Clubs, Records & Pals for Life

Summer 1988

Summer 1988 was the first time I went proper clubbing.

I was fifteen and delivering milk six mornings a week. It was a tough gig - up at 4am and finished by 7am.

I'd get home just as my parents were leaving for work, then crawl back into bed instead of heading off to school.

Clubbing felt like the natural progression from our local youth club discos. They were the place to learn a few dance moves, meet your mates and, if you were lucky, get your first snog.

It all started with UFO, which later became Pure on a Friday night and The Kronk on a Saturday.

Pure was electric. Smoke machines, lasers and a soundtrack that still takes me straight back there today. The KLF, The Shamen, LFO... the music was unreal, and many of those acts played live.

Looking back though, I don't think it was just the music that made Pure so special.

It was the people.

There was always the same corner of the club packed with familiar faces from home and the surrounding towns. Every Friday you'd walk in knowing half the room.

Saturday Nights at the Kronk

Guy had a Mark 1 Golf GTI with a banging sound system, and every Saturday we'd head over the Forth Road Bridge with Pete Tong's Essential Selection blasting through the speakers, convinced we were heading for the best night of our lives.

Most weeks, we probably were.

The Kronk was a proper sweatbox. We'd dance all night before making the drive home in the early hours. I'd creep back into our wee council house trying not to wake anyone, only to hear my mum shout through the house...

"Is that you home, son? Back from the dancing?"

I can still hear her saying it now.

It's where I met friends I'll probably have for life.

I was at school with Guy and met
Andy after he moved up from Liverpool. Before long, we'd become part of a wider
group that seemed to live for weekends, records and road trips.

David - better known to most people in Edinburgh as Weeksy - joined Xile in 1993. We worked side by side for years before becoming business partners, and today he's still my right-hand man at PARA-DAIZA.

Looking back, it's funny how music and friendships have a way of weaving themselves through every chapter of
your life.

Catching up with the Boys

Fast forward nearly thirty years and The MOOVN boys are relaunching the club night
this Saturday. It felt like the perfect excuse
to get everyone together over a few pints.

I wasn't really interested in talking about the past. I wanted to know why now?

Andy explained that Edinburgh has a great new venue in People's Leisure Club. A proper space for quality music with a different approach to clubbing.

These days it's less about heading out at midnight. It's meeting friends for a late lunch, a few drinks, doors opening at 4pm, dancing all evening and still being home before midnight.

To be honest, that sounds perfect to me.

How did MOOVN Start?

MOOVN came from a group of friends who'd spent years going clubbing together, collecting records and constantly searching out new music.

Bruce and David were the driving force behind getting MOOVN off the ground following one of many late-night conversations, with the wider group quickly becoming part of what it grew into.

The vision was simple: create an inclusive club night centred around quality underground house music.

Everyone came from different groups of friends, different backgrounds and different corners of Edinburgh, but MOOVN became somewhere where those worlds naturally came together.

The music always came first, but
the atmosphere mattered just as much.

Building something special

The first MOOVN night took place at Club Berlin on Queensferry Street Lane on Saturday 6th October 2007.

The building has since disappeared, making those memories even more special.

There was a real identity to the music - soulful, deep, broken, disco and classic house all sitting comfortably alongside each other.

Live percussion and saxophone became part of the night, bringing another layer of energy that people genuinely connected with.

Word quickly spread from friend to friend.

Weeksy worked in Xile, which meant MOOVN flyers and posters quickly found their way across Edinburgh. Before Instagram became part of everyday life, people recommended nights face-to-face.

Different friendship groups merged together.

Within months, MOOVN was welcoming guest DJs including Kenny Dope Gonzalez, Paul Trouble Anderson, Phil Asher, Wookie, Domu, Mark E, Neil Pierce, Groove Assassin, Fanatix and, of course, resident Craig Smith.

One night everyone still smiles about is Wookie. It was only the second event, but
the place was absolutely rammed and proved MOOVN had found an audience far
quicker than anyone expected.

Then there were the after-parties, probably the stories that everyone remembers most.

My favourite has to be after the first birthday party when Paul Trouble Anderson carried on DJing in a flat in Charlotte Square while people danced on sofas, tables and even the bay windows.

United by Music

One thing became obvious while we were sitting around the table, none of us ever stopped loving music.

Our conversations are different these days, focusing on our families, businesses, kids and mortgages.

But we still go to clubs, buy records and send each other mixes.

As we finished our pints, we came to the realisation that clubs were never the important part. Music brought us together, and friendship is the reason we all stuck around.

The relaunch of MOOVN isn't about trying to recreate the past, it's another chapter for a group of friends who have never really stopped doing what they've always loved.

It started with the records, but in the end, it was always about the people.