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Kelvin Andrews’ journey as a DJ has so many stories, it would take a book’s worth of writing but for time’s sake we’ll attempt to keep it concise.

July 1982. A wet behind the ears, music-obsessed teenager secures a trial DJing slot at one of his local nightclubs (called Maxims to be exact). It doesn’t go well. The manager tells Kelvin his music isn’t suitable and not commercial enough for the club but it’s too late. He’s hooked, and now on a mission to play the records he loves to an appreciative dance floor.

By this point Kelvin’s taste is influenced and shaped by the often overlooked yet highly influential Jazz-Funk, Soul and Jazz-Dance scene and in particular by his hometown DJ heroes Trevor M and Colin Curtis.
“At 16, thanks to my Dad and the local funk scene, I was obsessed with the likes of Donald Byrd, George Benson, Funkadelic, Earth Wind & Fire, George Duke and Patrice Rushen but my tastes were also expanding into more leftfield pop and post-punk territories like Talking Heads, Japan etc. Then came Imagination, Tom Tom Club and Kid Creole. Great music was everywhere and I soaked it all up. By the time those stripped back dubs from Larry Levan and Francois Kevorkian started coming out of New York, I knew I wanted to be a DJ.”

From dropping breaks and early electro to B-Boys and B-Girls in local roller skating joints on Saturday lunchtimes to hosting his own events, the early to mid 80s was an apprenticeship in the importance of hot records and reading the dance floor. In 1986 Kelvin got a short lived job pre-selling albums into record shops for Polygram and one morning a pre-release cassette dropped through his letterbox.

“The impact of that London Records ‘House Sound of Chicago’ promotional tape can’t be understated." he says "Electro and electronic boogie dubs were already a massive part of my sound as a DJ but the tracks on that cassette were weird, raw and sounded like the future. The key tracks on there were Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley’s Jack Your Body and Chip E’s Like This and I started playing them at gigs from cassette. The reaction was instant and insane. My youngest brother Danny, eventually stole the tape and before long was making his own tracks, culminating ultimately in possibly the first UK acid house track - This Ain’t Chicago’s Ride The Rhythm (Acid not Placid). Everything seemed to be moving so fast”

In 1989 Kelvin was offered his first proper out of town booking via Manchester’s infamous Konspiracy club . Along with hosting seminal Stoke nights Move and Adrenalin and his first forays into music production with brother Danny (who was about to become an accidental pop star with Candy Flip!) Around this time while reviewing new singles for the weekly Mixmag Update magazine, he was one record short of his required quota .So, in a panic, he ‘created’ a review of a 12” called Proper Tunes EP by Sure is Pure and unable to cope with the guilt, produced the EP with Danny and released it on his own Gem Records.

Initially it was ignored, but after plays from Tony Humphries in New York and at Ministry of Sound, the EP blew up beyond comprehension and out of nowhere Sure is Pure was a name on the lips of DJs and dancers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Club and chart success followed in the early 1990s, along with a new residency for Kelvin at a new club called Golden along with a growing number of guest appearances at the likes of Back to Basics, Venus, Wobble, Cultural Vibes and further afield in Ibiza, Italy, Canada, Australia and beyond. Remixing was the thing back then and Sure is Pure were at the pinnacle of this shift, adding their magic to dozens of tracks and having just as many hits.

In the late 90s, Kelvin had adopted a much more underground approach to his DJing and was offered a new residency at The Bomb in Nottingham by visionary club promoter James Baillie.

“If all before it was school, everything at the Bomb was DJing university. I learned so much there. Either hosting the back room with eclectic and Balearic sounds or at the controls of the main room with house and techno. I played alongside and witnessed the likes of Andrew Weatherall, DJ Harvey, Gilles Peterson, Derrick Carter, Dave Congreve and others on a weekly basis and it was the greatest education you could wish for. “

The next two decades proved a continuation of this musical journey. Sure is Pure became Soul Mekanik and Kelvin played regularly as a guest at iconic clubs like London’s Fabric and the Electric Chair in Manchester. His belief in the importance of a residency resulted in the long-running party WoNk in Staffordshire with mini festivals in Cyprus and Barcelona (again with brother Danny) and a decade long presence hosting amazing boat parties in Petrcane and Tisno to promote the sporadic, yet celebrated compilation series Down To The Sea & Back with Balearic Mike (Volume 3 is out this summer).

These days Kelvin has added radio to his skillset, producing music and social history documentaries plus his regular No Ordinary Dog show for AUDR and radio shows Down To The Sea & Back and Excellent Behaviour (with son Joey T) for 1BTN.

“After all these years of music, I’ve never lost the love and enthusiasm I had as a youngster. Maybe these days there’s a little wisdom and experience in there too”

View Kelvin Andrews page