True House Stories® Youtube & Spotify Video Podcast
TRUE HOUSE STORIES W/ MR.C # 098
Mr.C interviewed by Lenny Fontana for True House Stories # 098
The original OG of Holloway Road in London Richard West shares his life from the beginning. West was born in London in 1965. He started MCing in the London clubs aged 16 and earned a reputation as a fast-talking, vivacious rapper working with LWR radio’s Ron Tom, Jasper the Vinyl Junkie and Jazzy M. He joined with Colin Faver and Evil Eddie Richards to become resident rapper at Camden Palace.
Mr C recorded his first house track with Eddie Richards as Myster-E, “Page 67”, which was released in August 1987. This inspired West to become a DJ in late 1987. He has since organized, promoted and been resident DJ at: Fantasy (1988), Base (Dungeons 1989), Release (1991), Harmony (1992), Drop (1993), Cyclone (1994), Vapourspace (1994 and 1995), Flavour (The End, 1995 and 1996), Subterrain (The End, 1995–2002), Superfreq (worldwide 2002–present) and Super Disco Freq (LA, 2010–present).
Mr.C YouTube Video Part 1
Mr.C YouTube Video Part 2
Biography Mr.C
Richard West aka Mr.C was born in London in the late 60’s. He started MCing in clubs aged 16 & soon earned a reputation as a fast talking vivacious rapper working with LWR radio’s Ron Tom, Jasper the Vinyl Junkie & Jazzy M. Mr.C then hooked up with Colin Faver & Evil Eddie Richards to became resident rapper at the legendary Camden Palace in London, going on to MC for Colin Faver on the then illegal pirate radio station Kiss FM.
Mr.C went into the studio to record his first Deep House track called Page 67 with Eddie Richards as Myster-E, which was released in August 1987. This inspired Mr.C to become a DJ to learn more about his beloved House & Techno music so in September 1987 Richard quit his milkman job & took to the decks. Mr.C has since organized, promoted & been resident DJ at: Fantasy (’88), Base (Dungeons ’89), Release (91), Harmony (92), Drop (93), Cyclone (94), Vapourspace (94 & 95), Flavour (The End 95 & 96), Subterrain (The End 95 – 2002), Superfreq (Worldwide 2002 – Present), Super Disco Freq (LA 2010 – present), Souled Out (2021 – present).
Mr.C was also resident DJ at the legendary RIP parties at Clink Street in London throughout 1988. It was here that Rave Culture as we know it is said to have been born, inspiring many London raves that were to follow in 88, 89 & 90.
After working on various pirate radio stations including LWR, Fantasy FM & Dance FM, Mr.C held down a weekly radio show called Future Music on Kiss 100FM in London from 1993-2002. He has also presented TV shows for MTV, FH1, VIVA & BBC making Mr.C one of the most iconoclastic DJs in the world.
In December 1995 Mr.C opened his legendary nightclub The End in London with Partner Layo Paskin, which celebrated its 13th anniversary in December 2008 & was lauded as one of the best night clubs in the world, completely changing the face of clubbing in London & beyond. Sadly, The End & AKA closed its doors for good on January 24th 2009. One Chapter closes & another begins.
Mr.C is co-founder & owner of Plink Plonk records, co-founder & co-owner of End Recordings & founder & co-owner of the Superfreq label, which is now releasing music prolifically. Mr.C has recorded under the names, Myster-E, Unity 2, Nu Jacks, Bass Bureau, The Shamen, Mantrac, Somnambulist, Animus Amour, Killer Loop, Mr.C & Tom Parris, Mr.C & 16B, Sycophant Slags, Indigo Kidz, East LA Tek & Wonkytonk.
Mr.C is best known as front man, songwriter & producer of the pop group The Shamen with whom he notched up a string of top 10 hits including Move Any Mountain, Love Sex Intelligence, Boss Drum, Phorever People & the UK number 1 smash hit Ebeneezer Goode. These hits were hits the world over. The Shamen album Boss Drum went double platinum in the UK & they also won a highly coveted Ivor Novelo for Songwriters of the year UK in 1992/93. Richard’s currently recording solo as Mr.C & is also doing collaborations as the Indigo Kidz with Affie Yusuf & more recently with Noel Jackson as East LA Tek, with Radio Rental as Wonkytonk & new forthcoming project The Cheek with Modulon.
Mr.C recently put on his brand-new boutique Summer Love Festival, which took place in Surrey on Saturday 4th September 2021 with great success. This boutique festival marries late 80s Acid House Culture with Modern Cutting-Edge Dance Music Culture effortlessly, providing specialist old school & modern House, Acid House, Minimal, Techno, Electro, Disco, Funk, Soul & Dub music. This event will now be an annual festival in England, with the next event taking place on Saturday 17 September 2022.
Mr.C runs & promotes Superfreq events, which is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary. Superfreq ran monthly at Mr.C’s club The End until it closed down in January 2009 and now functions quarterly in London, hopping around various pop-up warehouse venues & clubs. These have included The Steelyard after an extremely successful event with Richie Hawtin in December 2015, regular events at Fabric, quarterly events at Red Gallery until it’s closure in July 2018 & now after hopping around various warehouse spots Superfreq will are throwing our London events at Egg London.
Superfreq does regular events in Los Angeles & annual events in Brooklyn, Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego & Dallas as well as one off events in various cities in the United States. Superfreq also has done events in Vancouver, Playa Del Carmen, Mexico City, Ibiza, Bogota, Montañita & other one offs the world over. Superfreq has competed 2 Asia tours hitting Manila, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Bangkok, Beijing & Shenzhen. Superfreq accomplished 7 successful seasons in Ibiza, 3 at Club Underground, 2 at the legendary DC10, 1 season at Blu, 3 events at Aura & hosted annual events at BPM Festival in Playa Del Carmen until it’s unfortunate closure.
These last 2 years have been very strange for the entire music industry but that hasn’t stopped Mr.C from releasing a lot of his own music & remixes as well as Superfreq’s great roster every 3-4 weeks. His Radical Inclusion remixes went down a storm in March 2020 after the original release in summer 2019. He followed those remixes up with his outstanding Celebration of Life single in late 2020. His recent Wonkytonk project with Radio Rental got lots of attention with his own Mr.C remix particularly doing damage.
His recent series of 3 back-to-back EP releases with Noel Jackson as East LA Tek got a lot of attention, as did recent Mr.C remixes for Nepotek, Sam Money, J Gabriel & Chuffing Buffy & Terry Francis for Superfreq. Mr.C has been extremely busy & has more remixes of both Sam Monie & Terry Francis as well as a new Mr.C EP in the pipeline. Superfreq will continue to prolifically release music every 3-4 weeks for the remainder of 2022.