Man Parrish

Man Parrish born 6 May 1958

Man Parrish is considered to be a pioneering electronic music producer and performer. He became an underground music scene icon in the 1980s and 1990s and is considered to be one of the most important and influential figures in American electronic dance music, according to The New York Times.

Although he produced only a handful of tracks of renown and disappeared into obscurity almost as quickly as he had emerged from it, Man Parrish is nonetheless one of the most important and influential figures in American electronic dance music. Helping to lay the foundation of electro, hip-hop, freestyle, and techno, as well as the dozens of sub-genres to splinter off from those, Parrish introduced the aesthetic of European electronic pop to the American club scene by combining the plugged-in disco-funk of Giorgio Moroder and the man-machine music of Kraftwerk with the beefed-up rhythms and cut'n'mix approach of nascent hip-hop. As a result, tracks like Hip-Hop Be Bop (Don't Stop) and Boogie Down Bronx were period-defining works that provided the basic genetic material for everyone from Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys to Autechre and Andrea Parker - and they remain undisputed classics of early hip-hop and electro to this day.

A native New Yorker, Parrish was a member of the extended family of glam-chasers and freakazoids that converged nightly with Andy Warhol's at the legendary nightclub Studio 54 club. His nickname, Man, first appeared in Warhol's Interview magazine, and his early live shows at Bronx hip-hop clubs were spectacles of lights, glitter, and pyrotechnics that drew as much from the Warhol mystique as from the Cold Crush Brothers.

Influenced by the electronic experiments of his good friend and co-writer Klaus Nomi and Brian Eno as well as by Kraftwerk, Parrish together with 'Cool' Raul Rodriguez recorded their best-known work in a tiny studio sometimes shared with Afrika Baambaata, whose own sessions with Arthur Baker and John Robie produced a number of classics equal to Parrish's own.

What distinguished Hip-Hop Be Bop was its lack of vocals and the extremely wide spectrum of popularity it gained in the club scene, from ghetto breakdance halls to uptown clubs like Danceteria and the Funhouse. After he discovered a pirated copy of his music being played by a local DJ at the infamous Anvil club, Parrish found his way to the offices of the Importe label and signed his first deal. He released his self-titled LP shortly after, and the album went on to sell over 2 million copies worldwide. He was signed to Electra Records and managed by David Bowie's notorious manager Tony De Fries and the infamous Main Man Ltd management team. Tony De Fries had managed the careers of David Bowie, New York Dolls, Mott the Hoople, Mick Ronson and Dana Gillespie to name a few.

Following a period of burn-out that followed, Parrish recorded and remixed tracks for Michael Jackson, Boy George, Gloria Gaynor, and Hi-NRG group Man2Man, among others, and served as manager for the Village People and Crystal Waters and others. While Parrish's subsequent material has achieved nowhere near the success or creative pitch of his earlier work, he continues to record from his Brooklyn studio and is a frequent DJ at New York's eclectic night spots and SM clubs. He is main DJ and co founder for a circuit party called Hustlerball which has parties in many cities worldwide. He also has several adult websites and online businesses which keep him busy as a webmaster, and 'jack of all trades'.

Paul Gambaccini

Paul Gambaccini born 2 April 1949

New Yorker Paul Matthew Gambaccini is a radio and television presenter in the United Kingdom.

He studied at Dartmouth College, where he also worked in radio, and at University College, Oxford. He became publicly known in Britain as a disc jockey presenting American music on BBC Radio 1 starting in 1973 until late 1986. After that, he was heard on Southern Sound Radio every Saturday lunchtime, then on London Independent Radio. He came back to Radio 1 in 1991, presenting various documentaries for the network and also holiday cover for people like Nicky Campbell and Bob Harris.

At the same time in 1992, Gambo was also one of the original presenters on the UK's Classical music station Classic FM, where he presented the weekly Classical CD Chart. He left the network for BBC Radio 3 in 1995, but even though he increased the station's audience, it was claimed his style was not welcomed by the station's listeners, and he returned to Classic FM in 1997. In addition to this, in 1998, he joined BBC Radio 2, where he created his current weekly America's Greatest Hits show. At the same time, in 2002, he quit Classic FM, to present a weekly chart show on London's Jazz FM until 2004. He was also a contributor to the London station LBC when it was taken over by Chrysalis.

