Tony De Vit passed away 20 years ago today… [July 1998]
Tony De Vit, architect of the hard house/trance sound that permeated the UK club scene in the late 90s and 2000s, died 20 years ago today, 2 July 1998, at the age of just 40.
It was De Vit, having established himself as an accomplished DJ at gay clubs Heaven and Trade that helped take the Hi-NRG influenced sound into the mainstream, with tracks such as Burning Up, To The Limit and the hard house classic The Dawn, the latter released posthumously.
Here’s an interview with De Vit from January 1997, which featured in Mixmag.
He was also the first name that label upstart Boxed turned to for the debut of the now-legendary Global Underground series, Global Underground GU001 Live in Tel Aviv, released in 1996.
De Vit would also follow ‘Tel Aviv’ with the fifth in the series, Global Underground GU005: Tokyo, a year later.
As indie mag NME put it on the occasion of his death back in 1998, ‘Away from the fashionable breakbeats and drum & bass of the Big Beat Boutique and Metalheadz, De Vit was responsible for a real revolution in clubland.
‘It was his phenomenal mixing ability and ability to “read” a dancefloor that took the ferociously hard and fast “nu energy” techno sound out of the London gay scene and onto the straight dancefloors of Britain and the world.’ RIP Tony.
[Kudos to Francisco Criollo and earthspark78 for the YouTube uploads]
About Post Author
time passes so quickly. very sad, so young.