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Greg Wilson (born 1960) is an English DJ and producer, associated with both the early 1980s electro scene in Manchester and the current disco/re-edit movement. He is also a writer/commentator on dance music and popular culture.
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Greg Wilson (born 1960) is an English DJ and producer, associated with both the early 1980s electro scene in Manchester and the current disco/re-edit movement. He is also a writer/commentator on dance music and popular culture.
Growing up in New Brighton on Merseyside, Wilson lived above his family's pub during the years 1966–1973. The premises included two function rooms where he'd witness mobile discos featuring on a weekly basis at wedding receptions and parties. [1] His main musical influences came from the record collections of his elder brother and sister, especially the soul music labels Tamla Motown, Stax and Atlantic. [2] Wilson began his career as a DJ in 1975 at the age of 15, having bought a mobile set-up from his schoolfriend Derek Kelsey (later known as DJ Derek Kaye). [3] He held a residency at local nightspot The Chelsea Reach between 1975 and 1977. Further local residencies followed at The Penny Farthing (1976–1977) and The Golden Guinea (1977-1980), where he first built his reputation as a black music specialist, playing soul, funk, disco and jazz-funk. [4]
Wilson left the Golden Guinea in 1980 [5] and worked in Denmark and Germany (he’d previously DJ’d in Denmark and Norway for a few months in 1978) before returning to the UK to take a 4 night a week residency at Wigan Pier. In 1982, he became a full-time black music specialist, continuing Wigan Pier's Tuesday night jazz-funk session, which was voted the North's Best Club by Blues & Soul readers, with Wilson collecting the North's Best DJ award. [6] He controversially championed early electro records [7] at Wigan Pier and, most notably, Manchester club Legend, where he took over their Wednesday jazz-funk night in 1981. As with Wigan Pier, people travelled to his nights at Legend from places including Birmingham, Huddersfield, Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford, Nottingham, Liverpool and London. Legend attracted a predominantly black crowd to listen to the new electro-funk records, which were mainly coming out of New York City. Wilson also began to take a serious approach to mixing around this point, and is regarded as one of the UK pioneers. In 1982, he began to present regular mixes of the music he was playing in the clubs on Manchester's Piccadilly Radio, and these featured on Mike Shaft's specialist black music show T.C.O.B (Taking Care of Business). [8] These radio mixes are still talked about as being influential to this day, with the end of year Best of 82 and Best of 83 mixes regarded as classics.
In February 1983, Wilson was invited to demonstrate live mixing on the Channel 4 TV show The Tube . Interviewed by presenter, Jools Holland, with Mike Shaft commentating, Wilson mixed between 2 copies of David Joseph's "You Can't Hide (Your Love from Me)", then a new release, but subsequently a UK top 20 hit. This was the first time a British DJ had mixed live on TV. [9]
Wilson was a fixture on the All-Dayer circuit in the North and Midlands during this period, regularly appearing alongside other black music specialists including Colin Curtis, Mike Shaft, John Grant, Hewan Clarke, Richard Searling, Kev Edwards, Pete Haigh, Jonathan, Trevor M and Cleveland Anderson. [10] In 1983, Wilson began a Friday night residency at The Haçienda club in Manchester, which had opened the previous year. This was the club's first weekly dance music night and would lay the groundwork for its influential Nude night, also held every Friday, which came to prominence in the mid-'80s with DJs Mike Pickering and Martin Prendergast. [8]
Wilson also put together the first UK 're-edit', Paul Haig's "Heaven Sent", in 1983, and taught Norman Cook (a.k.a. Fatboy Slim), then a young aspiring DJ called Quentin, how to cut and scratch in December 1983 during a short Haçienda tour of the South. [11]
At the end of 1983, aged 23, Wilson retired from DJing to focus on record production, as well as managing Manchester breakdance crew Broken Glass. They gained national exposure via TV appearances including a famous edition of The Tube, filmed at The Haçienda in January 1984, on which Madonna made her UK live TV debut. [12] Later in 1984, along with musicians Martin Jackson and Andy Connell, he co-wrote and produced all but one of the tracks on the Street Sounds UK Electro album, now seen as a seminal British dance album, the first to feature sampling. [13] One of the tracks, "Style of the Street", a recording by Broken Glass, was sampled by The Prodigy on their 2004 hit “Girls”. However, the project was short-lived, Jackson and Connell going on to form the band Swing Out Sister, while Wilson, struggling for opportunities, would eventually re-locate to London in 1987.
In 1987, Wilson began to manage and produce Manchester's Ruthless Rap Assassins and sister band Kiss AMC. The Rap Assassins released two critically acclaimed albums via EMI, Killer Album (1990) and Th!nk (It Ain't Illegal Yet) (1991). Their best known recording, "And It Wasn't a Dream", a minor chart hit in 1990, focused on the plight of West Indian immigrants coming to the UK in the 1950s and 1960s, and was named amongst Mojo's "50 Greatest British Tracks Ever" in 2006. [14] In 2011, urban artist Roots Manuva would hail their music as "the roots of grime". [15] Moving back to the North, Wilson would make further records between 1990 and 1993 with Mind Body & Soul (MBS), Sensuround, Mana Loa, The 25th Of May and Intastella.
