Al Kent was born in Scotland. His father was an avid record collector and had a cabinet full of them. And Whisky. Everything from Abba and Elvis to the Glitter Band and Buddy Holly was in there. What a load of shit they were.
In 1976 Al ran away from home to live in New York. Here, at the age of 8 he started attending the Loft and hanging out with Nicky Siano and a whole bunch of cool New York DJs with Italian names. In 1978 he was arrested for possession of PCP while guesting at Better Days with Tee Scott and deported back to Glasgow, where his dad was now getting into a bit more David Essex. He was shit too.
So Al opened his own club in Glasgow, based on his experiences in New York. With his pocket money he flew Richard Long over to kit it out and had Walter Gibbons DJ at the opening party.
Since then he's bought lots of records, done the deejaying in lots of places, and recorded an orchestra too.
Al is currently working with Lynn from Ebonycuts on a time machine. This project should be completed soon, at which point the two will travel back in time and buy lots of records.

NORTHERN DISCO, Inc/MILLION DOLLAR DISCO
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 23RD
MINT LOUNGE, MANCHESTER...

SPECIAL GUEST DJ:

DIMITRI FROM PARIS

(Dim will be playing a disco set especially for us, and only us!)
PLUS AL KENT & LUCY LOCKETT
AND THROUGH THE BACK:
IAN BUCKINGHAM, ROB D, STEVE HOLLAND, LEE MORGAN, STYLUS DJs & ANDREA TROUT

SATURDAY 24TH. SOCIETY, SHEFFIELD
GUEST DJ: AL KENT

Al Kent, disco DJ, obsessive, nerd, started a band in 2005. He wanted it to sound like they did in the 1970s, all trumpets and violins and stuff.
Two years later he finished an album. And hopefully it sounds like what he planned.
It's coming out on BBE in 2008, so wait and see. Or listen to the clips.

CLICK HERE IF YOU CAN'T DOWNLOAD THE MIXES

Walter Gibbons is quite possibly the greatest person ever to walk this earth. Known as the DJ's DJ, and credited with inventing the style that would later become house music. As early as 1972 he was mixing records, and became a legend for his perfect cutting of double copies.

Keep On magazine asked us to write a piece on Walter, but since there was already so much being written on him at the time we thought it would be better just to concentrate on the music he produced rather than get involved in the "did he remix Jakki" or the "did he remix Instant Funk" hype.

(The answers are both no by the way)

John Morales has mixed something like 500 records. He started out as a music lover in the '60s, a disco DJ in the '70s, and got into re-editing pretty early, pressing his edits up on Sunshine Sounds acetates.

The following interview was conducted for Faith magazine.

Tom Moulton is the man! He single handedly invented the 12" disco mix. What else do you need to know!

This interview was conducted for Keep On magazine.

The Brown Brothers started their musical career in New York in the early 1970s, recording local bands, trying to emulate what they'd seen Berry Gordy do with Motown in Detroit when they were kids. In 1972, they raised enough money to build their own recording studio, where they produced a few records, with Charles & Marcus singing and Peter on the other side of the desk. The records flopped (making them highly sought after collectors items today), and the brothers lost a fortune.
Marcus had always been interested in DJing and had quite a record collection (which remains in his basement to this day). A chance conversation with another local DJ in 1974 revealed to him that people like Walter Gibbons were playing re-edited songs from tape. So the brothers went along to hear Walter spin and were totally blown away with what he was doing. Since they still had plenty of equipment, including an MSS cutting machine, the Brothers set about creating their own edits - some of the best of the period, releasing them on their own "real Thing" label as acetates.

If you're as obsessed with disco records as we are, then you gotta love the sleeves.
We'll keep adding here as time permits. And one day we'll get round to adding the TK Discos and the Salsouls.
If you have any fancy ones we haven't posted here, get in touch...