Talking to: Boogie Cafe Records
Ahead of his live DJ set on our Instagram on 30th October, we caught up with Alex from Bristol-born record label Boogie Cafe Records. We talked about making dancefloor grooves, working in the music industry, the rise and transformation of the label through shifting priorities, the joys of growing up raving, and the devastation of having your favourite mixtape thrown out of the car window by your Dad.
Tell us how the record label started?
About 6 years ago me and two friends, James and Danny, were DJing together as Boogie Cafe, and we all had this desire to start a new label. So we started the label just doing edits and reworks of old tunes. Jimmy used to make music, he used to do a lot of boogie and disco edits. He would take an old track and he would rework it into something more dancefloor friendly, because with a lot of older music there tends to be a groove, but a lot of going off into strange vortexes of weird instrumental type parts. Whereas if you just take the groove, that is the basis of a lot of house music and early electronic music; rather than using the whole song. So although in a way it is kind of stealing someone else’s music you are also reinterpreting, making it something different and something that people enjoy and is more dance-floor friendly.
We put our first EP out, which was by Jimmy under his artist name Jimmy the Twin. We got the records pressed up and hit the shops ourselves and the online distributors, and we managed to sell all of the copies. As these things tend to go, we started to grow. We started getting music from other people, but along a similar vein; always disco/boogie re-edits of original tracks. And that is how it ran for a little while, then we got a publishing and distribution deal so that really helped and it really started to take off.
Consequently we were putting out three or four releases a year, we were getting some really cool guys from different parts of the world doing some music for us. A guy from Brooklyn called Jacques Renault and one of the original members of the Wild Bunch DJ Milo. After a short while and a few releases we decided we wanted to try and do more original music. Personally I am into house music a lot more than James and Danny were, so we started a side label called Boogie Cafe Black. So the disco and edits were on one label, and the black label was house. That was really cool because we all came together at a certain point with the music, but had different ideas, so to have both labels running together really worked.
When did you start DJing and making music?
Probably in my late teens/ early twenties. When I was young I moved down to Cornwall with my dad, so I spent my secondary school and college years in Cornwall and started going to raves when I was about seventeen. The music scene down there then was amazing, I got to know people like The Aphex Twin, he is from my hometown, and people like Tom Middleton who is from Falmouth, and also Luke Vibert.
There was a really good, strong dance music scene down in Cornwall in the 90s, the clubs always played really good music, but they always used to finish quite early, they would be kicking out by midnight, so there were always these after parties, we used to call them Phase 2s, and we would all jump in cars and go in convoys down to a beach or some mad place in the middle of nowhere and carry on there. They were such great times.
I look back on those years and everything was so fresh, you know like if you were to hear a track at a party, there was no way you would find out what it was unless you asked the DJ. And then you would get mixtapes, my first real taste of house music was a really old Frankie Knuckles mix tape, and the tapes would get copied and copied and copied and passed around friends, and that was the only access you had to that music, you know what I mean? You would have just a tape and it would hiss, and sometimes it would snap. I probably sound just really nostalgic here, but everything was so exciting.
I totally remember the same thing! You would play it and play it and play it over and over again!
I remember I had a treasured tape, a proper rave tape and I loved it, and I was playing it to death. My Dad let me borrow his car once, and I left the tape in the tape deck, and then the next day I asked him to give me a lift somewhere, so we jumped in the car, and we probably went about 100 yards down the road, the tape came on full volume, and my Dad, totally cool and calm, just pressed eject and threw the tape out of the window.
I guess, you know, us middle aged people, we always look back on those days with fond memories, because it was a great time to be alive. I am definitely not saying that kids don't enjoy going to clubs and festivals now, in fact there is so much going on now, but if you want to find out what track is playing you just put your phone to the speaker. Dance music in general nowadays, the scene is so awash all of the time, there is so much coming out constantly, that if you don’t have the budget or the knowledge to properly market it, a load of good music is going by the wayside.
That is half the battle with this whole thing, although I love it, it feels like it’s a part time job for no money. When you have got a record coming out you have to be on social media all of the time. I dream one day of Gilles Peterson playing one of our tracks, we have had a little bit of stuff like that don’t get me wrong, but it feels like nowadays you have no chance in the world of getting your music in front of someone like that unless you are really lucky and he just finds it.
