Goodbye 2024
Finally getting round to doing a bit of a 2024 round-up.
In for 2025: more newsletter, less instagram.
DJs
Abena @ Welt Discos, Lisbon (May)
It was a small crowd (I’m a DJ not a promoter OK?) but all those who were there, danced. Abena is one of the best and I hope they’ll be back in Lisbon in 2025.
Mike Servito @ Club Toilet / No Way Back, Detroit (May)
If I lived in NYC I’d be going to see Mike play all the time. But on this pilgrimage I made to Detroit it was extra special to see him play loads of my favourites (and loads of future favourites), two nights in a row, at two legendary parties, in the place where it all started. (Bonus mention for Eris Drew at No Way Back, especially when she played Fred From The Midwest’s Quantum Jumps EP.)
‘nohup’ / Sister System @ Honcho Campout, PA (Aug)
Two Hemlock Nights closing sets that both met and confounded expectations. ‘nohup’’s was the more conventionally drippy but with enough unexpectedly raw and emotional moments too (one mentioned here; proper write-up surely forthcoming). Sister System’s was a contender for best of the weekend, if only for being conducted at an outrageously sensible 117bpm or so. Was this really Campout at 4am? We’ll never be sure, since the recording remains locked in the Honcho basement 🥲.
CC:DISCO! @ Outra Cena, Lisbon (Nov)
I missed CC:TURBO!’s first outing earlier this year but I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. CC might be in demand on the biggest stages around the world, but put her in a cage in a fog-filled corridor for six hours with about 150 straggling Lisbon ravers and you’ll see what she’s really made of. I planned to leave around 3, I was still there at 7.
dBridge @ Outra Cena, Lisbon (Dec)
Being responsible for writing the promo material for this night, I’d rather built it up in my head. The man has a legacy, but is also still at the forefront. And he proved it: tight, diverse, inventive, focussed, most importantly FUN. Absolute don.
AFTERS
Savage, Hanoi (Apr), see DANCING below.
G’s place, Berlin (Jun), after I played the morning set at pbar and we had the latest in a long line of incredibly civilised/naughty daytime afters back at G’s with the best people, culminating in a collective viewing of The Great British Sewing Bee.
My house, Lisbon (Jun), having spent months on the road, being back in Lisbon briefly for a late one at Outra Cena, and with an hour or two before my friend Enrique had to go to the airport, I got to play my own afterparty records in my own house while he slept on the sofa.
DANCING
Chima Isaaro @ Outra Cena, Lisbon (Jan)
It’s difficult to tell because I always dance when Chima is playing, but I think it was on this particular night that I really danced, to an amazing funky house version of ‘Love Is The Message’ followed by Adeva. Who could resist?
Emel Rowe b2b Saint Guel @ Savage, Hanoi (Apr)
Their already late morning set got extended as the sun rose and light came in through the wrought iron windows of Savage’s upstairs bar. Someone had given me a dose of patented ‘bobo’ (or perhaps it was just good old mdma), which, added to the high from having just played the kind of set I’m good at playing, made this daytime dance a pure joy.
Dana Kuehr @ Globus, Berlin (May)
Specifically, Dana Kuehr @ Globus, Berlin (May) playing Jovonn’s ‘Satisfied’, which, to my somewhat adrenaline and ketamine-altered brain, sounded like I’d never heard it before. (Adrenaline because I had just finished playing the kind of set I’m good at playing — notice a theme? — and ketamine because I’d just done some ketamine.) The bass from the Globus system enveloped me, my limbs splayed.
Pev / rRoxymore / G-bag @ Freerotation, Hay-On-Wye (Jul)
Can’t choose, won’t choose. Shook myself silly to all three of these sets and got Pev knee, rRoxysore throat and G-eyebags in the process.
Michael Upson @ PDA (Jul)
Can it be described as a ‘best dancing moment’ if you spent most of it wedged up against a teetering office fan trying your best not to die from heat exhaustion? Sure it can.
Honcho Campout (Aug)
All of it. Is there a better place for dancing? I can’t think of one.
