At only 19 year old, Paul Clarke is one of the countries
leading breakbeat/techno DJ’s. Although he is not as
instantly recognisable as maybe Fabio or Slipmatt, he’s up
there with the best of the best, playing around the country
and in Europe on a regular basis, guaranteeing that we will
be hearing more about him as time goes on. We at Eternity
had been planning to interview him for quite some time, we
were surprised at some cruel comments made in a Fusion Club
Review last month by Danielle and Same about Dougal’s poor
quality mixing, so we arranged to give him the opportunity
to give us his own version of the story, as well as finding
out more about his life in the music business.
It started when he was fourteen years old at school. He was
supposed to be doing a work experience placement at a
clothes shop, but the day before he was due to start, it
burned down. So, needing a job pretty desperately, he found
one at a disco shop, through his dad, Gary. It was a stroke
of luck that the people who ran the shop set up the speakers
at the very first E.S.P. events.
“They asked me to go along to set up with them and it was at
a time when I didn’t even know what rave was! So, I went
along with a load of new speakers, absolutely breaking my
back because I was only young. Seeing people all going mad
with a 5k sound system and a strobe made me think that I
just had to get into it all. I just did non-stop paper
rounds, working in newsagents, even on Saturdays until I’d
earned enough money to buy decks. So, I got all the
equipment together, went on holiday and came back only to
find everything I’d saved up for had been stolen.
Eventually, after another year, I got it all together again
and just practised as much as I could. When I was 15 I
managed to start my own mobile disco, with a partner on the
microphone and I was mixing together all old 60’s stuff that
I’d got off my dad. I was even playing a few commercial rave
tracks like Black Box and Technotronic, but I still had all
my house music on the side because by this time I’d got into
house music in a big way. There was a shop near us called
Junior 4 that got me doing small garage events, where I
would be playing upstairs in a small room, while the top
DJ’s would play downstairs.
One night Craig Campbell from E.S.P., who now does Taste,
saw me playing all my house stuff and asked me to play at
one of his events in an early slot. I asked him when and he
replied, “Tomorrow”. I was shaking so much while I was
playing my first set for him, nearly in tears because I
thought they would never have me back. Craig came up to me
at the end of my set and said that everyone loved it,
inviting me back”.
So that’s how Dougal got into it all. He couldn’t understand
how they could have liked his first set though, because
there was no proper monitor speaker for him to mix from. In
those days people didn’t really know what a monitor speaker
was and the sound system at the event was about half a mile
away!
The second E.S.P. event he played for was the big one for
Dougal. For the first time he played in front of 4,000
people, barely able to see over the decks and playing with
DJ’s much older than him. He managed to impress, because
from this moment onwards he started to play regular for
E.S.P. The rest is, as they say, History!
“I never really pushed myself and sent out tapes to
organisers or anything like that, the one time I did do it I
didn’t get any response, it sort of blew my confidence and I
thought I’d just stay where I was, playing for E.S.P. All of
sudden everything just went mad”.
He had his own rave at 16 years old, a picture appeared in
the local newspaper. Unfortunately the police stopped it, by
informing the council that it was a rave but as least it was
experience for him.
Three years on and Dougal has practically made it, the
reason why it has worked so well for him is because E.S.P./Dreamscape
have built up such a huge following. They always try to put
on excellent events, not just sticking to one thing but
mixing different styles of music together like techno,
jungle and happy breakbeat. This works well for Dougal, who
likes to play a mixture of techno and happy breakbeat and
Techno.
“Many people think that I just play happy, but I actually
try to always sneak a couple of techno tracks in there. They
don’t really notice because I’ll be playing a stompy happy
tune while mixing in a techno track which both sound quite
similar, and they all think it’s the same. I’ll even stick a
couple of jungle tracks in there occasionally, because some
are absolutely brilliant. I think you’ve just got to break
it up and not play the same thing all the time. My style is
mainly happy and stompy which keeps things going. I played
at Crystal Palace last week and they loved the happy, the
techno and the jungle. I thought this was excellent because
you could play anything and the crowd would love it”.
But crowds everywhere seem to like Dougal, no matter what he
plays. He plays abroad in Europe a lot now, and I was
surprised that he could play basically the same stuff over
there as he does here, bearing in mind that breakbeat has
not fully caught on yet.
“When I play at Zurich in Switzerland, it’s really techno
that they are used to, but they will definitely come through
to the happy bouncy stuff. I have to keep it stompy over
there though, if it hasn’t got the kick beat then they wont
like it. But if it has, they’ll go for anything I want to
play. When I played them some real strong breakbeat tunes,
they were all cheering and going mad. I play with a
promotional company called White Dove in Zurich and it’s
quite a regular thing now. When me and Clarkee first went
out there we only attracted 400 people. Now, 6,000 people
turn up every time”.
However, as mentioned earlier, two people aren’t as keen on
Dougal, Danielle and Sam, two girls who wrote the Fusion
article last month. We had heard the comments made in this
article like, “He should stick to making records” and “He
really needs to learn how to mix properly”, really upset
Dougal. Wouldn’t it upset you if you were a DJ? Personally I
can’t see the point in making such snide remarks, because if
they knew what conditions a DJ has to play under at an
event, they wouldn’t have said all this. Anyway, we thought
that this would be the perfect opportunity for Dougal to set
the record straight.
“The article got to me so much, especially with the rave
scene being such a happy place and all that. You don’t want
any bad vibes, so if someone doesn’t like what a DJ does
then I just wish they’d keep it to themselves or say that he
wasn’t up to his usual standard. Saying I should give up DJ-ing
and stick to making records was a bit below the belt. I’ve
got feelings too and if they would have realised how much it
upset me, then I don’t think they would have said it”.
His mixing apparently wasn’t that bad on the night, he did
have to change the needles half way through because the
records were jumping about, but that wasn’t his fault and
because of this it was proving very difficult to get the
beat on the record.
If a DJ can’t get the best on a record he/she may as well
forget it, pack their bags and leave. But Dougal stayed and
tried his best, even Vinyl Groover, and Druid said that they
didn’t understand what Danielle and Sam were carrying on
about.
It’s a shame people don’t really understand a DJ’s position
(unless of course you’ve tried it). When a DJ plays two or
three venues a night, it can get a bit difficult with
problems round every corner. After all, the DJ is only
human! Dougal told us about another problem a lot of DJ’s
experience.
“I’ve got a lot of dub plates and they are very hard to
play. They jump and everything. When I play at Dreamscape,
god knows what’s going on because the needles just skate
across the record!”
Dub plates are what all the top breakbeat and jungle DJ’s
use. They cost around £30 each to make, wearing out after a
little while and jumping every five minutes. But
nevertheless, they are very useful and when Dougal goes to
get some cut in London, he’ll meet up with people like Sy,
Slipmatt and Swan-E, and they’ll all go and get them cut
together.
“All the DJ’s in the scene are so friendly, that’s what I
love about it. Everyone knows everyone and there’s no bad
vibes. Take for example the darkest jungle DJ you’ve ever
meet, DJ Hype. He’s so friendly and dead funny. In fact
being a DJ is just like being part of a big family”.
The only thing that Dougal doesn’t like about the scene is
the fact that three years aso, you wouldn’t go to see a
jungle set or a techno set, you’d go to see a bit of
everything. Take for example, DJ Sasha, who three years ago
played all styles of music whether it be hardcore, techno or
house. Dougal tries to be like this as much as he can,
bringing the old vibe back to the club scen
DJs
