MAD MICK

Mick (Michael  Weston) is a saxophonist perhaps better known for performing the well-known sax riff for the now classic 80’s dance hit ‘Infinity’ by Guru Josh.

He met Josh in the mid-­eighties after answering an advert in Melody Maker stating ‘sax player required for world tour’. He joined Joshua Cries Wolf, a five-­piece band playing glam pop/rock. They played a wide variety of clubs and other venues around London, winning a Yamaha band competition.

At the same time, Josh and Mad Mick as they were known performed at numerous venues around London.

Around 1988 they discovered the house music scene which inspired them to incorporate a sequencer into their duo show and Guru Josh was born. Since then Mick has played in numerous bands and performed in shows as a solo artist. His talent has also been called upon at numerous studio recording sessions.  

He eventually met up with Joe and Tech while jamming in Larry’s Lounge at Small World Festival. They had no hesitation in asking him to join them as Beat Jugglers saxophonist.

DJ TECH

DJ Tech (David George) first became switched-on to dance music when he left school with bands like Kraftwerk inspiring him. He got into the UK robotic dance movement scene choosing the anthem Robots by Kraftwerk as the top tune to which he performed, amongst others such as IOU by freeze and 1999 by Prince. His robotic act began at Tiffany's in Dunstable, which lead him to the Pink Elephant in Luton and London’s Southgate and then onto the London West End club scene. Then he discovered rave.

After years of attending raves, Tech turned his hand to DJ’ing; he spent a year at Milwaukee’s in Rushden eagerly learning the craft. He finally started playing out at parties and gaining experience and when he went to an Exodus party, everything changed.

Tech had done most of his raving in London (Astoria/Camden Palace) and at parties like Dreamscape, so when he discovered Exodus, ‘It was a bit like finding a shopping centre with no staff around.’ He loved it! After a few appearances there, he managed to get himself a set and the rest is history! He continued to DJ for them until 2000 when they disbanded.

At the same time, he also ran a club night in Luton called Level 1 which soon became a regular sell out event. After losing the venue when it was demolished due to being unsafe, Tech took Level 1 online instead by launching his own Internet radio station. It was a free DJ/Producer platform that would stream dance music to the world. That led him on to presenting the TED-Show, where producers could send their productions and he reviewed them live on the show.

2015 saw Tech back promoting club nights in Luton with promotions partner Andy Chesham. One half of their club was dedicated to bands and live music, with the other half owned by DJ’s playing dance music. One particular gig an up and coming band called The Shabby Tinkerz were booked to play. Their manager was Phil Dickson-­Earle and the band leader none other than Joe Wiggins (JJW). Tech and Joe got chatting and it soon transpired that Joe had sent his very first music productions project to Tech at the TED-­Show a while back. They quickly arrived at a decision to collaborate on a project and Beat Jugglers was born!

NIKKI NEON

Nikki is a versatile vocalist who has written and recorded vocals for a number of producers in range of styles, ranging from dubstep, rnb, reggae, ska, jazz and electronic music.

With a huge passion for singing and music since childhood, she recalls sitting in the garden singing to 90's rave music on her first Sony cassette player.

Nikki first met Joe and Phil at Sixth Form College whilst studying Music Technology. She had her first experience of live performance alongside Joe when fronting urban-dub inspired eight-piece band The Shabby Tinkerz, who fused elements of soul, jazz, reggae, rap and dub. With friendships dating back to her college days, it was here that Nikki, Joe and Phil first collaborated creatively.

With a background of studying Commercial Composition to Masters’ level at University, Nikki has always had a passion for writing original material, vocal hooks and vocal harmonies. Her writing is heavily influenced by the vocals of early 2000’s R'n'B songs and that style can be heard underpinning Nikki’s own writing and soulful delivery.

Currently, Nikki also plays keyboard and sings backing vocals with Bedfordshire based ska-reggae band easydread and has had the pleasure of supporting acts such as The Neville Staple Band, Gentleman’s Dub Club, Dub Pistols, Natty, Lee Scratch Perry, Black Uhuru, Zion Train, The Toasters, The Slackers and General Levy to name but a few.

