DJ name
Blackbeltjonez
Birthplace
Bury St Edmunds
Age
41
Shows
Burnt Toast Radio Show
When did your show start
June 2015 I think. Initially 9am-11am on Fridays as Burnt Toast Breakfast Show and then eventually upgraded to the shinier, dare I say slightly more polished Burnt Toast Radio Show which goes out 11am-1pm on a Sat.
THE GOOD
Most memorable gig:
Grandmaster Flash at The Concorde was great but could’ve been so much better; I was told (via his flunkies of course) to bring records to play for 45mins but for some reason he didn’t fancy coming on for 3 hours. A lot of B-Sides got spun that night (and a handful of repeated A-Sides). However it went down well wth the crowd and the lesson to be learned is you should always fill your record bag to the brim in case the headliner is a bit of a prima donna. To be fair he was excellent when he finally came on.
Best club played:
The Black Lion in Brighton used to go proper bonkers when I first started doing Burnt Toast nights there in 2007 and a few Halloween and New Years events remain fond if hazy memories. A marginally less fond memory was an enforced 11hr set after forgetting to book DJs so I played the afternoon slot in the garden from 4pm & didn’t finish indoors till 3am. Not a mistake one makes twice.
Previous radio stations:
For the fact fans, Burnt Toast Radio Show started out on Radio Reverb about 8 years ago and then became Beans On Toast Radio Show. It afforded me the opportunity to be textually abused all the way from Canada by the folk singer Beans on Toast. He got the hump because I snared the Twitter name before he did.
I also hosted Strictly Business (all hip hop baby) on Juice 107.2FM but had to knock it on the head when my wife selfishly decided to have a baby. It may or may not start up again. A more likely scenario is I’ll do the occasional Strictly Biz show on 1 Brighton FM when cover-slots open up. As much as I love hip hop, editing swear-words out of enough tunes to do a 2 hour show every week is rather time consuming.
Favourite club crowd played to:
I’ve never not enjoyed playing at Concorde 2 but I think playing in The Silver Fox pop-up pub at Meadowlands Festival 2013 takes the crown.
Favourite song since April 2015
DJ Format & Abdominal – We Say (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvbrRYUpRoA)
Favourite album since April 2015:
There have been 3 ‘Praise Poems’ comps on Tramp Records and they’re all packed with amazing & obscure Soul, Funk & Jazz so take your pick. Or ‘Best Of The Beatles’.
Favourite label of 2016
I’d agree with Daddy Marcus that BBE released some awesome comps in 2016 of which I bought many.
Best live act seen in Brighton and where/when
Breakestra with Charlie 2na from Jurassic 5 was pretty awesome.
Biggest influence on your DJing and why
Chemical Brothers ‘Live At The Social’ inspired me to mix The JBs into Midfield General into Public Enemy and so on. Kruder & Dorfmeister, David Holmes, Andy Smith & Fatboy Slim also got my ear twitching.
Favourite pub in Brighton
The Montpellier will forever be the place that I watched Liverpool annoy Chelsea in the semis and then go on to win the final of Champions League in 2005.
Favourite other DJ (non1BFM)
Very much depends on the day; today I’m gonna say Kruder & Dorfmeister. Tomorrow it’ll be DJ Premier or Tony Blackburn.
Favourite club visited
Fabric was always awesome and was always worth the trip. I was however mildly annoyed that I only discovered the main room about 20 minutes before leaving on my first visit…
THE BAD
Least favourite genre:
Trap & Mumble Rap. Both sadly reflective of a society that is gradually becoming selfish, ignorant and stoopid.
Name a record that you regret playing
There’s no shame in opening a set with the drum n bass version of London Posse’s ‘Style’. There is however a degree of remorse when being told that it was also the third record of your set that you played and you then wandered off halfway through to talk to somebody. It’s not at all coincidence that this happened about 430am at a Bust The Box New Year’s eve party. The incident earned me an unofficial award that I won’t mention on here in case my mum’s reading.
Worst gig, and why:
Weddings are tough affairs and are made significantly harder when encouraged by the groom to bring “no wedding crap” followed by his subsequent failure to pre-warn guests. The abiding memory of that evening was a six year old boy crying because I didn’t have ‘Road To Amarillo’ (and getting a snog from a girl who was simultaneously eating a chicken leg).
Name one thing you don’t like about DJing:
The lack of an electric fence around the DJ bit at Black Lion was always a sore point.