CLUBS

Forward-thinking party starters Futureboogie notch up a decade’s worth of mayhem this month. Adam Burrows blows out the candles.

This month sees the 10th anniversary of Futureboogie, one of the key forces in Bristol’s club scene. As DJs, promoters, broadcasters, booking agents and now a record label, Dave Harvey and Steve Nickolls (alias El Harvo and Joe 90) have built an international reputation on good taste, hard work and a broad-minded approach to the music. For two figures so strongly associated with Bristol, it’s surprising to hear that they met in Leicester. “We moved down to Bristol at pretty much the same time,” Steve remembers. “We knew Bristol from going out here, coming to the Ashton Court Festival. We knew it was a good city to be in if you wanted to do music.” Futureboogie grew out of the Seen parties they put on at Level: “Those parties became synonymous with broken beat, but we had a pretty wide remit. You could come and hear house, hip-hop, soul, funk, broken beat, jazz, latin, techno, drum and bass.” Futureboogie was originally the name of their website – a go-to place to grab DJ mixes at a time when few promoters were sharing them online. “It eventually became the default title for everything we were doing,” says Steve. Since then, they’ve become booking agents for Quantic, Bonobo and Ashley Beedle, managers for Crazy P, and been involved in tons of festivals, including the lovingly curated Wow! Stage at Glastonbury.

Last year was their busiest so far, with the launch of Futureboogie as a label. What made them take the plunge into the notoriously unlucrative business of making records? “Ha – well if making money was the object we definitely wouldn't have started a label,” counters Steve. “It just felt right at the time. After years of talking about doing it, and other people telling us we should, we just got on with it. Coming across Matt (Julio) Bashmore's ‘Father Father’ track, and realising he wanted to get involved in a Bristol label… We were like 'let’s just do this now'.” Their timing has been impeccable, with releases from Bashmore, Behling & Simpson, Waifs & Strays and Lukas & Christophe catching a wave of creativity that’s redefining Bristol as a mecca of forward-thinking house. “Yeah, 4x4 has definitely come into its own again in the city over the last couple of years,” says Steve. “You've got to look at nights like Just Jack really to see a big part of why that has happened.”

Steve sees Bristol’s recent house explosion as inseparable from other strands of its music culture, explaining that “the prevalence of bass in this city has clearly informed and influenced some of the house music being made here that’s now getting recognised globally. Of course house has always had a following here – house has a following everywhere – but there are people in the city making their own take on it, and being rightly proud of where that sound has come from.” Steve adds that he and Dave never set out to restrict themselves to local artists, “but I tell you what – listening to what is being made here, and what is coming out on labels like Idle Hands, Schmorgasbord, Punch Drunk, Applepips, and BRSTL – outside of London and Berlin you'd be hard pushed to find somewhere as musically productive at the moment.”

Futureboogie’s 2011 came to a fittingly huge climax with their November party at Motion, which Steve describes as “Unbef*ckinglievable, really. We had some of our favourite artists playing all under the same roof – people we'd known, loved and worked with for years coming together alongside this wealth of new local talent from the label. It really summed things up so far in some ways.” Plans for the coming year include a label compilation, featuring exclusives from their established roster as well as “newies like Eats Everything, Crackazat, Type Sun and Maxxi Soundsystem”. They’re also gearing up to celebrate their anniversary in style. “We've got two 10-year knees-ups incoming,” says Steve, with “something in Bristol on 27 Jan, and then hitting London on 24 Feb.” The line-up for both will be Bashmore, Behling & Simpson, Christophe & Lukas and Waifs & Strays as well as El Harvo and Joe 90 themselves.

With a decade at the forefront of the clubs scene behind them, and plenty of hard partying years before that, it’s great to see Futureboogie still so focused on what happens next. Don’t they ever get jaded? “I'm starting to struggle with the late nights a bit,” says Steve. “But Harvo – who is much younger and has the constitution of a rave horse – definitely shows no signs of wear and tear. The pace of change is what makes all this so exciting.” He sounds thrilled with the progress the label’s made in its first year, saying: “We couldn't be happier – it’s gone better than we expected. By the end of 2011 we had six vinyl releases and one digital – all from Bristol producers, all quality and all finding love in record shops, dancefloors, and on the radio. There's some bloody good music there, and hopefully there’s more to come.”

FUTUREBOOGIE’S 10TH BIRTHDAY PARTY WAS ON FRIDAY 27 JAN, VENUE TBA. FFI: WWW.FUTUREBOOGIE.COM/

Copyright Adam Burrows 2012; pic copyright Chris Cooper 2011