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For
Pete Tong, whose consummate involvement in all areas of dance
music has made him a genuine household name in the UK, these
are exciting times: every aspect of his considerably varied
career is currently undergoing either consolidation, change,
or creation anew. As a DJ, Tong is enjoying increasing international
popularity, especially in the USA.
And as a broadcaster who brought dance to the masses via his
Essential Selection show at Radio One, he has just agreed
a new three-year contract which will keep him on the BBC airwaves
through to 2005. The record executive who founded the seminal
ffrr label in 1988, overseeing the careers of Orbital, Goldie,
Brand New Heavies, Salt n Pepa and Artful Dodger, Pete Tong
is returning to his A&R roots with the company. The DJ
behind many an Essential Mix compilation, he has a triple
CD set Tune In, Turn On, Chill Out lined up for the summer;
he has also just assembled the music for 24 Hour Party People.
Such
a range of high-profile activities seems a long way removed
from Tong's beginnings as a wedding DJ in Kent during his
teens. But for all his current fame and acclaim, you'd be
hard put to find someone whose progression has been more organic.
In fact, in many ways, Pete's story runs parallel to the growth
of dance music in the UK.
When
he was at school, hard rock ruled the roost, and Pete tried
playing in bands, but after seeing a DJ playing actual records
at a school disco and deciding "that looked like much
more fun," he never looked back. "DJing just seemed
to be my vocation." Initially, Pete followed that vocation
to Soul Weekenders in otherwise quiet sea-side towns like
Caistor and Prestatyn, where he "was always the young
boy" who ran with a crowd of old-school DJs known as
the Soul Funk Mafia.
His
involvement in that scene landed him a day job at Blues &
Soul magazine where he soon became features editor and began
making appearances on BBC's Radio London and Radio Medway.
Out in club land, meanwhile, he quickly learned a maxim that
still holds true today: "the only way to do it is to
run your own club, create your own scene." So Tong DJ'd
a club in Baker Street called [Family] Function, and simultaneously
booked bands for a weekend alternative night: the first one
he hired was the then-unknown Culture Club.
An
ability to explain what was then considered a fringe genre
found him presenting a dance music segment on Radio 1's Peter
Powell show. But noticing that daytime DJs had no control
over the music they played, Tong eschewed national radio opportunities,
launching a soul show on Kent's newly-launched Invicta station
instead. By this time, his growing reputation for recognising
new talent saw him leave Blues and Soul for an A&R position
at London Records, a job he has held, in one manner or another,
for almost twenty years.
In
the mid-eighties, the old guard was swept away, as first the
hip-hop and electro sounds from New York, and then house music
from Chicago, techno from Detroit and the 'Baleiric Beat'
in Ibiza, were embraced by a new set of young London promoters
and DJs. Pete Tong and his friend Nicky Holloway DJ'd in Ibiza
for the first time in 1986. The following year Holloway went
with Oakenfold and Danny Rampling, and upon return to London,
succeeded in emulating the Ibiza experience across clubland.
The house generation was born.
Tong,
in the thick of it all, was hired by Capital Radio to broadcast
to the new clubbers, which helped give him the clout to start
a 'label within a label' at London. Ffrr Records was born
in 1988: hitting the charts immediately with Salt n Pepa's
'Push It', Tong and ffrr became famous for conducting lightning
raids on the latest underground hits and propelling them up
the charts. "I've been lucky," says Tong. "I
grew up at a time when the whole scene exploded, and I worked
with a bunch of people for a long period of time who empowered
me to be able to change things."
The
biggest change came in 1991, when Radio One recognised that
it needed to cater for the new, and permanent, youth culture.
Pete was hired away from Capital to host a brand new Friday
evening show, the Essential Selection, which gave him one
of the most influential jobs in the business - broadcasting
to the nation's record buying, club-going youth and, unlike
his daytime predecessors, choosing the music too.
Tong's
success as a broadcaster, clubland DJ and A&R man has
been predicated on a precarious but successful balance between
credibility - "I look for originality and records with
a lot of spirit and soul," - and commerciality. "You
can have good taste in your own world and be very obscure,"
he says of those DJs who ignore the crowd. This means that
he's not afraid to drop the hits onto the decks. "People
forget it's entertainment," Tong explains. "You've
got these DJs coming on, and they'll inflict two or three
hours of music on the audience, and sometimes it's torture
because it's all unknown. It doesn't really work, and the
music they're picking isn't really that good anyway. It's
supposed to be fun."
This
readiness to entertain, tempered by a constant search for
the next big thing, enabled Tong to thrive throughout the
1990s. Ffrr grew from a singles-based label to an album artist's
breeding ground. The Essential Selection spun off a show called
the Essential Mix, enabling DJs worldwide to showcase their
mixing talents on national radio, and together these led to
the Essential compilations, with Tong producing several best-sellers
himself. In the mid-nineties, Radio 1 sought Tong's advice
on revamping their roster, and with the arrival of Judge Jules,
Danny Rampling and co. to the national airwaves, the revolution
was complete. Success, though, can bring complacency, something
Tong is adamant to avoid. "When you're on the radio for
so long your audience stays the same age but you get older.
The new people come in and think of you as a radio DJ and
not a club DJ." Tong's new contracts with both ffrr and
Radio 1 allow him more time on the road, searching out new
music as he plays across the globe, broadcasting from select
cities en route.
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