We are HYDED to announce that we will play at El Dorado festival on 4 July this year, amongst an amazing lineup of acts such as Crazy P Soundsystem, Horse Meat Disco, Auntie Flo, Moxie, Purple Disco Machine and more.
For the full lineup, tickets and further info: eldoradofestival.com
We’re really pleased to announce that we are one of 39 acts supported by Help Musicians UK’s Do it Differently Fund, alongside other acts from Leeds such as Living Body and Magick Mountain.
The fund supports the work of self-sufficient artists and promotes self-organised activities in music making, performance and production.
Read the announcement and further information about the fund here .
Lucy Locket is one of our favourite DJs. A current member of the Love Muscle collective and former resident at Leeds’ legendary SpeedQueen parties, Lucy blends classic-era disco and house cuts into considered, soulful, life-affirming sets. We spoke to Lucy about music, memories, dance music culture and more….
*Guest appearance from Miss Frankie Knuckles.
What is your earliest musical memory and can you remember a pivotal moment when you first realised you felt really passionate about music?
I have lots of jumbled memories of living in Germany 2-4 years old involving Baby Love – The Supremes, Hands Up – Ottowan, Boney M, the Stars on 45 jingle in particular. But the clincher was receiving the Diana Ross solo album on cassette for my fourth birthday along with a silver handbag. I don’t actually remember the handbag but my sister bursts into peals of laughter about it when birthdays are mentioned because I toddled everywhere with it for a while. I listened to the title song of Why Do Fools Fall in Love so much I wore the tape out.
What was your environment like growing up, and which records made a big impact on you?
I’d say watching Top of the Pops and Sesame Street on BFBS made the biggest impact, and I don’t think I’ve moved on that much from either of those shows to be honest. Home environment living in Northumberland once in school was always very music based, mum is a brilliant pianist and classical music fan; dad loves long drives listening to the Beach Boys and Joan Armatrading; us kids were encouraged to take up music / dance / gym lessons when the opportunities came up. My sis and I pooled our pocket money to buy singles from Boots and Woolies, or the Music Shop on Bridge Street in Berwick. It must be noted that I loved then and love now, Just Another Dream by Cathy Dennis which came out in 1990.
How did your early creative development happen in terms of developing your first DJ sets and being able to say what you wanted to say through music?
I was a mixtape queen at school and sussed out that you could lead people into listening to some other songs that you wanted them to hear or thought they might like if given the chance, if you buried the song they really like halfway through side B.
Could you elaborate on moving to Leeds and playing at Speed Queen?
I remember it feeling right. I was absolutely certain about moving to Leeds for Uni (aforementioned sister who *spoiler alert* is clearly a huge influence on me, was then in her final year at York). I went clubbing loads, started buying loads more records, bought some belt drive decks and a mixer, handed a tape in to the Speedqueen shop to Suzy for a gig in the upstairs bar and got the gig. I really fell in love with i-Spy held by Kas and Suzy at NATO and then Speedqueen as they were two of a handful of spaces in my entire lifetime I have ever felt comfortable. From starting school onwards my life has been influenced largely by how awkward I feel I am and how awkward I am, so finding somewhere that is either not an issue or even, gasp, celebrated is so liberating. I learned so much about people and the human experience at SpeedQueen because I could tune in to what’s going on for everyone else for once, and I can’t thank Kas and Suzy enough for giving me that space to grow up.
This is a difficult one to answer actually because I’ve been here for such a long time and haven’t had many extended breaks from Leeds to truly notice what’s different. It’s cyclical I would say, so the ‘high street clubbing’ that was almost phased out by the time I arrived in 1995, it’s here again now – same as other cities of course. And the skyline is very different! The things I like about Leeds and the things I don’t are pretty much the same, though.
You’ve been part of the Love Muscle community for a while now. Underneath the fun and intensity of the parties themselves there seems an equally intense desire to establish a community, break down walls and to encourage people who attend to feel free, liberated, and respected. It’s anti-establishment in many ways. We (Galaxians) think that all of those things represent what dance music culture should be about. Would you agree with that?
Yes! And to celebrate, be glad we’re here, to create a dialogue about what we need, to connect. Wish that was the rule and not an exception though, don’t you?
Some of our own experiences of playing at parties and club nights is that some of the negative things people talk about experiencing at rock shows (heirarchy, sexism, whitewashing, rock star behaviour) aren’t as prevalent and it can be a more diverse, democratic, shared experience. Do you feel that yourself? Do you experience some of those same issues in dance music culture?
