The Hacienda in Manchester, England is famous for a lot of things: New Order, Happy Mondays, Factory Records parties. But one of the best things to come out of The Hacienda was DJ Greg Wilson.

Greg Wilson was a DJ doing his own edits during the ‘80’s, before there was Ableton or Final Cut. Greg would sit down with a reel to reel and a razorblade and cut apart tape, carefully resplicing songs bits together to create long, energetic and astonishing remixes of black dance and house music from America for the sweaty “e”-taking masses that would swarm the busy club every weekend.

His residency at the Hacienda was legendary for the crazy cut up style of some of the songs he would put together. His versions of Yello’s Lost Again and Raw Silk mixed with the DMX Krew are still standards in many clubs and record collections to this day.

In the mid-‘80’s as The Hacienda was really heating up, and trouble seemed to follow the patrons out of the club, Greg called it quits.

The other day while noodling around at Platinum Records I came across a smudgey, ignored 12” called Teenage DJ Disco Best. It’s a series of disco edits, popular now, but the style was fast and furious. There were no huge introductions, there was no looping of opening beats; these were simple and as energetic as anything you’d here in disco’s heyday.

Essentially a white label, I took it home and looked it up on discogs to find out who did it. To my shock and surprise i found out it was non-other than Greg Wilson, back after a two decade hiatus from dj-ing.

He seems to be having a resurgence lately, with mixes of Ilija Rudman, 1gnition and a collection of his original Hacienda edits now available on CD.

If you’re a fan of disco, new wave, freestyle, and edits you should definately pick up his work! The mixes sound as fresh now as they must have sounded 20 years ago. Totally futuristic and fantastic.

Check out some Downloads of his “Teenage DJ” stuff at my blog here.

Also check out Greg’s homepage for some great mixes, including a “Best of ‘83” mix from the Hacienda. Incredible.