THE CLUB WILL BE OPEN TODAY BETWEEN 2/5 SELLING THE LAST NYE TICKETS.

Spirit of the 60′s issue

Let’s begin…

When did you get into DJ’ing and when did you set up psychedelia?
 
 I guess it was about 3 years ago, a friend of mine had put on a night and the dj he had booked was running late, so on i went..and blossomed. As for Psychedelia that all started last August, id been dj’ing at a few events in the Southampton when i was introduced to Dan Jones who was running promotions at Long Live Rock n Roll. Our love and admiration for the same music brought us closer together, it was then that we started Psychedelia.
 
 
Is it something that you have always been interested in doing?
 
I wouldnt say so no, ive always loved the music that i do now but it had never really crossed my mind that i wanted to Dj or put on gigs.
 
When did you get into the mod scene? Was it the music that attracted you to the scene or the clothes? (correct me if I am wrong but I would say you are a bit of a mod)
 
I would say its a mixture of a lot of things really, ive always loved clothes, and i work in fashion so thats a big part of it. I think with mod culture the fasion and music sits hand in hand, its what makes it cool.
In terms of me being a mod then im not really sure, the word mod gets thrown around alot and looses its meaning, the term mod comes from modernist, i love 60′s fashion and music so i guess if i was living in the 60′s then i would have been a mod.
But a modernist now isnt the same as one in the 60′s, so who knows? i guess people can make what they like of it.
How would you describe your nights to someone that has never been, how would you describe the stuff you play?

The saturdays that we run at Lennon’s (dirty dance floors) is a full rock n roll affair, we play anything from 50′s rockabilly,60′s pop, motown,punk,britpop,ska and some indie stuff. Its all about the music, i think a lot of club nights are using gimmicks and forgetting what ‘in my opinion’ clubs should be about….the people your with and listening to the music you love. We have a great bunch of people that come to the club night every week, and its all about them really, without them it wouldn’t work. Its always great when you see new faces, and when someone comes up at the end of the night and says ”what a great night,ive never been here before but ill be back next week” im sure that Dan would agree with me its what keeps us going!
Occasionally we get the odd ‘know it all’ that will try and pick holes in what were doing, but its all constructive(ill keep telling myself that)
I also run ‘Sounds of the 60′s’ on the last thursday of every month which i love, although i find it quite hard to play 5 hours of 60′s music that people all know and want to dance to, i think it works because there is nothing else like it in Southampton, and its what i really love, so to see a club full of people dancing to the Supremes its pretty cool,a lot of students seem to like it.
As the souths most exciting new DJ on the scene how would you advise other people wanting to get into DJ’ing and  especially for such niche group of people?
They shouldn’t bother, we have it covered.

Back in the sixties Britain had an iconic identity that differed from all other western cultures. Your obviously a massive fan of this era, is your aim to maintain what we have left of this identity through your nights?

Id say so yeah, that era is pretty important to me, a lot of the things i love stem from the 60′s. I do love a lot of more recent music though, there are some great bands around at the moment,  as well as the lacklustre mundane songs that grace the music press and radio.
Fred Perry was hugely iconic throughout the sixties, it became the symbol of many British youth cultures, personally does Fred Perry mean alot to you?

Its cool yeah, i could quite easily spend a fortune in the Dukes lane shop in Brighton, i’ve always liked the brand. They seem to have put a lot of thought into there heritage over the past few years which is important.
When did you buy your first bit of Fred perry, what was it and why did you buy it?
I think i was about 9 or 10, id seen this Fred Perry polo, it was brown with orange trim and i remember keeping on at my mum to get it for me. I can remember wearing it to a Paul Weller gig the same year, i couldn’t see anything but i felt like a dude, or ‘one of the faces’ should i say!
Fred Perry are keen to maintain their heritage and relationship with music, they often put their own nights on in the 100 club in London. Do you think they are going the right way about maintaining this heritage?
I would say they are yes, although the brand all started in the early 50′s as a tennis polo shirt its always had an association with youth culture and music, so what better way to maintain that then put on gigs with bands that are influenced by music   from these cultures. I went to the 100 club for the first time last week, its a great venue which seemed to have a special sense of history about it!
Who are your icons when it comes to
Music and fashion?
Paul Weller, Steve Marriott, Keith Richards and more recently Miles Kane.
Lastly, if you could pick one track that sums you up, your passion for the 60′s and Britain in the 60s, what would it be?
This is really hard, there are so many! But i think it would have to be (The Ronettes- Be my baby) Veronica Bennett’s voice in this song is amazing, its not lyrically groundbreaking and there not trying to be clever, its just 60′s pop at its best. I think a lot of people could relate to it, the line ‘we’ll make em turn there heads every place we go’ is my favorite.
I first heard it as a kid watching Quadrophenia in the scene where they gate crash the party. I think it had just stuck with me since then.

