DJ Sy Retires

Several DJs have retired over the years, but few if any turn out to be permanent retirements. However, one retirement that does seem permanent is DJ Sy who has just announced he is to retire from DJing with immediate effect. The reasons stated is because of how DJing has affected his hearing and he's finally had enough of driving up and down the country.

When you look at the first 20 years or so of the hardcore scene, pretty much the only constant throughout was DJ Sy. He was there in 1991 when hardcore rave really took off. Many of the other DJs who were around at the time either went down the jungle route when the scene split or never really lasted beyond that point in an upfront sense.

What differentiated DJ Sy from the other happy hardcore DJs was his scratching which earned him the nickname "The Scratchmaster". He formed Quosh Records with DJ Unknown which went on to become one of the longest running hardcore labels.

My first insight into DJ Sy as a person was when he was interviewed on Club@Vision at Dreamscape in 1998. As you might expect the subject of his scratching came up and one thing I remember him saying is that he'd also scratch when playing house sets which was quite unusual for that style of music.

He was also interviewed on the Helter Skelter Millennium Jam video and the main thing I remember him saying was that he wished the music was slower and pointed out how the house scene had taken off. This was a time when the popularity of hardcore was at an all time low and in the year 2000 Sy and Unknown did a garage remix of "Let Me Be Your Fantasy" by Baby D under the name Trick or Treat and enjoyed chart success with it.

There were really only 2 other major happy hardcore DJs who had been around for as long as DJ Sy by this point, there was Seduction who retired after Helter Skelter Energy 99 and Slipmatt who played his last hardcore set at Hardcore Heaven in early 2000 before moving onto house music. There were newer DJs such as Vinylgroover who also moved away from the hardcore scene. To me it seemed inevitable that DJ Sy would move on.

He didn't though, he carried on doing what he did and was seen as the old guy of the scene. He'd also got a reputation for cramming in several gigs in a single night and driving quickly to get between them. 

In 2012 Quosh Records and his partnership with DJ Unknown came to an end, as did his time as an upfront hardcore DJ/producer. He still continued with the old skool sets though which would arguably make him more in demand. 

Some years before he stopped making new music he got into property development. There's obviously much more money in that, so the music would of been more of a hobby than a source of income. Now it seems the enjoyment in that has gone for him which leads to him announcing his retirement.