House Of God : the world's best techno night

Or how to change the world by doing whatever foolish idea pops into your head.

Today’s piece was originally written in 2013 around H.O.G’s 21st birthday. House Of God celebrates 32 years of existence on the 3rd of March at Birmingham’s Tunnel Club, find more details and tickets here.

I’m republishing this not only because it’s an interesting piece of work even if you don’t give a damn about techno, and not just in the vain hope that one of them will offer me a free ticket. It’s because this weird, abrasive party is so central to our lives here in Birmingham that if you really want to be part of our underground then you have to attend at least once.

Included here for the first time is the full text of a short email interview Surgeon have me when researching this piece. Shouts out to Ed King for commissioning this piece for Birmingham Review back in the day.

“I would stand on the stage, and just feel clear and present, totally aware of every move, lost in bliss, every synapse firing ecstatic waves, shouting in time to the music,waiting for the breakdown, urging the DJ’s on, it was like a conversation between me, the dj and the crowd”

Stephen Potter

“If HoG was a type of food, what would it be?

Chips, two saveloys, brown sauce and a can of Dr Pepper.”

Tonka

Content warning — this piece features imagery which could be considered blasphemous.

“Does it upset you that there was a large, burly ginger man waving his arse at you? Because we’ll bring him back if it does!” Cue deep belly laughs from the two of us sat at the table. I’m talking to Carl, who is probably better known to HOG attendees as Zit, MC and stage manager at House Of God. He’s been telling me how some of the Hog attendees disapproved of an act called Blackjacks that played the twenty first birthday party. His joy and delight in annoying some the fussier members of the HOG flock is infectious, and demonstrates one of the fundamental attitudes behind the HOG ethos.

“It’s always been a creative place for us” he tells me . “A place where we could do what the fuck we wanted”.

“We’ve never really tried to do anything” he declares, before realising this statement needs qualifying. “We’ve always tried to make sure our production, and what we’re doing is good, but we’ve never tried to consciously change anything, or change people’s opinions, we just play what we like. From there,it just went crazy”.

Questioning about the cultural roots of the main protagonists yields some interesting material. “The scene we were coming from wasn’t house at all. This “old skool” shit that everyone goes on about, we didn’t come from that .We were a bunch of punks and dready travs. We were used to doing squat parties, free parties, free festivals, stuff like that. We came from that.” Many of the key players behind the genesis of HOG were already active in various bands. For instance, organiser Chris used to play in the amusingly named “Copsucker”.and “Tony Surgeon played in a prog rock band, playing twiddly WEE OOH WEE OOHH noises”. At the time, police operations targeted illegal, unlicensed events so a lot of organisers were forced to move into putting on nights in licensed venues. “The cops were coming on top and I don’t think we made a conscious decision but here was an opportunity to do something in a club, legal, no problems”.

We’re sat in Carl’s house in King’s Heath. Apart from the bright pink goatee sprouting from his chin, there’s not a lot about his appearance, or the appearance of his home, that sets him apart from any other music obssessed middle aged man — it appears that techno heads age in a much more dignified manner than rock stars. Certainly nothing suggests that this is a man who once spent Christmas Eve stripped to the waist, his upper body painted red and horns on his head like the devil, something he mentions when asked about his favourite moment in twenty one years of House Of God.” I looked great.” He tells me with a chuckle. “At midnight we turned the music off and I came up behind the deejay booth with one red light on me singing “Happy Birthday Jesus” . Other highlights include “fire breathers on the dancefloor at the Dance Factory” and life size galleons conducting battles at head height through a sea of dry ice at the Cue Club. (For the benefit of those reading who don’t know much about techno nights, it must be noted that these are not things that often happen at techno nights).

In fact, I’m getting the impression that Carl’s long association with House Of God has been so positive for him that the night’s few negative moments and setbacks are easily outweighed by the good times. When asked about his absolute worst moment at a House of God event, he struggles to think of one. “I don’t think we’ve had a really really bad un, not one we haven’t been able to look at philosophically and go, ahh, fuck it.” To this, he adds “I was kind of sad when we left the Dance Factory, because that really was our spiritual home”.

