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The Creative Boom Podcast
From Rave Culture to Print Revival: Paul Benney on Jockey Sl*t, Bugged Out! & Disco Pogo
01:05:53
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- [00:07]
A
He's the man who co founded one of the most iconic dance music magazines of all time and one of the UK's longest running club nights. And he's helping us kick off a brand new season of the Creative Boom podcast. In this episode, I chat with Paul Benny, the creative force behind Jockey Slut, and Bugged out about his journey through decades of dance culture and why he's back in print with Disco Pogo, a magazine that carries the spirit of the underground into a new era. Paul shares how Jockey Slut began in Manchester in the early 90s. Born from a love of electronic music, a sense of humor and a scrappy DIY mindset, it became a cult classic, capturing the energy of a scene that was exploding while giving a voice to artists before they went mainstream. Around the same time, Bugged out became one of the UK's most influential club nights, known for its fearless programming and iconic parties. He launched Disco Pogo a few years ago with fellow co founder John Burgess, answering a collective call for a new kind of music magazine, one rooted in community, quality and print. But with the media industry shifting yet again and the decline of search and social making it harder for platforms to reach their audiences, we felt it was a timely conversation. What does it mean to run a print magazine today? How do you stay relevant, visible and sustainable? This episode takes a good look at the highs and lows of publishing club culture and why, despite it all, Paul still believes in the power of independent media to bring people together. This season of the Creative Boom podcast is proudly sponsored by James Cropper. The the last mill standing in Britain for premium coloured paper. Its new colour source range puts designers first, giving you direct access to 50 stunning shades in a range of weights and textures. Straight from the mill, incredible colour, crafted in the Lake District and delivered straight to your door. Discover the paper that brings your ideas to life via paperandpackaging.james cropper.com oh, we've got a good one to start off the new season with. I've been really looking forward to this. It's been possibly a couple of years in the making with a few sort of setbacks in between. Paul Benny of Disco Pogo it is so lovely to have you on the show.
- [02:40]
B
It's great to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
- [02:42]
A
And we're going to be chatting today about something that I personally am very passionate about. It's about the media, magazines and music and how you're basically navigating this new era that we're in where you, you know as well as I do, it's Very challenging.
- [02:58]
B
Yeah, Very challenging time for media, you know, online and print. I grew up where, you know, I grew up reading print magazines. So, yeah, it's nice to be working on a print magazine again now.
- [03:11]
A
Same. I used to collect them and I used to get such big stacks of magazines. I think lots of little girly magazines and Music Mix Mag was always in there as I got a bit older. And nme.
- [03:23]
B
Yeah, I mean, the weekly music papers, that was my background. That was, you know, that was very important period for me in my teenage years. Buying Enemy, Melody Maker, I used to buy Sounds as well. We had three weekly music papers and it was exciting, literally exciting when they came out on a Wednesday, because it was the only way you could find out about music other than the radio. So you'd be listening to John Peel and waiting for Wednesday to come around so that you could pick up the weekly music papers. Or if you were in London, when I was occasionally visiting London, you could get them on a Tuesday. That was really exciting to get them a day early.
- [04:01]
A
All before the Internet, all before social media. It was, you know, media was king, wasn't it, really?
- [04:06]
B
Back then, you'd read if you wanted to find out anything about what was going on in music, what gigs there were, what records were coming out, what gossip there was, the only place that you could find it was in the weekly music papers. And if you read a review in the Enemy and it was said that an album was a 9 out of 10 and it was a great record without hearing a note, you went to the shop and you bought the record. Which just sounds crazy to the way that we, compared to the way we operate nowadays, know, you'd definitely get dressed up, wouldn't you?
- [04:42]
A
You'd curate your outfit, make sure you look like you belong to that kind of crowd.
- [04:46]
B
Exactly. All, all, all part of it. But I mean, nowadays, if you hear that something's good, you go and listen to it, don't you?
- [04:53]
A
Yes.
- [04:54]
B
You turn on Spotify or another streaming service and you. You check it out. But yeah, or if you were to read a good review somewhere in a broadsheet newspaper, for instance, you would. You're unlikely to go and buy, you know, a vinyl copy of the record, for instance, just off the back of that review, you're gonna go and listen to a bit of it and see whether that person is right or not.
- [05:16]
A
But yeah. Do you know what we tend to do. Do you know what we tend to do these days, Paul? We go to festivals and in prep for the music festival, this is how sad I've become. We'll sort of find a playlist on Spotify and listen to it for the weeks leading up to the festival. We did that for Green man in August and we're like, oh, these sound good. Oh, we'll definitely go and watch those. Oh, let's make a note of that band. We'll go and watch those on the Friday night. And that's. That's how we. How we do it. It's so funny how times change, but.
- [05:47]
B
That'S a great idea. You know, that's not a sad thing to do. It's, you know, that's one of the upsides of streaming services that you can, you know. You know, you can be going to something and you can think, right, there's, you know, there's 20 bands here I've never heard of. I'm going to go and check them out. So, yeah, there is an upside to it, but there was a certain magic to buying a record off the back of a review that you might never have bought otherwise, because the person writing the review had taste that you trusted. And I found loads of great records that way.
- [06:17]
A
Do you think it's a sort of common thing for us kids? We sort of have that real passionate focus on music and culture in our teenage years, and then lots of life happens, you know, we grow families and businesses and careers and we kind of get stuck in an era. Do you feel like you haven't fallen victim to that same trajectory?
- [06:39]
B
I feel like I haven't fallen victim to that, actually. But what I've become more comfortable with now is looking back a bit more. So I think for a long time I was so anti. What. I was so determined not to fall into the trap that you just described that I. I was just completely obsessed with new music and the things that I really loved and I loved 20 years ago or 30 years ago, I was never listening to, and that's a bit of a shame. So now I've got a bit more comfortable with, you know, looking back, I'm still interested in new music and listen to new music every day. But I've realized that if it was a good album 20 or 30 years ago, it's probably still a good album now. So I'm a lot more comfortable with enjoying the things that I've grown up with, while at the same time trying to keep on top of new stuff.
- [07:32]
A
I love that. Do you still buy the merch?
- [07:34]
B
Sometimes. I mostly buy the merch for my kids, though, because I'm off to Billy Eilish Tomorrow.
- [07:40]
A
Oh, nice.
- [07:41]
B
At the O2 with my. My kids and they'll definitely be wanting T shirts and we would. We've just come back from Glastonbury. They both got Charlie XCX T shirts, so I suppose I'll occasionally buy merch. I was browsing the LCD sound system merch at the gig that I went to of theirs at Brixton Academy. Didn't end up buying anything, but. So, yeah, occasionally. But most of the merch purchased purchases for my kids nowadays.
- [08:06]
A
Yeah. Do you. So you haven't got that kind of uncomfortable, big gap between yourself and your kids because you've gone a kind of similar level or are there things that you're introducing them to that they'd never heard of or vice versa?
