OH708 Interview with Flynn (Bristol Wild Dayz)
My name’s Flynn my background is from Knowle West Bristol, South Bristol. I’ve been DJ’in for over 20 years I started in 1984 with my Brother Krust we started a crew called the Fresh 4 we started putting on warehouse parties and then we got in to making music. Initially South Bristol wasn’t really that popular place to visit for parties it was mainly St Paul’s and around Clifton and areas like that and we felt that South Bristol needed to be represented and we were passionate about Hip Hop at the time and so like I said we formed a crew we got involved and we started doing parties on St Luke’s Road it was a squat down there. And it was an amazing time, we were able to put on parties and get speakers and do the same thing everyone else was doing. We cleaned out a warehouse and got a graffiti artist to spray in there charged a pound or two pounds to get in and just partied all night long, generators and stuff like that it was amazing some really good times down there. In the early 80’s it was just about house parties and warehouse parties. It was all brand new to us the scene was just taking off Hip Hop was just taking off and it was just all new and exciting there was a real vibrant buzz and energy about Bristol at that time and enthusiastic about the whole energy about it so we just got on board and just tried to do the most we could do at that time.
Fresh 4 - I think the most stand out point would have been when we got busted at a party in Redcliffe down by an old warehouse but by a new build we spent all afternoon doing this place up ready for a party. Just as the people were getting there we got raided, hundreds of police showed up and gave us a option take your stuff down and go else where or we’re going to arrest everyone. So we said ‘Look the party is off’. One of the people who was helping us at that time who was from Luke’s Road and he said it would be cool if we had a party there and so we gathered our stuff took it across the river and set up in St Luke’s Road. I think that first warehouse house party there drew people into South Bristol across the river and that was a special time for me and the rest of the crew at that time. It was a turning point for us in what we were doing. And we reached a point where people were prepared to come to Redcliffe and they were prepared to make the extra effort to come across the water just a couple of hundred yards or so but it really made a difference they were then in South Bristol and they were in this squat which was just really unique for the time, just amazing so that is a highlight of the fresh four and for that particular point, and obviously we later went on to make records with Smith and Mighty on Ashley Road but it was at that same time we got to meet Smith and Mighty they had a sound system it was their sound system at that squat party they set it up we got to talking and we got on with each other and it grew from there I think that was a platform for us to move on and make records we thought we achieved what we set out to achieve as far as DJ’in in Bristol at that point.
Well in my mind the clubs that stood out for me at that time there was the Dug Out obviously but there was also a place called the studios or Locarno which for a slightly younger generation was the one of the places for us to go and we spent a lot of time there. It wasn’t really great music it more just more a lot of that generation of Bristolians were going out at that time so we went there quite a bit There was another place called Freeze which was more of a Hip Hoppie, RnB, Rare Groove, Funk club on Fairfax Street which is no longer there. That was a proper spot we used to do break dancing, hip-hop kind of body popping and stuff like that, a lot of people use to go there that was an excellent club. Reeves again another club in South Bristol was another club that we use to go to and they use to have a Hip Hop night or something down there on a, I don’t know if it was a Sunday or Monday a weird night during of the week a lot of people from all over Bristol went there. Moon club came into play and Tropics of course and Mozart’s. So Mozart’s and Tropics were just off Stokes Crofts they were big clubs, Sunday sessions. Tropics was a big club that was our first paid DJ’ing gig. We had Sunday nights there and that was a another massive thing for us as a crew we were doing the warehouses parties but we were also doing the clubs so that was amazing at that point so Tropics was one of the places we DJ’ed on Sundays and it was a heck of a good response.
The impact that generation had on music I think will stand forever basically because it launched and inspired so many people now to keep on doing their music, whether it’s Dub Step or the next biggest thing whether it was Drum and Bass whether it was Dub Step whether it was Hip Hop. It was off the back of this explosion of dance music in the early and late 80’s. The legacy of what we were doing was to encourage and to know its possible I think that’s what Bristol has helped me to believe in and discover and reach those goals, it’s not impossible there have been so many great acts from Bristol over the past 20 years that have done really well on a global scale from a small city. It can be done you can do it no matter where you're from.
Fresh 4 - I think the most stand out point would have been when we got busted at a party in Redcliffe down by an old warehouse but by a new build we spent all afternoon doing this place up ready for a party. Just as the people were getting there we got raided, hundreds of police showed up and gave us a option take your stuff down and go else where or we’re going to arrest everyone. So we said ‘Look the party is off’. One of the people who was helping us at that time who was from Luke’s Road and he said it would be cool if we had a party there and so we gathered our stuff took it across the river and set up in St Luke’s Road. I think that first warehouse house party there drew people into South Bristol across the river and that was a special time for me and the rest of the crew at that time. It was a turning point for us in what we were doing. And we reached a point where people were prepared to come to Redcliffe and they were prepared to make the extra effort to come across the water just a couple of hundred yards or so but it really made a difference they were then in South Bristol and they were in this squat which was just really unique for the time, just amazing so that is a highlight of the fresh four and for that particular point, and obviously we later went on to make records with Smith and Mighty on Ashley Road but it was at that same time we got to meet Smith and Mighty they had a sound system it was their sound system at that squat party they set it up we got to talking and we got on with each other and it grew from there I think that was a platform for us to move on and make records we thought we achieved what we set out to achieve as far as DJ’in in Bristol at that point.
Well in my mind the clubs that stood out for me at that time there was the Dug Out obviously but there was also a place called the studios or Locarno which for a slightly younger generation was the one of the places for us to go and we spent a lot of time there. It wasn’t really great music it more just more a lot of that generation of Bristolians were going out at that time so we went there quite a bit There was another place called Freeze which was more of a Hip Hoppie, RnB, Rare Groove, Funk club on Fairfax Street which is no longer there. That was a proper spot we used to do break dancing, hip-hop kind of body popping and stuff like that, a lot of people use to go there that was an excellent club. Reeves again another club in South Bristol was another club that we use to go to and they use to have a Hip Hop night or something down there on a, I don’t know if it was a Sunday or Monday a weird night during of the week a lot of people from all over Bristol went there. Moon club came into play and Tropics of course and Mozart’s. So Mozart’s and Tropics were just off Stokes Crofts they were big clubs, Sunday sessions. Tropics was a big club that was our first paid DJ’ing gig. We had Sunday nights there and that was a another massive thing for us as a crew we were doing the warehouses parties but we were also doing the clubs so that was amazing at that point so Tropics was one of the places we DJ’ed on Sundays and it was a heck of a good response.
The impact that generation had on music I think will stand forever basically because it launched and inspired so many people now to keep on doing their music, whether it’s Dub Step or the next biggest thing whether it was Drum and Bass whether it was Dub Step whether it was Hip Hop. It was off the back of this explosion of dance music in the early and late 80’s. The legacy of what we were doing was to encourage and to know its possible I think that’s what Bristol has helped me to believe in and discover and reach those goals, it’s not impossible there have been so many great acts from Bristol over the past 20 years that have done really well on a global scale from a small city. It can be done you can do it no matter where you're from.