All of those issues are prevalent in dance music. I totally feel that, it is my lived experience of roughly 25 years of clubbing and there is plenty of evidence out there to back me up, and speak to the lived experience of minority groups I am not part of. If you look at the history of dance music and DJ culture from 1960s to present day, the inventors, innovators and community who made it happen are not the same as those who amassed / are amassing wealth from it and multiple systems of oppression see to that.
Parties and club nights that actively work towards creating safer spaces and prioritising communities (LGBTQ+ and/ or POC for example) are where there is a prevalence of diversity, democracy and shared experience. I want to see more parties and festivals out there committing to do the same work at a mainstream level, especially in these times where it’s difficult to find a piece of actual common ground which hasn’t been monetised. We can do better.
Do you feel that the DJ should always position themself behind the music, rather than being put on a pedestal?
There is room for everybody to do their thing in a way that is congruent to who they are and how they want to express themselves. That goes for the dancers too, I’ve had some brilliant nights dancing to DJs who don’t visually give themselves away (Al Kent), or deliberately finding my own corner to get my head down and rave. And I’ve had nights where I’ve actively sought out the connection with whatever is going on behind the decks or wanted to be the centre of attention on the dancefloor (that has happened twice).
That said, there is some self-interrogation to do if you’re playing music entirely composed and produced by people other than you, and how much credit you can take – or be perceived to be taking – for that. David Mancuso had the approach about right! I could go off on one here about DJing as a skill or set of skills but let’s leave that for another interview. As the wording of your question alludes to, it’s not always the DJ’s choice to be on the pedestal. I know several introverts and turbo nerds who are career DJs for whom the attention is a massive cringe they would rather do without.
Your sets at Love Muscle are always super-soulful and fluid, and always build really nicely. Do you prepare or do you play how you feel on the night when you know what the vibe in the room is once you’ve started?
Ah, that is nice feedback! Thank you. I do prepare, and I do play to the vibe in the room. The preparation bit comes in two ways; to manage my anxiety, and also to figure out what works as I’m mostly disco and a bit of early house, so live drumming can be a bugger to work with. It helps to know and learn your cue points where the drumming is relatively stable, and the phrasing drops in the right place. I always, always overpack so I have room to go somewhere else and follow the interest.
Tell us about the Equaliser collective and the group workshops you do as part of that?
I have, sob, recently taken a step back from Equaliser. I have loads of personal stuff going on at the moment so I needed to scale back my commitments. Also it was the right thing to do in terms of ensuring the workshops meet the needs of their audience and as I am a generation older than most workshoppers, I did feel that my literally old-school approach to hosting wasn’t always appropriate or beneficial to their learning.
The collective has been going for just over 2 years and holds club nights and free-to-access DJ workshops for women, trans and non-binary people. I’d worked for Leeds Met a few years ago teaching DJing so re-used my lesson plans to set up the workshops and then did some ‘train the trainer’ sessions with others in the collective and some previous workshoppers so they can host their own and adapt the materials accordingly to suit their style and audience. Really super proud of everything we’ve achieved so far, the positive difference I can see in Leeds parties and in the way the learning is being shared beyond the collective.
What are you listening to at home at the moment?
My record collection, all over again! I’ve just moved house and now have the opportunity to set up a proper listening / living room – I’ve got some well decent speakers on long term loan from a friend (thanks Lee), a listening deck and even splashed out on some better than average speaker cable. So I’m looking forward to hearing some stuff I own in a different environment to how I had been experiencing it. I had been listening to records at home in a quite a transactional way in my old place, broadly speaking it was an internal conversation of “Is this going to work? Yes / No”, in order to figure out what I could play out at a gig. Now I can listen to it all at leisure, in a different frame of mind.
To coincide with the terrestrial broadcast of Jeremy Deller’s documentary film Everybody In The Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992 we thought we’d take a look at some of our favourite proto-house songs from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s.
What is proto-house? We tend to use the term to describe songs and sounds from the post-disco / pre-house period that signalled what was to come in dance music in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Though we often think of house music (and more specifically rave culture) as a 90s movement it has been argued that the seeds of house were actually sown more than a decade earlier. We’d like to present a selection of songs which give us an insight into where some of the musical ideas and sounds of house music originate from.
1. You Don’t Know – SERIOUS INTENTION (Easy Street 1984)
I have to admit that the first time I heard this song I didn’t really get what was so great about it, but it’s often said that the mark of a great song is that it improves with every listen. Here we have a classic case of less is more. The simplicity of the composition is exactly what I didn’t get at first but when I really got it I understood that the use of space and the minimal approach to instrumentation are what make it so good. And therein lies the key to many a great house tune.