- [08:18]
B
Well, I mean, they've got their own taste and. But at Glastonbury, you know, they love. They want. They. They went see Charlie xcx, I went to see Neil Young. I would have loved to have seen Charlie xcx, but I couldn't do both. And I thought, I'm never going to get a chance to see Neil Young ever again. No. Whereas there's going to be other opportunities to see Charlie xcx. But then another nice thing at Glastonbury is my youngest daughter, who's 13, she wanted to see Gracie Abrams, so we went to watch her and she was great. And there was another artist, Faye Webster, that my older daughter wanted to go and see, so I went to see that with her. And I have to admit, I'd never heard a great. I'd never knowingly heard a Gracie Abrams or a Faye Webster song ever before. So I saw them for the first. I heard them for the first time there and they were both great. They were both talented, independent, strong women. And all I thought of was that I was, you know, really proud of my daughter's tastes, basically.
- [09:22]
A
Yeah, well, she probably gets it from you, you know, and your partner, maybe.
- [09:27]
B
And I have obviously gone through the process of introducing them to loads of stuff, you know, like David Bowie and Talking Heads and those things that are just incredible that you're like, you've got to know about this. When they both started getting interested in vinyl, then, yeah, of course we introduced them, but. But at the same time, it's best to let them work it all out for themselves, isn't it? You know?
- [09:50]
A
Yeah.
- [09:51]
B
I don't really want them to just inherit my taste. I'd rather them do what I did, which is get a bit of guidance from other people, but also just figure it out for Themselves.
- [10:02]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And without going too much into your background, because we're focusing on what's happening now. But you were behind the print magazine Jockey Slut, which was very popular back in its day, which sadly came to an end.
- [10:16]
B
Well, yeah, I mean, I went to Manchester Polytechnic, which is now called Manchester Metropolitan University.
- [10:25]
A
Yeah.
- [10:25]
B
So I can now say I went to uni, but I didn't really. I went to Bali and I went there because I was obsessed with Manchester, Manchester music, the Smiths, Joy Division, New Order.
- [10:36]
A
And what year was that? What year did you start?
- [10:39]
B
I went in 89. Oh. And I'd come Golden age. Yeah. I was in Bletchley, Milton Keynes, which. Which was a cultural desert.
- [10:48]
A
Yeah.
- [10:48]
B
And all of a sudden I was in Manchester in 1989 and Manchester. Manchester was happening. And I'm reading about, in these weekly music papers, which are my absolute bible. I'm reading that this is the place. This is the best place on earth to be if you're into music. I couldn't believe it. So, you know, I got into the Happy Mondays and the Stone Roses and the Inspiral Carpets and the Paris Angels and. And then from there I went to the Hacienda and found this whole other kind of music. Yeah, house music and, you know, kind of didn't look back. So I. I was determined to be a music journalist. It was the only job I ever wanted to do. I thought that, you know, that I thought, that's what I'm going to do. That's the thing I want to do. I didn't. There wasn't a second and a third choice and was never going to be a musician. I didn't have any talent in that area. Area. So, yeah, obsessed with music, wanted to be a music journalist, wrote for the college magazine, which was called Pulp, and me and my now partner in Disco Pogo, we became joint music editors of the college magazine. Kind of an embarrassing thing. It was a. It was. It was a mix up. We'd both been promised the job, so we both turned up and we were like, oh, we better share it.
- [12:12]
A
Oh, that's cool.
- [12:13]
B
So that was quite a nice thing. And, you know, now that 30 years over 30 years later, we're still working together, so. But I was. So I wrote for the college magazine. My course finished, I went back to Milton Keynes. I worked for the Open University is local to us. I went, did an admin job there for a few months. I wrote to the Enemy and said, okay, I've finished college, here's my clippings. Can I have a job. They actually wrote back and said, no, there's no jobs. Didn't mention my writing. They didn't say it was good or bad. They just said, thanks for the letter. There's no jobs. I couldn't believe they replied. I also thought, oh, my God, what am I gonna do now? Oh, I was gonna write for the Enemy. That was my job.
- [12:56]
A
That was your dream.
- [12:57]
B
That was my dream. And my. And the second. My, My. Yeah, I. Like I said, I didn't have a second choice. I wasn't going to go and work for the Open University for the rest of my life. Great institution, obviously. Probably an amazing place to work as well. That's what. Wasn't what I wanted to do. So I went back up to Manchester and said to John Burgess, who'd ended up running the college magazine for a year after he'd finished his course as a paid job, he had access to an A4, an Apple Mac computer with a black and white A4 screen.
- [13:31]
A
Gosh.
- [13:33]
B
He had a. They had a phone in the office as well.
- [13:36]
A
Wow.
- [13:36]
B
And I just said, haven't got a. I didn't get the Enemy gig.
- [13:41]
A
Oh.
- [13:42]
B
So I think we, you know, so we did. We. We. We used to stay up and. And be on the Hacienda dance hall talking about ideas of things we could do together. And we said, well, let's start our own magazine.
- [13:53]
A
I can see you, you know, I can see you back then in your face. I can see that. The kind of innocence, the. The naivety and the charm and, like, okay, well, all right, that's not going to work. So what next?
- [14:06]
B
Yeah, there was naivety, definitely, and there was a lot of energy and I was 22, obsessed with music in this incredible place, you know, in the. In Manchester when, you know, like I said, the best place to be in the world if you're into music at that particular time. Even in. Even beyond 89, even in 92, it's still. It still was. And I thought, yeah, let's start our own magazine. So, you know, obviously a fanzine, and we got a little bit of money together. I seem to remember it was about 500 quid, but, I mean, that's a lot. We borrowed the. We maxed out our overdrafts and I think we got a bit of help from the Prince's Trust at some point, but I'm sure it was hundreds of pounds, not any more than that. And we. I took photographs at the time, so I took my camera and I took. You know, I went out to clubs and took photos. Me and Jono were both journalists. Well, we. We decided that we were journalists by that point, so. And we found a local printer and I wandered down to the Hacienda and knocked on the door and said, we're starting a magazine. Will you advertise? And they said, yes. Amazing guy called Leroy who ran. He ran Dry Bar. So he said, yeah, I'll take one for Dry Bar and we'll take one for the Hacienda. Which is an incredible thing, isn't it?
- [15:27]
A
Yeah.
- [15:27]
B
You know, we're 22 years old, the magazine doesn't exist at this point and they're already committing to an advert. Things like that really gave us, you know, a lot of belief.
- [15:40]
A
Yeah.
- [15:40]
B
And we got the first issue together and then we'd go to the shops like Eastern Block and Picadilly Records and other record shops around the northwest. It was 99 pence a copy. We drop the magazines off in each shop saying sale or return. You know, it's like, if you don't sell them, then it's not going to cost you anything. And even though the first issue, you know, I don't think it was an incredible piece of work or anything, but it had a certain spirit and it connected with people. And the only other things at the time, if you're interested in dance music and you wanted to read about it, was Mix Mag and dj.
