Weds 13th July: NYC Downlow at Block 9, Glastonbury Festival

 From the shipping-container dressing room to the dancefloor of the NYC Downlow replica relic New York night club - here are the girls that brush the mud off their boots and slip into leopard skin heels to bring the best show to the underground house and techno haven in the hills of Glastonbury Festival.  The nocturnal subterranean slice of gay culture to infiltrate the programming has progressively grown a cult following over the course of its ten year residency, since its inception from Gideon Berger and Steve Gallagher's spin on Burning Man scale entertainment.  
This year had particular poignant importance post Orlando fatalities, with Roger Sanchez dedicating his set to the previous week's atrocity.  It was a very difficult time for everyone to paint lipstick smiles over deep despair but more than ever this was a time for the show to carry on........... to show defiance, solidarity, compassion and come together as one, one love, for once and for all.  

(Photos inc. House of Johnson, MC Gaffy, James Hillard, Jacqui Potato, Rudi Douglas, Annie Pics, Roisin Murphy, Gideon Berger, Shay Shay, Alexus De Luxe, Orange Gina, Andy Butler (Hercules & Love Affair), Tracy Ermine, Aaron Manhattan)

Weds 13th July: NYC Downlow at Block 9, Glastonbury Festival

The NYC DOWNLOW world in Block 9 at Glastonbury Festival has undergone a complete transformation to surprise all those who know it so well and shock those experiencing it for the first time.....

"After ten years on New York’s East 7th Street, rampant gentrification has resulted in eviction of the infamous gay nightclub NYC Downlow, forcing it to relocate across town to the Meatpacking District. The club now shares premises with the notorious West Side Bath House in a fully functioning Meatpacker’s warehouse; two worlds colliding under one roof… 

Now darker, seedier and moodier, get ready to experience a new chapter in the ongoing NYC Downlow story that continues to delve deep into the fleeting space between art and music. An authentic reproduction of a meatpacker’s warehouse circa 1982, the  new design also features a second dance room called THE MEATRACK"

Here you can see my photos of the new arena from its exterior street walls to its interior lobby and locker rooms.  Every detail is meticulously finished with precision, down to the signature bottles of poppers behind the counter at the door.  A transatlantic bygone underworld of drag queens and go go boys is not exactly what you'd expect on a farm in Somerset in 2016 but that's the point of this immersive time-travelling night club.  If you havn't yet been lucky enough to make it past the pat-down entry interrogation or thru the plastic curtain portal ........... keep an eye on updates as Block 9 have just announced plans for London / International pop-up venues .........

You can also re-live, re-visit, and rewind some of the DJ sets over on the new website https://thenycdownlow.com/

Tuesday 7th July: Glastonbury Festival - Block 9

The next Glastonbury Festival will be the 10th Anniversary of Block9 which is going to be the ultimate legendary legends of lifetime legenderousnous for all the legendary children.  It's an entire field of joy which blesses the festival and the acts who play feel blessed to be brought on board.  From what you might already know it's a nocturnal destination with drag queens who will give you a dressing down at the door if you are too dressed down for the dress code............ before indeed physically undressing you ..........

What you might not realise is that the whole concept arose from a love of good music and the desire to set up the best sound-system on site.  Whilst the performers are fulfilling their duty of showing off and showing out at the Downlow, there are two invisible characters crackling walkie-talkies and running the show.  Gideon and Steve are the creative duo who devised the Downlow which has divided, duplicated and given birth to another two stages which now make up the complete complex of Block9.  So whilst you have the world's best boogie nation under a groove in the NYC nightclub you also have "London Underground" for Dubstep, Dancehall & Drum & Bass and then "Genosys" for all the latest cutting edge cuts inbetween.  

The Utopian vision of offering an all-inclusive riotious and ridiculously fun-packed party has attracted the masses and now that disco is officially back, its peaked it's appeal.  Gideon's passion for quality sound played LOUD coupled with their social consciousness to keep it credible and resist corporate incentives has maintained its magic.  For those in the scene its been a haven for hedonistic escapism from the trappings of our tail-chasing urban lives.  Now the word has spread and the line-up of universally acknowledged acts has caught the attention of electronica aficionados.  The NYC Downlow girls are sirens beckoning you in to one of the most memorable clubbing highs of your life and that could well turn out to be a mix of ATFA's Nigerian High Life, Horse Meat Disco, Hercules & Love Affair and Kieran Hebden.  

