Legendary UK DJ Graham Gold Joins Thaivisa Radio 1

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Legendary UK DJ Graham Gold Joins Thaivisa Radio 1


Image: Graham Gold with left with Judge Jules

BANGKOK:-- Thaivisa Radio 1 is delighted to welcome legendary UK DJ Graham Gold to the team.

In addition to having his own 2 hour show every Saturday night he will also manage the Saturday night schedule; which has already seen Roger Sanchez and Ferry Corsten confirm to a one hour show each too.

It's a major coup for Thaivisa Radio 1 as it looks to reach into the younger expat and tourist market of Thailand.

Graham and Thaivisa Radio 1 will also embark on live streams from Koh Phangans Full Moon and Half Moon Parties from midnight until 6am every Saturday.
Now party revellers really can take the Thailand party home with them….

All you need to know about our newest recruit

- The Early Years

Graham’s love of music started when he was 12, and was consumed by the music pumped out by the offshore pirate stations of the day, radio London, Caroline and North Sea International and his career started way, way back in 1969, playing reggae and a lot of James Brown on his mobile disco in ballrooms of pubs, even though he was only 15.

Golds early love of black music and dreams of being a DJ resulted in the ‘The Funky Road Show’ being born. A mobile disco he set up with a friend Duncan Uren. In the early 70’s they dominated the emerging club scene in West London and in 1975 Graham ‘went solo’ and it became his full time occupation. This allowed him time to take on hospital radio, which is where he became a broadcaster as opposed to a DJ. 1976 saw the birth of Champers, a stupid name (was short for Champagne!) but it was so successful, pulling 500 people every Sunday night and he started booking the big Radio names at that time, Robbie Vincent Greg Edwards alongside the first wave of ‘big name dj’s’.

Gold by now was focussed on soul, disco and jazz funk. This little Sunday night got Graham noticed and by 1978 he was on board with what is arguably the UK’s first super club, ‘The Royalty’ in Southgate owned by the Showstopper Company who went onto hold the legendary ‘Caister Soul Weekender’s. The same year he discovered a club in London’s posh Mayfair. It was called ‘Gullivers’ and was the clubbing home to every black star on the planet-Stevie Wonder, Jimmy Cliff, Mohamed Ali, Mike Tyson, Cameo, Frankie Beverly, Heatwave - the list is truly endless. He started ‘guesting’ every week alongside the then resident Graham ‘Fatman’ Cantor and the legendary black music journalist James Hamilton-both very sadly now passed away, but Graham cites ‘The Fatman’ as his DJ Guru. ‘Gullivers’ was only a small club, the main floor held about 250 people –many tables and a small dance floor and the downstairs floor became home to nights put on by Steve Strange and other ‘goth/nu romantic’ club promoters.

In 1980, Graham was offered the permanent 6-night a week residency –spinning from 9 till 3.30, 6 nights a week. It’s where he truly learned his craft. After a year of being on air on Solar radio every Sunday morning – one of the original London pirate stations, the station discovered a loophole in the law to broadcast 24 hours a day without risk of being prosecuted-2 years later he was presenting the drive time show from the stations ‘studio’ in Deptford, South London. It was hard work. Every day for 3 years, Graham would leave his home in Harrow at 2pm, make the 2 hour drive across London, be ‘on air’ from 4 till 7, drive into the West End, where he produced the next days show (he had the keys to the club) listened to music that had arrived that morning in the post-he was now on every major record companies mailing list, receiving big brown mailers every day with new vinyl inside-and then work for another 6 and a half hours, getting back to Harrow just after 4pm. By now he had also become the singles Reviewer for Blues & Soul magazine and had a column in Root Magazine, so Sundays was also not a day off-that was his writing day and the day where he made copies of his radio shows and sent them to the legal stations up and down the country.

At ‘Gullivers’, every Monday, he was out on stage introducing acts like Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, Jnr Walker & The All Stars, the Drifters, Light Of The World, Level 42 and Incognito…. Wednesdays was the King J Root party night which attracted the attention of Channel 4 who had just bought the UK rights to Soul Train-the researcher on the show was Jonathan Ross who came to the club every Wednesday to pick the dancers for the audience They hooked up a friendship and Graham became the shows resident DJ. In 1984 Graham became a firm regular on BBC Radio Londons Soul Night Out-a totally live broadcast every Thursday whose main home was the Hammersmith Palais. Other gigs followed including a weekly residency in south London with Carl Cox. London’s only commercial broadcaster at that time, Capital FM, finally took notice and Graham took over the soul show that was aired between 1 and 5am, Saturday night, Sunday morning. One year later Graham won the coveted ‘Broadcaster Of The Year’ award in the annual ’Hammy Awards’ in what was known as The Bible-James Hamilton’s column in Record Mirror magazine.