The following decade was something of a wilderness period for Wilson, but in 1994 he revisited his electro-funk past, compiling the Classic Electro Mastercuts album. This would generate a small number of DJ bookings, his first in 10 years, in promotion of the album, and in 1996, he was part of a collective of DJs and musicians who promoted a series of nights called The Monastery in Birkenhead, Liverpool and London. A mix, The Monastic Mix, was the last he ever put together on reel-to-reel.
Alerted by the lack of documentation of the specialist black music scene he’d experienced, Wilson announced the website electrofunkroots.co.uk in 2003. The site focuses on the early '80s era, what led up to it and what came out of it. Offers of DJ bookings followed and in December 2003 Wilson made his DJ comeback at a Music Is Better in Manchester club The Attic. This was the launchpad that re-ignited Wilson's DJ career 20 years on from his retirement. [16] As his popularity increased, he appeared throughout the UK, Europe and the world, gaining newfound followers from a younger generation of clubbers.
In 2005, his re-edits compilation Credit to the Edit, released on the Tirk Recordings label, was the catalyst for his international success, helping to establish him, once again, as a scene leader.
Apart from working as a DJ, producer and remixer, Wilson has written on various aspects of dance / black culture with articles published in magazines / webzines including Wax Poetics , Clash, Grand Slam, Strobelight Honey and Discopia. His Discotheque Archives series for DJ Magazine ran for 25 editions between 2016 and 2018, and was published as a limited edition paperback in 2022, with an extended hardback following in 2022.
Wilson's blog, Being a DJ, ran from 2010-2020, his observations on various aspects of club culture becoming an online touchstone for dance music enthusiasts. Wilson has also been interviewed for a number of books, TV and film projects focusing on the history of club culture.
Credit to the Edit Volume 2 in 2009 was accompanied by tour dates in the UK, Europe, Japan, Australia and the US, [17] the series returning with Vol 3 in 2018. Wilson was also active with various remix and re-edit releases, both on his own and in collaboration with Derek Kaye, Peza, Henry Greenwood and Ché Wilson. His remix credits including Roxy Music, Groove Armada, Grace Jones, Gilberto Gil, Confidence Man and Gabriels.
Wilson has produced a series of documentative podcasts, Time Capsule, Random Influences and Early 80s Floorfillers, as well as the long-running blog series, Living to Music, where people were encouraged to listen to a monthly album selection in their home environment. This served to influence other related listening events, including Colleen Murphy's Classic Album Sundays audiophile sessions. [18] In 2022 he launched his Early-‘80s Mixtape series on Worldwide FM.
Commencing in 2009, Wilson has built a considerable following on SoundCloud with regular uploads of DJ mixes, mainly live recordings, with further uploads to Mixcloud.
In August 2010, he co-curated, with Jack Hemingway, the Warehouse and Roller Disco areas at the inaugural Vintage Festival at Goodwood. It was named 'Best New Festival' at the UK Festival Awards, whilst Wilson, in his role of DJ, was nominated in the 'Best Feel Good Act of the Summer' category. He has appeared at festivals throughout the UK and Europe as well as in the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, Brazil and Mexico.
In addition to his DJ work, Wilson has given talks on music and dance culture at numerous events including Afro Modern at Tate Liverpool, Vintage at London Southbank, Salon at Standon Calling and Festival N°6 and alongside legendary figures Nile Rodgers and Giorgio Moroder at ADE in Amsterdam.
10 years on from his DJ return, in 2014 he unveiled his new multi-media label Super Weird Substance, releasing the “Blind Arcade Meets Super Weird Substance in the Morphogenetic Field” mixtape before following it up with a series of 5 Super Weird Happenings in different locations across the UK.
In 2015, the label released 8 vinyl singles, brought together on a 2 CD compilation, “Greg Wilson Presents Super Weird Substance”, including Wilson’s own “Summer Came My Way”, featuring The Reynolds. A sixth Happening followed at Festival No. 6 in Portmeirion.
Collaborating with celebrated comic book writer Alan Moore, plus label artists, ex-Rap Assassin Kermit Leveridge and vocalists The Reynolds, a second mixtape, “Alan Moore's Mandrill Meets Super Weird Substance at the Arts Lab Apocalypse” appeared in 2017, followed by the 14 Hour Super Weird Happening at The Florrie in Liverpool, with Moore making a rare appearance.
After a handful of further releases, the label was put into hibernation with the onset of covid. Diversifying, ‘Greg Wilson’s Discotheque Archives’ was issued during 2020 lockdown as a limited run paperback, with more books, both Wilson’s own projects and by other authors, now planned.
Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric piano, synthesizers, and electric rhythm guitars.
House is a music genre characterized by a repetitive four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120 beats per minute. It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's underground club culture in the early/mid 1980s, as DJs began altering disco songs to give them a more mechanical beat.
Chicago house refers to house music produced during the mid to late 1980s within Chicago. The term is generally used to refer to the original house music DJs and producers from the area, such as Ron Hardy and Phuture.
