Meet Dom Phillips – a music magazine scribbling legend talking to Update…
Dom, you are one of the most important music journalists dance music has ever seen. How did it all begin for you?
‘I grew up on Merseyside, went traveling and ended up moving to Bristol in 1988. I had done a couple of fanzines. I got really excited about all the dance music stuff I was hearing at clubs and shebeens and on the local pirate radio station, FTP. But nobody was writing about it in Bristol. So I started a magazine called New City Press with another guy on the enterprise allowance scheme. We had a pirate radio show too. When our magazine went bust, I started freelancing for the Bristol Evening Post, i-D, a magazine called Soul Underground and an early Mixmag. That led to a job with Mixmag as assistant editor in 1991, when they only had one typewriter. That was my break and I’ll always be grateful to DMC, then the owners of Mixmag, for that.’
Favourite DJs – in your early baseball cap days?
‘There was a duo in Bristol called West One and Marcus who played house and hip hop together. Plus Daddy G from Massive Attack and Nick Warren. In the years since then I would say Junior Vasquez at the Sound Factory early 1990s, Danny Tenaglia and Dimitri From Paris in the mid 1990s, Idjut Boys in the late 1990s. Michael Cook now. But to be honest, I like pianos, singing, funky basslines and lots of melody and so the current ‘minimal thing’ is leaving me pretty cold. But then I am an old fart.‘
Then how did it progress, you moved to Mixmag Magazine and soon took over…
‘Took over in December 1993. I had actually been offered another job at Select Magazine, but my boss David Davies took me to the pub and spent hours persuading me to stay. So I did. I was there until 1999, two years after it got sold. Good times.’
Memories from Mixmag days?
‘Too many fantastic memories to sum up in one sentence but running a successful, ground-breaking a magazine with a fantastic team and a lot of freedom at the height of dance music was a pretty dizzy experience. My main memory is how well readers responded to it. They were fiercely loyal and fiercely critical, that was the biggest buzz. I didn’t really give a shit if we upset star DJs or massive super-clubs. They were big, rich and ugly enough to take it.’
So, you now live in Brazil, writing what sounds a fucking amazing book. Can you tell us about it?
‘It’s an honest, no-holds-barred account of the superstar DJ and super-club years from 1992-2000. It comes out March next year on Ebury, which is part of Random House, and has a lot of big names in it. Watch this space!’
What’s clubbing like in South America – we all hear about that cool venue built out of wood that DJs just rave about…
‘That’s Warung, the most beautiful club in the world. But I’ve never been – it’s in another state. Clubbing in South America is good, but clubbing today all over the world is a much more organised, and in a sense sanitised affair than it was in the 1990s. Plus I’m way past that. I go to a couple of places sometimes in S‹o Paulo where I live – Vegas is kind of like a smaller Fabric, and there’s a bar with a dancefloor called Astronete (it means Astronaut) that plays old soul and stuff I like. I really like hearing live Brazilian music like samba, ideally in the street. That’s a pretty unforgettable experience when it’s going right.’
Tell us about living in Brazil and what you miss about Britain.
‘I like it a lot, it’s quite an intense experience. I live in S‹o Paulo, which is like New York – the biggest city in South America. But I’ve travelled round a fair bit in the last few years. My connection with the country goes back to 1998, when I came on a Mixmag trip and made really good friends here. On one level, it’s like being in Europe or America, on another, it’s utterly different – like stepping into a looking glass world where everything seems the same but is actually upside down, backwards, back to front, whatever. Learning the language has made a big difference. The best thing about the country is the people – they are really open, friendly and positive. They love music. Rich or poor, they do their best to get the most out of life. I really like that about them.’
And what about the girls?
‘Really? Girls? Can’t say I’ve noticed! Brazilian women are great. They’re warm, friendly, intelligent, sassy, and funny as well as being beautiful.’