{"id":17715,"date":"2024-03-29T23:47:08","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T23:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/?p=17715"},"modified":"2024-03-31T15:00:16","modified_gmt":"2024-03-31T15:00:16","slug":"doing-it-for-yourself-dj-magazine-december-1992","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/archives\/17715","title":{"rendered":"Doing it for Yourself, DJ magazine. December 1992"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Doing It for Yourself<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

DJ Magazine 10-31 December 1992<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From their inaugural party (Harry\u2019s birthday) just over three years ago DIY have
grown from a core of three or four into an extended posse that numbers over 100. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 30 or so people who are actively involved include DJs, decor and
graphic designers, lighting wizards and crew members. They’ve networks of
loyal followers from south to north and a dedicated contingent of travellers. Not
only has their following grown but so have their resources. Starting with just a
couple of turntables they now have their own vans, PA, studio, record label,
radio shows and could soon be the owners of a pressing machine. If the set up
sounds like a multi conglomerate from America the attitude is a million miles
from there. From the flat and now an office in Nottingham DiY organise all their
events with a laid back and easy-going attitude that ensures their posse of
friends keeps on growing daily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    The evening before as they set up the all nighter that we were later to fall victim
    to, a party for Time Recordings and their own Strictly 4 Groovers label, | had a
    chat with three of the main members of DIY, Harry, Rick and Damien, in their
    studio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Harry: Our main intention from the start was really to be able to do our own
    thing\u2026 rather than having to pander to club owners, record labels, managers or
    who-ever. Half the time we do pretty stupid things really, like tonight we’re
    going to throw a big party and loose lots of money on it probably. Free parties
    are the reason DIY exists as it does today. They’ve been regularly organising
    them for a number of years, two Summers ago their almost weekly gatherings
    near Derby attracted hundreds of people. As their name grew and grew they
    began to get offers of club nights but it is to the idea of free parties to which
    they remain loyal. Having been involved before the tabloids discovered a cheap
    headline they’re in a position to know the in\u2019s and out\u2019s of what goes on behind
    the scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Harry describes free parties as being \u2018\u2018a creature of the south\u2019, the first ones
    occurring in the West Country around Bath and Bristol, where the scene is still
    strong. Of course, free parties are always linked to travellers in the press and for
    all the snobbery that gets directed towards them, if it weren’t for them the scene
    might not be as alive as it is, Harry: \u2018Travellers were the first sort of people who
    had the approach that they were into putting in a lot of effort for no (financial)
    reward really, most people aren’t.\u2019 Damien, \u201cAnd they already had the knowl-
    edge to find the sites where you could actually hold a party.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    They also had a supply of tarpaulins and the essential generators. The other
    advantage was that police would be more reticent in storming into a party on a
    site where people were actually living. Indeed parties without the travellers \u2014
    \u2018cover\u2019 had got nasty, with police steaming into marquees in the name of \u2018safe-
    ty\u2019 and causing uncontrolled stampedes. So free parties with travellers involved
    were the most likely to come off. That was, until Castle Morton. Although a
    number of sound systems there had their equipment confiscated and held for
    six months DIY were lucky to hold on to theirs. But the after effects of Castle
    Morton are still being felt. Harry: \u2018Castle Morton nearly killed parties but it\u2019s
    made it impossible to be a traveller, which isn\u2019t anyone’s fault. But you can\u2019t
    beat the police force at the end of the day and if you want to keep doing parties \u2014
    sometimes you’ve got to be a bit crafty. You’ve not got to go somewhere where \u2014
    they think you’re going to be.\u201d Thanks to a number of sympathetic landlords
    who are coming forward with offers of sites, free parties look set to continue, for
    a while anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    DIY parties are renowned for offering not only the best in dance music but also
    for paying attention to decor and visuals, they like to \u2018\u2018keep it fairly state-of-the-
    art, our video projections are by Project Love E, even though it\u2019s free it doesn’t
    have to equal crap.\u201d The free parties are what DiY are all about, their other ven-
    tures pay for them, Harry: \u2018The organisation is self perpetuating, some parts we
    make money and some parts we loose it. We don\u2019t mind making money but it’s
    not our prime concern.” If you haven’t seen a flyer with a DiY Du on in the last
    month then you can’t have been out much. Their home town night Bounce
    (Fridays, fortnightly at the Dance Factory) has been supplemented by no less
    than eight other regular Bounce\u2019s across the country, from Liverpool to Exeter,
    taking in Bristol, Bath and Birmingham along the way. Bounce in the three sto-
    ried Dance Factory has an atmosphere, like all DiY events unmatched any-
    where |’ve been. The crowd are a very mixed bunch, dressed up, dressed down
    but all with a happy, friendly attitude. Surrounded by plaster fish, miles of trans-
    parent netting and a huge furry heart you can trance out downstairs or chill out
    with Pezz and co upstairs, but get your tickets early as it always sells out
    beforehand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    DiY have also just started co-running a monthly all nighter in Leicester with
    Beef. Held in the aptly named Starlite 2001, a Slightly tacky, rough around the
    edges venue, Sponge runs from 10pm to 6am and features guest DJs chosen
    for interest and attitude rather than simply star rating (first two were Darren
    Emmerson and Andy Weatherall) along with DiY regulars. Their ever loyal fol-
    lowers flock from everywhere to the club, the last one saw a mass exodus from
    Liverpool. Taking you up in all the right places, they know exactly when to start
    bringing you down with Digs (Rick) and Woosh (Pete) rounding the morning off
    with an absolutely perfectly timed set of house and garage with a hint of disco.
