Dynamix UKG

Alan grew up in SE London, and found his love for music at school, and it started with the sound of jungle music, with friends that also had a love for it, listening to the likes of Roast, One Nation, Awol, World Dance and Telepathy rave tape packs on the nostalgic Sony Walkman tape players in about the mid 90's.

He also listened to the Jungle Mania and Jungle Hits mixed compilations in his friends cars blasting out with a big bass box in the boot. Then towards the late 90's he found his love for the underground garage sound, which influenced him to get into DJing, again, listening to the garage tape packs ie Stush, Sun City, La Cosa Nostra, Lords Of The Underground, Garage Nation and so on. One of his favourite Garage Tracks at the time being 'Gabrielle' - Roy Davis Jnr.

Alan started DJing in about 1998 when he felt that he wanted to do more than just listen to music on a player or sound system, and decided to buy a pair of Decks and a mixer from Tottenham Court Rd. They were a pair of Kam Belt Drive decks and a SoundLab mixer, and were fairly cheap, but he was just happy he could give this new hobby a try.

The very first ever Vinyl records he bought was a track by Two As One and MJ Cole called 'Body Heat' and 'Gunman' by 187 Lockdown from Uptown Records Soho. After countless times trying to mix and blend with his friends practicing, every spare minute of the day, and reading the 'DJ' magazines, he finally got the grasp of phrasing, and beats to the bar, and was starting to get the hang of syncing 2 tracks together using the edge of the platter, spindle and pitch control to pitch bend.

He found that it wasn't the easiest thing to do with Belt driven Turntables, so a year or so later he purchased some direct drive turntables, 2 brand new Technics SL1210 mk2's and a Technics mixer, from a shop called TurnKey on Charring Cross Road, Central London, and carried them all the way back on the train to SE London with a couple of friends and never looked back.

As a Teenager and growing up into his early twenties, Alan's influence and DJ Idol was the legendary DJ EZ, the way he would just drop tunes and the skill set he possessed on the ones and two's. For him, was 2nd to none, but when it came to music production with UKG, it was mainly Tuff Jam, MJ Cole, New Horizons and Ant Hill Mob, he would gravitate to the most, albeit he feels there are so many other extremely talented DJ's and artists out there in the scene it would take him quite some time to name them all.

Some of Alan's favourite record labels were Public Demand, Locked On and Confetti, to name a few and some of his favourite record shops were Blackmarket Records, Uptown Records, Rhythm Division and currently still going, and his current favourite would be DnR records, Croydon, giving special thanks to Dan, for keeping UKG record shopping alive.

The main kind of vibe Alan goes for when DJing, would be high energy, good basslines and a bumpy/bouncy kind of UKG flex, around the 130-135 bpm range. He's more of a four to the floor kinda guy, but does love to drop in a nice bassy 2 steppa here and there, both Old and New Skool, he plays them all. Alan takes great pride in curating and prepping each set he plays, and can spend hours doing this, going through the bpm ranges and KEY analysis etc.

From about 1998 - 2003 Alan was a bit of an events organiser, and held a few small to medium sized events in his local area, in SE LONDON, including DnB and Garage events, in bars and small clubs and used to play at them, and also played at quite a few of his friends events, again, organised by them, in small bars, halls and clubs around, Eltham, Woolwich, Welling and surrounding areas of SE London.

Alan visited Ayia Napa 3 times during 1998-2002 where the garage scene was at its Peak, enjoying partying at Nissi Beach and watching the likes of EZ, Norris Da Boss Windross, DJ Luck & MC Neat and MC's CKP and PSG to name but a few.

Alan has played for a few radio stations during his career, including BassBox Radio, and at one point, played on his own Radio Station, which he co owned for a period of time called PhatBeatz Radio and is now currently on Garage Tape Packs YouTube channel, live-streaming his DJ sets regularly.

Alan has also managed to receive a respectable following on some social media platforms including, TikTok, Instagram and Mixcloud which he is quite proud of, and where he Livestream's his DJ sets on a regular basis and post's content about music and DJing.

The underground UKG scene, In Alan's opinion, is about nostalgia, good memories and taking him back to a place where he had so much fun, he feels it's a brilliant community atm, and that it has kind of come back in a big way again, with some brilliant, new, up and coming artists and producers including some of the older very talented ones.

Notable mentions including artists, producers and record labels that are doing a grand job right now, and some of his favourites include Mobb Music, Karl Brown, J Erazo, Jay Ward, Tova Brown, Big Drum Records, Jamie Webb, Wormwood Dubs, Lyrical Brum Town, Rocket Dubz, Harry Luda, NURELIC and many more.

Some of Alan's Favourite Clubs back in the day were Club Colluseum, Gas Club and Camden Palace.

Alan feels that having Radio Stations, or Channels like Garage Tape Packs is important for the House and Garage scene, and keeping it alive and having people of similar music backgrounds and interests connecting with each other.

One of Alan's favourite tracks of all time, and one that he never gets bored of is 'Times Are Changin' by Smokin Beats, and if he could go back in time to one of his favourite times growing up in the UKG scene, it would be to Club Colluseum for Garage Nations's Halloween Ball in 2001.

You can catch Alan Live on Garage Tape Packs YouTube channel, fortnightly on Monday from 7-9pm, where he drops the very best in UK underground garage, old and new, bringing you lots of energy.

Alan would love to DJ at a UKG festival one day and collab, or go B2B with some of the well known, and established DJ's and MC's on the scene right now.

Alan's passion for music means everything to him, and without music, he would feel lost. When you hear him play you can expect high energy, big basslines and thumping four to the floor bumpy and bouncy underground UKG anthems.