How to Build a Bridge Backwards: Life as a Part-time Disc Jockey
Comment by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, January 1970
I HAD A STRANGE TIME the other day, playing records at a college party. ...

Gloria Gaynor: Her 'Hello' Is Her Goodbye
Profile and Interview by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, October 1974
2008 introduction: After having some club success with 'Honeybee', Gloria Gaynor was just beginning to get her career in gear when David met her in midtown ...

BT Express: Do It ('Til You're Satisfied)
Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, March 1975
DO IT ('Til You're Satisfied) resembles George McCrae's Rock Your Baby album in that it finds a persistent groove and stays with it unflaggingly from beginning ...

Back on course with the Bee Gees
Interview by Charles Bermant, Sounds, August 1975
BARRY GIBB IS pleased. It is a good season for ‘the Bee Gees (Barry and his brothers, Maurice and Robin) whose new Main Course album is ...

Donna Summer: A Love Trilogy (Oasis)
Review by Jeffrey Morgan, Cheap Thrills, May 1976
WHILE WE'RE ON the topic of sexual fantasies, allow me to state for the record that I'm personally into black leather (lots of it; and in ...

Donna Summer: The Great Rocking Orgasmic Renaissance of AM Radio
Special Feature by Jim Esposito, Oui, September 1976
(Which Considers The Question: Is Donna Summer Coming Or Going?) ...

True Blue: Andrea True Connection
Report and Interview by Bruce Pollock, Viva, 1977
BACK IN THE prepubescent days of sex/rock, when I was but a novice covering the amateur porn scene like a groping middle finger, I rode the ...

Sylvester
Interview by Davitt Sigerson, Sounds, August 1978
WEBSTER’S gives "Excessive, extravagant; Fanciful, fantastic; violent, unrestrained" as definitions of ‘outrageous’. ...

Grace Jones: Fame
Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, September 1978
THE INSTANT reaction is to scoff at someone as blatantly marketable as Grace Jones. An astonishingly beautiful model, she prompts writers to haul their most purple ...

The Art of Being Chic
Interview by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, 1979
On the eve of their departure for their British concert dates, David Nathan talked to Chic about the chemistry that makes up their hit sound and ...

Chic: Est-ce que c'est Chic
Interview by Davitt Sigerson, Melody Maker, February 1979
Yes, it is. For behind Chic's rags-to-Regine's success lies an understanding of style as cool as their musical intelligence. ...

Chic: Risqué
Review by Danny Baker, NME, August 1979
THIS TIME I really feel entitled to ...

Sylvester: The Living Proof Of Disco's Heat
Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, November 1979
'MIGHTY REAL' was, of course, one of Sylvester's biggest hits – his biggest in Europe, in fact. However, it is more than just the title to ...

Sylvester: Woofers And Tweeters
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, NME, September 1982
HAD I BEEN expecting some shimmering trans-sexual diva to sweep into the room like a hostess into her salon, the rotund, maternal figure who welcomed me ...

Burn This Disco Out
Report by Richard Grabel, NME, May 1983
THE BEST DISCO IN NEW YORK IS THE FUNHOUSE WHERE SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER IS ENJOYING A RENAISSANCE WITH AMERICA'S TEENAGERS. RICHARD GRABEL INVESTIGATES THE NEW STREET ...

Uncle Jam’s Army: Mobile Disco Dances To A Different Beat
Report and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, October 1983
A GROUP OF MODS, coats festooned with badges of their favorite bands and likenesses of the "Two-Tone" man, snake around the perimeter of the dance floor. ...

Electro: The Beatbox Bites Back
Essay by David Toop, The Face, May 1984
1984: Two a.m. at The Funhouse and the giant video screen fills with the image of the Master O.C.’s hands scratching an Enjoy 12 inch. O.C. ...

Go Go Not Gone!
Report and Interview by Simon Witter, NME, June 1986
Go Go all gone? Washington DC all fini? Not on your Nelly, argues Simon Witter, Go Go guru of the King’s Roadeo. The deaths of Trouble ...

Sample and Hold: The House Sound of Chicago
Report by Sheryl Garratt, The Face, September 1986
"Sue the bastards!"
WE'VE BEEN IN Chicago for two hours now, and for reasons too ridiculous to explain we are sitting in an Armenian restaurant talking to ...

