Born in July 1961 at Hammersmith in London, Trevor’s music career more or less started from admirably humble beginnings, playing soul and rare groove cuts at a Covent Garden wine bar in the late seventies with mate Paul Oakenfold.
During the early 80’s Trevor began ‘hanging out’ on the Spanish Mediterranean Island of Ibiza. But it wasn’t until a visit in 1987 that he and Oakenfold began DJ’ing in a club on the Island, gradually making it a cosmopolitan hot spot for their Balearic style of mixing pop and indie-rock with house.
Other DJ’s such as Danny Rampling, Nicky Holloway and Johnny Walker later came to check it out and brought the emerging style back to the London and Manchester clubs, which were into hip hop and not much else. Rampling and Holloway soon set up their own house nights and Oakenfold followed also, pushing house to the forefront of British club life in the late 80’s while Trevor Fung took charge of the Ibiza crowd and journeyed to London for the huge one-off events. He continued to DJ well into the 90’s, at locations all over the world.
Trevor began DJing in 1977 quickly gaining a reputation alongside the fondly remembered Steve Walsh including radio shows and live support. This led to him joining the Funk Mafia with Chris Hill, Greg Edwards and Bob Jones etc. playing the Soul Weekender & All-Dayer circuit but by 1981 his taste had exhausted the purist confinements of the “Soul Boy” movement and he branched out at Rumours London playing a broader selection of music.
In 1982, Trevor was invited to play at Amnesia (Ibiza) with respected resident DJ and friend Alfredo and later that year teamed up with long time friend Paul Oakenfold to set up The Funhouse. They then formed the infamous Project club in Streatham where they gave opportunities to up and coming deejays including Carl Cox, Kevin Beadle and Danny Rampling. The Project has been credited by The Media as one of London’s first clubs to play House Music. In 1987 Trevor returned to Ibiza with the Project Club concept playing a mix of Hip Hop, Indie, Acid and House, which became known in the media as
Balearic Beat. His influence and what followed during this particular period is immeasurable. Fellow DJ’s and friends Paul Oakenfold, Nicky Holloway, Johnny Walker, Lisa Loud, Nancy Noise and Danny Rampling were all visitors to Trevor’s events in Ibiza in 1987 inspiring them to launch seminal club nights in the UK including Future, Shoom, Spectrum, The Land Of Oz, and Trip thus changing the face of The UK Club Scene. Trevor played at all of these nights and went on to headline at the M25 Orbital “Rave” events Sunrise, Energy, World Dance and Biology. In the early 90’s Trevor set up London recording studio State 51 working with Ashley Beadle, Rocky and Diesel (Xpress 2), David Holmes, James Lavelle and others and under the name of Playtime Toones released the much loved Balearic classic “The Shaker Song” on Lingo records.
Trevor Fung is now one half of the ever successful club night, Higher Ground. He runs Higher Ground with Alan Arscott (DJ AKA) and are residents at South London’s premier underground venue, PLAN B.
