Milly Cundall profiles Turn Off The Radio in time for their Xmas Special…

darren

Running a night, be it weekly, monthly, bi-monthly in London is by no means an easy feat. The scene is not only saturated with overly cool, overly hyped nights, all offering some next ‘unique’ angle but it’s incredibly fickle and fast moving. You’ll also find most ‘cool’ blogs, whether you’re aware of it or not, will have pledged their allegiance to whatever night’s ‘hot’ right then or is run by them or their fam, making it very hard for an alternative night to get the backing and support necessary to get heads through the door.

Turn Off The Radio has been running since 2005, steadily building it’s profile and following whilst proudly billing itself as alternative, rather than desperately trying to run around sporting hype and coolness. This night isn’t about kids who splash out airweezies, or wear glasses with no lenses and won’t buy a pint. It’s all about unsigned live acts, across all genres, people who want good vibes and a friendly crowd. At the helm is Darren Richards, Graphic Designer by day and music mogul by night, who started out hosting and DJing at the night but has ended up taking the reigns. The USP here is music and not the crowd it attracts. Darren takes the time to find unsigned live acts that vary in genre and the name ‘Turn off the Radio’ is at the heart of the movement, as Darren says: ‘You’ll find no lollipop music here, it’s a Lady Gaga, Lilly Allen free-zone. All the acts are hungry’.

‘09 has been a big year for Turn Off The Radio. They’ve recently hooked up with Boxfresh who, wisely or not, have given Darren a platform to vent his Oscar the Grouch style rants on (click here), they’re dropping their first, self-funded, very impressive compilation this Friday and, to see the year out in style, they’re celebrating with a massive Xmas Spesh knees up (also this Friday 4th Dec) at the Victoria. Acts performing on the night are: Mikill Pane, The Kemistry, Random Impulse, Fuzzy Logic. Dj’s DJ LoK and Suicidedogz. I highly recommend you get down to the Victoria and check out

TOTR

Check out the Turn Off The Radio blog here



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