DJ PROMO :: Conception to now. A Story about his lead up to the Guiness World Record Attempt (in June 06 Melb)

“I’m The DJ”

Chapter One: In The Beginning…

When someone asks what my favourite thing is about DJing, my answer’s always the same: playing long sets to an Up For It audience. In the past, I’ve been limited only by the audience’s lack of staying power. But now, I’m about to be let off the leash.

People always ask the same questions when they hear about my attempt to set a new Guinness World Record for the longest DJ session marathon. Before I explain the event’s evolution and ethos, allow me to answer those questions:

“How are you going to stay awake for 100 hours? What (drugs) are you taking?”

Firstly, I’ll have several months of physical, stamina and endurance training under my belt by the time I make the attempt. And as for what I’ll be “taking” (the implication being recreational drugs), the answer’s simple: nothing, zip, zilch, nada. I’m doing this completely clean, powered purely by a healthy diet, a clean and focused mind, and masses of determination.

“Why are you doing this?”

I’ll explain in greater detail later but, in the meantime, suffice to say because I can and therefore I want to.

“Are you insane?”

No, I’m not. I’m just bored. Bored of the same old same old. Bored of reading about DJs  playing “exclusive” five-hour sets, as though five hours is some kind of endurance test. Bored of being booked to play one-hour sets, when it takes more than an hour to build up any meaningful momentum.

Now that we’ve got the obvious questions out of the way, allow me to tell you a little something about myself and how all this came to be.

I’m English – from London, originally – but have been living in Melbourne for just over two years. I started promoting, almost by accident, when I helped some friends throw an end-of-school party in 1986. I was 16 at the time and holding in my hands more money than I’d ever seen before. I was hooked, immediately. Making a career of it, however, was to take a little longer.

In 1993, I took a job at a record store in London. There I met artists, labels, record companies, DJs and nightclub owners. By way of logical progression, I started managing a few DJs, dabbling in production and promoting other people’s events. The thought of becoming a DJ myself, however, never even entered my head. The DJs I was working with were awesome – how could I possibly compete?

Working at the record store fanned the flames of my second addiction (movies being my first). I kept every promo record I was ever given, even though I never actually played them: I’d heard them ad nauseum at work; why would I want to hear them again at home?

In 1996 I quit the shop but, after briefly running a DJ home delivery service (delivering promo records to DJs, not DJs to people’s homes), realised I wasn’t getting as many promos as before. Like any addict, I had to get my hit. Pulling a fast one would be the easiest way: I would become a self-styled DJ, contact all the record labels I knew and ask them to send me their promos. Genius!

Simultaneously, a venue in the city asked for my help with its promotion. In the second half of 1996, I launched the now-infamous Aural Sex parties – and with them, my alter-ego: DJ Promo.

Chapter Two: In At The Deep End

To say the beginning of my DJ career was a baptism of fire would be an understatement. I’d never even mixed two records before and yet there I was, DJing for eight hours every Monday in the heart of London’s clubland. You have to learn pretty quickly in such circumstances and the first lesson I learned was that I loved it. I’d start off fairly low key but by the end of the second hour I’d be in complete control. Since that day, I’ve always preferred to DJ for more than two hours at a time. It takes me a while to find my zone but, when I do, there’s no stopping me.

Within my first 12 months as DJ Promo, I’d played all over London – including at Ministry Of Sound, which until that point had only been a pipedream. The international gigs came flooding in, as did the house parties and 12-hour sets. At the same time, I was also holding down five weekly residencies and was often behind the decks more than a dozen times a week.

Then I met Pedro G (Portugal) – and my world hasn’t been the same since. Before he burst onto the scene, the action finished with the after party and then you just went back to somebody’s place to get wasted. But Pedro and I would go back to his place and carry on mixing. We’ve always been very competitive and would battle each other every which way: on the decks, over who had the best tracks, who could do the better mix, who could try something beyond the scope of the other person, and so on.

When I was throwing parties in London, we didn’t have a different DJ every hour or so as happens here in Australia. We’d have two or three DJs for the entire night, then a lock-in, followed by an after party, then back to someone’s place to DJ some more, and then back to basement clubs in the city where we could keep the party going for as long as we wanted. We partied for days at a time. I was being given more than 100 records every week – the only way to keep things fresh when you’re playing that often.

Pedro and I often joked about breaking the Guinness World Record back then. The idea was that one of us would do it, then the other one would challenge, then we’d go head-to-head in two booths separated only by a sheet of glass.

When I moved to Australia, the idea dropped off the immediate agenda and it wasn’t until I started DJing here that I started thinking about the parties I’d left behind. I tried several times to recreate them in Melbourne – with Disconnected @ Two Floors Up, Pixelfree @ Bunker and The Drum Is God! @ TFU and Brown Alley – but somehow it was never quite the same.

