A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Most common types of DJs include radio DJs, club DJs, mobile DJs, and turntablists. Originally, the "disc" in "disc jockey" referred to shellac and later vinyl records, but nowadays DJ is used as an all-encompassing term to also describe persons who mix music from other recording media such as cassettes, CDs or digital audio files on a CDJ, controller, or even a laptop. DJs may adopt the title "DJ" in front of their real names, adopted pseudonyms, or stage names.
House is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by a repetitive four-on-the-floor beat and a tempo of 120 to 130 beats per minute. It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's underground club culture in the 1980s, as DJs from the subculture began altering disco songs to give them a more mechanical beat and deeper basslines.
Julius O'Riordan, better known by his stage name Judge Jules, is a British dance music DJ, record producer and entertainment lawyer. Known for his DJ activities, music production and popular radio show which achieved global success. He was voted best DJ in the world by DJ Mag in the year 1995.
Sasha & John Digweed are a British DJ duo comprising Sasha and John Digweed. Digweed had been DJing for ten years before getting a gig at Renaissance where he met Sasha, who had been working the past few years in various acid house music clubs and raves. Together, they honed their DJ skills, focusing on track selection and technical mixing abilities. In 1994, they released the triple CD mix album Renaissance: The Mix Collection on Renaissance Records. It contained many popular dance hits of the time from artists such as Leftfield, Fluke, and 2 Bad Mice as well as original productions and remixes from the duo themselves. Two years later, the duo became "true superstars" (AllMusic) with the release of their double CD Northern Exposure on mega-label Ministry of Sound. This release was brought to the United States the next year in a single CD package on Ultra Records. 1997 saw the release of the Northern Exposure 2 double CD mix album, again on Ministry of Sound. Sasha and Digweed toured internationally, helping define the sound of progressive house & trance music in the late 1990s. In 1998, both John Digweed and Sasha released separate mix albums on Boxed as part of the Global Underground series with Digweed's GU 006: Sydney and Sasha's GU 009: San Francisco release.
Scratching, sometimes referred to as scrubbing, is a DJ and turntablist technique of moving a vinyl record back and forth on a turntable to produce percussive or rhythmic sounds. A crossfader on a DJ mixer may be used to fade between two records simultaneously.
Anthony de Vit was an English DJ and music producer. He is considered one of the most influential of his generation. He was credited with helping to take the "hard house" and fast "hard NRG" sounds out of the London gay scene and into mainstream clubs. His single "Burning Up" reached number 25 in the UK Singles Chart in March 1995, with "To The Limit" making number 44 in September 1995. During that year he won BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix of the Year Award, as voted by listeners of the show, and Music Week's re-mix of Year Award for Louise's (Naked). He remixed many UK Top 40 hits during his career with artists like Taylor Dayne and East 17. Between 1994 and 1998 his popularity with the clubbing public was rivaled by only Paul Oakenfold and Carl Cox. In September 2010, Mixmag UK announced the nominations of 35 DJs chosen by other big names in the world of dance music as those they considered the best DJs ever. A subsequent 15-month survey, which polled hundreds of thousands of global votes, asked who was the Greatest DJ of All Time and when the result was announced in January 2011, Tony De-Vit was ranked No 9 and one of four British DJs who made the Top 10.
Homelands was a British music festival which consisted mainly of dance music, both live acts and famous DJs. The event was held at Cheesefoot Head near Winchester, Hampshire, and was one of the most popular British festivals of this genre. It was run by the Mean Fiddler. The organisers of Homelands were also behind the Home Nightclubs chain including Home Nightclub in London and Sydney.
Global Underground is a music label founded in 1996 by Andy Horsfield and James Todd. The label symbolised the international explosion of dance music during the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s and first manifesto for high-end DJs such as Tony De Vit, Sasha, Paul Oakenfold, John Digweed, Danny Tenaglia, Nick Warren, Dave Seaman, Darren Emerson, James Lavelle, Carl Cox, and Solomun.
