Slim

I was born and raised in the east side of Edinburgh and for my sins I bleed Green and White. I now live just on the outskirts of Edinburgh with my long suffering wife and our two lovely kids.

This is my long story made as short as I could manage.

My love for everything house music stems back to the 80’s. All the mainstream music that was being dished out in the charts in this decade was not for me. Don’t get me wrong there were a few things released that I could listen to, but all the new romantic stuff and the rest of the Blah at the time just switched me off. So it was because of this I was forced to look deeper than the radio charts for a sound I would love. Then I stumbled into Rap and Hip-hop and it fitted into that gaping music hole in my life perfectly. From Big Daddy Kane, Public Enemy, Eric B. & Rakim, Jungle Brothers, N.W.A, EPMD, Ice-T and De La Soul to name a few. Yeah I had found my sound!!!

I ended up buying a few albums in a Collection called ‘Street Sounds Electro’. These albums were like a combo of Hip Hop and Electro beats and I think it was this that started to open me up to the Tech sounding tunes. This would have been about 1985/86 so I would be 11/12 year old (Yep… I’m ancient).

Forward on a bit and my first House Club I went to was Solutions in Calton Studios and was instantly blown away. One tune that still sticks from that fist time is ‘Joey Beltram – Energy Flash’ and the crowd going nuts when it was dropped. I have Stevie Gilhooley and Craig McAlpine to thank for not only their friendship back then but for getting me involved in mixing. They were already into Dj-ing and gave me my first shot behind a set of Decks, I was hooked. Two Technics 1210’s mark 11 and a Made 2 fade mixer were soon bought and I never looked back. We ended up doing a couple of nights here and there in Edinburgh but for the most part it was Bedroom DJing and for the love of the tunes.

Took a very long break from Djing and buying vinyl and missed it. Then Drew joined the place I work at and through talking about music and stuff, he showed me the way back in to the thing I loved doing with using Ableton Live. For this reason Drew will always be a Legend to me alongside Craig and Stevie. I’ve been back doing this now for near enough a year and a half now.

Special Housin Association Podcast was just a way for us to share what we are doing mixing wise with a wider audience. It has also added to the whole love of doing this and is a massive passion in my life now.

As for my style of house music…. As long as it’s a good tune and it fits in to the flow of my sets… it’s a go!!!.

House is a feeling!

Peace, Slim