Dave Haslam | ginnykoppenholphoto

Dave Haslam - DJ, Writer, Journalist
November '22

Dave Haslam chatting to Fynn Galloway - Nov 2022

Fynn Galloway, Dave Haslam and Ginny Koppenhol

Dave DJing at the Vintage Festival After Party - Sept 2022

An Afternoon Without Keith Haring - Nov 19

Book tour for 'We the Youth: Keith Haring's New York Nightlife' - Tate Liverpool

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Fynn Galloway, Dave Haslam and I met in the café at the Manchester Art Gallery, at the end of 2022. The contents of our conversation were never meant to be shared, not because this was a clandestine meeting, but because it was initially a research activity during an arts residency that Fynn and I were engaged in at the time.

Quarantine (a fantastic Manchester-based arts organisation) commissioned pairs of artists, at least 20-years apart in age and with a common interest, to engage in a joint residency. Both being DJs from Lancaster, Fynn and I applied to spend this week in Manchester. We had plenty of conversations about our own journeys, conditions necessary for the more seismic musical movements, and the importance of creative collaboration.

We asked Dave if he’d join us in this conversation, having been an integral part of the Manchester scene since the 1980s, as one of the Hacienda residents, founder of the Debris fanzine, event organiser and a journalist. He continues to both influence and reflect on the current scene, as a DJ, speaker and prolific writer.

The conversation added to the many discussions Fynn and I had had earlier that week, and helped deepen our understanding on various issues. The meeting also influenced my decision to start this current personal project, exploring the current electronic music scene in Lancaster and Morecambe through portraits and interviews.

Dave talked about the changing definition of ‘DJing’, the growth of the ‘music industry’, the current pressure on DJs to make music, sustaining eclecticism, the importance of smaller independent venues, the demise of student nights, the underground, and the conditions necessary for creativity to coalesce, and so much more.
So we felt it only right that we share Dave’s perspectives with you too.

DAVE:
I was thinking on the way here, about how the definition of DJing has changed since ’83 / ’84 when I started. It almost needs a different name now.

When I started at the Hacienda and was putting on music before bands came on, I had a mixer with no vary speed or cross fader. I realised that there were two primary jobs of a DJ. Firstly, to source the music, because I’d been playing music that the customers didn't have the time, the inclination or the means to access. I always wanted to be an underground DJ in the sense that I didn't want to play chart or mainstream music. If you wanted to hear that, you had lots of other clubs in Manchester. Especially if you're working at the Hacienda, which was owned by Factory Records, there was still that sense of being pioneering and of trying to do something different.
I'd listen to John Peel on Radio 1, Steve Barker on Radio Lancashire on a Sunday afternoon, Mike Shaft, a DJ on local radio, and Mark Radcliffe too.

I'd spend a lot of time hanging around record shops and I’d build up a relationship with the people in the shops. I'd go in and they and they were like, ‘have you heard...?’ And it could be Joyce Sims, or it could be Jesus and Mary Chain. By the time we come to 1988, records made in Detroit and New York that weren't particularly popular in America - early records on Trax Records for example - they’d come over to England. There would probably be 100 of them; 50 of them in London, 20 max in Manchester, and DJ's were the ones who bought those copies. You needed that relationship so when you went into Eastern Bloc, they’d have a bag of records ready for you. I’d go in there in 1991 and there would be a pile of records for me to listen to. It only took those 20 DJs in Manchester to make a record a massive hit without people even knowing what it was. People didn't necessarily buy the record, as the experience of listening to them existed on their night out. They weren't bothered about owning it, much in the same way as now. There will be records played at The Warehouse Project that have sold less copies than the number of dancing in the crowd.

As well as sourcing the records, it’s programming them in the right order to make maximum impact from what you've got in the box. Of course, the other thing about them is that they were all records made by other people. Now, sourcing the record doesn't involve any of that ritual for most people. You’re playing records can be Shazam’d and accessed by the audience, so that curatorial aspect of DJing is still there, but it's nothing like it was back then. The technical aspect of DJing has become more important in a way, than the programming.

The eclecticism back then, is not quite the same as it is now. You tend to have more people who stay in their lane.

GINNY
We're talking about this issue yesterday. Matthew (Krysko) thought we were emerging from the ‘stay in your lane era’, maybe in part, because of the last few years and being in lockdown. Both of us listened to a more diverse range of music than we might have done ordinarily.

FYNN
And I think just getting out and being able to dance and boogie again to whatever. Before lockdown I was very set in what I'd listened to, quite narrow, and then afterwards I've been just more accepting of electronic music or dance music as a whole. You understand that everything's kind of got value and a lot of genres crossover.

But as a DJ, how do you bring the audience with you if you’re playing a more eclectic style?

