Co-founder Johnno Burgess digs deep to recall his 30 personal highlights…

‍

Over the summer of 1994, Jockey Slut editors Paul Benney and Johnno Burgess threw six small parties in Manchester called Disco Pogo, the first outing for the name. The owners of Manchester’s Sankeys Soap club – Andrew Spiro and Rupert Campbell – were sufficiently impressed that they offered up their Friday nights to them from 25 November 1994. Declining the offer of terming the night Okey Dokey, Benney and Burgess settled on Bugged Out! (the superfluous exclamation point coming from the initial design by Barney Doodlebug), and they wondered whether the night would make it to that Christmas… 

30 years later, it’s one of the UK’s most enduring club nights with early appearances from The Chemical Brothers and Daft Punk and a who’s who of Detroit and Chicago DJs passing through its doors. They’ve stared into the depths of huge money pits with events in Ibiza (and the less glamorous Prestatyn) but have made it to the present day thanks to mega rave ups in old IKEAs and a former newspaper printing press, plus shindigs on Brighton beach. 

LFO and Autechre get the party started (1994)

For our opening night (25 November 1994) we were lucky enough to inherit two fitting live acts who were already booked on the date at Sankeys Soap, LFO and Autechre, the former about to appear on the cover of Jockey Slut. So, our first night sold out. After a period of being under half empty, we sold out again in March – with Richie Hawtin – and the night finally became established. 

The Chemical Brothers (1994 – present)

Our first club promotions in the summer of 1994 featured our student friends who were then on the crest of a wave with the track ‘Chemical Beats’. Then known as The Dust Brothers, Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons have since played for us nearly two dozen times at The Haçienda (a sold-out live show), Sankeys, fabric, various festival stages, two of our Weekenders in Bognor Regis and Vauxhall clubs Fire and Area. They even brought their club night Glint to our short-lived Heaven residency (choosing the 500-capacity Soundshaft for its intimacy). They would often road-test their new tracks; we were lucky enough to witness ‘Galvanise’ for the first time at Sankeys, watch ‘Go’ tear strips off London’s Area and at their first Printworks show in 2017 they experimented with several tracks that would end up on ‘No Geography’. 

Carl Cox weekender (1995)

In 1995, Carl Cox was huge on the rave circuit but keen to play smaller clubs. Not because his popularity was waning, he was just hip to where the wind was blowing. We were also booking the Saturday at Sankeys at the time, so we offered Carl a weekender. It was one of the most packed nights in that first year with an incendiary fizz throughout - the anticipation that Cox was going to play, the buzz in the queue and then the madness that ensued when he fully delivered made for a primal atmosphere; it was the Hardfloor mix of Mory Kante’s ‘Yeke Yeke’ that took the roof off (to use that well-worn phrase). He came back six months later to headline New Year’s Eve. 

Carl Craig swaps shirts (1995)

Across 1994 and 1995, we were a willing magnet for Detroit and Chicago DJs with D. Wynn, Derrick May, Cajmere, Derrick Carter, Boo Williams, Glenn Underground and Juan Atkins making the trip to the once desolate Ancoats area that one of them described as “more fucked-up than Detroit”. But it took a little while to land Carl Craig. In the mid-90s he was a producer of note but less known as a DJ; this didn’t stop the trainspotters coming out in droves when he finally graced the club, some bringing vinyl for him to sign at the end of his set (69’s ‘Desire’ was an anthem in our first year). One regular, who worked in Vinyl Exchange, went a step further and proposed they swap shirts like footballers, which Craig gamely did. 

Daft Punk (1995 – 2000)

In October 1995, Daft Punk wrapped their studio equipment in towels, put them in suitcases and made their way to Bugged Out! to play live, airing ‘Da Funk’, ‘Alive’ and some other early tracks. They returned in 1997, ‘Homework’ done, with a decks and FX set-up and then again the following year for our 4th birthday. They had initially turned the invite down to appear at this celebration but the week before asked if they could join the line-up. As we’d already gone over budget they played for expenses only and we even got a Thomas Bangalter live set thrown into the deal. There was no social media back then and the internet seldom used, so the only way we could let people know that Daft Punk and Thomas Bangalter had been added to the bill was to go around Liverpool fly-postering the news on top of our existing posters. In 1999, they were billed to play one of our Ibiza shows but had to make a swift exit to go and make ‘One More Time’ (their manager and a friend of Jeff Mills – both French – stepped in instead; people still think they saw Daft Punk that night). To make up for that cancellation they played our first night at fabric later that year (again for expenses). Business was certainly done very differently in the 90s. 

