Portraits of the Resistance Vol. 7 | Matthew Nelson aka DJ Slipmatt
The Godfather of Hardcore and DJ inspiration DJ Slipmatt
Sitting in my bedroom in my mother’s house c.1994 listening to SL2’s On A Ragga Tip and thinking about world domination as a superstar DJ, I never thought I would meet one of my heroes.
Here’s the background…(It wasn’t going to be all about me, I promise)
I’d gotten ahold of a fax machine. I hooked it up to the main telephone line in the living room with an extra-long telephone cable. I set my alarm for 2 am to allow for the time difference between Hamilton, New Zealand and London. Credit-card at the ready - One of my sisters’ actually. She’d let me take it to buy some records, for which I’d promised to pay her back with my wages from my part-time job at the local supermarket, Foodtown, Nawton. - An altogether unappetising realm, but one which enabled me a pinch of freedom and the ability to earn money whilst carrying out the menial tasks of grocery packing or shopping cart collecting. Both were simple jobs but I wanted to be the best at them regardless. I figured there would be nothing worse than being known as the guy who does tediously easy jobs badly. Anyway, I digress…
Firstly I had to pen a handwritten note, politely asking for a list of the latest releases, on some regular printer paper, then feed that into the little slot at the top, then I had to dial the number I had taken from one of the record stores that had listed their business in the classified ads section at the back of DREAM magazine… I discovered (by chance or fate) a copy of an issue of DREAM | The Dance Magazine from a magazine shop (yes, they used to exist) that must have had over two or three hundred different magazines. Usually, a month late, allowing for international shipping, I became addicted to what I saw inside. Pictures of ravers ‘gurning’ (I didn’t know until a few editions down what the term meant), pictures of laser-illuminated clubs and warehouses and most interesting of all, pictures of DJs and stories of their weekend travels up and down the country to secret venues and early morning sunrise sets.
I dial the special fax-only number in the listing and hope to hear the familiar chirps of the received tone with the counterpart fax machine springing into action. They have a brief conversation in ‘chirpeze’ before my note starts to disappear onto the little rollers of the machine. Note gone and sent receipt now printing, I wait. And wait. And wait… Man, I hope this is done by sunrise…
As my eyes begin to fade I’m jolted back into the room as the phone starts to ring. Tentatively I wait for the machine to answer… Then BOOM! WE’RE IN BUSINESS. I can hear the roller inside begin its journey, then followed by the paper and out comes a list of all the records they have currently in stock to buy. I begin working my way down the list. There’s no way to try before I buy here. I can’t listen to any of these tunes. I have to commit. I revert to identifying familiar tracks, ones I have read of and ones by the DJ’s I know.
This is how most of my record buying went. Luck of the draw.
I’d recently acquired a pair of brand new Technics Sl1210 Mk2’s along with Gemini 2 channel DJ mixer and the finest Ortofon Concorde DJ stylus (for those who know these ‘carts’ were amazing!). We didn’t need cash upfront, a credit card or a huge deposit to secure credit in those days. I’d approached a sound & vision store that sold hi-fi separates, speakers and specialist German TVs and asked if I could do a lay-buy on some DJ equipment if they could secure some. After several quizical glances and hushed conversations between the staff, I was presented with a HUGE (like 500 pages) full gloss catalogue from which to choose my desired purchases. The store agreed to order the items and place them away for safekeeping, until such time as I had paid in full…all I had to do was to make regular payments up to the point of the retail price when I could secure my goodie’s liberation later. There, lay-buy explained.
Anyway, as I was saying. I was hooked. The description of the clubs, the people and the music seemed like something from a movie. People coming together, without aggression and in peace and love. Sounded good to me.
I had stumbled, as fate (chance, coincidence or otherwise) would have it, upon some cassette singles in the local bargain bin of my local high street music store one day. Sesame’s Treat by Smart E’s was one of them and SL2’s On A Ragga Tip was another. I’d heard pop-house and some trance before but nothing really like this. Sped-up or sampled vocals, broken snares and high hats, hard punchy beats. I was into this in a big way! Where was this music coming from, who made it and where could I get more? This was 1993 (incidentally nearly a year after these two tracks were released).
Back in Faxville 1994 I’d made my order and awaited my new arrivals (usually about 5 weeks from purchase to delivery…I thought that wasn’t too bad lol). By now I had been bedroom DJ extraordinaire for a good few months and had become familiar with my favourite names in the Hardcore scene. I had been getting illegally recorded mixtapes from raves sent to me with my record packages.
Names like Dougal, Hixxy, Sharkey, Force & Styles, Grooverider, Vinylgroover, Eruption, DJ Brisk and DJ Seduction were names that I considered my celebrities, my trailblazing idols that played my kinda music.
These and more, but none more so than DJ Slipmatt. I’d had a couple of said mixtapes taken at United Dance, or maybe Dreamscape, or another of the ubiquitous raves of the time, so I had heard DJ Slipmatt in action. I loved his mixing style, little scratching techniques peppered through the mix, and the way he used the calling card of the Jungle and Hardcore scenes alike, the AMEN break, underpinning the bouncing 4/4 beat of the Happy Hardcore genre. That’s the series of drum breaks, the snare and hi-hat rhythms that, when sped up, become what we would now hear as Jungle or Drum & Bass drums. It’s from the 1960’s I believe on a soul track called, oddly enough, AMEN. Thus, the AMEN break… I remember hearing the tune Airhead by DJ Brisk (SMD Remix) for the first time which was I think on one of these mixtapes - The true artisan creators of these always included a tracklist. I loved it, happy uplifting vocals and magical fast-piano riff that rang in the ears, long after the dj-friendly outro beats had seceded away. From then on Slipmatt was the Top Dog, the Big Cheese, the Grand Fromage, the Don, the Godfather.
