DJ Spoony of Dreem Teem on Pirate Radio and Ayia Napa, the Ibiza for UKG

Alongside Dreem Teem partners Timmi Magic and Mikee B, DJ Spoony played a critical role in helping to popularize UK garage in the late 1990s and early 2000s, showcasing the sound via a weekly show on BBC Radio 1.

By the time Dreem Teem turned up on national radio in 2001, Spoony had already been DJing in London’s underground house and garage clubs for over a decade. He first took to the decks as a teenager, playing a mixture of ’80s soul, hip-hop, swingbeat and early house. He eventually became known around London as a great soulful house and US garage DJ, leading to his first pirate radio show on London Underground.

While there, he met Mikee B and Timmi Magic and the three of them formed Dreem Teem. They quickly began to champion the emerging sounds of early 4/4 UK garage, becoming in-demand DJs on the fast-growing scene. A move to dedicated London dance station KISS FM followed in 1997, with Spoony becoming resident DJ at Twice as Nice – a role he fulfilled for over seven years.

In 2005, while Dreem Teem were still hosting shows on BBC Radio 1, Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton sat down with Spoony to discuss the story of UK garage’s birth, the most important early records and Dreem Teem’s infamous feud with 2-step collective So Solid Crew.

FRANK BROUGHTON

Where did you grow up?

DJ SPOONY

I was born in Hackney and spent most of my formative years in Stoke Newington. I lived there from the age of about six to 18. So that’s where it was set.

FRANK BROUGHTON

What sort of things were you getting up to as a kid?

DJ SPOONY

Not much wrong stuff because my mum wouldn’t allow it, but I developed a passion for football and music early on in my life, which has stayed with me.

BILL BREWSTER

How did you get into music?

DJ SPOONY

Just from listening to the radio. My mum always used to play music in the house. There was always a little soundtrack. She was very much into calypso and soca.

My mum’s from St. Kitts, a small Caribbean island. My dad’s from Antigua. So I heard a lot of calypso, reggae, Bob Marley, John Holt, people like that, then she had favourites like “Misty Blue” by Dorothy Moore, so records like that still stick in my head. When I hear them I think of mum. That’s where it kind of started, and she always encouraged us to listen to the radio and music. We didn’t want to listen to John Holt and Dorothy Moore, but the older you got the more you appreciated it.

FRANK BROUGHTON

What kind of radio stations?

DJ SPOONY

What would have been [BBC] Radio London. Tony Blackburn was on there around ten o’clock. He’d play Loose Ends, Skipworth & Turner and that kind of stuff from those days. We’d also listen to Greg Edwards or Steve Walsh. That was early days, when I could listen to that kind of stuff. Later on I was starting to study the mechanics of radio and broadcasting and presenting. I used to love listening to Kenny Everett, Chris Tarrant, but really I think when Chris Evans came onto Radio 1 I said, “I want to be a radio DJ.”

BILL BREWSTER

How did the dance music thing start? How did you get into clubs?

DJ SPOONY

I started DJing and playing out at age 15 at local youth club events. At the time as a DJ you’d play right across the board. As tradition had it, at the end of the night you’d play Phyllis Nelson “Move Closer,” or something like that.

In the middle of the night you’d play your big records, which may have been Sybil or Loose Ends, and at the beginning of the night you’d have your new warm-up records that you thought would be bigger tomorrow.

But it’d be right across the board, whether it be Kurtis Blow hip-hop as it was then, whether it be Teddy Rileyswingbeat or early kind of urban house, the kind of really early “Jack The House” records. It wasn’t genre-led DJing at the time. And I think as I went on I started to love the energy that the uptempo music was bringing. And I started to lean towards DJing house music. Even though I collected all the other music, I loved the idea of people going out and really dancing.

FRANK BROUGHTON

Where were you going out at the time?

DJ SPOONY

The funny thing was I didn’t actually used to go out. When people talk about the “Second Summer of Love,” I’ve got all the records from it, but I didn’t go to loads and loads and loads of club events. At the time I was playing a lot of football, so Sunday mornings and Saturday mornings were going to football. I wasn’t really going out to a field and traipsing up and down round the country. So I was totally in it for the music side, not necessarily for the scene and the rave side of it. I loved all the records, got all the records.

