The reference of two guys starting something together developed into a positive name for a club night, and today meandyou is a thriving electronic music collective. As a party, record label, and team of gung-ho DJs, its members have been deviating from the norm for almost ten years.
The backstory can be traced to a cold night in 2007, when a young Sam was flyering for his Pasquo & Getwax party outside a club in central Manchester. On the receiving end was fresh-faced design student Andrew Lyster, and the attention to detail put into the ephemera appealed to his artistic eye. “The flyers were individually hand-dipped in wax and really caught my attention,” he explains. Andrew invited Sam to come play records at a small night he was running called zoom at a basement bar nearby. Here they began discussing music and sharing ideas, and a relationship was born.
Following a string of hazy after-hour meetings in club backrooms, the puzzle slowly began to fit together. Sam had previously discussed organizing a party with Alexander—another guy about town with similar interests. They all decided to get together over a beer and come up with something together. That was nine years ago, and today meandyou has grown to become one of Manchester’s most foremost electronic music collectives.
What set meandyou apart from the offset was the decision to announce a season of five parties, across five months, before even throwing their first gig. No underground party in Manchester was promoting like that at the time, so it was a bit of a statement. The line-ups were varied, and this would set the tone for how they would work for a number of years. In addition, they developed a strong visual identity crafted by Andrew and shaped with creative input from the whole team. Their aesthetic is rooted in minimalism, largely through a considered use of text and spacing. Their graphics maintain traditional sensibilities and somehow still manage to pop from the wall. At the time in Manchester, everything in the club scene was quite colorful and attention-grabbing. They used a muted pallet, and this worked in their favor: “We didn’t over-advertise; we didn’t under-advertise. We got it in the middle, and people found it refreshing,” explains Alexander.
The venues they chose for parties over the years were always unconventional, capturing the essence of Manchester’s gritty underbelly. They started throwing events upstairs at the Soup Kitchen in 2008, back when it was just a cafe selling soup. “The early lineups we did there were pretty amazing. One that stood out was a Smallville takeover where Arnaldo (who was actually a meandyou resident at the time),Lowtec, Julius Steinhoff, and Lawrence played all night,” says Alexander. They returned and did a couple more there in 2009, and a few years later Sam bought the venue along with two partners, Nick Bowden and Chris Bailkoski. “We originally took on just the upstairs space, but after six months or so, the tenant of the kickboxing gym in the basement stopped paying his rent and got evicted. This presented the opportunity to expand and build a club space, which is still developing. It’s an evolving business,” explains Sam.
The canteen remains upstairs, and it’s grown into a bustling social spot thanks to the installation of a bar. The basement has been converted into an intimate, 200-capacity club. Fluorescent neon tubes reminiscent of the ones from Amsterdam’s Trouw hang suspended from the ceiling. An eclectic music program now brings world-class DJs to fill the space every weekend. With Sam at the helm, it has naturally become the collective’s spiritual home.
Before any of this, the first ever meandyou party took place at The Palace, a grand old hotel on Oxford St. near the Northern Quarter of the city, with Efdemin and Pigon on the bill. “We used the basement, which has a little bar called Copperfaced Jack’s,” explains Alexander. “The space was used frequently in the nineties at the height of Manchester clubbing, but the rise of gun crime and gangsters attending clubs like the Haçienda killed off a lot of venues in the city, and Coppers was one that suffered.” It was the first night the club had been used in years, and they filled the space. The hotel staff couldn’t cope with the amount of people that attended. Alexander recalls being asked to come upstairs to the restaurants above the space and listen. “The bass from the sound system was making everything vibrate, including a huge chandelier and the cutlery on the tables,” he says with a smirk. It was the first and last party they would do there. When the label launched a couple years later, they decided to name the first release The Palace in commemoration.
They began doing monthly parties and finding unique venues for them across town. “We went on a mission finding venues that nobody was using, and which would eventually go on to become standard venues that everyone would use,” says Alexander. After The Palace came Melodies, a dive bar in the city center next to the iconic Arndale shopping arcade. “It was a real dive. We just walked in and there were old men in there and we thought, ‘Yeah, nobody’s using this place, no one wants to go in here’.”