Time To Jack: The House Sound Of Chicago
Report and Interview by Simon Witter, i-D, Summer 1986
Is House music the latest in a long line of Urban American dancefloor explosions – or the latest in a long line of record company hypes? ...

Frankie Knuckles
Profile and Interview by Simon Witter, Unique, 1987
Eighteen months after it's commercial birth, House Music is getting stronger by the week. On his first trip to England Unique spoke to the scene's single ...

JM Silk: Moving House
Profile and Interview by Simon Witter, NME, June 1987
2008 NOTE: It's a cruel irony that JM Silk now seem like a footnote in music history, given that they were the act that broke Chicago's ...

Paul Oakenfold: DJ Of The Month
Profile and Interview by Simon Witter, i-D, August 1987
PAUL OAKENFOLD, apart from being one of the harder working men in showbusiness, is a perfect example of the late 80s London soul phenomenon: the unification ...

Back To Jack
Report and Interview by Simon Witter, NME, August 1987
2008 NOTE: One year after the big bang of house hype, I was back in Chicago to investigate the latest developments – among them Acid Trax ...

Fingers Inc.: Another Side
Sleevenotes by Simon Witter, Jack Trax/Indigo Music, 1988
2009 NOTE: I wrote a few album sleevenotes in the 80s, but none that I was more chuffed to have been asked to do than Fingers ...

Enter The Acid House
Report by John McCready, NME, February 1988
As our charts bulge with British House, so its big American brother trips off in a new direction. Spacier and racier, mesmeric and dis(c)oncerting – this ...

The Badder the Better: Soulboy Life in London
Report by Paul Wellings, Evening Standard, March 1988
IN LONDON TOWN, they’re funking till they’re raw. From badland clubland they’ve voted with their feet for black soul music. Pirate stations like LWR ...

Welcome To the Phuture: Techno
Overview by John McCready, NME, July 1988
TECHNO – a new Detroit sound vibration – is rocking the House of the future. John McCready checks out the credentials of the Third Wave sound ...

Let's Get Spiritual – Deep House
Report by Simon Witter, NME, December 1988
As House approaches its third birthday, and the classical club sound of Deep House and Garage Music asserts itself on Acid-fatigued dancefloors, SIMON WITTER reports from ...

Techno: A Bluffer’s Guide
Guide by John McCready, The Face, 1989
TECHNO HAS turned ordinary record buyers into badly-informed technology obsessives. ...

Acid House: The Selling Of Smiley Culture
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, January 1989
Like punk before it, acid house was a cult fanned by the media into a mass market industry. Major labels latched on to the music, high ...

The Strange Odyssey Of Acid House
Report by Cynthia Rose, Dallas Observer, February 1989
LONDON – On February 9, 1989, the mutant musical movement known as Acid House made it into The Dallas Morning News for the second time in ...

Is Acid's Mr Big Really All Bad?
Report and Interview by Simon Witter, Sky, November 1989
Twenty-three-year-old gambler and whiz-kid entrepreneur Tony Colston-Hayter has been called Acid's Mr Big, Acid's Mr Fixit and The Acid King by the tabloid press because of ...

Trevor Miller: Tripping Yarns
Interview by Jack Barron, NME, December 1989
I FIRST meet novelist Trevor Miller at 5am outside a London rave called Method Air after a night of dancing so manic and intense it reminded ...

The KLF
Profile and Interview by Martin Aston, The Independent, February 1990
IT WAS the poster claiming The KLF were to play live at a DJ convention in Amsterdam rather than – as they thought – just mime ...

No Right To Party: Acid House
Report by Mark Sinker, New Statesman, April 1990
2005 note: Unforgivable as actual real journalism – I made no effort to represent the anti-drug position – this still works as a snapshot of a ...

The House that Rap Built
Overview by Carol Cooper, Village Voice, May 1990
ON FRIDAY night at the Tunnel, Bronx, Jersey, and Brooklyn posses with high-top fades, or one patch of hair dyed psychedelic orange, bob and weave to ...

Guru Josh: The Guru Ain't Joshin'!
Interview by Max Bell, No.1, June 1990
And he ain't mincing his words either! Max Bell lends a conspiratorial ear as the Guru lets rip at Adamski, slags off Technotronic, supports the Poll ...

Derrick May: What Is Techno?
Interview by Kris Needs, Black Echoes, September 1990
FOR SOME reason, I'd half expected renowned Detroit techno demon Derrick May to be the quiet, retiring sort. ...