FRANK BROUGHTON

What about clubs? Were there any small clubs you went to?

DJ SPOONY

Yeah. I used to go to Feel Real at Covent Garden, with Linden C, Rob Acteson, Rhythm Doctor, so that was one of my regular haunts. Industria – now Paparazzi – on Hanover Street was another one I used to go to because of Linden C [playing there]. Bar Rhumba: Bobby and Steve were magnificent to me and my career early doors. We got on really well and they gave me a lot of opportunities playing at Garage City at Bar Rhumba. And a couple of one-offs they did at Colosseum early doors.

It was me getting into house music, shopping at Catch A Groove on Dean Street, which at the time was the number-one shop in London, arguably in the UK, for house music and the kind of house music we were playing, with the garage-y sound. That’s a little bit later on.

FRANK BROUGHTON

Were you DJing through the house period?

DJ SPOONY

As I said it was more [later on].

BILL BREWSTER

Weren’t you working at the benefits office in Hackney? I know Chris Long quite well and he said you used to give him the nod when he signed on.

DJ SPOONY

[Laughs] Chrissy used to live in Shoreditch and on a Friday night I’d be up there, then on a Tuesday he might stick his head around the corner. You know! Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil! He was cool and he was very discreet. He just came in, did his thing and left. It would have been more headache for me to go and [do the paperwork]. “What’s the man doing?” He’s just playing some records.

That was a little later down the line. Earlier I was collecting, buying records at Mr. Music in Dalston, from my dear friend Daryl. It just snowballed from there. But yeah, I was at the Job Centre for seven years. I had a normal nine-to-five job and I was playing football [at weekends]. I loved the music, I loved my football, I loved my work, and the three had an excellent and perfect synergy for how I wanted to live my life. Had I been going out clubbing at the weekends I wouldn’t have played football. I’d have been too hungover to go to work. Work would have been arduous from Monday to Wednesday. As it was it was just perfect.

FRANK BROUGHTON

When were you drawn to the more garage-y sound?

DJ SPOONY

What was happening, at the time of playing at Garage City and stuff, I then got a show on a pirate radio station called London Underground. At the time it was London’s biggest [pirate station]. I came onto London Underground, which had DJs who were playing really uptempo, all the UK stuff.

When I joined the station I was very much known as the soulful house man on the station. Every now and again I’d sprinkle it with some of the UK stuff. I was definitely known as someone who would play vocals: vocal house and vocal garage. It didn’t depend on the tempo, it just had vocals on it. A lot more soulful.

As time went on the tracks got a little bit funkier and little bit dubbier. And the transition was a very smooth one. It wasn’t like one day I stopped buying those and started playing that. It would have been either or, at any time, depending on what mood I was in and depending on how many girls were in the club. You’d gauge it totally on the night. But I had the ability and the passion to play that kind of music.

FRANK BROUGHTON

Why were you drawn to that kind of sound?

DJ SPOONY

Because I guess I was brought up on music and songs and melodies, so that’s what came naturally to me. The only thing that changed was the tempo. Even then, if I go all the way back to what my mum listened to – soca – then she was brought up on uptempo music anyway. This was just like our uptempo music. I’m not a young black kid in the Caribbean; I’m a young black kid in London. We don’t really listen to soca. We don’t have the massive carnivals like that and it’s not the soundtrack of the nation, but uptempo music is something that I was used to. I was very much drawn to the natural energy of it, just like in the Caribbean they are to calypso and soca.

FRANK BROUGHTON

When do you think the US garage sound started to have a scene of its own in London?

DJ SPOONY

Sorry to backtrack, but there’s one club I forgot. I used to play at the Rocket on Holloway Road. What’s the name of it [the club night]? I can’t remember.

BILL BREWSTER

Was it the Orange club?

DJ SPOONY

It wasn’t the Orange club; that was in Camden Palace. I used to go to the Rocket and we used to play in the small room. We used to play more of that soulful side. It was around that time that house music started to fragment from your Chicago/Detroit/Transmat house sound. You had the happy hardcore sound starting to come in, then jungle and drum & bass started to have its own identity, then you had soulful vocal house and straight-up hard house.

