22-year-old Samuel Holloway was born in Pukekohe and has lived in Auckland for the last five years. He is one of five local gay DJs playing at the upcoming "Sound of Queer Nation" dance party at Centro in Auckland on October 25, and this week he kindly subjected himself to the GayNZ.com Quickprobe™ ... You have a number of strings to your bow. Tell us about them. I'm still studying at the moment - I completed my Bachelor of Music last year at Auckland University, and all going well I'll graduate with Honours this year. In the past I've written for a number of music publications, and I'm hoping to get back into that next year. For the past two years, I've been one of the Auckland co-ordinators for the Out Takes film festival, and I play records as well - not very much at the moment but I'm working on that. Also, I host "Round The Bend" on Auckland's 95bfm on Mondays at 1am. It's become a largely music-oriented show now, and we touch on gay news where appropriate. I don't think people can take too much at that time of the morning. Let's call it the "sound of the gay underground" (laughs). What's with gay men and dance music? I think more often it's what's with gay men and bad dance music, which is unfortunate. Really, I think you're talking about a certain group of gay men, which is the people entrenched in the scene for whom it's a social thing that's not really about the music at all. Many DJs get away with playing rubbish because people are quite oblivious to what's going on. In saying this, there are many gay people - DJs and party-goers - doing very positive things in this country. What's with that stereotype about gay men and dance music? If you are gay you must like it? It is an inaccurate stereotype. There once was a time, and people go on about it endlessly, when gay men were the innovators when it came to music, which especially in terms of the early days of house music was true. Now, you talk to most DJs, gay or straight, and they'll admit gay men aren't at the forefront of that anymore. In fact, they're years and years behind, quite possibly. Can we put on our blue rinses and blame the drug culture? I don't think you can do that specifically in the gay scene, but I think the drug culture has done lots of negative things for dance music in general. It's led to a dumbing down of things, with the drugs coming before the music, which in some ways has opened up the dance scene to a whole wider audience, but it's also meant that things have had to be taken down to a base level. What's the best record ever made? That's a very difficult question. I don't think it would be wise to give a single title...Frankie Knuckles Chris Banks - 13th October 2003