SHOW NOTES: ItKoS Episode 22: Lisa Lashes

This show was first aired as ‘Sisu Presents’ on Friday 27th Nov 2020 11am GMT on Threads Radio  

Available to listen in full at https://soundcloud.com/dovetail_uk/itkos-episode-22-lisa-lashes-nov-2020

Surely our biggest star to date, for this episode I am joined by Queen of Hard House, Ms. Lisa Lashes, also known as Lisa Rose-Wyatt, who started her DJ career in the mid 1990s while working at Marks & Spencer on a Youth Training Scheme. Sneaking home to practice on her friend’s decks with records she bought and exchanged at charity shops, she was quickly spotted by a Sundissential promoter who snapped her up for a boat party in Birmingham, and her career  was born! She’s perhaps best known for her association with Tidy, playing all over the world and releasing music with the Tidy Girls, who also included Anne Savage, Lisa Pin-Up and Rachel Auburn. 

In this Lisa and I reminisce about the rise and fall of Hard House as a genre, through super-clubs and greed, and how Lisa spent some time playing and making psytrance (which I reckon has all the trademark of her high-energy, fun, and funky style). We talk about how she feels she has ‘grown up’ through techno – telling us the heartwarming story of how the legendary Carl Cox supported her first solo techno productions by playing them at Space, Ibiza and then releasing them on his Intec record label. We feature two of these tracks in the show.

We also chat about how hard you need to gig in order to make a decent living from being a DJ (spoiler: it’s a lot), before discussing the balance between working with studio engineers and ‘ghost producing’. Other topics of conversation are her work as a board member of the UK Night Time Industries Association working hard to lobby government to protect the electronic music scene during the covid-19 pandemic, and the story behind The Lisa Lashes School of Music which offers DJ, production and key skills education to disadvantaged young people, and offers a lifeline to kids who have got caught up on the wrong side of the tracks.

Favourite quote of the show? “Women as DJs? If we can work a washing machine with all those buttons, we sure as hell can work the decks!”

Music featured in the show from Lisa includes:

People Are [Intec] 

Looking Good [originally released in 2000 on Tidy Trax]

Hey Yeah [Intec]

Trust Her [Nutek Records]

12 hours in Brixton [Armada Music Albums]

Always Faithful [Lashed Music]

The guest mix that rounds off the show is an excerpt from a psytrance mix from Lisa that you can hear in full here 

Lisa’s Socials/ links:

https://soundcloud.com/djlisalashes

https://www.facebook.com/djlisalashes/

Instagram @djlisalashes

https://www.beatport.com/artist/lisa-lashes/241466

Scroll to Top