Nicky Holloway
DJ Profile Biography
Nicky Holloway began playing records in the disco pub scene around the Old Kent Road in 1980. He first started to organise club nights, such as Special Branch in London Bridge in 1984 alongside Pete Tong and Gilles Peterson.
Nicky, with Paul Oakenfold, Johnny Walker and Danny Rampling, was one of the “Ibiza four” – four DJs who travelled to the white isle for a holiday in the summer of 1987, there they visited a club called Amnesia and an Argentine DJ called Alfredo Fiorito, this inspired them to promote Balearic Beats back in the UK, which was to change the face of clubs in the UK forever.
In 1988 Nicky opened The Trip clubnight at the London Astoria, which soon after changed its name to Sin, and was one of the first legal Acid House clubs. In 1990, he opened the Milk Bar in Sutton Row, London. It hosted Paul Oakenfold on Friday nights and Pete Tong and Dave Dorrell on Saturday nights, Darren Emerson on Mondays, Danny Rampling’s Pure Sexy and Glam on Wednesday, Brandon Block and Lisa Loud playing FUBAR on the Sunday night. Dave Morales, Tony Humphries, the Brand New Heavies and Jamiroquai got signed after doing spots at the club.
During the summer of 1992 he opened venues in Ibiza under the Milk Bar banner which ran for a couple of seasons.
Nicky continued to produce music and is widely known as one of the first DJs in the UK to go digital, many of his Peers mocked him for this, however they soon realised the benefits outweighed the downside and within a few years where doing the same. Maverick producer Arthur Baker walked into his own club one night, The Elbow Room in Islington, and was blown away by what Nicky was doing, using a piece of software called PCDJ, at that time laptop hard drives where too small so he had to carry around a full desktop PC.
In 1999 Nicky helped create a DJ based website called Trust The DJ with his close friend Lynn Cosgrove which was so ahead of its time it ran out of funding before most people had broadband. Lynn Cosgrove still manages DJ Carl Cox probably the biggest DJ in the world.
Nicky is now currently living in Barnet north London and organising parties called Now & Then where the format is new and old music, and still plays regularly for such events as Promised Land & Summer Soulstice and was recently included in a list of 50 DJs over 50 still cutting it!