Red Jerry's Hooj Legacy

Photo: Hooj Choons

Responsible for putting out an inordinate number of dance music's most cherished, scene-defining releases, Hooj Choons is a label that finds itself very much in the category of the truly greats. Starting out in the early nineties and running strong until financial difficulties sadly hit a decade or so later, Hooj was THE label at the forefront of clubbing in this country and abroad.

Classics like Energy 52's 'Cafe Del Mar', Killahurtz's 'West on 27th', Solar Stone's 'Seven Cities', and Three Drives' 'Greece 2000' (we could go on), were all launched by the imprint, which very quickly earned a reputation for gauging exactly what ravers wanted, becoming the staple for the biggest DJs at the time.

At the helm of the imprint's success was tireless leader Red Jerry, a man dedicated to unearthing and championing his vision of where dance music was heading.

Ahead of his set for Plasma Future at South, Manchester on March 13th, we jumped at the chance to grill him about the history of one of the scene's most affectionately regarded imprints, talking through the highs and lows of running an underground label, his favourite Hooj releases, its occasional reboots, and a whole lot more.

So first up you're set to play for Plasma Future next month, with an exclusive Hooj Choons set. We’re pretty excited for that, how do you approach a set like that though when you've such a big and varied back catalogue to draw from?  

Good question, I actually spoke to the promoters about it, tried to narrow it down a bit and work out what Plasma’s crowd are more likely to be into, how it’s all going to fit into the night as a whole, and then worked from there.

Last year Hooj came back to life with a remix release of Candi Staton's 'Whadda You Want'. Can you tell us about the decision to boot it back up, and what more can we look forward to from Hooj in the coming future? 

To be honest, the label name and catalogue has been owned by a content aggregating company since we went bust in 2003, and so whilst I've been happy to get involved with the odd Hooj re-entry foray on a consultation basis (Candi Staton last year, The Human League release back in 2009), I'm really not sure what else is on the horizon.

This might be a tough one, but we’d like you to list your top five Hooj Choon releases, and tell us why you've picked them, these could be either your favourite tunes, or records that you think were pivotal in Hooj's history. 

Datar 'B'. Danny Tenaglia made us a track to celebrate Hooj 100, and it turned out to be a good one – deep, chunky, tribally house.

L.S.G. 'Fragile Part Two'. The melody from this captures the spirit of what I was drawn to 'trance-wise', for all it's sins, and with Oliver Lieb - it always felt like he was in a slightly different league as a producer. (Listen to Fragile Part One below).

Andronicus 'Make You Whole'. I didn't know whether this was a rave record or a house record. it still stands up today - timeless and very nostalgic for me.

Nalin and Kane 'Beachball'. Again, hard to pin down sub genre wise, but they always had a bit of that slightly melancholic, happy / sad Balearic magic – such great producers at the time, and you can still listen to these tracks now I think.

Energy 52 'Café Del Mar' (Three 'n' One Mix). Admittedly, it sounded better the first 5000 times I heard it, but the actual first time I heard the '3 in 1' remix was at 7am, afters at mine. 

Sharam Jey had just given it to me in Turnmills on cassette – big, blissed out moment in Kentish Town.

Hooj made such a massive impact in the trance, progressive and house worlds over the years, what do you think that success was down to?

Lots of luck, as always with these things, and then I'm sure loads of other factors that we could try and list or analyse, but the one thing I think was at the core of it was immersion in clubs and clubbing, and everything that went with it.

That might sound a bit simplistic now, but at the time, still buzzing from the weekend, it felt like you could just hear what was going to work, it seemed to simplify and streamline the A&R process, if you could call it that, to the point of pure instinct and feeling.  

How stringent was the process for which records you'd sign and which you'd bin off?

Well it wasn't so much stringent as just very instinctive at the time, and obviously made a lot easier when you're on a bit of roll and people are coming to you with good stuff, or happy to get your phone call.

What challenges does an underground, independent record label face, and how did you weather those challenges for so long?

Tough one to do in brief – for a while it felt like there weren't too many challenges other than a restlessness or desire to keep moving on a bit musically and then trying to take the established fan and customer base with you.

In the end, the vinyl market was collapsing around us, our supposedly successful club night Elements, which we started in attempt to diversify and search out new 'revenue streams', was costing us a fortune, and we were getting into City Rockers, Gigolos, Tiga and stuff, musical terrain which our fans just weren't interested in following us into.

The 'challenges' came together in an imperfect storm, and the game was up.  

What advice would you give to someone starting up their own label?

Jeez…in this day and age? I think I read that there are about 10k digital releases per month at the moment, so:

Treat it as hobby or passion, making money from it is a distant dream.

Make sure it's all brilliant - there's probably 500-750  'good' releases per month, so only 'brilliant' is going to get you anywhere.

Make the artwork good. 

Start a club night in your part of the world, DJ there and build outwards.

Speaking of a label's artwork - of all the iconic 'Hoojmen' that featured on Hooj releases over the years, which is your favourite?

Off the top of my head, FFrr made us rerelease and remix  JX's 'Son of a Gun' when we were all bored shitless of it, so we had the Hooj man flogging a dying horse on the label.

Haha! Brilliant. Who came up with the Hoojman?

The co-founder of Hooj, Phil Howells, who actually left after Hooj 004 to go and work with Pete Tong at FFrr - it was his girlfriend Emma, gawd bless her.

How do you think the scene has evolved since you started out back in the late eighties? What have been the major changes for you?

Umm, it's near impossible to be concise here – but I suppose one thing that really stands out for me, is how music from the ‘hardcore continuum' (C. Simon Reynolds) side of things has come to become the dominant contemporary influence.

From Boiler Room to UKF, SBTV, Rinse, FWD, 90% of Radio One’s dance programming, big dance related chart stars from Disclosure to Sam Smith, Jessie Ware to Sigma, the lineage of bleep, hardcore, jungle, drum&bass, garage, grime, dubstep, post dubstep, bass, bass house seems to only grow in strength.

What is the rest of your year looking like? Any gigs or releases that we can look forward to?

As I mentioned, I'm never really sure what's going to be happening Hooj-wise, but aside from the odd very enjoyable gig – I do run a little label on the side, and am hoping to ramp things up a bit this year, but I'm always hoping that! (Check that out here)

Aside from a 9-5 job in Digital Marketing, I spend a lot of time on a little book publishing venture I run. It's not going to be giving Penguin much to worry about anytime soon, but it's enjoyable and rewarding in a 'pretending to be grown up' kind of way (Visit the website here).

Final question, and its a hypothetical one. You've been asked to throw your ultimate rave. You can have the bill on any DJ in history, alive or dead. Where would you have it, who would join you on the bill, and what track would you play to define the night?

Amnesia when it was till a farm building, Ibiza, 1988.

Alfredo and Pete Gooding would play at sunset. David Mancuso and HMD would be on early doors, then Ron Hardy and Dixon for the jacking, middle of the night set.

James Holden and Daniel Avery would handle the weird pre-dawn, darkest hour bit, with Larry Levan and DJ Harvey for sunrise. I'd get Daz Saunds and Trevor Rockliffe for the after-afters in some loony sweat hole in San Antonio.

My tune of the evening would be Richie Havens' 'Back to My Roots'.

Catch Red Jerry's Hooj Choon special at Plasma Future by grabbing your tickets here.

Tickets are no longer available for this event