Mike Woods

Black Music started for me in the Carlton club in Warrington on a Sunday with Kev Edwards and all the guest performers he had down there; it was a great time for me.

This was around 1986 and I got the chance to see artists like Millie Scott, Loose Ends and Kenny Stevens. This is also the time I started to buy my first Import records from Hott Waxx records.

Hott Waxx was then based in Earlestown so I would have to jump on the train to get any chance of getting those records I had heard from Sunday nights at the Carlton. Kev used to do a chart of his top 20 records of that week and I would go and pick up what I could afford at the time. Records like Q Pid - My Latin Lover and Skipworth & Turner’s Nepethe which are still playable today for me. Saturday nights in Warrington were your usual non-entity, try and tap up, have a fight, get something to eat and head home.

Then in October of 88 one of my mates told me he knew a couple of lads who were going to this club in Manchester and it wasn’t like any other club, the club was the Hacienda; we both went and it changed our lives. I don’t think we were ever the same people that went in there that night. You then were part of this rolling ball that is still a big part of my life today.

The music was just amazing and I took to it like a duck to water, I wanted to know where I could buy this Music but didn’t have a clue, that’s where my girlfriend (now my wife) came in, she was a stylist at Vidal Sassoon’s in Manchester and the like’s of Mike Pickering, Bernard Sumner (New Order) and Steve Williams used to have their hair cut there. Sally (my wife) got talking to Steve Williams and she introduced us to each other. Steve was the warehouse king at this time. When you got out of the Hacienda and there was a party on, if Steve was on; you knew you were in for a good time. Steve took me under his wing with regards to records and he introduced me to Eastern Bloc Records.

It wasn’t till 89 that there was a rival club to the Hacienda in Manchester called the Thunderdome, owned by a lad from my hometown, Warrington. This is where my first gig was with Jay Weirden on a Thursday night. Already playing at the club on Saturday’s were Mike Pickering, Steve Williams and The Jam MCS. This club soon got a bad reputation and there would be some major trouble; it was time to leave. I then got a one off night at the Carlton club in Warrington, which was a great success, and there that night was a club owner from Warrington who offered me a permanent Wednesday which I took; it was rammed straight away.

This lasted a few months but it could only hold around 150 people and besides, I wanted a Saturday night. This is where I heard that Legends had something going on a Saturday but there were hardly any people in, so I paid them a visit and met Shaun Mellor who was running the night but had no idea about House Music. The DJ was Richard Garvin and Richard was playing some good stuff from the Hacienda but didn’t really have the following I had built up at this time, so the upshot was, come back next week and put your money where your mouth is. The following week I brought an extra hundred people and was offered the night with Richard.

Every week after that it seemed to go up by a hundred more people until it was rammed with 1300 every week. The Music policy at Legends took shape pretty quickly, Richard and I had both been regulars at the Hacienda, so we both had big records from there but I was also influenced by Steve Williams and Steve would play a lot of European new beat records with an harder edge, so I was buying tracks from labels like MG and R&S as well as your Chicago and New York House. What Richard brought was the idea we should start off the night with some slower Balearic tracks which were coming from places like Shoom and Amnesia in Ibiza, so there was this strange mix of influences that made our night unique and gave it probably the best atmosphere in club land, which is a pretty bold statement, but I think is true. This is why people gathered round the club from early afternoon so they could get a ticket, so as not to miss this regular Saturday event.

Some of my memories of Legends looking back; a special one would be of the band Flowered UP turning up to see Richard who they had got to know while working in London, they were playing a gig in Liverpool and when they had finished they jumped on the M62 and got to Legends for the last couple of hours. I must say they were a little worse for wear especially the drummer who at the end of the night tried to help me take my decks to the car as Legends didn’t even have a pair of Technics so I used to bring mine, how he never dropped one I don’t know but I had to grab it off him before he fell in a pile on the floor. Legends blew them away and they said they wanted to add a date to the tour and play at Legends which they did and Richard and I warmed up for them and then finished the night off. If I remember rightly was a Thursday and it was a great night with a good mixed crowd. Another story I remember was playing one night; it used to get very hot and sweaty, it was only around eleven o’clock and I was still playing some of the Balearic tracks when all of a sudden the ceiling above me came crashing down on to the decks due to all the condensation from all those bodies dancing around me. I had chunks of ceiling spinning around on the record and all over my head.

The night was so popular at this time I decided to ask do a Wednesday night with myself and Steve Williams which would pull in around 500 people. We would play with a harder edge; be it the sound of Chicago, Detroit or the Dutch and Belgium tracks that were coming in to the country. I’m sorry to say that none of these nights Steve and myself did together were ever taped but it was a good night while it lasted.

It was also around this time that I was approached to start a Friday night in Widnes, at a club by the name of Club 4, this was soon full to the rafters and I would have Steve Williams guest and his younger brother John Williams. This is where Noggy got his start alongside me and he brought his love of early Hip hop, with big break beats, to the club and would later get himself the job alongside me as a Legends resident. It was around 91 when Richard Garvin announced to us that he would have to leave and carry on his studies in Leeds. He had been doing work experience at this time with the Labour MP Roy Hattersley and it was time to start getting serious with his life and I’m glad to tell you he is now the producer of Question Time the political show on bbc 1, the boy did well.

I had another good year and a half at Legends, until I felt I was going through the motions and wasn’t enjoying playing the Balearic start to the night anymore. It was now really becoming a chore to find any new tracks and this is when I decide to leave. I had nothing else lined up and turned my back on a good weekly wage, but I just wasn’t happy. It was August 93 when I left and I didn’t get another residency till early 94 when I started alongside Barry May (Hott Waxx Records). I had started helping out in Hott Waxx and this give me a chance to hear all the records the reps would bring in. This helped me shape my new sound when Barry and me started the World night club in Warrington. The sound we championed was the new Sound of Chicago; this would later become known as Disco House, from the like’s of DJ Sneak. Instead of the Balearic start to the night in Legends, I played American dubs with slamming beats and bass lines, I was happy again playing something new and this was a great night while it lasted which was only around two years. The club was owned by Mr. Smiths and they just didn’t understand House Music; they would constantly try and mess with the format until they got what they deserved, namely Pete Ward who banged out trance records at the start of the night till the end. That’s like hell on earth, and I was unemployed again, in fact I last played there after an on and off relationship in about 1998. It was this scene that really ended my career as a DJ. As I lost faith in the whole scene; I would only play the odd night with the like’s of Noggy and Bucky who put on small events for no money, just for the love of it. This helped to restore my faith a little and still to this day I play the odd night with these two close friends.

As I write this its Summer 2005 and Noggy and I have just done a Legends reunion night, which was a fantastic success so much so it is going to be repeated in September 2005. Also to look forward to, If things go to plan would be myself and Bucky showing our love of Ron Hardy, the Music Box resident from Chicago, the man who inspired the whole House scene with his eclectic mixes from the early 80s, watch this space!

Also a little bit I forgot to say is that of January 2nd 2006 I will be leaving the country for good to bring up my family in Melbourne Australia. I will be trying to start some new nights over their so thank you for all of you that have supported me over the years and remember nobody can take those memories from us.