LGN XYZ alt-pop discotheque
https://www.facebook.com/events/241870216365137/
A DIY disco for alt-pop people of all persuasions.
Playing the likes of:
Charli XCX, Carly Rae Jepsen, Lizzo, Tegan & Sara, Yelle, Ariana Grande, Le Tigre, Robyn, Janelle Monae, Madonna, Confidence Man, SOPHIE, Daphne & Celeste, Dua Lipa, Uffie, All Saints, Kim Petras, Celine Dion, Danny L Harle, Camila Cabello, Sleigh Bells, Martha, Moloko, Kero Kero Bonito, Mariah Carey, Justin Bieber, Tommy Genesis, MIA, Kanye West, Eternal, La Roux, LCMDF, Katy Perry, Tinashe, Prince, Bossy Love, Sleater-Kinney, A G Cook, Bis, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Luscious Jackson, HOLYCHILD, Self Esteem, Rihanna, Run The Jewels, Gloria Jones, Björk, Justin Timberlake, Grimes, Little Mix, The Spook School, Avril Lavigne, Foxes, Christine & The Queens, Fight Like Apes, Lykke Li, Kim Weston, Kiesza, Justice, Gravy Train!!!!, Brassy, George Michael, Tove Styrke, Violent Femmes, Lorde, Chvrches, Taylor Swift, Chela, Letâs Eat GrandmaâŠ
No nobheads.
10pm-3am
Friday 5th October 2018
Moustache Bar Dalston
ÂŁ3 advance, ÂŁ5 on the door
Tickets on Outsavvy, DICE and Wegottickets. Go get âem!
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2017
Previously posted by LGN XYZ on Facebook
Hello there.
Proper writers and âbloggersâ and that will have done their 2017 write ups already. Fortunately, weâre crap, and so weâre doing it now. Itâs not quite over, but itâs pretty much over. The year. And other things.
That was a terrible intro. Quick! Look to the past!
Chronology
We were going to just move through the year, like these things often do, but on second thoughts: balls to that. Our memoryâs knackered and weâre tired, and some FUCKING CUNT IN ANOTHER FLAT is banging the floor like they do. So letâs just group things in vague themes and crack on.
Oh, thisâll be us talking about music, by the way. We should have said that at the beginning.
Making a bloody racket
We love a bloody racket in musical terms, and oh man do we miss going for a boogie to a bit of drum ân bass. Itâs a great finisher. Back when dubstep was newish, it was fine and all, but a set had to finish with dânb or it was a snore. Hip hopâs good and all, but in a club itâs a bit samey and mid-tempo unless you ramp up to a bit of dânb.
Anyway, at the beginning of the year, Emeli SandĂ© â yes, Emeli SandĂ© â put out an absolute banger. Breathing Underwater (Matrix & Futurebound remix) is an absolutely euphoric belter. Love it.
And euphoric rackets brings us onto PC Music.
We were already grooving along to Charli XCXâs Vroom Vroom EP. Itâs a massive smash of fairly aggressively old/new sounding rave-ups.
It was from there, we think, we learned of your SOPHIE. In what will become a bit of a theme in this ramble, late to the party we discovered the PRODUCT stuff SOPHIE put out in 2015. Most especially we fell deeply, deeply in love with JUST LIKE WE NEVER SAID GOODBYE, which is an absolute beauty of a track. A drumless banger. Listening to it daily. LOVE.
Back to Charlotte, 2017 was the year where she evidently was setting some self challenge of releasing a new track every week or so. Of her fifty-seven collaboration, the Mura Masa one is our fave. Whilst that steel pipe (drum? glockenspiel?) sound is so very now itâll sound so very old in a year or two, 1 Night is an undeniable tune.
But Number 1 Angel â Charliâs album-in-all-but-artist-description âmixtapeâ â was a bit of a revelation. In 2016, the peopleâs queen of x Carly Rae Jepsen won everything with her album-not-an-album Emotion Side B, and in 2017 Charles did the same. This prompted us to launch our catastrophic opening hour gambit for LGNXYZ02, but more of that later.
