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about caspa
Born in Grimsby in the north of England, Caspa caught the dance music bug while watching DJ's like Joey Beltram, Colin Faver, Grooverider and DJ SS at the legendary Tokyo Joe's nightclub back in 1992. The hardcore and prototype D&B/jungle sound is what first got him interested, and numerous visits to clubs in the capital made him realise that London was the only place to be, so he moved there in 1993 and has lived there ever since.
His first badly paid full time job, working as a skivvy in a Covent Garden restaurant somehow managed to supply him with enough funds to buy a dodgy pair of belt drive decks that took up the vast majority of space in his tiny studio flat, and Caspa started mucking around with the progressive/hard-house music that was emerging at the time. Then one of Caspa's friends began promoting a club night called The Ultimate Orange at The Que Club in Birmingham, and made him resident. His residency lasted 4 years, and he played with DJ's like Blu Peter, Commander Tom, Oliver Lieb and CJ Bolland to name but a few. During this time, another friend began promoting his own club night in Leeds, Clear, where Caspa was also made resident, and played alongside guests including Billy Nasty & Gayle San.
However, encouraged by a friend who had seen the techno light some years earlier, Caspa swapped the lasers and amyl of the trance scene for the dark, camo-netted intensity of clubs like Lost, Open, Final Frontier, and Ultimate Base, and the hard-house tracks were pushed out of his record box by serious techno from producers like Jeff Mills, Robert Hood & Joey Beltram. It was listening to DJ's like Jeff Mills and Claude Young that inspired Caspa's 'cut'n'paste' style of techno DJ'ing.
After a year or so testing out the harder, more minimal sound on the Ultimate Orange crowd in Birmingham (with mixed results!), Caspa began working for a start up music, art and fashion magazine called Insync, and got involved with promoting a club night called Subspace, which played host to such techno luminaries as Dave Angel, Derrick May, Steve Rachmad & Luke Slater. Subspace also hosted a regular radio show on the Gaialive internet radio station. While DJ'ing at Subspace, Caspa met a promoter from Slovakia who invited him to play in Bratislava, a place that Caspa quickly fell in love with and visited numerous times.
At around the same time, tech-house music began to emerge, and a couple of friends started a club night, Freefunk, that pioneered the sound, inviting guests like Nathan Coles, Colin Dale and Jamie Anderson. Caspa was resident at Freefunk for 4 years. During the Freefunk years, the resident DJ's played regularly on the now defunct internet radio station Groovetech, the biggest site of its kind at the time.
In 2002, tired after 10 years of clubbing and busy with family life and a 'proper' job, Caspa pretty much retired, save for the occassional guest appearance in London now and again. The future? Who knows...
email: caspa@djcaspa.com
mobile: +44 (0) 7881 600451