Even with everything else that is going on in Manchester at the moment, from exciting new underground nights cropping up to the awesome line-ups at The Warehouse Project, Sankeys, Gorilla and Sound Control, Venus still tempts our raving pals on a regular basis, with Bitch in particular being a highlight of ours every month. The crowd, the staff, the line-ups and the venue itself provides an incredible foundation for a memorable club night, and October 2012′s Halloween Special was no exception.

We’d been looking forward to this night for months, especially as this was a Halloween Special night involving fancy dress and a chance to go crazy with outfits for the hours of raving ahead. For us, after months of summer partying and club nights, this last weekend of October as the clocks went back for winter, established a new season of raves and parties ahead – and what better way to do it than with Bitch at Venus the Club.

Being as excited for the line-up as we were for the excuse to dress up, we knew the night would be a memorable one. This Halloween saw a double header of some of the most exciting dance talents around, with the return of the legendary Kryder joined by house bad boys The Squatters and the brilliant Venus / Bitch residents. Last month Kryder totally smashed up the Bitch tent at Mint Festival, Leeds alongside dance legends Eddie Halliwell,  Michael Woods and more, so we were looking forward to raving to one of the most bizarre yet charismatic and creative DJ and producers around. Kyrder’s mysterious aura, complete with his trademark visor, was a fitting choice for a dark, spooky Halloween party setting.

We arrived at Venus at around 11pm and as expected, the club was packed with zombified creatures, scary masked characters, promiscuously dressed nurses, zombies and devils amongst many other brilliant costumers – at least a good three quarters of the crowd had got into the Halloween spirit. All this was brought to life by the fantastic makeover inside, Venus had been transformed into a horrifying haunt to set the scene for what was to be one of the craziest nights in Manchester.

The night kicked off with one third of B3, Lempo, who warmed up the party with a deep but banging house set, tweaked a little to sound a little different to the set he would be playing later alongside Russo and Pedro in their Ghostbuster themed B3 set. We’ve talked about Lempo’s diversity before on DMM, playing in cool outside bars in Spinningfields with Japwow, producing tracks of a distinctly “Lempo” sound and being a great representative for the Bitch sound, which many will be familiar with from B3′s Friday night shows on Unity Radio FM. As per usual, Lempo had us (Kurt, Laura, SpamellaB and myself) raving from the moment we entered the club.

Fellow Bitch favourite Paul Nag was next, building up the beats with some really cool party vibes. Since making his debut at Bitch in 2011 he has gone on to play every month since and his sets are always crowd pleasers, tonight was no exception, making us dance harder in our perhaps more restrictive attire, our man Kurt, dressed in a head-covering rubber Michael Myers mask must have been so hot but that didn’t stop him raving! Huge love for Mr Nag from the DMM team!

Next thing we know the decks were taken over and completely destroyed by 18 year old Irish producer and DJ, Junior J, who destroyed the floor with some awesome, heavy sounds, filthy mixes, storming tracks and just basically made Venus go wild. This is the first time we’ve seen him and we’ve got to say we were blown away with his energy, choice of material and ability to make us rave like crazy. We actually met Junior J the weekend before, when interviewing Audiofun (which is due to go up soon, we promise) and although we’d heard snippets about him, we were genuinely shocked at how well he took to the Bitch crowd, we’ll see more from him at WHP on the 10th November in room 3, we recommend you come and join in too.

Following Junior J were The Squatters, having recently been DJing around America, Ibiza and Majorca, they were full of energy, causing eruption with dirty bass house and heavy sounds blasting out, the explosive duo really did keep the Halloween carnage going. Loving Alex’s unzipped face by the way, looked quality and as always, the duo raised the bar with their ever improving set, much to the crowd’s approval.

Now it was Kryder’s turn to take over and continue the madness, smashing out huge tracks always Kryder put on a show not to be forgotten especially for the dark and mysterious theme of the night. Check out his latest offering with Bo Bruce below!

SpamellaB adds, “Let’s just say by now, about 3am, we were VERY messy but that didn’t stop us raving and dancing away to Mike (Lempo), Martyn Russo (Russo) and Pete Mobey (Pedro) who together make up the unstoppable house trio, B3. After seeing them completely smash the crowd up at Mint Festival and put on one of the liveliest DJ sets we’ve seen, it was great to see them back performing for only their third time as a threesome, which we still find hard to believe! Once again they didn’t fail to get us jumping around like crazy, dancing our scary faces off and still partying hard thanks to their filthy mixes, heavy house sounds, dirty bass beats – we loved the fact too they were dressed up as the Ghostbusters complete with backpacks and everything! #Respect.”

