Data Transmission founder Grahame Farmer has been a key figure in the dance music industry for the last 15 years.
His success with DT has seen him premiere some of dance music’s biggest tracks in the last decade, including Dominica – Gotta Let You Go.
Grahame’s experience and reputation working with some of the world’s most recognised DJs has spurred him on to launch The Artist Blueprint, a course which helps you take the next step in your music career.
But how did Grahame get into dance music?
“There’s a club in London called Turnmills; I started there in 2003. Basically, I worked in the club for the last five years of the club and I was doing all the online stuff.
“We had a big database back then and they didn’t really know how to use it so I helped them use it a bit better.
“I was making all the kind of e-marketing for the club. I got all the websites for the club and kind of really revamped, really pushed them into the next level. They really had like a basic kind of HTML thing.
“I was doing loads of Myspace skinning back then, which was quite fun, ’cause we used to use Myspace loads and really hammer Myspace and change the skin every week for different events and make it look quite cool.
“See, I was doing that for the club. I essentially worked there like I said, for the last five years of the club. I didn’t really go out anywhere in London because if we wanted to see someone we just said, ‘Danny, can we book them?’
“And then it kind of happened, you know? Or we know we can’t because they’re playing somewhere else. You know, exclusivities weren’t as bad, as far as I know, they weren’t as military back then. It was kind of you wouldn’t get them for maybe six-seven weeks, but you could definitely get people.
“Yeah, now it’s terrible in London.
“And yeah, it was really good fun. Like you literally got to network with everyone. We had a backstage bar and because we controlled the door, the drinks, the riders, it was all us in our own space, you know.
“So, we had secret bar backstage where you met everybody and really, really built a solid network working there.
“And then when the club was going to close in 2008, Danny said, ‘what you going to do now?’ I was kind of like, ‘I don’t know’.
“We had this in-house magazine called Data Transmission; it was like a printed thing.
“’Cause we were doing all the Fridays and Saturdays and Thursdays; we would put all the flyers into one book and make it a magazine – and that was called Data Transmission.
“Essentially, I was like, well, let’s take that online and make it into an online thing, you know.
“And we had mini-interviews in there and we had kind of drinks tokens in there. But then the online was just taking that editorial, which back then there was only maybe Resident Advisor, maybe Fact magazine, there was another website called DontStayIn – and that was like a little bit like Facebook but for clubbing.
“It was kind of pictures and comments. We were promoting a lot of Turnmills while we were on DontStayIn, so like the early 2000s.
“Then towards the end of Turnmills it was all going into Facebook and really Facebook killed DontStayIn, because obviously, it was much bigger and also away from clubbing as well, so it really lost out.
“Mixmag and DJ Mag back then were just like a front JPEG of the magazine that was out at the time – the print magazine – so they weren’t editorial based.
“And then DT (Data Transmission) kind of just grew out of that. We kind of had a run of advertisers and run of people we wanted to do interview ’cause there wasn’t as many people doing interviews, you know.
“It was quite fun.”
Listen to the full episode below:
Listen on Google Podcasts, Anchor and more.
Undiscovered Sounds 