James Condon Interview with Frenzy - Frantic & NuReligion Resident20th March 2009 - interview copyright of Frenzy James Condon is resident DJ for the mighty Frantic and has played for every single main hard dance promotion you care to mention. And of course Frenzy is where you will see him on April the 3rd of 2009 when he takes to the decks on our Frenzy Army camo-theme night. Check out this interview with him.
1. Hi James, the Frenzy clubbers need a small insight into you so I want you to tell us what the last dream was you had, and what it could possibly mean? Hmmm my last dream! Well I have recently come back from Thailand and I had so many random and weird dreams, in fact everyone I was out there with had strange dreams. One dream in particular that I can remember really well was about me being in a cooking competition with some people I used to go to school with who I hadn’t seen for about 15 year! The competition was in a park somewhere and I was running late for it and it didn’t matter what I did I just couldn’t get there but then when I did one of the people in the competition had a violinist playing some strange tune and there was loads of people watching. That’s about as much as I remember of it but if you ask me that is well random!! What does it mean? Fuck knows lol maybe it means listening to a violin while cooking helps you win cooking competitions. Watch out Jamie Oliver! Violin Jim the late cooking guru is here!!
2. Apparently you’ve been DJ’ing since 1997 which is long-time in dance music. Could you tell us how it all started for you and how you got to where you are now? In 1996 when I was only 17, me and a load of mates decided that after our first year in sixth form we would organize a two week holiday to Ibiza!! Need I say more! It was fuckin carnage the two weeks were spent clubbing all day and all-night without fall! It was awesome and a real eye opener, I’ve now been out to Ibiza every year since, which is a good few times now! Anyway back to the story so when I got back I went out straight away and brought my first set of decks - some SoundLab DLP1’s and taught myself to mix! I then met the promoters of the night Wildchild and started working with them selling tickets and promoting for them and eventually bagged myself a set and then went on to be resident. From that I started getting sets at Frantic which was a dream come true! I was then asked to join UDJS and become Frantic resident and from there it just got better and better. It’s been hard work and you have to keep on and on and never relax it’s the only way to get yourself noticed. There are a lot of very good Djs out there that will never get a break because they get lazy and lose sight of their goal. I’ve now played for some of the biggest and best hard dance brands there are including Frantic, Polysexual, Tidy, Nu Religion, Summit, Global Gathering, to name a few and I am loving every minute of it.
3. Being resident for the mighty Frantic is quite simply the biggest hard house event in the World and you share a roster with names such as Andy Whitby and Cally Gage. How did you manage to join such illustrious company as that’s one hell of a gig! As I said above due to my hard work and commitment I was asked to play for Frantic and was then taken on as resident and I think myself really lucky to play the gigs I have; rocking KoKo, Brixton Academy, Ministry of Sound and SEONE to name a few. They always put on the best parties and I am really proud to be part of such a wicked promotion. 4. Do you have any ambitions, whether they’re related to the dance music industry or outside, what might they be? I am a very ambitious person and once I have something in my head I won’t let it go till I have done it. I like to be successful in anything I do which and love the sense of achievement you get when you hit your goals and targets and I’m the same in both my DJ’ing career and my personal life.
5. Frenzy is based in Bournemouth, which is of course by the sea and there are some pretty mad raves down here which I’ve seen you at before. Outside of Bournemouth though where’s your favourite place to gig and party? I have a lot of good friends in Bournemouth so am down there a fair bit and I have a soft spot for the Opera house, it was one of my original haunts back in the early days of Slinky. Outside of Bournemouth one of my favorite venues to play is a club called the Coven in Oxford. It was where I held one of my first residencies back in 2000. It’s proper underground dance venue which holds about 500 people. It has a phat function one sound system in there and proper goes off! I play there regularly for Project Storm and Nu Religion. You can catch me there for Nu Religion on the 12th April and Project Storm on 30th May. If I’m out partying and not Djing I love The Gallery @ Ministry of Sound for me it’s all about the sound system! And I tell you what that system is fuckin un-real!! 6. You last played for Frenzy when we hosted the Keep Bournemouth Tidy event at the Opera House back in November 2008, and we’d promised we’d get you back. What have you got in store for the Frenzy clubbers at Dusk Till Dawn on April the third? Keep Bournemouth Tidy was a wicked event and was my first time playing at the Opera House which I was well chuffed about so big thanks again for that! With Frenzy on the 3rd I have a lot of new material which I will be digging out so expect everything from tough hard trance, some nice bouncy hard house maybe some cheeky Hard Style and plenty of my own style of Hard dance which I am 120% sure will take the roof right off!!!
7. You ‘ll be lining up with Frenzy’s hard dance residents Helen G and Cheeky Scott, plus hard trance jock Iain Cross. Musical boundaries are definitely starting to blur nowadays as we’ll progress through the different hard genres. Do you have a passion for any particular sub-set of the music clubbers hear at Frenzy? I love all styles of Hard Dance and my tastes change all the time which I think keeps my sets really interesting and varied. I really love German hard trance at the moment and am playing a few of the older tracks from a few years ago. I personally love it when you get all styles of harder style music at an event so I am really looking forward to Frenzy. 8. There are a lot of new DJs who are coming through at the moment and seem to be getting the support of the big events. Which DJs and producers do you feel are the next big thing in hard dance? There are loads of really talented DJs and Producers out there at the moment and I think that the hard dance sound and the quality of production at the moment is wicked!! Dj wise I’m loving Jordan Suckley; he is such a nice guy with his head screwed on and he knows his way round a mixer big time - he will be massive!! Production wise I am working a lot with 2 good friends Matt Ginetic and Michael Logger aka Logger and Ginetic these guys are massive on the free party scene and their production is fuckin insane!! I will be spinning some of the stuff we have worked on; on the 3rd it’s a real different sound.
9. We've been asking DJs recently what they would do if they were PM for the day, given the current economical and political climate. If there was a Prime Minister Condon, what would he be doing right now? Well if I was Prime Minister I would have to make sure there was a proper PHAT sound system everywhere! Don’t you find that sometimes, when you’re on your way to a club or work or whenever and are waiting for a bus or train, or just on your way to the shops it’s a shame there isn’t some banging tunes pumping out??!! It’s a random one but it’s the way forward in world peace :o) 10. Could you tell us something we might not have previously known about James Condon, perhaps an embarrassing secret, or maybe something downright bizarre about you? I have a degree in bio physics and am on NASA’s plans to be the first Dj, on the first manned trip to Mars in 2015 to see if aliens like hard house. They best have a PHAT sound system there!!! James Condon will be DJ'ing for Frenzy alongside Helen G, Cheeky Scott, and Iain Cross on Friday the 3rd of April 2009 at Dusk Till Dawn nightclub in Bournemouth. Check out our forthcoming hard dance events for more details. Photos courtesy Lost-In-London, Jef, Dee-S-I and unknown sources. |
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