So what used to be all in one melting pot you then started to get slightly more extreme, if you can have a slight extreme. They all started to go further away from the middle point, all these different musical styles. Which then meant that you could have a record with a big bassline, but if it sounded too much like reggae, how would it sit with a straight-up trance record? The trance records started to become more trancey, the jungle records started to become more jungle, the happy hardcore records started to get more squeaky, and before you know it, you’ve got six different kinds of music where at first it was just house music.

Another of those genres was soulful vocal house. If you speak to Sharkey or Fabio and Grooverider, Judge Jules, Pete Tong or Carl Cox, I bet you all of those guys in their record collection have got things like Victor Romeo’s “Love Will Find A Way,” which is effectively a garage record. But if you listen to it, it is on Dance Mania so it has definitely got the Chicago soft, trancey kind of feel.

But all those DJs will own that record, because that was typical to the time. But going on four, five years later, then it wouldn’t have been [the case], as everyone’s fragmented off.

FRANK BROUGHTON

So it’s about records coming out that you wouldn’t play. I guess it’s a production thing.

DJ SPOONY

Yeah, and I noticed it with the garage scene. Once you’ve got this new music phenomenon – say, house music – someone sitting in their room says, “I like that one a little bit more than I like that one.” And they’re gonna make that kind of record. Then you’re gonna have an influx of new producers making that kind of music. But the same goes for every single one of those genres along the line.

As a DJ, if you think, “I will play that trancey record because it’s a really good one,” over a matter of six to eight months you’re gonna get so many more soulful vocal, bumpin’ kind of tracks. Because of the new influx of producers, there are gonna be certain records that you were kind of alright about that you’re gonna start omitting from your sets. Before you know it, you’re playing an hour and a half of a particular type of music, because the music is now there for you to play.

FRANK BROUGHTON

So is it fair to say that that house explosion was year zero for British dance music? Culturally as well as musically?

DJ SPOONY

I think if you look at it culturally you’ll say yes, without a doubt. To try and put your finger on it before that would be hard, because at those big events many DJs would play many different styles of music. So it wasn’t as fragmented. In the days of playing in a field, people would come on and play whatever. The big DJ would play the last set, drop 808 State “Pacific State” and everyone would be there and have their hands in the air.

But as you went on, five or six years later – maybe not as many as that even – it then started to split down. The happy hardcore scene was massive – Fabio and Grooverider were some of the biggest DJs around at the time. So everyone still managed to keep their identity and their reputation, but people were being known for playing different strands of house music.

FRANK BROUGHTON

But everyone came from the same starting point and stayed in touch with each other.

DJ SPOONY

Yeah, and the starting point is house music. House music is the genre and all those other things are subgenres. It would have been jungle-house music. It would have been garage-house music, happy hardcore-house music. You know, trance-house music. They’re all different divisions within house music. People just decided they wanted it a little more soulful or a little bit harder, or a little bit more banging or a little bit more percussive. These were all within house music.

FRANK BROUGHTON

What do you think the roots of the UK sound were?

DJ SPOONY

Funnily enough, in a paradox kind of way, the US. Because you had people like Masters At Work making very sexy, percussive [music] with very much a Latin influence. Because that’s what they come from, that influence is always gonna be in their music. If you get someone who’s been brought up in New York who’s a black, Afro-Caribbean American, they might not have the same influences. Their music is gonna have a bigger bassline kind of feel.

Again, just as you did on the house scene here, you started getting different kinds of house music [in the US]. Then you ended up with people like Todd Terry and Smack Productions who started making dubbier, clubbier records. Masters At Work have always made, not exclusively, but predominantly, musical house records.

FRANK BROUGHTON

They sound like they could be made with a band.

DJ SPOONY

Yes! And it’s no surprise that now they can perform with a band and they get on the stage with a full ensemble. Whereas Smack Productions, Todd Terry or DJ Disciple were making pumping, dubby club records that you’d want to dance to. That sound was very much embraced by the UK DJs who thought that soulful vocal house was a little bit too smooth for them. How and why, you’d have to speak to them individually. From my own experience, being someone who straddled the line and loved both sides, it was, “Well, this is a refreshing alternative.”

If you picked up a Strictly Rhythm record, some people would play side A with a vocal, some people would play the other side with the dub vocal edit. Some people would play the straight up dub. So stuff like Barbara Tucker “Stay Together,” four different DJs would play three or four different mixes of the same record.

