All My Friends Ep#14 Off Beat
Off Beat are bringing the heat this week. They’ve delved into the deep recesses of their record bags and brought out a diverse range of sounds. Lovingly curated, their soul-melting set draws on Funk, Soul & Disco with some added house flavours at the end. Catch All My Friends their interview below.
You’ve been hosting events for over two years now? How did Off Beat begin and do you have any DJ’s, or promoters that you’d say are real influences on you?
Off Beat began when we became friends out of a shared interest collecting and playing with vinyl in the first year of university. We started carting turntables and records around our halls, then moved to small local venues and threw some parties there. Slowly the parties and venues got bigger and here we are today, somewhat accidentally. The number of people who were and are influential on us is too great to list. However, it’s probably true to say the primary starting point for us is sound system culture, which underpins so much of UK music.
Has there been one specific event where you’ve felt you’re really succeeded as a promoter? A point where everything you’d been working towards just clicked? What party/ event was that and how did it feel?
Without a doubt the show with Mala in January of this year at Gorilla. It was a privilege to have him play at one of our events and to share the stage with him, as he’s someone we all have huge respect for. It was packed venue as well and the energy of the crowd was unlike anything we’d experienced before.
Can you talk us through the mix. 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.
Instead of doing a mix like we might in a club, we wanted to reflect the kind of music that we are listening to currently or that we might day to day, which influences us just as much as what we might hear in a dance. Hence there isn’t really very much ‘mixing’ for the most part and we’ve tried instead to provide you with a soundtrack to Off Beat right at this moment.
Is there any particular tracks in the mix that you really think sums up Off Beat ethos?
If we have an ethos, it would be eclecticism; playing anything and everything. That’s only found in this mix as far as it moves across genres a bit, but again it’s quite hard to represent in isolation.
You’ve been working closely with the Family Tree collective lately are there any other crews around Manchester you think are putting on some really exciting events?
The use of events as a platform for enacting positive social change seems to have been on the increase in Manchester recently, whether that’s events held specifically to raise funds for a charitable cause or via the music and artists themselves. Although there are a lot of excellent examples, particular mention must go to Love for the Streets, whose events have done a lot to engage students with the crisis of homelessness in Manchester and generally promote and help that cause. We were very happy to help out in what way we could at a few of them and hopefully, we’ll see more of them in future.
You’ve thrown parties at Antwerp and Cubo in the past. Being based in South Manchester are you worried about the councils continued crackdown on nightlife in Fallowfield? And what do you think Manchester can do to tackle closures of clubs like Antwerp, Redrum, Sankeys etc.
The move against music venues in Manchester is extremely concerning and disappointing. The failure to properly recognise the crucial role venues play is so contrary to the encouragement of the well-renowned Manchester music scene, one of the city’s biggest assets. It is also incredibly short-sighted in as far as the closure of venues will push students more and more into attending house parties which, of course, the council are no more fans of than they are clubs.
What is needed is recognition of the cultural value of clubs and the music formally, perhaps in a way comparable to the understanding present in Berlin, for example. There is also an opportunity for Manchester to lead the way in this regard, at least within the UK, as this is by no means a Manchester-only issue, as ongoing events in London evidence.
Finally, have you got any events in the pipeline you can tell us about?
Yes, there is plenty to come from Off Beat in the coming months, including something very special at the start of 2019. There is also a new project we are undertaking under a new name with some good friends of ours, hopefully, to surface in the coming months.
For more red hot heaters check out JETZT! mix.
