Miki-Ciak started his career as music programmer for a club called Ciak in Bologna; a converted castle holding some 1500 people inside, with room for another 4000 outside. He had relatives in New York who were involved in the music industry, and Miki himself was a reporter for an Italian music magazine, so he was regularly sent parcels of records. He got himself enrolled in the New York Record Pool and soon he had a wonderful collection of interesting disco, funk, soul, afro and Philly records on original US labels. He regularly received promos, months, even years, before they got to Italy. Ciak was one of the first clubs in Italy to be equipped with two turntables and a proper mixer (and a great sound system), so when he started DJing there in 1974, initially filling in for a week for a sick friend, Miki quickly became a DJ of advanced techniques. He was the first Italian DJ to use a set of headphones to locate the best spot to cut the record in, and the first to take control of the turntable to keep the records perfectly in tempo. He also got into playing around with EQ, not only to boost the bass for premium thump, but to compensate for the loss of highs that occurred when a record was slowed down during mixing. All this was self-taught as there was no one else doing anything like it in Italy at the time. The music he was being sent from New York suited his DJing style perfectly, so it's probably safe to say that Miki was the first Italian DJ to be playing disco style music in Italy. His turntable skills, plus his record collection made him a massive influence on many Italian DJs who followed in his footsteps as they witnessed him abandon the old style of chatting between songs and playing for five hours at a time mixing seamlessly. Miki was resident at Ciak until 1990 when he retired from DJing for personal reasons. [www.milliondollardisco.com]