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9 min read

It’s the people, actually

A guest issue courtesy of Benebe
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It’s the people, actually
Credit: Jake Tucker

Hello folks, it’s Benebe here, taking the place of Jake, who’s away at a conference talking about stuff which probably isn’t clubbing. A bit about me: I am a DJ, a promoter, and a clubber. DJing and clubbing started quite a long time ago for me, back in the very early 2000s, whilst I’ve started putting on events over the past couple of years, under the Did Someone Say… moniker, with my wonderfully talented partner in promo and DJ crime, Afaan (DJ name Kafn). If you don’t know Afaan already, you’ll get to know him better via his sublime Front Left guest mix.

I was delighted to have had a mix of my own featured in one of the early editions of FrontLeft and have been an avid reader of every edition, so I am even more delighted to be able to contribute substantively to an edition of the newsletter and at the same time take some time pressure off Jake whilst he schmoozes round Gamescom.

Credit: Jake Tucker

I’ve been trying to reintegrate myself back into society since our inaugural Did Someone Say… Showcase at the beginning of August, which really took it out of me, and what better opportunity than to head down to Palace Vinyl at Brixton Market to celebrate the birthday of one of the most influential people in the underground electronic scene - Ed, aka Make Money Mafia, aka MMM.USB, promoter of London’s most fun yet musically clued-in party, Nan’s Basement. 

I don’t require much persuasion to go to a record shop, if I am honest, and whilest I love socialising with people in the various club spaces I find myself in, I am much more likely to actually hear what is being said in the context of a record shop, removing the trepidation of encountering the ‘I’m nodding but do they know I have no idea what they’re actually saying’ situation I often find myself in.

Credit: Jake Tucker

It was an absolutely lovely evening. I managed to bag the shop’s final copy of the new Sllip EP from Kithers, for which a release party was being held, saw loads of friends, popped to the local hipster beer shop when the on-site booze ran out, popped back, and listened to some lovely house tunes of varying intensity.

I particularly enjoyed the sense of freedom that evening, which is not always something you encounter at the modern venue. The freedom to come and go; to head upstairs and browse records, downstairs to boogie or buy a drink, outside to chat, up a few doors for a wrap, down a few doors for a bap.

It is these kind of informal, multifunctional spaces which I tend to find the most relaxing and enjoyable. Yes sometimes I just want to go and dance, get deep into the music and be in my own headspace, but other times I just want to be in a place where my mind can enjoy the calm chaos as I move between these small, interlinked groups and spaces.

Jake will return next week.

The Mix

Even though I hadn’t yet written my FrontLeft newsletter when I requested a mix, I knew the title.

I also know Afaan loves a theme to work to, something to invest in emotionally as he regularly does for the likes of Chill:In.

So I simply asked: can you do a mix for FrontLeft to the theme of ‘why are we here?’ On Saturday afternoon he duly delivered, and I started listening as I got down to cooking some dinner. 

I listen to a lot of Afaan’s mixes, of course. This, like many others of his, blew my mind. One of those where, if you’re heading to work, you take the extra-slow route, or in my case, make dinner as inefficiently as possible, to allow time to listen.

One of the greatest assets Afaan has is the ability to blend extreme joy, worldliness, and yet a sense of deep melancholy into his mixes. It is a true gift that I’ve rarely heard through my years of listening to DJ mixes. Many DJs are brilliant at one or the other, but very few are brilliant at conveying such a complex array of feelings via a couple of overlaid tracks. You can listen to it on SoundCloud.

Why are we here, really?

Credit: Jake Tucker

"Keep it light," requested FrontLeft HQ, as the reins were handed over to me for this week’s edition. So of course, I decided to ask the ultimate question, and try to articulate a response - without delving too deep into waters (philosophy) that I won’t pretend to have a proper grasp of.

