In the late Nineties Portsmouth's legendary big beat club night Breakdown brought the joyous sound of breakbeats & loops to the heart of the city. Now, after a gap of nearly two decades, the big beat sound is returning to The Wedgewood Rooms for a one-off celebration, with multiple DJs working their turntable magic across the venue's two rooms.
Breakdown 20 is a celebration of the music that bridged the distance between clubbers and indie kids but it's also a chance to toast the lives of co-founder Carl Edwards, who passed away last year, and DJ Paul ‘Monkey P’ Keeler who died in 2015. Monkey P founded No More Durty Water, a fundraising organisation that works with existing charities to provide safe and sustainable drinking water, and monies raised from Breakdown 20 will go to help both their work and that of local hospice The Rowans.
The line-up for Breakdown 20 includes Simon Heartfield, Mr Foot and George Spence, with resident DJ Jed Nugget spinning a choice set of old school classics and the mighty Plump DJs headlining.
Breakdown 20 takes place this Friday, 22nd March, with advance tickets priced at £10 (All ages show, under 14s must be accompanied by an adult).
This Saturday, 10th November, Southsea's Wine Vaults hosts Old Guard 18/19, a musical fundraiser for charity No More Durty Water. Fifty DJs will descend on the venerable Albert Road pub, spinning thirteen hours of music across three sounds systems, raising money to aid the charity's efforts to end water poverty.
Since its inception in 2010 No More Durty Water has, through parties, gigs and raffles, fully funded the building of 10 protected springs in southern Uganda. The charity was founded by local DJ Monkey P who, inspired by the fundraising activities of music students at South Downs College, realised that he could involve Southsea's musical and artistic community to raise both money and awareness. Sadly Monkey P died in 2015, the work of the charity he created continues however.
In addition to the DJs spinning out tunes there will be a raffle, with over thirty prizes supplied by local businesses, a record fair and a sale of Monkey P's record collection (some of which was sold at The Wedgewood Rooms back in May). The poster, below, riffs on the classic Mexico '86 World Cup logo (which reminded me that, back when I was a small boy, I had a model of Pique that I assembled out of a Kinder Egg).
The music starts this Saturday, from midday.
