Home

Become part of the show with facebook voice messaging using Vocal Wall see Facebook for more details .....

Dave Shirt was born as David Coates in Nigeria on September the 14^th 1953

I spent many years travelling the world with my parents, my father being an advertising executive ,in 1968 I was asked if I would play some records in a club at a holiday resort in Kenya called Jezzabelles, this was attached to an annexe within a complex called the mount Kenya safari club virtually at the base of Kilimanjaro,

& so it began one record deck & a reel to reel tape recorder, so at the age of 15 or so

I caught the bug and had some fine times in the three weeks I did this for including getting a taste for vodka.

1970 Dave becomes Dave Shirt when arriving at a club in Croydon surrey the DJ Roger Ashley decides that my African shirt was so bright in the u/v lighting that I became Dave shirt. Two weeks later Roger leaves the club to discover himself & yours truly gets offered his job, now doing two nights a week I have now started working as a roadie for the Emperor Rosko humping tons of gear and vinyl by the trunk full, by now the favourite tipple is Bells whisky,& yours truly is flying hi.

By 1971 I have my own spot with playground bars working for a large brewery I am travelling the UK checking out DJs and guesting all over the place, still doing croydon/Rosko & my own spot I now seem to be working 24/7 I had to play in a pub called the red deer in south croydon and I duly arrived only to find the DJ booth was tiny, the manager at the time christened me Big Dave Shirt and so here we go again, I stayed there for three years.

Left Justines the original club and started working a club called Dr Jims still in croydon and very busy indeed, 400 bodies a night going into a place built for 300,it was major, then simultaneously started playing down the road at Penny Farthings flagship called Scamps, holding 900 people I was actually competing with myself at other clubs, by now there were some very hot DJs around, Nick Love Big N Bob Roberts who was a superb performer, the biggest problem by this time was alcohol myself & Bob were going down a very slippery slope, He eventually retired & dried out.

I carried on until 1977 then dropped out for a year to dry out and get my act together. In 1978 I came back with a bang and a new sound Black Dance all the djs were still playing top 50 etc I played disco/soul, it had been going on for a while but was underground so my friends and I tried to bring it to the surface & by 1979 it was kicking off big time, I was having my girlfriend travel to new York three times a year to bring fresh vinyl home, this helped keep it up front.

I then played all over London and Kent doing my thing as it were and latched onto Champs in Depford se8 where I stayed for 11 years,1984 saw the closure of Dr Jims a sad demise, but we carried on as Dr Crippens in Bromley, by now the whisky is back in my life after 4 yrs on the wagon but it is well under control & in 1992 moved to Northampton where I have done a couple of clubs and gigs but the music is not appreciated, so I play around in my studio most of the time, and this is just part of the story, I have not touched on the pirate radio bit yet, do you really wish to bore yourself some more.