Another Way To Breathe

So, that went well.

I don’t really have perspective to call it the best Thought Bubble ever, but it’s certainly up there. I was both excited and petrified about this one. It seemed to have more of our close friends in the industry actually coming than ever before, and as Jamie and I have spent so much time recommending it to people, we would feel terrible if it was a complete disaster. 

It wasn’t a complete disaster. It was a triumph.

As I said, it’s difficult to get perspective, for reasons both personal and professional. Professionally, our own con had a narrow focus. Our full con experience: we arrived, signed, did lunch, signed, panel, prepared for the party, did the party, arrived and ran around the hall for 45 minutes, signed, lunch, signed and then home. Generally speaking, if it didn’t happen within a few metres of our table, we didn’t see it. Personally, Jamie and I have done every single Thought Bubble, from the first one in the basement of the Town Hall to this one. Like Drake, we started at the bottom, etc. It’s growth has dovetailed entirely with our own. There’s been years when there’s been growing pains at the con. 

This was the biggest one ever, and also the most efficient. There’s always firefighting at the con, but the ones which happened were entirely out of control of the organisers, namely the weather. The helpers were as good as any con as we’ve ever been at. The queue management was pretty damn slick. Lisa and the whole crw

(My main worry about the con was whether the queue situation is hurting smaller retailers. With so many big names at the con, people have had to stand and wait for long periods to meet people and get signatures. That means there’s a lot of traffic tied up at once, which may impact on people spending less? I don’t know. If anyone had any experience, I’d like to hear of it.)

People were very kind. There was lots of cosplay, with WicDiv especially well represented. There was even cosplay I didn’t actually see, including a gender-switched Amaterasu. The TWATD crew turning up to the party in WicDiv facepaint (”neck-up cosplay”) was pretty amazing as well, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Party notes come at the end.

I was only on one Panel, which was a live Decompressed. I dunno if it was recorded - I’ll dig into it. I did ask, but not sure if it worked. If so, I’ll get it online. Thanks to Scott, Kate, Noelle, Ales and Rick for sharing their thoughts and/or mocking me. There was also the bit at the start where I shouted out “CAN SOMEONE MAKE SURE MY MUM HAS GOT IN!” as my Mum decided to pop along to the con to have a nose.

She had a lovely time.

And then there was the party.

I think generally speaking the accepted apex of the party was the 2012 TB, which was the first year at the Corn Exchange. It was the biggest one ever - the council actually let them use the full capacity of 700-800 and the place burned until 4am. 2013, also in the corn-exchange, had a fair few problems. It was smaller, not enough staff, huge queues, bar’s understocked, etc. 2014, in the Town Hall, there was a whole bunch of problems - the sound took until basically midnight to get sorted and the building wasn’t ideal for how a party works, plus a few other things I’ll save for another time. As much as the party was a thing - and it’s never stopped being the Church Of What We Do - there’s been bubbling discontent over it. The available tickets selling out instantly didn’t help there, and there was a splintering of events across town.

That’s natural and necessary when the con is as big as it is - I especially wish I’d managed to get to the Karaoke - but there was still a sense of make it or break it about the party.

It was about as organised as we can hope for, though the bars running out of whiskey before midnight was an especial heartbreaker for Jamie. You’d hope there’s a way to balance the guest-getting-in with the casual-fan of it all. but it’s worth noting that as far as I know anyone who did the turn-up-late-and-get-in plan completely got in. And, of course, we can always hope that one day TB is able to use the full venue capacity again.

However, this one is fucking legendary.

The thing everyone talking about. DMC, at the con with his comic, rapped over It’s Tricky and Walk This Way. Place blew up. Pandemonium. Here’s a couple of videos…

But there’s shitloads more. The place was explosive, and the conversation chased the evening. The people were there had the did that really fucking happen? conversation. Those who arrived later talked about missing it. And I was aware that pressing start and stop vaguely when I should have pretty much means everything in my bio is deleted to be replaced with “Once played records for DMC to rap over.”

And then there’s the DJs. This time the usual crew (minus Boo, who wasn’t at the con) were joined by Marguerite Bennett and Kate Leth. Both have never DJed before. Both were charmingly nervous. I put them on first of the real sets to try and alleviate that, as the real dancing doesn’t normally kick off until 10:30 or so. However, this time there was dancing from towards the end of my warm-up set, and a full dance-floor for most of Antony’s not-real-set.