At this point, thanks to the extra hour of raving time, we were partied out (hey, we were at Warehouse Project for TEED the night before so cut us some slack!) and left just as Frater began his set, which we heard was still as heavy, loud, deep and filthy as we expected it to be. So, Bitch, once again you provided an absolute smasher of a night and made 2012’s Halloween night a pretty special and mad one so thank you – see you next month (without the costumes!).

You can see the the impressively talented Oliver Lang, DMM favourite Joshua Roberts and the always top-notch Bitch residents on the 24th November at Venus the Club or if you can’t wait that long,  you could always check out B3 and Junior J playing at the Warehouse Project on 10th November alongside Laidback Luke, Eddie Halliwell, Sandro Silva and more.

As always, a massive thank you to Eddy Gosht at Oh My Gosht Photography for the awesome photos, easily one of the best club / festival photographers around!

Join the Facebook event for the next Bitch night for more info, follow us on Twitter, Facebook or have a Jager with us next time you’re out!

Michael Woods – Joins in Bitch’s 6^th Birthday celebrations.

An artist who has been there, done that and printed the T-shirts. Michael’s achieved so much in his career, countless hit singles, a legendary homegrown imprint, gigs in every corner of the globe and still, after years on the circuit, packs out events and can call all the industry’s greatest as advocates of his work.

No wonder Bitch Events, one of Manchester’s biggest house nights who have reached the 6^th anniversary of their conception, have chosen Michael as their headliner at not just the Manchester event but as they take on their first arena at the nationally renowned Mint Festival.

As Michael Woods prepares to help Bitch celebrate in style, let’s take a minute of his time to find out what we can expect!

You’ve managed to make that enviable cross over and produced for some big pop acts like Example – how do they come about?

If I knew the exact answer to that I’d be knocking them out once a week haha! I don’t decide to do them they just come about. The main goal when producing is to try to make tracks I know will work well in the clubs and that will get the clubbers going nuts. If that track happens to cross over then that’s all good.


What’s it like working with people from more mainstream genres?

No different to working with anyone else, at the end of day people I work with have a passion for music and they want to share their talent and I’m happy to work with anyone who shows as much enthusiasm for music as I do.

What have you got going on at the moment, we’ve heard whispers about a new single?

Yes, I have a brand new release scheduled for release on the 21st October 2012 that features the vocal talents of Ester Dean. The single is called “We’ve Only Just Begun” and is a being released on Ministry of Sound. The video is really sleek and artistic and features the Team GB Gymnastics squad.

You’re a big advocate of pushing the boundaries and exploring where music can take people and run your own label Diffused, are you heavily involved in picking what it releases?

Yes as I want the label to represent the kind of music I play out and the kind of music I know people respond to. It’s really good to get so many cool demos through every day from musicians all around the world and all I can say to people is keep making the music and keep sending it through.

You’ve been a Bitch Events favourite for sometime, playing at their sellout NYD this year already, how was that party?

That party was incredible from the moment I entered until the moment I left, sometime the following day, it was awesome. Even Eddie Halliwell came along to the party, which is an experience in itself and I’m looking forward to the next Bitch event and can’t wait to play alongside Eddie for this one.

What should people expect from you in the Bitch Arena at Mint festival?

I’ll be dropping a lot of new music I’ve been working on lately, some really interesting collaborations in there, namely one with Chris Lake I’m really looking forward to road testing – Bitch will be getting a world exclusive as they’ll be the first ears to hear it.

Festivals vs Clubs – do you have a preference? You’re playing both the Mint Festival Arena for Bitch and their club night in Manchester, can you even compare the two?

It’s really hard to compare the two and I don’t really have a favourite as they both get me motivated in totally different ways. Festivals are great because you tend to be playing in front of a large crowd and the ambience of that is incredible – whereas clubs are more an intimate affair and you can literally reach out and touch the crowd – which is really cool.

What do you make of Leeds and its parties generally? Good vibes?

I love Leeds, and have done so for many years. My mates and me used to take road trips from London to Leeds on a regular basis because the party scene there is so vibrant – everyone wants to have a good time and party non-stop

And finally, anything you’d like to tease the Bitch and Mint crowds with?

Yes, I’m hoping they can catch because I’ll be throwing out a few of my read “MW” sunglasses in to the crowd!

