I’m Steve Podmore, better known as Podders.
I’ve been DJing since the late 90s and trance has been the constant thread running through all of it. I’ve watched the music change, disappear from the mainstream, reinvent itself and eventually find its way back into smaller rooms full of people who genuinely care about it.
Those are the rooms I enjoy playing most.
Vinyl has always been a huge part of who I am as a DJ. I still love digging through records, finding tracks people have forgotten about and putting together sets that aren’t just the same obvious classics everyone has heard a hundred times. But I’m equally happy playing digitally when the event calls for it. For me the format has never been the important bit. The music is.
My sets can move through progressive and deeper trance into uplifting, driving and harder sounds, depending on where I’m playing and what job I’m there to do. I’ve never been particularly interested in smashing through a pile of big tunes for the sake of it. I’d rather build something properly and let it develop.
These days I’m closely involved with the grassroots UK trance scene.
I’m a regular at Digbeth Rewind in Birmingham, co-founder of Eclipse in Crewe and part of the Trance Addicts family, alongside playing events and guest slots around the country.
Away from clubs, I’ve also been streaming as Podders for a number of years. PodsKitchen started as little more than me playing records from home and somehow turned into its own small community, with friends and DJs regularly dropping in for guest sets and back-to-backs.
That community side of trance is probably the bit that matters most to me now.
I still get just as much enjoyment from standing on a dancefloor supporting somebody else as I do from being behind the decks myself. I’m involved in events because I genuinely love the music and the people around it, not because I’m chasing a particular slot on a flyer.
Nearly three decades after I first started buying records, I’m still discovering tunes, still digging through crates and still getting excited about playing them to people.
