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Jan/Feb
2005
With the fun and frolics New Years Eve and
Thailand still fresh in our minds, we started
the New Year at the ever-consistent Blend
in Derby. Our hosts, promoter/DJ's Scott
Lorrimer and Mark Williams, are not scared
of a party and always make us feel completely
at home - needless to say, drinks were flowing
yet again! For most, January is usually written
off as a quiet month - everyone is skint and
nobody goes out……..not at Blend,
it was packed! Tracks going down well with
the Derby massive were Soul Avengers -
"Love You Feel", and Scott
Lee - "Higher Love".
Next, we ventured deep into Brum for Hidden's
weekly Saturday nighter - Promise.
The venue was near to capacity with Birmingham's
trendy-set and there was a very high lady
count to say the least. Very pleasing to the
eye, according to Graham!! Musically, it would
best be described as a funky house venue,
where the bigger bassline numbers, do well.
We did our thing and handed over to the resident
who took things a little tougher for the last
hour and a half.
Into February and back home in Manchester
at Angel Deelite. Making his AD debut,
Graham took care of the early slot and warmed
things up a treat. Angel Deelite is one of
the few venues where the crowd expects to
hear new tracks, particularly early on in
the night - and so it was great to throw plenty
of new material their way. Naturally, as the
night progresses then things loosen up a bit
(well a lot actually) and the classics come
out which are equally well received. Two that
stick out in my mind this time were Dina
Caroll - "Run To You" and
The Braxtons - "The Boss", both
MAW classics. It's good to know we will be
back at AD in May - can't wait!
As if the weekend couldn't get any better,
the following day we returned to possibly
our favourite gig on the circuit, Cookie
Dough - to join in with their 3rd Birthday
celebrations! The tiny Lemon Lounge,
where this monthly is held, isn't known for
it's good looks and charms, but this party
really isn't about that……it's more
about atmosphere, music and mehem - specifically
packing a room with 200 like minded party
goers, all hell-bent on getting hammered and
jumping about until the early hours. Just
how we like it! As our third appearance, we
were worried that it couldn't possibly be
as good as the previous two………how
wrong we were! This consistent little night
keeps getting better and better and there's
no reason why it won't still be rocking away
in another 3 years! Tracks on the night were
the GN mix of "Golden" and
Sara Divine's - "Special", as
well as old favourites such as Strings Of
Life (which had the crowd jumping that much
during the breakdown, the needle skipped back
and wound the whole thing up again!) and Pump
Up The Jam which has become about of a
trademark of late!
February must have been a lucky month, because
the following week we were in Yorkshire at
Hustle (Player Sessions) in Sheffield
for another wicked night out. One of the biggest
changes since our first visit here, is the
position of the DJ booth which has been moved
to a more central dance-floor position. Not
only that, but the crowd was bigger and seemed
better educated musically - once again, Graham
commented on the number of good looking ladies
in there (he is getting quite bad these days!).
Joey Musaphia was in control when we arrived
and already had the party rocking. It's the
first time I've heard Joey play and he was
spot on…..programming wise his set blended
from dubby, latin numbers early on to party
tracks towards the end. We followed on at
1pm and kept the pace up - big track for us
were Audiowhores - "Subject Of My
Affection" (Dub). This is another
night which is seriously on the up - Sheffield
has somewhere to go again at least, if only
once a month!
To round off a cracking month, we were back
in Milton Keynes to play at Revolution.
Whilst we were south of the Watford gap we
took the opportunity to checkout the "Layabouts"
studio in Barnet and spent the day recording
our latest vocal track, with emerging talent
Alex Mills. The track is sounding hott,
so thanks to Leigh and Ben for their time
and also thanks to Alex and Georgia……looking
forward to finishing this one, watch this
space
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March,
April & May 2005
Our 'monthly' news page seems to have evolved
into more of a 'quarterly' update these days
- so apologies to those of you who keep an
eye on it. We will endeavour to keep on top
of it from now….promise!
Anyway, without further-a-do lets get on
with details of what has kept us busy for
the past few months.
March seems such a long time ago now, but
it was a good month with trips to Swansea,
Jersey and most importantly New York &
Miami!
Our regular trips to the Escape Club in
Swansea are very difficult to describe,
but if we had to choose one word to describe
it, then I would pick 'fucking-mental'…..OK
technically that's two, but mental isn't strong
enough on it's own! It's always packed out
with straight up party-heads and there's a
certain amount of pressure on the DJ's to
'try' and get as mashed as the audience. We
say 'try' because there is no competing with
the Swansea lot!!
Next we went to Jersey for our first
gig in the Channel Islands. For some reason
my Old Man (Mr A Unsworth Senior) decided
he was coming along for the ride and we bumped
into the 'nicest man in house', Tom Wainwright,
at Manchester airport and ended up spending
the afternoon in a Jersey boozer watching
Utd - result! Unfortunately for us, Tom was
booked to play at a big event at what appeared
to be Jersey's equivalent of The Millenium
Dome……..Jersey isn't exactly over
populated so needless to say, our gaff, just
round the corner ended up empty whilst Tom
rocked it with the Jersey masses!
Then there was Miami……physically,
one of the toughest weeks we've ever had!
