Well not that much back then. But later on after acquiring some skills and practice in spinning I wanted to get some diversity into my mixes. I started to listen to some Hip Hop on WBLS. My favorite show was DJ Red Alert and I remember going to sleep with his shows on the radio. I guess that all of his scratching and mixing got into my subconscious and I began to incorporate that into my mixes. The next thing you know I was scratching to old House tunes.
Is that how you got your "Lord Fader" nickname?
Haha, nope. that's actually another funny story. Back then I was dating this girl who was friends with DJ Spinbad. So I used to always make her mix tapes of my dance stuff with scratch mixes.
Little did I know that she really asked me for these tapes because of Spinbad (laughs). Later on I met Spinbad and he told me that I inspired him to make his Hip Hop mix tapes. So we decided to start working on some mixes together and that's when "The Cold Cutz Crew" was born and Spinbad gave me the nickname "Lord Fader". We did a lot of intensive work together with just the turntables and a tape deck...A lot of crazy editing work.
Were you doing any clubs back then?
No. It wasn't until '88 that I met with Adam S who is still my promoter till this very day. He got me my first residency gig at "Avanti" a night club based in Queens, NY. It was a combination of my good friendship with Adam and me getting tired of playing "16 candles" on sweet 16 parties (laughs) that inspired me to do clubs
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