Patrick Forge pt2 - a rhythm runs through it

Adam: 00:00:50

Patrick Forge. Nice to have you back. How are you doing today?

Patrick: 00:00:52

I'm very good, despite the heat. I'm feeling. Feeling pretty good.

Adam: 00:00:55

Yeah. It's pretty serious. My office building is like 20 years old and I didn't think to put aircon in.

Patrick: 00:01:01

No.

Adam: 00:01:01

Somehow.

Patrick: 00:01:02

No. Well, I mean, you know, aircon is not really this country, is it? I mean, you know, you got.

I've lived in Japan, where it's just everyone, everywhere is Aircon in the summer.

Adam: 00:01:10

Yeah. Well, it's a podcaster's nightmare as well, so it's a black in a case.

Patrick: 00:01:14

Yeah.

Adam: 00:01:16

So where we left it last week, then when we spoke, you just got to Kiss.

Patrick: 00:01:22

Yes. And. And I embedded myself at Reckless Records.

Adam: 00:01:25

Yes, yes. So I guess it's like, it'd be interesting to kind of kick off with. How did that develop then? And where did DJing go from that point?

Patrick: 00:01:35

Well, absolutely, because, I mean, you know, firstly, I would just say that Reckless was my postgrad, you know, where I learned so much. And, you know, it was just suddenly I had the opportunity. The contacts, the records, everything.

I could just go, you know, it wasn't even something that I had to be conscious of doing.

I just like, naturally I have to go full on into this now, you know, and really be into it also, you know, starting to do a radio show, there was a need to keep on feeding it with new music and discoveries and what have you. So I was hungry, it felt natural, and it just all. All came together. And getting on Kiss was just.

I mean, you know, I just feel so blessed and so lucky that there was this kind of chain of events where ended up on this station, which was by then getting a lot of attention and just getting my chance to do my thing. It was. It was. It was just. It was just perfect for me. But I think the thing that really transpired from that was. Was.

Was eventually was Dink was doing Dingles with Giles on a Sunday afternoon, which I always tell this story as though this is what happened.

I'm not sure if it's entirely true, but Giles at that time had a Sunday night residency at a pub in Richm Belvedere, which had been one of his kind of like regular gigs for a while. Yeah. And, you know, I think it finished at 11 and I started my radio show at 11. And in those days, kind of everyone was listening to Kiss.

It was kind of like if you had you, you know, in car entertainment was, you know, FM dial, wasn't it? Especially in those days in London, you know, there was always something Good on the radio, so.

But anyway, so I think he started hearing me on Kiss and I kind of knew Giles. I'd seen him in record shops a little bit. We hadn't really chatted, but we kind of nodded and said hello.

And funnily enough, through somebody else, I'd actually stood in for him a couple of times because he had a residency, a club called the Special Branch in Southeast London in Turley street, where he did kind of the upstairs jazz room and Nikki Holloway did them all, kind of mainstream soul boy sort of thing downstairs. And I stood in for him for a couple of times.

I was very friendly with a guy called Ray who put up the banners for Nikki and he got me into cover for Giles when he was away a couple of times. So that was kind of weird and.

But I don't know quite how, but he somehow got hold of my phone number because I was still living in the squat in Vauxhall and suddenly I get this phone call out of the blue, said, do you want to come and DJ with me at this Dingles on a Sunday afternoon? And you know, my immediate response was, yeah, sure, I'd love to do anything, you know, it'd be, it'd be great.

But I was thinking Dingles really, you know, because my image of the place was like.

I mean, well, I had a girlfriend who worked on Camden Market in my early days at college and I used to go and hang in, you know, around there on a Sunday and sometimes we go into Dingles on a Sunday lunchtime and it was kind of like a real throwback to this kind of beery pub, Rocky.

There'd be some terrible band playing some really God awful kind of rhythm and blues, blues type of music, you know, and a load of old blokes with beer guts, you know, swilling ale. And it was just kind of like. It was like, you know, it's. It just the idea of it being a great happening little club session was.

It was, was a, you know, I couldn't really see it and in fact, you know, I, I went down there to play for Giles the first kind of few times and it was very inauspicious beginnings, I think. You know, there was probably no more than about 30 or 40 people there, a lot of whom were.

There was quite a few jazz dancers who were turning up and it was a baptism of fire for me because much as I kind of was into that music, I'd never really played for dancers before and didn't really know what I was doing there. But, you know, you learn pretty quickly in those sit situations because they're pretty vocal about what they want to hear and what have you.

And if you're not satisfying them, they'll let you know.

Adam: 00:05:20

There's a lot of, like, body language. Isn't it the wrong thing for dancers, like huffing and puffing?

Patrick: 00:05:25

You could tell straight away. But it was funny because the thing about Ding Wolves was, I mean, there were people beginning to do club sessions down there.

Simon Goff, who actually still works with Giles, was doing a thing on a Thursday night, I think, called Cross the Tracks, which is kind of a rare groove type of night. And later on, Kiss moved their main Saturday night into there. And so, you know, it did become this. This place.

At that time, it was really not well suited for a good club session, namely because there was a stage where they had the live acts and then they had a DJ box behind the stage. So you were kind of like quite a long way removed from the dance floor and you couldn't really see it that well. There were these kind of like.

These kind of. Kind of blinds, these kind of Perspex blinds in the front of the DJ box. You know, it's like, it's kind of weird.

You were kind of really quite cut off, so it wasn't ideal.

And then eventually they moved the DJ box to the middle of the venue, kind of between the bar, which was at the far end, and, you know, the dance floor at the other end and the stage. So it moved it away from the stage to the middle of the venue, kind of where naturally the mixing desk would be, if you like, you know. Yeah.

And in fact was. And along with the lighting booth and everything. So they moved the DJ box there and as soon as it was there, then it was like, yeah, game on.

This is really going to work. But funnily enough, one of the. One of the sessions, I remember being a big pivotal moment because it didn't, you know, it took a while to pick up.

But then I think various people brought over the JB's, James Brown's band, to play some gigs in the UK, and we managed to get them to play at Dingwall's. And obviously that just completely packed the session out for the, you know, probably for one of the first times. So that kind of helped launch it.

And around about that must have been one of the last few weeks when the DJ box was behind the. Behind the band.

Adam: 00:07:05

Do you know how you managed to get them in then?

Patrick: 00:07:08

I don't know. I mean, they were, you know, because I think various People like Femi Femme and Norman J were all involved. There was a kind of.

They did a gig at opposite, where I live, at the. The Town and Country Club, as it was called then.

Yeah, the Forum now, which everybody went to, which was where we all first heard Carlene Anderson sing, who would later become part of Young Disciples. She. She came on and did a version of Denise Williams's Free. And it just, you know, it just kind of stopped the show. It was amazing. So, yeah, so that.

I can't remember if that was. It was the same. I don't think it was the same time as that gig. But they came over, you know, and it was like, you know, these were legendary players.

This is Fred Wesley and Pee Wee Ellis, you know, who'd been musical director for Van Morrison. And, you know, these guys were. Were consummate.

But it was funny because we were in the DJ box behind the band when they were playing and they were playing. They were playing the tunes pretty well. But we were a bit annoyed that the drummer wasn't quite picking it up.

So we started kind of like from the DJ box, pick up the hi hat. You know, we were. We. We were a little bit feisty in those days, but. Yeah, so, you know, so they.

So Dingles eventually took off and I, you know, I went down and I became the regular DJ and I played the early session, which was very much for the dancers. So the dancers started turning up early and I kind of. I guess I must have started doing the right thing because they came in increasing numbers and.

Yeah, and. And, you know, that was. It was just brilliant for me. I mean, the whole thing and then it just take off in a way that we couldn't quite imagine.

You know, we just had no, you know, it was. We had no concept of.

Because I think it was just a time, you know, there was a kind of moment, a pivotal moment, and it brought together all these different tribes of people, because this is kind of 87 into 88. So the house thing is beginning to take off big time. And there's.

So I. I say one of the kind of tribes that we got hold of was kind of rare groove refugees. You know, we might been a bit too jazz for them, but at least they weren't going to have to listen to house music all day, you know, the whole time.

Adam: 00:09:08

Right.

Patrick: 00:09:08

So we got the rare groove refugees. We got the, you know, Paul Murphy, who was incredible influence for all of us and for Giles and for myself. Certainly one of the things he'd done.

He'd start at one Time he'd done this kind of slightly more mod jazz night, you know, where he was playing all of this kind of rhythm and blues influence jazz, you know, like Blue Note stuff and what have you. That was. That was. That was appealing to that kind of crowd.

So there was a whole wave of kind of mods as well, kind of ex mods or modernists or post mods or whatever you wanted to call them, but with a slightly more adventurous spirit, who were very. Actually very open to a lot of the stuff that we were playing, which was much more wide ranging.

So you had the rare groove refugees, you had the post mods.

And then, you know, and also you had people like, you know, as the kind of whole house and rave thing took off, you had people who would literally have been out there on one all night and would be stumbling into ding walls and then kind of freaking out because there was this kind of mad music being played then. And we were very much in that spirit of the times as well, because, you know, DJing through that time. We wanted to be.

I think, you know, one of the big differences of what happened, you know, this is the beginnings of what they called acid jazz, which is a whole subject that we could talk about all day, I'm sure about how it was interpreted and misinterpreted in many ways, but. But, you know, we were very much. Wanted to be. We were a spirit at the times and we wanted it to be relevant. You know, I remember at the.

Around about that time there was a jazz journalist called Richard Cook, and he'd written a piece for the Face magazine, which was still very influential in those days, where he basically had a go at the jazz dance scene and said it. And I think one of the expressions he used was about as relevant as rockabilly, you know, and.

And so, you know, I think we were very conscious of that and we really didn't want it to fall into that trap.

And so, you know, Giles and myself, and also because I was on Kiss as well, which was very much, you know, more of a dance music station, we wanted to find, inject new and different and more contemporary flavors into the mix.

So we were always looking for new release stuff that we could play or eventually hip hop and some house as well, which, you know, obviously pissed off a lot of the purists at the time. They were like, what's this? You know.

But at the same time, I think it really, really needed to be done because it recontextualized a lot of the older music that we were playing. It gave It a kind of new framework which was more wide ranging and, you know, and had had an electronic element too, you know.

Adam: 00:11:34

So it sounds like then there was a bit of a journey of developing the kind of sound in the identity that had the right amount of accessibility for the right people.

Patrick: 00:11:46

Yes, to an extent. But I think also what was crazy about doing well was how deep we went. You know, we weren't trying to do. We weren't looking to. About.

About crossing over what we were doing.

Adam: 00:11:57

Okay.

Patrick: 00:11:58

I mean, even though it just gained and grew in popularity, I think, you know, what part of the whole ethos of what we did was that we would, you know, I mean, Giles was a, you know, especially at that time, was a very adventurous dj, you know, in terms of where he would take something or, you know, the kind of left turns that he would take in the middle of a set and what have you, you know. So, yeah, I don't think we were looking, you know, the. The kind of eventual kind of. It was, you know, it was the.

It was the ripple effect from it because Dimwells was an incredibly influential club, without a doubt.

So many people passed through and what we were doing seemed to touch so many people, you know, beyond, you know, where we were in London that, you know, that it was having an effect elsewhere and people were picking up on what was happening. But, yeah, I don't think we ever looked at. For it to be, you know, the. We never looked at the potential commercial potential of it.

I mean, I think that came later when we were doing other club, other clubs. Certainly we did, you know, after.

After Dingles, me and Charles did a session called Talking Loud at the Fridge, which is a big event, you and what have you. And then it was. It was crossover time, if you like, you know. But Dingles was really not crossover time at all.

