Interview: Skiddle Delves Behind the scenes at Manchester Techno Night Content

Will Orchard sits down with Rashid Khan of Manchester techno night Content to talk about what goes into running a successful night, highlights of the past two years, and what the future holds for Content…

Tell me a little bit about setting up the night - was this your first clubnight, or had you put stuff on before? And what were you trying to achieve with Content?

There's six of us involved, and between us we have almost 10 years experience of putting on nights in Manchester. Residents Lee Daley and Dan McGlynn used to promote Afterhours at a few different clubs across the city and I (Rashid Khan) was part of a night called Casamusica which ran at various venues including Sankeys. Then alongside friends Eddie Leader from Hudd Traxx records, Chris Poole and Josh Hewitt we decided to set up a night together in the summer of 2009. The idea behind the night was simple; at the time there wasn't anyone putting on the kind of DJs we wanted to hear ,so we set about bringing the best of the world's DJing talent to play in an intimate basement environment...

You've not always been based at Joshua Brooks - how important do you think the venue's proven in the success of the night?

We originally started life at the Roadhouse, which was great for a time but coming up to our first birthday we felt like we needed to change venues. We'd known Gaz Chubb who runs Micron at Joshua Brooks for a while and when he was put in charge of promotions at JB's he approached us about moving there. As a promoter of an independent, underground night himself he understands what it's like and the venue gave us loads of promotional support, are really helpful on the technical aspect of things and generally make it easy for you to get on with it. The venue itself has been going through loads of changes recently and although it has a reputation for being more of a student bar/club, it's becoming more and more like a specialised club space with a bar upstairs. There's been a refurb, layout change and new sound and lighting done all in the last year or so and they're making improvements on an almost weekly basis. Last week for instance they installed some much needed air con!

You're mostly focussed on techno and house music, with a strong focus on the Detroit scene. How close would you say Manchester and Detroit are, in musical and other terms?

I think that Manchester and Detroit are very similar in that they are both post-industrial cities and the environments of dis-used warehouses and factories of the now defunct Detroit motor industry are not too dissimilar from those that you used to see around Ancoats etc. Obviously Manchester is going through a lot of regeneration so those places are all becoming apartment buildings these days but I guess there's still a lasting effect of people living through the times when those areas were pretty depressed. In terms of our musical focus, we sometimes think it's unfair that we get labelled as a Detroit techno night, because although we all love and play that music a lot and feature a lot of guests from that city, we have also had people like Agnes from Geneva, Iron Curtis from Berlin, Joshua Iz and Chez Damier from Chicago, Sascha Dive from Frankfurt and Raresh from Bucharest. Upcoming we have guests from London, Sofia, Paris, Manchester and err.... Detroit, obviously.

How does a typical night at Content play out? What are some of your most reliable floorfillers and are there any tracks that you could pinpoint as a 'Content classic'?

It's hard to say how a typical night at Content plays out as they all tend to be different. What they all have in common is that we have a really great following of totally sound and up for it people. We're always amazed at how clued up and responsive our crowd are and just how great the atmosphere is and all the DJs that have played for us have commented on this also. In terms of Content classics, I don't think we've been going long enough to really have any but tracks that have featured heavily in the sets of are residents are: Abe Duque - 'Disco Lights', Sascha Dive - 'Underground Railroad', Matthias Meyer - 'Infinity' and Rolando - 'Where Were You'.

You're approaching two years of Content now. Talk me through some of your highlights of the last two years. The Andrew Weatherall night in April was a particular stand-out for me. And what are some of your best anecdotes so far?

Funny you should mention Weatherall actually as he was one of the funniest guys we've had on and a really sound and down to earth bloke. That night in particular was great as it was a bank holiday Friday due to the Royal wedding and most of the people who came had been partying all day so the atmosphere was incredible. Other highlights include the whole club singing happy birthday to Kenny Larkin the first time he played for us (look for it on youtube) and us thinking we'd lost Chez Damier after the gig, only to find out he'd been driven to his mate's house in Glasgow for a bit, before booking himself onto a flight to London for his gig at Fabric... wasn't funny at the time but looking back on it, it's quite amusing...

You won City Life's 'Best Bookings' award last year - you must be doing something right! How did it feel to get that sort of recognition for your efforts?

Yeah, we were totally stoked to receive that kind of award after only one year! As I said before when we set up the night it was all about bringing the very best people to Manchester as nobody else was at the time and it feels good to know that other people are appreciative of what we do. It can be hard work at times convincing the agents of massive name DJs to let their artists play in a small, 200 capacity basement in Manchester and this award was like a nice pat on the back for us...

Tell me about your upcoming August clubnight, which is a celebration of 10 years of Secret Sundaze. How important is Secret Sundaze for you?

We've always had a lot of respect for the secretsundaze guys as although they book awesome DJs and throw spectacular parties in quirky venues, we've always thought that Giles Smith and James Priestley (the residents) themselves are the real stars of the show. We've had Giles on before and he was brilliant, so we approached them about doing a full on secretsundaze party and they were keen as they' wanted to do a '10 years of...' tour. We were really proud that they wanted to join forces with us as their other tour dates read like a who's who of the global clubbing scene. For the party with us we will also have Sistrum Records boss Patrice Scott from Detroit (naturally!) and local heroes Thomson from Freerange Records, Hudd Traxx and Development and his DJing partner Chris Feinmann who was also a Development resident. We're taking over both floors of JBs, installing a Funktion One sound system upstairs and starting the party at 4pm with free entry until 10pm and a free BBQ for ticket holders. It's looking like it's going to be one hell of a party...

You've promised an exciting 2nd Birthday clubnight soon. When will it be and what can we expect?

As we're on the last Friday of every month, our 2nd Birthday falls on October the 28th this year and we've got some awesome things planned. We're going to be taking over both floors again and installing an F1 upstairs. Over both floors there will be four headliners playing. We're in the process of confirming two of the guests, but of the two already booked one of them is a stone cold Detroit legend (ahem!) and the other is one of the dons of the UK scene who's been at the forefront for years. We're really excited about it as it's the biggest thing we've ever attempted so far and the fact that it's our 2nd Birthday means that it will probably the best party we've thrown to date in terms of atmosphere as well!

And what plans do you have for the clubnight in future?

Well before the birthday for our September party we have KiNK playing a live show and doing a DJ set; he's one of the new wave of European producers who are really causing a storm at the moment. His productions are so far ahead of the game and his records get played by pretty much every DJ worth their salt. Then in November we have DJ W!ld playing, fresh from his residency at DC10 in Ibiza... Further than that...well we're keeping tight lipped but we've got a few tricks up our sleeves and if the next year is anything like the one just gone then we can promise you there will be a fair few nights to remember!

Interview: Will Orchard

See upcoming Content nights here.

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