- The Phenomena that was Kiss FM

Graham was actively involved in the application by Kiss FM to the Radio Authority, and when they launched in September 1990 it was time to say goodbye to ‘Gullivers’ on a six night a week basis, though he continued to spin there every Friday and Saturday. Graham got actually the two shows he never wanted, the Breakfast and chart shows, and always the two most commercial shows on any radio station. But it did take Graham and his co-presenters, Mark Webster (a well know London TV cutting edge presenter and Sarah HB to America in 1991 when Kiss won the contract to present 5 Pepsi Across America breakfast shows. The day of the Chicago show co-incided with the first birthday of the new home for The Warehouse-the club from where the name ‘house music’ came from. Every artist from the world famous DJ International record label was there and it was where Graham and met and forged a friendship with Farley “Jackmaster’ Funk-a friendship and mutual respect that exists to this day

It’s historical in radio and TV that the original presenters of breakfast shows don’t last that long-much actually not to do with the presenters themselves but of the shows format, and after two years Graham was dropped from the breakfast show but retained the Chart Show-and that was what actually kick started his ‘house career’. When Malibu came on board as the shows sponsor, Graham got an extra hour, and in this hour, he mixed all that weeks newest house music, and it wasn’t long before the clubs that had ignored him because he was the ‘cheesy breakfast show host’ started booking him as the headline DJ at their cool club nights.

- How Graham Gold became Kiss FMs Top DJ

Judge Jules and Danny Rampling both moved from Kiss to Radio 1 and Graham inherited both their shows, peak time on Friday and Saturday evenings. Kiss had found their new superstar!! Graham pioneered Friday Night Kiss, which was networked across all Big City stations owned by Emap, who at this time had taken control of Kiss and rebranded it Kiss100. He also took over Monday nights 8-10pm on House Nation where Graham had 100% free choice in the music he played -he had that also on Friday Night Kiss but it had to be toned down due to the fact that all the other stations owned by Emap were Top 40 stations, and having Kiss in their Schedule was risky to say the least.

- Kiss Club Nights, Record Deals & TV Work

Kiss also wanted a club night run by Graham and so Peach was born in September 1993, selling out Legends on its first night (much to the amazement of Graham who thought it would be empty!) He remembers well driving their after his other gigs that night-one being the Park End Club in Oxford which was the UK’s first club night broadcast weekly on a radio station-Fox FM, and thinking ‘Its going to be a disaster!’ In fact that first night broke the record for numbers in Legends. It was also where he met two guys who brought a tape of a track they had made. Graham loved it, he got in touch with the guys and he funded the set up of Koolworld records. The track on that the tape was called ‘Invader’ and went onto sell over 30000 copies. Peach quickly out grew Legends and in 1995, it moved to the Café de Paris in Leicester Square, and that coincided with Graham’s first break into TV-co-hosting ITV’s BPM to which he became one of the two main presenters. The success of the Koolworld label reached the ears of Pete Waterman of Stock, Aitken and Waterman fame that had now set up PWL. He wanted Graham to run a cool label out of his offices, so the deal was done and the Peach label was born and Graham scored 3 Top 20 hits out of tracks, which had started in the underground. Graham sadly was not a Pete Tong in the fact that he did understand the full business side of the industry.

After what had been twenty years of trying to ‘really make it’, he was just grateful people now wanted him for everything from clubs gigs to voicing adds for MacDonalds, Argos, hundreds of house music compilations and continuity announcing on Sky TV & Channel 4. He was happy with the money he was making, as up until Kiss FM it really had been a struggle.

He didn’t get ‘points’ on the tracks he signed and he had no actual financial involvement-he was on a monthly retainer. Pete was way more clued up and made millions when he sold FFRR, even though the label was actually funded by Polygram!!

Graham joined Serious Artist Management, a company run by the brother of Judge Jules and before long he became their biggest money earner after Jules himself. His club night Peach, alongside his radio shows –Rajar Survey figures show that Friday Night Kiss had bigger audiences than Pete Tong’s Essential Selection on Radio 1 in all the eighteen cities that took the show-catapulted Graham into a world wide known DJ-and he began playing, literally all over the world.

- A Wonderful, Glittering Career

It was a career that would take him to over 150 cities in over 50 countries playing alongside people he can honestly say ‘hold him the highest respect’ -Carl Cox, Paul van Dyke, David Morales, Roger Sanchez, Eric Morillo, John ’00 ‘ Fleming, Tiesto, Armin, Ferry Corsten, Sasha, Digweed, Laurent Garnier-it’s an endless list. Graham’s record label and management company which he ran with Giles Sawney from 1997 to 2002 actually managed the UK and Ibiza diaries for Tiesto, Armin and Ferry and his club night Peach was the first UK venue they all played!