Number 1 Angel is so great, weâve conspicuously not listened to her SECOND bloody album-not-an-album Pop 2 â that she casually threw onto the stack at the end of the year, forming a pair of âI call them mixtapesâ 2017 bookends â because weâre a bit scared and want to have time to appreciate it / holy fuck itâs got a standard to live up to.
Soz.
Anyway, the first of the two had a very snazzy website put together showing off the producers. A bunch of your PC Music sorts â SOPHIE, A. G. Cook, Danny L Harle...
Huge Danny is another weâd sort of let slip by. He did a song with Jeppo a while back, and we thought it was okay, but weâre NOT INTERESTED in anything Emotion-era that falls outside the Emotion and Side B+ sets (what Lil Yachty advert song? Huh?) and so we paid little more attention.
Anyway, he produced one of the best on N1A, called ILY2, and with a penchant for initialisms this year he released an EP called 1UL. We gave it a listen, and moved on.
But then later in the year, we moved back. And gave it many more listens. The title track (another with that bloody plonky percussion sound) is a great wee thumper.
It takes us a while to catch on sometimes. Soz 2.
Taking a while to catch on
Two big ones we got to late in similar fashion were songs by Tinashe and Dua Lipa.
Again, we listened to the albums when people were wanging on about them, and didnât give them enough time. Thatâs one of the drawbacks of streaming. When we were kids, if we took a punt on an album, that fucker was getting listened to. It took us a good while to learn to love Breakbeat Era, but we put the effort in and got there. Now, weâre flighty and donât give things the time.
But we love a good music video. And these two have absolute belters of music videos.
Company, by your Tinashe, is an incredibly impressive performance video. A single room, a few people, some cheaty edits to cover the joins in a sweatily energetic and near-relentless routine, itâs fucking great. She looks amazing. And the song, it turns out, is absolutely magic. A smooth-as-anything rânâb thumper, with a very enjoyable bleepy noise thrown in there. From 2016, but for us itâs a 2017 jam.
And your Dua snuck in an all-conquering number 1 hit and vaulted from alt-pop to pop-pop on the back of an all-time great music video for New Rules.
The minor flaws of the slightly wonky head-nod bit and the girl getting accidentally whipped in the face by someoneâs hair only make this gem shine brighter. It feels like a home-grown triumph â donât spoil it for us by telling us it cost $1mil and was directed by someone super-established. The choreography is tremendous, the look is great, but more than anything the core concept is so strong, itâs hard to think of a narrative vid and a song that go together so beautifully. Itâs so good. We rewatched it a zillion times.
And from love of the song and video came a love of the song. And going back to a few of her previous singles too. Well done, all involved.
Music videos are important
Maybe in 2018 weâll get back into making them.
Dua became a big hitter thanks to that incredible music video. And some existing big hitters released some big videos too.
Katy Perry launched what is apparently now trad to call an âeraâ with an astonishing music video for Chained To The Rhythm. A proper megabudget job, but really, really darkly bleak and upsetting. What with political things as they were and are, it is still genuinely affecting to watch. A big shiny pop video has never been so harrowing. It was a real âoh fuck, she means businessâ moment, and did the job in creating a massive wave of publicity for her doing âwoke popâ.
She then followed it with a song making a blunt non-metaphor about fucking. Didnât do so well.
We quite like Bon Appetit, though, and Swish Swish did a Sound Of The Underground whereby it grew on us a thousand percent thanks to hearing it sounding massive at a disco (Unskinny Bop, natch). Astonishingly bad video, though, providing a peculiar seesaw end to the âeraâ.
And unfortunately clashing with Taylor Swift bringing out her own megabudget megavideo.
Look What You Made Me Do is pleasing if only for the fact that it was another underline that big pop stars are still in the business of spunking big money on big videos. High score for spectacle, with odd grade slipping due to the fact the rush to get it finished evidently left the first half slightly out of sync.
The songâs alright, but Ready For It...? is the real banger. We dig it. Havenât given the album more than one listen, though. Maybe weâll come back to it.