Dingles was really about, let's see if we can get away with this. And, you know, how. How far left?

And there were a lot of really left field tracks that were huge records at our session, you know, that people got to know and love and everything like that. And we were. And it was those things about, you know, look, we've got a whole dance floor moving to a modal jazz track in Walsh time.

You know, it's like those things that were just like, wow, that, you know, Charles and myself literally used to come out of Dingles and kind of like shaking our heads going, it can't get any better, can it? You know, and then a couple of weeks later, it would be like, wow, it's got, you know, it just. We didn't.

You know, there were obviously, there were some weeks where it maybe didn't. It was weekly, you know, which is like.

We miss those things because those were the days of weekly residencies, you know, and it was, you know, there was tough time, like when the weather got really hot like it is today. You certainly. The numbers would drop off quite a lot because people had better things to do on a Sunday afternoon. But.

But, you know, we had some incredible live acts there. We managed to somehow, you know, I mean, we. Not only did we get the JB's, but we got quite a lot of other American names.

We had people like Mongo, Santa Maria, Poncho Sanchez on the. On the Latin jazz side of things, we had Dave Valentin, we had Dave Pike.

We had all of, you know, some of these American artists who had records that were kind of big on our scene. Somehow we managed to get them to play and what have you.

Because we struggled a little bit in those days having, you know, local or, you know, homegrown acts that would really work for our session. Because on one hand you had the kind of new.

The uk, the first wave of UK jazz renaissance, the kind of Courtney Pine generation, you know, who were on a more kind of what I will call the Marsalis brothers tip, you know, a bit more, you know, and then you had the kind of like, you know, the fledgling funky acid jazz acts, you know, some of whom weren't that proficient. Some of them were better than others people, you know, people like the James Taylor Quartet and. And what have you. And so.

But it was difficult to get that perfect blend, really, that would work. You know, sometimes it was a bit like we. Although the live act was a big feature of what we did because it kind of split the session where.

So we had the kind of very much a dancer session until the band came on. And then the band would come on and it would be more eclectic after that, more mixed.

But, you know, sometimes it was like the live element was we just get through this pitch. I mean, get to the good stuff on the other side. But then other times, you know, the. The bands were of a level where it was just like, wow, this is.

This is incredible. And it.

And yeah, obviously when you do get a band, then you've got the whole thing really working in tandem, you know, it lifts the whole session, you know.

Adam: 00:15:51

Yeah. So just going back to what you were saying about trying to push the boundaries of what you could kind of get away with playing.

Do you think, did you and Giles Kind of. Was it important there? Was both of you there to help each other and support each other in pushing and. Or even like, oh, you've got away with that.

I'm gonna. I'm gonna try this.

Patrick: 00:16:14

Was there like a. I mean, it was like. Well, basically, it was like this. I mean, Giles generally played most of the session after the band.

I played for the dancers to begin with, but I was always trying to find a way to play a few records, to have my little spot or whatever. And, you know.

But I think, you know, but I think in terms of what was going on, because we were both growing and learning and absorbing so much that, you know, in terms of what was happening, in terms of, you know, the things that were going on in other genres of music at the time, you know, that were influencing us and also our exploration and understanding of old music, you know, we were still discovering so many old records, you know, so there was all this kind of. It was such a. You know, it was. The whole thing was.

Had a momentum of its own because it was like we were constantly recontextualizing and, oh, yeah, this is. And we could do this, and, oh, this record can work. And so, yeah, it was. It was. It was very exciting time. I mean, you know, people talk about. We.

There were things that were. That came out at the time.

There was a compilation called the Freedom Princess Support, which I know is a bit of a kind of highfalutin title, but I mean, the Freedom Principle was a bigger part of that whole ethos. Was like, free to go to some other places, you know, and it was really. I mean. Yeah, it was. It was. It was.

It was definitely quite groundbreaking, I guess. You know, I don't want to. Yeah, but I guess it was, you know.

Adam: 00:17:40

So was the acid jazz community building at that time, then?

Patrick: 00:17:43

Yeah, very much so. I mean, obviously, whilst we were doing Digimals, the first ever acid jazz releases came out.

You know, that was a label that Charles was doing with Eddie Pillar, and so that put kind of a name to it. I mean, acid jazz. I don't know if you know the whole story of where the phrase came from, but it kind of come around as a joke. Well, there was.

Giles was DJing with Chris Bangs, who was a DJ. He DJed a lot with, you know, pre.

Prior to when I got involved with him, and they played a weekend or somewhere and somebody been playing before them playing, you know, some Acid House and, you know, you know, just come that, you know, fresh enthusiasm for that. For that music as it was at the time and, and.

And Giles and Banksy had to come on afterwards and Banksy got on the mic in the way that he would do and said, I don't know about that, all that, but this is acid jazz. And he played a. There's a funk incorporated record which was kind of quite big at the time, which has a really long kind of strummed intro.

So he just put that on and then he kind of churned the vary speed on the. On the. On the technique.

So it sounded like a bit more like a kind of acid washing machine type of effect, you know, and that was where the phrase came from.

But I mean, you know, but it was a very useful phrase that just, you know, it was just one of those things that people could latch onto very easily, I guess, you know. But as I said, I think it became a kind of as much of a curse as a blessing in many ways.

Adam: 00:19:05

Yeah, yeah, because I think it's a really interesting genre in that it was kind of. I wasn't around at the time, so I don't know exactly what it was at the time, but I was first sort of aware of it late 90s and.

And kind of like it went out of fashion and then now it's kind of. Some of. It's really in fashion again, you know, and it's.

It's interesting how it's had these pizza drops and then it's like there's a whole load of stuff that lends from it and is really heavily influenced by it as well.

Patrick: 00:19:41

Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, for me, acid jazz at Dingles at that time was about a much wider remit of music than a lot of people interpreted it as. For other people, acid jazz became kind of basically funk with, you know, instrumental funk with solos, you know.

And, you know, for me, when I say it was a curse. There was a whole kind of wave of clubs and sessions and things that came.

Came around at that time where basically, for me, although it was more jazz, I was probably. It's probably a bit harsh for me to call it this, but I. I re. Dubbed it student funk, you know.

Adam: 00:20:21

Yeah.

Patrick: 00:20:21

Because it was. It was. It was that.

It was that, you know, if it had that kind of funky beat, if it had the wah wah and you know, and those kind of elements, people would love it, you know. And if you try to play something a bit more Latin, syncopated, subtle or whatever, people wouldn't have it, you know.

And I veered more towards the latter type of music, so. And I didn't want to play sets of that. Of just that kind of thing. So, you know.

Adam: 00:22:13

Yeah, I guess it's kind of. There's. There's quite a lot of. I don't know whether you call it sort of homage or pastiche. Yeah, within that sort of scene.

Patrick: 00:22:22

Yeah, no, totally. I mean, you know, it's like the whole.

The whole point about it is when the acid jazz thing started and you had these people, like the brand New Heavies coming around and what have you, you know, it is basically trying to recreate a music that's already been done brilliantly well by, you know, American, Black, American musicians, you know, previously. And it's going to be very difficult to scale those heights, you know, and to make records that are nearly as good.

That's not to undermine what a lot of those people, you know, the stuff that a lot of those people did. Because within that, you still have got people who can write great songs.

I think, you know, Yanking Cade from the Heavies was great songwriter, which is why they. They did so well, you know, because he wrote songs that people could identify with and latch onto.

Adam: 00:23:02

So, yeah, it's that.

Patrick: 00:23:04

I mean, one.

Adam: 00:23:05

One act I particularly like from them was corduroy.

Patrick: 00:23:07

Right. Okay.

Adam: 00:23:08

You know, it does perfectly fit into that kind of student funk.

Patrick: 00:23:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adam: 00:23:13

Definition. But, yeah, there was just something about the court, I think, because I was really into that sort of cop funk sound.

Patrick: 00:23:17

Right, okay. Yeah.

Adam: 00:23:18

You know, I didn't know about Dennis Coffey or anything like that, you know.

Patrick: 00:23:21

Well, you know, that being a big element of the kind of. Of the acid jazz thing was that whole kind of soundtracky vibe as well, you know.

Adam: 00:23:28

Yeah.

Patrick: 00:23:28

You know, like things like Quincy Jones, call me Mr. Tibbs, which were huge tunes at Dingwall's, you know, so people. So that was a big element. That was another element to acid jazz, definitely was. That was a love of those kind of.

Those kind of, you know, those kind of black exploitation soundtracks and what have you, as well. As.

Well as the kind of, you know, the funky jazz that came out on labels like Prestige in the early, you know, late 60s, early 70s, 70s, which were huge. Which were huge records at those times. But it was. It was.

Although that was kind of a mainstay of what Dingles was about, for me, it was the music that was played around that. That was actually more interesting.

And for me, the way that, you know, there's a record that I always mention, which is by Tara Masahino, Japanese trumpet player called Merry Go Round, which is this kind of really repetitive of Trance like churning jazz fusion groove, you know, which had always been bit. It's been a big dancers tune from way back.

But the way that, that tunes like that would fit in with the zeitgeist of what Acid House was doing, that was what made sense to me. And that, to me that was more acid jazz than something very retro with kind of wild, wild guitars and what have you, you know.

Yeah, that's, that's, that's where I think people, for me, just in terms of the way I felt it, that's where I felt people got it wrong.

You know, I wish they'd gone more with that kind of like cosmic fusion out there kind of music rather than it being kind of, you know, kind of coming back to basics and retro funk, which I, you know, which I'm, I'm a fan of. But it's incredibly difficult.

You know, you're never going to be, there's never going to be another Clyde Stubblefield or Bernard Purdy, you know, and you need a drummer of that level to make it work, you know, even now.

And you've got, you know, a lot of music that's happening which is very organic because like you said, organic music, whether it's, you know, whether it's influenced by us of that sort, you know, jazz flavored organic music is back in a big way. But I mean, you know, you've still got to, to, to remember that you're making music that is going to be compared to that stuff from the past.

You know, it's, you know, you're basically in the same ballpark, so.

Adam: 00:25:30

And I suppose you, you, you make music that's going to be compared to the stuff from the past that has stayed because it's so good.

Patrick: 00:25:38

Yeah, exactly.

Adam: 00:25:39

You almost kind of find it fighting a losing battle anyway. Unless you were talking about liar.

Patrick: 00:25:43

Exactly, exactly.

Adam: 00:25:44

So speaking of outliers then, can you remember Jamiroquai? Yes, very much the scene.

Patrick: 00:25:49

Yeah.

Adam: 00:25:50

Can you, can you share any memories and.

Patrick: 00:25:52

Well, I can. Okay.

Well, one of the guys that I am, I gave a job to at Reckless, went on to manage the shop after me through some classic years of the dance years was this a guy called Zaf.

The Mighty Zaf, who has a shop called yeah, Love Vinyl and he was from Ealing and the Ealing Feeling I always call it, because there was so many people from that area of West London who had such a big influence on the scene, you know, on the music scene at the time, particularly in the rare groove scene and what have you. And they all used to Go to one pub in Eland called the Eagle. And you have to pardon my language here, but this isn't, you know, Zaf's first.

The first thing I ever heard about Jim Rukoi was there's this annoying cunt who keeps on coming in the pub who won't stop singing. So that was the first I ever heard of him. And then, you know, when the record got made, it was like everybody completely freaked it out.

Freaked out because it was so good and there was a big battle about who was going to release it and. And what have you, you know, And Giles wanted to get it and didn't sign it, you know, and then you.

Adam: 00:26:54

Thought the first album came out on acid.

Patrick: 00:26:56

Jokes. Yeah, well, it did came out because Eddie got it and it came out on acid jazz. And then.