Whilst on a day-to-day basis I spend a disproportionately large amount of time on event promo matters, I am first and foremost a DJ who plays, first and foremost, electronic music, first and foremost on round plastic things.

I’d given it all up by around 2010. Life had led me to believe that clubbing and electronic music was no longer for me and that indie music and gigs were the only way (I am listening to Pulp’s This Is Hardcore as I type this). Obviously there’s nothing wrong with that in itself. But I was kidding myself, neglecting a passionate part of myself.

Credit: Jake Tucker

And so my subconscious (and a dose of Covid) took over to enforce a change in circumstance, eventually manifesting house-party opportunities via a friend’s kitchen in Cambridge, where I’d play 10+ hours of early 2000s tech house and prog along with a heavy dose of classic trance, all in one sitting. The endorphins were going absolutely wild and so, naturally, I wanted more.

Once sufficient courage had been plucked, I headed off to an open decks at the old Village 512 in Dalston (now the wave-making OM) one autumn evening in 2023, USB stick in hand, thinking this was a conscious decision, that I’d play some amazing music, and that I’d be performing to 300 people in Fabric by Christmas with Craig Richards going weak at the knees to my selections and technical prowess.

The reality was a little different: I freaked out at the sight of these CDJ 3000 spaceships in front of me, played some fairly mediocre tunes (albeit one absolute beast from Cass & Slide) and got all nervous and self-conscious in the company of the open decks host, wondering what they thought of me and whether or not I was crap - or even worse, a bit of a knob.

Credit: Jake Tucker

What also happened there was that I met Afaan, the most wonderfully welcoming person in the room, or indeed the street, that cold and wet evening. As I have said in other vinyl-obsessed mutterings for the Faded Scene Zine which you may or may not have read, the rest is a kind of history.

What it is worth saying, though, is that a subtle but instant connection between us arose, not through an assessment of how encyclopaedic our knowledge of specific genres was, but really - why we were there. We were there due to an intrinsic love of music and a desire for connection.

And it’s these reasons that I think most people are here, reading this newsletter, going to the events mentioned within it, hanging out with the people that you see in the photos. We are not here just to see a DJ play someone else’s music. As a DJ and events promoter, I see my role primarily as providing a mechanism for people to achieve their innate goals of hearing music that moves them and meeting people who move them further.

Credit: Jake Tucker

Being appreciated as a DJ is lovely when it happens, but I don’t consider a night a success if I haven’t seen connections being made and enhanced on the dancefloor or the smoking area over the course of a night. Music falls flat when the rest isn’t happening, no matter how great the individual track selections are: ‘banging set mate’ doesn’t really land when I haven’t sensed the other core ingredients coming together.

And so it follows that, when I go to an event nowadays, I often ask myself why are they there? ‘They’ being the organisers, the artists, the dancers. The best events somehow manage to be the ones where all three elements are there for good reason. Yes, the venue helps, but in my experience it’s the people that make or break a good party. Some of the most enjoyable parties I have attended have been in the most basic of environments, where the DJ’s ego doesn’t spill over, and where the people just want to connect and enjoy the experience.

Next time you go to an event, if you feel it’s a bit off and can’t quite put your finger on it, considering the three key ingredients listed above may be a good starting point for understanding why. There have of course been plenty of times where I’ve been to a perfectly good event, all key ingredients intact, and yet not managed to get into it. I’d ruminate about what’s wrong, this should be the perfect event for me! Yet I am just not feeling it. Perhaps at that point it is for me to realise that I am the one not contributing, and it’s time to usher myself home for an early night, to go again next week.

So, why are you here?

The Briefing

Hello, Jake here from the corner of a convention center. It's a big weekend and with the bank holiday, very likely the last big weekend of the summer, which is exciting. Not much more commentary on me, beyond warning you that if you're choosing to go to Sunday's 33-hour Unfold marathon, you should expect mega queues.

Look after each other, see you all next week for a more standard newsletter.

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Jake Tucker

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