Dave Beer

Beer's obsession with the punk-music scene saw him become a groupie, hitching up with punk band The Clash. As a keen photographer, he captured many exclusive shots of the bands he followed incorporating them into art projects at college. His persistence on the tour circuit led to his first proper role as a roadie and later as tour manager for bands including That Petrol Emotion, The Ramones, Ghost Dance, The Utah Saints, and The Sisters of Mercy who he lived with at the time.

During a spell with Stourbridge noisemeisters, Pop Will Eat Itself, Beer found himself working on the 1987 Def Jam tour that included Public Enemy, LL Cool J and Run-D.M.C., but life as a tour manager would soon takes its toll.

Beer travelled the world several times over with numerous bands before he became fed up with life on the road. It was the birth of acid house in 1988 that sent Beer on a new tangent entirely. He visited the Haçienda and the famed illegal warehouse parties in Blackburn getting his first taste of acid house, but when the Criminal Justice Act hit in 1991, outlawing parties in disused libraries and warehouses; Beer drew inspiration in the new music scene that was taking over and wanted to be part of it.

Beer faced the post-warehouse party world with the DIY ethos of a punk and Back To Basics was born on 23 November 1991,[2] named literally to represent what the club set out to do.

Beer and Alistair grew tired of the acid house scene and wanted to put on parties> where alternative music to the rave scene was played. Through Back To Basics, they made clubbing fashionable, and throughout the 1990s it was one of the most desirable places to go, causing road blocks in Leeds city centre.[1] At the time, Back to Basics had a strict, sometimes controversial and inconsistent door policy which made it one of the hardest clubs to get into. Beer personally greeted all 80 clubbers on the opening night and those who were refused entry due to their dummy sucking or poor choice of trainers were encouraged to try harder next time.

Its opening night was held on the top floor of The Chocolate Factory, which was later renamed, The Music Factory. Weeks two and three of Back To Basics saw the crowds double in size until it was attracting 1,000 clubbers every week. By Nov 1992 at the end of its first year, Dave and Alistair found themselves on stage at the Royal Albert Hall, looking out to a packed auditorium as they picked up the DMC and Mixmag Award for Best Club.

Over the next 20 years from 1991 to the present day, Beer toured Back To Basics all over the world from Australia to the USA and held club residencies at Home London, and Space Ibiza. He was responsible for nurturing the talent of Daft Punk, Basement Jaxx and Groove Armada giving them some of their first gigs as unknown artists. Beer was also responsible for bringing international talent into the UK for the first time including Danny Tenaglia, Josh Wink and Frankie Knuckles.[3]

Back To Basics holds numerous awards from the music and events industry and has gained worldwide recognition thanks to its forward thinking music policy and loyal following. Today it is considered a "household name" in UK clubbing and Beer continues to be "the life and soul" of the Basics party.[4]

In 2017, Beer was approached by Leeds City Council to host a special Back To Basics classical event in Leeds' Millennium Square on 27 July, in conjunction with Opera North. The event, named The Symphonic Sounds of Back To Basics was held in celebration of the brands cultural and economical contributions to the city and Beer was also honoured as a son of Leeds. The event that was held annually for three consecutive years saw the likes of Corinne Bailey Rae, Basement Jaxx, Groove Armada, Robert Owens, Adamski, Robin S, Alison Limerick and Saffron from Republica join Beer on stage with Opera North's 50 piece orchestra. The event was covered by several local news channels including BBC Look North[5] and The Yorkshire Evening Post[6]

Over the years, Beer has DJ’ed to millions of people all over the world at the Berlin Love Parade alongside Radio 1 DJs Sara Cox and Pete Tong; at Creamfields, Glastonbury, Bestival and at Homelands where in 1999 he was flown in by helicopter to play to 40,000 people. Today he remains resident DJ at Back To Basics.

On the UK club scene, he has been a regular at the Chuff Chuff parties, his own big beat night, Backbeat; Renaissance, Gatecrasher, and at London superclub's Ministry Of Sound, The Cross, Turnmills, Heaven, and at The Elbow Rooms in Leeds where he was a resident DJ and musical consultant for several years.

In Ibiza, his first gig was on the sunset strip at Café del Mar, and he has gone on to play at many more clubs on the island including Café Mambo, Manumission, Privilege, Pacha and Space.

Beer's career as a music producer began when he teamed up with his Basics’ partner Alistair Cooke for their debut single Keep The Faith, which was released under the alias The God Squad in 1993 on Junk Rock Records.[7]

Many releases followed for Beer including I am Miami (You’re Looking At Him), produced under the alias Out of Order with Kriss Needs, released in July 1998 on Creation Records offshoot, Eruption Records. It gained interest from the music press including the NME and Muzik Magazine. Featuring the vocals from Stefan Frank and engineered by Dave Hedger, Beer described it as, "Just an off the wall track. I was always into that early electro Hip Hop sound. So it was a chance to get away from house music and mix things up a bit". The music video featured a cameo of one of the biggest producers around at the time, Arthur Baker who drove an open top Cadillac in one of the scenes.

Beer's remixing history includes re-rubs for David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Afrika Bambaataa and Intastella. Throughout time, his production has been a varied reflection of his diverse musical influences.

Further developments in Beer's career have come in the formation of The Blessed - an eclectic live musical collaboration between him and techno producer Gareth Whitehead, head of Bulletdodge Records. The Blessed draws influences from Beer's punk ethos and from a collection of house, funk, new wave and electro. The band - which features guest musicians up to as many as eight musicians on stage at one time including singers, guitarists, percussionists and brass players - debuted at the o2 Academy Leeds on Thursday 1 April 2010[8] as the support act for Fatboy Slim. With the incorporation of live visuals, the gig showcased young break-dancers connected with the Mums Against Guns campaign. House music producer Robert Owens also played with The Blessed that night.

