To the DJs who support his smart re-edits and to his fans around the world, Gregg Holmes aka Fingerman is synonymous with disco. For the last 15 years, his reworks of tunes by the likes of The Chi-Lites, Shalamar and Steely Dan have been a fixture in feelgood sets by UK disco king Greg Wilson and countless other DJs in search of a fresh take on a vintage sound.
But when we catch up on a video call from his adopted home of Belfast, Northern Ireland, Holmes reveals that his love for electronic music is rooted in some slightly more twisted sounds.
“I used to go to a lot of techno clubs back in the day, when I was living in Portsmouth [his home town], and that’s how I kind of caught my clubbing bug – seeing people like Dave Clarke, [Andrew] Weatherall, Dave Angel and all those old-school guys. And then I got into the house side of things when I moved to Brighton.
“I went through loads of different genres, and enjoyed loads of different things – I was into dubstep and bass stuff for a while, but acid house has never really gone away. It’s just always been there, so it’s part of my life.”
‘I like showcasing other people’s work’
“It’s nice to have a bit of variation,” he says. “You don’t want the same thing all the way through it, which in hindsight is what I’ve done in the past. I just want to show people I can do something a little bit different, and make almost like a slow techno record, which is where my heart is, still.”
Incredibly, after 12 years and 135 releases including such scene luminaries as Dr Packer, Andy Buchan and Mix & Fairbanks, this is only the third time he’s released an EP of his own on the label.
“It’s not very many,” he concedes, “but it goes to show that my workload is not very high. I like showcasing other people’s work, occasionally doing a remix for them and that sort of thing. If it does well and I get good feedback, then I’m a happy man.”
‘I was fascinated by joining the dots’
“We were kind of joined at the hip for many, many years and still are,” he says. “It would have been when I was around 17, 18 – as soon as I was old enough to go out, basically.
“I was fascinated by joining the dots between different people, so I started buying lots of magazines and really getting to grips with it, finding out who did what. When I started listening to people like Sneak, Derrick Carter and stuff, I was always interested in where those samples came from, and that got me into the disco thing.”
The next step was to follow his sister along the coast to Brighton – only slightly bigger in terms of population, but worlds away when it came to music and culture.
“I went over there to go out with her for a couple of nights out and just realised what a vibrant place it was compared to Portsmouth,” he recalls. “Brighton was very exciting. So as soon as I could, I saved up money and we got a deposit together and got a place together. And that was it really, I stayed there for a long time.”
‘I listened to it on repeat for weeks, wondering how he did it’
“Me and a friend of mine, Paul, ended up getting a residency at Casablanca Jazz Club, which is basically a dingy place – it’s still going now, it’s really, really old,” he says. “They had live funk bands downstairs on the weekend and DJs in between, so we used to bring our records along and play disco 12s, and we were there every week pretty much for a good few years.”
If there was a lightbulb moment along the way, it was when Holmes discovered Greg Wilson – UK disco royalty then and now – through his 2009 Essential Mix on BBC Radio 1. Packed full of choice soul, funk and disco tunes, it also featured edits from Wilson himself, greats like Frankie Knuckles and Larry Levan, and the leaders of the new school at the time – Todd Terje and Dimitri From Paris.
“That turned me on to the whole edits thing,” he says. “I listened to it on repeat for weeks, wondering how he did it, and then realised there was this whole scene of chopping up loops and drum patterns and all this sort of stuff, and I just thought, ‘I’ll give this a go’.
“I’d spend a few hours getting my favourite disco 12s, chopping them up, quantising them, and going from there. I was a complete novice – I didn’t know about warp modes or anything like that when I started out, so things were very, very rough – but people were listening to my stuff on SoundCloud and enjoying what I was doing.”
‘It has to sound punchy’
“I spoke to Greg numerous times after he started playing my stuff, and I did a few warm-up slots for him. He’s always got a great story to tell. I was backstage with him and he was talking to me about the history of the edits thing, and that’s when he started getting interested in signing some of my work. He did limited pressings of about three or four of my edits, and it just kept the fire going.”
So what’s the key to a killer edit? “It has to sound punchy,” he says. “Certain people like to play very rough edits of disco tracks and they sound almost like the original but stretched out. I just want to beef them up slightly – not too much of a big kick because that completely saturates and kills it – but just a little bit so it sounds great on a bigger system, and it’s obviously easier to work with when you’re DJing with it.”
‘It’s been a real eye-opener’
But despite Belfast’s shortcomings – restrictive licensing laws and a lack of clubs to name just two – he’s inspired by the DIY energy he’s found at the monthly Plan B and Sunday Circles parties, and the group of likeminded DJs, producers and older ravers that he’s fallen in with.
“I really, really like the whole Sunday Circles thing – it’s been a real eye-opener,” he enthuses. “It’s a great little get-together for everybody that goes to the same places, and for people that don’t as well. Every time I go to one, I make a new friend.
“It sounds cheesy but it’s great because everybody’s there, the music’s always great, and the sound system at Muriel’s is brilliant.”
“I want to start my own thing. It’s so hard finding a venue and someone that’s going to give you a chance, but I think I need maybe to collaborate with a couple other people in order to do it.”
Disco dancers of Belfast and beyond, watch this space…