Here at Novadance.com, we're counting down the days to the Kitchen Reunion @ Club Nassau this coming Saturday, and welcome our second bona-fide legend to the interview table from the seminal venue. Last week, we talked to Dave McDonnell, now we welcome the man that really defined Saturday nights in the place, DJ Podge. Since working down the Kitchen, he has appeared in a number of guises, from property developer to chillout producer, and a whole lot more besides. Ladies and Gentlemen, Novadance.com, in association with Collective-Music are proud to present...Podge- in his own words!

Podge: "The Kitchen was always my favourite place to play. I remember when we had Sasha and a lot of big names down there, but every Saturday was special in its own way for me. I lived for the weekend, except when I was hungover on Monday! It was nice working hours at the end of the dayﾅ.!

"I started in the Kitchen when Alison Crosbie was manager, after the former manager went off to London to join the Ministry of Sound. I was originally booked for a kids party on a Wednesday evening. It was an under-18s event. They seemed to like that, and then next week they were stuck for a DJ on a Wednesday night, so they called me. This developed into a monthly Thursday night event, with me, Warren K, Liam Dollard and Liam Fitz. Donal Dineen left Saturdays soon after that, and Liam Fitz and myself were asked if we wanted to take them over- given that our Thursday slots were amongst the most popular nights. That was the start of it all.

"We started bringing in guests, usually a local once a month and an international once a month, and I worked a lot of the one-off resident nights. I played Mondays for a while, too - after one of the Christmas parties when I started playing handbag music to everyone Ricky (Mooney, manager) asked me to run a handbag night on Mondays- it went well for a while and then turned into a disaster. As most things do!

"Iﾒd say back in 1998-2000 were the real glory days of the nightclub- most of the time they had to close the doors at twelve or half-twelve on a Saturday night, the queues were so great. The atmosphere down there was a killer. The design of the room had a lot to do with the atmosphere- it was such a small space that any soundsystem in there would have sounded good- the soundsystem was only an old U2 PA, but it sounded great. Low roofs are always a winner in a nightclub.

"Touring America (with the U2 Elevation tour and on other occasions) was amazing, but I canﾒt remember any of it! I was playing a lot of venues across the road from the main concert arenas. I was going over there naturally enough, to play dance music, all the people came along expecting to hear U2 songs- I just went out and bought some albums, played the songs back to back, and I had people screaming at me at the end for CDs. It was unreal, I played gigs in Boston at a venue called Hibernia, and I had people coming up to me at the end of the night asking for my autograph! The beach party down in Miami was also special; there were 60,000 people there. I was absolutely shitting it before taking to the stage, but they couldnﾒt peel me off the decks when it was all over!

"I did a lot of work in Manchester as well. I used to play a club over there called Tangled, Philp Morse was the resident over- they used to bring great guests over. A lot of people looked like they had just got up in the place! I also played London, at the Ministry of Sound and at a Whoop! Records night in the Velvet Rooms- Whoop! were one of the best progressive house labels around at the time, so that was a lot of fun.

"Playing country gigs around Ireland was sometimes difficult, I was into progressive house, and the crowd were always into hard house. Galway and Cork were always fairly well educated, but if you go down to Drogheda without hard house in your bag, prepare to get an apple in your face! I had a ﾑcountryﾒ bag- with lots of Tidy Trax and all that- tunes with lots of unnecesary bleeps!

"I donﾒt really DJ that often anymore, I donﾒt think thereﾒs anywhere worth going through the hassle again over here for. The clubs are still trying their best, but the crowds just arenﾒt there. In order to have a good DJ night you have to cut up a set, you have to be a lot more retro, versatile etc. Iﾒve been producing a fair bit in recent months- we released a chillout album that was called ﾑSundazedﾒ- and thereﾒs a relaunch coming up for it soon. That the sort of music I prefer really, although not for Djing of course- thereﾒd be no-one on the dancefloor! Myself and Ivor Lynch have released a dance track under the name of Ridgewalkers on Baroque records, that came out in June. It got a top ten placing from Tall Paul on his show, and itﾒs now extensively available all over the world!

"Iﾒm really looking forward to the reunion night, I reckon the finger is going to be well and truly ﾑon the pulseﾒ. I have only played with Dave a bit since the Kitchen closed and I havenﾒt played with Shay (Hannon) since- I reckon as soon as the night is over its all going to get pretty messy! Iﾒve rented a hotel room and allﾅ! The music on the night is going to be a collection of all the tunes I used to finish Saturday nights with in the Kitchen- some of which are of a very individual ﾑPodgeﾒ sound, some real classics. I might slip one or two of my own in aswell!"

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Collective-Music Presents:
The Kitchen Reunion: Aid Of Crumlin Childrens Hospital

With Special Guest Djﾒs
 PODGE
DAVE MCDONNELL
SHAY HANNON

Saturday 9th October 2004.

Tribecca Bar,
Earl of Kildare Hotel, Nassau Street, Dublin 2.

Admission: Free (Donations accepted on the door).
Doors: 9.30pm til very late.

For guaranteed entry, invitations are available by emailing info@collective-music.com