DJ Phil, a Brief Career Introspective - The Early Years (Part One)

I've been a DJ for a long, long time. Almost thirty-five years. Eventually I'll have to give it up, because of my advancing age (I'm almost 53 years old) and accumulating health problems (my health has been declining steadily since my young son died, back in 2006). But it's been a long, fun ride so far and will continue to be so, however long it lasts! But even when I quit doing this DeeJaying lark, I will never lose my love of music, as long as I live.

Now, I haven't been keeping notes or a diary, but I'm pretty sure that my career as a DJ started sometime in 1979, or maybe early 1980 at the latest (I was eighteen or nineteen years old at the time), although I obviously can't recall the exact date of my first gig, which is now lost somewhere in the mists of time. I know it was backing some local band or another. Most other young local DJs tended to start off helping out more experienced, more established DJs at discos, playing the start of shows before the main DJ took over. Me, I had to be different. I started off alone, backing local alternative and rock bands at gigs.

Back in those days, I was heavily into the alternative and rock music (both hard and classic) scenes, a much bigger fan of those types of music than of more commercial pop music, and I had (still have) an enormous collection of that type of music on vinyl, both singles and LPs. In these early days, I always stayed the hell away from the safe option of playing any Top 30 chart hits at gigs, unless absolutely necessary (and I mean ABSOLUTELY necessary, like someone-has-a-gun-to-my-head necessary), and I very quickly started to gain a reputation for playing more adventurous, non-mainstream music at gigs, which of course began attracting those audiences with less commercial tastes in music. Pretty soon I had a nice little niche following.

Luckily for me the local alternative and rock scenes in my hometown were buzzing back in those days, and work was plentiful, if a bit sporadic. Within a few months, I was a regular feature, playing as backup DJ with local bands, almost always punk rock, New Wave and hard rock bands. This led me, shortly after that, to start spreading my wings a bit, breaking away from backing up groups on the band scene and playing my first solo discos.

Almost all of these early solo gigs were one-off rock and alternative nights, with the occasional soul/Northern soul and funky disco gig thrown in. Most of these gigs were 21st birthday parties or something similar for friends who just happened to be rockers or punks, or people with slightly alternative tastes in music, as those were the kind of people that I hung out with. It was a great thing being able to play only the kind of music that I really liked, for people in my own social circles, who liked exactly the same kind of music that I did. :)

But even back in those earliest days, I was starting to realize that if I wanted to actually get regular work, to become really successful as a DJ on the local scene, I'd have to start gigging outside of my comfort zones, at more commercial music discos. Which brings me to my first regular gig as a DJ...

To Be Continued...