Meat Free will be kicking off proceedings at Gorilla on Friday night for the inaugural Slacker, brain child of Radio 1 future music pioneer Phil Taggart, you can catch us spinning ahead of Phil, Dutch Uncles, Mella Dee and Jakwob! You can get your tickets here.
We sat down with Phil ahead of Friday and this is what he had to say for himself…
As a resident of London, what was it about Manchester that tempted you to the rainy city?
Us Irish are a bit more connected with the North than the South, aren’t we? I have always been a bit of a nerd on the history of music in Manchester and always wanted an opportunity to come up and add my needle to the haystack. They really know how to rave up North.
Musically how to you think London crowds differ from their Northern counterparts?
Northerners are always up for it, a party isn’t a fringe flicking lets try and ‘look cool’ situation. I can’t wait to see how Friday turns out.
Your new clubnight is called Slacker, what inspired the name?
I used to run a club in Belfast called Slacker with my dandy mate Jonny Tiernan and really liked the name and the aesthetic you could use with it.
We’re thrilled to be part of your debut! The line-up really has something for everyone, how did you go about selecting the artists for Friday?
I tied 100 names to the legs of pigeons and whichever four pigeons came back first were the artists that were going to play on the night. Congrats Meat Free, your pigeon came in.
What kind of artists can we expect to see at Slacker in the future?
I am working away on a few things at the moment. All going well there might be a lot of knees bopping to an 87bpm tempo.
Your Radio 1 show boats, ‘future music’; what does future music mean to you?
As a kid i was obsessed with music and the history of scenes and movements and as i’ve gotten older that nostalgia has slowly phased out of me. I really just want to hear music or lyrics that haven’t been made before, that sounds different and stirs something in me enough to want to share it with as many people as i can.
What ‘future artists’ are you feeling right now, any tip offs for who we should be looking out for?
This is quite a difficult one, hmmmm. Obviously Mella Dee is laying claim to the throne of dark and ravey dance music and i am excited to see his wares on Friday night. Apart from that, can i list them? Ok here goes:
Verite
Asylums
Vitamin
Loyle Carner
Bishop Nehru
What about the classics, what failsafe records never leave your bag?
Thats a difficult one. I dropped Mylo Destroy Rock and Roll as a random track a few weeks ago and it went down ridiculously well which was quite surprising. Apart from that a lot of the music i am playing is quite new, so hasn’t reached ‘classic’ status yet. I ended a mix i did for someone last week with The Streets – Has It Come To This which was a massive blast from the past.
Whilst we’ll definitely sit down and read it all some day…we read that your dissertation was titled, ‘Women’s Representation in the Music Press’, that was a few years ago now – what changes if any have you seen over that time?
I’d really need to get you to pull up a chair and open a tab at the bar for that one.
Finally, what can we expect on Friday from the debut Slacker?
Tight rhythms and loose dancing!
Thanks Phil, we can’t wait!
