Simon Jay
I have been Dj'ing for the past 17 years. I started at the tender age of 13 (you can work out the rest). A friend of mine who was working as a DJ in the Blackpool area used to take me out with her as a 'roadie', watching her work and seeing the reaction from the crowd, I soon caught the bug.
My first real 'Gig' was in a local club, then called 'The George Club', I was earning the sumly amount of £20 per night. I was there for more than 5 years working 6 nights a week, as well as going to school. Unfortunately the Club closed due to the manager murdering his wife (As good an excuse as any I suppose). Whilst working here I got to meet and work with some well known people, some of which are now regularly appearing on T.V.
I then moved on to another local club, 'The No4 Squash Club'. This was only a little place but oh what fun. I spent another 5 years here, overlapping the other club by 2 years. There are many tales I could tell about this place, but there isn't enough web space on my server :) Again unfortunately the club closed. This time due to the owners feeling the pinch of ever rising beer prices and the prospect of a new business venture into function organisation, so they sold it.
I then decided to give DJ'ing up for a few months and I went and started work as a Site Supervisor at a local school. During my time here I started DJ'ing at the Wainwright Club. After a couple of weeks here I started working behind the bar as well. The manager at the time decided that the place needed a re-vamp, and so we started a £22,000 makeover. We did everything ourselves apart from taking a main wall down and inserting an RSJ. We built a 24ft bar, fitted a suspended ceiling, built all new bench seating and redecorated. Just to give you some scale, the downstairs room was licensed for 200 hundred people, and the upstairs room was licensed for 240 people. We did both rooms. After about 18 months I became the assistant manager. I then decided that upstairs room just wasn't right, so we did another smaller renovation. This took about 6 weeks, just after that the manager left and I took over. I managed to take the club from £6,000 in the red to £6,000 in the black in just 6 months, after that I left due to the bureaucracy of the conglomerate who owned the place.
One year later I landed 2 residencies. One at Flashmans and one at a new local nightclub. I'm not going to mention the name, it's known locally as 'Club Grot' and it describes it to a tee and has now closed. Flashmans on the other hand was the best move I made. We had a friendly clientele and the age group was across the scale. Unfortunately Flashmans changed hands, and is now under the ownership of ITP Leisure and is now Taboo. I have now moved next door to The Station on Friday and Saturday nights.
I am currently remixing tracks for clubs, you can hear some of these on the remixes page. They are currently being played all over Europe, and luckily I had a club hit with my bootleg version of 'I Just Wanna Dance' in Prague. Thanks to the DJ's out there who supported it.
That brings you up to date. I am very happy with my partner James and our studio. Thanks for reading and hopefully we'll meet in The Station. Just come up and say Hi, I don't bite!!!
Ps. Don't forget to check out my chart and remixes page, links at the top of the page.
