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Profile of DJs SHADOW B & MODULATE (VERSION DRUM AND BASS)

Real names: Andrew Bell & Robert Siddall

Born in Sheffield in 1980 & 1973 current location Sheffield steel city

Background information

Impact has been in the scene since the very early days of hardbeat and hardcore. I have been on all Sheffield’s pirate radio stations: Hardcore FM Fantasy FM, Pitch FM, Joy Fm and S.C.R.

I commanded a regular slot of 3 hours on Fantasy and Pitch FM, playing the finest hard Techno/Gabber with shows featuring Drum and Bass, Hardcore, Acid Trance etc. These stations transmitted over the airwaves for miles, reaching the likes of Howden/Goole in one direction and in the other direction as far as Manchester. Everyone listened to the stations and my show became a listeners favourite. These radio stations were the hub of everything underground and everyone communicated through the radio with a phone in to the studio allowing the audience to contact the DJ live on air asking for tracks and shouts to mates etc. These radio stations also promoted club nights for promoters with adverts playing on shows which made all the ravers aware what was happening and who was playing which nights. The stations funded themselves by advertising local restaurants, clothes shops etc. Today they are sadly missed !!!! man

I wish we could go back!!!!!!

Quote: “I remember been on Fantasy Fm one night half way through my set AND BANG BANG BANG AT THE DOOR someone shouted open up immediately it’s the police & DTI, man did i panic only to find Easy D & Dextrous laughing at the door when i opened it lol. (you were always waiting for the D.T.I with their tv detector vans to bang on the door of the high storey flat you’re in on the 14 th floor!), ready to arrest and confiscate all your tunes and equipment” that was the buzz of it all the danger but it was worth it!

The beginnings of the DJ Impact

I was going out to nights like Fantazia,Raindance,Gallatica, Techno city at occasions as this was the style of music that i loved and had started to collect, electronic music i always loved but this stuff was like something else.

I was already buying vinyl from Jackmaster Jay at the record shop in the hole in the road called “Wolf Records” and getting served in warp by Asterix Chris Duckenfield. I started buying vinyl at the age of 15 (which was 24 years ago!!). Most of which was acid house and Hardbeat tecchno.

I slowly and steadily built up a collection of intense hard and dark vinyl which sometimes moved towards hardcore then at the same time hard-beat techno imported from Germany, Holland, and the USA. I eventually shopped all over for vinyl’s at shops like Eastern Block, Depth Charge, Cush D records, Rhythm Nation, Warp Records, Wolf Records and Area 39 to name but a few.

I loved all aspects of the scene and its community and especially techno harder the better. I was buying hard-beat with labels such as Industrial Strength, 80 Aum, Hithouse recs,Direct Drive. I had a decent collection of tunes and managed to secure a pair of decks and a mixer – man i was excited! No not Technic’s but Tandy realistics with pitch control which was a little wheel and a phonic mixer. Technic’s were like rocking horse s**t and i didn’t earn enough to buy them lol!!!! I was buying records every week and i was hooked but had realised that i only had one turntable.

I took to the bedroom and reappeared 2 weeks later teaching myself to beatmix. Learning the craft on the most basic of setups i knew when it came to mixing on industry standard technics it would be a doddle, as you only had to breath on the realistic needles and it was skating off the tune.

I went on a night out at Hillsborough where he met up with some mates from work (fellow ravers) and every week i took along my new tapes mixed for the lads. One of the lads had been giving his tapes to a Fantasy FM DJ known as Dj Dream. I eventually went to meet up with Dream and went to the Fantasy & Pitch transmitting studio where i performed a few mixes live on air and it was suggested at the time that I should try for my own show.

I enquired about a show and Dream set it up, I had the chance but there was a catch, I had to perform in front of the station management Bossman and Cliff. “Man was I nervous, 3 hours in front of these guys”. When I’d finished that was it, a regular show was granted. Cliff commented “Fookin hell never heard tunes like it in my life!”

I knew at the time that i had pulled it off and now had a regular show every Monday for 3 hours 9 till midnight on a premiere station. FANTASY FM

DJ IMPACT WAS BORN

Quote: "I remember my first show I was so nervous but excited, I introduced myself on the mic and dropped my first record (Energy Flash by Joey Beltram). Man the phone went Ballistic!”

Once on the radio my playing out career began to start securing a Residency at Bouncy in Sheffield alongside residents Dream, Jackmaster Jay, CJ Glover, Ell and MC Unity. Getting bookings for the Dielectric club Leicester on a Regular Basis , Hellraiser London, Happy Daze at Music Factory, Ravers choice, Fusion, even Helter Skelter was offering bookings.

I had now honed my mixing skills and was sending tapes all over the country to clubs from which promoters were beginning to respond.