They met the owner and after selling the idea to him, a party took place with Detroit’sLuke Hess, Marco Furstenberg, Arnaldo, and Juniper on the bill. It happened to fall on the same week as the Labour Party conference, so police presence in Manchester was huge. “Just as Luke Hess was starting his live set, riot police stormed the venue in full attire. There were probably about 150 people inside and we were all kicked out,” Alexander recalls. “We discovered that the owner didn’t have a proper license. Luke Hess ended up coming to finish his live set at Andrew’s flat, which was just around the corner, so his UK debut was actually at Andrew Lyster’s flat,” he laughs.
Next they found Bookbinders, one of the most bizarre spaces they’ve ever used. It was a former jazz club-turned-hook-up-spot in the heart of the gay village. “I’d say the average crowd on a regular night there would have been about 45- to 50-year-old men and women,” says Alexander. “You wouldn’t normally get young people in there, so whenever we went in people would look at us very oddly,” he says. “I think we caught the owner at a time when his business wasn’t doing too well. He let us throw our parties there under the condition that his regulars could get in for free.” The result was an incredibly mixed crowd. “It was brilliant. A lot of people would just turn around and leave, but some stayed, and because of the location you’d get cross-dressers and transsexuals passing through.”
They threw about five parties at Bookbinders in and around 2009, including the UK’s first Workshop Records label night. “I think it was the first Workshop night outside of Germany, and it was certainly Kassem Mosse’s first live show outside of Germany,” explains Alexander. The hour-long set was recorded and subsequently put out via cassette on meandyou in 2015. This laid the foundation between the two crews and the relationship continues to flourish today.
Other notable UK debuts at meandyou events were by Frak, DJ Sotofett, Vakula, SVN, Dynamo Dreesen, Ron Morelli, and others. They would run flight shares with other promoters in London to split the costs of bringing these artists to the UK for the first time. “I’m not sure if they all played in Manchester or London first on the weekend, but we were often the catalysts for them coming over here,” says Alexander. “Versalife [aka Conforce] performed live for us. It was his debut as that alias and one of a few shows he’s done under the moniker. He was so inspired after the performance that he wrote an album. He even mentions us on the sleeve.” In a similar vein, Juniper and Arnaldo’s split release on Smallville is lovingly titled We Met in Manchester.
There has always been an emphasis on ‘the new’ for them: “We’d think, what is nobody else doing? What can we do that’s different? Does the city need this culturally? What are we adding? It was heavily researched with the idea of giving people platforms to perform in the UK for the first time and to spend time within the city,” he chimes. “The performance is the start of a lasting relationship between the promoter and artist, but also between the artist and the city. Interesting things happen when you act as the catalyst between creative people.”
Today the collective is made up of five individuals, each with unique talents. Sam Herron DJs and produces on the label under his own name as well as co-managing the day-to-day operation of the Soup Kitchen. Andrew Lyster oversees the label’s visual aesthetic. It was clear that he had the ability and the desire to take creative control over the project, so he naturally assumed the position of designer from early on. He’s also established himself as a recognized DJ in recent years and has contributed to respected mix series such as Blowing Up The Workshop. Alexander is their man in the field in London. “I don’t have the same public kind of profile as the guys. I’m not interested in having that, as such. The way things have always worked between us is that we communicate a lot.”
Establishing a strong crew of residents was an important consideration in the game plan from the offset. It was something that Sam felt particularly strong about, and in the beginning neither Sam or Andrew DJed at their parties. “This enabled the three of us to concentrate on organizing the party efficiently, whilst the residents could solely concentrate on their job,” says Sam. “At the time, people thought we were strange not to DJ at our own night as that was the normal thing to do, but we chose otherwise and this worked out for the better.”
Dan Mumberson of Juniper is a long-standing resident. He’s been spinning records from the beginning, starting alongside Arnaldo and Sam’s old flatmate, a guy named Joseph. They were the original residents until Joseph moved to Africa and Arnaldo left for Berlin. Following this, Peter O’Grady (Joy O) joined the team around 2011.
