For club-goers who only arrived in Leeds a few years ago, Butter Side Up is probably seen as the city’s premier underground party. It’s all they have ever known. Things have always been this way, haven’t they? What people may often forget, though, is that promoters were young punters at one time, too. And, not 6 or 7 years ago, the clubbing landscape in Leeds looked quite different. While Butter Side Up was in its nascent period, still throwing parties in Hyde Park, it was Louche that dominated. If you go out in Leeds, you’ll hear whispers of that name drifting across anecdotes that tell of club nights and after parties gone by. If you go online, you’ll see a treasure trove of a web archive of podcasts and interviews on the Louche website ready to be devoured. What’s missing is their actual promoting presence in Leeds.
Luckily, all that is about to change, as the new flag bearers of underground electronic music Butter Side Up have agreed to team up with their best friends and mentors for a special New Year’s Eve party at Wire. We spoke to head of the crew Josh Tweek to find out where he’s been, what he’s been up to and to reminisce about Louche’s time in West Yorkshire.
How and when did Louche start? Who is involved?
September 2007, for what was intended to just be a charity event for Oxfam, a one off thing. The success of the party made Brinsley, Ed and I realise that we might well be onto something, so we asked Val at Mint Club for more dates and the rest is history.
What did you learn by putting on those events? And when you called it a day a few years ago, how did you look back on what you had achieved? Was it a hard decision to make?
I’ll answer the last part first…it was an incredibly easy decision to make. We learnt from experience that Leeds is a small city that needs so much focus on your crowd. Most underground nights are competing for the same people. With Brins in London and me in Berlin, we just didn’t have the coverage in the city that we used to.. so we ended on a good note rather than potentially fizzling out like a Berroca. I look back on it all with great fondness…Leeds and Louche teed me nicely up for a music scene job in Berlin, met loads of contacts who i see out here frequently. I also got to DJ loads, which is what i would say was my main motivation for embarking on it all.
Was it easy moving to Berlin? When did you go, and did you have a clear idea of what you wanted to do there?
Yeah it was easy enough. Lived in three different gaffs before finding the perfect spot where I am now. I knew I would do something music-y when i got here. I sort of fell into a booking job at Chalet thanks to Louche actually…I did a one off thing there in summer 2013 which led to a booking job for a few years. Was fun, but booking weekly events is tiring. Then the shop came along…
How’s the Ghost doing? Can you give the uninitiated an idea of what you do?
Got a mate out here called James who I knew from a young age down south. He lived out here 3 years before me, and ran Odd Socks that I used to release on. Anyway, we live very close to each other, and the amount of time we spent (and still spend) talking about music, playing it, listening to it, swapping it etc etc.. led us to a mad convo over beers about starting a small 2nd hand shop, highly curated, mostly aimed at DJs like us. Then over more beers the idea of doing it in a van popped in! It instantly seemed like a good idea, so we fucking went for it. This was summer 2015 and The Ghost officially opened May 2016. For the uninformed – its a record shop in a big old Mercedes camper van!
How easy is it to run the shop? Where do the records come from, in the main?
Its mostly second hand stuff, sourced from various folk around Europe. Its easy enough as long as you always have good stock. The fact our shop is in a van is an instant interest point for people.. but the fact theres always plenty of bombs inside is the clincher.
The business is clearly one operated out of love for vinyl. When did you start getting into records, specifically digging for records?
Ah since long before Louche, when I was in my late teens. My taste was shocking and then got better, then got worse again haha. After moving to Leeds Louche meant my collection started spanning all sorts of genres to suit whoever we had booked that I was playing before/after. Living out here has deff made the record perversion worse.
Tell us about the tracks you have coming out. How did the Methods for the Madness collaboration with Craig Richards and more come about? What was the idea behind the project?
It’s my pal Hamid’s label and project… H+. Hamid has got a sick little studio here, so all the tunes on the release are collabs with him. Craig goes to stay at his when he’s in Berlin and they jam some tracks out, i pop over for an afternoon every so often to do the same. It’s a nice way of working. Been so busy with the shop that I’m v thankful, as i dunno if I would have had the time to get a release out on my own.
https://soundcloud.com/louche/louchepodcast-150-the-ghost
You must be looking forward to returning to Leeds for NYE. You have got quite a crew of friends and family who are doing amazing things for clubbing all over the world. People might not know that you are brother to Toby Nicholas from the Pickle Factory, for instance. How important is it to have a good group of you with the same interests and goals?
I can’t wait. I was always really into Wire, never got a chance to throw a party there cos of our ties to Mint. We did do one actually but it was a triple promotion thingy. Anyway, it’ll be lovely to come back and see some old faces. Yes Tobes is smashing it at Pickle Factory. Safe to say that we have both learnt loads from each other over the years. Yeah we’re part of this huge Leeds-London-Berlin mega friend group that has loads of exciting music (and non music) stuff going on at the mo, its inspiring. And when we all converge at parties/festivals its a serious smash up crew.
See Josh alongside Hamish Cole, Jonny Sleight and a very special unannounced guest as Louche and Butter Side Up come together on New Year’s Eve. The event page is HERE and tickets can be bought HERE.
