Paul Blandford’s expansive, eclectic tastes have seen his djing exploits span many genres, safely keeping an arm’s length from being called a purist for the past 20 years of listening to dance music and the 12 years playing it. A hazy memory of the early rave scene is where it started, from entering Newport’s Diverse Records wide-eyed at all the flyers and waiting for the next big tape from the weekend or the ever-so-slight possibility of joining his uncle or the older clique for an all-nighter (at 14 years old it was always wishful thinking!). Then the progressions started, from the irrepressible acid-house and heart-pounding hardcore into mid 90’s intelligent drum & bass courtesy of LTJ Bukem & Peshay, which also seen Paul start his treasured record collection and many a night out at Newport’s ‘Bunker’ & Bristol’s ‘Lakota’ and haunts further afield. Then whilst the hard-house bug took over, Paul found himself at a crossroads, join the masses and follow the trend? Or find that something new? A CD by the name of ‘Stanton Sessions Vol. 1’ caught his ear whilst digging in his local Our Price and he automatically found his new sound. The Stanton’s had managed to create a melting pot of techno, garage, house, electro & breaks, which is what Paul’s sets contained from then on in. But it wasn’t all as smooth as hoped, a proper toys-out-of-the-pram moment in the early 00’s seen his beloved record collection deplete to next to nothing, with some of the folk buying it asking ‘Are you for real?!’ at some of the wax he was letting slip through his fingers. He quickly seen the error of his ways and pushed himself back into the scene and stumbled across a night in Cardiff called SUMO. The guys at the night gave Paul his first residency where he made a successful partnership with his cohort Hightower under his then alias, Stretch. And got to play alongside some of his heroes Meat Katie, Elite Force, Max Cooper, Stanton Warriors, Lee Coombs, Swayzak, Dylan Rhymes, Plump DJs and Santos to name a few. Then when SUMO unfortunately subsided along with the then burgeoning breakbeat scene in Cardiff, he returned to his home town of Newport where he joined the guys at MUSIQUE and held slots alongside X-Press 2, Yousef, Justin Robertson, Smokin’ Jo, Cagedbaby and more before starting his own night, PERC, which has seen some of the shining lights of recent times including Jamie Anderson, Hans Bouffmyhre, Owain K, Dopamine, Organ Grinder & Paul Lyman. Throw playing alongside legends, Slam, Alan Fitzpatrick, Deepgroove, DJ Touche and countless more in, and you could say he’s been enjoying himself since his hissy fit! In recent times his sound firmly lies in the 4/4 expanse, always with the crowd’s needs in his mind his sets can encompass emotive, empowering deep-house, disjointed, tribalesque tech-house and raw, sweat-inducing techno. And forever with his head in a record store, looking for that fresh new tune he always remembers to lend a nod to the classics. Which is also the case in his production work… Now producing under his own name and with more guises than Quantum Leap’s Sam Beckett; Blandf', The Omega Men, Something Crooked, Kodiaks, Polar Patterns. This collaborative work has seen many an outing on some major labels and remixing Lee Coombs, Meat Katie, Ian Brown, China White and Dirty Goods amongst others with continued support from big names like Laurent Garnier, The Advent, Dubfire and airplay on BBC Radio 1 & 6Music. Add his co-owned imprint, http://www.deathproofrecordings.com/, into this mix and it’s proving to be an exciting time for Paul.