Tony de Vit
| "Of
all my nights of clubbing, the most memorable was the night
... spent dancing to music spun by Tony De Vit at Trade in London,
missing my plane back to Paris and not even caring" (Jennifer
Warner) |
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Tony de
Vit the man, died on July 2nd. 1998, but Tony de Vit the legend lives
on.
There are tribute sites, where people are leaving their comments about
this DJ and music producer even today, now, nearly five years after
his death.
I never met Tony de Vit yet, through others, I have been continually
affected by the echoes of his death. There has been a lot written
about Tony de Vit by people in a far better position to say what he
and his music meant to them than me. However, if ever there was evidence
of why people respect DJs and what a DJ can do to and for them, then
it is to be found in the pages written about this man. Here's just
one example:
Extract from a message
posted by Jennifer Warner of MiningCo |
"Of
all my nights of clubbing, the most memorable was the night
(or rather Sunday morning) spent dancing to music spun by
Tony De Vit at Trade in London, missing my plane back to Paris
and not even caring. I had never heard music like that before:
a mix of pounding rhythms that warped my ideas of what house
music sounded like (this was before I had heard anyone say
"hard house") that had echos of techno and euro/hiNRG
and yet was distinctly different.
I got up on a speaker and got lost."
For the full message click here: Jennifer
Warner of MiningCo
|
Just
some of the sites that reflect the respect, influence and
emotion evoked by this DJ |
| For a sense of Tony de Vit's musical
output, here's Discogs.com's discography. |
|
| Tributes to and info about Tony de
Vit on a nice-looking clubbing-related website, including reprint
of interview, top ten tracks and much more. |
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| Just two of the numerous examples
of Tony de Vit's influence, then and now - though in 2006 that
page was gone. |
Influence
on DJs
(Lost link) |
| Another example of Tony de Vit's influence on
today's hard dance producers: BK - a page also lost by 2006 |
Influence
on BK
(Lost link)
|
| Simon Parkes collaborated
with Tony de Vit. From his site there are links to other tribute
sites. |
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| Global Underground produced two Tony de
Vit compilation double CDs, featuring the DJ playing live in
Tel Aviv and Tokyo. |
GLOBAL
UNDERGOUND
(Note: early in 2003 GU was reported
being "restructured". As a result old releases including
TdV: Tokyo were not being sold until certain legalities were
settled). |
| A list of messages regarding Tony de Vit
posted to a tribute site. |
|
Sundissential, one of Tony
de Vit's residencies, has a photographic memorial - well "had",
by 2006 the page had gone. |
Sundissential's Memorial
(Lost link)
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| Tony de Vit was HIV positive, and his death
was attributed to over-work, pneumonia and bone marrow failure.
Here's Positive Nation's view. |
|
| Another tribute site, from hard dance music
producer Mark Kavanagh, with a nice pic of the younger Tony
de Vit and a number of links to other tribute sites - but another
lost page, gone by 2006. |
Mark Kavanagh's Tribute Site
(Lost link) |
Clearly missing from this list is Trade's
memorial to Tony de Vit. Trade was the club
above all others with which his name was most associated and
I had thought that there was an extensive section on the Trade
website devoted to Tony de Vit, and indeed thought I had seen
it at least once. However, when searching for the link to
post here, I could not find it. Here is the link to the new
trade website. If you find a Trade tribute
either there or somewhere else, (perhaps on their old site
or cached somewhere), would you please let me know? Thanks,
Jonathan |
| My friend James Bentley visited Tony de
Vit's grave shortly before the fifth anniversary of his death,
and afterwards wrote the following on the 2Klub guestbook: |
Visited the grave of the late great Tony
de Vit at the weekend. He is buried in the cemetery in Kidderminster.
There is an office that is open 9-10am Mon-Fri though I was
lucky enough to find groundstaff working who were able to tell
me exactly where the grave is located.
The headstone reads:
ANTONY
deVIT
PASSED AWAY
2nd JULY 1998
AGED 40
A FLAME THAT BURNS TWICE AS
BRIGHT
BURNS HALF AS LONG. |
The top left hand corner of the headstone has a publicity shot
of Tony. At the foot of the headstone stands a blue wind chime
and there is candle in a silver lantern. There is a flower container
with artificial flowers in it and and a separate pot of artificial
flowers. It is very peaceful and serene, I spent several minutes
there.
If you are taking any flowers try and be more prepared than
I was and take something to put them in rather than disturb
the artificial arrays. I managed to find an empty loose jam
jar lying around to put my flowers in and I put them at the
back, behind a pot (hiding the jam jar from view). There is
a water tap nearby at the side of the main path.
I never met the man as I got into dance music sometime after
he had departed but his spirit still lives on and touches many.
He has left quite a legacy.
M'lord, next time you are up this way I'll take you and that
goes for Yasemina and any of the London crowd - thankyou for
telling me he was buried in Kidderminster in the first place.
TdV, here lies the man:
The cemetery is located in the center of Kidderminster town,
easy to find on multimap. Park Lane is the nearest main road
I think, though I parked on Talbot Road and walked along a path
with the park and tennis courts on the right and the cemetery
on the left (masked by a tall hedge). This path leads to the
main gates.
If you enter the cemetery through the main gates, where the
office is, (first four photos below) the path forks off to the
left; stay on the right and continue up to and take a right
turn, (fifth photo).
You should see in front a very flat stretch of ground with gravestones.
Within this long flat stretch of graves is where Tony is buried,
fifth row on the right hand side towards the back. Walk down
onto the main path at the right end of this long plateau of
graves. Walk past 4 double rows and then walk along the small
path of the next row. About 2 thirds down this row on the right
hand side is where Tony's grave is. You shouldn't miss it if
you look out for a headstone that has a photo embedded within
it on the top left hand corner - a shot of Tony at the decks.
| James took me to visit Tony's grave
in August 2003... We discovered that we could drive into
the cemetary, close to where he is buried. |
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| For a review of the TdV Memorial
at which Tidy Trax launched their 2003 compilation album of
TdV tracks and remixes "Are You All Ready" click here. |
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