It's a well-known dilemma; staying out until the small hours dancing your ass off = good; rocking up to the office after three hours sleep and shelling out handfuls of cash for a taxi back to the suburbs = bad. Happily, a couple of guys with the same problem have decided to provide an alternative to late night clubbing. Defected's Ben Lovett takes a closer look at Early Doors Disco.

“I’m not really sure about the micro-clubbing label but there is something there” opens Luke Murphy, co-founder of embryonic London club night Early Doors Disco. “I just think a lot of other promoters need to catch on first. There’s only a few of us trying something different.”

By different, Murphy means squeezing his revellers’ dancefloor entertainment into the few hours before midnight, so that they can make the last train home and still feel relatively fresh for work the next day. One or two other nights in London have cottoned on to the same idea.

“Like all good ideas, ours came over a pint last Christmas” Murphy, an Aussie now relocated to High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire explains. “I’d been drinking in London the previous Tuesday and after one pint too many really wanted to dance. Of course I needed to catch the last train home and there was nowhere around where I could party early and then head back. A mate and I decided to launch Early Doors.”

Murphy and said mate Andrew Green (from Hitchin, in another of London’s close-by counties Hertfordshire) approached King’s Cross’ Drink Shop & Do space – a design shop and café - with their proposal and, come the first Wednesday of February, were promptly managing Early Door’s debut.


“It was a simple set-up” Murphy says. “We wanted the doors open by 7pm, music kicking it almost immediately and then everything wound up before the last Tube, to allow our commuter clientele to get safely home. We had a pretty decent turnout. Word had gotten round quickly. That night was more hip-hop focused but hinted at what more we could do.”

Early Doors were considerably more evolved the following month. “Put it this way, we had sweat dripping down the walls” Murphy laughs. “Sweat dripping down the walls at 8.30pm. It was an amazing night and there was more of a mix-up of music... a lot of peak tunes and outrageous mash-ups courtesy of our friends Liam and Simon.”

Anything goes in N1. Well nearly. Early Doors rules dictate that the music played simply needs to be “danceable” and “not self indulgent”. That doesn’t, of course, mean its playlists are school disco or wedding reception fodder; just extremely good fun across all manner of indie-disco boundaries ranging from Eighties boogie-pop and jump-up hip-hop to Soulwax, Little Dragon and LCD Soundystem, via vintage swing and even Tom Petty. It’s one big super-charged mash-up.

“We’re not a club night in the conventional sense” Murphy stresses, “Your typical club will build the mood over several hours before hitting a massive peak after midnight. We do things the other way round. We slam it from the beginning and, if anything, then start to ease the mood down towards the end. But there are similarities to conventional clubs, with some of the music and, naturally, the dancing. People do get into a zone; it’s an escape from the office I guess.”

 Murphy is speaking to us just a few hours after Early Doors’ latest event, at the beginning of May. The night it seems was on par with April which, according to Murphy, is just fine. As one might expect he’s fully rested and without hangover: “The last tune was 11.30am. It was another great evening. About the same size as before, which is exactly what we wanted, as at this stage of things we can’t handle many more people! Everyone who came down had a really positive, friendly attitude and new boy Sean Mulkerne was killing them with his mash-up stuff. I couldn’t have asked for more.”


Early Doors has been enjoying some supportive exposure in the national press recently. The interest will continue to grow. “Micro-clubbing has suddenly become this buzzword for what we do. As I say, I hesitate to say that we’re a full-on clubbing phenomena but clearly the hype is helping us so Andrew and I are fairly relaxed. There is a mini-trend emerging around some music gigs starting a little earlier, so that people can travel home easily afterwards. And some of the Sunday clubs and parties have been running daytime hours for a while now. But it is early days and I think it’ll take a while yet before the micro-club tag is fully justified.”

Nonetheless, promoters are experimenting. Several who operate along, or in proximity of East London’s fashionably underground Brick Lane are organising parties that spark into life just after work ‘rush hour’ and unplug three to four hours later. Brick Lane institution 93 Feet East is compact case in point, midweek nights like 90 Free Mondays , 93 Live and Music Suitcase all finishing at 11pm, whilst Sunday fest Fuse stretches its discerning house and tech sounds lovingly across the whole afternoon and early evening; previous guest DJs have included Loco Dice, Martin Buttrich and Matthias Tanzmann.

Over at the Lock Tavern in London’s Camden Town, major beatsmiths Fatboy Slim and Andrew Weatherall have played cult event Sunday Sounds to a strict curfew without any whiff of concern or frustration. “They [DJs] have a more obscure or light-hearted section of their record collections, for a more relaxed crowd than you might find in a big club,” Lock promoter and booker Casper Clark suggests. “And free entry makes it a democratic process, where nobody is going home at the end of the night with a pile of cash. It’s an opportunity to play ‘for the love’ and give something back to their fans.”

There are those promoters who cite London’s strict licensing laws as one of the first true catalysts towards earlier, more tightly packaged clubbing nights. Effectively, venues have been forced into considering earlier opening and, in turn, some have realised that a shift well suits their staff and clientele with children and/or work the next morning.


According to Time Out’s Clubbing Editor Kate Hutchinson economic factors should also be considered. With the number of clubs and bars having increased over the past decade there is, Hutchinson argues, a major battle for customers; promoters who are canny enough to try club nights in ordinary bars with ordinary hours are able to standout as more accessible and, therefore, draw the revellers in. The fact that those revellers save cash on entry fees, drinks and expensive late-night cabs is likely to bring them back again and again and, ultimately, cement a genuine trend towards micro-clubbing.

But beyond talk of avoiding financial and alcoholic headaches, is clubland’s latest development being influenced by anything else? The instant nature of Early Doors’ dancefloor certainly compliments the instant nature of music purchasing today – we have become, in large part, a nation of pick ‘n’ mix music lovers, able to cut to specific tracks, remixes and edits we like online; the days of trawling backstreet record shops and detailed album sleeve notes are seemingly gone. We modern citizens are busy, furiously time-poor and in need of take-away entertainment... now....

“I don’t think anyone should probe too deeply into what we’re doing at this stage” Murphy says. “We’re not artists or major promoters; we’re just a few friends putting on something special for a few dance-starved commuters. But it’s an interesting point; I mean consumers are digesting music in more immediate and bespoke ways than ever before. Promoters will probably need to consider that behavioural change on some level in the months ahead; particularly if more nights do go ‘early’.”

What can Murphy tell us about Early Doors’ future prospects? “Well, we’re steering the ship carefully” he answers. “But this recent wave of press has opened up a few interesting doors and sent us a few interesting emails. Only yesterday we had a really cool musical person, who I won’t name, calling us and asking for advice about how to do a similar night. Andrew and I have had some vague conversations about what we’d like to do in a few months’ time but for now it’s about building up interest in King’s Cross, engaging music-lovers with great nights and plain enjoying ourselves. We have two more nights planned for June and July and, beyond that, we’ll just have to see.”

The early bird catches the worm and all that....

Words: Ben Lovett

For more info on Early Doors Disco, visit http://earlydoorsdisco.com