Since time immemorial or as long as I can remember, it was and still is a must for any self respectinghard house or hard trance addict to get wasted there on a Sunday night and be grooving till Monday 6am. (Sic!) Nice indeed, for those concerned, that is.
Playing there was always considered a privilege, bringing mark of respect and recognition in hard house circles. Just Groove is famous for another reason. Not everyone understands or appreciates hard house but the love of this superb, fast beat brings some very opposite characters together, hence Just Groove, was and still is a special place because meeting friendly groovy types, sometimes definitely off genetic pool, never bores.No wonder then that I was a bit nervous and apprehensive about going there to have a chat with Louise and Tony, 414 proprietors responsible for creating and sustaining this longest running night in London.
Tony is away on the business wiring some sound equipment but Louise is there and in good form, considering that we are meeting on Monday evening and the day itself is universally treated as a clubbing holiday to gather senses after the long weekend. My task is made much easier though by the fact that she is one of the most approachable club owners I know.
So here we are sitting up in a large, functionally furnished flat upstairs.The only pity is that there is no music drifting from downstairs and I haven’t got a chance to hear how much of it you can actually hear. It was a long-standing conundrum for 414 regulars wondering how can you actually lead a normal life above the club who for years brings on very loud and messy events. And hard house is especially good in creating a lot of wallop. Never mind that. Chance is lost. So sipping coffee and trying not to stain the first class carpet, I am beginning to inquire about the past.

The Beginnings

The exact date of the first Just Groove is not really known. Not that it is important but since it was 10 years ago no one is really sure about the details. It could be the end of May or beginning of June but by mutual consensus second week of June has been chosen as the birthday date. Sunday slot was occupied then by promotion called Freshly Squeezed. It was a hard-edged beats bash with Roosta and Rob Campbell playing as residents. Roosta was barely a teenager then and Louise nods – “Yeah, he was just a little bit, well he still is compared to Skol,” she laughs. “He’s been always polite with perfect manners and that scores a lot with me”, she adds. I couldn’t agree more. In all these years I never detected any sign of DJs disease in him and he remains one of the DJs who I have always time for. Anyway, back to the history… After Freshly Squeezed stopped, Just Groove rolled in as a predominately hard house night where Roosta and Skol were residents with Muzz joining them later on. It was also starting point for DJing career of Skol, and a distinguished career it is. Louise remembers how he used to borrow records from other DJs and go and play blinding set – as he still does play blinding sets. He is one of those spinners who were actually born with the rare skill of mixing. Louise continues; “Rob Campbell and Roosta were taking mickey out of him saying he was a DJ without a home… Tony said, “this could be your home”. And indeed “he never missed the slot in these long 10 years unless he was out of the country”. I remain impressed. That’s dedication indeed. It was also Tony who came up with the name, Just Groove. Louise continues -“because it was Sunday, end of weekend and what else were you supposed to do then. It was Just Groove for the party people, place to unwind and have a boogie”. In 1995 there were no other musical venues on Coldharbour Lane apart from the pub called Atlantic (present Dog Star) and nothing else bar reggae nights. Place was a bit desolate then and considered risky to venture. “When Just Groove first started, there were two types of people on Coldharbour Lane; 414 customers and 'undesirables' but you could tell them apart" - Louise laughs.
Club 414 was already a brand name on the London’s dance scene in 1995 and have proved to be extremely popular in techno and especially acid techno circles for hosting“ Nuclear Free Zone” on Saturdays. It has been running already for 15 years and it was a special place where you could rub shoulders with infamous 3 Liberators: Julian, Aaron and Chris and listen to some true, unadulterated techno. Indisputably 414 was a beacon of cutting edge, underground music in those days and they had dedicated following. But nobody was doing hard house parties then; besides hard dance term had not been invented yet– and it was an absolutely unique event and 414 were indisputably world leaders and pushing boundaries of the scene. (Polar Bear that eventually grew into Fevah and Strawberry Sundays came later for all concerned historians.)
There was never any special effort to promote this event – “Those days it was word of mouth, people bringing friends and spreading the word about the party. Everyone knew each other. It was big family of party people, family of clubbers. Everyone is different but they all were uniting at Just Groove – just winding down at the end of weekend. You know… just groove, easy… This is what made it quite different from other aggressive promotions. Back in the day it was the underground that mattered and word on the underground scene travels faster then any flyer will ever do”. So immediately they became immensely popular with the public and were packed to the rafters or more on Sunday nights. It was something natural and widely accepted to meet @ Just Groove and exchange all the news and gossip or stay silent and kick the floor. But we were always there till the morning light. Standing or not…

