Taking us though a mix of mind melting mix of house, disco and techno, this weeks guests are Manchester stalwarts Ordinary Friends. With two killer bookings in the bag before March (Spencer Parker & Optimo) this collective show no signs of slowing down! AMF resident Lloyd interviewed Ordinary Friends before their big event. Check it out below.
I’ll start by asking yiou about the elephant in the room. Optimo at White Hotel on the 9th is going to be massive. How excited are you for the event?
Unbelievably! When we were discussing who to book for this event we really wanted somebody with a rich dance music history… and Optimo fitted the bill perfectly!! We’re not sure people realise it but the Optimo boys have had a massive influence on the current scene, and the latest generation of underground DJs have a lot to thank them for. We’ve been lucky enough to witness Optimo do their thing at club nights and festivals in the past, and we’ve genuinely never been left disappointed.
You don’t see too many people leaving the dance floor once they’re behind the decks, and it’s the unpredictability of their sets (in a good way) that we think creates a real excitement in the crowd. You just never know which direction they’re going to take you in!
It’s a joy to watch them mix two completely different tracks, that really shouldn’t blend or work together… but that the Optimo boys somehow make possible! Without naming any names, we’ve seen a few 3 hour plus sets where the DJ doesn’t take the mood or the vibe anywhere, and it all ends up a little bit monotonous. We can assure you that monotonous is not a fault that lies with an Optimo set though! They’ll be playing for four hours so expect to be taken on a musical journey with plenty of curveballs thrown in for good measure.
You throw a lot of parties at the White Hotel, is there anything specific about this space that you really like and is there any other venues in Manchester you feel are pushing the boundaries of what a club space can be?
Well at the minute, the White Hotel is simply the best club in Manchester… and the evidence for that is how in demand the venue has become. There’s a real diversity in the selection of club nights and gigs that are scheduled, and it’s extremely rare that you’ll go down on a weekend to find the place empty.
We feel that the venue understands our needs as promoters, whilst giving us their full backing and trust when it comes to promoting our events. The venue has a clear understanding of what makes the scene ‘underground’ and what it takes to keep it that way, and although the venue has had a bit of a facelift over the last year or so, it still remains the go-to place for Manchester dancers. The loose opening times are also appealing to the promoter who in the past has always been stuck with the typical 10pm open – 4am close that comes as standard with other venues across the city.
And as for the people who pay the ticket prices and come through the door… Well, compared to any other venue in the city, we think they all feel so much more relaxed at the White Hotel. No discrimination, no judgement; it has a real ‘welcome all’ attitude and community. That’s the feedback and the impression that we get from our own crowds anyway. Who would have thought that a disused mechanics garage would become one of the best venues in the country eh??
We can also really get behind what Partisan Collective are doing with their space as well. They are trying (and succeeding) to be so much more than a clubbing and gig venue. For those not familiar, it’s a membership-based space in which they raise awareness and funds for social justice organisations and other support groups through their various events. There’s a lot of volunteers putting in some sterling work for the greater good of Manchester and further afield!
Backtracking a bit, Ordinary Friends celebrated its second birthday in September. Can you tell us a bit about how you formed the collective and what your journey has looked like from beginning to now.
To put it pretty simple, we formed through a shared love of dance music and its culture; kind of how I imagine most promoters end up in the business really. The five of us (Tom, Jack, Dylan, Miles and Sean) originally met each other through festivals, gigs and common friendship circles, and from there it kind of just snowballed into promoting our first night back in September 2016.
We’d been travelling all over the place together, to festivals and clubs like Fabric, Bloc and WHP and we’d always discussed what it would be like to throw our own party. And then it became enough of the talking and it was time to through ourselves in at the deep end. We were probably a bit naïve in the beginning; we didn’t have a clue about event promotion and our target audience was essentially our mates. To be truthful we just wanted a space to DJ that wasn’t our bedrooms! We somehow managed to convince the White Hotel to kindly let us use their space, and the night was a minor success.
That first night left us wanting to more and the night has just grown from there! Back in 2016 we didn’t say to ourselves, ‘in two years we want to have booked x,y and z’, but since then we’ve gradually stepped up the bookings and we’re extremely happy at what we’ve ended up with. With several sell out shows, we’re over the moon with how well received our nights have been and the calibre of DJ we’ve been lucky enough to book.
