Submitted By: JeanYes

Genre: Old Skool

Date of Set: 1994

Filesize: 43.39 MB

Total Downloads: 5

DJ Jumping Jack Frost is a typical Gemini. He's a man of two parts, serious and frivolous, and has shown a desperate need to communicate from the day he was born in Chelsea, London, on 29th May 1967. A natural entertainer, DJ Jumping Jack Frost started DJing and MCing at his boarding school, Embourne Lodge. He took his seven O Levels to North London College where he spent a year in less serious mode, dossing around and hanging out, catching up on people and general things he missed out on at Embourne.

When Jumping Jack Frost started DJing for real in 1984, the serious side of his split personality came to the fore. 'At that time everyone wanted to start playing music. Some people were serious about it, some weren't. I was.' So serious in fact that from time to time he had to do a bit o hustling on the streets to support himself. Then House / Rave music came along. 'At the time I was playing Soul, Funk, Disco and Boogie on this pirate radio station called Passion. One day I walked into a shop and bought a record called 'Land of Confusion'. I was totally unlike anything I'd heard before - a completely mad Acid kind of record by a guy called Armando.

'It was the only Acid record I had, but ever time I played it, the audience really went for it, so I started looking for more records like it. 'I got really carried away by the whole Acid scene. It wasn't just a music thing - it was a life thing. I realised I hadn't even begun to start living- the people who were already in to it were experiencing another dimension. 'Coming from Brixton, everything seemed like an oppressive vicious circle with no way out. The Acid thing was like stress relief - it reflected my attitude to my life, the system, everything.'

Okay, if Frosty says other got into the House scene before he did, did he have any knowledge of how the whole thing began? 'I thing it was foreseen by the people who were making the records, people like Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May an' that. I've never been to Detroit, but Grooverider's been there and what I've heard from Grooverider, I don't know how those people could have been inspired to make that kind of music because there's no scene as such there.' What about coping with the hype of being a DJ. 'It's all right for me, because after the party's over, it's over. As soon as I get back to my area, no-one cares about raves. I don't really socialise with other DJs outside of the office where I work, and most of my friends are friends I've had for years. So the hype don't bother me.'

As he went on to describe the type of music he like to play, his star sign character again reared its head. 'Me, I'm a typical Gemini, and i think that my music changes with my moods. At the moment I'm playing a sexy kind of hardcore, although I don't like to call it Hardcore, that's just what people have labelled it as. I'm a Dance music DJ or various styles -even Reggae. To my reggae is Dance music now and people can't deny it. The stuff that people are playing now that they're calling Progressive House, we were playing years ago.' Frosty's personality is less split when it comes to his career, however.

'I'll always be a DJ. But I will always strive to do other things. At the moment I want to try and be a presented for MTV or something like that. That's what I wanna do next.' 'There's some night that have totally made me grow up as a DJ and opened my eyes to see that I've still got a lot to learn, and always will have a lot to learn. There's been nights that have been great for being great, and there's been night that I've been glad for other DJs because, people have said this 'n' that about them, and they've gone and proved them wrong. So there's untold different nights.'

'Every DJ is a top DJ in my eyes. As long as one or two people like you, you're on top. If you're providing the service and making people feel happy, that's it. I've been in the position where I've played in small clubs and that and progressed up to bigger clubs, and to me it's been no different - it's just entertaining people the same. So when you start thinking you're a top DJ, you're just bracketing yourself away from other people.' 'A man who's been DJing as long as all of us - Grooverider, Fabio, and myself- and not got the recognition that he deserves is Bryan G. He's his own man, and he can get his character across in the music. To me, the difference between a good DJ and an ordinary DJ is character.'

'My name? At the time I used to call myself Underworld for the show that I was doing on Passion Radio. Then the Government said they were giving out licenses for pirate radio stations to go legal, but they had to shut down to have any chance of getting one. So we said we were going to shut down to go for the community license - that Choice FM eventually got- and go over to East London with all the same DJs to set up a radio station with some friends, change all our names and just have a laugh.

'So there we were now, sitting down trying to think of all these names and Pete Stuart, a guy I used to work with, came up with 'Jack' Frost and I said, 'Yeah, I like that name, 'Jack' Frost'. 'I thought about it for a second, then I said, 'Yeah, 'Jumping Jack Frost'. The whole point of that was so that we couldn't be identified by the police if our station became legal and we could just go back to our original names.' When he has the time he like to wind down with a little melodic Jazz and a good work out on his portable gym.

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