It wasn’t just the music, though, no, it was in fact something underpinned in a sense of belonging, a sense of ones group, ones people. The sense of community, of freedom, of the world evolving, all things new and all things possible. This is what I was looking for. The suppositional motto of this ‘movement’ - Peace, Love & Unity seemed to me like a utopian and dreamlike fantasy. I was drawn to it like a raving moth to the flame. The lifestyle of those members of this foreign, but somehow familiar clan seemed a kind of tonic for the rock and pop I’d grown up listening to until that point. In New Zealand, I once overheard heard someone joke that they tell you to set your watch back thirty years when you get off the plane…lol. Harsh? Maybe. Fair. Most definitely. Until just before the mid-1990s you’d have been hard-pressed to find any popular radio station (yes, we used to listen to those kids…) playing anything other than either the Top-40 or Rock ‘n Roll. Most of my peers were at this point either heavily into Cypress Hill or Metallica or some drove down the path of the new breeds like Soundgarden, Nirvana, Pearl Jam or, at a push, R.E.M. I figured maybe some other defenders of the faith on my patch may have existed. University students or expats, primarily localised to the big cities. Certainly, I was the only one guarding my immediate neck of the woods. It wasn’t like finding my local Stand in the Park.
This band of underground heathens and rebels felt like my tribe, my folk, my kin and, to use the common parlance, my vibe. If it were the case that I did in some way belong to this tribe, having scoured and deciphered its texts and customs, its language and its dress. If I was separated from my comrades only by the seas, then I wanted to be the southernmost outpost. Flying the flag and spinning the tunes…
So, you see, it wasn’t a case of just another shoot for the series.
I was thrilled when Matt agreed to be a part of the series. Obviously, when I had surmised his position on the state of lockdowns through to the old jibbey-jabby’s, I had to get in touch.
We met up at Liverpool St station, a fairly convenient place to meet and, oddly, the area I first worked in when I came to the UK in 2004. It’s nearly mid-October and the autumn chill is starting to creep up. Not too cold though for a couple of coffees nearby.
I don’t think I recounted the above to Matt when we met. I’m sure I glossed over most of it but it was one of those things where we talked about all the usual things, the unfairness, the heartlessness and the greed, but all the questions I thought I would want to ask, all the things I had kind of stored up from my teenage years about clubs and clubbers, DJs and debauchery, went out the window.
We chatted effortlessly. Mostly family dynamics and those who thought we were mad for not obeying the ‘rules’. We’ve both had many difficult conversations and surprises along the way, losing friends, making better ones…the usual.
After several mutual eye rolls and a couple of cups of coffee, we take a walk through the area out the back of Petticoat Lane and Old Spitalfields Market. The streets aren’t as busy as they would be in past years. We are still working our way out from under the evil yolk of the ‘rules’. Shop attendants are still masked up, their fluoride-stares blurred slightly standing behind their protective 1/4-inch PVC drawbridges. There are still a majority of people on the tube donning the face diaper too… It’s astonishing to think that was a ‘normal’ thing to see for a good long while. I can’t deny, it’s a vibe to be sitting in conversation, no matter what the topic, with someone I’d respected as a kid. A grown man now and having been gifted with the opportunity to say thanks, is a heady blessing.
The summer’s humidity has gone now from the air and the nights are drawing in faster and darker but if you can catch it right, there are still some warmer beams, the memories of the summer sun, if you can find them.
On a relatively quiet street outside Spitalfields Market, I thought I’d try a wide shot on 14mm with the sun and angle of the building tops sort of converging with Matt in the centre. This street would usually be teeming with people, whatever day of the week. I’ve been there before and since and have never been able to navigate my way in a straight line.
I didn’t want to shoot somewhere too modern. I wanted the photograph to be neutral as to when it might have been taken. Was it 2022 or 1992?
There are other phrases latterly coined by the ravers of this time, yunno. Keep The Vibe Alive, they say, and Hardcore Will Never Die. Even now the tagline can ocassionally be spotted, emblazoned on the backs of the classic MA-1 bomber jackets, the standard issue for veterans of the rave scene. Some can still be found screaming along the M25 (ok, maybe once or twice a year now rather than every week) on their way to meet the others…
From it’s southern outpost to the epicentre of where it all began, my lifes journey took me to about everywhere possible that wasn’t the rave scene that I’d fallen for in my teens. Travel, marriage, kids and a corporate career eventually came full circle, at the strangest of times but I felt alive with the dreams of the kid I once was. The one sitting alone in his bedroom trying to figure out beat-matching, scratching and, even harder, a decent DJ name (these monikers were almost as important as the tunes themselves I felt).
It was a pleasure to spend time with Matt. Meeting one of my adolescent heroes I couldn’t help but wonder where the others were from that time. The other DJs, the MCs and the producers…where were they hiding? It seemed to me that some just didnt have the intelligence, or maybe the bottle to speak out about the dystopia of the governments opening tracks of the 2020’s.
Not so the case for Slipmatt. This legendary ‘cheesy quaver’ is absolutely Keeping the Vibe Alive!
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