This is something that comes up so much with the musicians I speak to… feeling like you have to be Head of Marketing level just to get your music heard.
Yep. I’ve got my daughter Wren, I run my own company as well, I have so little time, but what money that does come into the label now from sales is generally put towards paying for a PR company. But, saying all of that, I do love it, and I fit it in when I can. Unless you have got loads of money to put behind it even then you don’t have a guarantee, but you get your occasional victories, like someone you know and love musically plays your record, or you get a good review in a magazine, and it is all worth it. Or even if someone messages you on social media and says ‘I love this!’; that is what you do it for.
Who are your music heroes then?
I guess my favourite DJ and producer is Mr Scruff. He just never disappoints. He is so eclectic, but everything he plays across the board, from a tripped out dub reggae track to kind of a rare boogie track, to some really cool deep house, he will go through the whole spectrum, but still keep it really cool. You will never go to a Scruff gig and know half the records he plays. He is a real digger, a real collector. And Gilles Peterson as well, obviously.
Bands and other stuff, live acts, I have always loved mod music, like The Style Council, The Jam.
Going back to the label…. Last year we decided to go our separate ways, me and Jimmy; Danny stopped a few years ago. Jimmy and me had a sit-down and had a chat and he decided he wanted to do his own label, and I decided I wanted to keep it going. He really wanted to really get deeper into re-releasing old rarities; tracking down amazing tracks that you can’t find on Discogs, real rare stuff, and doing legitimate reissues, and making sure the person who originally made that music gets paid for it. That was his dream. I took Boogie Cafe over on my own, but again, I was finding it tricky doing as much work as it deserves.
What are you planning on doing for the live stream?
Well, it’s pretty good timing because we have lots of new music coming out. I have actually teamed up with a guy called Chezz from Rotterdam, he has been over to DJ for me here, he did Love Saves The Day for us, and we are really into the same stuff, and we are partners in the label now. He has really good connections in Holland, and is bringing new music in from Amsterdam and Rotterdam artists, that I would never have heard of, and some of the music is just amazing. We have been releasing more deep house and broken beat; broken beat has elements of house, elements of jazz, even elements of reggae, the heavier stuff with a deep baseline. There is a real resurgence in the broken beat scene right now, some great stuff coming through.
Last year one of the releases I did was called Bologna on the Move, which was tracks from three different producers in Bologna, and it did really well, and I was really happy with it, so I am going to start doing different cities. So we are working on a thing called Rotterdam on the Move now; I am really excited about it, because some of the tracks are really amazing.
Then we have another release coming out soon from an old friend of mine from Cornwall called Piers Kirwan, from back in the day, and he has done a 4 track EP called Dialogue coming out at the end of October, so I am really keen to showcase some of our new stuff that is coming in.
So what have you been doing in lock down and what’s next? Have you done any live streams before?
No. But I do a radio show on Noods radio; those guys are really cool and it's a real community, it's all people who give up their time to get this thing going and showcase lots of different types of music. But then it got to a point where we couldn’t go into the studio, so I have done a few mixes for them. But their studios are opening up again so I am starting that up again, because I love doing radio. But I will admit I have cringed a bit at some of the live streams, people in their Hawaiian shirts in their sheds. So this will be the first one I have done. I did an outdoor gig in August at the Christmas Steps which was really nice, because I got to DJ with lots of friends, and it was seven hours long. But you couldn't dance.
It’s a real shame; dancing and singing are two of the most fundamental enjoyments people have in life. Take that away and you know, absolutely take that away, not even leave people with a taster, completely ban it, it is really strange and really short sighted. So many of my friends work in music and art and I really worry about them all. It could be done, you can still have nightclubs open, as long as everyone is sensible, wears a mask and washes their hands, I don’t see what the difference is from going to a restaurant or a pub really.
I was actually having a chat with Chezz the other day, about whether it was worth actually putting dance music out in the current climate. Then I was talking to my distributor and he was saying they have been busier than ever selling vinyl, there is always going to be collectors and people who physically want to buy music, so that’s not ever really gone away, so we will keep on.