However, part of this might be the rose tinted spectacles that come with the passing of time. “I can’t do a history of HOG” he says. “It’s mostly a blur to be honest”.

And then there’s Chris. Many club promoters will paint a picture of their night being a friendly inclusive place, with cutesy graphics on flyers and photographers taking flash photos to post on facebook so your friends in cyberspace will see what a cool time you had. However, these same promoters who are incredibly eager to get you through the door and pocket your cash will turf you out into the road as soon as you’ve had one too many, or ignore you if you end up in a nasty situation with a bouncer.

He’ll be annoyed that I’ve made such a point about it, but I seriously doubt if there’s any other people in his position that have actually risk getting in physical fights with security guards when sticking up for punters, if they ever stick up for punters at all. Upon meeting him, I open with a few fairly mundane comments about recent events and this leads to a long discussion on his many disappointments with security firms in Birmingham nightclubs. I’ve decided against naming the guilty clubs here, partly because this is a piece about House Of God (and not about the shadier side of Birmingham’s door staff) and partly because the things Chris takes issue with seems to have happened at several different venues.

“I had a stand up row with one of them and nearly got punched by one of them because I caught him taxing (stealing) from one of the punters and pulled him for it” he says of other security staff in one venue. “I will not have it” he says adamantly . “We pay them”.

“I have always tried to look after the crowd” he tells me in a conversation about the ethics behind House Of God, before listing four or five clubs he’s been thrown out of whilst intervening on the behalf of crowd members at their events. “ I can get a little bit, what’s the word, focused?” he says with a hint of irony. He’s well aware that he could be seen as over zealous in his approach, but if you were in his position where security guards had been hassling your punters all night about drug abuse, yet at the end of the night the club manager tells you that no confiscated drugs have been handed in by security, I think you’d be annoyed too. It’s just Chris refuses to back down in a situation where most would turn a blind eye.

It’s pretty much the way it’s always been for them. In fact, going back to days gone by, it was even worse. “We used to deal with security who were armed robbers” he states in a fairly matter of a fact manner considering the subject matter.

“In the old days, they used to set fire to people’s cars, and they had shot guns in the office, and we used to have the same rows with them…..if I had my way, they (the bouncers) wouldn’t be allowed in”.”

About twenty minutes into our chat on a sunny february afternoon in a backstreet Digbeth boozer we are joined by Nik Wells, better known to many as Dj X, whose achievements include making live breaks based music for twenty five years in Birmingham’s PCM and running the drum and bass room at HOG for seventeen/eighteen years, having joined the HOG crew a few years into their existence ( Nik attended some of the first events, but the exact time he joined the crew is debated). Though they both obviously share a similar world view, today Nik acts as good cop to Chris’s bad cop, Nik curbing Chris’s righteous indignation with patience and gentle humour. Nik arrives at the tail end of Chris’s diatribe about club security, Chris threatening to “cunt them off all over the internet”. “Is there any need?” Nik asks, already sounding exasperated. After some debate, Chris explains that “Nik is the reasonable arm of HOG, he’s the one with the diplomacy. I don’t care cos I don’t fucking live here any more”.

Sir Real Presents The Mouth Of God On Music World Radio > Hog 19th Birthday Special!

2 hours of HOG classics and personal faves from the last 19 years, half and hour of tunes'n'chat at the start and end…

www.mixcloud.com

Eventually the conversation turns towards the origin of HOG and I get to fill in some of the gaps in the chronology. “I was at university, running the Punk and New Wave society” says Chris, before revealing that he was part of an art collective that put on punk gigs in his native north east before he came to university, the use of the phrase “art collective” amusing Nik quite a lot. After some banter, Chris explains that the Punk and New Wave Society members were not as musically restricted as the name suggests, and were experimenting with industrial dance music, as well as attending events such as the legendary free party at Castlemorton. Meeting Tony (Surgeon) and Neil (Sir Real) at a hardcore party in Holland sowed the seeds for the first HOG event, held at Birmingham University. “It was full of punks and hippies from Moseley” Chris says of the first event. “Everyone was trying to get signed in. Security were shitting themselves.” adds Nik.