Selena Gomezâs Bad Liar was a leftfield anti-pop pop smash that we liked and grew to like more. Weâve not given this video many rewatches because we find it faintly unsettiling in its own way (is she digitally de-aged in it? Whatâs going on?)
And switching musical directions in the reverse, Lorde came back with a surprise disco banger in Green Light. Again we werenât sure at first, again it grew on us, again we played it at LGN. Our initial judgement is often pretty shaky.
What isnât shaky however is our enduring love for Ariana Grande. LGN was in part built on a night round one of our houses, singing along to Spotify, accidentally playing Problem on loop and loving it. Confident outspoken feminist queen of casually shutting down douchebags whilst releasing banger after banger.
This year, the hundredth single off of Dangerous Woman, again an awesome video grew our love for a song. Everyday is a song that more or less passed us by on the album. But seeing her grooving around in her big puffer jacket whilst diverse snogging kicks off around her in the really fun video made it move up onto our faves list. Sheâs the best.
Weâre not going to be able to say anything in this superficial and pointless ramble to do justice to the fucking awful nightmare of what happened in Manchester, so we shanât try. Itâs heartbreaking, and the One Love response had us in tears.
Memory
George Michael died last Christmas, and as with David Bowie and Prince, it shamefully took his death for us to dig back into his music. And in Georgeâs case, fuck we remembered some belters. Freedom â90 is an incredible tune, and one we played to triumphantly finished LGN04. His cover of As with Mary J Blige is ace. Multiple Wham! megasmashes which should have been on our playlist all along, apologetically we remembered them.
We also reminded ourselves what an incredible album Music Box is. Canât remember what inspired us to have a bit of a Mariah Carey dig â perhaps just closing with her as queen of Christmas in the last 2016 LGN, and then rehearsing the lyrics to Hero when we wanted to close with it this year. A very, very strong closer. So good we chose it twice.
And you know who else we rediscovered this year? All Saints, mate. We saw them live (supported by Melanie C and Sophie Ellis-Bextor, thankyouverymuch) and it was everything. They looked incredible, they sounded incredible, they played the old hits and the new hits, they looked like they were having a fun old time of it, it was brilliant. We never saw them way back when, but this was pretty unbeatable. They played Chick Fit, which made us happy as that is an underrated smash. And they made us check out the new album. AGAIN, something we slept on when we first heard it, but One Strike is a top tier groover. Hurrah.
The joy of being part of a pop crowd
The All Saints gig was at Kew Gardens, and we were wary of it being a yummy mummy sitdown picnic fest. Which it was, but with a dancing area right in front of the stage, which meant we could get right in a wee crowd of heroes to boogie around like it was an awesome club gig.
AND SPEAKING OF AWESOME CLUB GIGS. We saw Yelle. For the somethingth time, always great, and this time in Canada.
We were a bit wary early on as the support DJs were kicking out some ace danceable tunes and the crowd was extremely sparse, an the venue inside was very swish and new which can sometimes be a bit of an atmosphere cooler. But when they came on, the crowd packed the dancefloor and it went off. Banger after banger after banger. Yelle chucked out a bunch of singles in 2017, all ace, all massive live, adding to a set of just the best fun jumping around pop joy. Love love love.
We were in Canadia for a hol, but deliberately coincided it with Tegan & Sara doing a hometown Con X show. This wasnât a rave-up, was in a big modern concert hall, stripped down and partially acoustic-y. But was the joy of being a part of another sort of crowd. A crowd that love Tegan & Sara. T&S spent two albums doing the big pop thing, and it seems like theyâve had enough of it for now.
On stage and in interviews, theyâve spoken of how they wanted to be prominent queer voices in the mainstream, but now want to retreat a bit because the mainstream is gross. They spoke of playing big festival and support slots with the audience not really giving a shit. So here they were, playing a big small show for an audience who really gave a shit. It was wonderful.
Two days later, and well over a day without sleep, we were back in London, in another big modern concert hall, seeing Camille at the Barbican. Camille is someone you really should see live. Her albums are often beautiful, and floaty, and dreamily lovely. Live, she turns it into a big thumping dance performance. We canât describe it without making it sound several times more shit than it is; it isnât shit at all. Itâs clatteringly, physically brilliant.