He has worked widely in British radio and television, generating content mainly related to music, films, and the arts. He narrated the BBC Radio adaptation of Espedair Street, the Iain Banks novel. He co-authored The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles.

In 1982 he helped to launch the career of the pop group Kajagoogoo. He came out as a gay man during the 1980s and has been a high-profile fundraiser and supporter for gay-related charities. In 1995, he was named Philanthropist of the Year by the National Charity Fundraisers, for his work on behalf of the Terrence Higgins Trust. He received the Outstanding Contribution to Music Radio award from the Radio Academy in 1996. He has presented the Ivor Novello Awards for 11 years.

Gambaccini has been a fan of comic books from an early age. He had fan letters printed in editions of titles such as Justice League of America from the 1960s, and still retains an interest in comics fandom to the present day. A recurring character in The Flash, Paul Gambi, was based on his physical appearance and slightly modified name. Gambi was a tailor who produced the colourful costumes worn by the villains who fought The Flash. Gambaccini regularly visits comic conventions, including the Comics Festival, now called the Comic Expo. For a brief period in the 1990s he co-owned a comic shop in London with Jonathan Ross in the same location as the original Forbidden Planet shop.

In 2000 he also co-wrote a musical about a comic book superhero called The Ultimate Man.

Gambaccini now presents his weekly America's Greatest Hits show on BBC Radio 2 and contributes to various publications. He lives in the Southbank area of London.

In 1995, he was named Philanthropist of the Year by the National Charity Fundraisers for his work on behalf of the Terrence Higgins Trust. He is patron of the London Gay Symphony Orchestra. In 2010, he won an episode of celebrity Mastermind, with his chosen charity benefactor being Stonewall.

Larry Levan

Larry Levan born 20 July 1954 (d. 1992)

Larry Levan (born Lawrence Philpot) stands at the crossroads of disco, house and garage. He was the legendary DJ who for more than 10 years held court at the New York City night club Paradise Garage.

The club has been described as the prototype of the modern dance club, because it was entirely focused on dancing, and was the first to put the DJ at the centre of attention. He developed a cult following, who referred to his sets as 'Saturday Mass'. Quite a number of today's most successful producers and DJs credit their first exposure to Larry's music at the Paradise Garage as a moment that changed their lives forever and inspired their whole careers. François Kevorkian goes so far as to credit Larry with introducing the dub aesthetic into dance music and being the first DJ to play a very eclectic and open-minded mix of music. Ironically, this - and his excessive drug use - meant that he dropped out of favour for a period as seamless beat matching became the norm.

Levan was, with Frankie Knuckles, guest DJ during the opening weeks of London's Ministry of Sound nightclub.

Larry was openly gay and got his start in clubs such as The Gallery and The Continental Baths.

Among the records that received Levan's touch are the remix of Ain't Nothin' Goin On But The Rent by Gwen Guthrie, Heartbeat by Taana Gardner, and Don't Make Me Wait by the Peech Boys, a group that Levan formed and was part of.

The re-opened West End Records - which came out of the Paradise Garage - has released a two disc live recording of a Levan DJ set, as well as a compilation of popular Levan productions.

He died in 1992 of endocarditis.

In September 2004, Levan was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame for his outstanding achievement as a DJ.

Ian Levine

Ian Levine born 22 June 1953

Ian Levine is an English songwriter, producer, and DJ. He's also a well-known (and sometimes controversial) fan of the long-running television show Doctor Who. He was born in Blackpool, England.

Levine is most noted for his work in the music genres of pop, soul, disco, and Hi-NRG. He and songwriting partner Fiachra Trench were among the main figures in the development of the Hi-NRG style, writing and producing So Many Men So Little Time by Miquel Brown, and High Energy by Evelyn Thomas. During the 1980s and 1990s he mixed a huge amount of dance-pop hits including the Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, Kim Wilde, Bronski Beat, Bananarama, Tiffany, Dollar, Hazell Dean and founded his own groups: Seventh Avenue and Bad Boys Inc. He also wrote and produced for the highly successful UK boy band Take That and The Pasadenas. He has written and produced many TV themes.

