“Back when I was about 14, around 1987, my friend Maxi and I started hanging out at our local record store in Ireland and went on to work there at weekends. Truth be told, we even skipped a few classes. We were totally surrounded by vinyl and cassettes—no CDs or downloads in those days—and as well as getting paid we were allowed to take home loads of vinyl, and boy, did we do that!”
“For years I was getting exposed to all sorts of music and forms from the early days of Depeche Mode, New Order, The Smiths, and the like. If I found my love for the electronic sounds at this time, I was still a kid, so was attending the local youth club and found myself having a bigger collection than the rest of my peers. I was soon made the resident DJ and loved the relationship I was having with vinyl and seeing people dancing and enjoying the music—I was pretty much hooked from then.
As the years went by acid house and techno came around and I was right there on the floor absorbing all these new sounds. The trip hop vines of Massive Attack and Portishead with labels like Mo Wax and Ninja Tune appeared and I was totally hooked, and after hearing a Portishead essential mix; I went straight out on the Monday morning and bought my Technics 1200s and never looked back. I was now buying vinyl with a new purpose and learning to mix these sounds.
By ’96 I was running small club nights and honing my skills. Come ’98 I booked my first guest DJ—Andy Smith of Portishead. I found myself on a roll from this point booking the likes of Bentley Rhythm Ace, The Freestylers, Derek Dahlarge… this took me though to 2001 when I booked Leeroy Thornhill of the Prodigy and we actually went on to DJ together for three years all across the globe and somehow, I don’t know how, we just weren’t feeling it.
For our last show, we DJ-ed alongside Phil Hartnoll of Orbital and the planets must have aligned that night because myself and Phil, who hadn’t DJ-ed much at that point, went on to DJ for three years before Orbital got back together and we went our separate ways.
During those six years I was still promoting and booking the world’s top breaks and big beat DJs and later went on to get involved in warehouse parties and several other projects. Throughout this time I was receiving anywhere from 20 to 50 records a month as promos, so you can imagine the size of my collection now!
But the best piece on vinyl I own is the limited edition 7-inch clear vinyl of our new Warriors of the Dystotheque EP “Return To Coney.” We only pressed 35 of them, so it trumps everything in the vaults.”
—Jonny Mac
Warriors of the Dystotheque’s “Return To Coney” EP is in stores now via Tigre Fair.
