TRAMP!: From the streets to the studio

As far as natural musical progressions, few music fans in Manchester would be surprised to learn that Will TRAMP!, AKA Will Dunn, has helped to form a record label. Since running, and concluding the legendary mid-noughties Manchester party, TRAMP!, Will has remained a welcome face, a forward thinking DJ and avid music fan in and amongst Manchester’s oversubscribed roster of DJs, tackling residencies at The Warehouse Project, Common, Homoelectric and key festival sets home and abroad at the likes of Parklife, Festival No. 6 and Electric Elephant. 

Although nearly half a decade has passed since TRAMP! ceased to be a regular fixture on the Manchester club scene, the new label, TRAMP! Music, reunites Will with the original founders of the club, to deliver a fresh label indebted to the same eclectic ethos that laid the foundations of the night itself, which over its history, saw ahead-of-the-curve performances from acts such as Justice, Diplo and Kraftwerk’s Wolfgang Flür.

To celebrate the launch of the label, ‘the lads’ have released a varied four track free digital EP, the enchantingly entitled Cloth of Gold. A precedent showcase of some of the artists the label hope to release more of, it covers many spectrums of dancefloor spirit, from bar session suitable tracks like Dorsia’s ‘Nightwalker’, which could have slotted in nicely on last year’s Drive soundtrack, to Autojack Ensemble’s ‘Not Everyone Understands’; a warm and sincere piano house track, awash with throwback acid squelches that sounds guaranteed to take a dancefloor up a level.

Meeting two thirds of the label, Will and David, shortly before a recent trip for the former to Croatia to spin alongside personal heroes Ivan Smagghe and Justin Robertson out at sea, we discuss the history of the club, top internet tips from Justice and retaining an air of mystique in our digital world.

So as TRAMP!, you had a lot of seminal acts of the time on live, such as Justice, Klaxons…

Will: Yeah, early shambolic Klaxons. They’re a funny bunch of guys. We also did a few DJ support slots for them when they toured. It was a blur of hedonism, losing equipment and sleeping in corridors after getting locked out of hotel rooms.

At the time, was a label something you wanted to progress the club into?

Will: We did think about doing a limited pressing of 500 records or so, as we play a lot of our own edits. That never progressed but we did a few remixes for people like Spektrum and New Young Pony Club, a couple of which got pressed up, but that’s as far as it went.

Why now for the label?

David: We’ve all been producing music on and off for a while, and we’ve also had unreleased music come through to us that we’ve liked. It’s all been about 80% finished and this is us working with the artists to finish it off and package it all up.

So the three of you now involved in the label, were all involved in the clubnight?

David: Yep, it’s the three of us left in Manchester who happen to be running the label. There’s Will, Ben and myself.

And this compilation is kind of a taster, a mission statement of the label?

Will: Well, yes, but we’re not entirely sure what the label is about yet, and musically I’m certainly not settled on anything as a DJ either. I find it impossible to stick to one style so who knows which way it’ll go. 

David: We like everything on the label, but that doesn’t mean everyone else will. For want of a better phrase, we’re throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. And we’re putting it online for free at first to get it out to as many people as possible.

The artists at the moment are all under alias, is that the way it’s going to remain? Is there anyone on there who we might know from another name otherwise?

David: At the moment, yes. But there are people on the label who have had releases under other names. As soon as they start doing live shows, it will become more difficult!

And all the stuff on there is quite different, too.

Will: Yeah, such as the Autojack Ensemble track - that’s got a hands-aloft piano driven house thing whereas the Dorsia track isn’t dancefloor stuff, it’s quite slow and chugging with a filmic feel.

David: There’d often be nights at TRAMP! where the music would range from someone like Dolly Parton into Modeselektor. Or Ripgroove into rock and roll. So it makes sense that the music on the label would be a little different.

Will: But we have tried to make sure the music retains a familiar TRAMP! feel running through it. And we’ve had some decent support from quite a few different styles of DJs so we’re happy to be appealing to different crowds.

What formats can we expect to see TRAMP! Music in? Does it have a wax future?

Will: We’ll just be digital at first but vinyl is being discussed at the moment. We’re starting to feel like it’s more and more of a necessity to have a tangible product to release.

David: There’s still a refreshingly large amount of vinyl DJs so I hope we will.

Can we expect some more parties in light of the label?

Will: Yes, but you can expect something low key and small from us. And probably involving masks and strobe lights.

David: We’d rather put TRAMP! artists on live and do something with a really great intimate atmosphere for a hundred people or so.

So obviously the club got pretty big, do you still feel you have an audience you can inherit?

David: Yes and no. Yes in that there’s still people who know about and are interested in TRAMP!. No in that we built up a huge database of contacts from over the years, but the short version of the story is that we now don’t have it any more.

Will: A lot of it was real blood, sweat and tears. Translating email addresses from drunk revellers the day after the night before. But we’re fans of the term ‘rip it up and start again’ so we’re building up our database from scratch.

David: On the bright side, it’s good because it means we’re not just reliant on old people and ideas. We’re doing it the hard way.

What labels do you respect that you might wish to emulate with TRAMP!?

Will: There’s Numbers in Glasgow, who we love, and obviously, DFA, who we’ve all loved since the beginning. Hotflush, Throne of Blood... lots of different labels. Aus Music are great, and our good friends Feel My Bicep are starting a label soon that we’re looking forward to. We have our influences but we always like to do things in our own way.

Will, you’ve kept DJing since TRAMP!’s heyday. Have you ever thought about resurrecting it?

Will: No, at least certainly not as a weekly thing. The clubbing landscape in Manchester is very different now and there are loads of other things I would like to do instead. I’m happier to play other people's parties, travel about to play in other cities and throw the odd one ourselves, but a weekly event can be relentlessly exhausting. I have the upmost respect for a lot of promoters we have here in Manchester, there are some incredible parties here. But we would rather focus on the label’s output and making music right now!

David: Even a monthly thing is tough, anything regular is hard to keep going.

Will: When we were doing TRAMP! weekly, we didn’t have Facebook or Twitter or anything. It was all just flyers, word of mouth and some illicit flyposting. We wholeheartedly apologise to anyone whose property we put skull posters on.

David: I can remember the day we found about MySpace because Justice were round for dinner at my old flat, around 2005, and Xavier was trying to chat up some random groupie girl using it. We’d honestly never heard of it before that point!

What a strange way to learn about MySpace. How did you learn about Facebook?

Will: Richie Hawtin told me about it in a lift.

Excellent. And what can we expect next from the label?

Will: We’ve got a shortlist of about 30 tracks we want to get out. And we’re aiming to get those to a releasable stage. The first full release will be a four track EP by Autojack Ensemble. Straight up house music for the floor. We’re waiting for a couple of remixes to come back that will probably feature on the release too.

David: Dorsia also has pretty much a full album ready to go. The whole concept has massive nods to the 80s that we’ve always been unashamedly big fans of. Dorsia’s been working with some very talented vocalists, so without a hint of irony I can say to expect a full-blown assault on the top 40 in 2013.

Download the TRAMP! “Cloth of Gold” EP for free from trampmusic.co.uk

Interview by: John Thorp

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