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John Barber refers to the music he plays
as house music, but it's by no way run of the mill house.
Primarily bass driven deep/tech house, and incorporating
percussive and jackin' edge, his sets build through
different grooves and moods smoothly and subtly, cutting
through killer basslines along the way. He's taken major
influence from many DJ's and producers such as LTJ Bukem,
Phil Thompson, Yousef, Derrick Carter, DJ Sneak, Cliff
Lay, Danny Tenaglia and Layo & Bushwacka! to name a
few.
John's obsession with dance music began
back in 1994, after listening to his brothers hardcore
and jungle tapes for the first time. His brother, Steve,
a keen DJ at the time himself, was playing on the circuit
in Southampton and Bristol and was definitely a massive
influence on John. This then lead to John buying his
first set of turntables at the age of 15.
John started out playing friends parties,
which then took the steady progression to promoting
and putting on one off parties for students in Southampton
and Bournemouth. As well as promoting events and DJing,
John got himself a job in a record shop in Southampton.
This was the base for John to do his research, learning
about music and how the industry worked. He gave the
DJ's that visited the shop his CD's for feedback good
or bad. Phil Thompson, Bedrock resident and producer,
was one of the people John used to give his mixes to.
Phil's honesty taught him a lot and its advice like
this that helped John realize what he wanted to be as
a DJ, and what qualities you needed to be one, or a
good one anyway.
John continued to DJ whenever he could,
putting on occasional parties and playing his music
to people who might appreciate it. Visiting clubs around
the country is where John gained inspiration from other
DJ's. Its clubs like The End, Fabric, Tribal Sessions,
Turnmills and Maison that have inspired him the most
as a clubber.
Inspirational nights out clubbing and
his increasing addiction to music pressured John to
do all he could to get more opportunities to play his
music out to an educated audience. Constantly sending
cds out and not expecting replies is what John did for
the next few years before he finally got some interest
from Turnmills in London, where hešs played frequently
in 2004. More luck came shortly after this when the
same demo got into the hands of Serg from Club Class
in Maidstone. John had given a copy to Jeff who worked
for the club. He liked it and passed it onto Serg, and
shortly after got the nod to book John for a back room
warm up, and from this has gained many more booking's
at the club.
2004 has also seen John play Maison in
Bournemouth and the Tribal Session 10th Anniversary
Album Tour. On top of all this John has been credited
in DJ magazine by Nick Fanciulli (top 100 DJ's poll).
Nick said his warm up set at Club Class in August was
the best he'd seen this year.
John has also been working hard in the
studio with production partner Andy Branford, under
their guise 'B-Siderz'. Look out for their new material
in 2005.
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