When resident at Bouncy he played alongside many in the scene such as the likes of Loftgroover, Dougal, Hixxy, Stu Allen and Brisk to name but a few. At club Dielectric he played alongside some of the best techno DJ’s including Clarkee, Davie Forbes, Scott Brown, Hms, Loftgroover.

This was valuable to me as he got to talk to the DJ's for feedback on his sets and he steered towards the harder form of techno Known by now as Gabba(gabber) Gabba was in its very early stages produces were just starting to experiment with the sound and i was on it straight on it.

I had by this time in excess of 3000 records varying in all styles of hardcore and techno but at this stage i started collecting the style of records with a hard and fast pounding kick drum and hard stabs. I was, at the time, one of only two people in Sheffield playing this style Myself & MR Ben, it was a taste many people didn’t seem to like for some reason lol but i just saw it as a nieche as no one else was playing it, most were playing on the radio Jungle,techno,house,Breakbeat, etc but Me and Ben were like pioneers of the style in Sheffield we did our shows independant but with mixes of Bouncy techno Gabber and Hardbeat. People loved it on the radio but didn’t seem to get on with it in the Sheffield clubs!!

I wanted to be different from all the other DJ’s playing this new form of music.

Rob now joined forces with the mighty Pitch FM alongside Jackmaster Jay DJ, Mr Ben and DJ Selector. He again commanded a prime time show 3 hours long, playing many of the station organised events and clubs where he had began to get bookings for the likes of Steam, Hellraiser Brixton (home of Praxis) and many harder gabber events.

Rob also had secured a Saturday job in Jackmaster Jay’s new record shop called Area 39 in Sheffield for which he was paid in vinyl. This was great and all the Radios DJ's bought there vinyl from there it was a place not just to buy records but to socialise . We met so many Freind’s through Jons shop those days were the best.

I also started mixing tapes for sale in the shop and selling them and I actually could not produce enough to keep the shelves full as demand was so high.

Rob Impact had now become a name in the scene and a DJ promoter called Paul O gave him a booking for Uprising, a fairly new night in Rotherham at a club called Revolution, Ship Hill, Rotherham, where Kenny Sharp was the club manager. The night was a Thursday with MC Nazt. Everyone turned out on the night and it was a banging night. After the club, I met Brian Topgroove for the first time and he complemented me on a good set – Man was i buzzing!.

Rob went on to play for Uprising on many occasions at the Adelphi and basically everywhere the night was held at. I started to play at various nights and had quite a good following.

The Promoters of this night Paul & Kenny were awesome to play for, these guys knew how to run a night and put on a good night they did!! Big respect to these guys!!

In 2001 my career as an CNC Electrical Engineer began to demand more of my time, I now had commitments such as a mortgage etc. And i had to make a choice of slowly but surely grinding my DJ ing to a minimum there was just no time for both. The pirates had gone and bookings began to dry up. I started to get less and less interest in his DJ'ing and by the end of 2004 had stopped buying vinyls completely and the decks and studio started to collect dust. The gabba scene was starting to die and releases were, well, just s**t so that was it. All over. I knew he would never sell his collection of vinyls (a total 5000 records) as he loved the music so much and so many of them were limited and he knew he would get them again.

Rob missed the pirate station a lot as when they vanished so did a lot of his bookings. Radio gave Rob exposure to the people and that’s what he needed.

A few years passed by when while on the internet I stumbled upon a site called Hardcore united. On this site he noticed a few familiar sounding names and within no time he was chatting away finding what he had been missing in the scene. He got to chat with management of the site and found out they had an internet radio station. Rob immediately got on the case with DJ Firthy and asked for a possible play on the station.

Firthy, on his reputation from other people on the site like DJ Kev Gee, Martin Space gave Rob Impact a regular 2 hour show on Saturdays and Impact yet again is on the airwaves playin' the finest Gabber beats, but i thought it best to play a variety of styles including Trance, Acid house, Drum & Bass and Hardcore. I did many weeks of weekly shows

I managed to talk with a Promotor for Vibealite Paul Draycott which now was in Manchester which i sent Cds to and he passed them on the Doug Rascle who booked for the techno room, within no time i was back Djing at Vibealite Nights I was enjoying it but it wasn’t the same buzz as the old days so after a year i fell away completly from the Hardcore scene.

I then met up again with Dj Mr Ben he introduced me to Drum & Bass its was like a Breath of fresh air! The scene was Grown up, guys and gals in the club were my age for a change and this was a turning point for me. I still loved my Techno etc but the styles of Dnb has changed a lot and i jumped into intelligent/tech drum&Bass. Hardcore united disbanded and me and Mr Ben managed to get on an internet radio station called Drum & bass Tv in America. We did a weekly show for over a year together playing all styles of dnb all over the world reaching excellent download scores in the drum & bass download charts Even beating Fabio & Grooverider in the German download chart dnbdownloads.de. we were called Disfunktional Djs.

