Put your records on: we find out about Revinyl Sessions, a night where anyone can be a DJ

Last night a DJ saved my life. A chorus and sentiment that club revellers and music lovers have shared for decades. The saintly label bestowed upon these people echoes long into the night when we are knees deep in the amount of alcohol we’ve consumed and when banger after banger is being played. DJs play a very valuable part in connecting people with new music as well as people sharing their own variety of musical taste to groups of people who crave it. You don’t have to have all the gear to be a DJ, just a few records will do. 

This is the ethos behind Nottingham Revinyl, a bi-weekly host of sessions at The Golden Fleece in Mansfield Road. As founder Robin puts it, “Anyone can bring their records, go behind the decks and play. Every genre is welcome and no prior experience is necessary at all. It’s more about meeting people with a similar interest in music and those with an interest in records and who want to collect them.” Robin started the Revinyl sessions in 2022 along with his girlfriend Abi. The sessions started in Bristol and have now branched out into other cities such as Norwich and Leeds. 

“I had a friend who helped set up Revinyl in Bristol around ten years ago. He knew that I had been getting into records since the time of Covid. I wanted a space where I was able to play my records and give people the chance to play theirs even if it was their first time behind the decks and The Golden Fleece seemed like the perfect spot.”

Vinyl nights at pubs and similar venues are fairly common depending where you go. I was recently in Jam Cafe where DJs host a night of playing eclectic music on Friday and Saturday nights and back when I lived in Manchester, Martin, one of the locals, brought in records: everything from Krautrock to Northern Soul oddities. Having people play their own records and sharing their tastes is always something to be cherished, especially with the tactile nature of vinyl compared to downloading tracks on a USB drive.

Robin has hosted multiple events in addition to the Revinyl sessions. He hosted an event in the basement of French Living, featuring Manchester-based DJ Ruf Dug, which he says came about as he knew one of the owners and they wanted a younger crowd as opposed to their regular customers in the restaurant. As he knew one of the owners, it was easy for him to host the venue, and the long-established Nottingham cafe obliged, open to it as it offered something alternative to the occasional live music session. The prospect of switching Django Reinhardt for deep house doesn’t appeal to everyone, but the event was a great success. 

This epitomizes the culture and philosophy of the Revinyl sessions and is the main objective that Robin seeks to achieve. “Some of those coming to the event will play, for example, funky world music, and the main reason that we’re engaging with Leftlion is so that we can spread the word and encourage people to bring different types of music, adding variety where anyone can come and play their music,” he explained. “I’m even waiting for someone to come and play a classical music set because there is just so much good music across genres.”

Although the genres covered at the sessions are varied, Robin has a particular thing for dance and house music and stresses the big part that Nottingham had in being at the centre of it during the 80s and 90s, something that is to be celebrated in a way that it simply isn’t compared to other cities. The success of leaning towards dance music is reflected in the age-range variety in those who play the records and the punters coming through the door. Robin tells me that he’s had guys in their 40s and 50s come up to him and have them deeply reminisce with music that they were listening to back in their 20s because they were part of the acid house generation who went to all the clubs.”

At the end of last year, Robin and Abi reached the milestone of hosting their 50th session of Revinyl. Robin, however, confesses that some of it is a “bit of a blur” because there have been “so many sessions”. A few experiences do stand out such as The Fleece Revinyl Christmas party in collaboration with the online-based Swingdash X collective, in addition to those from Running Circle records in Sneinton Market. 

“What we would do is get a lot of  DJs in to do a few sessions. Felix, who runs Swingdash x collaborated with us at The Fleece. We also had Tom and Gohan from Running Circle there too. It was a great turn out for us. We also had a summer party on the terrace, which was great because we had very hot weather which is always good. We did some of these events for charity and in all we were able to raise £1200 for Emanuel House, which was excellent.

We are hoping to put more events on, but it is really difficult to put nighttime events on in Nottingham at the moment. There aren’t any venues who are necessarily willing to host over a hundred people in a space and you also have to think about licensing for a venue and the fees on top of that.” 

The night time economy has tanked for a lot of cities since the pandemic, leaving a sour taste when it comes to those trying to showcase events involving gatherings for music events. There is a sense that there isn’t a guaranteed safety net for city-centre venues wanting to host DJ nights, especially with people moving to the city centre for the vibes. A vibrant city centre is a healthy one.

Robin has many hopes for the future for the Reinyl session but is aware that there isn’t always the time and space to something bigger than a vinyl night. 

“There are opportunities to do sessions with other people. We have a big event on 1 March where we’ll be doing a nighttime session with Paradisco, a Bristol-based DJ collective. We are likely to do an open decks night with Noodle Nights who play once a month at the Fleece on Thursdays, but they use USBs instead of purely vinyl, which should be interesting. And hopefully, if the council lets us, we can have another terrace party in the summer as the last one went down so well.”

There remains one vitally important question for DJs: What is the one record that you would take on a desert island with you? Robin's choice? - the compositions of Arthur Russell, the avant-garde cellist who was posthumously rediscovered by zoomers after his music went virtually unnoticed until this past decade. Mine? - Cold Fact by Rodriguez; a record rediscovered by Anti-Apartheid campaigners in South Africa by an artist feared dead only to be found alive and well some four decades later in the 2012 documentary Searching for Sugar Man. He has sadly since passed.

Is this perhaps the shape of things to come for Revinyl? If you think so, get your records, come down, and play!

This month Revinyl Sessions take place on Wednesday 5 and 19 February at the Golden Fleece on Mansfield Road, with a special Revinyl x Paradisco late night party happening on 1 March, 9pm-late, featuring Gail b2b rPal, Paradisco DJs, and Sarahtonin.

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