The £30 Gig That Launched DJ Paulette’s Legendary Career

DJ Paulette’s new memoir, Welcome to the Club: The Life and Lessons of a Black Woman DJ, follows her trailblazing, decades-long music career, starting from Manchester’s vibrant rave scene in the 1980s and early 90s. In this excerpt from the book, she remembers preparing for her debut behind the decks, using records she paid for with her stipend from school.

I’ve seen New Year’s Eve in numerous locations around the world. I’ve headlined parties many times in Paris but found that France is not that bothered. Ibiza has a well-deserved day of rest in advance of all things DC-10 on New Year’s Day. And Manchester? This year – NYE 2021 into NYD 2022 – I am headlining the New Year’s Eve party at The Refuge in the Kimpton Clock Tower Hotel. It has been a journey getting here after testing positive for Covid before Christmas. A ten-day quarantine followed by reporting two consecutive days’ negative lateral flow tests (LFT) sealed the deal on 30 December. And now, I am behind the decks underneath the opulent, tiled arches of the Public Bar area, regaling an exuberant crowd with a set of uplifting, party disco/house.

The moment approached: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 … As my female countdown to the New Year commenced, I realised that this year – 2022 – I have been DJ’ing professionally for exactly thirty years. Without making a fuss about the anniversary, it’s the longest I have ever stuck at any job. My intimate relationships have never made it past seven years, while no other post or project has lasted longer than one good promotion or five action-packed years. The longest I have lived in any one place outside of Manchester is ten years and that was in London. So here I am, thirty years on, firing the New Year countdown through the right hand CDJ. A unanimous ‘Happy New Year’, pierced the air, punctuated with exploding balloons. There was no ‘Auld Lang Syne’ but through- out the Public Bar, people were cautiously shaking hands, bumping elbows or confidently negative LFT hugging. A few braved the dancefloor divide to bump elbows with me and wish me a Happy New Year. Sylvester’s ‘You Make Me Feel Mighty Real’ (Soulwax’s For Despacio remix), was cued as the first track while I enjoyed listening to the crowd screaming as they took selfies of themselves and their groups with me in their background. Meanwhile, inside my head, I was watching my career flash before my eyes, amazed at how I got here and thrilled by the promise of what’s still to come.

And those flashbacks?

Being a naïve, twenty-four-year-old, unhappily married wife in suburban Stockport and a mature Manchester Polytechnic BA (Hons) English Literature undergraduate had a certain pathos. I was young and knew nothing about life but was officially old before my time. My passion for the English language had taken precedence over my first love of music, dancing and clubbing, which was lying dormant, waiting for release. One evening, my husband encouraged me to go out, chaperoned by our friend Tommy (who had recently come out). We went to the Number 1 Club because Tommy said that women were safe there, and with my shaved head I would have no trouble fitting in.

I’d channelled Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde for my outfit, co-ordinating a white hooded cotton blouse and an outsize French Connection black blazer with maxi culottes, flat patent leather boots and a gaucho hat. The club was quiet; a few people were midweek drinking at the bar and less were on the dancefloor. As the DJ played the Junior Vasquez remix of Prince’s ‘Gett Off’, I was jump-started into life. I danced on every available inch of the dance floor as the song opened a portal that had been welded shut by my marriage. When the record stopped, the manager, Paul, offered me a job go-go dancing on Friday and Saturday for £50 a night. I accepted. Taking a job to do something I loved, that came naturally and to get paid for it was a no-brainer. Only once you take certain things out of the box, they never go back in in the same way.

My husband agreed that my go-go dancing would help to pay the bills and pay towards my studies, but he had a problem with how it looked. The women on my street had day jobs and those who didn’t were stay-at-home mothers. They did not go to university, nor did they work nights dancing scantily clad in a nightclub. The nightshift workers we knew worked in transport, print, post offices, factories, or hospitals. Nineties’ gender stereotyping laced with small-mindedness and suspicion made home life unpleasant. I still did it. I was good and built a profile, becoming a ‘face’ on the clubbing / gay scene.

Soon after, Tommy introduced me to a woman called Adele, who was launching a night at The Number 1 Club. She had exhausted her budget on club hire and flyers and couldn’t afford a name DJ for the night. Tommy had told her that I had lots of records so we met, talked about music and she must have been desperate because she offered me (who had never DJ’ed anywhere before) the gig. I was booked to play from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. for the princely sum of £30. I had no turntables, no training and no one to ask for help but it seemed like a great idea, so I agreed. I was offered one practice session at Adele’s friend’s house but he was so precious about his decks that he only let me touch them for long enough to put two records on and blend one into the other. He was convinced that I would break them by just looking at them.

The week of the gig I spent my entire grant for that term – £150 – on records and on the night, I packed as much vinyl as I could into two milk crates and one 7” vinyl carry box. The SUS laws and the negative attitude to gay culture and clubs in the city centre meant that I was more anxious about getting stopped by the police on the late-night drive back home than I was about DJ’ing for five hours in front of people I’d never met. I wasn’t worried that I had no idea what I was doing and had had no training. I hid my skimpy outfit underneath my ankle-length, aubergine Driza Bone duster coat and parked my car directly outside the club to avoid walking past Bootle Street police station. Happily, the evening and the drive home passed in a sober blur.

I can’t remember my set, but I do remember not moving from the booth. I continually pestered the sound and lights tech, Ian Bushell, asking how to work the mixing desk. I did not take a toilet break. I took to it naturally, playing a selection of funk, soul, hip hop, disco and house music for five continuous hours. Everyone danced and nobody left.

DJ Paulette’s Welcome to the Club is available now.