- [16:18]
A
Yeah.
- [16:19]
B
And as good as they were, they were kind of a different thing. We had this quite punky fanzine take on things, resonated with people, so that sold well. So we thought we'll do another one, go around the record shops, collect all the money in cash, obviously, put all that money together and then pay and. Okay, well, the next issue will print a few more. You know, we did. I think we did a thousand of. The first issue is actually quite a lot when you think of it nowadays.
- [16:48]
A
Yeah.
- [16:49]
B
Next issue we printed a few more copies and then we went through the whole thing again. Next issue we printed a few. Then there was a little bit of a tipping point. About three or four issues in, we'd done a cover feature with Andrew Weatherall and he'd taken his shirt off and I take. Done this photo shoot with him showing all of his tattoos and that got people in London interested in. In the magazine. And we. So what we would do is we'd sit in the polytechnic office, use their phone and phone up all the London record shops and say, you know, can we send you 10 copies? And. And it kind of worked. We. We managed to get a Load of copies down to London. We also got in trouble for the polytechnic because back then phone calls actually cost money and they got a huge bill and we got in a bit of trouble. Jono got in a bit of trouble. But I think we worked it out with them and. But yeah, the phone and the. The phone and their computer were incredible resources, you know, to us at that point. And. And then we bought our own computer and it just carried on growing like that.
- [17:58]
A
It's very clever, very simple, but very, very smart way of doing was.
- [18:03]
B
I think it was probably the only way you could do it. I mean, you could raise money. But at the time, I don't remember hearing of anyone raising money using that phrase. I don't remember hearing of anyone get an investment for a creative project. There was no Kickstarter or crowdfunding or. Or, you know, I remember talking to the bank and saying to the bank, you know, HSBC or something, can we have, you know, can we have a loan? And I don't think that was successful to begin with. So what we had to do was it was all about getting the money in from one issue, putting it all into the next one. No one working on the magazine at that point was getting paid. But eventually we did turn it into a business and we had an office in Beehive Mill in Ancoats in Manchester.
- [18:49]
A
Yes, know it well.
- [18:51]
B
Actually, the funny thing is it was a huge office because property was so cheap back then. So we were this little independent magazine with quite a big office. And we got to the point where there was. Me and Jono, we had our designer, Graham, we had someone selling ads. We also had a bookkeeper in the office because you. There was no QuickBooks, so the bookkeeper had to come to the office once a week and go through all the checks and, you know, great. And the other thing was for content, for when people wrote for the magazine, they would. They would write it at home on their typewriter or their AMSTRAD computer. And then we must have got to a point where people brought in disks. But quite often people were typing at home on a typewriter, coming to the office and then inputting it into the computer, you know, manually. And then we had. We also had the occasional work experience person that would do typing for us. But yeah, it's funny looking back, doing a print magazine, it was quite a. It was genuinely a physical thing from beginning to end, you know, no Internet, so you were just moving words around on disks or on bits of paper. And. And then when it came to. Actually, when we'd finished the magazine and we had to take. We had to take it to somewhere to get the films made.
- [20:09]
A
Yeah.
- [20:10]
B
So we take the whole computer, we carry that, and we'd be like, don't drop it.
- [20:17]
A
Oh, my.
- [20:18]
B
Because that's the magazine gone. We take that to the place that would output the four color film, then you get a big stack of film and then we get a courier to take that film to the printer. And I think maybe for some people that haven't been through that, to imagine that it's quite an odd thing, isn't it? Because obviously we put a magazine together, you know, now another print magazine, and the process is completely different and a bit easier, I have to say.
- [20:47]
A
Yeah, just. Just a tad. I mean, yeah, there'll be people listening to this who were born. I mean, in a scary. Like when people. When young people who are in their twenties tell me when they were born. Now I'm like, oh, shit, I'm really old, aren't I? I look in the mirror and I'm like convincing myself I'm doing okay. But it's like, oh, my God. Like, my husband the other day said, the last time you went to Glastonbury was 18 years ago. I was like, what? What, 18 years ago? I'm not old enough to have gone to Glastonbury 18 years ago. This is insane.
- [21:20]
B
That happened to me recently when I went to see Massive. Um, and I said, I was saying to the person I was going to. I think I saw them a few years ago, you know, and he went, what? Around that tour when they did that thing? And I went, yeah, that's the one. He was like, that's eight. That was 18 years ago. And I was like, I thought that was like a three or four years ago.
- [21:42]
A
It's mad, isn't it? When. When did it all. Where does the time go? These young people today, they don't know how fast it's gonna speed up.
- [21:48]
B
I think it must be difficult if you're someone who it. It must be difficult to imagine pre Internet.
- [21:54]
A
Yeah.
- [21:55]
B
If you've only ever known. Post Internet, you know. So to imagine no mobile phones and no Internet, I do think that must be quite an odd thing to do.
- [22:05]
A
Yeah. Like, what did you do? How did. How did you, like, pass the time?
- [22:09]
B
So, yeah, when I think back to how we would put together, you know, a magazine and how, how we. How we'd work as well. Like, we worked really hard and I was in the office five days a week. I was running a club at the Weekend I'd be out Friday to Sunday, come back on a Sunday night and we'd be in the office every Monday morning. And I used to think, well, why didn't I take some time off? But one of the reasons was, is because you couldn't work from home.
- [22:33]
A
No, that's true.
- [22:34]
B
Actually. We had some desktop computers in the office. No one had a laptop. There was no Internet. So you could have the day off or go to work. There's no. I'll just keep an eye on stuff from home.
- [22:47]
A
I love that you casually sprinkle in there. Oh, you know, the weekends. I was running a club. I mean, bugged out.
- [22:54]
B
Well, yeah, bugged out. I mean that's been going 30 years. We're just celebrating our 30th year and amazing. That was in Beehive Mill as well at Sankey Soap, which was. Yeah, downstairs.
- [23:05]
A
It was a great night. A very messy night. Paul.
- [23:09]
B
Yep. We started the night because we were running this magazine. We got people like the Hacienda advertising in the magazine and we had no ambition to run a club night. We, we, you know, it was enough for me to be running a magazine. I was like, I wanted to be a music journalist. I'm all of a sudden I'm a music journalist and I've got my own magazine and. But then Andrew Spiro and Rupert Campbell, who were running Sankey Soap at Beehive Mill, they, they got in touch with us and said, do you want to run your own club night? We need someone to do the Fridays. And we were the talking about that energy that we had back then. I would, I was to say, yes person. It was like, you want to run your own club? Okay. I don't know what that involves, but yes, of course I know what it takes to go to a club night. I don't know what it takes to run a club night. You know, do you just. I suppose you just pick the DJs and you make a flyer and then you tell all your mates to come and that's that. That turns out that is what it, that's what that is what it is or that's what it was then, only.
- [24:13]
A
Ends up being one of the most popular long running events of the, you know, dance world.