Chapter Three: I Have A Dream

Having launched The Drum Is God! in 2004, I was at Beat magazine’s HQ to discuss the campaign for the event’s 2005 comeback with Ronnit Sternfein, Managing Editor. Over lunch, I told her I wanted to have a go at breaking the record. She mentioned Band In The Bubble, where Regurgitator spent an entire month recording an album inside a giant plastic box: could the concept be adapted to a DJ? We even joked about staging it in the same location, Fed Square. The seeds had been sown.

I left Beat laughing but with my brain in hyperdrive. The following few months were spent researching the existing record and how best to break it. In November 2004, I sent my application off to Guinness World Records. On December 16^th came the reply: my application had been accepted. There was no turning back.

It’s been a long time since that e-mail appeared in my inbox. After a false start caused by lack of support, I put the project on a back-burner and re-launched The Drum Is God!. In my spare time, I began pulling together a formal proposal for the record attempt. It was flimsy, but it was a start.

During a jaunt back home to England in 2005, I decided it was time to give it a definite go. As soon as I touched down in Melbourne again, I stopped drinking alcohol and started detoxing my body in preparation for some sort of physical training regime. That regime commenced with an offer of sponsorship from Hunts Fitness Club, Fitzroy, in October 2005. By that stage, I’d already shed 10kg: partly from changing my diet, mostly from giving up alcohol.

The first bodies we needed official approval from were our chosen beneficiaries (The Big Issue, which helps homeless people take steps towards self-reliance; and Challenge, which supports children living with cancer) and Federation Square, where we wanted to stage the attempt. Simple though it sounds, this part of the process was actually deeply frustrating: deciding to do something like this is relatively easy, but translating it into reality involves overcoming all sorts of bureaucratic obstacles. Thankfully, all were in favour.

Tasks two and three comprised producing a rock-solid, professional event proposal and then securing public liability insurance – a process that took weeks in total. The hunt for insurance presented a conundrum we were to come across time and again: we needed public liability insurance before Fed Square could confirm a date, but we needed a confirmed date before we could get public liability insurance.

The next major task was to create a risk analysis and management plan, which would later be vetted by Fed Square’s event management team. From humble beginnings as a blank Excel document, this eventually blossomed into a 40-page behemoth. Not only did the goal of setting a new world record seem miles away, it was also buried beneath a paperwork Everest.

Ever the gracious hosts, Fed Square introduced us to Transport, the bar that neighbours our intended site. The idea was that we could strike some sort of contra deal whereby Transport (which has a liquor licence, whereas we do not) would host our media launch, after party and VIP suite in return for a slice of the publicity. Initial reception seemed favourable.

Chapter Four: No Pain, No Gain

Meanwhile, back at the gym, training was picking up pace and my body rapidly replaced the 10kg of fat lost with 10kg of muscle gained. Hunts held an open day in November and asked me to DJ for a few hours. I accepted, but on one condition: that they allow me to DJ for the entire day, from 6am to 9pm – a full 15 hours. Hunts also wanted to stage a “Spinning” session during my set (riding stationary exercise bicycles to increase speed and stamina). Here was an interesting concept: me spinning records, Hunts spinning bikes.

The 15-hour “mini marathon” would serve as a chance for my personal trainer, Ben Cook, to fine-tune my diet; my remedial masseur, Anthony Birrel, to assess my posture and identify any muscle groups in need of attention; and my acupuncturist, Brett Rawlings, to conjure up colourful new ways of poking me with a needle.

On the downside, I found myself too excited to sleep the night before the event; nearly died of boredom during the midday lull when there were very few people around to bounce off; and had a fall-out with the rubber matting that was supposed to be cushioning my feet but succeeded only in making me uncomfortable. 

I also sustained an ankle injury, caused by constantly shifting uncomfortably from the rubber matting to the wooden floor and back. My next workout served only to aggravate it, on top of which I also strained my shoulder. My first gym-related injuries, they were treated with acupuncture and remedial massage. The ankle was soon fixed but I had to drop all upper body exercises from my routine for a week.

It had been a long time since I’d played such a lengthy session, but it was surprisingly easy and, at risk of sounding masochistic, enjoyable. At the end of the 15 hours, I was so pumped up I marched straight upstairs for a full workout. But this was but a hint of things to come: the session in Federation Square would need to last seven times longer to set a new record.

Chapter Five: That’s Entertainment

By now, we’d made a 1˝ minute promotional video for the record attempt, which received a standing ovation from Fed Square. We had hoped we could “borrow” some time-lapse footage of the square from ABC, but the price we were quoted for doing so proved prohibitively expensive.

The event was gaining another dimension too, courtesy of The Big Issue. They suggested we incorporate a miniature version of the Homeless Football World Cup, where vendors of the magazine come from all over the world to play against one another. We had to scale the plans down to a penalty shoot-out for safety (and lack of space) reasons, but it’s still firmly on the agenda.

