Andi Chapple's DJ projects - Cumbria, England - eclectic beats

I have been DJing for a little over ten years, in situations which include dance nights (main and back rooms), relaxing beats in bars, outdoor events, all-day sonic installations, as part of a medium-size jazz group and even some weddings and birthdays. my set-up is usually a pair of Numark DJ CD players and one record deck through a three-channel mixer.

BoomBooom

this was where I learnt the craft. Boom Booom was a large collective of musicians, video artists, set makers, you name it, that organised some great club nights and ambient spaces in Manchester in the mid-'90s, so I was surrounded by some good DJing which stood me in good stead when I started to do it myself, and got some good opportunities to play.

Finestyle

this has been my main thing for the best part of a decade. it's been beats in a bar, always trying to play new stuff but make the links to the older stuff, always trying to bring in as much of the local talent as possible. from 2000 to 2002 I ran Finestyle at Centro on Tib Street in Manchester, and from 2003 to the end of 2006 (when the bar closed) it was at Eclectic in Kendal, where Rob and Nisha gave me a brilliant platform to get into long (four- and five-hour) sets that really did, er, take you on a journey. towards the end of the run, we changed the name to 'Friday Night Mixers'. when I have got it done you can link to some setlists and available recordings.

Eclectic DJs

I've been posting intermittently to a blog called Eclectic DJs - click here for a link - hosting mix sets from me and from other people who were stalwarts at Eclectic. it's always worth a look because the music is great, but I don't get a chance to update it very often.

Creative Jazz Orchestra

this long-running group, run by Nick Purnell of ah-um Records, which used some of the great names of the UK jazz scene (Mike Gibbs, Julian Arguelles, Mike Walker, Martin France and so on) in a series of projects, usually involving a new commission. sometimes, usually for Nick's own projects, I was drafted in to use my decks to put a comfy layer of whoosh at the bottom of the music. it was fun. my favourite moment was at the Unity Theatre in Liverpool at Hallowe'en 2003, doing a solo mix as a background to Ramsey Campbell reading Edgar Allan Poe.

Soundland

in 2005 and 2006 I presented three all-day events of drone, environmental, abstract and plain chilled music, two in Sedbergh and one in Kendal. it gave me a chance to really dig into some low-event-rate stuff, but ironically it's led into my recent composing/performing tendency and completely away from DJing.

Weddings, birthdays ...

playing at Eclectic presented me with the opportunity to do a couple of weddings and a couple of eighteenth birthday parties. having been very sniffy about chart music for a very long time, I was surprised how much fun it was to, er, entertain people. I am available at a reasonable rate for your significant occasion!