Interview: UK Mixing Pioneer DJ Froggy

In 1980, DJ Froggy took a trip that would change his life. Already a popular DJ on the UK’s soul all-dayer circuit and a member of Chris Hill’s infamous “Soul Mafia” collective, the artist born Steven Howlett flew to New York to attend the New Music Seminar.

He was hugely inspired by what he discovered in the city’s leading disco clubs, particularly Studio 54 and the Paradise Garage. Froggy quickly became obsessed by the way that Larry Levan and other leading New York DJs would mix records together to create a nonstop rhythm. He promptly bought a pair of Technics 1210 turntables – he was famously the first DJ in the UK to do so – and dedicated himself to becoming a “mixer.”

It was a smart move. He soon became known as one of Britain’s “technical DJs” and was as in-demand for his then-novel mixing skills as his on-point selections of disco, boogie, soul and jazz-funk. He became a popular attraction at the Soul Mafia’s annual Caister Soul Weekender events, while holding down a weekly residency at the Royalty in Southgate, North London.

During the period Froggy was also famous for the quality of the soundsystem he had built, which was one of the biggest travelling systems in the UK and designed to create a genuine “wall of sound.” As the 1980s progressed, he became more in demand as a remixer and re-editor, preparing unique versions of contemporary dance records for shows on BBC Radio 1. When rave culture hit the UK at the end of the decade, Froggy was asked to present a Saturday night dance show on London’s Capital Radio.

In September 2004, some four years before his death, Froggy sat down with DJ History’s Bill Brewster to discuss his DJ journey, the Soul Mafia and his pioneering approach to entertaining British dancers.

Where were you born and where did you grow up?

I’m a proper cockney. Born in Whitechapel, by the Bow Bells. Born in the Wright Hospital, November 8th. Age? I don’t talk about that. I’m a veteran.

Did you grow up in Whitechapel?

I grew up in Whitechapel, then moved to Rainham between seven and 12 then moved to Ilford. Dad worked at Plessey’s at the time, which was a big concern. I couldn’t stand school anymore and my dad has influence there and it was hard to get an apprenticeship. I wanted to do an electronics apprenticeship, and in those days you could leave [school] when you were 15, so I left just after my 15th birthday. Did that until I was 21. Went and got my City & Guilds. Covered all aspects of engineering. My thoughts were always towards the radio, studio equipment and soundsystems. I started developing this skill for soundsystems and radiograms.

When did you start collecting records?

When I was five. In those days, all you had was wind up record players. Clockwork, with a handle on the side. In those days, it was 78s and you had to change the needles after three or four plays. So my pocket money was a box of needles every week and a record. So they’d lock me in my room and I’d play my records.

What sort of records?

I had a great interest in general melody stuff, things like Guy Mitchell “Singing the Blues,” and “Rock Around The Clock.” I was a big Lonnie Donegan fan.

Then Plessey’s went all electronic and they did a record player with a motor. My dad came home with it one night when I was about seven, which did away with the handle.

Six months after that, when I was about eight, my dad kindly turned up with a radiogram which I completely commandeered for the next ten years. It had two eight-inch speakers and a real deck. Just at that time, [7"] singles came out, so every week I had a single, and because I didn’t have to change the needles anymore, I got sweets instead of needles.

Then I started building things – sound – and people started giving me speakers. My mum died at an early age, so I was pretty well going through some bad times when I was younger, so the music was a comfort.

I had this radiogram. They made the mistake of giving me a drill and when they came back home I’d drilled all the radiogram out, so there were speakers everywhere. I had eight speakers in there. It blew up. But they gave me that [radiogram] box and I had it for ten years.

When I started my apprenticeship, you didn’t get a lot of money, about a fiver a week. Plessey’s, at that time, had a social hall. I became chairman of the Apprenticeship Association. With all my knowledge, I scrounged speakers and an amplifier. I also had a couple of old Garrard decks and started doing little dos for apprentices.

Were there any people who influenced you when you were younger?

Well, when I was growing into my teens there was only one radio station. The only one you could get was Radio Luxembourg. Tony Prince was a big name on there, so I used to tune into Tony Prince and also Paul Burnett. They were great, a big influence radio-wise. They broke away and did Radio Caroline, which was the forerunner to Radio 1, as you know.