Because by that time, you know, jazz was doing talking now, jars and Eddie had very much split up. I was there, got it on the roof of Giles's flat in Rotherhithe when they parted companies.

And so I witnessed the end of Assajaz or Giles's involvement in it.

But, yeah, but, yeah, so, you know, Jamiroquai, obviously a huge artist that came out of that scene that, you know, took it to a outernational pop level. But, yeah, that was my first. That was the first I ever heard of him, which was quite amusing. But, yeah, no, I mean, it was. It was. It was.

It was great. And it was a godsend, in a way, for the.

For the scene and just in terms of, you know, having an artist who was taking it to that kind of level, you know.

Adam: 00:27:40

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you know, the Brand New Heavies were obviously really popular as well, weren't they? They had that sort of.

Because they had the album with all the hip hop artists.

Patrick: 00:27:51

They did that, the hip hop album as well, which was kind of cool.

Adam: 00:27:54

Yeah. So. So just moving on, then. So Talking Loud was the next sort of big night you did, is that right?

Patrick: 00:28:02

Yeah, yeah. After. Well, when Ding was finished, Dingle was finished because they were redeveloping Camden Market at the time.

Adam: 00:28:09

Right.

Patrick: 00:28:09

So they pulled down the original venue as it was, so we thought we could carry it on another venue in Camden, and we moved it briefly to the Underworld, which was close to Camden tube station. Kind of a basement club, Not a bad space, you know, stage everything, all the right ingredients to do it. But it just didn't work.

I mean, we just didn't have that. We just didn't get the numbers that we. That we'd had at Dingles.

I think it was just like Dingles had been so special and it come to a kind of massive crescendo of an ending. I mean, I think the last session we had this queue that went all the way down Camden High Street.

It was crazy, you know, so many people didn't get in, so we just couldn't replicate that. Even though we had brilliant. You know, you had the odd, brilliant live act and what have you.

We had Charles Earle and played at the Underworld, you know, but it didn't work. So then eventually we got to do a Saturday night at the Fridge called Talking Loud, and by that time, the label was very much in effect.

So it was, you know, it was a good platform for Charles, for his. For his acts and what have you. And there were lots of other good acts around at the time.

So I think, in a way, the quality of putting on a light, you know, a night with a live act, it was better then at the Fridge. It was easier in a way, but it was a bigger venue and it wasn't that it didn't last that long, but it was certainly pretty. Pretty amazing on the.

On the. On its best nights. Yeah. When it really worked.

Adam: 00:29:31

Yeah. So did you have any sort of involvement, even as a sounding board, when the label, Talking Loud label was starting?

Patrick: 00:29:39

Well, I mean, only in the sense that I was very much, you know, in that world and. Or in that circle of people, you know, I mean, but I wasn't. And it was. It was a kind of.

It was a source of dismay to me because a lot of people, a lot of punters who knew just presumed that I was part of the label because I've been involved in the nights that, you know, that have been called. I mean, the Dingle session was. Although everybody just called it Dingles, it was actually called Talking Loud and Saying Something. And then the.

The Saturday night at the Fridge was called Talking Loud. So because I was involved in DJing with Charles at those people just assumed that I was involved in the label.

So people will come up to me and say, oh, how's the label? And I'd be going, nothing to do with me. So it was, you know, it was. It was. It was a bit weird at that time.

But, yeah, I mean, I was kind of involved in terms of that I was part of that circle.

I mean, I think, you know, it's like the whole mentality and philosophy of what Giles was doing was definitely influenced by all the people that came into his world around that time, because the background of it, where he'd kind of come from was kind of quite different in a way. I mean, I. You know, that I really witnessed that change. I mean, I told you about the night he did a. The Special Branch. And I remember going.

You know, and I used to. I went down there a few times and I remember going down there at one time and Giles was right in the middle of his. What he would.

What I would call the dodgy bossa phase. You know, where he was playing, it was quite. It was almost a bit camp. You know, they were playing these kind of.

Almost quite gimmicky kind of boss, boss and you know, not even. Not Brazilian, but influenced by bossa. But, you know, things like Edie Gourmet, They've Got an awful lot of Coffee in Brazil.

I mean, it's like, I don't like that record, but that was one of the ones that got played around that time. And then, you know, and it wasn't that much later and the whole kind of rare groove thing had.

Had kind of, you know, come in and there were different kind of sounds that a lot of other people were playing.

And suddenly, you know, Giles is playing Shifting Gears by Johnny Hammond and, you know, a much more funky, you know, much more interesting sound for me. So, yeah, I kind of. I witnessed.

And I think, you know, there was a lot of other people around Giles, like Marco, who formed the Young Disciples with Femi, and, you know, Paul Bradshaw, who then started Up Straight no Chaser magazine, who was also coming at it from a. From a very different perspective. There was a lot more. So the whole thing suddenly became. I don't know.

I don't want to use the expression more serious, but it kind of. It kind of lost its last vestiges of kind of the NAFA element of soulboy culture, where it was all a bit of a laugh and suddenly became.

No, this is actually something that is, shall we say, culturally worthy, you know, that it's kind of got. That it is saying something. And, you know, that was what we were called the club. It was what we called Dingles.

It was talking loud and saying something. It was about. It was about. In a way, it was about trying to do that, to try and find something a bit more kind of meaningful, you know.

Adam: 00:32:30

And I suppose musically it pushed on a bit more with things like talking Hero were on for. Hero were on.

Patrick: 00:32:37

Yeah, yeah. And Giles eventually signed for Hero as they kind of transitioned in there into a post drum and bass scenario, you know.

Adam: 00:32:46

Yeah. So I guess getting a bit more sort of experimental.

Patrick: 00:32:49

Yeah. I mean, you know, that was it's such a. It's so difficult to talk about all of the things that happened at that time because it was like there was.

It was such an intense time and there was so much going on and in a way, it all happened so quickly. You know, this almost. It's very difficult looking back on it to actually.

Sometimes it's difficult to even sequence the events, but it's even more difficult to understand how those, Those transformations all worked at the time. But, you know, it is kind of interesting because, you know, you've got people like Four Heroes who.

And even, you know, like on the other, you know, people like Fabio and people like. A lot of these people had their roots in kind of jazz, funk.

Adam: 00:33:28

Yeah.

Patrick: 00:33:28

You know. You know, and you could hear that in the sound. I remember when.

When the kind of that liquid drum and bass thing started first happening and they were doing the night called Speed at the Velvet Rooms and we'd all go down there and you kind of like be. You'd be dancing to it and then you kind of like, we'll start singing Southern Freeze over the top of it, you know, because it was like.

Because it seemed to work, you know. So, yeah, there was, there was, There was that element.

And yeah, Four Heroes certainly, you know, incredible, incredible, incredible records that they made for Giles, without a doubt, you know, but that time, you know, you've got all of these other kind of influences coming in that, you know, it was interesting because, like, I'm just going to rewind a little bit and talk about Reckless records, because when I worked at Reckless, one of the things that I realized was there was a whole lot of music that most people weren't checking. Right. There were records that.

And certainly, you know, it's so funny to have seen it in the perspective of sort of from now is that there are records that became incredibly sought after and expensive, rare records, right.

That I remember being reduced to 50p because we had a reduction system where every, you know, couple of weeks things would get reduced, you know, if they weren't selling. You know, that was the way you could keep stock turning over in a secondhand shop.

So, you know, I remember records going down to kind of 50p that eventually was selling for 500 or a thousand pounds, you know.

Adam: 00:34:47

Are there any particular ones?

Patrick: 00:34:48

Well, I mean, yeah, I remember the. There's an album by Lou Bond, a lot of this stuff that was really. That kind of fell between the cracks.

So, you know, particularly like kind of black folky soul, if you like black soul, folk, whatever you want to call It. So that Lou Bond album would be. Would be an example of that.

And eventually it got kind of reissued by an American like, by, I think, Light in the Attic or one of those kind of labels or Three Men With Beards or one of these kind of kind of fairly nerdy reissue labels, you know. But that record. You know, that record, nobody wanted those records. Likewise, you know, things like Rotary Connection, which eventually became huge.

Adam: 00:35:23

Yeah.

Patrick: 00:35:23

You know, and the Charles Depney Productions. Nobody really liked that music to begin with because it was a bit too kind of orchestral and it was a bit too, you know, and it was just. It was just.

It just didn't, you know, fit into people's music. But I was surrounded by people.

I mean, I'll credit Zaf and the Ealing crew again, because they were the ones who really started turning me onto the Stepney stuff because they were all. They'd all bought the Rotary Connection albums and the album that he produced for Minnie Ripton and things like that. They loved those records.

And I was like, okay. And then, you know, eventually you start checking it, and I didn't. And I. You know, I didn't realize that he'd worked with Terry Callier.

And suddenly looking on the back of a Terry Callia album, you see. Produced and arranged by Charles Stepney. So, you know, those are the things that were kind of like that. It was those elements of the. Of the.

Of the music that I was kind of picking up on that I was very much part of what I was doing on the radio. And I was like. And I was. I was really into that idea that. Let's celebrate the thing. The people aren't celebrated so much. Let's celebrate the.

Let's talk about the. The producers. This is what I got from the Boogie Boys, really. From the. From the boogie collectors. They would always.

That thing that I said in the last session about they loved the detail. And it's like, you know, actually thinking, well, yeah, these. All these, you know, like, people would.

Because Rare Groove was such a thing where people would buy records and they go, this is the tune. And people would buy a record and they would just play that tune and they wouldn't even bother listening to the rest of the album.

It was a really common thing. It was a really, really common thing. And it was. It was hilarious in a way.

And, you know, that people, you know, so there was all these things where I say, okay, like the Meisel Brothers. That's really important.

So I always used to have a feature on my show on Kiss on the Cosmic Jam, where I say, yeah, the Sound of Sky High, because that was their production name.

Adam: 00:37:09

Yeah.

Patrick: 00:37:10

You know, and I'd be playing, you know, talking about all these. All these records they produced similarly with. With. With Stepney when he. You know, it's like all these records that Charles Stepney, she's.

Let's talk about Charles Stepney. So, I mean, I'm not.

I'm not saying that I'm the only person that was doing that because I'm sure there were other people that were picking up on those things. But it was funny in the way that the rare groove thing was all about the.

All of this old music, but a lot of the time it wasn't really kind of putting it all together, you know.

Adam: 00:37:35

Yeah, well, it's like I've got. I've had. For years, I've had Mellow, Mellow Laurel. Yeah, yeah, the Seven Inches.

And then only, like probably six months ago, I actually listened to the B side. This is awesome. Haven't I listened to this? And then like, you get the 12 and you're like, brilliant. It's not on the 12.

Yeah, but, yeah, yeah, so I understand that.

Patrick: 00:37:57

I mean, there's a classic tale I can tell about this, which was.

nspiration Information Album,: 1974

He was one of my kind of crew and we do often share tapes and what have you. So he gave me, you know, it was very much the era of the mixtape and the cassette.

So he gave me a cassette, and on that cassette there was this title track from Inspiration Information and this tune. Immediately it was like, oh, so kind of weirdly lopsided funk.

You know, it's the kind of thing that Jonathan Moore from Colecut would always call Left Foot. You know, it's a Left Foot groove and I loved it.

And I was, you know, it took me ages to find a copy of the record and eventually one turned up in the reckless. And I was really excited and I got the record. I got home and, you know, put the record on start to finish.

Listening to the whole thing completely blew my mind. So immediately I picked up the phone and phoned up Ned and said, chucky Otis, Inspiration Information. What an album.

