DJ Profiles & Tales: #Free parties & #Cheezey Biscuits
What I loved most about the parties, was that without exception, everyone that helped did so for free. No money was ever charged; everyone was welcome.
It was one of the most egalitarian things I have ever witnessed.
To kick things off, I first want to acknowledge in this blog is that by the time Lightspeed finished I was no longer unaware of the existing scene in Dundee.
The last blog was written from my own point of view, and I tried to express it the way I perceived things at the time – naive and unaware.
I had become friends with many of the party souls in Dundee and was now aware that in the earlier times – it wasn’t that there were no parties, just that I wasn’t at them!
I had become entrenched in the sometimes tribal rivalries that fought weekly for the relatively small numbers of available quality audience. This would be a costly experience for all concerned.
Shortly after the final Lightspeed gig some really bad personal events completely changed my outlook on life. [I wont go in to the details here] When this story starts I was as depressed as someone can be, self-isolated, broke and certainly not interested in parties or clubs.
I hadn’t seen anyone except my flatmates for at least a week when my phone rang; it was a friend who scored a couple of guest passes for ‘..some gig by Aberdeen guys in a castle dungeon’
Was I in?
It was my birthday that week and I thought, ‘fuck it’ wont be anyone else I know there, lets go.. I really needed to blow off some steam.
The party was by a group [who later because friends] called Kia-Aura and the castle was in Glen Devon.
The gig in the castle was great, but the real party that night happened later on the hillside opposite the castle where everyone was camping; we danced the whole night with strangers.
I had an inch of JD left in my bottle as the sun came up and we lay on a hillside chuckling at the nights adventures. I spotted a familiar silhouette, Ray grinned into focus..
Ray had been helping with the sound system (of course) and had pitched up his mega-ray-tent next to the party PA – we settled in to meet some new friends and party the rest of the day away.
The generator finally gave up, and some random turned up with a traffic light generator the estate had in storage – it was plugged in and running, but wouldn’t power anything… we then realised that it was only 110V ..all the gear was imported, so we knew that somewhere there was a switch.. no-one could find it… we were all way too far gone by that time, but we did make great new friends.
I had such a good time at the Glen Devon that I was really pleased when my phone went a few weeks later with a request to help lug some speakers to a party in the country.
I finally felt able to face the world again.
It was pitch dark, the river less than a foot away was in pretty good flow; this was deep Fife and I was sure we were lost.
We were about a mile from the road when we first heard the signs of the party. It wasn’t bass, but a party couple giggling and slip-sliding their way back along the river path in the opposite direction.. we knew we were going the right way.
We eventually found the party and got the PA we’d lugged in rigged up.. we got there just before the club people around 1:30am..
By the time the clubbers arrived, fingers of strobe were reaching through the trees for the stars, and bass was paving the path all the way to the party.
The sun was well and truly up and the police had just visited us to check what was happening; we killed the music and send the elders in to chat with them.
The police were fine once they saw we weren’t causing any trouble or damage.
We were quite a distance from anything and I don’t think they fancied confiscating our gear as they would have had to carry it back by hand..
After the police left no one could be bothered mixing, I was just messing around with B-sides and ‘interesting’ records when I played a few KLF tunes..
The KLF tune prompted one of the elders who had organised the party to wander over for a chat.
By the end of our chat he said he had a proposal to discuss and would be in touch – I didn’t expect anything to come of it, people said a lot of things at parties!
This was especially unusual because the elder in question was much more commonly associated with one of the other club tribes – but he wanted to put on free parties, away from clubs and restrictions.. no money, just fun.
Some time later….
There was a half dozen of us sitting around in my friends flat discussing if we should do parties and if so, what should we call ourselves? what kind of music should we play?
We all knew immediately that we were going to do it – the decision was unanimous – if you were there, you know who you are 😉
We were all sure that the name had to be something silly, and to try to reflect the ethos of the parties we wanted to put on.
At the time there was a saying ‘scary biscuits’ which was just one of those things that would make no sense if I tried to explain… anyway, someone suggested ‘Cheezey Biscuits’ it was a terrible name, but we all loved it.
The sound was going to be fat, filtered french house; mixed with disco and older 303 belters.
Our new name was a great fit.
Someone had a packet of cookie mix that had Tom & Jerry branding and a ritz cracker – we used what was on hand and we ran with it🤣
The next thing we did was to find out what equipment and skills we could muster between us.
✅PA
✅Cammo Nets
✅Parachute(s)
✅Strobes & Lights
✅Smoke machine
✅Decks & Mixer
✅Projector
✅Transportation
✅Tunes
✅Generator
✅Crazy
The basics covered, we let it be known we were offering to host a free party for anyone with a good spot.
Our ethos was: leave it as you found it, and everyone is welcome.
Our first location came in soon enough; a forest clearing just far enough out of the city to avoid attention.
We decided to run the parties like a club in terms of promoting and getting the word out, but we had no budget.
Ray had recently introduced me to a tech wizard with dreads who was more than a little interested in getting involved in the scene. He had a colour printer and scanner and understood our vibe perfectly.
