Originally hailing from outside of Boston, Massachusetts, Don Play grew up in the 90’s inspired by oddball music acts like Deee-Lite, The KLF, and Devo. Apparently good taste is not age-exclusive, because all of those artists still sound as amazing today as they did to 9-year old Don back then. By the time he was 16, Don Play had bought his own turntables and was deejaying high school dances in New England. It was here that he learned to break new and obscure dance tracks to an unsuspecting audience, and to make those tracks cult favorites. And thus the legend of Don Play was born.
By the time he reached college, Don had gone from watching episodes of Club MTV with Downtown Julie Brown as a kid to now actually visiting the top clubs of the world and taking inspiration. Boston’s Axis, New York’s Twilo, Vinyl, The Limelight and Tunnel clubs, London’s The End, and Barcelona’s MOOG were all deeply influential. Don used this inspiration to open his own clandestine venue and build his first sound system.
Ever since those halcyon days, Don Play has deemed that no room is too small and no audience is too mainstream for his brand of underground dance music. Whether he’s playing current house, classic house, disco, new wave, new jack swing or South African jive, Don always brings something unusual to the table.
Don Play KILLED it tonight, although I am biased as I used to dj with this guy, but seriously THERE IS ONLY ONE DON PLAY. KEEP IT CHEAP.
Don, fellow bostonian living in Tampa now. I too was a fixture at Axis for many years(97-2002) .our group usually hung in back, near Michelle, the beer girl and the stairs.( used to be where the old photo booth was before renovation). Tim was our weekend savior from crap work week.! Miss those days a lot!! Love the episode 129 listen to it once a week. Thank you for making it. The reason I’m writing you is i used to tape the shows on radio and have a couple of cassettes. I’m trying to get them to digitized form..if I send em could you do that and send me copies of them? I’ll pay for the service, plus I think you’d thoroughly enjoy them. Charlie is on there, fat Dave, etc. If you cant/wont do it I’ll keep looking around here in Tampa and shoot you copies anyways. Thanks,
Dan aka Crikit(boy) originally from Billlerica,Ma