INTERVIEW WITH A WANKER

DJ Wanker talks to Richard Smith, April 2004

Why "Fuck The Pain Away"?
"It always sounded like a really profound phrase. But it was mainly because anyone who a saw a flyer for the first time who had a vague interest in Electro would go; "Oh, right. Peaches. Cool!" And it would just baffle, or hopefully intrigue, everyone else. And I like swearing. I like swearing a lot."

What does it mean, though?
"Fuck the Pain Away" means "Fuck the pain away". We need our good times because of all our bad times. I think."

And where does the name DJ Wanker come from?
"I was having a conversation with Boogaloo Stu, this must have been about ten years ago now, and we were talking about someone we knew who was a DJ or was starting DJ-ing. It was someone neither of us could stand. He'd given himself some 'stagename', DJ Something-or-other - it's so long ago I genuinely can't remember who it was now. I said to Stu; "DJ Wanker, more like." And because we both like swearing we both thought this was hysterically funny. When I started playing at Dynamite Boogaloo that's what they put on the flyers."

Ever wish you'd chosen a different name?
"All the time. It's memorable, but since starting FTPA and seeing it in print and on posters a lot, I do often think I should have chosen something a bit more grown-up. Adam was DJ Twat when he started, by the way."

How did you first get into DJ-ing?
"I'd always like the way Stu and Sally played at Boogaloo - just the idea that you could play any kind of record you liked as long as it sounded great in a club. I'd known Stu for a while and asked him if I could play. I can't remember the date but remember I'd bumped into him in Virgin and he was looking for Line-up or something by Elastica. [It was probably 1994, then. RS]. I remember him being polite but you could see him trying not to look mortified as well. Basically cause in the early 90s he knew I was going to Shame and Trade and so he thought I was going to play a load of Belgian Techno or something. I asked him again a year or two later, and managed to persuade him to give me a try and he did, bless him."

Do you remember what the first record you played was?
"Godstar by Psychic TV. Basically cause there's lots of strange synchronicity between Genesis P Orridge and big events in my life. I went along with my records in a carrier bag and had written out a list of what I was going to play and in what order. It was quite sweet"

What sort of stuff do you play at Boogaloo?
"Anything I want. The stuff I love playing there is Girl Group records and power-pop-punky stuff from the late 70s to the mid-80s. The most played record is a compilation album, Beserkley Home of The Hits. They put out lots of great stuff, Jonathan Richman, and The Rubinoos version of I Think We're Alone Now, that I play. And I've always played lots of daft electronic stuff. I really love the really early 70s synth pop where it all sounds a bit wobbly, but endearingly so; Son of my Father, Magic Fly, The Rah Band. But the great thing about Boogaloo is you can play anything; La Dolce Vita followed by The Ace of Spades followed Beyonce."

How did you discover "the music formerly known as Electroclash"?
"Me and Adam have got a shared love of Electronic music, especially the real pioneers; Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder, DAF, Bobby O, Patrick Cowley. Our tastes diverge a lot after that. He likes the more Avant Garde stuff, I like a lot of harder dance music from the 90s. But a few years ago we realised our tastes with modern music was converging again. There were all these weird little records coming out about three, four years ago, that just us made us both go 'Wow!' Avant electronic dance music that sounded like a modern take on Moroder and Bobby O. What's not to like? And then in 2001 someone gave it all the generic name 'Electroclash'."

When did you get the idea for your club?
"Me and Adam had thought about doing it for ages. I first went to Nag Nag Nag in May 2002. It was empty, partly because it was the day of the May Day riots that had ended up in Soho, but brilliant. It really took off over that summer. Then The Cock started. They completely restored my faith in gay clubbing. I used to love going out dancing ten-twelve years ago, that whole 'gay rave' period; Trade, ff, Shame in Brighton, Flesh. Then by 1996 the music had just become a series of awful clichés, when it became Hard House. And "Funky, Uplifting House", that's just the worst. And it's reflected in the atmosphere of the clubs. They're just not exciting at the moment. But when you went to Nag or the Cock it was just wild. I'd always bump into people I knew. It was like 'So this is where all the interesting queens have been hiding.' So, I'd talked to Adam about doing a Queer Electro night down here. But it was a bit of a pipedream. I just faffed about for ages, basically. I think I thought at the back of my mind that someone else would start one. It was such an obvious idea. Then I went to GBH at Storm, and thought 'This venue would be perfect'' It was small but a great space, and they did fetish nights there, so it was a bit sleazy, too. And it was an old school gay venue, not designer or anything. It's great. A friend pointed out Simon who runs it, soon after - because they'd just slept together. I saw him about a week later in a club and was drunk enough to ask him if we could do a night. He said to come and see him during the week, we talked it through and he said he'd give it a go. Yeah! Simon's been really brilliant, if it wasn't for him the club wouldn't exist. This was like May, June last year. The first one was August. We wanted to start in July, but it was booked for a Pride event."

