Throwback Thursday John Digweed Renaissance Demo – 14.07.1992

We’ve all heard of John Digweed, but do you know how he got his first big break and become part of the iconic duo Sasha & Digweed? Step back to the 14th July 1992 with this demo mix tape he sent to Geoff Oaks at Renaissance Records. The rest they say is history.

“On this exact date, 25 years ago, I received a demo in the post from a completely unknown DJ that Dan Prince, then editor of Mixmag, had told to send it to me… I know it was this date, as it was a Saturday morning before Renaissance that night. I had listened to this demo 5/6 times during the day – and again on the way to the club that night. I knew I’d found something special the moment I heard the mix between the first 2 tracks on the B side of that tape!

After Renaissance that night, as often happened, Sasha came back to my house the next morning… I told him I’d found a DJ who I thought was amazing, and went on to play him the tape. He too was blown away! The only writing on the tape was ‘DJ JD’ and a phone number, so I called John after the weekend and told him I loved the tape and wanted him to play at the club, but I told him I wouldn’t put ‘DJ JD’ on the flyers as it sounded like a rave DJ and instead wanted to bill him as John Digweed. I booked his first date on Saturday 5th September 1992 – and spent 4 weeks before his debut gig telling everyone I’d discovered this amazing DJ – and, of course, he didn’t disappoint!! The whole club was blown away by the talent on show on his first night, and I then started to regularly pair him with Sasha at Renaissance, ahead of that iconic mix compilation, 2 yrs later, that took the S&D partnership global… so here’s the mixtape that started it all, a piece of clubbing history and a significant footnote in Renaissance’s history and in the career of one of the world’s finest DJs!” – Geoff Oaks

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