I have been a DJ for over 30 years, and a producer since the early 90’s.
Music has always been a huge part, and influence on my life. It allowed me too escape from every-day life and go on a journey of discovery. It opened my eyes to the wide range of sounds and styles from alternative and industrial, to new-wave, to pop, house, techno, trance, electronic and more.
I grew up listening to bands of the “new-wave invasion” of the 80’s such as New Order, Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, The Human League, Kraftwork and many more. I also listened to alot of post-punk sounds from bands like Joy Division, The Cure and Bauhaus.
As I entered my early 20’s and started exploring the Toronto club scene as both a DJ and a party-goer I also started to love both Industrial / EBM and the eventual arrival of the early “Techno” music of the time. Industrial with its raw electronic sounds, and dance-floor friendly beats especially grew on me with bands like Nitzer Ebb, Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy and KMFDM had a “modern day revolt-against-the-norm” vibe that I loved, and from a technical/production standpoint, the music was cutting edge as well which really appealed to me.
As “techno” and eventually “electronic” music made its way into my life (and forever changing it!) I really loved the “rave” culture we had here in the 90’s in Toronto. Techno and all its “sub-genres” was an amazing musical movement that eventually even broke main-stream to an extent.
And then the “electronic revolution” came in the early to mid-90’s with bands like The Prodigy, Daft Punk, Underworld, The Crystal Method and other pioneers paving the way for what we now have (EDM) as a main-stream dance music format. This time period with electronic music was a massive influence on my life, as a fan, a party-goer, a DJ and a producer.
It was during this time I started spinning at more clubs and bars in the Toronto area, and I also started producing my own original music, as well as doing a lot of remix work. For many years, Toronto’s infamous “DJ Iain” took me under his wings and I worked with him in his “Sound and Vision” studios in Toronto to do many remixes for international and Canadian bands/artists. Over the 90’s I did remixes and production work for bands/artists including Prodigy, New Order, Madonna, Garbage, Orgy, Sulk, The Watchmen, The Boomtang Boys as well as production work for several radio shows, including “The Smirnoff Radio Experience”, “DJ Iain’s Big Beat Off” and my own “Revolution Radio”.
It’s during this time in the 90’s that “303 Dreams” was born. In love with the techno and electronic music of the time, I wanted to produce my own, and my first song released was simply called “303 Dreams” (which eventually became my producer name). It was a simple but dance-floor friendly Acid-techno and big-beat influenced track with chunky Chemical Brothers influenced drum loops and Hardfloor inspired tb-303 acid lines.
DJ Iain was kind enough to give it a spin at his legendary Sunday night residency at Lime Light in Toronto (along with some of my “white label” remixes I had produced and i got very positive feedback from him as well as the crowd at the club (which I was a regular at)
It was after this, that Iain asked if I would like to work with him on some projects in his studio, and that’s where things took off for me.
During the late 90’s and early 2000’s I produced 2 albums and several single releases (all released by myself, independently). I had one song in particular that had a lot of attention called “Dance In The Light”, which was signed to a label in the UK for release, and was also licensed to several compilations in the USA, UK and Australia.
As the 2000’s became the 2010’s things started to quiet down for me. I had decided after almost 20 years in clubs and bars, it was time to step down, and also my production took a hiatus for several years as I worked on growing a career in IT.
But the “DJ blood” in my veins still flowed strong, and I eventually decided to launch my own small mobile DJ business around 2012 to do various weddings and other events in the Toronto area. While my business (Bill Cooke Entertainment) has never grown to be a full time endeavor, I non-the-less really enjoy it and continue to this day with it.
Today I am still DJ’ing mobile events, and also spin several times a week online at https://twitch.tv/303dreams_official . I am now also back into my production/remixing again after a hiatus for over 10 years. I am currently writing my 3rd album, and have started doing some remix gigs as well.