Love Muscle (20/05/22)
This is one I’m gonna remember for a good while. I actually have a copy of the poster and it’s going on the wall to remind me. I kind of knew me and Love Muscle would be a good fit from all the things people had told me about it over the years, so it’s nice to be vindicated. From the music, to the setting, to the people, to the sound, and back round to the music again as the foundation for all of it — it fit like a glove.
I’ve played at Wharf Chambers in Leeds a couple of times before and enjoyed it both times (I have a particularly fond memory of playing ‘Windowlicker’ there while getting absolutely shitfaced on shots with G back in 2018), but this was the first time I’d played at a queer party in the venue. The Love Muscle team had brought in a giant pride flag and a disco ball, which, as I discussed recently here, is pretty much all you need for a vibe. And LM founder Michael Upson had spent some time earlier in the day tuning the Wharf system with a variety of disco, house and other records, something that paid off hugely on the night. It’s a modest sized room and the system doesn’t look like anything particularly special, but it sounded great on the night: balanced, punchy, with minimal harshness. Michael had it set so we just needed a flicker of blue on the mixer and he was on hand all night to adjust if necessary. Just before things kicked off I was sitting on the benches along the wall that faces the speakers and he stuck on ‘Dream 17’ by Annette as a test. BOOM! I couldn’t actually believe how good it sounded. And what better motivation do you need for your own imminent set than hearing a record like that one sounding that good?
Well, I got even more motivation from resident DJ Subaru who did the warm-up, opening with slow disco and boogie interspersed with more oddball tunes like ‘No G.D.M. (Dedicated To Quentin Crisp)’ and ‘Another Cigarette’ while gradually moving into the italo of ‘Stranger In A Strange Land’ and ‘Il Mondo Da Una Nuvola’. As you can imagine I was having a good shimmy while this was going on, watching the room gradually fill up until suddenly the portentous opening sequence of ‘Relax’ came on and the dancefloor caught fire. That was the moment I knew something really good was happening. This was queer expression through actually musical music, full of feeling, history and wit. DJ Subaru was playing this all off vinyl and it was a pleasure to hear them finding and hitting the mark with the mixes between these often quite obtuse records. To sound like an old man for a moment (an increasingly common occurrence, I have to admit), I felt a flash of recognition from my years playing small clubs and bars here in Lisbon. And it reminded me of the energy that this kind of vinyl mixing can give to a crowd. Sadly that was not something I could fully provide myself, as I’d brought few records with me.
Things got a touch faster and more housey towards the end of DJ Subaru’s set, though always with a proto- edge like on Equip’s evergreen ‘XXXO’. Their final record was one of my all-time italo favourites, ‘Void Vision’ by Cyber People, which you’ve almost certainly heard me play, often also as a final track. So the cumulative result of their two and a half hours of music — familiar, emotional, full of craft and angle — was to put me, the next DJ, in essentially the Best Mood Possible for what I was about to do.
So I did it, and it was great.
When I finished, I had my customary sit down outside to get some fresh air and bring my heart rate back down to ‘fast’. After chewing the fat for a while with DJ Subaru and other Love Muscle regulars, I made the executive decision to 1) go to the toilet, 2) have a shot and 3) go back and dance for the remainder of Michael’s closing set. That was the best decision I made all night because he absolutely NAILED IT. Not that this should have been a surprise: Michael’s been running Love Muscle for eight years and, as we discussed over the pre-party dinner, came into the scene through going to legendary parties like Below in Birmingham and Back To Basics in Leeds. His Rinse show was always a favourite of mine and I’d listened to (and written about) his brilliant all-night set at Love Muscle before. Basically, he knows what he’s doing, and I already knew he knew what he was doing.
Yet it was still a very pleasant surprise to hear and see him in full flow at his own night, hitting a glorious sweet spot between turn of the century tech house, an earlier Sound Factory vocal vibe and slightly tougher (but never too tough) territory, always with heaps of attitude and played at just the right pace. The mixing was inspiring to watch: all vinyl, long blends, patient and creative with the layering. Although I’ve moved quite far away from this style in the past few years — mainly due to the kind of records I’m playing and the weird obsession I have with doing the ‘perfect quick mix’ — I’ve noticed myself returning to it a bit more this year as I pick a lot of my own old tech house records off the shelf again. Watching Michael get two records locked in and teasing us with the blend was loads of fun to watch, as was seeing the crowd get lost in the moment, and losing myself in it too. Sitting here at home listening to Danny Tenaglia’s remix of Meshell Ndegeocello’s version of ‘Who Is He’ over a bluetooth speaker is giving me shivers down my spine just thinking about the vibe in that room during the final hour. I don’t often dance with my hands in the air, but when this came on on Saturday, up they went.
Sadly 5am came round far too quickly. After a quick negotiation, Michael put on a final record — a beautiful gospel vocal track — and we all had one last dance while fellow LM team member Joe gradually brought up the house lights. I stuck around to help take down the decorations and pack up the equipment and share some of the glow from the party with the team. We were all exhausted but elated from how well it had gone. This funny mixture of routine and spontaneity, professionalism and abandon, is something I’m getting an ever better understanding of as I experience more parties, promoters and venues and see their ways of conducting things. Love Muscle and Wharf Chambers are examples of people who’ve got the fundamentals down while still leaving space for that spark of the unexpected that makes for the best kind of party. I haven’t written about my set here but I was really proud of it for the same reasons.
I want to note too that Love Muscle is a queer party that really puts its money where its mouth is when it comes to ensuring a safe and inclusive space, from the messaging on social media to the ticketing system and finally the provisions made at the party itself. This kind of effort requires additional work from everyone on the team and I could sense the amount of sweat they put into making sure the event is the best it can be for everyone that comes along, whoever they are. The result of that is an incredibly diverse crowd that I could truly say I felt at home in. It was also heartening to see some DJs and promoters from other venues and cities there as well — for me that’s always a sign that a party is doing something right.
And even the founder of Back To Basics himself, Dave Beer, was in attendance. He told me “You’re alright at this DJing thing aren’t you”. Or was it “You’re a shite DJ”. One of the two.