I N T E R V I E W : J O H N '00' F L E M M I N G

While busily trotting around the country in search of the hottest new clubs to review, we decided to pay our friends down at Progress a much deserved visit but just before his superb set, we managed to slip in a few questions to Jon OO Flemming.

DN : What’s can we expect in the next few months from you Jon?

J.F : Well, I’ve got a new single coming out in March, which at the moment is untitled and is coming out on react records.

DN : What has this year been like for clubbing and dance music?

J.F : It’s been pretty amazing really, I mean Ibiza was huge this year and really moved very very quickly, plus Trance suddenly burst onto the clubbing scene and also into the charts which was great to see, yet there were so many other variations of dance music emerging, I mean the Basement Jaxx were pretty huge in 1999 and they really did do well for House, and now we’ve got Artful Dodger who are more of a garage style of music.

DN : Any other projects on the horizons that you can tell us about?

J.F : Yep, I’ve got a show on Surf 107FM which is a radio station in Brighton. I’ve been trained by Mark Goodier from Radio 1 and hopefully, I’ll be starting on that soon.

DN : What about the Brighton scene then? Is that your new home?

J.F : Well over there, it’s just like one big happy family because so many people have recently become big from there, Phats and Small are great and FatboySlim is massive now, it seems like it’s the centre of dance.

DN : Many have speculated that the Ibiza bubble could burst, what do you think?

J.F : Definitely not, I think it’s become a lot more commercialised, but every year it just gets better and better

DN : Would you say it’s too commercial?

J.F : No not really, but I do think that there is perhaps a lot.

DN : What are your favourite clubs to DJ at?

J.F : Progress definitely because I’ve got the monthly residency here, and Pete and Russell have done a really great job here, I also love Passion at Emporium, and of course Gatecrasher, not forgetting Naughty but Nice.

DN : What did you do for the Millenium?

J.F : I DJ-ed at Passion, Naughty but Nice and then at the Millenium Village in Greenwich.

DN : Did you think that it was over-rated?

J.F : Yes, I thought that a lot of clubs hiked the price up too much and I chose to DJ at the places that weren’t overly expensive

DN : How did you celebrate because I saw on the Cream documentary that Seb Fontaine was in his car when it actually turned 12.

J.F : Well funily enough, I was on my way to the Millenium Village, and we had some champagne in the car and got it all on video camera. It was great.

DN : What about the new wave of superb clubs?

J.F : I think they’re wonderful because they’re really good for the Dance Music scene, and anything like that, it great.

DN : When did it all start for you?

J.F : It was around 1984-1985 that I started DJ-ing

DN : Do you think that it’s harder for DJ’s nowadays to breakthrough?

J.F : Definitely, because it’s a lot more commercialised.

DN : What do you want to do next?

J.F : I’m concentrating on my own singles now, and turning down some remixes…….

DN : I suppose remixers get a lot less credit for the work, you just have to look at what the William Orbit song, where Ferry Corsten remixed the radio version that got played everywhere, and he didn’t get mentioned once, it was all ‘William Orbit this, William Orbit that’ He is a great musician though, William Orbit

What would you do if you weren’t DJ-ing?

J.F : Gosh………..I love cars, and my friends into cars, so I’d probably be doing something associated with Sports cars or something

DN : Where’s next tonight?

J.F : I’m off to Republica in Birmingham

DN : With the internet revolution upon us, have you, like Judge Jules, got a website of your own?

J.F : It’s nearly finished. I’ll give you the address.

After that, he was gone. At 10.00pm he started his set and at 12.00am he was off to Birmingham. We’ll keep you posted about the website.

Thanks to Pete, Russell and Charlotte at Progress for sorting the interview out.