We Asked London's Premier Indie Disco DJ What it's Actually Like to Play The Libertines to Pissed-Up Students

It's incredibly tempting to pretend that clubbing is near-perpetually rooted in house and techno, that to talk of "proper clubbing" is to talk exclusively about those genres, and the nocturnal experiences that arise as a result of their consumption. This, obviously, is total shit. You can play anything in a club, dance to anything in a club, enjoy anything in a club. Even, get this…indie.

The indie disco is a staple of British nightlife. Who amongst us hasn't spent a sozzled night necking warmish cans of lager in a sweaty room on a main road in a provincial town desperately waiting for the moment the DJ drops "Boys and Girls"? Who hasn't snogged someone from their sixth form to a Wombats record? Who hasn't revelled in the sight of grown men in Oasis tees shaking their feathercuts to Weller cuts? These experiences are as valid as fist-clenching to a DJ Deep set, and anyone who tells you otherwise is in denial.

With that in mind, I decided to get in touch with Sean, a DJ who plays out at the Roxy on Oxford Street three nights a week. For those that haven't experienced that club's myriad delights, imagine a dark room on the world's busiest street that sells fishbowl cocktails and, from my memories at least, plays Killers remixes all nights long. Sean also plays at Feeling Gloomy, a night dedicated to making lads and lasses cry into their pints to Joy Division tunes. I wanted to find out if the whole indie DJing thing was truly what he loved doing, or if, as I sort of suspected, that was a Robert Hood trying to burst out of his XFM-approved record box.

Sean in action (photos by Keaton Chau)

THUMP: How did you get into it the first place? When and where was your first set?
I DJed a few times with a little box of CDs in the side room of the Coventry Colosseum when I was growing up there. This was probably around 2002, 2003, and I distinctly playing "The Boy Looked at Johnny" by the Libertines to a bunch of sweaty, VKed-up Midlanders and feeling like a god. I was not a god.

Is indie DJing something you dreamed of when growing up? Or do you wanna be up there in fabric's Room 1 on a Saturday night at 5am pumping out tech-house to Italians?
When I was a kid I was a terrible rockist — I used to spend my Sundays downloading terribly worthy records by people like Nico, Nick Drake, Television and Fugazi. That probably comes from my dad who mainlined me with Leonard Cohen records when I was growing up. It took Boy in Da Corner to really start to open me up to stuff that wasn't just four white men with guitars, and then getting my first broader DJ slot to really get me into house, techno and the good stuff. If you'd have asked me this five years ago my ideal set would be have been in a big tent at Glastonbury full of people pouring lager over themselves. Now I'd love to play techno or acid house to a room of massively pilled-up brummies at House of God or something.

What was the genesis of Feeling Gloomy? Are you a natural SadLAD?
After moving to London I had some friends round one evening and one of the guys said he liked the stuff I had put on the stereo, which was mainly the Cure, the Smiths, Nick Cave. That sort of stuff; i really knew how to throw a good party. He told me that he ran a club called "Feeling Gloomy" that had been going for about a year at the time. He'd started it with a mate of his based on feeling incredibly miserable one evening, then having "There is a Light That Never Goes Out" by the Smiths come on and laughing because it was so ridiculously over-the-top in his current state. That was at the o2 (then Carling) Academy in Islington every saturday. And that's how i spent just about every saturday for about seven years. I'm a bit of a goth when it comes down to it and love a bit of staggeringly depressing stuff that doesn't take itself too seriously, but then write massively over-sincere tweets when I'm fucked. Does that make me a natural SadLAD? Yeah, probably i guess.

What kind of crowd do you get at the Roxy?
The Roxy is sort of the last man standing where it is, as the other clubs around there (The End, The Metro, The Astoria, Mean Fiddler, Punk and now Madame Jojo's) have all been closed down by Crossrail or turned into luxury flats for awful people who want to live in Soho because of its reputation but can't stand it actually being Soho. so it gets a big mix; there are students obviously, and the people from offices who want to have sex with them. We also get a lot of tourists, kids who have come out of gigs, a whole load of American exchange students and very occasionally some goths who go nuts if I play the Sisters. Good stuff.

What's the WORST dance move you see pulled off regularly?
When I'm on early and we've just opened you can often get a bunch of lads who think it's pretty hilarious that they're in an empty club and do massively mannered ironic dancing to make their mates laugh. It's pretty funny when they're doing that to something intentionally over-the-top stuff like SOPHIE or something. To be honest, as long as no-one's going "OOEH OOEH" over a really beautiful dreamtrak song or making out with someone like they're trying to swallow a whole football while pressed against the DJ booth glass it's fine by me. Ihonestly couldn't give less of a shit if it's your birthday when you're making a request though, so don't tell me.

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