It’s clear from the moment you meet Shapes‘ James Ratcliffe and Simon Day why their ‘baby’ has taken off in the major way it has in Bristol. Their passion for the night is extraordinary and while being so modest, they are also so grateful to the people who have helped them along the way. Bringing a decidedly more techno vibe to their parties than other nights in Bristol, Shapes have booked some world-class DJs, including Carl Craig, Martin Buttrich and Tale of Us and although their latest night is a collaboration with what some regard as the greatest clubs in the world, even this doesn’t bring out hubris in them. They are extremely level-headed and just want to pull off the perfect party. In their words, ‘it’s just six mates having a laugh’.
We caught up with them over a few drinks, touching on the origins of Shapes, their path to Ostgut and their best memories along the way, accompanied by the tracks that really characterise their sound. We also spoke about Berghain’s door policy and the different clubbing scenes in Bristol, Berlin and London. Resident DJ Fuzzbuzz has kindly recorded a 90 minute mix to accompany, which he describes as “a mixture of old and new tracks from artists such as Monkey Safari, Mr G & Stacey Pullen, recorded on a sunday afternoon in the sun.”
Shapes / Ostgut Ton is at Motion, Bristol on 18th April. Tickets are now in their 3rd release, available from Resident Advisor.
Download Shapes’ Bristol Spotlight. Follow us on Soundcloud for more tracklist info.
How many of you guys are there?
Simon: There are six of us in total.
James: We all have varying roles. Me and Simon do a lot of the management-based stuff. I do all the digital side, from the social media to all the graphic design and the DJ bookings. I’ve built up quite a good relationship and roster with all the booking agents.
S: We tried to split that bookings role at one point, but it just didn’t work at all, it made more sense for just one person to do it as a lot of the booking agencies are strangely interwoven. I do a lot of the staff management, on-the-street promotion, venue management and event management
J: We’ve also got an accountant on the team, which is great!
S: Yeah Ollie, he’s like our logistics manager. He does a lot of the stuff like contracts, flights and booking hotel rooms for the artists and budgets for our nights.
J: It’s all the stuff that I really don’t like! It’s exciting to see which artists I can get to Bristol to perform, but then there’s a lot that goes with that. It’s always like ‘umm… can you fill out this form, we need a hotel etc…’
S: It’s funny that all three of us do a pretty much the same job in the day as we do for Shapes.
Maybe that’s why it works?
J: It can get tiring, but we just love it, Shapes is like our baby and we’ve been there from the start. I would never consider not doing it… even if it means staying up until 1 am if it has to be done.
S: We’ve also never made a penny from Shapes. We’ve never really lost money on an event yet – but every time we’ve made money, we’ve invested that in making the next event bigger. Which is a great plan until it all falls down and you have nothing. Hopefully that won’t happen. Touching all the wood!
J: We have other guys working with us too, there’s Oliver who deals a lot with the creative, set-based stuff and the production as well as being a resident DJ. There’s also Tom (aka Fuzzbuzz) who’s another of our awesome residents who deals with the whole technical rider – so anything kit-based or with the sound systems. We’ve also get Ben and Chris on board who help us out a lot in various roles. We’ve got 5 residents, so it’s quite good for filling up a line-up.
S: Until there’s no more room on a line-up.
J: Ostgut Ton have been quite particular about closing certain rooms and certain sets have to be this long.
S: They have only just told us, but if it means they will play for longer then we’ve got no reason to complain!
What was the original thinking behind Shapes, did you guys see a gap in the Bristol market?
S: No, it was actually quite a funny one with Shapes. We didn’t particularly see a gap in the market, but a friend of ours’ father owns a bar (LeftBank on Gloucester Road) and he asked us if we would run a student night. We really got behind it and did the poster designs. It was a real student vibe with free entry and a free shot on entry. And then from that point onwards we got bigger and bigger venues via Blue Mountain and Lakota. It was very randomly started in a way. We always really give our friend Louis the real credit for being the founder of it all by just having the idea.
J: We would really love to say that it was this really tactile move where we spotted that there weren’t any mid-week house nights and we got in there before anyone else did, which is essentially what happened, but I’ll be honest, it wasn’t intentional. I think our love of partying has seen us through.
