Sola was kind enough to have invited me to be featured in the "fan
focus" section of his website in mid 2006. It has taken me almost
two years later to actually get around to sitting down and writing
this! Sorry for the long delay - I'm not even sure it will be worth
it!
David Rowe
Quick introduction - my name is
David Rowe, I am 34 years old and live in London, England. I
first heard Jamiroquai when I was at university in late
1991/early 1992. I was a big fan of dance (rave!) music back
then and although studying quite a way from London, I had a good
aerial on my radio and was able to pick up London radio station
Kiss 100FM. They were at the cutting edge of dance/funk/soul
music and through listening to Kiss I first heard Jamiroquai. I
wasn't a fan at first - I just thought they sounded pretty good.
In April 1993 Sharon, my
girlfriend at the time (and now my wife), and I travelled to the
BBC Radio 1 Sound City live music event in Sheffield (England).
We went primarily to see one of our favourite bands - M People -
but got there early so that we could see one of the other acts -
Jamiroquai.
The stage was
full of musicians, the room was filling up with people and the
band put on an electrifying show. We were hooked.
The following day whilst shopping I found the Acid Jazz release of When
You Gonna Learn? - Jamiroquai's first single release before they signed
to the Sony record label.
From here on in we followed the band
closely, buying their debut album on the day of release and waiting till
we were able to see them again in concert - which was later that year at
the Brixton Academy in London.
Moving on a few years.... After
graduating with a degree in Computing in 1995 and moving to work in West
London I wanted to learn a little more about internet/web technologies
(which was in the days long before Google took over the world) so set
about creating a website for myself. One of these pages I dedicated to
Jamiroquai - and it contained a list of their UK record releases and any
news about them that I heard on the radio. Before long people from all
around the world had found the page on the web and were emailing me
information to add to it - things such as foreign releases and
information about past and present tour dates. From here the site just
got bigger and bigger. The websites first URL was at
www.netlink.co.uk/users/funkin/jamiroquai/ - catchy eh?
In November 1998 when we
returned from our honeymoon I had an email waiting for me sent
by someone at Sony Music (er, Hi Neil!) who was working on a new
website for the band. Sony wanted to get some fan involvement
and my name was at the top of their list. Over the next couple
of years I helped maintain the official website at
jamiroquai.co.uk with news stories, concert photos (I was a
terrible photographer) and updating the discography on the site.
All of this work I did in my spare time. The first time I met
any of the band members in person was in June 1999 when the band
were part of a number of acts in London performing live for a
television show being broadcast in Japan. Going to the Sony Soho
Square offices in Central London was really cool and I'd often
leave their offices with a promo tape/CD/video in my hands.
After a few years my involvement
with the official site came to a natural end as the band became
responsible for the site and they chose to look after it all by
themselves than via the record company - whom my involvement was
with.
My unofficial Jamiroquai fan-site
continued to grow and I registered funkin.net, and a few years
later I was lucky enough to obtain
funkin.com - where
the site still lives to this day.
About six months before the release of
Dynamite I was contacted directly by the bands management asking if I
wanted to get involved once again. I booked a day off of work and went
to Jay's house for a meeting - and was treated to an early listen in the
recording studio of the track Dynamite. What an experience. The band
were well and truly back with a superb album and I could not wait to
hear more of it. We worked on getting ideas for a new site and I started
getting involved with news stories and email newsletters for the site.
Still working hard in London with my
regular day job, I bought a decent digital camera and was able to go to
television recordings and gigs to take photos - something I had dreamt
of doing when we first saw the band. Sharon and I used to be on the
front row of a gig and say, "Wouldn't it be amazing to be in the photo
pit" - now I am! I have built a great relationship with the band members
over the years and when taking photos at gigs I will always try and get
photos of as many of the band members as possible. One of my goals for
helping with
Jamiroquai.com is to inform people about the entire band, and not
just the man at the front with the microphone. This involvement
with the official site continues to this day.
Back to the world
of funkin.com
- over the 11+ years that it has been online (some fans event
arranged a fantastic surprise 10 year party after the London
Lovebox Festival gig in 2006) my main priority with the site is
the news section and keeping the fans informed with the latest
information. Almost all of the news comes from fans who
want to share information with other fans, and it is great to be
a part of this process.
Before I finish with what I do outside of Jamiroquai (and my
regular day job), for those interested I have seen the band
almost 45 times, which includes TV/radio recordings. I also own
around 250 CD's, tapes and vinyl recordings (all official/promo
releases). I'm much less into collecting the music as I was a
few years ago and now mainly just got for the official
UK/US/Japanese releases.
So what about my spare time when I'm not
doing Jamiroquai work... Well, I'm very much into sport. I grew up by
the sea and spent most of the time between the ages of 11-19 sailing and
windsurfing. I competed in windsurfing competitions at a national level
and at one point considered becoming a professional windsurfer.
Thankfully I made the right decision (i.e., to go to university)
although I do wonder what it would be like to live by the beach in
Hawaii! Over the past few years (now that I no longer live near the sea)
I've become keen on running, and those who know me well will know that
it's kind of turned into an addiction over the couple of years or so.
I'm a member of a local running club and compete regularly at distances
from 5km through to half marathon (21km). I've also recently started
taking part in triathlon (swim, cycle, run) events which I really enjoy.
As you can imagine with work, Jamiroquai
and running/triathlon I have very little time to just chill out and
relax. At least I know for sure that when I'm old I won't be able to
look back and say I wasted my younger years...
