Controlled Weirdness

Neil Keating aka Controlled Weirdness has been rocking the decks and rinsing rough beats for a few years now. As a young kid, Electro and early eighties pirate radio started his obsession with nasty electronic music, breakbeats and hard edged funk. This was the start of a lifelong vinyl obsession that still continues to this day. January 1984 he was asked to DJ at a new club "The House of Dolls" in Farringdon. There he became resident and spun a mixture of electro, industrial, punk and new wave. At the same time he was going out to clubs like Delirium, Mud Club and Pyramid at Heaven (the first place to play house music in England in 1985) as well as warehouse parties from Family Function and Soul II Soul. These parties were held in old abandoned warehouses down by the Thames. Fast forward to 1987 and the start of Acid House and Neil starts a club called Collision in Islington spinning early house and acid. Through running this club he met a band called Ruff, Ruff and Ready, a South London crew playing a mixture of ska, funk and hip hop. They asked Neil to DJ with them on several gigs and tours, including one round Ireland with Back to the Planet. They were signed by Paul Morley at Island and Neil added some DJ touches in the studio for their debut album. Unfortunately Island lost interest and the album got shelved and the band dissolved. There was one mad gig before they split where they were first on the bill at Spike Island, the legendary Stone Roses event. Neil was one of the dancers on stage as the crowd hurled abuse, batteries and coins. It was a horrible event and The Stone Roses finished it off with an awful set echoing into the night over a sea of flared trousers. Neil moved to New York in 1989 and started going to all the hottest house clubs in the city including parties by Todd Terry and artist Keith Haring. There he met Joel Bevacqua aka DJ Deadly Buda. Joel returned to his hometown Pittsburgh and Neil returned to South London where his sister Stacey had started playing on the early rave pirate station Fantasy FM and was running a record stall selling the latest white labels. Joel decided to hold the first ever rave in Pittsburgh in 1991 and flew Neil over. He brought all the hottest early breakbeat/rave tunes for the party and they were astounded when nearly 1000 people turned up. This was one of the first times early jungle harcore was played on the East coast of America. For the next six months they held some celebrated parties in Pennsylvania culminating in a spectacular event down South at the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, staged whilst the city whilst was on full riot alert after LA had erupted. Neil eventually returned to London in 1992, a week after the legendary Castlemorton illegal rave and soon started going to Spiral Tribe parties. Neil and Stacey started doing a Saturday night radio show on pirate station Chillin FM. Through Ruff, Ruff and Ready he had met Phil Conynhgam, a highly accomplished Aussie didgeridoo player who had been making twisted music since the late seventies. Discovering a mutual love of the bizarre they started collaborating on music. Phil released a record on the Stay Up Forever label and on the flip there was a hard and nasty Controlled Weirdness mix. Neil and Phil formed the infamous Waxhead Perverts and embarked on a tour of Germany. Over the next few years there were plenty of mad parties and events. Neil did a 3 hour DJ mastermix on Saturday night on Kiss FM Berlin. Back in London he was playing at The Dead by Dawn parties, held by Christoph from Praxis as well as Techno clubs like Hardware, Electric Underground and Analogue City. In 1996 he formed Unearthly records and the first releases were distributed by Spiral Tribes Network 23. Since then he has played worldwide from plush clubs to dirty warehouses and has appeared on a variety of labels including Audio Illusion, Control Tower, Praxis, Zhark, Dirty Needles, Fdb and Still Raven.

Controlled Weirdness’s tracks

• Threads Radio Show - 13th June 2022 by Controlled Weirdness
• Africa Unknown 001 - Blessed San x Moocha - Got Your Rolex - Remixes by Controlled Weirdness