And he's like, oh, I've only Ever listened to that track, you know, and that was, that was just. That was some. That was something loads of people did back in those days because you. It was all about the tune, you know. Yeah. You know, so it's.

It's funny and. Yeah, that was a. That was a. That was a great album, though. An album which has been a big touchstone for me since I discovered it, really.

Just in terms of what it was doing. The fact.

I mean, in a way, okay, it was two years after Sly and Sliding, the Family Stones, there's a riot going on, which obviously had an influence on it as well. But Sugar did some. Did some stuff that, you know, it's like a. It was just magical anyway, you know, a magic.

Adam: 00:39:47

Yeah, yeah. So some of the artists you mentioned sort of around the Stepney and that sort of orchestrally jazz and things. I've got a few compilations that.

That are on that sort of tip and they seem to be from the same era, I'm guessing probably early 90s. And you did quite a lot of compilations, didn't you, at one point? So I actually saw Rebirth of Cool, Volume three at the car boot sale.

Patrick: 00:40:10

Oh, really? Did you?

Adam: 00:40:11

Yeah, and I looked back in Elle Forge, I was like, oh, is that Patrick? Yeah, I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Patrick: 00:40:17

Reboot. Yeah, well, that was, that was, you know, when I was still doing Ding Walls, that I think it came through Jerry Barry, who was one of the.

One of the premium jazz dancers who, I don't know, was doing some stuff at Island Records or was talking to them about doing some stuff. And he introduced me to Trevor Wyatt at Island Records and we just had this conversation about doing a kind of compilation album.

I mean, I think principally they were looking to kind of use it as a launch pad to help some of their artists as well, that they, you know, there was always, always the whole thing about doing Rebirth, of course. How many island artists can we get on one? You know, on each comp, you know, because it was. Obviously it was coming from them.

But Trevor was an amazing guy and I was. And he.

I learned a lot from him because he was kind of really old school music business and been around with Chris Blackwell since the days of when they were first distributing reggae in the uk, you know.

Adam: 00:41:07

Yeah.

Patrick: 00:41:07

So he knew the whole reggae scene from the. Having been one of the. One of the van men who took his. Drove the vans around to the shops and what have you.

So he was, he was a great guy to work with and. And, you know, he came up.

He came up with the Name Rebirth of Call, which initially I hated, which was actually a brilliant name and it was perfect for the series and what have you. And you know, at that time we were all, I mean, I, you know, the whole jazz hip hop thing was beginning to take off.

You know, interestingly enough, Gangstar actually came to Dingles and stood in the DJ box and saw what we were doing, you know, as did lots of other people who passed through that, that club. You know, I'm not saying we, we take any credit for that, but I mean, it was interesting.

And then, you know, that and I, it was, funnily enough, I was just replying to a thread on, on Instagram where somebody had posted a thing about the Rebirth series.

And I think, you know, the whole mission of it in a way was to fulfill that kind of prophecy of Gangstars, which was the 90s will be the decade of a jazz thing. And that was, you know, it was, that was, and it was great for me.

It was great, you know, that I was to do something where I was involved in releases, you know, as I wasn't involved in talking loud.

So I could do these comps with island and, and do this kind of catalog of the way that kind of jazz had influenced or was working its influence within dance music.

And that series represents an evolution where you go where the beginning of it is very much about kind of hip hop and acid jazz, I suppose, to an extent.

Adam: 00:42:36

Yeah.

Patrick: 00:42:36

And then gradually it kind of morphs into trip hop and then later into techno and drum and bass and towards the end of the series even broken Beat as well, you know. But it's all about that, you know, and it's amazing how.

And then, you know, it was from the beginning of the 90s that you just started to hear so much, you know, music that was kind of like, in a way, full blooded dance music, but had a jazz sensibility, you know.

Adam: 00:44:32

Yeah.

So from that, then throughout the 90s, if I'm, if, if my research is right, you were, you were quite sort of important in the start of Broken Beat towards the late 90s. How, how did that evolution happen?

Patrick: 00:44:47

Well, you. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's, it's very interesting.

There was, you know, the, the 90s was such a weird decade in, in sense that there was so much going on musically and things, you know, new genres seem to be coming around on with very, very quickly and, and, you know, and finding the things that worked for us and the kind of different clubs that I was playing and what have you. You know, I went a bit.

I think I feel, in a way, I feel as though I went a bit off piste in the 90s at certain times, you know, just because I was kind of, like, more inspired by a lot of electronic music than I was by a lot of organic music at the time. You know, I mean, I still loved jazz. I was still very much part of what I was doing.

station. It had gone legal in: 1990

So that thing that we'd already started doing at Dingles, which was finding the new that would work with the old, if you like, was. Was very much part of my mission on the radio show as well. And my producers at KISS wanted me to do that as well.

You know, they didn't want me to be a retro show just playing old records. They wanted me to be doing. Representing something else as well. So. Yeah, but.

So definitely there was a time, particularly I think, in the mid-90s, where I was just like, you know, I was much more inspired by hearing a new Kenny Larkin or a Carl Craig record than I was by hearing, you know, things that were supposedly closer to what people imagined I was about as a dj.

And, you know, there'd been a time as well when we'd all start playing quite a lot of drum and bass as well, which is also alienated quite a lot of the original kind of acid jazz or whatever it was, jazz dance crew, you know, and the whole jazz dance thing, which was. Which is kind of.

Which always stuttered on somewhere in the background, had really kind of, you know, was at its lowest point as well, in a way, at that time. So, yeah, I mean, but come the.

The late 90s, when broken, when the West London sound started to happen, that's a whole kind of weird story for me that I could. You know, that goes into kind of various weird personal connections and what have you.

But fundamentally there was two things that happened, was that firstly, a guy called Shabs, who was involved in a lot of the Outcast and a lot of this kind of Indian fusion crossover music that had happened.

But, I mean, a massive promoter in London of music and what have you, he got involved with Notting Hill Arts Club when they started, which was this tiny little, not tiny, but, you know, 200 capacity basement on Notting Hill. And he invited me and one of the things that I'd Been involved with for a long time at that point was Brazilian music.

I'd already started doing stuff with firstly Batuu and then Dilata. So I started doing. I started doing a night down there called Brazilian Love Affair once a month, you know, he, you know, Shab sold it to me.

Yeah, come on. Brazilian Love Affair, you know, which was the title of a great George Duke record.

But he said, you know, it would be perfect name for it again, I had to go, yeah, all right. Presenting My Love Affair once a month. It really worked. And, you know, and I started doing that.

And then he turned around to me quite soon after I'd started it and said, why don't you do a regular Friday night here on weekly? And I was like, I can't imagine I can pull a good crowd on my own on a Friday in West London, but if I do it with a certain somebody, maybe I can.

And that certain somebody was Philasher. He went on to be Restless Soul and what have you. Well, he was already Restless Soul, in fact, at that time.

And because he was a proper West London homeboy, and he was very much connected to that whole Broken Beat scene or all of those people, they'd all kind of come up together, you know.

So, yeah, and that started a regular Friday night, which I think started in around 98 or something like that, which we called Inspiration in Fear Information after the Sugiotis album, which I've already declared my enduring love for. And, you know, we were probably the first club to ever really play Broken Beat, because certainly nobody else was really playing it.

And, you know, and we were lucky in that we were right in the middle of it all. So we were also getting the. Getting the tunes as they were literally were being made. So we certainly, you know, but we would.

You know, my whole thing about Inspiration Information with Phil was that Phil was very much known as a kind of like a. A house dj, as a soulful house dj. That was what most of his gigs was. Were about. And I said, well, look, come and do this Friday night with me.

I don't really want you to play any house. I just want you to play whatever else.

Because I knew he was into lots of other kinds of music, like into playing disco and boogie and whatever else and some jazzier stuff as well. I said, look, we can, you know, no Holds Pub. We can do that.

And then, you know, as the broken stuff starts hitting as well, it's like, well, yeah, that's a huge part of. We can incorporate that very easily into what we're already doing because, you know, we've got. Lot.

We're already playing records that lean that way in a way. So, you know, we're playing a lot of stuff which isn't necessarily very obvious in terms of where the rhythm is. You know, I mean, I've always been.

You know, for me, you know, one of the things about Broken Beat was the way echoed so much that I loved in jazz fusion, that there were, you know, that there were literally antecedents for a lot of those drum patterns that people were programming. You could have been lifted straight off a George Duke record or what have you.

You know, it's kind of like more, you know, syncopated, less obvious, less square, less. Less regimented kind of funk rhythms, more dislocated. You know, they were there in jazz fusion. So it just immediately. And.

And also there was a very kind of jazzy sound palette that was happening with a lot of these guys. So, you know, immediately it was. Was like, yes, I love this. This stuff. And.

And yeah, and for me, the whole Broken Sound was one of the ultimate forms of pushing where programmed beats could go. You know, it was kind of like the ultimate really. I mean, drum and bass had done that to an extent. But it's a.

It's that thing where I think I always talk about this, that at the beginning of a genre, it's always its most interesting because there aren't really any rules, so people don't really know what they're doing. So always kind of get some really interesting records then.

And then, you know, you get a couple of tunes that are like real bangers that are real hits, and that starts to kind of gradually a kind of formula starts to take shape. You know, I think the Broken is. Is interesting because in a way, although there were tunes, you know, there was.

Wasn't an element of Bangers with that. The whole Broken thing was always kind of dedicated to being different and for pushing it and for. And for being a little bit less obvious.

So, yeah, I don't think it had quite that. But certainly at the beginning it was really interesting as well, because nobody. You couldn't tell where it was going to go. You know.

Adam: 00:51:32

Are there any particular tunes from that area that you hold close to your heart?

Patrick: 00:51:36

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, one of the first one of the records, I mean, actually the one that actually ended up on the last Rebirth of Cool album, which is a record that I still play, which I just think is an ultimate record, is New Sector Movements produced by IG Culture, who I'd known from back in the Day I knew him when he was a youth, when he came into Reckless Records. That's how kind of important Reckless was for me.

He was a youth and he was a drummer when I first met him, you know, and one of the head, you know, one of the kids who was really into his funk, you know, and, you know, he'd gone through Dodge City Productions, which is a kind of UK Hip hop thing, which had been signed to Ireland. And then he, you know, emerged as the kind of one of the, the original crew of Broken Beat producers and New sector movements.

He did a tune called Afro History which kind of had this whole bridge between kind of Latin, Afro Jazz, Broken Beat. It was just so. It was so in the right in the zone for me.

And it introduced me to a singer called Ben Besegwe, who was actually IG's partner at the time, who I've gone on to work with, with or we've gone on to work with with Dalata.

So she's, she's kind of very much part of the whole scene and she became known as the kind of the queen of Broken Beat because she did records with D. She did records with everyone. She did records with Dego and Seiji and G Force and all of the crew. So.

So yeah, that, that, that tune for me, that's a, that's a quintessential one that I still play. You know, I just still think it's sounds great, you know.

Adam: 00:53:03

Yeah.

Patrick: 00:53:04

But there were loads of records and then, you know, that, that whole sound, it was kind of interesting because I said, as I said, we, you know, inspiration, information. We were probably one of the first clubs to play it.

But then eventually the co op session started initially at Velvet Rooms and then later at Plastic People, which was the kind of, if you like, the flagship Broken Beat night.

And everybody, you know, Bugs in the Attic and IG and, and everybody was involved and I was lucky enough to be one of the, one of the people who regularly guested at least, you know.

Adam: 00:53:34

Yeah.

Patrick: 00:53:34

And it was just a joy for me to be able to play that, you know.

