of articles in the library by artist

Aaliyah 1995: A portentous portrait in Detroit a week after her 16th birthday

Interview by Frank Broughton, i-D, 1995

It’s 8.15. A car draws up outside Detroit’s newly-built High School For The Performing Arts and out steps a pretty young thing, dressed warmly against ...

Laurie Anderson and the Nerve Bible

Interview by Frank Broughton, i-D, 1994

SHE’S A MULTI-MEDIA story-teller, spinning yarns around the flickering campfire of technology. Her songs are swathes of hypnotic synthesised tones, with eerie voice filters focussing ...

Garbage

Interview by Frank Broughton, i-D, 1995

WILD LUCK, cynical suspicion, deep fraternal love and dodgy Scottish accents: in the true life story of a musical group called Garbage all these things ...

Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five: Grandmaster Flash

Interview by Frank Broughton, Guardian, The, January 2002

A RECENT SURVEY suggests that up to 62% of the world's population is now a famous DJ. In hotspots like Shoreditch, it's easier to find ...

Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five: The True Life Adventures Of Flash

Sleevenotes by Frank Broughton, Bill Brewster, Nuphonic Records, 2002

Chapter 1FLASH ISN’T THE type of guy to start talking about "How it feels...", but that’s just what you want to ask him. How does ...

Grateful Dead: Deadheads

Report by Frank Broughton, i-D, 1994

A snapshot of the deadhead scene and how it was feeding US rave ...

DJ Kool Herc: Adventures on the Wheels of Steel: DJ Kool Herc and the Birth of Hip Hop

Book Excerpt by Frank Broughton, Bill Brewster, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, 1999

Take a BreakFace your partner, holding hands. Tap one foot behind the other and bring your feet together again. Repeat with your other foot. (Your ...

Parliament, George Clinton, Funkadelic: George Clinton: Funky 54

Retrospective and Interview by Frank Broughton, i-D, February 1994

PARLIAMENT-FUNKADELIC, P-Funk, The P -- Specially designed afronauts capable of funketizing entire galaxies. Their mothership long ago made its terrestrial connection and they are amongst ...

Pharcyde, The: From Manor to Cabin: The Pharcyde's Bizarre Ride

Profile and Interview by Frank Broughton, i-D, 1994

BACK AT THE HEIGHT of hip-hop’s dyslexia, when f’s were ph’s or not at all, there arrived a group from darkest LA who called themselves ...

Puff Daddy: Sean 'Puffy' Combs

Interview by Frank Broughton, i-D, 1994

"IT'S ALL GOOD."Puffy’s conversation is peppered with this little nugget of current street-talk. ...

Danny Tenaglia: The DJs’ DJ: Danny Tenaglia

Profile and Interview by Frank Broughton, DJ Magazine, 2001

THEY RAIDED Vinyl last week. The cops shut down the party, made some arrests, confiscated (allegedly) $15,000 of door money and (also allegedly, legal fans) ...

Todd Terry: Time For Todd Terry

Report and Interview by Frank Broughton, i-D, 1995

"BATTLING PEOPLE: that’s what keeps me going." The man in the bomber jacket lays it down straight. "I got to beat everybody. It’s me against ...

Josh Wink

Interview by Frank Broughton, Mixmag, 1996

THE TRAIN FROM New York to Philadelphia arrives four minutes early. We leave the platform and climb some stairs into a vast waiting hall of ...

List of genre pieces

Jimmy Savile: The Oddfather

Report and Interview by Frank Broughton, GQ, November 2012

As the fallout from the Jimmy Savile abuse allegations continues, dance music historian Frank Broughton asks whether the next revelations may be his connections to ...

My Kind Of Town: The History of Chicago House

Retrospective and Interview by Frank Broughton, i-D, April 1995

IT’S 1981. Frankie Knuckles, a New York DJ relocated for the last four years in Chicago, is driving south through the outskirts of his adopted ...

Paradise Garage and the Lost Art of DJ'ing

Sleevenotes by Frank Broughton, Bill Brewster, Strut/Nuphonic Records, 2002

PUTTING A ROOMFUL of people in the moment. Amazing them, surprising them, challenging, even confusing them; pushing, electrifying, loving them; carrying them with you towards ...

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