Emerald Sapphire & Gold: Alive, Well And Working In The South Bronx
Interview by Carol Cooper, Dance Music Report, September 1990
Being one of the most widely imitated and innovative live bands of the early '80s isn’t necessarily a bed of roses. ...

808 State: Genius Plastic
Interview by Lloyd Bradley, Q, April 1991
EASTERN BLOC RECORDS in Manchester's rapidly-becoming-fashionable Oldham Street is, at first glance, no different to any other specialist dance music emporium. ...

Pop Will Eat Itself: Cure for Sanity; Malcolm McLaren: Round the Outside! Round the Outside!
Review by Chuck Eddy, Rolling Stone, April 1991
EVER SINCE the Who and the Stones, if not the Revolutionary War, uppity British ironists have made a habit of "elevating" vulgar American pop crazes into ...

This Ain't No Disco
Overview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, April 1991
UNLIKE THE '70s, today's dance music is based on a radical mix of styles that may signal a new era in pop. ...

Joey Negro
Interview by Simon Witter, unpublished, 1992
As a re-and-mastermixer, artist, label head and man of many names – too many, some might say – Joey Negro is emerging as one of the ...

Inner Vision: Andrew Weatherall & Jah Wobble
Interview by Kris Needs, Black Echoes, February 1992
An out-mind experience with the extra-dimensional Andrew Weatherall and Jah Wobble, the man for whom the expression "raving mad" was invented... ...

Larry Heard: House Music's Most Mysterious Pioneer
Profile and Interview by Kris Needs, Black Echoes, February 1992
LARRY HEARD has always been the most low profile of the original house music pioneers. Although his name has graced some of the deepest, most innovative ...

Chic: They're Still Family
Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, April 1992
AFTER AN 8-year layoff, Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards relaunch their group Chic but worry that their soulful sound may be dated. Can the architects of ...

Robert Owens: Bob's Full House
Interview by Kris Needs, Black Echoes, May 1992
"IT'S PAIN!" For a second Robert Owens assumes the tortured persona which electrifies his performances. The lower lip quivers, the huge eyes cloud and he could ...

Juan Atkins: On Juan
Profile and Interview by Kris Needs, NME, November 1992
LIKE HIS protégé Derrick May, 'Magic' Juan Atkins – the man commonly referred to as the 'Godfather Of Techno' – has recently returned to the spotlight ...

The Orb: Mystic Pizza
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, November 1992
They're cooking up something deeply strange in the sound kitchen. The Orb explore your inner space with endless sonic dreamscapes that suggest a planet where UFOs ...

Leftfield: Release The Pressure!
Interview by Push, Melody Maker, December 1992
CRITICAL ACCLAIM means bugger-all in clubland. Here, an act's reputation is better measured by the number of others sampling them. And, right now, it's impossible to ...

DJ Pierre
Profile and Interview by Kris Needs, Black Echoes, February 1993
DJ PIERRE IS in fighting mood these days and, having seen the scope for his legendary house music trailblazing die in Chicago and narrow in New ...

808 State: Town and Country Club, London
Live Review by Dele Fadele, NME, March 1993
THE COMPUTER-DRIVEN orchestral score that is Moby's opening gambit comes as a blessed relief. After two hours of beat-fascism courtesy of the hardcore DJ that you ...

Station Rose: Neurodisco
Report and Interview by Simon Witter, Sunday Times, September 1993
SEVEN STORIES above Frankfurt, in the city's most expensive shopping centre – the Japanese styled glass colossus Zeilgalerie – Europe's most unusual monthly club is, well, ...

John Lydon and Leftfield
Interview by Kris Needs, NME, November 1993
IT'S ONE NIGHT in June '92, long past midnight at the Brixton Academy. The Orb have finished washing the cerebral nether regions of the full-on assembly ...

Machine Soul: A History Of Techno
Overview by Jon Savage, Village Voice, Summer 1993
Oooh oooh Techno city
Hope you enjoy your stay
Welcome to Techno city
You will never want to go away
– Cybotron, 'Techno City' ...

Circa Now! Latter Day Techno Kids, Utah Saints
Report and Interview by Susan Compo, Option, Fall 1993
FOR A COUPLE of English guys, choosing the state of Utah as the basis for their band’s name probably had as much exotic cachet as Saturn. ...

