DJ Smiley Diehard Profile





In 1990 I made friends with a couple of friends at my school who introduced me to dance music in general. We would listen to various dance orientated music tapes and a variety of old acid house and rave tapes our lunch breaks. In 1991 I started buying vinyl with my friends and saved up for a pair of turntables, although often we would use an old technics(?) because it has a really sturdy arm for scratching with, unlike the BST Beltdrives that I had purchased. Records purchased around this era included , Prodigy – Charly, Sonz of a loop da loop era – Far out, Family Foundation – Express yourself etc.

I started going roller skating (no comments) on a Friday night, where I met with another group of lads who where well into the rave scene, one of which did the music and was an established DJ. After this we inherited knowledge of underground record shops that held a more diverse collection of tunes that we seemed to be able to purchase in Woolworths!! One such place was Peekays on Lincoln.

In 1992 I went to my first Rave – Pleasuredome, Skegness, Festival Pavillion. After that, I was completely hooked ong rave music.

Over the next 2 or 3 years I had managed to build up a selection of vinyl, across the rave genre. I was interested in the trance and techno, but really got into the breakbeat side of it, being uplifting or dark. In 1993 I started doing demos, and even put on a couple of ‘events’ at schools and youth clubs (err, not a massive attendance if I remember correctly). In February, 1994 I went to Diehard for the first time – awesome, the atmosphere was amazing. I remember walking out and speaking to a bloke in a green waistcoat (who I later knew to be Dave) and bravely asked what I needed to do get a play there. He said send a demo, so I did. I then proceeded to hound Shaun daily until he either listened to it, or got tired of me calling!!
In June that year I got my first play, I was supposed to be on 9-10, but had some issues round Leicester’s dodgy one way system, and had to play 10-11. Fortunately, I seemed to go down alright, and got invited down the next week, then the next week and so on, until I was on the flyer as resident.
I was also privileged to help Shaun and Dave with the flyers and line ups, and for 4 years was resident week in and week out. During that time I also played all over the country. Here are some of the events I played at:

Fusion
Pandemonium
Steam
Club Kinetic
Hysteria
Southern Exposure
Uprising
Bounce
Discovery

I also co – produced a few tunes, but these were never released (although ‘Everybodys’s Talking that I did with Ricochet, Unite and Elation was cut and played by a few top name dj’s)