- [24:20]
B
It, it did end up being. It did end up. It started relatively quietly and then a bit like Jockey slut. We reached a bit of a tipping point. We had to begin with, it had been our friends and, you know, friends of friends and it'd been going quite well, but not sellouts. And then we flew in Richie Horton and I don't know, I can't remember how it happened, but I think we would have been into his records, find the phone number on the back of the record, phone these people or fax them and then, yeah, they might put you in touch with an agent, but sometimes they didn't have an agent book their flight, pick them up from the airport. And we had Richie Horton on and it was a complete sellout. And all of a sudden we were like, oh, this is a club that's successful or could be successful, it's certainly successful tonight.
- [25:08]
A
Yeah.
- [25:09]
B
And then we started, you know, booking bigger names, but at the same time we was, we still did the same thing. We buy records in Eastern block, if we like the record, find the phone number and we, we flew in, you know, most, a lot of the people were from, from Chicago or Detroit, some of them more well known, some of them not as well known. People like Green Velvet, who's very well known nowadays, he became a bit of a regular and it was exciting. We fly them in, pick them up from the airport, like I said, I had a mini Metro and pick them up from the airport, got them off at the hotel and then we'd be working all week on the magazine, like 10 till 6 or something in the office, except around deadlines when we practically slept in the office, but. And then we'd nip home and then be back at sankeys for 9 o' clock when the club opened and my friend James Holroyd was our resident, he'd be warming up and then we'd have the guest DJ on at midnight till 2 and yeah, it sounds early, but clubs finished at 2 then, so. But then after that we'd go back to my house or someone else's house after party, after parties and then be up for the rest of the weekend and then back in the office Monday morning. Couldn't do that now.
- [26:28]
A
No, not, not, not anymore. God, no, no, I got carried out of a toilet once by a bouncer at Sankey's.
- [26:35]
B
Oh, really? Oh, wow.
- [26:37]
A
Sorry. Somebody sneaked me back in. I was all right.
- [26:40]
B
Okay, good. Well, I won't. Yeah, no, don't ask why, I won't ask why. And I won't share any of my incidents in San Sanki Soap. I'm sure there were many because we were there. Yes, we were there from. We were there a few years until the club got into trouble. There was gangs and, you know, ended up that leading to some financial trouble when the club closed. And then Cream in Liverpool got in touch and said why don't you do a monthly with us? And that held like 4,000 people instead of the thousand people that Sanki's held.
- [27:12]
A
We used to get a coach there from Stoke.
- [27:15]
B
Oh really?
- [27:15]
A
We'd all organize it, all of all of our college friends and we'd, we'd rock up in tiny little bikini tops and tiny little, little hot pants.
- [27:23]
B
It's funny we've been looking at. Because we're putting together a book at the moment, a 30th anniversary bugged out book and looking for photos of the time and there aren't as many photos as no one took photos, you know, no one had camera phones and. But yeah, there were a lot of, a lot of people going to Bugged out at Nation in Liverpool, Cream in Liverpool, all kind of gate crash it up. We don't really remember it. We were like, was it like that?
- [27:48]
A
But I suppose it could be depended on the vibe. Like if it was an LTJ Bookham night which I used to like to go to, it was a bit more kind of grungy and baggy Genie.
- [27:57]
B
I think what there was was there was all different kinds of people. But yes, there was definitely an element that you had these kind of ravers in that kind of gate with that gatecrasher look. Yeah, I suppose when you've got a club and there's 4,000 people in it, you get all kinds of people, you know.
- [28:10]
A
It was nice. It was like the way to socialize on a weekend, wasn't it?
- [28:13]
B
Back then we loved it. I mean it was, that was another, you know, we, because we had three rooms at Nation in Liverpool we could book a lot more DJs even though it was only once a month. But we could book all different kinds of DJs house DJs, techno DJs, drum and bass DJs, big beat DJs. And yeah, it was just, it was, it was. And it was a great compliment to the magazine, you know. So we would be saying if we interview for them, if you do an interview for the magazine, we'll, we'll book you for the club and vice versa, you know.
- [28:44]
A
Sounds like a whirlwind, a perfect storm. And it all probably worked very well for many, many years obviously before things started to change. But before we come on to that. What is your favorite memory from that time, Paul?
- [28:57]
B
Well, there's a moment when I think it was our fourth birthday, so it must have been 1998 I think. And we're in, we're doing Cream in Liverpool. And we'd asked Daft Punk to play our birthday. And because I'd been the first person to interview them, we'd had them in the magazine. We had a good relationship with them and they said it wasn't quite the right time, but wish us the best of luck. And so we booked the rest of the night and, you know, distributed all the flyers and the posters and that kind of thing, because that's how you promoted a club night. There was no mailing list, no Internet, just flies and posters. And then I think it was about a week before the event, they got in. Thomas got in touch from Daft Punk and said, oh, I do want to play, actually. And we were like, wow, okay, that's awesome. And we were like, okay. So it's just you, is it? And you're gonna. And I think he was going to do a little kind of live thing, like a Thomas Bangalore decks and effect thing.
- [29:53]
A
Brilliant.
- [29:54]
B
And. And then they came back to us and said, no, no, G Man wants to come as well. It's a Daft Punk thing.
- [29:59]
A
Oh, wow.
- [30:00]
B
So. So we were like, okay, that's amazing, obviously. And we agreed to it. They got paid. They would. They just wanted us to pay for their Eurostar. Didn't want paying. That's cute. And. And. But we're like, well, how do we let people know? So we went round and I think we got some people to do it, actually. But we got. We had to get some stickers printed for the posters saying, and off Punka plane. It was the only way that you could get the word out. But I suppose what. What you did have then was word of mouth.
- [30:30]
A
Yeah.
- [30:31]
B
So. Because everyone doesn't assume that everyone knows everything, as soon as you put on the poster that Daft Punk playing, you. Only you don't have to tell that many people, you know, and they're telling all their friends and their friends are telling their friends. And so anyway, I remember being at that night, Daft Punker in the main room and I'm in front of my. Mine and Jono's club night. We've accidentally become club promoters. It's a complete sellout with 4,000 people or something. Daft Punk put on Stevie Wonder's Happy Birthday and there's a bit of an emotional moment and I. It's. Although there's lots of those years that I don't remember, that is one memory that always, you know, has stayed with me, just standing there, looking at the room. Daft Punk playing this record for us. Yeah. When people say what's my best moment? That's always the one that comes to mind.
- [31:28]
A
Yeah, I can see you getting emotional now.
- [31:30]
B
I do actually feel a bit emotional, which has taken me by surprise.
- [31:34]
A
But the thing is, you've obviously worked very hard. I think you and I share that in common. We're always trying to find the next thing to do, to figure out the next steps, and we never really give ourselves permission or time to just take a step back and say, oh, actually, we've. We've actually achieved quite a lot here. This is really good. So, yeah, get emotional. I mean, gosh, lots to be proud about.
