Sean McLusky
Sean McLusky is a British music promoter, nightclub impresario and film producer.
Early life
Sean grew up in Welwyn Garden City. After leaving school he attended art college in Stratford upon Avon.The early 1980s saw Sean McLusky as a professional musician, first as a member of Switch, with his brother Graham and friends, then with the original Indie band Subway Sect and then with beat outfit JoBoxers, scoring two top ten singles at home and touring a debut album across Europe and the USA. McLusky also became a music promoter in the mid-1980s with soul all-nighters and a weekly live night called 'Club Left' in Soho, London.
Career
The Brain Club
McLusky's first attempt at venue makeovers and takeovers started with The Brain (club) in 1988 with partner, Mark Wigan. McLusky and Mark Wigan then moved onto Soho, transforming the interior of an old bar and re-launching it as The Brain. This new club was to be one of the first in the West End to host regular house music nights, and fledgling electronic bands like Orbital, Adamski, and A Guy Called Gerald gave some of their early live performances there. McLusky produced two compilation albums out of this venue for his label Brainiak Records: Live at the Brain and Live at the Brain 2 featuring artists such as Orbital, Nexus 21, Sheep on Drugs and Mr Monday.Love Ranch
By 1991, McLusky and partner Mark Wigan had found a new professional home at Maximus in London's Leicester Square. The 'Love Ranch' club night was created, with a cast of resident DJs that included Andrew Weatherall from Boys Own / Sabres of Paradise at the time, Paul Daley from Leftfield, Darren Emerson from Underworld, Danny Rampling from Shoom and Al Mackenzie from D-Ream. Following Love Ranch, in 1993, McLusky also re-launched and promoted the recently re-discovered Cafe de Paris with his flagship 'Merry England' club night.Club UK
In 1994, McLusky was appointed as the creative heart of a new venue in South London, which he designed and programmed, christening it Club UK, soon successfully challenging the dominance of the well-established Ministry of Sound, drawing over 3,000 people every Friday and Saturday. The club featured the regular DJ talents of Andrew Weatherall, John Digweed, Paul Oakenfold, Carl Cox, Justin Robertson, John Kelly and Laurent Garnier.Leisure Lounge
In 1994, McLusky instigated the conversion of the Old Paddocks snooker club in Holborn, which he designed and launched as the Leisure Lounge, ‘a voracious pace-setting and attitude-free venue’ The Leisure Lounge featured a mix of dance music club nights like Goldie's Metalheadz and live music events, plus arts events like Rankin's first major London photography show.The Complex
At the same time, McLusky began a long-term annual collaboration with the Mean Fiddler organization, programming the dance stage Reading Festival and organizing the festival aftershow events.Around the same time as The Complex was seizing a substantial share of the market, McLusky became involved with a more radical and intimate club night, ‘Fantasy Ashtray’ at Soho's Madame Jo Jo's. Called by Time Out ‘...a rockin’, punky, thrash night with live acts’, Fantasy Ashtray was founded on genuine musical variety and featured classic live acts like Jayne County and the Electric Chairs alongside new live underground talent.
Sonic Mook Experiment @ 333 Old Street
After a six-month stay in New York, McLusky was the first promoter to discover the 333 club in what was then the very run down, quiet district of London called Shoreditch Sonic Mook pioneered the practice of multi-room, multi sound, eclecticism, drawing hordes of disaffected youths to this forgotten quarter of London. Unconventional and debauched Sonic Mook Experiment attracted a ‘stunning mix of loyal radical chic cognoscenti’ but with awful/ ‘ironic’ DJs playing power ballads and rock anthems plus an eclectic mix of dance music DJs and guest musicians like Mark E Smith, Jerry Dammers, Jimmy Pursey, Dee Dee Ramone, Alan Vega. People dispensed with the pretensions and conventions of the West End and came to sample the new East End in what has been cryptically described by Loaded magazine as ‘an eclectic Capri of madness – driven by the insane’. . Sonic Mook Experiment grew in infamy at the 333 Club in Shoreditch from 1996 to 1999 before moving to the Scala in Kings Cross.The Scala
The next major project was two years in the making; the conception, design, conversion, programming and launch of The Scala in Kings Cross London, eventually opening in March 1999 to critical acclaim. A derelict cinema infamous for its all-night films in the eighties was transformed under McLusky's guidance into a spectacular music venue hosting club nights featuring DJs including James Lavelle, The Chemical Brothers, Mr Thing, Fabio, Storm Bailey, and diverse live music programming including shows from Royal Trux, Coldplay, Roni Size, Moby, Pavement, Foo Fighters, Johnny Marr, Sigue Sigue Sputnik plus eclectic film events like a Russ Meyer retrospective with guests including Hugh Hefner. Sean also programmed in arts events and exhibitions like shows from Mick Rock & ex Warhol photographer Nat Finkelstien.Sonic Mook Compilations on Mute Records 2001 / 2003
In 2001, McLusky produced some eclectic rock and roll and electronica albums for Mute's Blast First label; 1 Sonic Mook Experiment featuring – Primal Scream, Death in Vegas, Pulp, Clinic, Fat Truckers, Playgroup.2 'Future Rock&Roll' featuring the new breed of Rock&Roll bands emerging from the UK & US underground, like -Yeah Yeah Yeah's, Liars, The Hives, Whitey, Electralane, Icara Colt, The Beatings and The Parkinsons, and 3 'Hot Shit' featuring – Radio 4, !!! Chk Chk Chk, Chrome Hoof, Ex Models and Erase Errata. With Sonic Mook events at the ICA, South Bank Centre, 93 Feet East, Cargo and the Astoria Theatre in London, plus events in Barcelona and Berlin, featuring DJ's and new live talent.
Future Rock & Roll Festival @ ICA 2002
McLusky created a four-day new bands festival at the ICA to be held during the queen's golden jubilee weekend in June 2002. The festival and accompanying compilation album became the catalyst for the emerging new Rock & Roll scene in London. The festival featured over 20 new bands including The Libertines, 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster, The Parkinsons, Liars, The Beatings, Buff Medways, Martini Henry Rifles, McLusky and Earl Brutus. He worked on this with long term collaborator Martin J Tickner.Le Nouveau Rock and Roll Francais
In 2003, McLusky started taking new UK bands over to Paris to play the clubs Batofar and Nouveau Casino, convinced that there must be a local scene lurking under the surface in Paris and with the help of local rocker & DJ Jean Baptiste Juillot, he started to dig about in the Paris underground, bands were found and booked in as supports on his Paris bills.A deal was struck with V2 France to produce a compilation album named by McLusky Le Nouveau Rock'n'Roll Français.