DJ Appearances

Detroit Hustles Harder

I feel fully in the throes of festival season following last weekend's Movement Detroit - it was a great way to make my debut in the city, with a Saturday main stage appearance in an impressive amphitheatre location. The previous 2 overseas festivals I’ve been booked to play, Playground in Australia (March) and Rainbow Disco Club in Japan (early May), were both frustratingly cancelled due to flooding. This time, despite a spot of rain early in the afternoon, the sun decided to smile on Detroit and it was a glorious day, made all the more satisfying via the feedback from both the audience and those backstage.

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:54+00:00June 1, 2012|Articles, Black Culture, DJ Appearances, Documentaries, Photography, The Seventies, The Sixties|15 Comments

The Haçienda – 30 Years On

One of the world’s most celebrated clubs, The Haçienda in Manchester, opened 30 years ago today, on Friday May 21st 1982. In June 2007, a little after the 25th anniversary, the inimitable Manchester-based writer / musician, John Robb, author of books including ‘The North Will Rise Again: Manchester Music City 1976-1996’ (2009), ‘The Stone Roses And The Resurrection Of British Pop’ (1996) and ‘Punk Rock: An Oral History’ (2006), did a short interview with me about the club’s legacy:

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:54+00:00May 21, 2012|Articles, Black Culture, Books, DJ / Club Culture, DJ Appearances, Manchester, Photography, Read, Records, Remixes / Edits, The Eighties, The Nineties|8 Comments

The Haçienda Disco V Fiasco!

Sometimes you don’t know whether to laugh or cry! Following on from February’s post about the extraordinarily ill-conceived Haçienda DJ Booth (original side of stage location), I’ve since found out something that takes the entire bungling tale, as slapstick as it already was, into a whole new realm of ineptitude!

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:54+00:00April 19, 2012|DJ / Club Culture, DJ Appearances, Manchester, The Eighties|6 Comments

One Deck Session Vinyl Selection

When the crew behind Manchester’s Electric Chair brought their monthly club night to an end at the beginning of 2008, they’d decided their next move would be from club to pub, opening a bar a few miles outside of the city centre in Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, which they called Electrik... I was invited to play there on Sunday April 1st, a suitable date for such an endeavour I thought – if anyone turned up expecting a normal type DJ slot from me at least I had a valid April Fools get out clause. Ahead of the night Electrik announced ‘Greg Wilson...no reel to reel...1 record deck...no mixing...mind the gap’.

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:54+00:00April 12, 2012|Black Culture, CD’s / Digital, DJ / Club Culture, DJ Appearances, Hear, Manchester, Mixes, Random Influences, Records, The Eighties, The Seventies|12 Comments

Sub-Sonic Force

When I was in Adelaide in February I received an email from DeFacto, the Nottingham based creative agency whose accounts include the Fred Perry clothing brand. They’d already approached me to appear at one of the monthly Fred Perry Subculture nights they hold at The Garage in London, presenting Reels Of Steel for the first time in the capital, so we’d been discussing a possible line-up for a date later in the year. However, they’d just learned of Afrika Bambaataa’s availability for their 20th April date and, quite rightly, saw this as a perfect fit with me, given my Electro-Funk background, with Bambaataa very much a key inspiration (not to mention that, as serendipity had it, this was exactly 30 years on from his era-defining single with the Soul Sonic Force, the mighty ‘Planet Rock’).

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:55+00:00April 4, 2012|Black Culture, DJ / Club Culture, DJ Appearances, The Eighties|3 Comments

The Anatomy Of An Edit

One of the biggest tunes for me during the past 12 months has been the edit I did of Late Nite Tuff Guy’s ‘One Nite In A Disco’. It’s finally been made available as a digital download, having previously been part of a limited vinyl only EP, which, now digitized, is topping Juno’s Disco download chart as I write this:

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:55+00:00March 29, 2012|CD’s / Digital, DJ / Club Culture, DJ Appearances, Hear, Records, Remixes / Edits|11 Comments

Slowing Down Time

I started writing this before I headed off on my travels to Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and back to Australia again (concluded on my return home, having made notes along the way). I’ve been very preoccupied with time, or, to be more precise, the lack of it – this is where my head was at:

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:55+00:00March 13, 2012|Books, DJ Appearances, Mixes, Radio, Read|21 Comments

Passing It On

Before I headed off on tour I pulled out my recently acquired copy of Bob Dylan's autobiography 'Chronicles: Volume One' (2004), which I'd specifically earmarked for this trip. However, on my connecting flight from Manchester to London I realised that rather than packing it in my hand baggage, as intended, I must have put in my suitcase, so, with my luggage checked through to Hong Kong, when I arrived at Heathrow I went into WH Smith to see if I could find something else to read on the journey. I was really looking forward to the Dylan book, so, when I saw it on the shelf I decided to get another copy, and pass the spare one on somewhere along the way.

