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Release History

Inside Stories

After All Crew Muss Big Up version 2 was published in 1999 I felt my job had been done. Not so. Version 2 sold out and there was still a demand for the book. Every time I went down Black Market Records, Nicky would be asking, “When you going to get that book of yours out again? I’ve had people in the shop asking for it.” Producers Dillinger and Roni Size met me backstage at Homelands festival asking when I was going to up-date All Crew. As well as headz in the scene, I was also contacted by a growing number of media, music and history students who needed the book for their research. So All Crews – The Re-Mix was summoned by public demand.

So What’s new?
The Jungle Drum & Bass scene has grown so much since 1999 and has become truly global. I wanted to cover developments like Dogs on Acid and the use of AIM and 1Xtra. Some producers like Bad Company burst onto the scene just as the last version went to print so I needed to cover them and a few other people who I’d missed including, Bret – Telepathy, Clayton TOV, DJ SS, Tanya UMC, DJ E from Rude FM, the birth of Origin FM and High Contrast.

When you write a book you don’t often have the opportunity to return to it. I went back through All Crew combing out any mistakes and sharpening up the writing improving its flow. I also added a few new passages like, ‘Strings of Life’ and ‘Original Pirate Material.’ But basically there’s an extra 70,000 words. We have a new cover, a shorter title and a new design through-out. All Crews has new photographs with contributions from Cleveland Aaron, Andy Cotterill, Steve Gullick, Courtney Hamilton, Rob Hann, Tristan O’Neill, Brian Sweeny, Lu Vu and Des Willie. Tristan came up trumps with another cover shot. Nadine – now based in Berlin re-designed the book for the third time. I was happy to give Navigator a guest slot writing the chapter Evolution of the MC. Drum & Bass is about progression and as a team, we wanted to make fresher beats and improve on the last version.

Vision Publishing
The first 2 versions of All Crew were self published. Whilst that gave us total creative freedom, we lacked the resources that a proper publisher might have given us. I decided if there was to be a further version I’d like to work with a publisher and produce a better book. There was no way I was going to trawl around mainstream publishers again. This time I’d work within our own scene. The logical people to approach would be folks at Knowledge magazine. They knew the Jungle Drum & Bass scene as did I, and they, doing the magazine and the Drum & Bass awards were impartial – as am I. And we both dealt in words. A partnership between All Crews and Knowledge made perfect sense. Vision Publishing who publish Knowledge published All Crews under the excellent stewardship of Colin Knowledge. Rachel Knowledge handled the finances and Sara Knowledge pushed out the boat with publicity. Hand on heart the one and only thing I would have changed was the cover photo. It’s an excellent pic – But All Crews is all inclusive as is the scene and the cover might not suggest that. But hey, after selling over 7,000 units since those 100 photo copies hit the streets, I have NO complaints.

Best Moments producing All Crews
Where do I start? Here’s some of them. Fabio & Grooverider’s Radio One set at Glastonbury. Or should that be the MC Grooverider show? The first time Rider played Golden Girls- Makoto at Grace was insane - four rewinds. Andy C’s Ram Recordings night at The End was mental. Check ‘Meltdown at the End’ probably one of the most moving nights I’ve ever experienced. London Electricity at Homelands. moved the crowd as expected but they let out the most rip roaring spiky B-lines that I’ve ever heard. Bailey played a Choppage track on his 1Xtra show and asked me what I thought. Choppage isn’t my thing. My brain crashed. On air I just went, ‘Errrrr…’ Wish we had a photograph of both our faces. And Innovation. I would go back for any one of those nights.

4 My People
I've been lucky with my friends, especially the ones who worked on the book. Kate and Janey P shared my house in Tottenham and both worked in publishing. Lidia and Damian also edited the first nightmare draft of jumbled thoughts and dyslexic misspellings. I e-mailed the book to Damian in Cape Town who corrected every word and posted it back. Nadine his wife was caught by her boss printing up a section at work. Before George did the final edits he and Caz and numerous other mates had argued over facts and music and exactly what it is da mans dem meeeeean.

My wife Kate – the main support behind All Crews

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