Episode 34 daytime disco Quartet Supernature Disco. Members B.B, Richie, James & Rob have went b2b2b2b and put together a two-hour mix combining both vinyl and digital tracks. They’ve each taken a 30 minute slot but its up to you to figure out who’s playing when (You can find the answers at the bottom of the page).
AMF caught up with Supernature, check the interview below 🙂
Hello Supernature, thank you for putting the mix together! From humble beginnings throwing free Sunday day parties at Underdog, you’re now on the Homobloc lineup! That must have been quite a journey can you tell us about it.
We’re overwhelmed with how things have turned out for us this year! We thought last year was pretty good, but things just keep getting better and better, with Homobloc and End of Year Riot an absolute dream come true!
Our focus has always been to put on the best parties that we can where everyone feels part of something special, feels part of the club and can be themselves. Our crowd is made up from all walks of life and we pride ourselves on being inclusive and LGBTQ focussed.
Our love of house and disco and anything with a groove combined with our up-for-it crowd creates these amazing daytime raves, where there’s a real joy and freedom to dance and enjoy the music. And this is why we do it. Our Sunday parties are free events – just for the love of being together on the dance floor, and Brickhouse Social (formerly Underdog) has been the perfect venue.
So, our journey to Homobloc has been pretty organic really; BB and Richie V had been running free, friends-only daytime parties at The Deaf Institute for about 7 years before they started Supernature 4 years ago bringing James and Rob on board, along with Darren Greene (a great DJ who was with us for about a year), and upscaling from a small venue to a larger one. Starting with a bang in October 2015, word soon spread about Supernature on Sunday, and just before our first birthday, Chris Massey contacted us to ask if he could play. Of course we said yes – he’s an amazing DJ and producer, and has become a really good friend.
It wasn’t long before some of the best DJs in Manchester were asking if they could play too as more and more people heard about us and came to check out the club, and we soon realised we must be doing something right!
As our reputation grew, we started getting gigs in other places, individually and collectively, and in 2017 we started our show at Reform Radio, widening our audience to beyond Manchester.
Chris Massey has been a great supporter, booking us to play at Refuge, Electrik, and Sprechen Supernature double headers, and helping us to get Hifi Sean to make a secret guest appearance for our 2018 Pride party. Luke Unabomber came to check us out when Sean played, so that was definitely another significant step on our journey to Homobloc, and each time Luke has been, he’s been blown away with the vibe and music.
It must have been a bit strange organising events for a Sunday afternoon. Why did you decide a Sunday daytime party was a good idea and did it throw up any unique challenges for you as organisers?
BB and Richie V loved daytime partying in the 90s in Ibiza and the UK, – decadent yet still able to get the bus home and get a good night’s sleep, so they started Vinyl Sunday at Deaf Institute, running for 7 years prior to Supernature. We knew there was a market for daytime parties, but we were worried if we’d ever fill Brickhouse Social’s 350 capacity! We never started Supernature to make money; it’s always been a free event, – all the DJs play for free, including guest DJs, so the money side of things was taken out of the picture, but the aim of the club was for people to come together and enjoy themselves. We knew we couldn’t compete with the established clubs, meaning a Saturday or Friday night was out, so we settled on Sunday daytimes, and being in a basement makes it all the more decadent – 4pm feels like 4am!
So, challenges to fill a club are pretty much the same as any other club, but unique to Supernature on Sunday has to be things like –
- Clashing with Mother’s or Father’s day
- Sunny weather – can have a positive or negative effect
- Randoms popping in after having a Sunday meal somewhere, expecting a chilled disco vibe – raving and roasts can be quite heavy duty!
Making the move to hosting evening events must have been exciting. How have they went so far and what are the plans for the future?
We started our evening events as people were saying they couldn’t always make our daytime events, and it also gave us a chance to play a little harder than our disco focussed daytime events. We’ve just had our second Supernature does Saturday and both have completely exceeded all our expectations. Such a brilliant vibe and our most recent one was packed from start to finish! We’re planning on doing another towards the end of this year and looking to do more collaborations with Chris next year.
You’ve just played at Bluedot. How was that festival experience for you? Have you been playing at any other festivals this year?
