Bill Brewster gets more than 500 emails every week filled with new music vying for his attention.
When I call the renowned writer and DJ at his home in London on a sunny Friday morning, he’s whittled that week’s lot down to 188.
“There’s obviously a lot of rubbish,” laughs Bill, 65. “But that’s part of the job as a DJ.
“I look through all that crap so that you all don’t have to listen to it on a Friday and Saturday night.”
Bill is perhaps best known for co-writing the world’s seminal history of DJing, 1990 release Last Night A DJ Saved My Life.
But he is very much still on the decks, and he’ll be spinning a mix of “up-tempo, exciting electronic, disco and house” for Dundee’s daytime disco crowd soon enough.
“I really like it in Dundee, I’m up regularly as my brother-in-law lives in Broughty Ferry,” reveals Bill.
“I’ve been coming up on and off for 30 years.
“I remember I came up for the general election in 1992, thinking I was going to be celebrating a Labour government.
“But actually, the Tories won, so it wasn’t a great first visit.”
DJ Bill Brewster has friends in the Ferry
In spite of first impressions, Dundee won Bill’s heart over time. He has fond memories of late friend Dave Calikas, resident DJ in Fat Sam’s in the ’90s.
Then in lockdown, Bill “bonded” with friends in the Ferry on virtual jams.
“I’ve been up a few times since then to hang out with them, and I just really love it as a city,” he says.
“I love the fact that there’s a lot of beautiful architecture there.”
Asked for his favourite building, he replies: “What’s that big red sandstone one, quite monolithic? The Thomson building, I think?”
He’s tickled when I tell him it’s The Courier offices, and I’m sitting inside it as we speak.
Small world.
On his next visit, Bill will be headlining at Union Street bar Nola to mark the first anniversary of Dundee DJ Gav Will’s daytime disco project, Day Moves.
Over the last year, Gav has put on monthly daytime dance parties in the cocktail lounge, building a community of 70-100 regulars.
For Bill, playing inside in the daytime can feel “surreal”, but he points out that in the world’s biggest dance cities, DJing is rarely just a night-time thing.
“If you think about places like Croatia (a scene Bill rates) and Ibiza and all those sorts of spots, they have daytime parties because everyone wants to be out in the sunshine,” he observes.
How does Bill balance dad life with DJing?
However, unlike Ibiza and Croatia, Dundee’s daytime discos tend to cater towards a more mature crowd.
“I don’t know if that’s the idea behind it, but that’s certainly one of the consequences,” says Bill.
“I think people who are a bit older are happy to go home at 11pm if they’ve been out since lunchtime.
“There’s definitely a crowd of people who have been going out a long time, and probably have kids now.
“I have two kids myself so I know how hard it is to find childcare when you’re out until 3am or 4am. You generally need very understanding parents.”
I have an image of Bill out in London, charging up dancefloors night after night and living a life in the dark.
But he tells me that in fact, “during the week I have a very normal lifestyle”.
“I get up at 7am every morning and walk the dog in the park and make my kids’ packed lunch, same as everybody else,” he says.
“Then on a Friday and Saturday, I’m away and up very late – they don’t see me until lunchtime.
“It’s a bit like when I used to work shifts as a chef, or in a frozen food factory in Grimsby when I was very young!”
Bill Brewster plays Day Moves at Nola, Dundee, on Saturday June 28 2025.
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