Stefke van Namen

By the end of the eighties, New Beat was born as a real new musical style here in Belgium and in the rest of Europe. At this time, I felt a real passion for these underground parties with few lights, huge sound systems (SARTEC woofers were on top those days) which would always take place in parking lots or old empty factories...  

I met in the summer of 1992 David Dantinne (r.i.p mate) who had begun to animate some parties in the Namur suburbs and he showed me the way. One year later, with the help of Dimitri Brandt, Dominique Henrion (both were schoolmates) and Axel Van Weynendaele, we built "Carpe Noctem" and for 2 years we made our first steps in djing.... Due to life events, we split up.  

I was the only one who continued and after a short break, I have been contacted in 1996 by Thomas Pierson from at the time best "mobile" in our region, the legendary "Zéro de Conduite". We were a group of 5 (Javier Gonzalez, Nicolas & Thomas Pierson, Nicolas Hughes Dessambre) and I can say that it's to the contact of these party boys that I really progressed, technically as well as humanly.  

Since 2001, more and more friends from the north part of Belgium (for the ones who don't know, there are 3 communities in Belgium who respectively speak Dutch, French and German) called me "Stefke van Namen" (In Dutch, it means: Stefke from Namur), and after a short reflection I thought why not ? There is already a "Jack de Marseille" and "Dimitri from Paris" ;-)

Influences, mainly : The Specials, The Cure, Pixies, Front 242, Radio 4, Placebo, Blur, My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Depeche Mode, Joshua, The Vaccines, Champion, Parade Ground, The Cranes, Garbage, Muse, Iggy Pop, Franz Ferdinand, The Human League, Martha & the Muffins, Madness, dEUS, The Clash, Balkan Beat Box, Arid, Sex Pistols, Kaiser Chiefs, Bran van 3000, Etienne Daho, Organic, The Smiths, UB40, Arctic Monkeys, Lily Allen, The Jam, Kasabian, The Streets, Happy Mondays, ...