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scott bond, story

Started by gatecrasher, 09/03/05, 14:38

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The name is Bond, Scott Bond, license to DJ, spin records and thrill crowds. Surely he canÂ't be serious with a name like that? Quite the contrary, heÂ's deadly serious, so much so that the company which manages his DJing affairs – Serious Artists Management – is also the same company which manages Radio 1 DJ Judge Jules and a stable of other DJ superstars including John Kelly, Sonique, Norman Jay and Luke Neville. But Bond is not just simply a DJ, he has another secret line to his career in that he is also resident DJ and co-promoter of the Sheffield based superclub GATECRASHER. He has also written his own material as an artist under the pseudonym of Q:Dos with a string of remixes to his credit including Shimmon & WolfsonÂ's Top 40 hit Â"SundanceÂ" for React and KarmasutraÂ's Â"Storm In My SoulÂ" , all of this and he is not a day over 25!

ScottÂ's DJing career and dalliance with the disco decks first began back in 1989 in and around BirminghamÂ's very colourful night life with his first gig at the legendary Hummingbird club. As Scott recalls, Â"playing the Hummingbird was a baptism of fire, it was a case of being thrown in at the deep end and just getting on with it. If the crowd didnÂ't like what you were playing they would throw glass at you, if you were lucky a bottle, they tended to bounce rather than break! I managed to stay there in one piece and figure that if I could deal with this then I could deal with anything.Â" After ScottÂ's apprenticeship at the Humming bird he began to branch out playing at various one-off parties for friends around the city which were not exactly legitimate.

By now the young Bond had begun to make a name for himself and it was not long before Karl and Barney – promoters of the C.R.E.A.M. all-nighters in Birmingham had begun to notice the talents of this rising star. Always sure to back a winner Karl and Barney gave his first residency at their all-night parties which had become renowned for their mad-cap antics.

Around 1992 Scott met up with Simon Raine, the then manger of a club called Bakers. Raine had heard much about this talented young DJ who was making a name for himself on the Birmingham club scene. An ambitious individual, Raine had begun building the basis for a new breed of dance club at Bakers, Scott was the missing piece of that jigsaw.

That night after many double brandies, Simon and Scott struck a deal, albeit on the back of a beer mat, Scott agreed to become the new resident DJ at Bakers with Simon promoting the new night call Â"Absolutely RidiculousÂ". Little did Raine and Bond know at the time, that five years later on they would both be running one of the biggest superclubs in the country.

By now Scott had further plans deciding to embark upon a recording career making his own records and why not? Many dance music records at the time were being churned out of the bedroom and it had spawned a new dimension to club culture in that dance music was being created both in the studio and in the bedroom. Scott released his first record Â"Dap Do DahÂ" on independent dance label Global Grooves which received rave reviews and respectable Â'ClubÂ' and Â'Buzz Â' chart placing.

Later that year he set up his own label with a rather apt title of Â"ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS RECORDINGSÂ". Recording under the guise of The Scott Bond project, he released two records Â"While your feet are stompingÂ" which featured on FantaziaÂ's very first House Collection album mixed by Boy George – and the follow up, Â"The UndergroundÂ", both of which were critically acclaimed and supported by none other than the dance father himself Pete Tong.

By now Scott had earned his apprenticeship and in 1993 he started his own night Republica at Bakers DJing alongside other luminaries such as Boy George, Tall Paul, Seb Fontaine and Judge Jules. Scott had become involved in DJing as an interest outside of work as a shipping clerk, Â"I just knew that my day job was just a way of making ends meet, I loved DJing, it was the whole excitement of playing records that had such an effect on people. I would long for each day to go by so that I could go out at night and spin my records, in the end it got the better of meÂ". Scott's interest in DJing became more and more involved and it was not long before he was forced to make a decision of DJing on a full-time basis and leaving his job or carrying on being a shipping clerk for the rest of his days.

The encounter with Simon Raine was to prove more fruitful than even Scott could imagine. In August 1994 Scott joined Simon Raine to promote some one off parties under the name of Gatecrasher, after all Simon had gained a reputation as being a party animal and had often Â"gate crashedÂ" numerous parties, so the name for a club night was quite apt. They both set about promoting their first night at the Archers in Sheffield, a city which Raine had shrewdly picked for its cosmopolitan night life. Sheffield had become the birthright of the romantic era in the 80Â's breeding bands such as The Human League, ABC and Heaven 17. It was right at the heart of industrial Britain where people were not afraid to try something new, be it heterosexual boys wearing make-up or a new club that offered a bit more of a night-out than the local Ritzy. Located under some railway arches, the Gatecrasher club nights became a huge success with all of the top DJs demanding to play at the club. Both Oakenfold and Healy were typically two of those big supporters of Gatecrasher.