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:55+00:00February 22, 2012|Books, CD’s / Digital, DJ / Club Culture, DJ Appearances, Read, The Fifties, The Forties, The Sixties, The Thirties|8 Comments

The Haçienda DJ Booth

Not the iconic one up on the balcony, but the initial side of stage location. This bit of history comes courtesy of Hewan Clarke, the original Haçienda DJ, who had to put up with what was one of the worst thought out DJ booths I’d ever come across, located in a separate room down some stairs to the side of the stage, with a narrow slit window enabling you to view little more than the feet of those outside in the club.

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:55+00:00February 10, 2012|Black Culture, DJ / Club Culture, DJ Appearances, Manchester, The Eighties|20 Comments

Year Of Decision

On New Year’s Eve, for the first time since I started up again, I was deejaying as one year passed into the next. Although I’ve had bookings every New Year’s Eve since 2004, I’ve always played after midnight, but this year I made 2 separate appearances in London, the first at the Slide & Get Diverted party in the Brixton Clubhouse between 11pm and 1am (my later date, from 3am and 5am would be over in Greenwich at the Defected event at Proud2 in the O2 Arena).

By Greg Wilson|2025-04-07T10:37:56+00:00January 6, 2012|Black Culture, DJ / Club Culture, DJ Appearances, Hear, Misc, Records, The Seventies|21 Comments

Previous 567 Next

2026 DJ DATES:

31.12 Todmorden – NYE @ The Golden Lion

17.01 Belfast – The Deer’s Head

23.01 Bristol – Lost Horizon

05.02 New York – Jeans

07.02 Upstate New York – Disco Chalet

13.02 Los Angeles – Spotlight

14.02 San Francisco – Great Northern

21.02 London – Fac 51 Haçienda @ Drumsheds

06.03 Brussels – C12 Brussels

08.03 Bognor Regis – Bugged Out

21.03 Leeds – Downtown Disco @ Archive

03.04 Carlisle – The Brickyard

04.04 Dewsbury – The Terrace

05.04 Liverpool – Gloria’s

18.04 Margate – Margate Arts Club

19.04 London – Jazz Cafe

24.04 Manchester – Manchester Cathedral

02.05 London – Disco Disco @ Queens Yard

16.05 Bristol – Where We Belong Festival

23.05 Hastings – The Print Works

30.05 Steyning – Steyning Festival

12.06 Stockport – Moovin Festival

20.06 Newcastle – Frate

27.06 Penzance – Golowan Festival

11.07 London – Brixton Freight Island

26.07 Manchester Freight Island

26.07 Hertfordshire – Campo Sanchez

31.07 Oxfordshire – Wilderness Festival

15.08 Newcastle- E-Soul Cultura @ Freight Island

15.08 Warrington- Brickhaus

18.08 Ibiza- 528

23.08 Dorset- We Out Here Festival

04.09 Lindisfarne Festival05.09 Battle – Crafted @ Powdermills

10.09 Winchester – Mucky Weekender

I’m a DJ from Merseyside. I started out in 1975, but stopped for almost 20 years, between 1984 and the end of 2003, at which point I started again.

One night during the period I wasn’t deejaying, turning off my mind, relaxing, and floating downstream I had what might be termed a moment of clarity. Paradoxically, although I was no longer a DJ in the literal sense I suddenly became aware that I’d never actually stopped being a DJ, for even if I was in a room with just one person I couldn’t help but ask them ‘have you heard this?’, and not only ‘heard’, but ‘have you seen this / read this?’, for it goes beyond music. Already taken somewhat aback by this nugget of self-discovery, I realised, in true eureka style, that this all pre-dates my being a DJ and goes back as far as I can remember – I’ve always had an inherent need to share, it’s absolutely central to my nature. This was quite a revelation.

So it’s no wonder that I became a Disc Jockey, for once I fell in love with those circular pieces of magical plastic during my formative years, it wasn’t a matter of choosing this as a path, the path pretty much chose me.

I don’t intend this to be a DJ blog as such, but more a blog by someone who happens to be a DJ – a place where personal emphasis takes precedence over professional, although, as I’ve already explained, the two aspects are, of course, inescapably entwined.

If you want info about my DJ appearances, email greg@gregwilson.co.uk for regular updates.

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