Indie DJ Craig spins your favourite noughties indie - think skinny jeans, polka dot dresses, sticky floors, cheap cider, and banging tunes for dirty dancefloors. Check out his band The Indie Feel for more noughties indie gems.
How did you get into DJing?
I grew up in bands, grew older at gigs, and somehow ended up being the person your wedding desperately needs. If you've still got an iPod in a drawer somewhere, a shoebox of festival wristbands, and consider cheap pints and a sticky dancefloor a perfect night out, we're going to get on just fine. Now post 30 years old…(we don't need to be specific), the wedding invites are piling up and someone needs to make sure the evening doesn't end with a streamed playlist on shuffle. That someone is me.
Growing up playing in bands in the 00s, music was always the thing; guitar in hand, trying to look and sound like The Strokes at every opportunity. But it was the house parties that really did it, sticky-floored kitchens, cheap cider in hand, losing your mind to Arctic Monkeys at 1am; I wanted to relive those moments. So I started hunting down the tracks, learning the records inside out, and eventually the DJ booth felt like the most natural place to be.
What for you are the key cornerstones of a great DJ set?
The cornerstone is knowing the deep cuts as well as the anthems. Anyone can play Mr Brightside and yes, I absolutely will if you want but the real magic is that moment when you drop something like Jack Peñate or Air Traffic and half the room goes "oh my god I haven't heard this in ten years", and suddenly it's 2006 again.
Reading the crowd, building the energy, knowing when to go obvious and when to go deep. That's the job.
What 10 albums would be your Desert Island Discs?
In no particular order;
● The Strokes - Is This It
● The Killers - Hot Fuss
● Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
● Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
● The Libertines - Up the Bracket
● Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
● Razorlight - America
● The Kooks - Inside In / Inside Out
● Editors - The Back Room
● Jack Peñate - Matinée
Fundamentally, what can a couple expect from you as their wedding DJ?
So if you want someone who genuinely lived this era and not just someone who knows the playlist I'm your DJ. I was in bands, I was at the gigs, I was dancing in skinny jeans with girls in polka-dot dresses to the same songs you were. Now we're all getting married, and I want your evening to feel like the best indie night of your life but better, because it's yours.
Expect a proper conversation before the day, a set built around you and your crowd, and a dancefloor that doesn't empty until the lights come on.