For all the information on Bitch’s birthday weekend, tickets and details of the arena at Mint Festival visit – www.bitchevents.com

For those who can’t make Mint Festival, the Bitch Arena will be streaming live on Be-at.tv, between 5 and 9pm, with Michael Woods, BBC Radio 1′s Danny Howard, Kryder and D.O.D. so you don’t have to miss out completely!

 

 

 

On Saturday 29th September, Manchester’s biggest monthly house night celebrates it’s 6th Birthday with one hell of a party in store for those attending. We’re big fans of Bitch and Venus the Club at Dance Music Manchester and since we popped our Bitch cherry we’ve only missed one event so far. This is purely down to the fact we love the crowd, the club and the music so we massively recommend heading down to Venus on the 29th for what promises to be an incredible night.

Have we forgotten something? Oh yes… Not only have the Bitch Events team booked the legend that is Michael Woods to headline the event alongside the awesome squad of resident DJs for the club but they are also hosting a full arena at the brand new Mint Festival in Leeds, a one day event with some of the cream of the crop from the DJ World in attendance.

In June, the at the time unknown entity B3 was finally revealed, with Bitch residents Lempo, Russo and Pedro combining into a super-group that well and truly shocked the club with a stormer of a set. One of the best set’s we’ve witnessed at DMM, judging by the crowd reaction, atmosphere, variety and technicalities involved, the trio used their knowledge of the Bitch crowd and performed a memorable set to the Venus faithful. As their second ever gig together is at a festival, the lads will go far and have our every faith that they will make the festival-crowd go wild. If you missed their debut, make sure you head over to Leeds so you can witness B3 before they’re huge and in the future you can say, “Yes, I was there!”

The same night as the birth of B3, Bitch launched their new music label, announcing their first release as Felix Leiter‘s, “Your Future is Digital“. A track that made the crowd go wild and Felix’s set raised the bar for what was a truly memorable Saturday night. You can catch Felix at Mint Festival, to see what the fuss was all about.

After smashing it out at Creamfields, with SpamllaB, Kurt Lee, Party Animal and myself throwing some mad shapes at the front of the crowd, Manchester based DJ, Kryder, will be bringing the bass with what will be an unmistakably eclectic set, mixed with his new releases, remixes of classics and on-trend floor fillers, as he always does, whatever the venue. Hopefully, the Mint staff will have checked the smoke cannons are working or the fire extinguishers will be coming out once more!

Leading the charge the Bitch Arena, is the legend known as Mr. Eddie Halliwell after kicking the living daylights out of dance floors across the globe this year, from India to Croatia and at the end of September we will be graced with his presence in Lotherton Hall, Leeds. I don’t think we need to explain how good an Eddie Halliwell party is, do we?

A “special guest announcement” will be made shortly with another World class headline act that will impress even the most dedicated of ravers. We’re privileged enough to know who this is and my God this act is HUUUGGEEEE! Trust your DMM friends on this one! Radio 1 DJ, and Bitch favourite, Danny Howard will join forces with the incredible Third Party, Bitch regular D.O.D., Riley & Durrant, Dale Castell and Mikey Nelson completing the Bitch Arena.

Over the next few days, we’ll be doing a preview on each of the arenas, so watch this space as there are some awesome acts involved including Jamie Jones, Seth Troxler and Reboot (and that’s just the System and Flux Arena!)

Tickets for Mint are still on sale, if you’re heading over from Manchester, the lovely folks at Bitch are providing a coach from Venus, to Leeds and back again, just in time for Bitch @ Venus! As another gift, they’re packaging up a ticket to the festival, the return travel and a ticket to the club for just £60. Who fancies a party from midday to 6am? We know we do!

Follow Bitch on Facebook / Twitter
Follow Mint Festival on Facebook / Twitter
Book tickets for Mint Festival

A few weeks ago we  shared the news of a new festival launch in Leeds, hosted by the team behind the Mint Club & Mint Warehouse.  As you can see the from poster above, the line-up is sick.

Highlights for us have to be Jamie Jones / Seth Troxler in the System & Flux tent, Reboot and pretty much the entire Bitch tent. Eddie Halliwell is a known favourite of Dance Music Manchester’s, supported by Michael Woods, BBC Radio 1′s Danny Howard, Third Party, the man behind the visor Kryder, D.O.D and former DMM Track of the Month winner Felix Leiter. To top this off, Dale Castell, Micky Nelson and the INCREDIBLE B3 for their first live gig since their incarnation at June’s Bitch night at Venus, one of the best clubnights DMM have ever witnessed. Oh and the small matter of a very, very special guest to be announced soon. If we could share this, we would but for now you’ll just have to trust us, the final act is HUGE.

