SKID / DJ

I blame Noel Edmonds!

In June 1978 I was 12, like every Thursday night I started to watch Top of the Pops. This episode was different, so different it changed my life. For on the fateful evening Mr Edmonds introduced the next act on to the show, it was AC/DC playing Rock n Roll Damnation. I still don’t know what it was that grabbed me, but whatever it was it never let go. Apparently to shut me up my dad bought me the 7” single that weekend which was shortly followed by the songs mother album “Powerage”.

By Christmas that year I had turned 13 and between birthdays and Santa  I had most of AC/DC’s LPs and discovered “Sounds” music paper along with Tommy Vance’s  “Friday Rock Show” on Radio 1 both of which opened my tiny mind onto a universe of infinite music. The addiction was forming.

A massive milestone was reached the following December when my education went from theory to practice when I went to my first gig, that band AC/DC again, at Hammersmith with Bon Scott out front. It was a water shed life changing moment…live rock music had bitten me and there was no antidote.

45 years on, the passion is still as strong as ever, the hearing, hair and 24” waist have gone, replaced by tinnitus , baldness and responsibilities. The music collection still grows and gig going never went away.

Hammersmith Odeon was my church of choice and from its first inception in 1980 Castle Donnington Monsters of Rock festival became my annual pilgrimage. The 1984 line has never been surpassed. My informative years were dominated by NWOBHM which somehow became one within my DNA strands. Rock music was always on at my home and always at volume, the reputation became a pre gig or pre party pre drink at “Skid’s House of Loud”.

I have seen AC/DC live so many times I dare not mention numbers, they are and will always be my favourite band, followed very closely by Motorhead, Maiden and Dumpy’s Rusty Nuts.I cried when Lemmy died.

Although I love all things heavy, I have an ear for any guitar orientated music and still love the old stuff, the classic’s never go away. Somehow I ended up working in rock radio leading to interviewing bands, gig photography and DJ’ing between bands at festivals. In recent years I have in found myself working with various radio stations and discovered a passion for new up and coming artists and bands, and it is here that I now find where I enjoy my music the most.

Let us together put on our patch infested denim over leather jackets, cowboy boots and bullets belts and together smell that vinyl, read those lyrics on the inner sleeve and drawl over the almost mythical “Gatefold double Live” LP. Sit back, let the needle dig into those grooves and pump out some serious classic heavy riffage of new and old alike.

Welcome to my House of Loud!

Hear the latest edition of Skid’s House of Loud here…