Earlier in his career he was an influential disc jockey at the Blackpool Mecca, and became an avid collector of soul, R&B, and Northern Soul records. In the mid-1970s he also embraced disco, and would ultimately be influential as a producer in the genre's evolution into Hi-NRG.

Levine was also a resident DJ at the legendary London gay disco Heaven.

He is also a serious comic book collector and a committed Doctor Who obssessive. Sad.

(Boy) George O'Dowd

(Boy) George O'Dowd born 14 June 1961

Former-New Romantic, singer, songwriter, autobiographer, actor, superstar DJ, wit, raconteur, new age renaissance man, sexual terrorist and probably his own worst enemy, Boy George is a treasured and very British institution.

Arguably a future holder of Quentin Crisp's crown as one of the 'Stately Homos of England' he has enjoyed and destroyed more careers and got himself in more scrapes than most people can dream of.

George, we salute you.

Kevin Greening

Kevin Greening born 30 December 1962 (d. 2007)

Kevin Greening was a British radio presenter, who co-hosted the BBC Radio 1 breakfast show with Zoe Ball from 1997 to 1998.

Kevin grew up in Bristol where he worked voluntarily for the Bristol Hospital Broadcasting Service and later secured a place at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he was station manager at Cambridge University Radio. His first job was a construction worker on the Humber Bridge. He then trained as a studio manager and began his broadcasting career at the BBC World Service. In 1989, Kevin joined London's Local station BBC GLR as a producer, before becoming a presenter of their Breakfast show in 1991.

In April 1993, Kevin joined the newly launched Virgin Radio, where he remained until he quit in December 1993.

In January 1994, Kevin joined BBC Radio 1, presenting the Weekend Breakfast Show. In November 1994, Kevin took over the Weekend Lunchtime show. Again he featured many of his comedy characters featured on Weekend Breakfast. October 1995 saw Kevin move back to Weekend Breakfast where he would remain for another 16 months. Kevin was given the Drivetime show in February 1997.

Kevin moved to a Sunday morning show in September 1998. At the time he was also presenting shows for BBC World Service & a TV show for digital station BBC Choice. It was during this period that Kevin became the main stand-in presenter on the network, covering for several weekday presenters. There was also a period when Kevin took over the weekday lunchtime show whilst regular presenter Jo Whiley was away on maternity leave.

On Sunday 16 January 2000, Kevin presented his final Radio 1 show. In the last half hour he played some of the sketches from his time with the station.

Not long after he left Radio 1, in 2000 Kevin's next move was to BBC Radio 5 Live, where he was a stand-in presenter for various daytime slots.

In March 2001, whilst undertaking supply work at Five Live, he began co-presenting a Saturday Morning show on GLR's replacement, BBC London Live, and lasted until September the same year.

Throughout late 2001 into 2002, Jazz FM employed Kevin for various stints, then in May 2002, he briefly joined London's Heart 106.2.

After a stand-in stint on the BBC 6 Music Night Train Programme and in addition to XFM, in April 2004, Kevin re-joined Jazz FM, presenting weekend morning shows.

Kevin remained at Jazz FM in various time slots as the station morphed into 102.2 Smooth FM.

Kevin was openly gay and had a long-term boyfriend, whom he often referred to on air as his 'lesbian life-partner' or 'live-in chum'.

On 30 December 2007, it was announced by Greening's agent, that Greening had 'died peacefully in his sleep', at the age of 44. No details about the cause of death have been issued.

Despite much speculation on the Internet that Greening's death was due to an AIDS-related illness, a man was subsequently arrested at Greening's London address and questioned in connection with possessing and intending to supply Class-A drugs. Metropolitan Police initially treated the death as 'unexplained' after a post-mortem examination failed to establish a cause. However, further tests revealed that he suffered a heart attack and died after taking large quantities of ecstasy, cocaine and GHB. In May 2008, the case was closed. An inquest in June 2008 heard that Greening had died of a drugs overdose after taking part in a bondage sex session.

