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December 2007 Within the first couple of days of December, I’d completed my latest inastalment in the annual tradition that is my Bangers CD series. Each year, I put together three mixes – one R&B, one hip hop, one reggae dancehall - consisting of the year’s biggest urban music joints, peppered with a few personal favourites and exclusives among the better-known tracks, (it wouldn’t be a Mark Devlin production otherwise!) I’m conscious of the fact that, producing it in early December, there’s still officially one more month of the year to go, but precious little of any substance gets released at this time, so it’s never really a problem. I’ll be giving out CD copies of ‘2007 Bangers’ at all my club gigs from now until January. The mixes are also available for mp3 download, however. The links are on the News page of this site, you’ll find the full track listings in the Mix CDs section, and there are regular bulletins with links posted on my Myspace page – www.myspace.com/therealmarkdevlin. Be sure to check ‘em out. As recently as three or four years ago, December always seemed to be a safe bet for a lively time in the clubs. There are now all kinds of factors affecting the fortunes of the nightlife industry, however – particularly with the styles of music I play – that it’s no longer the case. The changes in alcohol licencing laws, the public smoking ban, the blurring of the lines between R&B and pop and the evergreen short-sighted perception that urban, (read ‘black’) music equals trouble have all had their parts to play. It could be seen at G’s in Bicester on Thursday 6th, and in Long Eaton on the outskirts of Nottingham the following night as I headed up there to DJ at the town’s Litten Tree. Neither night was busy … although to the above factors you can also add some pretty foul weather, and the suggestion that folk are a bit broke at the moment with ever-rising interest rates and Christmas present purchases to consider.
Parveen at Wax, London. There could have been more of the same on Saturday – particularly with the Hatton/ Mayweather fight on TV to keep people in. Happily, my appearance at Wax, just off Oxford Street in Central London (and next door to the Emap building, home of Kiss FM and Mixmag,) was packed with a good-spirited party crowd, which made for an energetic two-hour set. The event is one of many staged by Insomnia PR, a very active promotions crew who always have a diverse array of events happening all over town. My date followed in the footsteps of Dodge, DJ Skinz formerly of The Boogie Bunch, and Dane Bowers (!) and was a great final London gig of ’07. Wednesday 12th marked my last regular Just Buggin' show of the year on FM107.9. I'm using the following weeks as retrospectives of '07, playing all the favourite tunes that the show has busted over its first year, while for Boxing Day, I'm doing an Urban Chart Show of the year - all the big mainstream tunes, and exactly the sort of thing I DON'T normally play on Just Buggin'!
MD on FM107.9. The station's Christmas bash was the following night, and it was the first company Christmas do I've been to in over ten years on account of me not having had a proper employer in all that time. Venue for the night was the Living Room, a smart, bustling restaurant as part of Oxford's newly developed Castle Complex. It's set in the grounds of what was for decades Oxford Prison, and obscured from view by high walls and a massive man-made hill. The transformation is incredible, and the area now looks amazingly cool. It was good to mingle with station staff who I don't normally see on my Wednesday nights. The only downer was having to leave by 11pm to go and DJ at G's in Bicester, with only enough time to gulp down one course. No-one had embarrassed themselves drunkenly by that point, but the night was still young.
MD at Lounge 31, Manchester. Friday 14th was the sort of freezing night that sends you scurrying back into the warm the minute you set foot outside, but it had done little to keep revellers in Manchester from enjoying a night out. As I headed to Lounge 31 in the bustling Printworks complex of bars, clubs and restaurants, I was greeted with the familiar sight of girls in skirts so short they barely concealed their knickers, the skimpiest of tops and six-inch heels, and lads in vest tops, all showing the usual Northern resilience to the elements. Sadly, the venue wasn’t busy for the Soul In The City session, staged by the North West’s Brown Suga crew, but on the upside, I got to play an entire set of 90s and early 00s quality revivals, which I’m unable to get away with too often.
MD at The Second Bridge, Bath. I encountered the kind of scenario detailed in the ‘Groupie Love’ chapter of my book on Saturday night. As I set off to play at The Second Bridge in Bath, I got a call from three girls asking about the gig, and saying they planned to come down and check it out. Parveen was beside me in the car, having decided to come for a night out. Halfway through the evening, three girls made their presence known in front of the booth, and it became clear that these were the ones who’d called. To cut a long story short, one of them ended up making me the kind of offer I could only have dreamed about when I was a single guy, but which I’ve only ever received since I’ve been married. The complication was that this took place under the watchful gaze of the wife, so naturally, the offer had to be declined. In the interests of diplomacy I find myself unable to make any further comment on the scenario. Except to talk about the gig itself, of course. I’d previously played the club’s main room on its second week of opening, where house and dance tunes were called for. This time, I was in the low-ceilinged Vaults area, and back in natural musical habitat, spinning an urban set. The club was rammed and the alcohol was flowing, (though not into me,) which, combined with the earlier situation, made for a highly memorable night.
