Boy George began his DJ’ing career when he was just 17 years old, playing to a crowd of trendy Londoners at Planet’s nightclub alongside pal, and then housemate, Jeremy Healy. This of course, was one of George’s many jobs of this time period and one of his other jobs of the time suddenly became a little more time consuming - Culture Club! With the birth and success of Culture Club the DJ’ing had to go on the back burner for quite sometime. Though George has never lost his passion or touch for the art form, nowadays mentioning, in numerous interviews, that DJ’ing is a real love for him and that he enjoys it much more sometimes than playing to a stadium audience of thousands.
George’s time behind the decks was resurrected back in the days of Nottingham’s legendary Venus Club, where promoter James Ballie trusted George to run a More Protein night - named after George’s respected label - in one of the rooms. George turned up with his motley crew of Jeremy Healy, M.C Kinky and Amos together with his collection of 7” singles in carrier bags and a broken box… the rest, as they say, is history!
George got the DJ’ing bug again and offers came flooding in from far and wide. At first, people said, as expected, that booking Boy George was just a novelty factor. Top DJs slagged him off and laughed, saying he would be off to pastures new once the novelty wore off. This didn’t last for long though and soon clubs were indeed booking Boy George on the back of the fact that he could hold his own, mix a mean set and fill a club. With regular appearances at clubs like Progress, Cream, Gatecrasher, The Manor, Sugarshack and God’s Kitchen to name but a few, plus a bi-monthly residency at Maidstone’s mental Club Class, certainly helped put George’s DJ’ing career into flourishing mode.
George’s DJ’ing gigs have taken him from Austria to Australia, Bolton to Bulgaria and even onto the catwalks of the worldwide fashion hierarchy. George makes the music for the shows and DJ’s at the post show glamorous parties for names such as Versace and Phillip Treacy.
In ‘99 and ‘00 George completed stints on the infamous Golden Red Parrot tours alongside all his other parrot stable-mates, and he has also completed a successful series of one-off dates on the Culture Club reunion tour (worldwide). Doing the Culture Club tour meant that George spent less time than he would have liked in the clubs and in 2001 got back into some of his regular dates in the UK. He has also spent a huge chunk of the late-Summers combining work and pleasure in Ibiza, a place that has become a second home to him in the sunnier months!
Aside from all of the above, somehow George has still managed to successfully run his cult label More Protein. He has been co-writing with a host of artists, has remixed a fair few beauties – Missy Elliot, Liberty, EMF to name but three. Additionally, he has been collaborating with artists such as Faithless, Amanda Ghost and Hi-Gate. He has written a best selling book, his autobiography aptly titled ‘Take it Like a Man’ and writes weekly for The Sunday Express where he has a chance to reflect over his previous weeks antics. While still in writing mode, he released another book this past Christmas. Along side co-writer, friend and macro-biotic genius chef, Dragana Brownis the “Karma Cookbook” shows George’s passion of healthy-living cookery in a style that is truly befitting of Boy George.
George’s latest on-the-go project is the musical “Taboo”, which opened in January 2002. “Taboo” is a classic sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll tale set in the heady 80’s and heavily linked with some of clublands biggest stars of the time. George has written the music and had a big part in the casting and script. George, who only recently started taking acting lessons, leaped into his first appearance in the semi-autobiographical production in early May as performance artist Leigh Bowery.
Not one to ever slow down, Boy George has even made time to make a pair of discs for upcoming release in North America. “Night Out” is an interesting set that one might catch on a night out with Boy George, while the conversely titled “Night In” is more of a chilled out version of hanging in for the night. With a Summer release date and a tour to match, Boy George will again, take the States by storm.
