Luvdup (Adrian and Mark)

Adrian writes: "I first discovered early House back in 1986 at the Hacienda's Nude (and later Hot) night courtesy of DJ's Mike Pickering and Graeme Park (not to mention Martin Prendergast, Mr Pickering's original partner- the DJs were billed as MP² originally, and I had great expectations for a Night called "Nude", but alas, there was no nakedness at all). I started DJ-ing professionally almost by accident in 1991, when I worked at Vinyl Exchange record shop and Justin Robertson ("Godfather of Northern Balearic")asked me if I would like to be the new resident at his "Most Excellent" night. I had been DJ-ing on and off for a few years before that (I'd started out my DJ career by blagging a job at the infamous Gallery back in the early 80's, spinning soul stuff (well, for the time it was "modern") like Deluxe, Thomas Esterine, Dennis Edwards, Keni Burke, Loose Ends, 52nd Street, etc. I'd told the boss of The Gallery, a dubious character in a white suit called Omar, that I was a professional DJ whilst very drunk one night, and he believed me and gave me a job. I absolutely loved those nights as resident at Most Excellent, firstly at the State (once the Twisted Wheel) on Sackville Street, and then at The Brickhouse on Whitworth Street. I think those early Balearic days as Justin's resident (and partying at nights like Spice, Glitter Baby, Space Funk and Circus) gave me some of the best times of my life, and the trips to clubs like Venus in Nottingham with Justin, Greg Fenton, Richard Moonboots and demented manager Ross were truly insane... Soon I started to make my name around Manchester as Adrian Luvdup (if you were in the UK club scene in the late 80's, you can probably guess the origins of my new surname, which was given to me after one of the aforementioned trips to Venus in Nottingham by Andy E of Eastern Bloc Records- it was spelt the way it was as a mickey take of our Northern way of pronouncing the phrase "loved up" - I now see it spelt like that everythere!) and teamed up with Mark Van Den Berg (a DJ who had fled military conscription in South Africa whom I had befriended in Manchester, having met each other at the Hacienda on New Year's Eve 1991) to start our own "Luvdup" nights. We started off with one-off parties at some very strange venues (a run-down club in Chorlton, before Chorlton became "cool"), a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, a gay bar near the coach station) before launching our first weekly Luvdup night at the now long-gone Venue on Whitworth Street. The music was a mad mix of House and Balearic, and I remember doing stuff like mixing two different copies of Madonna's "Like a Prayer" together to create a "Luvdup Anthem". There was a healthy dose of disco in the mix, as well as some US Hi-Energy from the likes of Bobby Orlando and Patrick Cowley - me and Mike Smith (aka Mike Luvdup, aka Balearic Mike) were probably looked at with some bemusement by the staff on our regular trips to purchase old Hi-Energy 12" singles from the basement of Clone Zone in the Village! This was before the Hacienda did their "Flesh" night, and I think we were one of the first nights in Manchester to have a good mix of gay and straight in the club. We had a very flamboyant six-foot-something guy called Elton on the door (he'd also run the door at Most Excellent)and he did a great job of making sure a great, friendly, up-for-it, mixed crowd always filled the club. In those early days, we did it purely out of love for the music and the vibe of those times, we never imagined for one minute where those early nights would eventually take us. it's so difficult to explain the atmosphere of those times to anyone who wasn't a part of it, but my love of the club scene and dance music almost bordered on the religious at that time. God, I miss that youthful exuberance and blind optimism! We'd given out a home-made fanzine (influenced by "Boy's Own", "The End" and Manchester's own "Spice") at our first party, and somehow The Face magazine picked up on it and published a small article about it and our parties. How much this helped with publicity, I'll never know, but the nights were packed from the start. We made loads of effort, decking out the venue in hearts, heart-shaped balloons and streamers, giving out Luvdup lucky bags (filled with goodies like hand-made heart pendant necklaces and love heart sweets) on the door and even taking a photo of the crowd one night to print on the front of our own Luvdup Xmas cards which we gave out to everyone on our Xmas Special (along with our mate Baldie doing a very convincing job of playing Santa despite being very slim, young and black)! From there, the Luvdup thing really took off. We moved from The Venue to doing our wonderfuly sweaty "Hell" night at The No 1 Club (which we advertised with posters all over Manchester simply saying "Go To Hell"), our fantastic "Jolly Roger" night at The Paradise Factory (with Justin Robertson running his eclectic "Rebellious Jukebox" on the top floor) where the queue on a Thursday would stretch all the way down the road to the BBC on Oxford Road, and finally our packed "Sat At Home" residency at Home nightclub on Ducie Street (which was brilliant till gangsters went and ruined everything). To cut a long story short, we managed to make it pretty big on the House music scene- we were voted in the top 25 in the world by DJ Magazine, remixed and produced over 50 tracks, Luvdup's first single was Mixmag Single Of The Week and Pete Tong's Essential New Tune on Radio 1, we both got a gold disc for the mix we did for Fantazia "Club Classics Volume 1" , we wrote a monthly “Balearic” review column for Mixmag magazine, had a 2 hour "Essential Mix" broadcast on Radio 1 and we got to travel all over the UK and the world having a mad time and getting paid for it! To be honest though, nothing can compare to the madness and the enthusiasm of those early Luvdup parties and their mad Balearic spirit. It was a bit like a mad dream, looking back, and I find it a miracle sometimes that I'm still here today in one piece and with my sanity intact. Excess was embraced with both arms, and I shudder now at some of the states I got into, although they were truly special times which I feel very lucky to have played my part in." (Submitted 03.05.07)