I think it's quite a challenge. Well, you've heard me play. I'm just like, “f*** it. I'm going to play this”. But you have to stop it from seeming random.
Maybe also the drugs play a part. The Hacienda got less eclectic, the more ecstasy was taken in the club. That's because people wanted things at a certain tempo.

It was something that happened in the 60s. The Twisted Wheel Club became really well known as a Northern Soul venue, playing stomping Northern Soul to an audience that took a lot of amphetamine sulphate, but it started out in a club where you would hear Blues, reggae, rhythm and Blues, rare soul. The DJ who started the club, actually left because he said that the drugs people were taking were making them want to hear only peak-time stompers, and it was boring for him. So he left before the club became famous, and went off and started another club.
I always assume the audience are a few steps behind in terms of what they're listening to, because they're not professional music listeners. They're there for a night out. I think they go with a certain expectation and think ‘I've spent this amount of money’ or ‘I've travelled this far’ or ‘I want to hear this’ and if you go off on a tangent, playing stuff they don’t know… that's always been a challenge to bring them with you.

A lot of it depends on the venues too, and how they have cultivated their sound, what the audience expects and how much they trust the promoters there.

Yeah. That's where the resident DJ thing came in. Of the 480 times I played at the Hacienda or whatever it is, I think I had 5 guest DJs. Otherwise, it was either just me, or me and a resident.

You’re nurturing your crowd. They’ll think “ I’ll go to the Hacienda and I might not know all the records, but I'm going to have a great time.” As long as I would play 6 or 7 key records, what I played in between, they didn’t really bother about. But if you’d taken me and dropped me into another club at that point, and said “make it work”, it might not have done. The same selection of music in the same order might not work somewhere else, because that audience hadn't become accustomed to my style. The resident DJ thing is a rarity now.

Do you think that DJs have become less personal in their approach now, and become more perhaps robotic or corporate?

Well there wasn't a dance music industry then, but now there is and it’s worth millions of pounds. Money needs to be generated to keep the whole thing going.

Obviously famously at the Hacienda, New Order would just write a cheque every month. When I was doing 2 nights a week at the Hacienda I was being paid £120, which went up to £170 after a while, and it was 2 quid to get in. So I didn’t have any expectation, no one had any expectation and anything corporate would be turned away. It’s the same way that New Order never let their music be used for TV ads, and they didn't like doing interviews. They’d keep that distance. Hacienda would occasionally do a joint event with i-D magazine. Whereas Cream in Liverpool would get into bed with anyone.

Is it possible for clubs to exist in the way they were when you were DJing in the ‘90s, now we have social media and so much consumerism? Do you think it's possible for it to become kind of ‘natural’ again?

I don't know. When I look back, I’m not saying that that era was the perfect era. In some ways it's great that people who are fans of that music can now access it relatively cheaply.
In the old days, clubs and generally being out in town at night wasn’t as safe as it is now.

There are two different ways of looking at me getting £120 for two nights work. In some ways, I didn't expect any more, but it also gave me lots of freedom. On the other hand, maybe I should have been paid more. They were taking 2 or 3 grand on the door on a Saturday and I’m getting £80 and I was the only entertainer. So that's not quite fair really. So it’s interesting to be aware of how it’s changing and how it evolves.

I remember doing a night at the Boardwalk, I did lots of nights at the Boardwalk. It was a family business and the guy who owned it, his dad was called Don. This was the mid-90s and I was getting more or less a grand a gig from the Boardwalk. There were 500 people paying £8 to get in, so it's still only about a quarter of the door money. But Don used to complain to his son about the amount they paid me. So he came in one night to see what it was all about and he just kept saying to me, “you don't even talk between records!” When the Hacienda opened in ‘82, probably the majority of clubs in town at that time had DJs who talked between records. So there always that evolution. We came along and changed it. The definition of a DJ keeps changing.

DJ's playing their own records was something I had to get used to. Mike Pickering made a few records, but when Todd Terry turned up in ‘92 or ‘93 and half the records he played were his own productions, we all thought it was a bit arrogant and a bit dull.

Whereas now, do you think there's an expectation to make music?

I don't think you can become well known as a DJ or have a career as a DJ without producing your records.

Yes, I think that's true and that's huge. Also, the idea of being a ‘brand’ becomes bigger.

Even when I was DJ in a lot 10 or 12 years ago, it was very much the message that you have to produce if you want to make a name for yourself.

If I go to a gig and look at the headliners, there won’t be a single one that doesn't produce.

I think that affects the way that DJs play. You end up playing your own records, but also your ‘brand’ is narrower.