Kenny Everett

Kenny Everett born 25 December 1944 (d. 1995)

Kenny Everett - born Maurice Cole in Crosby, Merseyside, Liverpool - was a popular British radio DJ and television entertainer.

After a a successful career on radio In 1978, London's Thames Television offered him a new venture, which became the very successful and ground-breaking Kenny Everett Video Show. This was a vehicle for Everett's characters and sketches interspersed with the latest pop hits, either performed by the artists themselves, or as backing tracks to dance routines by the supposedly risqué (for the time) dance troupe Hot Gossip.

In the pre-MTV era, this mixture of pop bands and comic sketches was a new format for television. It was so successful that pop and TV stars queued up to make cameo appearances, including Rod Stewart; Billy Connolly; Kate Bush; Cliff Richard; Freddie Mercury; Terry Wogan; and Suzi Quatro, to name just a few.

These shows were also unusual in that there was no studio audience or laughter track. The only reaction sounds were those of the writers, staff and crew at Thames' Teddington Studios in South West London. Everett would often ad lib and deviate from the script; his bloopers were sometimes left in the final cut and on several occasions he would pull the camera around the studio revealing the crew not quite sure what was going to happen next. There were also the stories of Captain Kremmen, a science fiction hero voiced by Everett and originally developed for his Capital Radio shows, who travelled the galaxy battling fictional alien menaces, along with his assistant Dr Gitfinger and his voluptuous sidekick Carla. In the first three series these segments were animations created by the Cosgrove-Hall partnership (responsible for the successful children's cartoon series Dangermouse, among many others). In the fourth series ('Video Cassette') Kremmen was featured as live action, with Anna Dawson playing Carla, the segments were comedy shorts, rather than the erstwhile stories.

Other characters included ageing biker Sid Snot (remembered by fans for unsuccessfully attempting to flip cigarettes into his mouth - at one point Everett managed to catch one in his mouth, to the amusement of the studio crew); Marcel Wave, a lecherous Frenchman played by Everett wearing an absurdly false latex chin; and Angry of Mayfair, a middle-class City gent complaining of the risqué content of the show, banging the camera with his umbrella, only to then be revealed as actually wearing women's underwear.

Everett's interest in (then primitive) video processing technology and electronic effects showed itself in such features as the appearances of a bobbing 'alien' entirely composed of a distorted video image of his own head ('Hello. I'm Spod, from Planet Thfnnnn. And this is all I do... Pathetic, isn't it?').

The series ran for four seasons on ITV, and was a big ratings hit, being required viewing for any teenager of the time. The last episode ended on a rather sour note (after Everett had locked horns with Thames management over his show and its scheduling) with Everett giving a rather restrained farewell speech as the set and scenery was being stripped down by the crew. The final shot before the closing credits was Everett himself being picked up and placed inside an oversized garbage can.

In 1981, Everett fell out with Thames regarding the management of his show, including the scheduling of the programme against the BBC's Top of the Pops on Thursday evenings. TOTP was a ratings powerhouse at the time, and was effectively unbeatable in the days of three channel television in the UK. The BBC offered Everett a contract for a live audience sketch format comedy programme, and this partnership came to fruition at Christmas 1981, with a one-off special, followed by five series.

There were legal concerns when Thames attempted to block the transfer of Everett's characters to the BBC, claiming them as their copyright. This led to the creation of new characters such as the spooneristically named Cupid Stunt an American B-movie actress with pneumatic breasts (Everett made no attempt to cover his beard) who told (usually to a rapt cardboard cut-out of Michael Parkinson) lurid and incredible tales of life on set with Burt Reynolds and other male stars of the era.

It has been alledged that Cupid was originally to have been named Mary Hing but this was vetoed by the BBC as too obvious. It remains unconfirmed as to how Cupid Stunt was then approved. Announcers were often encouraged to simply refer to her as Cupid, to prevent the possibility of mispronunciation. A new punk character known as Gizzard Puke was developed, as Thames were trying to prevent Sid Snot from moving to the BBC. In the event, Thames' action failed, and all the characters from the Video Show were released for use. Inept TV handyman Reg Prescott became another firm viewers' favourite, as each week he managed graphically and bloodily to injure himself with tools whilst attempting to demonstrate DIY tips.

