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MR C
For 15 years Mr C has played a pivotal role in dance music. As a popstar with international pop-techno pranksters The Shamen, Mr C headlined Glastonbury and reached Number One - all with a knowing nod and a wink. As an underground DJ, producer and protagonist, Mr C has been there from acid house's early days, through the creation of 'tech house', to helping redraw dance music's future with his shiny, metallic West End club The End.
Throughout Mr C continued his life as an underground activator. In 1992, he formed the Plink Plonk label. "I was trying to break good, experimental, electronic dance music into the clubs," says Mr C. No artists were even allowed to use their own names, and the label pioneered producers, like Derrick Carter, who have become international names today. Plink Plonk came to an end in 1996.
The End launched its own record label two days after the club opened, End Recordings (the first release being the Killer Loop black label from Layo and Mr C). The End label has now released over 40 records of high-quality house and techno and featured artists as diverse as DJ Sneak, Robert Owens, plus Mr C himself. The End even launched its own genre: tech house. The phrase - which can mean anything from house and techno, to breaks and tribal - signifies more of a mindset that a type of music. "It's an attitude. Like acid house was an attitude." Tech house has come to represent the style played by End DJs like Layo and Matthew Bushwacka! But it was Mr C who was the catalyst.
"I phoned round the main movers and groovers in the tech-house scene and said, 'Look, if we all start using this word to create a genre for ourselves, the press can jump on it. All of a sudden we're going to be seen as the leaders of this music.' And it worked." It's a story that's typical of someone who's always been a scene leader, who's spent most of his career being ahead of his time. "I've got a very low boredom threshold," he grins. Finally, it seems the rest of us are catching up.
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