How was the first one?
"The first night was a fucking nightmare. It's agony waiting for the first few people to come in. Agony! There's me running round screaming "No-one's gonna come!!!' Then by about 11, loads of people had come. It was so fucking great. The music was a bit weird. With a new crowd it's hard to tell what people want, so you play everything. My set was sort of a 'Greatest Hits of Electroclash'. There's only one record from the first night I still play, Primal Scream Autobahn 666. And Peaches' Fuck The Pain Away, which is always the last record. I went on last - deliriously happy, but a bit pissed. I've got a feeling I played Queen of Japan about three times. It was so great. Just watching everyone dancing and thinking "Yeah! We've fucking done it!"

Did you worry you might have missed the boat?
"Not really. It seemed like the perfect time to start it. It was more like worrying that we'd left it so long, people would think we were just jumping the bandwagon. "We missed the boat, but jumped the bandwagon". That would be a good slogan for a poster, wouldn't it?"

Is Electroclash dead?
"The word is. It's become totally unfashionable. It was odd when we started FTPA, wondering what to put on the posters to explain what it was. Then by Chinese Whispers a friend told me he'd heard someone was starting a "queer Electroclash night' in Brighton. So, I thought, 'okay, that's a concept people can grasp'. So the first publicity hedged our bets. "Bringing you the very, very best of the music formerly known as 'Electroclash'. Then a bit later, a friend Marcos said, 'you play 'Electrotrash'. I thought that was perfect. That's what we play; Electro... Trash!"

How's the club changed?
"Well, we know what we're doing now. So it's much better. You get to know what people like, which takes a bit of time. And it means you can broaden things out. Put on Male Stripper near the end and know they're going to get it. The music's much harder, which is interesting. They go absolutely mental for something like Mitsubishi by Miss Kittin, which is like 500bpm. The club's much wilder, cause we go on later for one thing, so it's a bit more drunken and debauched. And we've got our crowd now. My boys! Which is great."

And what is your crowd?
"One review said it was for 'people who like things a bit left-of-centre'. I thought that summed it up really well. It's just a kind of really cool, freaky, friendly, queer alternative crowd. Which is exactly who we dreamt of coming. We don't get the fashionistas - thank fuck. On some publicity we said; "Admission £4, Trendy Wankers £50." There's always a few who turn up at each one, not so much now though. They're always the first to arrive and you know they're going to be the first too leave, too. They just walk around with their noses in the air, and you know this is like the worst nightmare; all these trashy queens grinding it up on the dancefloor."

Why do you think this music's so popular with gay men?
"It's not! The thing people always forget about Nag and The Cock is that they're in this tiny little club two nights a week. The Ghetto's like 300 people or something. When anyone's tried to cash in and do it a big club in London, it's flopped. It's a tiny sub-subculture. But there's something in the music that a certain type of queen loves. It's sexy, dirty, fun, a lot of it's ridiculously camp. And most of the big names are queer; Peaches, Scissor Sisters, DJ Hell, Larry Tee, Fischerspooner, Ladytron. And the key clubs are all queer clubs, that's true."

Any plans for the future?
"We're thinking about maybe moving to a Friday at Storm, but you wonder if it's the Sunday that makes it special, you have to make a bit of an effort to come out. We'd like to release an album. You know there's a vogue to put out compilation CDs in conjunction with high class shops or boutique hotels? We'd like to find the grubbiest shop in Brighton and do an album with them; the Kemptown Kwik-E-Mart or whatever."