The dance music industry needs to demand better

I don't think every night out needs to be amazing.

This is probably a useful thing to establish given that I have somehow spent the last few years writing a newsletter about going to parties. I go out a lot. I've danced until my legs stopped working, stood in fields covered in mud, paid increasingly silly amounts of money for drinks and occasionally looked at my bank account the following morning and wondered what exactly I was thinking.

And most of the time, whatever the music, wherever I am, I enjoy myself. I think my mindset helps. Often, I just want to be somewhere with a big sound system and some mates. Once I've got that, a positive attitude and inebriation will usually get me through.

This weekend though, I came away disappointed.

I headed to Defected at Drumsheds on Friday, and I'd been building it up in my head for weeks. The main room had Eats Everything B2B Sam Divine, Groove Armada, Basement Jaxx and Armand Van Helden one after another. Sadly, it didn't quite gel, and Basement Jaxx in particular managed to kill the mood of nearly the entire crowd with an experimental set that was antithetical to the needs of the crowd.

It was going well until then. Drumsheds isn't my favourite club because I prefer divey 200-capacity basements to dance it out in, but once you catch a vibe it's usually okay. Groove Armada played a big, dancefloor-friendly set that had the crowd jumping, and then Basement Jaxx came in with a left-field set that left most of the crowd confused and in stunned silence. Several of our group went home, buzz successfully killed.

I wasn't expecting some sort of life-changing religious experience. If Drumsheds was a church i'd like to think it would have better toilet access. But broadly, if the music is loud and I've got space to dance around, I'm content.

It stings because Basement Jaxx was the reason I was there in the first place. I had a big day Sunday and was trying to save myself for that, but I've wanted to see Basement Jaxx play for about 20 years, so I dutifully went out to meet a group and headed in expecting to have a blast.

After all, we're talking about a group whose music has been lodged in my brain for most of my adult life. They have the sort of catalogue where you can spend half an evening waiting for the song you really want to hear, only for something else you had completely forgotten about to come on and make you lose your mind instead.

So I arrived at Drumsheds expecting this to be a fairly straightforward win.

It wasn't.

The worst thing is they finished their set playing Where's Your Head At and the whole of Drumsheds erupted, as expected, before they were swept away from the booth for Armand Van Helden.

He was pretty good, but then we fucked up. And by "we", I mean me and my friends, but also Drumsheds.

Three of us stepped into the smoking area at 10:10 to get some air and a glass of water, only to see everything closed. We turned around to go back inside after taking a few gulps of air, only for the slightly shitty security guard we'd just walked past without a word to block our way and tell us they weren't allowing people back inside.

So we had the walk of shame around the outside of the building as Dizzee Rascal's Bonkers thumped through the walls.

This wasn't satisfying, and so I went with what I knew and returned to the slightly cramped confines of Eclectic Zoo's top secret central London location to see Anya, Dasha and Innerstice killing it, before I loped off into the night.

Eclectic Zoo was worth the trip, but I've been thinking about my trip to Drumsheds since because I think there's a strange pressure in club culture to convince yourself that every event you attend is brilliant. You paid for the ticket. You travelled across London. You told your friends you were going. You probably posted a photo from inside. Admitting that you didn't really enjoy yourself can feel almost like you've failed at making the most of your time.

But sometimes a party just isn't very good, and the most frustrating part is that I really wanted this one to be. I wanted Basement Jaxx to come out and make me remember exactly why I've loved them all these years. Instead, I spent a decent chunk of the night wondering whether I was missing something.

Debriefing later, I realised I definitely wasn't; most of our group had come away disappointed.

We're taking over a floor of Bread and Butter Studios this Saturday to meet some of you guys and listen to some great music from In The Booth DJs Benebe, Drastic Shuffle and Hostmigrate and FrontLeft #1 Superfan Adela. We're rolling from 8pm until 1:30am, and there will be housy fun all night. We have about 10 tickets left and have held only a couple of tickets back for the door on the night, so if you're reading this and it's not yet September 26, why not buy a ticket? It'd be cool to meet some of you in person.

Also, I wanted to take the time to thank Irene, Tim, and Win, all newsletter subscribers who chucked in a little donation through the website itself.

Want a taste of what Adela's about? Here's a mix that bounces from progressive house to melodic techno that I've been listening to a lot this week. Put it on, have a dance around your kitchen and enjoy. The vibe shift at 13 minutes in is a perfect example of why Adela is, excuse my language, so fucking good at this.

Here's a Soundcloud link for those of you reading us in your inboxes. Thanks for the subscription.

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It's been troubling over the past week or two to be reminded that the dance music industry, like many others, has absolutely no idea what accountability means. Before you go any further, this chunk of the newsletter deals with allegations of sexual assault and accountability. If you would rather not read about this, consider this your content warning. You can scroll on until the next purple header to get back to your regular scheduled programming.

A lot of my frustrations came from seeing Shlømo pop up on a booking at an Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) party next month.

If you haven’t been following the story, Shlømo, real name Shaun Baron-Carvais, was one of several prominent hard techno DJs named in a wave of sexual misconduct allegations earlier this year. The allegations included claims of sexual assault, rape and coercion, and several festivals and promoters subsequently removed artists from their lineups. His former management agency, STEƎR, also dropped him and other artists following the allegations.