BILL BREWSTER

Was there a point when you thought the stuff you were playing was distinct from other people playing US garage? It was definitely a UK take on the sound.

DJ SPOONY

I think the UK take on the sound would have come a little bit later on, when you started getting the UK producers making the music. Even though I’m a UK DJ, at the time I was very much playing the flipsides of American records.

FRANK BROUGHTON

But take somebody like Tony Humphries. When he played over here, did you notice that his style was different, even though he’s playing the same records?

DJ SPOONY

Yeah, because I think the UK clubbers wanted it a little bit more jumping, a little bit more pumping than someone like Tony Humphries. And that goes right across the board – even to the stuff that Chris plays, or Rob Acteson played. It would have had a little bit more, as much as we respected Tony Humphries. Rob would always play – his set would be a little bit more uptempo.

I don’t know what it is with us here, maybe the cosmopolitan nature of growing up in London, [but] we can listen to a little bit of Latin or listen to a little bit of something with a tougher edge, because when you walk down the street it could be black, white, Asian, Middle Eastern. We eat like that as well, we see those programmes on TV, and without realising, it means that when you hear bongos or a Spanish guitar it doesn’t sound as alien as if we lived in very mini-societies [i.e. ghettoized like the States].

FRANK BROUGHTON

When did you feel there was a real diversion?

DJ SPOONY

I don’t think at the time it was ever DJs versus. Even DJs like Ricky Morrison, who again would play on the same bill as Tony Humphries, he would still play a little chunkier than Tony Humphries would, and then when you had the next wave of UK DJs, like the Dreem Teem and Matt “Jam” Lamont, they started playing chunkier still. Ricky Morrison might have played half chunky. Dreem Teem or Matt “Jam” Lamont might have played 75% chunky. You’d then get DJs who’d play 100% chunky and then DJs who were so chunky you’d have to start calling it something else. It has now morphed into something else.

BILL BREWSTER

What would you regard as the first UK garage record?

DJ SPOONY

I think rather than try to put my finger on the first I would mention Nice ’N’ Ripe, a record label that was immediately identified with this new sound. There were other records that were sprinkled about, but when you saw a Nice ’N’ Ripe record, it was them. It was Grant Nelson and Tony Power, who were very much responsible for what happened as far as UK garage goes. He [Grant] was heavily influenced by what was going on stateside, but as far as bringing the sound here, whether Christopher Columbus is the greatest explorer or the greatest pirate depends on which side of the table you’re sitting on. In the same way we applaud Grant Nelson, a lot of the US people said he was just doing what they were doing.

BILL BREWSTER

Who were the Americans at the same sort of time?

DJ SPOONY

Terry Hunter, Eddie Perez and Smack Productions, the Mood II Swing boys, Basement Boys. They were all making those records. The bumpier side of vocal house and garage.

FRANK BROUGHTON

Did you ever go over to the States at that time?

DJ SPOONY

No.

FRANK BROUGHTON

Or talk to people that had?

DJ SPOONY

Not really, because we were fine just getting the records.

FRANK BROUGHTON

So when did you think, “Here’s a completely new style of music”?

DJ SPOONY

I think we couldn’t say it was a whole new form of music until the whole MCing thing came into it. That was when it was rubberstamped, “This is now English – this is revolution, not evolution.” If you’ve been in it from the beginning like myself you can plot how it’s been an evolution, but if you just came into it then it was a revolution. “This has not been done before, this is brand new, what on earth is this?”

But you could also say, “This is just an MC going on top of what we had before.” Because of the MCing and the style and what they’re talking about, it was like, “Alright, this is brand new.” The Grant Nelson days was a poignant moment, just like the influx of the MCs was another.

FRANK BROUGHTON

Where did the whole MC thing come from?

DJ SPOONY

If you grow up in London you’re exposed to lots of musical tastes and cultural tastes. Generally, if you’re growing up as a young black Afro-Caribbean [person], there will be a lot of reggae music around. A lot of people [when I was growing up] used to listen to soundsystems – people like Saxon and Unity – or listen to David Rodigan on the radio.

