What is/was Macho City?

It started as an excuse for three grown men to play high-NRG records in the crumbling excess of the Joiners Arms in 2008. What it became was a manly knees-up that a local crowd of brilliant eccentrics could call home every Thursday night.  

What are some of your overriding Hacienda memories?

The club space alone was incredible, like no other I’d ever been to, or probably ever will; the sheer scale of this disused yacht factory turned post-modern fantasy. My Hac debut was the first night of ‘Flesh’ back in ’91, the night that was to become the club’s most decadent. There were foam parties with actual swimming pools, always likely to collapse at some point leaving the club 6 inches in water. There was always a sense of glamour and danger, a very northern glamour that you just didn’t get anywhere else. Once inside the Hacienda you forgot that anywhere else existed. I remember DJing for the first time at Flesh, in that amazing booth right up in the gods overlooking the dancefloor & stage. It was immense yet it always felt intimate. There was no greater sense of sophisticated fun on earth. 

Who would be in your disco supergroup?

This is easy…. Klaus Nomi, Donna Summer and Sylvester on lead vocals; Cher and Dolly Parton on backing vocals; Divine on rap.  Then there’s Blue Weaver on keyboards and behind the scenes Moroder and Belotte on production. It’s a properly gay supergroup.

 Name us 5 Macho City classics!

These five definitely sum up the sound of Macho from its early days to now.

 1.    Donna Summer – MacArthur Park

2.    Mike Simonetti – Hollywood Seven

3.    Sana Doris – Pseudo Wind

4.    Carl Bean – I Was Born This Way

5.    Viola Wills – If You Could Read My Mind

 Macho City takes place on Thursday 24th May with Dave Kendrick, Dan Beaumont and Charlie Porter, from 9pm – 3am.

You can catch Society’s “music for your hearts, not the charts” on the last Thursday of every month with the legendary Robert Owens holding court with his revered residency. This month they’re joined by local hero and “DJ’s DJ” Andy Blake for another lesson in all things H.O.U.S.E. taking place this Thursday 31st May from 9pm-3am.

Can you describe Durrr for the uninitiated?

Transient love and dancing with myself, The Lovely Jonjo, and our friends from around the world.

What do you miss most about Trash?

I miss the time more than anything, that excitement of styles colliding for the first time, things that seem very much standard now.

What’s your favourite end of the night track?

Carol King – I Feel The Earth Move

What’s your favourite drum machine?

The Siel MDP 40, an almost toy-like drum machine, think that crunchy Storm Queen clap sound.

What/who are you excited for at this year’s Stop Making Sense festival?

I’m excited for the family feel of it more than anything, us, Superstore and all of the other London crews. I’m looking forward to seeing Lil Louis for the first time and Jimmy Edgar is always great.

Who are you favourite band right now?

I’m currently in a serious relationship with the Chromatics album Kill For Love.

Tell us about the Singles Club!

Glad you asked! It’s called Mixed Fortunes and the simple version is that I am releasing 6 12″ records throughout 2012 of my own original material and you can subscribe to get them delivered straight to your letterbox, along with digital versions, for less than just the WAVs would cost on Beatport. All the info is at: www.mixed-fortunes.com

What’s your one essential item (bar headphones and music) for your Stop Making Sense suitcase?

It’s a tie between sunblock and white loafers.

Rory Phillips plays Body Talk Presents: Stop Making Sense this Saturday 19th May alongside Hannah Holland (Batty Bass, Paris Acid Ball), Mikki Most (Trailertrash) Nadia Ksaiba (Rhythm Connection and Rokk plus the funky fresh Body Talk residents Charlie Bones & Tristan Reed.

Stav B’s T Club takes place this Thursday 17th May at Dalston Superstore with DJs, readings in the unisex toilets and a screening downstairs of ‘XWHY’, a short film by Jake Graf.

Photo credit: Leng Montgomery // for the full set of pictures visit The Most Cake

We are having a spacial Superstore SMS Warm Up Party in conjunction with Body Talk! Come and dance with us this Saturday 19th May with special guests Hannah Holland, Rory Phillips, Nadia Ksaiba & Mikki Most alongside Rokk and the Body Talk Residents. We can’t promise sea & sunshine but there will definitely be an abundance of excellent music on both floors to keep you on your feet!

SMS WARM-UP: Saturday May 19th, 9pm-3am at Dalston Superstore

Hannah Holland

Rory Phillips

Mikki Most

Nadia Ksaiba

Rokk

DALSTON SUPERSTORE BOAT PARTY: August 6th, 2pm-6pm, Tisno, Croatia

Severino

Hannah Holland

Nadia Ksaiba

Mikki Most 

DALSTON SUPERSTORE BEACH PARTY: August 6th, 6pm-midnight, Tisno, Croatia

6-8 Dan Beaumont & Rokk

8-9 Severino

9-10 Hannah Holland

10-11 Mikki Most

11-12 Superstore Allstars

Photo credit: Antony Price//www.anomalousvisuals.co.uk

Johnno: What do you remember most about the clubs you went to prior to you taking up DJing? 

