FEATURE ¦ Greg Wilson - The Scene Thorugh his Eyes, and Through Ours

""Disco wasn’t the name I would have personally chosen as the term for what I play now. I felt it came with too much baggage, given previous associations and prejudices, and besides, I was drawing from a much wider palette. However, now it has been named as such, I fully embrace the term in its original spirit – not as a specific genre, but, as I said in the sleevenotes, as music made to be played in clubs and discotheques, in all its splendid diversity, and spanning an entire history."" 

Known initially for his DJ'ing in Merseside and Wigan Pier, Greg Wilson crafted out a reputation as being one of the fore-running UK DJ's playing electro sets with predominantly black origins. This was at the time gaining more popularity leading to Wilson being handed the Reigns at legendary Manchester club, The Haçienda,  and the wheels were firmly in place for Wilson to go on to big things.




After years of DJ'ing, Wilson looked for pastures new leading him to turn his hand to production, a move in the right direction one would have thought. This may or may not have been the case, as he went from being a burgeoning DJ to have relative success with Ruthless Rap Assassins and Street Sounds 'UK Electro.'

Years later, with dust gathered on both his vinyl collection and headphones Greg took the decision in 2003 to return to where he belonged - behind the decks. Then in 2005 a major catalyst to the revival and global recognition of his second coming, was his release of the Credit to the Edit series, and again in '09 with Credit to the Edit Vol II. The latter was probably the more groundbreaking of the two, Greg mentions that whilst the first compilation was mainly hits from 70s & 80's, the 2nd in the CTTE series had more recent tracks and therefore "providing a perfect illustration of how the present is being shaped by the past."

Greg Wilson has been busy working on his own blog, where you can find some of the most insightful, interesting reads on the net nowadays. He tends to have a very personal stance when writing his blogs referring back to specific times in his life to where he relates his pieces to. To have as much experience within the scene as he does, one tends to listen that extra bit more carefully in what he's got to say.

""The trick is in presenting the past in a new way, rather than serving it up in a purely nostalgic manner, which would alienate most of the younger heads who aren't about re–living their yesterdays, but exploring the next phase.""

So when he wrote the article Disco Now, Disco Then, I certainly took a few hinters. The most notable thing that popped out at me though when reading this piece was his innate sense of what's going on around him. An understanding of the game as it where. You would imagine coming back to DJ'ing after so many years not having gigged that he would be digging up past glories and living off previous hype and former reputation, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

""I’ve found that some of the people most resistant to re–edit culture are those who, like myself, would be termed middle–aged / 40 something DJ’s, ex–DJ’s and wannabe but never really were DJ’s. This can stem from more purist leanings, believing the original vinyl is the true format and any further tampering is unnecessary, but also just a general negativity about younger people utilizing the internet to gain knowledge it took them years of hanging around and digging about in record shops to acquire. There’s a body of opinion that it’s come too easy to this new generation, and therefore it isn't as valid as their own experience.""

His stance on the modern day state of electronic music and disco in particular is refreshing to say the least. Wilson points out the fact that many of the people out there don't get what's going on at the minute with regard to the booming re-edit culture. In fairness, you could certainly see where anger came from initially, as some of the re-mixes/edits going around were absolute tripe. Nowadays is different though, producers have come up with ways of enhancing, rather than taking away from records and at the same time making them very DJ friendly, all going towards making a very enjoyable end product. DJ sets containing soul, motown, disco, you name it and it can be mixed. There's no real reason why this is a bad thing, if more people can be introduced to good music this way then so be it.

Greg has been churning out these slowed down, funked-up mixes for some time now, and it's as if he's been fine tuning his selections to create the perfect mix. These are about as close as you'll get. If you've see him live of late or heard the mixes you know that they're filled with his own re-edits and the handy work of others (see Todd Terje, The Revenge, Get Down Edit's, Late Nite Tuff Guy). Some of the re-working of classic disco, soul and even rock songs on this mix are literally out of this world, many of which are posted on this blog.