Talking to: Don't Tell Your Mother

The Don’t Tell Your Mother crew at Bristol Pride © Natasha Davies -Walke

Chris Morgan and friend Lloydi Urquhart started Don't Tell Your Mother, a LGBTQ+FRIENDS club night, in 2014, offering up seriously good pop and disco vibes to not-so-serious party goers on the Bristol queer scene. It is a truly inclusive space for everyone to be themselves and that is what they pride themselves on, providing a space for everybody, from all walks of life, to dance together.

Their monthly nights at The Phoenix have become a lynchpin of the LGBTQ Bristol calendar. But until we can struggle through the crowds on the rammed dance floor clutching overspilling pints and buy a shot or two for Don’t Tell Your Mother’s fantastic drag queen double act Mother and Aunty at The Phoenix’s front bar, they are bringing the party to us this Friday on our Instagram. We had a chat with Chris recently about all things Don’t Tell Your Mother, the recent blossoming of the Bristol LGBTQ scene and why pop and disco reign supreme.

Don’t Tell Your Mother at the O2 © Vonalina Cake

Tell us a bit more about DTYM and who else is involved and why you started it up.

When I moved to Bristol in 2010 I used to go to Wonky, it was such a good night. I suppose at the time there wasn’t much choice of gay spaces in Bristol that played music that I wanted to hear. Quite often, not wanting to sound too disparaging, gay pubs and clubs often play a certain type of music and there isn’t much variation. So, although I love pop, it is quite often pure pop I love, it’s kind of a fun remix that I get into, rather than just normal stuff you hear at gay nights.

A friend of mine ran Wonky and when they wanted new DJs they asked me to put a playlist together. I was like “I don’t know what I am doing” and they just said “don’t worry, we’ll show you the basics, we will give you a trial run and see how it goes”. That was 2011 and the start of my DJ career.

Playing alongside me there was a guy called Lloydi, so we became friends and worked together. Wonky unfortunately died a couple of years later, I am not sure what happened, but these things do happen. Lloydi and I really wanted to do something, because there was a gap in the market for the kind of music we wanted to play and hear, and we wanted to get people together who used to go to Wonky. So we decided to set up Don’t Tell Your Mother, with some help from Daryn at Pride. Daryn gave us a slot at the Pride after party at the O2, we were in one of the back rooms for a couple of hours. So that was in August 2014 and it kind of went from there, it just grew and grew and grew.

Don’t Tell Your Mother at the Old Market Assembly ©Natasha Davies-Walke

Three years ago Nic Davies joined us, so three of us run it now and it is going from strength to strength. Don’t Tell Your Mother started off at the Phoenix, which is still our main home, although we also do occasional nights at The Exchange and The Assembly. They gave us the back room and said we could charge people at the back door to get in. It was crazy, there were all these cables running from the decks into the main bar, and often they would undo or blow the system and we would be left with no music whilst it got sorted, so we would be there singing along. Someone said the vibe was like the kitchen at a party, so we kind of ran with that, that house party vibe, where there are spaces to sit down and chat to people and be sociable, as well as a sweaty dance floor where you have to try and make your way through with drinks.

What would you say is the main philosophy of Don’t Tell Your Mother?

It’s a space for LGBTQ+ people to feel comfortable. And you know what? I think recently, even just in the last two years, that’s become very different in a good way. A lot more spaces, especially in Bristol, are becoming more open, but I think at the time in 2014 it didn’t feel that way. So we wanted it to be a space where everybody can be whoever they are. At the time it felt political and revolutionary, but now it doesn’t, things have moved on a bit. Our tagline is LBGTQ plus friends. You don’t want to say “you aren’t welcome if you are bigoted”, but that’s exactly what it means!

One of the things we did a few years ago was sign the Bristol Zero Tolerance pledge. We wanted to do something to say, “look, we are for nice people, and if you don’t want to come along and be nice you aren’t welcome”. We made it quite clear. The Phoenix is an amazing venue, they have such lovely staff, and that really builds that vibe. It’s just about being welcomed by those smiling faces; it is such a saccharine thing to say, but the smiling just helps to build that buzz. We were playing at The Phoenix monthly, and 100% we will be going back there as soon as we can.

Where have you most enjoyed playing?

We have done some really fun things; we played at a festival called Cock and Bull last year, that was so much fun, it was great to have the headline slot in a barn, and we had our dance minions with us, we had Mother and Aunty there, everyone made so much effort. We have also played at the Spiegeltent, with Anna Matronic, which was amazing. Playing at the O2 on the main stage for Pride, that is always a great thing to do; we have played the main stage for the last five years. I am not going to tell you anything official but the plans we had for this year were so incredible, and we were really sad we weren’t able to do it, but there is always next year.

Let’s move on to the music. What sort of music do you play? And what are you listening to right now, what is the music you are really into?

Lots! What a question! I absolutely love Lizzo, Kylie, Janelle Monae, Dua Lipa, Jessie Ware, Georgia, Roisin Murphy, lots of women. They make better music, I am allowed to say that?! I love pop, I think accessibility is important, you want to be able to pick something up everyone can enjoy. And if it’s something I really like as well that gets amplified into the crowd. I love all sorts of music, but in terms of what I play, it is the hits, along with songs I can’t get out of my head, so you are getting it now!

So what can we expect to hear on the livestream this Friday?

Good question! At the moment I am re-watching Pose, and the music is just incredible. I have got a little bit of 80s post disco to play. As an aside I have also been listening to a podcast called You’re Wrong About... There’s a really interesting one about Disco Demolition, and the backlash against disco in America. It is really interesting stuff, exploring where disco came from, so I am going to go full disco, as it’s Christmas. I’ll be playing stuff people want to hear at a Christmas party. I am pretty sure Mariah Carey will come out! Sorry!

Oh god no! We love Mariah! She is there right in the middle of our December Spotify playlist this month dropped right after a nasty techno track. Everyone needs a bit of Mariah at Christmas!

I went to Boomtown and someone played All I Want for Christmas Is You there and it was perfect!

Chris doing his thing at the Pride After party at the O2 ©Natasha Davies-Walke

Have you done any other live streams?

I have done a couple. My boyfriend also DJs for Don’t Tell Your Mother as DJ Pocket Rocket, and we have some decks at home, we have done a couple of Zooms with friends. The first time it was really impromptu, and we had around seven people with us; it was really fun for us to get the decks out. The week after we did it again and made it a bit more official, and it was brilliant, because people really joined in. I think that is what I am missing, the interaction, because it really feeds me, because that is the kind of ego I have got! So it comes to me, and I amplify it and throw it back, I really miss that kind of relationship with the crowd. I am really looking forward to getting that hit on Friday, that little bit of dopamine!

Chris’s will be playing live on our Instagram on Friday 11th December at 8.30pm.

Once they can, Don’t Tell Your Mother will be returning to their monthly residency at The Phoenix in Bristol.

Follow Don’t Tell Your Mother on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Photos provided by Vonalina Cake and Natasha Davies-Walke. Check out Von’s photography here and Natasha’s here.