Going right back, it was about Bob Marley and that kind of reggae and it was the soundsystems. Everyone would pick up a microphone and do their thing. Suddenly there’s a new kind of music that people want to do their thing on. At the same time, rap music is running alongside or has taken over house music stateside. Kids thought, “If Biggie Smalls and Tupac can grab a mic, I’m gonna do it over here, over our kind of music.”

FRANK BROUGHTON

Originally the stuff you were playing – the vocal house stuff – wouldn’t have had an MC over it in a million years. When did it reach a point where someone said, “Wouldn’t it be great to stick an MC on?”

DJ SPOONY

I think it started with MCs as hosts in the clubs and then it developed into, “We’re gonna start recording music with MCs on it.” You’d get people who would come in and ad-lib, like DT. Remember the jungle and the drum & bass came before the garage, and the MCs were a very prominent part of that scene.

FRANK BROUGHTON

So you kind of split off from that scene and then reconnected?

DJ SPOONY

Yes. People need to realize soon that’s how music works.

BILL BREWSTER

There were quite a lot of disillusioned people from the drum & bass and hardcore scenes who got into the garage scene. I know Grant [Nelson] and he was a hardcore producer before he was doing the Nice ’N’ Ripe stuff. Did that have an effect? The impression I got was that the hardcore clubs got really moody, so people started going to the garage clubs because there were loads of girls there.

DJ SPOONY

This is what happened, and, another paradox. At the end of it we’re not going there any more because there’s no girls there. That’s what it was about at the beginning. That’s how it started. That’s why everyone wanted to come. People were coming – they didn’t necessarily like or understand the music, but Jesus, I’ve never seen so many women in one place.

And eventually you start liking the records. If you listen to a certain kind of music long enough you’ll say, “Don’t like that, don’t like that, but that’s not a bad one, that’s better than the others.” Before long you’ll start liking that one, before long you’ll like one that you liked a little bit less, before long you can listen to a guitar band. That’s how it goes.

I spoke to my brother. He’s very much into reggae and dancehall music. “Nah, I ain’t listening to house.” I said, “Come down, you’ll have a good time.” He came down and all he started talking about was, “The girls, the girls, the girls, the girls.” But soon it was, “What was that record though, the one that sounded alright?” What was that record? One record. But then he wanted to come back. Then he’d ask me about more records, and before you know it he can listen to it. “Yeah, I need a tape now, ’cos a girl got into my car and I didn’t have none of the music.”

FRANK BROUGHTON

Where were you playing at that point?

DJ SPOONY

I was at the Arches. That was the club.

FRANK BROUGHTON

Garage is one of the only kinds of dance music that unashamedly concentrates on playing for the ladies.

DJ SPOONY

I’m not bothered. Girls like to have a singalong. The odd one or two like to stand in a dark corner smashed out of their head, but most girls put on their nice clothes and they want to go out, preen their feathers, show the boys their feathers on the dancefloor and have a little sing. You can’t sing to [makes grinding banging noises].

FRANK BROUGHTON

And the glamour comes with the whole territory – the Moschino and the champagne.

DJ SPOONY

I never wore that kind of stuff. I just tried to look smart in a shirt...

FRANK BROUGHTON

I remember going to the Colosseum, and I hadn’t seen such flamboyantly-dressed guys outside of a gay club. Everyone had spent so much time and effort on their clothes.

DJ SPOONY

Because you know you’re going to get the “creme de la crème” of women, and if you go there looking the part there’s a good chance you could be on it. So even if you couldn’t be bothered you would be bothered on a Sunday night outside the Colosseum.

That was the thing: Sunday night became Saturday night. Sunday night became the night to go out. “I’m taking Monday off work, getting the car cleaned on Saturday, I’m getting my hair cut as late as I can on Saturday so it still looks brand new on Sunday and I’ve got a new outfit to wear Sunday.” Saturday? I’m not bothered about Saturdays. Sunday was Saturday night. Saturday Night Fever was suddenly Sunday night fever.

FRANK BROUGHTON

Where did the whole Sunday thing come from?

DJ SPOONY

Again, I think the music at the time – what then became the UK sound and really dubby US stuff – was still to break through. They couldn’t go to a promoter and say, “Could we have your club on a Saturday night?” Only 200 or 250 people may have wanted to go. Clubs have got to pay bills, got to pay staff. You can’t get a club in London in the West End for 150 people on a Saturday. But you know what? You can have it for £100 on a Sunday – we don’t care. And that was it. You had the Frog and Nightgown on Old Kent Road, the Arches in its early form, and there you had it.

