Image: Mr. Scruff
Manchester-based DJ Andy Carthy aka Mr. Scruff is a bit of a legend to those in the know, DJing for over twenty years his eclectic bass wobbling marathon sets have been keeping tea loving dancefloors entertained worldwide since the late nineties. They are delight, taking in a musical smorgasboard covering everything from northern soul to nu jazz, dancehall to dubstep, house to classic r’n’b, disco and reggae.
Unlike many of his jet setting counterparts, he’s also a thoroughly down to earth bloke who always has time for a chat, especially over a drop of real ale and a pie or a nice cup of his other passion, tea. Owning both a tea shop and a range of tea what you can buy in Selfridges don’tchaknow.
A regular in Nottingham back in the days of East Midlands clubbing destination The Bomb, his air miles racking popularity these days mean it’s a rare pleasure to get to see him without a trek to his periodic appearances in Manchester or London. So, when Mimm booked him to play at the Irish, it was straight in the calendar.
Now then, the Irish? It’s a funny old venue, part bar, part café, part community centre, part meat market, it always has more than a faint whiff of the school disco about it. However, with an unlimited supply of Guinness, their pragmatic door policy and a Funktion one sound system in for the evening, it’s a nice and intimate choice. Especially when it’s a mile from my house.
Pitching up to the venue, it was straight upstairs and into the thick of it, the dimly lit dancefloor already busy and feeling it to Zed Bias’ catchy soul remix Let Me Change Your Mind.
Mimm presents Mr. Scruff
Aside from spinning multi genre vinyl and enthusing about tea, Mr. Scruff is also really into animation, which was also on show. The dim dancefloor lighting directing our attention to the huge screen behind the DJ box playing Mr. Scruff’s own animations in a live VJ mode. Nice touch, though the floor lighting was bordering on the ‘so dark we’re crashing into people’ side of bump and grind.
Considering it’s been the best part of fifteen years since Mr. Scruff’s trio of studio albums, Mr Scruff, Keep it Unreal and Trouser Jazz, which propelled him into the premium bracket, I was expecting a more mature crowd of Bomb-era aficionados. How wrong was I. The friendly atmosphere had quite the family feel, taking in Scruff loving students all the way through to thirty-something Bomb-goers, to a bunch of Northern Soul loving nanas. That’s three generations of Scruff family from across the Midlands, clocking up the miles from Leicester, Birmingham, Lincoln and Derby to catch the show, there were even some folks down from Edinburgh.
Back on the floor and the appearance of classic Get a Move On had the crowd going nuts, a must have tune, though there was less album coverage than I was hoping for. So, more of an ‘audience with Mr. Sruff and his massive vinyl collection’ rather than a ‘best of’ fest, but one which was nonetheless impressive, covering more genres than I have fingers on his 11pm ‘til 4am run.
No evening would be complete with some nautical nuances and as the night drew to a close the appropriately named classic Fish had the Notts crowd flooding onto the dance floor. Shortly after which, in homage to our gaelic venue, a cheeky blast of Irish folk dancing, before delving back into a bit of classic r’n’b.
Overall a great night, all washed down with lashings of Guinness, a fine warm up from Soul Buggin’s Wrighty and Beane and some very nice teas supplied by Nottingham’s own tea gurus Lee Rosy’s. Hopefully another visit to Nottingham won’t be too long in the offing.
Mr. Scruff played at The Irish Centre on Friday 7 November 2014
Mr. Scruff website
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