As far as live work, it was Emperor Rosko, he was always playing live, Johnny Walker for contemporary stuff and club-wise, I didn’t really see any DJ in this country who did anything that I couldn’t do better myself. It wasn’t until I went to America that I saw something completely different.

What was it about Rosko you liked?

I was always a Wolfman Jack fan. He had such a unique style. He used to play to a lot of the campus students. Emperor Rosko was like a British version of him.

Basically we became quite close friends. I watched him work live and I was his protégé, no doubt. He had to move back to America because his dad, the famous film producer Joe Pasternak, died. When he left, my soundsystem that I built was virtually identical to the one he had, so when he came back to the UK he’d play on my system.

So tell me about your early days DJing. Were you using two decks?

There was nothing like mixing in those days. All you had was a big hi-fi amp, a Leak 70 or quad amplifier, which was the crème de la crème, and both of those had two deck plugs, so you could switch from one to the other.

I had a couple of Garrard turntables and an amp and a couple of speakers. And I already had quite a collection and those records were quite appropriate for these dos.

Towards the end of my apprenticeship, I’d saved quite a bit of money and I went and got two sheets of eight-by-five and, at that time, the only 12-inch speaker you could get associated with Plessey was a Wharfedale, so I phoned the company up to get the specs and built two cabinets with tweeters in, in my house. They were my first two disco speakers.

I continued with my apprenticeship. I’d heard there was a little place starting up at the Bird’s Nest in Chapel Heath. They were Watney’s pubs with a little room in each and they were interviewing for DJs. So I went along and got it straight away.

I asked if I could do my own night, started with nothing and built it up until it was packed. The Froggy name came from the Bird’s Nest, because we all had to have nicknames. There was a Scottish DJ called Jock The Jock, and because I was quite wiry it became Frog, and then Froggy.

As soon as I’d finished my apprenticeship, I jacked it in the next day. I wanted to go professional. To my horror, it wasn’t as easy as I thought.

I bought a little Thames van for £100 and put some gear in it. I proudly walked in the next week and told them I was a professional disc jockey. They laughed me all the way out of the door, because you really could not get insured for any kind of entertainment then, whether you were a golfer or DJ. I had to go round posing as an electrician.

Anyway, I got the Bird’s Nest going so it was packed out every Monday night. Then different promoters started coming in, liked what I did and liked what I played. I was a good entertainer, and good on the mic. So other owners from other places got my number and started booking me. Six months after I’d gone professional I’d managed to sustain a wage from doing it.

Which other places were you doing?

Bird’s Nest was my main one. The Robin Hood in Dagenham on Thursdays was another [early one]. Then one day a guy came to see me at the Bird’s Nest, within the first year, and he said, “I’ve got a guy who deals with all the bands and manages them.”

At the time he was managing Joe Brow,n who was doing quite well. He used to have a venue, and he’d had it for 18 years then. By this time I had a little mobile kit – a couple of speakers, Numan Audio and a couple of decks. Anyway, I rang this guy up, George Cooper, in Scunthorpe – and you can imagine what it’s like up north, they didn’t have any entertainment!

Was this Scunthorpe Baths, by any chance?

Yeah.

I’ve played there as well!

Yeah, if you visited it in the winter you couldn’t imagine it being a swimming pool.

Well, it isn’t now. They’ve filled it in.

So for 30 weeks of the year, George Cooper used to put bands in as a package. He came round to see me – he was a little short man, arrogant bugger – and for £50 off I went.

Two weeks later, I found myself on my way to Scunthorpe, which is probably the hardest ride imaginable. I set off at eight in the morning to get there at five at night in time for the bands.

At that time the bands that were big were the Sweet, T. Rex and Slade. I had some great fun working with those bands. The only problem was the loneliness going there and back, because I only had a Thames van and it was a bloody long drive. There were no motorways then, and I used to come home and it did knock the balls out of me.

I did that for four years. First year it was all bands. I realised I didn’t have enough equipment to do such a big room, and they were talking to me one day, the manager and George, and they said, “Do you know much about any of the radio jocks?”

