103: so happy I'm scared

So, Emerald City was a fun time.

Jamie and I had last year off from tabling at cons, so this was the first time we’ve really been accessible for getting on for two years. Equally, we’re in the final approach to the end of WicDiv, while I’ve just launched the worryingly successful DIE, so we were looking forward to making contact with folk.

And we did! Like usual, we had a lot on away from the booth so were only there for certain periods, but Friends Supreme Anita and Kate helped control and/or entertain the queue. Folks were lovely, and many people shared stories about those five years. It really feels like we’ve been on tour with a bunch of folks. The spotlight panel itself, ran by Sean Edgar, was a big room, genuinely packed. The strangeness of having an actual career of sufficient length to do a deep dive. As it’s the end of a period, I suspect we’ll get a lot more of this kind of thing.

In short: I met a bunch of new people and caught up with a bunch more. I escaped with only a single serious hangover.

And then there was the party.

When people have asked me how the party went, my one line answer has been “two people had to be broke up from having sex in one of the booths in the bar.” That says a lot. The Party was a lot.

It was a joint party, thrown by our friends at Bombsheller, who found a perfect venue, then proceeded to decorate it perfectly and fill the huge projection screens with animated versions of Matt’s colours.

Doors open at 8. People were dancing at 8:05. They don’t stop until kicking out time.

Comixology’s Ivan Salaczar was doing a warm-up set. He’s playing Crazy in Love by 8:20. This was not, in any definition of the phrase, a warm-up set. If this was in the gym, your trainer would be screaming at you to take it down a notch before you hurt something. Clearly, no-one did. It was on.

Jamie and I were in the corner, nervous. It was an incredible venue, beautifully decorated. The crowd were entirely committed. A DJ had played genuinely great music. We were aware that all we could do to this evening was to ruin it. We can’t make it any better – we can only fuck it up.

We did something which we never do, which is to start DJing together, like two nervous schoolkids scared to do some task alone. We started with Atomic, and saw where it took us. Within two songs, it was clear we were going to be fine, and Jamie took over. We filled the night between us, with Ivan coming back for spots and Tia Comixology and Ray Fawkes giving us a little witching hour goth (and the necessary Prodigy track). By closing time it’s the traditional Total Eclipse and we all go home.

There’s all sorts of moments which spring to mind – a Morrigan lost in the music, silhouetted against the back wall, the person doing Bowie Tarot readings upstairs, a bit where a Amaterasu was caught in a spotlight and it looked like she was literally divine – but there’s one thing which felt suitably narrative.

The DJ booth is one of the ones that are up in the gods. You’re looking down in the crowd, spread beneath you. I’ve played Once In A Lifetime.

This is a loaded record, perhaps for everyone, but especially for me. A decade ago, on the Thought Bubble dancefloor, I found myself explaining what the song was about to my friend, Matt Sheret – specifically a theory based on the “My God – what have I done?” being a reference to something the Enola Gay bomber recorded shortly after dropping it. It’s a moment I recorded as the last B-side in the Singles Club, so any of you with a The Complete Phonogram will have read it. After this explanation, I have a moment where I nearly break down: “I’ve blown it.”

I’d blown it as Singles Club was a sales disaster, and I felt we’d never be allowed to do anything that good ever again. That it was said in the place – the primordial Thought Bubble Dancefloor – put a lie to that. That’s the soil we grown every dance party we’ve every thrown. But right then, right there it was distressing. I’ve blown it. Once in a Lifetime, and that was the once.

Matt, bless him, found a short way out of that micro-funk, so it made a perfect end to that weird little volume.

Anyway, I’m in the booth at the party, and David Byrne is walking us all through the vagaries and extremes of existence, and the crowd swells to the tidal waves of the record. It’s a moment a peer later tells me reminds him of the energy that Morrison got from Gay clubs which he tried to funnel into the Invisibles, but WicDiv had somehow crystallised a group of comics people who were willing to create their own. The clubs into the Invisibles, the invisibles into us, us into the readers, the readers into a big bang of a dancefloor, and who knows what next. It’s beautiful, and I feel so happy I’m scared.

We hit the “My god – what have I done” and I realise the only thing worse than the existential horror of failure is the existential horror of success. My god. What have I done?

It made me want to write a phonogram comic, which is the best compliment I can give anything (and also the worst). Don’t worry, I’m not. I wouldn’t put anyone through that again.

Here’s McKelvie’s scratch playlist of stuff he played. Mine was solely shot from the hip. Thanks for coming. Must do again. And special thanks to Jazzlyn, Emily and everyone else at Bombsheller. To all my peers – you ever get a chance to work with them, work with them. They throw parties like no-one else.

Cosplay photos by Sean Edgar. Party photos by Stephen Klise.