Last Night a DJ Saved My Life
Writing, playing, writing and getting down... check out this great event in Liverpool with dance music legends Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton...
Surprise! This is the second Deeper Into Outer Space newsletter of the year, this time featuring an array of things to bang on about.
I’ve been interviewing this past week and will be back to some sort of sporadic regularity of publishing, with a renewed focus on clubs and those behind them. It seems like it’s never been more important to shout about nightlife spaces, their importance and the amazing work of those steering them through increasingly choppy waters.
In the meantime, here are some signposts to what’s forthcoming, other written and audio shenanigans from the past month or so and some ‘eavy new releases too.
Dorothy X Rough Trade | Last Night a DJ Saved My Life - feat Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton
Yes, yes, this is quite an accolade - we’ll be back up in Liverpool for a special event hosted at Rough Trade by Dorothy with the mighty Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton, authors of ‘Last Night a DJ Saved My Life’ with a Q&A hosted by - gulp - me.
The date has now been moved from 22nd February to 20th June - so make a note in your diaries…
After I’ve given them a good grilling for an hour, they’ll also be DJing - expect three hours of dance floor business from the best in the business.
Also, it’s almost 20 years since I emailed Bill for advice on how to make it in music journalism (see above). If you’d told my younger, badder self what I’d be doing now, I’d be like ‘gi’ooooerrrrr’.
Love Will Save the Day FM show
Towards the end of last year, I was drinking on a Saturday evening and somewhere around can 3 or 4 decided to put myself forward for the Love Will Save the Day FM Open Call Weekend - where they select DJs from outside their regular programming to put together a show.
I carried on imbibing and completely forgotten that I’d applied until I got an email the following week to confirm my pitch had been accepted. Cue panic, cue frantic googling of USB microphones, and downloading a beginner’s guide to recording software Audacity.
It took me over a week to piece it together but it ended up being a satisfying two-hour audio splatter of favourites from 2024. If you’d like to hear us mumbling my way through some fresh heat, then here it is.
A Love from Outer Space | Sean Johnston
We’re devotees of A Love From Outer Space (ALFOS) around these parts, as are I guess many folk of a certain vintage, so it was wicked to spend an hour on Zoom with Sean Johnston towards the end of last year to discuss the impending compilation marking the night’s 15th anniversary.
I went to those early ALFOS parties at the Drop back at the start of the 2010s and witnessed Sean DJ all over the place from boat parties in Croatia to castles in the South of France so this was a real vibe.
Ghost Assembly
Ghost Assembly is the artist moniker of Abigail Ward, a pillar of Manchester’s music scene, dance music historian, archiver. Abs was someone who I was lucky enough to speak with last year here about all sorts of things, including her production as Ghost Assembly.
#12 Deeper Into Outer Space | Abigail Ward | Ghost Assembly
The parties and politics of Mancunian queer nightlife have travelled some distance over the last 30 years, in part thanks to the groundbreaking work, research and music of Abigail Ward.
Over a year later and a new 12 inch - ‘RESIST!’/‘I Keep on Making the Same Mistake’ - has now been eleased, an exquisite and necessary banger. Listen and support below:
Q Lazzarus
I remember watching ‘Silence of the Lambs’ when I was a far littler man than I am now and totally scaring myself shitless.
One of the scenes that kept me up at night was in Buffalo Bill’s basement where he’s wearing the cloak of human skin and dancing to a slice of otherworldly post-punk/new beat brilliance.
So as harrowing as those memories are, the news of the soundtrack to the scene being re-released is mega for all.
Popular Tyre
It was my interview with Sean that reminded me of this ‘Febbre Del DiscoTheque’, a roguish bit of electronic disco business from the machines of Quinn Whalley of Paranoid London and Decius infamy.
ML Buch
ML Buch came to my ears via Boomkat and their description of the reissue of her debut album, ‘Skinned’, how it references eighties pop music with glitchy electronics - she “braids her expertly AutoTuned vocal harmonies with quirky pitch-bent canned electronic wails, corny bass twangs and drum rolls that sound as if they've been grabbed from an '80s power pop sample pack”. Love it.
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.