Merseyside has a vibrant electronic music scene, from underground warehouse parties to huge sell-out events that attract some of the best DJs in the world. There’s also an abundance of amazingly talented local DJs and it’s something we like to shout about at La Vida Liverpool. La Vida Liverpool In The Mix is a series of exclusive mixes from some of Merseyside’s best DJs to celebrate our thriving scene and provide you with some delightful sounds for your listening pleasure. This mix is provided by Dave Heath.
As a child, Dave’s family home consisted of Bing Crosby, Jim Reeves and Sinatra from the parents with Tamla, Philly and Funk and Soul seeping from under his sister’s bedroom door. This opened him up to being free to enjoy a wide spectrum of music until he found my own path — electronic music. He came to his Dad one day with a chewed up cassette hoping he could fix it and the end result was a spliced tape with sellotape which worked. Dave was impressed enough to buy a splicing kit and he became the fixer of all his mate’s cassette tapes. He also realised the editing possibilities, albeit not easy on such a small device, which led him to pause button editing. Ultimately, Dave was the guy who always had his latest mix tape in his pocket, ready to pull out at any opportunity.
Fast forward to 1985 when the resident DJ of a pub he frequented didn’t show and his mates threw his name in the hat. Dave was in a band at the time but the late nights took a toll on rehearsals so he ended up trading his Korg Poly 800 for a set of mobile disco decks and put his price up. This resulted in Dave playing mobile discos and nightclubs. Throw in a handful of not so legal warehouse raves with an audience of up to 5k and a fair few all night parties over the years plus a nightclub residency under his “Figurehead” moniker.
After 2000, Dave took time out to start a business outside of music and only really accepted the odd gig here and there but has slowly been getting pulled more and more back into it over the last 8 or so years. Most notably Rotation, something that came about after working with another great friend Desa Basshead, at a mini-festival he staged locally to mark the 25th anniversary since the release of The Bassheads’ Is There Anybody Out There. It was a perfect excuse to play out some old style stuff along with some of the newer stuff he had been working with. Now well and truly back and thriving in the re-edit game, Dave has produced this melodic house, belearic, disco re-edit mix for La Vida Liverpool! Enjoy!
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