Electro is a genre of electronic music and early hip hop directly influenced by the use of the Roland TR-808 drum machines and funk. Records in the genre typically feature heavy electronic sounds, usually without vocals, although if vocals are present they are delivered in a deadpan manner, often through electronic distortion such as vocoding and talkboxing. It palpably deviates from its predecessor boogie by being less vocal-oriented and more focused on electronic beats produced by drum machines.
Northern soul is a music and dance movement that emerged in Northern England in the late 1960s. It developed from the British mod scene, based on a particular style of Black American soul music with a heavy beat and fast tempo.
DJ Dan is an American house music DJ and producer.
Chromeo is a Canadian electro-funk duo from Montreal, formed in 2002 by musicians David "Dave 1" Macklovitch and Patrick "P-Thugg" Gemayel. Their sound draws from soul music, dance music, rock, synth-pop, disco and funk.
Dimitri from Paris is a French music producer and DJ of Greek descent. His musical influences are rooted in 1970s funk and disco sounds that spawned contemporary house music, as well as original soundtracks from 1950s and 1960s movies such as Breakfast at Tiffany's, La Dolce Vita and The Party, which were sampled in his album Sacrebleu. Dimitri fused these sounds with electro and block party hip hop he discovered in the 1980s.
Electronic dance music (EDM) is a broad range of percussive electronic music genres originally made for nightclubs, raves, and festivals. It is generally produced for playback by DJs who create seamless selections of tracks, called a DJ mix, by segueing from one recording to another. EDM producers also perform their music live in a concert or festival setting in what is sometimes called a live PA. Since its inception EDM has expanded to include a wide range of subgenres.
The Wigan Casino was a nightclub in Wigan, England. Operating between 1973 and 1981, it became known as a primary venue for Northern soul music. It carried forward the legacy created by clubs such as the Twisted Wheel in Manchester, the Chateau Impney (Droitwich), the Catacombs (Wolverhampton) and the Golden Torch. It remains one of the most famous clubs in Northern England. In 1978, allegedly the American music magazine Billboard voted Wigan Casino "The Best Disco in the World", ahead of New York City's Studio 54. Although there is no tangible evidence of this award ever being publicised.
DJ Harvey is a DJ born in Cambridge, England. He was an early exponent of the US disco/garage/house sound in the UK.
Nu-disco is a 21st-century dance music genre associated with a renewed interest in the late 1970s disco, synthesizer-heavy 1980s European dance music styles, and early 1990s electronic dance music. The genre was popular in the early 2000s, and experienced a mild resurgence in the 2010s.
Post-disco is a term to describe an aftermath in popular music history circa 1978–1990, imprecisely beginning with an unprecedented backlash against disco music in the United States, leading to civil unrest and a riot in Chicago known as the Disco Demolition Night on July 12, 1979, and indistinctly ending with the mainstream appearance of new wave in 1980. During its dying stage, disco displayed an increasingly electronic character that soon served as a stepping stone to new wave, old-school hip hop, Euro disco, and was succeeded by an underground club music called hi-NRG, which was its direct continuation.
Nik Weston is a DJ, music producer, record label owner of Mukatsuku Records and music buyer for Juno Records. Based out of London, UK, he was from the late 1990s to 2007 a key player in the promotion and distribution of Japanese recording artists and their releases outside of the country, as part of the late 1990s into 2000s revival in the jazz dance, soul-jazz and electronic Japanese music scene. He is a keen advocate of the vinyl record format.
In music, the terms Afro/cosmic disco, the cosmic sound, free-style sound, and combinations thereof are used somewhat interchangeably to describe various forms of synthesizer-heavy and/or African-influenced dance music and methods of DJing that were originally developed and promoted by a small number of DJs in certain discothèques of Northern Italy from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s. The terms slow-motion disco and Elettronica Meccanica are also associated with the genre.
Vince Lawrence is an American dance music record producer, businessman and is one of the leading innovators of the genre of music called house music. Industry insiders recognize Lawrence as co-author of "On and On", the first recording officially designated "house music". He worked with Jesse Saunders in the initial creation of Jes Say Records, designing its logo by hand. He served as head of marketing and was the lyric writer for "Funk U Up", "Undercover" by Dr. Derelict, "Real Love", and many other songs released in the label's heyday. He also co-authored "Love Can't Turn Around", which featured Daryl Pandy and reached #10 in the UK Singles Chart in 1986, starting the house music revolution in the UK. He organized Trax Records, a Chicago house label. He is the founder of Slang MusicGroup, which has received numerous gold and platinum awards for their contributions.
Boogie is a rhythm and blues genre of electronic dance music with close ties to the post-disco style, that first emerged in the United States during the late 1970s to mid-1980s. The sound of boogie is defined by bridging acoustic and electronic musical instruments with emphasis on vocals and miscellaneous effects. It later evolved into electro and house music.
Colin Curtis is a British DJ whose career spans several decades and musical developments.
Paul 'Trouble' Anderson was a British DJ, playing soul, disco, funk, and house music and known for his long-running Kiss FM show. He worked as a dance music DJ in clubs from 1979 until his death in 2018. He produced a number of mix albums and remixed records by other artists.
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