An Awesome Night

After the last night that I DJ’d, I wrote a fairly miserable blog post about it.

I didn’t post it in the end, mainly as I remembered that I’m in the enviable position of co-running and being resident of a night, with no financial risk and freedom to play whatever I want.  Something I have long dreamt of.

Sometimes nights just don’t work.  I wasn’t the only one that didn’t really enjoy it.

This Friday gone was the opposite.

I was on warm-up duty and it fairly quickly built up with a fair few recognisable faces.  I did my minimal thing again although I didn’t quite have as good a flow as I desired – it was slightly jarred at times in terms of direction.

Sometimes my mixes went through a bit quickly for 12 minute minimal tracks – partly because I was talking to people at times, but I did also seem to have a touch of impatience about me.  None of the mixes were technically bad, just the occasional quickly corrected off-beat, but the timing and flow could have been better a few times.

Martin came on after me – I wasn’t sure if I was DJing until midnight or 1am given his potential jet lag (I had enough music for 3 weeks, let alone 3 hours) and played an excellent set (you might say of course I’d say so but you should know I don’t bullshit), driving it along with some nice basslines but keeping it low-key enough, albeit a fair step up from me, to allow Bunts & Bowler’s set the opportunity to breath and grow.

Being about the closest to local superstar DJs we have, they know what they are doing.  I’ve known Bowler for a couple of years and he really has come on not only in terms of DJing ability and style, but professionalism and attitude.  Tom (Bunts) I may have met at some point but you know what these things are like.

Anyway, if our headliners can keep me dancing until the end on a Friday night after a busy week at work, bar the odd sit down for my aging legs, then you know they’ve done a good job.

You can judge for yourself as the whole night has been recorded.


One moment that touched me, in particular, was when I saw people videoing the night.  Normally when I’m in a nightclub and I see people videoing I’m quite dismissive of it – but now I was like, this is partly my night and people are loving it enough to video it.  Wow.

I felt rather proud.  The dream of doing something even more special for Reading has never gone away – but it does need an appropriate venue which doesn't seem to exist.

Not every moment gave me such a proud feeling.  A fairly cute girl had been dancing away to my music for 20 minutes or so when she came up to ask me for (song name I cannot recall) by One Direction.

ONE DIRECTION.  Seriously?  Was there any element of the music that she seemed to be enjoying that suggested I could be about to switch to One Direction?

She then asked if I had any music at all by One Direction, I said that I didn’t and that I was playing minimal techno.  She asked me what that was…well you have been dancing to it for a while.  I assume she probably realised that she meant to go to Sakura.  I actually thought she was taking the piss at first but she was being serious.

Other than that the crowd were spot on.  I played Desire by Enzo Siragusa and two people came up to me who knew the name of the track and the producer.  I was suitably impressed.

I’ve always thought that Reading has enough people to sustain a proper underground house/techno scene – it simply just does not have enough support, whether that be from venues, the authorities, the ability to promote, etc.

The Purple Turtle have also put up a lighting strip.  Just the one, but it really does make a difference.  Any more would probably be overkill.

Next up on 20th May we have Tim Sharpe (I think).  We might even have a website up by then.  It's almost complete.