Lucky Cloud Sound System
Along with Jeremy Gilbert and Colleen Murphy, I’m a founding member of Lucky Cloud Sound System, which started to put on London Loft parties with David Mancuso, host of the New York City Loft, back in June 2003. Modelled closely on Mancuso’s New York set-up, the parties are held in the Rose Lipman Community Centre, having started out in the upstairs attic at the Light, a converted power station located on Shoreditch High Street, London. Following doctor's orders David stopped travelling to London during 2011, but he stayed with us in spirit. Thanks to the enduring power of David’s ethos, the parties were going as strong as ever at the time of his passing in November 2016. Lucky Cloud Sound System held a moving and joyous ceremony to celebrate David's life the evening before its winter party on 4 December.
Rooted in the ethos of friends getting together to socialise and dance at a house party, the social potential of audiophile equipment, and the willingness of David to travel to London to put his simple yet utopian party principles into practice in London,parties are held on Sundays 4:00pm to 11:00pm four times a year as close to the solstices and equinoxes as possible. Kids are welcome to come with carers free for charge from 4:00-6:00pm, we run a no-charge cloakroom, a buffet is offered until 7:00pm and cold water is available on demand. With David’s help we managed to build up a high-end sound system that closely resembles his legendary set-up in New York. We also decorate the room with a sky of multicoloured balloons. Parties often reach capacity well in advance of the party date so we always recommend to reserve in advance.
The beginning of the London parties can be traced back to the moment in 1998 when David took up a longstanding offer to put on an event in Japan in order to help him purchase the space he was renting at the time on Avenue B in Alphabet City. That purchase fell through but enough good things came out of the Japanese trip to persuade David he could recreate the conditions of a house party outside of his own home, just so long long as he worked with friends and held onto core principles. David then approached Colleen Murphy and me to see if we would put on Loft-style parties in London. As had always been the case, David believed that friendship should underpin a party.
David had already played once in London when David Hill of Nuphonic Records flew him over to play at the launch of Nuphonic's David Mancuso presents the Loft, released in 1999. Held at 93 Feet East in May 2011, the party was a success. Having been invited to write the sleeve notes for the compilation, I took my friend and colleague Jeremy Gilbert along as my guest. That became Jeremy’s first taste of a Loft-style party, and when it slowly became clear that the team at Nuphonic wasn't going to put on a second event, Jeremy suggested we invite David over ourselves. I hesitated until David somewhat surprisingly turned to me and suggested that we start to co-host parties together. “But I’m not a club promoter,” I protested. “Exactly,” he replied.
I hesitatingly decided to give it a go so long as Jeremy could join in, which David readily agreed to. He then suggested that we bring Colleen Murphy, an old friend from New York who had covered for him a couple of times at the Loft before co-producing the first Nuphonic compilation, into the team. As Love Saves the Day went into production in early 2003 I started to visit scores of venues, often pushing Carlotta, my oldest daughter, then barely a year old, in her pram. Soon enough we hit upon the Light.
With Adrian Fillary (who organised the décor at 93 Feet East) and Nikki Lucas (who worked with Colleen at the record label Bitches Brew at the time) teaming up with us for the first 18 months, we followed David's specifications as faithfully as possible. We we thrilled to be building a Loft-style party in London, but there was work to be done because we hadn’t been able to hire the kind of equipment David wanted to use, plus the sound company guys who came to set it up were completely unresponsive to David’s wish to work towards building a purist analogue stereo system that didn’t even include a mixer or an equaliser. We managed to mollify David for a while by purchasing a pair of Technics-1100 turntables fitted with Koetsu tone arms and cartridges, which David helped us buy from Japan. We then converted the ongoing cost of hiring the speakers, amps and cables for each party into a five-year loan and purchased the rest of our system, which included three sets of Klipschorns, because the set-up required five speakers.
The warm, esoteric world of audiophile analogue sound beckoned. Stripped of the support of the sound company heavies, we also became even more dependent on the dancer-enthusiasts who helped us set up the parties, so in the spring of 2006 we inaugurated ourselves as a democratically organised sound system. Titled after an Arthur Russell song that seemed to evoke the warm, three-dimensional quality of the new system—a system that Arthur also used to listen to when he went to the New York Loft—Lucky Cloud Sound System included Guillaume Chottin and Simon Halpin, who had already started to work closely with Colleen, Jeremy and myself, as well as something like 30 volunteers. Recognising her significant contribution, we brought Sharon Reid into the core team some time later.
“I’m very proud to say that London has really got it together,” David in an interview in 2007. “From where you had to start and get to, there were so many challenges. You’ve all got it together and are doing it, just like in Japan. The parties are also something that can stand on their own. I don't want to go into the ‘I won’t always be here’ thing, but if I’m not here tomorrow, we now know what to do and what not to do.”
David ended up playing his final party in London in March 2011 before finally confirming that he wouldn’t be returning in the foreseeable future (which ended up being for good) in early 2012. travelling to London in 2011. Colleen became the regular musical host, supported by Guillaume Chottin and Simon Halpin, until, in the run-up to our 20th anniversary in June 2022, we held a team meeting. A number of ideas that had long been bubbling under the surfaced, including suggestions that we open up the musical hosting (David’s preferred term for a DJ who also takes on the role of party host), pay renewed attention to improving sound system, consider hosting parties on Saturday evenings, refresh the decor, revitalise the team, all sorts.
When it became clear during the smaller meetings that followed that no consensus on the best way forward could be reached, we took the decision to evolve peacefully and lovingly into two parties, Lucky Cloud Sound System (led by an organising team) and the London Loft (led by Colleen). I have since devote myself to the Lucky Cloud Sound System half of the sibling duo, believing it offers the greatest opportunity to operate in a cooperative and collective manner, with no single person ultimately in charge.