Current DJ's
Simon Harris
The King Of Pop crown belongs to the current Saturday night mainroom DJ legend, Simon Harries. Simon joined the Gale from Tin Tins, where he played an early-hours pop set before the drug-fuelled dance crowd arrived.
Taking over from Dolly in the late ’90s, Simon has entertained literally hundreds of thousands of Nightingale customers over the last decade. “It’s great to be part of celebrating the club’s 40th year,” says Simon. “My thanks must go to those who have helped my DJ career along the way - Tony De Vit and Dolly for their inspiration, Phil, Upton and Simon for giving me the opportunity, but most of all, customers past and present at the Gale for making it all worthwhile and one of the best jobs in the world!”
Simon Baker & Corey Hadley
Current disc-spinners Corey Hadley and Simon Baker joined up for DJ service back in 1992. Baker was poached from all night house club Tin Tins to bring a new credibility to the Saturday night clubhouse, which was struggling to compete with the success of Gavans in Wolverhampton. It worked, and the Nightingale was soon back to capacity with a new upfront playlist. The Thorp Street years were to end on a spectacular high as the clubbing crowd returned to Birmingham.
With residencies at the Steering Wheel Club’s SLAG event, and appearances at God’s Kitchen and Sundissential, Baker’s biggest challenge came with the Nightingale’s move to the three-storey superclub on Kent Street. Simon was given the task of promoting the top floor disco every Saturday, eventually named HOM, an acronym for House Of Music. The night has encompassed music including trance, techno, speed garage, funky house and electro genres, and continues to this day. Guest DJs have included Federation’s Stuart Robinson, Love Muscle’s Mark Elliott, the late Dave Boff, Gaydar Radio’s Gary Harrison, former BRMB DJ James Blond, Sleazesister Pete Martine and home-grown Nightingale talents James Flavell, Ben Simmons and Marky B. Running the HOM event also led to a new day job for Baker, steering the good ship Nightingale through the turbulent clubbing seas of the modern era as the club’s Operations Director, helping to secure countless awards from the gay press and a prestigious BEDA Best Club award in 2008.
Corey started her Nightingale career in 1992 with the Saturday night women’s only room, unforgettably named Flo. She quickly built up a following and became a regular face on the Birmingham scene, her music style responding to the ever-changing demands of each new gay generation. Some 17 years later, she’s still packing the dancefloor every weekend, and has successfully targeted her current sound to the student market every Thursday with the hit Diversion night. Corey has also won the Midlands Zone Best DJ Award on countless occasions during her mammoth Nightingale residency.
Pop music has also been very much a part of the Nightingale playlist over the years. Peter ‘Dolly’ Bates made camp very much an art form in the mid-’90s, his Thorp Street Sunday nights offering the perfect tonic to a hedonistic weekend’s clubbing. Dolly took over the main club every Saturday following the move to Kent Street, as the sheer size of the new venue dictated that the club’s music policy headed in a new commercial direction
DJ's Through The Decades
Tony De Vit
From humble beginnings, a world-class reputation was to evolve, led in no small way by Kidderminster-born international DJ legend and music producer Tony De Vit. Starting out as the Monday night jock in the early 80s, De Vit quickly fast-tracked to become the main weekend resident and stormed the decade with a unique mix of Hi NRG, PWL and Eurobeat. His music was always ahead of the game, pushing boundaries whilst rocking the floor with relentless energy, and his technical mixing skills inspired a whole new generation of DJs in the process. Inevitably, De Vit’s unquenchable thirst for new trends led to residencies at London clubs Heaven and Trade, as he became the forefather of the burgeoning UK hard house scene in the early 90s. This harder sound didn’t meet with Nightingale approval and Tony parted company with the club after a groundbreaking 10 year residency. De Vit quickly established himself on a global scale as both DJ and producer, scoring several UK Top 40 hits, remixing the biggest names in pop, picking up countless DJ awards (including a number five ranking in the DJ magazine World DJ Top 100), and appearing regularly at such legendary clubs as Cream, Chuff Chuff, Sundissential, God’s Kitchen and Gatecrasher. The success was tragically cut short on 2 July 1998, when HIV-positive Tony died of bronchial pneumonia and bone marrow failure at the age of 40.
Funky Duncan
Another popular DJ during the 80s era was the late Duncan Finlayson, aka ‘Funky Duncan’, who pioneered the Hi NRG sound with regular appearances at both the Nightingale and the massively successful Thursday night Powerhouse event. Duncan also ran a record shop in Selly Oak called Loading Bay, from which he launched his own dance record label of the same name.
Andy Farley
With a house revolution taking hold of the UK’s clubbing scene, some new faces joined the Nightingale DJ roster at the start of the 90s. First up was Andy Farley, a big fan of De Vit’s and similarly destined for DJ superstardom. Farley was quick to drop his early Hi NRG sound, following with a harder-edged house music style during his impressive five-year residency at the Nightingale. From here he went on to establish himself on the global clubbing stage, with appearances at a host of top clubs across the UK, including the legendary Sundissential, and various clubs around the world. He soon became a much-in-demand music producer, artiste and remixer, having worked on a massive back-catalogue of club hits for such labels as Tidy Trax & Tekelec.
