Dj Trev’s guide to evenings of sophisticated cosmopolitan edification and necking bottles of WKD through a straw.
BRIBE WATCH
Last week I did try to blag some free tickets to see Noddy Holder at the Theater with Mark Radcliffe and as hoped, Mark “Dj Pieman” Pieman came through with the goods. So whilst this column will remain fair and even handed and my journalistic impartiality will remain as strong as my integrity and jaw line, I feel it is IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST to give Dj Piemans nights SLIGHTLY more favourable space and indeed time. You probably won’t notice.
THURSDAY 23rd May
Dj Pieman is not playing anywhere tonight so don’t bother going out. If however you do feel the need to go out, there are some decent options. Though frankly why you would want to do anything that didn’t involve Dj Pieman is beyond me.
Scooby play The Alexandra, dunno what they do but the Alex is good innit. They do pizza there, so there is a possibility that you might see Dj Pieman in there on a night off. In which case he is just called Pieman. Dj’s on their nights off are just normal people. For example, if you see me on a night off, rather than coming up and saying “DJ Trev I read your write ups on Harrogate-news every week and they are not as funny as they used to be” try coming up and saying “Hi Trev, I run a dry cleaners and wondered if you wanted to plan for the future and pick up some shifts”.
Whilst I still do have actual Djing work however, why not come and check out my rank ineptitude as I play at Rehab tonight. Its free in and for some reason I’m on the main floor. You can then go upstairs to listen to someone who can actually DO this, as Tex is upstarts playing Hip Hop and R’n’B and whathaveyou.
The Viper Rooms, with their student night “YOLO”, is another good destination for the R’n’B/Urban crowd, though it’s not free in there. I don’t know how much it costs to get in, because whenever I am asked to pay to get in somewhere Dj Pieman pays for me. He’s a good chap like that.
FRIDAY 24th May
Friday’s are really starting to have lots of live music on, and the start to the bank holiday weekend is no exception.
“Love Fridays” is the name of The Viper Rooms club night and this week has live acoustic music from Yo Preston . Now, I’ve know Yo from around town for ages and bizarrely never seen him play, but he is a really genuinely nice guy, and that’s good enough for me.
Zoso’s new Live Friday night has Raw Peaches, Soundstorm and the awesome Hell Fire Jack, with Dj Monkey playing afterwards. This is free to get in and is a nice little venue for this kind of thing, putting on good line ups every week.
Motor City Blue play at the Blues Bar, I’m not sure what they are playing, music one would presume.
On line controversial mountain out of a molehill venue The Den has got live piano music on every Friday, this week it’s with Simon Parkinson, no tracksuits or loose morals however.
For something intellectual, Harrogate Theater has a show on in the Studio theater called “The Price of Everything” which is a performance discussing the price of everything. The Price of THIS is £12.50.
Harrogate’s number one personality and friend of the masses Dj Pieman is not playing on Friday, as he’s saving himself for his Saturday night upstairs at rehab. If you go to that it will make you a run faster and jump higher.
SATURDAY 25th May
My Top Tip for Saturday is without a doubt going to Rehab upstairs, where Dj Pieman is playing Pop rock & Alternative party. If I had to sum up Dj Pieman in 3 words I would fail, as his brilliance shimmers with a myriad of hues, he personality glows with a type of iridescence that you would compare to a Gods, and his magnetic aura is as incandescent and as warming and beneficial as the sun. I was lucky enough to go with him to a recent event at the Harrogate theatre and I can tell you his company is as enjoyable as it is educational. Also at Rehab downstairs James Oliver plays upfront dance music and Dj Wayne plays Faithless “Insomnia”.
To be sure, there are other options on Saturday, if someone put a gun to my head and insisted I picked a top tip that wasn’t run by one of my close personal showbiz friends, I’d say go to Moko, as they have a new night on called Dropout. I get the impression this night is going to be a monthly affair, playing Dubstep and more underground dance music. Having tried to run a night like this for the last year, I hope this goes better for them than it did for me, as Harrogate needs more variety in the clubbing scene if you ask me… (no body does)…. The Cut up Boys are headlining this night, I’m not really into their style of Djing as its very “mash up” based, but they do do it live and are very original with it, so I’d totally recommend you check this out. After all if you don’t support night playing something a little different, you cant expect people to keep doing them.
Speaking of people just playing the same old stuff, I’m at Revolution this Saturday, as disco Dave is on Holiday so I’m not gonna tread on any toes. I’m probably just do a straight up night of party tunes. It’s not my night so I’m not gonna go in and ruin it by playing really experimental stuff and anyway I’m probably at my best when I’m just tapping it in from 2 yards, so if you fancy a no brainer kind of night, that’s what I’m doing. Tex is in the front bar there, and when me and Tex play the same venue it’s like Gary Lineker and Peter Beardsley playing for England (one challenging looking guy doing the hard work and one better looking one doing all the easy stuff). I’m quite looking forward to this, as while I do loads of work for the company I only play revolution Harrogate about twice a year but it’s always good fun.
The Blues Bar has got The Jed Thomas Blues Band as they do every week, I still don’t know what time though. It’s not on their website or anything. Still, the worst that can happen is you end up in there for longer than you’d planned, which is just a good plan right there.
Viper Rooms is open, dunno who’s on there these days, whilst Darren J. Da plays at Lure bar, which has just got their Urquell Pilsner back on, which is a tasty pint indeed.