New love
In a not dissimilar fashion, Chelaâs Bad Habit video is worth a look. It came out this year, and has the handclaps and odd clothing and weird dance moves that arenât a million miles from Camilleâs show. Weâd never heard of Chela before, but liked this song and video. And it prompted us to look into what else sheâd done.
And holy fuck, sheâs incredible. No album, a bunch of scattered singles over a few years, but such tunes. And so captivating to watch. It helps that sheâs beautiful, but it extra helps that sheâs got fully awesome seemlingly-DIY dance moves. We watched the video to Romanticise a million times. More than New Rules. Itâs just her grooving around in a single shot, a few digital paint splashes here and there, but itâs fucking great, and the song is an absolute bop. A megabop.
We were hyper obsessed with Romanticise for weeks, playing it pretty much daily. Itâs SO GOOD. And in the past week or so, weâve gone the same for Handful Of Gold. Go and watch it, again and again. We can only hope Chela decides to pop over to London this year, because we will be there with our shapes ready to be thrown. Sheâs fucking great.
Four discos
Oh aye. We put on some discos.
In 2016, there were three LGNs. In 2017, there were four.
For LGN04, Saturday 4th February, we moved to sunny Dalston and the Moustache Bar Dalston and had a good old time. The now trad quiet beginning, and hopeless flyering of the empty streets, gave way to a busy crowd by the end. Someone requested Martha and went nuts for it when we played it, which was ace.
LGN05 was just one month later, on Satuday 11th March. We felt bad for the few people who came early doors, and we made a real mistake running out to futilely flyer again rather than start a dancefloor amongst ourselves. But again it came good, chums arrived, and the crowd again filled in at the end and was so happy singing along we did a double finish (thereâs little better than having a crowd belting out Hero AND Itâs All Coming Back To Me Now one after the other).
And then the Let's Get Nuts crew had a bit of a crisis meeting. Itâd become very stressful, three of us organising a disco together, and we were getting a bit narked with each other. We had all sorts of extra-disco things to worry about, and rather than break up as chums, we decided to break up as a disco. Or at least go on hiatus, like your One Directions or your Sleater-Kinneys.
But here at LGN XYZ, we really needed the continuing distraction, and so spun off to do basically the same thing, just with fewer people prepping it and poking at the iPad. Our LGN chums still chums, they thankfully came along to provide incredible and invaluable dancing support.
We approached The Victoria and they gave us a post-gig slot on Friday 19th May. Like absolute idiots, we figured weâd inherit something of a built-in audience â the venue being home to G R R L S and PINK GLOVE, and us following a Two Piece Records gig. We kind of didnât, and had another harrowingly quiet beginning as people were spread out within the actually-pretty-big pub.
But again â AGAIN â it came good.
Our chums kept us going early doors. A heroic solo-discoer was there throughout and encouraged our riot grrly tendancies. And a trio of Charlotte and Jeppo lovers cheered our alt-pop hearts. By the end, we had people strutting to Shamir and raving it up to N-Trance.
You can read about LGNXYZ01 in a separate post where we blethered on about that, and about LGNXYZ02, which on Friday 10th November brought us back to The Star of Kings, in our follow-up jibber.
And so that was that
2017, in bits of music there.
Run The Jewels probably deserve a mention too, as they keep our ear into a bit of hip-hop, whilst weâve drifted away from paying much attention otherwise. Kanyeâs still on heavy rotation. Lizzo popped out a couple of new bops. And Fiona Appleâs 2012(!) album The Idler Wheel... remains our go-to when weâre not feeling big and poppy and want to feel some feels and sing along with something sadder.
And in fact, letâs finish with something really emotional.
Annie Hardy, from your Giant Drags, put out an album called Rules at the beginning of the year. It packs a fucking whallop. Her partner and baby died the years before, and some of the songs are about that. Itâs a record that can really kick the shit out your heart.
Start 2018 as you mean to go on.
