Nodding Heads: The Final Thursday Stop Making Sense

Since 2007, Stop Making Sense has been a weekly fixture at Manchester’s much loved Common, ‘chasing the vibe dragon’ each Thursday, providing pre-weekend entertainment to musos, locals and casuals alike. Drawing on all musical corners from classic indie to dance, reggae and dub techno.

Now, after seven years, the residency is coming to an end in its current form. Having also welcomed guests such as Hessle Audio's Pangea, Mike Simonetti and You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, original, available members Seb Valentine and Ben Phillips (aka benatronic) reflect on how to keep an audiences, and themselves on their toes.

The Skinny: So how did SMS arise in the first place?

Seb Valentine: We’d just moved to Manchester, a big group of friends, across from Leeds. Nobody was sure what to do after uni, and wanted to split from their uni towns. London didn’t seem financially viable. Our friend Leo got a job in Common, and found out they were looking for DJs. And we had previously discovered dance music, and ecstasy, throughout uni, having all come from a fairly diverse indie background. We put together two mix CDs, both sides of the coin, like Bugged In/Bugged Out. The Melvins were on there!

Ben Phillips: A Sunny Day in Glasgow were on there, DFA stuff, some nu disco.

Valentine: Maybe some Matthew Herbert, who one of our original members, Little Joe, was getting into. He was the one who could DJ.

Phillips: I had been running an Ed Banger-style electro night at university in Norwich, called Filth – spelt F I L F. [much laughter]

Valentine: And I’d been collecting records. I was a big fan of Audion’s Mouth to Mouth. When we got this job, I was unemployed so I just spent a lot of time practising on Joe’s decks. Joe came up with the name, obviously in reference to Talking Heads, but it seemed to somehow resonate beyond that.

Phillips: The first few years, we had nights with literally two people in all night, but it was always still enjoyable. If there was a gig on, and a group of people we knew could come down, then we’d get them dancing, but it was all a bit variable.

Valentine: Conveniently, when Joe was leaving to study advertising at university, our friend Steve was moving to Manchester from Leeds, so he took over quite naturally, especially as he was already doing all our art.

What were the records that helped you find your feet and defined you early on?

Valentine: The first few years, there was a youthful competitiveness, with people holding back tracks, like it was a bit of a race. We were relatively hip as to what was ‘on trend’, I suppose. So around 2007 to 2009, we were playing disco, Popular People’s Front, stuff like that.

Phillips: We played Chaz Jankel’s Get Myself Together a lot. Hold On, by Holy Ghost! – that was a big one.

Valentine: Then, we all went to Sonar and saw Ricardo Villalobos and were playing ten minute minimal tracks with spanish guitar.

Phillips: And indie! Well, the indie hits of the time, Pitchforky indie. Deerhunter, Animal Collective, all that kind of stuff.

Valentine: I think the night has grown with us in the sense that it gave us the ability to explore music more. We’ve basically just been learning about rhythm and sound over the years. It was great when Steve came in and started to play artists like King Tubby.

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“When Albarn came in, I was itching to get Song 2 on. Which I’m sure he would have loved” – Ben Phillips

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What’s the most consistent artist or track played at SMS over the years?

Phillips: I have always played a track by The Clientele, called Since K Got Over Me, since 2007. Which is about the drug. They stopped prior to that, but I actually just bought their first vinyl on album, and I’m actually playing that at the moment.

Valentine: A track that always stuck with me is the opening track to LCD Soundsystem’s 45:33, which we still absolutely rinse.

Phillips: I have always played Burning Airlines Give You So Much More, which is a great Eno track. Oh, and Taking Tiger Mountain, by Strategy.

Valentine: I actually don’t know what that is!

Phillips: Steve has always played Black Dice, and Liars. We all love Liars (the band).

Can you think of any records that were a real risk to play on a Thursday evening in Common, and any occasions when it didn’t pay off?

Phillips: I have played Sun Araw to negative responses on two occasions. People have said, “Please just turn this off.” [laughs]

Valentine: I played a ten minute drone track by an artist called Minute, and the crescendo is amazing, but the notes all sort of clash at the end, and some bloke asked me to turn it off as it was completely doing his head in. We like to surprise people. We all got into the track SpottieOttieDopaliscious by Outkast, which we still regularly use to sort of change things up. It’s just a smooth, fun party song. Because we play across the board, there was never any real curveball. We always said, if you’ve got the balls to stand there and play a record, then people will go for it. But we would play some deliberately horrible stuff sometimes to see what would happen.

Phillips: If I would buy a weird track and not play it for three weeks in a row, I would eventually force myself to play it, whether it was going to work or not.

Given that there’s no actual dancefloor at Common, I think you guys have always been great at reading the atmosphere in the bar...

Valentine: One of the reasons SMS is so much fun is because of this. I have as good of a time when it feels like a party and people are grooving, as when there is just six people in the bar and you can play some really downtempo shit. And sometimes it was seasonal too, like, I remember times in the Autumn, when Ben and I would just play slow, rolling techno for much of the night, and feel like we could just go on for hours. We never had tops off raving, but people just bobbing in their chair or asking what something is has always been great.

What are the records that you really think became pure SMS? That defined you best?

Phillips: Kaputt by Destroyer – that’s a big one for me.

Valentine: A track by Watussi, called If All We Had Was Love, which Little Joe introduced us too.

Phillips: I always associate Liars’ They Were Wrong, So We Drowned with Steve.

Valentine: Tomorrow’s Achievements on Public Information is a more recent one.

It’s quite a task to keep a weekly night fresh and consistent for seven years. Have you ever found yourselves in something of a rut, musically?

Phillips: I think individually, yes, but not so much as a night as a whole.

Valentine: As I’ve got older, much less so. My taste has broadened and my quality control has strengthened too. In seven years, I’ve become much more confident in the records I’ve played. Especially earlier on, when we had strong individuals in the group and you essentially… erm…

Phillips: Care a little bit more about looking cool?

Valentine: Yeah!

Do you feel SMS has moved more towards ‘the dancefloor’ in the past few years?

Valentine: I still think we’re as eclectic as always. I think we’ve got better at playing techno, more so recently.

Phillips: I think there is more house and leftfield electronica. But then again, you’ve started playing more jazz, which I’ve enjoyed very much.

Valentine: I don’t think it’s any more than just a morphing of the night.

Phillips: Maybe no more than we played disco years ago. And we still play guitars – we love finding new bands.

Valentine: We had a time we played lots of lo-fi and punk, people like Times New Viking or No Age, then that leads you to GG Allin, or Crass.

Who is the best celebrity who’s popped into SMS?

Valentine: Damon Albarn! Even if he only gave us about five minutes. And, Chloë Sevigny, and Mark E. Smith, who has been a few times, actually.

Phillips: Craig Charles, recently, who was super drunk. When Albarn came in, I was itching to get Song 2 on. Which I’m sure he would have loved.