Big DJs on campus

‘I love anything you can skank out to’


Whether it’s at a night at Koh Tao, a Granville Road party or afters in your Oak House Kitchen, everywhere you go in Manchester is full of people claiming to be DJs.

But forget CDJ’s, we’ve found the guys who are the real deal behind the big nights in Manchester.

 

Liam Banks-Carr, AKA Hyphen

The Manchester born and bred 21 year old has been DJing for six years now, and has featured on the line up of most of the clubs that we know and love.

After doing a Music Technology course he realised he could have a career spinning his stuff. Although he is able to play genres such as hip hop and funk and soul for a commercial audience, his love lies in mixing grime and dubstep: “I love mixing drum and bass as well, fused with some old school jungle. Basically anything you can skank out to.”

Hyphen droppin a wavy beat

After years of having to play shitty 18th birthday parties and weddings, he’s worked his way up to play bigger and better clubs, such as Antwerp Mansion and Mint Lounge, and can now claim to have played alongside some huge names, from Ben Pearce at Parklife, to The Bug, Footsie and many more. He also runs the event, Ruff Jam, which launched last month and featured Newham General’s Footsie, Biome, Wordz and other local support.

Dabbling with MCing (often while he DJs) has lead to being onstage next to Artful Dodger and Newham Generals.

The future for Hyphen is to work hard, continue producing his own tunes and expand Ruff Jam. Not only has he been offered a regular show on London’s Mode FM, he has also been asked to be on Rinse FM to represent Manchester artists which can only lead to big things.

 

Josh Townson

Josh, 20, is in his second year of Pharmacology at UoM and specialises in deep, tech, progressive and electro house. He learnt to DJ a year and a half ago after he and his friends attended an “I am Hardwell” show at Victoria Warehouse in 2014 and were all inspired. He didn’t take it seriously initially, but is now a resident DJ for Composite Music for Victoria Warehouse and has been on the set list with big names such as Nicky Romero, Afrojack, Tommy Trash and many more.

“The longest I’ve played was 6 and a half hours at a Fallowfield house party.”

He’s just been given a huge booking to play at the Sankeys Warehouse Project alongside Fatboy Slim and Basement Jaxx. He’s also played at student nights at Factory and for Bass Face, for those who haven’t had the WHP experience yet.

Josh hasn’t thought about his future DJ career as he doesn’t take it too seriously, despite his success. He’s slowly getting into the production side of music so perhaps that’s where his future lies.

 

Reggie Chelsom, AKA Reggulate

London born Reggie DJs at all our favourite student spots on top of his Drama degree. Sankeys, Antwerp Mansion, Sound Control and Koh Tao have all featured Reggulate on their line ups. He used to run Full Moon (now P.A.R.T.Y.) at Sankeys and played at Koh Tao with Big Narstie for his friend Sol’s 21st.

At the age of 12 Reggie started doing mash ups – his fave being a sick mix of Soulja Boy and Heartbroken. He got a cheap controller at 16 to get himself started and took it seriously from then on.

Not your average student tech house DJ

He likes to play house, garage, bassline, grime and a bit of hip hop, but he doesn’t want to be stigmatised as a typical student house DJ: “I feel like every student DJ is a tech house DJ these days and it can get repetitive, so when I can I like to play the slightly darker bass driven stuff or go with some old school garage/bassline.”

At the moment Reggie is focussed on running events so that’s his future aim. In terms of DJing, he sees it as a bonus on the side and wants to use it to bring something fresh and creative to his events.

He’s running a night at Koh Tao next Friday called Jack and the Bassline.

Lewis Potts, AKA Potty Mouth

We all know him as the guy behind the bar at Koh Tao with all the tattoos, but in the music industry, he’s Potty Mouth.

Lewis started mixing in his bedroom at the age of 18, playing predominantly dubstep, and saved up so he could buy some “crappy” equipment. For his first ever set, he didn’t have the right equipment so had to learn to use CDJs beforehand from a Youtube video. He had great feedback and knew he could grow from there.

After moving to Manchester he stopped playing until his third year when he got picked up by Bass Face, originally at Sound Control, now Factory, where he has been resident DJ for three years.

Make us a cocktail, love.

He’s supported some massive artists, such as DJ EZ, Mistajam, Lethal Bizzle, Ms Dynamite, Chase and Status and loads more. Other successes include playing Parklife three years running and two years of Warehouse Project Afterlife.

He’s currently teaching himself to scratch properly and his hopes for the future include getting more residencies, at a night aptly named Pottymouth in Sheffield and some hip hop and reggae bars.

Keep your eyes peeled for Potty Mouth at Factory, South and of course, Koh Tao.

 

Jack Schofield, AKA ZXC

This 19 year old studies Electronic Music & DJ Practice at SSR and is originally from Manchester. He stayed here to study because of the iconic music and club scene and has made use of this in his line of work.

He has been on the ones and twos at 256, Apotheca, Band on the Wall, Ark, and R-Base, where he is currently running an underground house and techno night call 4/4. R-Base is just next to Joshua Brooks and Factory, check it out next time you reevaluate your life while queueing to get into factory for five hours.

Backwards ‘R’. Edgetastic.

ZXC first got his hands on a pair of decks just over two years ago and has been playing in clubs since April 2014, he’s come a long way since leaving school. His first love is house (except the commercial stuff, obviously) but he loves a bit of disco and techno too.

Future hopes for Jack include owning an events company and DJing all around Europe at clubs such as Warehouse Project, Berghain and DC10.

 

Finn Lurcott

21 year old Finn from South West London started off as a guitarist at school. But once he discovered the path of electronic music he sold his guitar equipment to buy some “cheap gear”. After a lot of practise, he knew he could make it big.

He plays a range of house, tech and melodic prog and dabbles in techno.

During his first year of study at UoM, he had the warm up spot at Bass Face and also a club night at Gorilla. This year, he has started running a night at Koh Tao with friend, Tom Canning, called Rehoused, where he is the resident DJ alongside his younger brother, Hugh. He has also become one of the resident DJs at Sankeys where he has supported the likes of Hector Couto, Josh Butler and Traumer, for nights such as Tribal Sessions.

Stellar

For the future he intends to keep doing “stellar warm up sets” for the range of big time DJs Sankeys are bringing in and also to improve his overall technical skills and track library.