FACT
Mixmag
RBMA
Resident Advisor
a life in left field music (borrowed from somewhere):
DJ Colin Faver's first involvement with music came when his friend offered him a part time job in a record shop, Small Wonder Records. He became a big fan of the punk and new wave music the shop specialized in and began to look for new acts to sign up and release on the newly formed Small Wonder record label.
Colin also designed and produced label & sleeve artwork for many of the fifty odd releases.
Colin also designed and produced label & sleeve artwork for many of the fifty odd releases.
It was during this period he began to be a regular visitor to many of London's clubs and live venues. Eventually this lead to his first ever live DJ performance, when he was asked to stand-in for the regular dj at the legendary Marquee club in Soho. He then began to play regularly at this club and several other top punk clubs, THE Roxy, Vortex and the notorious Speakesy club (an after-hours club frequented by Hendrix in the 60’s and Sid Viscous in the 70’s)
After meeting many of the leading bands involved in the scene, Colin decided to promote his own concerts and club nights. With partner Kevin Millins he started a company Final Solution for this purpose. Their different approach to the business and creative selection of venues and line-ups gained them a great reputation in the industry. JOY DIVISION, NEW ORDER, CABARET VOLTAIRE, THROBBING GRISTLE, BAUHAUS, THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN and CULTURE CLUB are just a few of the many acts he worked with.
Colin Favor's DJ career continued to gain momentum and apart from playing at his own nights, he could be heard at many trendy one-nighters including Cha Cha’s and The Bat Cave.
In 1982 the Camden Palace nightclub was opened and Colin was employed as head DJ, playing a wide selection of music, including soul, disco, hip hop, hi nrg, alternative, electro, and house every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. This continued until 1988.
When the acid house scene exploded in London, Colin became involved with many new one nighters including THE SHOOM CLUB, HEDONISM, ENTER THE DRAGON and RIP. He also took up weekly residencies at THE ASYLUM and PYRAMID, two very popular nights in HEAVEN (London’s largest gay club). Alongside Eddie Richards he started his own weekly night at the WAG club in Wardour Street. On Tuesdays Colin jetted off to Paris to play a residency at THE REX CLUB.
In the late 80’s, early 90’s Colin Favor began to spin music all over the UK. He was heard frequently at the HACIENDA in Manchester, THE WAREHOUSE in Doncaster, STERNS in Worthing and THE ORBIT in Leeds. He also played at the huge rave events: RAINDANCE, SUNRISE, ENERGY, BACK TO THE FUTURE and BIOLOGY. Back in London he was one of the resident djs at RAGE in HEAVEN, when the breakbeat scene really took off. Colin began to spend much of his time globe trotting around the world, playing regularly in Europe and further a field to Japan, Australia, USA and Canada.
Next came the legendary "KNOWLEDGE", co-promoted by Colin Faver, Jane Howard and long time DJ colleague Colin Dale. It was there that many of the now world famous DJ’s first got to spin in the UK, including SVEN VATH, FRANKIE BONES, JOEY BELTRAM and RICHIE HAWTIN. The club gained worldwide recognition in the techno scene and one-off KNOWLEDGE night were held at many clubs throughout the UK. Colin has also played at many of the best techno events and clubs around the world: MAYDAY, LOVE PARADE, TRESOR and E-WERKS (Berlin), TUNNEL and UNIT (Hamburg), THE OMEN & DORIAN GRAY (Frankfurt), ULTRASCHALL (Munich), THE FUSE and HELLRAISER (Belgium), STREET PARADE (Zurich), TWILO (New York), DESTINY (Toronto), ARRIVAL FESTIVAL (Montreal) and the debut of Tribal Gathering in the UK.
In 1993 alongside Colin Dale he teamed up with Brenda Russell to start a new night called DEEPSPACE. This ran for 9 months as a weekly Friday event at The Paddocks (now Leisure Lounge) in Holborn, London. In ‘95 DEEP SPACE was relaunched as a monthly Saturday night party at THE END nightclub. This lead to SUBMERGE, a weekly night on Wednesdays at the legendary Gossips nightclub in London’s Soho.