S: We’ve kept a very professional attitude to it from the beginning, especially with Oli making sure we were all ship-shape behind the scenes. Even our first student night had a clear budget and we had promotion schedules. We might be party boys on the surface, but we do have rigid organisation and planning.
I feel sometimes that Bristol’s almost quite saturated with all the different nights.
S: It’s always been that way, since I can remember! There’s always a lot of options. But as James mentioned, we were just very lucky to be the people doing house and techno when we did. Just Jack were pioneers in the city at a time when people didn’t care so much for house and techno but then it took off and they stuck with it and now they’re where they are and they deserve to be there. We came in just as house was on the rise and we’ve managed to make a name for ourselves.
J: I’ll never forget that first party. I was still at uni at the time (I went to Bower Ashton for 3 years which was brilliant) so there were lot of my uni mates there and then our friends who lived in Bristol anyway. It was such a wicked party, finished with a lock-in.
S: There were a lot of walk-ins, like one homeless bloke who found out about the free shot on entry and tried to come in and out about five times. To be fair we kept giving him drinks.
There’s obviously loads of competition in Bristol, but you seem to have co-operated with loads of other parties. In two years you’ve amassed quite a group of collaborators and friends. Is that quite an easy thing to do in this city, and how has it helped you grow?
J: Especially compared to London, which can be a very competitive city. I find that in Bristol, although there’s obviously the odd poster-beef, across the board people are quite supportive. We’re always happy to champion new ideas and people coming through.
S: There’s a real ethos of just helping each other out. The dust has settled compared to even just a year ago, where there were a lot more striving house nights coming up, but now there are almost fewer key players with all very slightly different crowds. People always like to collaborate, or get another night in to run a room and it’s great because it does mix crowds slightly.
J: We are eternally grateful to people like Just Jack and Motion for getting us in. They had faith in us even before we’d properly made a name for ourselves. Rag in particular was very kind to us. He saw something in us and gave us our opportunity. We got to host the Tunnel at Motion and we’d been going for less than a year. It was a big chance and a big opportunity and I’ll certainly always be grateful for that.
S: Leading on from that is the idea of networking. Funnily enough, a major place James and I found for speaking to people like this was at afterparties after Motion nights. We’d go to the Stag & Hound and party until midday, but we made so many connections there.
J: Never thinking at the time that we were laying the foundations of a great networking and promotional tool essentially. At the time we were just having a lot of fun.
S: …and we didn’t have full time jobs!
In any case, have you ever considered putting on parties elsewhere?
S: It’s been talked about a lot, but like we’ve said, Shapes is our baby, so to move it to another city, we’d have to relinquish a lot of control and give someone a lot of trust with your brand identity. London’s slightly different. We have definitely thought about doing a party there, but it’s just finding the time and money to go and compete in that city and there are always clashes, because there are so many nights.
J: I do feel that some of our line-ups really do lend themselves to quite a London-based crowd. Bristol can sometimes be a few years behind London in that sense, especially with some of the techno line-ups. So we definitely have the right sound for a move, but we all work full-time. In the future we’ll definitely make it happen at some point. There’s no rush though.
What is your best memory from your parties to date?
J: Well for our first NYD party, we had to go down having slept no more than 2 hours. We’d had a party at ours the night before and had to sleep through the end of it, just to get some rest. So we had to head down at around 2pm to start setting up. We all felt so bad but about an hour in, and it was just suddenly full. I had such an overwhelming feeling of ‘wow, we’ve done it!’. I immediately stopped feeling like shit and just felt proud of all my friends. I also felt quite endeared towards Shapes, because I do just love it. At the end of the day, it is just 6 mates having a laugh.
S: We do seem to get one of those moments at most of the good nights we put on. You suddenly take a step back and think… ‘we did this!’.
J: Seeing everyone smiling and dancing is so satisfying.
S: This year’s Hallowe’en party was full of special moments for me. It was at Arnos Vale cemetery, which is just not a party venue. A lot of work went into making it happen. Unfortunately we didn’t get a video done and there aren’t many photos of the night itself, but it really was next-level; with light-projection mapping on to the sides of churches and a heap of other stuff. I remember turning around and just taking in what we had done.