This was an odd way to end this long and rambling post, wasnât it? Ah well, itâs happened now.
Happy new year.
x
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Death of a disco, part two
Previously posted by LGN XYZ on Facebook
(...in December. We forgot to post it here too.)
Previously on âDeath of a discoâ, (read our previous post on Tumblr,) we talked about bollocksing up a promising club night.
Hereâs how to do it again.
Have an unpopular gimmick
The grand problem is getting people in early. Getting people in to stay whilst itâs quiet, so it can fill up.
So for LGN XYZ in October, we decided to try being themey.
Itâs a simple matter of record, in the books of all correct people, that Charli XCXâs Number 1 Angel is the best album of 2017. And from a similar not-quite-an-album-but-come-on-it-is-totally-an-album position, Emotion Side B from the sainted Carly Rae Jepsen held that honour for 2016.
âSO LETâS PLAY THEM BOTH,â we thought. âTHAT COVERS US FOR THE FIRST HOUR. WE DONâT HAVE TO THINK ABOUT WHAT TO PLAY! WEâRE NOT TRYING TO WORK OUT GOOD NEXT TUNES WHEN THEREâS NOBODY IN, AND - AS AN ADDED BONUS - WEâRE LOCKING A FULL HOUR OF MASSIVE TUNES.â
We also thought this would be a nice wee gimmick. Get us some interest. Catch the attention of people putting together listings and that. Itâs kind of ideal â niche, and kind of surprising, but also kind of massive. Right?
Well, nobody gave a tuppenny fuck. Same indifference as ever to our âpress releaseâ emails.
A couple people did come along early doors. Thank fuck. But it wasnât quite the marketing success weâd hoped.
Donât bother with posters or flyering
We got flyers printed. They looked beautiful. We printed posters, A3 and A4. We took some to The Star of Kings and left âem with the bar staff.
And then we were on holiday.
(A pretty ace holiday. We saw Yelle smash a banger-fest of a crowd jumping dancing set in a club venue AND we saw Tegan & Sara do a fully lovely back-to-their-roots fan-focused acousticy celebration of The Con in a big concert hall, amongst other assorted loveliness. It was good. But this post is more about the consequence of not being in London, so letâs get back to that.)
We were away for a few weeks, so we werenât around to put up posters or leave flyers anywhere.
Well.
Alright.
We could have done just before we went. There was a day before we left, and we popped into Rough Trade and Fopp, but we got cold feet about asking people if we could leave stuff. That whole business makes us pretty very a lot anxious and awko. So we procrastinated and hid from it with a self-justification,
âOh, thereâs time when weâre back.â
When we were back, we both genuinely didnât end up having much time, and also were hit by ever more anxiety about the whole business.
So we fucked it. Didnât do it. Felt vaguely relieved whilst also twattish when it was finally actually too late to be worth bothering.
Would it have had any effect? WE DONâT KNOW.
And so
Our two big gambits failed, so we were left with doing the usual online stuff.
We reached some people. But not the mega numbers we were hoping for.
On the night, it was deathly quiet for three hours.
And yet
And yet, like last time, thereâs a big old and yet.
Itâs like a happy ending. Or something just shy of that. Because after those quiet three hours, things rapidly changed.
A bit before 11, some chums came in to commiserate and have a wee boogie.
Then a few a few other people came in.
And joined us on the dancefloor.
Shortly after 11, loads of people came flooding in.
It got properly busy.
The bar was reopened and double-staffed. The dancefloor was full of people throwing shapes. It was very much like an actual, successful disco.
And it stayed that way until close.Â
And so (pt 2)
Not sure where that leaves us.
One of the people who came early doors asked us why it was quiet, how they knew lots of people whoâd love this. Whenâs the next one?
Good question.
Would being regular allow us to build an audience? Or would we still need a lot more friends and/or to spend a violent amount of money to get people in early
Answers on a postcard, please. Because the dream still glimmers.
x
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LGN XYZ 2
Oh look, another one.
In the month of Carly Rae Jepsen's birthday (tenuous), LGN returns home to The Star of Kings for our final DIY alt-pop disco shenanigans of 2017!
