In the 1980’s I was heavily into Breakdance/Hip Hop and attended the ‘Limit’ club in Sheffield every Saturday afternoon for a bit of back spinning!! In 1985-6 a new sound was arriving to UK dance floors…House and this changed my outlook overnight.

I was a regular punter at ‘Jive Turkey’ (City Hall Ballroom) Sheffield circa 1988-89 which at that time played a mixture of Hip Hop and US House/Acid House with DJ’s Winston & Parrott with guest DJs like A Guy Called Gerald & Mike Pickering to name a few. I took up collecting vinyl and playing at a friends house and honed my mixing style over the next few years.

1989-90 saw a massive shift in dance music within Sheffield with the advent of the ‘Bleeps & Bass’ sound of Sheffield . The main club I visited over that period was ‘Cuba’ at Occasions Sheffield. Again DJ’s Winston & Parrott held proceedings playing a whole host of groundbreaking US Detroit Techno & UK Techno/House tracks which literally shook the club with the deep basslines!

At this point I was growing restless with the unsociable hours of catering and I seeked a way out and into my growing passion of DJ-ing. I’m not too sure of how I got into the pirate radio scene but I started playing on Sheffield’s ‘Hardcore FM 101.1’ and later ‘Fantasy FM’ and things gathered pace from there.

1991-92 saw the newly emerging Hardcore scene which really caught my attention and my musical taste shifted over to Belgian & UK Hardcore Techno from labels like R&S, Music Man, Absolute 2, Production House & Rising High. The main club I visited over that period was the old ‘Cuba’ venue from 89-90…Occasions but the new harder music policy nights were called ‘Techno City/Incabus 91’.

In 1991 I was working in a record shop in the city centre and in came a guy who said he was DJ Music Maker who was the resident DJ at ‘Techno City/Incabus 91’ at Occasions and he said he liked what he had heard being played on ‘Hardcore FM’ by yours truly and asked wether I would like to play a hour and a half set one night and I jumped at the chance!

Friday June 12, 1992 was my first play out and I never looked back.

The ‘Techno City’ nights were always Belgian, U.S and U.K Hard Techno/Acid Techno, tracks from labels like R&S, Djax Up Beats, +8, Rising High including occasional live PA sets from Altern-8, Techno Warlords and guest DJs like CJ Bolland, Joey Beltram, Simon ‘Bassline Smith, DJ Doc Scott and many others.

During 1992 I was headhunted by ‘Cush-D Records’ in Sheffield to work for them selling Hardcore/Techno as the owners were ‘House-Bods’ and knew little of the hardcore scene.

I still frequently played at ‘Techno City’ and on occasions I took the helm for the full night playing 5-6 Hour sets whilst DJ Music Maker was double gigged at other venues. Some time in late 1992- early 1993 DJ Music Maker left and moved back down south and I was asked to front the night by the owners the club night by that time was called ‘Hardbeat’.

I was now starting to play out regularly at other venues but I felt Sheffield could do with a specialist Dance Music record shop so I enroled onto a Princes’ Trust course to become a self employed record store owner.

6 Months later I opened ‘Area 39 Records’ in Sheffield.

All through 1993 and into 1994 I ran the shop selling harder dance music like ‘Gabber/Bouncy Techno’, Jungle/Drum & Bass, ‘Techno/Acid Techno’ whilst juggling 2-3 gigs/residencies each weekend at clubs like ‘Red Zone’ in Sheffield, ‘Distruxion’ in Howden, ‘Club Kinetic’ in Stoke, ‘Helter Skelter’ in Birmingham, ‘Dielectric’ in Leicester, ‘Bouncy’ in Sheffield and ‘Knowledge’ in London amongst others. Also at this time I had become part owner of Pitch FM (a local pirate radio) so that took a big part of my time up also.

Mid-1994 saw my decision to stop trading with Area 39 Records due to my inexperience. The limited market I had originally aimed at could not sustain trade.

After this I gradually lost touch with the scene and I reluctantly went back into Catering for a short time until taking up Self Employment again but as a Graphic Designer (as I still do).

I have always kept my ear to the ground with movements in the dance scene although not involved in any way.

A couple of months ago I got a request out of the blue from DJ Music Maker on Facebook asking wether I would be interested in playing at the ‘Techno City revival’ night on August 13, 2011 and I jumped at the chance!!

So 20 years on I will be back behind the decks for a one-off night which I am really looking forward to (maybe it could result in a DJ-ing resurcection for me?) but most of all seeing faces from the past although I don’t think we will be throwing ourselves around the dancefloor like we did back then….not with our bad backs, receding hairlines, expanding waistlines……..etc etc 

If anyone wants more info on the ‘Techno City revival’ night contact me through Facebook.

I miss the great times, happy people and buzz of a great night playing great tunes which todays music can’t touch, if only I had a time machine………...


Jon (JMJ)
April 2011

Jon Freeman
TEL 01246550157
Mob 07523108869