BANK HOLIDAY SUNDAY 26th May
Totally loads on for the bank holiday, and it’s also the kick off of Harrogate Fringe Festival which is a month or so of all kinds of events, for now lets focus on the live stuff:
The Blues Bar has a full day of music, in the afternoon Rabbitfoot play live, whist at night Stolen Embers take to the stage.
Montey’s Rock Bar has got the mighty MFOR playing, that’ll be packed one suspects.
I’ve got the first of this years “Bottom of the Bottle All Dayer/and all of the nighter” at Rehab, with The guys from The N.Y.H.C. We’re starting at 4pm going until 4am with up to ten live Metal, Punk and Rock bands (a vague number I know, we’ve definitely got 8, maybe 9, generally for these we get a drop out and then two
more bands in their place, such is the organisational genius of the NYHC when combined with my not returning phone calls at 3am). Starting early we’ve got Reputed & Clean Shirts, followed by Little Drafts and Hell Fire Jack. As the day moves into the night The Wilde & Waking Theo keep things moving before we move onto the twin headliners The FALLEN and Sworn Amongst, there’s not a weak band in the line up, I’m obviously going to make it my top tip for the day, as all of that is totally FREE. After the bands I play a Bottom of the Bottle party set until 4am, the Fringe All Dayers have been massive events for the last 3 years so you can’t really go wrong with this if you are into Rock, Punk, Hardcore, Metal or just live music, come by have a looksie, it’s upstairs at Rehab…. As a bonus, Dj Pieman will probably come in for a beer and spend the night shouting helpful pointers at me whilst I’m trying to mix. For anyone who was at Noddy Holder at the Theater, when Suggs from Madness was shouting stuff out repeatedly at Noddy, thats what it’s like… That genuinely happened. What a life.
The Viper rooms is open for business for nightclubbing, as is Moko Lounge, whilst if you want to get in places for free, downstairs at rehab the residents play up front club music, which is what you can also get down at Revolution which is likewise free.
The Fat Badger runs their pub quiz on Sundays and keep doing it for the Bank Holiday which should make it very busy there too.
MONDAY 27th May
For the Bank Holiday Monday both The Blues Bar and Zoso have open mic nights, if you’re into that I would suggest Blues earlier and Zoso later, you can probably fill the entire night with your mad skillz.
Undoubtedly the finest night in Britain on Mondays is Dj Piemans pub quiz at the Alexandra, which not only increases your mental prowess, it will also gives you better muscle definition and lowers your cholesterol. Go to it, or rue the day.
Moko has their Monday night Karaoki on until the small hours, bad idea, good fun!
TUESDAY 28th May
Keith James plays at The Blues Bar, and other than that it’s the usual fare for a Tuesday so I’ll write what I always write:
There is the Folk night at the Tap n’ Spile every Tuesday, but if you couldn’t give a folk about that, at the club end of the spectrum Moko has a night two rooms, one with Jay Selway’s Rock Box and the other with a really good commercial DJ doing good upfront stuff. I didn’t see who it was playing when I was in there but both rooms were playing good stuff. Jay also runs Rock Box pub night at the Regency.
The Electro Jam continues at Zoso on Tuesdays and is a nice night out. They seem to rotate the Djs more often now so if you don’t like what one jock is doing you don’t have to wait long for another to be on. Hardcore Dave plays some hardcore too, which is something you don’t get enough of in Harrogate, so mad props to him and all the Harrogate Hardcrew. Again. Again.
WEDNESDAYS 29th May
Well I’m finally starting to find out a few things that happen on Wednesdays. Its taken me ages because Wednesday is the night I play 6-a-side football at Football Mondial at Grandy, or Harrogate High Schhol, or Harrogate academy for Higher Learing, or whatever that school is called at the moment. . Anyway, I think no one has been telling me whats been on on Wednesdays cos my team always loses, but get this, last week we won oh-and-suddenly gig listings start rolling in…. Everyone wants to be associated with success is that it? Well, we’ll get used like rags tonight in the cup so next week will be back to normal service.
Paul Middletons sweary growly Angst Band play the Blues on Wednesdays, think this is every week and Paul has a good following.
Sulk are on at Montey’s on Wednesday, they don’t usually do that many gigs there this week so while I don’t know if Sulk are any good I would be surprised if they are not as Montey’s only put on good bands.
80‘s legend Midge Ure is playing the Harrogate Theater on Wednesday too, it would be hard for me to say that this isn’t my top tip…
Hard that is, unless of course DJ PIEMAN was playing rehab on Wednesdays, and guess what you lucky people? HE IS! Every time you see Dj Pieman Dj live it adds 3 years to your life expectancy and makes you better as a lover and person.
SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION
Harrogatealternativeradio.co.uk let’s me play some songs and talk a bit on Saturdays 10pm to midnight and again again on Thursdays at 2pm, or if you miss that, you can listen to old shows I done on line at mixcloud.com/djtrevuk, the most recent rave one I did is really quite good. It’s not like, genius, but if I had to compare it to something, I would say it is as good as Chicken.
I do swear a bit on my show, plus I swear like blummin’ flip on facebook.com/djtrev so avoid it if you are easily offended, or too young to read this in the first place.
Thanks for reading, drink responsibly and don’t be loose with your affections.
Trev x x x
