I’m sure Andy Weatherall meant a lot of different things to different people, musically speaking – house, electronica, rockabilly, Primal Scream – but for me it’s electro. I saw Andy DJ a few times at the Haywire parties that were held at The Fortress in Shoreditch back in the early 2000s. I might even have heard him play at Haywire earlier than that – I have vague memories of a Haywire party at The Planet in Coventry in the late 90s. But it’s Haywire at the Fortress that has really lingered in the memory: techno, electro, Radioactive Man, Andy Weatherall. The main room was the basement, a dark and sweaty concrete pit with a DJ booth not that much higher than the dancefloor. It was pretty basic, just how I loved it. I wanted to lose it to loud music, and it was there that Andy Weatherall duly obliged. I’ve said before that I think the really great DJs know what music means to other people and not just to themselves. Andy would play what he wanted, but he knew what was going to work for everyone else too. He could be eclectic, but it never sounded like he was above everyone else or showing off. It was as if he was on the dancefloor losing it too.
These mixes were handed out on CD at the Haywire parties at the Fortress, and they’re mostly electro with some techno and acid thrown in. There’s only a tracklist for the “Through snow at 150” mix, which I think was a promo mix for Bi-wire records, an online record shop that was around in the early 2000s (?). If you ever made it to Haywire or the Fortress please say ‘hi’ in the comments – I might have stood on your toe or spilled water on you back in the day! I couldn’t help it though, I was too fucking happy to notice.
fresh static :: olaf quintessa 