Are there any tracks that have been played out at a Shapes party that characterise your ‘sound’?
S: There is one tune that for me is such a ‘Shapes’ tune. It’s in the video for the first Hallowe’en show we did.
J: There are a couple of tracks that Fuzzbuzz – who’s like our king of techno at Shapes – quite often plays in his final set. He loves playing that Trentemøller track, Shades of Marble. That’s just a classic end of a night tune for Shapes.
S: There’s also Soul Clap’s remix of Bakerman. We finished about ten Shapes shows with that song. It kinda became quite a funny thing, where someone would get to play the last tune and they would just slip that on.
J: I remember I came back at one point, because I was living in Berlin for five months. I came back for all of them pretty much, because I was still so obsessed with the night. I came back for the Easter special at one point and it cost me so much to come back, and I was wondering if it was going to be worth it. I just have this image though of our residents dropping Bakerman and people are crawling up on the stage. Some guy’s got the smoke machine. One guy’s dressed as a spiderman, and another dressed as a banana, and I was like ‘yeah, it was worth it!’.
I just wanted to ask about your music policy quickly…
J: Yeah a lot of people ask about that. It does go from one end to the other sometimes. I just think we’re quite similar to SecretSundaze in London, that just put on good parties. We’ve got a wide range of tastes from disco to techno.
S: We’re really a lot about exclusivity too. We like to bring people who haven’t played in Bristol before, and sometimes people who the crowd might not have heard of before. People like Joop Junior – a massively underground booking at the time, but now he’s being dubbed as Richie Hawtin’s protégé. It’s great to get people like that in early on.
J: Same with Julian Jeweil. People were coming up to me and saying ‘who is this guy?!’. That’s just as satisfying as booking one of the great legends like Carl Craig.
S: Jeweil is still one of my favourite guys who’s played for us, sound-wise. He was mentally good!
J: And such a lovely guy. We had to force him into a taxi so he didn’t miss his plane.
Moving on to this Ostgut Ton night, these are some very hefty bookings for any night to have made. Has this been a long time in the making? How did it all come about?
S: This one has been a while in the making.
J: Originally Tom from Motion came to us and said that he had a date for us over the bank holiday. We originally talked about getting Dubfire in, and obviously he’s an absolute legend in techno, but we chatted about it and we just really want to get Ostgut Ton in. Berghain’s my favourite club in the world.
S: It’s also not really been done in Bristol, and not much in the UK in general. They’ve always been very private, not allowing photos inside the club, let alone taking their DJs all around the world together. So it seemed like a great opportunity to get in there and do something that’s not been done before in Bristol.
J: All these artists that have been booked haven’t really been brought together in a showcase, which I think is quite special. We’ve been negotiating with them on set-times and it’s really a joint creation with them. They had quite a voice in who they wanted to play, and likewise, with us, it was a two-way discussion so it was quite an enjoyable process. Just understanding their way of thinking. For instance they wanted at least 2-hour sets for everyone, and I completely agree. I think for techno you want at least that long for them to take you on that journey.
S: They definitely know what they want.
J: That’s why they’ve got to where they are. I really respect that. Even on the flyer, it’s a collaboration with my friend Femi. We were so happy with it, but there was a lot of back and forth to get everything just right. I wrote in one email to them that it was fine and that everything had to be ‘perfect’. I think they really liked that.
You mentioned having been to Berghain. What effect did it have on you and do you feel it deserves the accolades that are thrown its way?
J: The first year I went to Berlin, I didn’t get in, and I came back saying ‘I hate it, it’s so pretentious’. But then when you finally get in, you really do realise why they are so particular. I went on a Sunday morning, which is a highly recommended time to go by a lot of my German friends. It was such a special atmosphere in there. People aren’t absolutely battered, everyone’s just lovely. The sound system is impeccable in there too.
S: It’s something like 15 million Euros they’ve spent on the sound in there.
J: We are going to do our very best to make sure the sound system in Motion is somewhere near that.