The Essential Mix is a weekly radio show on BBC Radio 1 currently broadcast between 0:00 - 2:00 AM UK time on Saturday morning. Originally broadcast on 30 October 1993, the Essential Mix features contemporary DJs and music producers of electronic dance music. The show has been presented since its inception by Pete Tong and features an uninterrupted two-hour mix from a different artist each week, overlaid with occasional continuity announcements delivered by Tong. With a broadcast run in excess of 25 years, the Essential Mix is one of the longest-running programmes in the current BBC Radio 1 schedule, and is one of very few Radio 1 shows which is not broadcast live.
James Zabiela is a DJ and producer from Southampton, England. In his early years his signature style was a fusion of Breakbeat and Progressive House music; more recently, however, he is regarded as a Progressive House, Techno and Acid House DJ although his use of Breakbeat music is still key to some parts of his sets. He is known for his turntable skills, extensive use of loops and effects, and the use of Pioneer CDJ-2000s, EFX1000, RMX1000 as well as using Ableton Live with various controllers and sometimes an iPad.
Plump DJs are an English dance music duo consisting of Lee Rous and Andy Gardner, considered to be early pioneers of the breakbeat genre in late 1990s. Throughout the 2000s, they have been very prolific creatively, releasing many celebrated underground singles, albums compilations. Also remixing the records of well-known dance music mega stars such as Deadmau5, Mark Ronson, Fatboy Slim, Orbital and the Stanton Warriors. They cemented their international status through their 10-year residency at London's famous superclub Fabric, in a career that has taken the duo to the largest stages on all four corners of this earth to perform.
The Arch is a nightclub in Brighton, England. The club became famous for its cultural, art and music events, particularly its dance and acid house nights held throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. It has been described as an "influential club which pulled together many of the underground strands of visual art, fashion, music, design, comedy, cabaret and theatre which were circling at the time".
Global Underground 018: Nick Warren, Amsterdam is a DJ mix album in the Global Underground series, compiled and mixed by Nick Warren. The mix is a retrospective look at a set from the Melkweg club in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Heaven is a superclub in Charing Cross, London, England. It has a long association with London's LGBT scene and is home to long-running gay night G-A-Y. The club is known for Paul Oakenfold's acid house events in the 1980s, the underground nightclub festival Megatripolis, and for being the birthplace of ambient house.
Danny Howells is an English producer and DJ. His music is often described as progressive house, though he prefers to associate more with tech house and is sometimes described simply as "deepsexyfuturistictechfunkouse". At performances, he is well known to interact personally with the audience. Howells has mixed several albums for Global Underground in addition to his Nocturnal Frequencies series. Howells is also a member of the duo Science Department with Dick Trevor, which has produced the singles "Breathe" and "Persuasion"/"Repercussion" as well as remixes for artists such as BT. From 2008 he has run his own record label, Dig Deeper - named after his long running club night.
Fergie is a Northern Irish DJ and electronic music artist from Larne, Northern Ireland. He has been an internationally touring DJ and a music producer for over 20 years. He presented a radio show on BBC Radio 1 for over four years while recording 13 Essential Mixes for the station. He was featured in the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs poll seven years in a row and currently holds the record for the highest new entry since the poll began, achieved when he was voted 8th in 2000.
The Twenty-Seven Points is a double album by the Fall, released in 1995. Subtitled "Live 92-95" the album consists of live recordings made in various locations between 1991 and 1995, but also contains 2 previously unheard studio tracks as well as some mildly diverting interludes. Credits on the album are sketchy but the front cover lists the cities in which the tracks were recorded; Prague, Tel Aviv, London, Glasgow, New York City and Manchester.
Global Underground 005: Tony De Vit, Tokyo is a DJ mix album in the Global Underground series, compiled and mixed by Tony De Vit. It was released after his death which occurred on 2 July 1998.
Global Underground 022: Dave Seaman, Melbourne is a 2002 DJ mix album in the Global Underground series, compiled and mixed by Dave Seaman. The album peaked at #8 on the Billboard Top Electronic Albums chart.
Extreme Euphoria Volume 5 is a compilation album, released by Ministry of Sound in 2004.
