OUR DJS

DJ Voo Doo A Go-Go

I first got into DJing by accident around 2006 when I stumbled into the George Tavern in Whitechapel. Me and a friend had gone in there for a few afternoon beers. They had decks and a pile of LPs. No one was playing so we asked if we could stick on some music. Stupidly they agreed. We trawled through the albums playing tracks we liked and had a right blast. Before we left I asked them if I could turn up and play again. Sure thing they said and that was that. For the next 6 months or so I filled the slot of resident DJ playing Friday and Saturday nights. They put on a lot of live bands so I played for them too. I was playing a lot of 60s garage punk and heavy psych. Those were great days when you could still smoke indoors. My nights became quite popular and I loved all of it. sometimes having so much fun and getting so drunk I could hardly see the decks. All of that unfortunately came to an end when I moved across town.

Some time later I snagged regular gigs at Trailer Happiness, a Tiki bar along Portobello Road. I played my own regular slots as well as filling in when other DJs couldn’t do their own nights. For about a year I was playing there 3 times a month. That was a lot of fun but the crowd were dull. I was playing a lot of tittyshaker, Las Vegas grind, stripper, exotica and surf. Garage punk and greasy rock ‘n’ roll didn’t go down well. That’s been my musical style since way back. As a teenager in the 80s I favoured punk, indie (way before brit pop) and goth punk. 

A couple of years or so ago a friend was moving to Germany and asked some of her favourite DJs to play for her leaving do. I turned up with a blistering set of my favourite ‘45s. We all played 2 sets each. As I was about to leave at the end of the night, this tall dude walks up to me and says something like, “hey man…..loved your sets earlier. Do you want to play on my radio station?” I thought he was having a laugh so I said ‘yeah, cool”. That tall dude was Benny Fonzarelli and the station was Cutters Choice. So, every Wednesday at 9:30 I do my show which I call Where the Wild Things Go. During my first shows I was so nervous. I’d never used a microphone before and it took me ages to get comfy with that. Now though I just chat shit and play what I like, and people actually tune in to hear me do that. It’s incredible, and I’m so honoured to be part of this. Every week it’s a real gas. 

Since starting on CCR I’ve played a couple of times for the guys that ran Weirdsville at the Mean Fiddler in Kentish Town and me and Fonz played  at a gig for a few bands in Portobello Road a couple of summers ago.

At the moment I’m speaking with the Helgis Bar in Hackney. They’ve asked me to play on Sundays when they have live bands on. I’m hoping that it’ll happen sometime in October and I’m really excited about that.

I think that’s pretty much it apart from to say that I love playing for all the junkies and 4 year olds.