    After three \u2018last tunes\u2019 the crowd still refused to go home and while the bounc-
    ers actually stood in front of the decks to ensure they got a bit of kip that day
    everyone still stood for nearly half an hour on the dancefloor without budging!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    A DIY contingent also visited Ibiza this summer, playing as guests of Summum
    and Cafe Del Mar and have been invited back by \u2018\u2018Ibiza\u2019s mellowest man who’s
    going to sort us out\u2019. Rather than running expensive trios people managed to
    make their own way there \u201c\u2018turning up off their own back and managing to find
    us somehow. It was more of a loose gathering than a promoted venture.\u201d says
    Rick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    High up in the club charts lately has been the track \u2018I Shall Be Released\u2019 from
    Alabama 3, it’s the first release from the Strictly 4 Groovers label, a project
    which has been in the pipeline for some time as Rick explains: \u201cOur longest
    standing idea was to set up a record label, because you can carry on doing
    club nights and free parties for so long but the record label can go on forever.\u201d
    It’s something they’d been meaning to do for over 18 months but it took a
    friend who demo’d a song they liked to kick start them into action. \u2018\u2018Also it\u2019s like
    loads of things have sort of fallen into place.\u201d chips in Harry, \u201c\u2018As if by accident.
    This studio had been here, quarter of a mile round the corner fromm where we
    live, with this bit in.\u201d \u2018This bit\u2019 being a portakabin type room in the basement of
    Square Dance studios, which they bought and are constantly adding pieces of
    equipment to (they’re currently on the look out for old analogue synths). As with
    their other arms, instead of hiring out the studio they let friends in to \u2018mess
    about for hours\u201d\u2019 at no cost. If they come up with a good track Strictly 4
    Groovers is there to put it out. \u2018We let them come in here and come up with
    something without the pressure of having to fork out 3 or 400 pounds out of
    their own pocket. \u00a335 an hour isn\u2019t the best way to make you relax, especially if
    you’re trying to make something different. We’ve got 15 DJs in all and it\u2019s our
    intention over the months to get organised and get all of them in making a record.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    At present there are three DiY related records around, the aforementioned
    Alabama 3, a Dreaming |n Yellow track \u2018Excommunicate\u2019 on Time Recordings
    0992 and soon out on Warp their dub mix of \u2018I Shall Be Released\u2019 along with
    three other DiY mixes. \u2018\u2018We learnt so much on the first record. Like don\u2019t take a
    tune you think is alright and try to remix it so it’s good, you\u2019re better off starting
    from scratch, if you’re remixing someones tune beware of eclipsing the original
    as they might get upset when your version does better, and that old adage, \u2018\u2018as
    soon as you start to get into that music business side of things there\u2019s so many
    sharks about\u2026 and there\u2019s so many strange chaps from London!\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As if the hours in the day weren’t already filled DiY DJs also have around 30
    hours of airtime on local pirate radio station Touch FM (107.3). This includes a
    Serve Chilled show for six hours on a Monday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As well as the upcoming nights below DIY are currently on the look out for a
    venue to house a multimedia installation. They plan three floors of interactive
    video and music to create \u2018\u2018a total environment\u201d and a \u201croom within a room\u201d
    effect. They’ll be doing PAs along with guest DJ spots in the new year as well.
    For a bunch of people who\u2019ve been described as hippies (they’re not) they cer-
    tainly get things done. That description probably arose from the fact that they
    don’t actually run round acting like they’ve got \u2018important things to do\u2019. You\u2019re
    more likely to see them sitting chatting with their extended family. It just goes to
    show what you can accomplish with the right attitude. |\u2019ll leave the last word to
    Harry: \u201cWe’re into people getting along with each other, we\u2019re not into preach-
    ing a message to be anarchistic or whatever. A sense of humour at the end of
    the day is the one. We’re into having a laugh with as many people as possi-
    ble\u2026 where there\u2019s no-one around telling you when to stop, how many people
    you can let in, stamps on hands, all that crap. You’re just having a few hours at
    the weekend, occasionally, when you can get away from it all and just have a
    laugh in a field somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Pictures : Alan Lodge<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Doing It for Yourself DJ Magazine 10-31 December 1992 From their inaugural party (Harry\u2019s birthday) just over three years ago DIY havegrown from a core of three or four into an extended posse that numbers over 100. The 30 or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[590,1474,567,1652,1653,130,589,551,15,128,656,1654],"class_list":["post-17715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1","tag-590","tag-december","tag-diy","tag-dj","tag-doing","tag-free","tag-freeparty","tag-magazine","tag-nottingham","tag-party","tag-system","tag-yourself"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17715"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17733,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17715\/revisions\/17733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}