James
Real Name:
James Lavelle
Profile:
"I became a DJ because I couldn't Breakdance. And I was no good at Grafitti."
The Underground's loss, music's gain. Well, not in every sense - musically, James Lavelle (b. 1974 in Oxford, England) has been at the heart of the London underground for almost a decade. And in love with all kinds of music for all of his 27 years. Like the rest of us, it was the parental record collection that switched James Lavelle on to music, early Lavelle sets included the likes of Stevie Wonder and Deep Purple, an eclectic mix that was an embryonic blueprint both for James Lavelle as a DJ and for his label Mo Wax; good tunes are good tunes - the genre doesn't matter. But back to the young James. And hip-hop, the one style of music that initially captivated him. It wasn't just the music; the UK's fledgling hip-hop scene was as much about Tacchini as it was Whodini and the breaks were the rhythms for breakdancing. Which James couldn't do, not that it mattered, he was already sold on the breaks. Inspired by the sound systems put together by the likes of Afrikaa Bambaata in the States and by the Wild Bunch over in Bristol, James started buying records by the bucketload and providing the soundtracks to his home town Oxford's own blockparty scene. The first party he put on, at 15, made him enough money to get a pair of decks and with Oxford starting to run out of vinyl, London beckoned. There's probably no better example of right place, right time.
He is older brother of Aidan Lavelle.
The Underground's loss, music's gain. Well, not in every sense - musically, James Lavelle (b. 1974 in Oxford, England) has been at the heart of the London underground for almost a decade. And in love with all kinds of music for all of his 27 years. Like the rest of us, it was the parental record collection that switched James Lavelle on to music, early Lavelle sets included the likes of Stevie Wonder and Deep Purple, an eclectic mix that was an embryonic blueprint both for James Lavelle as a DJ and for his label Mo Wax; good tunes are good tunes - the genre doesn't matter. But back to the young James. And hip-hop, the one style of music that initially captivated him. It wasn't just the music; the UK's fledgling hip-hop scene was as much about Tacchini as it was Whodini and the breaks were the rhythms for breakdancing. Which James couldn't do, not that it mattered, he was already sold on the breaks. Inspired by the sound systems put together by the likes of Afrikaa Bambaata in the States and by the Wild Bunch over in Bristol, James started buying records by the bucketload and providing the soundtracks to his home town Oxford's own blockparty scene. The first party he put on, at 15, made him enough money to get a pair of decks and with Oxford starting to run out of vinyl, London beckoned. There's probably no better example of right place, right time.
He is older brother of Aidan Lavelle.
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James Lavelle
| J Lavelle
| J. Lavelle
| J.Lavelle
| James
| James "Holygoof" Lavelle
| Lavelle
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Reviews & Discussion
I'm frankly amazed anyone's let James Lavelle release a mix album, let alone let him behind a pair of decks. I mean I know it's not actually him on 'his' early mix albums but The Psychonaughts (hence the listenability), but somehow he still gets the credit. Which is frankly baffling when you see him live, because as it would be harder to get the credit for someone else djing for him live, he just stands there with a big box that makes wooshing noises and fades in and out of a load of Unkle tracks and mixes, it's rubbish and it's boring (I've seen him twice, at Glastonbury and Fabric and both times he was massively dull, which, you should never be at either of those places), and I'm saying this as someone who likes a lot of Unkle stuff, the Unkle sounds mix of 'There Goes The Fear' by Doves, is amazing for example. But, James Lavelle, is a very bad DJ.