The name The Blessed derives from the idea that one must count one's blessings in life, and that life is for the living and must be lived to the full by everybody regardless of creed, colour or social status before it is too late. This idealism, regardless of one's relativist position, is the lifeblood of The Blessed's music and is their political message to bring people together.

Beer turned his hand to label management in 1995 and set up Back To Basics Recordings with co-promoter and producer, Ralph Lawson, and Michael Hirst.

The label issued some of the biggest selling compilations of the 1990s including Cut The Crap[9] in 1996 – a three disc box set mixed by Ralph Lawson, Derrick Carter and the only commercially available DJ mix by Andrew Weatherall. It was listed by DJ Magazine at number 38 in a list of 100 Best Dance Compilations Ever, and to this day is still considered to be "the DJs’ DJ" compilation.

Published in 2002 as part of the Back To Basics 10 year celebrations, the label released Back To Basics Presents Danny Tenaglia on React Records, the labels’ biggest selling compilation of the time.[10]

During the 1990s and in light of his expressive fashion sense, Beer launched his own fashion label named Damage. The collection featured men and women's T-shirts made in quality fabrics, all boasting provocative motifs and slogans, which some say pioneered the way for the T-shirt slogan boom that followed in the late nineties.

Fashion title Drapers caught onto the label and featured it as a One To Watch as did men's style magazine GQ. The range was later seen on the backs of celebrities such as Sienna Miller, Jude Law and Lily Allen.

Beer has been the creative mind behind the Back To Basics club flyers since the night first began. Over the years, they have featured tongue-in-cheek, controversial imagery, many of which were heavily influenced by the punk explosion of the 1970s. The most famous of all Basics’ flyers is a piece of customised iconography of the Sex Pistols God Save The Queen album cover embossed with the Back To Basics punk slogan: Two Steps Further Than Any Other Fucker.

The artist behind the original images, Jamie Reid gave Beer his blessing to adopt his work. He grew a close relationship with Beer and went on to showcase some of his own art at Back To Basics in late 1992. The Back To Basics adaption has gone on to become an iconic example of club art and its culture.[11]

Back To Basics changed the way clubs flyered their nights, adding edge and personality through the use of controversial slogans and random imagery. The Back To Basics’ flyers made their way into a number of books including Highflyers – Club Rave Party Art,[12] Fly – The Art Of The Club Flyer,[13] Once In A Lifetime – The Crazy Days Of Acid House & Afterwards,[14] Jam: Style + Music + Media[15] and Adventures In Wonderland: Decade of Club Culture.[16] The flyers were hung as artwork in Selfridges in London, at the Barbican Art Gallery, and a lot went under the hammer at "Sotheby's".

In 2012, a selection of limited prints based on the flyer artwork were exhibited[17] at the Leeds Art Gallery and at Harvey Nichols in Leeds' city centre.

Beer has regularly used his influence and the popularity of Back To Basics to get involved in work outside of clubland, giving talks on popular culture to college and university students. At the MiNT Club in Leeds on 16 June 1999, he delivered a speech at an event called Arthrob in conjunction with The Arts Council of England alongside readings from novelist Irvine Welsh, Miranda Sawyer, and Biyi Bandele. Over the years, Beer and Welsh grew close, and Irvine became a regular at Back To Basics, regularly sleeping on Beer's sofa.[18]

Beer also staged a Back To Basics and Northern Talent Production in association with Yorkshire Arts called Millennium or Bust. The night was an audience with Irvine Welsh, Howard Marks, Wayne Hemingway, and Beer himself, held at the Leeds University conference auditorium on 9 December 1999.

Beer also became close friends with author and filmmaker Howard Marks, who DJed at the Back To Basics 20th Birthday[19] in November 2011. More recently, alongside him, Marks has narrated a documentary exploring the life and tales of Back To Basics, titled Tales Of Glamour & Excess.[20]

The pair teamed up in the showcase of Howard's life stories – a series of stand-up shows - that included a bizarre PowerPoint presentation featuring demonic images to the backing track of Sympathy For The Devil, remixed by Beer.[21] The event was staged to promote Howard's new book and first fictional tale, which shares its name with The Rolling Stones’ song. Marks mentions Beer in his second autobiography Señior Nice.[22]

Furthering his involvement in events outside of clubland, Beer DJ'ed at the Royal Ballet in Covent Garden where he was booked to create a music programme for a pre-choreographed performance. VJ Charles Kriel provided the visuals for this same event.

In June 1999, Beer took to the Channel 4 airwaves to take part in Nightlife Legends, a six-part series of late-night chat shows looking at the clubbing scene.

Even the BBC could not ignore the impact that Beer and Back To Basics were having on clubland, and not just in the UK, but on a global scale. On Basics’ 18th Birthday in November 2009, BBC Look North headed down to Stinky's Peephouse in Leeds to interview him about the success of his club night. On 1 March that following year, the BBC went into more depth looking at the history of Back To Basics in a documentary featured on Inside Out in which Basics was referred to as a "national treasure" and "the stuff of legends".

Appearances

• Club@vision, ITV (1996-1999)
• Rapture TV ITV and Sky (1997-2007)
• Nightlife Legends, Channel 4. Six part series - late-night chat shows hosted by Amos. (1999)
• Nightlife Legends Ibiza, Channel 4
• MTV
• Ministry Of Sound TV (2008)
• IT TV (banned)
• Inside Out, BBC 1 Yorkshire & Lincolnshire (2010)

Throughout 2007 and 2008, Beer was a weekly columnist for the Daily Sport writing about UK club life. He also had his own Back To Basics radio show on Galaxy FM (now Capital) and made regular appearances on Kiss FM London and Kiss FM Leeds.