In fact, I'm playing the night with them coming up, you know, they're doing a session cooperation with, with, with, with Orin Aphronaut and, and Mark, G Force and, and, and, and funnily enough, in a kind of intergenerational full circle matter. Philash's son Marvin Jupiter is also DJing with me. So.

Adam: 00:53:59

Oh, nice.

Patrick: 00:54:00

Because Philasha sadly passed away a few years ago. So.

Adam: 00:54:03

Yeah, so you mentioned Batuu just before yes. Did you get to a certain point because you, you playing, you're part of Batuu, right?

Patrick: 00:54:14

Well, yeah, I mean. Well, basically what happened was this. When I was working at Reckless, I met obviously John Moore was. I was there when Cold Cut started. Right?

Yeah, I was there when they first.

This is another little story where Matt Black, when he used to come into the shop and he was DJing in Spain and buying records to sell to other DJs in Spain.

And he used to come in and he'd be all this kind of crazy character, but because he spent quite a lot of money, we'd always give him plenty of, you know, plenty of room and, and you know, he kept on saying to us, I'm doing these mixtapes, you've got to hear my mixes, you know. And we were like, yeah, yeah, whatever, you know. And then eventually one day he came in and gave John a cassette.

And it was basically the prototype of say kids, what Time is It? Which was their, their first ever Megamix boatleg release, you know, and he was incredible.

He was putting the together on two turntables in a way that nobody in the UK was at that time. You know, it was, it was mad. So I witnessed literally the beginning of. The beginning of that. And I, and I, and I, and I hung out a lot with them.

I was, you know, when they were making their first album, I was around them a lot of the time. I went into the studio with them a lot.

I think I even played a bit guitar on one of their records or whatever, you know, and certainly, you know, gave them a few breaks and what have you, you know, and, but, you know, and so I witnessed that whole thing of.

That was kind of like in a way a lot of the beginnings of sample based music because like when they started, you know, like samplers were still very limited in terms of the amount of, you know, the, the amount of something in the sample time you had and what have you, you know, so.

But anyway, that was whole, that whole approach and you know, there was a lot of that stuff was going on and you know, on one level I felt like I should do this because I've got loads of breaks and loads of ideas from other records. But for me it was like I'm much as. I loved a lot what a lot of people were doing with old records and making new things out of them them.

I was a bit like, that's kind of cheating. I don't really. That's not where I came from originally in terms of what music's About. So I was kind of. It was.

I had this kind of itching to kind of get involved with something that was more organic, that was more, you know, was getting back to what I. Even if by proxy, if I could find a way of working with a band, if I.

Even if I couldn't play in it, I could have maybe work with them, co write, produce, what have you, you know. And when I was. It was actually when I was doing Talking Loud at the Fridge with Giles that some, by various connections, a cassette landed in my lap.

And it was this band from Brighton called Batuu. And it was a bit all over the place, but it was kind of Brazilian fusion of a sore.

Adam: 00:56:45

Yeah.

Patrick: 00:56:45

And these guys could obviously play, you know, so I thought, wow, this is good. So, you know, we had a meeting across my kitchen table, a couple of them.

Chris Frank, who's my enduring partner with Delasa, who I'm still like one of my best friends still, and percussionist Carl Smith. We sat around my kitchen table and talked about the idea of working together.

And I said, well, maybe, you know, I can help steer you in a way where you'll kind of have more of a crossover appeal and what have you. So, so we started, you know, and I just literally started driving down to Brighton and, you know, and being.

And doing rehearsals with them and, you know, trying to work out ideas for tunes, doing arrangements of things, writing together and what have you. And it was a bit of an unwieldy thing because there was these, you know, it was a seven piece band.

Eventually a mad Brazilian guy called Babetto who'd landed in Brighton.

Him and a guy called Pedro had been Chris's original kind of teachers in Brazilian music and you know, a kind of, kind of what I call a bit of an old school muso rhythm section who were really into kind of, you know, jazz fusion and kind of weird drummers like Dave Weckle, who I don't really like, you know, kind of like intricate drumming and what have you. So we're always trying to straighten them out and trying to get them to play a groove rather than get too muso on us and what have you.

So it was always a bit of a battle, but we, but I was really into the whole thing. I was into it to the extent.

I was quite happy to drive down to Brighton twice a week or whatever, you know, and just for the love of doing it, it, you know, really started enjoying being involved in music in, in that kind of organic way again.

And then one of an old friend of Chris, Chris is called Simon, Simon hall, who's actually the scion of a private bank, but he was doing his little kind of postgraduate. I'm going to start a record label in Paris with a French Algerian guy called Momo.

They set up this label called Big Cheese and they said, come and do a record for us. So we had a tune which we. We actually didn't finish until we got there to Paris. We didn't finish writing it until we were in the studio.

So they're very much on the fly and us winging it. But eventually we put it out. It was called Seasons Of My Mind and it put us on the map because it got some great reviews, it got some DJ support.

It was a good, you know, very much aimed at the dance floor. Kind of samba with an element, with a kind of funk, slightly funky undertone to it as well, with both Portuguese and English lyrics.

It kind of set out our stall of what we. What we would later go on to do with. With. With Dalata, but. But it was.

It was kind of hard work working with this band of like, all these mad different personalities. And we played Glastonbury and, you know, did some. Did some good, good gigs, including we were still doing Talking Loud at the Fridge at that time.

And there was a gig we did with Joyce, who was an artist.

That, Joe Davis is another very important figure in this whole story because he's the man who really does so much for Brazilian music in the UK by, you know, he started a label called Far Out Recordings later, but he'd been the guy who'd sold me and Giles. He'd gone.

Initially, he'd been a guy who'd gone over to Brazil to buy records and he'd been the guy who'd been selling records to the likes of myself and Giles and one of the artists that he'd introduced us to was this. Nobody seemed to really know her stuff in the uk.

It was Joyce, but she was amazing and she gave us a huge club record called Aldea Do A Gum, which was just like the biggest tune for us at that time. So we managed to get Joyce to come over and perform at the Fridge and Batuu supported her. And that was just like one of.

Just one of those grand nights that you just etched in your memory forever. It was Christmas, Christmas 94, I think it was.

Adam: 01:00:24

Yeah, nice. And so, yeah. So what was the situation when you went to record Bernard Purdy then? And how was that meeting such a legend?

Patrick: 01:00:33

Well, I mean, it was completely amazing because by that time, even though it's an unreleased project. My. One of the things that I'd started really doing was studying drummers because.

, there was a time when I. In: 2008

iss with my head held high in: 2008

And it was brilliant because it was kind of a sabbatical from. I was still doing a bit of DJing in Tokyo for my friend Shuya at his club, the Room in Shibuya in Tokyo.

But I was, you know, it really was a brilliant for me because I've been on that thing of doing a weekly radio show for 21 years. And it's a bit of a. You know, as much as it's brilliant and it was an incredible thing to have done.

It's a bit of a treadmill, you know, you're kind of like constantly assimilating, processing music, putting a show together, what have you.

And it was great to just stop and kind of reset and, you know, and I also, at that point, because I moved my records to Japan, I had a massive cull of vinyl because I just. No way. It was bloody expensive anyway, but there was no way I could afford to send it all over there. So it was great.

I had massive car and I just started listening to records again and I realized how completely fascinated I was with drummers and drum tracks. And, you know, from that kind of.

From, I think possibly, you know, realizing that, you know, Steely Dan, who I enormously admired, would, you know, spend hours and hours in the studio until they got the right drum track.

Adam: 01:02:37

Yeah.

Patrick: 01:02:38

You know, if they. Because they had the luxury of doing that. And of course, Bernard Purdy was one of their.

Was possibly their number one go to drummer and what have you. So I've been really studying drummers and we started to do this project called the Elliptics with.

With a couple of guys or I did with a couple of guys. And one of the things we were very concerned with was. Was getting great drum tracks.

So we managed to somehow get in touch with Bernard Purdy and he was doing a something for Red Bull in Germany. So he was going to be in Germany and he had some time so we said, can we, you know, could you come and record for us?

We sent him the track and he said yes, but it was just a brilliant day because it was like, you know, picking Bernard Purdy up from his hotel room and taking him to the studio and then just nattering with him and him doing the track, which he did brilliantly, of course. And then, you know, we. After we finished the session, we went out with him.

I think there was some club event happening with a guy that I vaguely knew and what have you. And we went down there. It was in the middle of summer. We sat outside and had a few drinks and he told stories to us all night.

Which is, of course, is. Is when it's Bernard Purdy. I don't know if you know about Bernard Purdy stories, but, you know.

Yeah, there are various things that are a little bit contentious, like the Beatles, about whether he played on the Beatles records or not. But it's just really interesting to hear Bernard's perspective on all of that.

And, you know, this is a guy who's one of the architects and funk drumming, you know.

Adam: 01:04:05

Yeah, you know, he must have been around a lot.

Patrick: 01:04:07

So him and Clyde Stubblefield. Without him and Clyde, it doesn't happen, do you know? I mean, in a way, I mean, I don't know. That's a bit of a kind of.

You got to do broad brush strokes with these things. There are loads of other drummers that you could mention. But, yeah, so he's incredibly important and then just, you know, played on.

Played on everybody's records, you know, it's just. Just crazy. So, yeah, it was. It was. It was amazing to. To work with him, you know.

Adam: 01:04:29

So how else were you spending your time in Japan then?

Patrick: 01:04:33

Going swimming, which is what I do every day anyway. Going swimming. And. Yeah, listen, I was listening a lot. It was brilliant. I had my records set up in. In this kind of really nice space.

I was, you know, I just did a lot. I did a lot of listening. It wasn't.

Adam: 01:04:50

Were you doing any more compilations at that point?

Patrick: 01:04:53

I've done a few over the years.

I mean, yeah, I think by that time I was kind of a little bit out of the loop because most of the labels that I worked with, I did, at the end of my time in Japan, produce a jazz record in.

In Tokyo with a guy called Masa who'd been involved with a band called Sleepwalker, and it was his, and he was a bit of a crazy character and I had to put a whole band together for that and it was and it was, yeah, a bit of a mad project, but it was, again, it was, you know, one of those great experiences that you wouldn't, you know, you wouldn't say. We're never going to say no to it. It was. It was really good for me. But I don't think it was a great record. I can't pretend it was.

Adam: 01:05:32

What was that called? Because that might be the one I was thinking.

Patrick: 01:05:34

No, that's just. That's called Massive Sextet. It's like. It came. It's called Deep Cover because all of the. It was put together by the Kyoto Jazz Massif guys.

They had this idea, they wanted to do an album with him where various DJs from around the world chose cover versions for him to do because he wasn't a prolific writer himself.

So then I had the kind of task of taking all of these tunes, some of which I'd chosen myself, but others that other people had chosen, and trying to find a way of doing them which was appropriate and could work within. I don't know. Yeah, it was. It was quite a mad project, you know.

Adam: 01:06:10

Yeah. So I think what I'd done is. I think I'd got the two projects conflated and amalgamated them. Yeah, somehow. How was your. Were you in Tokyo?

Patrick: 01:06:19

No, I was living in Okinawa, which is a subtropical island, which is actually two and a half hours away from mainland Japan, which is.

Adam: 01:06:26

What was that like in terms of popular culture then, in sort of Western culture and jazz?

Patrick: 01:06:30

Well, you know, Okinawa is a backwater, so there's nothing really going on there. I mean, there was a few people. I mean, I did a kind of. A couple of DJ slots there in the whole couple of years I was living there.

But obviously Japan is a different ball game altogether. Mainland Japan, I mean, it has the most sophisticated and comprehensive music culture of anywhere, you know?

Adam: 01:06:50

Yeah.

