international news _ 6th February, 2006
Layo & Secretsundaze Star's Hamburger Highs
Text by Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)
London promoter/ DJ James Priestley chatted to Skrufff this week about how he helped transform Secretsundaze into one of the UK's hippest events, and revealed that a key secret of its success was their decision to serve up hamburgers.
"We had a vision of what we wanted to do, which was to make Secretsundaze really different and in particular, really high quality, in every sense. Sunday afternoon clubbing wasn't a big thing when we started four years ago, so to encourage people to come out we had to make sure we were offering people nice surroundings and something extra," said James.
"So we started operating our own barbecue and would literally make our own homemade burgers and flip them ourselves, we all used to do it" he recalled.
"You'd be doing a round on the Barbie, then you'd go and wash your hands and start DJing. We'd get down to Brick Lane early before each party and order loads of rolls from the bagel shops. Sometimes we sold sausages too, but homemade burgers were our speciality," he added.
Coincidentally, Layo of Layo & Bushwacka fame, also revealed this week that he'd once worked as a hamburger chef, flipping burgers in a stall in Hampstead as a child.
"My uncle used to follow these crazy rhythms, in the 60s he was in this dance band called Exploding Galaxy and he was a very down to earth guy but also quite eccentric and in the late 70s he ran a hamburger stall, and I used to go up there and help," Layo told Skrufff this week.
"It wasn't like a dodgy hamburger van it was a really successful hamburger stall for a while. It was before Hampstead became totally la-di-dah when it used to have a massive open-air market; the stall was right in the centre of the market," he recalled.
"It was the first job I ever did and I used to absolutely love doing it," he laughed.
James Priestley DJs and performs (though won't be flipping burgers) at Go!Zilla at Sosho, London this weekend (Saturday February 4) while Layo continues gearing up for the new release of Layo & Bushwacka's third artist album Feels Closer, at his club The End, spinning all night in the mainroom (at new night Olmeto Records)
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