He has also made regular guest appearances, at LOST, EUROBEAT 2000, SEX LOVE AND MOTION,ANALOGUE CITY and ULTIMATE BASE in London. Also ATOMIC JAM (Birmingham), OUTERLIMITS (Bournemouth), GUESHKY (Portsmouth) and the LAKOTA (Bristol).
His radio work began with a weekly Sunday show at Moorfields Eye Hospital in the 70’s, which he gave up after he began to play too many Sex Pistols tracks instead of the Andy Williams songs the patients had actually requested! He was later to be one of the founder members of pirate station KISS FM, which applied and gained legal status in September 1990. Colin presented many different shows on the station, including his weekly techno show which was on the air every Tuesday night until June 1997. On this show he featured cutting edge techno music and interviewed many international artists/ DJ’s: DERRICK MAY, KRAFTWERK, JUAN ATKINS, KEVIN SAUDERSON, JOEY BELTRAM, DAMON WILD, IAN POOLEY, APHEX TWIN, HARDFLOOR, KELLI HAND, LAWRENCE BURDEN and CARI LEKEBUSCH just to name a few.
He has also presented music on GAIA LIVE and performed live mixes from THE GLOBAL CAFE, on the internet. Plus one-of shows on FESTIVAL RADIO in Brighton and Edinburgh. His mixes have also been heard on Euronet Weekend Rave which was broadcast to the whole of Europe via satellite, RADIO1, KISSFM in Berlin and NOVA in Paris.
The RABBIT CITY record label was co-founded by Colin and Gordan Matthewman in 1991. The first release was their own production under the alias of Razor Boy and Mirror Man. Many more releases followed including early work by the APHEX TWIN, Spiral Tribe and FORCE MASS MOTION, who had sent demo tapes to Colin’s radio show. He has also been involved with production work for MUTE Records and remixes for FORTRAN FIVE, S-EXPRESS and BABY FORD.
Colin Favor was asked to mix one of the TRANCE CENTRAL cds for the KICKIN Label and in ‘96 he compiled and mixed the first in the TECHMIX series on the same label. In 1997 he compiled and mixed the CREATIVE TECHNO cd for the CLUB MASTERS series.
Recently he has compiled and mixed the second in the series of REWIND THE CLASSICS cds for UNDERCOVER MUSIC. Featuring tracks from UNDERGROUND RESISTANCE, JEFF MILLS, LUKE SLATER and many of the other artists from the KNOWLEDGE era of 92-93.
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I knew about Final Solution - and tried, without success, to interview Faver for Rip It Up. But not about the Small Wonder connection - wonder if it was him who A&R-ed my faves Fatal Microbes as in "Violence Grows"?
Also didn't know about his involvement with Rabbit City Records, a great little UK hardcore / hard tekno label....
I do remember his Kiss FM shows, which tended towards the pure tekno but would occasionally allow a bit of ardkore in (in fact I can recite from memory the exact way he would introduce such tracks with a tinge of ironic distance - "a lickle bitta ardkore")
I also remember Knowledge, which was impressively committed in vibe, but for me too austere and slaphead-puritan
a whole bunch of trax popular with the Knowledge massive
including this one
this though is a tribute to Knowledge by artists on the techno-leaning end of jungle
flipside not unaptly titled "Punishment" given the vaguely flagellatory atmosphere of the harder end of pure techno in the early-mid 90s
I believe PCP crew made an appearance at Knowledge - that's something I would have liked to witnessed
More Rabbit City banging bizniz from back in the ravey day
In addition to 58 Force Mass Motion tracks, Rabbit City also put out Analogue Bubblebath 2 by Aphex Twin
Which includes this track, which discogs says is titled "Alien Fanny Farts"
An untitled track from the EP
the lead track
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