A brief introduction to how we became the Dirty Kitchen DJs.
The name Dirty Kitchen DJs came from the realisation that when we came together for a mix at Wayne's house at the weekends, by the time we had finished mixing after drinking a lot of beer and cider and munching pizzas, the kitchen looked like a bomb exploded. Nothing has changed in all these years.
Adam and Wayne started when they used to go Verbeer Manor, Willand, Devon in 1992 for Revelation nights which was old skool hardcore at the same era as Fantazia with top DJs at the time such as Easygroove, Slipmatt etc.
One year later Phyll and Alan go into the scene when Verbeer used to have House music nights on a Friday and also Pawlett Manor near Bridgwater, Somerset.
We first got a pair of turntables back in 1994 which were old direct drive that didn't have a pitch slider but a knob. We learnt to mix on those until Adam bought a pair of Technics SL1210s and mixer in 1995.
We've all played at free parties and clubs then life got in the way with children, relationships and adult life but we never gave up our passion and continued to mix on 1210s.
A few years ago, Wayne bought a pair of CDJs which didn't feel right but as we could no longer buy vinyl, we made the switch. Then came our first DJ controller and our mixes occurred more often.
More recently we bit the bullet and bought a pair of CDJ2000 nexus and DJM900 nexus mixer which is still used today in Adam's radio shows on WAO Radio. Alan has also bought a top of the range Pioneer DJ controller which gets regular use by us.
In August 2021 Adam joined WAO Radio and started doing weekly shows on a Thursday evening. A couple weeks later, Phyll joined the team and in addition, both Adam and Phyll started doing Sunday afternoon shows.
We've had regular shows where the whole Dirty Kitchen crew have gone back 2 back, some specials such as Hallow'een and Boxing Day and also split shows from two different locations.
Fast forward to now and Adam and Phyll were doing regular weekly shows several times a week and were becoming a big precence on WAO with circa 30,000 listeners tuning each to each show.
Back in 2015, Wayne found a sound system for sale which consisted of Cerwin Vega PA speakers, subwoofers and amplifiers. After some short discussion with Adam, they made the 240-mile trip to Sheffield to purchase and bring home the soundsystem the same day. After a 4-hour journey, they arrived and was so happy to own a sound system.
They used the new sound system to provide disco services around the Cullompton area and it wasn’t long before they were able to extend the system by purchasing the same speakers from Tiverton College. Adam was a student there about 10 years previously and had bought the same speakers for the college Student Guild on their behalf. They now had double the number of speakers.
After a number of successful discos, Adam and Wayne decided they would like to build some scooped bass bins but the cost of the materials was high so Adam found a pair of pre-built bass bins for sale and quickly bought them. After a good lick of speaker paint and some new handles, grilles etc, packed with some Fane 600w subwoofers, the scoops were ready to be used.
They bought an active sound system for their disco business so the old sound system became the DKDJ Sound system and has been used at Bradninch Music Festival and well as Vinnie’s 50th Birthday Bash at the Rugby Club in Cullompton. Vinnie’s party was so loud, Adam said he could hear the windows vibrating outside.
With the new addition of the scooped bass bins, the bass can literally be felt hitting your chest.
All of our DJs have over 25 years experience starting with turntables to CDJs and now DJ controllers. We still have a massive collection of vinyl which comes out occasionally for an old skool mix.
We have a new addition to the Dirty Kitchen crew and he is Harry Gallagher. Harry has grown up watching the rest of us mix and is now mixing himself.