We will play pop from your Taylors, Aris, Katys and Justins. We will play alt from your Kathleens, Corins, Spook Schools and Marthas. We will play alt-pop from your Carlys, Charlis, Duas and Dannys.
And more. Here's what we played last time:
David Bowie - Rebel Rebel
Martha - Chekov's Hangnail
Carly Rae Jepsen - Run Away With Me
Kim Weston - Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me A Little While)
Christina Aguilera - Ain't No Other Man
Sleater-Kinney - Oh!
The Spook School - I'll Be Honest
Justin Bieber - Sorry
Ariana Grande - Into You
The Velvelettes - He Was Really Sayin' Something
Le Tigre - Hot Topic
Lizzo - Worship
Giant Drag - My Dick Sux
Robyn - Dancing On My Own
Prince - Controversy
Princess Slayer - Passion Alley
Charli XCX - 3AM (Pull Up) [feat. MĂ]
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Y-Control
Gloria Jones - Tainted Love
Chaka Khan - Ain't Nobody
Little Mix - Touch
Moloko - Forever More
Nelly Furtado - Maneater
Thunderheist - Jerk It
Elastica - Stutter
Martha - 1997, Passing in the Hallway
The Pointer Sisters - Automatic
Alicia Keys - In Common
Solomon Burke - Everybody Needs Somebody To Love
One Direction - Kiss You
Grimes - Kill V. Maim
La Roux - Let Me Down Gently
Celine Dion - It's All Coming Back To Me Now
Carly Rae Jepsen - Run Away With Me
Christine and the Queens - Tilted
Wham! - Freedom
Lykke Li - Get Some
Charli XCX - Roll With Me
HOLYCHILD - Power Play
Justin Timberlake - Mirrors
The Spook School - Binary
Lady Gaga - Applause
Frank Wilson - Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)
Carly Rae Jepsen - Boy Problems
Shamir - On The Regular
Le Tigre - I'm So Excited
Britney Spears - Work Bitch
Girls Aloud - Sexy! No No No...
MIA - Boyz
N-Trance - Set You Free
Emeli Sandé - Breathing Underwater (Matrix & Futurebound remix)
Charli XCX - ILY2
Robyn - Be Mine!
Mariah Carey - Hero
8pm-1am
Friday 10th November 2017
The Star of Kings, 126 York Way, London. N1 0AX
Free all night in the secret basement discotheque.
facebook.com/events/146008292651127
LGN XYZ
facebook.com/lgnxyz
twitter.com/letsgetnutsclub
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Death of a disco
Previously posted by LGN XYZ on Facebook
Itâs quite easy to put on a disco. Â Itâs less easy to get people to come to it.
Hereâs how to fuck it all up.
Have no friends
An empty room is a bad start. Â If you have friends, you can get over that.
Here at LGN XYZ, weâre pretty near friendless.
So without friends, that empty room can stay empty. Â Strangers who are tempted in can get scared right out again. Â Who wants to be the only people in a disco?
Have no friends of friends
The no-friends issue multiplies. Â Every friend you donât have is a friend you donât have to recommend their friends.
Here at LGN XYZ, we donât have that transmission pathway. Â Without friends, thatâs the chain reaction stopped before it could start.
And so weâre back with that empty room.
Donât be a part of a âsceneâ
This is probably much the same issue, just with a different tint. Â If youâve got a bunch of chums, you might be diverse and you might not be part of a âsceneâ. Â But if youâre part of a âsceneâ, youâve as a consequence got some friends, right?
Here at LGN XYZ, we wouldnât know.
Weâre not part of the DIY scene. Â Or the queer scene. Â Weâre not in a band. Â And we donât know bands. Â We donât know promoters. Â We donât write for the music press. Â We donât know bloggers or whoever.
We donât know many people at all.
Two long-since-deleted reviews for This Is Fake DIY ten years ago isnât really enough.
Donât have a clear music policy
Club nights, it seems, are broadly identified in one of two ways: by âsceneâ, or by genre. Â Or both.
This is entirely on us for being stubbornly hopeful.
