Growing up in the mid-eighties in East Berlin, I was always listening to music played by the radio stations behind the iron curtain. They had lots of interesting stuff and the DJs were free to select their own playlists. Then I came to Leipzig in 1989 and at some point in the mid-nineties I was invited to spin some records in smaller venues. By that time I played basically Ska (across the board, classic Jamaican and also new) and early Reggae, but slowly my musical interest shifted more and more towards Rhythm‘n‘Blues and Northern Soul. There was no Soul scene at all in Eastern Germany and so it was a slow and hard way from scratch. Would say that I’m seriously into Northern Soul since around 1998, gradually changing from playing compilation LPs (UK KENT) to re-issue 45s to original singles. With the time I also became an occasional promoter as my musical knowledge and contacts helped to bring some good bands to Leipzig. When "Soul Surgery" (DJ nights at the beginning, later often paired with live bands) was started in 2002 I was asked to join in as a resident DJ, and then I kicked off my own project "Soul Magic" the following year (initially an "old school" website before the Web 2.0 age which now lays dormant since 2006, plus one annual allnighter with an attractive DJ line-up and a strict OVO policy – which no other event in this town had at that time). Together with two mates, we set up the Leipzig Soul & Reggae Weekenders in 2013 and 2015 (we only did those two, basically due to a very lame response by the Leipzig crowd).

In recent years I didn’t deejay too often. Leipzig (now 600K people) has a musically illiterate audience when it comes to Soul music, there’s hardly any relevant media coverage, not a single useful radio station, too many mainstream events. Currently we don’t have any regular Northern Soul events. But I’m happy to see that there are a few like-minded souls in town (Casi and Chris "Mr. Mojo") who fortunately still have the energy and the guts to bring up such a fantastic weekender which will be attended by so many brilliant DJs from different countries. It will be a pleasure and an honour for me to share the decks with ’em!