Geecast EP13 Featuring LEE UHF!

Spring is in the air... Lambs are born... Rabbits are humping... And the foul Stench of another Geecast is incoming! After the Northern Gathering Reunion sets we get back to what we do best. Blowing your ears out! This month we feature a DJ that has run labels in Hardcore, and currently in Drum N Bass and Bass music, as well as successful rave nights, worked in record shop across the country, been a successful producer. And he survived the cut throat politics of the Hardcore scene to tell the tale. LEE UHF!!

So, first Ill be playing part 1 of a classic Darkstep 2005-2010 mix & then Lee will take over with a brand new mix done just for us. So without further ado, Lee!  Thanks for joining us!

 

Thank you for having me Kev, Its been a while hasn't it? Always good to have a catch up with some of the old crew. Can you talk me through your early days within the rave scene? How did things start for you? I'll try my best. Haha. For me music has always been a big part of my life. In fact up to the age of 12yrs old, my Dad ran a record shop in Sheffield called Roulette Records. I spent most evenings for years after school and Saturday mornings in his shop helping out, which basically translates to me being in the big store cupboard going through 1000s of tapes and vinyls and claiming which ones I wanted to take home.  I must have had near £50k of music over the years for free from the shop looking back now, insane!  At this time in the late 80's and early 90's, I had no idea what rave music was as I was pretty young, but I was obsessed with a lot of rave music that charted such as 2 Unlimited, Snap, The Prodigy, Silver Bullet, Praga Khan & The Shamen.  In fact, when my Dad gave up the shop I got heavily into Gangster Rap (Wu-Tang, Onyx, EPMD etc) and really lost touch with anything rave sounding. It wasn't until 1995, while on a family holiday in Chapel St Leonards, Skegness that I met a guy from Lincoln who used to play Vibealite and Pleasuredome tapes, but as I was obsessed with Rap music, I hated the happy, high energy stuff that he was playing and always shot it down saying it was shit. A year later in 1996, I was back at the same holiday camp with him again and he managed to persuade me to go to a rave. The Pleasuredome, at The Zoo in Ingoldmells. It took a lot of persuading. I was only 14yrs old and was way under age (He told my parents it was a teens night lol) but once I got inside and saw the legendary big clowns head/ DJ box, It blew my mind and i ended up really, really enjoyed it. I got home to Sheffield, and had done a complete 180 with my music taste. My friend from Lincoln was sending me tapes in the post all the time to feed my new addiction and I even found some of my mates at School were heavily into it also, one being a guy you might have heard of, MC Keyes? 

Where did you used to go raving?  When getting back from the holiday me and my school pals found out about a weekly running event just down the road from my house. `Uprising` and discovered the wonderfull world of MCing, which lead to me and my friends all thinking we were hot shit on the mic at 15/16yrs old. Haha

So you wanted to be an MC back then, more than a DJ? Absolutely!  At 16 when I left school, I had carried on attending Uprising and through a mutual friend, I had started hanging around with a few older lads who were also into the same music, one being Martin Space. We'd all pile into Martin's house at weekends where he and his mates would be DJing while me and Keyes did the MCing. I literally had no interest in Djing at all until I kind of got forced to do it when people wanted a break from the decks.

So what kit did you have when you first started Djing? Martin Space actually sold me my first set of decks. He upgraded his at the time and this is what got me off the MCing and into Djing.  They were old belt drive Soundlabs. Horrible to use, but believe it or not, I recorded my first demo for Uprising on