1234 Shoreditch Festival

Interview with Promoter Sean McClusky

Whether you live in London or not, you cant fail to appreciate the prominence that the East End has on the live music scene, especially for new music.  Music has in fact defined the culture of East London, undeniably bringing with it controversial scenes, a regeneration of the areas frequented and moreover a fundamental appreciation of the necessity to promote new music and keep the wheels of the industry turning.

1234 Shoreditch is an avant-garde one-day styled event set in midst of the urban jungle in Shoreditch Park, and with a primary ethos to support the East London music scene and the bands within it.  And now it’s back for it’s second installment after the crazy success of 2007, which with its superior line up and free entry, lured over 15000 people to support the event.  This time round, although with more council led restrictions in place forcing the capacity to be reduced to a quieter 6000, the day promises another incredible line-up with a sincere nod to the promotion of new music and the best assets of the thriving East London community.  And all for fifteen quid, which by any festival standards is a bargain in itself.

This year offers another genre defying bill including headliners The Rakes, Patrick Wolf and The Warlocks, alongside Ipso facto, Flashguns, Televised Crimewave, Crystal Fighters and many, many more all lined up to perform across 3 stages.

As if the day itself wasn’t enough, 1234 Shoreditch continues on as night falls and the gates are closed on the park.  Twelve specially curated after parties are set to follow at venues in and around the Shoreditch and Hoxton areas.  All promising to turn the East End into a pivotal party mecca at the hands of even more diverse live acts and DJ’s, embracing the heart and soul that 1234 Shoreditch was created around.

So now we gear up for yet another weekend in an open space propped up by music, beer and festival frollicks, all praying to the weather God that the rain ceases.  And in the run up to the 26th July, we grabbed some time with 1234 Shoreditch organiser, manager and one of the most prolific new music promoters in London, Sean McClusky to find out what makes the music of the East End special.

4TR: Sean, you have been involved with the live music arena in London for some time now, so how did the 1234 Shoreditch festival concept get started?
Sean: It’s basically born out of a culmination of 15 years working in Shoreditch building up the live scene, and I’ve kind of been involved since there was nothing here really.  I mean there was the Brit-art crowd but there was no music happening.  I found the 333 club, which had just been changed from the London Apprentice, a gay cruise club into a sort of straight party venue, and so I took on the Saturday nights there and did a club night called the Sonic Mook Experiment which set the tone in Shoreditch for general irreverence and multi-faceted, multi-sound nights out.  You know if you think about 15 years ago people were either dancing to one thing or another, you were either into indie-rock or you were into house music or beats, so we just put it all together in one building and it became just like a big squat party, it was amazing.  It worked really well and that was a sort of turning point for the area because it attracted a sort of marginal crowd from all over and they then started finding other venues.  Then I started putting on live shows, with people like Clinic and Suicide and developed other live stuff when places like 93 Feet East and Cargo opened. 

So the festival is really the culmination of that and the scene coming to fruition in East London.  The 70s was about Notting Hill and the punk rock and reggae scenes, the 80s and early 90s was Camden and Brit Pop and now East London is the center for new music in, lets say the UK shall we [laughing] well at least London.

4TR: And after the tremendous success of the first year this is the 2nd time round for 1234 Shoreditch.  But why did you decide to not make the event free again? 
Sean: The first one was crazy because it was a free event and 15000 people turned up, so this time we had no choice but to put a fence around it and ticket it.  I wanted to keep it a free festival and just do it with sponsors but it didn’t prove possible this year because sponsorship has dried up and the recession has killed it; literally no-one is giving money away so we had to do a nominal ticket price just so we could put up the infrastructure that the council wanted.  That’s the way it is now for a bit but if we land a big sponsor we would like to take it back to free because I think that’s important.

4TR: The line up includes people like The Rakes, The Warlocks, Patrick Wolf and loads of unsigned or emerging bands.  Was it important to you to give exposure to the newer artists you booked onto the bill?
Sean: Absolutely, the ethos is that its supporting the East London new music scene, so about 2/3s of the bands are new or unsigned and probably a lot of people won’t heard of them apart from people who go to gigs around here.  But then the cherry on the top is us booking others who have kind of cut their teeth in the area and done alright!  It’s about them coming back and supporting the scene that kind of spawned them.  So we have got The Rakes who actually I think got signed at one of my gigs at On The Rocks on the Kingsland Road years back, then we have Patrick Wolf who did all his early work in East London, Chrome Hoof are from over here and were on a Sonic Mook compilation about 5 years ago, The Warlocks, who we always put on when they are here; so yeah generally it’s a nod to what’s going on and supporting it.

4TR: So from the 1st installment of the festival has the event grown in terms of the infrastructure, line up etc
Sean: Well not really its actually smaller.  We are making it tighter and more of a boutique festival and it will be smarter than the first one, which was kind of chucked together but had a certain charm because of that. But we do have a bigger stage this time.

4TR: And are you hoping to make this a yearly event?
Sean: Oh definitely that’s the idea.

4TR: One of the great things about 1234 is that once the days events finish in Shoreditch Park, you have then put on 12 after parties throughout Shoreditch and Hoxton, which are included in the ticket price.
Sean: Yeah there are 12 after show parties at different venues, so it becomes a bit like a Camden Crawl after the park shuts.  The park shuts at 9 and then we have got the parties going on at places including Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, Queen of Hoxton, Mother Bar, Catch, Electricity Showrooms, Old Blue Last and Bar Music Hall.  Last time it was great because it was like a proper night out with everyone descending on the area to carry on enjoying themselves.  There will be loads going on with the dj’s and live shows that we have lined up.

4TR: And with the emphasis being on new music, are the bands on the bill all bands you have picked and rate and who you think could go far?
Sean: Yes, they are either bands that I think stand out, bands that are the cream of what is going on, or are just bands that have been around and kind of stood the test of time even if they haven’t had hit records, but are just very entertaining and kind of say something about the area.  I mean we always try and pick a few winners that are going to break through, but its just about which ones will it be.  The first year we had Florence and the Machine play and no one knew who that was and also Dev from Lightspeed Champion played, The Whip and Autokratz played as well, so some good things came out of it.  [Laughing] And then a load of them split up which is funny, about a third of the bands on the poster from the last one don’t even exist anymore.  But at least they got to play a festival, our festival!

1234 Shoreditch takes place on Sunday 26th July 2009 in Shoreditch Park, London before continuing on throughout the night at the after parties.

Tickets are £15 and can be bought from here…

www.the1234shoreditch.com

www.ticketweb.co.uk    www.seetickets.com

Words: Francesca Strange

MyrnaCline21
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