- In the last year Disco Bloodbath have become an almost omnipresent force on the London club scene. If you've ever stumbled out of a steamy main room at Bugged Out!, Secretsundaze or Fabric and found yourself strutting to a string-laden disco odyssey, it's likely Disco Bloodbath were responsible. But despite an increasingly hectic schedule, Disco Bloodbath still manage to put on regular parties in their native Dalston; just down the road from where they held their first soirée in 2007.
Those unfamiliar with Dalston should know that it is an area of East London directly adjacent to the trendy creative/media hub of Shoreditch. Whilst urban renewal has allowed Shoreditch to reinvent itself as London's new hot-spot, Dalston is one of London's forgotten areas and has changed little in the past 15 years, bar a recent rise in budget fried chicken shops. Needless to say, the nightlife is fairly rough around the edges and semi-legal basements are the setting for the majority of parties. Despite the dubious surroundings of their gatherings, Disco Bloodbath manage to pull a contrastingly colorful, outlandish and downright friendly crowd.
A slip-up from the promoters meant an address for a venue a mile down the road from the actual "secret venue" was given out. Even so, once in the vicinity it was pretty obvious where the party was, as streams of '80s-inspired miscreants descended on what appeared to be an abandoned shop front on the shady looking Stoke Newington Road. Despite the dilapidated nature of the venue's exterior, the bar was fully stocked, the sound was taken care of with a seriously hefty Funktion One rig and there was even a laser to cut through the sweaty gloom of the basement. As the venue filled to the sound of vintage acid house, more and more eccentric characters seemed to crawl out of the woodwork. One particularly tall guy rocked a particularly fetching look; a full ship-wrecked explorer beard coupled with a too-tight blazer and gold lame shorts. Another one opted for a handlebar mustache and shimmering platform boots complete with an odd black cape-cum-shirt. It's important at this point to stress that there was nothing as corny as a "fancy dress" policy on the night, it's just that many of the DB crowd appear to have a unhealthy nostalgia for bad '80s fashions and a serious facial hair fetish. (Cynics would say that describes most of East London.)
Either way, at around 3:00 AM the dance floor was full to bursting. Heavy rain outside meant that no one could leave; not that many wanted to. As the music switched to disco, the Bloodbath crowd began to show their true colors. Just as Chaka Khan's "Clouds" dropped (an inspired choice that referenced the harsh weather) the DB crowd went into overdrive. Hands went into the air, people suddenly started moving like they were auditioning for a stage show and smiles broke out across every face in the room. A flurry of disco rarities followed, peaked by Laughing Light Of Plenty's "The Rose"; a fairly obscure but great record from last year that, to my surprise, kicked off a mass sing-along. From there the music spun off into all sorts of crazy directions yet the crowd refused to be let up, even when the music switched radically in style or tempo. Where else would you get Hall & Oates sitting next to deep house from Kerri Chandler topped off with Exile's "When The Night Closes In"—a slightly cheesy pop/disco record featured in the closing scenes of Adam Sandler comedy, Happy Gilmore.
Whether the success of Disco Bloodbath is a reaction to dance music's general shift to harder, fist-pumping sounds in recent years is not for me to say. It's clear that with a great crowd, a set of genuinely interesting DJ's and a real sense of fun, Disco Bloodbath is a name that will continue to dominate back rooms, and of course Dalston, for a very long while.