Music

Louise is quite forthcoming and brief here. “We are leaving it to DJs. They take their cues from the crowd - as long as the public likes what they play there won’t be any change in music policy – just hard pounding beats. No less”. It’s so simple to say but if you haven’t ever been taken to the different dimension by collective mixes of Muzz, Skol and Roosta then you never lived and you don’t know your hard house at all. Especially last two hours occupied by Skol and Roosta are simply manic, however, good old Muzz managed to upstage them several times.
Latest additions to residents could be Craig Mac whose partnership with Skol is becoming a fixture @ Just Groove.
“Very nice man” adds Louise. “We would love to make him official resident but that would leave only one guest slot and that would be difficult”. List of DJs playing for Just Groove over the years reads like who is who or who was who in the last decade of hard house and hard trance. The list is long indeed and some of the names are missing, as memory is such a fickle thing. So I attempt to name just a few and apologise for not including some players.
Mark L’Hat, Luke Brancaccio, Mazey, Rob Campbell, Alfie, Ian Betts, Marc French, Eamon Fevah, Hawkes, Greg Ferguson, Kev Walsh, Nick Irwin, Matt Clarke, Brendan, Billy Daniel Bunter, Craig Jon, Thermobee, Rupert, Matt Wilson, Grant Thompson, Andy Harkin, Latex Zebra, Red Cat, Mattie C, Mad Phil, Future Sound of Elvis, BSE, Ben Kakoshke, Simon Hill, Oberon, Karl Nicholson, Steve Morley, Mark Sinclair and others…

The Place

Unending popularity of Just Groove is easy to comprehend when you realise that Tony and Louise are dedicated party people themselves and were known in the past to open up 414 in case of emergency. “There was a party called Rage up in Heaven (Charing Cross) in 1994. It was on Thursday night and after the party, in the early morning we had a convoy of cars coming our way and they were asking if they could come back for a bash. So we opened. I worked in the bar and Tony was doing the door and we had a party till 6 in the morning. “
They got away with it but later they have to apply for a morning licence as emergency cases were having disturbing habit of happening every weekend. It was statutory 3am licence then and 414 were the first in south London to get 6am licence for Just Groove.
They were also the first to get after party licence until 9am. It was done for Milk infamous parties on Saturday mornings. Party environment indeed but hardly surprising since Louise, coming from large family of friends, knew a bit about partying in her time, she likes music full stop, and was used to being away from home since early age.
Her and Tony came to Brixton in 1984. It was 3 years after the Brixton riots in 1981 and no one knew what Brixton was going to do or which direction it should take.
The authorities were happy for anyone showing even vague interest in the area so they took a look, grabbed a bargain and settled down in old Tandoori restaurant.
That’s right. 414 Club was an Old Tandoori restaurant – that explains the spiral staircase- I mutter. It wasn’t destroyed in the riot but stayed derelict for over two year and consequently was absolutely devastated. “When we walked through the door first time it was kind of “Oh my Days!” reaction” - remembers Louise. Lots of hard work followed since then however 414 never attempted to pretend to be Buckingham Palace and for a very good reason.