Bluedot was ace – such a great line-up, great vibe… and local! We really enjoyed playing with Chris Massey & Gina Breeze as part of Sprechen Presents. There’s a great vibe and energy when we all play together which started in Lost Disco in Croatia in 2017, and continued to Eden Festival in Scotland in 2018 and 2019.
Let’s chat about the mix. You’ve each done a 30-minute slot and combined them together to make a mammoth set of disco, house, boogie and everything in between. Could you each tell me a bit about your half-hour of power (Not giving any names away though)?
We approached this as a chance to give the listener a taste of our radio show and Supernature on Sunday. We each have our own style so it might be fun for the listeners to try and work out which 30 mins or so is which DJ! Wiithout giving it away, here’s what each has said –
DJ1: My section of the mix reflects my deep love of house music old and new. I love digging into my collection and pulling out some forgotten gems mixing them up with fresh bangers, I have a particular weak spot for funky driving vocal house and if it has a piano on it all the better. The tune that really represents what I like to play for the Supernature faithful is Bring It Down by Laroze, it has all the parts in all the right places place for a hands in the air moment of love on the dancefloor.
DJ2: Being a huge lover and collector of obscure, uptempo disco I decided to fill my 30 minutes of this mix with some edits I’ve been playing out over the past year. A stand out track for me is Gay Marvine – Anxiety Into Ecstasy (Editors note, This was one of our favourites 🙂 ), which is an edit of Chicago’s disco great – Street Player. Instead of using the obvious parts of the song that have been used a hundred times over he has used vocal and instrumental parts unused before. He has also overlaid the drums from the Bucketheads – The Bomb, which is an obvious tip of the hat to the first big record to sample this amazing Chicago song. I can’t say how many times I’ve dropped this edit but for me, it works every single time!
DJ3: I love anything with a groove and love playing something unexpected – especially if it involves a bit of lip-synching!. My mix will hopefully make you want to dance and I love layering tune on tune – sometimes very subtly in the background, and not always at the end, so listen out! The track that I’m absolutely loving at the moment, and the final one in my 30 mins mix is ‘Thelma Hous’ Side A on Bitter End. Both sides are amazing, but side A is definitely reserved for those moments when only a minimal groove will do it. I love watching people’s faces as they realise they know the sample – ‘Don’t Leave me this way’!
DJ 4: For my 30 minute mix I have gone to mix it up between classic tracks, new tracks, remixes and the odd personal fave that I think kinda went unnoticed & a bit under the radar. The way I have set out this mix is pretty much what I do within my live sets. The “under the radar” track is Oggie B’s – Hit the Spot which was released in December 2015 on Fetch Records and is a real uplifting party groove & dont hear many DJs playing this out. I have spun this a few times within my sets and especially down at Supernature and it always hits the spot!
Lastly, what else is on the horizon for Supernature. Do you have any big events you can tell us about?
Our next big event is Supernature on Pride Sunday with guest DJs High Hoops and a very special secret guest DJ! Being an LGBTQ focussed club, Pride is especially important to us and we’re honoured to be playing at the High Hoops weekender on Pride Saturday along with some amazing DJs and at The Refuge! Straight after Supernature on Pride Sunday, we’ll be dashing across the road to close the Refuge Come As You Are weekend playing with Chris Massey and Reeshy in the basement until 4am.
Homobloc is absolutely massive for us, but we can’t say just yet exactly what we’re doing as it’s still in the planning stages, but watch this space. EOYR is also huge – especially as we’ll be playing with our heroes and mates. This October it’ll be Supernature on Sunday’s 4th birthday with Chris Massey as guest DJ which will be great fun. We’re also playing at our Rob’s ‘Your Disco Needs You‘ NYE party at Carlton Club, which if you’ve never been is a great venue, and we’re seriously thinking about doing something in Spain next year as well as continuing our Sunday and Saturday events – the essence of what we are about – good times for good people.
Thanks for asking us to do this, Liam ; it was good fun and a pleasure!!
Supernature Disco xxxx
DJ Answers:
DJ 1: Richie V, DJ2: James, DJ3: BB, DJ4: Rob