Nikki met saxophone player Mad Mick on the set of the film The Banksy Job where they were both extras. There was a piano outside where Joe was playing and Mick was on sax. Nikki eagerly joined in the fun with ad-libbed vocals and the seed was planted for their future collaboration.

Nikki was approached by Beat Jugglers, which at that time consisted of Tech, Joe and Phil, and was asked to write and record some vocals for ‘Raves Like This’. From the first listen, the classic old skool piano, hypnotic beats and soulful saxophone melody captured her instantly. The vocal hook was written upon first listen and the rest is history!

PHIL EARLE

Phil Earle aka “Pearl” is a producer, manager and the fifth member of the Beat Jugglers. Born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, he grew up in Tottenham, North London, living next door to a guy name Winston and his huge reggae sound system.

As a teenage ‘soul boy’ his early clubbing escapades took place mainly in and around London. Nights out included venues such as Bumbles in Wood Green, Charlie Browns in Tottenham, Royalty in Southgate, Global Village, Studio 21, Crackers, The Blitz, The Wag Club, 100 Club in London’s West End, and the infamous Caster Soul Weekender.

The late 80s saw the start of a relationship with the music business, when he found himself managing his mate’s band, Honeychile, who were a live four-piece dance band with singer, guitarist, basses, keyboard player and a drum machine who were soon picked out by Muff Windwood and signed to CBS Records.

At the start of the 90’s, a chance meeting with a young Laurence ElliottPotter at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, following a Brand New Heavies support, saw the start of the Law & Auder Studio. Working with many of the early Junglists in developing the distinctive sound, Law & Auder were also responsible for many classics jungle and drum ‘n’ bass vinyl releases. Producing as part of non-conformist Techno outfit Friends Lovers & Family led onto releases on the iconic Rising High Records label, where after some freelance engineering for owner and artist Caspar Pound (The Hypnotist/Homeboy Hippie & A Funky Dread) he took over as their in-house studio engineer.

The mid 90’s for FLF saw many live appearances in Europe and the UK from Lakota, Ministry of Sound to Berlin’s Tresor. With the release of the ‘Avantgardism Drum ‘n’ Bass’ album in 1996 his own record label Law & Auder Records was launched.

Phil was also promoter of the ‘Monastery of Sound – Festival of Electronic Music’, a weekend held at a monastery in Normandy, dedicated to the wide variety of electronic musical styles from experimental drum 'n' bass to electro, dub, nu-skool and old-skool. It was known as an ‘Abstract canvass of electronic washes, blurps, bleeps, dysfunctional beats, freestyle breaks, aural battery, collage plunderphonics, hi, lo and sci-fi moodscapes, funky fusion's and dark disassociation, for anyone wanting to give their audio hemispheres a sonic workout.’

For six years he hosted Rehab (Rehabilitation) a relaxed night of experimental electronic musical adventures at The Foundry, near London’s Old street Station. Phil met Joe Juggler at Sixth form College in the early 2000’s where he taught Joe, then a student, Music Technology. Then a chance meeting in a village pub years later saw the beginning of their numerous musical collaborations.

JJW

Joe Wiggins is a classically trained pianist whose musical journey started with an upright piano at the house of his great aunt. From the age of four she began teaching him how to play it and about the appreciation and love of classical music. As a schoolboy he would spend hours working out the latest tunes on the piano. Joe began teaching when still only eight years old and it is fair to say that teaching piano remains one of his greatest passions. Joe also started making medleys of songs by age of nine and would eagerly perform these to friends and family.

Two things happened in high school, he began learning bass guitar and double bass, and he developed an ear for composition. He understood chords and melody and would freely improvise and compose. His first proper composition was also to offer up the melody for ‘Par’in It’, a track by his eight piece band The Shabby Tinkerz, alongside Nikki Fountain on vocals, some ten years later.

College was a game changer and under the guidance of his teachers Ross Purves, Michael Baxter and Phil Earle, Joe learnt how to produce, sequence and create full compositions. He met Beat Juggler Nikki ‘Neon’ Fountain in A level Music Technology classes whilst writing his experimental piece ‘Airportience’, the project on which he and Beat Juggler Phil began their first creative collaboration.