“If you make the place too clean than you could make people uncomfortable and destroy the feeling of being underground. If you make a place too nice you risk taking out the atmosphere and vibe.
Back in the day when we were underground you couldn’t have it too nice because people would think it’s corporate entertainment and then we had a reputation to keep. As they say, you cannot please all the people all the time. But there are limits to everything so every Tuesday Mickey comes for a cleansing session. The carpets and floors are cleaned and he wipes all the walls down and polished all the mirrors and because we do it every week I don’t think anybody notices it” – Louise laughs.

Yet 414 stays the one and only place where a man can practise peeing and holding the door with one leg – good for your balance, innit? This is a legendary skill by now. Taking care of the staff is also absolutely essential to create that ‘home made’ feeling of 414. And Louise here has a tip for all concerned. “ If you want to know if the venue is good and friendly enough, look at the staff; if you see the same crew week in week out then the management must be all right.” And this is the duty she takes very seriously. She looks after her “boys”, read security and her “girls”, read bar staff. And under no circumstances will she allow liberty taking with her personnel. Saga – a resident doorkeeper from Sweden is another story and I admit to Louise that in all these years I haven’t evolved a skill to pass by her. Louse laughs at this heartily. “We are a small venue and we can ill afford to be overtly generous. She is a good girl and she is doing her job not letting everyone to get in. 'Sorry, you are not on the list, whoever you are.'" “She’s my sensible adult” Louise smiles.
Now I have a difficult question to ask as every music venue owner in UK had some “special” time with the passing of Barry Legg Law. Have they ever been raided by the police or shut by the authorities for some reasons? Now she is quite lucid and passionate. “Never. In all 21 years since we have been here.” As it transpires “we did a 7 year apprenticeship for the authorities as they couldn’t understand why there was never any trouble in the club. They thought it was free for all, well it was not actually but in the other aspects like no dress code and water bottle filling because of that there was never any trouble. That’s the secret. But after that time the authorities realised we were neither con artists nor drug dealers nor tax evaders. Finally it dawned on them that we were just business people. It was because we have that golden rule – behave yourself.”

The Vibe

I still vividly recall like it was yesterday; continuous 2 years of mad rushing at 4am from Fevah @ Tube to Brixton to catch last 2 hours of bangin’ on the weekend. We were never satisfied those days but Just Groove universally was the one to finish us off. Completely that is.
There were several good reasons for this unflinching support of our bunch of clubbers. Firstly it was a family-like approach to all of us, none being singled out for any preferential treatment. Top-notch security was there to protect us and not to hurt us. Besides this was Brixton and things happen in Brixton but 414 was a place where you felt protected and basically safe. “The idea behind things is firm but fair as we were getting all sorts of people at Just Groove” emphasises Louise. “I can’t be bothered with clubbing politics – we have seen people go, some of them have made it in life, some of them had not. Some of them have gone to have families but in the end of the day we are party people and we don’t have any specific regulation apart from behaving ourselves. That’s it. Period”.
It was indeed a passionate relationship between regulars and the venue. Take 414 logo for instance. Bearing in mind trademark rules DJ Alfie is officially own by 414 as he got its logo as a tattoo on his arm. Besides him Louise and Tony reserve exclusive rights to one female bottom and man’s back. “They were a couple from Sardinia who met at 414 and later got married. And they have tattoos done after the wedding”

It was relationship loyal to the end yet frivolous sometimes. Louise remembers - “On one occasion speaker caught fire, but the punters who were supposed to vacate the building, took their drinks upstairs and stay there leaving to the stuff to put it out. Well they were taken care of so why should they bother? - She laughs. They had power breaks in the past and again public refused to leave. “They were more then happy to have a break and wait for it to be fixed.” There were examples of people falling asleep in the club – sometimes behind the spiral staircase or in the DJ box. On the morning discovery they were given complimentary cup of tea and send home. Back to life I presume. After that staff have a habit of checking all around the building to make sure everybody managed to get home in the end.
And my God they were getting some surreal types: promoters, gladiators, biologists, genetics, biochemists, architects, archaeologists, lecturers, mathematicians, gangsters, dealers, Zulu woman folk, writers, lecturers and comedians. In short all sorts of people from nations that rambled around London. Chill out upstairs was echoing sometimes with more than a dozen languages conducting more or less coherent discussions.
On another occasion they had a group of Japanese musicians visiting Just Groove – and they enjoyed the night so much they have invited one of the regular DJs - Luke Brancaccio was given a task - to perform at one of theirs gigs in Japan during brakes. They turned out to be a big band in Japan and poor Luke was mobbed by fans leaving the venues and came back very happy with the experience, as being paid £200 for a slot was for every DJ. I will always remember Mr. Brancaccio for some other reason. Long time ago thanks to him I lost my contact lenses @ Dog Star on NYE and remained half blind through the night. But what a night it was, Hey!