Let's Get Nuts was a bit of a genre-mess. Â Indiepop and also pop pop and also some northern soul and also some riot grrrly stuff and also whatever else. Â It was music that we all liked, between the three of us, in some combination.
It was hard to explain.
We were collectively looking to rip off Scared To Dance and Unskinny Bop and Popstarz and Bad Reputation and We Love Pop and How Does It Feel To Be Loved? and Club Motherfucker.
But those clubs were well-defined and popular.
We settled on âAll sorts of pop music for all sorts of peopleâ. Â It kind of works as a description, in as much as itâs not inaccurate. Â But itâs not very explanatory, and makes it a bit tricky to drop in Fight Like Apesâ version of âLightsabre Cocksucking Bluesâ.
LGN XYZ, we went for âA fucking racket, with pop musicâ. Â Didnât really solve the problem.
Donât spend loads
We actually spent a fair bit on LGN and LGN XYZ. Â Usually about ÂŁ40 on Facebook Ads. Â ÂŁ20-odd on flyers a couple times. Â Cardboard cutouts of popstars. Â Some kit like headphones and audio splitters.
But Facebook worked out at about ÂŁ10 per person actually attending. Â And the other stuff didnât really bring people in. Â So we didnât do a big investment in advertising.
And our unpaid marketing attempts werenât amazing. Â We chickened out of properly flyering, or getting posters up places.
We did spend an huge amount of time on Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr, and getting the night on listings sites. Â We sent out some press releases and speculative spam emails and posts here and there.
But on itâs own, with all the above issues, this âfreeâ stuff evidently doesnât bring in hundreds of people.
And yet
And yet LGN and LGN XYZ have not been total disasters.
We did get people in.
They werenât totally empty. Â Each and every one got enjoyably busy by the end of the night. Â In some cases, just the last hour. Â Or half hour. Â But those endings were always fabulous. Â Every ending was joyous.
âAinât No Doubtâ, âItâs All Coming Back To Me Nowâ, âAll I Want For Christmas Is Youâ, âFreedom â90â and âHeroâ â each and every one a triumphant crowd singalong finale.
And more importantly
Each disco had people who seemed to love it. Â Maybe just one or two, but each night, someone would speak to us at the end to say thank you.
And that means the world. Â Especially the couple people who came on their own.
Because thatâs us. Â Here at LGN XYZ, thatâs us.
Weâd go to discos alone. Â Many of them. Â Because we had to. Â And weâd enjoy music being played, music we loved, music that might only be loved by a small number of people, but being in a disco with some of those people, enjoying it separately together... Â Thatâs everything.
Standing, sitting, dancing, at U Bop and Bad Rep and Popstarz, beaming in small portions of joy at DJs playing and crowds dancing to Bis and Sleater-Kinney and Carly Rae Jepsen. Â Going to dance and watch dancers at Madame Jojoâs. Â Sometimes it could still be lonely, sometimes moreso than not being there, but sometimes it made things feel better.
Discos are important and brilliant and wonderful. Â And to feel like we may have helped other people feel like that, if just for a moment... Â Thatâs so good. Â Really, thatâs so so good.
So: next time
Thereâll be a next time.
Itâll be soon.
It might be a disaster.
But here at LGN XYZ, we kind of need to. Â We need to make this work. Â Because when it works, itâs the best. Â Itâs the total best.
We hope youâll come along with us.
x
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LGN XYZ
LGN proper is on hiatus, but R is totally doing a rad spin-off:
LGN XYZ will take place at the Victoria in Dalston, 11pm-2am on Friday 19th May 2017. Itâll be good, you should come.
https://www.facebook.com/events/662196227298263/
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Le Tigre - Hot Topic
R: Well, this is incredible. Apparently Sadie Benning era Le Tigre were on bloody Granada! With Alexei Sayle and Anthony Gormley. Inevitably, in a programme presented by Tony Wilson, who many know as music industry legend man, and who I know as that slightly annoying man from local TV. Crumbs.
Anyway, thatâs all an added bonus to this enduringly incredible song, from which itâs always worth picking a name or two to look into, International Womenâs Day or otherwise.
