Commemorating Queer Nation’s 21st birthday, Patrick Lilley meets DJ legend Jeffrey Hinton…
“I LOVE Jeffrey! He is a total legend,” exclaimed a comment on a social networking site when I mentioned interviewing Jeffrey about Queer Nation, the only club he has visited nearly a thousand times, since we opened in 1990.
Pinning Jeffrey Hinton down is as delicate as pining down an exotic butterfly. We meet (after two cancellations) at Wilton’s Music Hall. Jeffrey is collaborating with dancer/artist Noel Wallace on a work inspired by Justin Fashnau and Langston Hughes. (So far so very Queer Nation).
Jeffrey has actually done a great deal and it’s simply not written down, from holidaying with the legendary author and addict William Boroughs in New York in the late 70s, to organising fashion show music recently for the late great Alexander McQueen (a QN regular).
Jeffrey effortlessly glides in and out of the world of clubs, fashion, photography and film maintaining an effortless air of “curious fascination” with life and the people he meets along the way. He usually goes to bed around 7 or 8am.
Jeffrey finally ambles into Wilton’s bar over an hour late, a bundle of blonde joy and apologies.
What don’t people know about you?
A lot! That’s fine by me. I don’t want them to know loads about me. When you work in clubs people make their own minds up about you all the time, based on… Crap! I remember being told “Oh yeah yeah…I know you. Blah blah blah…” I thought, I can either spend a lot of time correcting them or I could just go “OK.” And they can find out for themselves the reality.
How old are you?
You are not going to put my age in this piece!
Where are you from?
London, Barons Court, West London.
Where do you live?
Camden.
What were the first records you bought?
That really meant something to me? T Connection ‘Do Anything You Want To Do’ and Katmandu ‘The Break’ a percussive disco track from 1979. I gravitated to disco. I bought loads of American imports.
When we met first 1980 you were already making mix-tapes. How long had you been doing that?
Always. I remember I had been obsessed from the age of 12 with getting sound effects, noises, collecting them. My dad bought me a reel to reel so I used to tape things: off the TV, in the cinema – especially early John Waters and Warhol films – in the street. I’d feed things back through the radio.
“I am surrounded by things I like doing. They don’t all pay, but that’s not important. I wasn’t brought up like that.”
Some of your work has recently been screened at part of the National Portrait Gallery “Queer Icon” series… [Jeffrey was pioneering mix tapes and cut up scratching with a pause button at the same time as Grandmaster Flash and his crew were inventing hip-hop. He took the William Burroughs cut-ups approach to music, sound and video.]
Gay Icon’s was a montage of my own films of people from around different clubs and events in the 80s: Leigh Bowery, Michael Clarke… lots of Taboo and Andrew Logan’s Miss World. Just people who were quite… iconic.
Was there music in the house as you grew up?
My parents split up when I was really young. But I did listen to Stevie Wonder and Motown. A bit of rock, my dad liked like powerful sounding music, Ted Heath Orchestra that sort of stuff. I was just like a social culture vulture at such a young age. I just wanted to absorb and travel, see more culture.
How did you support yourself? 
(Jeffrey splutters into his coffee) I have got NO idea. I don’t know how I support myself now.
What was the first club you went to?
I had been to loads but my first favourite one was the Sombrero in Kensington. They played a lot of Italo-disco and American disco. Very social. It had a light up dancefloor. Alcoves and booths and really camp waiters.
When did you first DJ?
Cha Cha’s at what was then called the Soundshaft, round the back of Heaven where I played cut-up tapes in the early 80s.
How have things changed?
DJs are becoming a different concept now because a lot of people begin just by programming in Tractor and all their focus goes on the screens. I find it a bit horrifying. I think it should be a little bit more fluid, freestyle, and more about what’s going on in the room.
Is it important for a DJ to be career oriented or is it about the love of the music?
I have no idea. Pass. I have been really lucky. I am surrounded by things I like doing. They don’t all pay, but that’s not important. I wasn’t brought up like that.
What do you remember about Queer Nation at Gardening Club In Covent Garden?
Everything, I remember the joint smoking on the back stairs. I loved Sharon Redd down there! I had such a great time with Sharon. You [Patrick], drunk on stage talking about Barbara Tuckers wages on the mic! That was a highlight.
All those performances we had were so intimate, they were amazing: DJs like Kenny Carpenter and Little Louie Vega. The place was really intimate. Socially it was perfect. It was all word of mouth. The other thing about Gardening Club era is that we went through the AIDS thing quite early.
A number of key mutual friends passed away and the club became a real celebration of life and music.
Were you at Queer Nation when Prince came?
He was there for about half an hour. Who cares? No one cared, we were kind of bedazzled, but no one really cared.
What about the sound at Queer Nation?
We love to celebrate old and new music – house, disco and R’n’B, too. It evolved more as the club moved to Substation South in Brixton from ‘97 in for another 7 or 8 years ‘til the ‘90s.
The UK Garage stuff came out from Tuff Jam and Todd Edwards and songs like Rosie Gayne’s ‘Closer Than Close’ were big. The sound system was fabulous, it also had that basement vibe.
How does the club stand out?
It celebrates music that is black orientated without aiming at a specific crowd. Queer Nation has always celebrated disco and house and R’n’B. It is as current as now as it was then in 1990 at Gardening Club or 2000 at Substation South.
There was always lot of current music then, but we also celebrated other stuff all the time. It was always a musically minded club rather than… not a “it has to be the newest thing going” situation. We’d play new stuff and old stuff all the time even in the house room.
Jeffrey Hinton will DJ at Queer Nation’s 21st Birthday at Fire (South Lambeth Road, Vauxhall, SW8 1RT) on Saturday 8th October, 11pm-5am.To coincide with the theme of 21 Years, those aged under 21 get in free before 1am with valid ID (18+).