- [31:56]
B
But I would never have. I would never have taken a moment to step back then. I mean, it was like, what's next? What's next? Yeah, Sell out Club Night magazine going, well, you know, what's next? And it was never about the money.
- [32:10]
A
No. God, no.
- [32:11]
B
Because the funny thing is, now I think back to, oh, wow, I wonder how many. I wonder how much money a club selling 4,000 tickets was making. Because I didn't have a clue at the time.
- [32:24]
A
Yeah.
- [32:26]
B
But I also. It's quite a nice thing that I didn't really care.
- [32:32]
A
This season of the Creative Beam podcast is sponsored by James Cropper, and its new color source range is a game changer for designers. It gives you direct access to 50 carefully created shades with a choice of weights and textures straight from their Lake District mill. Beautiful, sustainable coloured paper made in Britain by experts who live and breathe colour. Are you like me in that? You just got to a point where you realised you could pay the people who are working for you, and that was just like, ace. And you were like, yes, got a nice little team here.
- [33:08]
B
Absolutely. That if we could pay our staff, our team members, and we could. We paid ourselves a little bit of money, enough to live on and we could keep the business going. We could print another issue of the magazine, do another club night. That was. That was everything I never thought of. I really didn't think of anything beyond that, you know, not buying somewhere to live or going on holiday or, you know, we probably didn't really even spend that much money, you know, but it was. It was definitely all about if those businesses could keep going. It was everything, you know, which is kind of a good and a bad thing.
- [33:44]
A
Yeah, yeah. So. So what was the reason Jockey Slut came to an end and.
- [33:52]
B
Was, you know, a little bit beyond. Well, it was completely beyond our control. We'd. We'd. In 99, we were pretty exhausted. We were running the Mac, we were doing the things that I've just described, the magazine and the club the magazine was doing. Well, I remember selling 20,000 copies of the magazine completely independently.
- [34:13]
A
That's phenomenal.
- [34:14]
B
You know, that would have been a time when maybe Mixmac was doing 50,000 copies, but I mean, that was owned by Emap and they were long established, but we were doing everything in a very indie DIY way. But we're actually selling magazines. We were getting advertising. You know, people like Levi's would come to us and they do special advertising. And so we got some interest from a publisher in London. They published a magazine called Sleaze Nation, which was like a competitor to the face. You know, I think Dazed and Confused, it was in that kind of world of Style magazine. And I got talking to someone out one night who came from this company, and he said we'd be interested in, you know, doing, you know, buying your magazine. And I suppose I was thinking, you know, we're exhausted. We're. We're making money. But the all. All we do with the money is put it all into the next issue. And never felt like there was any breathing space. And. And things were. Things were tight. We were so determined just to print more copies and grow. There was never any breathing space. So it was bad management, really, but we were very inexperienced. And also the magazine was every two months and we felt that was, you know, slow. It was like magazines were monthly, you know, they were weekly or monthly or bi monthly, but because of cash flow, we could only do it every second month because we had to print the magazine, sell the advertising, then getting all the money from the advertising and some of the money in from the sales so that we could print the next one. So it couldn't be a monthly with us running it in that financial situation. And so we got interested in this deal with this publisher in London and we wanted to. What we really wanted was investment, but they only wanted to do the deal if they would keep us on, but they wanted to buy the magazine, not invest in the magazine. And so for the good, it was a good deal for us, but also they were going to take the magazine monthly and they were going to ramp up their advertising sales and build a new team and we were going to have to move to London. It all felt like the right thing to do at the time. But then. And it worked quite well, actually. We moved to London, got some new people involved, it went monthly and it was pretty successful. And. But the company that, that also published Sleaze Nation, they really, they. They bet big on Sleaze Nation and something happened. I think they spent too much money. I don't know the details. You never do in these situations. But all of a sudden everyone's told that the whole company's gone, gone into administration. And I don't know the details and I don't know the figures, but I mean, for everyone involved, everyone felt at the time that Jockey slot was still doing pretty well. But anyway, it all came to an end and that was. It was sad, but certainly sad for the people that were working there. But it didn't. Also didn't. We had the club, we'd started this DJ agency. We were just, okay, what's next? Yeah, you know, I think I didn't re. I also think, to be really brutally honest, I was so blase and so I had this kind of ridiculous self belief. Probably too much. I was like, I'll just start another thing that's as good as Jockey Slut.
- [37:53]
A
I love that though. That's. That's why you've been successful.
- [37:56]
B
I, I suppose. But I mean, it's, you know, I think it would have been good to realize that it's not as easy as that. And that Jockey Start was successful because of a time, a place, the youthful energy that we had. People loved it. And so the idea that something like that could come to an end and you could start something that would be just as good and just as accessible was, you know, incredibly naive, really.
- [38:24]
A
Well, you could call it naive or you could just call it, well, hey, let's just try it anyway. Optimistic.
- [38:31]
B
Optimistic. But I mean, my experience tells me that I, I was right. It was very difficult to do that because I've. I've done lots of things over the last 30 years and very few of those things have been as successful as, or as meaningful or meant as much to people as Jockey Slut did. So I now know from experience that it was definitely a bit of naivety.
- [38:52]
A
At least you tried.
- [38:54]
B
I've never been, Never, never stopped trying.
- [38:58]
A
So this is where we're up to with Disco Pogo.
- [39:02]
B
So. So yeah, we'd. Jockey Slut came to an end in the early 2000s. I went off and I wanted to. I wanted to do things on the other side of the industry, not the side that was the music journalist side of the industry, you know, the, the side that was managing artists, signing bands, that kind of thing. I suppose, I suppose at the time I thought it was the more kind of proactive side of things than the reactive side of things. So setting the agenda by signing things rather than Just writing about things that other people signed. And so I was. I ran a label in partnership with someone called Leo Silverman, who was the head of A and R xl. And he left Excel, set up a new label and then brought me in to help him. And we had funding from emi and that was a great experience. Although I realized how hard it was to run a successful record label. Oh, yeah, Very, very difficult, even if you're given funding. We started a publishing company as well and we signed an artist called Neo, who's gone on to do very well. And. And then the new magazine that I started after Jockey Slut, was called Dummy, which was a new print magazine. And that was the one where I thought, okay, I'm going to start this new magazine. It's immediately going to be really successful. And it wasn't really. It was really cool. And I look back at those early print issues and we did some really cool things that were quite. I don't know, it was different to jockeysart. I thought it was moving things on a bit, but it wasn't as immediately successful as Jockey Slot, unfortunately. And then the world changed. Everything went online and selling print magazines felt like a. An odd thing to do. And then Vice started printing a magazine that they gave away.
- [40:50]
A
Yeah.
