Electric Shocks

Will Abbott talks to Chris K. from Essential Sounds about the challenges facing the Dublin club scene and how to address them.

Pictured: General Levy. Courtesy Essential Sounds

For fans of electronic music, January 2017 will probably be seen as a landmark month for club culture; namely due to the reopening of Fabric in London. After a long and convoluted legal process, the Islington institution reopened its doors on the 7th of January 2017 to great acclaim, despite the tough new measures agreed upon to curb drug-use within the premises. Outside of this bright spot, things are looking less certain for electronic music, particularly in Dublin. The Sunday Times reported that the owner of the Tivoli theatre, the host venue of District 8, has applied for planning permission to build apartment-hotels on the site. The loss of a larger-scale venue like District 8 is a big blow; last December alone District 8 gave us Ben Klock, Jeff Mills, and Ejeca. This in conjunction with last year’s announcement of Hangar’s forthcoming closure in 2018, understandably leaves electronic music fans somewhat concerned.  Perhaps the people most worried by these changes are the organisers themselves.

Chris K. from Essential Sounds has been surrounded by electronic music from an early age, being introduced to a variety of different styles by his mother. Later on he got involved in the Irish free party scene, before establishing Essential Sounds in 2015. The mission: to organize events featuring the best in international and domestic talent. Last year, acts included General Levy, High Focus, and the Bug, fantastic coups by any measure. In spite of this, it’s becoming harder to maintain their current level of success.

“The venues are getting smaller, and are closing down” says Chris. This leads to perhaps the main issue with maintaining the scene. “Price,” Chris says. “You could run an event in Dublin for €1000, or you could run an event for €3000. There’s at least 5 different artists I wanna get over, but for the price and the size of the venues in Dublin and what I’d have to charge people, it’s undoable. You need a venue of 2000 people, where you can charge people €5, €10 at the door. A venue of 200, you have to charge €20, €30.  You can’t do anything with the numbers and the sizes. It all revolves backwards; we need more venues, and pubs to convert into late night venues in order to make it work.”

Outside of these problems, it can be quite hard for an independent promoter to get their foot in the door. “As an event organizer, there are actually not that many places willing to take you on. There are maybe four venues in Dublin,” Chris explains. “Most of it now is corporate events, and the actual buildings themselves doing it.” This can feel quite restrictive, especially for someone coming from the free party scene.

One additional problem that arises from club closures is rarely discussed: the scene becomes reluctant to take risks. Chris has experienced this problem all too well due to his wide-ranging tastes. “I like how a DJ can mix six different genres and make it work – it’s all about the story rather than what the music is.” He finds it difficult to convince venues to book acts from genres they’re not used to. “The Turks Head, Fibbers, and The Wiley Fox are kinda the only places that book any of them gigs, and it was very hard to get into any of those places in the first place,” says Chris. “If it wasn’t for venues like this, independent organisers  would be destroyed.”

When asked what needs to change in Dublin to keep our nightlife vibrant, Chris responds “we need a bit more of a community. We need all of the organizers to stop treating each other as competition, and say maybe Monday to Friday everyone have a different event, and everyone working on a calendar themselves.” He gives me an example of where this sort of thinking already exists, a mere three hour drive away. “Over in Galway, the music scene basically goes off their own calendars. There is no elitism over there; it’s basically just the organizers, and they all work with each other, no matter if they don’t like each other, get along, anything. They basically have a map-out, and they all put dates on. So they’re working with each other to create a scene. In Dublin, if we actually stood with each other, there’d be more events with more frequency.”

Establishing our local talent, both home and abroad, is central to maintaining a healthy club scene at home. “The way I was doing it was; if you have an Irish DJ who’s amazing, and he’s reaching 10,000 people, say. But if you put his name on a poster with another three amazing Irish DJs, and you put someone like  General Levy on the line-up, you’re going to reach a much greater platform.”

The exposure is not limited to the night itself. “[The acts are] writing reviews about the nights they come to in Ireland, which are seen by millions, and then your little following of 10,000, which may seem amazing, is getting hit by a million people. So your marketing reach is increased 100 times.” It’s a strategy that has met some criticism, due to the perceived favoring of international acts over homegrown talent. Regardless, this approach has already proven fruitful, and will be crucial for the next phase of Essential Sound’s development.

“With Essential Sounds, we’re planning on going into France, into Europe eventually, and doing stuff over there. So when we have our Irish names, you don’t even need to have residents”. There’s far too many acts to mention, but Chris highlights Dave Sannen,  JMC, Jah Monk, Mad Killah, Drank Williams,  Dirty Dubsters, and Rub A Dub as key Irish artists to keep an eye on.

Chris has several highlights from his time with Essential Sounds, but one stood out in particular; “one of the greatest moments was at General Levy. I had a fifty six year old lady walk up to me and say she hadn’t been out in twenty years, but she’d seen that Levy was coming over to Ireland and had to get to the event!” So, naturally, he let her in for free. This is a perfect example of what motivates Chris; the most important people are always those on the dancefloor.

“Nearly every event I’ve  done I’ve felt proud getting people onto the line-ups, but it was mainly the actual faces of people on the dancefloor, or when they’re leaving and they’re just sweating and they’re not having this simple conversation that you hear in every nightclub. That’s the reward. . Nearly every event I’ve thrown, it’s just wall to wall people going mad and partying. Not violent, literally just partying. And by the end of it, you just see smiles on their faces.”

I was one of many people crammed into The Wiley Fox to see The Bug last year, and it was without a doubt one of the gigs of the year. Even semi-frequent turntable issues couldn’t mar the party atmosphere. So what’s next for Essential Sounds? “We’re going to be taking a break for 6 months. We’re going to organize a lot of things. Once we come back online there’s going to be a new wave in Dublin of legitimate after-hours events. We’re working with a lot of people around Ireland to create a good scene for 2018. This is gonna be a foundation year for us.”

Courtesy Essential Sounds
Courtesy Essential Sounds

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