Greg Wilson
Greg Wilson is a Merseyside-based DJ who played a pivotal role in the development of UK club culture in the early eighties via his tenure at Wigan Pier and Manchester’s Legend, and also The Haçienda during its formative period, with his upfront selection of NYC electro-funk grooves. In 1983 he was the first DJ to mix live on UK TV.
Taking a two-decade hiatus, during which time he produced the seminal ‘UK Electro’ compilation, plus acclaimed albums for UK hip hop pioneers the Ruthless Rap Assassins, he returned to DJing in 2003, connecting with a younger audience and taking his place at the forefront of the disco/re-edits movement, subsequently spreading his reach across the globe.
His three ‘Credit To The Edit’ compilations did much to cement his reputation as did his now classic 2009 Radio One Essential Mix, one of 10 classics selected by the BBC to celebrate the first 500 mixes in the show’s history, and listed in 2015 by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 25 greatest internet mixes of all-time, the same year in which he was presented with the DJ Mag’s Industry Icon Award.
He is also a writer/commentator on dance music and popular culture, his Electrofunkroots archive and Being A DJ blogs becoming online touchstones whilst his 2020 book Discotheque Archives received widespread kudos, with a hardback edition published in 2023.
Greg began DJing in 1975 and is regarded as one of the most important figures on the UK dance scene. He enjoyed hugely popular residencies in the early eighties at Wigan Pier and Manchester’s majorly influential Legend, having originally started out in his hometown, New Brighton. A pioneer of mixing in the UK, he became the first ‘dance music’ specialist hired for a regular weekly session at Manchester’s now legendary Haçienda club in 1983. Greg was instrumental in breaking the new electronic, post-disco records coming out of New York, a sound he has dubbed ‘electro-funk’. In 2003 he set up electrofunkroots, a website documenting this crucial era in the evolution of dance culture. Following a twenty year break, he returned to DJing and soon welcomed bookings throughout Europe and, subsequently, worldwide.
Greg was the first DJ to mix live on British TV, putting together the first UK radio mixes of their type for Piccadilly Radio in Manchester and showing a certain Norman Cook (later Fatboy Slim) how to cut and scratch. Nominated by DJ Magazine for outstanding contribution, and also named amongst their top twenty remixers of all-time, Greg’s remix credits include Gabriels, Grace Jones, The XX, Groove Armada, Bryan Ferry, Confidence Man, Gilberto Gil and Happy Mondays, whilst he’s edited tracks by A Guy Called Gerald, Talking Heads, O.M.D., Electronic, Imagination, Missy Elliot and many more. In January 2009 Greg’s reputation was further enhanced when his Essential Mix on BBC Radio 1 received almost universal acclaim and was selected as one of 10 classics that spanned the show’s near 17-year history.
Greg’s Blog, ‘Being A DJ’, was launched in June 2010 for observations on various aspects of club culture, and became an online touchstone for an ever-increasing amount of dance enthusiasts and aficionados. In August 2010 he co-curated areas at the inaugural Vintage Festival at Goodwood, which was named ‘Best New Festival’ at the UK Festival Awards.
He has produced a series of documentary podcasts - Time Capsule, Random Influences and Early 80’s Floorfillers - as well as the long-running blog series, Living To Music. Greg has given talks on music and DJ culture at a number events at venues The Tate Gallery in Liverpool and London's Southbank and Institute Of Contemporary Arts, whilst in 2013 he was invited onto a panel alongside legendary figures Nile Rodgers and Giorgio Moroder at ADE in Amsterdam.
In 2014 he unveiled the multi-media label Super Weird Substance, focusing on recording and live events, and unleashing the mixtape, ‘Blind Arcade Meets Super Weird Substance In The Morphogenetic Field’. In 2015, the label released eight vinyl singles, brought together in the 2 CD compilation, 'Greg Wilson Presents Super Weird Substance'. That year, he also celebrated the 40th anniversary of his first club date in 1975, and was presented with DJ Magazine's Industry Icon award.
Collaborating with celebrated comic book writer Alan Moore, plus label artists, ex-Rap Assassin Kermit Leveridge and vocalists The Reynolds, a second mixtape, “Alan Moore's Mandrill Meets Super Weird Substance at the Arts Lab Apocalypse” appeared in 2017, followed by the 14 Hour Super Weird Happening at The Florrie in Liverpool, with Moore making a rare appearance.
After a handful of further releases, the label was put into hibernation with the onset of covid. Diversifying, ‘Greg Wilson’s Discotheque Archives’ was issued during 2020 lockdown as a limited run paperback, and subsequently published as an extended hardback in 2023.