The crew have been going to Glastonbury since the days of the travellers in outskirt fields and the free-thinking fellowship of the festival.  With a nod to that history and an encounter with early Burning Man epic proportions of visual staging, Block9 set out to create a cosmic space for a future other-worldly Worthy Farm.  The first corner for Queer Culture came as a stage in the Cabaret Field's "Trash City".  Fast forward a decade, Block9 has now been given its very own arena.  A team of 40+ technicians have become a family affair after bonding the first year against inhospitable rain which sorted the fair-weather from the life-timer volunteers.  For four weeks they reunite to put up, maintain and dismantle the temporary tenement city.  Behind the facade of fake towerblocks lurks a secondary set-build of the crew bar know as "Maceos" which is a complex of shipping containers and buses.  Infact the main bar hangs off one of their own homes-on-wheels with the optics neatly mounted down the wing of the truck.  Its a case of park up, roll out the barrels and you've got a fully functioning dashboard of real ale pumps.  In my photos above you'll notice a wig peaking out of one the bar's plant pots.  Thats a hallmark horticultural twist form Art Director Tony Hornecker who plants his own beautiful greenhouse balcony for VIP's to view from above.  This backstage enclave of Maceos is a place to escape the pile-up of punters and catch the more questionable acts held back from public view (such as a Whitney Houston drag act on her drug torment to "I will always love glue", "Its not right, but its ok, I'm gonna take it anyway".)

In previous year's reports I have chronicled the festival's fashion for glitter and flower headdresses which have unknowingly stemmed from San Francisco's Cockettes and how Block9 is truly the original place for festival flavour.  Now this year I want to flag up that the reason you may have only just discovered it is because their pioneering music taste has also now caught up with mainstream.  Block9 has been hosting the best in beats for the last 9 years but never blown its own horn to announce it.  Its been having too much fun tbh.  If you scroll down the list of DJ's and it reads like the greatest selection of BoilerRoom sessions rolled into one weekend then you're not wrong.  Remember House Music was invented out of the gay clubs in Chicago in early 80's ...................... well um, Downlow is a recreation of exactly that energy.  Go figure.  And go get your stamina because once you enter you might not leave again - its just become a round the clock roster of day and night scheduling.  

Read my archive articles here and here.

Photos top to bottom:  Scottee, Genosys stage, Tony Hornecker's greenhouse, Maceos crew bar, NYC Downlow, the rainbow crew hi-vis vest, me loving the homage to Keith Haring, Luke Howard, Amber with Legs & Coq, Florence Welch guest appearance)  

Tuesday 7th July: Glastonbury Festival 2015: Block9, Awesome Tapes From Africa

Brian Shimkovitz (a.k.a ATFA) rounded off a 4 month stint of worldwide touring with a weekend on Worthy Farm.  Block9 booked Brian to bring his crates of cassettes to DJ both a night time disco set in the Downlow tent and a daytime boogie on the Genosys stage.   Here is his precious cargo unwrapped in its Ghanaian fabric and the tape decks which are his prerequisite equipment to play.  To explain for anyone not familiar with his act = it is kind of already explained in the name and comes from the blog he started in 2006 "Awesome Tapes From Africa".  Out of this resource of music that he finds on field trips and uploads for public listening  pleasure, has now become a record label re-reissuing personal favourites.   Here he is wearing one such artwork on his T-Shirt of this year's release "Ata-Kak" and also the actual tape from which he played "Bome Nnwom" on the Saturday afternoon.  Later on in the early hours of Sunday morning his set was the soundtrack for the Downlow's disco divas dancing on stage and intro-ed into a secret special appearance from Florence Welch.   It's a vision that I will never forget.  London's east-end drag-queens perfectly shaking their hips in time to South African house music, in a nightclub that's a recreation of 1970's New York Disco, dug out of a field in Somerset.  For that reason I think Brian had a ball and an exceptional experience to close a chapter of travel before heading straight home to LA.   When he first arrived onsite and his tape decks had gone missing from the Park Stage and the clouds broke into an epic downpour, events could have gone a different way.  But that's the beauty of the Glastonbury anomaly and one which he embraced, enjoyed and took in his (mud slide) stride to bless Block9 with his highlife beats.  
He's returning to the UK in a few weeks to play Cafe Oto in London and the Port Eliot Festival in August.  Listen back to his recent interview on NTS to hear the whole story behind the Ata-Kak album and how he tracked down the artist.
Also listen to two of the label's tracks on my marathon mix-tape compiled by Coby Sey.