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Mark Moore’s History Of Clubbing- 1980 to the Present:
“If you look at the world in terms of the history of clubs from punk onwards then this is what happened; during the punk/ new romantic days clubland was very flamboyant and there were lots of artists and fashion designers going to tiny clubs. So you literally had the creative people of the nation cramming into two or three clubs in London or New York and these were the people that would be producing the fashions, music, writing or films of that time. But you didn’t get that in acid house so much; a little bit, but not so concentrated as it was before.”
Sitting in the studio of London internet radio station Trustthedj.com, hugely experienced superstar DJ/producer Mark Moore appears somewhat subdued on the topic of the genre that made his name.
I was always worried that acid house would lead to a big blanding out of the nation and, in a way, that eventually happened,” he suggests.
“You’ve got to see the whole history of clubland to understand what happened.”
As an original London punk turned regular at Steve Strange’s seminal New Romantic 80s haunt The Blitz, Moore remains superbly qualified to discuss the past and present behind today’s club culture and his own clubbing career path tells its own tale.
A resident DJ at mid 80s key hang out The Mud Club, he also opened up Danny Rampling’s definitive acid house club Shoom in ‘87, becoming London’s most successful DJ of the decade as the city itself went raving crazy. Then, as the decade drew to a close, he formed sampedelic acid house superstars S-Express, whose introductory anthem Theme From S-Express topped pop charts throughout the world. For much of the 90s he also enjoyed the superstar DJ lifestyle pioneered by many of his old clubbing mates from the 80s, before discovering a distinct sense of dissatisfaction as the decade drew to a close.
“Up until about three years ago I was doing all the big Northern clubs, the Gatecrashers and Creams of the world, then one day I realized was hating every minute of it,” he admits.
“I found myself thinking that I absolutely hated the music that they were wanting me to play.”
Walking away from his big room DJ life (‘it meant a drastic cut in wages’, he chuckles) Moore decided to go back to basics, an approach he tells Skrufff’s Jonty Adderley has already paid off.
“I started to find little clubs where I could play an eclectic set. I now do lots of things alongside the Ping Pong Bitches, for example, being their DJ and stuff like that. Then Nag Nag Nag opened up and I also started doing alternative sets at places like the 333. Nag, Nag Nag was wonderful when it opened, there were about sixty people there but it was great. I definitely remember thinking ‘there’s something else going on here, these people want to do something different’. And more importantly I started having fun with my DJing again, which is really all that matters.”
Skrufff (Jonty Adderley): How easy was it walking away from the superclubs and presumably progressive/ hard trance music?
Mark Moore: “Well that was it, I guess I burnt my bridges when I left (laughing). People thougth I was a bit mad when I walked away, my agent was telling me to carry on playing that kind of music to keep my name in there, which I did for a few months until I realised I was hating it- it wasn’t what I was about anymore. Gradually the word just spread that I was playing an alternative set and then things improved with people like Electric Stew and other promoters starting to invite me to play. But it’s still early days for this scene right now. What was missing before was a focal point, because you always had the music and also DJ who would delve into new electro (or electroclash, whatever you want to call it’ he adds), but now with Nag, Nag, Nag, there is a focal point.”
Skrufff: You’ve been at the centre of the Punk, New Romantic then acid house scenes, does this electro thing feel like a new scene in the same way?
Mark Moore: “Yeah, totally. It feels exactly like when I was 11 and first got into punk and also a few years later when the New Romantic thing started up. The acid house thing was a very different animal though it certainly had its own vibrancy, as did Balearic music and house and techno in general. What I find really amazing is the fact that for the last three years I’ve been going to clubs and feeling like a complete alien, feeling like I’m not on the same wavelength as people when I’m trying to have a conversation, whatever, and now I’m going to clubs like Bodyrockers and no longer feeling like an alien.”
Skrufff: When did you first start clubbing?
Mark Moore: “My very first nightclub was Billys (Steve Strange’s first London club in the late 70s). I was taken there by a prostitute friend of mine who told me it was a really cool club, full of rent boys, weirdoes and Bowie clones. They were playing music like Kraftwerk and Gina X and it was all about electronic music. I’d been a punk rocker before that and going there really opened my mind to electronic music. Before that being a punk meant you had to follow lots of rules and restrictions, you weren’t allowed to like pop music or disco, for example, and I suddenly realised by going to this club ‘No, fuck the rules, the rules don’t matter, it’s music, you can like whatever you want’. So I stopped hiding my Blondie records when my punk mates would come round. Later on I also went to Blitz.”
Skrufff: Did you become one of those ultra-flamboyant peacock Blitz kids?
Mark Moore: “No, I didn’t dress up outrageously beyond a bit of eyeliner and foundation now again (chuckling), even at a young age I was really wary of band wagons.”
Skrufff: Did you do any regular day jobs during those times?