My flight times were all fucked up which meant
I arrived in Miami at 11pm and hadn't
been to bed for around 40 hours - nice! Not
to be out done, Graham and the rest of the
crew had been to New York for five days and
had barely slept either. Naturally, the sensible
thing to do would be to get some much-needed
shut-eye before the partying started. That
would have been boring so we went straight
out the Bubblegum party with Jamie
Lewis and Hardsoul and got pissed.
It carried on from there really and with so
many parties day and night, sleep was on temporary
hold. Highlights of the week included the
Cielo party at the Versace Manson,
the Soulfuric / MAW party, the Defected
beach party, the MN2S / M8 cover shoot,
strawberry dacharies, boob jobs, and Graham's
sun tan. Check the gallery section for a few
exhibits of the above.
April was a funny month. First of all
the Pope sadly passed away and our planned
trip to Poland was naturally postponed.
Hot on the tail of the that, we received notification
from Wolverhampton that the Canal
Club had lost it's licence and we have
lost another booking. Ah well, more time for
decorating I suppose! We did play once in
April however, with a booking in Middlesborough
- our first trip to the North East. The venue
itself was wicked and the crowd was particularly
young and good looking! We were in the upstairs
area catering for the funky-house massive,
whilst downstairs, the residents dropped R&B
which seemed to be the music of choice. The
night was not without event with us arriving
at a club to be told it was the wrong place
and we were sent packing round the corner
with red faces! Oh and the fact that we were
accompanied by long-standing friend of the
Whores, Chris Doyle. You know you are
in for a night of it when Doyley drinks two
bottles of wine to himself, on the journey
there! Tunes that did it for us on the night
were the new 3am joiint on Defected
and our edit of the Subject Of My Affection
Dub
May was particularly involved with
four separate visits to London and
a gig in Rotterdam. On May Day we took
advantage of Virgin Trains new Manchester
- London Service…..2 hours, 15 minutes
straight into Euston - magic! We made our
3rd appearance at Turnmills, this time
for Houseology. We played in the main
room after Neil Pearce and kept it fairly
deep for the first few tracks…….but,
it soon emerged that it seemed to be the tougher
and more afro type stuff which was working.
Tracks like SUMO's rebounce of My Beat
and the Spiritual South mix of Gabriele
went down well, before we 'souled-it-up' ready
for the legendary Terri Hunter to take over
the booth.
Next we were back on familiar turf at Manchester's
long running Friday nighter - Angel Deelite.
We have played here too many times to mention,
but this was certainly one of the more memorable
ones……well, it would have been if
we hadn't have polished off Graham's bottle
of Absolute which he had sneaked in with his
DJ bag! That aside, in all seriousness this
was one of the most enjoyable gigs we've played
at AD……not one of the busiest, but
certainly one of our favourites. Tracks that
blew up were oldies like Inner City - Good
Life and newer numbers like Louie Vega
feat Mr V…..to be honest, we know
there were loads of tracks that went down
well but neither of us can actually remember
any! A CD would be nice if you are reading
this Mark!
The following day we were literally dragged
out of bed and back onto a Virgin Train to
get down to London for a gig at Neighbourhood,
our favourite London venue. Unfortunately,
we were extremely hung-over and the journey
wasn't particularlt pleasant……resulting
with Graham not feeling well and retiring
to his hotel room and me being dragged about
London by my now very angry girlfriend, Liane!
The day got better and we hooked up with the
one-and-only Ben Logan for a spot of
diner before arriving at the club. We had
yet another wicked night and found tracks
like GN's mix of Golden and Copyright's,
Essence of Life went down well. The night
was rounded off well, with resident DJ Harv,
coming back on to an encore with two house
classics, Guitara G and EBTG - Wrong….wowsers,
what a reaction! See the Gallery section for
shots!
Back in London for the third time in May,
we played alongside a big hero of ours (probably
a hero of anybody reading this actually),
Dave Lee, AKA Joey Negro. With a line-up
including Sandy Rivera, Joey Negro,
Dennis Ferrer, ATFC, Stevie 'Soul' Middleton
and ourselves, the much hyped MN2S
party at The End always promised to
be fun…..and it was! Thanks to the boys
for their hospitality.
Following morning, we were up and off to
Heathrow to catch our flight into Amsterdam,
followed by a car ride into Rotterdam. We
were delayed by an hour which really pissed
me off, as I missed the majority of the FA
Cup Final as a result. My worst fears
were realised about 40 minutes after arriving
in Rotterdam when Utd were subject
to a penalty shoot out and we all know the
outcome…..ridiculous really, what ever
happened to the mid-week replay? Anyway, enough
of that, I'm not bitter - much. Football aside
we were very pleased to be in Rotterdam
as we were able to hook up with best friend
Anthony 'Stan' Hodgson'. He showed
us the ropes during the day and was even kind
enough to take me to possible the most interesting
bar in the whole of Europe, Dirty Harry's.
What an experience….not for the faint
hearted! The gig itself was an old government
building which is currently used as a large
exclusive restaurant - converted on this occasion
to a large exclusive night club! We seemed
to go down well, although we played it fairly
safe if we're honest. After coming off the
decks we realised we could have been a whole
lot deeper and more soulful - damn! They are
certainly well educated out there….far
more than we gave them credit for. Well, at
least we know for next time and the gig still
rocked, so all is not lost! Until the next
time……..will try and not leave it
so long!!!
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