Bosh began its illustrious life back in 1993 when Ian Carney (AKA Toka) and partner Jasper threw a party in the backroom of a Coventry pub, The Hope and Anchor. With a solid foundation of residents Toka, Saul Adams, Feathers and Andy Wilson, they took their pop-up parties around the West Midlands playing in a variety of clubs, fields and forests. It was during those halcyon days that they began th
eir legendary monthly residency at Coventry's West Indian Centre. The Bosh parties brought together DJ's, artists and performers in a hedonistic, heavily decorated environment. The residency ran for many years and hosted such DJ's as Terry Francis, Nathan Coles, Pure Science, Evil Eddie Richards, Chris Simmonds and DIY ; the cream of the burgeoning UK tech house scene. In 1998, Toka launched Bosh Records with its first vinyl release, 'Tomkat' by Toka, produced at the studio of Mark 'Blakkat' Bell, owner of sister label Shaboom. Mark was very instrumental in the formation of the label, helping Toka with his early productions as well as bringing his own 'Artilect' project to the table. 'Tomkat' was followed by possibly the strongest release, 'Tropika', which with its Fred Everything remix launched the label into the crates of such DJ's as Derrick Carter, Laurent Garnier, Eric morillo and Andrew Weatherall. Over the next 7 years, Bosh released a total of 35 vinyl releases featuring such artists as Chris Simmonds, Jason Hodges, David Duriez, Grant Dell, Harri and The Revenge, Corrie, Floorfillerz, Spettro and Pete Dafeet. The label came to an untimely demise in 2005 as vinyl sales crashed taking a number of distributors as casualties. However, the success of the label propelled Tokas DJ activity, enabling a prolific career with appearances at Release (Los Angeles) , Spundae and EndUp (San Francisco), Propaganda (Moscow) and with DJ Sneak for the first Sneak Beats at The End, London. After a lengthy break, Bosh re-emerged as a digital label, firstly re-releasing selections from the back catalogue before moving onto new material. The classic Elephunk 'Azure' was given a new lease of life with new mixes from Poncho Warwick and Toka. Bosh continues its principal of supporting and developing newer artists, for example local artists Lee Walls and Ryan Heath, Yana Paisley, Housewares, Wayne Martin,Ben A and Jan Van Lier.
