The origin was always Disco!

Biog

Jukebox Man

As a kid in inner City Liverpool Cindy was fascinated by the Jukebox in the pub, in fact she was fascinated by anything techie so PAC Man and Sidearms games definitely got more play than your average youngster might or should be exposed to!

The jukebox guy used to come every two weeks and give her the records he was replacing. She remembers they had no centre and she only had three that needed swapping out. Not an easy task for one so young but she became adept at that and reaching into the record player to set up the auto arm to drop each track one after the other.

So… this was back in the late 70’s, Gladys Night and the Pips, Roberta Flack, Donna Summer, Chic and Rose Royce were topping the charts. Not a bad education for Cindy, even though she was far too young to understand the impact those 45’s would have.

Her lifetime love of music was firmly established…

Years later and she found herself hanging out in raves across the UK that included TONKA Hi Fi, YIKES, ALPHA, Wasp Factory and Positivity to name a few and the decks called her home.

Please introduce yourself to those unfamiliar with your DJ life.

My journey into sound is long… having been around the dance music scene since its inception in 1987. Pre that I grew up in a disco, funk and soul fuelled ghetto in Liverpool where my love of music pretty much became part of my DNA.

At seventeen, I went to a warehouse party in Slough with no idea how my life would change, as a direct result of that night.

It was pre the notion of a RAVE. We called them warehouse parties because they where actually in big warehouses that were either broken into or hired. This was also pre any concept of genres and we mainly listened to Chicago house, early hard house, hard floor and German techno. Most of the music were imports with only handful of UK Dj’s surfacing at that time.

What we did know is it was never going to be the same again. Over the next eight years I watched what is now the RAVE culture explode.

I played my first set in Cornwall at an after party in 1991… Digs and Whoosh had played the Warehouse in Plymouth and the party was in a railway siding. I played Platypus, Plink Plonk, Hardfloor Respect, Sven Vath, Musk and Underworld tracks and remember the people dancing and smiling like it was last week 🙂

I lived, worked and played in that culture until 2004, having had to deal with  the introduction of  the criminal justice bill in 94 then CD’s and the emerging ‘popular’ rave culture. I personally, had just had enough of the scene and for me, music production values lost something in those years. I took some time out and went to University and travelled still working events and later working with digital and creative projects just not in the dance music scene.

In truth. I missed the people. The attitude and mindset of ravers is something pretty special and I was called home again in 2016. I went from vinyl straight onto a digital platform. It was curiosity initially. I sorted a Traktor set up and downloaded a few tunes onto my iPad and… two weeks later I was playing for about 200 people at a party in Bournemouth… and yes it was on my iPad 😉 that raised a few eyebrows from the sound guys.

Everyone loved it so I played on and upgraded to industry standard kit… going on to grace stages at Boomtown, Glastonbury, Clockstock, Give, Boardmasters, Great Estate and Westival to name a few.

Describe your DJ sound.

I have a several passions that include Disco, Funk, Rare-groove and Underground Tech/Deep House and pretty much (in those genres) love anything with a phat baseline and high quality production values.

Other Stuff

Cindy also runs her own promotion called cultureseventysix.com inviting the likes of Dr Packer and Michael Gray to the South West of England.

Last but not least ‘HOUSE of MODIR’ is her personal passion making #djacs and #abfabfeather range of accessories for DJ’s and production crew.

Currently Cindy has a Thursday night residency on Graffpunks Network having honed her live radio skills with Release during lockdown.

All socials are on @DjMODIR