Mark Moore: “I had a job as a removal man for one day, though wasn’t very good at it, I kept dropping things down stairs then I worked for a year for the Jewish Welfare Board, purely because the job centre threatened to stop my dole (benefit) money if I didn’t look for a job. I selected the job that was closest to where I was living where they wouldn’t mind me being a bit of a freak. Amazingly I got the job and worked caring for old people and the mentally handicapped. I was clubbing constantly while I was doing that and wasn’t eating or sleeping properly so I suddenly lost a lot of weight and got ill. So I packed in my job and also the bedsit I was living in, and moved into a squat. Then the squat fell through so I moved on to sleeping on people’s sofas.”
Skrufff: When did the DJing come in?
Mark Moore: “I was going to the Mud club (seminal early 80s London discoteria) which was where I managed to get a job DJing and I ended up doing really well as a DJ there actually, they’d do Time Out polls and I’d end up as first or second favourite DJ in London. I used to play a mixture of glam rock and disco then I got more into electronic euro stuff like Yello and Cabaret Voltaire and DAF. Then house music and Detroit techno started coming in.”
Skrufff: Is it right that Tasty Tim (the Mud Club’s first DJ) gave you a shot at DJing out of the blue?
Mark Moore: “We were always good friends, I first met him when he had a record shop at the Great Gear Market (legendary thrift style clothes market on Kings Road), which belonged to Rusty Egan from Visage. There’s actually a documentary about those times (early 80s) which we’re both in. I used to take him records to play at the Mud Club and he’d just put them on. Can you imagine doing that now? He’d put them on, then when he went on holiday he asked Philip Salon (Mud Club owner) if I could fill in. He gave me a shot and we became a team.”
Skrufff: Could you beat mix at that point?
Mark Moore: “No, but no-one was beat mixing in those days. I remember being sent a pair of slip mats about three months after I started DJing there and thinking ‘what do these do?’ Someone told me, so I thought ‘Ah, I’ll give them a try’ and started learning how to mix, live in the clubs. I couldn’t afford decks at the time so I practised in the clubs while I was DJing to the crowd. No-one seemed to mind.”
Skrufff: You DJed at the first Shoom acid house parties for Danny Rampling, just how good were those parties?
Mark Moore: “They were great, but… I love the whole Shoom acid house thing don’t get me wrong, yet even though I became successful via acid house, for me it was never., (pausing) …, the drugs were great and it was fun to see everyone going crazy like that but it never compared to what I’d seen going on before. I was always worried that acid house would lead to a big blanding out of the nation and in a way, that happened. You’ve got to see the whole history of what happened.”
Skrufff: How do you see the history of London clubs in terms of trends?
Mark Moore: “If you look at the world in terms of history of clubs from punk onwards, this is what happened; During the punk/ new romantic days club land was very flamboyant and there were a lot of artists and fashion designers going to these tiny clubs so you had literally all the creative people of the nation going to just two or three clubs in London or New York. And these were the people that would be producing the fashions, music, writing or films, whatever. You didn’t get that in acid house so much, a little bit, but not so concentrated as it was before. Also, after the 80s around 1985, it started to go odd because a lot of people started dying, either of heroin overdoses or they started dying of AIDS.
Suddenly the creative people started disappearing, so going to a club became like going somewhere to find out who had died that week. It became almost tragic and a bit melancholic going to these places and seeing them not so full. You’d be wondering, ‘Is so and so dead or is he just staying in tonight?’ That started happening and people stopped wanting to dress freaky anymore. I think that was because people didn’t want to be associated with AIDS. Suddenly, the creative people disappeared from the clubs and they weren’t so flamboyant and a natural space emerged for something to step in, which was what acid house did. Acid house was great, I’m not knocking it, but for me, I thought at the time ‘It’s never going to reach that mental level from before. A blanding out of the whole world happened overnight. You used to go to New York, for example, and it was a mad place then it became very sanitized, very bland and very safe.”
Skrufff: How much do you see dance music and club culture as a force for genuine social change?
Mark Moore: “It definitely is so I was a bit disappointed with the whole 1988 thing because it just became about taking loads of drugs and waving your arms in the air to stroboscopes. Acid house could have become a really important political force and though there were strands that went off and did stuff, in the end as a whole it didn’t change much. I remember being a kid in the 60s seeing all those students rioting and thinking it was the coolest thing (laughing). I know I shouldn’t be saying that. Acid house culture could have become a huge political force but no-one wanted to become a figurehead, a Jim Morrison or Jimi Hendrix type character for the acid house generation so it never happened, it just became a faceless, hedonistic phenomenon.”
Skrufff: What do you see the future for mainstream house culture today?
Mark Moore: “I really don’t know, to me it’s another era that’s now finished, to add to my happy memories. I don’t know what’s going to happen, personally I’m just interested in going to these new clubs where you can meet people with the same kind of outlook. They’re not people that I’d call explicitly political, I wouldn’t call myself political, but they’re people who are aware and conscious of what’s going on in the world. They don’t want to take a back seat and let things happen and they want their voices to be heard. That was missing from a lot of the clubs that I was going to three years ago, whereas now I’m meeting people whose minds are more attuned.”
http://www.trustthedj.com/markmoore (check out his weekly radio show, live every Wednesday: 16.00-18.00 GMT)
Interview by: Skrufff.com
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