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Far Too Tasty Tim- The First Tranny (DJ) of Dance

Author: Jonty Skrufff
Monday, October 20, 2003
"George says nowadays that he was totally jealous of me at the time and I must say the feeling was mutual. I was totally in awe of him. And now it's come full circle and we're making an album together."

While Boy George and Marilyn crossed-dressed their way to the top of the early 80s pop charts another of London's original gender-bender types Tasty Tim busied himself selling records at Kings Road flea market the Great Gear Market or DJing at Philip Salon's equally renowned Mud Club. Stunningly beautiful and one of nightlife's best known faces of the time, his DJing, however, was less about chasing stardom and more about living the life of London clubland.

"DJing was just a laugh then," Tim told Jonty Skrufff this week.

"You had to laugh when you saw the size of the wage packet."

Two decades on, Tim remains at top of the (mainly gay) DJ tree, holding residencies at the Cock and Fabric's DTPM as well as regularly touring the world, spinning funky house, or as is more likely these days, italo-disco. And after his 20 year career of cross-dressing in clubs (a habit he successfully maintains to this day) he's lost none of his enthusiasm for both clubbing and more specifically, the flamboyant nightlife he's always enjoyed.

"Everyone should experience the deepness of being shallow at least once," he laughs.


Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): Music-wise you've recently got much more into italo-disco, when did you start getting into this new scene-

Tasty Tim : "The first time round of course, back in the 80s. Italo-disco was the soundtrack to Leigh Bowery's legendary club Taboo, courtesy of DJ Jeffrey Hinton and Taboo was THE mid 80's stomping ground for the 'terminally trendy'. Way before that I also worked for Rusty Egan (The DJ at Blitz who was also Visage's drummer) at his Kings road record store The Cage where we only sold the crazy new sound of electronic music. Of course, at the time, we were far more pretentious and called it 'Futurist' though I guess you couldn't call it that now because so much of it borrows from the past."

Skrufff: Your press release describes you as being the original gender-bender, when did you first start dressing up-

Tasty Tim: "I wouldn't call myself the original gender bender because that would be Quentin Crisp, wouldn't it- But yes, when that ridiculous term was first coined, probably by The Sun circa the Culture Club era, I'd already been bending it for quite some time. In the early days, that would mean a punky, eyeliner and bondage pants affair. Loads of straight boys into the scene wore freaky makeup, then too, or at the very least eyeliner, though most people grew out of it. I, on the other hand, grew into it."

Skrufff: How much was the dressing up a 24/7 thing in the 80s-

Tasty Tim: "Back then this whole look was completely a 24/7 thing, you didn't leave the house unless you were completely 'done', especially since I worked at The Cage on Kings Road. My God- you'd better look your best there! My boss at the Cage was also the DJ at the Blitz, the club where everyone wanted to be, and his band Visage were about to be the new big thing."

Skrufff: Were you hanging out with Boy George and Marilyn much at that point-

Tasty Tim: "Even though we had a lot of people in common, I never hung out with George and Marilyn, though I'd already started DJing by then at a club called Cha Cha and George and Marilyn used to come down. George says nowadays that he was totally jealous of me at the time and I must say the feeling was mutual. I was totally in awe of him. And now it's come full circle and we're making an album together."

Skrufff: Did you ever ditch the make-up look altogether-

Tasty Tim: "I stopped wearing the slap (makeup) in the daytime, years ago. When I was young and doing it 24/7 I think I was trying to prove something, I'm not quite sure what, perhaps it was just a case of teenage look-at-me syndrome, now that I'm (a
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