Best Promos: The Haunted DJ Booth

"My pipe sounds, but no one wants to dance."

It was a dark and stormy night. The trees were wildly waving their wooden branches and the wind was whistling, like Eric Idle on the cross. Something was in the air, and it wasn't good. Although there was lots of noise in Eastcote, it was still silent, and all of the new born babies were screaming, silently screaming. Things just didn't add up.

Joey Bellen'd

"At this time of year, Eastcote was always dark and stormy", wise-cracked Joey Bellen'd, Ruislip's number one underground trendy music DJ, and keen editor of the weekly UK online dance music magazine, Best Promos. Joey was using all of his fingers to leaf through the latest copy of the PRS for Music M Magazine. His favourite DJ, The Secret DJ, had written a wizard new article for it about Halloween. Joey lay back seductively on his 4-poster bed on the top floor of his 3-bed semi-detached mansion in Eastcote; the richest and most desirable area of Ruislip, and enjoyed the article immensely, broadly agreeing with the whole thing and cutting out his favourite sections to put up on his wall. Joey Bellen'd often lay on his bed to read about dance music as he believed lying down was cooler than sitting up.

"Hey, if it's good enough for Johnny Depp, then it's good enough for me" he thought to himself whilst smirking, making a gun shape with his fingers and thinking of the time Johnny Depp was murdered by Freddie Krueger.

SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH. Joey shot up, his eyes darting everywhere, his heart pounding all over the shop as he heard the scratching sounds again and again on his bedroom door. Was Freddie Krueger real? Was Freddie Krueger scratching his way into the bedroom to murder him? SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH.

"What the heck?!", screamed Joey as his bedroom door slowly swung open. "I don't want to die! Please God, noooooo!" Joey curled up into the baby position, still screaming and wishing that he wasn't about to be torn to pieces by a dream-based maniac with knife fingers and a penchant for slaughtering children. He felt a presence in the room now, and a rough, sticky lap across his left eyelid.

"Alfie? Oh, Alfie! You silly cat! You scared me half to death, Alfie! Oh, come here, pussykins!" Joey and Alfie, his loyal four-legged cat with black and white fur, cuddled up together and enjoyed a plutonic, inter-species, entirely wholesome romp with loads of back stroking and ear scratching.

"Here, let me play you a song. I'm so relieved it was just you at the door, my feline chum." Joey remarked as he reached for the black Sony stereo and pressed play with one of the fingers on his right hand. "See what you think of this, Alfie."

Joey Bellen'd and his cat chilled out to the max whilst the new four-tracker by Polytunnel on Made Magnetic floated through the bedroom air. Outer Earth and all of it's remixes seemed to put them both in a trance. Joey felt his body leaving his body and his saw his own body saying goodbye to him as his body rose up above his own body and looked down on itself, it's own body. His lips moved, but nothing came out. All of a sudden, Alfie the cat began to talk with a very deep American accent.

"Joey. What you are listening to is magic. Magnetic magic. Made Magnetic magic. This is the new release by Ireland's Polytunnel on the Made Magnetic label. Outer Earth is a solid gold 10/10 release and it is accompanied by three superb remixes by Denham Audio, Lighght and Jellypelt. You are to spread the word of this release to the whole of Eastcote by midnight. If you disobey this command, I will take a fucking lump hammer to your box and kill you. Do you understand?"

Joey replied like the zombie he now was, but with a soft, whispered American accent, "Yes, master."

Alfie

"Very well. Meow is the time, I mean, now is the time for you to murder all of the prostitutes in West Bromwich."

"I thought you wanted me to tell everyone in Eastcote about the new Polytunnel release, master?", whispered Joey, his head bowed.

"INSOLENCE! SILENCE!" Barked the cat, but Joey was right. His command was not to murder the many street women of West Bromwich, but to promote the new Polytunnel tune. Alfie the cat reached into his back pocket and pulled out a massive lump hammer, striking the helpless and hapless Joey repeatedly on the very top of his head. "Your pain will become legendary!" screeched the cat as he continued to rain blows down upon his owner's skull.

