Juno Daily – In The Mix & interview: Wes Baggaley with Bottom Heavy

by Juno Daily on 11.01.2024 at 17:12pm.
Last edited: 15.01.2024 at 12:26pm.

Wes warms up for BMW24

Wigan-born Wes Baggaley has played everywhere from legendary queer night Adonis to Berlin’s Berghain, and is also one half of the renowned party stoking duo Bottom Heavy. As well as very kindly taking to the decks to spin out an hour of the best house, techno, garage and disco for Juno Daily’s In The Mix, he opted to let us quiz him on his past, present and future…

First things first – where are you as you type this? How’s your day been so far?

I’ve actually just woken up from a nap. I’m lying on my couch because abuse I was up at 4:45am for my day job as a gym manager. The day was alright fot the second week in January I guess

Tell us about your musical career to date – DJ and release-wise? Where would our readers have heard of you from?

Well I started djing in the mid 90s at after parties. I’d already been collecting records for a good while and got into electronic music in the early 90s. I was actually into punk and grindcore bands and weirdly got into electronic music via those bands because Godflesh used a drum machine and I kept reading about a band called Throbbing Gristle as influences on lots of music I was into. I found the 20 Jazz Funk Greats album in a sale rack in Action Records in Wigan when I had some Christmas money (I think it was £3.99). Thought the cover was a bit odd but bought it anyway along with some Sex Pistols bootlegs. I was expecting some kind of hardcore punk band and when I got home I remember being sorely disappointed.

However I kept going back to the track ‘Hot on the Heels of Love’. I found it strangely hypnotic and something must have stuck. This was in 1991 at the height of the rave explosion. Most of my friends were a bit older and I was going to clubs at a really young age. I was a crusty punk during the week and raver at weekends which I’m really glad about because I was exposed to a huge cross section of music.

Anyway I moved to Manchester from Wigan in the late 90s and blagged myself some bar gigs and kind of learned to djing on the job. There were no CDJs then so you had to have a record collection. I lived opposite Vinyl Exchange, Piccadilly Records and Eastern Bloc so I was in the shops most days scouring the racks. In 2000 a new gay club Legends opened in Whitworth Street with a bar next door called The Outpost. I started going there a lot and became friendly with the manager. I got them to give me a residency in the bar but they had no equipment so I used to take my own turntables and mixer down there every Saturday night.

After about six months of doing this I got a weekly residency in the club next door warming up in the basement which lasted for a few years. I moved to London in 2010 and started playing at the Eagle quite a bit, played at Horse Meat Disco a couple of times and ran a few unsuccessful parties at LGBTQ+ venues around the city. I was offered a gig at Glastonbury in 2016 at the NYC Downlow by Gideon via getting my tits out on stage at The Glory (long story short). This gave me quite a bit of exposure I would never have had otherwise.

After that things kind of snowballed really. I ended up on the same line up as Dan Beaumont quite a lot. We got on well and started playing back to back at some of the parties we were booked for and decided to turn it into a party. We started Bottom Heavy as a kind of antidote to a lot of parties that were going on at the time. Everybody was just doing some kind of pale imitation of what the thought was going on on the main floor of Berghain so we decided to do a party that was just house music all night with residents only.

Release wise there isn’t much out there to be honest. One ‘Wes Baggaley’ release called Murder, a track on a Killekill compilation and a remix on Manpower’s MeMeMe label. I was struggling to get anything finished but I’ve recently had a ADHD diagnosis and started treatment so I’m back in the studio

What were your first musical loves, from the music you heard as a child right through to your first record purchases?

I absolutely loved Adam and the Ants as a kid. Then I got into Duran Duran. I always got records as gifts at Christmas and Birthdays and I used to get £1.50 a week pocket money when I was about 7 which I used to spend on ex-jukebox singles on Wigan market. The first record someone else bought me was Quantum Jump – ‘The Lone Ranger’. I can’t actually remember but apparently I loved the song as a toddler after seeing/hearing it on the Kenny Everett Show so my grandma went and bought it for me. The first record I ever went mental for and went into a shop and bought with my own money was Dead or Alive – ‘You Spin Me Round’ after seeing it on Top of the Pops in 1984/85. My auntie was also a punk in the 70s and she left home in the early 80s leaving her collection of 45s behind (we all lived with my grandparents) and I was given them, which I still have.

What persuaded you to get behind the decks first and then, what made you extend that into making your own tunes? (or vica versa if the other way round)

I first started messing around on the decks at after parties. We had one friend with decks in their flat and we’d all pile over there after we’d been to Wigan Pier. I already had a record collection and this was when I started buying house and techno 12”s, just to play at the afters. A lot of them ended up being left there and I’d quite like them back haha. This would have been between the end of 1993 and about 1996.

As far as making my own tunes, it’s something I didn’t really take to at first. People just assumed that I was a producer because they saw my name on line ups. It’s a completely different thing. I got asked to do a remix which took me absolutely ages and I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I used a cracked copy of Ableton (I’ve bought it since). I think that due to the ADHD I found Ableton (which is great) a little overwhelming because there’s just so much on it. Luckily I have a very good friend with a studio that allows me to use her equipment and I get on better with hardware so hopefully I’ll get some stuff finished this year.

You’ve played a big variety of different venues and nights across the globe, from Berghain to Adonis – do you tailor the sets beforehand or is a case of reading off the audience once you’re up and running?

If I get booked for something like Adonis that I’ve played at a lot I’ll find out which room I’m in and the time and pack stuff that I think is appropriate for the time and the room. If I’m playing vinyl I’ll try to do this more so than if I’m playing digital. I resisted the whole digital DJing thing for ages trying to be vinyl only just because I have a lot of records really. I’ve stopped travelling with records now though unless I know it’s somewhere I know that you can play them without hiccups because so many clubs just don’t pay that much attention to it. I was packing them to take to a European gig recently and just thought ‘who am I doing this for?’

The people dancing shouldn’t be bothered what format you use as long as it sounds good and I’m sorry but if you’re at a party with your mates and you’re peering over the DJ booth to see what they’re playing off you need to get a life haha. It’s not that exciting. Anyway as far as reading the audience, of course I do that. As much as it’s nice to think you’re getting booked for ‘what you do’ I don’t want to be so far up my own arse that people are having a rotten time. I like so much different music that I can switch if necessary. Playing off CDJs gives you the freedom to do that. If it’s vinyl you’ll get what you’re given I’m afraid.

And you’re playing as apart of Bottom Heavy for Body Movements Winter Edition next month, how are sets for them different to normal?

Bottom Heavy is myself and Dan Beaumont. It’s basically just an arse shaking house music party. We throw in lots of styles through the night but its core is house music in all its forms with an emphasis on fun

The mix you’ve done for is Bottom Heavy-themed, is that right? Talk us through what you were aiming for?

I was aiming for what we try to do at the party condensed into an hours mix so there’s a deep house, techno, a bit of garage, some bass music and a couple of lost classics. I did it on my own but tried to channel Dan at some points

And what does 2024 hold for you – that you know about, anyway?!!

Well I don’t think I can say some of it yet but I’m playing Mustang in Paris on January 19, we have a Bottom Heavy at Dalston Superstore on January 27, we’re playing Body Movements winter edition on February 4 and I’m doing an industrial/post punk set at a night in Manchester called Mutations on March 15. I’ve a couple of other bits I can’t say yet. Anyway if there are any promoters reading…book me ha ha!