Oops.  I thought you knew all about DJ Mycroft?  Oh well, in that case pull up a pew, and I’ll tell you all about my secret transgressions.  You’ll like it as it has something of the Ripleys about it.  You see for a year or two back in the mid-‘90s I was living something of a secret life, whereby respectable railway employee turned spectacularly into larger-than-life ultra-cool spinner of tip top trip hop.  Appearing anywhere but on his own doorstep.  And I got away with it.

Indeed, in a rather Ripley way I sort of stumbled into it all.  Working on the railway I got some pretty handy travel concessions on Eurostar, and would be in the habit of hopping over to Brussels, on the simple premise that the journey was quicker and quieter than its Parisian counterpart.  And apart from Eurocrats commuting, who else wanted to set out for Brussels?  Partly for that very reason I was particularly fond of the place.  Great to go to for a day or two away from it all.

Anyway one time I was mooching around over there, and while browsing around a record shop opted for Rob D’s Clubbed To Death which was just out on Mo’Wax as a CD.  The guy behind the counter clearly approved, and tried to talk me into buying more Mo’Wax stuff, but I had pretty much everything I needed, La Funk Mob, RPM, Sam Sever, whatever, so I just kept saying: “Yeah, yeah, got that, and that, and that.”  I can still recall him looking impressed, and saying: “You are very cool yes?”.  Mind you I bet he said that to all the headz.  Anyway next time I was in there, he remembered me, and we got talking, and on finding out I was staying over he urged me to come along to this club night he was involved with, where apparently I’d feel right at home, checking out the trip hop, jazz, dub and experimental hip hop, and so on.  So I thought, why not?  When in Rome, and all that.  And in fairness it was a fantastic night.  Really friendly vibe.  Totally free from the one-upmanship and posing pervading our own clubs and culture at the time, with who had the most obscure logo on their t-shirt or the rarest old school trainers.  Oh yeah Bjorn Borg had six pairs of these custom made, and this is one pair from that same batch, honest.

What really made me laugh was how my new best friend took to introducing me to all his friends in Brussels as Mike, a cool DJ from London.  And I’m like: “Whaaat?”  But they took my initial denials for self-deprecation.  So in the end I just went with the flow.  And got quite into the spirit of things.  So much so that when they asked me more about my DJing I admitted to playing out under the nom-de-plume of DJ Mycroft.  This being a name that literally popped into my head, from the Mike thing, though where they got the idea my name was Mike I never quite worked out. 

So Mycroft.  I guess I’d been reading some Sherlock Holmes.  What was it?  The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter.  So that also explains why when pressed on the question of where I spun my magical platters, I went for the Diogenes Club, which I said was really underground and exclusive.  Underground and exclusive my foot.  I can still remember in the Holmes story that it was a famous establishment for the unsociable and unclubbable.  That figures.  Still why not masquerade as a shadowy literary figure, supposedly devoid of ambition and energy.  After all that’s how I ended up on the railway.

Anyway, my Belgian buddies were pretty persistent, and after the then customary swapping of mixtapes and letters, I ended up being invited over to DJ.  And like a fool I thought why not?  All I would need was a record bag full of 12”s, some gall, and voila.  I still have that first flyer somewhere.  Special guest – underground legend from London – DJ Mycroft.  And oh what a night.  The first of many.  Quite got the bug I did.  And after a few more appearances I was quite the flavour du jour.  And I took full advantage of it.  Trust me!

Things only became a tad tricky when the Belgian tag team got lucky, and were invited over to take part in a club night out Bristol way, the spiritual home of the scene, which they were so excited about.  One of Smith & Mighty were playing too, or something.  And I thought uh oh.  I don’t need to expose myself.  Ridicule in my book is something to be scared of.  So I thought it was pretty much the right time to bow out gracefully before I was rumbled.  Anyway it allowed me to remain mysterious like my namesake.  I just said I was finding it harder to get away from my London commitments.  Which was true in a way as it clashed with an Ultramarine performance with Lol Coxhill, the free jazz guy, in the ballroom at the Royal Festival Hall which I was dead keen to see.  Cracking show it was too.  So no regrets there.

To tell you the truth I was beginning to get a bit bored with the music.  It didn’t seem to be going anywhere.  And the DJ Shadow LP title seemed to get it right.  Endtroducing.  Trip hop was becoming a global brand.  And the music was becoming the same old same old.  Not that anyone really admitted to the horrible coverall phrase trip hop, but then I suppose no one admitted to being Brit Pop, and those people were the enemy as far as I was concerned, with their Union Jacks and Beatles riffs. 

Mind you, away from the obvious Massive Attacks and Portisheads, DJ Shadows and Dr Octagons, there are still a stack of brilliant records I’ve kept from that era which I still really rate, and dig out quite regularly.  And I mean more the LPs or CDs rather than the vinyl and 12”s.  A particular favourite is The Woodshed’s Forty Miles of Rough Road.  That works for me.  Full of very very odd stuff.  I kept hold of another EP of theirs.  The Devil’s Jukebox.  That’s got a thank you on for Jowe Head of all people, and why not?  Their records were on Cloak And Dagger, which is one of the labels of the time I still have enormous affection for.  They also put out the Disciples’ Resonations, which is one of the great digital dub sets, and shows you how things were nicely mixed up.

The dub thing was huge in Bristol too, and so many great records were coming out from there, and a whole lot of it had the same sound systems roots as Massive Attack and Portishead.  Smith and Mighty in particular, and their More Rockers set up.  I was listening last night to another great post-hip hop dub set by Henry and Louis last night.  And closely connected was the Cup Of Tea label who put out some great stuff too.  Tempesta by Statik Sound System is a lovely, lovely record, which has a bit of everything mixed up.  Dub, soul, drum’n’bass, hip hop, lovers, blues.  Same goes for records by Spaceways, who had decidedly strangeways, and Purple Penguin.  Real gems but horribly overlooked because there just grew this perception that this was just sepia toned coffee table muzak.  And sure there was a lot of rubbish around.  But there’s not many things in the world better than Nicolette’s No Government or Andrea Parker’s Melodious Thunk.

And there are a lot of similarly great records from that time I return to.  Most of the Mo’Wax stuff.  Especially RPM’s 2000.  Stuff like Stasis and Spectre.  Do you remember Spectre?  A side project of the Manasseh set-up, the digidub dudes.  It’s funny.  Now we have all the listen again facilities with radio stations, and there’s nothing worth hearing.  But back in the day people like Manasseh had fantastic radio shows on Kiss tucked away in the early hours.  Anyway Spectre was Nick from Manasseh moonlighting, doing a more experimental dub thing, which melted perfectly into the trip hop thing.

Maybe best of all was The Underdog.  Trevor Jackson.  While I don’t really like his more recent, ahem, output, his Bite It! label was very much where it was at.  Particularly his own Attic Tapes series, which was instrumental hip hop.  Just kind of shells of tracks.  Beats and bits of noise.  Could have been as dull as ditchwater but it is still compelling stuff.  Funnily enough I think he also put out the first Fridge record.  Keiren whatnot.  I saw them playing in the Rough Trade basement back then.  They were all really young and earnest.  Desperately wanting to be Tortoise.  Which was fair enough. 

I’m just smiling thinking of the old snob in me that got all horrified as things transposed into the more crass populist form of big beat, and the likes of the Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim started to fill dancefloors and have some serious fun.  Still makes me shudder.  Bentley Rhythm Ace and all that.  The lowest common denominator.  Or dominator.  Different strokes for different folks I guess, but I bet my Belgian buddies didn’t approve. 

© 2007 John Carney