Hi Terry. Brilliant to see Junior Boys Own returning to clubland, but before we come to that, what happened down a rabbit hole yesterday?
“Ha ha. Fuck me you hear about everything don’t you Dan? Well me and Rocky have a new hobby, we go walking ten miles at a time and yesterday we were walking through Bushy Park in London when these two tossers on those motorized skateboards came flying past nearly knocking us over and as I turned to tell them what absolute wankers they were, I slipped and fell down a soddin’ rabbits hole twisting my ankle. It was a very long limp home.”
So, one of the big pioneers of Acid House, back now where you belong. Boys Own Recordings started back in 1990 with yourself, Andrew Weatherall and Steven Hall and then two years later yourself and Steven began Junior Boys Own whilst Mr Weatherall left to start his Sabres of Paradise project. So how did this resurrection happen this year that launches club wise at The Ministry of Sound with Defected this Saturday?
“It all came about with Defected’s Simon Dunmore and Steven having a chat. Defected had the infrastructure that we didn’t have, they are good people and it sounded that the digital route was the right way forward for us – and also, they have youth on their side!”
Is the label Defected a label you yourself play a lot?
“Funnily enough yes. The great thing about the label is that they understand the whole music scene completely and choose perfect remixers to remix their tracks that caters for many different areas of House music. Sure, there may be a couple of tracks that I won’t be into, but they are definitely not arbitrators of taste.”
The fanzine/magazine ‘Boys Own’ came first though, in 1996 and was based around the original ‘boy’s own’ papers issued between 1879 and the late 1960s with famous contributors including Jules Verne, Lord Baden-Powell and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – their motto was ‘to do a good deed every day and to live clean, manly and Christian lives’ is that how you saw your magazine’s ethos?
“Well I don’t think I have done a bad job do you Dan, I’m still here after all these years. Still got some good years in me left, if I keep away from bloody rabbit holes.”
The publication featured heavily on football – who do/did you all support?
“The idea was to pitch the magazine 50-50 between music and nonsense. Myself and Maisy were big Chelsea followers, Weatherall and Steven had no interest in football at all. They’d go and write about some indie bands on labels such as Factory I’d never heard of and we’d go and write utter crap on bulldogs called Mildred.”
So what was the whole Face Magazine argument about?
“They slagged us off in their magazine once and I decided to write a letter complaining to them. Basically I told them that how dare they criticise us, you’re writing about people who love Boys Own who are thugs who fight every Saturday at football grounds and take loads of drugs in clubs every weekend. Well, they printed the letter and I went apeshit, I couldn’t believe they’d sent it to print. They sent a letter back saying okay, if you sent us a retraction we’ll print it. Anyway this went on for about six months, back and forth, back and forth. We’d be getting loads of letters from people supporting us, there was this one guy called Morris Smalls who was serving an eight-year prison sentence who kept sending us letters, which we’d print. Years later we were all in some back room at a club and we got chatting to a guy, and fuck me, it was him.”
Great writing though from you all – self taught?
“Self taught? I left school with no qualifications and still can’t spell to save my life and to be honest, I have rehashed the same story over and over for the last 20 years…”
What was the first ever Acid House club?
“Zigi’s in London. It was owned by the legendary Nosher Powell. He was part of the whole 50s/60s/70s celebrity ‘acting’ scene knocking around with people like Barbara Windsor and The Krays. He was a right rogue and also a boxer, he was a heavyweight-boxing champion in the world of unlicensed fighting and also the professional arena and a sparring partner for Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali among others. Anyway, back in 1987 he booked Alfredo which was the first time he’d played in London as a promotion he was going to give everyone an E on entry. Needless to say, the place got raided and Alfredo never got to play.”
Finally from the Boys Own paper era, Biggles was the leading boy’s hero of the 20th century – who do you think was the leading boy’s hero of Acid House?
“Great question. Mr C I think. He typifies the whole scene. Always the last man standing at the end of the night and someone in it for the right reasons, not just the money. “
Your choice of acts for the label you signed back in the 90s was unbelievable – how you spotted future stars was incredible, who do you think was the greatest act you ever found?