Blood was everywhere, absolutely everywhere.

Danny, Jon and Ricardo

There was a knock at the front door. On the front step were Joey's friends, Danny, Jon and Ricardo, shivering in the cold. They had come to pick Joey up before all going to the local nightclub, The Social, where there was a new party starting that night. It was called No Requests: Best Promos and was an extension of their favourite weekly UK dance blog, Best Promos. Joey was due to DJ the opening night, either playing in the bar upstairs or in the basement club - that detail hadn't been decided upon yet.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. They knocked again. "Maybe he's already gone down there," quipped Ricardo. The group laughed and quickly agreed that Joey had already gone to The Social, so they all got into their special van and sped off down the road to The Social because that's where they all thought he'd gone, but there was still blood all over the bedroom upstairs, his blood, Joey's blood.

Danny Tenaglia

BOOM BOOM BOOM. The gang arrived at The Social and could hear the boom boom boom of dance music coming from the downstairs club area thing. "Wow, that is loud!" giggled Jon as he mimed putting his fingers in his ears. "Sounds like Tenaglia or something", said Danny as he patted Ricardo on the back.

These guys all had legendary camaraderie, and their banter was also legendary.

"Danny, you wouldn't know Tenaglia if he slapped you in the face!", replied Ricardo, causing all three of them to fall over laughing. The queue to get into The Social was really massive, it snaked its way from Little Portland Street all the way down to Shepherds Bush. It seemed like the whole world had come to witness the very first Best Promos night. You could taste the buzz in the air and swallow it whole.

The bouncers ushered the three lads into the bar, to the annoyance of the people in the queue, but they didn't care, and they had AAA VIP guest list accredited to them by the club. They just wanted to get a drink in, a dance on and to see their best friend, Joey Bellen'd. The muffled BOOM BOOM BOOM now became a clear BOOM BOOM BOOM as they stood in the narrow corridor. Losoul's Open Door, magnificently released on Running Back, filled the air with beautifully deep 90s deep house which was deep and beautiful, in a beautifully deep way.

Danny had a playful grin on his face as he asked for three lagers with three Sambuca chasers from the Knice, friendly barman. "Hey, guys, let's play a game. If you had to give this track a score out of ten, what would you give it?"

Ricardo winked at Jon as he said, "Open Door by Losoul? Oh, 1/10!"

"Oh come on, be serious!" laughed Danny as he gently punched Ricardo's shoulder, which was covered in a denim jacket.

"Ok, Ok. Seriously. This is an eternal track. It's a 10/10. Everyone knows that. Another drink?" Shouted Ricardo, the music from the club downstairs was getting louder, and was overshadowing the yacht rock being played by Pete Fowler in the bar. All of a sudden, the music and the lights in the bar upstairs all exploded. "Must be a blown fuse", said one of the gang, "let's go downstairs and make sure the club is still going."

Pete Fowler in skeleton form

As Danny, Jon and Ricardo gingerly and blindly approached the top of the stairs, the lights and music suddenly came back on. Peg by Steely Dan continued its sonic assault to a now empty bar area. "Weird", said Danny, "this place was ramma jamma a minute ago!" They all turned towards the bar area and were shocked to see that all of the bar staff were now skeletons, even the DJ, Pete Fowler, and there was blood dripping down the walls. Blood was everywhere, even in the pint glasses that they held in their terror-struck, trembling hands.

"ARGHHHHH!!!!! I'm not drinking this!" yelled Jon as he threw his pint of blood at one of the skeletons, which then exploded, sending more blood across the bar.

"Quick, downstairs!" asserted Danny, "Joey must be down there DJing, we have to warn him about the bloody skeletons before it's too bloody late!"

As the trio descended the stairs, it felt to them as if they were descending into Hell, which in many ways they were. At the bottom of the stairs was a record box, it was glowing and overflowing with green ooze and some blood. "Hey, guys, there's Joey! He's on the decks!" cried Jon. His voice betrayed a hint of trepidation - he knew something wasn't quite right.

