Paul, tell us a bit about early life and growing up? So my early childhood was in a sleepy little fishing village in South West Scotland on the Logan Estate on the Mull of Galloway, it's super remote but a really stunning part of the world - not exactly the ideal place for a baby gay who was designing dresses aged eight and who desperately wanted to be a fashion designer. My folks later relocated to Twickenham for work and I grew up with my sister in London. I love my homela

Shaun J. Wright and Alinka are the DJs, producers, and promoters behind the respected house label Twirl Recordings and the hugely successful Chicago parties of the same name. Here they speak to Martyn Fitzgerald about life growing up house in the Windy City. Shaun J Wright and Alinka, start and finish each other’s sentences, testament to a deep friendship and years of late-night talks. As well as being label owners and promoters, they are sought-after DJs and producers and,

Queer Nation. A one-two punch that set out its stall with no apology. Started in December of 1990 by Patrick Lilley, its offering on a Sunday night of soulful black US house in Covent Garden’s Gardening Club quickly established itself as the place to end the weekend for discerning devotees. Early 90s London offered an increasingly wide range of LGBTQ nights, many of whom like Trade took more of the limelight, but it was this small basement club that bridged the gap between wh

In 1992 Smokin Jo was the first woman to win DJ Magazine’s DJ of the Year Award. Shockingly, she remains the sole female recipient in 2026. I’m not one for awards and the top down competitive environment it fosters, not to mention the cultivation for external validation that it would be beneficial for us to counter in ourselves and others, but if we are going to have awards let’s try and say something important with them. In a sense Jo’s autobiography, You Don’t Need A Dick

Sometimes I get asked to interview wonderful people for Faith, the London zine that has chronicled house culture since 1999. I'm reposting some of those pieces here and as Robert Owens is performing at Handsome this week here's the first focused on peak Chicago. For this one I spoke with Terry Martin, to talk about the seminal zine Thing and the subsequent House magazine he edited Crossfade. Honey Dijon, a reader of Thing, kindly added an introduction: "Zines are a form of c

We spoke to the lovely and legendary Robert Owens ahead of his set at Handsome.