The Mix 047: Man Power

How are things going at Are You Affiliated/Kings Street Social Club? Were you encouraged by all the interest in the venue when it launched last year?

Yeah, it’s nuts. I have to say all these things I’ve achieved and experienced across the last decade or so, nothing compares to this. When me and my partner Gabriel first put an event on there, it was the first time where I felt like I had to do another one. The crowd was so up for it, so invested and it felt like the old community spirit we used to have. I think the reason we managed to get that, is because we set it up in a desert, we didn’t go and compete with anything else; from day one we could imbue these utopian club ideals. When done properly, the DJ/promoter is just one element in what you do, the crowds should feel equal ownership over everything. So it feels like I’ve been proven right, which always feels good.

I got mentioned in The Sunday Times as one of the reasons North Shields is in the top 20 places to invest in, when you see shit like that, it’s nuts. I can see the renewed optimism in a town that feels like it’s been kicked from pillar to post, so every time I say that this kind of thinking is essential – I’m not just talking out of my arse, I’ve got evidence on a micro-scale that it works. People have to meet us with the fees, we don’t have a lot of money — but if you look at who we had last year: Caribou, Skream, Daniel Avery, maybe it means there are good guys out there.

It becomes a mutually beneficial thing, right? You’ve created a space that artists want to experience themselves.

There were a lot of clubs in mind when we started it off, mostly Robert Johnson and Panorama Bar. Operating sustainably and economically, but the pay-off is how good it is and being part of something bigger. But opening a Panorama Bar in North Shields isn’t authentic to what’s here, so while there’s a lot in common with these places, it’s also nothing like them. It was flattering when Gerd Janson played, he said it reminded him of the old loft parties in New York. I was like “Really?!” But when he explained it, it was more about the ethos of operating in spaces that feel so different. It means the thing he picked up on was the connectivity on the dancefloor.

There has been talk about how large-scale venues should be doing more to help grassroots music – what do you think about this? Would a ticket levy work? Should it come from DJs/artists?

I’m quite a proactive person, I see it as if you see a problem you should try and find a way to fix it. All of last year every story you saw was around club closures, and it was like: “Well ours is opening.” I don’t think the Are You Affiliated model is the solution, it’s more about changing perspectives and showing people how good clubs are — engaging people in the culture. I’m not saying everybody has to come in and intellectualise it, but there needs to be a trend in people understanding the value of underground spaces. I think the best way to do that is by creating more opportunities for people to connect with it.

What do you think makes crowds in the North East so unique?

I’m too biased, but my dad had this theory that because it’s more isolated than other industrial centres — we either built things and they took them away or we dug them out of the ground and they took them away. So there are strong communities all across the North, but in the North East we don’t think as outwardly — so we always had these incredible parties, but we weren’t shouting about them. If you look at these people who’ve come out of the North East in recent years, they are musically different to me, but Ben Helmsley, Patrick Topping, Schak — they represent what’s possible.

Young working-class lads who have stayed true to themselves.

Exactly! It’s nice that it’s these people from where I’m from. I know how hard it is to get out there from here, fair fucks to them you know what I mean. They’ve achieved something monumental.

How was it to move back to the North East from Mexico?

I’d never really appreciated the changes that had happened in the decade since I’d left. You can’t appreciate it until you’ve lived somewhere else I don’t think. Now, there’s nowhere else in the world that I’d even consider living. When my daughter came over from Mexico, she started in the first year of high school – so it wasn’t as much of a problem for her, you know everyone is coming and making new friends. It’s a big reshuffle. That’s how it felt for me moving here during the pandemic too, it felt like everyone was starting from scratch. That’s when I started getting heavily involved in local things instead.

Do you think you prepare differently to play to local crowds?

Yes and no. Maybe when I was playing different gigs touring, a festival stage or a big club – taking hype bookings – I would have this small section of tunes, you go for the safety thing. Shut up and play the bangers. But with King Street, I can go for a broader selection — I can do what I want. The other places where I feel like I can do that are either all-night parties or Panorama Bar. Being choosy has helped though, I can go and play the places I like. I know it’s a luxury that I can do that, but fuck it I have got the luxury so it would be wrong not to.

You have spoken pretty openly about dealing with ADHD while also maintaining a full-on schedule — how is it to juggle all of these different projects?

I think I’ve found myself in a necessary position where I have to. I’m one of those ADHD people who are driven by a motor, so I’ve recognised the positive ways I can drive all this energy into something useful.

Do you think the current landscape adds pressure to compete/encourages artists/DJs to take on a lot?

I think there’s a lack of original thought, I don’t think it’s pressure necessarily. Do you remember the TV show Room 101? If there was one term I could throw into there it would be multi-disciplinary artist. You’re posting about the food you’ve made and DJing? Wow. You have a digital camera so you’re also a photographer? People do a load of stuff. I hate buzzwords. Any artist with any weight behind them now, it feels like they have to have a manager, not against that whatsoever – but what it leads to is all this kind of stuff, you have to have a capsule collection, you have to have a charting record. I’m sure it adds a lot of pressure because it just feels like a business, but also… that can’t be fun.

How has your work as an artist/label head changed in the last few years? Do you think vinyl issues/changes to social media – the instantaneousness of everything has impacted how you work?

It’s not changed how I work, it’s changed how successful it is [laughs]. When I first started Man Power about 10 years ago, I could put out releases and I could release on labels that were big and then have a breather. Now you have Spotify which has led people to think music is free, and social media which has reduced music to content — so now when I make a record, it’s an expression of a feeling or my taste. What has changed is the application of what I make. It either exists as a piece of content posted on social media for a day or may over time become something a small group of people spread in places all over the world fall in love with. That makes it worth it of course, but releasing isn’t the product — it’s the driver to other things.

What’s coming up next for you?

Well, I’ve made a New Year’s resolution to have strict studio time, I want to release a full-length album this year and keep on making music — but again, it’s because I want to make them. I want to be connecting with people who connect and care about things that I care about, so I think we’re going to do an Are You Affiliated thing in Ibiza. No shade on Ibiza, but I want to experiment and see what happens if we get artists in to play longer sets, a bit more of a community ethos. There are people who would really enjoy that. It would be great to also take the King Street model, and do a tour of social clubs in the UK — give people a toolkit, help get people through the door and see how it works. Find the foundations for your church and build from there.

Can you tell us about your mix?

I did a couple of big mixes last year where I presented a pretty broad picture of all the dance music I love, and I also have a Rinse FM residency where I focus on brand-new music, so I wanted to make this mix feel special and different to all of those. I decided I’d try to make it as representative as possible of how I’ve been playing recently, so to do that I’ve picked a bunch of tracks exclusively from the music my USB tells me that I played at a gig at Panorama Bar a few weeks ago. I reckon that’s the best way to give an honest snapshot of stuff I play — it’s just short of providing a live recording from a club.

The mix was recorded in January and features a leftfield song with the lyrics ‘Burn Hollywood Burn’, I’ve agonised these last weeks about whether I should re-record the mix in light of the recent fires in California and in case anybody mistakenly thought I was being either insensitive or provocative. I’ve opted to leave the mix as is, not least because I have amazing memories of playing that exact track at a Warehouse rave in Downtown LA last Autumn, where it was arguably the track that landed the most with the LA crowd. I have deep connections with LA and many dear friends in the scene over there which is why I’ll also be donating the label share of profits from the final two releases on Me Me Me to The California Community Foundation’s Wildfire Relief Fund.

Megan Townsend is Mixmag’s Deputy Editor, follow her on Twitter