Satellite Kidz Funky Nuts
Artist Interviews

Tidy Treasures – Zander Club

Our series of Tidy music inspired tales continues and this week it’s the turn of Untidy’s Zander Club who actually gives us one of the the best Treasures yet! . Are you sitting comfortably..?

So… just to let everyone know. Johnny asked me to do this weeks ago but it’s taken me a while to think of a real story to tell you. Rather than just bigging up a classic that everyone already loves. Then this evening, while I was sorting out some old records, this popped in to my head. So grab a drink, get snuggled up and get ready for one of the most inspirational story’s in the history of hard house. (I felt like Tom Hardy on the CBeebies channel getting the mums loosened up for a bed time story saying that).

 
Once upon a time, in the seaside town of Bridlington. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon back when I was 14 years old. I’d just started DJing and got some belt drive Omnitronic decks with a behringer mixer that had two completely useless BPM counters on it. Wired up to an ancient technics amp with some big jamo speakers (that we all thought sounded ace back then) delivering the goods. My mate danny who I used to go skating with came round and saw my decks, and me hopelessly trying to mix Art of Trance’s ‘Madagascar; with “12 Inch Thumpers ‘Don’t Cross The Line’, which were the first two records I bought… and he said. “You know my dads a big techno DJ?”. I was like hahaha “Fuck off mate… no he isn’t”. He worked in an electronics shop at the time called Quay TV, selling overpriced TVs and Stereos to middle class old folk. Turns out he was. His dad “||Eddie Neal” who to this day is one of my good mates, used to play at the Destruxshon shows at Doncaster Dome and the Thunderdome techno events. 


He spoke to his dad and asked if he could help me and we popped round that afternoon. I arrived at his house nervous and still in a state of disbelief. I was greeted with his dad in flip flops, shorts and a white polo neck, thinking this is definitely bollocks. He gave us both a can of fosters, Then walked in to his living room to see 2 technics 1210s, the holy grail of decks and a technics scratch mixer front and centre. He played a few tunes from Y2K, Tripoli Trax and of course Tidy and mixed them perfectly, which made me even more nervous and then I had a go. He quickly stopped me and and started to ask me what I have at home and how long have I been doing this, and showed me how to cue a record properly and everything made sense. He then got 2 copies of a white label promo out which happened to be a tidy promo, with the old a4 feedback slips you had to post back to the label, before the internet made this easy. It was Satellite Kids ‘Funky Nuts’, with ‘Can U Feel It’ on the flip side. 


He said… “Until you can mix the same record seamlessly, don’t bother trying anything else”.

I went home and practiced for weeks until I nailed it and then started growing my collection. It wasn’t until a year or two later when one of my older mates gave me a copy of the Tidyvison cd/dvd that I realise I learned how to mix using a Tidy release. I also realised part of that DVD was filmed at Flamborough Cliffs, just five minutes from my home, anyway… From there Tidy became my church for music and to this day I still love ‘Funky Nuts’ and ‘Can U Feel It’. Infact, I think they are two of the most underrated tracks on Tidy that would still sound fresh and prick ears up today in 2021. They were bouncy, choppy, not quite hard house but funky and in my eyes the perfect example of today’s Untidy sound. Infact I bet half of the people reading this, won’t even know the tracks by name, but will have heard them at some point!


Fast forward to early 2021 and Sam & Amo asked me to do a Zander Club remix of Satellite Kids ‘Time 4 House’, an iconic track that any tidy fan will be very familiar with, which was a bit of a confirmation to me how 20 years of hard work has now come full circle, and this kick started my career as an artist today with tidy! I’ve toured the world and had albums out in Asia, featured on Cream and Ministry CDs and even while touring then as The Squatters, I used to play the odd Untidy release because it sounded new to a crowd that have never heard it.


Anyway I could go on and sound like the wise old man, telling you how “It’s not the same as it used to be…” It isn’t, but after playing at Love Tidy in Leeds last month, it has confirmed that this scene is even more alive, vibrant and better than I remember it from 10 years ago!


The short lesson to take from this is that if you focus and work hard on something that you believe in, one day it will pay off at a point when you least expect it and it will be fuelled by part of your past.


So… go check out Satellite Kids ‘Funky Nuts’ and Can U Feel It’. Then grab a copy of my remix of Satellite Kids – Time 4 House.


If you’ve read this far… get off the toilet and get back to work!


Big love to everyone who has supported me so far and hi to everyone who’s just getting to know me. See you in Birmingham on 20th November at the daytime Untidy show. X

Download & Stream this release here: https://tidytrax.fanlink.to/FunkyNuts

Stream & Download Zander Club’s Untidy UX remix here: https://untidy.fanlink.to/Untidy_X01

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