Behaviour

“If you like the music, and this is all about music, then music should be your drug. What goes around comes around. If you haven’t got anything to say just shut up! Save your breath! If you are the party person then you enjoy your music, you enjoy socialising, meeting people, having a boogie. If you don’t see it that way 'then see you later. Bye...' " – quips Louise. It’s easy to say but in Louise’s case, age works in her favour.
But there are also some other tricks that she mastered to keep a lid on things in the club. It doesn’t happen very often, if it happens at all, to see club proprietor distributing football-like yellow or red cards between customers. I got one myself a while back for parking my trainers on the seat, very naughty of me, but tragically I wasn’t allow to keep it for safe keeping.
The rules are simple: yellow cards are for putting legs on the seats, talking back incomprehensively or general unruly behaviour.
Red cards are for sitting on plants on the terrace and violence. She gave few of them for that – however I have never seen any violence or aggressive arguments in 414 during all these years. I only saw Tony disposing of a drug dealer once and it was a lesson in Brixton psychology. Good to remember.
Another trick is tolerance and patience with customers. As she says - “you should never judge people by the way they look. If you take some effort to talk to people, you could find out that they could be interesting. It could be a language or some sociological barrier that prevents them from being fully understood. Arrogance and ignorance breeds bad vibe and intolerance and there is nothing worse than that.”
“It also helps to learn a few phrases from different languages in order to speak a proper word at the appropriate moment to control the misunderstanding or brewing trouble. We just provide environment - we are here to make sure that you enjoy yourself and you are all right” For those in the know they also prefer to educate people but beside that 414 is in the midst of thriving Rasta community with all the consequences to passers by.

‘There are as always side effects to running a night club and business altogether’ Louise adds. “ People ask us ‘How do you sleep’?”
Running administrative side of the club takes around 57 hours a week – including 17 hours over weekend. “But you can get used to that. We are party people.” Myself I know a thing or two about this nocturnal life. Your body clock changes and you just get on with it as many others in the music circle. Not a big deal. But owners have to be disciplined on Sundays since they have to start working on Monday on the office side of it. And it is a challenge indeed. It’s so tempting to come downstairs, and then it is so painfully difficult to leave. At this point Louise burst laughing and declares: “There are 3 things I won’t take responsibility for: losing your job, breaking up your relationship and children”
Stewart T is chosen example as he blamed her for losing his job because he couldn’t get out in time. So now you know and you have been warned.

Future

So what the future holds for 414?
Louise believes that 414 have to give back something not only to their customers but also to the community. So there are plans to make premises available from Monday to Thursday for ‘worthy and charitable causes’ e.g. especially looking after the youngsters in Brixton
They are also in the process of creating a recording studio – “watch this space” – Louise warns. “There is not much going on in Brixton at the moment and young people have nowhere to go to express themselves and get creative and ambitious. They might end up on the street otherwise. Same principle applies to creating opportunities within the industry. It has been only a couple of years that Coldharbour Lane has improved and still a lot or even more could be done. Tony and Louise want to continue as long as they can – it is up to the public really – but it is important that they live in the club.
Brixton is fantastically vibrant and multi cultured 24 hours society but 414 is more than just a nightclub.

Last 3 words?

“Just keep grooving”

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Jam Gorilla