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TIDY 2017

Next year will be my 28th year as a producer, my 36th as a DJ and Tidy will be 23. It all started as a bit of fun and it then took over my life, I have seen music formats, club nights, record labels and DJ's come and go and even witnessed the birth of dance and house music as we know it... however the one thing that always amazes me is the Tidy community.

This year more than any other, even when we stopped the Tidy machine so we could work on other projects, you still had the want and urge for us to keep the fire burning. If you had asked me 3 or 4 years ago that we would put on a couple of events in these quite times of clubbing, that 1250 people would come to our Christmas party and 1800 would buy tickets for The Opera House Reunion in record time, I would not have believed it.

Over the years Tidy and myself have witnessed a lot of love, laughter, naivety and even mild hatred within the scene, it’s same ingredients that is in most of the music scenes to be honest, you have to take the rough with the smooth and thats because ‘music is the shorthand of emotion’ and its driven by passion. One thing I’m very proud of is the passion of a fantastic Tidy community, 17 years of events has introduced me to (what I believe) is the most wonderful, committed collection of clubbers that any record label or events brand has ever had.

During Tidy’s 23 years clubbers have come and gone, spent a brief time with us, stayed with us for years, or come, gone and then come back again… they have met their future wives, partners and husbands and some have gone on to create their own families… they now even bring those children and families to our events. People have made new life-long friends, either at a weekender where people bond and unite or at our smaller special Tidy events across the UK.

Alongside our events we are very proud of the music we created and released… although the industry has changed and its no longer a realistic business model anymore - hard house music from the past and present continues to be at the heart of everything. Tidy was originally the brand that brought some of the biggest new artist, DJs and tracks to the scene… some may not agree or like this fact -  but without Tidy we certainly would not have had so many hard house memories or friends.

Without Tidy we certainly wouldn’t have the likes of key names that shaped the sound you know and love, some people forgot that the likes of Guyver, Lee Haslam, Anne Savage, Lisa Lashes, Paul Janes, Flash Harry, Stimulant DJs, Ingo, Colin Barratt, Sam Townend, Eddie Halliwell, Paul Glazby, Kutski, Ian M, Signum, Paul Maddox, Sam Townend and many many more all cut their teeth and had their first tracks and careers on Tidy. All the classics you hear today use to be new tracks once upon a time and ironically the Tidy Boys (when they were younger with more hair) broke all these tracks and played them first… how times have changed.

I didn’t want this little end of year message to be a big showing off exercise for Tidy, far from it, we have always tried to be humble and light hearted, however… sometimes I read some weird twisted views of Tidy on Facebook, which either make us laugh or cry… I even noticed one person recently calling Tidy’s actions controversial… that really did make us laugh. Tidy has never took itself seriously and neither have I, it’s one thing that may have kept us going longer than many others. The music has always had a hard edge and its fantastic it’s stayed underground away from the TV and radio, but Im so glad it’s remained fun and never ever been up its own arse, which is easily done in the music business.

I would like to thank Sam Townend who has been instrumental in the last 10 years in keeping the Tidy flame burning, his hard work and dedication (and the fact he has had to put up with my silly ideas over the years), is sometimes over looked. Over the last 23 years Andy Pickles and I have worked with some fantastic people, both during the Music Factory Years and over the recent independent days with a smaller dedicated team.

Here is a short list of people I would like to thank for the last 12 months : Angie Mozart, Sam Townend, Brad Holmes, Andy Pickles, Pete Goulding, Chris Lambert, Max Mozart, Darren Hicks, Michal Szlas, Matthew Halifax, Paul Smith (Bubble), Dave Jackson, Joe Longbottom, Darren Hurrell, Jayne Parkes, Lee Haslam, Roy & Roger Noise, Rich Haplin, Chris Griffiths, Bill Allard, plus all the Glamzoo Crew from Northampton & Leeds.

Finally I would once again like to say a massive thank you to the Tidy Faithful, not only for continuing to support our special one off events but also for keeping us going by buying clothing and merchandise from the Glamzoo Store, of which we hope to expand in 2018. In fact you may not realise it but by supporting Glamzoo with your purchases you keep Tidy going, a t-shirt, hoodie or novelty cushion purchase makes all the difference and funds your next Tidy adventure.

I Hope to see you all at some point in 2018, we have some very very special events planned, one of which maybe our biggest challenge to date. These parties maybe few and far between but we promise to deliver the best hard house events possible. “There’s no party like a tidy party”

