The Handsome Giles Smith.

Early years

Giles Smith’s love of music, and more specifically vinyl, developed long before he thought about standing behind the decks. Growing up in a still analogue world at a time when the underground was winding its way into his world through Top of the Pops and Woolworths: 7 inch singles carefully collected of Beatmasters’ Rok da House, Krush’s House Arrest, M|A|R|R|S’ Pump Up The Volume and Eric B and Rakim’s epic Paid In Full - his schoolboy ear was already attuned to good music. 

“Acid house was kicking off and some of it was crossing over to the charts,” he says from Sicily over Zoom, looking well turned out in a baby blue Marni shirt and very cool tortoiseshell glasses giving fifties Paris Left Bank. (I clock, compare and switch off my self-view as I’m giving more Basildon Left Behind.) “So that general crossover and radio exposed to me a lot of great music. I listened to a lot of radio.” Good practice, no doubt, for his bi-monthly show on NTS where he shares eclectic tunes across hip hop, boogie, soul, broken beat and, of course, house. 

Born in and raised in Newmarket, his family had moved from London just before he was born for a job his dad had bagged in Cambridge. Similarly to today, the historic city’s property already had London-like price tags beyond the reach of young working families, and so he’d spent his childhood and teens in the town that sits in a strange finger of Suffolk jutting rudely into Cambridgeshire (there’s a medieval reason for this but it’s far too nerdy for here). 

The dance floor beckons

“I started going out early, when I was fifteen. East Anglia back then was known for having a strong rave scene. There was Eclipse at the Cambridge Coin Exchange and Love of Life at Kelsey Kerridge sports hall that was massive, like 2,500 people every month. My friends and most people were mostly going for the hardcore, clasis rave stuff with DJs like Slipmatt, DJ Randall, Bukem, but there would usually be a tiny house and garage room playing more soulful grooves. I realised quickly that was my thing. I guess it was unusual as at 15 most of my mates wanted the energy of the hardcore stuff.”

Shazam was decades away, not even an idea on Tomorrow’s World, but that didn’t stop a musical curiosity and a need to know (and own) tracks taking hold. By his own admission he was an obsessive record buyer. “I always wanted to know what a tune was. It wouldn't be like my friends who’d be, ‘Yeah, that’s a cool tune’. I'd want to know what it was called, and I'd want it, you know what I mean? I'd want the actual physical object. I was the only one out of my group that was really buying dance records at that age.”

Playing his ever-growing collection on one turntable at home, it was his mum and friends who first nudged him towards DJing. “‘You've got to start Djing’, they’d tell me. ‘You've got better records than some of the DJs that we're going to see’, but to be honest I wasn’t really thinking about that back then. I just loved music and buying records.”

Not taking no for an answer, his friends and mum chipped in for a second turntable. It was a lovely, generous vote of confidence and a case of others seeing our potential and talent before we see it for ourselves. “I was a bit reluctant. It wasn’t a burning desire of mine and it wasn’t really seen as a viable career back then. I mean you had these big DJs playing all over and making money like Sasha, but for the average person you didn’t know anyone who was a successful DJ.”

With his two decks and a move to Leeds to study (largely influenced by the fact that legendary party Back To Basics was there) his vinyl habit grew. “I went up to uni with this big list of records I wanted. I became a very regular face in the record shops. Three days a week I’d be going in looking for something new and they’d say, ‘We haven’t got anything new in since the last time you came, Giles… which was yesterday.’ The scene in Leeds had a great energy that felt like something special was happening.”

While initially too young to get into Ministry of Sound with its strict over 21 (I got around that by doing really bad drag for Rulin’ in the mid-nineties), he was making regular trips to London for Club For Life at Covent Garden’s much missed Gardening Club and Club UK over in Wandsworth. He’d also made it to Faith, the long-running house institution founded by Terry Farley, Stuart Patterson (both who are playing Handsome’s 14th birthday party on November 14th) and Dave Jarvis. Along with Rocky from X-Press2, one night they all headed back to his place for a post-Faith afters. Hearing him play at home, they invited him to play at their next few Faith parties. It was a big nod and foot in the door. 

Secretsundaze

He may have been a reluctant starter, but the prospect of an office job probably dims when you’ve rocked a few major parties on the decks. With fellow Cambridge DJs James Priestley and Kristophe Hofford plus Londoner Will B., the four original members of Secretsundaze, they started checking out venues to throw their own party. 

“We really just wanted to do something ourselves, you know? To give ourselves the platform to DJ,” he says. “We started looking at venues and at that point we didn't really have a preference about where in the city. We were literally looking from Brixton to north London but we got really obsessed with the Loft Room at 93 Feet East (which doesn’t exist as party of the club now). It just felt right, It had such a good feeling when you walked in - the size, shape and fact there was a terrace attached to it.. It was one of the first venues that we saw and we fell in love with it.”