Justin: Ha! It was all very fashiony pre acid house, lots of jazz suites in Manchester, a lot of complicated dancing to early house, hip hop and go go. I remember wearing a lot of Soviet badges and Doc Martins! Then E arrived and we all went nuts.

You have been a DJ for over 20 years now. What’s the best night you have had in that time? 

Wow so many to choose from, in the early years it was the last night of Most Excellent at the State, which is part of Legend. The club itself had a magic vibe, once being the home of the Twisted Wheel, the last night there was intense , insane, the chems banging tambourines and a lot of piano anthems! Clubs are still my home, and continue to be inspiring, I had a cracking night at 2022 in Manchester last week, and The Warehouse Project is probably the best club experience around at the moment, always a joy.

Your recording career has been varied, even taking you on to TOTP in the 90s. What three tunes are you most proud of?

Bjork – Big Time Sensuality remix is up there, it seemed to come together quite well, a techno dub excursion, and Bjork’s voice is just so amazing!

 Lionrock – Packet Of Peace- I thought we were quite inventive and this one pulls together some interesting and diverse styles.

The Deadstock 33s – Tic Tic Toc- its a new one, and my favourite thing I’ve ever done…wonky and psychy.

You have recorded under many pseudonyms in your time, any you have regretted? 

Oh yes I’ve done a few odd things in my time, some times I’ve tried some schizophrenic stuff in the past, some just didn’t work… my indie hop song about Uri Geller wasn’t great.

The new Deadstock 33s stuff is ace, what tune/remix should every discerning DJ have in their box? 

Thank you, yes it’s going very well, I have two EPs coming out in May for Batty Bass and Join Our Club that I’m very pleased with: wonky acid business. I think the Justice remix sounds pretty cool and the remix for Erol Alkan and Boys Noize really cemented the sound in my head. I have a pretty cool 8 minute psychedelic re-work of Paul Weller that’s quite nice!

What can we expect at Superstore this week?

Jacking to the max, with some outerspace flourishes.

Most importantly, as a man of sartorial cool, what will you be wearing to the sweatbox?

I’m favouring the demobed service man gets involved with an outlaw biker gang look at the moment!

Justin Robertson plays Back To Back at Dalston Superstore tonight Friday 11th May from 9pm – 3am alongside Kezokichi, Jamie D Winter, PressPlay, James Harris and Alex Carlé.

Along with fellow resident DJ Ian Robinson the party ran for over 5 years until they finally closed the doors at On The Rocks in 2009, but the TT crew continue to put on big warehouse raves and this summer are lining up to takeover the main dance tent at Lovebox Sunday with party partners GutterSlut. It’s set to be a big day with DJ Hell, Tiga, LCD Soundsystem and Ivan Smagghe headlining the big top tent, which holds up to 5000 people – so no problems if the rains come!

Ahead of the big event we caught up with Mikki and Hannah for a chat about their fave TrailerTrash parties over the years, and which ones particularly blew their minds. So for all those who remember the lost Friday nighters and sweaty warehouse bangers then here are some of the standout moments from the last 8 years of no good fun… it’s been one hell of a ride!

Kwik-Fit Garage rave

The first massive rave we ever did nearly didn’t happen! We lost the original space at the last minute but luckily managed at the last minute to secure the disused Kwik-Fit garage near the Old Street roundabout. With hardly any power and one strobe light (literally!), about 1000 people turned up and went mental to Ivan Smagghe in the concrete bunker. Everyone thought we had hired a load of smoke machines for it but it was just all the dust in there!

Banged Up – Prison Rave

We were given the chance to do a party in a 200-year-old underground medieval prison near Clerkenwell. It was a maze of underground dungeons; an amazing, surreal and very creepy space, but it just worked perfectly, and I remember the atmosphere as being so intense especially when Hannah played the whole place went crazy. Because it was underground people couldn’t find the entrance for hours!

Every Friday at On The Rocks

Possibly the most seedist venue, it was voted the worst toilets in London by Time Out, with dodgy crates in the DJ booth, so that gives you a little idea of how grimey it was. But that was its charm and to watch it grow from a small family of Shoreditch party people to a completely mobbed electric rave over the course of 5 years was amazing. Every week it went off, people really lost there minds in there. The music of 2006 was probably the best year; Oliver Huntemann was a staple sound of the club… big dirty filthy electro techno.

Summer Camp

Along with our pals from Horse Meat Disco and Disco Bloodbath this was the biggest outdoor party we have ever done and was actually after Lovebox in 2008. Over 2500 people turned up to some outdoor football pitches next to Liverpool Street (which have sadly now been developed) and it was just brilliant. It was special because it is so hard to do outdoor parties in London because of the sound issues but for that one night we were somehow allowed…. we even had an ice cream van!

Eastend Pleasure Cruise

We have done several boat parties but the first one stands out when we teamed up with our friends at The George & Dragon because it was just a perfect summer’s day. I will always remember a boatload of trannies sailing under Tower Bridge waving at everyone to the soundtrack from Baywatch!

