From her origins playing lead guitar in a punk band, to playing huge illegal raves at the height of the free party movement in the early '90s, to being the first female UK DJ to play in Canada, to spearheading the rise of the hard dance scene - Anne Savage has never been one to stand still, keeping moving with the times and constantly pushing herself to evolve and grow as a DJ and producer. 15 years on from her first big break and she's looking and sounding more exciting and vital than ever before, with a more accomplished and diverse CV than most DJs could dream of.

Hi Anne, how are you on this fine winters day?
Great thanks, despite the snow, flooding and icy death-trap roads where I live…

So tell us what have you been up to so far this year and what have you got planned for the coming months?
Apart from RIOT! In London and Good Greef in Preston, I’ve been on holiday most of January, a notoriously quiet time for many djs, so I went skiing in the Alps for 10 days and laid on a beach in Egypt for a week. That’s it for time off for the rest of the year though, I’m getting ready for the launch of my new label so I’m now working on my studio tan…Canada beckons for 2 weeks at the end of Feb and I’ve got 2 Alpine festivals “Snowside” in Nassfeld and “Snowbombing” in Mayrhof at the end of March to play at before I finally pack my ski suit away til next year.

At the back end of last year you released a new Tidy Girls EP with Lisa and Kym, was it good to get back into the studio? I bet it was mayhem with all 3 of you together?
We did the tracks separately, but we all got together for the photoshoot, which was a hoot to say the least. Afterwards we had an afternoon of shopping and cocktails round Soho, which is hard to beat as far as afternoons go really isn’t it?

Tell us a bit about your Dumb Blonde guise? How is this coming along?
I’m still producing and djing alternative music, but I play it mainly at bigger events and abroad- I’ve stopped playing the back room at hard dance gigs to people who don’t want to hear that stuff. Plus it’s difficult to do 2 types of music really well so I’m putting all my energy into the Anne Savage sound at the minute. Having said that I’m working on 2 new tracks in the Dumb Blonde style, but I will be able use them on my Anne Savage album when it’s ready.

Can you remember your first ever gig? When/where/how was it?
One of my first gigs was at an illegal rave in a field in Skipton that was put on by some travellers. I was petrified, the djs (all blokes) were queuing up to play and were really moody looking me up and down, I could tell they were thinking, “what’s a girl doing here?” After a (literally) shaky start I ended up playing for hours and hours until the generator packed up. It was a long time ago, that’s all I’m going to say!

Can you think of your most embarrassing story from over the years?
There are loads, but this is pretty bad…I was djing right after Sasha at an ARK gig, in about 1994. It was a massive deal to me; he was my hero at the time. I really nervous and as I walked into the dj box I grabbed his arse really hard. I don’t know why I did it. To make matters worse, when he handed over the decks to me I stopped his last record just before it reached the peak of a massive crescendo, the Grande Finale of his 2 hour building set. I’ll never forgive myself as long as I live.

If you had the choice of either someone narrating your entire life out loud as you went along or somebody playing ‘Shaggy – Mr Boombastic’ out loud whenever you saw someone you quite liked the look of, which would it be?
Brilliant question - definitely ‘Shaggy’ that’s hilarious. Plus I saw the Will Ferrell film where someone narrated his every move, he nearly topped himself I think!

Before you were a DJ what was the worst job you ever had?
There have been a few but I was a promotion girl once for a tobacco company, handing out free cigarettes to the seriously poor in Kwik Save, it was wrong! And really depressing.

Is it true your mum’s real name is Lily Savage?
Ha ha! She is called Lily but she re married, so truthfully no, not at the moment, but people do call her that…

Tell us something we don’t know about you……………..
I bunked out of school on a regular basis by getting my friend to ring up pretending to be my mum saying that I had a various dentist/doctors appointments she had forgotten about that afternoon.

Sat Feb 21st 2009
8pm - 6am
Air Nightclub
Birmingham

Tidy & Polysexual Present Tidy-sexual

Oxygen Arena

Lisa Pinup
Rob Tissera
Andy Whitby
Anne Savage
Karim
Vinylgroover
Tidy DJs
Kym Aryes


Nitrogen Room

Paul Maddox
Rodi Style
Guyver
Cally Gage
Mark H
Dawson b2b Caz Wood
Mike Avery


Carbon Lounge
Blessed vs Funk Deluxe

Gaz Hunt
Mike Lusty
Simon Vegas vs Justine Normus
Glennroy
James Birch vs Stu Exall
Lady C
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