Coalition, 7th November 2009

Who is James Lavelle? This man has been around just about two decades, established a solid and glamourous reputation based on the idea that good tunes are good tunes and the genre doesn’t matter, though trip hop, breakbeat and house are his specialty. For those of you who are young enough to be wondering just who this fellow might be he’s worked with artists such as Richard Ashcroft, Badly Drawn Boy, Thom Yorke, Massive Attack, Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and the list goes on. He kicked off his career at the tender age of 18 when he founded the Mo’ Wax record label in the early 1990s and made his way to becoming (still) a long term resident DJ at Fabric and one half of Unkle. Twenty years on from his first club night he continues to stay in the scene. Lavelle divides his time between mixing tunes and playing random sets all over the place, a life style any DJ would love to maintain along with an ability to pick and choose his career moves, and a well earned one too.

Coalition likes to host big, big DJs of this calibre; acts that leave you wondering whether someone might have just slipped something into your drink when you weren’t looking. A set like he’d play at Fabric could well have made three hundred of the most unwilling anti-party people go frikkin’ mental on the club dance floor. But on this night a conclusion was reached that might seem pretty controversial; Brighton loves cheese, indie and dark, grimy beats and rarely anything in-between. There’s just not a big enough crowd for it according to a die hard fan we met in the smoking area. It’s not that we can’t appreciate it, it’s not that we don’t like it, it’s just that given the choice people would rather go to an MGMT gig or a drum and bass rave than watch Mr Lavelle strut his stuff (and the people that would, are quite happy to hop on the train up to London.) This all being said it makes no difference to the man of the hour who has undoubtedly done much for the music industry, let’s hope he sticks around for another twenty.

Words by Kate Elliott

myspace.com/djjameslavelle