- Over 2.5 million events are created on Facebook each month. An interesting statistic you might think…or perhaps not. Still, with that in mind it's easy to understand why so few people know about the Manchester Function Room parties, an unadvertised, low key monthly affair hustled together by the kind people at Eastern Bloc (a local record shop). Tucked into the upstairs room of the Seven Oaks pub; a gaggle of local house and techno affiliates shuffle their way through the night, grinning widely. They say it's the best night that no one's talking about, but all that is about to change: rumours are rife in the city at the moment and it's easy to see why.
To make it in, you have to knock on the Seven Oaks' side door and tell the kind bouncer your name. Once upstairs you hand over £3 for your troubles. This does require a small amount of pre-planning. Entrance is only available to those that have their name down. Not a hard task in itself…provided you can track down the Facebook event page by 5:00 PM. Then, provided it's not full, you'll be turned loose inside, free to wallow in your own self-satisfaction.
The room, or Function Room as it were, holds approximately 70 people and sports a small bar at the far end. The decks and speakers stand at the opposite end of the room and look down over the darkly lit dance floor, although this is ultimately just a space where tables normally lie. The first time we went a few months ago it took a little while for those expecting a full-on club night to acclimatise to the look and feel of the night but things soon start to make sense.
Sam Lewis and Andrew Lyster, ambassadors for their own meandyou parties, were playing when we arrived. Sam was hammering out rolling house rhythms that swerved into techno moments. A tough thing to follow at 00:30 AM, some might say. But some people aren't Andro...well, no one but Andro is Andro, unless his mother is harbouring some sort of dark secret. Still, even if he was some sort of high-powered mutant, there's no mistaking his low-slung, deep reverberating sound. Nail 3 tequilas, a cheeky nostril burner and lock yourself in a groove music. Think AntonZap and Underground Quality and you come somewhere within the same proverbial ballpark.
Jim Spratling brought things closer to the dub techno side of things, playing a well crafted mix of hypnotic driving and eerie otherworldly sounding tracks. I'm a big fan of the dub techno genre when it's done well, and Jim's set was just that. meandyou resident Will (AKA Arnaldo) played out the 3 – 4 AM. A house music encyclopedia of a man; he stands 9 feet tall, a crazed giant too kind to imagine. Armed with an endless supply of truly brilliant house music, Will is someone that true heads and infrequent clubbers alike adore.
If ever there was a man deserving of his own paragraph then it would be Mark "Turbo" Turner. A legend from the fabled days of the Orbit. An uptight barmen's 4 AM menace. His set reminded me of wondrous times at the hands of Chicago's finest. Straight up no-nonsense four-to-the-floor rhythms. Scott Ferguson's "Dump Days" was amongst the horde of amazing records he played. Anyone that hasn't had the chance to see Mark, or any of the Eastern Bloc establishment, needs to rethink their musical ethnicity and get down to the next Function Room. There ain't no going back afterward.