My Story
From Istanbul's club basements to Sydney's main rooms — more than forty years of house music, told the way I lived it.
Where it started — Istanbul, early 1980s
I played my first proper club set in Istanbul in 1983, and by 1984 I was a resident. Those were the years of vinyl-only booths: two Technics SL-1210 MK2s, a bag of records heavier than the flight case, and no safety net. If you couldn't beat match by ear, you didn't play. That discipline is something I've carried through every booth I've stood in since — and it's why, four decades later, I still practice three-deck beat matching, scratching and beat juggling the old way.
The Istanbul scene in those years was a melting pot. On any given night you'd hear Italo disco bleeding into early Chicago house imports, Turkish pop edits for the floor, and whatever the record shops had smuggled in that week. Learning to read a room made of tourists, locals and homesick expats taught me the most valuable skill a DJ can have: flexibility without losing identity.
The residency years — Taxim Night Park and Club 29
Between 1992 and 1994 I held a residency at Taxim Night Park in Istanbul, one of the city's flagship nightclubs of the era. Two years of weekly slots does something to you that guest sets never can — you learn how a room breathes across seasons, how to build a night from doors-open to last-call, and how to recover from a broken needle at 2 AM.
From 1994 to 1995 I moved to the coast for a residency at Club 29 in Antalya, playing to a summer crowd that mixed Turkish party-goers with European holidaymakers. Antalya summers are marathon season: long nights, open-air terraces, and sets that stretched as the beach parties spilled into sunrise. It's where my love for longer, deeper sets — the 3-to-6-hour journeys I still prefer today — really took shape.
Sydney — a new home, a new scene
In the late 90s I made Sydney my home. The city welcomed me with open decks: a residency at Insenity (1997–1998) put me in the middle of Sydney's booming club era, and later Halikarnas (2009–2013) became my longest-running home. Between and beyond those residencies I've played the rooms that shaped this city's nightlife — Home, Roxy, Greenwood Hotel, Orb, World Bar and Metro — alongside return trips to Istanbul clubs like Etiler 29, Baca Bar and Le Chapeau, and Antalya's famous beach-club summers.
Sydney changed my sound. The city's house scene — deep, progressive, unafraid of a funky disco hook — pushed me to blend the discipline of my Istanbul training with the warmth of the Australian dancefloor. Deep house, progressive house, tech-house, funky and disco house, electro and straight techno: my crates (digital and vinyl) hold all of it, because the floor decides, not the genre label.
Radio — Power FM and Wild FM
Club work opened the door to radio. In Istanbul I ran the Power FM Club Charts show, translating weekend dancefloors into weekday radio; in Sydney I was on air at Wild FM. Radio taught me economy — how to say something musical in ninety seconds — and it connected me with listeners who'd never set foot in the clubs I played.
Today
These days I split my time between club sets, private events and studio work — still on the gear I trust: Technics SL-1210 MK2s, an Allen & Heath Xone:92, Pioneer CDJ-2000 NXS pair with EFX-1000 and RMX-1000, and a MacBook Pro running Traktor when the gig calls for it. The formats changed; the principle didn't. Read the room, respect the music, and never play a set you wouldn't dance to yourself.
If you'd like me behind the decks at your event, book me here — or drop me a line. I answer every message personally.