The first three events were held at Birmingham University, then a move to the the Institute was made. To start with, “no one really came”, but the collective sort of hit the big time on their first birthday. Chris explains “Our first proper guest dj was Lewis, The Orb’s dj. I remember going up to him and asking him to play, like I was asking for someone’s autograph..the night was rammed, there was 700–800 people there.” The next few years sound like a bit of a golden age. “We weren’t even doing flyers at some points, there’s gaps in the flyers because it was full all the time.” says Chris.”We’re talking four to six hundred people pull, the Dance Factory was mental, absolutely mental. Right place, right time”.

Nik goes on to add his interpretation of what the appeal was. “Everyone kind of migrated towards House Of God because it was a good doss” he says with typical down to earth Brummie logic. “And it was good music, everybody went there, so it was a social”. Chris elaborates further. “At the risk of saying something really wrong, it was the first dance music thing in the city centre that anyone could go to”. Chris goes on to describe how photos from this era show not only the aforementioned punks with mohicans and new age traveller types with long dreads, “but loads of proper proper shirt boys as well, all chucked in together, all very inclusive”. Also, both Chris and Nik seem to think that the fact it cost £3 pound to get in helped, low pricing being another consistent element in their approach.

I ask them both if they ever saw other nights copy HOG. “Nobody’s ever copied the irreverence” says Nik, to which Chris chimes in with “because it’s basically committing commercial suicide on a continual basis”, and doesn’t hesitate to use the word “puerile” to describe the flyers they used to promote their night. Some of the tamer ones have featured images such as distorted baby heads with fangs. The hideousness escalates until we reach a sinister looking nun holding what appears to be an erect penis, Jesus jacking off underneath the words “Jesus is coming” or the one that attracted the attention of the Sunday Mercury, a picture of a real stained glass window of a small child in a vulnerable looking position in front of a priest, emblazoned with the words “suckers for god” (“we got a particularly good turnout for that one” says Nik when we briefly discuss the Sunday Mercury controversy).

I have to ask Chris, why would you want to put such images on a flyer and hand them out to random people? “Because it’s fucking funny” he replies with a facial expression somewhere between a grin and a slight sneer. He goes onto explain. “I came up with a lot of the concepts (for the flyers)…. I was into stuff like the Butthole Surfers and Dead Kennedys, I used to love all that kind of artwork, all the letroset punk posters where they’d take a picture and but letroset lettering over it or draw horns on it or something…the bitterness came from getting twisted” . To evoke an old cliché, it seems that the boy can leave the punk scene but you can’t take the punk out of the boy — a thread on the House of God facebook group informs me that Chris narrowly avoided getting a kicking at an event that mocked the death of Princess Diana, part of which included playing “People Die Everyday” by the Butthole Surfers.

Eventually the conversation drifts away from controversial promotional material and we get to talking about which has been their favourite venue to hold the night in (HOG has been held at the Dance Factory, Que Club, Custard Factory, Hare and Hounds, Subway City and The Rainbow). It’s a choice Chris finds hard to make. “We’ve had really good nights now at Subway, Dance Factory and Que Club”. Then a rare thing thing happens- I catch a glimpse of pride. “We had a couple of beauties at the Que, I’ve never been so proud as that night. We sold out the night on local crew only and Blues won 3–0”. Selling out a two thousand capacity venue with only local acts and no well known headliners is undoubtedly a massive achievement.