Deadheads
Report by Frank Broughton, i-D, 1994
A snapshot of the deadhead scene and how it was feeding US ...

Miami Bass: How Low Can You Go?
Report by John McCready, The Face, 1994
In Florida, a pair of 15-inch speakers carry more B-boy cred than a pair of fat-laced sneakers, and your car is judged not by speed by ...

Microglobe: Easy Dance & Musichall, Frankfurt an der Oder
Report by Dave Rimmer, Mojo, January 1994
IN THE CRAMPED LITTLE DJ BOOTH AT THE EASY DISCO, Frankfurt an der Oder – east Germany city of flatblocks and border posts – Berlin DJ ...

The Prodigy: Touched By The Hand Of Prod
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, July 1994
"So I've decided to take my work back underground... to stop it falling into the wrong hands." ...

Marshall Jefferson: Moving House
Interview by Sheryl Garratt, The Face, September 1994
I FIRST MET MARSHALL Jefferson in 1986, in his native Chicago. House was just starting to bloom there, and he was working on 'Move Your Body', ...

Futurebeat: Vorschtsprung dürch Techno
Essay by Dave Rimmer, The Wire, Spring 1994
"The only possible challenge to repetitive power takes the route of a breach in social repetition and the control of noisemaking. In more day-to-day political terms, ...

Chemistry Set: the Chemical Brothers
Interview by John Robb, Loaded, 1995
WHEN THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS come to town, DJ'ing takes on a whole new dimension. The duo play the decks like two fucked-up guitar gods. Lanky Tom ...

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 every ...

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 city ...

Carl Craig: Listen To The Future
Profile and Interview by Kodwo Eshun, i-D, April 1995
One of Detroit's legendary first generation, Carl Craig has left behind the legacy he's outgrown. Ripping up techno's rule-book, this 25-year-old is making records for every ...

Mrs Wood: Queen Of Hardbag
Profile and Interview by Sheryl Garratt, The Face, December 1995
I FIRST MET MRS WOOD on a trip to BCM in Majorca. The manager had flagged up his attractions outside the club in four-foot letters: Fat ...

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 marble ...

The Love Parade
Report by Dave Rimmer, Pozor, 1996
NOTE: As a veteran of the event, I have written a lot about the Love Parade – for various music magazines in the UK, for the ...

The A-Z of Electro
Guide by David Toop, The Wire, March 1996
In its original incarnation, Electro was black science fiction teleported to the dancefloors of New York, Miami and LA; a super-stoopid fusion of video games, techno-pop, ...

Spooky After Dark: The DJ as Dead Dreamer
Review by Richard Gehr, Village Voice, June 1996
DJ SPOOKY'S Songs of a Dead Dreamer (Asphodel) magically distills the mysterioso live performances the artist (and occasional Voice contributor) otherwise known as Paul D. Miller ...

Bernard Edwards, 1952-1996
Obituary by Geoffrey Himes, Rolling Stone, June 1996
BACK IN THE DISCO era, when most records went thump-thump-thump, the music produced by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers went bumpity-bip-bop, bing-bang-boom. ...

Prodigy: End Fest, Bremberton, Washington
Live Review by Gillian G. Gaar, Rolling Stone, September 1996
ON THE one hand, it was hard to see why Prodigy were chosen to close End Fest; the annual daylong outdoor music festival is usually rooted ...

10 Years of House
Retrospective by John McCready, The Face, 1997
TEN YEARS IS A LONG TIME. Three score short of a lifetime, I know, but long enough to establish your own space programme and see a ...

Eyewitness: The Twist
Retrospective by Johnny Black, Q, February 1997
THE TWIST WAS the most remarkable dance phenomenon in the history of the rock era. Here's the story of how it happened in the words of ...

The Prodigy: The Fat Of The Land
Review by Paul Morley, Uncut, August 1997
CHRIST ALMIGHTY. It moves vertically through salted pressures with a head that can see sideways. It is red in tooth and claw. It swoons and burns ...

Sasha and Digweed play Twilo
Report and Interview by Sheryl Garratt, The Face, December 1997
JOHN DIGWEED stares at the sleek, black stretch limo we've ordered to take us from the hotel to the club in New York. "I usually just ...

The Prodigy
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, Seven Years of Plenty, 1998
LIAM HOWLETT - soft-spoken mastermind behind The Prodigy's globe-subjugating juggernaut of organised chaos - is a very busy man. If you want some idea of just ...

