GIGS
Secret Location - Hoofer Doofer [festival] - 6 August 2010
York - HowDoYouDo - 21 May 2010
Birmingham - Head Club - 24 April 2010
Birmingham - Head Club - 2 April 2010
Birmingham - Head Club - 27 February 2010
Skirt (Bethany) has been loving music since she days of the 8-track. She was born and grew up in Texas; and from a very young age was attracted to all things musical. She started collecting records when she was about 8 years old. As an early teenager she was attracted to the analogue sounds in pop music such as New Order, and Depeche Mode; taking her ghettoblaster with her everywhere around the trailer park; and experimenting with tape editing as early as 13. When she was 15, she learned about an industrial dance club called 'Numbers' in Houston, Texas which did a live broadcast every Friday night over the FM radio airwaves in the late 80s/early 90s. Skirt tuned in religiously, usually recording these broadcasts on cassette (she is still in possession of these old tapes!), and there found her true love for industrial dance music. She was heavily moved by the sounds of Nitzer Ebb, Front 242, A Split Second, Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly.
After high school, Skirt didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life, so she joined the US Navy which moved her from Texas to California when she was 20. Oddly enough, she had pre-conceived ideas and was repelled by the 'rave' scene, thinking it all 'very silly', until she was tricked into attending her first party out in the Sierra Nevada mountains called 'The Light' by giving someone a lift to the party. She ended up staying and having one of the best nights of her life. This was where she was first struck with the idea of the rave community as one giant electronic music-loving family and she was hooked, hearing new sounds she had not heard before and having finally found some like minds. She started going to every party she could and trying to learn as much as she could about some of the amazing music she was hearing: Future Sound of London, Autechre, Orbital, Aphex Twin, The Orb. . .and TECHNO!
Skirt bought herself a pair of decks in 1998 and started buying electronic dance records from Champion Sound in San Diego, CA. She was working nights at the military hospital and spent her days hunting music. Off the Record in San Diego was another favourite place to shop; a huge record shop, and many an hour was spent crate digging in there. This was where she expanded the more 'electronica' side of her vinyl collection.
When her time with the military was finished that same year, she moved herself to Arizona for a change of scenery. Here she spent all of her free time visiting and buying techno records from Swell Records in Tempe, Arizona. It was here she discovered some of her favourite labels: Downwards, Dynamic Tension, Blueprint, Olga + Josef and, after playing a few sets in the shop and submitting some dj mix demos, was asked to play regularly for Swell at their raves/parties in Phoenix (she was known as DJ Switch in those days).
After several years in Arizona, Skirt moved to England in 2001 for personal reasons. Her first year in England was spent in Ipswich and then she moved to Birmingham where she has remained ever since. She has continued to buy and mix records, although for several years she put her dj'ing on the back burner to adjust to her new home and to learn about producing music. One of her early tracks 'Indefinite' was played by DJ Surgeon at House of God. She also had the amazing fortune of working at Integrale Muzique techno distribution company for the last year it was in operation, which was pretty much the highlight of her entire life. Recently she is playing a few gigs here and there in England, and is still learning about and producing music, which you can listen to on her soundcloud and myspace pages (links above).
