'I literally started mixing straight away' Blackpool DJ icon Jason Fubar takes us right back to his early days
Blackpool’s legendary DJ Jason Fubar is celebrating 35 years behind the decks in the resort where he has kept the music spinning and the dancefloors alive. He’s still going strong with regular party days and nights, many with a nostalgic nod to the glory days of the 1990s at his Clifton Street bar The Retro Lounge. In the first of a series of chats, we caught up with him to talk about where it all began...
Long before the superclubs, Ibiza sunsets and packed dancefloors listening to his tunes, Jason Fubar was a young lad lugging record boxes through the back door of a Blackpool nightclub where he began to make a name for himself.
Armed with little more than ambition, instinct and stacks of vinyl and through the awe of The Palace, Love Shack and Sequins, Blackpool’s most celebrated DJ taught himself how to control a room full of clubbers.
His big break came one Easter weekend - at Love Shack - one of the town’s most memorable clubs of the 1990s, when he was thrown into a room of clubbers dancing into the early hours. It was a baptism of fire and one which paved the way for his future.
His passion actually started slightly earlier than that - late 1980s when Jason, now in his 50s proably shouldn’t have been in nightclubs (we all did it).
He remembers walking into the Palace and just gasped a ‘WOW’.
“I thought look at this place, it's amazing. Blew your mind. And all the lasers and the light rooms used to open up, it was way ahead of its time.
“And it gave me the bug straight away, because I loved it. I was obsessed with music anyway, and I was just like - this is what I want to do.
The late 80s saw a revolution in music, the classic discotheques were fading away - the days of a nice suit and tie, trousers and polished shoes to get into a nightclub gave way to baggy jeans, t-shirts and Acid House.
Clubs were sprouting up everywhere, the sound was changing and DJs were moving into a new era.
“The change was quite dramatic,” he said.
“All of a sudden, Sequins, Oz, the Palace, Jellies, the Love Shack, all these clubs started changing their music.”
And that was when Jason’s career took off.
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He explained: “ I was working at Burton's and there was a guy there who was a bit quiet and a bit shy. But he was a DJ and he showed me what it was all about.”
“We went to his house and he showed me two turn-tables - a very crude set up, but it worked. The way he explained it was so simple.
“And I got it. I literally started mixing straight away. To some people, it is rocket science.
“For some reason, I just took to it like a duck to water and he actually said to me, you should be a DJ. It resonated very quickly.”
And then that Easter weekend came along which would change the course of his life forever.
Jason, who was 17 at the time, was in the Palace and the manager of the Love Shack - located in the basement under The Palace - sought him out and asked if he’d DJ that night. It was his big break.
Jason explained: “He told me to go down and see Albie, who owns the Love Shack cause he needed a DJ.
“So I ran down as quick as I could and spoke to him - he must have looked at me, skinny as rat, I probably still had spots at that point!
“I didn’t have my records so he paid for my taxi to go home and get them and my headphones - I was back within 20 minutes.
“Weirdly I wasn’t nervous - but it was the Love Shack, probably 700 or 800 capacity. And it was packed.
“I literally took over straight away and just started playing the stuff that was big at the time - I think I played for about three hours and it was amazing. It was the baptism of fire for me.”
Next week: Into the 1990s and how a new age of music gripped the town.