WELSH HIP-HOP HISTORY: PRIDE SPECIAL
As Hip-hop Coordinator for Amgueddfa Cymru (Museum Wales) I’ve stumbled across so many incredible artists and stories from the world of Welsh Hip hop that I hadn’t been aware of before. As this weekend is Pride here in Cardiff, I wanted to write about one person in particular who I only found out about after he sadly passed away due to Cancer in 2021.
I’m not sure I’ll ever get to know Alan Coulthard’s feelings on hip hop. He was certainly an early supporter and included a number of tracks in the DJ mixes he provided for DMC, or the Disco Mix Club as it was known when he helped Tony Prince to start it back in the early 80s.
DMC will be familiar to most hip hop heads of a certain age for its DMC Mixing Championships, the world’s foremost competition for turntable trickery. Tony Prince got the idea from New York’s Battle For World Supremacy, part of the New Music Seminar since 1981, which in turn had been based on the battles played out by New York’s leading hip hop DJs at clubs such as T-Connection in The Bronx.
However the Disco Mix Club’s history starts properly in 1982 when as the programme director for Radio Luxembourg, Prince received a demo from Barry Town’s Alan Coulthard, which he had made in his bedroom whilst studying for a law degree in London. The demo stood out because all of the tracks were mixed together and there was no talking on it.
Although the American style of mixing records together had started to make its way into UK clubs around 1978, it was still pretty rare even by the early 80s. Rambling on the mic between songs was still seen as the ‘proper’ way to do things over here. Coulthard had bought a pair of turntables and learned to mix in 1980, taught by another Welsh DJ called Dave Bumford and no doubt also inspired by James Hamilton who had a weekly Disco column in Record Mirror at the time (which mentioned Alan occasionally) and was instrumental in bringing mixing to the UK.
A year later he had started DJing at some venues around London but then he sent a full mix that he’d crafted called "The Solar Symphony" into Radio Luxembourg, and after some initial skepticism from Prince, he played it on the radio and then would feature Alan’s mixes on his own Disco Show every week.
They realised that these mixes had commercial value and in 1983 started a subscription service under the name Disco Mix Club, mostly for other DJs, sending out monthly mixes on cassette (then eventually vinyl in 84), including one with the latest music and an artist ‘megamix’ - a concept that Alan came up with, mixing a number of different tracks by the same artist together. These were sent out with a newsletter called Disco Mix Mag, which eventually grew to be the seminal British dance music magazine Mixmag, which Alan continued to write for throughout the 80s and 90s.
Alan’s relationship with Tony Prince and DMC was rocky at times but he continued to record mixes for them up until 1992 and also did some remix work within the music industry, before becoming disillusioned with the whole affair and concentrating on his legal career.
There’s no denying that Alan Coulthard is one of the most important and influential DJs at the birth of dance music culture here in the UK, and it’s incredible that despite him being from Barry, I’d never heard of him until last year. His legacy doesn’t stop at music however. As a gay man with bi-polar he was a huge advocate of LGBTQ rights and Mental Health, as well as all issues of equality, setting up the charity Living Without Prejudice and using his music industry contacts to help raise money for various causes. Just before he passed, he was running for Senedd as an independent candidate for Vale of Glamorgan and South Wales Central.
I’m very sad I never got to meet him, there are so many things I’d have loved to have asked, but I’m glad to have found out all the things I have about him. Undeniably a true pioneer of the dance music scene. Plus through his influence and importance to the foundation of DMC, also instrumental to the story of hip hop here in Wales (and let’s face it, globally).
Check out Alan’s 31 track mix of hip hop, electro, pop, house, disco,funk, boogie and freestyle from the Disco Mix Club LP that came out in October 1984 here.
