Thankfully, clubland still has a few mavericks willing to shake things up and raise a fist to banging cattle-markets and snoozy purists’ haunts. Manchester’s eccentric, eclectic Electriks are, Steve Yates suspects, the future of discoteks for liberated souls…

“Tony Wilson said that youth culture is dead in Manchester, but he’s completely missed the point.”

It’s rare these days to find anyone brave or foolish enough to take on the role of clubland’s cultural spokesman. A fragmented scene has left most content to work their own corners, while the variety on offer in some superclubs owes more to the cherry-picking, something-for-everyone ethos of the festival circuit than genuine eclecticism. Enter Luke Cowdrey, a man with a big mouth and the trousers to match. “Certain things going on are the most exciting, most liberated, most friendly energy-based things I’ve ever seen, but it’s just gone a lot more underground. It’s a lot harder to unearth, but seek and ye shall find:”

He’s entitled to such hyperbole, for as one-half of the oxymoronic Una Bombers (his partner Justin is Grand Central’s Only Child) and part of Manchester’s Electriks, Luke’s involved in three club nights which are among the most popular in the city and the coolest in the land. Electric Chair, Homo Electric and Electric Souls have more than the E word in common. They all acknowledge the existence of dance music, pre-acid house. They all accept that many people love more than one genre and want to hear that diversity reflected in the night. But mostly they all know that, in Luke’s words: “For a good club you need a bit of excitement and no attitude. Ashley Beedle summed it up – he said it’s 200 people, a big sound system, a red light and a good feeling. You can swap 200 for 1,000, but the moment the passion goes and it becomes a formula then don’t kid yourself – just stop.”

Born in the most inauspicious circumstances at a rock dive called The Roadhouse, Electric Chair quickly become a monthly lock-out. Billed as a ‘future funk discotek’, its soundtrack emphasised variety and accessibility, dragging out 20- and even 30-some­things left equally cold by both purists’ boys’ clubs and the soulless cattle-market mainstream house had become. “A disco is about dancing to music,” says Luke. ‘That got lost in the elevation of the DJ as God, and trainspotting culture. One of the best things about Electric Chair is the female aspect. There’s none of that bravado and over-seriousness about music which I think is just fucked.”

Electric Chair saw them stumbling onto something special by accident rather than design, but in the last two years things have really gathered pace. The Chair relocated to The Music Box, tripling its capacity and locking out latecomers. But before that Homo Electric was launched, breathing life back into a scene once so vibrant Gunchester was briefly renamed Gaychester. “The Gay Village was great in the early-90s, but it was a victim of its own success. It became a parody full of Stepford gay men and white trash. Black music was squeezed out – it either went ironic so-bad-it’s-good or that vile nu-NRG. There was absolutely no alternative We thought there must be at least 300 people in this city who are either gay or gay-friendly, who wanna hear good music. And as soon as we started it was full. We get a good percentage of straight people there too. It’s not about being exclusive – it’s about nice people not giving a fuck about others’ sexuality.”

Homo Electric also made waves with a wonderfully opinionated, often scabrous monthly newsletter. The lists of ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ was a quick laugh for those who got the joke and a cause of consternation for those who didn’t. So, what gives them the right to assault other people’s lifestyles?  

“Absolutely nothing at all,” laughs Luke. “It’s just done to have a laugh and wind people up. And it has done – people do get seriously fucked off with it. Attacking areas in Didsbury and Chorlton (Manchester suburbs popular with post-grads, yuppies and hippies) has met with huge opposition. One guy asked to be taken off the mail-out ‘cause we kept going on about Chorlton. But it will continue. We’re taking the piss out of anyone born in the mid-60s to early-70s - people who know about Ford Cortinas and Battenberg cake, ‘cause that’s what me and Justin are. That’s us. There are some people who regard it as a serious lifestyle guide when it’s just utter shite and nonsense. It’s also a precursor to a fanzine which we wanna do next year. It’ll be a cheap and nasty diatribe against Ikea and feng shui done in the name of good music, with ideas, recipes, football and very little editorial control.”

Now there’s Electric Souls - a series of warehouse parties promoted by word of mouth, restoring that frisson of excitement that comes from doing something you shouldn’t at a time when clubbing is cleaner, more controlled and more corporate than it’s ever been.

“To me;” says Luke, “that’s the ultimate snapshot of the times. Shitty rooms which are dirty and cold but with a big sound system and loads of passion compared to a multi-million-pound nightclub like Home in London which has got all these facilities but no soul.”

Ashley Beedle, who played the New Year Souls (held on January 2 to avoid millennial madness), concurs: “The general consensus amongst us old bastards is that there’s a return to the roots of what it’s all about, which is the music. We’re getting back to putting on parties which mean something; things which have a bit of savvy.”

The Electriks’ growing reputation has enabled them to book star names, often at cut-price fees. “I don’t think I got paid the first time,” laughs Beedle. “It’s Luke and Justin’s enthusiasm and the way it reflects on their very loyal crowd. You can go different places with the music. I find that in Manchester anyway – people are a lot more open than in London.” François Kevorkian was so taken with Electric Chair he famously played the after-party too, DJing for hours in a Fallowfield living room.

“When we had Kevorkian I think he was genuinely shocked,”· remembers Luke. “In London people tend to be fairly blasé, but we had hundreds locked out and he was amazed to play to such a passionate crowd. Mancunians have this habit of slagging Manchester off, but you ask any American DJ who’s played here in the last few years – they love it. Joe Claussell apparently won’t play in London, but he wants to play Electric Chair.”

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