It started with a kiss...
So you want to know all about me, ummm? Well, let's see, it all started in March of the summer of love in England 1969... Which makes me, erm, 39 years old I guess. Gosh, doesn't time fly?
I was born in Bury, just outside Manchester, but am now residing in Toxteth in sunny Liverpool (UK). Liverpool, by the way, is famous for being the birthplace of some popular beat combo called The Beatles and for having crap football teams... :-)
I was stationed here in 1987 to do a degree in English Literature at the now defunct Liverpool Polytechnic. This has now been taken over by some guy who made his fortune in catalogue shopping and gambling, and was snappily renamed John Moores University in his honour. Amazingly I managed to get a 2.(i) BA(hons) which promptly lead to a life of permanent leisure on the dole. To this end I filled my days playing bass (like a guitar but with only four strings) in the now defunct Coma Ray and writing for some scandolous music rag called Groove. Oh, and some other things that are really none of your business...
After this I formed a new band with some friends called Crush where I again played bass and was also responsible for most of the songwriting. Check out the Crush section of my site, where you can download some our songs. You can also find lots of my own tracks here too (which have more of an electronica component to them).
Some time later in the '90's I decided to further my great programming skills by embarking on the Software Technology Retraining Programme run by Connect at the University Of Liverpool. I did pretty well on this, and after a month on work experience I landed a job there - and that's where I am still. However, Connect (for complicated legal reasons that have nothing to do with tax-evasion) are now a private company and not officially part of the University any more. Isn't life fun in the private sector, eh? ;-)
Oh, I was also once on the famous UK television quiz show 'Fifteen To One'. Don't believe me? Well, check out this embarassing photograph (I'm 2nd from right on the bottom row in the Mudhoney t-shirt). Beat that for fame!
So what do I do then?
Basically I'm an 'internet programmer'. No, that doesn't mean I helped create the internet :) Mostly my job revolves around providing the back-end coding for dynamic, database-driven websites (rather like this one, in fact). One of the main projects I've been working on at Connect is the NorthWest Workplace careers portal which consists of a number of inter-linked databases providing local people with jobs, courses and careers information. I've been doing a lot of the programming and back-end database work using PHP and Oracle SQL. Don't blame me for the design though, I just do the coding :) Check out my web design section of the site for more info.
Boring computer stuff...
My first experience of computers was when I got a shiny new 1K Sinclair ZX81 for my 13th birthday. Yes, it really did only have one kilobyte of RAM. This thing kicked ass! I learnt the unique brand of Sinclair BASIC which came installed in the machine's ROM, which involved dextrously pressing highly complicated sequences of keys at once to get such great programs as :
10 PRINT "DAN IS ACE!"
20 GOTO 10
Thus structured programming was born! The highlight of these years was when Tim Hartnell decided to publish one of my great 1K games in a book of program listings he was compiling. I got a cheque for 30 quid and was well happy! The game involved luring hideous Zombies (represented by the scary letter Z) into pits of burning sulphur (represented by the letter X). This, I believe, was used many years later by Capcom as the blueprint for Resident Evil :)
Later I upgraded to a 16K Sinclair ZX Spectrum (which I upgraded to a whopping 48K by hammering a dodgy RAM chip into it's guts) which had the advantages of full, er, 4 bit colour and an amazing sound generator (which consisted of a little speaker cone that buzzed at different frequencies ). I wrote some more great games (I was even in negotiation with a publisher for one of my fab graphical adventures) before I was enticed by the loveliness that was the BBC Model B computer. Not only could you pretend to make your own Teletext pages but you could also play the best game in the world at the time, which was Elite (by David Braben & Ian Bell).
I later did an 'A' level in computer studies, which saw the use of horrible Research Machines 380Z boxes (running CP/M, and managed to be the only person in the history of our college to do 'A' levels in both Computer Studies and Drama. Trouble is you meet a lot more women doing Drama, so hence the reason why I did my degree in the humanities!
Now I have a nice shiny PC (AMD AthlonXP 2800, Leadtek Nforce2 400 Deluxe, 1GB P3200 RAM, GeForce ti4400), but the days of writing games at home have long since past. Though I do remember fondly my pong game I wrote called Crap Tennis on my dear old Commdore Amiga.. Ahhh, those where the days... :-)
So what's all this Diplo stuff then, eh?
Ahhh. Glad you asked! Well, it's a long story... Let's just say it involves alcohol, music and, erm, plastic dinosaurs...
Whilst at University I played a few impromptu gigs with a couple of girls I knew. I wrote some silly songs and played guitar, and they provided backing vocals and provided the audience with something more aesthetically pleasing than myself. With me, through the good gigs and the bad, where my two model Diplodocuses, acting as mascots and keeping me safe from any stray bottles. Hence, the girls christened me Danny Diplo. Obvious really! I just stuck with the name as it was suitably silly :)
Even to this day, I use the name Danny Diplo when I'm playing online games on the net, such as Unreal Tournament with my clan [Spirit]. I also often go by the name Diplo when making my music and posting on various dodgy internet forums.
And now...
I'm currently living with my lovely girlfriend, Susan. Those of a nosey disposition can check her out in the Gallery section of this site :)
Music is still a great passion for me, but now I mostly make solo stuff using various equipment as well as sequencers like Cubase and Reason. You can check out my latest creations in the music section of this site. If nothing else it will give you the chance to download some MP3's legally for once ;-)
I am also a member of Amnesty International who are an organisation that help protect human rights across the world. In particular Amnesty campaigns to free all prisoners of conscience; ensure fair and prompt trials for political prisoners; abolish the death penalty, torture and other cruel treatment of prisoners; end political killings and "disappearances"; and oppose human rights abuses by opposition groups. If you agree with this (and who cannot?) then visit their website and see how you can help.