2. Walkin’ on Sunshine – ROCKERS REVENGE Featuring DONNIE CALVIN (Streetwise / London 1982)
A benchmark for me in so many ways. I have so much love for this song (or rather version, as the original was written by Eddy Grant) because it captures a really exciting period in dance music and pretty much contains something from every sub-genre from that time. The early to mid-80s was arguably one of the most experimental periods in the history of dance music, not least because of the use of both live instrumentation (bass guitars, acoustic percussion etc) and drum machines and synthesizers.
You might think me insane for suggesting that house music was present in dance music as early as 1982 but just listen to that breakdown at the six-minute mark. Pure house vibin’.
3. Electric Baile (Commercial Mix) – MASTER PLAN (Sunset 1986)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joUzl0j8jTo
A record that always makes it into my DJ sets to the point where I probably play it too often, but it’s just a peak-hour banger. On first listen I thought that it sounded way too European to be from Chicago but it’s good to have your ideas and expectations challenged by music sometimes isn’t it? This song opened my ears to a different Chicago sound and really made me realise how varied a community it really was back then.
This one has a great pounding kick and snare and gnarly synth bass line. Together with the conga pattern and sweet vocal it’s a pretty irresistible mix.
4. Let Me Down Easy – RARE PLEASURE (Cheri 1976)
1976?! Yes, really. I mean, listen to that piano motif. Okay, so it’s a stretch to call this song proto-house but along with Dancin’ And Prancin’ by Candido (Salsoul 1979) it does shine a light on the roots of the classic house piano hook and helps us understand the lineage from disco to house.
It’s one of my favourite ever songs and was also a eureka moment for me in terms of my love for disco. It’s a beautiful composition and is one of the first disco songs that really connected with me in a big way. I still think it’s really ahead of its time too.
5. Release The Tension – J-A GROOVE (Studio 1986)
Another favourite that rarely leaves my record bag between DJ sets. The artist name is apt. It has such a tight groove and I love the overall production on this one. The original is a Boyd Jarvis composition and as far as I know there are several versions of it including one featuring Colonel Abrams, however this one is my favourite. It’s just really pumpin’ and soulful.
6. The Music Got Me – VISUAL (Prelude 1983)
“When the weekend comes around, I can’t wait to hit the dance floor”. Pretty good lyric to open a song with. Here’s another Boyd Jarvis creation which is one of the more well-documented proto-house jams. Boyd was definitely ahead of his time and sadly passed away last year, arguably still without the credit he deserved.
Jarvis created a musical sound through the use of home made, reel to reel and hand-played sparse synthesizer & drum machine tracks that were featured extensively as overdubs on early-mid ’80s NYC WBLS FM “extended music sweeps” with DJs Timmy Regisford and later, Merlin Bobb.
7. Through The Night (Dub Mix I) – BLUE MODERNE (Sunnyview 1986)
I hadn’t heard this jam prior to buying the Running Back Presents Front compilations, which are a celebration of Hamburg’s Front club (which hosted parties from 1983 to 1997) and its residents Klaus Stockhausen and Boris Dlugosch.
I particularly love the moment where the instrumentation kicks in at around 1:15 and the way the mix moves along from there. The super-soulful vocal by Audrey Wheeler really lifts the whole arrangement and it’s a very classy mix overall.
8. Call Me Mr Telephone (Street Dub Mix) – ANSWERING SERVICE (Third Label 1984)
Another song featured on the Running Back comp series, this Italo monster features a sweet gnarly bass line and heaps of reverb and delay applied to the drums and percussion. I love the double-time kick in the early breakdown followed by the rap and the atmospheric synths that come in and out through the track. It doesn’t really move anywhere in terms of melodic development but it doesn’t need to, it’s just a great groove and sometimes that’s all you need.
9. Out’A The Box (Club Vocal Dub) – JIRAFFE (GoldQwest 1988)
There are lots of great things about this jam from 1988. The drum programming, pumpin’ production, and the sparse funky arrangement make it impossible not to move to. You could argue that it isn’t specifically proto-house as it was made at the time house music had already developed some of its signature sounds and an identity, but I’m including it because it sits so well next to any post-disco or house track and everytime I play it in a set at least one person asks me what it is.
That semiquaver snare roll gets me every time. Love it.
10. Dancing Therapy – INTERNATIONAL MUSIC SYSTEM (Emergency 1984)
I first heard this Italo banger in a record shop in London and it was one of those moments where you just like the look of a record and then you listen to it and wonder how or why you haven’t ever heard it before. Having thought I was alone in my love for it and having never heard it anywhere in a DJ set or playlist I heard it at a Love Muscle party in Leeds sometime last year and it was wonderful to know that I wasn’t alone in my admiration for it.
© Galaxians 2012-2026
