timlawrence.info

Here's a summary of my life. I was born in Ealing, West London, in 1967, and grew up in Winnersh, five miles outside of Reading, where my Dad, who escaped Nazi Germany on one of the last kindertransport, got his first job as an English teacher. I studied in Manchester between 1986 and 1990, and then returned to London, where I worked as a journalist for four years. In between my Dad and Mum died, and during 1993, while I was working at BBC Newsnight, I realised I needed a change of scene and direction. I ended up travelling to New York to take a doctorate in English Literature and I completed my studies at Sussex University in 1999. Since then I have lived and worked in London.

Here's how I divide my time. I hang out with my oldest daughter, six-year-old Carlotta (known as "Carlotta the Rotter"), my three-year-old daughter, Ilaria (sometimes called "Silly Illy"), my wife, Enrica (who I met at Columbia Uni in New York), and my friends (who occasionally come out to dance, but who prefer to meet up for dinner). I write books, articles and sleeve notes, and through a strange turn of events my writing led me to help put on parties with David Mancuso in London (the first one was held in June 2003). For my day job, I lead the Music Culture: Theory and Production degree at the University of East London, which is based in Docklands.

I have lived near Old Street, in east London, for the last nine years, and although friends tell me "You must live in Crouch End", or "You must come to Richmond", it's hard to think of anywhere I'd rather live. I'm lucky to be able to walk out of my front door and wonder where I want to head; the Old Street roundabout might be ugly, but it lies at the intersection of the contrasting areas of Hoxton, Shoreditch, Brick Lane, Whitechapel, the Barbican and the City, while the British Library is a short bike ride away. Given that I attempt to bring together divergent disciplines and crowds in my writing, teaching and party activities, I might as well live in a neighbourhood where that kind of outlook seems to make sense. Living in Old Street, I feel faintly normal.

I like

Audika: www.audikarecords.com
Beauty and the Beat: www.houseparty.org.uk
Centre for Cultural Studies Research: www.uel.ac.uk/ccsr/index.htm
City Massage: www.citymassage.net
Condor Cyles: www.condorcycles.com
Cosmo: www.cosmicmusic.co.uk
Deep Frequency: www.deepfrequency.com
Deep House Page: www.deephousepage.com
Deep Space: www.deepspacenyc.com
Duke University Press: www.dukeupress.edu
Electrofunk Roots: www.electrofunkroots.co.uk
European Social Forum: www.fse-esf.org/en
14 Bike Co.: www.14bikeco.wordpress.com
HomoBeat: www.cassero.it/homobeat
Hyperdub: www.hyperdub.net
Islington Yoga: www.islingtonyoga.com
Jahsonic: www.jahsonic.com
Journey Through the Light: www.loftparty.org
Klipsch: www.klipsch.com
Loft: www.theloftparty.com
Lucky Cloud Sound System: www.loftparty.org
Mosquito bikes: www.mosquito-bikes.co.uk
Prior Weston: www.lgfl.net/lgfl/leas/islington/schools/prior-weston
Rega: www.rega.co.uk
Simon Reynolds: www.blissout.blogspot.com
Soul Jazz Records: www.souljazzrecords.co.uk
Tayyabs: www.tayyabs.co.uk
Time Reclaimed: www.timereclaimed.com
Walrus: www.walrus.co.uk
Woebot: www.woebot.com

Education

BA	University of Manchester, Politics & Modern History, 1986-89
MA	University of Manchester, European Politics, 1989-90
PG Dip	City University, Newspaper Journalism, 1990-91
MA	Columbia University, English and Comparative Literature, 1994-96
PHD	Sussex University, English Literature, 1996-99