So I said I was a big fan of Emperor Rosko. They said, “Get him down here.” The first one they booked was Johnny Walker, then came Rosko, who was my hero. He had this big lorry load of equipment – it was the bollocks – and he actually came and sat and spoke to me. He actually let me plug my deck into his system and – boom – I was gone then.

As soon as I got back, I started buying every speaker, borrowed money wherever I could, filled the van up with speakers, built up these amplifiers and, next, they booked Dave Lee Travis.

The good thing about this night was he commented on how sharp I was. When he looked, I always had that awareness, so I had a record already cued up while he’d tell a few gags and entertain. To my amazement, at the end of the night he said, “Could I have a word with you?” We went back to the dressing room. He said, “I've been wanting to do it for a long time, but just haven’t found the right person. I really enjoyed working with you tonight. There’s something about your timing and the music you played. Are you interested in doing some gigs with me?” I said I’d love to.

He said, “I want to get together a roadshow.” He said he wanted to tour and it can be quite hectic. He wanted two dancers, me before and after. So we got two good dancers, I brushed up the sound equipment and off we went and did our first couple of shows.

We didn’t have anywhere open after two in those days, so we’d do 10 PM until 1:30. We had the DLT Roadshow with my name in subtitles. It was so successful that we toured the country four or five times. We toured for five years. Dave bought a Winnebago. We had a couple of road crew.

Dave was at the peak of his career then, so it opened a lot of doors for me, as you can imagine, and they’d often book me back on my own to do a set on a club night and that’s how I built up my name all over the country.

Were you doing gigs in the north playing more underground music?

Yeah, while I was travelling around Dave Lee Travis I was still well into my imports. I remember breaking “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” No one had ever heard it before, and I dropped it at a young farmers’ do in the west country and everyone went crazy.

Out of the maybe 15 singles and one or two albums, I’d select five that would work everywhere. I’d play them in my set and then play them later in Dave’s set, because he grew to like them. It was stuff like [Trussel’s] “Love Injection.” He featured them on his show when they came out on British labels, and I was able to spread the word around all round the country.

One year, Disco International, to my surprise, rang me up and said I’d won DJ of the Year award. James Hamilton was always interested in what I was playing and what was breaking because I played all over the country. Crown Heights Affair “Sexy Lady,” I played that everywhere. Because you had capacity crowds everywhere, you could really work the track. D-Train and “Can You Handle It” by Sharon Redd – instantaneously, they worked.

But I didn’t overdo it. I’d pick five at a time and work them. All the other Radio 1 jocks who went out and did their roadshows didn’t have a fuckin’ clue, but Rosko was on the ball and we were. We were the only ones with a self-contained show, us two were the only ones to book.

When Radio 1 did their summer roadshows, was it your soundsystem they used?

Yes. The Outside Broadcasting Unit was very basic in its early days. Smiley Miley [AKA Tony Miles], who worked for Radio 1 doing all the promotions for them – bit of a sod – came up with a design with sponsorship for a whacking great big bloody caravan where the stage would fold down and the DJ console was inside.

I remember going to it in Cleethorpes every year. It looked like a big chip van, didn’t it?

Exactly. Speaker-wise, you could only really have four of those and well away from the caravans because of the OB. We had four Bose. Otherwise you’d get feedback. What we’d do in the evening was put on shows for charity. I’d do the warm-ups for them and they’d do their sets.

How did your residency at the Royalty in Southgate happen?

I’d played there twice as the DLT Roadshow. Just at that time Jeff Young was playing and the manager said, “Would you come down and do one with your soundsystem?”

By that time I’d built it up into quite a nice system. So I went back and did it on my own, played a lot less commercial stuff, more what Jeff was playing. They said it was great and they offered me a residency. And by that time, I’d been touring all the time and I was tired out. I wanted to have a base, so I took it on. It was a bit of a bumpy ride for six months, because I had to find someone to cover for me with Dave, but eventually I left because I really wanted to stick with the Royalty.

What year did you start doing it?

Years are a bit difficult to quote you. Within the first year I was there, it really built up. I was playing a lot more imports. But I was breaking imports while I was on the road, too. Because I worked at the Royalty, they’d have a bag of tunes for me, literally everything that came in. I’d pick ’em up and pay for them sale or return.

