120 Minutes w/ Julian “Smokey Joe” Perrin ~ 7-11pm 13.07.24 #live (UK) Monthly with Paul Housden. Our special guest this month playing four hours of music from his collection is Julian “Smokey Joe” Perrin… Tune in from 7-11pm (UK).
The following are excerpts from an interview that never happened:
Was it difficult starting out as a DJ..?
No, not in the way you’re thinking. I didn’t want to be a DJ, I wanted to be a sound engineer and that was my job. They told me I had to “do” the music for the after-show parties. I had a pocket money record collection made up of mostly reggae, soul & jazz-funk. Electro had only just become a thing. I knew I couldn’t play much of what I had in my collection so my boss showed me where to find what I assumed I needed: 3 reels of tape marked PRESS PARTY made up of pop hits past & present. Surefire winner..? Not really. Everyone had heard those tapes many times before and were going through the motions and I knew it could be so much better. I found that I COULD make people dance to some reggae & soul. Suddenly I’d found a challenge and I was hooked.
So it all took off after that..?
Absolutely not. That was 1984 and I didn’t get booked to play anywhere other than those theatre parties until summer 1987. I got paid £20 and it felt like a rite of passage. What you do from that point forward can play a huge part in whether you’re gonna be good at it or not, whether or not you have what it takes to be popular or successful; do you have the hunger..? At this point I must stress that I didn’t know this at the time but I’m still at it to this day so I must have had that hunger and I still do.
And what’s it like these days..?
Well, I still play reggae, soul & jazz-funk amongst everything else, and we all now know the influence Electro had on dance music so I feel that I came from the right beginnings. I’ve progressed through the decades, embraced new genres and new ideas without completely moving away from the humble beginnings. I love the re-edits and the mash-ups; being able to serve up familiar beats & melodies slightly differently to others. For a time I was a strictly Jungle Drum’n’Bass guy, one tempo all night long, dubplate specials all the way but coming off the success of that time when I was working all over Europe as well as at home served me in good stead and taught me to embrace and enjoy every single set I play and I still do to this day. #staysafe #staytuned #musicislove
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