Happy – Music Factory Leeds

Music Factory as it is nowNever a major name, Happy was however a Leeds legend for a couple of years in the mid 90’s.  Originally a Tuesday night at the Music Factory it was not until the last year of the clubs existence that it moved to a Saturday and a later finish.  The night’s success had been built on the Tuesdays with a 2am finish, which that meant that everyone there packed in as much fun as possible into the 4 hours the club was open.

Run by DJ’s Steve and Tony Walker (who later went on to run Love to Be in Sheffield) the club played party house music.  Many tunes were broken at Happy, including Judy Cheeks Reach, JX Son of a Gun and 2 in a Room El Trago.  Guest DJ’s were varied and included all of the usual weekend favourites of the time like Jeremy Healy, but also up had up and up comers such as the Luvdup twins and even rave veterans like DJ Tim from the Utah Saints (who impressed all with a real demo of scratching).

It was also the first time 88to98 heard double beat mixing, something that all of the DJ’s were trying to copy the next day.

For advanced version see here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s40UrXxeC4 but basically this is playing two copies of the same record one a couple of beats behind the other, enabling lots of juggling between the two, when done well for example teasing out the intro to Underworlds Born Slippy for minutes on end before releasing the breakdown it can be really effective.  When done wrong it just sounds like horses galloping over the hill.

Tuesday night? Check. Up for it crowd?  Check. £3ish to get in? Check – Result – mayhem.

Mixmag Best midweek house night 1994

If anyone has any flyers or tapes from Happy please get in touch at 88to98@gmail.com

Happy tunes-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qrqyt33YgM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6jROYqOKHs

Tony’s current club Love to Be – http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=156357191079583#!/group.php?gid=6880597557

The venue is now called the Elbow Rooms – Where was it? [cetsEmbedGmap src=http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&xhr=t&cp=22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=leeds+elbow+room+leeds&fb=1&gl=uk&hq=leeds+elbow+room&hnear=Leeds&cid=0,0,5823582825359492115&ei=gxNRTcvjFseZhQe4kfThCA&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=image&resnum=2&sqi=2&ved=0CCoQnwIwAQ width=550 height=425 marginwidth=0 marginheight=0 frameborder=1 scrolling=no]

2 comments

  1. can’t believe this club is on the internet!!!
    respect to the Happy crew! i remember when Tuesdays were the new saturdays

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