Intro – Welcome to the second part of ‘Living with Vinyl’. Dan Lively from South London now residing East shall us through his journey. Lively has opted for a written Q&A style interview, as this is a man that let’s his music do the talking. He started buying vinyl in 1994, so you could say he is a connoisseur of Hardcore, Jungle, House/Garage and then later Techno. It’s basically in his blood now. Below we hear how this relationship between his life and vinyl has developed over 20 years. It must be said that this is only half his collection, either way it’s a heavy-weight collection of classics. A musical archive of London history that made shaped culture forever. Now let us hear what the man has to say.

Dan Lively – Soundcloud
Dan Lively – Facebook
Dan Lively – Twitter
Dan Lively record label – Othertones

First memory of vinyl?

My first memories of buying vinyl were in 1994. I was very young but was hanging around with an older crowd on the estate I was from, this is how I got into listening to pirate radio. Usually back at someone’s house and hearing lots of different tapes. In these early periods I was listening to Hardcore and Jungle music and I particularly remember hearing the likes of Fabio & Grooverider on World Dance tapes back then. I was always listening to one of the many pirate stations like Don, Flex, Girls, Freek, Ice, Dream and Kool FM. One of the friends in my circle was around 5 years older than me and knew a bit about DJ’ing and record shops. This is when we started hitting the shops and I just loved it. Every weekend we would go to various shops like Slammin Vinyl in Kingston, Section 5 in Chelsea, Ruff Trax in Wimbledon and there was a record shop in the basement of a clothes shop on Oxford street called Mash. We would get a travelcard and just hit the shops all day then come back to either mine or a friends and mix all night and weekend.

My Dads friend was a wedding DJ so he bought me some very oldskool belt drive turntables off of him which had a mixer all built into one unit haha! I remember looking at them and thinking “where the hell is the cross fader, these don’t look like the ones in the record shop?”. I was very lucky to have parents who would let me get away with tumping tracks out of the flat constantly without getting into trouble!. My mum had a little collection of disco at home and she liked House music, her friends would visit and I remember seeing the Girls FM stickers on the back windows of their cars. I still have a few records I bought for her in the House sections of the shops I went to.

First record?

One of the first records I bought was on a label called Homegrown Records ‘Volume 1’ by Smith & Brown. I got this from Slammin in Kingston and still have it now. I sold so many of my records when I was younger because I got bored of them and wanted newer music. My advice would be DON’T ever do that as I regretted it massively and find myself still to this day re-buying stuff I used to have.

What is your fascination and relationship with vinyl?

Buying records has always been special to me and always will. The memories that flood back when I’m going through my collection are priceless. All the good times and parties played over the years and remembering the shops, the purchases and what was going on in that period of your life. I just think it’s more fun to go to a shop and listen properly. I get really frustrated with trying to listen to snippets and shopping on the internet and can easily switch off. I much prefer my trip into the shops and having a proper dig and building a relationship with the staff. It’s the social aspect I love too, me and the boys will meet up have a few beers and enjoy a shop. You’re always bumping into other friends that are collectors and discuss the latest treasures you’ve found that day. As far as digital and CD go, I don’t have anything against that at all and I think it’s very tiresome reading some of the debates that go on about this subject. I buy all formats myself but most of the time I just prefer to have a physical copy and enjoy playing a record more in general at the end of the day. It’s always more challenging but I like that.

Records you remember through different genres. Hardcore> Jungle> House> Garage> Rap

Living in London all my life has exposed me to a variety of different genres and sounds. We’ve been a city that has always been forward thinking and open minded to music of all styles. It’s always so hard to narrow it down because there are so many favourites across the board but here are some tracks/albums that are special to me.

Hardcore/Jungle

Hardcore/Jungle it would be a track called ‘Why’ by D-Livin. This is one I heard a lot coming up but I actually got this record a lot later on because I never knew the name of it or found it back then. I was lucky to track down a copy from a friend that wasn’t ridiculously priced as it seems to be these days.

House music

House music, Mood II Swing’s ‘Do It Your Way’ is one that always stands out for me, a groove of the highest quality that could roll for hours. I’m a big fan of them and remember hearing this many times on the radio, especially the B side ‘All Night Long’ on Flex FM, that was a perfect summer Sunday record.

Garage

Garage, ‘Allnighter’ by 24 Hour Experience. Grant Nelson made some great records in the 90’s plus he always added that London sprinkle to his tracks. I was so happy when I got this in Uptown Records after hearing it out. One that will always get the floor moving and I actually have two copies 🙂

Rap

Rap music, an album I play regularly to this day is ‘Only Built 4 Cuban Linx’ by Raekwon feat Ghostface. Top to bottom classic and some of the RZA’s finest work I’d say. Two of the finest rappers to ever do it in my opinion, the way they unfold the stories in their rhymes are just ridiculously good and very smart. Rawness at its best.

Memories of working in and visiting record stores?

After discovering and shopping at Uptown Records with friends for a little while I decided to pluck up the courage and ask if I could do my work experience there when I was 15. These shops could be a bit daunting back then as a kid but I thought fuck it, I really don’t want to do something I didn’t like for 2 weeks and would rather be behind the counter having a mix and selling wax. Back then Huckleberry Finn was someone I always heard on the radio and he worked there, so I asked him and the boss Izzy came out and had a chat with me and said no problem “Don’t be fucking late” and that was that. I did my two weeks there and had such a laugh, it wasn’t work at all and thought I’d rather do this than anything else as a job and luckily, a couple of years later they called me up and offered me a full time role. I worked there for five years and learned so much about the many genres on the racks and the different people that came in. Soho was such a good spot to be in and we had a great team over the years including Izzy, Huck, Jason, Harj, Spencer, Alex, Paul, Dave, Cameo, J Da Flex, Tony, Henny, Ronnie and Woody.. (sure there is more I’ve missed) but they were amazing times for sure.

After working at Uptown, Jason who I worked with there started Mixing Records which was formerly Big Apple Records in Croydon. So I thought it was time for a change, we had a good few years down there too and I made some great friends including Hark who I would try and get to spend all of his money during his lunch breaks. Unfortunately the shop ended up closing down as digital DJ’ing was starting to get more popular and we started noticing a lot of customers turning their back on buying records. This made it a real tough time for a lot of shops that were around then.

Favourite labels?

A lot of 90’s releases on Strictly Rhythm and Nervous Records were faves of mine. Perlon is another label that has been around since the nineties but has still managed to put out good music consistently to this day. This is something a lot of labels fail to do and cannot stand the test of time. Trelik is another firm favourite of mine, some really timeless music in their catalog and oh, there is some new label called OTHERTONES that is pretty decent too 🙂

Your opinions on the future of vinyl?

I think it’s definitely looking good, there are a huge amount of new labels putting their music on wax but that doesn’t necessarily mean all these labels are selling many units, it’s still not easy and it’s something you have to be prepared to invest in for sure. I do believe there are a lot of people who are new to buying records and actually prefer it to buying downloads. The record shops still seem to be buzzing at the weekends when I do my rounds which is great to see and the pressing plants are super swamped at the moment. Myself and my label partner Dan Farserelli set up OTHERTONES in 2013 and I couldn’t of ever imagined setting it up and not pressing records. To me it just wouldn’t of felt right at all and it’s something I’ve wanted to do for many many years. The feeling you get when you have a finished copy in your hands on your own label is still exciting to me.

LINKS:
Dan Lively – Soundcloud
Dan Lively – Facebook
Dan Lively – Twitter
Dan Lively record label – Othertones