Our Electric Friends: Humanising the Highway, from ‘Autobahn’ to Orbital
Book Excerpt by Ben Thompson, 'Seven Years of Plenty', 1998
DRIVING ON THE M25 in a rusty Mini. Early evening, thick drizzle. Only one windscreen wiper works because someone has snapped the end off the other ...

Young Men! The Village People
Retrospective and Interview by Peter Silverton, Mojo, March 1998
"YOUNG MAN!" IT BUTTONHOLES YOU. And then it requires that your body shapes the letters which form the acronym for the Young Men’s Christian Association. "I! ...

Rave: Countdown to Ecstasy
Book Review by Paul Lester, Uncut, September 1998
Simon Reynolds: Energy Flash – A Journey Through Rave Music And Dance Culture (Picador Books) ...

Fix It in the Mix
Book Review by Simon Frith, Village Voice, September 1998
Simon Reynolds: Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture (Little, Brown) ...

Your Booty, My 12-inch: the Ultimate Disco Home Tape
Guide by Barney Hoskyns, Mojo, October 1998
YOWSAH, YOWSAH, YOWSAH. Twenty years after the dizzy heights of Discomania, the monster is back in our midst - in movies like Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie ...

Dot Allison in the Afterglow
Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1999
FAR BE IT from anyone to laugh at a label which drops the Chemicals and Andrew Weatherall, and keeps Scotland's answer to St Etienne instead, but ...

Prodigy: Chat Of The Landowners
Interview by Stephen Dalton, NME, January 1999
In the second of this two-parter with PRODIGY'S LIAM HOWLETT, NME has a word, Hello!-stylee, about his new country home, his pal Keith and his future. ...

Prodigy: Smack My Mix Up
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Spin, May 1999
EVER SINCE 'Firestarter' and 'Breathe' transformed Prodigy into rave'n'roll superstars, Liam Howlett, the band's leader and musical brain, has taken pains to distance Prodigy from dance ...

The Chemical Brothers: Back To The Lab
Interview by Simon Reynolds, Spin, July 1999
WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN THE BLOCK-ROCKIN' SOUND YOU INVENTED HAS BECOME THE SOUNDTRACK TO LAME TEEN FLICKS AND TAMPON COMMERCIALS? IF YOU'RE THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS, ...

Simon Reynolds: Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture
Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, Mojo, September 1999
IT SAYS MUCH about our compulsive pre-millenial navel-gazing that several tomes about the past decade's "ecstacy culture" - Matthew Collin's Altered State, Jane Bussman's Once in ...

Leftfield: "We Waited. That's What We Did."
Interview by Keith Cameron, NME, September 1999
...And eventu-bloody-ally, after four long years, Leftfield have got their she-iiit together on another mighty fine album. Or is it arse?! Have your say! ...

Patrick Adams
Sleevenotes by John McCready, Counterpoint Records, 2000
THOUGH MANY have tried, it’s hard to free disco of the negative associations that have shadowed it. "Disco Sucks", they still say. Boney M and Baccara, ...

Last Night A DJ Saved My Life: Tale Of Turntable Wizards Misses Several Beats
Book Review by Charles Shaar Murray, The Independent, January 2000
Last Night A DJ Saved My Life: the history of the disc jockey by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton (Headline) ...

Norman Cook
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, February 2000
IN 1999, THE former Housemartin's career went supemova, earning him millions from his FATBOY SLIM records, remixes and DJ sets. Following the death of big beat, ...

Various Artists: Machine Soul: An Odyssey Into Electronic Dance Music
Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, June 2000
From Kraftwerk to BT, via Throbbing Gristle, Moby and the Chemicals – the history of synthpop ...

The Great Rave/Jam Band Crossover Syndrome
Report and Interview by Richard Gehr, Spin, August 2000
THE DISCO BISCUITS are onstage at Philadelphia's Trocadero surrounded by the entire contents of their living room: the bong-water stained sofa, a decrepit TV (with remote), ...

Leila
Interview by Ben Thompson, The Independent, September 2000
"WHEN YOU'RE YOUNG", explains 29-year old North London electro-soul auteur Leila Arab, "you get into these strange emotional states - either of over the top happiness ...

