Depending on the decade you were first introduced to Dave Ralph, you might know the Liverpool, England native as a wedding DJ, a comic/DJ, a DJ on the mainstream club circuit in the UK, or as two halves of a whole, the other half being Paul Oakenfold. Or you might know him as the producer of early rave hits such as Bassheads’ “Is There Anybody Out There?” and the selector behind the popular mix compilation, Transport 2.
Later acquaintances might know him as the mastermind behind such East Coast venues as Avalon, Roxy, and Royale in Boston and Webster Hall in New York City. West Coast music industry people were reintroduced to him as a key figure in talent buying and launching of the Insomniac brand worldwide. And ff you’ve just been introduced to him since the pandemic, you know Ralph as the global head of electronic music at the newest of the buzzy tech companies, Pollen.
The extremely hard-working and humble Ralph shares his four-decade journey in music with Festival Insider.
How early did your DJ career begin?
I went through many iterations of being a DJ, from a mobile DJ doing weddings to being a club DJ. I got a chance at a gig through my dad, who met this guy who had a nightclub. This guy comes and watches me at a wedding and says, “You should come and work at my club.” That set me on that path.
A club opened on the Dock Road in Liverpool called Bonkers. At that time in the ‘80s, that was as nasty as it gets. This place was tiny. It held 100 people if that. There was a line three blocks long, and I couldn’t get in. The next week I went back a bit earlier and almost got in but didn’t. Third week I went back and was there super early, and I got in. That was a life-changing moment for me. I was like, “I want to work here.” I badgered them until they gave me a gig.
I was basically a comedian with a microphone that played records. Bonkers expanded. It went from a Dock Road to Wallasey, which is the other side of Liverpool, and into Macclesfield outside of Manchester. I was on the circuit, playing every night.
Where did you go from there?
I was working seven nights a week as a DJ and doing my daytime job. That led to club owners of the big clubs noticing me and realizing, “This guy could probably do really well for us.” Before long before the all-nighters started in Quadrant Park [a seminal Liverpool club] and I went to work there.
I did a Monday night rave at Quadrant Park. This is a couple of years before raving came out, and I’m not claiming that I invented rave at all. It was nothing to do with rave music, far from it. I had lots of friends in the record business. The A&R guys would say, “Can we put a PA on?” I would bring acts like Soul II Soul as a PA when they were just starting off. This was a 14- to 17-year-old kids’ disco that went from 7 PM to 10 PM. Quadrant Park held 3,000 to 4,000 people. That’s a lot of kids.
I ended up being a resident at Dome in Birmingham, Mr. Smith’s in Warrington. That was probably eight to 10 years of my career.
What was your first exposure to “underground” dance music?
There’s a guy in Manchester called Stu Allan. He does not get any plaudits for the absolute tastemaker and influencer that he was at that time. Around 1986, maybe ‘87, I used to listen to his show regularly. He would play soul and funk, and he would also have this guest mix every week. I was driving in the car one Sunday, listening, and he had a guest mix from Master Jam MDs. They were turntablists, scratching over stuff, very Disco Mix Club vibe. The background track was what I got really interested in, which was Larry Heard’s “Can You Feel It?” without the vocals. I called Stu Allen and asked what the track was. And he goes, “I’ve no idea, but I think it’s on Trax Records.”
At that time, you had to go to London to go record shopping. I lived in Liverpool, so it’s a 250-mile trek. I went to Groove Records in London, which was the house music center. There was this 70-year-old woman who was the record seller in Groove Records, and she was a real character, the house music aficionado, the authority in the UK. She gives me a copy of the record. It was the only copy. In those days, that copy meant that I had that record exclusively for months until they got the next shipment.
