Jumping Jack Frost is a typical Gemini.
He's a man of two parts, serious and frivolous, and has shown
a desperate need to communicate from the day he was born in
Chelsea, London, on 29th May 1967.
A natural entertainer, he started DJing
and MCing at his boarding school, Embourne Lodge. He took
his seven O Levels to North London College where he spent
a year in less serious mode, dossing around and hanging out,
catching up on people and general things he missed out on
at Embourne.
When he started DJing for real in 1984,
the serious side of his split personality came to the fore.
"At that time everyone wanted to
start playing music. Some people were serious about it, some
weren't. I was."
So serious in fact that from time to time he had to do a bit
o hustling on the streets to support himself.
Then House / Rave music came along.
"At the time I was playing Soul,
Funk, Disco and Boogie on this pirate radio station called
Passion. One day I walked into a shop and bought a record
called "Land of Confusion". I was totally unlike
anything I'd heard before - a completely mad Acid kind of
record by a guy called Armando.
"It was the only Acid record I
had, but ever time I played it, the audience really went for
it, so I started looking for more records like it.
"I got really carried away by the
whole Acid scene. It wasn't just a music thing - it was a
life thing. I realised I hadn't even begun to start living-
the people who were already in to it were experiencing another
dimension.
"Coming from Brixton, everything
seemed like an oppressive vicious circle with no way out.
The Acid thing was like stress relief - it reflected my attitude
to my life, the system, everything."
Okay, if Frosty says other got into
the House scene before he did, did he have any knowledge of
how the whole thing began
"I thing it was foreseen by the
people who were making the records, people like Kevin Saunderson,
Derrick May an' that. I've never been to Detroit, but Grooverider's
been there and what I've heard from Groove, I don't know how
those people could have been inspired to make that kind of
music because there's no scene as such there."
What about coping with the hype of being
a DJ.
"It's all right for me, because
after the party's over, it's over. As soon as I get back to
my area, no-one cares about raves. I don't really socialise
with other DJs outside of the office where I work, and most
of my friends are friends I've had for years. So the hype
don't bother me."
As he went on to describe the type of
music he like to play, his star sign character again reared
its head.
"Me, I'm a typical Gemini, and
i think that my music changes with my moods. At the moment
I'm playing a sexy kind of hardcore, although I don't like
to call it Hardcore, that's just what people have labelled
it as. I'm a Dance music DJ or various styles -even Reggae.
To my reggae is Dance music now and people can't deny it.
The stuff that people are playing now that they're calling
Progressive House, we were playing years ago."
Frosty's personality is less split when
it comes to his career, however.
"I'll always be a DJ. But I will
always strive to do other things. At the moment I want to
try and be a presented for MTV or something like that. That's
what I wanna do next."
"There's some night that have totally made me grow up
as a DJ and opened my eyes to see that I've still got a lot
to learn, and always will have a lot to learn. There's been
nights that have been great for being great, and there's been
night that I've been glad for other DJs because, people have
said this 'n' that about them, and they've gone and proved
them wrong. So there's untold different nights."
"Every DJ is a top DJ in my eyes.
As long as one or two people like you, you're on top. If you're
providing the service and making people feel happy, that's
it. I've been in the position where I've played in small clubs
and that and progressed up to bigger clubs, and to me it's
been no different - it's just entertaining people the same.
So when you start thinking you're a top DJ, you're just bracketing
yourself away from other people."
"A man who's been DJing as long
as all of us - Grooverider, Fabio, and myself- and not got
the recognition that he deserves is Bryan G. He's his own
man, and he can get his character across in the music. To
me, the difference between a good DJ and an ordinary DJ is
character."
"My name At the time I used to
call myself Underworld for the show that I was doing on Passion
Radio. Then the Government said they were giving out licenses
for pirate radio stations to go legal, but they had to shut
down to have any chance of getting one. So we said we were
going to shut down to go for the community license - that
Choice FM eventually got- and go over to East London with
all the same DJs to set up a radio station with some friends,
change all our names and just have a laugh.
"So there we were now, sitting
down trying to think of all these names and Pete Stuart, a
guy I used to work with, came up with 'Jack' Frost and I said,
'Yeah, I like that name, 'Jack' Frost'.
"I thought about it for a second,
then I said, 'Yeah, 'Jumping Jack Frost'. The whole point
of that was so that we couldn't be identified by the police
if our station became legal and we could just go back to our
original names."
Artist's Web Links
Audio Sets
Jumpin Jack Frost @ Astoria 1994
Jumpin Jack Frost @ Mixmag Live
Jumpin Jack Frost @ Hysteria 1993
Jumpin Jack Frost @ Rez 1993 Part
1
Jumpin Jack Frost @ Rez 1993 Part
2
Jumpin Jack Frost @ Rez 1993 Part
2
Jumpin Jack Frost @ Rez 1993 Part
3
Jumpin Jack Frost @ Helter Skelter
1993
Jumpin Jack Frost @ Desire 1998
| UK Old Skool Rave &
Hardcore Compilations :: Jumpin
Jack Frost