o0_The_Real_Deal_0o

My love for playing records started with a small portable turntable my Mum picked up in the 70’s. She was a solo mother and used to let me operate it while she did household chores etc. I was hooked from the start. Music played a huge part of my life growing up in the burbs of Auckland/NZ, that I ended up playing drums in a band with my schoolmates. We gigged around the city and that was my first taste of performing. I guess it gave me the confidence to transition to turntables.

In 1989 I had a job as a light operator in a nightclub and it was there that I really started paying attention to what the DJ was doing. I asked if there were any positions coming up and when 1990 rolled around, I was given Friday and Saturday nights. No experience, I literally had to learn on the job. My experience as a drummer meant I picked up beat mixing pretty fast and I hit the ground running.

As that progressed more work started coming my way and in 1993 I found myself as resident in a nightclub called Cause Celebre which was a legendary underground club that (at that time) was the only place an international DJ would play in Auckland. The beauty of this club was that it was House/Techno/Garage in one room, and everything else in the other, so it covered all bases. Suddenly I was rubbing shoulders with DJ’s like Jeff Mills, Giles Peterson, Paul Oakenfold and a bunch more. This is where my taste really started to develop and I grew my own style.

1997 rolled around and I was headhunted for the opening of another well known club, The Khuja Lounge. It was here that I joined a collective of DJ’s pushing Soul, Jazz, Latin, Hip Hop, Drum and Bass and many other underground genres. Our collective of pure music lovers were forging our own sound while most city DJ’s played radio hits and kept it pretty safe.

Even though the club was very popular, I wanted to push myself further, so in 1998 I moved to London, with the aim of breaking into the club scene there. I got my first break in Camden, a place called Bar Vinyl, and because DJ’s brought records downstairs, some would stop and listen, and that’s how my network grew. Suddenly more gigs opened up which culminated in me DJing @ Ministry of Sound. In 1999 I moved back to NZ after a pretty destructive relationship that took a great toll on my mental health.

More and more work came my way which expanded into festivals (Splore) and radio (George FM) Even though I had a great life as a career DJ and was surrounded by people I loved, I decided to give London another shot in 2003. I felt my mission was not yet complete. By that stage, I had good connections, so within a week of landing there, I opened for Fat Freddy’s Drop at Fabric. I gained a number of residencies, but my main port of call was The Lockside Lounge in Camden. That’s where I met The Nextmen and played alongside them in their DJ sets.

In 2008 I moved to The Netherlands to raise my son, so DJing took a back seat for the most part. 2012 saw me move back to NZ, stopping at Bali on the way and DJing at Potatohead for a couple of weeks. All my connections in NZ were still active, so I slipped back into the DJ circuit with ease. During that time, I had a few international gigs in Japan (Booty, Drip Bar)

2017 saw yet another international move to Sydney, and I’ve been here since. It was at this stage that I became disillusioned with the DJ world and decided to hang up my headphones. It wasn’t until I discovered the Twitch DJ ecosystem in 2024 that I was re-inspired to embrace something that has always been a big part of my identity. The support and quality of the people of this community put a fire in my belly, so I created my channel in December 2024.

I’ll finish up by saying that I never wanted to be the DJ who was in the spotlight. I’m far more comfortable back in the shadows making people feel good by sharing the music that I personally love. Music has and will always be, first and foremost in my mind. The journey has been amazing and I’m excited to be brought into the fold of GFF.