Happy Birthday to a bloke I went to school with…..

…….who went on to become one of the greatest cultural influences this country has ever seen. Rusty Egan was DJ at the Blitz Club and the music he played created the “New Romantic” scene and pretty much set the tone for an entire decade. He introduced clubbers to sounds – by which I don’t mean records, I mean actual sounds – they’d never heard before. Electronic beats from Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder or the Yellow Magic Orchestra, all mixed in with early Bowie and Roxy. Without him, there would have been no Spandau Ballet, Depeche Mode or Culture Club. In fact, there would have been no 1980s in the way we understand them. He’s still at it. Last time I saw him, he was as enthusiastic as ever about new music, new clubs and new ideas. We had breakfast at a little cafe in Ibiza. I’d been to bed: he hadn’t. This is the sort of stuff you’d hear at the Blitz. Still fresh thirty-odd years on. As, amazingly, is the man who played it.