#23 Deeper Into Outer Space | Mr Scruff

Mancunian music legend Mr Scruff delves into his clubbing roots and why the UK’s network of small venues is so important to our cultural consciousness…

“30 years ago, our city centres were full of misfits who were out all the time,” says Manchester-based DJ and producer Mr Scruff. “Now it’s professionals - and many come to the city to consume culture rather than create it.” 

Scruff - real name - Andy Carthy - is an inspirationally idiosyncratic character in dance and electronic music circles and someone I’ve followed throughout his career. Writ through with dry humour and surrounded by his distinctive cartoon characters, his productions are known for their colourful array of influences and flagrant disregard for genre. Andy’s DJ sets are usually all night affairs with his infamous residency - Keep it Unreal - now, astonishingly, in its 26th year. 

With the demise of the club space part of the ongoing doom spiral of 2025’s news, Andy is currently in the midst of his Miniature Arena Tour. Taking in The Adelphi in Hull, The Crescent in York and the Forum in Tunbridge Wells among many others, it’s an endeavour that will see £1 from each sold ticket donated to the Music Venue Trust's Liveline Fund. It will also shout about, champion and rally clubbers around this grassroots network when it seems more at risk than ever before. 

“Todmorden’s Golden Lion, 24 Kitchen Street in Liverpool, Sneaky Pete’s in Edinburgh, they’re all united by the daft, beautiful folk who run them,” Andy says. “I could talk for hours about why I love each place - whether it be the building, the vibe or what it’s like when the dance floor is full.”

“Some of these venues are slack and loose, others mega efficient but they are united by the amazing, charismatic people behind them.”

Stockport to Manchester 

Andy is from Stockport and with a lack of suitable venues in the town when he was growing up, (this was way before people were talking about it as “the new Berlin”), he would often venture to the nearby metropolis of Manchester. Back in the early nineties, Andy and his mate Mark (aka Treva Whateva) would hit up a number of different clubs from Man Alive to the PSV and the Venue. 

“We were into soul, hip hop, dancehall, funk, while a lot of our mates were more into punk and alternative,” Andy says. “On the nights we went, the Venue would have two DJs and they would alternate between all sorts of sounds. At the start of the night, all the different tribes would be dancing separately, then by the end, everyone would be together.” 

The late, great Stu Allan’s shows on local radio station Key 103 were also a way into going deeper. Andy cemented this musical education with record shopping trips to pick up tunes, vinyl and flyers. 

“Checkpoint Charlie’s was one of the first places we went to for a club where we’d go and see Mikey Don DJ,” Andy recalls. “It was under the Arndale in about 1990/1991. He’s a great mate who I DJ with a lot. At the time, we knew him as a DJ and MC from Krispy 3, Chorley’s legendary hip hop crew.”

“He was just one of all these wonderful characters who became part of the furniture of Manchester nightlife, who would come alive after dark. We were aware of a lot of the culture and the fashion, the dancing - and stepping into it and experiencing it was a real joy.” 

DJing

Andy’s own DJing forays started in the eighties in his bedroom where he recorded tapes for his social circle. He started sharing them with local influential music folk like Martin Price who worked in record shop Eastern Bloc. 

“The eighties was the age of the bedroom DJ,” says Andy. “Mixing had been an established art form during the seventies, but it wasn’t until the eighties that anyone became aware of it.” 

“Chad Jackson was on ‘Blue Peter’, people like Shep Pettibone were making pro DJ mixes with tape editing, and suddenly everyone started mixing.”

A breakthrough moment for Andy came in the early nineties when he made a hip hop mixtape around 1992 that was sold in a shop in the Corn Exchange called Funky Banana. 

Around the same time, he also met Mancunian networker and raconteur Barney Doodlebug, a facilitator of musical opportunities for a generation of the city’s talent. 

“He was a big character and always had this way of meeting creative people and giving them a chance, he’s done it with hundreds of us over the years,” recalls Andy. “He asked me to play some records in Dry Bar, then got me a regular gig at Atlas Bar, just as bar DJing started becoming a thing.”

“A switch flicked in my head when I realised I could get paid for DJing - and it would get me out of the supermarket I was working in at the time.” 

Music suddenly started to spiral around Andy, leading him to the studio and upping the ante from hobbyist to artist as he came into contact with more influential creatives, including artist manager Rob Gretton and Grand Central head honcho Mark Rae. At the same time, his past years of collecting records stood him in great stead both in the DJ booth and as a fledgling producer. 

“Musically I was really versatile and just buzzed off any opportunity,” he says. “I was also just around these people who were more fearless and had this get up and go. I was happy going along for the ride.” 

Keep it Unreal

It was in 1999 when Andy started doing nights under his own name and suddenly discovered that, after all these years of record shopping and playing at other people’s events, he had an audience. 

“Rakhi Kumar asked me to do a night at Planet K (a now defunct yet influential Manchester club) and suddenly realised that DJing three or four times a week meant people were keen to see me play,” he explains. 

“I’d signed to Ninja Tune the year before and started the Keep it Unreal parties off the back of it,” Andy continues. “DJ Food saw me as a kindred spirit, someone who was into lots of different music with a sense of humour in the same sense as Coldcut. I joined their gang, and found myself touring all over Europe with the extended Ninja family, DJs and artists like the Herbaliser, Mixmaster Morris, Diplo, Amon Tobin… it was an amazing time to hone skills and enjoy new experiences.”