Joe had been inspired by Phil’s Law & Auder label and his connection to the electronica world. Joe created Airportience completely from ambient sounds he recorded at Luton airport and the production experiment provoked responses he could never have imagined, receiving positive recognition from his teachers, colleagues as well as gaining thumbs-up from many music institutions and established composers around the world.

This was the first real connection with the world of music outside of education. Before his move to Leeds College of Music, Joe went to his first rave. Already inspired by trance, old skool and especially liquid drum and bass artists like High Contrast, attending a genuine illegal rave was life changing for him. Sound systems Storm and Surge had setup a huge rig at a warehouse in Harrow, where Joe would be abandoned by a friend (ironically now a policeman) that had driven them there, didn’t like it so left on a promise to return to pick up and didn’t!

So, Joe found himself stuck at his first ever rave. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing, he had never heard the Kick Wump of hard trance before – he found it totally mesmerizing! Lazers, happy people, getting squashed in the mosh-pit, he had never experienced anything like it. Returning home he went through his whole music library desperately looking for that Kick Wump and off beat bass.

He found Warp Brothers Vs Dominator - ‘Blast The Speakers.’ That became his anthem for the next two years at university. His first dance track produced under the pseudonym Wronghead was ‘Acid Rebirth’, a banger using Timothy Leary’s ‘turn on, tune in and drop out’ sample. It was shared on MySpace was surprisingly well received, attracting a fair amount of attention. At last he began to feel like a producer himself and decided to try and get the track played on Level1 Radio. So, at age eighteen his first track was broadcast on the radio, by none other than Beat Juggler DJ Tech.

At University Joe was out every weekend soaking up all the drum ‘n’ bass, house, breaks and jungle nights. He also began putting on raves and promoting clubs nights with his Quake Soundsystem crew (DJ’s like Freear (Slamboree), Wolfie (Razmatazz) DJM, Bolt, EZ and RigMouse). The only thing missing there was the life changing Kick Wump hard trance and techno that he had heard at his first freeparty in Harrow. The only solution would be to learn to play them on the piano! Armed with a hard trance mix by Ill Horse (JamIam) downloaded from rave website Squatjuice, he worked out as many hard trance tunes as he could medley together.

The tracks included Bubbleheadz - ‘Young’, Emmanuel Top - ‘Acid Phase’ and The Riot Brothers - ‘Guyver Unit.’ It went down a treat with the few hard trance heads that lived in Leeds. Moving back down south Joe formed the band The Shabby Tinkerz, featuring an amazing line up of musicians that included old college friends Nikki Fountain and Phil Earle as their manager. Many great shows up and down the country followed, supporting Bad Manners, Dreadzone, Zion Train and The Levellers to name a few.

The end of the Tinkerz left a creative void that now needed filling. Performing as JJW, Joe’s hard trance piano style was soon in demand at many hard dance based events. He was the man that could, upon request, play rave classics and hard trance tunes on the piano, alongside a rich repertoire of hiphop, blues, jazz, gypsy and house music amongst other things. Then at his first Boomtown Festival he found himself at a piano in Larry’s Lounge and life as a pianist was about to explode.

Under the wing of Stan Wright, founder of the Larry’s Lounge, he toured the festival circuit playing his unique brand of DJ style piano. Then Stan booked him to play the Whistle and Trago in Hastings and it was there that Joe heard the famous Guru Josh ‘Infinity’ saxophone line being played by Beat Juggler Mad Mick and they decided to do some music together.

A few years earlier, Joe had met DJ Tech at a club night in Luton, got chatting, discovered he was the man that had played his tune out on his radio show and had also booked The Shabby Tinkerz for one of his club night. From that very moment they decided they had to create a project for fusing Joe’s piano skills with techs music production and tap into their vast network of rave connections. The genesis of Beat Jugglers had begun. They soon co-opted Phil Earle into the production team, along with Mad Mick on the sax and Nikki Fountain on the vocals and boom… Beat Jugglers!