(We were both meant to be playing casual talking-to music, but when people actually go on the dancefloor, that changes rapidly. When Antony feels the urge to drop Beyonce, you know the evening’s gone hard, fast.)

Marguerite (Playlist: “Bennett Gonna Work It out”) dropped Drake, Lolo, Florence, Sia and pleasured her party with Hamilton. Anxiety over button pressing disappeared shortly, and M fully embraced the DJ-owning-groove-with-cans look. Only a pair of enormous ludicrous mirrorshades would be needed to get the Full WicDiv god in the house effect. She closed with Du Hast, which tore the place apart, as you’d hope to. Kate  (Playlist: “Leth Me Go”) went from that with the brutal mood change to Torn, before building from epic girl pop (with a side helping of MCR). I even forgave her for playing the Geri version of It’s Raining Men (Especially as it followed Only Happy When It Rains, which is the sort of posing stuff you would expect from me.) I was playing mother hen to both of them, as they’d only had a 5 minute lesson earlier, but a couple of songs in, I just caught Kate doing her full-on Cheshire Cat of a grin and knew I could just leave her to it. Just divine.

The order of the four regulars (with the appearance of DMC in the middle of Al’s) was switched a bit from order. Al went first, then me, then Jamie, then Antony, then the sheer chaos everyone-has-a-go until we closed up at 2:30. That changed a few things, not least that I had a chance to really ruin Jamie’s set for once by playing things I knew he was going to. (I didn’t. I’m a bastard, but not quite that kind of bastard.) Al did the big glory of his War of the Worlds Opening. Jamie took it up a few more gears, and Antony did a set of real bangers (including Love Will Tear Us Apart and the Sisters’ for the Leeds Goth Nod.) We should have, of course, got organised and all wore Dionysus T-shirts. But getting organised is sort of anti-Dionysus, so it still works.

(Antony blogs about his sets here, including playlists. Here’s Jamie doing the same.)

I played… well, not 100% sure. This is from memory, and I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things.

The early set was meant to be casual listening, but ended up with people dancing. There was also a bit where I just tried to stream a bunch of records with the Be My Baby drum-beat…

Ha Howa Ha Howa - Sexwitch
Water Fountain - Tune-Yards
Circles - Kate Tempest
I Wish You Would - Taylor Swift
You Are The Generation Who Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve - Johnny Boy
Be My Baby - Ronettes
Millionaire Sweeper - Kenickie
Everything Must Go - Manic Street Preachers
Night Of Wine And Roses - Japandroids

And I think there was something else. I tried to play Crucified by Army Of Lovers, but it hadn’t downloaded to my Ipad and the Wifi wasn’t up for it. So possibly something a little like Army Of Lovers.

The second set was my real one, and pretty much entirely improvised. I was planning to do stuff which felt very WicDiv/PG-y with a club dance element (I really wanted to play Music Sounds Better With You) but after the chaos of DMC’s arrival, I knew large rap hits were called for. The problem then came of how to stop playing them before the audience died. I realised Regulate could slow it down a bit before moving over to my indie dance leaning pop nonsense. And it basically worked, allowing me to build back to the inevitable closer.

(There’s definitely some stuff out of order towards the end here.)

212 - Azealia Banks
Milkshake - Kelis
Hot In Herrre - Nelly
99 Problems - J.Z.
Regulate - Warren G
Pull shapes - Pipettes
Leave A Trace - CHVRCHES
Do It Again - Rokysopp & Robyn
Call Me Maybe - Carlie Rae Jackson
Take On Me - A-ha

The last one, as you may expect, prompted pretty amazing scenes.

From then on, it’s a case of god-knows (I definitely dropped Push it. I definitely dropped Missy. I definitely droped One More time, as C kicked me to it in an excellent fashion). The “just one more song” call came in unexpectedly, prompting a rush to ensure that we managed to get Total Eclipse in, which turned the dancefloor into a tableau of bodies, like some kind of murder-scene from Hannibal. It was glorious.

Jamie and I found ourselves talking about it maybe being the last year of doing the party. Partially because of the feeling of the last couple of years, of it probably time to pass the torch (and god knows I wish Marguerite and Kate were locals so we could pass to them.) We’ve done six years. Art should change.

But the morning after, it was much more “how on earth do you follow that?”

Never say never, but, etc.

In the hotel room when we crawled back, I told C “I’m really, really happy.” It’s incredibly rare that I feel that kind of unvarnished joy. I’m lucky to know you all. Love to everyone. 

Dionysus, of course, had a point.

Photos that are not ours from Anna.