Progressive Tyrant Blasts Boring Breaks

Lee Burridge

international news _ 19th June, 2006

Progressive Tyrant Blasts Boring Breaks

Text by Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)

Tyrant promoter/ DJ Lee Burridge has stopped spinning breakbeat altogether, he announced this week, telling One Week To Live he became bored of it all sounding the same.

"You know, I played it for so long that I'd heard it all," he grumbled, "I'm sure that people playing breakbeat will probably say the same thing about house, but there doesn't seem to be any fresh ideas going on in arrangement or sounds or vibes. I've decided to knock breaks on the head for a while and just concentrate on house."

Breaks star Ali B was impressively magnanimous about his comments, telling Skrufff, 'Lee is a great DJ and I'm sure he'll continue to play lots of different records from lots of different genres, some of which may not have been given a name yet and received their token ' is (insert new genre here) the new (insert old genre here) article written by Ralph Snore at Mixrag," he quipped.

'Musical genres are for journalists - clubbers don't usually give a fuck what they dance to and good DJs play records based on whether they like them, not what genre they are. The names of the journalists and publications have been disguised to protect their identity," Ali laughed.

Burridge's outspoken comments reflected his equally candid comments to Skrufff almost five years ago, when the then relatively unknown jock launched a scathing attack on superstar spinners.

"There is a total hierarchy of well known DJs who want everything for themselves, I can't deny it. Some of them fear the advent of new names, because they know they're rubbish and may be swept away. It's a very bitter reality, which ultimately takes away from the fact that we're all here to play records," he complained.

"I always try to be nice in general, but I occasionally fall into bitching, because it is such a bitchy industry. The bitching doesn't derive from jealousy, rather from what you see going on behind the scenes. You see DJs using PR companies to increase their popularity, fame and success, when surely their job should be to play their records and for the public to appreciate them on the basis of how good and entertaining they really are," he said.