Multicore / The Dominion / X20 - (A.K.A Jon Dennis)

It all started back in 1988 when I was listening to Jeff Young on Radio 1, he was playing some hip house music by Fast Eddie and Tyree Cooper, at that time it was the best thing I had heard for a long time and that’s when I started getting a studio together and over the next few years I was learning what kit to buy and how to use it.

In 1990 I was at the Dance Academy in Plymouth for a usual night’s raving and on the bill board for that night was N-joi whom at the time were just starting out them selves. It was about 12am and N-joi were about to come on stage, the DJ carried on with his set while they started to turn on their kit which I will always remember as all these wicked little lights started flashing in their setup. A few moments later and the MC announced N-joi and the crowd went mad! Their live set inspired me to try and make music my life and to this day I will always remember what it felt like to be there at that time. I just wanted to be on stage playing my set!

In 1991 I sent my first demo tape off to various labels under the name of Multicore and the following week I had a call from Mark Ryder at Strictly Underground Records, he really liked what I had sent him and the next day I was in his office in Romford signing a contract. After chatting with Mark for a while it turned out that was a member of N-joi and wrote most of the original N-joi material!

Over the following months we recorded a 5 track EP which was released through S.U Records early in ‘92. At that time I started doing some live P.A’s around the UK and in July ‘92 I played my first major gig at Bowlers in Manchester in front 12,000 people and to spice things up a bit we were filmed for the monthly rave special of the TV show ‘Hit Man & Her’ The following week it was shown on ITV! During ‘92 and ‘93 I went to many of the big raves including Fantazia at West Point in Exeter and a couple of the Universe raves in Wiltshire. I remember being at one of the Universe raves in the techno tent while Carl Cox was playing and the whole tent was dripping it was so humid, we were also standing a couple of feet of mud but nobody cared, it was just great to be there and enjoy the atmosphere!

By 1995 I was getting really into the UK Jungle scene and started producing some tunes under the name of ‘The Dominion‘, these again were released through Strictly Underground Records on various compilations, I loved the Jungle scene at that time as it was a direct off shoot from the rave scene. Everyone used the same loops and breaks but just sped things up a little, adding some reggae or a the theme from the ‘Body Guard’ over the top! I remember hearing Ray Keith’s ‘Terrorist’ in a club for the first time and when that bassline dropped the whole place kicked off!

I spent much of ‘95 and’96 writing Jungle with Mark Ryder at his studio in Romford which was situated in the top room of his house. It was always a busy place to be, I remember you could always hear the music as you drove up outside! They were good times, at that time everything was about experimenting and out doing other labels with better basslines and better breaks!

Things started getting very busy in ‘96 when I started on another project under the name of Ruff Da Menace. I was in the studio experimenting with some breaks and ended up putting a 4\4 loop over some Jungle style basslines, I put together a ruff mix of a track called ‘Kick The Party’ and played it to Mark and before long we 5 or 6 tracks in that style. We were getting a lot of radio play with the Ruff Da Manace tracks, especially on Pete Tongs Essential Selection. There was one Friday evening when I popped out in the car, I turned on the Radio and Pete was playing ‘Kick The Party’ I returned home and a friend called me to say Pete has played another two Ruff Da Manace tracks and one of them was number 5 in the Essential count down chart! Making music is one thing but having the pleasure of a few million people on a Friday night listening to your music is amazing! I will never forget that night!

We spent many months recording tracks for a Ruff Da Menace album which due to both myself and Mark having various commitments was not released until 2003. The album entitled ’2 F IN RUFF’ is still available through Strictly Underground. Many future tracks released through Strictly Underground were remixed by Ruff Da Menace including the massive UK Garage anthem ‘Joy’

In the summer of ‘95 I met up with producer Jamie Henry and we started putting some ideas together in the studio and before long we had a couple of anthemic style trance tracks finished and sent them off to various labels. We signed a deal with Global Beats Records and released a 12” called ’Let there be house’ under the name of Tour De Force. This record kick started a succession of tracks and in ‘97 we signed to Warner/East West Records with a track called ‘Alright’ This was our first major record deal and a week after signing with East West we signed a three album publishing deal with Universal Music.

Tour De Force was a success partly due to advances and also it gave us the opportunity to work with and remix many other artist around at the time including PF Project ‘Choose Life‘ and many more. In December ‘97 Paul Oakenfold sorted out a live P.A for us at Cream in Liverpool which was fantastic. Again we had a lot of support from Pete Tong, Judge Jules and various other big name DJ’s. In ‘98 we released the second single called ‘Catalan’ which was a Balearic trance anthem! Both this single and the first single didn’t actually sell that many units due to lack of promotion…and we were signed to a major label!!!

What we all learnt from Tour De Force was that signing to a major didn’t mean all of our dreams would come true. Being signed to a major record labels is like being part of a big commercial machine and having absolutely no control over how things are managed. Once the A&R guys move on as they always do you are out of the picture, it’s a world apart from my experience with underground labels who work much harder to achieve success.

In 2002 I wrote another track with Jamie under the name of ‘Badfellas’ It was a Drum & Bass cover of Missy Elliot’s ‘Sock it to me’ It became a massive hit on the Drum & Bass scene and was released through Mercury records. We were tune of the month in Mixmag and the track was remixed by Dillinja and Peshay.


Recently I have started writing under the name of X20. Not too sure why I chose that name, probably because of all the different names and styles I have worked under in the past!

X20 is basically about me going back to my roots and producing music that has no rules where experimenting is the backbone. That’s what I loved about the early acid house and rave music scene, there were no rules. Everything was somehow ruffer around the edges! At the moment I am producing a lot of early nineties style rave and even some late 80’s hip house tunes which is fantastic. I am also sorting out some live P’A dates which will be great. I can’t wait to play out some of what I have been producing in the studio recently. It’s been a while since I have felt like this, there definitely is a real old skool revival happening all over the UK at the moment which is wicked!

Nice1, Top1, get sorted!!!

X20
(Jon Dennis)

www.myspace.com/ukravemusic
www.myspace.com/tourdeforcemusic

CHECK OUT THE DOWNLOADS PAGE FOR SOME OF JON'S TUNES!