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Ariana Grande - Everyday ft. Future
R: I could not be more on Team Ari. Love her. Love this video! I think the story is that sheâs like a Wings Of Desire style angel, but instead of looking over suicidal people, sheâs on shagging duty. Love the fringe. Love the big jacket. Love the dancing. Love âer.
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Two songs called Green Light
R: Here are two songs called Green Light.
Lorde - Green Light
Inevitably. Iâm sure thereâs some sort of name for that chord progression that gives you a sort of emotional uplifty thing, but as Iâm a musical ignoramus youâre certainly not going to learn about it here. Anyway, Iâve not fully formed an opinion on thisân yet, but I like it enough to put the research in and keep listening to it.
Marit Bergman - Green Light
This one, I unreservedly love.
Why this video has survived YouTubeâs copyright fuckery and remains the only way to listen to the song on there, I donât know. Itâs a tad pecule. But the songâs utterly ace, an amazing song-from-a-musical-that-isnât-actually-from-a-musical. Saw her more years than I care to remember ago at the Hoxton Square Bar & Grill and she was fully ace, although Iâm not sure what sheâs been up to lately as I canât read Swedish.
(Iâm not that fussed by the Beyonce Green Light, soz ladz.)
LGN05 is on Saturday 11th March
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Sigrid - Don't Kill My Vibe
J: Just recently discovered this massive brush-off tune. I donât know anything about Sigrid but I suspect that this is gonna be so much fun to sing along to at the next LGN.Â
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Chance The Rapper - Same Drugs
H: Iâve jumped right on the Chance The Rapper bandwagon and Iâd do it again I tells ya! I canât get enough of his Coloring Book album at the minute, itâs sort of like a crystallisation of the lovely samply gospel-ness of earlier Kanye stuff with itâs own twist (and if Wikipediaâs not lying, he credits Yeezyâs The College Dropout as being his first hip-hop album purchase). He co-wrote some of my favourite tracks on Kanyeâs The Life of Pablo and his musical creds are off the chart, so give âim a listen! Frustratingly, he hasnât yet released a video for the club banger of a new single on the album, All Night (listen to it here - https://youtu.be/lkIUnRRH6l4) which I would love to play at the next LGN, but hereâs a lovely laid-back number with muppets in the video. P.S. I just found out heâll be playing at Wireless Festival this summer in Finsbury Park! See you down the front LGNers!Â
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Peaness - Seafoam Islands
J: I just discovered Peaness, and their camcorder video and sing-along chorus on Seafoam Islands. Makes me want to run into the sea at Brighton in Winter, getting seaweed between my toes and sore feet from the pebbles and tell the little voice in my head thatâs saying âmaybe this isnât such a brilliant ideaâ to DO ONE.
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Carly Rae Jepsen - Cry
J: This became my favourite track from the Side B collection pretty much as soon as I heard the lovely, warm synths at the start.Â
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Suggested Friends - Chicken
J: New(ish) song from Suggested Friends. Big sing-along chorus and loud guitars. Bit of a theme developing here, eh? I think this was part of the 100 Club Series on Odd Box Records, which always throws up some gems. Looking forward to playing this at the next LGN! Also, this video makes being in a band look like a lotta fun.
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OPS - So Slick
J: Hereâs a video of a hungry slug eating their greens. Oh, with OPS providing a pop-punk chorus soundtrack! Happy Saturday everyone!
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Two songs called Trampoline
R: Here are two songs called Trampoline.
Kero Kero Bonito - Trampoline
This one is probably a motivational metaphor for life, and/or itâs about a trampoline.
The Grates - Trampoline
Pretty sure this oneâs about fucking.
Two ace songs called Trampoline, there.
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SOPHIE - JUST LIKE WE NEVER SAID GOODBYE
R: This is two and a half years old, but I only just heard it and it sounds like the future*, so whatevs. On the playlist for LGN05.
*It actually sounds like something off the Vib Ribbon soundtrack, which is about twenty years old. But temporal whatevs, itâs ace is the point.
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