ROB DA BANK – A PROFILE
April 28th, 2005 by rui
Born in the mid 1970’s when love was free, the sun always shone and mums and dads looked like they’d just strolled out of Woodstock, Rob da Bank was always destined to escape the grim confines of Southampton and get lost in music somewhere.
By Feb 1995, Rob da Bank had founded Sunday Best in the warm glow of South London’s Tearooms Des Artistes based on a love of chill out, electronica and an anything goes policy (aside from gabba and flouro trance). At the same time Rob started perfecting the art of making hot beverages as teaboy at Muzik Magazine spending the next six years climbing up the journalistic rungs to become Assistant Editor before the lure of editing dance website worldpop/dance pulled him away.
Sunday Best Recordings was born in 1997 unveiling then unknown acts Groove Armada, Bent and Lemon Jelly to the world. By 2002 Sunday Best and DJing around the world was becoming too big a headache for Rob to juggle with a full time job resulting in him knocking journalism on the head and taking over the reins full time of his home grown empire. Having become the first weekly chill out club in Ibiza the previous year, with guests Groove Armada, Goldfrapp and Norman Cook attracting record crowds, 2002 saw him take Sunday Best on the road in the UK, taking in Glastonbury, Creamfields and the Essential Festival before kick-starting a new monthly residency at the Lock Tavern in Camden.
In April 2002, Rob was asked to do a pilot for Radio One and along with Chris Coco became Radio One’s newest DJ presenting The Blue Room chill out show on Saturday mornings, something that he still can’t believe is happening as his previous jobs included hoovering graveyards and being set fire to while working as a dinner lady.
2004 was the year that Sunday Best Recordings kicked into gear as a force to be reckoned with! Most notably it saw the release of Grand National’s stunning critically acclaimed ‘Kicking The National Habit’ debut album, Max Sedgley’s killer underground anthem ‘Happy’ and Rob da Bank’s debut artist album, alongside Dan Carey, as Lazyboy. ‘Penguin Rock’ featured collaborations with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Roddy Frame, Estelle, Earl 16 and Cathy Battistessa and has been described by the pair as a ‘beautiful mess’, as it takes in r&b, pop, funk, soul, house and chillout vibes. And of course, Boomclick’s ‘Halfway Between Tomorrow and Yesterday’, one of the Top 20 albums of 2004 (as voted for by Big Chillers).
2004 was then topped off with Rob filling in for the sadly departed John Peel, 3 nights a week on Radio 1. What a year!
Rob returns to The Big Chill following 2 storming sets at The Big Chill 2005.
