Looking For The Balearic Beat / Aficionado

Mancunian “Balearic” institution, Aficionado, is celebrating its 25th anniversary. They’re about to mark the occasion with a cracking compilation, put together by residents Jason Boardman & Moonboots, and released via Ali and Micky at Warm. As a “prelude” to a full review, I thought I’d dust off this previously unpublished essay, that I penned a few years ago…

By 1992, for most folks, Balearic had become an over and mis-used dirty word. For some the Balearic beat evolved into progressive house, techno and trance – see Andrew Weatherall, Phil Perry & Fiona Crawford’s Full Circle parties, Raid DJs Kevins Swain and Hurry. Others, like Boys Own’s Terry Farley, instead championed soulful, deep, stateside stuff. Those sticking to their Balearic guns, and still playing European pop records, got pushed into superclub back rooms, and once again started throwing their own small parties….

In Manchester the task of carrying the Balearic torch fell to a DJ named Moonboots. Moon started out as a self-confessed“indie-kid”, into groups such as The Cure, Echo & The Bunnymen, and The Smiths. However, 15 mile trips from his hometown, Wigan, to Hot at The Hacienda, and an epiphany while experiencing Rhythm Is Rhythim`s The Dance, quickly made him a Converse low-cut and poncho-wearing Balearic beat convert. His own DJing inspired significantly by Jon Dasilva`s eclectic Hacienda sets.

Striking up a friendship with Justin Robertson at the counter of legendary record shop, Eastern Bloc, and then at Spice, Robertson’s Sunday night shindig, Moon was put in charge of the lights at two related events, Most Excellent and Glitter Baby. He landed his own first proper DJ gig at an after-party called HPs – where he played music released by ON-U Sound, and ON-U soundalikes. When Robertson left Eastern Bloc, Moonboots took over his job as the shop`s “Balearic-buyer”, and from there more and more DJ work began to come in. Guesting all over the place, and holding a warm-up residency at Astrofarm – a house night organized by Kelvin Andrews, at The World, in Warrington. A more important Moonboots residency was The Crows Nest. Here, together with John McCready and Robertson, he hosted the top floor at Luvdup`s Jolly Roger parties, held at Manchester’s Paradise Factory. Billing themselves as the “Rebellious Jukebox” their guests included Weatherall, and Mark E Smith of The Fall, while the proceedings would also feature avant-garde cabaret and performance artists. Sets could veer from Kenny Dope to The Long Ryders.

“We played such a wonky selection of records. It`s so funny to think that we could play jazzy hip hop next to blues-y rock tunes, and yet it all worked.”

Eventually “parting ways” with World for not sticking to a more mainstream, and banging, playlist, in 1998 Moonboots, together with fellow DJ, Jason Boardman, started his own, now legendary, bash, called Aficionado.

Boardman began DJing in 1981. Spinning electro, hip hop and soul. Moving to America in `86, when he returned to Manchester in 1988, he was shocked by the changes The Hacienda had gone through. In 1991 he landed a slot there, warming-up for Dave Haslam. Again, like Moon, playing ON-U and ON-U-esque sounds. From there he progressed to residencies at Yellow, at The Boardwalk, and the Alaska Bar on Whitworth Street.

Initially on a Thursday at a former sports bar named Aqua, Aficionado switched to a Sunday – in part as a tribute to Spice – at Zumbar. Promoted by Tim Ellis and Eric Barker – who were both faces on the Manchester acid / house scene. Barker, for example, had been a regular at the infamous lock-ins at gay bar, Stuffed Olives, and one of Manchester’s original Ecstasy / acid house converts. He was also the man behind rough and ready The Thunderdome raves, on The Oldham Street in Miles Platting.

Jason: There were loads of amazing laid back records coming out between 96 and 98 like the first Kruder and Dorfmeister E.P., Mo Wax, Pussyfoot, Pork Recordings and Moon Safari by Air, you get the picture. Moonboots was the only person I knew who was really interested in that sort of music so I approached him with the idea of doing a mid-week party.

Moonboots: It was going to run during the 1998 World Cup, we were going to show the football alongside it. It was pretty rubbish. It only really started to get good when we moved it to a Sunday night the year after.

The Aficionado flyers were based on a set of matador postcards that Jason had found in a junk shop in Ibiza Town (Brutal Music’s Dom Thomas did the designs). True to its name, the music policy, in Moonboots` own words was “snooty”. Guest DJs were told “No bootlegs, no re-edits, original vinyl only”. If you played a reissue then you had to wear the record sleeve on your head. Despite this Boardman and Moonboots – both committed vinyl “diggers” – described Aficionado as a way to share the music that they’d found. The party ran weekly for seven years, then monthly, then quarterly, and currently exists as sporadic one-off events. Nonetheless, two and a half decades on Aficionado remains a revered and hollowed institution. In 2012 the parties gave rise to a record label of the same name – with distinctive artwork by Sarah “Topsy Von” Salkeld.

In 2017, the label called it a day, but over six years they’d put out twenty-seven releases. Artists from Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and USA. Singer-songwriters channelling Laurel Canyon. Guitars ringing with the sound of cedar, and cypress, de capo, picado, and rasgueado. Mixing Mallorcan tradition with tabla. Echoing Morricone`s poignant spaghetti western watch chimes. Cinematic tributes to David Axelrod, with beats DJ Shadow would have stolen. Lyrical nods to the Swedish Cowboy, Lee Hazlewood. English twists on Jamaica`s Dub aesthetic – Brenda “Beachball” Ray’s “The Reggae that Laurie Anderson never made.” 303 twilight Trance shapes. House, more sensual than jacking. Post-coital Jazz – “Like Sade wading through treacle.” Welsh language fairy-tales. Umbrella-ed cocktail-sipping sunshine R&B. From the Arafura Sea to Ibiza`s Cafe Del Mar. Music more late Andalusian Summer, than Manchester City Centre rain.