Dallas-area radio DJ Jeff K currently announces sports and classic rock, but previously had a career (in the late '80s/early '90s) as a John Peel-like pioneer of electronic dance music. He's gradually fleshing out a discography of his radio shows and mixes on his website. When I lived in Dallas I taped his show off and on from '93 - '95, and, working in my painting studio, re-listened to the dazzling guest mixes from the likes of DIY Crew, DJ Icey, Utah Saints (!), Gavin Hardkiss, and others. When I moved back to NYC in '95, those tapes provided me with tunes for about a year (on a portable tape player, until I got the rest of my music out of storage -- yawn, sorry).
How au courant was Jeff K back in the day? In this broadcast of Oct. 17, 1992 [.mp3] go to the 35:53 mark for the "Edge Club Techno Screamer," a regular feature. That week's Screamer was "Sea Snake," by Drexciya, who at that moment were completely new and unknown but are now regarded as giants in the field. According to Discogs they "first came into the public eye" in 1994, and here's Jeff K playing them two years before that.
Drexciya was secretive about their membership and plans from the beginning, so it's no surprise to hear Jeff K wondering aloud on the show who they were:
...in the mail this week, all the latest records from Detroit, some new Underground Resistance... and some new Shockwave. The latest from Shockwave is an EP called 'Deep Sea Dweller' by Drexciya, and Jackmaster Joe Curry is still in the studio with us and we tried to find out 'Who is Drexciya?' and he thinks, well, it's probably just the guys from Underground Resistance, could be Mad Mike, we don't know. But anyway, it's a very very fine track, we're going to hear 'Sea Snake' from the 'Deep Sea Dweller' EP, it's this week's Techno Screamer, on Edge Club 94.