Andy cites the power of the record shop as an important hub for him in his early DJing days. Now the networks these spaces helped form are often online but going into actual physical spaces, chatting, listening and discovering all helped mould him. 

“All of the connections that helped turn me from an enthusiast into a practitioner and artist were made in record shops,” he says. “It wasn’t something I was looking for, it was just fun and a dream come true, lugging 20kg of records into town to play for four hours, then end up getting the bus home. I loved it and it really showed me how Manchester could foster culture and creativity.” 

Changing cities 

I’ve returned to Manchester in recent years and been struck by how huge the city seems, how tall the buildings are and how you have to strain your neck if you’re searching for the top of some of them. It sounds a bit quaint but the city’s facelift has been an extravagant one. 

While Andy is keen to point out he’s not in Mancunian clubs all the time, he feels the city continues to have this way of sticking up for creatives, both homegrown and from further afield. 

“Manchester has this rep as a music city, and people who want to be involved in music are drawn to places like this,” he says. “They might DJ, produce or start their own nights, there are so many who do this who become part of the fabric. If you come into the city and you have something to offer in terms of being excited about music and wanting to be involved, it’s very welcoming.” 

Still, while the spirit might endure, the city’s landscape is certainly very different to how it was when he first started DJing and Covid has had a huge impact on the landscape. A proliferation of bars, the all conquering Warehouse Project and different generations avoiding the lure of the night are all influencing what happens after dark.

“It’s easy to moan about what’s happening in the city at the moment,” Andy says.

“There are still weird and wonderful places to hang out and DJ at, that operate outside the usual rules and. I think there will always be places like this.” 

A big change he has seen is more people looking for their aural fix in their locality rather than travelling into Manchester’s city centre. It means things are beginning to pop on its outskirts.

“There are a lot of local venues in places like Whalley Range, Old Trafford and Levenshulme that are a bit cheaper, vibier and looser and finish a bit earlier,” he explains. “The whole appeal of them is that they are for the local people, they are less online - to me, they have a feeling similar to the venues I loved in the Northern Quarter 30 years ago.” 

Miniature Arena tour 

When we spoke, Andy was gearing up for Miniature Arena tour which he is currently in the midst of. Many of the venues he’s playing are places he’s familiar with, part of a global network of clubs where he feels welcomed. 

“I revisit a lot of places in the UK and around the world,” he says of his approach to touring. “I like the feeling of being grounded, travelling and coming back to the same place and feeling at home. Places like Gretchen in Berlin, I play there once a year and it feels as if we’re part of this worldwide community.”

Andy is a Music Venue Trust (MVT) patron and, as a DJ of more than three decades, is fascinated by how events come together, how the various elements involved in making a party pop can add up to more than the sum of their parts. 

“From the lighting to the number of people in a venue, the sound, how security can set the tone, all these things - I call it spreadsheets and vibes - they are all integral to a club night going well,” he says.

Harkirit Boparai, a friend from the Crescent in York is involved with the MVT and suggested Andy also engage with the organisation. He’s since spoken at length with the MVT and Save Our Scene about some of the issues that smaller venues face and how he can help to raise awareness of the myriad challenges. The tour is the outcome of many of these conversations.

“Everyone loves these smaller venues but these places are struggling all the time,” he says. “Many need to fundraise or go public about legal battles to keep the doors open and it’s indicative of how the value of these spaces isn’t celebrated until they are nearly gone.” 

City centres and clubs

As we’ve seen, city centres are now becoming increasingly hostile environments to nightlife with tenants and residents choosing to live next door to venues, then complaining when the noise keeps them up.

“People want a 24 hour city centre lifestyle when it suits them,” says Andy. “Many are into the idea of city centre living but don’t contribute much other than money - and we appear to be a culture that values money more than anything else.”

All of the spaces are the tour are vital but Andy is a particular fan of Cosmic Slop in Leeds, a club night that orbits the MAP charity, an initiative offering alternative for those unable to access mainstream schooling.

“I love the fact that one of the best clubs in the world is almost a temporary fundraising space for an arts charity,” Andy says. “That comes from obsession and passion, Tom [Smith, MAP founder and Cosmic Slop DJ] lives and breathes it. I love how you can have something that is technically amazing but the personality of whoever runs the venue, that spirit runs through the venue and music policy too.”

“It’s the freedom of expression that many of these venues offer and the possibilities they present that is so vital.”

Andy also cites Ade Fakile, founder of Plastic People, as not only a brilliant club operator but someone who changed how he felt about DJing too.

“He went above and beyond what was expected,” says Andy. “He trained as a carpenter, plumber, put in the sound system - he was such a perfectionist about it but that is how he is as a person. It’s easy to be despondent in the current climate but what’s important is how we’re united in the fact that these clubs need to survive. It’s how we do it that is the challenge…”

Visit mrscruff.com and look up his gig list for all future dates. You can find out more about the Music Venue Trust and their Liveline fund.

For more on club and rave culture, you can order a copy of my book, ‘Out of Space: How UK Cities Shaped Rave Culture’ via the Velocity Press website now.