Green Velvet ready, prepare to flash! (1996)

After hearing from the likes of Derrick Carter what an incredible DJ Curtis Jones was we were desperate to get him over to Manchester; not least because he ran two labels that were cornerstones of our club – Cajual and Relief. Once he’d played Sankeys, however – and found he shared our kooky sense of humour – he became one of our regulars. After ‘Flash’ became a thunderous part of our nights we invited him to perform live and in anticipation of him playing the track, gave out 500 fun cameras on the door for the crowd to hold aloft and, well, flash at the appropriate moment. Another sign of those times: cameras were a most peculiar thing to see in clubs. 

Dave Clarke & Justin Robertson, The Courtyard (1998 – 2002)

Nation in Liverpool was the 4,500-capacity, three-roomed venue Cream used weekly at the peak of the super clubs. When Sankeys shut in 1998 we were offered a monthly Friday all-nighter slot which we were hesitant to take; moving from 800 a week to 4,500 was a real hike in capacity and we worried we’d lose our more underground following. With that in mind, we didn’t really change the programming too much, just made sure there was a bigger headliner and we had a third room to play with to extend the music policy further into breaks and hip hop. We put the train times for homeward travel after 6am across the North on the flyer and people came in their droves. We had five successful years there and the heart of the club for most of that time was the Courtyard. This was the 1,000 capacity room Justin Robertson and Dave Clarke helmed. Regulars (some we termed the Courtyard Kids) would pile down the front and not leave for the other rooms all night. Robertson played the techno du jour – artists like Smith & Selway, Umek and the heavier side of house from Josh Wink and Danny Tenaglia. Clarke banged the hell out of it for 90 minutes, sometimes having a nap on the sofa backstage before taking to the decks. He pre-empted where techno was about to go too when I left the club with ‘Emerge’ Fischerspooner scrawled on a slip of paper at the end of one of his sets. 

The first Creamfields (1998)

Hosting our first festival tent at the inaugural Creamfields event in 1998, we wanted to do something different with the visuals, a world away from the none-more-90s psychedelic fractal bollocks. So, we enlisted a team who were still using old film which they manually fed into projectors for a more visceral approach which would match the rough techno and drum’n’bass. They nailed the brief so well; if you entered the tent during Doc Scott’s set you were met with films of riot footage from the 70s and 80s, with the loved-up ravers facing mobs hurling Molotov cocktails at them.

Armand Van Helden hits No. 1 (1999)

The late-90s saw underground artists turn pop stars and in 1999, it was the turn of Armand Van Helden who had come to prominence with dark house tracks like ‘Witch Doktor’. He headlined the main room of Liverpool in 1999, the weekend he was to hit the number one slot in the charts with the immeasurably more commercial ‘You Don’t Know Me’. When it’s shard-like strings and Duane Harden vocal burst out of the speakers the crowd erupted in unfettered joy. The slogan we had running down one side of the wall – ‘It’s Just A Big Disco’, a piss-take of Gatecrasher’s ‘We Will Always Be With You – never felt so apt.

‍Amnesia Saturdays, Ibiza (1999)

In 1999, Ibiza was soundtracked by ATB ‘9pm (Till I Come)’ and populated with fluffy bras to match the vapid music. So, perhaps it was not the right year to bring Bugged Out! to the island. As Ibiza virgins we didn’t realise the Saturday night we’d been granted by Amnesia, was the “changeover” day for Brits, so we looked out on a huge club that was pretty full of locals and isle workers who hadn’t paid to get in. We brought Jeff Mills to Ibiza for the first time (prompting Muzik magazine to write ‘Jeff Mills in Ibiza? Who cares’ as he didn’t really fit in with the Judge Jules-ification of the region). After playing an incredible set that featured an early play of ‘Knights of the Jaguar’ Mills went to sit in the VIP with Sven Väth whose Cocoon would become the runaway techno success in ensuing years while we left with empty pockets.