- [40:50]
B
And then we tried that and then we were like, well, that's not working. We're spending a fortune on printing these magazines. And what Vice had was, you know, huge amounts of advertising revenue. So whereas what we were doing is we didn't have anywhere near enough advertising revenue, but we were giving away this great product. Yeah. So then we went completely online and I've been doing that for a while and over the last few years, that company has become DNY and it's. I've turned it into an artist services company to try and find a way to adapt to the new world. So it's an online magazine, but we sign artists, kind of combining a lot of the things that I've done up to now. And, yeah, it was a really exciting idea, I think, and it's still an exciting business. But when lockdown happened, my partner in Jockey slot and bugged out John Burgess, Andrew Wetherall, who was a hero to us and a mentor and a friend, passed away and Jono got in touch and said, why don't we do something about Andrew? We've got all these old interviews with him and it's locked down. It will be, you know, something, you know, we can. Something really creative that we can put our energy into. And. And he really cracked on with it and then showed me what he'd done. I was like, wow, we've got. This is a book. This is going to be a great book. So we did a dis. We did a Jockey Sut tribute to Andrew Wetherall, and we decided that all the profits would go to Andrew's favorite charities. And we got in touch with Andrew's, you know, estate and talked to them about it, and they specified the charities that the money should go to. And it just really connected. And we sold 9,000 copies and raised about £60,000 for charity.
- [42:33]
A
Wow.
- [42:33]
B
And it got me and Jono working together again on a publication. And it was a lot of fun, very enjoyable. And people started saying that we're buying the book. Okay, so when's the magazine relaunching?
- [42:47]
A
Yeah.
- [42:48]
B
And I was like, it's not relaunching. That's not happening. It's like, we did this book and it was great, but not really going to launch a magazine called jockey slot. I'm 50, you know, and the world's changed and people have. Oh, yeah, people have done different things with, you know, that. You know, that. That phrase. And, And. And then as time went on, I think because we'd had so much, we'd enjoyed the process of putting together this print publication, we were like, okay, well, what is it we can do next? That can't be it. And we. We thought, well, maybe we could do a magazine, but it can be inspired by Jockey Slut, but be a new magazine by new, you know, by people who are. We're different people to the one I was 30 years ago. And the world's changed, so the content's going to be different. And we thought, okay, but still very risky to do that and just all of a sudden hope that people buy it. You know, the Weatherall book was a unique thing. We're not going to just do a magazine and then 9,000 people are going to buy it. It's very unlikely that's going to happen. It's expensive thing to do as well. So we did a crowdfunder because we thought, well, if the crowdfunder is successful, we know people want to pay for this new magazine.
- [44:02]
A
What a contrast between when you first started the first lot compared to now. I mean, I bet that was a revelation.
- [44:09]
B
It was. And. And it also shows our more measured approach, you know, and. But yes, there was this technology available to us, you know, a crowdfunding platform. And once we got the word out there about the crowdfunder, it was immediately very successful. And then I think it started off slow. It started off quite quickly and then stopped, which apparently always happens with crowdfunding campaigns. You get those early people that are like, we love what you do, then you need to get to the next stage. So when we hit the quiet period, we started working it a bit because we started thinking, we want to do this now. And we got through that period and then. And then lots of people came in towards the end and I think we raised £60,000.
- [44:53]
A
Good grief. Did we write about you? We did, didn't we?
- [44:56]
B
I think so, yeah.
- [44:57]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [44:57]
B
Thanks for the support.
- [44:58]
A
That's all right. I wasn't asking for it. I was just like, did we support you? I hope so.
- [45:03]
B
And it enabled. And when we were like, okay, you know, obviously we're over the moon, but we were like, we've got to do this now. And we decided that it wasn't going to be called Jockey Slut, but one of our slogans for Jockey slot, I think, starting from issue two, was Disco Pogo for punks in pumps.
- [45:23]
A
Yeah.
- [45:23]
B
Disco Pogo, that's a great name.
- [45:26]
A
It's a great name.
- [45:27]
B
Not going to offend anyone. Totally sums up what we're about. It's got a link to Jockey Slut. It sounds modern and cool. Sounds like us.
- [45:34]
A
You're modern and cool?
- [45:35]
B
No, not that we're modern and cool. I meant they're two different things. Of course it sounds modern and cool and it's a bit. It sounds two different things.
- [45:44]
A
Gotcha.
- [45:45]
B
And we thought, okay, we'll. We'll just do. You've got the Internet nowadays, people don't buy monthly magazines so much, even a quarterly. I would. Because we've both got other businesses that we work on.
- [45:58]
A
Yeah.
- [45:58]
B
I thought, let's start. Let's do a twice yearly, really thick coffee table type magazine about electronic music with beautiful design, great writing, great photography. Pay everyone properly. Yeah, from right from the beginning. Pay all the journalists properly, pay the photographers properly, pay the people that work on the magazine properly. The only people to begin with that didn't get paid were me and Jono, which was very similar to when we started 30 years ago. But that's fine. That's what you do when you're trying to get a business off the ground. And I suppose, yeah, it immediately seemed to resonate with people and was immediately enjoyable. And. And Jim Butler is our editor and he was the deputy editor of Jockey Slut back in the day. And Chris Jones is our designer who was the designer on Jockey Slut back in the day. And his partner, Harry does production. So it's a very small team and we've obviously got loads of journalists that we know. Lots of our friends are music journalists. But also we've tried to find new people and young people. And we thought the magazine, some of the things that we, we thought were very important was that it had to be very authentic. It had to be, it had to be a good reflection of us now at this time in our lives. I didn't want to find myself trying to run a magazine that was for 20 somethings, pretending to be that person that I was 30 years ago. So can I run a magazine about electronic music where I'm comfortable? We're comfortable with our age and we're covering people who are comfortable with their age. And that's been really interesting because, you know, we've interviewed people like Orbital and Left Field and you know, loads of people. DJ Harvey on the last issue. These are people that have been around for a while. Yeah, they've lived a bit. And they're also people that are still very. People our age are interested in them, but young people are interested in these artists still as well. And what we discovered quite quickly was the other thing was these people had stories to tell.
- [48:02]
A
Yes.
- [48:03]
B
They'd lived.
- [48:04]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [48:06]
B
So we would find ourselves proofreading the magazine. I remember reading the interview with Left Field moved, you know.
- [48:14]
A
Yeah.
- [48:15]
B
Because these were people that are talking about. And it's. How it sounds depressing, but it's not depressing. They were talking about lives well lived. They were talking about coming through illness and coming out the other side suffering. You know, we've interviewed people that have come through depression and come out the other side. We've interviewed people that have overdone it with drugs or alcohol and come out the other side. And so most of the time I'm. When I'm proofreading because obviously we, I'm not writing the whole magazine, but I'm reading the whole thing before it goes to print. And we'll find articles that we're messaging each other on Slack, going, have you read this? It's, you know, it's, it's, it's quite a story. So, so yeah, we, so we, we, we cover those people that are, that will resonate with them, that will, that people our age will be interested in electronic music. But also young people are interested in these people. Plus we also try and make sure we get some younger people in there as well, some newer names and. But, but what you get what the bonus of being comfortable with finding these older people to Cover is. The stories are brilliant. They're not talking about. They're not scratching around to try and find a reason why they made the album or called it this or looking for an anecdote. They don't need to scratch around. You turn the mic on, they tell you what they've been through in the last 30 years. And it's, you know, some of the. Some of the features, I'm. I'm really proud that we published them. And they're genuinely. They're also the kind of things that you don't read anywhere else, you know.