You know Dan, we were just in the right place at the right time. All of our artists were our friends, or friends of friends. Myself and Pete Heller needed a home to release our records so we decided to set up shop. Rocky & Diesel came on board straight away, Weatherall knew Tom & Ed Chemical from DJing up north and they knew Darren Emerson and what became Underworld – also Justin Robertson whose Most Excellent’ posse were a big part of our early success.”
You have produced and remixed some seminal artists over the years including Kylie Minogue, Primal Scream and The Happy Mondays – what has been your best ever piece of studio work for another artist?
“Well I like the early Primal Scream ‘Loaded’ mix I did. Andrew Weatherall had done his mad Dub thing and Alan McGee then called me up and asked me to do a vocal mix. Watch out too for a new ‘Junior Boys Own’ CD coming out on Defected in September with all of the early mixes on it.” I had a listen to it the other night and I was so proud of it, some great records on it. We also have two books coming out, one featuring all of our eleven Boys Own issues including all of the shit bits and all the original adverts and a photo style book showing all of the amazing scenes from The Slough Centre parties.”
What is the best club you have ever played at?
“Yellow in Japan and the early days of DC10 in Ibiza, oh and also Tenaglia at Groove Jet – I was almost part of the night/day entertainment.”
You DJ’d with Oaky at the ‘Raid’ parties…what were they like?
“The Raid parties were fantastic. Oakey, Tongy and myself, a real mix of suburban soul boys from the ‘Special Branch’ scene, the West End trendies and warehouse clubbers. We played a lot of house, Go-Go and rare groove – quite druggy as well for a pre acid house club.”
Without a shadow of a doubt, your Boys Own parties around London and the South East were the forerunners of the stately home / Chuff Chuff one offs – which venue and party was your favourite, mine was East Grinstead…
“The first one (and first outdoor all night party in ’88) was in Guildford in a barn with Steve Proctor spinning – that was fabulous with the old bill turning up at 10am in the morning and just letting us carry on without any grief. The East Grinstead one is the classic party that always gets talked about when people speak about outdoor acid house parties, a beautiful setting with lakes with flying geese and Californian sunrise E tablets, perfect. My favourite though was in Milton Keynes in a stately home we did with Graham Ball who put on the ‘Westworld’ parties. It was surrounded by cornfields and he managed to get it through ‘a friend of a friend’. Anyway, everyone parked their cars on the side of the motorway and tried getting in for free legging it across these fields, being chased by security. Some managed it, some didn’t. Anyway surprise surprise the police turned up, it turns out the place wasn’t owned by this guy’s mate, it was owned by The Queen. Well, the police and her Majesty didn’t want the whole front page of The Sun headlines, so they let us get on with it. People like Justin, Bez, Shaun, Dave Henley and Andrew were all in the thick of it.”
Who is the best artist you have ever put on at one of your own ‘Faith’ parties?
“Oh god, Derrick Carter on one of our boat parties was awesome. Miss Honey Dijon, he/she was fabulous and Tedd Patterson is simply someone who everyone loves – he never drops his standards.
Over the last couple of years there has been a resurgence of classic clubs, classic labels and DJs from back in the day suddenly massive again – why do you think this has happened?
“Everything comes and goes in fashion cycles. However, if you play great House music you are always aware that yes, you may go in and out of vogue but you will always get another shout at it. Look at the whole Trance side of things, those DJs all jumped ship and opted for the Minimal route – now they have nowhere to play and look like proper cunts.”
What new DJs out there that you have played with do you think are going places?
“I played at ‘Secretsundaze’ yesterday and it was brilliant. There was this young guy called Wbeez, a black guy only 21 years old and he was fucking great. Jackin’ House, Techno, Deep House and proper House – it was so refreshing to see a kid DJing exactly how it should be done. An old skool styled DJ musically just getting it so right.”
Junior Boys Own meets Defected, Saturday August 1st @ The Ministry of Sound, London with Terry Farley, Rocky & Diesel, ATFC, The Shapeshifters, DJ Sven and Toni Tambourine.