Chris Massey - El Diablo's Social Club

Hailing from a smoky mill town up North, Chris has gained experience of DJing at many a place in the UK including Sankeys, The Warehouse Project, and also Manchester’s longest running clubnight Funkademia. He has also ventured outside of the UK and appeared at The Electric Elephant festival in Croatia as well as Sri Lanka, Ibiza and Romania.

His DJ sets consist of a variety of house, disco, Balearic, Jolly Techno and much more…you can hear everything from old to new where original versions are dropped alongside sneaky edits as well as his own productions & remixes .

He currently works with Neil Diablo on the Manchester club night & label El Diablo's Social Club which is where you’ll find most of his own productions & remixes as well as edits for EDSC’s sister label “To Rack & Ruin”…he also is part of another staple of Manchester’s dance music scene alongside Ben Davis aka Flash Atkins at the legendary Paper Recordings where he also continues to remix artists for the seminal label as well as have an output for his own productions & collaborations.

When not hibernating away in the studio, with Neil on El Diablos work or at Paper Recordings HQ, Chris works at Electriks in Manchester home of the The Unabombers and of course the legendary Electric Chair, (RIP)…

We asked the busy man our acid house questions and here's what he said...

1. What was your first acid house moment?

Not sure how "acid house" it is but my first serious taste of clubbing was way back in the late 90's and it was at Home nightclub in Leceister Square….Home was the ridiculously HUGE club that was started by one of the guys that used to be involved with Cream in Liverpool and Paul Oakenfold was the resident. Needless to say I absolutely loved it and fell in feet first after that…the following night we went to Ministry although I can't remember who was playing that night. Good times, even if it was all very much the era of "hands in the air" trance

However probably my earliest memory was with my dad & brother when I was about 6 or something and we sneaked into an abandoned warehouse on our way into Bolton one day (My dad is pretty adventurous) and the place had clearly been used for one of the "illegal raves" I kept seeing about in the paper…loads of acid faces & other graf sprayed on the walls with a make shift dj stand and also copious piles of empty bottles and such….Bolton, rave capital of the 80's

2. Favourite club/night ever?

Tough one to answer as i'm constantly discovering great parties all the time…it seems that the older you get the more different the vibes are at parties. I suppose the top one for me at the moment is definitely the Electric Chair End Of Year Riot…biased I know but it speaks volumes when you can go to a 1000 attended night and find people from all walks of life that a re all tuned into the same frequency…no knobs, no attitudes, no plastic cocaine gangsters or Grey Goose booth booking bell-ends….just pure friendliness But of course we've been throwing some wicked parties as El Diablo's Social Club recently with some absolute blinders scheduled for this year….just a few choice ones but guaranteed big party vibes

3. Best acid house debaucherous moment?

As freaky I used to get I never did anything too debacherous although my sieve like brain and "shot to shit" memory may say otherwise ;)…sorry what was the question again?

4. Guilty pleasure always in your box?

Guilty Pleasure? No such thing! If it works then play it…although some may raise an eyebrow the times i've dropped an extended edit of Phil Collins' Sussudio but you know what? Its always worked! (granted its usually been at around 4am during a sunrise set at Barbarellas at Electric Elephant!)

5. Guilty pleasure not in the box!?

Maybe not Guilty Pleasure but i've got some utter shit at home from back in my early (and gullible) vinyl buying days….i'll just say "house version of Wonderwall" and leave it there…

6. Give us one of your favourite and hard to find records in your collection?

Its a sneaky edit I got of Lil Louis' Club Lonely…not actually sure who did the edit either I just know that every time Chris Duckenfiled played it the dance floor would go nuts so I got on the blag to him

7. Favourite acid track?

I've actually just recently done a remix for Tronik Youth for which I extensively used my new Roland TB3 (that my wonderful wife got me for Christmas!) and ended up creating a full on acid track which has already got the big thumbs up from Justin Robertson….so without sounding selfish, i'm quite fond of the new acid track I did.

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