WARM-UPS
Telma @ Ministerium before Massimiliano Pagliara (Jan)
DJ Caring @ Lux before Verraco (Mar)
Xiaolin @ Mihn before me (Apr)
VENUES
Globus, Berlin
Why is it so difficult for a single club to unite all the things you want in a night? Heidegluehen has a nice vibe but the sound is as variable as the programme is rigid, and it’s always a fucking mission. Pbar obviously has an unparalleled vibe but the sound is a letdown and the toilets and general posture even more so. Watergate had good sound and seemed to be hitting a new stride of late, but now it’s gone. Hoppetosse is too hot; Sonnenraum is too cold. Ohm gets close, but being tiny will never be that accessible. Its upstairs sister Globus is not perfect — god knows I do not like the lights, I’m sorry, and of course the crowd can be very straight — but I’ll take those downsides any night for the sole pleasure of hearing that sound system. Just before Christmas I went to see Solid Blake for a couple of hours and just drank in the warmth and the bass. Then a load of loud people showed up and the lights started flashing too brightly so I scurried home, satisfied.
Loopy, Hangzhou / Mihn, Hong Kong / .TAG, Chengdu
I never wrote up my full E Asia tour back in April but my first note from Hangzhou (here) is indicative. From a bizarre punky cube in a shopping centre (Loopy) to a 40th floor hideout that contains a hideout-within-a-hideout (.TAG) to an 8th floor speakeasy with one of the most elegant sound+light combos I’ve ever seen (Mihn), East Asia has some of the best turned out clubs on the planet.
Menjos, Detroit
The Menjos website tells you all you really need to know about this venue. Seeing its funhouse corridors and post-apocalyptic patio and shady nether regions filled with the best of US queer nightlife for Club Toilet on Movement weekend was a highlight of the year. My only hope for the future is that I can make it back there to attend Monday Night Karaoke.
Plötzensee Lighthouse, Berlin
My first experience of indoors at Plötzensee was not an auspicious one, as I genuinely thought I would die trapped in the corner of the downstairs room if there were any kind of emergency. But this time around, in February, I spent my time upstairs in the Lighthouse, which is a different thing entirely. The light filtering through the colourful windows, the various ornaments — cheesy but not stupid — and the mini adventure you have to go on every time you need a drink or the toilet. It’s silly and fun and I loved it.
Poor Boys, New Orleans
Queer punk mayhem, the epitome of unhinged partying, especially when Gimme A Reason is on. Of course it’s the combination of the place and the people that make it sing. I’ve not been anywhere else where you can be quietly minding your own business dancing or snogging or vomiting into a trash can and suddenly you turn around and the entire crowd has just shifted. Where did these people come from, who are they, why are they here? As the meme goes: it’s just 4:30am Gimme A Reason, and Highlife the “male bearded dragon and June Gemini!!” is still watching you from his hammock in the corner.
SETS
17/2 Fandango lighthouse set that got extended from 4 to 6 hours
24/2 Night Tales warming up for Prosumer
16/3 Outra Cena slow burn warming up for Telma (here)
13/4 Savage party bangers in the bar
16-19/5 Globus + Pumping Velvet + Multisex megaweekend where each set was different (here)
21/6 Waking Life solstice forest wedding b2b Gwenan
3/8 Adonis banging it out after Omoloko
18/10 Pumping Velvet Lads lads lads tech house off a midi controller and no monitors for Sam’s bday
20/12 Pickle farewell to the Factrée b2b with Gwenan
FOMO
Di Linh @ Equation Festival, Mai Chau (April)
My main memory of being at Equation Festival, aside from being surrounded by the most wonderful selection of people, was being hot and sweaty, in fact far too hot and sweaty to be able to manage raving inside a cave. Hence me missing Equation/Savage’s Di Linh playing the banner slot on Saturday night, when I chose my air conditioned hotel room over the dripping stalactites and floor of slimy balloons. When I heard the reports about it the next day, I regretted choosing comfort over chaos.