The original plan was to do a Friday or Saturday, preferably at night, but the venue had to be taken in its entirety of three rooms, far too big for a debut party. “We looked at other places but we kept coming back to that room. We sometimes disagree on this but I don’t remember it being intentional, it seemed to happen by default because we wanted that room and Sunday was the only option.” 

Before social media, you got word of a party out the old fashioned way: flyers, meeting people, word of mouth. The first parties were mostly the residents. Some big names joined them after the first year as momentum built. I remember the buzz of noughties Secretsundaze parties: the excellent music, a diverse crowd - people who knew both how to party and behave and who were there for the right reasons. There was a hedonism and atmosphere that was very special. In 2005, just a couple of years old, it won Mixmag’s Club of the Year Award and it was later included in the magazine’s top 25 clubs of all time. Some nights come along that both encapsulate and contribute to something unique of that time. Secretsundaze is one of them. 

I’d see plenty of the more musically minded people I knew from gay clubs. It was inclusive and comfortable: we were all there for the music and the vibe. The inclusion was intentional. In those early days they would head to Soho to hand out flyers, encouraging different groups of people to come together. Like everyone else I’d see familiar faces, end up at after parties with them, move into new social groups. Going to Secretsundaze was an event, a vibe, getting ready and getting there was butterflies excitement. Once in, it felt something like home, like this is how parties should be. 

“A few years back after COVID a guy came up to me and said, ‘I’ve been coming to your party since the beginning and being gay, I just want to say thank you because I’ve always felt comfortable and welcomed. I’m still coming back 20 years later.’ It was a really beautiful moment and I took pride in that. That he had that experience.”

While the room at 93 Feet East was pivotal in shaping the when and where, it was the peripatetic nature and DIY feel of Secretsundaze in its early years that kept it fresh and reinterpreting itself. Having pushed the soundsystem too far at 93, they moved up the road to a venue that would cement the night’s reputation while still in its infancy. 

“The Poet was completely illegal as they had no dance licence to throw parties outside,” he says, “but the owner was up for taking risks.” While most of us wouldn’t have known that, there was a raw energy to those parties: open air day raves in walled garden, a stone’s throw from Liverpool Street Station. Smashed clubbers would wind their way through Spitalfields’ Sunday shoppers. There would be a very long queue an hour before the doors opened. 

And then there was the glitterball that seemed to get bigger over the years. Maybe I imagined that, but it looked the size of the fucking moon at some parties: this enormous orb  rotating above a sea of people there for the love of it. While the venues moved from regular spaces like Oval Space to The Loft, to epically good guest spots at places like Canvas and Village Underground, it retained its flavour wherever it went. Guest DJs are like a roll call of club royalty: Lil Louis, Carl Craig, Luciano, Ricardo Villalobos, Jane Fitz, Prosumer, Steffi, Jeremy Underground, Ash Lauryn to name but a few. 

New Projects

He ran the night with James Priestley (Kristophe and Will departed earlier) for two decades, playing internationally, running Secretsundaze Records and also a bookings agency, The Secret Agency / TSA Artists. After the pandemic, a change of focus led him to focus on his solo interests and he left Secretsundaze which continued to be run by Priestley. A few years earlier he’d already released a series of well-received tracks under the Two Armadillos moniker with Martin Dawson and last year released the excellent I Can Change Your Life on Eglo Records. In the next months he has releases with Private Joy on Adeen Records, a remix for Chez Damier and an edits EP for Mr Bongo. There’s also been the Giles Smith & Friends parties, bringing together like-minded music heads in intimate settings (RIP The Pickle Factory). It’s keeping the underground flame alive at a time of increasing corporate takeover of festivals and nightlife. 

“It’s become harder to put on parties for the love of it. London’s become so fucking expensive and it’s got much harder for smaller venues with underground principles to survive, places like Dance Tunnel, Pickle Factory and Corsica are gone. If money becomes the main motivator I don’t think there’s the same energy and that permeates out across the dance floor,” he says, but he remains hopeful citing “OM, Carpet Shop and 

“I mentor two young artists in their mid to late 20s and they’re really into American deep house, vocals, Chicago stuff, Detroit. They have great taste. There are good parties happening still, warehouse parties in Manor House, and Low Profile Studios. The Carpet Shop in Peckham is doing great things attracting those small, passionate promoters. Musically it’s so cool that younger people are into much more diverse stuff and will happily listen to  soul, R&B, hip-hop, jazz fusion, broken beat to house. That wasn’t the case in 2005. They’re open to DJs playing much longer sets pushing a more diverse palette. 

“Look at how popular people like Luke Una is now. DJs like Theo Parrish, Floating Points, Harvey and people like Colleen Murphy with that loft style of DJing have become more popular. There is also a  DIY sound system culture emerging with people like Cosmic Slop in Leeds and Public House Hifi in Newcastle above a pizza place building amazing hand built sound systems. Great things are happening it’s just tougher and tougher financially but the passion is evident! 

We’re aiming to be one too this Saturday when Giles Smith plays Handsome at Eagle London. Tickets here.