Preview: Community
Contact Theatre - June 5, 2010
Musical nostalgia is rife in Manchester. This is a city where too many clubs get by with the same old CDs filled with relics ripped from the Madchester Museum; where no audiocorpse can ever be laid to rest because imagination-deficient promoters feel the need to feed tourists and time travellers with the stale scraps of yesteryear.
Which makes it refreshing to come across a retrospective party born out of love, good research and a desire to go off the beaten track, rather than just generate some lazy lucre for those involved.
Tomorrow night, Irfan Rainy’s soulful, escapist Community club will lead followers on a journey through the birth of house music and its arrival on these shores, with the help of very special guest, Greg Wilson.
But don’t expect just the usual house 12-inches spun with yawnsome aplomb: among the styles being aired in order to contextualise the development of house will be 80s boogie, electro-funk and disco, giving fans a feel for the genre’s musical precursors.
The late-Eighties dawn of house is an era that Rainy recalls vividly.
“I remember when house music was a new buzzword amongst myself and my friends as teenagers,” he says fondly.
“We used to listen to (legendary radio DJ) Mike Shaft’s super-cool show on Piccadilly Radio back in the mid-eighties and this was straight after the Breakdance craze had taken over the big UK cities.”
That this event should take place in Manchester, one of the handful of global cities which first facilitated the rise of house music, seems entirely appropriate.
“We had a very healthy underground scene with clubs like Legends, The Playpen and The Gallery all playing this new music. These clubs alongside another Piccadilly Radio DJ, Stu Allan, basically created the freshest and first house music scene in the UK.
“Then when the summer of love, 1988, arrived with Acid House and The Hacienda, a huge new following of devotees arrived, giving Manchester worldwide notoriety.
“We are a dance music city because our role in developing it was so strong; people are aware of this history all over the world.”
That Irfan talks about the house music scene and its growth with such wistful affection should be no surprise: a veteran of 24 years on Manchester’s musical scene, he’s seen everything come and go – and come back again – at least twice.
He believes this experience, coupled with a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of the city’s music, puts him in an ideal position to curate tomorrow night’s event.
“It’s in my blood . . I’ve lived in Manchester all my life. I’ve devoted all these years to buying, promoting and researching this music, which does make me feel like a veteran but also an expert on the scene. I’ve been through all the big phases in its growth, I used to go to (Hacienda night) Nude in the Eighties and heard visiting DJs play my own music there just before the club closed down.
“I’ve played house music to audiences in 15 countries and in New York and Chicago. I’m the only artist that I know of who strictly keeps the original deep underground roots house music alive and it’s still the coolest dance music.
“So I guess you could say I have a unique grasp of its history.”
All of which means it would take a truly special guest to hold their own alongside Rainy at tomorrow night’s event.
Luckily, house music DJ hero Greg Wilson has been enlisted to bring a wealth of extra experience to proceedings.
Despite an unexpected decks hiatus which came a year after he began a residency at the
Hacienda, Wallasey-born Wilson was one of those instrumental in aiding the spread of electro music in the north west, playing at clubs in Manchester, Wigan and Liverpool throughout the late-Seventies.
But that’s not the only reason Rainy booked him.
“It’s the fact we both share a massive New York influence. Greg is basically an ambassador for New York electro-funk from 1979-85 and I have the same role for a different period, 1986 to the present day.
“I want to show our audience where the music came from, so who better than someone vastly experienced in the art.”
Community with Greg Wilson is on June 5, 2010 at Contact Theatre, Oxford Road. 10.30pm-4am. £10.
Published: Fri, 04 June, 2010
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