Bugged Out! Weekender (2000)

Our first large scale event was called ‘a spiritual success’ by the NME due to the poor attendance, but buoyed by a crowd determined to have a good time. In conjunction with SJM and the sorely-missed Chris York, we pulled together a line-up that featured Underworld, Roni Size’s Reprazent, Green Velvet, Richie Hawtin, Carl Craig and pretty much everyone we could convince to join us for a weekend at a Pontins in north Wales. It was blighted by poor weather resulting in snail-pace train journeys (it took nine hours to get from London!) and late marketing; if social media had existed in 2000, we would have sold out but as it was we had to rely on posters across the North West, flyers and what press we could get. There were many highlights though, including Mr Scruff playing all Sunday afternoon in the pub, a pre-fame Doves playing live, Harvey headlining the Electric Chair room (at one point a customer fell through the ceiling having got somewhat lost) and – due to the sales – being able to get down the front to see the whites of Karl Hyde’s eyes when Underworld headlined. 

Erol Alkan’s first appearance (2001)

After interviewing Erol for Jockey Slut about his club night Trash I went to his house in Tufnell Park to – quaint as this now sounds – put together a CD of new tracks for The Avalanches (which we posted to Australia). Playing me his latest bootlegs – and a bunch of dance tracks he liked – I asked Erol if he wanted to fill in for David Holmes that Friday as he had pulled out of his slot at our fabric residency. Seeing Erol helm Room 3 that night was to witness a sea change that would flush the more boring prog house bores from clubs the following year. Looking like one of the Ramones and breaking rules he wasn’t aware existed Erol was a revelation and the room was bouncing after only a few tracks. We offered him a residency on the spot… 

Jon Carter playing ‘My Sweet Lord’ in Liverpool (2001)

Indelibly stamped on the memories of all who were there, the very night George Harrison died Jon Carter ended another of his riotous, super eclectic sets in the Annexe at Nation, with ‘My Sweet Lord’ prompting tears in the local security guards and staff lining up to thank him for marking the sad occasion of one of their own gone far too soon. As a side note, not only was it unusual to hear a track like this coming out of a Function One sound system in 2001, but it’s surfeit of choral hallelujahs sounded incredible on pingers.

Miss Kittin & The Hacker at International Deejay Gigolo’s night (2001)

Like all influential live moments, they are never as busy as people remember. When we landed the Gigolo showcase – featuring DJ Hell and Miss Kittin & The Hacker –  electroclash was still very much a cult thing; Nag Nag Nag and Body Rockers wouldn’t start in London until the following year. But despite the room in Heaven being half-full the audience was captivated and left changed. At a time when London had been bored to death by a cul-de-sac of ‘tribal’ drums and DJs who wore expensive jumpers your Gran would appreciate, we needed a shot in the arm. Miss Kittin plunged that syringe, emerging on stage head to toe in white swaddling bands which she peeled off during the first song to reveal a black cat suit. The Hacker, her studious foil, soundtracked this with ‘Stock Exchange’ and ‘Frank Sinatra’. Laughing at the death of Ol’ Blue Eyes in a three-minute pop song? It wasn’t John Digweed playing an endless load of ‘epic house’ now was it? 

New Year’s Day All-Dayers (2002 - 2023)

In 2001, we started a Sunday afternoon club called Bugged Out: Chilled Out at Heavenly’s new pub in Islington. The top half of the pub where I DJed - mainly playing lost 80s pop classics and yacht rock – attracted sozzled ravers who had left fabric, gone to an afterparty and ended up clearly needing some lost 80s pop classics and yacht rock. We started a New Year’s Day all-dayer on January 1, 2002, that ended up running for over 20 years. It moved to the Old Queens Head in 2008 for over 12 hours of mayhem with a regular audience that made unlikely peak-time anthems out of Toto’s ‘Africa’ and John Farnham’s ‘You’re the Voice’. 

The Avalanches at Sankeys (2003)

A mutant night of music with a line-up of two parts. The Avalanches DJ core of Robbie Chater and Dexter Fabay played a set of very on-trend mash ups (a Queen track into a Dr Dre tune, incredibly exciting at the time when in the hands of a DMC champ like Dexter). They were followed by Chicago DJ Heather whose pure jackin’ house was full of fire and energy and totally at odds with what had gone before. 