- [49:52]
A
Yeah, brilliant. You found a niche again. And isn't the fifth. Isn't the fifth decade supposed to be our happiest?
- [49:58]
B
Well, is that true? Is that the thing? I feel pretty happy.
- [50:03]
A
Good. Yeah, you look it.
- [50:06]
B
But it's the 40s that are a.
- [50:09]
A
Nightmare.
- [50:12]
B
I think, you know, when you get to this age, you're. Yeah, to be doing something that I enjoy and, and to produce, to be working on a project that I am proud of the results and to be, you know, involved in electronic music in some way, but without having to stay up all night and feel terrible on a Monday morning and. And being healthy, you know.
- [50:35]
A
Yeah.
- [50:36]
B
You know, you. You know, when you get a bit older, you're grateful for these things. Whereas when I was in my 20s, I took being healthy for granted. Whatever I did to myself.
- [50:45]
A
I think we all did, didn't we?
- [50:46]
B
Yeah, I'm sure that. Yeah, exactly. So. So, yeah, you know, when you're interviewing these people that have been in electronic music for a long, long time and they're honest about what they've been through, there's some incredibly moving, you know, features also. It's, you know, there's lots that's about.
- [51:03]
A
The music, but, like, I found with Creative Beam, people are interested in the work, but there's always going to be more interest in the person.
- [51:12]
B
Well, I think it goes back to when I said I was obsessed with the Enemy. And, yes, I'd be reading about what an album sounds like and, you know, why? It was a good album and reading an art, an interview with a band and we, you know. You know, but the. Yeah, the music was only one small part of it. I mean, it was one of the things. When we started Jockey Stuff magazine, we said, we're going to write about the people. You know, there was this thing at the time that was this phrase, faceless technobollocks. And we were like, it's just not true. It's like, why. Why did. Why are some publications Saying that people that make music with guitars have interesting stories to tell and people that make techno aren't interesting. And we thought, we thought, immediately thought it was ridiculous. And I think we were right. It was ridiculous. You know, people like Aphex Twin, who we were covering in the early days. Yeah, fascinating.
- [52:09]
A
Still fascinating, you know, Hugely, hugely.
- [52:12]
B
So, so. But yes, the, the, the reading about music is interesting, but the reading about the people behind the music, you know, that's a big part of it.
- [52:21]
A
Yeah. And you're clearly very passionate about it. And I'm just wondering, have you found it easier to make Disco Pogo viable financially these days or is it sort of an ongoing challenge? Are you planning to have an online presence as well?
- [52:36]
B
I have to say it's going quite well, which I, you know, sometimes hesitate to say things like that because sometimes might jinx it.
- [52:43]
A
And you're being humble probably as well.
- [52:45]
B
But I think we're, you know, publishing a print magazine. I mean, sometimes you might mention that to people and you think, well, why are you doing that? I mean, that's a crazy thing to do. But what I've discovered is that, you know, we. Investing in journalists, investing in photographers, creating a great product and selling it at a price where we can pay for the printing and, and make a profit, it's kind of working.
- [53:09]
A
Yeah.
- [53:09]
B
You know, and sometimes it's. You, you know, you need to believe in the product enough to charge properly for it. You know, you'll read that in loads of business books, won't you? You know, don't undervalue what you're doing. And, but yes, it has been challenging and like I said, we did that crowdfunder and it sounds like a lot of money, but we, we did, we, we used that money in the same way that we, like I said in the early days of Jockey, we threw it all into the magazine. Printing a beautiful thing, paying everyone properly. And the first, you know, we're on issue seven, we're working on issue eight, and, you know, for a while it was not touch and go because there was no doubt that we were doing, we were going to be carrying on and building this. But, yeah, it was kind of hard to make it all add up. But what's really helped is we've started publishing these books. So we did a follow up to the Andrew Wetherell book, slightly different format, hardback Daft Punk split up. We thought, let's do a book about Daft Punk. And that's been really successful and sold really well. And we've now done a New one about Aphex Twin and we're working on another one that's coming out in the autumn. And, you know, the magazine is. I think the magazine is doing pretty well, but, you know, the. The books are helping kind of fund everything, really. But. But I'm still, you know, the magazine's growing all the time. We. We have a website, but it's behind a paywall.
- [54:34]
A
Right, interesting.
- [54:35]
B
And we're not, you know, we're. We a lot. You know, half of the books that we sell, we sell directly from our own online store. Literally 50. The other 50 go out to independent record shops, independent book shops. We're not really interested in selling from Amazon, although, because we supply some distributors. I went on Amazon this morning and it's there. So it's a. It's kind of something that you can't fight. No, but. And we've built up some great, you know, relationships with distributors, shops. We've just shipped a load of books to a retailer in America called Turntable Lab, who are, you know, big online. They sell lots of vinyl and so. And there's also this incredible network of magazine shops. So in Manchester, you've got Unitom and Village Books and Rare Magazines. Out in Stockport, Rare Mags. We've been very supportive and. And the reason that I started learning about this network is we supply a distributor called mms. They supply these shops, but when you supply the distributor, you don't really know where the magazines are going, but you find out where the magazines are going because they post about it on Instagram and tag you. And. And that's just a wonderful thing because I've realized that, you know, it's a big part of what we're doing. These shops are a very important part of what we're doing. Back in the Jockey stock day, our dream was to be in W.H. smiths, you know, whereas now we do have some magazines going into W.H. smiths. But I mean, really, what's the. The most important part of our. Our setup is these passionate people that run these independent magazine shops. And it's like a. It's like a scene of people that are into print. I went into Village Books, I remember, and talked to them when I was up in Manchester, and he. He was saying that, you know, it's people into print. It's as many cool young people in their 20s as older people that love print because they've always loved print. Yeah, you know, it's a very vibrant thing. Rare mags, like you mentioned, they, you know, they're. They've been very supportive. UNIT on. We did a big shop window display in unit with Unitom. They're also very supportive. But also the other thing is, it's not just in the uk we get tagged on these beautiful little magazine stroke coffee shops all over Europe.
- [56:54]
A
Your little face lighting up, telling me.
- [56:56]
B
This and, and I, I, I love it. You know, we thought we, we follow them because like I said, it feels like that's, they're a part, quite an important part of what we're doing. It's this, this network of magazine shops run by passionate people.
- [57:10]
A
It sometimes feels like we can't get back the magic of the 90s. But actually, I think when you look at, you know, the journey you've been on and where you're at now, you've, you've still got a lot of that magic happening. It's just different. It's just that the vehicles have changed.
