Sun­set Selec­tions with Bill Brewster

Orig­i­nal­ly a chef, a foot­ball pun­dit (co-edi­tor of fanzine When Saturday

Comes) and record col­lec­tor, Bill began DJing in in the late 80s, but he cut his teeth play­ing ​‘Low Life’ ware­house par­ties in Harlem and the East Vil­lage – he moved to NYC to run DMC’s US oper­a­tion – and any­one hear­ing Bill today can see how these New York ​‘roots’ shine through. For eclec­ti­cism, sur­pris­es, amaz­ing unique music and sheer long-haul ded­i­ca­tion to the dance­floor, Bill’s your man.

His oth­er life is as a writer. Togeth­er with long-term pal Frank Broughton, Bill is author of the defin­i­tive his­to­ry of DJing, Last Night A DJ Saved My Life, and has con­tributed his acid Grims­by wit and ency­clopaedic knowl­edge of music to just about every dance rag there is, not to men­tion The Guardian, Inde­pen­dent and Mail On Sun­day. The Brew­ster-Broughton dou­ble act unveiled their lat­est hit in 2002 with the unique­ly sar­don­ic DJ man­u­al How To DJ (Prop­er­ly). They have recent­ly com­plet­ed an updat­ed ver­sion of Last Night A DJ Saved My Life that will be pub­lished in June, along with a dou­ble CD from Universal.

He’s an indus­try insid­er, hav­ing brought Twist­ed records to the UK and launched his own high­ly suc­cess­ful deep house label Foren­sic. In his spare time he is often found in the stu­dio, either with Fat Camp part­ner, Theo Noble, re-edit­ing old dis­co, funk and rock records; or pro­duc­ing orig­i­nal music. They run a small edit label Dis­co Sucks.

As his hero Kid Cre­ole would say, ​‘Annie I’m not your daddy.’

WHATTHEPRESSSAYABOUT BILL

“Bril­liant.” Mixmag

“What Bill Brew­ster doesn’t know about disc jock­ey­ing is prob­a­bly not worth know­ing.” Jock­ey Slut

“What’s the best rea­son for play­ing a record? Because you love it. What’s the best rea­son for start­ing a par­ty? Because no one else is doing it like you can. It’s pret­ty sim­ple real­ly, but so many DJs and pro­mot­ers for­get what got them excit­ed in the first place. Bill Brew­ster hasn’t. The encour­age­ment of DJs like Rocky (X‑Press 2) and Jon ​‘Beloved’ Marsh and pro­mot­ers like Nik­ki Smith at Fab­ric (who rave about him) has spurred him on and club crowds are respond­ing, too.” Time Out

“One of Fabric’s heroes is behind the decks for one of his mul­ti-genre embrac­ing ses­sions. It’s going to be a late one.” Metro

“The glam­orous and bewitch­ing Bill Brew­ster steps up to the ones and twos for more high-qual­i­ty action. “ Tim Out New York

“You know peo­ple who mem­o­rise every release and DJ shoe size right back to 1875? That’s the Faith posse, that is. Led by Ter­ry Far­ley and Bill Brew­ster, they’re a bit long in the tooth now – they’d have to be to have this musi­cal knowl­edge – but this is sim­ply unmiss­able: beau­ti­ful, var­ied and at times even tear-jerk­ing.” Min­istry on Faith Vol 1 CD

“The great­est book ever writ­ten about dance music.” Dai­ly Mir­ror on Last Night A DJ Saved My Life