Carl Cox has been the standard for four decades, and the three decks are not the reason
Three turntables is the detail everybody repeats about Carl Cox. It is also the least interesting thing about him, and it is not what kept him here for forty years.
Three turntables is the detail everybody repeats about Carl Cox. It is also the least interesting thing about him.
Technique gets you noticed. It does not keep you on the road for four decades. What kept Carl Cox here is that he never stopped building: nights, labels, and a stage for the people who came after him.
The part everybody already knows
Born in 1962, he was working as a mobile DJ at fifteen, playing disco at parties around south London before house music even had a name. Brighton in his late teens, the first UK rave wave, the opening night of Danny Rampling's Shoom.
Then the signature: three turntables running at once, a technique almost nobody could execute live. He was doing it long before digital setups made mixing easier, and forty years later the bar has not moved.
Fifteen summers at Space
In 2001 he started a residency at Space Ibiza, first on the terrace for "We Love...", then inside the club. It became "Music Is Revolution", his own night, and it ran for fifteen consecutive summers.
It ended with "The Final Chapter" on 20 September 2016 and a ten hour set. Two weeks later the club closed for good.
Then he built the stage
Carl Cox & Friends debuted at Ultra in 2004, became a defining part of the festival and later joined forces with Resistance. Intec, his label, arrived in 1998. Awesome Soundwave came in 2018, with Christopher Coe, built for live electronic artists.
That is the part nobody copied. A career of sets ends when the bookings do. A career that also creates rooms keeps going, because other people are inside it.
Still going
"Oh yes, oh yes" became the title of his autobiography in 2021. He is still performing around the world, still involved in motorsport, and the people who grew up on his sets are now playing the same stages.
Forty years in, this is not a farewell tour. It is the same job, done properly.
Which Carl Cox set do you still remember? Tell us the city and the year.
The original post
We published this one on Instagram. Watch it there, in the app.
Watch on Instagram →