Anthony Winyard - Biography

Brief History of Anthony- From the age of 9 Anthony was always buying records and by his early teens had amassed quite a record collection covering many genres. This led him to begin DJ'ing at a very early age and by his late teens was regularly doing a wide variety of events all around London.

He got his break into the west-end nightclubs in his late teens and began playing in a number of venues. Soon after that he was offered a contract by a Spanish nightclub owner who owned three clubs in the Andalucia region in the South-West of Spain. Anthony worked in all three of these clubs and on his return to the UK was offered a contract to work in some clubs in Finland, which took him around various cities in Finland. It was then that he was offered work from the then prestigious Juliana's/Bacchus entertainment group who at the time had DJ contracts all over the world.

The first destination with this group was the Juliana's club in the Amsterdam Hilton, from there he went onto contracts in clubs such as the Sheraton in Damascus-Syria, the Hilton in Basel-Switzerland, a renowned jazz club in the Schweizerhoff hotel in Berne-Switzerland and a funky club called the Seahouse in Bodø -Norway.

Anthony briefly left the Juliana's group and undertook some private contracts around Norway; this also led to his first radio work and began a weekly show playing Soul & Reggae over the Norwegian airwaves. He returned to Juliana's and transferred to their far-east operation and was quickly rushed off to a plush club in the Portopia hotel in Kobe-Japan. That was followed by contracts in The Paradise Beach hotel in Pusan-South Korea and the Cosmos club in the Regal Riverside hotel in Sha-Tin, Hong Kong.

The next port of call was Jakarta in Indonesia to work in the prestigious Music Room club in the Borobudur Inter-Continental hotel. During this contract Anthony was hired for a private party at the club by the world's richest man; the Sultan of Brunei. In his time in Indonesia, Anthony worked for two of the city's top radio stations and presented one show throughout the whole seven year stay and interviewed many major world stars of music and film such as Steven Seagal, Cindy Crawford, Bon Jovi, George Benson, Take That, Roberta Flack, Boyzone and many others. He also worked in many of Jakarta's top clubs during this time. Together with a partner, Anthony took over a dead club/bar heavily in debt and completely turned it around to become one of the busiest venues in the city and bringing in huge profits.

Jakarta has a large expatriate community with frequent high-society events. Anthony put together Jakarta's first travelling discotheque and regularly entertained the elite from private functions in mansions and pool-side parties to huge gala balls in hotel ballrooms.

1998 saw his return to the UK and Anthony quickly reformed the travelling discotheque under the name he had used prior to departing the UK, "Streetlife Sounds". Within a year he was regularly DJ'ing for some of the top DJ/Entertainment companies such as Joffins, Sounds Good To Me, JSO, Finishing Touch and many others as he began to re-establish his reputation in the UK. During this period Anthony also created a company named "Groovers Korner" and put on a number of regular specialised Soul events around London which led to him becoming one of the DJs performing at the legendary Caister Soul Weekenders. The Funky Penguin was born when Anthony kept receiving far more enquiries than he could possibly handle, and from there the Funky Penguin has expeanded its remit to become the Entertainment Agency it is today.

All of the acts and services used by The Funky Penguin have either worked with Anthony at an event, or he has vetted to confirm that they adhere to high standards of reliability & professionalism. Everyone of the DJs has a huge wealth of experience in corporate events and weddings, all of them have performed a minimum of 1,000 events, and all have a very well rounded music knowledge and music collection. The live acts also are all superb performers that will get your crowd dancing all night, while the services provided only use top quality equipment.