FRANK BROUGHTON

There was another one, wasn’t there, the Elephant and Castle?

DJ SPOONY

Yeah, but I think the Frog was the main one.

FRANK BROUGHTON

Did you go down there?

DJ SPOONY

A couple of times.

FRANK BROUGHTON

What was the scene like?

DJ SPOONY

It was very small – a big pub, not even a nightclub. One of the bigger pubs. It wasn’t until the Arches that it was like a club.

BILL BREWSTER

What was the difference in atmosphere compared to the early house things you went to?

DJ SPOONY

Early house was very much fuelled by drugs. Being someone who doesn’t take drugs, it was nothing to stand there seeing people popping pills all night. At the Arches, even though people were obviously still taking them, because the music was all very melodic, it wasn’t as if you had to be off your head to enjoy it. You could listen to it on a Wednesday on your way to work, as opposed to something that you just listen to when you’re out clubbing. But that’s coming from the viewpoint of someone who’s never taken any drugs.

BILL BREWSTER

How did the 2-step thing evolve?

DJ SPOONY

If we go back to your Grant Nelsons, when it started having its own flavour, you then started getting young producers saying, “What kind of music is this? It has got a proper bassline in it. I like that, but I’m gonna give it my own little flavour.”

The first 2-step record was made by... I’ll say it was Dem 2 when they made “Destiny.” That actually got a commercial release with a full vocal – all it used to say [originally] was “Destiny.” 2-step had a very prominent snare drum as opposed to the kick drum of the 4/4. That’s what made the 2-step sound.

BILL BREWSTER

What about Tina Moore “Never Gonna Let You Go”? That was an early one, wasn’t it?

DJ SPOONY

It was, but that was an American record – that was an accidental thing. It was two minutes long at the end of Tina Moore’s track. It got picked up here and people started playing this kind of breakbeat [garage]. Then we had Dem 2, Artful Dodger and Dreem Teem records that had that kind of sound, MJ Cole came along and there was 2-step. Originally MJ Cole was making drum & bass records, but then went, “I want there to be music. I want chords and strings and melodies and grooves.”

BILL BREWSTER

What was it like playing at the Arches?

DJ SPOONY

Electric. You felt it. You felt the atmosphere – you could touch it, you could bottle it. You can’t explain it to people. You opened the door, took a deep breath and you were just hit by hundreds of people dancing 500%. There was no one looking around, caring who is in there or caring about them dancing. They’re just in there grooving away.

As a DJ that’s all you can ask for. That’s everything. You felt you were going to play a wicked set because the atmosphere would not only allow you to, it would also drag you out of any corner you got into.

Tony Humphries came and played at the Arches one week and totally bombed. I’m not qualified to say whether he’s had such an intense atmosphere before, but playing at Zanzibar or wherever he played in that world, he must have. Maybe the tempo and energy was too much. He may have been better off playing a straight-up disco set as opposed to a mellow house set.

As far as DJ Spoony goes, that was when I started to get a reputation that I was going to come and rock a party. But that was just because the people made me feel that I had to rock the party. I couldn’t fail to [in that atmosphere].

FRANK BROUGHTON

Quite a symbolic moment then. Were you on before him?

DJ SPOONY

No, but I was there.

FRANK BROUGHTON

Did someone open for him?

DJ SPOONY

I’m not sure, because at the time Timmi [Magic], Mikee B, myself, Matt “Jam” Lamont and Karl “Tuff Enuff” Brown used to play in a kind of rotation. Matt and Karl played there before us and we came along. This was even before we were the Dreem Teem. We used to get on, we were on the same pirate station. Timmi was getting on, Mikee was a legendary DJ, but he’d just been under the radar. He’s been there from day one, like all the others, played on all the bills and played internationally with all of those guys.

To hang around [with] Mikee was like being around Tony Humphries, except he was English. I remember listening to tapes of Mikee B and his soundsystem before I was even old enough to go out. For a Liverpool [FC] fan, it would be like going to meet Ian Rush. “I used to sit up and watch you!” When I first met Kenny Dalglish four years ago, I may as well have been seven. And that’s what it meant to me meeting Mikee B. He’s a legend. And he’s still cutting it. He’s still there.