Since February 2010 I’ve known the Iron Door Club. Not only are they the nicest band I have ever met, they’ve also come on fucking leaps and bounds in the last year.

Recently the Derby lads completed their debut album and I’m damn impressed.

It’s riddled with sixties melodies and the song writing harks back to love-lust simplicity and a heap of rock and roll romantacism. They don’t need frills or gimmicks or, more importantly, synths, to craft something that strives so close to pop perfection.

Check them out, they’re playing a Psychedelia show at the Soul Cellar on April 23rd with Twisted Wheel, the epic 12 Dirty Bullets and The Novatones…we’ll have them up the club again soon.

Get snippets here…but buy the album if you kids are still buying records…

http://www.myspace.com/theirondoorclub

Alright Lennons peeps,

Dan from Saturday nights here. Some of you may know me, some of you may hate me, none of you have tried to sleep with me, but what really matters is that all of you know Tom Dyer.

As well as using this as a regular website with our listings and photos we’re also going to pop some new music we like on the site. Like a blog, but it’s .com so that’s far more important.

Currently we’re working on some bookings and trying to keep Saturdays’ as good as they can be – and we hope you’re enjoying it because we are.

Here’s a band I’m digging at the moment, they’re called Various Cruelties…

Plan B stating that he’s conquered soul was a bit presumptuous. In fact, it was a totally outrageous and ill-informed statement that holds little authenticity. The audacity of people these days is blood-boiling…

See, every once in a while an act like Plan B will hit the mainstream by shifting their original, rooted sound to a more polished, or possibly, totally altered outlook. These mainstream altering shifts then greet the public eye like a beacon of originality, and in turn, the audiences for whom this is crafted will leave their house, go to Tesco and buy their annual CD. This happens all over and it’s responsible for chart-dominating success, because think how many people fall into this category. Your parents maybe? Your sister? Your friends? – all of them.

Grandiose claims such as the one made by Plan B don’t affect the once-a-year CD shoppers though. Declarations and statements which burry themselves in the root-canal of music hold little stable ground with these music grazers, the deriding of soul means nothing, the alteration of sound is irrespective – but why should they care? It’s normal not to give a hoot, the oddities come from actually caring too much…

I was curious though, if Plan B has mastered soul and is apparently moving on to Reggae, where does that leave ‘Cold As You’ by Various Cruelties? Just teetering of the peripheral of Plan B’s conquered scene? Or is it a challenge? A fist-clenched challenge to the grime-turned-pop wordsmith? Nah, it’s more of an unintentional retort that disproves Plan B’s muggy, narcissistic presumption via oceans of fulfilling, Technicolor fore-frontal pop.

Various Cruelties stand firm, however, because the full-bodied brass and wavering melodious tones of Motown only hint towards their pop sensibilities. The London band formed in 2010 and have since supported Mumford and Sons, The Villagers and The Vaccines. An impressive roster of shows so far – and although personally I feel that means fuck all in the grand scheme of things, its something people like to write, so like the generic blog-mug I am, I’ve followed suit…

VARIOUS CRUELTIES – COLD AS YOU

The recently released ‘If It Wasn’t For You’ received some critical acclaim with its trembling surf guitar, undulating with mood and possession, but I feel the real extent of their sumptuous croons comes during ‘Chemicals’. Although extremely poppy and landing comfortably into the Brit-folk scene that emerged in the past couple of years, Various Cruelties lead the pack with throaty pouts and a sense of unaffected ease and comfort. At points it appears so perfectly delivered that you think you shouldn’t like it, but dismiss that moronic idea right out the window into on-coming traffic.

VARIOUS CRUELTIES – CHEMICALS

There are many many positives that come from striving towards the polished product. They sound remarkably accomplished considering it’s still early for them, but most of all, the band wont have to alter any sound or direction to ‘conquer’ any form of popularity because they’re pretty much impeccable as they are.

This Thursday will be featuring Electro – Old, New, Other and Everything in between.

Vodka/Rum + Mixer – £1.25!
Selected Shots – £1!