Brazilian-born Cleo Rocos, a glamorously curvaceous co-star, featured heavily in all of the BBC series and became one of Everett's closest friends. She was often portrayed wearing little more than frilly underwear and high heels, and her figure was used to great comic effect.

Some fans feel that the move to the more traditional BBC watered down the anarchic spirit of his previous work. The corporation assumed much tighter control over both content and production, and it is felt that this removed some of the spontaneity which had become a hallmark of the Thames series. However, the series performed equally well in the ratings, and the characters and their catchphrases endure 20 years later.

By the late 1980s, although still successful on the radio, the TV show format had run its course, and Everett's personal life was becoming increasingly complicated. He had married the singer Lee 'Lady Lee' Middleton (Billy Fury's former girlfriend) in 1966; but by 1979 they had separated, and Everett came out as gay. He launched himself into the London gay club scene, and could often be seen in London club Heaven (then a very popular clubbing destination) on Saturday nights. He was an active campaigner for gay rights. He seemed never to fully come to terms with his sexuality however, and he suffered bouts of severe depression.

By the 1990s Everett's health was declining. He died of an AIDS-related illness on April 4, 1995, at the age of 50.

Chi Chi LaRue

Chi Chi LaRue born 8 November 1959

Chi Chi LaRue - born Larry David Paciotti in Hibbing, Minnesota, United States - is a director of gay and bisexual pornography. He has also directed under the names 'Lawrence David' and 'Taylor Hudson'.

LaRue moved to the Twin Cities area and began performing in drag as one-half of 'The Weather Gals', a 'hag drag' revue.

He moved to California with a friend and was hired by Catalina Video as an administrative assistant and publicist because of his knowledge of porn and the workings of the porn industry.

LaRue worked at Catalina during the initial revelation of the AIDS crisis in which many of the producers and directors in the gay porn industry were falling ill or dying. This created an opportunity for LaRue to persuade Catalina management to allow him to direct full-length videos.

LaRue has directed hundreds of gay porn films since 1988 and in 2003 he began to direct straight porn for Vivid Video to which he became a favourite among female stars. For some time, LaRue divided his attention between Vivid Video and his own Rascal Video for Channel 1 Releasing.

In 2006, LaRue announced he would no longer produce films for Vivid Video because they were featuring actors and actresses having sex without condoms. LaRue has been an outspoken critic of the growth of bareback [condom free] material in the gay adult video industry.

LaRue is an accomplished DJ, performing at many events throughout the year.

In 1992, LaRue appeared in Madonna's video for Deeper And Deeper.

In 2007, LaRue was chosen as one of Out Magazine's top 50 'most powerful gay men and women in America'.

DJ Keoki

DJ Keoki (Keoki Franconi) born 22 October 1966

DJ Keoki is a trance musician and DJ who was born in El Salvador, and raised in Maui. He credits himself with being the first superstar DJ.

Franconi grew up in Maui, Hawaii. As a young man he moved to New York City, where he met and began a romance with Michael Alig. Alig rose to international fame as the head of the Club Kids gang, a group of diverse party goers who would dress in costumes each night and form parties in New York and all over the United States. Franconi performed as a DJ during the parties. Club members also included celebutante author James St James - and Angel Melendez, who supplied the group with drugs.

Franconi and Alig both developed expensive drug habits and began to grow apart. Alig's drug use indebted him to Angel Melendez, whom Alig later murdered with the help of Robert 'Freeze' Riggs. Subsequently, Alig became a fugitive from the law, breaking all ties with Franconi.

Franconi went on to have a successful career during the 1990s and beyond as superstar DJ Keoki, releasing a number of CDs. He still performs to this day, dressing extravagantly, wearing make-up, and sporting a number of tattoos.

He was portrayed by Wilmer Valderrama in Party Monster, a biopic about Alig.