Other performers soon started queuing up for a spot on the sidelines: there’ll be a live Techno set by Dean Jones of Melbourne Techno Vinyl; tribal dancers; a display by flare barmen; Hunts Fitness Club are bringing their spinning bikes; Kiss FM will be hosting a roadshow from outside the venue; plus there’ll be live MC work courtesy of Honeysmack and a vocal session from Sara Bee (of Red Bee). More acts are being confirmed every week and what started life as a one-dimensional event is now starting to feel like a full-on festival.

Next on the agenda is to start contacting entertainers’ agents and invite the cream of Australian celebrities to get involved in the event. We’re currently courting a major international name to announce the moment the record’s broken but it’s all very hush-hush at this stage, so Watch This Space.

Chapter Six: A Crash Course In Construction

Shortly before Christmas, one thing was still conspicuous in its absence: the purpose-built nightclub. All we had was a rough idea of what we wanted and no idea of how to get it. After much searching, we tracked down a plastic and polycarbonate sheeting specialist called Ampelite. Strong and lightweight, their roofing materials let in sunlight but block UV rays. Perfect. Furthermore, the firm’s about to launch a new product – which Ampelite is allowing us to use for the outer skin of our venue in return, once again, for publicity.

Ampelite then introduced us to FMSA Architects, who signed up on the spot and promptly produced a radical design for the club. Described by Peter Sandow, one of FMSA’s directors, as a “trapezoidal pyramid” complete with landscaped interior garden, it’ll be divided into two areas: the DJ area (containing myself, my records, decks, mixer, amps, a toilet for my use only, computers to manage the web cast and a VIP area) and the club area (containing sound system, lights, dance floor and garden). But they were still a long way off being built.

As we’d originally assumed the venue would be little more than a glorified box, the ambitious nature of FMSA’s design meant we’d need more space. Fortunately, Fed Square obliged without hesitation. Still to come, however, was a series of design overhauls, unforeseen expenses and a fortnight spent frantically trying to find a scaffolder willing to try the near-impossible. For now, we were just relieved to have found the right people, in the right place, at the right time.

Later, in a week of savage gym sessions (possibly inspired by a growing sense of frustration), I worked my calf muscles until they nearly exploded, completing over 600 reps with 20 – 80 kilos in four sets. I can’t say it was easy – and the bicycle ride home was a killer! The next workout saw that raised again to 700 reps in just one set. It was definitely time to try something different.

Chapter Seven: Show Me The Money

Creating a sponsorship strategy from scratch proved an arduous and time-consuming task. By the time our sponsors’ proposal had been polished to the requisite high shine with the help of Challenge’s resident fundraising guru, Taryn Lupton, most corporations were at home stuffing their Christmas stockings.

The act of establishing who best to approach was a minefield in its own right: we were promoting healthy living, a positive image of nightclubbing and social inclusion. That’s a pretty broad spectrum and the list of possible sponsors was potentially endless. But every one of the thousands on our hit list would have to be researched, contacted and then pursued – which would cost an awful lot of one of the many luxuries we couldn’t afford: time.  

So, an abortive festive season was spent trying to make contact with people who were invariably not at their desks. Meanwhile, I struggled to get my head around the fact it was actually Christmas. The heat over here made it hard to believe when, back home in Britain, it was as Christmas should be: several degrees below zero!

Chapter Eight: New Year, New Beginning

2006 started well, with two important – and inspirational – meetings: one with FMSA, one with Fed Square. I also started preparing my marathon set by launching a weekly warm-up session at Tilt, the Russell Street venue I manage in my ever-decreasing spare time. And I categorised my collection by playing my vinyl in the company of friend Captain Obvious, a.k.a. Joel Mitchell, and his ever-zealous DJ ears.

Photographer Andrew Boyle, responsible for many of the front covers of Inpress magazine, joined us in Fed Square in early January to take some press shots for our publicity campaign. We borrowed 17 record boxes from Matt at Vinyl Warning for the shoot: the number I’ll need to carry all the records needed for my 100-hour set. Then he masterminded a second photo shoot at Hunts gym, with me in training mode (see the pictures in my gallery).

Numerous major challenges still needed to be addressed at this stage, including staffing and security requirements, raising a small fortune in sponsorship money and ensuring we’d made adequate provision for any conceivable disasters and/or emergencies. An operating schedule still had to be written, which would form the blueprint for running the entire event, and...

The gym took a new turn, as my training partner Sam and I increased our cardiovascular exercise with the introduction of Thai boxing and some fairly extreme abdominal work. All my weights went up (again) and the remedial massage from Tony the Hulk continue to be excruciating even with increased stretching and increased intake of Glutamine!