Mylo live at the 10th birthday (2004)

On the verge of becoming a huge festival headliner Mylo agreed to play in the relatively small confines of The End’s main room. Mylo had become a good friend of the club and without our knowledge used the screen behind him to beam pictures of the promoters in various states of disrepair he’d taken at afterparties into the venue…

Ivan Smagghe’s ‘Suck My Deck’ (2004)

We first heard Smagghe playing a free party in Shoreditch in 2003, along with Ewan Pearson, and our minds were blown. It was the period when electroclash begat electro-house and it sounded super fresh, with Kompakt records more to the fore than International Deejay Gigolos. A former record shop staffer Smagghe would also drop dark, deep-cut curveballs; he was the perfect choice to mix our new CD series ‘Suck My Deck’ gracing the cover looking none-more-Gallic smoking a fag. It still perfectly captures the sound of London in 2004. 

Erol Alkan’s ‘Bugged In’ Selection (2005)

When we started the ‘Bugged Out/Bugged In’ compilations (with one CD mixed and clubby; the other for home listening), Erol took the brief for ‘Bugged In’ to another level of ravishing chill-out. He weaved 60s-sounding tracks with actual songs from late in that decade, alongside outliers from Gonzales and Campag Velocet. It leant into the bizarre when the epic boogie of Imagination’s ‘Just An Illusion’ met the repetitious lament of impLOG’s prog jazz ‘Holland Tunnel Drive’. This found fans beyond the usual club compilations; it was a huge fave on the Arctic Monkeys tour bus that year and Erol still adds to an ever-mutating version on his SoundCloud. 

Tiga’s ‘Sexor’ launch (2006)

DJs curating club nights has been a common theme for many years, but it was still a new idea when we handed Tiga the keys to our night at The End to shape the launch of his debut album, ‘Sexor’. He chose friends 2manydjs and Trevor Jackson to join him in the booth, but the masterstroke was asking a band that soundtracked his salad days as a raver to play live. Altern 8 took to the stage in their old dust masks and warfare suits even bringing their 90s MC to chat over the frantic beats. Three chaps down the front who went on to form Klaxons later that year were taking notes… 

Field Day (2007-2019)

Bugged Out! were the last to join the Field Day collective put together by Marcus Weedon and Tom Baker of Eat Your Own Ears. We were to add leftfield dance that matched the current climate of the new festival, which was heavy on bands and unorthodox artists. Year one was at the peak of Ed Banger’s influence, though we later weaved through post-dubstep and the advent of garage-influenced acts like Disclosure and Julio Bashmore, coming back around to techno when we finally parted ways with the event in 2019. ‍

Justice at the closing of The End (2009)

Bugged Out! hosted the penultimate Saturday night before The End closed, the West End venue where we’d held our parties since 2002. For such a momentous occasion the hottest act of the time agreed to DJ. Justice had a crowd waiting from 6pm (one sporting a ‘cross’ tattoo on his shin) and when they arrived it felt like taking two pop stars past the queue with a deafening roar (despite the fact the ones still outside were unlikely to witness their incendiary set). A fitting send-off. 

Tiga warehouse rave (2009)

During the period following the closure of The End we became adept at using the warehouse circuit of car parks to put on nights. The appeal was essentially back to basics clubbing, a red light, a strobe and a basement affair. And sweat. When we held an event on Scrutton Street for Tiga it could’ve left us legally challenged. It was so hot and sweaty that perspiration was running down the walls over plug sockets and it soon started to rain down on the crowd potentially ruining clothing. We initially covered the mixer and decks with a large piece of cardboard to try and protect it as a stop gap. I then ran to a nearby pub – The Old Blue Last – to ask if they had a couple of umbrellas we could borrow. I spent most of Tiga’s set holding a brolly over the electrics worrying that someone was going to get electrocuted, most likely myself. Old raver Tiga was thrilled with the authenticity of the scenario.

XOYO opening night (2010)

Though it still makes me shudder, the opening night of Shoreditch’s XOYO was memorable for all the wrong reasons. The Wednesday before our Saturday was supposed to be the opening night, but it was cancelled because the venue wasn’t ready. By the Saturday the council had signed it off as fit for purpose and the doors opened on Bugged Out!’s new regular home. All was going well but as headliners Simian Mobile Disco put their first track on a fuse blew, the sound went off and the emergency lighting came on. With the club full we were scrambling around in a panic, surely a fuse can just be replaced? It turned out it was a major fuse from the 1960s that was in the adjacent building and not accessible until Monday morning. Hundreds of dejected clubbers left the building followed by us with our tails between our legs… 

Bugged Out! on the London Eye (2013)

As part of Red Bull’s Revolutions in Sound event the brand gave us wings with our own pod on the London Eye which they had filled with a club night from the last 25 years of London; each had a mini rave as it rotated around once. The pods held 25 lucky competition winners and we had Green Velvet on the way up and Erol Alkan on the way down (playing ‘Waterloo Sunset’ as we finally docked). 

