Clubwatch: Big Sexy Land

By Talia Last edited 200 months ago
Clubwatch: Big Sexy Land
bsl.jpg

"Non Stop Neurotic Cabaret" is a good tagline to attract our interest but calling a club Big Sexy Land? Well the name enough has put a few of our friends off coming to this great night at The Phoenix on Cavendish Square, merely because they thought we were taking them to a dodgy strip club. That is not the case.

Instead it's a monthly club night held in both London and Manchester set up by two mildly hairy men who know a lot of things about music. Handily they're both called John. Like the sound of it? It's this Friday!

When and why did you set Big Sexy Land up?

John T: My recollections of BSL's gestation are quite hazy, but I think we'd talked about it while drinking rather a lot, in a "that would be fun, but of course we'll never actually do it" sort of way. And then I got a call from John D saying "I hope you were serious about this running a club thing, because I've booked us a venue". And it worked spectacularly well, right from day one. I have no idea why.

Who are your djs? What do you do in the real world?

John D: Music and film writer, DJ

Michael Gray: Picture editor, advice worker, DJ

John T: I ruin kids' Christmases for a living by designing really bad video games.

What type of music do you play, and why is it so special?

John D. I tend to play gnarly electro, classic synth pop, new rave and post punk. It's special because we get fabulous, glittery young things dancing to Killing Joke.

MG: Kitsune and Ed Banger are my favorite new labels of the past 18 months.

John T: As well as all that, we play lots of our own edits, remixes and bootlegs, which we don't give to ayone else and can only be heard on the dancefloor at BSL.

Have you had anyone famous on your dancefloor?

John D: We had some bloke who looked like Biff out of Saxon once but I don't think it was him.

John T: Our clientele are better described as "notorious" than "famous".

MG: My girlfriend regularly gets mistaken for Ashlee Simpson by americans.

What's your venue like? Where would be your ideal venue?

John D: The Phoenix is lovely. It's a basement club with air conditioning, with a big mirror ball and cool bar staff.

John T: My ideal venue would be considerably closer to my home 200 miles away in the North West.

Tell us one artist who we might not have heard of that you play that we should check out?

John T: The Ting Tings are my favourite new band this week.

MG: Glass Shark get the party started. They're Devon's answer to LCD Soundsystem

John D: David Bowie. That boy's going to go a long way.

bsl2.jpg

What's the name all about? It sounds like a porn club.

It was chosen almost at random by John D when flicking through his record collection, and named after the LP Big Sexy Land by The Revolting Cocks. We only found out that they'd stolen it from somewhere else when about a year later an angry German man came over to the DJ booth and demanded to know where the strippers were, before stalking off in a huff. Upon relating this story to people, we were informed that Big Sexy Land is the name of a chain of continental strip joints (like Spearmint Rhino, but even more low-brow), and that everyone assumed we already knew that.

What other club nights do you like going to in London?

John D: Popstarz, Stay Beautiful, RocKabaret, Club Motherfucker.

MG: as above but also Club Mental. Buttoned Down Disco is great as well.

What are your plans for the future?

John T: We've just started the night up in Manchester too, so we're working on building that up. And we're planning to "go official" with our remixing and our own stuff; we've already done a lot of remixes and a couple of collaborations with bands we know just for ourselves to play at the club, so the next logical step would be to start releasing records.

Favourite 5 tracks at the moment at your club...

The Ting Tings - "That's Not My Name"

Deee-Lite - 'What Is Love'

Beastie Boys vs Justice - 'Intergalactic Nazareth' BSL bootleg

Japan vs LCD Soundsystem 'Us vs Japan'

Cut Copy - 'Heart on Fire'

Big Sexy Land is every 2nd Friday of the month at The Phoenix on Cavendish Square, and yes that includes this Friday 13 July! Doors open at 10pm till 2am, and it's £5 in, or £4 NUS/DSS. Check out last month's pretty perfect setlist here.

Last Updated 11 July 2007