Junior Vasquez
Profile and Interview by Sheryl Garratt, The Observer, September 2000
IN THE SUMMER of 1990, I was in New York for the New Music Seminar, as were many of the UK's emerging new DJs and club ...

Right About Now . . . The Funk Soul Brothers!
Retrospective by Joel McIver, Record Collector, Spring 2000
THINK YOU KNOW about dance music? OK then, answer this question: which of the Chemical Brothers is Tom and which is Ed? Despite the fact that ...

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) planted ...

Leeroy Thornhill: A Prodigy Returns
Profile and Interview by Sheryl Garratt, The Observer, February 2001
THERE WAS A tendency for bands coming out of the acid house club explosion to have dancers – Cressa in the Stone Roses, Bez with the ...

Sister Bliss & John Martyn
Interview by Dan Gennoe, 7, February 2001
SHE'S THE FIRST LADY OF HOUSE, HE'S A LIVING FOLK LEGEND. SHE LIKES GOSPEL, HE LIKES JUNGLE. THEY ARE THE ODD COUPLE AND THEY'RE TAKING HOUSE ...

Orbital: The Altogether (ffrr) ****
Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, June 2001
ON THE techno calendar, the present era isn't so much AD as AD&B – the post-drum'n'bass era. That genre followed a curious arc – it went ...

The Strange Life Of The Incredible Bongo Band
Retrospective and Interview by James Maycock, Daily Telegraph, June 2001
THE TALE OF the Incredible Bongo Band is, aptly, an improbable one. With a highly eclectic cast that includes Bobby Kennedy’s assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, Lennon ...

Groove Armada: Mellow Fellows
Interview by Sheryl Garratt, The Observer, September 2001
IT'S A HOT summer afternoon, Tom Findlay and Andy Cato have cold beers, and we're all sitting on a terrace in west London overlooking the glistening ...

Tank Boy: Aphex Twin
Profile and Interview by Paul Lester, The Guardian, October 2001
From Limp Bizkit to Madonna, everyone wants to work with the Aphex Twin. But those high-paying jobs aren’t important, he tells Paul Lester. He’d only spend ...

Chic: These Are The Good Times
Retrospective and Interview by Daryl Easlea, Mojo Collections, Fall 2001
THINK CHIC, think chic – a passport back to Studio 54, 70s hedonism; good times, guaranteed to bring gravity to the flapping flares and mirrorball-twirling on ...

Paradise Garage and the Lost Art of DJ'ing
Sleevenotes by Bill Brewster, Frank Broughton, 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 a ...

Matthew Herbert
Interview by David Hemingway, unpublished, 2002
House producer Matthew Herbert has made music from underwear, rodents and lazer eye surgery, remixed artists as disparate as Serge Gainsbourg and Moloko and is midway ...

Faithless: Re-Perspective
Review by Dan Gennoe, Q, 2002
AS THIS COLLECTION of reworked tracks from last year's Outrospective album makes all too clear, Faithless don't wear remixes well. So reliant are their songs on ...

The Teaboys Done Good: Zero 7
Profile and Interview by Paul Lester, The Guardian, March 2002
Paul Lester meets Zero 7, the recording studio flunkies turned clubbers' ...

Paul Oakenfold
Interview by Ian Gittins, The Guardian, June 2002
TWO YEARS AGO, Paul Oakenfold was getting profoundly bored. The original post-acid house superstar DJ, known to friends and relatives as ‘Oakey’ and to the cognoscenti ...

David Mancuso And The Art Of Deejaying Without Deejaying
Retrospective by Greg Wilson, electrofunkroots.co.uk, 2003
CLUB CULTURE is a nowadays a global business, dance music transcending language, translating via rhythm rather than words. Inter-city has become inter-continental where the top DJ's ...

One Foot In The Rave
Comment by Lulu Le Vay, Time Out, March 2003
IT'S MIDNIGHT on a Friday night. You're there on the dance floor trying to persuade your body to get into the groove. All you can muster ...

A Conversation With Norman Cook
Interview by Greg Wilson, electrofunkroots.co.uk, September 2003
EARLIER THIS YEAR I e-mailed Norman Cook via Skint Records, telling him about the electrofunkroots project and my intention to document the early 80's period more ...

Altered States: Secret Machines' Narcotic Bliss
Interview by Stevie Chick, The Stranger, June 2004
"THE FIRST TIME you take acid, or have any kind of a psychedelic experience, from that point on you look at the world a little differently." ...

