Tuesday, 21 August 2012 09:00

ANDY CARROLL

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Probably one of the most adaptable DJs around. A passion and obsession with various types of music has seen a very rich musical history unfold during the long and varied career of Andy Carroll.

Andy Carroll started DJ'ing in Liverpool at Brady's (ex.Eric's New Wave/Punk club) in the very early eighties. It was here he first got to play with many up and coming bands of the day including, Pigbag,The Slits, Mo-dettes, Icicle Works, Swell maps, Gang of Four, Teardrop explodes, Crass and many other bands passing through. He later went on to co-host and DJ at Sandbaggers in Southport,where people travelled from Liverpool and surrounding areas to hear the eclectic mix of Roxy/Bowie and T-Rex cooked up with Punk/New Wave and the early new Romantic/Goth sounds. When Andy left Sandbaggers, he moved on to play at Goth/Indie club 'The System' in Liverpool. Always pushing boundaries with music Andy continued moving foward and after having worked with 'SOS' studio's regular producer Mike Knowler in various venues, they teamed-up to be residents in 'The State' in Liverpool. Whilst the trendy Londoner's were coining the term 'Balearic', Andy and Mike were simply doing what they did best 'playing GOOD sounds' . They were intergrating all the popular city anthems of the day with François K mixes of The Smiths and obscure New Order dubs in a similar way to how E.S.G. were working in New York city at this time (unknown to them at that point). In the summer of '86, Mike went to NYC and brought back some amazing new electronic music...

House music from Chicago, Garage from New York and the Technological sound of Detriot. Andy was blown away and had to search out more of this sound from the import shops of the day. Now the 'State' mix was stepping up a gear or two. In the summer of '88 Andy went to New York and sampled the club world of 'The Big Apple'. It was a hot bed of sounds and creativity where now legendary club nights were over-flowing with the 'house' soundtrack. When he returned, Liverpool was ripe for a whole night of Acid house. James Barton had been travelling around Europe and visiting the London Underground club scene. He'd been enjoying what Mike and Andy were doing at 'The State' and asked them if they would DJ for a new idea he had for a Monday night to be called 'Daisy'. From the success of the first night it roller coastered swiftly onward to completely engulf The State soundrack. Acid House had taken over the building! The rest is fairly well documented history. When The State was eventually shut down by Police (as they did with every house music club possible), Andy joined up with John Kelly and James Barton at their new club 'The Underground'. Here he played mostly on Thursdays and booked legendary acts such as 'Adamski' who was with the singer 'Seal'. Others included keyboard nutter 'Guru Josh', 'Orbital' and 'Mr Monday'. Andy and James started to promote gigs at The Royal Court Theatre with Big Audio Dynamite and Adamski, being some of the highlights of those concerts.

As James and Andy continued to work together, Mike Knowler invited Andy to DJ at 'Quadrant Park' and a new wave of house music began to sweep across the soundtrack of Liverpool's clubscene, a new legend was at it's beginning. As the club owner found a loop-hole in the licensing laws, the all-nighter came to follow from the club night. James and John were invited to join the line-up of Dj's for the late show and pandemonium exploded! Coach loads of ravers travelled from London, Glasgow, Birmingham.... all over the country and started to descend on this Ital house Mecca. James and Andy continued their promotion activities and brought over the little known French dance maestro Laurent Garnier to join as a guest, aswell as DJ Frankie Bones and homegrown Quad anthemic acts such N-Joi, Katherine 'E' and numerous other groups such as club regulars 'K-Klass'. Between leaving clubs, Andy was resident at Manchester's 'Konspiracy' with Justin Robertson and played at various Blackburn raves. Andy was noticed by the Underground Dj's and promoters 'The Jam Mc's',Chris and Tomlin when he was the first Dj they heard play Frankie Knuckles 'Your Love' at the 'Live the Dream' party. Andy also played at numerous 'news headline' Orbital parties and avoided arrest for crimes of playing acid-house on numerous occassions by as mixture of pure fluke and an ability to run across a field swiftly. Over the next few years Andy and James embarked upon a mission which after the demise of 'The Quad' saw them set up the purpose built '051 Club' where they were the first to introduce for the first time to Liverpool, numerous Dj's such as NYC legend Tony Humphries, Manchester's DJ Sasha, Leeds own Back to Basics legend Alistair Cook, London's Paul Oakenfold, the return of Laurent Garnier and a lesser known Nottingham DJ 'Alistair Whitehead' .After be-friending Darren Hughes at the Quad, James and Andy used to go clubbing to various places including 'Most Excellent' in Manchester ,'The Hacienda' ect and began discussing ideas of a place were they would have more control, were they could design the flyers and book all Dj's and acts. This place became one of the first superclubs and is called 'Cream'. Whilst working closely with Darren and James in the early days, Andy left the club before it was to expand to 2 dancefloor rooms .He was getting offers to play all-over the UK and various parts of the world at a time when Superclubs didn't exist and most clubs lasted only a few years. The love of DJ-ing was far stronger than any desire to promote clubs and Andy left the partnership amicably to remain resident DJ for the next years,while James and Darren began empire building.

Andy's international profile includes having played at some of the best clubs in the world from New York to Bueno Aires, Toronto, Berlin, Vienna ,Munich and Paris. He has also toured throughout Australia and DJ'ed as support act to 'JAMIROQUAI' in the UK and Japan. During the summer months for 10 years Andy played at 'Amnesia', Ibiza playing for 'Cream' and for 8 years at ‘manumission’. During the Summer of 2005 Manumission promoted an off-shoot 'Ibiza Rocks'. Andy was resident playing alongside Zane Lowe, Eddy Temple-Morris,Snow Patrol Dj's and many others. He opened up for various bands including The Kaiser Chiefs,Hard-Fi and Maximo Park,playing a selection of Indie,Rock and contempory electronic sounds.

Andy has been part of the we love… family from the get go and has played across the club showcasing his many styles and varied taste in all the music that we love…

Additional Info

  • Country: UK
  • Music: ELECTRONICA
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