Oxford Street at Christmas - just mental. I’m happy to conform to stereotypical male status by saying I detest shopping of all varieties … so it was probably a mistake to take a tube into London’s Oxford Street on Thursday 20th. As you’d expect, the place was total bedlam, with seemingly half the world’s population crammed between Centre Point and Regent Street. So I quickly made a headway for Paddington, the spiritual home of Blues & Soul magazine, where we’d arranged a Christmas drinks session for many of the mag’s former staff and freelancers. Venue for the event was the Dickens Inn, an otherwise unremarkable pub which, due to its proximity to the office, has been the site of many a beer-fuelled heated discussion and music-related power meeting over the years. It was great to catch up with the old crew again and reminisce … but being a Thursday, I again had to depart early to hot-tail it back to G’s in Bicester. The Friday immediately before Christmas is dubbed ‘Mad Friday’ by Northerners, and celebrated zealously. I was spinning down South for it this year, though, with a last-minute one-off at Que Pasa in Slough. The set-up left a lot to be desired. No monitor speaker, and archaic Numark CD machines with cue and play buttons that stuck sporadically. It was a case of knuckling down and making the best of it, but the good-spirited, alcohol-fuelled crowd didn’t seem to notice, and made the job a lot easier.
MD with Little Miss Jocelyn at the Christmas Comedy Jam, Aylesbury. I had Saturday 22nd off, instead working the next two nights at the Slug & Lettuce in Aylesbury. The new general manager is Rodney Bennett, formerly part of the DJ/ promotions crew The Gigolos who I used to work with at Matrix in Reading back in the day. He’s devised a few imaginative promotions, the first of which was a Def Comedy Jam-style night on Sunday 23rd. Parveen and myself linked with her brother and his girlfriend, taking up a table to watch Mr. Cee, Slim, and a dweeby Canadian dude whose name I’ve forgotten. The quality of the gags was mixed, but there were a fair few that had us all laughing. After the routines, tables were shifted, and the rest of the evening became a club night with the emphasis on Reminisce-style revival sounds. During my set I noticed Parveen getting down alongside the comedienne Little Miss Jocelyn, and we linked up for a quick photo and chat. Her new TV series starts on BBC2 in January, and we arranged for her to come into my radio show to promote it sooner rather than later. Hold tight for some entertaining mixtape drops. Christmas Eve saw me back at the Slug for the second night, (how the hell does a venue get a name like that anyway?!), playing a general-purpose set. It was certainly busy, but punters seemed more interested in drinking and chatting than dancing. My big regret is that I didn’t have a mic to do a countdown at midnight, and, aside from a couple of R&B numbers, I didn’t have any big Christmas tunes to drop at the appropriate moment. Although I like to think of myself as having some credibility and integrity as an ‘urban’ DJ, I’m prepared to make an exception at Christmas, and wouldn’t have objected to playing something cheesy like Slade or The Pogues!
MD at Blu, Liverpool. Like probably 99 per cent of the country, Parveen and myself had had a couple of days of doing the family thing by Boxing Night, and were ready to break out for some more nightlife action. Destination this year was Liverpool, home of Vibin’ at Baby Blu, and we spent the first hour of the drive listening to my pre-recorded Urban Chart of ’07 show on the radio. Dance music punters in the city were spoilt for choice, with Garlands throwing a big bash, and Cream hosting superstar DJs Armin Van Burren, Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso and D Ramirez. Vibin’ remained seemingly the sole choice for R&B and hip hop. The night wasn’t overly busy, something which the promoters put down to the fact that the Vibin’ crowd are used to going out on a Sunday, but we still had a good time. Which was far from the case the next morning. The drive home took four and a half hours with every route clogged up, presumably by shoppers heading to the sales. We vowed not to make the mistake of taking a hotel next time; driving home after a gig when the roads are clear, even if it means getting in at 6 or 7 in the morning, is a far preferable option. I was still weary from my hours at the wheel by the time I hit G’s later that night. The Bridge, Oxford on the last Saturday of the year could have been a victim of being too close to New Year’s Eve, and last year, the club took the decision not to open. This year it was open, however, and the night ended up being one of the busiest and liveliest of recent months, paving the way nicely for NYE itself. (Pic of MD with Kid Fury at The Bridge, Oxford here.) On all but three of the 18 New Year’s Eves I’ve worked I’ve been fortunate enough to get the midnight set, whether on the radio or in a club, and I’ve become well-versed at hyping up the crowd with a countdown, (aided by a radio-controlled clock for proper accuracy.) In 1999, London Records released a CD of Big Ben’s chimes specially for New Year’s Eve DJs, and I’ve used these ever since. (Trainspotters take note – start the CD exactly at 11.59:37 to get the first bong to sound precisely at midnight!) The crowd on my level was suitably well-oiled to see out ’07 with a bang, and I had the luxury of being able to enjoy a few tipples myself, courtesy of the wife selflessly offering to stay sober and drive. I recorded my fast-moving and far-reaching set, (with mp3 downloads available via the homepage of the site if you want to check it out,) and my four and a half hours of playing time zipped by in a flash. It was a highly enjoyable end to a year of very mixed fortunes. Here’s to 2008.
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