He was kind enough to let us use all his ink and paper for free, we spent hours cutting out the flyers from A4 sheets by hand.
Game on.
The location turned out to be a great place, many parties were held there (and possibly still are) both by us, and others, for a few seasons.
The larger group found a few great spots, and there were legendary parties, regularly; the rest of the autumn was filled with fun nights – until it got too cold and wet for us to continue.
The parties had revived me from my depression and importantly given me a reason leave the flat and socialise.
I’d just moved into a flat above a bar which until fairly recently had been called the Parliamentary; my new flat mates were up for a party, we had our first indoor venue.
We rigged the flat in the same way we would have set a forest party up.. windows pitifully shielded from the PA volume by mattresses, lights, smoke, strobe, the works.
A new bank building had recently been erected directly opposite our 3rd floor flat and it had a nice clean flat sandstone front… perfect for a projection… We got to work and soon had a huge Cheezey Biscuits logo beaming onto the wall!
Needless to say the party was extremely busy and just a little bit crazy.
A couple of weeks after the last outdoor party of the season the elder from the first party had reached out to say he had found a place we could try in the city.. an old social club, scheduled for demolition – but importantly safe and secure.
We went for a look; the landlords made it clear they didn’t care what we did in there so long as they got their rent – and we left when their new flats got approved by the council.
It was in a state but it was (mostly) safe and had an old bar, water, working toilets, electric and a dance floor…
A bunch of us scrubbed it as clean as we could and hauled in our collective party equipment – we finally had a place to store our gear and ‘practice’.
Cheezey Biscuits now had a home: The Biscuit Tin.
It was an instant legend. If you were there, you know.
It was 2am and -2C on a random Saturday night in winter; clubs would be kicking the punters out shortly and we knew we couldn’t let anyone see us – there was just no way we could open the Biscuit Tin.
As we peaked over a nearby wall, we could see a half dozen taxi’s lined up, a few folks stomping their feet along the street to keep warm, and 20-30 others had formed a queue leading to the backdoor – we didn’t know any of the people; they weren’t ‘our people’.
Word was out. Our wee home had become too popular and now even though we had specifically told people nothing was happening, loads of random taxis and people had turned up – for the second week.
Although we didn’t know it at the time, the Biscuit Tin was already shut for the last time.
The following week we were supposed to be running an event with some friends after a night in DUSA. We decided to run a house party instead, we were a bit spooked by the previous weeks'(non)events at the Biscuit Tin.
We’d secured the use of a basement flat in the middle of a mostly student occupied street – The art students who lived there were keen to celebrate, and crazy enough to help us set up the best party ever.
Paper flyers were hastily re-printed and dished out after DUSA closed it’s doors.
The ‘celebrity’ Dj’s who had been playing at DUSA turned up and the place was throbbing with tactile bass pulses.
The party was amazing, everyone was having a great time; right up until the police arrived.
I didn’t find out until later, but this was actually the second time the police had arrived – and this time they came in force.
I had never seen anything like it at a student party, we counted six vans full of riot-gear cops, plus 3 dog units.. complete over kill.
As soon as they arrived the music was switched off; the officer in charge said ‘leave’ and all the students said ‘OK’ and left, no trouble.
It was a very surreal evening. The cops were obviously pissed off and formally confiscated our gear and charged one of the girls that lived in the house.
There was no need for this. Although we had thrown a loud party, we’d stopped as soon as we were aware of the complaints, and no one who actually lived there had even been cheeky to the officers.
Our gear was held for a year, and our friend was charged with a breach – which she is still proud of today!
We found out later that the police had come to the flat about half an hour earlier and been met by Ray at the door – I don’t think he would mind me saying he had no love for the police and probably said antagonising things to them.
We speculated later than they had been very quick to respond with such force and perhaps they had still been expecting a gathering at the Biscuit Tin.
We had been aware for sometime that the shelf-life for Cheezey Biscuits was short, and we had aggressively pushed ourselves into the Dj roster in a local club called ‘The Cooler’.
The Cooler had a resident house Dj already – we used our party popularity and friends to lean on the manager until he agreed we could share the residency.. (sorry Steve, that was bad of us!).
Steve’s night had been a cool blend of smooth house – he was an sure hand at the decks, and came from the Dundee scene which pre-dated Lightspeed. (Kentucky Club, I think)
We turned up with a full party entourage and regalia: Funky and his squad of drummers regularly took to the stage and pounded along with the beats.
It was nothing like Steve’s night had been before.
To his credit Steve took it all in good grace, and we played in the Cooler for a few months until Hogmanay ’98.
Towards the end of the night an older dude i had never seen before (and looked very out of place) was waving at me frantically trying to get my attention…
He shouted.. do you want to open a nightclub?
I laughed and said sure thing – who are you?
He said, I’m Charlie, this is going to be amazing…
Note: the telling of this tale is entirely subjective; I’ve probably made stuff up and missed stuff out 🙂 #FakeNews
