Tony De Vit
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Tony De Vit was born in Kidderminster, near Birmingham, England, on Sept 12 1957 and died in 1998.
Devit started as a wedding DJ in 1976, before becoming resident DJ at Birmingham's premier gay venue, Nightingale, where he played pop and Hi-NRG. Tony De Vit's life changed forever after visiting the infamous Trade at Turnmills in London. Never before had the Midland DJ witnessed such overpowering, supercharged hedonism. "It changed my idea of clubbing. It was the sheer energy," Tony later said.
Tony left Nightingale for Birmingham super club Chuff Chuff where he pursued his love for Hard House, initially being paid £35 per gig within weeks he was headlining above House Guru DJ Sasha.
In 1993 Tony De Vit received his longed-for residency at Trade. Technically untouchable and forward thinking, De Vit's DJ sets became stuff of legend.
By the mid-90s, Tony was so in demand that he could have confined his diary to superclubs but instead insisted on playing tiny venues in Inverness and Cheltenham. In straight clubs he tended to play for 90 minutes, at Trade on Whitsun Bank Holiday in 1995, Tony rocked for an amazing 12 hours.
On July 2nd 1998 Tony passed away due to bronchial pneumonia and bone-marrow failure.
After Tony's death a messy wrangle kept his records off the shelves for many years, but, finally a compilation of his best tunes and remixes was released called Are You All Ready? on Tidy Trax records.
Tony's legacy lives on in DJ stars such as Eddie Halliwell and frantics Guffy to Tony's hand picked protege Fergie and Trade resident Smokin' Jo.
To date, Tony's tunes - mostly produced with Simon Parkes- are still massive in clubs like Tidy, Frantic and Sundissential and his contribution to Hard House music is unrivalled by any single DJ or producer.