Bugged Out! Weekenders (2012-2016)

Some 12 years after our event at Pontins we revived the weekender idea at the much better Butlin’s site in Bognor Regis. There is something magical about being able to bob from venue to venue – giddy from the blinking arcade machines – in the knowledge that you have a bed you can slink off to at the end of the night before resuming the party the following day. It’s a festival without tents, customers cocooned from the outside world for three days with Papa Johns and Burger King for sustenance. Over five years, we saw Disclosure play live before they went supernova, headline DJ sets from The Chemical Brothers and Four Tet and Kerri Chandler playing in the Sports Bar with decks on pool tables. Frankie Knuckles closed the 2013 edition and I set off the confetti cannon as the bass first dropped on his ‘Your Love’. He had been nervous before playing but other DJs on the bill calmed him, with the likes of Mala and Zed Bias asking to be introduced so they could pay their respects for his mighty influence. 

Erol Alkan’s 10-hour set (2013)

Erol’s Easter Thursday sets at Fire in Vauxhall started off clocking out at five hours in 2009, with a couple of guests joining him. By 2010, he’d jumped up to seven hours playing alone in the main room with the first couple of hours at a double digit bpm and lit by candlelight. The nine-hour set was supposed to be the final one, partly because of the hours the club operated in (it re-opened after we finished as an all-dayer). But by 2013, Erol went for the full ten as we opened earlier at 9pm and concluded at 7am. As he’d given up alcohol by that point he didn’t pee for the whole set – another point to be applauded.

Residents James Holroyd, Rob Bright, Fall Forward (1994 - present)

The future’s Bright, the future’s Holroyd… James Holroyd, friend turned resident and a perfect choice of wingman. In 1994, techno was a pretty banging affair, but Jim always played a much deeper and considered set before the guest took over with sometimes up to three hours of alluring music that enticed all on to the dancefloor. He was the first to play 51 Days ‘Paper Moon’ at Bugged Out! which sums up his vibe. He always impressed the guests too with Carl Cox asking him to carry on playing (eating into his own set time) and The Chemical Brothers inviting him to go on their first proper tour with them – he’s still their tour DJ 30 years later. Rob Bright helmed room two when it opened in November 1995, with a smaller space where he could make ‘Metronomic Underground’ by Stereolab a regular anthem. When he took over the 1,000 capacity Courtyard in Liverpool he played Kate Bush and The Fall early doors, just so he could hear their music loud on a huge sound system. Over the last 10 years Fall Forward has been resident. He entered the DJ competition at the 2012 Weekender (he didn’t win, the runner up was Hannah Wants who went on to be huge!) but his versatility has seen him able to play after huge acts like The Chems and before Fatboy Slim, play alongside Bicep in Barcelona (where we hired body builders instead of dancers) and always rocking our New Year’s Day all-dayers. 

Mega raves: Printworks and Drumsheds (2017 - present)

The landscape for London clubs has changed over the last seven years since Printworks ushered in an era of event clubbing and daytime raving. Balls of brass were needed to fill a diary full of 5,000 capacity events that finished when clubs usually opened,  but with the line-ups stacked with headliners they became unmissable, all housed inside the old Daily Mail printing press – so at least some good finally came out of it. When Printworks closed the next step was three times bigger and housed in an old IKEA; Drumsheds is where we are holding our 30th anniversary party with The Chemical Brothers again top of the pile. 

Bugged Out! - On The Beach (2024)

We are sometimes offered stages to host that we just can’t turn down. Brighton beach has been known for huge events since Fatboy Slim’s free party in 2002 attracted 250,000 to dance on the pebbles. On The Beach holds 240,000 less than that but is a lot less hectic. We programmed a date in July with Underworld headlining and the sun shone from morning until ‘Born Slippy’ inevitably closed proceedings (with hundreds of Brightonian’s watching gratis from the pier). 

‍