I interviewed Paul Van Dyk in 1999 at the height of ‘Paul Van Dyk fever’. I'd met him before as I’d DJd with him in Berlin. We were talking about music that we liked. The Lauren Hill album had just come out and I was playing various tracks from it in my sets. He was asking which tracks I played, and he agreed the album was great. I was interviewing him before a big gig in Cardiff and I said “play some (Lauren Hill) tonight” but he said, “I can’t because I’m Paul Van Dyk and people who come to hear Paul Van Dyk and Paul Van Dyk's music, and they're not going to understand why I'm playing Lauren Hill.” In that moment I felt really free and glad I wasn't boxed in. In some ways it’d be great to be a superstar DJ, on the front of magazines, selling lots of records all around the world and getting really good fees, but you can't play certain records that you really love? For me, the whole point is that I'm sharing things I love. It was an interesting turning point in a way.

I was reading an article yesterday about Bradley Zero. He runs a label based in South London. He was saying that he started this label where he started DJing with no intention to make his own tracks, or to get gigs. He just wanted to share music that he thought was important to people in his community and people he lived with, but now he's built a career off that and saying he thinks he's lucky to be able to do that for a job.

Now, I go to a club or to a rave because of the people that are playing. But often it turns into a concert. You're going to see them play their music instead of them playing music. I went to a club with some mates recently and one of the DJs played music we weren’t expecting and my mates thought it was crap and wanted to go somewhere else. But I respected the DJ for doing something different.

I went to see Jamie XX at Primavera and he played early 70s funk 7” singles for the whole night. Because it wasn't what the audience were expecting, they all left the room. His set would have worked with the right audience, in fact it’s not a million miles from what Mr. Scruff would play, but his crowd emptied in half an hour.

Did you stay?

I stayed, but at the same time I did want a vibe.
When I DJ, the audience often expect Hacienda classics which feels a bit of a burden as I still have the same attitude as I did when I started out. I still want people to come away saying “wow, he didn’t play what I expected him to play, but I had a great night”. I have enough of a strategy to be able to sprinkle Hacienda classics through a set, but hopefully not even the obvious ones.

We then started talking about the challenges of balancing DJing with other commitments…

My son was born in 1988, just as everything is taking off. I had responsibilities, so going to after parties or to warehouse raves was difficult. In fact, the first winter he was around, I was doing Thursday and Saturday at the Hacienda, and Friday at The Leadmill in Sheffield, which was 3 nights in a row. That was really tough and the idea of then coming home and saying to my partner at the time, that I’m going into a recording studio for 10 hours… I wouldn't have wanted to do that, on lots of different levels.

That's really where the writing came in, because I had time to do something else, but the recording studio culture wasn't something I could do. I couldn’t stay up all night, eat pizza, skin up and get home at four in the morning, you know.

I did a couple of remixes but that was more just me, lounging around at the back of a recording studio saying, “can you make it sound a bit more like Talking All That Jazz by Stetsasonic?” and waiting for some technically gifted person to create all the loops. But if we’re now saying that to be a DJ, you need to make your own music, then maybe you're limiting access for those who haven't got the money or the time - maybe if you've got a young family, if you haven't got much money, or people who live in Kidderminster, where there isn't that kind of culture - then that's a bit of a shame. But if you've got 1000 capacity venues that you have to fill, you’re going to book somebody with a high profile who's playing relatively commercial music. Unfortunately, we’ve got a situation where a lot of people will pay £70 to see a band play at an arena, but they won’t pay a fiver to see new music at Night and Day and other smaller venues.

People often ask me where they should go out in Manchester. I firstly tell them that they shouldn’t ask a 60-year-old man where to go, because if you’d have done that in 1988, they wouldn’t have suggested the Hacienda. But then I say “ Don’t go anywhere with a capacity of more than 300”.

Part of what we're reflecting on this week is, is cities like our own. Unfortunately, we don't have a wide range of venues in Lancaster. One decent venue can come along and it becomes a great space for people to reconnect and then meet new people. And that's how we met, at Kanteena. Thankfully we have that venue now, but you can go for years in Lancaster without the right venues to bring great DJs to the area or that offer scope for risk-taking. We have two universities too and there’s the constant question of how to encourage students collaborate or to attend events.

It's frustrating at times though, because we've put on nights and there’s 10 people in a room, and you know there are people out there.

When I did the Boardwalk it took 12 weeks to break even, and that wasn't really to do with the era that was just the economics. But in this day and age, there aren’t that many venue owners willing to give you 12 weeks to break even.

It's happened on new numerous occasions where the owner’s come down and said “night over. That's it, just sack it off.” And then there's noise issues with venues in residential areas.

Yeah, it's very hard to develop something.

Clubs often resort to the lowest common denominator musically, which is not very interesting.

Is that one of the reasons you moved to London, because there are more opportunities?

Yeah, I think so. I just wanted to be surrounded by lots of interesting creative people, music, art and that's probably for me the best place to go. That said, until now I'd not spent a lot of time in Manchester, and I think I had preconceptions of it just from going out to see my mates at uni but within the last 4 days, I’ve found that I love it. Although it’s very different to London of course.