S: Yeah we’ll be down there all day beforehand making sure it’s perfect.
J: I also loved the Panorama Bar. At some silly o’clock, they just open up the blinds and let the sun in. At first you just look around and don’t know what’s going on, but within 10 minutes, everyone has adjusted and they immediately change the sound that’s being played to fit in with that. It almost transforms the night into some sort of welcoming in of the day. It’s really something quite special.
Why do you think the English have such a tough time getting in?
S: English lads across the world have ruined it for everyone. We’ve tried to get into clubs there before and just four guys they just don’t want to let four UK lads in.
J: One of my friends who lives out there says that even they split up into one or two guys tops, because they want the ratio to be nice and even in the club. I think that’s the reason why Berlin is like it is. I did an interview once with Ellen Allien and I asked her about the difference between the London and Berlin scenes and she just said that Berlin has interesting spaces that can be open for as long as you want. You just couldn’t do that with a lot of the clientele you have in a lot of UK clubs because you could just end up with fights and binge drinking. Just very different party cultures essentially!
I sometimes feel that there could almost be a door policy at some London clubs, in a similar vein to Sven Marquardt’s selection at the door of Berghain. How do you think that would change the clubbing scene, for better or for worse?
S: I think a lot of clubs in London can push the boundaries a little when it comes to who they let in, but at the end of the day it’s all money-driven. That’s the difference between a club like Berghain and one like Fabric. The main priority at Berghain is – even if they have ten people in there – they want those ten people to have the best night possible. If it was done in the right way in London, not just focussing on getting the rich people into the club…
J: It’s a nice idea in principle. Having all the nice looking people in one space. Brilliant! But trying to police that and not cause a massive fuss, not only on the night, but in the media.
S: That’s also just a different attitude to clubbing, Some of the big clubs in London have had to bring in bag checks on exit to clubs; because of the amount of pick-pocketing and thievery going on inside London clubs. That’s really not what it’s all about. That’s really what I love about Bristol. I love clubbing here more than London because you can have that carefree attitude where you can stuff your coat underneath a chair and go off for the night, whereas in London you could put your coat down for two seconds and it’s gone!
Lastly, whose set are you looking forward to most on Friday and why?
S: For me it’s got to be Nick Höppner, or Anthony Parasole. I’ve not seen either of them before.
J: Yeah for me Anthony Parasole. He’s sort of a new kid on the block for Ostgut Ton, just released on Dettmann’s label as well. His Boiler Room in NYC is incredible and I think he’s just going to perfectly set the tone of the night. Ryan Elliott is just one of my favourite DJs. He loves long sets too. I saw him in London recently for about six hours. It was just relentlessly quality. He didn’t waver off for a bit or go for a fag. Then again, Tobias’ set at Melt! Festival a couple of years ago was one of the highlights of the weekend and Marcel Dettmann’s set at Simple Things last year was one of the best of the whole festival. So basically we’re looking forward to all of them, it’s hard for me to say one in particular.
S: I think it’ll be a journey from start to finish!
Looking past the Ostgut night, do you have any plans for the festival season or more parties in Bristol this summer?
J: We’ve got something possibly planned in June, but we’re not gonna say too much about that just yet. In terms of festivals, we’re hosting a stage at FarmFest, which is a really local festival in Somerset with a wicked line-up.
S: It’s something like £50 a ticket, and it’s so close to Bristol for people to come down and camp for the weekend. We’ve got 13 and a half hours to programme, so we’re going to get some great support and a mammoth set. I’m most looking forward to that really.
J: We’ve got a 3-hour Shapes takeover at Gottwood Festival on the Sunday, and then one at Beacons Festival Alongside, of course, our yearly ‘Ladies Night’ at Shambala. It’s just become this yearly thing where we all just dress up in drag and encourage everyone else to.
S: It’s hilarious DJing in drag. My advice is not to wear gold and black sparkly though, because the wasps just hate it! I was stung about seven times over the weekend and was pretty grumpy about it in the end and took myself to bed!
Awesome, it’s been a pleasure to chat to you guys!
J & S: Likewise, thanks!