When he had his celebration of being a DJ for 30 years at London’s The Cross, Carl Cox, John ‘00’ and Mr. C were amongst those that gave their services for free.
Graham remained with Kiss even though he desperately wanted Radio 1. Something that would have actually happened as he had many talks with Tony Parfitt - the Radio1 controller-but Tony told him ‘you are too Kiss, you are the voice of Kiss’ and he was, Graham was often on air 7 days a week! And he was, he sold over 700,000 mix albums for Kiss, he won awards at every Kiss annual awards night, and talking of awards night, he was at the very first DJ MAGAZINE TOP 100 night at Heaven in Charing Cross, London as he had been asked to attend because he had made it into the poll. He says’ I remember getting there a bit later than I had hoped, I got there about 9.30 and they had already started to countdown the Top 100 and were at about number 80. I watched until it got to 50 and I thought ‘<deleted> it’, it missed me. I am at the bar when my friend turns to me and told me to look at the screen. And there I was –at number 22!!! To say I was shocked, would be an understatement!’

Graham stayed in the poll for seven consecutive years. The following year he was the only non-mover – 22 again, and then spent another three years in the Top 40. Not bad, seeing as then there were no outside forces getting you higher, it truly was votes from real people.
Life was good, great even, for Graham until 2003 when Camden Palace was sold and Peach came to an end. At the very same time, a new programme controller came to Kiss and many of its specialist music presenters were dropped, including Graham. Although it turned out that the C.E.O. had not wanted Graham to be on the list, his slot had been filled but within a week, he was offered an overnight slot but that had to pre recorded. That show lasted 2 years, and then he moved to Ministry Of Sound radio.

Graham had remixed and produced tracks (he remixed for carl Cox and Ferry Corsten amongst others) but always with an engineer. It was not something he felt he was good at, but with no radio shows, it was time to learn on his own. With the help of John ‘00’ Fleming, he bought a studio and for the next three years he learned and produced. His productions were signed to Discover- major label for trance music, and though his tracks were played by the key players such as PVD, and he continued to DJ but on a much lesser scale, in 2008, he decided he couldn’t do any more, his career was over and no amount of re-inventing was going to change it. He couldn’t fight anymore, even though he had started to play house once again as well as holding on to his love of trance

- How did Graham Gold come to live in Thailand?

A random e-mail from a friend brought him to Koh Phangan, and he locked own some residencies in BKK & Pattaya. At first getting gigs on the island was easy but that became more difficult as the island had its own deep minimal sound and it just wasn’t Graham’s thing. He became resident at Tommy Resort and made it the number 1 sound stage to be at every Full Moon party, but as EDM took over from trance, Graham finally gave that up in April 2015. Also the islands sound had changed, and had become more diverse. Graham had been a regular at Digweed’s Bedrock nights in London for five years and it seemed that sound had now started to influence the island-or maybe it had been there all the time but he hadn’t realised. So another re-invention, and one he feels totally justified to do-after all Sasha and Digweed were not mere influences, they knew each other personally and Graham had gone to loads of their nights and played their music on his Kiss shows for years. In fact Graham acknowledges one of the nails in his coffin was taking the style that Digweed played and playing it his own sets as he had become bored with banging trance and loved the slower and more deeper style of what was known then as ‘progressive house’. That word sadly now belongs to EDM. God forbid!

All through his time here Graham continued to produce his weekly radio show, which airs on a few stations globally. Originally it was called Trancedayze but when he dropped trance to concentrate full on tech house and techno the shows name became Esta La Musica-he had that tattooed on his right arm back in 1999 when playing in Los Angeles,.

The Godfather of house music on Koh Phangan is David Chong. David heard Graham at a event and immediately booked him as a resident for his weekly Friday Guys Bar night.

- Thaivisa Radio 1 and Graham Gold – and so the journey begins…

Then Graham saw on ThaiVisa that they had launched Radio 1 and immediately got in touch with the Managing Director, Dan Cheesman. They met up in BKK and after some mails back and forth, the new sound of Saturday nights was born.

“I was heavily involved when they launched a Radio 1 in Samui in 2011, which bizarrely was also on 100FM-the frequency Kiss broadcast on. I gave them all my extensive knowledge of radio, which sadly they did not listen to and the station folded after four months. Although I never made it to radio 1 in the UK, it DID feel good saying its Graham Gold on Radio 1! And now that dream has realised itself once again, and this time I know the owners are listening to what I am saying.

Our original idea of programming recorded nights from Phangans key events such as Half Moon, Full Moon, Loi Lay and Jungle Experience is still in the pipeline but now we have two of the world’s biggest dj’s on board already-Roger Sanchez and Ferry Corsten-and that was with just one e-mail!! So very soon we hope to fill 8pm Saturday night to 6am Sunday morning with content you will never hear from any other broadcaster in Thailand-our sights are set high to bring you the sound of this current young generation and to make Thai Visa Radio 1 the ONLY station you will want to listen to either on line or on the app! To say I am excited is an understatement!”

-- 2016-05-09