Patrick: 01:06:51

Because of that otaku thing, you know, otaku being roughly translated as trainspotter. You can go to Japan and you will find that there is someone who knows more about an artist than they do themselves. You know, kind of thing.

I remember the break, the great English singer songwriter Linda Lewis, telling me a story about when she was in Japan and she met a kind of like a Linda Lewis otaku who was showing her photographs of herself that she'd never seen before. You know, it's like. It's crazy, the level they'll go to, you know, And. Yeah, I mean, it's like an amazing culture. You know, when you go to.

To go record shopping in Tokyo and you suddenly Realize, oh, this is where the world's vinyl came, you know, because they have, you know, buyers going out to America, to Europe, to wherever there might be anything that I think is worth reselling. They'll, they'll. They'll leave no stone unturned, which was something that we did back at Reckless Records.

When I, When I kind of came to manage that shop, that was one of the things, because Reckless had a shop in San Francisco. And I realized that we had this. That there was a kind of like, as much as we wanted to sell some hot, rare titles, there was a.

You know, we were very much dependent on what people would sell us.

And so, you know, sometimes you'd really despair because you say there's nothing to go on the wall because you wanted to have these great records on behind the, behind the counter that people go, oh, wow, what's that? How much is that? Oh, I'm not paying that, you know, so you wanted to have those kind of records. So we had a shop in San Francisco.

They opened a shop in San Francisco, Charles, the guy that was running Reckless. So I said, look, this makes total sense.

Let's send a buyer out to San Francisco and let's get the San Francisco shop to kind of weed out certain records that will sell for a lot more in the UK than they will over there. And so I had a mate called Simon, who was actually an old pal of mine from Ipswich, who I'd.

One of the few people who I'd managed to get a job for at Reckless as I kind of built my team around me. And Simon was kind of pretty down with it and learned an awful lot. So he went out to San Francisco to be a buyer.

So not only did he, you know, was able to siphon off stuff that was coming into the Reckless Records branch there, he just literally went all through the Bay Area. And at this time, you know, like, America just didn't want its old vinyl. You know, this was. Everything was like 50 cents or a dollar.

And we're not talking about. We're talking about like things like, you know, Impulse Records and, you know, great, yeah, great jazz labels, you know, all the stuff.

It was just like some shops, they just didn't. That was every. Anything like that. 50 cents a dollar, just what. They just put it out there like that. So it was, it was, it was bonkers.

So we would have these boxes of records come, come sent over with a shipment would arrive. And it was.

Obviously was incredible for me because I was able to, you know, really help me build my collection And I found so much stuff that Simon and what have you.

And then later on, Reckless opened a branch in Chicago and we sent another guy out there called a friend of mine called Nick, who was much more of a soul head. And it was very.

That was really interesting because he was going out finding records in Chicago, but he actually did something which I don't think any record buyers, because by that time you've got a lot of uk, you know, because of the rare groove thing, because of this kind of massive collector's market here. There's a lot of people are going out to the States to buy records, you know, and, you know, you've got the Japanese buyers out there as well.

So, you know, it's like by this time you're getting a bit more competition. I think when Simon was doing it initially for Reckless in that, in the Bay Area, it was kind of virgin territory.

Like nobody had really come through it.

But Nick had the idea that he would, you know, he would just take the plunge and go to the south side, to the, you know, to the black areas of Chicago. And he had the idea, which was very clever. He went into the kind of mom and pop stores, the kind of corner shops and said, have you got any vinyl?

Because by this time, you know, like, they, they. And they literally said, yeah, I've got some in a locker in the back.

Because they weren't even selling vinyl records any, any by that time because, you know, America moved on to CDs, these things were redundant. So, you know, Nick found for us, for instance, he found in Chicago because it was the. Where the label was from.

He found us like in mom and pop stores. Like literally 50, 100 Leroy Hudson sealed albums.

Like these were like going for a lot of, I mean, going for a lot of money on, on the, on the UK scene at the time, you know. So, yeah, it's crazy.

And we, you know, there were, there were some other titles that we managed to find in, in kind of in bulk as well from, you know, like a few private press things and what have you. So it was great getting records over from the, from the States.

But, you know, I, I always think that as much as there's been collectors here and there's been specialist shops here that have been good and, you know, I, myself and Giles, to an extent, we all bought a lot of records from what we call the bag mix, these kind of like individual shady characters who would turn up at your gig or often more in my case, in the, in the record shop and say, you know, with this bag. I would start pulling out these records and then they wouldn't tell you the price for a long time.

They'd make sure you really wanted it first before anyway, that that was our culture. But no way did we get anywhere close to the level that they were doing it in Japan, you know.

And I think in Japan they'd always had this culture of the kind of jazz collectors anyway, which had been going on for quite a while. So, you know, there were these very much, you know, the specialist jazz shops in Japan, which was just amazing because they'd have these pristine.

Because in Japan they want the Mint article, they don't want a battered cover. They want it to be as perfect as possible. And you just have these thinner, these jazz up. She said, oh, my God, it was crazy, the selection they had.

And also, like, when I was going out to Japan, I was. I went to Japan DJing a lot in the 90s, mainly throughout the 90s. And I had a very good friend called James Viner, who was a.

Actually a customer of mine in Reckless.

He was training as a lawyer at the time and he went out to Japan to become a lawyer, strangely enough, for a Japanese law firm, which is kind of unheard of, but they were hiring an English lawyer to work for, for them.

But he very quickly gave up law and just got into DJing because this was the time when UFO, United Future Organization were virtually like pop stars in Japan. You know, they had like. There was a huge scene there at that time in the wake of the kind of old acid jazz thing. And yeah, so he.

And he was living out there and he got to know Japan really well in Tokyo really well as a record buyer. So I go record by with James and you go to these kind of really nondescript areas of Tokyo where you.

There weren't any, you know, just like really pedestrian, normal. It wasn't trendy when, you know, it wasn't anything particular.

And you'd go up some stairs and there'd be a row of doors, like, you know, these kind of same metal doors with. And these were just like spaces that. Where there were businesses or whatever.

And there'd be like a little business card just on the door, which would be all in Japanese, no hint that what it was.

Open the door and there'd be some old guy in there with an amazing sound system with these huge JBL speakers or whatever, and a room full of jazz records, you know. So it was just crazy. It was crazy. And you know, and.

And it was really interesting because in those days as well There was loads of stuff that they just didn't want. They didn't want. I mean, it's funny because recently it's a lot of it's been reissued. But they didn't want domestic jazz.

So all the Japanese J jazz records that were being made were really, really cheap, you know, they were like. They were really, you know, they didn't want those.

They wanted these kind of original blue notes and beyond, you know, really esoteric American records and they didn't, you know.

And also there was like, there was some records that Herbie Hancock made that only came out in Japan, but you'd find them for 100 or 200 yen for about a pound. You know, I thought, you know, and every time I went out there I was thinking I should just buy more copies of this.

But at that time you just thought, oh well, come back next time. You know, I wish I just bought stashes of them because they were going for big money over here. So, yeah, it was, it was, it was, it was.

Japan was always crazy like that.

Adam: 01:14:52

So what was it like coming back to England and like, how easy or hard was it to reintegrate into the scene in London?

Patrick: 01:15:00

Well, it was just. For me, it was just. What was so good was like I'd really cleansed my palate in terms of the way that I heard music.

And I felt I had a new passion and a new belief and a new understanding of what I've been doing all this time.

You know, whereas before it had been a bit like, you know, being buffeted around by the winds of change and doing a bit of this and a bit of that and, you know, forever, like doing a radio show or forever trying to hustle for a club session or whatever and, you know, different. And I've done a lot of really different things.

I've been so blessed in the fact that I. I'd had these opportunities to play, you know, for different people and I'd done. I'd done drum and bass things. Do you know what I mean? I even played for. There was a night called Movement which happened at Bar Rumba on a Thursday.

And I think they did one of these kind of like big Cream Fields events, you know, one of these kind of like big dance all dayers with multi stadiums. They hosted one a drum and bass arena. And for some bizarre reason they decided to. To put me on last.

So I did the kind of like closing set in front of, I don't know, quite a few thousand people with, you know, like, with MC Conrad and, you know, two mcs in front of me and what have you, you know, which was kind of like mad, you know, those kind of gigs. Like what? You know, it's like, have. Pinch yourself. What am I doing here? This is crazy. So I've done all. I've done all these. I've been able.

I've been blessed to do many, you know, many other. Many other types of things as well as being a kind of nominally a jazz dj or have you.

But when I came back from Japan, I just felt like now I really understood what I was about musically in a way that I hadn't really done before. I just felt like a pro. It gave me this, you know, having. Just getting off that treadmill and get. And stopping doing a weekly radio show.

Just let everything settle, you know, and when the dust settles, you kind of really. You kind of know where you are a bit more as well. Suppose so, yeah, it was. It was. It was. It was funny.

And I came back and I wasn't, you know, because I. My first marriage had broken up and I wasn't, you know, I wasn't.

And I was lucky enough to have a bit of money, so I wasn't really looking to do too much other than lick my wounds when I came back and just really kind of feel my way into it. And then Gordon Mac, who'd been the boss at Kiss FM in its original incarnation, started a new station called My Soul.

And I hadn't done radio for a while and he kind of said, tempted me, you know, he knew I was back, he knew I was around and he said, come to a show for us. And he and Ross Allen, who's a really good mate of mine, who's, I think, one of the great unsung heroes of the music scene in.

In London because he's been involved in so many things, you know. But anyway, he was doing a show on a Sunday night and I said to.

I said to Gordon, look, I'll do a show for you if I could do it on Sunday after Ross, because I thought, well, I can make it a nice social thing. I'll get to see Ross every week, you know. So that's what happened. And I got back into doing radio, firstly as a weekly thing for my soul.

And then, you know, my soul was taking a certain direction and it was a bit, I don't know, I hate using these kind of slightly damning expressions, but I thought it was all a bit dad house. So I, you know, I was happy doing the show and I was really enjoying it, really, really enjoying doing it was really fresh for me again.

It was like, you know, I was kind of coming back at it and I was really, you know, I was just getting a real buzz out of doing a show which I, which maybe certainly towards my lap, my, My final days on Kiss wasn't really the case because I was such, I was such a kind of like, I didn't really feel like I belonged or I fitted in with what KISS was becoming because it was, by that time it was becoming more and more commercial, you know, and I was like, you know, I don't know how I survived as this weird specialist dj, but I just didn't, you know, because I was very aware that I was doing a show for them. I was kind of trying to lean maybe into an area which I wasn't that comfortable with, you know.

But, you know, when I came back on my side, it was like, no, I'm just gonna play what I want to, you know, and it was, it was really refreshing.

But then, funnily enough, around the time I met my second wife, or my wife to be at the time, she was involved with nts, which to me was just like, wow, this is a whole different ball game as a radio station.

And I knew one of the guys who was the founder of, one of the founders of NTS anyway, Sean, who I'd known from, he was working in record shops from back in the day. So it seemed like a natural fit to do, to do a show for nts. And I've been doing a monthly show for them ever since.

And now with my situation being as it is, I find it probably hard to do a weekly show because I've kind of got my hands full. But I love being on nts.

It's a great community, it's a great station, it's got a great reach and it's got, you know, it's got a very different kind of listenership to a station like My Soul.

Adam: 01:19:59

So when you, when you said about it being so different, is it, is, is that the main thing, the listenership, or is it something about how they operate?

Patrick: 01:20:07

I, I think it's about how they operate and the kind of, the kind of in it, you know, because it's like, it for me.

I mean, you know, I'm of an older generation, but they represent a younger generation who've come through with a very different attitude in terms of their natural eclecticism. And it was, you know, what I thought was so cool about NTS was I. It, like, it became like this kind of, I don't know, how to describe it?

