The ground floor of Clwb is our home. It’s our favourite place. A perfect space with an awesome sound system. Plenty of room to dance. Lots of lights and lasers. And smoke. Loads of smoke. Victorian London fog levels of smoke.
When we started Dirty Pop, we wanted to create a night that we’d want to go to. Where it was all about the songs. Great Pop songs. Big massive life-affirming, joy-bringing stomping bangers. And also, those crying on the bus for no reason songs. Those amazing SadBangerz. We didn’t want to have a set playlist, we just wanted to play great stuff. Stuff we love because if we don’t love it, how in the hell can we expect you to. So we’ll play a Drake song if we like it. But there are plenty of Drake songs we don’t like. It doesn’t mean we hate Drake. And that often mentioned Dirty Pop Banned List doesn’t *actually* exist, either (but if it did, Sean Paul we’d be looking at you). And while Toxic is amazing, that 2016 comeback was not what we came for. It is all about the songs. Whether it’s having a Run DMC style parting of the red sea dance-off to Whitney, crowd surfing to About You Now or the whole room putting some bass in their walk, it’s all happened because of the music and you people strutting your stuff. It’s called a dance floor, and that’s what it’s for.
Dirty Pop is not a particular kind of night, catering for a particular audience. It’s not about looking cool or fitting into any type of crowd. We just wanted a place where you could hear the best Pop on the planet. And people found us. Gay people. Straight people. Everyone in between people. All together, on one dance floor. We’ve seen people arrive as freshers who’ve never left. We’ve seen people move away and come back. We’ve seen people get together. We’ve helped people get together. We’ve seen them get married. We’ve played at some of their weddings. We’ve seen people bring their friends. We’ve seen someone bring their mum and dad. We’ve seen people make friends for life. We’ve made friends for life.
We’re a family affair and we’ve had other members of this beautiful team, namely our origibabes – Cynan, Jonny and Winf. We’ve had guests in to help us out or to mind the shop – Mikee Snooze, GRLTLK, Gwenno, Ani Glass, Crash.Disco!, Bright Light Bright Light, Horseplay, Don’t Tell Your Mother, Mother and Auntie, and He who must not be named (who also stole our headphone jack). We’ve had the support from all the staff at Clwb – the techies, the bar staff, the door staff, the office staff – the cleaners who clean up all (your) dirty mess. We want to thank them all. But most of all, thank YOU. You make Dirty Pop. See you on the dance floor.
Lots of love,
Ian and Esyllt