KEEP IT TIDY Amadeus Celery Mozart

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THE IDEAL TIDY WEEKENDER - BIG THANK YOU MESSAGE

After doing over 20 amazing weekenders over the last 12 years, I have never ever seen so much love and positive messages, as I sit here today in my office I'm as tearful as I was when we returned home from the very first weekender back in 2002. The event itself was a team effort and I want to thank everyone involved (apart from a couple of rogue security guards who were supplied from an outside company) The Ideal Tidy team is smaller than it was back in 2002 and so everyone had to work twice as hard, it's impossible to thank everyone involved but special thanks go to Sue White who dealt the with stress of a check in system so well. Production Pete (Goulding), Matty Jacques, Bill Allard & his team on audio and visuals, plus RB and Johnny for making the whole show look so good. As I have mentioned before I would also like to thank my wife Angie (AKA Babs) for working for 9 months dealing with every single booking, how she did that I don't know.  My partner in crime and best friend Andy Pickles does a lot of behind the scenes management as well looking pretty, he works hard, holds the ship steady and deals with the shit I don't like, such as financial and business stresses. Other team members who certainly need mentioning are Gareth Rees, Greg Young, Irish Dave, Sally Townend, Ollie Riley, Hollie Jones & Lee Clayson, Jack Hart and Cluboverload, The crazy Madfams, Anne Savage & Daryl Mc Call, Kym Ayres, Shaggy, Bradley Ingleton, Ellie Moore, Max Mozart, Stuart Drage, Dawn & Trevor from the Tidy Merchandise Production team, Anthony Alderson, Andy Parker and Bryn Whiting. I would also like to thank the paramedics for their excellent work in keeping everybody safe. 

So many to thank but my final thank you has to go to the only other person in the world who has worked harder than me on this weekender and that is Sam Townend. To call someone super human may sound a little over the top but trust me I'm not using that term lightly or in a flippant way, like me, Sam has dedicated his life to the scene and in the last 12 months and has worked so so hard.  We have both suffered to make this event happen both financially and mentally working almost every hour of the day on it. Then to top that Sam becomes head of the event, being responsible for over 2000 people for 3 days and 4 nights, something which is so stressful it makes me have acid indigestion just thinking about it... yet he pulled off an excellent job. He not only ran the event but kept smiling, being polite and continued to be a DJ when required, I have to say with my hand on my heart, no one has worked as hard as Sam in 12 years of the weekenders we have put on, he deserves a medal and fucking long holiday somewhere hot. 

I would also like to thank every DJ who played, not just the established artists we all know and love but to all the new talent we had, the first time players who I personally think help make this one of the best weekenders ever.  Finally I would like to thank every single one of the passionate Tidy/Ideal faithful who not only supported this event but gave it an incredible atmosphere, the effort you put into the themes and outfits was unbelievable, you lot never let us down. We put on the weekenders and supply entertainment but to be honest it's the clubbers that make it what it is, you are the real stars of the show, it was so nice seeing so many new faces, people who had never ever been to a weekender. I had more people come up to me, shake my hand and say it was the best weekend of their lives than ever before, this makes all the hard work seem worth while. 

Losing a large amount of money we did on the first Ideal weekender would normally mean that most companies would have shut up shop, not paid it's debts and gone bankrupt, so many other big clubbing brands do that, its tradition. We decided to not do that, we said fuck it let's do another and try make back that loss, put on another great event and try and come out the other side breaking even... And thanks to your support plus me and Sam living on Super Noodles and tinned tomatoes for 9 months I think we might have pulled it off. 

The other good news is HDM scene is about to explode, we have some fantastic new music, the relaunch of all your favourite Tidy labels and albums, a new tidy.com superstore, some very exciting new events and a couple of experimental project which will shake up the whole of the scene. I have been doing this Tidy thing for years now (on and off) and yet I'm more excited about the next 12 months than I have ever been in the whole of Tidy's 19 year history.  

Thank you all for such a fantastic journey, a journey which seems to be getting better and better…

Love and respect from the Ideal Tidy Team and myself

amo2014 xx  

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Scarborough name stickers ready for tomorrow (Taken with Instagram at Square Daisy HQ)

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It's been a while...

It's been a while since I sat down and wrote a blog or two, it's been very busy at Square Daisy HQ and things are hotting up on the new Ideal label. So this coming bank holiday weekend (weather forecast is shite) I may sit down with a big cup of warm milk and fill you in whats been happening, especially on the IDEAL & Tidy Boys front.

In the meantime here is a picture of Lee Haslam with no hair

 Lee

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Ready for some hard house action (Taken with Instagram)

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The Ideal place to be on a hot day like this. (Taken with Instagram at Hemsby beach)

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Everything packed Bournemouth here we come (Taken with instagram)

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Jubilee Sunshine, just like 77 (Taken with instagram)

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Ready for June 2nd (Taken with instagram)

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The flyers have arrived (Taken with instagram)

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I keep everything (Taken with instagram)

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Tidy Boys M4 breakfast at Starbucks (Taken with Instagram at Cardiff Gate Services)

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Got my copy (Taken with instagram)

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Finally what would the inside case look like - well a little bit like this

PRE ORDERS to be taken on Friday 10th Feb - so they tell me.

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OK lets have a look at the CD on-body for the Weekender Live album

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You wanna see the back - of course you do - I did the design with a old nostalgic feel, a product that would look good in anyones loft or basement. Here we see the full DJ list line up for the 6 discs.

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Artwork finished for the forthcoming Tidy Weekender Live album - a nice 6 CD set of live recordings taken from the Final Weekender PLUS A BONUS disc of the Tidy Boys Live at TW2

HERE IS THE FRONT PACK SHOT