A long, rambling, beer-fuelled conversation covering Bristol in the 80s/90s, predominately the record shops and music scene, a small segment of which was used for a later episode of Leon Alexander & Son on SWU FM. We cover Ashton Court Festival, every record shop we can remember, notable Bristol DJS, Star Wars and much more.

Unintentional conversations with Martin Shields

Theres not many djs with a history of creating a party as well as playing at them as Stuart Wilkinson.
After spending most weekends raving at Lakota, Karanga, Cafe Blue and driving all over the south west in the late 90’s, he soon moved from Weston super Mare to Bristol and started his own club night Empathy at Bar Latino in 2001, weekly Thursdays for over 4 years, then moving to various venues across the city such as Timbuk2, Blue Mountain, Motion and Native.
The night continued into its second decade at Dojo and celebrated its 15th Birthday at the 02 Academy with John Digweed and Nick Warren in 2016. 
Not many promoters have brought as many dis to Bristol, with the likes of Darren Emerson, Henry Saiz, James Zabiela, Lee Burridge, James Holden, Dave Seaman, Adam Freeland, Locodice, Timo Maas and many more. It was the 21st Birthday that really took the roof off in 2022 with Laurent Garnier taking centre stage.
Stuart is also responsible for the rise and creation of Mr Whompy, for a decade the Ice Cream Van Soundsystem has been a firm favourite at Boomtown, Elrow, NIbley, Stoke Croft Block Party, Lemonfest and many more. 
Over the years Stu has also started various other club nights such as Unity at Lakota, Loop at Blue Mountain, Hope at Arc, Digital at Dojo, Dirty Blue and Arc, Empathize at Big Chill and Double Disco at various venues.
Stuart has also been lucky enough to play Glastonbury many times and overseas in Empathy in Auckland, Prague and Ibiza and dis gigs in Portugal and Poland plus Creamfields in Prague. 
Stuart delivers a monthly radio show, listen online on the soundcloud page https://soundcloud.com/stuart-wilkinson

Artist Manager, Label Boss, Radio DJ, unintentional conversationalist documenting the infinite jigsaw of music culture one piece at a time.