Sick Chirpse Interview: We got really wasted and decided to start a blog

If you’re reading this chances are you’ve got at least a vague idea of how to use the internet. As well as an unrivalled source of information, it also serves as a great distraction and the ultimate in procrastination. Those of you sneakily reading this at work can relate to that.

And one site which excels in that realm is Sick Chirpse. Gate-keepers for the weirdness that accumulates in cyberspace, they also put on parties in Manchester which focus on the more exciting strains of underground dance music, with an eclectic favour running throughout. The next one has DJ Q headlining alongside Shift K3y and TÂCHES at the Deaf Institute on Thursday 30th May, so we pinned one of the sites founders james down for an insight into the Chirpse mindset.

So Sick Chirpse, tell us who you are.

I’m James and I run Sick Chirpse with Tim. We have a bunch of writers/designers/groupies working with us too. 

How exactly did starting the site come about?

It was kinda weird actually because even though we’ve known each other for years (we’re both originally from Birmingham) we didn’t ever really hang out. But one day we went for some beers and for some reason and ended up getting really wasted and decided to start a music blog together. We met up the next day, bought the site and started writing.

Tim wrote an article about someone being an absolute mess at a festival or something and it got loads of attention on Facebook, so we decided to sack off the music posts and just write about dumb shit all the time, which has worked out OK for us I guess. Everyone loves dumb shit. 

Is there a particularly strict criteria about what makes it onto Sick Chirpse?

Not really. Apart from it’s got to be something that either Tim or I are into/find funny/agree with. If we don’t dig it we won’t post it. 

You’ve got DJ Q, Shift K3y and TÂCHES at your next event on May 30^th. Why did you decide to book these DJs? 

Well TÂCHES was an easy one. I was driving through Manchester (that’s where I live) one evening and Annie Mac dropped this tune that blew me away, I found out who it was (TÂCHES) so hit him up and told him his tunes were sick. He’s since become a big fan of the site so I thought it would be great to get him up to Manchester so I could hear him play ‘Don’t You Know’ in person. 

Kinda the same with Shift K3y too. I’ve been following him for a while now and his production and ideas has always impressed us, so again I hit him up via Sick Chirpse and told him we were interested in doing an interview or something. When the party came around it just made sense to get him on board. 

DJ Q’s a badman – nuff said. 

What can people expect musically at your events?

We threw a couple of parties at the end of 2012 in Manchester but we didn’t book any DJs, just had our mates take the stage. The brief was ‘turn this basement into a fucked up sweaty rave cave’ and they did pretty well at achieving that. So I guess just a massive party with loads of naked girls and shit is what people can expect. 

Tell us about your residents and what they bring to the table.

We’ve got loads of friends who run their own nights as well as produce and DJs, so we’ve always had a solid list of residents to call up on. We like to mix things up so we always have someone who’s strictly hip hop, someone who’s strictly dancehall and for this event we’ve even thrown in someone who’s going to spin disco all night. Having one genre all night is boring so we try and keep everyone happy by switching the script up a bit. 

We’ve clocked you partnering up with the likes of Urban Nerds and Waxxx in the past. What attracts you to working with other people?

I’ve known the Urban Nerds boys for years so I speak to them quite a lot and we help each other out with cross promotion and competitions etc. The Waxxx boys got in touch and asked us to host room 2 of their party in Liverpool, so we checked out what they were about and we were really impressed with how much effort they put into their parties. It was a no brainer to jump on board with them.

We’re also teaming up with Bigger than Barry over the August bank holiday weekend and throwing something special in Birmingham so keep your eyes peeled for that. 

Finally what lies in the future for the site?

Man the site’s just growing and growing each day. It’s not even the web side of things that we’re working on the most at the moment, we’ve got Sick Chirpse TV launching, some new t-shirt and merch drops and there’s talks of Sick Chirpse Records being started up with a couple of friends down in Brighton. It’s definitely all kicking off right now though, and we’re having too much fun doing it. 

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