Matt was just a punter, not a performer for his most memorable rave. It was at Fabric when he was just sixteen. ‘I wanted to get into the booth with Phil Kay; I was smashed and thought that was a good idea. I wandered up and there was a massive bouncer standing in front.’ Naturally he was stopped. ‘I don’t know where the idea or the confidence came from, but I just looked him straight in the eye and said: “what’re you talking about, I’m Donnie C!”’ The mythical Donnie C was enough to get Matt into the DJ booth, and that was enough to make him always want to return. This summer he got the chance when he played Fabric himself. ‘To go back with the right to be there was quite a nice end to the story.’
Matt is resident DJ for Eclectric, Oxford’s premier techno night. ‘It’s completely different to something like Park End. Those kind of cheese nights doesn’t have the same kind of fun atmosphere you get at the bottom of Love Bar with about fifty people crammed in’. He calls the Oxford dance scene ‘quite poor generally’, but plans to stay on after his degree to try and work on that. ‘This sounds really pumped up and pretentious’, he says, ‘but it’s all about the same kind of psychological process that goes on in meditation’. While the front part of the brain is concentrating on the beat, the subconscious can open up ‘I solve a lot of my biggest life issues on the dancefloor; that’s why you get everyone so happy and friendly. I suppose the drugs help quite a lot as well.’ Clubbing as meditation is a very Oxford analysis, I suggest. ‘True’, he concedes. ‘Ask a typical Scouser waving glow sticks around and he’ll probably give you a different analysis – ‘cos its fucking mental!’ by Michael Bennett
The Local: Matt Carter (Eclectic DJ)
