Dave Beer on the scene that Leeds the way

Looking at the Fieldtrip line up, you can see just how proud they are of the scene on their own doorstep. Although there are some fine headliners, this is as much about the Leeds luminaries throwing the mother of all parties as it is about jet-setting superstar DJs. No other city would do it like this, so how did it come to be that Leeds become an absolute bastion of house music and partying?

Mike Boorman talks to one of the men that made it so, Dave Beer, the man behind the reverential Back to Basics clubnight that boats longevity so admirable it even became the focus of Yorkshire's regional news (check the vid above).

After twenty-five years Beer is still going strong enough to be mixing it with the kids at Fieldtrip next month, and perfectly placed to convey what makes Leeds such a quintessential city for house music lovers. 

So, first things first, to me, Leeds is the absolute best party city in the country, even better than London... I'm sure you agree?

All the best clubs on the planet were here at one point, but at the moment, there aren't that many good spaces, which is probably why you're seeing festivals like Fieldtrip sprouting up.

But why Leeds? It's not like it's that big a city compared to some...

I always jokingly say it's because Leeds has got two e's and LSD in the name! It's weird because Leeds didn't really have a music scene in the way that Manchester or Liverpool did, where loads of bands would come from there.

Until we did Back To Basics there wasn't much of a rave scene (at this point it's worth name checking the Utah Saints, who as both promoters and musicians were doing their damnedest to push the boundaries of electronic music in the city at the time), but then suddenly you had some of the best clubs in the country in Leeds and there seemed to be enough people to go around.

It's the crossroads of the north I guess. Back then people would travel a long way to go to clubs… you'd have car-fulls of people traveling for hours just to get somewhere for a good party, so I guess Leeds was within range for a lot of people.

So the scene was based more on incomers than, say, Manchester?

Yes, I think so. There was always a friendliness about it once acid house kicked off - it wasn't too difficult to get in the gang which is different than in other cities. It was such amazing times - people couldn't quite get their head around it. There was Orbit, Back To Basics, Hard Times, Vague, Speed Queen… so many good nights.

But what actually inspired you to do Basics in the first place?

I'd been away traveling in America and had been to Paradise Garage in New York and also partied in Detroit and Chicago, and then I came back and the Hacienda happened which was just amazing.

But then that changed a bit and we started having to travel to clubs in London or Nottingham or something, but there were no clubs in Leeds for us. There were some illegal parties but they ended up having to go in to the clubs.

So was that the Criminal Justice Bill that took people out of those illegal parties and in to the clubs?

Not really. The Criminal Justice Bill was more about the big raves in fields. I mean, there was a little bit of crossover between raving in fields on the free party scene and what we ended up doing in clubs - I was at Castle Morton which is probably the most famous one - but it was different crowds mostly.

Illegal parties in warehouses on the acid house scene could be up to a tenner in, even back then. We opened Back To Basics a year before the bill.

Ah, because I always assumed that the name was a piss take on John Major's laughable 'Back To Basics' campaign when he was Tory leader!

No - that was a couple of years after. It was quite funny actually, when we first heard it all over the news, John Major came to Leeds soon after and people told him about the club night.

Ha ha - my God. It just stands for everything that he was standing against with that campaign! Like, in that speech when he's launching the Back To Basics campaign he's talking about this idyllic England… he even mentions playing cricket on village greens and drinking warm ale, and also the phrase "outside of wedlock"!

Yeah, it's hilarious. We're actually using that speech in our film, Tales Of Glamour And Excess.

How have you been treated by the local authorities down the years? Because certainly when I started going out in Leeds, it looked to me like they were a lot more lenient than other cities. I'd been going out for five years in other cities before I discovered the concept of being able to go to after party venues where you could buy a drink at 7am on a Sunday morning, and that was in Leeds. 

The police actually raided us early on because they didn't understand what was going on, but the local council were brilliant. They wanted to do this 24hr Leeds thing, so they were fully behind us. There was this politician, Lorna Cohen, "the Disco Granny" they used to call her, and she basically spearheaded the whole thing. So clubs in Leeds were getting better licenses and later licenses than anywhere else.

Is this still the case?

Well they're clamping down on it now. It built the city, you know? You'd have students coming here just because of the nightlife [Leeds student numbers are estimated to be more than 250,000], and that built the city. But now they're not backing it how they should be.

It's something you see a lot in London isn't it? Areas like Dalston and Shoreditch have been transformed by partying, but then when they get too popular and cool the rent rates then go up, and the council suddenly doesn't want to know because they have people complaining about the noise outside their front door. So do you think the future is more festival-style, one off events?

Yes, to an extent. That's why you're seeing a lot more festivals like Fieldtrip. But we do still need more good quality smaller clubs. Festivals are great because they get loads of different people out and I love going to festivals myself, but we should have both.

So onto Fieldtrip specifically then. I know you'll be DJing there, and you can see it's very Leeds, and not just in location. Tell me more about the rationale behind that.

It's great that there's so many Leeds promoters and DJs involved in it (check out the latest single on Hot Creations from one such DJ, Denney, below) and they're not getting too big for their boots - they're more bothered about creating a good atmosphere.

I think it's good to see what the guys are doing with Fieldtrip because it's independent. If you look across the country you've got this kind of festival mafia where only the select few have rights to certain acts and they've got their own tie ups with the big talent agencies.

That's a very good point. Big festival line ups look so similar don't they?

Mentioning no names but there are certain big festivals that make sure small festivals don't have a chance of ever getting certain acts because they're within a fifty or a hundred-mile radius or whatever. And then you've got the agents stoking these bidding wars which makes it even harder for small festivals and small clubs.

But despite all this, you're working on a new venture in Leeds, aren't you?

Yes, it's a concept called FIFO which means 'fit in or fuck off', but it's not in the sense of how people look or anything malicious… it's about good things coming to good people.

So we're going to give shares to people who get involved in the early stages, so there'll be some online crowd funding but also people who might be decorating or fitting out the interior or whatever - they'll be shareholders as well. And it's going to be members only at first so it's not about cattle.

Feels a bit like a Danny Rampling '88 Shoom kinda idea, where people can only get in if they really know what it's about...

Yeah, it's that kind of thing but without it being too cliquey. So we'll have some big DJs drop in and play but we won't always advertise it. Also, we're going to have a music academy as part of it so DJs and musicians can give a bit back and teach kids some skills.

There'll be all kinds of small details in there to help people express themselves in their own way… like, whatever happened to proper dancers in clubs? People just seem to want to behave like cattle and do the same mainstream things as everyone else.

I guess it's just the loop of evolution isn't it? Once something is so good it becomes very popular, and people feel they have to behave in a certain way. But then once that gets too boring, people like you react against it, and the loop continues.

Exactly. I was seriously thinking about going away to LA or something, but I'm staying in Leeds because I think this is needed. I felt I needed to create something. I'm not slating the other clubs here, but I just want to do something different. But we need to find the right space.

So how do you rate Leeds now compared to the golden days we talked about?

There's no doubt that the licensing is a problem as we discussed earlier, but I'd still say it's the clubbing capital of the country. Club culture in general is not what it used to be, but we still party pretty hard in Leeds… it's what we've always done!

And no doubt there will be some serious partying with Dave and the rest of the Leeds set at Fieldtrip on August 15th. Also watch out for some fine guests including Todd Terry, Ben UFO, Prosumer and Boddika.

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