In that first year, they did the New Music Seminar in New York. Well, New York was about the biggest place to go, so just inside that year I went over there with a few DJs. I went over with the Mafia team. Chris Hill, Chris Brown, Sean French, Robbie Vincent, me. I’ve never experienced anything like it in all my life. It changed my life completely.

I’d heard all about it, and I’d heard all about mixing techniques. I was always good at mixing, but not in the way they did it. I always had a good idea of beats and how you could weave music in and out. The first day we met everyone, which I found great. Then we got invited to the Paradise Garage. I never knew nothin’ about it, but Chris Hill said to me, “When you see it, you’ll understand what I’ve been going on about.” He’d been going on about it for ages. So we left at midnight, we’d all had loads of champagne and everything else.

I’d never seen anything like it. The soundsystem was the most incredible I’d ever heard. The room was the most electrifyin’ I’d ever been in. The DJ was just… incredible. The tunes he played were quite fantastic.

The two stations then were WBLS and WKTU. WBLS was linked with the Paradise Garage and was much more street-y, and WKTU was linked to Studio 54. I experienced this whole night from 12 till seven listening to this jock, and the lighting and the sound was just so incredible I couldn’t believe it. The following evening we went to Studio 54 and experienced the big queue outside and being picked – we had special passes – and also the Richard Long soundsystem which was the same as the Garage one. The music was much lighter, but just as entertaining and brilliant. I’d spoken to Richard Long quite a lot, who was fascinated by my interest in soundsystems, so I made lots of drawings and notes and came back and got myself in a load of fucking debt.

I went out and borrowed every penny I could, bought a lorry and built a big system up. I went to see a mate of mine in Southend and he built these big bins for me. I took two guys on full time. We fitted it into the Royalty every week and people used to come for miles. By this time, I’d had my mixer modified and redesigned.

In terms of the sound, what were you using exactly?

When I was over there, I was one of the few people that Richard Long let up to see what was in the Paradise Garage. He used Thorens decks at the time and they were mounted up from a gimbal in the ceiling.

When I had a look at one, they were just too slow for the work I was used to. I needed a quicker start. All the DJs who were doing blend mixing were using the Technics 1200 MK1. To my horror, when I brought two back from New York I just couldn’t work with them. I practised on them for two months, then I went to play up north at the Warehouse.

In Leeds?

Yeah, he had guys like Greg Wilson playing up there. When I went up there to play, I fluffed it, couldn’t use them; they were too slow, so I flogged them.

Anyway, I went over to New York and I’d heard about a new version of the 1200 that they had out, the MK2. When I went over and played on them – I did a little guest spot – the deck was quick and it had a high-torque motor in it. That changed the whole industry.

I bought two back with me. I had the first 1200s in the country. I modified my whole set-up to fit them in, feedback problems and everything, but once I’d got into them – I’ve still got them now – off I went.

For the mixing, I’d studied Larry Levan, Tee Scott, Shep Pettibone and went to KISS FM and watched them. I then adopted it at the Royalty on the Saturday night. Within eight weeks, Chris Hill came up to me and said I was definitely on a par with the Americans. So it went on from there.

But I was also influenced by UK jocks, too. For instance I couldn’t help but be fascinated by Chris Hill’s entertainment value. He wasn’t particularly brilliant technically, but he had this fantastic ear for picking tracks off of albums. He was the most influential DJ I’ve ever met. Chris Brown was good, Jeff Young, all the Mafia team.

Did you go to the Lacy Lady and the Goldmine?

I didn’t hang out there, because I was very busy. I didn’t like the Goldmine much. I didn’t like Canvey Island much, but it did have a lot of weight. I preferred the Kings near my hometown. I’d go there as much as I could.

What was the difference in crowd composition between Goldmine and Royalty?

No difference at all. Stan eventually sold the Goldmine and they went to another place. They went to some place in the country, but that didn’t work that well, so they came back to the Seven Kings.

The Lacy Lady carried the name wherever it was held. I did a disco at Ilford Town Hall for juniors, for ten years I did that. And a lot of them would then go on to clubs round there. I preferred the Kings out of all of them.

Were you aware of early mixing DJs like Greg James at the Embassy?

