Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey Paperback – 14 Jan. 2025

I had the original edition years ago, and dance music has evolved and changed considerably over the years between the first publication and today.It has been updated and it is still a fantastic and informative read.

...and completely fulfills the expectations of learning about the specific sub-culture, which was my personal intention. Given a copy by a friend, I greatly enjoyed reading a detailed, chronological patch from the first vynyl mentioned, through the history of House music, Northern Soul and into the days of Japanese crazyness when it came down to the checks for a night of playing records.Definitely worth all of your time, plenty of great moments, very informative - I am waiting for my copy to arrive as I type! Makes a great gift to anyone who has ever been fascinated with music.

Informative!. I though I knew it all, but this proved I didn't, well written, all it needed would be QR codes in it so you could scan and listen to the records that they talked about, as most tunes that were mentioned in the book, I hunted down on youtube and had a good listen as well as a good read! Well worth reading if you are into Music in any of its Genre's!

The authors have created a wonderful account of the rise of the dj. Unlike other titles on the subject they have managed to restrain from slipping into any academic style socio-cultural comment, instead maintaining a constant focus on the music itself and those that have, through their immense passions and skills taken and continue to take music to places previously unimagined.An incredibly stimulating and informative book. One that is surely destined to become a classic text in this field.

Fantastically written, exhaustingly research. If you have even a passing interest in the history of the DJ, but this book.

One of the best books I have ever read

A brilliant book that was recomended to me by Pitsea disc jockey Bobbie Anderson.I bought it and now I want to be a MC.If its good enough for Bobbie Anderson who looks like a winning combination of Amanda Holden, Ola Jordan and Kate Moss then its good enough for me.This book tells you where to start and what to buy.

Out of all the many books that I have read charting the musical evolution surrounding disco through to todays dance scene, this is by far my favourite one. It's not just for people who are into dance music, but is a good book for anybody who likes music at all. It discusses musical and cultural change.The book is thoroughly enjoyable to read, full of great humour and affection for the scenes being discussed, right from nothern soul through to acid house and more recently.The book is weighted with disco and hip-hop histories and the only gripe is that the last few chapters breeze through the 90s dance scene (for this try 'adventures in wonderland: a decade of club cuture'). But you couldn't hope to find a more insightful summary of 70s and 80s music.

The internal hard cover is without silk-screen printing or writing that recalls the title of the external cover. In my opinion, 20 euros more than the same book but with the flexible cover seems a bit too much to me. However, in globalizing the concept of DJs, we always forget that in Italy we had important names who made history on the European scene in the 90s, like the DJ Claudio Coccoluto presents The Heartists - Belo Horizonti), or the DJ Robert Miles - Children, or Sueno Latino a.k.a. Massimino Lippoli e Andrea Gemolotto, inspired by the original song by Manuel Göttsching - E2 E4. Anyway, calling this book "the bible" as someone mentioned as soon as it came out today seems excessive to me. It remains a good paper "guide" for those who want to read and improve their English, perhaps sunbathing on the beach.

The title says it all.Life is a party. This book explains why we say so.Buy it, read it, learn from it.Thanks for making this amazing book!

Tolles Buch für alle Clubgänger und and Dance Music interessierte

I took more than a year to really engage with it. But then I read it every single day. And I’ve learned so much about my craft. :)

Being a DJ myself since the mid-80's, it was an immense pleasure to remember a lot from scene that I lived my youth in, partied and played and followed since then. But it was even better to LEARN a HUGE lot about the history and development of this art before I fell in love with dance music and DJing.The book shows an enormous amount of research and data, names, tracks, labels, clubs and everything. And it's cleverly written, in such a way you feel like following a novel. It goes well into advancing through the time, showing all the different, multiple and sometimes parallel scenes that took place in sometimes far away places, connecting the dots and highlighting influences, as they happened in fact.Today, with internet and iTunes and online music stores one can read the book and go search for the artists, DJs and the music playlisted in the book while reading it, making up for an amazing "timeline" soundtrack that encompasses a great part of modern life. I did exactly that of course, and had such a good time discovering new stuff as well as "crate digging" my collection of records, most listed on the book, But even if you don't I certainly recomend you look around and hear every track as you read the book, it's a lesson and I'm sure you'll have lots of fun while learning a lot too.DJing is no longer a "career" for me, though I still play clubs, gigs and radio shows frequently. I guess you love music and that's it, you can't leave it or get left by it if you really love playing. This book shows why, the people who love finding new music, people who are daring, creative, passionate about discovering new sounds and showing to people to make them dance, that's such an amazing craft.Though the book sometimes lack depth about specifics (I'd like to have read more about some important tunes, artists, scenes or clubs), that's more on a personal note than a "fail" as it would have been impossible to tell everything about everything. DJing and all that it means is such a broad, wide and deep scene that it would take many books (they exist, even from the authors) but this one is very special and reaches a high standard in all aspects. It's mandatory for music lovers, society researchers, marketeers and of course, DJs. Just read it!