- [57:25]
B
I totally agree. It's a different kind of magic. So, yeah, you know, this, you know, these, yeah. You just, you know, you have to look for the magic elsewhere, don't you? You know, we're not trying to, we're not trying to recreate, recreate the, the amazing things that happened in the 90s. We're like, what is that? What's the, you know, I love your word. Magic. It's like, what's the new magic? Yeah, and one of the things is, you know, also people that post and tag us on Instagram are people buying the magazine. I love that as well. They get the magazine through the post, they've ordered it from our shop. They're really happy with it. They like it enough that they post on Instagram. We see who the people are that are buying these magazines. And so, yeah, social media, it's, it drives us all mad. Sometimes I wish it didn't exist. Sometimes I wish I didn't have a phone. Sometimes I wish I could be like those people. Who's that famous film director, you know, doesn't have a phone.
- [58:21]
A
God, I don't know. You might be thinking of Bill.
- [58:23]
B
Christopher Nolan.
- [58:24]
A
Oh, Christopher Nolan. And Bill Murray apparently can only get in touch with Bill Murray through a.
- [58:29]
B
Fax machine, which I quite like. Sometimes I'm like being on, you know, staring at my phone all the time. I mean, it's, Sometimes I'm like, what are you doing? This is a nightmare. Or, or having to post onto Instagram to sell, you know, your business.
- [58:42]
A
Yeah.
- [58:43]
B
Which we do. We post on Disco Poke. You know, we're taking it seriously. We're trying to grow our Following. Anyway, my point is that all of this stuff can sometimes feel awful and stressful and. And there's lots of bad things about social media. So many bad things which I won't even go into. But there's some good things as well. That's my point.
- [59:01]
A
Yeah.
- [59:01]
B
Us being able to see who's buying the magazine, see what shops are stocking the magazine, and not just because someone sent me a list of them, but someone's tagged us. And then I go and look at the shop and it's in Lisbon or Amsterdam or. And I'm like, this shop's beautiful. And then I'll send them a message going, you know, it's a beautiful shop and thanks for stocking the mag. That's when social media is a wonderful thing.
- [59:27]
A
It's a community. Sounds like you've been very much. You've loved being very much part of that community these last three decades.
- [59:36]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And just in these last few years, the community of music journalists that quite often are treated really badly and feel like their industry is in a difficult place and just being able to employ good people and pay them fairly to do incredible work. Sometimes I get features back from these people. And I used to write. I used to write a lot of the stuff from Jockey Slut, but I love it when I'm reading these features, thinking, you're 10 times better than I ever was. And so we have some really brilliant journalism and it does feel like a community. Photographers, journalists, editors, designers, magazine shops, you.
- [60:21]
A
Know, and all the people who buy the magazine and the community wider, and.
- [60:25]
B
Of course, of course the readers who are also really passionate. It does feel like a community. It's. Yeah, it's, you know, quite a joyful thing.
- [60:33]
A
Yeah, well, there's one thing that certain things are always going to change and we're going through a massive, massive disruption at the moment across the creative industries. Lots of people getting in touch with me, messaging, saying that it's been the worst time they've ever experienced from working from themselves in 20 years. I guess people listening to this who are suffering from what's happening will be inspired because you have clearly pivoted and you've just figured out what's next and tried different things. So it's kind of like we need to sort of get our heads out the sand a little bit and just say, okay, well, things aren't going to go back to the way they were. It would be lovely if they were as glorious as print was in the 90s, but that's not going to happen. So how can we, how can we survive the next 20 years doing something we love?
- [61:26]
B
I mean, you know, absolutely what you've, what you've said is, you know, you know, I feel for people that are, you know, I've been as you are. I'm on LinkedIn sometimes nowadays, actually. Sometimes I hate it. Some. Sometimes I quite like it because, you know, there's. There's some good people on there.
- [61:44]
A
Yeah.
- [61:45]
B
You know, and, and you see people that are, you know, looking for work and being honest about struggling a little bit. And I think it is a tough time to be in music or the creative industries in general or be a music journalist or a journalist of any kind of. And I certainly haven't got all the answers, but. And that's. But I do feel very grateful that we've done something that we're passionate about only because we're passionate about it and it seems to be working. But I don't take that lightly. It was. No, of course I've learned from mistakes that I've made in the past. And to be fair, I, I did try and apply that thinking to Disco Pogo. So I shouldn't say that it's all by complete accident because that's being disingenuous. I did say, I. That the, you know, the magazine has to be. People have to buy it. We're not giving away content for free. We're going to pay people properly. We're going to be ambitious, that the content's got to be brilliantly written, so we're going to get good journalists. We're not gonna, we're not gonna try and, you know, employ people cheaply leading to an inferior product. So, so, yes, we have applied that thinking. And so, yeah, like I said, I'm, I'm certainly not going to say that I've got all the answers, but what we did was, yeah, learned. I learned from my mistakes. And then we did something we were passionate about and we put our heart and soul into it and we're still learning. And so far it's going. It's going well. But I mean, I, Yeah, I'm, I'm grateful that it's going well so far, and I don't take it lightly that it is. And it could all change.
- [63:28]
A
Oh, yeah. But I feel like you've got the tools to cope if, if that does happen, hopefully.
- [63:34]
B
And we are still. We're not getting carried away. We're. We're still. It's still a passion project. We're growing very organically. We're trying not to overstretch. Ourselves. I think in the past, maybe I, you know, I've always liked doing lots of different things and trying to remain focused on just making the things that we're doing good and better rather than trying to, you know, ending up spreading ourselves too thin.
- [64:00]
A
Sounds like you've had an amazing adventure so far, Paul. I look forward to seeing what's coming next.
- [64:06]
B
Yeah, it's all an event, all an adventure. It's not over yet.
- [64:09]
A
No. Gotta keep going.
- [64:11]
B
And yeah, when you work for yourself, when you run your own businesses, you've just got to keep going, haven't you? That's a good bit of advice, isn't it? Keep going.
- [64:18]
A
Yeah. Don't give up.
- [64:19]
B
Don't give up. Keep going.
- [64:21]
A
Thanks ever so much for joining us on the Creative Room podcast, Paul. This has been fantastic.
- [64:26]
B
Thanks, Katie.
- [64:31]
A
That's it for this episode, and what a way to kick off the new season. Chatting to Paul was a reminder that no matter how much the industry changes, there's still huge value in doing things your own way. From jockey slut to disco pogo, he stayed true to his taste, trusted his gut, and built things that stand the test of time. Not because they chase trends, but because they care about people and culture. In a world where search is dying and social media feels like shouting into the void, it's encouraging to know there's still room for slow, thoughtful, beautifully made work. And maybe that's the future. Smaller, stronger community, deeper connections, and just doing it for the love of it. Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back with Paul on Thursday for the Spark or bonus episode where we get to know our guests a little better. Until then, thanks again to James Cropper for sponsoring this season of the Creative Boom podcast. Remember, its Color Source range gives designers direct access to 50 beautiful shades and a choice of textures, all crafted in the Lake District and delivered straight to your door. Explore the collection and bring your next project to life@paperandpackaging. James Cropper.com.