Yeah, I’ve got a lot of respect for him. They used these lazy decks, which weren’t right for what I was doing, but I used to go and watch Greg, he was great. But when the 1200s came out it opened a lot of doors.

Also, I’d always had a reel-to-reel, so I started editing. Dave Atkin, from Radio 1, Dave Lee Travis’s producer and good friend of mine, taught me. I used to and watch him produce shows, watched him edit singles down for radio. He said, “When you get it right, you can have a little mix each week on Peter Powell’s show.”

What I was doing was making the mixes up, but I couldn’t edit properly. He taught me to edit properly and I practised and practised. So I’d take him a mix in and have a chat about what was in Blues & Soul, Record Mirror. Then I started doing a lot of mixes and edits for radio: 7" mixes. Capital heard me and gave me a late night show.

What kind of stuff were you playing when you did the Peter Powell show on Radio 1?

Well, the biggest industry magazine was Record Mirror and there was a two-page supplement written by James Hamilton every week. So you’d read the column and then you’d feature the tracks. We’d ring him up and give him information as to what the big tracks were. It was a bible for the industry.

Blues & Soul had a two page segment that Bob Kilbourn wrote. Within a short space of time, the Mafia, what we played was so upfront; they would look up to us what to buy.

At the Royalty, they’d book Greg Edwards every month, Robbie Vincent and gradually a team formed to do Caister. I was already doing Caister before the soul ones started. I was doing the 18-30s, great laugh, general music, I did about eight of those. Shagged myself into a coma.

Then Robbie Vincent did one of the 18-30s with me and took it back to Showstoppers at the Royalty and said, “Look, why don’t we do a soul one?”

In that two-and-half years at the Royalty, it opened a lot of doors, I was doing radio, it started to get on top a wee bit. The soundsystem became expensive to keep running and I took a break at one stage. I put the sound in at Caister and because I’d designed it I was always getting phone calls about it, which just made me too tired. I wasn’t concentrating on my work. Then I left it alone for a year and then Brian Rix took it over.

What, the soundsystem?

No, Caister. I came back after a year, had a word with Brian and said, “Ask the boys if it was okay,” and I came back. I asked him about the soundsystem – the guy doing it was a friend of mine – and what he put in. I thought I couldn’t compete, so I left him to it, but at the next Caister, they made me stay in the dressing room until they announced it and I got a bit of a standing ovation for that year I’d taken off.

Do you remember what year that was?

They’re a bit of a blur. Anyway, it was a good year-and-a-half I missed. I must admit that, although Brian Rix can be a difficult person to deal with, he runs that event very well and keeps it going, so I do that twice a year.

Didn’t you hire out your system to some of the rare groove guys during the late ’80s? I’m sure Norman Jay said he was blown away by Derek B when he saw him in Canning Town and he was using your system.

The problem was there became a lot of jealousy. There are only certain boys that can run a soundsystem. Where I got a lot of my knowledge from were people like Jah Tubby, Jah Woosh and those guys. They were telling me about increased costs. You can’t just have idiots lugging the gear around. You gotta have a few technicians with you, too.

So I started to hire it out and I found I was hiring it out so much that I wasn’t using it myself. So the last couple of years it has been in storage, so I don’t know what to do with it.

But Derek B was using it, wasn’t he?

Derek B was a protégé of mine. He was like a black version of me. The problem was he got too greedy too quick. I was working with Simon Harris at the time, doing production work. Derek B started putting gigs on everywhere saying it was his soundsystem, so we had a massive row, with a punch-up and everything.

Derek B then got a deal with a record company, Simon Harris got a deal and “Bad Young Brother” was Derek B, so we went our own ways. I did Derek B’s first big edit for his album, which he rejected. He then got Simon Harris to do it, he rejected that and the company blew him out. So he got his own in the end. He was out to shit on everyone and he’s not been heard of since. And I have.

What sort of records were you playing at the Royalty?

Well, at the Garage, what shocked everybody was the little inserts he used in between the tracks. The Paradise Garage wasn’t about one particular type of music – you’d hear “Can You Handle It,” two copies running. I’d buy two copies of records and do phasing and overlaps. He’d put “Another One Bites The Dust” in the middle of it! Wow!

