reJuiced
And now seems like a good enough time to do a night where I get to play some seriously demented old house, techno and other bits out at full volume on a weeknight.
10 Jun 2004
Juice was the real deal schoolnight clubbing feel. It started in March 1993 and ran for almost exactly a year on Thursday nights initially at 2 Garret Street then over at the Willis Street Village and then back at 2 Garret Street.
It was basically a dream come true.
This bloke who ran 'Euroclub' in Garret St (a dingy gay club in the old Clares space) rang me up out of the blue one day and asked if I'd like to take over Thursday nights, sort out some flyers and posters, play whatever music I wanted and he'd pay me a nice chunk of cash for doing so.
Uh, okaaay...
Apart from the obvious ease of the offer, there was a weird synchronicity going back at 2 Garret Street I figured as well.
I'd played at Clares there with Matt P for quite a while when I first started to DJ out. He let me fill in when he wanted to pee or chat up a girl or shirk off, and taught me how to mix records and I started to learn how to read a crowd at Clares as well. I owe him quite a lot. Matt went to the UK and Steve Hill took over in 1990 and I was 'shut out' as it were. Steve kinda over-cheesed the feel of the place (yes yes, pots and kettles etc, I know) and when we started Naked Angel in early 1991, Clares died real fast. In about three weeks as I remember. So going back there was good karma I thought. I was taking a lot of acid during the summer of 1993, so that probably accounts for that wavy bullshit thought.
Anyway, by then Naked Angel was long gone, Mas-if was winding down and the big raves on the waterfront hadn't come along yet. Courtenay Place had kind of taken over things and nightlife in Wellington for anyone with half-decent taste in music was fucked. All there was was Roots Foundation every once in a while which, while brilliant, wasn't exactly energetic or likely to make you jump up and down squealing in an acid frenzy with a bottle of amyl stuffed up your nose. Not unless you wanted Mu to sit on you.
So I did it. (Juice that is, not let Mu sit on me.)
Which meant getting some nice poster designs done in collaboration with a friend who had access to a Mac and cheap outputting equipment, postering them up around town myself in the wee small hours, making sure the strobe lights were in place and the smoke machine was full and then playing music.
I guess it's the music that made the difference in the end, it certainly seems to be the main thing people remember, if indeed they remember anything at all. Being a Thursday it was a mix of schoolkids, students and general Welli freaks who didn't have day jobs or any jobs. Good people to be lost in a cloud of smoke with... Si Obscure, Vee, Tim & Andy Re:Mix, Schmoo, Andee, Jamo, Coda, Tjaden, Mahi, Cuffy, Joel, the Bens, Dean, Splash, Larry... just loads of bods that were up for some dumb fun on a week night.
But the music, yeah... you didn't get shit like that everyday. Just mad, pumping stupid stuff that got people up and moving. I had fuck all pretence about dance music then just like I do now, it was just about swinging over the line between utter cheese and total cutting edge and letting one compensate for the other when needed. And when it all turned to crap, fill the place up with smoke, turn on all the strobes and hand a bottle of amyl nitrate to the people in front of the DJ booth. Rocket science it wasn't.
So 2004. I hate retro. It makes me cringe. Those lame fucking 80s or 90s nights. Brrrr.
"I don't spend shitloads of money every month hunting down music around town and over the world via the internet to just fall back on playing my old stuff."
That was always near the top of the Smiley manifesto.
But I've changed my mind.
And now seems like a good enough time to do a night where I get to play some seriously demented old house, techno and other bits out at full volume on a weeknight.
So I'm gonna.
- Juice : Eleven of the Best
- The Aphex Twin , 'Digireedoo'
- Dance 2 Trance , 'Power of American Natives'
- Capella , 'U Got 2 Know' (hard mix)
- Cubic 22 , 'Night In Motion'
- Underworld , 'Cowgirl'
- Sven Vath , 'Ritual Of Life'
- Moby , 'Go' (Jam & Spoon remix)
- Orbital , 'Halcyon'
- RHC , 'Fever Called Love' (Hardfloor remix)
- Leftfield , 'Song Of Life'
- Age of Love , 'Age Of Love' (Jam & Spoon remix)