And then people started saying, “When you coming on? What you gonna play for us? It was wicked last week!” Spoony wasn’t born, but it was, “Here we go. How far’s this gonna go?”

FRANK BROUGHTON

Were the Tuff Jam guys following a very similar trajectory? Were you aware of them early on?

DJ SPOONY

Yeah, because they were producing music as Tuff Jam quite early on. These were people that at the time were UK garage’s biggest DJs.

BILL BREWSTER

They were putting stuff out on Casa Trax quite early.

DJ SPOONY

Yeah. This is even before Casa Trax. I think they had something out on [the] Unda-Vibes [series], but they were doing their thing before the Dreem Teem was invented.

FRANK BROUGHTON

Their thing was very much the Elephant and Castle scene.

DJ SPOONY

Timmi used to go there more than the rest of us. By the time I came onto London Undergound and started playing at the Arches, and with Mikee, it started to change a little bit.

BILL BREWSTER

In what way?

DJ SPOONY

I think we brought another dimension to it. It was no coincidence that we became UK garage’s biggest [DJs]. Maybe [it was] the radio, maybe [it was] the three different influences we had, because Mikee came from his style, I came from mine and Timmi had his. Put that together and you had a better kind of style.

Then you had the influx of the women coming to the events. And where women go, the men will follow. So suddenly, indirectly you’ve got a bigger set of people coming along. At the time, when we were on KISS 97, we had a very successful radio show. We were appealing to people who couldn’t come to the club and hear us, but they could tune in and listen on a Friday night. For that reason we then became UK garage’s biggest.

All the artists wanted to come on our show and we started getting all the exclusives. It was fun to listen to the show. We weren’t attitude kind of people – we’d have a laugh and take the piss out of each other. It sounded like an on-air party. People bought into us and they very much wanted to be a part of it.

FRANK BROUGHTON

When Mixmag and DJ [Mag] first wrote about it they called it “speed garage.” And that wasn’t anything that anyone on the scene was using, right?

DJ SPOONY

No.

FRANK BROUGHTON

What did you guys call it?

DJ SPOONY

We were just calling it garage or UK garage.

FRANK BROUGHTON

When did you first hear someone say “UK garage” to distinguish it?

DJ SPOONY

I can’t remember. “House and garage,” it used to be called. Listen to early tapes and you can hear MC Creed say, “House and garage.”

FRANK BROUGHTON

There was a time when 2-step reached a point where you didn’t feel like it was your style any more. You had a bit of a falling out with So Solid Crew, right?

DJ SPOONY

The thing about the falling out with So Solid Crew is that it wasn’t that we tried to say, “You’re not playing that style of music.” I’d be an idiot to back myself into that corner. It’s taken on a record-by-record basis. If they make a record you like, you play it. I have never not played a record because I didn’t like the person who made it. I’d be stupid if I did.

However, if you make a record and I don’t like it, I’m not not liking it because it’s you. At the time they didn’t quite understand that. They very much thought, “You’re not playing this because you don’t like us.” That’s rubbish, because in the middle of all that we still played records of theirs. Some we play, some we don’t. I didn’t play every one of Jay Z’s records, or Artful Dodger’s. I’ll put it down to youth and inexperience. They didn’t understand.

There were records that as far as I was concerned were quite gimmicky, like “I Don’t Smoke” [by DJ Dee Kline]. If I was gonna play stuff like that, back in the day I would have been a happy hardcore DJ. That for me was our modern-day happy hardcore. And I wasn’t into that, otherwise I could have been a happy hardcore DJ years ago.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t like any member of the So Solid Crew or any of the producers that made it. All I know is I don’t particularly like it and chances are I won’t play it. The second you make something I do like I will totally embrace it and play it. Simple.

Oxide and Neutrino, since then we’ve had a lot of conversations. They’re a lot older now. It makes sense. But when you’re young, you’re vibed up, you’ve got a bit of attitude. Were they angry and frustrated or trying to be angry and frustrated? I don’t know. It totally played into their management’s hands to try and have as many barneys with everyone [as possible], because it made good press. You’ve got the new upstarts arguing with all the biggest people on the scene. In boxing terms that’d be like getting a kid off the street to go in and have a world championship fight with Mike Tyson. It wouldn’t happen. You have to earn your stripes.