The first release are already sold-out but a festival with this collection of talent should not be missed. Get your ticket before they sell out, which they will.

Tickets
Tickets are currently available from Ticket Arena. More online outlets + paper tickets will be available soon

1st Release: £27.50 *SOLD OUT*
2nd Release: £32.50 *SOLD OUT*
3rd Release: £37.50
VIP: Info coming soon.

Buy tickets now from Ticket Arena.
http://bit.ly/MintFest2012TA

Fancy a lift?
For those living in Manchester, Bitch are running a coach pick up from Blackfriars Street, M3 2EG (outside Venus)  at 11am leaving from festival at 11pm arriving back to Venus, just in time for the monthly Bitch night! Package price is £50 but if you’re heading to the club for the Bitch after party, save a few quid on the club ticket with a £60 coach, festival and club ticket! For more info,  contact Ric Feingold on 07968461199 and party with us on the coach and through the night!

My first encounter with a Bitch night was in April with American, house DJ and awesome performer, Gina Star. The hospitality of Venus, the quality of the DJs and the friendliness in the atmosphere made for one of my favourite regular club nights in Manchester. I commented on how the dress code was smart and that I didn’t think people would be there to rave, at first anyway but the rave went on until the early hours, high heels and all. The friendliness of the crowd made you feel welcome and relaxed and people were genuinely there to enjoy themselves. Naturally, I haven’t missed a Bitch or even many Venus nights since. The standards were already high so I was looking forward to a good night but I don’t think anyone knew quite how memorable it would be.

From the Applique Music Showcase, we met our guestlist competition winners by chance so headed down to the club with them, chatting about how refreshing it was to head to The Yacht Club for a chilled out party before the short walk over for the main event. All of their friends seemed to agree with our thoughts, the cool, relaxed warm-up vibe was so much better than just getting smashed in someone’s flat, then staggering into town, half cooked. Landing at Venus just as the venue was starting to fill, I joined my friends already dancing in the back room, giving Lempo some breathing space. He had been stuck with me for 28 hours by this point, poor fella.

I was surprised to hear a lot of my friends hadn’t actually been to Bitch or Venus but when I caught up with them in the main room, I didn’t need to ask if they were enjoying themselves. Big smiles, big dance moves and huge amounts of banter said it all. Then Felix Leiter‘s new tune, “Your Future is Digital”, dropped for the first time of the night.

You can tell a big tune will be huge when you first hear it in a club by the way the crowd reacts and wow, the crowd reacted. Even the remaining few who weren’t already dancing were bouncing, fists in the air, massive grins on the faces of the Venus faithful. Club bangers like this need a packed nightclub to reach their audio-orgasmic potential. As expected, Felix Leiter’s set was nothing short of extra-ordinary. Technically sound but as I’ve said before, in a club it’s about making the crowd happy. If you’ve seen the Bitch TV episode with the Felix Leiter interview already, you’ll see how up-for-it the whole place seemed to be. As resident at Digital in Newcawstle, Mr. Leiter is used to a solid, clubbing audience and this showed in his confidence in the booth, reading what the crowd likes and playing to their tastes.

Kim Fai also stepped up the game, raising the bar once more. By this point the crowd were well and truly buzzing, Kim concentrating on the audience to keep the mood at the clubing sweet spot Felix had produced. We were stood behind him for a short while, a rare occassion yes as we tend to stay in the middle of the party not posing in the booth and just just observed as hundreds of dancing party animals beckoned to Kim’s every call.

Kim was clearly enjoying himself too, dancing away behind the decks, with Lempo on the other side of the booth pumping up the crowd jumping up and down with excitement as the big tunes kicked in. Playing a lot of tunes from Steve Angello’s Size Records, understandably, the biggest hit seemed to be his remix of “Sun & Moon” by Above and Beyond, which coincidentally ties in with our DMM Raver of the Week Award. And the winner is…drum roll please… Jono (aka Jonathan Lee) from Applique!