We got a few bookings here and there and managed to get a really good Mc to do our radio shows called Mc Ballistic i knew Martin for a long time so no introductions were necessary this guy can Mc!! Goldie once asked him to MC for him down London.

Then along came my Kids and yet again my djing had to cease with a Job and kids that demanded more and more time that seem it for me.

The beginnings of the DJ Shadow B

Started back in 92 listening to early hardcore/jungle techno on pirate radio stations around Sheffield and got some suitcase belt drive decks off a pub dj I used to help out lifting and shifting his speakers, lights and equiptment when I was 13 back in ’93 where I learned many things about sound engineering and playing to a crowd. I modified the old battered turntables to pitch the vinyl and beat mix(I also got electrocuted and nearly died in the process:) This is probably why I went on to become a sparky. I hosted lots of parties while I was still at school and picked up the name Ronnie B from my schoolmates which just stuck. I worked with my Dad on building sites at weekends from the age of 6 which helped me save up for some technics 1210s when I was 14. They were my pride and joy, I would visit underground record shops around south Yorkshire every weekend searching for fresh new beats which not every other DJ was playing. This introduced me to many local DJs including CJ Glover at reflex and Danny Revolver at rhythm nation in Doncaster.

I played hard/darkcore techno at Uprising starting at the xmas party in 1998 when Kenny told Glover he was going to play a CD for the first hour, Glover said what about getting Belly on? Kenny laughed as he had seen me knocking about with Glover but he didn’t know I could DJ “He best not throw a whitey!!” Uprising at the Adelphi was becoming really big at that time and had around 300 in by the end of my 1st hour all having it. I can remember MC Beats, who jumped on the mic for my set call me a darkhorse after and Paul, who was listening while working the door said he really enjoyed my set and would have me back on again soon. This was amazing and I don’t remember much more from the rest of that night??

I was always trying to incorporate the darker basslines of D&B into my sets and played at many other underground events in and around south Yorkshire but as the Uprising management changed and a strict no drum and bass policy was in effect I moved on, although I did play a live drum set with Glover at the Adelphi after a few triple JDs.

I first met Rob at a night called Bouncy run by DJ Dream at Cuba and we would always get together for a mix after touring the record shops on weekends in my bedroom with Glover which sometimes had up to 20 of my mates all having it!! We did pirate radio stations which would cut out the itv channel signal around the neighbourhood, all they could hear was us on Renegade FM.

I remember playing in the bar upstairs at the wicker arches for Uprising with Rob and smashing a techno-trance set with Marcus & JD.

Around 2000 in my opinion the hard dance scene lost its exclusive underground edge and that along with producers not in it for the music anymore, just turning out poor (cheesy) quality releases just to make money on the back of what the scene was before. I slowly moved onto other genres big at the time like garage and bassline but would always speedmix drum and bass into my sets. I Found my love for drum and bass back in the early 90's listening to DJs Hype, Mickey Finn, Nicky Blackmarket, Doc Scott, Brockie, Darren Jay etc. Elena suggested the name Shadow B which came from growing up listening to Hysteria tape packs where Bassman, Trigga, Spyda, Juiceman & Fearless would spit over the quality fresh new beats that the scene was turning out at the time like Doc Scotts Shadow Boxing, Mickey Finn & Aphrodites Bad Ass, Ray Keiths Terrorist and ED Rush & Opticals Alien girl.

After a break from it all when d&b went commercial and I had less time due to work commitments. I had all of my vinyl and equiptment stolen which was nice so I had to buy all my oldskool D&B classics back off Discogs!

I went to a night in Birmingham called Raveology with Elena to catch the Shadow Demon Coalition and was blown away by some of the productions being dropped, it was good to hear a lot of producers bringing back the underground vibe of the late 90's which got me digging for beats once again finding my own dark/mardy/moody & melodic sound.

and then I heard that Rob had bought Traktor and was recording and selling some of his vinyl, I got back in touch with him, showed him the quality D&B I really believed in and wanted to start back up pushing it out there and, as they say, the rest is history…

SHADOW B & MODULATE

In 2012 i met up with an old pal (Andrew Bell DJ - Shadow B) again and he rekindled my love for D&b, 2012 has been a strange year ive started Djing again and this time i have started to learn more about production. I have invested in a lot of digital djing kit and we have started producing tracks with Logic and it feels right.

We are producing tracks under the name VERSION DRUM AND BASS and now as a DJ team which we are getting bookings for on a steady basis.

So here we are again nearly full circle with EMERGENCY FM after holding the Saturday primetime 8-10 slot on HURADIO we are ready to grace the airwaves yet again. Our show will consist of the freshest upfront Drum & Bass for the listeners along with a few timeless classics our show, the VESRION DRUM & BASS show consists of Shadow B & Modulate with our mighty vocalist Ballistic MC!!!!! SUNDAYS 8-10GMT on www.emergencyfm.com

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