FRANK BROUGHTON

What was the idea behind the “UK garage committee,” though?

DJ SPOONY

Well, I think the committee was formed because people started to realise that if we were smart as a business we could do something here. I would never try to stem the growth of what anyone’s doing, my opinion as a DJ is that I don’t particularly like that record. I’m not fuelled by chart positions and by what other DJs are playing.

FRANK BROUGHTON

It was more than just a beef, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it Norris “Da Boss” Windross’s idea?

DJ SPOONY

It may have been Norris’s idea. Norris is an older, experienced man and if he saw something happening it’s his duty to stand up and say [something]. Regardless of whether anyone’s listening, if you see something happening you should bring it to everyone’s attention. Then no one can turn round and say, “Why didn’t you pick up on that?”

It was more a thing of, “Do we realise what’s going on? We need to talk about trouble and violence in clubs, talk about the message we’re giving to our audience. The message we’re giving can be in the music we’re playing. It’s something we need to address.”

Some people took that to mean, “If a record had a gun sound in it we’re digging you out.” But if you’re gonna be promoting that kind of stuff and someone lets a gun off in the club, and then the club night stops, where does that leave us? Everyone was running up and down the country doing their thing, buying their cars, with their women, whatever. At some point there was common ground that we needed to discuss.

FRANK BROUGHTON

People started having trouble getting venues for garage events.

DJ SPOONY

This was later down the line. The fact is that had we all been a little smarter, a little less selfish and sat down and discussed it, maybe we’d have had a few more millionaires. Maybe calling it a committee was something too formal. Don’t think for a second that there isn’t an unwritten, informal committee that went on in the house scene.

FRANK BROUGHTON

Yeah, it happens. The tastemakers…

DJ SPOONY

I think the new DJs coming up like Fergie would have had utmost respect for Pete Tong. Fergie wouldn’t have started saying, “Pete Tong is shit.” But in the garage scene, just because of how people are, that’s what happened. And it upset the apple cart, and when people get attacked they start defending. Before you know it you have a volatile situation, then people outside get wind of it. It starts being territories, north against south, then it is London against Birmingham, and it just spirals out of control.

FRANK BROUGHTON

How did Ayia Napa become the garage party destination?

DJ SPOONY

If you tell people “no” enough they’ll just go off and do their own thing. If you want to be a DJ enough and they’re saying you can’t play in their club, you’re gonna go off and find another club to DJ in. So Ibiza comes along, we want to go there but you can only listen to harder house music. There’s somewhere else where they’ve got smaller bars. Not 5,000 capacity places. “They play garage and uptempo R&B records? Oh, we’ll go there.” The rest is history.

FRANK BROUGHTON

Had it been a popular destination for black youth from London before?

DJ SPOONY

A lot of my footballer friends were going there from years ago but it wasn’t a massive destination, just a resort. I had a phone call from Pure Silk in 1997: “Do you want to DJ abroad?” “I don’t care I’ll DJ anywhere.” “The situation is, we’ve got a club we could do in Ayia Napa in Cyprus. I’ve got you, MC Creed, we’re gonna put Pure Silk on out there, do you want to do it?” And that was it.

The next four years were unbelievable. You then had a London promoter and they’re bringing the feel to the island, as opposed to it being just a local DJ playing in a bar. Just like how Cream or Manumission go to Ibiza, Pure Silk were going to be Ayia Napa’s Cream. That’s how it started.

Then Twice as Nice, Garage Nation and Garage Heaven all came a little bit later. By ’99-2000 it was road-blocked and the planes were packed. The beaches were packed. People were booking holidays a year in advance, sending emails asking, “When are you going to be out there?” It was unreal.

Now it’s very much gone the other way, it’s peaked. Just like the scene here, because it was fuelled by what happened in the UK. It’s taken its hits the same way. The same bad boys were going out there and causing trouble. I saw no trouble in the club for three years, just lots of half-naked women dancing.

This interview took place at the BBC Radio 1 studios on February 2nd, 2005. © DJ History