I remember going to some downtown record shop just to get the Queen acetate. I came back to the Royalty and whacked it on and blew its stack off. The whole idea of the Garage was any good record could be a dance track, which was great. “Love Injection,” “We Got The Funk,” “Another One Bites The Dust,” so I started doing all these little inserts.

Pete Tong was so impressed, he was like, “That’s a fucking brilliant idea,” and that started to influence him a lot. “Love Injection,” “We Got The Funk,” D-Train’s “You’re The One For Me,” “Can You Handle It,” all the Prelude stuff.

One of the biggest labels at that time was West End. They really did have loads of leftfield tracks. There’s one that’s still getting used now, Loose Joints’ “Is It All Over My Face.” It took me a year to break that track, no one could get into that. Peech Boys’ “Don’t Make Me Wait” was another example.

Then on the jazz-funk side you had all the British bands coming up. You had Level 42, I-Level… So in your set you’d include Lonnie Liston Smith’s “Expansions,” “Always There” by Willie Bobo, then you’d have the jazz stuff to go in there. So jazz-funk included Willie Bobo. You never heard jazz-funk stuff at the Garage, it was all club music. But in this country, you mixed them together. So with “Expansions” you’d play Sharon Redd after it.

But when Morgan Khan came on the scene he completely changed the whole thing. He’d put out these albums full of imports called Street Sounds. And people would wait four weeks just to get these. Whereas we were the innovators and we’d spend lots of money on singles, he’d put them out on his albums.

Well, I don’t think that’s fair. Those LPs were aimed at people like me who were younger and didn’t have the income to buy imports.

Well, it was aimed at people that didn’t really know the market. Content money-wise on one album would’ve been a grand’s worth of singles.

OK, what was the crowd composition at the Royalty?

The biggest problem you had was the mixed race thing. Very, very difficult to keep it predominantly white, as such, because you were playing black music. To my horror, in the first few years I got knocked a lot outside of that for playing black music. The biggest problem was no club owners wanted a heavy – over 50% – black crowd, so keeping a happy medium was very hard.

I did find myself not playing the more leftfield stuff to keep that ratio down a bit. It was heavy. The Royalty was 60/40 when it started 40/60. But that was just the way it went.

So were you getting pressure from the owners?

You would get pressure from most of them. There were lots of clubs where the doormen kept it under control. Only problem was there was lots of nicking – not the older ones, but the younger kids. They’d go in for this handbag snatching, so black music got branded as the cause of thieving and stuff going on.

But I’d gone so far into it, I couldn’t go back and do ordinary gigs anymore. That was what I was known to play. The thing is with the black crowd, the white people had a lot more money. So what it was… the black fraternity would come and watch someone play the music because they couldn’t afford to buy it. So it did get a bit out of hand and embarrassing at times.

What about the electro scene that came up after?

I remember talking to Tim Westwood, and he saw the hip-hop scene growing, because he saw in the jazz-funk scene that there needed to be music that people without a lot of money could be associated with and have their own identity. Tim was the first person to kick that off and it took a lot of the weight away from us soul jocks. Suddenly, Morgan Khan clocked on to that and started doing electro and hip-hop and it became very big. Tim stayed with it all the way through. For instance, they would never put an electro night on at the Royalty. Too heavy. Even today if you get a Westwood gig, it’s mad. It has separated the scene totally.

So did you play any of the electro stuff?

No. I grew to like it quite a lot. At that time, Morgan was doing the jazz-funk and he was on his second album. He wanted a mixed one and there wasn’t many jocks around that could mix on reel-to-reel. So I did an electro album for him, me and Simon Harris. So when I did Capital [Radio], one of the jocks who did electro before me left, so I would do the electro hour before doing my stuff. Didn’t touch the hip-hop stuff. “Planet Rock” and that label it was on?

Tommy Boy.

Yeah, that was a big concern, did a lot of work for them.

Were you playing any of that stuff in clubs?

No, I never played it out. But on the radio I did editing work and mixing for them. I used to do it incognito, never used to put my name on it much. I didn’t want to be associated with it too much. I grew to like it, because I like music in general, but hip-hop is not for me. I don’t like it at all. Far too heavy. Unfortunately, it’s become very big.

This interview was conducted in September 2004 in London. © DJ History