Clubs

Swing by sleazy Hoxton hang-out On The Rocks on (almost) any given Friday night and you can hear resident DJ Hannah Holland stamp her filthy, bassy electro sound all over the East End weekend at the party they call Trailer Trash. ‘I love playing at the club,’ says Hannah, ‘because you never know who’s coming. It’s a total mish-mash of music, people, drag queens, gays, straight Shoreditch party guys and girls… and the crowd's always up for whatever I play. It’s wicked!’
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Still packing in the punters every week after three-and-a-half years is no mean feat for the Trailer Trash resident DJs Hannah and Mikki Most, especially in the densely populated electro-fashion parties in Shoreditch. ‘I think the difference between us and other clubs is that people come to Trailer Trash to dance. People go to BoomBox to dress up – I normally lose half my body weight dancing all night in the club,’ she muses, quickly adding, ‘there’s nowhere to sit down either, so you’ve got no choice but to dance really.’ It’s this energy (and the dynamic crowd it attracts), coupled with Trailer Trash’s constant striving to find unique places for their one-off parties, that helps explain their long-term appeal. ‘Last year we threw a Trailer Trash party in a 500-year-old prison that still had the torture chambers in it. It was mad; there were strobe lights everywhere, trannies dancing in the cells,’ she chuckles. ‘It felt like you were on some sort of ghost ride.’

With Trailer Trash ticking along nicely, Hannah is eager to talk about her newer club night, Bastard Batty Bass, which she promotes with Mama Shamone, who fronts the eponymous rockin’ electro band. ‘I saw her on the dancefloor with a megaphone and thought: This girl's great, let’s throw a party together!’ It’s definitely a name you don’t forget easily. ‘Batty bass refers to music that makes your hips and ass move – anything with a filthy bassline – and Mama Shamone’s always saying bastard,' she sniggers, ‘so that’s the name in a nutshell. I play jackin’, feel-it-in-your-pants music – music that you can get sweaty to.’

She’s currently pushing the booty-house and baile funk sound, which is also being spearheaded by DJs such as Zombie Disco Squad and Radioclit. Hannah has established herself amongst a new breed of London DJs. ‘Switch and Sinden have made the whole bassline house scene more accessible. They’ve paved the way for me to start Batty Bass, which is something I’ve always wanted to do.’ With her MySpace tagline, ‘I was born with my head in a bass bin’, it appears she’s not about to forget her south London roots, where she spent her formative years listening to DJ Hype at underage rave Teen Rage at the Epsom Leisure Centre, or sneaking into Goldie’s infamous Metalheadz night at the Blue Note. All sounds which she’s eager to keep at Batty Bass. ‘We originally started the club so that I could finish off with 30 minutes of jungle.’ So it’s an anything-goes music policy then? ‘I finish off playing all sorts. It’s a total mash-up of jungle, speed garage, baile funk, booty-house, techno, you name it. People love it though, there’s always a few guys dancing with their tops off!’

Bastard Batty Bass is currently homeless, having moved from its previous residency at The Old Blue Last. ‘We needed somewhere a bit bigger with a better soundsystem, but watch out for Batty Bass vs Get Rude with Zombie Disco Squad at The Amersham Arms in New Cross at the end of the month. And if anyone knows of any good venues in the meantime…’

The club has spawned Batty Bass Records and Hannah’s currently working on a number of releases as well as a track with infamous drag queen promoter Johnny Woo. ‘I love dirty minimal music but it sounds so camp and serious,’ she smirks. ‘I’ve always wanted to make a minimal track and stick a drag queen drawl over the top, so that’s what we’ve done. You can do such good vogue-ing to minimal music but no one has caught on yet.’

‘People have even started to associate Bastard Bass as an actual genre; originally it just was just a club night but now it’s definitely more. I'd love people to associate Bastard Bass – the night, its sound and party spirit – with me, that would be great. Either that or I’ll have to start a new vogue-ing-to-minimal movement.’

Hannah DJs at ANewMovement.Com on Thursday and at Fabric Live on Friday. She’s back at Trailer Trash on Friday 12.