This filter where everything came out hip at the other end. So you know, if they did it, if they did a heavy metal show, it would sound hip. Do you know what I mean?

It's like they find a way of, you know, somehow if it went through the NTS filter it would be like, because it would probably be done by somebody who was approaching heavy metal from a totally different perspective than the fans who'd been involved with that music in the 70s and 80s or whatever. So. So yeah, I love that and I love the kind of, you know, that you would, that I could, that I would.

Sometimes I would hear shows on NTS and I'd be like really unexpected things and really creative and different approach to, to radio. So yeah, it just seemed like a really good, good way of, of kind of reaching a new and younger and different audience for what I was doing, you know.

Adam: 01:21:22

Yeah. So you mentioned your situation as well there.

Patrick: 01:21:24

Yes.

Adam: 01:21:25

So single parent to two boys. I don't think we've had anyone on the show who's a single parent before or it's not come up as a conversation.

But what we have talked about is the support that you get from partners when you've got kids and things like that.

So how much has that impacted you as a DJ and, and are you able to kind of get out and do the gigs that you want or is that, you know, how do you manage it?

Patrick: 01:21:56

Well, I mean, okay, you know, I'm, I've become, because the way things, the way that everything worked out, I've become a five day a week single dad to twin boys who are going to be 10 in August. So that's a pretty full on job. And I've been doing, I've been, I've been doing it for a couple of years now and I absolutely love it.

And because I, you know, I'm going to kind of get into the depths of my marital scenarios but basically with my first marriage she lived with me and my daughter was born whilst we were based in London and then we moved to her home island of Okinawa and when that broke up I realized that I had the option of staying in Okinawa and kind of probably being quite miserable, but actually being close to my daughter who's now 21 and at uni and university and what have you, or I could come back to the UK and probably nourish my soul and get back into music again.

And it was probably quite selfish of me in a way, but it was a huge wrench to do it, but I just couldn't imagine how life was going to feel living in Okinawa as a kind of, you know, as a part time dad who saw my daughter at weekends and what have you. I just, I didn't have any support there, I didn't have a community there. It was going to be really tough.

So I came back and so when my second marriage broke up, I was so hoping that I would end up as being the primary carer and because in a way I had been just as the way it worked out. I don't have to get into the nitty gritty of it, but. So I'm absolutely made up that I am a 5 day a week primary carer.

I take the boys to school, I make them their pack lunches, I cook for them, I look after them, I put them to bed, blah blah, blah, blah blah. I do all the stuff and then I have weekends when I can dj. And it is a bit like jumping between parallel lives really. Yeah, you know, but.

And I can't go out during the week, which is, you know, and I can't take bookings during the week and I can't go and check anything during the week and you know, and it feels like one way or the other thing, so many things have conspired against me being able to be involved in like for instance, I move, you know, because with my second marriage I moved out of London for seven years basically, basically and lived in the countryside.

That was the time when so much was going on in London in terms of the kind of new jazz generations that came through, the kind of, you know, the Kokoroko Esser Collective, kind of all of that whole wave of things that was happening and I was out of town and I wasn't able to check any of those things and I wasn't able to go to the new empowering church or wherever was putting on mad nights with, with a lot of those things happening. So yeah, it's kind of been a bit, a bit mad but, but I'm so. Yeah, I just feel incredibly blessed really.

You know, I've got my kids with me five days a week and then ideally I go out and DJ every weekend. Doesn't quite work out like that.

But if, if I don't dj, I'm very happy to just do not so much and recharge my batteries and you know, I had no idea that I would still be doing this at the age I am now. It was like that was inconceivable for me decades ago. You know, Even in my 30s it was like, this is surely this is going to come to an end soon.

So the fact that there's still gigs for me to do and you know, that people want to book me and that I'm still doing things with Giles. We do a. We do a kind of. It's not a reunion. I wouldn't call it a Dingles reunion. We call it Another Sunday afternoon at Dingles. If it was a reunion.

Even though there are people that. From the old days who are coming. If it was a reunion, it would be incredibly dull. It isn't. It's about.

It's about new people coming through and there are, you know, generations who are too young to go to the original Dingles, you know, who are. Who are still kind of basically middle aged already anyway.

Adam: 01:25:57

Yeah.

Patrick: 01:25:57

And then there are much younger generations and I've got, you know, and I have, you know, a lot of my, my peers, kids come out to my gigs now as well, you know. And what's so great is that there just seems to be huge thirst for more organic, more meaningful music amongst those younger generations.

That's what they.

I think they latch onto when they come to my nights or a lot of other nights that are playing more of the kind of thing that I'm playing, whether it's jazz, Latin, Brazilian soul, disco boogie, but just that kind of realness of that music against, you know, whereas I think in a way I don't, you know, I wouldn't never say that dance music has lost its way because it, you know, because there are still great records that happening and I'm still very open to it and then, you know, but there isn't quite the level of excitement that there was. Like I said, you know, there was a time when there seemed to be like new genres seem to be coming along with kind of quite, quite a lot, you know.

And now we've got.

And it's amazing, you know, as much as I have kind of not a love hate relationship with house music because I love house music fundamentally in a lot of ways.

But the kind of hegemony of four on the floor is incredible, you know, in the way that it just pervades everything, you know, you even hear, you know, if you watch a rock act at Glastonbury, you can guarantee that a lot of what they'll do will have a 4 on the floor and will be in that tempo region. You know. It's amazing how all pervasive that thing has become.

So as much as I love it, I feel like I always want to be a kind of some of the, you know, Some pushing against the flow of that, going in the other direction and being more aligned with, with funk, with broken beat, with Latin music, with other music that isn't quite so linear and isn't quite so boom, boom, boom all the time. Because as much as it's great, it just gets. It does.

It is a tad monotonous after a while, you know, I mean, having said that, you know, I love house music. I love, love hearing great house DJs. I've been influenced by a lot of them, you know, a lot of my DJ heroes.

Even if they weren't house music to begin with, they certainly became house music. People like Paul Trouble Anderson, who is one of my huge inspirations as a dj.

You know, he came from playing boogie, but he was very much seen as a house DJ as that kind of thing took off.

And he was mad because like he was doing like I think I told you around that time when we were doing Dingles, Kiss moved there Saturday night, which was called, originally called First Base, but when they moved it to Dingles, they called it second base. And he was the resident there on a Saturday night.

And it was so interesting because occasionally I would go and guest for him that which I love doing because it was like, it was a bit of a challenge to fit in with Trouble. And he was one of my heroes. And it was like where I first started to mix, you know.

And he was, he was so supportive and so encouraging and just so brilliant to have as a, you know, as a kind of, as a, you know, as a spar, as a kind of older brother just kind of, you know, being really there for you. I was, it was, it was priceless. It really was. So that was, that was always a real challenge.

But it was kind of interesting because at that time, so Trouble would do second base, which was a much kind of blacker crowd. And you know, it was like.

It was probably the house, the club where hip house was really big there, you know, when that sound was taken off because it would play a mixture, you know, you could play more up tempo hip hop there and you could play some of the more kind of maybe more. The more slightly more electronic end of boogie. You know, that really fitted in with the, with a lot of those things.

But, you know, Troublehead was just a master at it. He was just putting that sound together. But at the same time he would finish second bass and he'd go out and play it for a rave and he'd go and play.

And he'd go and play Sunrise or somewhere like that. Where he'd play a completely different type of set, you know, so capable of doing it. But even when.

But what was great about Trouble was because Trouble came from the boogie and he came from that kind of source even when he was playing to however many thousand people in a field, there was a feeling in it that was kind of a little bit. Which is why it was funny because a lot of my mates who were really into.

Who really just got went headlong into that whole scene and were going out to all of the raves and what have you, they all loved and rated Trouble above virtually any DJ that they heard at that time. You know, because of that thing, I think, you know, because he had that. Yeah, he just had a real magic to him.

Adam: 01:30:21

You know, I've been. Yeah, it's like I've been listening back to some of the sort of earlier night, early to mid-90s hardcore and happy Car and stuff.

And like there's still certain DJs in that that are just funky, funkier than others. And it's just kind of in people. It's like we were talking about it with the. With jazz and like how you skew. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just in people.

Patrick: 01:30:43

Yeah.

Adam: 01:30:46

What have you got coming up then?

Patrick: 01:30:48

Well, at the moment I'm really excited about a new Dilata album which, you know, Dilata is a whole big story about.

It started with Batuu and then me and Chris Frank went kind of to a more studio based affair and we've been working together in various ways but at the end of the day he's 80 of it, I'm 20% of it. It really in, in many ways, you know, I'm his kind of creative foil, kind of a R co producer and, and what have you. And you know, we made.

We've been making records since, well, since the mid-90s, what have you.

And you know, we did some things back then which were quite important and you know, I'm so grateful for some of the support we had, especially from some American DJs like the Body and Soul. People were always hugely supportive of what we were doing.

years ago in the year: 2000

You know, it's a very convoluted history and story in itself, but it somehow we've survived and mainly because of our friendship, because we're just great mates and, you know, and Dilata has been a kind of a mainstay and a crutch and a kind of conduit for us for all this time, you know. And, you know, there have been times when it looked like it wouldn't carry on, but one. One way or another, it has. But when we did the.

That album that we did front Songs from the Tin was very much about our kind of relationship with Brazilian music. It was about our homage to our. And our passion for. And our love of Brazilian music. We wanted to do a contemporary twist, but basically we would.

You know, we were saying thank you to all of this music that had inspired us. And then ever since then, we've kind of veered into other directions as well.

And, you know, it's become like, okay, well, brought in more kind of more of the African influence and more. And certain other kind of flavors. And there was. You know, the Broken Beat certainly influenced us.

And so every record that we've done since then, to me, has had its moments, but they've been, in a way, a little bit patchy. You know, they've been tracks that.

And, you know, and it's funny how the numbers don't lie, because you can go on Spotify and you look at, you know, you look at the number of hits on very. And you see, right, those are the tunes that really worked. And these ones, less so. Less so. You know, maybe not. They're not necessarily bad, but.

But also, in the context of the whole record, it was really difficult for us because, I mean, you know, it was. Delight was always very much about being a project. But when we did the first album, it was obvious what that project was.

It was, okay, it's a Brazilian record, or it's a British Brazilian record. Whereas ever since it's been like, well, what really is it?

You know, you've done a weird track with Jaleesa singing on it, and then you've got a track with Bubba Marvel singing on it, with Nina Miranda singing on it with, you know, and all these different guests and slight, you know, and kind of weird influences from here and there, all kind of wrapped up in something which generally people want to kind of thrust towards a category of music which actually loathe the idea of, which is world.

lf released our last album in: 2019

And we've been releasing a few things with other people as well, you know, just mainly digitally on bandcamp, not making a big thing about it, you know, some of it we've been involved in and producing, some of it we haven't and what have you, but it's kind of big. Building up a little stable and building up a little thing. But anyway, these. He started, you know, with the. Another bunch of demos and.

And I kind of was. At the beginning, I was a bit like, here we go, another D album, wildly eclectic, loads of different guests.

It's going to be patchy again, you know, it's going to be. They'll have its great moments, but it's going to be patchy. But. But it's funny because I think, you know, the last album that we did was.

It got to a certain level where I felt that Chris was much more confident of what he was doing in terms of arrangements, in terms of the musicians he was working with, in terms of the sound we were getting. In terms.

It was just kind of getting to a higher level and we were doing, you know, like when I say, you know, when you talk about that thing about trying to make records that were as good as these records that were made in the 70s with incredible session musicians in incredible studios and things like that, and you can't come anywhere close. But we'd found our way of kind of getting there, do you know what I mean?