We won’t mention where we got the Ordinary Friends name from because it’s a bit of an embarrassing story at the expense of one of the crew! But the quote ‘if you came to stand still, stand somewhere else’ actually comes from an early Boiler Room set. The quote seems to epitomises everything that we want our night to be about…. 100% dance and party. It has stuck ever since! As a collective we don’t really want to take ourselves too seriously. We all have our days jobs and for us, Ordinary Friends is all about having fun and giving ourselves and everybody else something to look forward to away from the tedium of a 9 to 5 job. Long may it continue!
You have a really diverse roster of booking. Spencer Parker. Fort Romeau. Honey Soundsystem. The list goes on. When you’re looking at booking a guest DJ what criteria do artists need to fill.
Well we don’t really want to be pigeonholed as just a techno night or just a house night, so irrespective of genre, the first question we always ask ourselves is ‘do we think the DJ can create a sense of party at the White Hotel?’ Whether it be house, techno or disco, we don’t really care; we just want that uplifting, care-free vibe. Admittedly, we would say the majority of our bookings lean on the side of house, but the sets from the likes of Honey Soundsystem and Spencer Parker, have shown that it is possible to mix the heavier side of dance music with a real party atmosphere. We also aren’t too fussed whether the artist is a producer in their own right, or whether they’re just a good old fashioned selector. We just want the DJ to fit with the ethos of the night and match our desire for throwing ‘proper’ parties.
These days, some DJ’s have what seem to be bottomless record collections, so for a few of the nights we have given the DJ’s the opportunity to play extended sets. Too often you see stacked line-ups with 3 or 4 artists playing across multiple rooms and we feel that sometimes DJs can’t really express themselves when they’re limited to 1 hour or 90 minute sets. Having said that, we do also see the value in booking multiple acts whose sounds compliment, and some DJs can certainly bounce off each other’s sets.
That can often work just as well as an all-night long set! We do try and think a bit deeper than just booking somebody that’s available on a certain date, and it’s important that as we progress the night we try and find a balance between multiple artist line-ups and extended sets. All five of us have a diverse music collection both within and outside of dance music, but we seem to agree on our bookings without too many arguments!!
Moving onto your mix. Can you talk us through your selection. How did you put it together? Was it planned out or did you just rock up to the turntable with a bag of records and feel it out from there.
Milo: The mix was put together with a selection of records I’ve gathered over the past few months or so. It’s a collection of music that hasn’t quite found its way into my record bag just yet, but stylistically represents my favourite aspects of dance music. I don’t like to plan too thoroughly when planning a mix but I just draw some rough guides of direction and take it from there. When playing live I never plan what I’m going to play it’s just a case of gathering all my favourite music of that current time and seeing what the crowd react to.
Are there any standout tracks for you in the mix you wouldn’t mind sharing with us?
Milo: One of my favourite tracks in the mix is an acid licked breakbeat belter by OCB. Stylistically it’s not something I would normally go for but I just absolutely love it! It’s the second to last track in the mix. Another stand out is one of my own productions with Matt from fellow Manchester promoters Crack The Whip. I’ve really been finding my feet with house production and this tune feels really at home under our MacLo project.
Finally, Spencer Parker and Optimo are a massive start to 2019. Is there anyway you can top that? Any events on the horizon you’d be able to tell us about or collaborations in the works?
Well last week, we announced what will be our next event following on from the forthcoming Optimo night. Again, it will be at our home the White Hotel on 22nd March, and this time we’re bringing in London’s finest, Moxie, and an old Ordinary Friends favourite Gideön. We can’t wait for that one! And then beyond that we’ve also got dates penned in for May, July, September and December. The line-ups for these are taking shape very nicely, but for the time being we’re sworn to secrecy.
We don’t want to put nights on every week, or even every month, which could end up saturating our own brand, so we feel 5/6 nights a year is plenty. We have definitely set a precedent for ourselves in terms of bookings and we want to continue bringing the best DJ’s to our events… but at the same time we also respect some of the DJ’s that perhaps don’t get as much of the glory and adulation. We want to promote DJs like Gideön (curator of Block 9 at Glasto) who toil away to put on some of the best nights elsewhere in the country. And moving forward, we’d also like to promote some local talent who perhaps don’t have the platform to play in front of a crowd. If you’re reading this and fancy a bit of the action, put a mix together and send it through!
