Jonny Woo’s show Suburbia is a memoir, reflection and a love-letter to seminal moments in his life. One of which was discovering clubbing and the drug Ecstasy in the 1990’s. “Looking back now,” he says, “it was so much more than going out and getting wrecked; it was a movement, it was a connection. It’s also an acknowledgement that the things we do as we’re becoming adults, experimenting with drugs, sex, music, people and just living, stay with us forever. These tracks are all from that time, I hope they give you the same rush I had when I first heard them.”
Unique (Original Mix) – Club 69
This track is the epitome of what it feels like to be in a club. The bass is chunky with cool funky 70’s synths and a sultry and somewhat ironic lead vocal that really got that super sexy vibe going on the dance floor. This was one of the few vinyls my friends and I had on repeat after a night out. It’s making a comeback with the 90’s deep house resurrection.
P.A.S.S.I.O.N (Tin Tin Out Mix) – Jon Pleased Wimmin
Total handbag, swish yourself around absolute party banger, It’s full tilt from start to finish and a thing of joy. I’ve met Jon a few times and I’ll say hi down CC’s. I first met him at a Wild West, Chuff Chuff party. His crew of club drag queens were so glamorous, especially through my ecstasy lens, and his DJ sets were a literal riot. He’d bang together so many styles and they had a brashness to them which was just wild and abandoned.
Plastic Dreams – Jaydee
I first heard this the night DJ Dimitri from Dee Lite played at Wobble in Birmingham. He was such an idol, and I shared a taxi with him, dropping him at his hotel. This track has this depth of hollow sound inviting you to fall into it, and then driving percussion which gets the body moving. It’s a linear deep house track that builds with intensity. It’s always being re-released and remixed but you can’t mess with the perfection of the original.
Lock Up (Original) – Zero B
The opposite to deep house classics, this has a distinct rave vibe and a delicious messiness. Unlike the thick, multi-layered production of tracks today there is a simplicity and sparsity that throws you from bass beats to euphoric synths with some jarring rhythmic changes which are so fun to play with your moves to. Going out was about dancing and this is a real stomper and jumper and needs full rave style gestures.
Rhythm Is A Mystery – K Klass
Can we talk about ‘Poppers’? I was in New York, New York at the Liberation ’91 March protesting shitty Thatcher anti-gay legislation. I met some fella who was sniffing from a bottle. I asked what it does, he said ‘It’ll make you think you are the best dancer, then laugh uncontrollably, then give you a headache in less than a minute’. This is one of the best descriptions of poppers I’ve ever heard. I was hooked. (Don’t do drugs kids!) Oh this song was the song I first tried them too and it’s an absolute corker. I neither encourage nor condone sniffing from bottles but if you do, try to time it just before the piano crescendo. A proper gay club banger.
Groovy Beat – D.O.P.
I never knew the names of the tracks. I literally googled ‘house track ‘rockin’ to a rhythm of a groovy beat’ recently and so we found this beauty and these master producers with a discography of amazing ‘progressive house’ tracks. The noises they use are so unexpected and the music keeps you hooked all the way through. It has a cute piano sample of ‘Died In Your Arms Tonight’ which repeats and lifts you higher and higher.
Schönberg (Marmion Remix) – Marmion
Let’s really wind things up. A mid 90’s tech trance master-piece. A fave at gay club TRADE in London which I got into, twice. I was a scruffy drinker on pills back then and didn’t fit the TRADE clean cut look. It’s not one for relaxing, it’s a huge builder with a wicked electric guitar breakdown and one of the longest synth peaks I’ve heard in a track. Put headphones on and play it loud and bounce around the bed.
Shocked – Kylie Minogue
I’m popping this in, because after a night popping pills we’d invariably end up pissed in a gay bar where Kylie was queen and this track IMHO is Kylie at her absolute best. A whooshing crescendo, A rap, housey beats and of course Kylie. There’s not much more to say really. 90’S GAY high energy brilliance.
Torn – Natalie Imbruglia
We’re coming down a bit now, but this was a gorgey song to sing-along to the day after in the pub with your mates, still ‘buzzing’ from the night before. I always think if the UK entered this song into the Eurovision Song Contest it would win, of course if I wrote it and performed it, But that’s just a fantasy that fills my time in between reminiscing about the good ole days.
Always On My Mind – Pet Shop Boys
The PSB were so part of my formative years. They came to a party I was throwing in a pub in Shoreditch in the early 00’s and I was like a blithering school girl when I spoke to them. I asked them for a kiss after their ‘Performance’ show in Birmingham, they obliged and the security guard promptly shouted – no more kisses. I do a prog-house 90’s night and the 12inch remix of this still gets the crowd going.
Jonny Woo: Suburbia, Summerhall, 31 Jul-25 Aug (not 12, 19), 1.35pm