Rumble In The Jungle – Boxing Ring Party

For some reason we thought it would be a brilliant idea to have a full size boxing ring in the middle of a rave with a DJ battle in it for our 8^th birthday. It was totally amazing apart from when the ring broke because there was too many people dancing in it and we had to pay loads of money to a very pissed off boxing coach. Ooops… it was worth it though. 

TrailerTrash and Gutterslut will be taking over the main dance big top at Lovebox Sunday this year – for tickets and info visit lovebox.net. 

They will also be having a summer rooftop party in August, a series of intimate warehouse events in early September and a massive Halloween rave as well… so keep  ‘em peeled kids…

Signed to Arts & Crafts, Trust, a side-project of Austra drummer Maya Postepski, are set to release their first full length TRST here in the UK later in the year. In the meantime check out this brooding video from last year’s single Candy Walls…

Trust play Club Lesley this Saturday 12th May from 9pm – 3am.

What made you want to start GutterSlut?

Nic: After a couple of years living with Per and Ralf, having too many after parties at ours trashing the flat we decided it was time to move. Per had experience promoting club nights in Sweden, we’re both DJs and as Ralf is a great photographer he would be the best to then document the night. It seems like the perfect idea.

Per: We started GutterSlut as protest against the gay scene that at the time, in 2007, was quite stagnant back then. There was clubs like Trailer Trash around in east London but not much more playing cool dance music. There was no where to go out on Saturday night, so we thought let’s start a fun club that felt like a house party.

You’ve been going for a good few years now- what’s your favourite ever GutterSlut memory?

Nic: The first GutterSlut we did in Berlin was at a place called Hubertus Lounge. To go into the basement you had to enter through a cupboard door, go down a really narrow set of stairs to end up in this really dark and dusty space where the rave was going. It was kind of surreal, very Alice In Wonderland.

Per: There’s too many. I loved it when we played at Summer Rites festival and had all the trannies climbing in the dance tent scaffolding up to the roof, Miss Crystal MC stage diving from the DJ booth, and A Man To Pet crowd surfing away to the music.

You’re going to be at Lovebox Sunday with our disco sisters Trailer Trash and you’ve got DJ Hell, Tiga and a special DFA Disco version from the LCD Soundsystem guys James Murphy and Pat Mahoney playing in your tent! Who are you most looking forward to?

Nic: They are all amazing DJs but I’m really excited to see DJ Hell as he will also put on an incredible visual show.

Per: I’m Looking forward to Tiga. I’ve heard him before and he always rocks the house, but also DJ Hell and the LCD crew will be cool.

Describe the level of debauchery at an average Gutterslut on a level between 1-10.

Nic: With parties that are normally a 10, you’d have to make them 5 so you could give GutterSlut a 10.

Per: 9.5 sometimes 10

What’s your one quintessential Gutterslut tune each?

Nic: There are a few at the moment, MK ‘Burning’ (Round Table Knights Mix) but one that I tend to always play is Deetron ‘Starblazer’

Per: I’ll go for a party anthem Martin Solveig – The Night Out (A-Trak remix) 

If you could have your wildest dreams come true, who would you book to play a dream Gutterslut- alive or dead?

Nic: DJ Sneak, he’s a legend, I heard him in Berlin a couple of years ago and he was brilliant. I love the dirty disco sound he’s releasing on his label.

Per: I think A-Trak would be great.

This weekend you’re playing at Slutty Shopper- a magic team-up between Sink The Pink and Tutti Frutti. Bank holidays here at Superstore are always bananas and it’s fair to say it’s going to be a tranny bonanza. What have you got planned to either drive these ladies wild or keep them under control?

Nic and Per: We don’t think those ladies need to get any wilder, they’re quite mental already and it would be a too difficult job to try and keep them under control, but a few bottles of Jaegermeister always helps.

Define a “gutterslut” for us and tell us which of the two of you first that bill more.

Nic: A true GutterSlut lives in Dalston, goes out on Friday and comes back on Monday sometimes Tuesday escorted by an ambulance or the police with half her garments missing, she wasn’t wearing lots anyway as she loves to show her bits.

It would have to be Per in his hay days , I guess we’ve both calmed down a bit with the years.

Per: A GutterSlut is a person that don’t care about who you are, who you know or when it’s time to go home.

Both GutterSluts Nic Fisher and Per QX play Slutty Shopper this Bank Holiday Sunday here at Dalston Superstore and co-host the dance tent for TrailerTrash Vs GutterSlut at Lovebox Festival in Victoria Park on Sunday 17th June.

We are very proud to welcome actual DJ legend Mr Andrew Weatherall into our basement along with Horse Meat Disco head honcho Jim Stanton, Superstore’s own Dan Beaumont, Dave Kendrick from Macho City, Jos Gibson from Dirtbox and Lovebox Sunday curator James Baillie.

If that wasn’t enough we will be raffling 2 pairs of Lovebox Sunday VIP tickets on the night!

For full Lovebox info go to www.lovebox.net