The terrified triumvirate trotted over to the DJ booth across an empty dancefloor as DJ Joey Bellen'd spun the evil sounding Ambient Babestation Meltdown remix of Solaris by the evil sounding Passarella Death Squad.

"I don't know myself, I don't remember." The creepy lyrics blasted out of the speakers, as DJ Joey stood in the DJ booth, arms outstretched in a really evil way.

"Yes, this release might be a 10/10, but right now it's freaking me out!! wailed Ricardo as DJ Joey Bellen'd started to float out of the DJ booth and towards the gang. "he's floating out of the DJ booth and towards us, what in Heavens name is happening?!"

As Joey got closer to his friends, they realised that it wasn't Joey. Not the Joey they knew and loved. This Joey had clearly had his skull caved in by a lump hammer and there was blood all over his face and clothes. His eyes were dead, just like the rest of him.

"This doesn't make any sense," shivered Jon, "none of this makes any sense!" and before he could say another word Joey began to speak, his words somehow coming through the speakers in the club, rather than his out of his mouth. The music slowed down and got quieter as his words filled the room. He sounded exactly like Alfie the cat, with a deep American accent. His words echoed, washed through with an overpowering reverb.

"Gentlemen. Welcome to No Requests by Best Promos. I choose the music here. There is to be no requests made of me, no demands for any other music other than that of my choosing. The music here will be eclectic...and electric. Sometimes weird, but with a constant eye on keeping the punters engaged and interested, with one foot firmly on the dancefloor. There will be no limitations on genre, style or BPM. Bad behaviour will be encouraged. Sinning will be rewarded. I have such sights to show you...BANG. EUGHHHHH ughhhhh ARGHHHHH aghhhhh!"

Tony De Vit in ghost form

Suddenly, the gang realised there was another figure stood behind the decks, and he had a smoking gun in one hand, his other hand was perched on his hip. It was the ghost of Tony De Vit. He had shot Joey Bellen'd in the back of the head, killing his ghostly corpse immediately to the whooping applause of Danny, Jon and Ricardo. "What the heck are you doing here, TdV?!" shrieked Jon.

"Charming! Well, somebody has to get you guys out of trouble. If I didn't show up, Joey was going to bore you all to death will that moody, modern, low slung dance music of his." laughed Tony De Vit.

"Gee, thanks, TdV, I just can't believe our best friend is dead again." said Jon, sadly.

"Our friends only die if we forget them, so let's never forget Joey", replied Tony De Vit, wrapping his arms around our three heroes, "now, hey, look, the rest of the punters are coming down the stairs now. Let's say we get this party started, yeah?"

"I guess it's what Joey would have wanted", shrugged Ricardo, "he wanted his Best Promos night at The Social to be a success, so let's honour him in the only was we know how...by dancing the night away!"

"That's the ticket!", squealed Tony De Vit as he put the needle on the record. "One, two, three...hard house!" As the first of the paying clubbers entered the building, the blood evaporated from the walls and the skeletons turned back into normal people. Pete Fowler turned his cap on backwards and played a Japanese import B-side by Kurtis Blow with a massive smile on his face. As he finger gunned the ceiling, he shook his head, rolled his eyes and said to himself, "what the bloody hell was going on there, eh?", and downstairs the beats were rolling harder and faster, just how TdV liked them. Expression by Steve Blake roared through the dancefloor, and Tony De Vit winked at Danny, Jon and Ricardo as if to say, "what the bloody hell was going on there, eh?" and they all laughed and took another bump of Charlie chalk together. "To Joey!", they all cheered, clinking their Sambuca shot glasses and wiping their noses.

As for Alfie the cat, he didn't really order Joey Bellen'd to do anything. It turns out that all of this story was a figment of Joey's imagination, and this was just a story he made up for himself whilst locked up in his solitary confinement padded cell in Ruislip's Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

He was doing a life stretch...for murdering old age pensioners...with a lump hammer!

Don't have nightmares.

The End...or is it?