The association with the Que Club ended with, that’s right, you guessed it, problems with security. This is when the move to Subway City was made. (At the time, Subway City was known as a gay only venue and some of the HOG following refused to come for this reason). Though you have to admire the integrity of moving to a less profitable venue on principle alone, you can’t help but wonder if they’re being a bit too fussy in some instances. Perhaps they need their own venue? “Somebody offered to buy me a venue years ago” says Chris. “I said no…a that point I didn’t want to do club stuff any more, Id burnt out on it really.” Chris eventually retrained and his involvement with House Of God fits around his day job. He goes on to say “I think the Arts Council should support us, seeing as we put Birmingham on the map……I’ve met people who’ve moved to Birmingham for it’s electronic music scene”.

Photo posted on the H.O.G facebook group by Paul Magill.

SURGEON INTERVIEW

I gather that you were part of the original crew that set up House Of God. Do you have any strong memories from the early events, and what sort of musical background did you come from that led you to be a part of it?

Yes, I was part of the original House Of God crew. I got to know them all through the sprawling social group in the Balsall Heath, Moseley area of Birmingham at that time. Everyone came from very different musical backgrounds which I think was a good thing. Neil and I had played together in a prog / space rock band before HOG!
An important feature of Birmingham for me was the fact that if something didn't exist there, then we had to make it ourselves. There was no techno club, so we made our own. We'd heard about Lost in London, but didn't have the money to come down to London for a night out so we just made it up as we went along, we had nothing to compare it to. I remember that DIY attitude being very strong in Birmingham at that time.

Eventually HOG started putting on events at the Que Club which pulled in a much bigger crowd. how did the change in scale affect the event and what did you think about it?

The Que Club was great for occasional bigger events. The energy there was amazing. It was great to see them sold out with local talent playing.
The main difference at these was a much larger scale of visual production. I remember some bizarre and amazing things that a performance art group called Bliss Body did there involving cannons shooting burned teddy bears and giant headless wedding dresses with fake blood spraying inside them.

What is your definition of techno? (I’ve asked everyone this one).

Industrial music with a disco beat.

Techno is a very versatile form, it can be bent and stretched a great deal and still remain techno. It's very effective functional music that people connect with in the club environment in a very deep way. Something that goes much much deeper than any fashion or even language.

Techno has been proclaimed 'dead' by the dance music media so many times during the time I've been involved with it I've lost count.
Guess what *is* dead... the magazine that was written in.

You started your own label and eventually earned yourself an international reputation for your djing and producing. What part did HOG play in this?

Especially now, I realise what an important apprenticeship playing at HOG every time was. As a DJ you really have to put the time in playing to a crowd to learn the craft. HOG also taught me to be brave, stand by what I believe in musically and kept my feet on the ground in the crazy circus of techno.

How does HOG compare as an event to techno nights in other parts of the world?

As I have such a special and intimate relationship with HOG of course no other nights can compare to it.
It's a one off. Like the weird cousin of techno clubs that doesn't realise they've overstayed their welcome.

Where do you see the future going for HOG?

It will continue as long as Chris can put up with dealing with club managers and security firms.
As long as we still want to have a great stoopid party with our friends.

2025 AFTERWORD

Guess what? Nothing’s changed. The night has been held at Subway City for a while now. The crew remains as entertaining as ever, with wild eyed pirates and cocky renegades filling up the ranks. Surgeon still makes some of the best techno in the world (as I recently wrote about here). A random sighting of Nik Wells at an event is often an indicator of a better evening than you were expecting. I haven’t seen Carl for a while but I’m sure if something bad had happened to him, I would of heard about it. It seems rumours of him buying a million pound condo in the lake district are greatly exaggerated.

Much love to all who gave their time to contribute to this piece. I want to give a special shout to Neil Sir Real because I remember him giving a massive long interview which disappeared entirely from the final piece for reasons lost to the ravages of time. If I can find the recording maybe I'll publish that interview on here.

He made the remix for us that’s linked below.

THANKYOU FOR READING TO THE END!

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