09 Highlights - June

In June Rhona caught up with the "King Kong" of Manchester's APE Lee "Sabre" check out the interview below....

Rhona: When did you start promoting?

[them]Sabre: I started promoting round about ‘97 on a kind of part time basis like a hobby basically. (Rhona: which nights did you promote) I always promoted my own nights. We started out – threw a birthday party, it was three of us who were doing it. We always wanted to play more than we were being offered gigs so we threw a birthday party and we sold out a club for like 600/ 700 people and so, that’s how we all started. We started out this night called Viagra Fools and that was drum and bass with hip hop in another room. We started off at Club North which is now called blink I think and then we moved it to subspace which at the time was called generation x and we used to run that on three floors: downstairs – drum n bass, middle floor was hip hop , upstairs was anything goes really. From then we moved to club Havana which is now called the ruby lounge. Ape was kind of born as a result of Viagra Falls basically[/them]



Rhona: Why did you choose the Apollo as the venue?

[them]SABRE ; Ape was born in Sankeys; we then got asked to move it to the Warehouse Project when those guy started that at Boddingtons. So when we done the first year of Boddingtons we did a couple of Ape shows that sold out to like 3000 people . And obviously with the warehouse project being on for twelve weeks a year we were kind of like ‘where do we take it now?’ We went to venues, we thought about going back to places like Sankeys and that but we thought we’d try a gamble and go for something a bit fresh – a bit different and I’d always really loved the venue. So we talked to the guys at the Apollo, to see what they thought about us bringing a big drum n bass night down there and you know, fortunately, they were open-minded about it, they knew our track record was great and everything . The police were happy for us to go ahead with so we gave it ago and it was an absolute monster. So we did two that year and then we gave it a miss last year purely because we were involved in another project at the time and our hands were tied. Then this year obviously, when the warehouse ended, we looked at it again and thought lets go back to the Apollo. And we’ve done a three part series, the third of which is this Friday.[/them]

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Rhona: Ape’s got quite a name for itself. It’s a well awaited night down here in Manchester, people are always buzzing about up and coming and previous Apes, being the man organising it must I suppose get a bit stressed?

[them]SABRE : There are parts of it which obviously are stressful it’s a lot more work than I think people think when they try and promote nights and sales and do what I do for a living. You know, you burn every hour God sends if your good at your job and obviously you have the stress of not having your salary coming in; if your run your own promotions what you earn is purely based upon the success of the event so there’s stress involved on that side of it but you know that’s part of why we do what we do; and other than that you know I love my job and every job has got stressful sides to it and they are normally related to money and hours so there is nothing new there but yeah, you know I love my job.[/them]

Rhona: I suppose when the night kicks and you get to see it all come into place it becomes quiet fulfilling

[them]SABRE : Yeah its kinda like a science and an art putting on an decent event. So obviously being able to know how to promote and what buttons to press in order to get bums on seats so to speak -that’s the science side of it and obviously the arts side is actually the show of the event itself and we try and put on a show – a proper show in oppose to just a guy playing music on a sound system and I think we pull that off well with Ape. We work hard to use visuals, your various bits and bobs like that, take care with the venues we use, we always want to try and bring the best sound systems in the best venues – you know make it feel like your going to something a bit special. You know we kinda fit what we do between a regular club night and going to a festival you know – it’s more of an event.[/them]

Rhona: This following ape will be the third this year, everyone’s really looking forward to it but what have you got planned for Apes after this one?

[them]Sabre: After this Ape we generally take a bit of a break for the summer, from Manchester anyway. Our events are very popular with the student population so summers a bit quiet.[/them]

Rhona: Will you be touring with ape?

[them]SABRE: We’ve looked at that before. It’s our second time doing one of the main areas at Creamfields this year. We’re really chuffed to be invited to do that. Especially more chuffed seeing as we did such a good job last year that they wanted us back this year. Regards to actually touring with it: no. Mainly because – its something we might do in the future but you know you have to have the confidence and the promoters in the other cities you want to tour it with. You know like I said it’s not just about putting on a line up it’s about a show. We’d have to have faith in the people in the other cities to promote it and produce it as well as you do. It’s something we are not in the hurry to do. But it certainly something we haven’t ruled out for the future.[/them]

Rhona: Can you tell us anything about what you’ve got in store for line ups?

[them]SABRE: We’re not allowed to reveal anything at this stage to be honest. We tend to reveal our line ups one event at a time but I can tell you, especially for the back end of the year we have got some really interesting talent coming to Ape and Ape related events. Its gonna be amazing actually. Few of the names you will definitely of heard of who have played for us before from slightly different genres of music and then some really good fresh up an coming talent and then obviously a lot of the big guns who play for us on a regular and you know they do that for a reason. We got some really exciting stuff for later in the year – honestly I think everyone s going to be really happy when they see the line up later on in the summer.[/them]

Rhona: Obviously a lot of the artist you have performing at Ape are dubstep and dnb artist. This genre of music seem as quite sweet and small at the moment, can you see it branching out and getting bigger?

[them]Sabre: Obviously they are underground music styles and that what I specialise in. They’re never gonna go massive – they’re never gonna go like hip hop but I think that when a music genre comes up as something fresh – people can jump on to it. For instance in the nineties drum and bass n jungle was massive – massive. Some of that stuff was getting into the top forty, people like uncut and their tune “Midnight” for example, DJ Marky and people like that were getting into the charts . Umm I think drum and bass will obviously struggle to get to those heights again but I think obviously with dubstep that has the potential to reach those heights in the next few years. I think in regards to being strong in the undergorund I think they are massive at the minute. Underground music techno and drum and bass are two of the biggest things out there right now in my opinion. But in regards to like hitting it out in the mainstream dubstep with like some good cross overs especially by people like Skream – I mean he’s just beyond dubstep really. This guy can produce music of any quality so yeah – dubstep I’m quite excited about.[/them]

Rhona: Last question what do you love most about your job.


[them]Sabre : That I’ve got it.[/them]

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