Producer: Tony Blanca

I started collecting records at the age of 14 way back in 1976 and by the time I was 18, I would be the one who “put the records on” at parties. I started DJing at around 21 just for fun and used to love the feeling of making people dance. At 22 I was semi professional, always interested in playing records without any stops between them for the dancefloor but obviously didn’t have a clue about mixing.

Then one Friday evening I was driving home from a gig when I heard the most amazing thing on the radio, Radio London I think it was, here was this “song made up of different tracks WITHOUT any gaps between then, I was amazed and hooked at the same time. I listened to it trying to figure out where the different songs had come in from the last and it blew me away. At the end of this amazing megamix (I now know what it’s called), the presenter said something like “ and that was another mix from Les Adams and I think he mentioned DMC.

Apparently, there was a megamix featured every Friday evening on this program which I made a point of catching from then on and trying to  copy what I heard Les Adams do in his mixes. This got me into mixes, megamixes and DMC. From then on I would go out of my way to find records that had different mixes on them to practise my megamixing techniques.

I started reading all about Les Adams and through him got to know about the rest of the DMC DJs and eventually joined DMC. I think it was 1985 or 1986 and remained a member till 1992 or 1993.

My first mixes were copies of what I heard from the DMC crew, and I must  admit they did not match up the original , lol, but I had tons of fun trying.

I DJ-ed  at first just at friends parties etc. – then I got on the mobile disco circuit and eventually got myself a job with a disco company who would have me at residencies at different discos/pubs. I was doing 4 or 5 nights a week on top of having a day job at British Telecom, don’t know how those phone lines got repaired but I was not giving up my DJ job, that’s for sure. I also played at independently organised discos at places like The Park ( Kensington), The Empire ( Leicester Square), The Hammersmith Palace and probably a few others I cannot remember.

I used to go to all the DMC DJ Conventions in London, including the one at the Royal Albert Hall – and I still have the freebies we got from the record companies at the conventions…lol.

Then in 1990 at age 29, I returned to Spain to live to set up my business and eventually fell away from pro Djing. I still had my Technics 1210s and all my mixing  gear, including an Akai sampler and various beat machines and I used to make my mixes for myself mainly for the car. I still have all my vintage gear which I only use every now and then, and of course all my vinyl records.

Fast forward to now and I find that I now have some spare time to make megamixes and remixes and so I tried my luck to realise one of my dreams to have a mix on the DMC mix albums. Thankfully, and to my surprise, two out of four mixes I’ve sent have appeared on DMC to date.  I will be sending more I promise.

As for my favorite DMC mixes, as a rule, any of the classics do it for me, the great Les Adams, Dakeyne, Alan Coulthard, Ben Leibrand, Chad Jackson, Brian Butler (Bizzie Bee) and a long  list of other producers.

As for the newer guys, mixes by Rod Layman, Guy Garrett and of course Kevin Sweeney always sound great.