In June, a criminal complaint was filed against Shlømo in Paris alleging rape, psychological violence and death threats. It is important to be precise here: a complaint is not a conviction, nor does it establish that the allegations are true. Shlømo has denied the accusations and said he wants the legal process to establish the truth.

But that shouldn't mean that everyone in the music industry gets to shrug their shoulders and carry on as if nothing has happened, which is exactly what is happening when Shlømo pops up to play during ADE, one of the biggest weeks in the worldwide electronic music calendar.

I don't want to dig too much into the specifics of Shlømo's case. The booking has already attracted criticism and Dutch DJ Xamuel has pulled out of the event. There are currently some pretty mediocre apologies floating around from both ADE (who cut the event from its official program) and the promoters (who cancelled the event after ADE cut ties)

But I do want to ask a slightly bigger question. Who thought this was a good idea? Who is responsible for making these decisions?

Because this isn't really about whether an artist has been found guilty in a court of law. It is about whether promoters, venues, festivals, agencies and the wider industry have any standards beyond "is this person still popular enough to sell tickets?"

If the answer is no, which seems to be the case here with Komplott standing behind their lineup until ADE pulled back, we're going to keep having exactly the same conversations.

In conversations I've seen playing out over the last couple of weeks, many people have suggested it's a complicated decision. You know what isn't a complicated decision? Booking one of the hundreds of world-class DJs that are not currently mired in a sexual abuse scandal.

What does it say about a scene when someone can face serious allegations, have their management relationship collapse, lose bookings across Europe, become the subject of a criminal complaint and then, several months later, just pop up like nothing happened?

Promoters don't need to run their own courts, but they should absolutely have some standards and some accountability of their own.

I'd respect them more (but still not much) if they said: we've considered the allegations, we've spoken to the relevant people, we've considered the safety of our audience and artists, and this is the decision we've reached.

Or they can say: we weren't aware when the booking was made, but we are now reviewing it. Or even: we've looked into it and decided we are comfortable proceeding.

I might disagree with the decision, but at least I know someone has actually made one.

Silence is different. Silence tells everyone else in the room that the booking is just business as usual. Silence, ultimately, is a decision too.

And that's particularly uncomfortable when the wider electronic music industry has spent years talking about creating safer spaces for women and marginalised people.

You can't tell people that their safety matters and then become mysteriously quiet when the person they're worried about is the person selling the tickets.

This isn't uniquely a Shlømo problem, either, and it shouldn't be.

The lesson from the allegations that emerged in the hard techno scene earlier this year shouldn't simply be that a few DJs disappeared for six months before eventually coming back. It should be that the systems around DJs need to be better.

Promoters need clearer standards. Agencies need proper processes for dealing with complaints. Venues need to know who they are putting on stage. Festivals need to be willing to lose money when the alternative is compromising their own stated values.

And audiences need to keep asking questions and, where needed, voting with their wallets. Because ultimately, the most powerful thing we have as clubbers is not an Instagram comment or a furious post. It's deciding where we spend our money.

I don't think every allegation should automatically end someone's career. That would be an absurd standard to apply to any industry, particularly one where accusations can spread online without due process.

But I also don't think innocent until proven guilty, the battlecry of thousands of social media accounts with a dog or a car as an avatar whenever these stories pop up, should somehow translate into promoters having no responsibility to think about this until a judge tells them what to do.

We can believe in due process while believing that promoters have a duty of care. We can acknowledge that allegations are not convictions while still listening seriously when people say they have been harmed.

And, as punters, we can and should demand that the people who book our clubs and festivals explain the standards they use when deciding who gets a platform.

The dance music industry is very good at talking about community. Maybe it's time we started acting like one.

And we'll do that not by pretending difficult things don't happen. Not by protecting our favourite DJs because they're good behind a pair of decks. But by asking for accountability for the people we're putting behind the decks, the people we're giving our money to and even the friends we're dancing alongside.

If you do one thing this weekend, it should probably be to come to FrontLeft's very first event. However, Nan's Basement, taking place at the same time, will be very closeby so you would be forgiven for doing the double. In fact, I'd recommend it.

Friday night is absolutely huge, challenging my desire to stay in and get some rest ahead of the event. Sheesh. I'll likely swing by HWK to see Bilge, Selen and Dasha play with the noble goal of making it in bed by midnight. Let's see how we go.

Friday

• Selen and Friends #3 HWK Hackney Wick
• Hartronika: The Last DJ (live), panel talk & warehouse rave Distillery N17
• SOL: After Dark The Cross

Saturday

• FrontLeft 2026 Fundraiser Bread and Butter Studios
• Nan's Basement: Secret Location Secret Location in Shoreditch
• Kolter & Friends - Day & Night Party The Cause

Sunday

• Grace Sands Birthday The Timber Loft

• Calvin Harris has achieved a Guinness World Record for the largest attendance at a DJ set by a single artist. Harris played to a 1.6m strong crowd from a carnival float on São Paulo's Rua da Consolação, his first set in Brazil for a decade. Harris is from the Scottish town of Dumfries, which according to its 2022 Census has a population of 33,676 people.
• Drumsheds new Reasons To Move campaign is good fun, profiling 12 real ravers and talking about why they come to the dancefloor.
• Journalist Annabel Ross posted on Instagram this week asking how we can talk about hard subjects without sucking the joy out of raving, which was absolutely on my mind while writing this week's main feature. Especially when you consider I wrote this week's feature for last week's newsletter, but it felt weird sharing the joy of running our own event alongside imploring the industry to do better.