“I met Andy (in London) at some point in 2011 through our mutual friend Rob Glassett (Fold),” explains Peter. “We were going to a lot of the same parties—Theo [Parrish] at Plastic People was a regular one. We would often end up back at Andy’s flat playing music and hanging out. We realized we owned a lot of the same records, and Andy was quite interested in the fact that I collected a lot of music that wasn’t necessarily being played at most Joy Orbison shows.” “This led to me going up to Manchester for a meandyou party with Paul Bennett & Ron Morelli. That night really blew me away, I remember the freedom that I felt existed there and the general interest and openness to the music I felt from the crowd, which I still think is a Manchester thing. I really needed something like that at that point in my ‘career.’ It had a huge effect on me.” This turned into a regular thing, and from that point on Pete has been a resident and plays as often as he can, usually unannounced or under his ‘Pistol Pete’ pseudonym.
He continues to sum up the general vibe of the party quite accurately: “The emphasis musically at meandyou is quite different to many places I’ve been to, and the reputation they’ve built seems to allow them to dictate the pace and not be swayed by an obvious approach. This was really solidified for me the first time I played the Regis remix of Ike Yard’s “Loss”—quite an awkward record for most dancefloors—but it got whistles and cheers at the Soup Kitchen.”
In terms of roles, they share them: “We all program line-ups, we all find music or producers we’d like to work with on the label. Most people in the collective DJ. I tend not to, as I prefer being behind the scenes and letting the guys do it,” says Alexander. “I’m good with ideas—thinking about booking artists, finding music, and the admin side of things. I’m educated as a curator in contemporary art, so this is a hobby for me, but there’s an overlap with my interest in curating.”
The label came to fruition in 2013, and since then the frequency of parties has naturally declined. “It’s taken us quite a few years to actually get it going. In terms of frequency, I think it’s just down to circumstance— everything we do is kind of circumstantial to our lives outside of this. None of us are careerists; this is a hobby for the three of us (Andrew, Sam, and Alexander). During the early years, we were all students and had no commitments as such other than our studies. You can see the changes in our lives through various strikes of creativity, if you like.”
Alexander moved to London about four years ago to complete an MA in the Curating Contemporary Art program at the Royal College of Art. Andrew, who was born in Stockport, left Manchester for London maybe two years prior to that before moving back to Manchester again. Dan Mumberson has gone further afield and relocated to Berlin in 2013. Sam is the only one who hasn’t left the city at all—he is settled with has partner and two boys. “We’ve all been extremely busy with our personal lives, so the label and night wasn’t as prominent for us,” says Alexander. Now that things have settled, the focus is firmly on the label. Now, in 2016, they have a release schedule in place for the very first time. To date they’ve put out music from Kassem Mosse, Even Tuell, Lowtec, Fabric, Sul, Herron, and more, with multiple releases lined up and parties scheduled in Manchester and across Europe.
meandyou has held a regular NTS show since its infancy in 2011. Andrew used to do the show from Dalston when he lived in London, when the station was still in it’s infancy. When he moved back up North, they began streaming from the Soup Kitchen basement before moving into the recently opened NTS Manchester outpost. The opening of the studio has put a sudden spotlight on how much is happening outside of the capital. “I think the thing with Manchester is that it’s never not been a hub for musicians. Bristol and other cities seem to get a lot of press for electronic music outside of London, but Manchester seems to get ignored, apart from the history of The Hacienda.” says Alexander.
“Some contemporaries and peers worth mentioning are the Modern Love and Boomkat family; Demdike Stare, Andy Stott, Claro Intelecto, Conor Thomas (The Death of Rave/Faktion), andRainer Veil… Jon K and Kelvin Brown, Andy Votel and the Finders Keepers gang, Gnod, James Zeiter… the list is never-ending,” says Alexander. He continues: “Manchester’s creative community is interesting—it’s a competitive city, people don’t scratch each others’ backs as much. Everyone gets on with what he or she needs to do and that’s fine. Maybe it’s a Northern thing…there’s no negativity towards anybody other than the natural kind of fractions that happen in every scene in every city—there’s just a drive to create and be successful…to do things correctly, not to follow trends.” He reaches a fitting conclusion: “The opening of an NTS studio in the city might heighten people’s awareness of what’s happening outside of the capital. It’s definitely a positive thing. Manchester as a city itself is growing and becoming much more of an international city, so maybe there is just more emphasis on the city as a whole…”