A year and a Half of AMF | An interview with Embryo Digital

Written By – Liam Donoghue

AMF Head Honcho – Author Bio

AMF founder, resident, writer, and podcaster.

Facebook – Instagram – Soundcloud – Youtube

The shoe is on the other foot this week! AMF was approached by the team at Embryo Digital and our founder Liam was asked to spill the beans on the AMF journey so far. There’s been a few ups, some downs, and a whole lot of fun in our journey so far. You can read the interview below. A big thanks goes out to Embryo too for thinking what we’re up to is pretty cool :).

Hi Liam, thanks for chatting with us at Embryo Digital. Could you tell us a bit about yourself and All My Friends?

Hi Aaron, I’m really excited to chat with Embryo Digital today about myself, marketing, and of course, All My Friends (AMF). My names Liam and I’m a marketing executive working for an IT specialist recruitment agency. I’m also a DJ and have played music in Manchester and ran events for the last 7 years. AMF is a Manchester-based dance music blog. I run it out of my studio at Brunswick Mill. I release fortnightly mixes on my website by collective, producers and DJ’s from across Manchester and beyond. As well as releasing fortnightly show AMF also covers issues around gentrification, club culture, and night-life issues.

Why did you decide to start AMF?

It was during my hunt for some studio space that I decided to start AMF. I was living in a block of flats in the Northern Quarter and I didn’t want to disturb my neighbors with loud music so I was searching for a space where I could much as much noise as I wanted. I found Brunswick Mill and it was amazing having a dedicated space to play records and be creative. Moving my turntables out of my home was honestly one of the best decisions I’ve made. Having a separate creative space to go to when I want to work on the blog frees you up from the distractions you experience at home. I’d had the studio for a few weeks when I decided to start AMF. I’ve run events in the past with friends and they’re really fun but a lot of work. My friends have since moved to other cities and it was impossible for me to organise a club night on my own. You only need to look at the costs for; venue hire, DJ’s, hotels, transport, etc to realise you either need a collective of people working together or you need to be very wealthy to make a club night happen. This realisation was a bit disheartening at first. I wanted to make sure I was still involved in Manchester’s dance scene but saw a big financial barrier stopping me. That’s when I thought a blog would be a good idea. It gave me a creative outlet to play music and it let me meet a lot of great people in Manchester. Since starting the blog in March 2018 I’ve been playing regularly around town and have had guests such as; Sprechen Records, Supernature Disco, and Ruff Diamond guest on the blog.

What are your plans for All My Friends in 2020?

A lot of the plans for AMF in 2020 are marketing related. The blog is going really well at the moment and I’m in a position now where I cannot keep up with the demand for content. Before the New Year, I’d like to take on a volunteer to help me by writing dance EP reviews for the review section of the blog. I’ve been connecting with record labels across the globe and I’ve signed AMF up to their promotional newsletters so my inbox is slowly filling up with unreleased demos from producers. Once I have a steady stream of promo’s I’ll look for a reviewer. It’d be great to help somebody else start their blogging journey and I hope I’d be able to give them some tips on creating a successful career in music. As I’ve already mentioned, I want to produce more content. The blog mainly gets its traffic from Facebook at the moment so the most straightforward way to increase my number of visitors is to increase the number of mixes, articles, reviews etc I’m putting out there. Doing that without sacrificing quality is the difficult part. I’d also like to move into video and start live-streaming mixes from the studio. A lofty goal but one that is definitely achievable next year. I’m always very cautious of biting off more than I can chew though so I wouldn’t want to undertake this project until the reviews are up and running smoothly. Another project in the pipeline for me is getting bigger guests for the show and monetising the blog. If I could get it to a point where it pays for the studio that would be ideal. I think that’s everything. Phew, a lot to do! I always say though: as long as you’re having fun it doesn’t matter. Thanks for interviewing me Aaron, it was really fun chatting with you about everything.