With using the kind of tools of the modern age of being able to edit and digital in the digital domain and being able to record piecemeal, yet make it sound as though it was all coming in from the same kind of place, you know. So we found our way of kind of doing it in a way where we were getting more and more pleasing results.

But so when this set of demos came around, I was like, okay, here we go again. But then gradually it just started to become something. It just started to feel like this wasn't going to be just another Dalata record.

Firstly because Chris made the plunge and said, right, I'm going to sing on a couple of tracks.

And even though he doesn't sing completely on his own, there's both with other singers working with him, that was a major departure because he was writing a lot of the songs and he wanted to kind of, you know, or rather than do collabs with people where they come in and kind of write with him and it would be a bit like, where is this coming from? It was like, no, there's a bit more focus here.

And suddenly the whole thing came together and I was like, this is sounding like an album in a way that none of our stuff has really sounded like an album before in terms of it.

There's a homogeneity both in terms of sound and approach, but more importantly in terms of mood and emotion and, and those things, you know, you need to have that even. Especially.

Especially, I guess, if you're going to do a record where you are going to have different singers and what have you and it's not just going to be one thing. You've got to somehow have something thematically which holds it all together.

And I think we've done it and it was a revelation to me because we got towards the closing section, the. The closing, you know, we kind of got to the point where the tracks had really begun to take shape.

And at that point I thought, let me just try sequencing this record because this is something I'd always kind of been involved with from doing comps, from doing mixtapes, whatever. So I came up with a sequence for the record and it was a little bit incomplete, but it was suddenly.

Yeah, it really makes sense as a, as a journey as well. Not that anybody cares about albums in this days of buying, you know, just cherry picking tracks and what have you.

Which is why the way a lot of people buy music. I know, but having said that, you know, you're still got this. I mean, we're not doing this for money. We're not doing.

We're doing it because of the creative imperative.

We're doing it because we have to, because we want to, because we care and because, you know, it just feels good to put something out in this world which is, you know, coming from some, coming from where we're coming from. And in includes all these incredibly talented people that we've been associated with who, who can bring some, some of their magic to it.

So, yeah, it was. So this one has really come together. I'm really excited about it. What it achieves, I don't know, you know, remains to be seen. Yeah, but it's, it's.

I've certainly never. My dialogue with Chris has never been so good.

It's never been so clear and so focused and I've never, you know, and just from the early days of playing it, I mean I even, you know, I, you know, I've played it to all kinds of unlikely people who I didn't think would like it. And everybody's turned around and gone now. This is, this is something, you know, amazing. Yeah, well, it remains to be seen, but I'm optimistic.

But it's just amazing what it brings to my life, you know, as well, just in terms of having something to believe in is always good to have something to believe in, isn't it? You know. Yeah. You know.

Adam: 01:38:58

What about DJing wise then?

Patrick: 01:39:00

DJing wise?

Well, I mean a few years when I came back into, when I, when I came back to London, one of the, one of the things that really excited me as well was I got to start to do a residency, a place called House of St Barnabas, which is a private members club in Soho. And it had this room with a DJ setup that was literally like a living room. And it's an amazing place.

It's like this really historic building, you know, it's got this kind of crazy chapel where we did a few live things as well, put on live shows as part of the night. But I was just doing it on a bi monthly and it was just feeling really good and I, you know, it was great to do a gig where I just played all night.

I would start, it would be eight until one, I just play the whole session or seven until one or whatever.

And I've got to a stage where I kind of feel like I need to be able to do that just to get through all the different things that I want to play as well and to kind of, and just to, you know, it's always that weird thing when you're a guest DJ and you're coming on for two hours or whatever and you come on after something.

So you've got kind of follow on from that and then if you start again and build a vibe and then, you know, before you know what you're, you've, you've got finish, you know, and it's, it's like, you know, it's always kind of a bit difficult to do it.

For me anyway, I much rather, I'd rather play for a long time and I kind of a bit of training because like some of the gigs I was doing in Japan, particularly for Shuya's club, the room in Ship in Shibuya, you know, because that was a real late night one I'd start, you know, come on at half 11 and I'd try and get to the record of seeing how late in the morning, late on into the morning one could finish. I think I might still have the record. I think it was half past ten in the morning.

It was about five people left in the club but that's when I played the last. That's a long set. That's when I played my last record record you know.

So I love doing Houses and Barnabas and then that sadly closed down because it basically wasn't really working as a private members club and that's where they need to earn their money. So so I was bereft for a while.

And then Peter BBE who's been curating this amazing space in his fundamentally what is a record shop but has now become more of an event space as well because he's got a full on bar in there and he's got an amazing sound system in there. He said well come and do a Friday night for me and at bbe. So I've been doing that for.

For about a year now again bi monthly which I think just keeps it special enough so it doesn't. And you know so you all every time it comes around you feel quite excited by it and yeah it's. I feel really blessed to be doing things like that.

And there are you know the Dingles parties when they happen that are always really special. The last few years of course has also been we out here where we do the Sunday afternoon thing.

Sunday afternoon at Dingles in a tent for a longer session with guest DJs because Giles has been. Is very much involved in being Mr. Festival and and has to be everywhere has to be completely ubiquitous within that in that festival space.

He generally I get to close the session we out here and it's. And it's at Love Dancing which is Colleen Cosmo Murthy's curated space. If you like Ian Mackie the sound engineer who she.

Who's actually involved in the whole festival but he designs the sound for Love Dancing. It is superlative. The dude is a genius of sound. So it's just amazing. You're playing on this amazing system in a tent.

You know probably what I think is you know the best. The best thing that's ever happened in terms of it's such a great festival because it's so yeah so kind of curated along the lines that the.

Of the stuff that I love. So yeah it's. I feel incredibly blessed to do that and I'm still getting to do you know people ask me to do things here, there and everywhere.

And I'm, I'm just loving. I still love DJing. It's like, I didn't expect that I would, but. But I really do. I get massive buzz out of it.

And it's kind of funny because I see myself as a DJ who's. I'm not somebody, you know, like when you get to a. I've never quite got to that level where you're the name that can do no wrong, if you like.

Adam: 01:43:12

Yeah.

Patrick: 01:43:12

Do you know, I mean, it's like, you know, you can, when you're, when you're on that level, you can kind of like people want you to. Want to like whatever you're going to do.

And I, I've always come from the kind of, the more kind of business end djing where you, where you really have to embrace the idea that you're not an artist, you're an entertainer. And I, and I, you know, and I really feel I've benefited a lot from doing a lot of those kind of sessions which.

Because I kind of needed to, because they were like regular money things for me. Like.

So I did club clubs for KISS back in the day, you know, like there was, there was a club that we did called in in actually that happened in Mayfair, it was called Flipside. And it was on three different levels. I had like a top level with a jam session and a DJ and a bar.

Then it was the middle floor where I played and then there was the ground floor. I used to cut it.

My name for it was Traffic because, you know, made the main lot of people moving up and down the stairs all the time and, you know, playing and I've played a lot of clubs like that.

But when you, you know, and you know, really that you're not getting a chance to, to build a vibe, a lot of the time you're really having to work it, you know, it's hard work. You know, you got to get people to come in and stay for a little while and then some, you know, and then some.

Maybe, maybe it's a record you play or maybe it's just random, but suddenly your room half empties out and you've got to try and hold on to the people that are there and those kind of things.

So I love, I love the fact that I've done a lot of gigs like that because I feel that that, that kind of DJing where you do have to work and you have to think and you have to. And you know, you learn more as a DJ from crouch, from being crouched down in your DJ Box with a cold sweat going, what am I gonna do?

How am I gonna get it back? Or I'm losing it or whatever. You know, those, those experiences are really important. I think so, yeah.

So yeah, I feel as though I've come from, from that kind of, that space. So I never, I never as much as it's great and people, you know, I probably do get more license to do what I want to do these days.

And people always say to me, play what you want.

But then you get to a space and you get to the crowd and you look at it and you think, well if I really play what I want, I'll probably, it's probably not going to work that well. So I'm, you know, it's always, there's always an element of compromise, there's always an element of entertainment.

There's always an element of how you're going to bring people into what you do, you know, which is why, you know, like doing those kind of nights where I do that I do at BBE now when maybe I am a little bit blessed now because I can be a little bit more self indulgent and people are going to take it but you know, hopefully I've just got to that point now.

But it's kind of interesting because some of the things I can get away with now as a dj, I'm just like, it's like you can, I can play a full on jazz record in the middle, you know, after I've been playing broken and more kind of like up to, you know, so when I've been kind of like not because I'm never a banger. I hate, I hate the kind of lowest common denominator of just like let's play a record there, you know. I don't like that energy.

I always want the energy to kind of, to bubble and to kind of get to natural peaks rather than it be like let's, let's hit them with some, you know, some, some heavy dynamics and just bang it out. I hate all that much as I love some of that music. It's not where I'm coming from.

It's not my, where I come from musically doesn't work in, in that kind of way. It's not what the music's about. You've got to let the music be the thing that is the dynamic.

You've got to let the emotion of the, and the soulfulness and, and the harmonic greatness of the tune be the thing that lifts people. Not just the kind of sonics and the dynamics, you know.

So sometimes I'm playing, you know and I'm play, you know like in the middle of the night at bbe I'd play something like Nika's Dream by Horace Silver.

Kind of classic blue Note, you know, but in, in the right zone tempo wise, you know, but, but you know, but still a full on jazz record is a, you know, it's not, it's not got any kind of club sonics to it particularly and it, people will stay with it and it's like great. This is, this is, this is heaven for me, you know. I wish I could have been doing this 30 years ago.

This is what I was trying to do when, when people wanted me to play Wacky Wacky, you know, wawa funk, you know.

Adam: 01:47:27

And I'm sure that area though, there's, you know, there's so much value in it. I'm mindful that we're just coming up to 3 o' clock so we're just about to get ready for pick.

Patrick: 01:47:36

Yes indeed. Well, 10 past three, I'll have to be out here.

Adam: 01:47:39

Yeah, yeah. So I think if we wrap up.

Patrick: 01:47:42

Now, it's been brilliant. Thank you so much for this. I hope it's entertaining for people but.

Adam: 01:47:47

You know it's, I think there's load, there's loads to get out of it and I think there's a lot.

It's really interesting hearing about some, some scenes that just irrespective of how important they are, they've just not been covered on the last sort of what, 65 episodes or whatever.

Patrick: 01:48:02

Oh really? Yeah. Okay.

Adam: 01:48:04

Yeah, yeah.

Patrick: 01:48:05

So it's, I, I, my ambition is to actually get beyond listening to just the Greg Wilson one which I, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Adam: 01:48:11

But I, yeah, I mean there's plenty of different stuff to go at but, but yeah, we've not really covered anything around.

Patrick: 01:48:17

Yeah, well, I mean obviously you know, I'm pretty good person to talk about that kind of story as it goes from kind of, you know, I mean there was a lot of people that come before me, you know, the Paul Murphy's, the Colin Curtis's and Bob Joneses who were playing a lot of the same music before. But because the Dingles thing happened when it happened at the same time when house and dance music culture exploded.

It kind of began the story again in a way and I've been involved in that story kind of all the way through or I've been not maybe not as a complete and I've also had a slight distance from it. So I've been, you know, an observer of it as much as a participant, so. So I've seen it on that level. You know, that's just.

Yeah, this is what happened, and I've loved it.

Adam: 01:49:06

That's awesome. But, yeah, thanks ever so much for your time.

Patrick: 01:49:08

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Adam: 01:49:09

And hopefully speak to you soon.

Patrick: 01:49:11

Thank you, Adam.