Mike Servito x Jeffrey Sfire @ The Bunker, Detroit
At The Bunker party on Monday night of Movement weekend in Detroit, Mike & Jeffrey were scheduled to play until 3am. As mentioned above, this was the third time I’d seen Mike that weekend, but the first time seeing Jeffrey, and I believe this was an unchartered b2b for the two of them. Given they both play my favourite kind of music it was going to be epic. Some technical issues during the first 45 minutes aside, as CDJ after CDJ had to be replaced, it mostly was, Mike’s leaner, meaner acid stuff offset by Jeffrey’s brighter wavey synth selections. (Though they’d often swap roles, like Jeffrey playing Robot DJs’ ‘Energy’ or Mike dropping ‘Deep In Vogue’.) Several favourites got an airing, including hearing Marcus Mixx’s ‘Go Man Go’ out for the first time in my life. Where’s the FOMO then? Well, certain things were conspiring against me. The dancefloor was rammed and it was a constant battle to defend a space down the front by the speakers. It was getting colder, making the contrast between being on the dancefloor and being just to the side difficult to manage. It was Monday night after a loooong weekend. And at a certain point, when I’d taken a breather in anticipation of the scheduled 3am closing time, and looked around to see an ambulance flashing its way through the crowd, I started to think it might be time to cut my losses before the rush out and simply go to bed. So I did. ERROR. Of course it turned out the set got extended, not just by a little bit but by a whole other three hours, in which, as the recording reveals, Mike and Jeffrey proceeded to soundtrack the sunrise with ‘Do You Like This Beat?’, ‘Move’, both the original and unreleased versions of ‘Sensation’ ‘Respect’, ‘Brothers’, ‘Lost In Sound’ ‘Feels Good (Carrots & Beets)’, and closed with ‘Come On Closer’. What can you do? Regret your decisions. Hope to make better ones next time.
Theo Parrish in Detroit
On the same weekend I also decided to forgo a trip to see Theo Parrish play a five hour set in the afternoon sun. Money and rest were my main reasons, neither, in retrospect, good ones. I heard it on very good authority (my friends Matt and Ali) that he was brilliant. Later in December I might also have had the chance to see him play all evening in fabric Room One but a booking didn’t come through and by that point in the year I was out of cash. When next, TP?
MIXES
Aaron Clark: Pacific Spirit 85 (review here)
cay horiuchi: Outsiders Mix (review here)
DJ Voices: Live at Nowadays New Year Non-Stop (review here)
Eris Drew: Mystery Of The Motherbeat Vol. 2
Jeffrey Sfire: H.A.N.D. Mix 050
Nick Kagame: Live at Outra Cena, Apr 24
Nono Gigsta: The House of Crocodiles Part 2 (review here)
Prosumer: NTS 1st October (review here)
Sam PV: High Hoops 079 (review here)
TaoFu: Outsiders Mix (review here)
wngdu: Campout Mix Series
DJ ACHIEVEMENTS
The corrupted USB (not mine)
At the aforementioned Fandango set, after four hours of playing and feeling amazing, the next DJ on discovered their USB was corrupted and they’d have to go home to fix it. Cue me having to play a further indeterminate length of time while I waited for them to come back. I usually really don’t like being unsure of when my set is due to finish, but these turned out to be the best two hours of my DJing year?
The worst setup ever?
When we arrived to Sam’s bday party at Axis in SE London excited to tear it down for a crowd of friends, we were greeted with: no CDJs, a single sad turntable on a wobbly turntable, no monitors, an uninterested night manager, and an XDJ controller that only two of the three of us had ever used before, me being the one who hadn’t. All credit to Sam for taking this laughable situation in his typically unflappable stride. And credit to me, I think, for managing not to stop the music at any point during my set, despite the controller practically begging me to press the wrong button.
Taking over from Omoloko at Adonis
In the run up to this August’s Adonis I was expecting to play mid-afternoon outside in the sun, a set I’ve done before and feel well equipped to deliver on. Thanks to a licensing issue in the week prior to the party, I ended up being moved to past midnight in the Warehouse, after Hannah Holland and Omoloko and before Nyra. “It’ll be fine,” I thought, “Omoloko plays pretty chill and varied music so it’ll be manageable.” Hannah and Omoloko then proceeded to play two absolutely blinding sets, varied yes but with super high energy and both dancefloor and mezzanine were absolutely popping. I was shitting myself more than at any other gig in recent years but somehow I pulled it out of the bag, and even managed to play Texas into the bargain. Still dining out on that one, thank you.
ROLLERCOASTERS
Maverick @ Cedar Point
(bonus award: Taiga @ Linnanmäki)
Possessed @ Dorney Park
Millennium Force @ Cedar Point
In for 2025: more rollercoasters, less navel-gazing.
In for 2025: going to Gimme a Reason with Joe