At this point, Lempo, myself and Emily, a new friend of DMM’s, headed over to the Renaissance Hotel to interview Felix. Being a packed clubnight, not everything always goes according to schedule, so we were stood chilling outside for a short period when some clearly messed up guy, covered in blood and totally oblivious to his condition tried to get into Venus. Quick note, he hadn’t come from Venus, in fact trouble of any kind is rare but nevertheless he was still trying to talk to Lempo and myself. As polite and friendly as Lempo is, how he kept his patience, I don’t know as the guy was trying to lean on him, rest his arm on Lempo’s shoulder, all whilst covered in blood. He did though and earned even more respect from myself and Emily as many in his situation wouldn’t have been so considerate.

We then crossed over to the Renaissance, for the Bitch TV interview with Felix. We all sat down and before Lempo had chance to introduce us, Felix being the gent that he is, introduced himself with complete sincerity. Now this is a guy who’s just smashed the hell out of a club, releasing an incredible track on Bitch Music and has an incredible past, present and future ahead of him and he still has the time of day to be a genuine bloke. Good game mate, good game.

The interview itself was awesome to watch, a few out-takes were made before we could get the full video but it was very funny to behold. Quite interesting to watch an interview from the camera behind the camera too, letting Lempo take control of the conversation. It was quite impressive too, watching him switch from DJ, to radio host, to clubber and then to interviewer without a blink of an eye. Will have to take lessons from the man himself I reckon!

The final cut of the interview is embedded as part of an incredible video by Jo3 Design that really highlights what is so awesome about Bitch. It’s not just a club night but it’s how club night’s should be, everybody is dancing, all enjoying an epic night and Joe’s skill behind a camera catches it perfectly. It’s extremely difficult to do this night justice writing this chapter but this video should help immensely! Watch it now:

Heading back to the club, we managed to catch the end of Kim’s set, the crowd still manically dancing away. When something I’d been waiting for most of the weekend finally happened. The launch of B3. We had heard the B3 promo mix and knew this was going to be something special. When Martyn Russo, Pete Mobey and Lempo himself donned B3 t-shirts and headed towards the booth, the crowd seemed to go crazy, ourselves included.

These were the lads they have known and loved for ages, lads that knew the audience, the music and exactly how to play together but this was their first live gig as a trio, so would the pressure get to them? Not in the slightest. Using the experience they have as individuals, during Bitch nights and The Bitch Show on Unity Radio, they tore the crowd apart. I have genuinely never seen a more perfectly targeted club set and neither had the hundreds of crazed animals, raving on the dance floor. The set must have been meticulously planned as the three seemed to relay off each other, each knowing exactly what the others were doing at any time, whilst still partying as if they were on the other side of the booth! Adding to this, 80-90% of the tracks were bootlegs, all of which seemed to be perfect for the occasion, the party was immense.

Then this happened:

As we hit that moment of peace, the build up before the big drop on Avicii’s, “Super Love”, the crowd stopped dancing and sat down. Now we know sit-downs have happened before but when the Swedish House Mafia did it at Creamfields, they actually asked the crowd to do it. B3 had nothing to do with this as it was genuinely a sign of the massive amount of respect everyone had for Lempo, Pete and Martyn. When the track dropped, Venus went absolutely mental. Awesome moment, one the B3 lads will remember for a long time.

The set I saw from B3 was something that had to be seen to be believed. I would go as far as to say it was the best 4-5am set at the club to date. They set up Frater & Stent for the best 5-6am set too. B3…The ones to watch. Ben, Manager of Venus Nightclub, Manchester.

At the end of B3′s set, Frater & Stent jumped in with the Bitch trio, massive credit to Chris and Ryan, they didn’t allow the party to fade for one instant, providing the perfect end to the night.

One last thing to mention, is a massive thank you to Eddy Gosht (Oh My Gosht Photography) for allowing us to use the incredible club night photos he takes. If you like them, check out the Oh My Gosht Facebook Page! Also a thanks to Adrian Jones (Reworked Robot) for the Youtube Video of the B3 sit down, Venus for their hospitality as always, Bitch for providing such an awesome monthly event and everyone else involved so far this weekend.

Download the B3 Promo Mix for FREE or read Chapter 4 – Applique Music Announcement NOW!

Follow:

Lempo
B3
Pete Mobey
Martyn Russo
Kim Fai
Felix Leiter
Chris J Frater
Venus Manchester
Bitch Events
and Dance Music Manchester on Twitter.

Like:

Venus Manchester
Bitch Events
and Dance Music Manchester on Facebook

If you’re enjoying the #48HrsWith @IamLempo story so far, don’t worry. There will be at least 2 more chapters, about our day in the Applique Music studio, the DJs on the label and a full interview with Lempo himself, the next chapter being published on Saturday evening!

Boots n cats!