Basement Jaxx/Goldie Lookin' Chain: Bristol Canons Marsh
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, August 2004
AFTER A SLUGGISH start, the finale of Bristol's Grolsh Summer Set shows felt like a largely triumphant affair on Wednesday. Local acts featured on the bill ...

Liam Howlett: Never Outgunned
Interview by Ben Myers, Kerrang!, August 2004
"I REMEMBER being in our rehearsal room and Keith was picking holes in shit and I just thought 'What the fuck, man? What's happened to us?'" ...

Dancing To The Death
Report and Interview by Sheryl Garratt, The Times, January 2005
CLUB CULTURE is over so no music coming out of the dance arena can be interesting. It's not usually put so bluntly but I've read variations ...

808 State: Interview with Graham Massey
Interview by David Hemingway, Record Collector, February 2005
THE APHEX TWIN'S Rephlex imprint is to release a duo of 'acid house' remixes of New Order tracks on 13 September. 'Blue Monday (So Hot Mix)' ...

Roisin Murphy: Her Time Is Now
Profile and Interview by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, May 2005
When Moloko split up, Roisin Murphy found herself without a band, a plan or a partner. She tells Caroline Sullivan how half an hour of random ...

LCD Soundsystem: Soundsystem And Vision
Interview by John Doran, Disorder, July 2005
"I'm losing my edge. To all the kids in Tokyo and Berlin. I'm losing my edge to the art-school Brooklynites in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia ...

Gentlemen Robbers: Thievery Corporation
Retrospective and Interview by Daryl Easlea, Record Collector, July 2005
FOUNDED IN 1995, Washington-based dance duo Thievery Corporation is in that select band of acts, that even though they remain elusive to the great majority, their ...

Salsoul Records: The Best Disco Label In The World... Ever
Retrospective and Interview by Bill Brewster, Record Collector, July 2005
We present a 30th birthday tribute to Salsoul, the label that changed club culture forever. Bill Brewster talks to the movers and shakers and celebrates the ...

Walter Gibbons
Retrospective by Bill Brewster, Record Collector, July 2005
WALTER GIBBONS loved drums. As a young DJ, the beat-heavy records he played defined his sound and as a remixer he had the knack of drawing ...

Rave On… But Be Careful
Comment by Sheryl Garratt, The Times, September 2005
IT IS EASY TO forget how grey and grim Britain seemed in the late 1980s. The Tories had been in power for ever; young men had ...

Fatboy Slim
Interview by Stephen Dalton, The Times, June 2006
THE SUN DECK of Norman Cook's seafront Brighton home juts out over a stony stretch of supposedly private beach. But it is not that private, as ...

20 Salsoul Classics
Discography by Bill Brewster, Record Collector, July 2006
RAFAEL CAMERON – 'BOOGIE'S GONNA GET YA' (INSTRUMENTAL) (SALSOUL 12-INCH/SG-362) £15 ...

Itchy and Scratchy: In Praise of the Basement Boys
Comment by Barney Hoskyns, eMusic.com, March 2007
BEING OF A certain (old) age, dance culture is something I’ve pretty much grown out of. If I’m really honest, I was already semi-alienated before the ...

William Orbit: 'People Will See My Heart And Soul'
Interview by Ian Gittins, The Guardian, May 2007
POP MUSIC has been good to William Orbit. Two decades at the top of his game as one of dance music's leading producers and remixers has ...

John Cale meets LCD Soundsystem
Interview by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, June 2007
They are both stars of New York's music scene - pioneers of the coolest pop, separated by 30 years. James Murphy and John Cale get together ...

Disco's Secret Master: Patrick Adams
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, eMusic.com, December 2007
NOTWITHSTANDING the splendid Hercules & Love Affair, Disco has precious few cult heroes. That once-reviled dilution of funk boasts its share of cult DJs and labels ...

Underworld: Dubnobasswithmyheadman
Review by Barney Hoskyns, eMusic.com, 2008
NOT FOR NOTHING is the first track on this almost unpronounceable album called 'Dark & Long'. Almost all the tracks by this UK techno trio were ...

The Prodigy: Glasgow Academy
Live Review by Pete Paphides, The Times, December 2008
IN 1996, WHEN Keith Flint – the face that soonest springs to mind when people think of the Prodigy – shovelled on the kohl and sculpted ...