Head On December

Head On December

HEAD ON

RESIDENT HEROES VS CELEB DJs

Head On, DEcember 2006, COMMENTS

When it comes to DJ talent, is it best to keep it in the family or to book the big guns for your booth? Resident and founder of a popular local club night Terry Pointon [left] and Creamfields/Chibuku Shake Shake promoter Rich McGinnis [right] weigh up the pros and cons, and agree that the best case scenario lies somewhere in between...

Terry Pointon:

The thinking behind Tangled is the same as that behind a lot of nights. We wanted to go clubbing somewhere that played music we liked and there was no-one doing it at the time, so we started our own event. For the first party we sold 200 tickets, mostly to friends, and from there things sort of spiralled. Tangled will be 14 years old next year, it ran weekly for eight years, and we have an average of 550 people through the doors every session. It’s a local night, but it’s become a bit of an institution.
As with any club, if we as the residents don’t know what direction to take the night and the crowd in, there’s no point doing it. There are five of us who make up the crew, and we have a really clear idea of what music we’ll play and what atmosphere we want to create. Every week we think, ‘here we go, let’s make this one better than the last’. We’re really committed to putting on a brilliant party, which I think the crowd appreciates. Some clubs just rope in the biggest DJ they can afford but that’s not giving a damn about the punters, that’s just worrying about money on the door. A big DJ alone doesn’t necessarily make for a brilliant night.

Tangled has always attracted a lot of regulars. We get people coming back to the club week in and week out, some of who went to the very first party. Last month I counted five people in the crowd that were there on the first night in 1992, which is pretty amazing.

I think a lot of that loyalty is down to the strong relationship we’ve built up with the crowd. We’ve always asked for their opinion, using the website and chatting to people on the night to find out what they want to hear. And because we know them all and they know we listen to them, our residents’ nights are often the biggest parties. I think the crowd know by now that we’ll give them a really good night out. It’s these regulars who we work hard to keep happy - the people who support us every week, who are so passionate about the club.

The last couple of years we have brought bigger names in, but we won’t have a guest on if they don’t either produce music we like or play music we like when they DJ. We won’t book on reputation - we’ve got to like it, and we know what the crowd like because we’ve all grown together. Most of the people we’ve booked understand what we’re trying to do – the relationship between the residents and the crowd is obviously strong and they know they’re going to enjoy playing a set at the club as soon as they come in and feel the atmosphere. Which is probably why Nick Warren told me the other day that Tangled is his favourite place in the country to play. That’s testament to the crowd, the residents: to everything that makes the night what it is.

Richard McGinnis:

Chibuku started as a group of friends who just wanted to have a good party, and who never really expected to do anything that might be a commercial success. At first we didn’t even think about booking big name DJs, but we didn’t have ‘Frankie Knuckles’ style residents either: the kind who play every single Saturday for a number of years. We were a collective of DJs, and we’d pick the right people for the right night. Using local DJs was important in getting Chibuku off the ground, because building a relationship with a local crowd is essential to starting any night. But as the club grew we added high profile DJs to the mix.

The first time we used a big name, Gilles Peterson in 2001, it changed the perception of Chibuku. At that time Cream were doing their thing, and Bugged Out! were doing theirs, whereas everything else in town was quite small. Our nights were really unique - mixing progressive house, hip hop, drum ’n’ bass and funky soul - and we wanted to push it to fill the gap. Gilles’ set was legendary: the press took notice, and Chibuku began to feel like a nationally recognised name like Ministry or Fabric. It’s fair to say that having the involvement of Gilles Peterson helped us up a level, although we remained true to our original ethos.

You can’t help but have a special kind of buzz when there’s a really big act playing in your venue. Top DJs get to the top for a reason, and tend to be professional performers with a great deal of charisma, capable of working a crowd whether it’s 200 people or 200,000. We were lucky enough to have John Peel play a set in 2003 and the atmosphere was electrifying. He didn’t even mix, he just put… on one record after another, but his presence was awesome. The venue was like a jam jar full of bees: everyone was that excited. We’ve had similar experiences with the likes of DJ Shadow, Mr.Scruff and Kenny Dope. In terms of ticket sales, recent artists who have played at Chibuku, like 2ManyDJs and DJ Shadow, have had the venue sold out to audiences from all over the UK and the North West. The commercial benefit and sense of occasion from getting these names in is fairly powerful.

I think in general that celebrity DJs are suitable for certain kinds of night, especially monthly nights where the anticipation builds over several weeks, but may not be appropriate for everybody. The key is to strike a balance: at a venue like the Masque, you want a big night but don’t want to alienate your residents or your local fans. Our residents and fans are still our back-bone, and we will always value the overall night more than a single DJ. Still though, when we look back at our big names - John Peel, Gilles Peterson - we always feel that it was something pretty special.

From: December 2006 Issue

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